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FMIA Week 18: Damar Hamlin Gets His Flowers Right On Time

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ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.—You want the truth about the coin flip that set in motion the script so unlikely that Spielberg would have found it far-fetched? If the Bills had won the toss, Sean McDermott would have deferred.

The Bills would have kicked off.

“I’m glad they lost this one,” McDermott told me.

I should say so. Someday, and not too long from now, this generation’s “Brian’s Song” (look it up, kids), will be a movie based on the life and near-death of Damar Hamlin. There will be a centerpiece moment based in an old stadium in western New York. John David Washington will play Nyheim Hines, and Michael B. Jordan will be Damar Hamlin. Sean McDermott? Maybe Jude Law. There won’t be any problem finding extras in Cheektowaga, Tonawanda and Lackawanna for the crowd scenes.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming. The Patriots actually won the toss at Highmark Stadium Sunday afternoon, and as Bill Belichick loves deferring and taking the ball to start the second half, New England deferred.

When Nick Folk kicked the ball high into the air, headed for Nyheim Hines inside the five-yard line, Hines had a lot to think about. He thought about Hamlin, foremost. Nine weeks ago, Hines was the new guy, traded from the Colts to Buffalo to be a return specialist and backup back. Hamlin, a stranger to Hines, came up to him on his first day in the building and introduced himself. Every day that first week, Hamlin would stop and talk to Hines, the new kid in school, and he started telling Hines he’d break a long one soon. “You’re gonna take one,” Hamlin told him. “I can feel it.” Every day at practice, Hamlin would say something about a big return.

“He would say, ‘Hashtag free Hines!’” Hines said late Sunday afternoon. They’d say that silly little thing to each other almost every day, Hamlin reminding the new kid not only that he could take a kick to the house, but he would do it.

So the ball was coming from Folk, and Hines thought for a millisecond about Hamlin, watching in his Cincinnati hospital room 425 miles to the southwest, and he said to himself, “All right, Nyheim, let’s give ‘em something to cheer about.”

Said Hines: “Our team, we had Damar’s wings on our backs today.”

Hines certainly did. He ran untouched for 96 yards on the opening kickoff, fulfilling something Hamlin foresaw. Touchdown. Mayhem in the rebuilt place that 30 years ago this week housed another miracle: the Bills’ comeback from 32 points down to beat Houston in the Frank Reich Wild Card game. Hines’ touchdown came at 1:03 p.m.

From Hamlin’s Twitter feed, at 1:06 p.m: “OMFG!!!!!!!!!”

“Flabbergasted,” Hines said later.

“Trying to manage the game is my number one job,” McDermott said. “But this week, I thought to myself, ‘How special would it be if we took the opening kickoff back?’”

Then Hines did it again, returning one 101 yards for a score in the third quarter. Now the absurdity of the opening kickoff was doubled. The 70,753 in the place, and millions watching to see if the Bills could give Hamlin a consistent ear-to-ear grin in his University of Cincinnati Medical Center room, knew it was a game, and returner, they’d never forget. No one in the NFL had returned two kickoffs for touchdowns in a game since 2010.

“I’m the new guy here,” Hines said, “but hopefully I had a little impact on something that’s way bigger than myself.”

We’ll let Netflix be the judge of that.

 

Not the most dramatic of week eighteens, but before we get back to the Week of Damar, let’s focus on the notables from the final day of the final regular-season week:

Josh McCown, please pick up the white courtesy phone. Texans fired Lovie Smith Sunday night after returning home from the nightmare victory in Indianapolis, announcing the move at a deadline-inconvenient 11:27 p.m. ET. (Yes, I said nightmare victory, relinquishing the top overall pick. At least Lovie can always say, “I finished 2-1 in my last three!”) Now let’s see if Cal McNair’s still smitten with Josh McCown.

Wild Card Weekend is set in stone. There’s not a can’t-miss matchup, but here we go (all times Eastern):

Saturday

Seattle (NFC 7 seed) at San Francisco (NFC 2 seed), 4:30 p.m. on FOX

L.A. Chargers (AFC 5 seed) at Jacksonville (AFC 4 seed), 8:15 p.m. on NBC

Sunday

Miami (AFC 7 seed) at Buffalo (AFC 2 seed), 1 p.m. on CBS

N.Y. Giants (NFC 6 seed) at Minnesota (NFC 3 seed), 4:30 p.m. on FOX

Baltimore (AFC 6 seed) at Cincinnati (AFC 3 seed), 8:15 p.m. on NBC

Monday

Dallas (NFC 5 seed) at Tampa Bay (NFC 4 seed), 8:15 p.m. on ESPN

J.J. Watt leaving the field for the last time was a sight to see:

Get the gold jacket ready for a 2028 fitting.

If that’s it for Devin McCourty, he went out fittingly—with two takeaways for the outmanned Patriots in Buffalo.

Matthew Slater? Bobby Wagner? Jason Kelce? Calais Campbell? Whither them?

And Tom Brady?

And you, Aaron Rodgers?

Good thing the Eagles get the bye. Of quarterback Jalen Hurts and his bum shoulder, coach Nick Sirianni said after a laconic win over the Giants, “I knew he was hurting, and hurting bad.” Now Hurts has till the weekend of Jan. 21 to prepare for the divisional round.

Texans picked a funny way to win the top draft choice. Lovie Smith’s team actually played to win the game.

The 12-win Cowboys have looked like the six-win Cowboys over the past five weeks. I bet the Bucs will be a dangerous game for Dallas.

Last time Miami was impressive? November. Without Tua, the Dolphins’ chances in Buffalo are something like the Pirates’ chances to win the National League flag in 2023.

Patriots, 8-9. Last time New England won a playoff game was 46 months ago. Or was it 46 years? Tom Brady beat Jared Goff, Pats over Rams, in the Super Bowl.

Lions, 9-8. Jared Goff, last nine games: 7-2, 15 touchdowns, zero interceptions. That’s an incredible job, Dan Campbell, going into Lambeau with nothing to play for but pride and beating Aaron Rodgers.

For the Packers, 8-9 is fitting. Only about a thousand questions for this grand franchise.

Brock Purdy has played 5.75 games. He is 6-0. Passer rating in his five starts: 134.0, 117.0, 114.6, 95.4, 141.2. But passer rating’s a dumb stat! Okay. Here’s another stat for you, one I just made up: Since Dec. 1, Brock Purdy’s a top-five NFL quarterback.

Speaking of 5.75 games, that’s how many Lamar Jackson has missed with a bum knee. I have a question about whether the Ravens have to re-think their long-term contract efforts with Jackson, but first, will he play Sunday night in Cincinnati?

 

It was a week that tried souls. It was a week that lifted souls, in the NFL and out.

Mark Ingram, running back, Saints. “I don’t know him, but I know him. We’re the NFL fraternity. We’re brothers. He was on my mind before I went to sleep Monday night, and I was devastated. Woke up Tuesday, checked my phone first for updates. I dropped tears for him driving into work. I just couldn’t get over it. I have a son who loves football. Do I want him playing a game that might have him clinging to life one day? We are mortal beings. To see someone’s life be in danger because of a routine play, that is not what we signed up for.”

Rodney Thomas, safety, Indianapolis. (High school teammate and friend of Hamlin’s from Pittsburgh.) “I hate not knowing what’s going on, so when I woke up Tuesday morning, 5 a.m., I got in my car and drove to Cincinnati. Two hours. I got there and went to his room, saw his parents. It was tough seeing him. It’s always tough seeing people in hospitals in general, not doing good. But it was good for me to see him and see the machines working, see him breathing. I stayed till 8, 8:30 at night, and he made a bunch of progress just in that little bit of time I was there. In my mind, I just know who he is. There’s no quit inside him. It doesn’t matter what state he’s in. He’s the same way. He’s gonna fight. His body’s gonna fight. I got the idea that he was gonna be okay.”

In Buffalo, time seemed to stop. On the NBC affiliate, WGRZ-TV, 85 percent of the 6 p.m. newscast Tuesday was on Hamlin, with a minute of weather and a minute or so on the new death toll from the recent blizzard.

Patrick Hammer, WGRZ meteorologist. “We’ve had one tragic headline after another here. First, the Tops grocery store shooting that killed 10 people. Then the huge snowstorm in November. Then the blizzard [that killed 44]. It’s like the November storm was a nuisance compared to what was coming. Then, on New Year’s Eve, five children died in a house fire. And now the Damar story. Buffalo is used to being kicked in the pants. But there was just no escaping this grim reality. Our news for three days in a row was Damar, morning noon and night. I remember the morning after, everyone just wanted to know, how is Damar? My wife doesn’t care anything about football, and she called me at the office that day, anxious. ‘How is Damar?’

“The first words out of our anchor’s mouth that morning on the newscast were, ‘He is alive.’

“Tuesday was a dark day here. A pall was over the city. We felt like Rocky on the ropes versus Apollo Creed.

“Nobody here really knew him. He replaced a real hero, Micah Hyde, when [Hyde] got hurt early in the year. We sent a crew from the TV station to find out all about Damar, and these stories came back of this unassuming, humble guy who wanted to use his life as a football player to help lift people from his world into better lives. No blemishes. The Bills were always the distraction that keeps people going, and now they had a player we didn’t know but a player we learned was so good—and we really were invested in him. The whole area was hanging on Damar getting better.”

A drive to light up homes in the area with support messages for Damar Hamlin began. In suburban Lancaster, Canisius High School senior Brady Karas spent 10 hours Tuesday creating a template he could use to project, in Bills colors, a tribute to Hamlin. PRAY FOR DAMAR in gigantic type was the centerpiece. Brady, a pretty imaginative kid, captured Hamlin highlights from Pitt and the Bills from YouTube, and made a loop of the highlights, set to inspirational music.

Shauna Karas, kindergarten teacher, Lancaster, N.Y. “When the play happened, our entire family was in shock, waiting to hear anything. Brady just wanted to do something. When he was at school on Tuesday, he saw a jersey on Instagram with ‘Pray For Damar’ and he decided the middle of the house was the perfect place for it, and he just built around that. We read about Damar doing things for children, and I am a kindergarten teacher, and it really hit home for our family.

“Buffalo always rallies. We’re the city of good neighbors, and we’re called that for a lot of good reasons. We’re proud of Brady. For him to put so much thought and care and hope makes us proud as parents.”

Asked if she had a message for Hamlin, Karas said:

“Rest. Take your time. We can’t wait to hear more good news and have you back in our Buffalo community.”

Gowanda Elementary School in Gowanda, N.Y.

Randy Bates, defensive coordinator, University of Pittsburgh. (Hamlin’s college coordinator had cancer surgery in 2019 and was weakened at times during the year from the treatment.) “Doctors found cancer in my throat and removed 50 lymph nodes. I went back to working two-a-days, and I went through the whole season getting chemo and radiation. The neat thing about Damar, who was one of our leaders, is he recognized early that I was hiding how I was really feeling. He’d come in every day to see me. He’d give me a hug, asked me how I was doing, tell me he loved me. I loved him to death for it. It was just between he and I.”

Bates’ voice cracked as he got emotional.

“Many times I’d call him and tell him what needed to be communicated, and he could communicate it in a way that worked so well. I also recall how we were having trouble getting turnovers on our defense. I went to him and I said, ‘We need something like that turnover chain Miami’s got, Ham. I need to find us a way to get motivated.’ So he thought of taking a basketball hoop, and when we got a turnover, the kids would dunk the ball into the hoop. I remember thinking, that’s silly. But he sold it to the leadership council. Now we’ve just finished our fourth year, and the kids love it. The tradition continues. Damar started it. We just did it four times in the Sun Bowl.”

Takeaways have grown in the football-dunked-in-the-basketball-hoop era—from 14 in 2019 to 20 the next year, to 23 the next year, and 22 in the season just completed.

“It’ll last as long as I’m here.

“I pray to God he plays again, because he’s good, he cares, and he’s a great team player. But his legacy won’t be chasing millions himself. It will be helping others, and he knows the Lord has put him in position to help those less fortunate.

“Sports get such a bad reputation sometimes, but there is still good in the United States. People are good. How great is it that Bengal fans, Bengals players, coaches, show up at the hospital to show Damar they care. This is so hard for him, but the world is a better place because of him.”

Pat Narduzzi, head coach, University of Pittsburgh. “Damar was a great high school safety. He was recruited by everybody. He was a top, top recruit for us. It came down to Ohio State, Notre Dame and Pitt. When we did our home visit, we took the Heisman Trophy with us to his house, which was on kind of a narrow street here. It was a great visit. We felt good about it. And when we were leaving the house that day, Urban Meyer and [his then-Ohio State assistant] Luke Fickell were coming up the street, coming in right after us. Our mantra is ‘we not me,’ and I think that appealed to him. He was a Pittsburgh kid, wanted to be close to home for his mom and dad and little brother.

“He was just so consistent every day. Always a we guy. I’ll never forget being down at the Senior Bowl a couple of years ago, and Damar was in the game. One day at practice, I’m in the stands and he comes over and says, ‘Coach, thank you. I’m so much more prepared than anyone in our DB room.’ Our players don’t just learn defense, they learn offense. That is our lifeline. He got to know the whole game playing for us, and he appreciated that.”

 

 

The good stories about Hamlin multiplied. AMERICA’S SON, blared the back page of the New York Post Wednesday. Hamlin’s holiday toy drive, with an original GoFundMe goal of $2,500 for the underprivileged in his native McKees Rocks, Pa., was getting overwhelmed. An eclectic mix—Wink Martindale, Josh McDaniels, the McCourty Twins, Ciara and Russell Wilson, Davante Adams, Michael Phelps, Mekhi Becton, Adam Schefter, LeSean McCoy, the Texans, the Colts, the Patriots, the Commanders, Ryan Leaf, Andy Dalton, Shannon Sharpe, Drake London, Matthew Stafford, the Ring of Fire Fantasy Football League—helped push the total over $8 million.

“Tom Brady donated $10,000,” I told his friend Rodney Thomas of the Colts.

“Wait till he finds out,” Thomas said.

 

 

Mark Ingram: “People don’t get their flowers enough while they’re alive. What I love is that people are seeing how Damar is more than number 3 on the Buffalo Bills.”

Calais Campbell, defensive lineman, Baltimore. “Damar made a tackle. I’ve made tackles like that plenty of times. First I thought it was maybe just you know, he’s concussed and I missed him wobbling. When I saw the way he fell on the replay, I was like, that’s different. Then when they cut to commercial and they cut back, said they were doing CPR for nine minutes, even more scary. Because I mean, CPR means your heart stops, which means you’re technically dead. Which is mind blowing to me. A football player thinks about CTE, not about death.

“I’m glad that there is a plan in place at the stadiums to cover that. That plan saved this kid’s life, which is incredible that we were prepared for it. I was praying for him nonstop. But it’s scary.

“I don’t think I’m gonna be changing the way I play. I will try to make sure that I don’t take any collisions to my chest. Talking to the guys in the locker room, I think that I didn’t really see a lot of guys flinch too much. I think a lot of it was in that moment… they talk about how they felt in that moment. But as each day passes and as we get more and more good news, I think a lot of guys are feeling pretty good about it. It’s a beautiful game. I still love the game. Maybe it’s because of the brotherhood that we have. I feel that’s on full display. I don’t think the brotherhood’s ever been stronger or more on display than it was this week.

“In the moment though, in the last couple days, I’ve definitely had to think about how much I love this game. My wife pretty much said she doesn’t know if she wants to let my son play. I’ve always told her that if he wants to play, I think we should let him. Just find a good coach who’s gonna teach him how to do it right. If I gotta coach him myself, I will.”

Alden Intermediate School in Alden, N.Y.

Rodney Thomas: “Nothing, nothing, nothing’s changed my mind about playing football. We all knew this is a freak accident, freak play. These things don’t happen all the time. In life and in football, you can’t go about your life always thinking about the worst situation possible.”

Cam Jordan, defensive end, New Orleans. “We were out to a team dinner for the defense Monday night and we had the game on TV. We saw him make a routine tackle, and then we saw all the frantic activity. We’ve all seen guys get hurt on the field. We saw Ryan Shazier [suffer a spinal injury]. We’ve seen concussions. But this one, we were all like, ‘What the heck just happened?’ This was not one of those plays where you say Wooooooooo. It was so normal.

“I got home that night and my wife was concerned. She said, ‘How many more years you wanna play?’ and I’m not retiring as long as I feel good, and I feel good. I do it because I love it. It’s not the money, it’s the love.

“I’ve told a few guys on the team they shouldn’t be afraid to go see a therapist. Our team’s done a great job of making them available. Talk to a therapist. It’s another set of eyes on your life. Why not? I basically tell the guys, ‘In the immortal words of that famous Cal Bear [Marshawn Lynch], ‘Take care of your chickens. Take care of your mental.”

Your money and your brain.

 

Byron Brown, mayor, Buffalo. “2022 was a tough year. We had a racially motivated mass shooting, two historic storms, one a blizzard, five children died in a horrible fire, and then to see a member of our beloved Bills go down with an injury that could have taken his life …

“The outpouring of support for Damar in Buffalo and Cincinnati, and across the nation, and internationally, has been absolutely amazing. His resurrection story has captured the attention of the world, and it really shows the power of prayer in my mind. What I’ve seen in the community reinforces what I already knew: We are strong, resilient, loving, we band together, we lift each other up, we try to make a difference in lives of other people.”

By Kevin Necessary of Cincinnati.

Thom Mayer, medical director, NFL Players Association. (Mayer spent time in Hamlin’s Cincinnati hospital room during the week.) “Damar had exactly the wrong thing happen to him at exactly the right place. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh are two cities that are superb in resuscitation science. The care he received on the field and in the ambulance was extraordinary. It was a beautiful ballet of how all the medical pieces fit together. I am so proud of the Emergency Action Plan, which teams have to drill twice a year.”

One example of the plan that worked flawlessly, Mayer said, was the presence of Woods Curry of the University of Cincinnati, the on-site Airway Management Physician—basically the emergency intubation specialist—which the league and union mandate to be at every game. Mayer said Curry placed the breathing tube down Hamlin’s throat using something called a glide scope. The tube stayed down Hamlin’s throat, providing oxygen for three days. That procedure was done in the ambulance, before it left the stadium for the two-mile trip to the hospital.

“To be able to squeeze Damar’s hand and have him undergo such excellent medical treatment was an honor to be able to see. This could have gone south in many ways, at many times. But the outcome is positive. And neurologically, Damar is clear as a bell.”

Ryan Magnuson, owner, Mag’s Custom Design sign shop, Lakewood, N.Y. (Magnuson brought a 10-foot sign with a large blank space for thick markers to write on to his tailgate Sunday for the Pats-Bills game. He posted it so passersby could see it, and urged fans to sign the “card” for Hamlin. Within an hour Sunday, the space was probably 75 percent covered.) “I knew that I wanted to do something for Damar. I’ve got a sign shop. Usually when something tragic happens we get people cards. Well, we got so many fans. How do I get all their signatures on one card? As you can see, I don’t have enough markers, and it’s not even 10 o’clock yet and the signing space is almost full.”

A guy in a Tom Brady Patriots jersey was signing just then.

“It’s bigger than one team, bigger than how we feel about the Patriots. It’s a humanity thing.”

Sometimes in sports events, reason flies out the window. There was no reason that, with the stadium full of 3’s—Hamlin’s number was everywhere, in paper 3’s, huge plastic 3’s, even a helium-filled 3 with three accompanying balloons that floated east over the stadium at the opening kick.

That 3 balloon arrangement was just wafting away when the ball fell into Hines’ hands. Three years and three months (of course) after the last Bills’ TD on a kickoff return, Hines went untouched for a 96-yard TD.

Remember when Jim Valvano danced around his N.C. State sideline, looking for someone to hug when his Wolfpack won the national basketball championship? That what about 30 Bills looks like. Josh Allen raised his hands to his face is disbelief. Man, this team needed that.

“If you want the truth, it was spiritual,” he said later. “Bone-chilling.”

After the game—the Bills clinched the second seed in the AFC playoffs with a 35-23 win—some of the raw emotion from players seeing a mate nearly die on the field bubbled up. “This week has been, excuse my language, it’s been a sh– show,” cornerback Tre’Davious White said. “For me to see everything transpire — from the hit, to him getting up, to him falling, it’s just something that I can’t unsee. Every time I close my eyes, it replays.”

Which the coach, Sean McDermott, felt all week. Seventy-five minutes after the game, he seemed totally spent, wrung out. He’d had to balance the well-being of his players with the AFC pennant race, and he said he learned a very valuable lesson since Monday night, when he told Bengals coach Zac Taylor he didn’t think they should continue the game because he felt his place was with his stricken player.

People first.

 

Sean McDermott, coach, Buffalo. ”I think I knew this before but it was reaffirmed this week: You care for the person first, and the player second. The value of people is amazing. [Monday night,] I felt at the end of the day, and this may not come out right, I’m responsible for the health and well-being of these players and staff. I wish to this day that I could’ve protected Damar from that situation. I don’t take that lightly whatsoever. If I was Damar’s mom and dad, I would want that coach to be with my son. Especially if they couldn’t be there.

“I’ll get home tonight, and hopefully I’ll have a chance—I know we’re playing the Dolphins this week—but have a chance just to take a deep breath a little bit. Probably trying to balance Damar’s situation and getting this team ready to go. And then my own self third. Hopefully take some time for myself tonight. It was challenging to have enough of me, I felt like, to go around. But that’s where we have such a strong team around me that this didn’t happen just because I did this or I did that. This is a culmination of a great team working together.”

“We’re in a divided country,” I said to him. “These are divided times. What has this week done for the United States, do you think?”

“I think it’s a great example for everyone to see,” he said. “It’s the power of the gap being closed by love. When people can put their agendas aside for the greater and common good, how good we can be when we do that. I hope that continues. I hope this is a great example and reminder to people of the power of prayer and the power of love.”

 

I reserve the right to change my mind, but as of this morning, I have Patrick Mahomes at the top of my MVP ballot.

Three reasons why:

1. He piloted his team to the league’s best record (tied with Philly), 14-3, without Tyreek Hill. The five new wideouts he and the KC coaches had to train from scratch this year caught 171 balls for 2,356 yards—which is 45 percent of his league-leading yardage total. The wideouts he lost this year, including Hill, totaled 2,071 yards last year. (And when I say train from scratch, I mean Mahomes took a lot of that on his own shoulders, working with them individually and collectively through the off-season and for longer hours than normal in training camp.)

2. He led the league in passing yards (5,250) and TDs (41), and he led both categories comfortably.

3. There’s not a quarterback as gifted athletically and intelligently as Mahomes, and not a quarterback able to pilot Kansas City’s imaginative and innovative and ever-changing offense as well as Mahomes. His ingenuity meshes so well with his coaches’.

The next three in line, I believe, can be in any order. I’ll choose this order: Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts. Burrow ended a tough year on an eight-game win streak that included wins over Mahomes and Tom Brady. The Bills have been through hell this year and came out 13-3. Hurts, leader extraordinaire, accounted for 35 touchdowns while turning it over just seven times.

San Francisco edge-rusher Nick Bosa is five. I think he’ll edge KC defensive tackle Chris Jones for Defensive Player of the Year, but it’ll be close.

Six through 10:

  1. Justin Jefferson, wide receiver, Minnesota.
  2. Justin Herbert, quarterback, L.A. Chargers.
  3. Micah Parsons, edge, Dallas.
  4. Trevor Lawrence, quarterback, Jacksonville.
  5. Tom Brady, quarterback, Tampa Bay.

 

In September, I promised to follow up on my predictions for the season by doing a scoreboard of my preseason predictions. I predicted in two places: I ranked the teams 1 to 32 on May 23, then made playoffs and awards picks on Labor Day, Sept. 5.

I’ll rank the 10 best things I said, and 10 dumbest things I said.

First, here’s how I ranked the top 10 teams in May, in order: Buffalo, L.A. Chargers, Kansas City, L.A. Rams, Green Bay, Tampa Bay, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Francisco. Other notables: Dallas 15, Detroit 20, Indianapolis 21, Giants 24, Jacksonville 29.

The bad:

1. The Saints will win NFC home-field. Hard to do that when you finish 8-9.

2. The presence of a Rich Bisaccia as special-teams coordinator will be a bigger positive factor for Green Bay than the negative of losing Davante Adams. That’s a swing-and-miss for all time. Now—I will always believe (because it’s true) that once the Packers and Adams hit a wall in negotiations in 2021, coupled with the fact that he very much wanted to play out west, he wasn’t going to agree to any Green Bay deal. I thought Bisaccia would make the Green Bay kicking game a top-three unit in football, and he hasn’t, but even then, the loss of Adams was crippling in Green Bay’s 3-6 start.

3. I ranked the Packers fifth when I ranked teams 1 to 32, and picked them to go to the Super Bowl. I’m really on a roll. Again, here’s how I ranked the top 10 teams in May, in order: Buffalo, L.A. Chargers, Kansas City, L.A. Rams, Green Bay, Tampa Bay, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Philadelphia, San Francisco. Other notables: Dallas 15, Detroit 20, Indianapolis 21, Giants 24, Jacksonville 29. Some I like. Some I say, “Yikes.”

4. The two-through-four seeds in the AFC: Baltimore, the Chargers, Tennessee. Injuries helped my failure here, but still.

5. Niners over Cowboys for the NFC’s seventh seed. They entered Week 18 with a chance to be 1-2.

6. Super Bowl: Buffalo over Green Bay. I’d like to sell that pick this morning.

7. I didn’t have Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow or Jalen Hurts on my top-three MVP list. Josh Allen-Justin Herbert-Lamar Jackson isn’t an embarrassing top three, but remind me never to NOT pick Mahomes as a top contender again.

8. I had Odafe Oweh of the Ravens number two for Defensive Player of the Year. Well, let’s not be hasty here. Oweh did have 3 sacks in 17 games.

9. Jonathan Taylor, offensive player of the year. Well, health counts.

10. “Carson Wentz survives some struggles to play a full year in Washington.” I was off just a tad there.

 

The good, or least decent:

1. I got 10 of 14 playoff teams correct. Wrong on the Saints, Rams, Titans, Packers. Missed on including the Cowboys, Giants, Seahawks, and Jaguars.

2. Offensive rookies of the year: Chris Olave 1, Dameon Pierce 2. Olave had a 1,000-yard season; Pierce was over 900 when his season ended on IR in December.

3. Defensive rookies of the year: Sauce Gardner 1, Aidan Hutchinson 2. Not the toughest pick, to be sure, but it looks like this is exactly how they’ll finish, unless Seattle cornerback Tariq Woolen is one or two.

4. I said New England, Detroit and Jacksonville would be 7-10. My peterkingfmia@gmail.com box overfloweth with condemnation, particularly on my belief the Lions would be middle-of-the-pack. I feel pretty good the Pats, Lions and Jags finished 8-9, 9-8 and 9-8.

5. “The Fangio defense is on the rise.” I wrote about defenses league-wide taking some core principles from the Fangio D—even though Vic Fangio got canned by the Broncos last year. I said, “It’s hard for offenses to get a pre-snap read from the defense because almost all of the 11 on defense don’t move much, if at all, before the snap; those blurry non-looks make offenses guess who’s covering who on the play. The defense employs two deep safeties instead of the one deep safety with two corners patrolling either side, and the key to it is that each safety takes one deep half of the field, theoretically forcing teams to throw into short and intermediate areas and make yards after the catch, not in the air.” Miami’s offense was the exception to the rule of throwing short and intermediate, at least in the first 10 to 12 games. But this was a trend we saw all year – teams taking away longer throws with two deep safeties.

6. “Jalen Hurts is solid as a rock in Philadelphia.”

7. Kenny Pickett will replace Mitchell Trubisky in mid-October. Pickett took the job for good on Oct. 9.

8. Desmond Ridder will replace Marcus Mariota in November. I was a month off. Happened Dec. 18.

9. I actually rated the Lions too low at 20, and the Colts too high at 21. Favorite email of the season, from Chad of Orlando, after my power rankings came out in May: “Colts at 21? With eight Pro Bowlers and all those new acquisitions on D? And Matt Ryan? I gotta go lay down. DO BETTER OLD MAN.” … I picked the Lions to finish 7-10, and got pilloried for even that.

10. I said the Browns would go 3-3 in Deshaun Watson’s six-game season. They did.

 

Hello, Next Gen!

A career day by an outstanding player, Kansas City defensive tackle Chris Jones, should not be eclipsed by the other 15 games that came after Kansas City-Las Vegas this weekend.

Through the lens of Next Gen Stats, I’ll show you how Jones had an Aaron Donald-type game in the midst of an Aaron Donald season.

  • QUARTERBACK PRESSURE. It was the best game of Jones’ career. He had 10 pressures, most in his career, and 2.5 sacks of Jarret Stidham. It seemed no matter how the Raiders tried to neutralize Jones, he slithered through or overpowered every blocking combination or single-block.
  • Next Gen Stats times pass-rushers from the time the ball is snapped to the time they cross the line of scrimmage, and Jones has been in the top five among defensive tackles for five straight seasons. On Saturday, his pass-rush get-off time, per Next Gen, was 0.70 seconds, his best in the last five seasons.
  • Jones set his career mark for pressures, eight, just two weeks ago before breaking it Saturday. In 2022, he led all defensive tackles in pressures with 55.
  • TEAM SUCCESS. KC increased its sack total from 31 last year to 55 this year, and Jones’ 15.5 sacks tied his previous career best in 2018.

There’s a good reason Kansas City surrendered just 19.7 points a game in the last 10 games. The pressure Jones and the defense provided meant Patrick Mahomes didn’t have to be a sorcerer every game to outscore the opposition. He’s going to be a handful, particularly coming off a bye week, for any offensive coordinator to prepare for.

 

These nuggets pique my interest about the 2023 schedule. All foes made final with the results of Sunday’s games. Nine home games for AFC teams, nine road games for NFC teams.

  • Tough road slate for the Bills. Look at the quarterbacks the Bills have to play on the road next fall: Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts. Their teams aren’t bad either.
  • The NFL will have good choices if it plays two games in Germany next year. It’s likely there will be two AFC teams hosting games in Germany next year, and likely that those two teams are Kansas City and New England. KC’s home schedule includes Buffalo, Miami, Cincinnati, Dallas, Philadelphia and of course their three AFC West foes. New England has home games, among others, against KC, the Chargers, Philadelphia and Washington. I doubt KC-Buffalo, KC-New England or KC-Cincinnati gets exported.
  • At first glance, Dallas has a favorable sked. Non-division games include Pats, Seahawks, Rams, Jets, Cards and Panthers. Now, Niners, Bills and Chargers won’t be easy, but Dallas should have some advantages.
  • Patrick Mahomes will have great QB showdowns. Kansas City will face these passers: Josh Allen, Justin Fields, Joe Burrow, Dak Prescott, Justin Herbert (x2), Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins, Trevor Lawrence. Imagine if Russell Wilson rebounds, and if the Raiders come up with a gem at QB. (Imagine adding Tom Brady (x2) to that list.)
  • Belichick at Josh McDaniels for the second year in a row. Aaron Rodgers plays the Strip next year too, assuming he’s back in Green Bay.
  • Deshaun Watson at the Texans, again. The scheduling formula either has a sense of humor or is a masochist.

 

McNally ushered instant replay as an officiating tool into the NFL. He was the first (and only) on-field official enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In his 23 years as NFL supervisor of officials, he made officiating a profession, developing training films, off-season officiating clinics and a step-by-step evaluation process that graded officials on their performance on every snap—similar to what Pro Football Focus has established in grading 22 players on every play. Unemotional, fact-based and decisive, he’s the most important officiating influence in the 103-year history of the league. The big room in the NFL office in Manhattan, where every officiating call is overseen in real time, filled with monitors and technology, is called Art McNally GameDay Central.

“I couldn’t always be right,” McNally once said, “but I always tried to be honest.”

McNally died last week at 97, and it’s amazing how long he was a major factor in the NFL. That lasted into his eighties. At 78, still active in evaluating officials, he oversaw the Tampa Bay-Philadelphia Monday night opener in 2003 when a 40-year rookie field judge was making his first NFL appearance.

“That was a tough game for me,” Gene Steratore, the rookie field judge, recalled Saturday. “On the first play of my career, I missed the Eagles doing a low block on [Bucs linebacker] Derrick Brooks, and one of the guys on the crew, Tom Barnes, said to me, ‘Hey rookie. That’s a foul in the NFL.’

“That was the day I had the toughest call I ever had to make in an NFL game. In the second half, [Tampa’s] Joe Jurevicius caught a tipped pass in the end zone. Incredible play. He tipped the ball up into the air right near the pylon, stepped out of bounds, re-established himself in the end zone and caught it. I had no idea what to call. I threw my hands up. Touchdown. I wasn’t sure it was right. When a player goes out of bounds, he has to re-establish himself in the field of play before he can touch the ball again. And I just didn’t know—I made the call I thought was right.

“After the game, Art’s down in the locker room, as I learned he is after every game he’d attend. He walks me into the back of the officials’ locker room, puts his arm around me and says to me, ‘I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve never seen that before.’ Well, I cannot tell you what that meant to me. That was the most comforting thing I ever heard. That was Art. At heart, he was an official, always an official.

“When Art would be at your game, he’d always say afterward, ‘On the surface, things looked really good today.’ He knew there were 30 cameras at every game and who knows what those cameras would show when the league looked at each play like they were examining the Zapruder film. But he just wanted to support the guys on the field. And that became my mantra when I became a referee and had my crew.”

Dec. 18, 1976: Art McNally (left) meets with officials before a divisional playoff game between the New England Patriots and Oakland Raiders. (Michael Zagaris/Getty)

His first year as a referee and crew chief was in 1960. If you were on his crew, you got used to gathering in the road hotel the night before the game, crowding into McNally’s room. He’d spread a bedsheet on the wall and put up the 16-mm film of the previous week’s game, so he and the crew could discuss their errors and officiating points. That continues today, with elaborate digital video aiding the officials when they gather on the road on Saturday afternoons.

McNally officiated basketball, baseball and football in his early years. He officiated NBA games for a time. So he and Steratore—a major college basketball official who worked some of the biggest college games between NFL assignments—bonded over that. It wasn’t the most popular thing in the league office that Steratore was moonlighting doing college basketball, often the night after doing a nationally televised NFL game.

“Art realized the value of officiating other games,” Steratore said. “He told me once, ‘In basketball, maybe you blow the whistle 20 times for a decision you made, but there are 100 other times you don’t blow the whistle but you still had to make a call.’ He realized the mental challenge, the quick decision-making, was the same, and making those quick decisions toughened you up.”

Steratore, 59 and retired from the field now, was wistful Saturday, talking about McNally’s influence.

“I just wish,” he said, “I wrote down everything he told me.”

 

Offensive players of the week

Jalen Hurts, quarterback, Philadelphia. It wasn’t the most dynamic performance of Hurts’ career (20 of 35 for 229 yards and a pick) but it was an extremely important one. Back in the lineup after missing the past two games (both Eagles losses) with a shoulder sprain, Hurts led his team to a win over the Giants, earning the first-round bye. “For him to play through what he fought through to get back … There was no more risk, but he was hurting,” Nick Sirianni said postgame.

Patrick Mahomes, quarterback, Kansas City. The Chiefs are atop the AFC West for the seventh straight season, including all five of the Mahomes era, and have the top seed for the second time in the last three seasons. Their perennial success and the frequency of plays tagged as “Mahomes Magic” could have a numbing effect, but it’s important to take stock of just how special the Chiefs offense has been with Mahomes at the helm. This week, that magic came in the form of the instantly viral “Snow Globe” play against the Raiders that showed how creative (and dangerous) Kansas City is.

Penei Sewell, offensive tackle, Detroit. Sewell was a massive difference-maker in Detroit’s win over Green Bay, showing his speed and athleticism on multiple plays, including this one: After a holding call on James Mitchell, the Lions faced second-and-17 at the Packers’ 31- with just over two minutes to go, up by four and looking for a first down to put things away. On a gutsy hook-and-ladder play call, Jared Goff found Amon-Ra St. Brown, who pitched it back to D’Andre Swift. An incredible block from Sewell got Swift 22 yards on the run for a net gain of 14 on the play, and the Lions were able to convert for the game-sealing first down two plays later.

 

Defensive players of the week

Rodney Thomas, safety, Indianapolis. Thomas, one of Damar Hamlin’s best friends dating back to their days as classmates at Pittsburgh’s Central Catholic High School, intercepted Houston QB Davis Mills on the last play of the third quarter Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts, after trailing by 10 at the half, converted the Thomas pick into a go-ahead touchdown. Too bad Indy couldn’t hang on, but Thomas gave the home crowd something to remember.

J.J. Watt, defensive end, Arizona. In the final game of his final NFL season, Watt tallied two sacks, bringing his total to 114.5 across a 12-year career with the Texans and Cardinals (and another six in the postseason). It was a special moment for the five-time All-Pro and three-time Defensive Player of the Year as the crowd at Levi’s Stadium gave him a standing ovation. Also special: Younger brothers T.J. and Derek paid homage to their older sibling Sunday, wearing his signature No. 99 pre-game. One of the NFL’s all-time great defensive players, Watt’s likely to be in the Hall of Fame class in 2028.

 

Special teams players of the week

Nyheim Hines, kick returner, Buffalo. From a storybook start to a spot in the history books, what a game for Hines, a midseason arrival to Buffalo at the trade deadline. He tallied two kickoff return touchdowns against New England, becoming the first Bills player in history with two such scores in the same game. The first, for 96 yards on the game’s opening kickoff, was a surreal infusion of joy for the Bills players returning to the field for the first time since Monday night. The second, for 101 yards in the third quarter, came right after the Patriots had taken their first lead of the game, and put the Bills back on top, 21-17. Buffalo never trailed again in a 35-23 win.

Ryan Stonehouse, punter, Tennessee. It may not provide much solace to Titans fans who saw the team miss the postseason with a Week 18 loss to the Jaguars, the team’s seventh straight loss after starting the season 7-3. But rookie punter Stonehouse has officially completed a historic year, breaking the NFL single-season record for gross yards per punt with a mark of 53.1. It’s a significant improvement (1.7 yards) over Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh’s former record of 51.4, which had stood since 1940, a remarkable 82+ years.

 

Coach of the Week

Sean McDermott, head coach, Buffalo. A difficult and delicate week for the man leading the Bills players and staff towards the postseason while processing continued updates from Hamlin’s medical team in Cincinnati. So much credit is due to McDermott for his focus on his players, both Hamlin and the rest of the team, on Monday night, and for his composure throughout the week leading up to Buffalo’s win over New England, which clinched them the No.2 seed. “He was the perfect man in that situation to handle that,” Josh Allen said of McDermott.

 

The Jason Jenkins Award

Gayle Benson, owner, New Orleans. As the NFL community mobilized around Damar Hamlin this week, Benson used the incident as a springboard for local action, organizing a donation of CPR machines called AEDs from the Saints and Pelicans to recreational facilities in the New Orleans area. “NFL games have the most advanced medical staff and equipment on hand and we believe this needs to be replicated as best as possible on the youth sports level,” Benson said in a release. The AEDS are going to parks, baseball fields and football facilities, and will be accompanied by training sessions for staff members. An essential resource for New Orleans, and a fitting tribute to Hamlin.

 

I.

When you put real love out into the world it comes back to you 3x’s as much. We brung the world back together behind this. On a long road keep praying for me.

–Part of a Damar Hamlin post on Instagram Saturday.

 

II.

Resolved, that for the 2022 season only, the AFC Championship Game will be played at a neutral site, to be determined by the commissioner if (A) the participating teams played a different number of regular-season games; and (B) the lower seeded team in the championship game could have been the number one seed in the AFC if a full 17-game regular season had been played by all AFC clubs.

–NFL 2023 Resolution G-1, passed on Friday by the owners, amending the rules for the playoffs of the 2022 season.

 

III.

Now he’s going to be handing out cars.

–Buffalo GM Brandon Beane, on the incredible generosity shown to Damar Hamlin’s toy drive on GoFundMe, which surpassed $8 million on Saturday. The original goal of the toy drive, pre-incident, was $2,500.

 

IV.

I think working on the helmets, the concussion protocols, that makes a lot of sense. But you know, it’s dangerous.

–President Biden, on football.

 

So, on the topic of postseason home-field advantage … it’s not what it used to be in the NFL. In the last four postseasons, home teams are 5-5, 6-4, 6-6 and 7-5 in the playoffs. Total: Home teams 24 wins, road teams 20.

In conference championship games since the 2018 season:

Home teams 4 wins.

Road teams 4 wins.

The road wins: Rams at New Orleans 2018, Pats at Kansas City 2018, Bucs at Green Bay 2020, Bengals at Kansas City 2021.

In the last two postseasons, look at the path of these two Super Bowl teams:

2021: Cincinnati—home win, road win, road win, neutral-site Super Bowl loss.

2020: Tampa Bay—road win, road win, road win, neutral-site (though played in Tampa) Super Bowl win.

 

I.

Factoids from the one-hour virtual NFL meeting Friday, during which a one-year change to the playoffs was approved because the league did not want to make up the cancelled Buffalo-Cincinnati game last week:

  1. If the Cincinnati-Buffalo cancellation happened, say, in week five versus week 17, I think it’s likely the league could have found the time and place to make the game up and would have done so.
  2. There was a motion to split the proposal—vote on the possible AFC neutral site for the title game, and vote for the Cincinnati-Baltimore coin-flip possibility separately—but it failed.
  3. No one argued against the neutral-site idea for the title game, if it is necessary.
  4. The vote to approve the proposal was 25 in favor (24 were needed for a three-quarters approval), four abstentions, three no votes. Kansas City, Buffalo, Las Vegas and the Chargers abstained. Cincinnati, Miami and Chicago voted no—all, presumably, on the basis of being against changing a rule eight days before the playoffs begin.

 

II.

Five tight ends were named to the NFL’s all-time team in the league’s 100th season—Mike Ditka, Tony Gonzalez, Rob Gronkowski, John Mackey, Kellen Winslow.

Among those five tight ends, the most receptions in back-to-back seasons was Gonzalez in 2007-’08, with 195.

Among those five tight ends, the most yards in back-to-back seasons was Winslow in 1980-’81, with 2,365.

Over the last two seasons, Kansas City’s Travis Kelce has 202 receptions for 2,463 yards—and both numbers eclipse what the best tight ends ever have compiled in back-to-back years.

Lest you think Kelce has a huge edge because of the NFL going to the 17-game schedule in 2021, there’s this factoid about the time it took each player to accomplish the superlative in back-to-back years: Kelce played 33 games, Winslow 32, Gonzalez 32. Had Kelce missed Saturday’s season finale and played 32 games over the two seasons, he’d still have exceeded the numbers compiled by Gonzalez and Winslow.

 

I.

The Seahawks expressing support for the Lions Sunday night.

 

II.

Damar Hamlin on the first 14 seconds of Pats-Bills.

 

III.

The Mets’ play-by-play voice on the first 14 seconds of Pats-Bills.

 

IV.

Patrick Mahomes, pre-game, Saturday in Las Vegas.

 

V.

NBC Sports Bay Area’s 49ers feed.

 

VI.

Kerby Joseph after the Lions’ win over the Packers Sunday night, when Joseph got his third interception of Aaron Rodgers this season.

 

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com, or on Twitter @peter_king. Lots of thoughts in the wake of the Damar Hamlin story.

On the mental health of players. From Greg Wallace of Johnson City, Tenn. “I read an article today about the incredible medical support each NFL team has available to them at each game. My thoughts center around the mental health issues of the players. as a supervisor of mental health and safety of a school district of more than 8,500 students, I have some measure of expertise. We need to place the same level of importance on mental health issues as we do physical issues. This goes beyond the typical statements of ‘mental health resources are available.’ Qualified people need to check on and provide resources for these players … In any traumatic situations it would be ideal to have experts to advise the immediate course of actions and what is needed/required going forward. I watched as coach [Sean] McDermott and coach [Zac] Taylor tried to figure it out on the spot and I thought they did an amazing job. But imagine if they would have had immediate resources available.”

Good points, Greg. Very good. I know every team had experts available starting the next day. My question: Would the teams have wanted to avail themselves of those resources in the minutes after Hamlin collapsed? And that’s something I just don’t know. I tend to think they’d want to be pretty insular at the moment, but you could be right.

He’s absolutely right. From Greg Stamper, of Beavercreek, Ohio: “You often receive opinions regarding MVPs. To me, in the wake of the Hamlin incident, the true MVPs of the NFL this year are the medical professionals on both sides of the field who saved Hamlin’s life. Nobody else really comes close to a performance on the field that mattered more.”

I feel sure those who helped save Damar Hamlin will be honored often, and appropriately, between now and Super Bowl Sunday. As it should be.

Consider it recommended. From Raymond Chandler, via Twitter: “You should suggest to the NFL commissioner that the league put all the heroes who saved Hamlin in the middle of the field at the Super Bowl and name them to recognize them.”

That, Raymond, is the idea of the week. Thanks for sharing it, and I believe there are a couple of people in the league office who peruse this column. From your keyboard to their ears.

 

1. I think at some point the Ravens have to consider this when pondering what to offer Lamar Jackson: He has missed five games due to injury in 2021, and five more in 2022—and in each season he missed most of a sixth. Those games were missed down the stretch of each year. Analyzing what happened minus Jackson:

2021: The Ravens started 8-3, but crashed and missed the playoffs by going 0-5 down the stretch. In the six games Jackson missed all or part of, Baltimore was 1-5.

2022: Jackson was lost in the first quarter of the Dec. 4 game against Denver. Including that game, Baltimore was awful without him offensively. In the six games Jackson missed all or most of, Baltimore scored 75 points. You won’t win many games in the NFL with such a putrid offense, and the Ravens were fortunate to eke out three wins down the stretch and qualify for the playoffs.

You don’t blame Jackson for getting hurt. It’s simply an unfortunate thing that must be factored into what the team does with him going forward. If I were the Ravens, I’d probably franchise him for 2023 and let the chips fall where they may. It’s hard to pay a player who makes much of his business with his legs a bountiful long-term contract when he’s missed the time Jackson has.

2. I think I don’t blame the Bengals for being ticked off at how the new rules came about for the playoffs this postseason. There’s an element of making-it-up-as-the-league-goes-along in the NFL’s decision-making process, including inventing part of a new playoff system eight days before the playoffs begin. I empathize with the Bengals, but I also think these were extraordinary circumstances, and a rejiggering of the rules should be within the commissioner’s purview.

3. I think these seven people, collectively, are my biggest argument against the 17-game season: Nathan Peterman (relieved by the equally famous Tim Boyle), Joe Flacco, Skylar Thompson, Sam Ehlinger, David Blough, Sam Howell, Joshua Dobbs. Nothing against any of those quarterbacks, but six number three quarterbacks and one fourth-stringer (Blough) played games on the last weekend of the season. One, Dobbs, quarterbacked a win-and-in-or-lose-and-out playoff game 17 days after signing with the Titans. Five played games with some sort of playoff implications, including Blough, the fourth quarterback to start a game this year for Arizona, at San Francisco.

4. I think, by the way, I could write about this sport for the next hundred years and I will always rail against the prospect of adding an 18th game, the same way I railed against the money-grubbing, safety-disregarding addition of a 17th The players should tell the NFL at the beginning of the next round of negotiations, say, in about 2028: “The 18th game is non-negotiable. If you choose to insist on it, understand it will be a strike-able point for us.” And Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Justin Fields and whoever the other megastar quarterbacks are will have to stand in front and echo that loudly.

5. I think, piggybacking on the Adam Schefter report that Sean Payton will interview with the Broncos, the thought that Payton would take that job is problematic in a couple of ways: It would cost the Broncos at least their lone pick in the top two rounds of the draft (the San Francisco first-rounder, via Miami, low in round one), and perhaps more than that. Plus Payton would have to buy into fixing Russell Wilson. I’m dubious he’d want to do that. But we’ll see. When an ownership group offers a person $20 million a year (I’m assuming that’s where this negotiation would have to start), that person will certainly listen.

6. I think we should let the record show that Giants wideout Kenny Golladay, who signed for $18 million per year before the 2021 season, finally got his first touchdown as a Giant in the 59th minute of the Giants’ 34th game since acquiring him.

7. I think I’d put the odds for the 2023 class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame something like this. Keep in mind I’m on the committee, I’m traditionally awful at predicting this stuff, and it’s just my best guess.

70-30: LB Chuck Howley, S Ken Riley (Seniors candidates), Don Coryell (Contributor candidate). Seniors and contributors aren’t competing against anyone; if any get 80 percent of the vote, they’re in. Which means they’d need 10 no votes out of the voting group of 49. Not impossible, but unlikely, that nine or more voters will ding any of those three candidates.

60-40: T Joe Thomas, CB Darrelle Revis. First time in the room for these recently retired guys, and there’s not a lot to tarnish their cases.

55-45: LB Zach Thomas, Ret/WR Devin Hester, DE Demarcus Ware. Seem to be the candidates with the most momentum of the group.

Flip a coin. DE Jared Allen, T Willie Anderson, WR Torry Holt, WR Andre Johnson, WR Reggie Wayne. I have no clue how the receivers go. I sense strong support for each from different blocs. Anderson’s very popular in a niche; is it enough? Allen, with eight double-digit sack years, has solid support.

Don’t get a feel. CB Ronde Barber, DE Dwight Freeney, CB Albert Lewis, LB Patrick Willis, S Darren Woodson. (Although Lewis is an intriguing candidate because of his cover ability and kick-blocking skills.) I don’t talk to many people on the committee before the vote, later this month, virtually, so the five in this area aren’t here because I don’t think they’re worthy. I just don’t have a sense of their chances.

Keep this in mind: Every year, there’s a surprise in the voting. Maybe two. So don’t take this best-guess as gospel.

8. I think I don’t understand how you get better firing the coach every year. Talking to you, Cal McNair.

9. I think Robert Saleh should be congratulated for his approach to Zach Wilson. The other day, he said Wilson, who has been a disaster in his limited play over his first two seasons, would be supported by the organization and given every chance to win the job next year. He said he thought Wilson needs to get away, far away, from football for a while. “Go read a book, go do something, get away from this game, just reset,” Saleh said. “I think the greatest gift you can give yourself as a human is to figure out what’s important to you. What do you value and how can you stick to those values day in and day out?” The easiest thing to do now is to abandon Wilson. But is that really wise, abandoning the second pick in the ’21 draft after 22 games? What would it say about the Jets as an organization, throwing Wilson out with the trash after 20 months? Only bad things. Wilson deserves two months away from the maelstrom of New York and then a legit chance to compete for the job with whoever starting in April or May. And good for Saleh, sticking up so stridently for a kid who needs it.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. Story We Need This Week: Steve Hartman of CBS News with a gem on an autistic boy who gets the gift of a lifetime.

b. Jude Kofie, 11, and Bill Magnusson, adult, now bound together forever after Magnusson’s incredible act of kindness.

c. Reports Hartman:

Magnusson is a piano tuner. He saw a local news story about Jude and heard him play. He learned Jude’s parents immigrated from Ghana and were raising four children, as well as sending money back home to their family in Ghana.

“What resources are left over to help this special little soul?” Magnusson said.

Using his father’s inheritance, Magnusson bought a $15,000 piano — estimated to be worth $45,000 — and promised to tune it once a month for the rest of his life. He’s also paying for Jude to get professional lessons.

d. Lord, this was a week of people being kind to each other, of people crying over a football player they never met, of a piano tuner in Aurora, Colo., using his inheritance money to gift a piano to a child he had zero connection to.

e. Except, maybe, a spiritual one.

f. I thought this column from longtime Tennessee scribe Paul Kuharsky was on point:

g. “Why couldn’t we all be quiet while we waited for Damar Hamlin news?”

h. Kuharsky wrote this the day after the Hamlin incident:

I looked to Twitter to see if Bengals or Bills reporters had any news and was shocked by how cluttered my timeline was at a time it should have been relatively empty, left for people who had actual news, pictures, color or insight from the scene. Or maybe a distraction, I don’t know.

What I don’t understand is why so many felt compelled to inject themselves into it even in some small way, with a tweet telling everyone — jumping up and down and waving their arms: I saw it too, I’m upset too, I’m praying too, I think it was horrific too.

The social media reaction is what passes for community in a lot of ways now: Repeat and echo and unify on some basic human feelings no one could possibly disagree with at the moment.

There is no right way to deal with it, I suppose. But being quiet and contemplative doesn’t seem like the wrong way.

i. To each his/her own. Sometimes, silence is golden.

j. I’ve got a rhyme for you about the game tonight: Georgia versus TCU, Peter King has zero clue.

k. So, I asked ESPN’s Pete Thamel, my longtime buddy, to tell me one crucial factor in the college football national title game. The Thamel wisdom:

“If I had to distill it to one fact, it would be TCU’s ability to hit some chunk plays early especially to Quentin Johnston, who will be the first receiver picked in the NFL draft. He’s a Sammy Watkins body type, rangy, big fella. Georgia’s weakness is coverage in their secondary. If TCU can get some chunk plays early and control the pace of the game, they’ll be in it. TCU’s been behind, and I don’t know the numbers, but they’ve pretty much come back every game this year. They’re not gonna flinch. As long as they can get the tempo going early, they basically have to hit Quentin Johnston early to get some big plays because they’re not gonna move the chains. They’re not built to go that way against Georgia. If they can control tempo and make it a game in the second half, they can win. There’s a path for them to win. I don’t think they’re gonna win. But they need Johnston to win against Georgia’s pedestrian secondary and have himself a night.”

l. Lede of the Week: Dan Zak and Ben Terris of The Washington Post, on George Santos’ first day of his new job, as a tarnished member of the United States House of Representatives:

On Tuesday, looking very much like a freshman at a prep school in hell, congressman-elect George Santos wore a black backpack, a periwinkle sweater underneath his navy jacket, and a sullen face with darting, evasive eyes, as if looking to see if anyone on Capitol Hill was going to accuse him of yet another lie about the basic facts of his existence.

A posse of journalists assembled before 9 a.m. Tuesday to stake out Santos’s new office on the first floor of the Longworth House Office Building. The accused serial fabulist is now being investigated by the attorney general of New York, the district attorneys of Nassau County and Queens, and the government of Brazil.

m. Can’t write an ugly story more beautifully than that.

n. Column of the Week: Celine Gounder, widow of Grant Wahl, cracking back at those who would blame other factors for the loss of people who died of natural causes:

o. “Grant Wahl was a loving husband. I will always protect his legacy.”

p. Wrote Gounder:

I knew that disinformation purveyors would blame Grant’s death on Covid vaccines, and I knew what tactics they would use to do so. I also knew that debunking what these people believe head-on in public risks giving them the attention they crave and invites further trolling. But this situation was different from the many others I’d dealt with as an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist or while serving on the Biden-Harris transition Covid Advisory Board. This was my Grant, and I needed to know what had happened to him. And I knew I had to share that information publicly: Pairing facts with empathy is the best way to disempower trolls.

I didn’t respond to disinformation or harassment on Substack or on social media. I didn’t reply to the email that read: “Now you understand that you killed your poor husband. Karma is a bitch.” I’ve received these kinds of messages before, including rape and death threats, over the course of the pandemic, but receiving them about Grant was vile, especially as waves of anguish threatened to consume me.

But when these disinformation opportunists recently used the same playbook to blame Damar Hamlin’s in-game cardiac arrest on Covid vaccines, the dam broke. I knew I had to write this essay.

q. Celine Gounder: hero, for many reasons.

r. I can’t help but think that one day, Prince Harry will think, “Why did I say everything that truly ticked me off?” The motivation to spill all that he spilled in his book, to cut every cord, is baffling to me.

s. RIP Bernard Kalb, the long-time network TV foreign correspondent who died Sunday at 100. Wow. One hundred.

 

I owe Trent Baalke

an apology or ten.

Built a fine roster.

 



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FMIA Week 17: NFL Playoff Picture Comes Into Focus As Giants Make Playoffs; Steelers, Packers Survive

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Long-time club executive sent this text just before midnight Sunday:

NFL could get very lucky if PIT and GB sneak into the playoffs

He’s right: Steelers and Packers as seven seeds would be TV gold. Imagine how much better Wild Card Weekend is with the Fighting Tomlins being a Wild Card burr in the saddle to Joe Burrow. Imagine the nothing-to-lose-with-no-pressure Packers going to Minnesota (Purple dread) or San Francisco on the Aaron Rodgers Revenge Tour.

I’ll tell you what’s even better: Green Bay and Detroit playing game 272 at Lambeau Field Sunday night. Rodgers and the streaking Packers playing a win-and-in game against one of the upstart teams of the year.

So many moving pieces this morning, starting with tonight’s Monday night game of the year, Buffalo at Cincinnati, a game with a huge bearing on the AFC’s top seed and lone playoff bye. Here’s what we know now:

The Week 18 schedule. The NFL schedule called for two games on Saturday and 14 on Sunday of Week 18. The league announced at 11:30 ET Sunday night the two ESPN/ABC games for Saturday: Kansas City at Las Vegas, 4:30 p.m. ET, followed by Tennessee at Jacksonville at 8:15 p.m., for the AFC South championship.

Don’t miss the significance here. The NFL traditionally scheduled a division title game in the final week, if one is available, in the final time slot of the regular season on Sunday night on NBC. But the NFL clearly sees the weirdness of this year’s division title game. Tennessee is on a six-game losing streak and could be playing a third-string quarterback at a red-hot team that’s won four straight with a quarterback, Trevor Lawrence, who’s on fire. Not exactly the game you want to showcase in the final primetime window of the regular year.

You might ask, Why KC-Vegas for the first game? Three reasons: Kansas City (13-3) needs to win to stay in play for the AFC’s top seed, Patrick Mahomes is always a ratings draw, and the Raiders (6-10), though eliminated from the playoffs, showed off an incredible performance by Jarrett Stidham in his first NFL start Sunday. The game should get a good rating.

Game 272. Although I’d make the argument that Detroit-Green Bay is far and away the best candidate for the Sunday night finale, the NFL may wait till the conclusion of Bills-Bengals to set the Sunday schedule. After Baltimore (10-6) lost to Pittsburgh Sunday night, it would take a Cincinnati (11-4) loss tonight for the Ravens-at-Bengals game next Sunday to be for the AFC North crown. The problem in that scenario is that both teams are already in the playoffs, so the game would be played only for playoff seeding.

My gut feeling is the NFL will still play Rodgers in primetime in a win-and-in Sunday game. Why wouldn’t the league do that? If the Seahawks beat the Rams in Seattle next weekend, Detroit would be eliminated. I would maintain Rodgers playing to put Green Bay in the playoffs is the single biggest story of Week 18, and Dan Campbell’s kneecap-biters would not lay down even if they’d been eliminated a half-hour before the game. It’s the most intriguing competitive game of the weekend.

The Eagles. The Jalen Hurts absence (shoulder) has contributed to the two-game Philly losing streak, and now the Eagles, with Hurts or without him, have to beat the Giants at home next week to clinch what seemed inevitable a couple of weeks ago — the NFC’s top seed. Too much about this Giants-Eagles game we don’t know, starting with Hurts’ status for it. But you can bet Eagles coach Nick Sirianni won’t want to go into the playoffs with his starting quarterback idle for five weeks unless Hurts is just unable to throw it next week. So it’ll be an intriguing story to watch this week.

The Wild Card round. Who doesn’t love speculation? Here’s mine about Wild Card weekend. I’m putting Green Bay and Pittsburgh as the seven seeds.

AFC seeds: 1. Kansas City, 2. Cincinnati, 3. Buffalo, 4. Jacksonville, 5. L.A. Chargers, 6. Baltimore, 7. Pittsburgh.

NFC seeds: 1. Philadelphia, 2. San Francisco, 3. Minnesota, 4. Tampa Bay, 5. Dallas, 6. N.Y. Giants, 7. Green Bay.

Intriguing matchups. Last year, the NFL had as its three primetime Wild Card games (remember, there’s a Monday night Wild Card game) Pats-Bills, Steelers-Chiefs, Cards-Rams. Awful games, decided by 30, 21 and 23 points. This year, imagine the night games as Steelers-Bengals, Cowboys-Bucs and Packers-Niners. Just feels better than last year.

The week that was in the NFL:

Take bows, J.J. Watt and Fred Gaudelli. Roger Goodell on Gaudelli, stepping away from producing primetime NFL games after 33 years: “Freddie’s been the ultimate coach in the truck.”

The New York Football Giants, after winning 3, 5, 4, 6, and 4 games in the last five years, are 9-6-1 Giants and locked in as the sixth seed in the NFC. No team will have a greater accomplishment this season, barring the Jags winning the Super Bowl. CEO John Mara feels the difference this year: “When I’m walking out to my car at the end of the game, they’re not yelling, ‘You suck! Sell the team!’”

Six years ago tonight, the Giants reveled in their last playoff appearance — and Odell Beckham and a few mates celebrated with the infamous Miami boat picture. I’m dubious that photos of the 2022 team will surface from South Beach this week.

The Steelers rallied to beat Baltimore in the final minutes, have won five of six, four on the road, and after starting 2-6, they’re an absolute load to play. “We’re the Steelers,” said Cam Heyward. “We have certain expectations.” By the way, they’re 8-8, and a win against the Browns next week would give Mike Tomlin a 9-8 record, and his 16th non-losing season in 16 years helming the franchise.

Andy Reid has coached against Denver 20 times as Kansas City’s head coach. First five: 0-5. Last 15: 15-0. I sense a trend.

Jarrett Stidham can sling it. I mean, really sling it.

How amazing: The 247th pick in the draft, Skylar Thompson, might have to quarterback Miami’s last-gasp playoff-bid game against the Jets next Sunday, while the 262nd pick in the draft, Brock Purdy, will try to lift the Niners to NFC home-field advantage against Arizona.

The Vikings (12-4) close at the Bears (3-13) next Sunday, and Minnesota’s a one-point favorite. What, people don’t trust Minnesota? I’m shocked, I tell you.

Miami looks cooked. Anyone think Skylar Thompson can whip Sauce Gardner?

Colts have been outscored 97-16 in the last 2.5 games. Now there’s a desirable coaching job. Had enough yet, Jeff Saturday?

Tom Brady was the best player in Week 17. Who’s going to tell him he shouldn’t play next year, at 46?

Nick Bosa looks very much like Defensive Player of the Year. He’s got Usain Bolt burst. Just ask Kolton Miller.

Have you heard of Freddi Goldstein? No? Well, she might just be able to teach you something about Knockout Pools.

Busy week.

The three guys who stood out to me in Week 17:

Jarrett Stidham, quarterback, Raiders. Derek Carr hadn’t thrown for 310 yards in a game all season in this Josh McDaniels offense that’s so quarterback-friendly. Sunday, against the best defense in football, Stidham threw for 365, and he only lost because all-world edge rusher Nick Bosa pushed left tackle Kolton Miller back into Stidham on the first series of overtime in a 34-all game, and Stidham’s pass fluttered into the air, and Niners safety Tashaun Gipson picked it off to set up the winning field goal. I found it highly interesting that Davante Adams, in mourning over his close friend Carr getting benched for a kid who’d never started an NFL game, was generous in his praise for Stidham afterward. Receivers like when quarterbacks hang in if it means taking big shots, and that’s what Adams noticed about Stidham. “He played an amazing game,” Adams said. “He apologized for not being able to finish it off, and every single person on the team said, ‘Man, get out of here. You balled out.’” Stidham had one game left, against Kansas City Saturday, and then will be a free agent. The Raiders would be smart to sign him short-term and draft a young quarterback to compete for the job — for 2023 and beyond.

Nick Bosa, EDGE, 49ers. Bosa’s stat line in non-modern times: zero tackles, zero assists, zero sacks. Not much of a game, I guess. But one of the great things about modern NFL stats is how deep they can dig. Per Next Gen Stats, Bosa had seven pressures of quarterback Jarrett Stidham at Las Vegas Sunday. If you watched the game, you saw Bosa’s impact on it, particularly on the Raiders’ final offensive play of the game. “I flipped sides on the play,” Bosa said from the Niners’ locker room. “The Raiders were sliding protection to me and [defensive tackle] Arik [Armstead], so I made that switch in overtime.” Bosa said pass-rushing is a chess game, because he’s got to keep the offensive lineman across from him guessing. And left tackle Kolton Miller, clearly, on the fourth snap of overtime, wasn’t expecting a bull-rush from the cat-quick Bosa. Bosa pushed Miller — PFF’s fourth-rated left tackle among those who’ve played at least 600 snaps this year — directly back into Stidham, and the pass fluttered downfield for an easy interception. An OT field goal and a 37-34 Niners’ win followed.

With a week to play and Bosa leading the NFL sack derby by 1.5 over Eagle Haason Reddick, he’s a favorite to win his first Defensive Player of the Year. Maybe a heavy favorite. “Just being in the conversation means a lot to me,” he said. “Since I was 3 years old, this is what I wanted to do. Winning the award does cross my mind, but I try to keep my mind on my job.”

Daniel Jones, quarterback, Giants. Jones is in the right place. He needs to sign with the Giants for the near-term this offseason. He fits. On Sunday, after the 38-10 rout of the Colts, fans were chanting his name, loving him for probably the first heavy-decibel time in his four seasons in New Jersey. He threw two TD passes, perfect throws, and had two TD runs. He’s fast enough to outrun linebackers, but when one’s in his way, he has no problem stiff-arming them to the ground — he did it with Bobby Okereke of the Colts Sunday — or bashing into them to win a few yards.

Jones has led the Giants out of the debacle of the Joe Judge era and bought into everything rookie coach Brian Daboll is selling. “Early on,” he said from the Meadowlands Sunday, “it was competing at practice. It was the spirit we developed, the desire to improve every day no matter what was being said about us. Guys want to compete. They love the innovation, the creativity. Guys love how this staff plays to our strengths. I’ve learned a ton of football from him.”

The other thing I’ve heard a lot about with Daboll is how he simplifies things. He keeps the important things important. The outside stuff, meh. Last week, in the first team meeting before the game against the Colts, Daboll wanted to address the elephant in the organization: If the Giants won this game, they’d qualify for the playoffs for the first time in six years. Daboll asked the players if everyone knew what a win would mean Sunday. Yes, they nodded or spoke; we win, we’re in the playoffs.

Fine, Daboll said. That’s out of the way. Now let’s get back to doing what we have to do to get better.

It’s just common sense. State the facts to the players, work with them, and keep working with them till they do the job right and you win. Teaching, coaching, persistence — those are things that go a long way with Daboll. And they’re going a long way with Jones too.

Two of the best to ever do their football jobs — defensive end J.J. Watt and veteran big-game producer Fred Gaudelli of NBC Sports and Amazon Prime — are walking away. Watt says he’ll retire after his 12th NFL season ends, and Gaudelli produced his last regular-season game Thursday night for Amazon, Dallas at Tennessee.

Each has one game left — Watt for the Arizona Cardinals at San Francisco on Sunday, and Gaudelli in the truck for one of the NBC’s two Wild Card games in two weeks.

Watt’s a giant in his field, as is Gaudelli. I asked Cards PR man Mark Dalton to ask Watt for teammates or foes I should talk to about him, and he gave me three: retired Baltimore guard Marshal Yanda, former teammate Duane Brown, and a combination of former teammate and later a foe, center Ben Jones. (I added T.J. Watt, his brother and mentee.) I reached out to speak to all four on Thursday. Within 24 hours, I had them all, at length — and each was humbled that Watt singled them out. Yanda called from an ice-fishing trip on a lake in South Dakota. They all wanted to talk about J.J. Watt.

“I never played a game-wrecker like him,” Yanda said. “The thing that I respected most about him is his effort. Not even the very elite players played like him. Every play — run, pass, field goal — his drive was unmatched. You look over and he’d have his hands on his hips and he’d be breathing hard in a long series, then, then next play, he comes as hard as he did first play of the game.”

Similarly, I texted commissioner Roger Goodell about Gaudelli. They’d worked together going back to an NFL preseason game in Tokyo in 1990, Gaudelli producing the game and Goodell repping the league there. Now, Goodell counts Gaudelli as a confidant in the hugely important business of making the NFL look like a prize on television. Goodell spent 20 minutes praising Gaudelli on New Year’s Eve.

“Freddie’s been the ultimate coach in the truck, calling all the plays for years,” Commissioner Goodell told me Saturday. “I have so much respect for him for a few reasons. One is just his constant desire to improve the experience for the fans. He constantly was looking to see what could we do differently. He surrounded himself with people who were innovative and he pushed them to be innovative. He wasn’t afraid to take a chance. I remember when we were talking to [NBC’s] Dick Ebersol about starting Sunday Night Football, Freddie’s name was one of the first he mentioned. Dick really wanted him. Matter of fact, I think it might’ve been before [John] Madden.”

Looking at the significance of both:

The J.J. Watt experience

Watt, 33, is a three-time Defensive Player of the Year. He’ll go into the Hall of Fame listed as a defensive end, but he played all over the line. In 150 regular-season games, he has 112.5 sacks — three of them just two weeks ago at Denver, the final one on Sunday in Atlanta. He has scored six regular-season touchdowns, three on receptions as a tight end, and he’s batted down an NFL record 69 passes.

Simply, Watt is one of the best players in modern NFL history.

July 2011: Watt the rookie arrives in Houston.

Texans tackle Duane Brown: “He comes in, the 10th pick in the draft, a D-lineman, and you always think on the offensive line, ‘We’re gonna kick this kid’s ass.’ He was a problem from the first day. His get-off on the snap was incredible, like I hadn’t seen before. One play, a trap play, I pulled and blocked him and knocked him down. I celebrated. Big play for us. I looked at him, and he smirked. That turned into revenge. The rest of the practice was hell for everyone. I mean hell.

“Every day was a competition. Who could run the fastest 10-yard shuttle? Who could bench the most? Who could win practice? He made me better every day. He got there in 2011, and I’m convinced my best three years in the NFL were his first three years in Houston.”

January 2012: The dominance begins.

Ravens right guard Marshal Yanda: “We were a really good team when Houston came to Baltimore for the divisional playoff game. We had no weak links on our line. The right side [center Matt Birk, Yanda, tackle Michael Oher] was pretty solid. We scouted J.J., we knew him, but that day, that game, he completely ate our lunch. That was a sign of things to come.”

Watt had 2.5 sacks, including one directly on Yanda, and one on a stunt over Yanda and Oher. “We prided ourselves on the TE game, the tackle-end game,” Yanda said. “J.J. lined up across from me, moved toward Mike’s hip, and I had to pick up the looper. J.J. used his arm-over move and his quickness on Michael and got the sack. I consider that day two sacks on me. We won the game, but that’s the first game he ever wrecked in the NFL, and I was just, I don’t know. Defeated. I was defeated.

“Okay, I got another story for you. So J.J. Watt went off and we barely squeaked by. They deserved to win the game, really. We came out of this game, my family’s there. We got in the car and we were driving home and it was quiet because we won but they knew I didn’t play well. When I don’t play well I’m very disappointed. Finally, I said, ‘Wow, that was not my best game.’ My sister shoots it straight. She didn’t even waste one second. She said, ‘Yeah, no kidding, you played like s—.’

“So yeah, you’re bringing back some memories.”

October 2016: Schooling T.J.

In 2015, Wisconsin tight end T.J. Watt switched positions to outside linebacker. In 2016, J.J. moved to Wisconsin to rehab after rupturing a disk three games into the season. Until then, he’d been supportive of T.J. in whatever he did in football. Now he became a mentor.

Edge rusher T.J. Watt: “So J.J. lived in Wisconsin for two months. We grabbed breakfast at Mickie’s Dairy Bar [in Madison], and it was a couple weeks through the season for me. We watched film together. That was the first time that we’ve ever really talked football and talked shop. That was when my eyes opened up to how someone who is so successful in the NFL truly studies film. Before that, I didn’t really know what I was looking at. He was giving tricks of all the linemen I’d face and slides and protections on the offensive line, stuff that I never really knew how to study. That kicked the door open for us, and we began sending film clips back and forth to how we can improve and how we can get better as individuals.

“That was my first full year playing the position. To be able to have a three-time Defensive Player of the Year brother who I’m not intimidated to ask questions or to sound dumb in front of, I think that was really important for me. How valuable has it been for me to be able to talk shop with him? Very.”

T.J. Watt, in 2021, became the second Watt to win Defensive Player of the Year, after his 22.5-sack season in Pittsburgh. “I got a backstage look at how to be a dominant NFL player, both from him and Derek [his fullback brother],” T.J. Watt said. “When J.J. got into the NFL, he always allowed us in to see everything — and not just the good stuff. I’d look at him and see a guy who ate the same cereal I ate, grew up the way I grew up, and if he did it, why couldn’t I do it? The blueprint was there.”

Sep 27, 2020: Brothers Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt (90) and Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt (99) embrace after the coin toss. Credit: Charles LeClaire – USA TODAY Sports

October 2020: Playing the right way.

Center Ben Jones: “I got drafted in 2012 by Houston, and I learned so much. I watched J.J., Duane Brown, Andre Johnson put everything into the game. Their sleep, the food they ate, massages, and offseason work. Your body makes your money. Treat it right. And that year, I played right guard, and my welcome-to-the-NFL thing was blocking him every day at practice. He made my life miserable. But he made me better, a lot better.

“When I left for Tennessee [in 2016 in free-agency], we stayed close. But playing him, the gameplan was always all about him. We’d have dummy calls because he studied our calls and knew them. We’d call ‘Deuce!’ That was a double-team on J.J. We’d have ‘Watt Checks.’ ‘Oscar’ was the call we’d make to run away from him, and we used that a lot. But he was just. Never predictable. That made it hard to play him. Our thought was, he’s gonna make the freak play here and there — don’t let him disrupt the whole game.

“My story about J.J. … I have a picture from a game in 2020 when I’m in Tennessee and we play played a wild game against Houston.”

The Texans scored to go up by seven, but failed on a two-point conversion with two minutes left. Tennessee scored on a long drive to send it to overtime, then scored on a long drive on the first possession of OT to win. Watt played every snap of those two drives.

Jones: “So this picture I have: There’s J.J., on one knee in the end zone, totally exhausted, and our team is celebrating this big win. I see him, and I go over to him. I put my arm around him and I say, ‘You poured it all out there. You gave it your all.’ I mean, we’re family. The raw emotion there, I’ll never forget it.”

The Gaudelli impact

After 33 years of producing big games and innovating things like the first-down line, Gaudelli, 62, will move out of the production truck and into a less-frenetic full-time executive producer gig for NBC and for Amazon Prime. The all-consuming way Gaudelli did the job — including honchoing the schedule with the league, fighting for the best games — took a toll on him. “These jobs aren’t conducive to great health,” he said Saturday.

Gaudelli produced 33 years worth of prime-time football — 11 on ESPN’s Monday Night Football, five on ABC’s Monday Night Football, 16 on NBC’s Sunday Night Football and this season on the first year of a streaming series on Amazon. It’s this last season that, to me, is especially notable.

Thursday night on Amazon Prime Video was a big jump for the NFL. Goodell compares it to the NFL equalizing revenue-sharing in the early sixties, putting games on cable in the eighties, launching satellite and DirecTV deals in the nineties. To Goodell, in 2022, one person was best suited to usher in a new media product and the streaming principle: Gaudelli.

With cable and satellite TV in decline, Goodell knew how important year one of Amazon was. “Streaming,” he told me, “really had to be done. I’ve often said I think it’ll change the way people watch football. There are all kinds of elements with that launch. But the production was one where for credibility purposes, we knew that it had to be true — that’s the best way to put it for me. It had to be when NFL fans watched, they said, ‘Wow, this is great. This is a first-rate experience.’

“So, going into the season, Amazon was maybe the highest priority from a media standpoint for us — making sure that launched properly. Knowing that Freddie was in the seat…that part of the launch was not a concern of mine. It was comfort. I knew he knew what to do, how to do it and I knew he was going to produce a fantastic product for our fans. That was really one of the most significant things for me in discussions with Amazon even before the deal was over.”

Goodell used the word “true.” Over the years, I’ve admired how Gaudelli was “true” on what was sometimes a tightrope. The networks and the league have a close and symbiotic partnership; it’s in the league’s best interests for the networks to show games in a positive light. But Gaudelli has shown his journalistic side too. Gaudelli told me, “You’re always walking that line with the league, but with all due respect to the league, we’re there to serve the fans.”

Twice this year Gaudelli walked the line on Amazon Prime games. In week four, Miami at Cincinnati, one storyline going in was that, four days earlier, Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa had been staggered after a first-half hit, came out for a bit, then returned to play after halftime. In Cincinnati, he was staggered again after a blow, and his fingers stretched out in an unusual grasping form. Gaudelli showed the odd Tua hand reaction, went to break, then asked his sports medicine consultant, Mike Ryan, what it meant. Ryan said it could be a sign of neurological trauma. Gaudelli passed the info in to play-by-play man Al Michaels’ ear from the truck and said he was going to show the replay once coming out of the break, and Michaels should use the medical information.

Gaudelli heard from the league, which was displeased about the graphic replay, which went viral. But if Goodell wants “true,” Tagovailoa in the fencing posture had to be shown. Not over and over and over, but once or twice. Gaudelli knew it.

“You can’t sanitize football,” Gaudelli said, and that should be very high in his obituary in 40 or 50 years.

The next Thursday, Amazon had a stinker between two disappointing teams, Indianapolis at Denver. The Broncos were hapless on offense, and Russell Wilson threw two fourth-quarter interceptions, and the game went to overtime tied at 9. Fans started streaming out of Invesco Field. Fans leaving an overtime game — in Denver, one of the hotbeds of the NFL game? Inconceivable.

Gaudelli showed multiple shots of fans streaming for the exits, and even one outside showing a sea of people leaving the stadium. My first thought: The league’s not going to like that. My second thought: The Broncos will hate that.

“That’s what live television is all about,” Gaudelli said. “You’ve got to cover what’s happening, all of it.”

I asked Goodell about that aspect of Gaudelli’s game coverage. “Listen, there’s probably lots of things we wish he wouldn’t have done or shown,” Goodell said. “If you ask him, his standard would be, ‘That’s my obligation to be able to do that.’ I would never ask him to back down on something he thought was an obligation. That’s where you have that trust. Fred’s in the seat and Fred will manage it well.

“At the end of the day, you knew the guy was the best in the business. He was going to make sure your product was better and what else could you ask for ultimately, right?”

At Amazon, Gaudelli continued to give games, even bad ones, the big-game feel. Over the years, that’s been one of his strengths. Working with Michaels and John Madden, and then with Cris Collinsworth, Gaudelli never skated by — it was a mutual thing. Michaels, Madden and Collinsworth were worker bees, and one of the reasons Gaudelli is stepping away is he knows there’s only one way to do the job of producing a national TV game that millions watch. “The only time I ever shut it off is when I go to bed,” he said. He calls his desire to know every factoid about a game he can learn a “curiosity addiction.”

That has bled into the brains of two generations of people in trucks, at ESPN, ABC, NBC and now Amazon. One peer at NBC said Gaudelli’s lasting legacy should be teaching tens of young TV people the right way to do games — with smart details, looking to innovate each year. For his part, Gaudelli’s thankful he was hired 16 years ago by Dick Ebersol to start Sunday Night Football; Ebersol, he said, provided “a masters class in life and business.”

“If you’d asked me at 18, ‘How do you want your career to go?’ I couldn’t have written it any better,” he said. Good way to go out.

One week and one important game (Bills-Bengals tonight in Cincinnati) to go, and it looks like Patrick Mahomes’ MVP to lose. My top five:

1. Patrick Mahomes, QB, Kansas City. Tied for the best record in football (13-3), and has losses only to Josh Allen and Joe Burrow since Oct. 1. But let’s look at the wide-receiver group he used Sunday. All five wideouts he targets are first-year Kansas Citians broken in by Mahomes between April and October: Kadarius Toney (four catches for 71 yards Sunday), Skyy Moore (three for 33), Marquez Valdez-Scantling (two for 28), JuJu Smith-Schuster (two for 28), Justin Watson (one for 27).

2. Jalen Hurts, QB, Philadelphia. You could argue, and many will, that Hurts’ value is accentuated by the Eagles losing both games missed by Hurts with his shoulder injury. I can’t argue with that, except to say I cannot vault a player who doesn’t play over an extremely valuable player who continues to play.

3. Josh Allen, QB, Buffalo. Still in it. If the Bills win home-field and Allen beats Mahomes and Joe Burrow, he should be a factor.

4. Joe Burrow, QB, Cincinnati. Still in it. If the Bengals beat the Bills tonight, and Burrow has wins over Mahomes and Allen (and finishes the year on a nine-game winning streak), he should be a factor.

5. Nick Bosa, EDGE, San Francisco. Best player on the best defense in football, and consistently intimidating as a rushing force. Made the biggest play in the biggest test the 49ers have had in the last two months Sunday at the Raiders.

More Contenders:

6. Justin Jefferson, WR, Minnesota.

7. Trevor Lawrence, QB, Jacksonville.

8. Justin Herbert, QB, L.A. Chargers.

9. Micah Parsons, EDGE, Dallas.

10. Tom Brady, QB, Tampa Bay.

Hello, Next Gen!

There’s ample reason to be worried about the Vikings. In the last seven weeks, they’ve lost to Dallas 40-3, lost to Detroit by 11, trailed the woebegone Colts 33-0 at the half, and were behind to Green Bay 41-3 after 51 minutes. How on God’s green earth are the Vikings 12-4?

Look a little deeper, which I did through the lens of NFL Next Gen Stats Sunday night, and one of the big issues is the up-the-middle disruption and leakage from the Vikings’ offensive line. Since incumbent starter Garrett Bradbury went down with a back injury a month ago, the protection has been spotty at best. And after the Sunday debacle at Lambeau Field, coach Kevin O’Connell announced that backup center Austin Schlottmann, who’d started the last four games, fractured his fibula. It’s likely third-string center Chris Reed will have to hold the fort starting Sunday in Chicago, unless Bradbury’s back recovers sufficiently for him to play.

Analyzing what the last four foes have done to the interior of the Vikings’ offensive line, centered around center, starts with pressure on Kirk Cousins. Cousins was sacked on 6.2 percent of his pass-drops with Bradbury at center, and 8.6 percent of his drops post-Bradbury injury. Now, with the third center, who knows?

Per Next Gen Stats, how troubled the protection has been over the past four weeks:

Week 14 versus Detroit: Lions DT Isaiah Buggs had five pressures and a strip-sack of Cousins.

Week 15 versus Indianapolis: DTs DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart combined for 14 pressures and two sacks, killer numbers as the Colts bolted to the 33-0 lead.

Week 16 versus the Giants: DTs Dexter Lawrence (seven pressures) and Leonard Williams (five pressures and a sack) buzzed around Cousins for three hours.

Week 17 in Green Bay: DT Kenny Clark of the Packers had a season-best seven pressures and a strip-sack of Cousins.

That’s 38 interior pressures, two strip-sacks and three more sacks in four weeks, per Next Gen Stats. It’s simply not sustainable if Minnesota wants to make a deep run in these playoffs.

Offensive players of the week

Christian McCaffrey, running back, San Francisco. If there was any doubt about the value of dealing for McCaffrey at the trade deadline this year, they should be erased this morning. McCaffrey, with a combination of bulling over Raiders like a fullback and making defenders miss like a scatback, accounted for 193 scrimmage yards — 19 carries for 121 yards; eight catches for 72 yards — and his 14-yard rushing TD in the third quarter got the Niners back into a game that looked like it was getting away from them.

Jarrett Stidham, quarterback, Las Vegas. It’s difficult for a losing team to produce a player of the week, but Stidham, in his first start ever, was incredible in the 37-34 loss to the 49ers. Making one’s first start in the NFL against the (far and away) best defense in football is a tough ask. But after the mayhem of the week in Vegas, with Derek Carr watching on TV from home (presumably), Stidham looked like a 10-year vet. He very much belonged. You could see that on his third touchdown pass, early in the third quarter. Knowing he was about to get blasted out of the pocket by San Francisco safety Talanoa Hufanga, Stidham waited and waited till the last second, then drilled a 60-yard TD throw to Davante Adams just as he, Stidham, got drilled. A precocious, outstanding performance by Stidham, throwing for 365 yards and making the Raiders feel a lot better about demoting Carr.

Tom Brady, quarterback, Tampa Bay. Some numbers here, after Brady’s remarkable 34-of-45, 432-yard, three-TD, no-TO performance in the Bucs’ 30-24 victory over Carolina:

1. Clinched the 19th division title of Brady’s 23-year NFL career.

2. Was the third time in the last five Tampa games that Brady was down double-digits in the fourth quarter and came back to win.

3. Was the 42nd time in Brady’s career that he came back from a double-digit deficit to win.

Any doubt he can play next year, at 46, if he chooses?

Mike Evans, wide receiver, Tampa Bay. Ten catches, 207 yards, three TDs in a game the Bucs needed to clinch the NFC South — and they did. It also made Evans the first player in the 103-year history of the NFL to begin his career with nine straight 1,000-yard receiving seasons. For his career, with one game left in the season, he rose from 49th to 44th on the NFL’s all-time receiving yards list — passing, among others, the great Lance Alworth — and he now has 10,425 yards. Next in his sights: Evans needs 147 yards to pass Keyshawn Johnson.

 

Defensive players of the week

Kyle Dugger, safety, New England. As usual, the New England offense was stuck in neutral late in the third quarter of the must-win game against Miami. On third-and-15 for the Dolphins from their 24, Teddy Bridgewater’s short throw to the right was plucked by Dugger, and he made a strong, tough run down the left sideline for a 39-yard touchdown, putting New England up, 16-14. The Pats never trailed after that and stayed in the playoff race at 8-8. The Patriots’ seventh defensive touchdown of the season is their most since 1970.

Cameron Jordan, defensive lineman, and Marshon Lattimore, cornerback, New Orleans. People will look at Saints 20, Eagles 10 and point to Jalen Hurts’ absence as THE reason. Not fair. Hurts would have made a difference, for sure, had he played instead of Gardner Minshew. But Jordan’s three sacks and Lattimore’s nifty bait-and-pick of Minshew for a 12-yard pick-six to round out the scoring were the results of a great team defensive day.

Chris Jones, defensive lineman, Kansas City. Played his best Sunday when the best was needed. With Denver down by three and having a third-and-five at its 42-yard line with two minutes left in the game, Jones stuffed running back Chase Edmonds on an odd interior run call for a gain of three. Now it was fourth-and-two with 1:21 to play. Jones burst through the middle on fourth down and sacked Wilson for a nine-yard loss to end the drama.

Nick Bosa, EDGE, San Francisco. Seven pressures, per NFL Next Gen Stats, including the biggest one of the game — pushing left tackle Kolton Miller back into Stidham and causing the last pass of the game to flutter into safety Tashaun Gipson’s hands for an interception. That set up the game-winning OT field goal. “What Bosa did was the difference in this game,” Mark Sanchez said on FOX.

 

Special teams players of the week

Keisean Nixon, defensive back/kick-returner. Maybe I wrote too soon (last week) about the middling impact of special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia. A week after his 93-yard return against Miami, Nixon, playing with a groin injury after being questionable all week, made the return of the day. Taking a kickoff five yards deep and right in the middle of the “N” in GREEN BAY in the end zone, Nixon picked his spot right up the middle of the field, sloughing off a tackle attempt by Vikings kicker Greg Joseph at the Packers 28. He went untouched after that, completing a 105-yard return to give Green Bay a 7-3 lead early.

Jake Camarda, punter, Tampa Bay. I’ve never seen a play like the one Camarda made with 42 seconds left in the 30-24 Tampa win, with the Bucs trying to pin the Panthers back with no timeouts left. The snap back to Camarda from Zach Triner was errant, and Camarda, a 4.55-in-the-40 athlete, chased and retrieved it but had pressure in his face. He ran to his left and somehow turned his body enough to send a glancing punt off the side of his right foot. It hugged the sideline on the way downfield and was downed at the three. The Bucs got flagged for illegal man downfield, but understand that if Camarda got snowed under there, the Panthers could have declined the penalty and taken over at maybe the Bucs 45. Instead, Camarda punted again and pinned Carolina at its eight-yard line. “He made the play of the game,” Greg Olsen said on the FOX telecast. Instead of having the ball down six at the Tampa 42 with 32 seconds left, Carolina got the ball at its eight with 26 seconds left. Big, big, weird play.

Richie Grant, safety, Atlanta. With the Falcons trailing Arizona early, Grant cut through the line on an Andy Lee punt and came in clean, blocking the punt with the Falcons recovering at the Cards’ five-yard line. Cordarrelle Patterson ran it in on the next snap, and the Falcons led at the half in Atlanta. These are the kinds of plays a team playing poorly on offense has to have to win.

 

Coach of the week

Brian Daboll, head coach, N.Y. Giants. The Giants routed the Colts 38-10, scoring in the thirties for the first time in 43 games. That says enough about the competent offense Daboll has built in New Jersey. The win clinched New York’s first winning season and first playoff season since 2016. Remember where the Giants were four months ago? In Nowheresville, just trying to be competent. Now they’re 9-6-1 and headed for the playoffs, with Daboll’s leadership a huge key.

 

Goat of the Week

Carson Wentz, quarterback, Washington. You try not to make every game Wentz plays a referendum on his future in D.C., but that’s what Sunday’s game looked like. Cleveland drubbed the Commanders 24-10, and Wentz got booed out of the stadium after his no-TD, three-pick performance. “Once we get him rattled in the pocket, it’s over,” Cleveland edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney told the Washington Post.

Hidden person of the week

Matt Feiler, guard, L.A. Chargers. On a simple run in the right guard-tackle hole by Austin Ekeler from the Chargers’ 28-yard line, Feiler pulled from his left guard spot before Ekeler got to the hole and erased all-world linebacker Bobby Wagner, clearing the way for Ekeler. The block was the big assist on Ekeler’s 72-yard touchdown run.

The Jason Jenkins Award

Maliek Collins, defensive tackle, Houston. Lots of angels in this story. Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk noted that a friend in California was trying to get Christmas cards sent to a single mom and 17-year-old son in Torrance, Calif. The boy, Ethan, happened to be a Texans fan, so Williams asked Evert Geerlings of the Texans to see if he could get a few players to sign a Christmas card. Collins asked who it was for, and when he found out the story, he told Geerlings he wanted to do something more. He said he would pay for the mom and son to fly to Houston for the New Year’s Day game against Jacksonville. When Collins told them, Ethan cried. “When I was Ethan’s age,” Collins told Williams, “something like this probably would have changed my life, so I would love to have that impact on someone else.”

The mom, Courtney Luhrs, told Williams: “It just shows you how amazing people can be.”

From the Stadium Tour led by Maliek Collins at NRG Stadium in Houston, TX. (Photo courtesy of Houston Texans)

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It just feels like I’m not as miserable as I have been the last two years. And when I’m walking out to my car at the end of the game, they’re not yelling, ‘You suck! Sell the team!…for the time being.

— Giants president and CEO John Mara, after the Giants clinched a playoff spot, per Tom Rock of Newsday.

 

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One percent milk and a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies.

— Tampa Bay coach Todd Bowles, asked how he’d celebrate winning the NFC South Sunday night.

 

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Who among the big-time candidates — the Jim Harbaughs and Sean Paytons of the world—would touch this job with a 30-foot pole?

— Bob Kravitz of The Athletic, on the attractiveness of the coaching job of the 4-11-1 Colts, demolished by the Giants 38-10 Sunday

 

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We’re becoming a more dangerous team. We’ve all seen some of the commentary outside. ‘Nobody’s worried about the Packers.’ Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now what are they gonna say?

— Aaron Rodgers, after the Packers won their fourth straight to set up a win-and-in season finale at home against Detroit next week.     

 

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This is a movie we’ve seen play out many times.

— Anish Shroff, Carolina’s radio play-by-play man, after Tom Brady’s comeback to put the Bucs up on the Panthers late in Tampa.

 

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There’s a lot to be sorted through once the season is over.

— Las Vegas coach Josh McDaniels, after benching Derek Carr for the final two games of the season for Jarrett Stidham.

Seems like code language for this: The McDaniels-Carr marriage will last exactly one year.

The King family had a delightful Christmas get-together in the Bay Area, with Mary Beth, husband Nick and grandson Peter (one year old) coming down from Seattle, and gathering at the home of Laura, wife Kim and grandkids Freddy (six in January) and Hazel (four). Six days of fun and activities. A mini-FMIA about the trip:

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

Hazel, when I asked for suggestions on how to get the new family dog, Jersey, who does not like men, to like me: “Well, you have to give her some space.”

Freddy, who accepted my challenge to walk three miles with me, after walking 3.22 miles on Christmas Eve morning: “I WALKED THREE MILES!”

GAME OF THE WEEK

“Poop Bingo.” It’s Bingo, with a pooping theme, and cards with drawings of poop from different animals. TMI?

GAZE OF THE WEEK

My last vision of little Peter was in a car seat, his mom and dad about to drive away, and the little fellow caught a final glimpse of me (for a few weeks) and smiled widely. That’ll hold me till my next visit.

BEERNERDNESS

“Nelson the Night Heron Hoppy Lager” (Oakland United Beer Works), a delicious beer brewed at Jack London Square. I admit I bought it for the can. Wouldn’t you? But it was tasty.

Photo: Peter King

CHEFNERDNESS

I was in charge of the steaks on the Traeger Grill on Christmas Eve. (Five non-meat-eaters in the crowd.) That’s some pressure, especially when I hadn’t used a Traeger before. I think I passed. No one got food poisoning.

TRAVEL NOTE

On the flight home, San Francisco to New York, I noted career memories of some of the cities we flew over.

Elko, Nev. — Had dinner with John Madden in this northeastern Nevada outpost when I bused cross-country with him 30 years ago. There was a card table with a handwritten “SPORTS BOOK” sign in the back.

Cheyenne, Wyo. — Memorable 1990 scouting trip to some western schools with Bengals O-line coach Jim McNally. Stopped at U of Wyoming to see a prospect, but the fun part of the trip was our stop in Missoula, where McNally discovered an unknown tackle named Kirk Scrafford at Montana. “Scrappy kid,” McNally said. “I’m gonna push for him.” Scrafford, after going undrafted and signing with the Bengals, had a nice 109-game NFL career.

Minneapolis — Minneapolis Miracle, Jan. 14, 2018, Keenum to Diggs, ridiculous TD, Vikings walk off their greatest playoff win. Seventy-five minutes after the game, I photographed a beaming Stefon Diggs, shirtless, still with his football pants on. Case Keenum asked me, “How you gonna write THIS?!”

Madison, Wis. — Popped in to do a feature story on Joe Thomas, pre-draft, in 2007. Really remember Thomas’ abode, one of the great off-campus houses ever. Red padded bra hanging from one of the antlers of a six-point trophy buck. Thomas’ laptop propped up by odd legs: four rolls of toilet paper. Told me he’d pass up the NFL’s invite to New York for the draft. He’d go fishing with his dad in Lake Michigan instead.

Southern Ontario — Forget what year it was, but Don Banks and I were in Buffalo one Saturday afternoon to cover the Bills the next day. I suggested a road trip to Toronto to see Maple Leafs-Canadiens. Hockey Night in Canada, baby. Didn’t have to twist Donnie Brasco’s arm. I remember the scene outside, with crazy Leafs fans shouting down the Montrealers.

Northern New Jersey, on approach — Over dinner Tuesday night with the fam, I told the story about waiting at Lawrence Taylor’s locker after a Giants’ game when I covered them for Newsday, looking to my left and seeing Richard Nixon. I introduced myself, and this fervent football fan said, “I wish I had your job.” I didn’t know quite what to say, so I said I was glad I didn’t have his job. He chuckled, and we waited for Taylor.

Big reason why the Bengals are better, much better, in the second half of this season: the offensive line.

Go back to Dec. 1 of last year, in fact, and look at the Bengals’ performance protecting Joe Burrow the rest of the season, and extend that to the first half of this season, when four of five positions on the offensive line had new starters. Look at the numbers, and look how important a steady line playing well is:

Dec. 1, 2021 to Nov. 1, 2022 (11 months, 18 games, including postseason)

Burrow won-loss: 10-8. Sacks per game: 4.1. Points per game: 23.4.

Nov. 2, 2022 to Jan. 2, 2023 (2 months, 7 games)

Burrow won-loss: 7-0. Sacks per game: 1.4. Points per game: 29.3.

A big reason for the improvement: The five Bengal linemen, none of whom had played together before, have meshed in front of a quarterback getting the ball out slightly faster. Center Ted Karras and guards Alex Cappa and Cordell Volson have kept the pocket clean (“pocket integrity,” they call it) much better than the 2021 crew (center Trey Hopkins, guards Quinton Spain and Hakeem Adeniji). In the Bengals’ four postseason games last year, the three-man interior allowed nine sacks, per PFF. In the Bengals’ recent 7-0 run, the three-man interior has allowed two sacks.

Plus, Burrow has become smarter at dumping the ball off when he feels the heat, and he’s gotten better at making decisions fast this year (2.48 seconds to throw, as opposed to 2.63 seconds last season, per PFF).

With the season-ending injury to right tackle La’el Collins, I’d expect the Bengals to help right tackle plug-in Adeniji a lot tonight against Buffalo. Playing right guard last year in the playoffs, Adeniji allowed three sacks against Tennessee in the divisional round and three against the Rams in the Super Bowl. Now, playing outside at right tackle, you can be sure the Bills will test him tonight.

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L.A. Football Fever Dept.:

If you live in Visalia, Calif., 190 miles north-northeast of Los Angeles, and you have cable TV, you did not see the Rams-Chargers rivalry game on Sunday. The game between the playoff-bound Chargers and the defending Super Bowl champion Rams was not on. Vikings-Packers was.

In fact, Vikings-Packers was aired in 98 of the top 100 TV markets Sunday. Rams-Chargers was shut out of every one except Los Angeles and San Diego among the top 100 markets. That is one of the all-time weird TV factoids for a rivalry game including the defending champ.

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Now here’s an NFL media quiz for you: What was the broadcast crew for that memorable game 15 years ago last week (Pats 38, Giants 35), the game that ended the 16-0 Patriots regular-season in 2007 and was simulcast on Saturday of the last weekend of the regular season on CBS, NBC and NFL Network?

Answer: Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth in the booth, Adam Schefter on the sidelines.

Eclectic.

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Yates covers the NFL for ESPN.

 

II

Schneiderman covers the Packers for The Athletic

 

III

The ESPN NFL analyst on Young, the Alabama quarterback, after he passed for 321 yards and five touchdowns in his last college game, a 45-20 rout of Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl.

 

IV

Rosenfels, a former NFL quarterback, is a wise man.

 

V

Joseph Cranney, investigative reporter at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, with a sobering thread on the death of local journalism.

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com, or on Twitter @peter_king.

On Tua. From Donny Russell: “Tua Tagovailoa’s shocking regression is not all that shocking. How many concussions has he had this year? At least twice now he’s had concussions and the league’s ‘experts’ allowed him to keep playing. If the guy isn’t suffering from post-concussion syndrome I’ll eat my hat.”

Well, we’ll see what the investigation into his current head trauma reveals. So I wrote in last week’s column and gave Tagovailoa one of my Goat of the Week awards after he threw three interceptions to give Green Bay a big boost in its upset of the Dolphins. Obviously, had I known that Tagovailoa got concussed, I wouldn’t have done that. When a player gets battered the way Tagovailoa has this year, I think it’s smart for all of us to let smart people — and people who will look out for his best interests — do their work, and see what they come up with. One thing I think, regardless of the NFLPA-pushed investigation: If it were up to me, Tagovailoa would not play another snap of football this year.

On FMIA. From Mark Myerscough, of Normal, Ill.: “I think FMIA could be vastly improved by moving it to Tuesdays. Advantages:

1. You can include the (sometimes relevant) outcome of the Monday night game.

2. You have time to reflect and consider the Sunday outcomes — and possibly respond to some of the rash overreactions that come out.

3. You no longer have to write until Monday morning to hit the publication deadline, resulting in a better product (i.e., being able to fully consider all of the games).

4. I no longer have to find time in my packed Monday morning schedule to fit in reading your can’t-miss column.

Hi Mark. Thanks for the suggestion. You’re not the first to say the column would be more complete and better if it came out on Tuesday. You’re right. The column would be better. Two problems with that:

1. Maybe I’d have felt differently at 35 than I do at 65. But I don’t want to work all weekend, then wake up Monday and continue to work all day, and have to look into the two or three stories that inevitably pop up on Monday, so the column would be altogether current on Tuesday morning. I’ll give you a for-instance. Last Monday, the Broncos fired their coach, and Tua Tagovailoa was put in concussion protocol, perhaps ending his season. The top of my column was about the Steelers channeling their inner Franco Harris and beating the Raiders in the last minute. So now, I’m chasing two more stories on Monday, and the stories that were the best Monday morning are now down the list. An 11,000-word column would become 14,000-. No thanks.

2. Do people wake up Tuesday morning wanting to focus on Sunday afternoon football? I don’t think so. They’re looking ahead by then, in my opinion. Anyway, those are my thoughts, Mark. Thanks for reading.

On Franco. From Rob Simon, of Waynesville, N.C.: “My 16-year-old self and my father listened to the Immaculate Reception game in our Pittsburgh suburban home, six miles from Three Rivers (NFL blackout rules those days). He and I were jumping around the room, trying to comprehend exactly what had transpired since we couldn’t see it. That is the last great memory I have of my time with my Dad. Two weeks later he suffered a stroke. Then 50 years later Franco passes just days before the anniversary and the official retirement of his number, stirring similar emotions of loss. Multiple times on Saturday night I could not contain my tears, starting when Cam Heyward ran on to the field with the 32 flag. Your thoughts about the whole situation stirred those emotions once again.”

That’s what’s great about being a fan. You have a lifetime memory of sharing one of the greatest games in Steelers history with your Steeler-loving dad. Thanks for reminding us all why loving a team is important.

On the Yankees. From Dave Borasky, of Durham., N.C.: [I wrote last week about Yankees president Randy Levine said the franchise is the flagship team in baseball, despite winning one championship in the last 22 years.] “I gave up on MLB years ago. But I will say that while Randy Levine’s statement strains credulity, there is no corner of the world I’ve visited where I don’t see multiple people wearing caps with the Yankees logo. Last month in South Korea I would see a dozen Yankees caps in a given day in a city two hours by bullet train from Seoul where English was generally not spoken. Crazy.”

I get it, Dave. The Yankees are a franchise known around the world. I just think a team’s record over the past generation, one title in 22 years, should factor in when bragging about the prominence of a franchise.

On Shanahan. From Ryan Lockhart: “How is Kyle Shanahan not a front-runner for Coach of the Year?”

Who says he isn’t? I’ll consider him — along with Brian Daboll, Doug Pederson, Nick Sirianni, Kevin O’Connell, Dan Campbell and Steve Wilks. I’d say Daboll and Shanahan would be at the top of my list, but that could change in the next seven days.

1. I think I don’t understand a player, such as Derek Carr with the Raiders, getting replaced as the starting quarterback of a team and then leaving the team so he won’t be a distraction. Nonsense. Starters have lost jobs since the beginning of time in all sports. They should come back and support the backup — and the coach shouldn’t say, It’s okay to leave. Life is about showing up, in all circumstances. It’s just weird that a guy loses his job and it’s fine and dandy for the player and the team that he simply becomes a non-person.

2. I think this is setting up to be a crazy playoff season. Aaron Rodgers as a possible seven seed, coming in hot? Tom Brady, given up for dead in midseason, playing like 2007 Brady the last five quarters? The mystery Giants? The equally mysterious Eagles? The Kansas City-Buffalo-Cincinnati power brokers atop the AFC?

3. I think that was a good move by Bill Belichick postgame to praise two veterans who might retire, and may have been playing at home for the last time — safety Devin McCourty and special-teams ace Matthew Slater. Said Belichick: “Devin has done about everything a player could do for this program. And you could say the same thing about Matt Slater in the kicking game. I don’t know if there’s ever been or ever going to be a better player than Matt Slater as an overall special teams player, and the leadership he’s brought to the team along with Devin. Devin came in as a corner, went to the Pro Bowl, moved to safety, led the defense at the safety position from his second year on.” File those under the “Needed to be Said” category.

4. I think Lee Corso had some sweaty-palm moments just after midnight on New Year’s morning, when Ohio State lined up for a 50-yard field goal in a dome with three seconds left, trailing Georgia by one point in the college football semifinal. No good. Georgia 42, Ohio State 41. Earlier, Corso had said on College GameDay: “Ohio State’s chances in this game are between none and none.” Ohio State had a 14-point lead with 11 minutes left in the game, but yeah, the fourth-best team in college football this year had no chance to best the top-ranked team. Lucky man, this Corso.

5. I think I’ve got a good story for you about Knockout Pools. You know, the NFL game in which you pick one team every week to win, and you can only pick any team one time all season.

You may, if you’re from the New York area, have heard of Mike Goldstein. “Mike from Montclair.” He was a regular caller to the Mike and the Mad Dog Show on WFAN for years, and wasn’t afraid to joust with Mike Francesa. Mike Goldstein has three daughters. We know each other from years of living in New Jersey because I coached his two youngest, Emma and Carly, in softball in Montclair. Freddi, the oldest, has gone on to a career in PR — she was Bill de Blasio’s mayoral press secretary for a while, and works for Uber now — and she likes to put a couple of bucks down on the games she watches. Giants fan. Tom Brady hater.

Freddi, 32, was in a Knockout Pool this year. There were 663 entries, at $50 apiece. Rules allowed for entrants to have five entries, so Freddi was in for $250, picking different teams each week in each entry. “Different people have different strategies,” she said. “I thought, ‘I just gotta stay alive every week.’ I wasn’t looking at every team’s schedule and figuring I’d save the best teams for later in the season. I just looked at who had the best chance to win every week and didn’t give it many other considerations.” She looked at the Vegas lines each week, and often centered on the biggest favorites.

Week 14. Freddi had one clean entry remaining of her five. She was one of nine people left. She hadn’t picked Kansas City yet, and KC had Denver. But KC had a cake game in Week 15 (Houston). Her husband urged her to save KC for a week. Nope. Freddi took Kansas City to beat Denver. Three picked Seattle to beat Carolina. Two picked Tennessee to beat Jacksonville. Two picked Las Vegas to beat the Rams. One picked Dallas to beat Houston.

The email from the keeper of the pool came in late Sunday night of Week 14. “The hammer fell and it fell hard in week 14,” the commissioner wrote. “Two entries remain.”

Week 15. Freddi and a guy she didn’t know, Adam. He’d won the pool previously, so he seemed a formidable foe. If they were tied after 18 weeks, they’d split $30,000. But if one person fell out, the winner would win $24,000, the loser $6,000. Freddi still had the Vikings left. Vikings-Colts seemed a pretty easy pick. “But a friend of mine said the Vikings were just due for a loss,” she said. “I kind of liked New Orleans against Atlanta. The Falcons were playing a rookie quarterback making his first start. Seemed logical. Maybe I should have picked the Vikings, but I felt better about the Saints.”

Of course, it was Colts 33, Vikes 0 at the half. And the Saints sprinted out to a 14-0 lead. But Freddi and Adam hung on for wins here. Freddi’s Saints beat Atlanta 21-18. Adam picked Kansas City, and KC survived in OT at Houston 30-24.

Week 16. Freddi picked the QB she hates, Brady, to win at Arizona. Adam picked Detroit to win at Carolina.

Sunday: Panthers stunned the Lions. Monday: Bucs stumble and bumble around. It’s 16-6, Arizona, in the fourth quarter. Freddi and friends played a board game, Settlers of Catan, to ease the tension. Bucs scored a TD with eight minutes left, then kicked a field goal to send the game to overtime.

Overtime. Cards won the toss, got nothing done. Punted. Brady took the Bucs down to the Arizona 22. The game was on the phone of a friend during the board game. “Do you want to watch?” Of course, Freddi said. Ryan Succop kicked the 40-yard field goal to win, and there was some jumping up and down, some hugging. Freddi was $24,000 richer.

“I’m at the age where there’s no fun anymore,” she said. “I have to put it toward my mortgage.”

And now that she’d been enriched by the efforts of Tom Brady, her feelings must have changed about Brady. Right?

“Still hate him,” she said.

6. I think for those of you in Knockout Pools, our 2022 champion has some advice for you. “Don’t think about next week,” Freddi Goldstein said. “Get through this week. Win this week. Don’t overthink it.”

7. I think I don’t understand two things about the Denver situation. One: The new coach will report to the owner, owner’s rep Greg Penner, not the GM. That sets up the coach going over GM George Paton’s head, whether the owner thinks it does or not. What, is the owner going to want to meet with the coach every Monday after the game? Will Paton be invited? I mean, why invite a separation like that? Two: In the past few days, several offensive players, in what appears to be an orchestrated show of support for besieged quarterback Russell Wilson, have taken to Twitter to back Wilson. Jerry Jeudy Tweeted about his “elite work ethic,” K.J. Hamler about his hard work and dedication, Garett Bolles about how he “pours his heart and soul into our TEAM.” Fine. But to do it all at one time looks staged, of course.

8. I think, as much as I appreciate Wilson’s excellent decade of play in the NFL, he’s been awful this year, and his play more than anything else got a rookie head coach fired after 15 games. It’s time to shut up, take the medicine that an elite player who makes truly elite money and then plays at an F level has to take and figure a way to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Too many grandiose words, too little grandiose play.

9. I think I agree with Rodney Harrison, with an asterisk. Harrison said he thinks Brady plays in 2023, and for another team. I think if Brady plays, he’ll play for another team. I also think he’ll have to join a team that he thinks has a chance to win a Super Bowl. Is that Vegas? Indy? Some team that partners with Sean Payton? We shall see.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. Football Story of the Week: Matt Barrows of The Athletic with a really cool piece about what happens in an NFL locker room at halftime

b. Kyle Shanahan let Barrows see the inside of the locker room at halftime of Bucs-Niners last month. Barrows wrote about the perception/cliche of what happens at the half versus the reality:

The cliche involves soaring speeches and players getting whipped into a frenzy before the third quarter. And while there’s certainly a rah-rah element to the intermission, no one is delivering “win one for the Gipper” sermons in the NFL. There’s no time. Halftime lasts only 13 minutes, and the players might be inside for roughly 10 minutes.

“When you’re watching on TV, it feels like the halftime is an hour long,” said running back Christian McCaffrey. “When you’re playing, it feels like the snap of a finger.”

—

During pre-game introductions, the equipment staff began transforming the locker room, which is a 3,600-square-foot rectangle, into two classrooms. In the southeast corner, they set up four rows of folding chairs in front of a big whiteboard. That’s where the offense meets. In the opposite corner, the setup is the same for the defense.

… After three or four minutes, everyone has migrated to either the offensive or defensive sides, and the locker room settles down. This is when halftime turns into a lecture hall.

The offensive side is more intense. It’s like an advanced-level math seminar condensed to six minutes. Shanahan is on the left side of the whiteboard, scribbling down the eight or so pass plays he likes for the second half. On the right side of the board, run game coordinator Chris Foerster and tight ends coach Brian Fleury do the same for the run plays.

c. Fascinating. Congrats, Matt Barrows, on taking people where they cannot go, to teach them things they’d never know.

d. Clemente Anniversary Story of the Week: It’s been 50 years (and two days) since Roberto Clemente, on a mission of mercy to help Nicaraguan earthquake victims, plunged in an airplane to his death off the coast of his native Puerto Rico. The pain and inspiration live on to this day, as this richly researched story from Dave Bennett of the Los Angeles Times illustrates.

e. Clemente is widely known as a great humanitarian, and rightfully so. His good deeds are legendary. But this anecdote from former teammate Manny Mota — who played six seasons with Clemente in Pittsburgh — rang true about Clemente seeking perfection:

In a game at Forbes Field, the Pirates’ ballpark at the time, a batter hit a ball down the right-field line and it took a strange bounce and eluded Clemente, Mota said. What should have been a single turned into a double.

“After the game, Roberto said, ‘Manny, I want you to meet me at the ballpark early tomorrow and get a bag with 75 balls.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about? Why do you want to do that?’ He said, ‘I want to figure out how that guy hit the ball past me.’

“So the next day we got to the ballpark early and he goes out to right field and says, ‘I want you to try to hit the ball to me just like last night.’ I hit him 40, maybe 45 balls and he calls me out to right field. He had found a small piece of wood that the ball had bounced off the night before and that was why he missed it. He said, ‘Go ahead and hit me the rest of the balls. I want to make sure that never happens again.’ And that’s why he was the best right fielder in baseball.”

f. Great story, too, about Francisco Lindor saying he grew up in Puerto Rico and learned about Clemente in school, and trying to make the world a better place — the way Clemente did — became a part of kids’ DNA there.

g. RIP, Edson Arantes do Nascimento.

h. Long live Pele. Do you know how he got his first name? He was born in 1940, and his parents named him in honor of inventor Thomas Edison. He loved the name, and in fact didn’t love the soccer name he was given, Pele.

i. When I was a kid, that one word said everything — even to an American-sports-loving kid growing up in Connecticut. The expansion Hartford Bicentennials hosted Pele’s Cosmos at a rickety minor-league football stadium in Hartford, Dillon Stadium, on Aug. 1, 1975, a month before I left for my freshman year of college, and a few months after I played my last season of high school soccer. This was big. Really big. The Bicentennials won 3-1, and records of the day said there were 8,217 on hand. Pele played a lot but didn’t score. We thought we were watching royalty, even in a venue as low-down as that one. I think tickets were $3. I think about that now and it occurs to me that, for example, Lionel Messi playing anywhere in America would draw gigantic adoring crowds. The Cosmos, with Pele, drew 4,445 in Boston in 1975, 4,959 in Rochester, and 4,796 in Toronto. Different world 48 years ago.

j. I wish I could read what Grant Wahl would have written about the death of Pele, and the meaning of his life.

k. Cool Pele story: In 1968, Pele, 27, and his Brazilian team, Santos, played an exhibition at Fenway Park in Boston against the Boston Beacons. The Boston Globe dispatched a sports-department summer intern from the University of North Carolina, Peter Gammons, to cover the game. That Peter Gammons.

l. Congrats to Eli Saslow, moving from the Washington Post to the New York Times to be a writer-at-large. When Eli Saslow writes a long feature, I put down what I’m doing and pause my life for 15 minutes and devour it. A few examples:

m. The dysfunction of America, from the experience of a Denver city bus driver.

n. The challenges to Seattle mental-health caseworkers keep getting worse.

o. And my favorite from 2022 — Saslow on a great teacher from the Philippines attempting to help save a foundering school district in Arizona, and how haunting it was.

p. Those are such important stories, all of them. Saslow has a sense of what matters, what’s important to bring to the attention of the public, and how to illuminate people working everyday jobs who really are extraordinary. He has a gift, and we’re fortunate to be able to unwrap it.

q. Which reminds me of George Santos, the liar who got elected to Congress from New York in November. This might be true, and it might not be, but I have to wonder if the immense cutbacks in journalism in recent years led to one or two or 15 media outlets or reporters who would have gone down the rabbit hole to investigate Santos before the election not doing so.

r. The Santos story is beyond outrageous. He absolutely should not be seated when new members of the House of Representatives are sworn in Tuesday. He is accused of lying about going to an exclusive New York City prep school, lying about graduating from two colleges, lying about working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, lying about his grandparents who were born in Brazil having escaped the Holocaust, lying about being Jewish, lying about what he called “a proud American Jew,” lying about his mother dying on 9/11 despite one Tweeting that his mother died on Dec. 23, 2016, lying about owning rental properties. He admitted last week, after the New York Times unspooled many of the lies, that he never graduated from college, never worked for Citigroup of Goldman Sachs, that he is actually Catholic, that he never owned properties. Don’t seat this clown.

s. Luka Doncic saying “I need a recovery beer” might be the best quote after a triple-double in NBA history. That was some triple-double: 61 points, 21 rebounds, 10 assists. How does one who scores 61 points find 10 assists?

t. Remember when the legalized marijuana business was going to make everyone rich? Ben Markus of NPR went to Colorado and found out the boom has gone bust for one grower, Matt Huron, and it sounds like a lot more than that.

u. Per Marcus:

MARCUS: “Back in Denver at Matt Huron’s grow warehouse, he says marijuana has become like the hypercompetitive restaurant industry, where some will do well …”

HURON: “And then there’s, like, a gazillion other guys that open up a restaurant, and they’re out of business in a year. And that’s really what the cannabis industry is now.”

v. It takes gumption for Rick Singer, the brains behind the Varsity Blues college-admission scandal, to have taken in $25 million in bribes from the very rich to steer their kids to prestigious colleges, and kept $15 million for himself (per prosecutors), and then ask for a sentence that included no jail time. He’ll be sentenced in Boston Wednesday. Singer’s attorneys say he is living in a trailer park for senior citizens, which must mean $15 million doesn’t go as far as it used to.

w. Birthdays of the Week: On Tuesday, the most famous connection in Giants’ history will celebrate. Eli Manning turns 42 and David Tyree 43. Tied together in history and on the calendar.

x. This one crept up on me. Jim Everett turns 60 today. Where has the time gone?

y. Happy trails, Judy Woodruff, and excellent work as anchor on the PBS NewsHour for the past nine years. At 76, Woodruff cedes the anchor chair to Amna Navaz and Geoff Bennett and will be a senior correspondent for the network. The best thing anyone could say about a news anchor is you’ve got no idea watching her what her political leanings are. Woodruff was straight-down-the-middle, a trusted and smart voice.

z. RIP Barbara Walters. She fileted so many important people, in politics and the wider world, by asking the questions and saying the things so many would not. Great case in point, in an interview with the three Kardashian daughters and mom Kris Jenner a few years ago: “You don’t really act, you don’t sing, you don’t dance. You don’t have any, forgive me, any talent!” Whether it be Donald Trump or Fidel Castro or Kim Kardashian, Walters asked the well-researched questions that needed to be asked, and inspired two or three generations succeeding her — male and female — to do the same.

Most times, days, networks to be finalized today or tomorrow by the NFL.

Tennessee at Jacksonville, Saturday, 8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC. The only one of the eight divisions to have a championship game in Week 18. The winner of this game hosts a Wild Card game, very likely on Saturday of Wild Card weekend. How amazing is this: On the morning of Nov. 27, just 36 days ago, Tennessee was 7-3 and Jacksonville 3-7. Now the Jags are 8-8, with a one-game lead over the cliff-diving Titans, and Trevor Lawrence looks like Justin Herbert. My, my.

Detroit at Green Bay. The Pack, on a four-game win streak by an average of 13 points a game, wins the seventh seed by beating the pesky Lions. Detroit will need some help to win said seventh seed — namely a loss by the Seahawks, who host the Rams. Can’t see the Green Bay D, which came alive in December, getting eaten alive by the Lions.

New England at Buffalo. Pats clinched the AFC seventh seed with a win, and anything’s possible with a Belichick team. But that offense is from hunger. We won’t be sure how much the Bills are playing for till after tonight’s game at Cincinnati, but for the Patriots to win, it’d probably have to be a game in the teens, max.

N.Y. Giants at Philadelphia. So many questions surrounding this game, such as whether Jalen Hurts’ shoulder will be well enough for him to take the field against a New York team that pressures the quarterback very well. Interesting quandary for coach Nick Sirianni. Another quandary: The Giants are locked into the sixth seed. Will Brian Daboll play this game to win, or to be as healthy as possible for Wild Card weekend? Fifteen years ago last week, another Giants coach, Tom Coughlin, was locked into the fifth seed entering the final game of the year and played everyone; the valiant G-Men lost 38-35 to the Patriots and later beat New England in the Super Bowl. Brian Daboll, I am certain, will hear this story before making his call on how serious to take this game.

I think I’ve lost count

of Rodgers’ media foes.

Such fuel for him.

(The Adieu Hayku…thank you, Scott Hilburn)



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FMIA Week 13: Brock Purdy Gets the Save and the Starting Job; Burrow Still Owns Mahomes and the Chiefs

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SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Midway through the second quarter, while one of the most intense games of his six-year reign as 49ers coach was playing out on the Levi’s Stadium turf in front of him, coach Kyle Shanahan felt someone at his side, wanting to talk. It was head athletic trainer Dustin Little, waiting for a break in the action to brief Shanahan about starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

Garoppolo has a break in his foot, Little said.

“How long’s he out for?” Shanahan said.

“It’s probably six months, at least,” Little told Shanahan. “It’ll be the whole season.”

Shanahan went back to work. Miami 10, San Francisco 10. Tua Tagovailoa versus, now, Mr. Irrelevant, Brock Purdy, final pick in the 2022 draft.

Shanahan had a vital game to win, and a one-game lead in the NFC West to protect. He couldn’t tell the team, or his staff, that for the second time this year, their starting quarterback was now gone for the year. Particularly in this game, with the fastest and most explosive team in football on the other side of the field.

So he said nothing.

Afterward, he and three Niners players told me, basically, This is the life we’ve chosen. That’s one of the ways that, after Shanahan heard the news, his team was able to function like all was well. From the moment he heard the news, the Niners, and Brock Purdy, outscored Miami 23-7.

“Football is weird,” George Kittle told me afterward. “It’s a brutal, unforgiving sport. Saw Jimmy at halftime and he told me. That’s awful for your quarterback and your three-time captain. But you know, it’s kind of, ‘Well, that sucks, but we got a game to play.’ It’s like, We love you, and we’ll always love you, but we gotta go. See you after the game.”

Pause.

“It’s kinda the beautifulness and craziness of the sport, what happened today.”

What happened: This was a tragi-fantastic football game. Doesn’t sound like that, with a final of San Francisco 33, Miami 17, and a season-ending foot injury to Garoppolo, the unluckiest man in football. But the Niners led by six for 12 tense minutes in the fourth quarter, and then the floodgates opened, and it was a strange end to what for 57 minutes was a heart-pounder. It started like it’d be a Miami rout, with a 75-yard Tua Tagovailoa TD pass on the first offensive play of the game. But Tua handed the Niners 13 points, and they won by 16.

This, actually, was the best game of the season that vast swaths of the country did not see. Because this was a CBS doubleheader week and the national TV audience got a terrific Kansas City-Cincinnati game in the late window, this Fox telecast—Miami with the most explosive offense in football at San Francisco with the best defense in football—missed most of the country. It wasn’t seen on the Eastern Seaboard (Boston/New York/Philadelphia/Washington) or in New England, Tampa/St.Pete, Orlando, Los Angeles, the Pacific Northwest and most of the Midwest and Southwest.

So you saw the score, and you heard Garoppolo is gone (on the September heels of Trey Lance being lost for the year), and you wondered two things: Who is Brock Purdy? And is San Francisco’s season over?

He’s a kid. And the season positively is not over. I’ll tell you one play that blew me away, and blew Shanahan away too, that explains exactly why the season’s not kaput for the Niners.

I met with Purdy for a few minutes after the game. Looks like he’s 17. He’s 22, 6-1 (generously), needs a haircut, and seems oblivious to what he’s headed into. He talks like, Bring all that skepticism on. “A lot of people have said a lot of things about me like, I’m not good enough, this or that,” he said in a room off the locker room at Levi’s Stadium. “I just trust in God, and I’ll continue to do what I do—put my head down and go to work.”

Work this week means prepping for his first NFL start next Sunday. Against Tom Brady.

“Pretty cool,” he told me. “The GOAT. He’s been playing football longer than I’ve been alive.”

Quite a day.

The Bengals are at the top of the newsy food chain, beating Kansas City for the third time in 11 months. Weirdity: Patrick Mahomes is 0-3 against the Bengals since New Year’s Day and 12-3 against everyone else.

Nightmare in Nashville Dept. I hate the “if the season ended today” crappola, because, well, the season has five weeks left. But interesting that per the Week 13 standings, Tennessee would host Cincinnati in a Wild Card game. “Déjà vu all over again,” Ryan Tannehill says.

Deshaun Watson’s return was ignominious—Browns won 27-14 at Houston, but Watson didn’t account for any of the three TDs. Watson did not look like he was throwing at players in Cleveland uniforms. He looked like he was throwing at worms in the ground three feet in front of Browns receivers.

The A.J. Brown revenge game went very well for Brown, but not so well for the object of his vengeance.

The MVP race is a Mahomes-Hurts tossup with five weeks to go.

Joe Burrow, slayer of great players and teams, is going to have something to say about the MVP.

Lamar Jackson has a bum knee from the scary-narrow 10-9 win over Denver, but he should return by season’s end. Problem is, two pesky road games, in Pittsburgh and Cleveland, are on the horizon.

Break out the champagne, Packers. For something, anyway. (Hint: Papa Bear is rolling over in his grave.)

Denver has scored 45 points since Halloween. Dallas scored 54 Sunday night.

Russell Wilson is in the middle of a nightmare that will not go away. Two years ago, after 13 Seattle games, he had nine wins and 36 TD passes. Now, after 13 weeks in Denver, he has three wins and eight TD passes. Every week is a new low.

Quite a non-flex, NFL: Dallas 54, Indianapolis 19.

The Giants tied a game for the first time in 25 years. A few New Yorkers actually stayed awake for it, reportedly.

Greg Knapp’s widow has one heck of a cause, and she’s not afraid to be very blunt.

The Bills, today, are to New England what the Pats were to Buffalo for two decades.

Brock Purdy, though, first. And the play that makes Shanahan sure all is not lost.

 

This is my 39th season covering the NFL, and one thing that I’ve never liked is making one play a metaphor for an entire game. One play rarely is. Games have 155 plays or so in them, and in this case, it was the San Francisco defense that stood out. But I’m picking a play by this neophyte quarterback to be a vital one. Maybe not the biggest of the day, but certainly the biggest for Purdy.

Let’s recap. Miami 10, San Francisco 10. Niners ball, third-and-10 at their 35-yard line, 79 seconds left in the half, the home team already knowing that they’ve lost their second starting quarterback of the year. Garoppolo got crushed by two Miami defenders four minutes into this game. For the last 56 minutes, Purdy had to earn an incredibly valuable save.

The key point was late in the first half, on that third-and-10. At the start of the play, eight Dolphins crowded the line, a clear sign that again they would pressure Purdy heavily at the snap. On the sidelines, Shanahan prayed that Purdy would recognize the blitz and call for an adjustment to tight end George Kittle’s route. He was the primary receiver on the play, but now the correct read was for an adjustment so that Kittle would cut off his post route a bit shorter. Enough to make the first down, but not enough for a huge gain. “We had to do something quicker because we knew we weren’t going to have the time,” Shanahan said.

It was about 80 minutes after the game now, and the locker room was empty. I talked to Shanahan as he sat at a locker and tried to explain why Purdy’s decision here was so significant.

“I thought this was Purdy’s play of the game,” I said.

“I did too,” Shanahan said. “Especially with what they were doing to us. They were coming after Brock and doing a good job of taking our quick throws away. This was a huge job of Brock signaling something to change the route [for Kittle].”

There is something that Shanahan and Purdy did not know. The average NFL pass this season has been thrown 2.74 seconds after the quarterback gets the ball in his hands. Purdy threw this pass in 1.72 seconds. In the NFL this season, only five times in 13 weeks had a quarterback completed a pass of at least 10 yards in 1.72 seconds or less, per NFL Next Gen stats. This was the sixth. As Purdy prepared to get hit by Jaelan Phillips, he threw a dart to Kittle, who caught and ran for a 19-yard gain. This means something because it shows Purdy recognized the defense, changed the ball, was willing to take a big hit, and he was skilled enough to complete a downfield pass with everything going on.

“Just showing the guys I’m willing to take one on the chin, willing to do what it takes to win,” Purdy said.

Five plays later, at the Miami three-yard line, Purdy threw for Christian McCaffrey in the end zone. Not a perfect throw, but a catchable one. McCaffrey dropped it. Next play, Purdy tried McCaffrey again. Touchdown.

“After the touchdown,” Purdy said, “Christian came to me and said, ‘Thanks for believing in me and trusting me to make the play.’ That’s pretty wild. I mean, saying that to me. I grew up watching him. Now, I’m on his team, throwing him a touchdown pass. Wild.”

Niners 17, Dolphins 10. It was never closer than six the rest of the way. Purdy finished 25-for-37 with 210 yards, 2 touchdown passes and an interception.

Tua Tagovailoa will beat himself up for his consecutive interceptions and his in-and-out accuracy. Understandable. He missed four or five big throws to open receivers. But he did hit TD bombs to Trent Sherfield and Tyreek Hill. This team would be nowhere without him. So he gets a pass, and should, on a wobbly day against a great defense. Miami flew to Los Angeles after the game to practice for next Sunday night’s game at the Chargers—they’ll practice at UCLA—before the finale of a three-game road trip, a huge Week 15 game at Buffalo. Mid-December at Buffalo for the Dolphins. Fun!

As for the Niners, it’s Brockball now.

“I know the question is, can I step in and continue this ride of what our team has done?” he said after the game. “It’s not just a one-man show or anything like that. What Jimmy did for this team was amazing in terms of getting it rolling and getting us on a streak to win. The challenge for me is like, man, can I step up in that position and continue to feed those guys? Get them the ball. Make the right checks in the run game. Allow the defense to play great and play with them. That’s the challenge for me and that’s how I look at it and I’m excited for it.”

“What impressed me about Brock in camp,” Shanahan said, “is he was always willing to let it rip. He’s decisive. He started for years [at Iowa State] at a high level. You gotta have some balls to play quarterback in this league, and he does. We think we’ll have a chance with him.”

I think San Francisco’s Super Bowl chances got severely diminished Sunday. Hard to imagine Purdy walking into Lincoln Financial Field on Jan. 18 or 25 and winning a division or championship game against the steamrolling Eagles.

But Purdy won’t be afraid. And a guy who won’t give the ball away, playing with the defense, should make it interesting down the stretch. This season’s over for the cursed Garoppolo, but certainly not for the 49ers.

 

The third week of my MVP rankings are here. The 50 NFL awards voters will vote for a top five for the MVP instead of just one winner starting this year. Here are my top five in the NFL race after 13 weeks, along with five more contenders:

More Contenders:

6. Justin Jefferson, WR, Minnesota.

7. Micah Parsons, edge, Dallas.

8. Nick Bosa, edge, San Francisco.

9. Derrick Henry, RB, Tennessee.

10. Geno Smith, QB, Seattle.

Jalen Hurts is oh-so-close to number one. Joe Burrow invades the top five after torching rival Pittsburgh, then Tennessee, then Kansas City. Josh Allen and Tua Tagovailoa switch spots, with Allen moving up after leading three Bills wins in 12 days culminating with the domination of the Patriots. Off-day for Tagovailoa, but he’s allowed. Justin Jefferson goes to sixth to make room for Burrow. Debuting in the top 10: Nick Bosa, with his tour de force performance against Miami.

Agree, disagree or throw tomatoes at me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com.

 

Hello, Next Gen!

I’m fascinated by the pennant race in the AFC North. Baltimore and Cincinnati are tied for the top spot at 8-4. The Ravens have the tiebreaker with a win over the Bengals in Week Five; they have a rematch at Cincinnati Week 18. Their comparative schedules give the Ravens a slight edge, mostly because Cincinnati has a dangerous Monday night game against Buffalo at home in Week 17.

Baltimore: at Pittsburgh, at Cleveland, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, at Cincinnati.

Cincinnati: Cleveland, at Tampa Bay, at New England, Buffalo, Baltimore.

But the quarterback gives the Bengals a big edge:

Baltimore: Lamar Jackson suffered a knee injury that will sideline him for an undetermined amount of time. Tyler Huntley, a nice backup, will hold the fort.

Cincinnati: Joe Burrow’s last seven weeks: 6-1, NFL-best 118.1 rating, 74.7 percent accuracy.

In the last two weeks, Burrow has beaten Tennessee and Kansas City in one-score games, playing his best when the best was required. The throw that blew me away watching the highlights of this game was a throw that was next-to-impossible to execute, at a time when the stakes of the game were high.

The situation: Cincinnati led 27-24 with 1:59 left in the game and had third-and-11 at the KC 28-. Kansas City had no timeouts left. If the Bengals converted here, they could run out the clock with two or three kneeldowns. If they were stopped here, Evan McPherson would be called on to try a field goal to stretch the lead to six points. So this third-down snap was everything.

Per NFL Next Gen Stats, here are the odds Burrow faced:

Next Gen had that Chris Jones, Mike Danna and Frank Clark all crossed the line of scrimmage faster than what’s considered the league’s above-average get-off time of .75 seconds. Danna, who came across in six-tenths of a second, was bearing down on Burrow as he readied to throw in a hurry.

The receiver, Tee Higgins, running a post route, never had more than two yards of separation from Kansas City cornerback Joshua Williams. Watching the replay, Williams looked like he was velcroed to Higgins.

Burrow threw the ball a split-second before getting hit by Danna. At the time of the throw, Williams was 18 inches from Higgins. In his shirt, in other words. When the ball gets to Higgins, he is contacted immediately (and maybe a tick before the ball gets there) by Williams. Burrow got hit. Higgins caught the ball. Gain of 14. Game over.

“You know the quarterback they have over there,” Burrow said. “We can’t settle for a field goal there or else [Patrick Mahomes] goes down the field and wins the game. We had to find a way to get that conversion, and Tee Higgins made a big play, just like he did in the AFC Championship.”

A few things come to mind about this Cincinnati team:

The offensive line is better. Shredded last year in the playoffs and early this year while the group was getting experience together, the five men up front are giving Burrow championship protection. In the last four games, Burrow has been sacked five times—including one each by Tennessee and KC in the last two games. Those two teams bedeviled Burrow in the playoffs last year. The leadership of free-agent center Ted Karras has been important.

They’re superb when games are tight. I attribute much of this to Burrow, who has a cool gene, the way great ones in the clutch have had. Each of their three playoff wins last January was a one-score game; Cincinnati’s last three wins have come by 7, 4 and 3 over the Steelers, Titans and Chiefs. His throw to Higgins and his clinical explanation for it illustrate why he and Mahomes might be the two quarterbacks with the best clutch play late in games right now.

The defense is not just along for the ride. In the last four weeks, defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo’s unit has allowed an average of 318 yards with opposing passers completing just 60.1 percent. Mahomes was good Sunday (223 yards, one TD) but not dominant. Anarumo’s going to be a popular head-coach interview come the post-season for teams trying to figure how to beat Kansas City; he’s 3-0 against KC since January.

Even if the Bengals have to play road games through the playoffs, I doubt it’d bother them after winning in Nashville and Kansas City last year. That Week 18 game against the Ravens could determine everything, which is why I think it has the best chance of being game 272—the Sunday night game of the last weekend. It could have the most at stake of any final game. My money’s on Burrow if that happens.

 

I mean, what did you expect? Playing quarterback is not like riding a bike; you don’t just climb back on and it’s like you never left. First, you don’t replicate the speed of the game in practice because in practice a quarterback never gets hit and players aren’t playing the game-speed. Second, to go two years without getting hit by a defensive player is a big part of it. Watson will need three or four weeks – at least – to hope to be the player he was in 2019 and 2020 for Houston.

Watson played his first football game in 700 days (100 weeks) Sunday in Houston, and it would be kind to say he was rusty. He was bad. He threw multiple balls into the ground in front of receivers. He threw an interception to Texans safety Jalen Pitre that looked like Pitre was the intended receiver. He was 12 of 22 for 131, with no TDs and one pick for a poor 53.4 rating. The Browns won 27-14, but none of the three TDs was an offensive score.

Watson continued Sunday to not talk about what led to his 11-game suspension—the two dozen women who accused him of sexual harassment and assault stemming from a series of encounters with massage therapists while he was a quarterback for the Texans. On Sunday, Jenny Vrentas of The New York Times reported a text message from one of the two women who still have a pending lawsuit against Watson. “Whatever nanoscopic punishment he may have fulfilled to the satisfaction of the NFL brings neither healing nor justice to us, not protection for future women in his presence,” Vrentas quoted Lauren Baxley as saying.

“Next week I have to get better and I will be better,” Watson said after Sunday’s game. He’ll need to be. Cleveland plays at red-hot Cincinnati, and a 53.4 rating won’t be good enough.

 

Another flex decision. The NFL took it to the wire last week, announcing at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday that Kansas City-at-Denver was out of Sunday Night Football next week and the Dolphins and Chargers were in. Lots of drama went into that. The NFL didn’t want to leave FOX naked in the early window by moving Philly and the Giants from 1 p.m. ET to Sunday night. CBS protected the Jets-Buffalo game at 1 p.m., while the NFL, mindful of the Niners playing the following Thursday night, didn’t want to move Bucs-49ers to Sunday night. So that left NBC with Dolphins-Chargers, preferable to KC-Denver but not quite the ratings draw that Eagles-Giants would have been. Still, Tua-Herbert’s pretty good.

This week, it’s hard to imagine (but not impossible) that the league would keep in its prime Sunday night window 6-6 New England, playing poorly, at 5-7 and improving Las Vegas. Choosing a game to replace Pats-Raiders is complicated by the fact that the league has an NFL Network tripleheader on Saturday, Dec. 17, and one of those games is the best game of the weekend: Miami at Buffalo. The NFL may do its in-house network a solid and allow Dolphins-Bills to highlight the day and get plugged into the 8:15 Saturday night slot. NFL Network is praying for that.

But the NFL is more concerned with putting the best game it can on Sunday night. CBS has likely protected Bengals-Bucs in the Sunday doubleheader window, leaving Miami-Buffalo clearly the only choice—if the NFL is willing to diminish its Saturday lineup for Sunday night. I hear the league may be. One other factor: The Dolphins would not want to play Saturday. They got moved from Sunday afternoon in L.A. to Sunday night, meaning they probably wouldn’t arrive back home to Fort Lauderdale until around 7:45 a.m. Monday. To turn around and play arguably their most important game of the year on Saturday night, on the road, would not be desirable.

I guessed right last week—that Dolphins-Chargers would be flexed to Sunday night in Week 14. This one’s tougher, but my guess is Dolphins-Bills will go to Sunday night in Week 15. Re: the Saturday games? I’ll throw these three darts (times Eastern), with the games I think deserve a Saturday airing: Baltimore at Cleveland, 1 p.m.; Indianapolis at Minnesota, 4:30 p.m.; Giants at Washington, 8:15 p.m.

 

EAST HANOVER, N.J.—The Justin Jefferson catch three weeks ago against Buffalo, the one we’ve all seen 27 times, the one that gets better with age, got an assist from his shoulder pads. They are light, they give, they allow players to reach high in the air without the pads riding up on their necks and chin the way traditional shoulder pads do. “It really helped me extend my arms a couple extra inches,” Jefferson said.

The pads are the work of XTECH Protective Equipment, designed and manufactured in a crowded 5,000-square-foot facility in an industrial park a few miles from where the Jets train. XTECH estimates that in its 10-year history, about 80 percent of NFL players have transitioned to wearing their pads. They weigh 3.75 to 4.5 pounds, versus the 5.5 to 7 pounds of other pads, and are built so that players can have a full range of motion without the pads restricting arm use. A former NFL equipment man, Ted Monica, designed the pads knowing players always want lighter protection and better freedom of movement.

Monica and co-founder Bob Broderick thought there was so much emphasis in recent years on the helmet (rightfully so), but there was room to fix other protective equipment. Monica fixated on the shoulder pad. This little 12-employee company sells custom pads to pro, college and high school players (including Arch Manning for his high school season in New Orleans) in the U.S., and to amateur players as far away as China.

“Teddy’s a mad scientist,” said Rams director of equipment Brendan Burger, who has 52 of his players in the XTECH pads. “With the bigger pads, there’s more area for offensive linemen to grab, so he cut that down. It’s tough to get ahold of the XTECH pad. The fixes Teddy made, he basically revolutionized the shoulder pad.”

Or, as Raiders running back Josh Jacobs said, “It almost doesn’t feel like I got pads on. They’re light and comfortable, but when I get hit, I don’t feel too much either.”

Earlier this fall, on a visit to the XTECH facility, I was interested in how hands-on Monica was. The co-founder of the company sat at a sewing machine doing minute construction of one player’s pads. They were Rams safety Taylor Rapp’s shoulder pads. Rapp is a hybrid safety, who covers and plays a lot of run-support. He wanted pads lighter and slightly smaller than a traditional strong safety might wear. On this day, Monica spent an hour cutting and sewing the custom straps and padding for the webbing underneath the shell of the pad. “No two players are alike,” Monica said. “They all want their pads to feel comfortable, and they want to feel safe. That’s what a lot of the custom-fitting is about.”

XTECH co-founder Ted Monica sewing Rams safety Taylor Rapp’s custom shoulder pads.

Some players have a history with XTECH. Josh Allen wore the pads at Wyoming, and when he got to the NFL, he asked for a few fixes. One was a tight cushion, instead of the regular rubber strip, around the area of the pad that touched his neck. Another was shaving away some of the pad around his throwing shoulder so he’d have more freedom of movement when he passed. He also has a custom rib/lower sternum pad for extra protection.

Sometimes, emergencies happen. When Justin Herbert suffered fractured rib cartilage in week two against Kansas City, the Chargers called XTECH to try to craft protection so he could keep playing. After a series of FaceTimes, texts and phone calls between a team and a company 3,000 miles apart, XTECH created a pad that protected the exact area where Herbert felt the most pain. He’s been able to play for two months—and through 19 sacks—without missing time.

Football players are on a constant quest for lighter and sleeker equipment that still protects sufficiently. XTECH saw a need and filled it.

 

This month in the NFL features the “My Cause, My Cleats” program, with players and coaches wearing shoes with specialty designs to draw attention to causes that hold importance to them. On July 17, 2021, Jets passing game specialist Greg Knapp was on a bike ride near his home in Danville, Calif., when he was struck and killed by a distracted driver looking at his phone. Knapp’s widow, Charlotte, and his agent, Jeff Sperbeck, started a foundation to raise money to bring attention to the cause—3,142 Americans were killed by distracted driving in 2020—and six teams will have coaches or players wearing cleats this month drawing attention to distracted driving, and to publicize a national “stair climb.” Knapp ran stadium stairs before every game.

Charlotte Knapp on her cause to fight distracted driving:

“After Greg died, I would lay in bed thinking, ‘How can I honor Greg? How can I raise awareness for this cause?’ So we came up with the idea to do something he loved to do every Sunday before games. The Atlanta Falcons all climbed stadium steps, and other teams will now too. We hope we can raise enough money to produce PSAs that some of Greg’s quarterbacks from over the years will appear in, then air them around the country.

“I was invited to speak at a program for high schools here in California, ‘Every 15 Minutes,’ which emphasizes the importance of education on drunk driving. They’ve adopted distracted driving to their program. My daughter Camille, who is 18, came, and she said to the students: ‘Your cell phone should never be more important than your regard for others. Distracted driving sends exactly that message.’

“I stressed to the kids about the devastation that can happen in two seconds—the time it takes to just look down at a text. The devastation that took Greg’s life took two seconds. The driver looked down at the directions on the phone. When he looked up, Greg was on the hood of his car. It’s a tough conversation to have, but I wanted the students to know how broken Greg’s body was. He had a broken left tibia, a punctured lung, a broken sternum, 12 broken ribs. His biceps, deltoids and triceps were torn from the bone. Both shoulders were separated. There was brain damage, and damage to his brain stem. He went to the hospital, but he never woke up.

“That damage all happened in two seconds.

“Greg loved his job so much. He dreamed in X’s and O’s. But for him, it was all about the relationships. He made his quarterbacks talk about their families every week. He talked about his family. Losing him still feels awful. But there are little things that happen that give me hope. One parent came up to me recently—her son had been in the ‘Every 15 Minutes’ program. Her son now is the one in the family who says in the car, ‘Put your phones away.’ That feels like a little progress.”

More information on The Coach Knapp Memorial Fund here.

 

Offensive Players of the Week

Joe Burrow, quarterback, Cincinnati. What a show of cool-under-pressure excellence by Burrow. He was unshakeable, hitting 25 of 31 for 286 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. His most impressive moment came with less than two minutes left, as the Bengals had third-and-11 at the Kansas City 28 with a three-point lead, hoping to hang onto the ball and run out the clock rather than kick a field goal and give Mahomes an entire minute to drive for six points. Burrow was in the pocket for about two seconds when Chiefs DE Mike Danna broke through the line on the strong side. When Danna hesitated for a half-second (appearing to make sure Burrow still had the ball), Burrow took advantage to thread a perfect ball to a closely-covered Tee Higgins, hitting him in stride for a first down to ice the game. Burrow moves to 3-0 against Mahomes – all in this calendar year. Honorable mentions to Jonah Williams, Cordell Volson, Ted Karras, Alex Cappa, and La’el Collins on the offensive line who, less than a year after Burrow endured 20 sacks in the postseason, have held two of his tormenters (Tennessee and Kansas City) to one sack each in consecutive weeks.

 A.J. Brown, wide receiver, Philadelphia. This was the game Brown had circled on his mental calendar—the Titans coming to Philadelphia seven months after the Titans traded Brown to Philadelphia—and the drama did not disappoint. Brown’s 40-yard TD pass from good friend Jalen Hurts in the second quarter put the Eagles ahead for good, 14-7, and Brown’s well-covered 29-yard TD catch in third quarter gave the Eagles all the insurance they’d need. For the game, Brown caught eight balls for 119 yards and those two scores as the Eagles routed the AFC South leaders.

 

Defensive Players of the Week

Bobby Wagner, linebacker, L.A. Rams. Ahead of this game Wagner, who spent the first 10 seasons of his career with Seattle, downplayed the significance of facing his former team for the first time, calling it “just another game,” in classic unruffled veteran speak. But Wagner’s performance Sunday was fit for a revenge game, including two sacks, two QB hits, three tackles for loss and a gritty, momentum-shifting interception in the third quarter when he muscled the ball out of the grip of Seattle’s Tony Jones. The Seahawks came away with the win, but Wagner was everywhere Sunday, reminding his former team of the impact player he can be.

Nick Bosa, edge, San Francisco. The definition of a valuable player is one who’s at his best when moments are the biggest. Bosa sacked Tua Tagovailoa twice when the game was in the balance, and when times were desperate at the two-minute warning of the fourth quarter, Bosa strip-sacked Tagovailoa, and the fumble was returned for a rub-it-in late TD. When Bosa is in form, the Niners can win games with their D. They did Sunday.

Chandler Jones, defensive end, Las Vegas. It was a breakout night for Jones, one that will go at least part of the way to quieting critics of the mismatch between his $51 million contract signed this offseason and his impact on the field so far in 2022. Jones entered the day with just a half-sack on the season but brought down Justin Herbert three times, part of relentless pressure that also yielded him five QB hits and a pass defended in the Raiders’ 27-20 win over the Chargers.

Jalen Pitre, strong safety, Houston. The second-round rookie from Baylor, who has been a bright spot in a terrible season for the Texans, saved his best for the Deshaun Watson return to Houston Sunday. Pitre had an NFL-best 16 tackles in Week 13, and he added an interception that, at the time, was crucial—he picked off Watson three yards deep in the end zone on a bad decision by the quarterback. The Texans have a lot of holes to fill for 2023, but strong safety isn’t one of them.

 

Special teams players of the week

Donovan Peoples-Jones, receiver/returner, Cleveland. While Deshaun Watson struggled mightily in his first game back, Peoples-Jones saved the Browns from eternal first-half damnation. Down 5-0 with four minutes left in the second quarter, Peoples-Jones took a punt at the Cleveland 24-yard line, got hit by three Texans, weaved to the right sideline and won a footrace for a 76-yard TD. Boy, did the Browns need that.

Greg Zuerlein, kicker, N.Y. Jets. Scored 12 straight points between late in the second quarter and midway through the fourth, almost enough to lift the Jets to an upset of the Vikings in Minnesota. His five field goals—from 48, 60, 36, 30 and 26 yards—in five tries made this day reminiscent of some of the biggest Greg the Leg games.

 

Coach of the Week

Lou Anarumo, defensive coordinator, Cincinnati. This was a huge win for the Bengals, their fourth straight, against a powerhouse Chiefs squad. Today, the “Big Play Bengals” moniker was a perfect fit for Anarumo’s defense, including two key plays in the final quarter. It’s rare we see Travis Kelce lose the ball – in fact, Bengals linebacker Germaine Pratt was responsible for Kelce’s first lost fumble of the season, halting the Chiefs’ first drive of the quarter and keeping the game within reach. Then, with Cincy up 27-24 in the final five minutes, Joseph Ossai sacked Patrick Mahomes on third and three to force a 55-yard Harrison Butker field goal attempt that sailed wide right, and just like that, the Bengals are 8-4. Anarumo interviewed for the Giants vacancy last season, and he’s rumored to be a head-coach candidate again this year. Neutralizing Kelce and helping the Bengals keep pace with the Ravens in the North can’t hurt his chances for a big job.

 

Goat of the week

Matt Patricia, assistant coach, Patriots. Not because Mac Jones yelled either at him or out of frustration Thursday night in the 24-10 loss to the Bills, or because offensive players subtly questioned Patricia’s play-calling after the game. But because the Patriots have developed zero downfield passing game, with nobody remotely threatening the secondary. Against the Bills, just seven of Mac Jones’ 36 passes went 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage or farther. You could argue that Jones—who completed just one of those seven throws—didn’t play well enough to deserve the trust of Patricia to throw to intermediate and deep areas. What I would say is Jones, the previous week against Minnesota, had completions of 26, 34, 16, 14, 37 and 40 yards on throws 10 yards or more past the line of scrimmage. The Buffalo game was a regression of major proportions. Patricia needed to build on the Minnesota game and did not.

  

I.

It truly has been a second home to me.

–Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers, on Soldier Field, after the Packers beat Chicago 28-19

 

II.

I would rather be 1-9-1 than have Deshaun Watson as my quarterback.

–Sign at NRG Stadium in Watson’s first game back in the NFL after his 11-game suspension.

 

III.

It’s a little weird. Like, after the game you don’t really know what to do next. Even the fans are still standing in the stands like, ‘We go to PKs, or what do we do?’

–Washington wide receiver Terry McLaurin, reacting to the 20-20 tie with the Giants.

 

IV.

I don’t think an NFL game should be able to end in a tie.

–Washington defensive tackle Jonathan Allen.

 

V.

My challenge is still to provoke change, no matter where I am. I’m 55 and don’t plan on changing anytime soon. God made me like this, and I think God is pleased with what he created.

–New University of Colorado coach Deion Sanders.

 

VI.

It’s embarrassing, what we put out there in such a big game for us. That’s the word to describe it—embarrassing.

–Jacksonville QB Trevor Lawrence after the 26-point loss in Detroit.

 

In the last 13 months:

  • Cincinnati is 0-3 against Cleveland (by 25, 5 and 19 points).
  • Cincinnati is 5-0 against the team that was the top seed in the 2021 AFC playoffs, Tennessee, and the team that entered this weekend as the top seed in the ’22 AFC playoffs, Kansas City. Margins in those five games: 3, 3, 3, 4 and 3 points.

 

I.

From late 1921 to Sunday afternoon, the Chicago Bears (nee Decatur Staleys) were the winningest franchise in NFL history. No more, at least for one week. The Packers beat Chicago Sunday at Soldier Field, so now the winningest teams in NFL history are Green Bay with 787 wins, Chicago with 786.

 

II.

The Bills and Patriots have played four times in the last 52 weeks. Bridging those four games, from the 12-minute mark in the fourth quarter of the Dec. 6, 2021 regular-season meeting to the four-minute mark of the second quarter last Thursday night, Buffalo had 24 offensive possessions. The Bills, in those 24 drives over four games, had 13 touchdowns and zero punts.

 

I.

Sam Farmer of the LA Times covers the NFL.

 

II.

The former Seattle and San Francisco corner with some truth-speaking.

 

III.

Mike Tomlin, thanking the omnipresent Steeler fans in Atlanta after the Pittsburgh win.

 

IV.

Danny Kanell, former college and NFL QB, with a smart lesson for a rising-star player.

 

V.

Chris Long’s podcast with one of the cool clips of the week, starring the sharpshooting Iowa Hawkeye.

 

VI.

Golic with a replay of one of the great plays, this by the University of Houston women’s volleyball team, that you’ll ever see in any sport.

 

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com, or on Twitter @peter_king.

Worried about sports gambling. From Jim Sweeney, of Wilmington, Ohio: “The gambling industry has never ever regulated itself well. I grew up in grocery retail and there was always two people in every store I worked in making book for … and that meant there was usually three, four, six, 10 employees or customers who were in way over their head financially and they did not have the option to declare bankruptcy. I absolutely hate seeing stuff thrown at my 14-year-old son—are you gambling yet, why aren’t you gambling, you can gamble with your parent’s credit card. We all also know gamblers without having a clue to their addiction and that allows them to steal from their parents, their friends, and their children.”

Excellent points, Jim. I fear that we’re going to see a lost segment of this generation with ruined lives because of the ease and the pervasiveness of sports gambling.

Hates pushing the pile. From Zachary Edwards: “The NFL needs to do something about pushing the pile. I saw two games this Thanksgiving week that included designed QB sneaks where players were motioned into the backfield to deliberately push the quarterback forward. That’s ridiculous.”

From your keyboard to the Competition Committee’s ears. I firmly believe the NFL needs to outlaw pushing the pile, both for competitive and safety reasons.

Thinks I am trying to sell my MVP vote. From Richard Worley: “I think your ‘apparently trying to sell your opinion as a voter for MVP’ is ethically questionable and eliminating one person because he is on the team of one of your other choices seems pretty arbitrary. It has not been unusual to have a second contender for the MVP award on the team of the winner.”

Sell my opinion? I’ve got 50 opinions in this column every week—why pick out this one? I don’t get that. As far as not supporting a second MVP candidate from a team, that’s my feeling. If I view a player to be the second-most valuable player on his team, I don’t see how he can be a legit candidate for the league MVP. I’ll use Tyreek Hill as an example. I have Tua Tagovailoa number five on my MVP list. Let’s say I thought Hill has worthy of being 6 on the list. That’d mean I would view, on my list, Mahomes-Hurts-Burrow-Allen-Tagovailoa 1 through 5, and Hill 6. So the second-most valuable player on a three-loss team would be more valuable than Justin Jefferson, Micah Parsons or Derrick Henry, all of whom are keys to strong playoff contenders. I don’t see it. Here’s the point, Richard: My opinion is my opinion. I’m one of 50 voters. If others feel differently, that’s okay. Everyone’s entitled to his/her view.

Thinks I hate the Bengals. From Bill Schneider: “I have enjoyed your insight covering the NFL over the years, with the exception of one thing. That being your obvious hate for the Bengals. After they beat the mighty Titans for the 2nd straight time, on the Titans home field, you give the Bengals no love. I am old enough to remember your days at the Cincinnati Enquirer. Not sure if you left on bad terms, if you were too big to be in small-market Cincinnati, or your hate for the Brown family still lingers from your days here.”

Every week I have to make choices, Bill. You’re right about the Bengals having a huge win last week in Tennessee, and I easily could have chosen to write about them. There’s nothing I can write to change your opinion, I’m sure. But I don’t hate the Bengals. I don’t hate any team.

He likes the other stuff in FMIA. From Greg Mitch, of Ocean Pines, Md.: I love your football knowledge and writing, and it’s the first column I read on Monday mornings. I especially enjoy the non-football content, and the links you share about the various NPR-type stories that intrigue you, are also enlightening to me, and I’m happy to learn more about our world, like yourself.  The lithium article/podcast is particularly relevant as we move toward electric vehicles, and this article helped me learn about what we’re facing.”

Thanks Greg. I hope the extra stuff in the column both entertains and educates the way it does for me.

 

1. I think the Titans might just be in a slump, but man, averaging 18 points isn’t going to get much done in the post-season. I keep thinking of Mike Vrabel appearing (and that’s all it was—appearing) to be miffed in the Tennessee draft room after the trade of A.J. Brown to Philadelphia on draft weekend. Whatever his feeling was, and is, the Tennessee offense looked bad again at Philly Sunday. How’s this for salt in the offensive wound: The Titans have a worse point differential (minus-21) than Jacksonville (minus-14).

2. I think one thing I never thought would happen this year is going to happen: Detroit’s first-round pick from the Rams will be higher than its own pick. Right now the pick from the Rams is four and the Detroit pick is 15. That second pick could creep lower, too. Detroit’s 4-1 in its last five and obliterated the Jags Sunday.

3. I think there were a few designs that stood out to me from this week’s “My Cause My Cleats.” (Note: I did not see all of them.)

a. Brian Robinson’s “End Gun Violence” design, benefitting Everytown, an organization working for gun safety. Robinson was shot twice in August.

b. Eleven Houston players’ “Metchie Strong” design, in support of their teammate John Metchie III, who is sitting out this season as he battles leukemia.

c. Bucs co-owner Darcie Glazer Kassewitz’s unique spin on “cleats,” benefitting the Women’s Sports Foundation.

(Tampa Bay Buccaneers)

4. I think I learned so much I didn’t know about tight ends, and about football, from Tyler Dunne’s book “The Blood and Guts: How Tight Ends Save Football.” Best sentence in the book: “The tight end is the sport itself distilled to one position.” When you do a book, you start with a premise—that one right there—and you build your story around it. I like how Dunne did it. He went through eras of modern football using the great tight ends to tell their own stories and the stories of how the game has changed. The anecdotes are priceless: Wait till you read the one about the day George Kittle was born, and how football practically seeped into his mother’s womb. Anyway, here’s a gem from the Mike Ditka section, which emphasized Ditka’s love of hitting and the rare softness of his hands—perfect traits for a tight end if only someone would recognize it:

It’s no coincidence that over the course of his career, 1961 to 1972, the number of Americans who cited pro football as their favorite sport increased by 15 percent while baseball slid from 34 to 21 percent. The sport’s inherent violence was intoxicating—ruthless yet aesthetically beautiful.

…

He cannot fathom how his two hands would go on to catch 427 passes in professional football.

“Luke Johnsos. Without him, I wouldn’t be talking to you today.”

Johnsos played for the Bears from 1929 to 1936 before then coaching under founder/owner/head coach George Halas for the next 33 seasons. As the team’s offensive coordinator in 1961, Johnsos recognized that Ditka owned a set of soft hands for his size and knew it would be difficult for defensive backs to tackle him in open space. The birth of the tight end was rooted in simple strategy. Detached from the trenches, a large human could do serious damage against much smaller humans.

5. I think Dunne’s book is a jarring reminder of what good coaches do. I mean, good Those coaches find players on their roster who are matchup problems for the opposition. Ditka wasn’t a matchup problem. He was a matchup nightmare. Luke Johnsos, rest his soul, figured out how a man the size of a tackle with the hands of Don Hutson could murdelize a defense. In his first season, 1961, Ditka caught 56 passes for 1,076 yards, a ridiculous 19.2-yard average, with 12 touchdowns. And a great career was born. Look at the tight ends since then who have dominated, all the way up to Travis Kelce and George Kittle and Mark Andrews today. They can catch, and they can block, and they’re happy to do both. Nice job by Dunne reminding us all what football really is. It’s a game of very physical matchups, mostly.

6. I think I’ve started to wonder—and I emphasize started—whether Bill Belichick, who needs 21 wins to break Don Shula’s all-time record for coaching victories, will get them in New England. Series of “I thinks” will explain why.

7. I think I got a great text Thursday night, in the midst of the Buffalo-New England game, from a smart, veteran NFL scout. The text: “Watching Mac Jones and Josh Allen throw in the same game isn’t good for Mac Jones.” I swear, 30 seconds later, Allen, running to his right, threw a perfect strike 58 yards in the air into the end zone for what momentarily was a touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs. (It got called back.) But the collective difference between the passers in the four meetings between Allen and Jones is stark.

8. I think that game Thursday night said this to me: The Bills have become to New England what the Patriots were to Buffalo for two decades. Not to put Josh Allen on a Tom Brady trajectory, but just in terms of football, the gap between Allen and Jones is worrisome for New England, and the talent gap between the depth of the Brandon Beane Bills and the Bill Belichick Patriots is big. That gap has led to the Bills winning the last three games in the series by an average of 19 points. Amazing to consider that the Patriots really aren’t close to Buffalo now. To triple-down on the differences between the two teams, consider how non-competitive that game felt. Buffalo was playing without two of its five most important defensive players, Von Miller and Micah Hyde, and still controlled the ball for 38 minutes. Midway through the fourth quarter, with the Bills up 24-7, New England, needing three scores, had the most painful, clunky drive imaginable—17 plays, taking almost six minutes, and getting just a field goal out of it. Six incompletions on the drive. When it was over, and Buffalo got the ensuing onside kick, Belichick didn’t even bother to use his three timeouts to try to get the ball back. He white-flagged the last two minutes. That’s how hopeless this felt.

9. I think Robert Kraft, who is 81 and will enter his 30th year of Patriots ownership in 2023, is not in this to rebuild deliberately. He has to be looking at the dung-show on the Patriots’ offensive staff and wondering why Belichick left the offense so wanting this year. Anyway, I can’t see anything weird happening this year. But I have my antennae up about the Patriots for 2023.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. So close, you Ohio Bobcats. Mid-American Conference Championship Game Saturday at Ford Field: Toledo 17, Ohio 7. So my alma mater still hasn’t won a MAC football title since 1968. Bummer. But heck of a season for the Bobcats, particularly after losing the best quarterback in the conference, Kurtis Rourke, to a knee injury last month.

b. Colorado coach Deion Sanders. It’s got a nice ring to it. I love the story, and I’ll love it if Sanders can get the Buffaloes back to glory days. Who’s going to out-recruit Deion?

c. Texas pitcher Jacob deGrom. I understand taking five years and $185 million, particularly when no one else is offering that much. But I will harp on this: deGrom has missed 65 percent of the last three years with injuries. He’ll be 35 in midseason 2023. He’s pitched 224.1 innings in the last three years; N.L. Cy Young winner Sandy Alcántara pitched 228.2 innings in 2022 alone. Giving deGrom five guaranteed years reminds me of the contract Cleveland gave to Deshaun Watson. The only way the Browns could have gotten Watson to come to Cleveland was to offer him a five-year fully guaranteed deal for sick money. The only way the Rangers could have gotten deGrom to come to Texas was to offer him a five-year fully guaranteed deal for sick money.

d. The Howard Stern interview with Bruce Springsteen, all 136 minutes of it, was a great and prying and emotional and insightful look into the life and times of Springsteen, and a little bit into Howard as well. If you have HBO, you can watch it here. If not, you can see some clips on SiriusXM, where it aired five weeks ago.

e. It took me four good dog-walks to get through it all. And SiriusXM: now I’ve got a subscription and the app on my phone, so you’ve hooked me, for now.

f. So many enlightening things, but what struck me was how appreciative Springsteen sounded for this gigantically famous and wealthy life. It all happened because, as he explains, his Catholic ethos and drive could not be extinguished when he was a teen in Jersey determined to be great at the guitar:

“I was obsessed with it. It was everything. It was an enormous part of my day growing up, every day. What are the odds of being successful? Very, very slim. I stood on the stage of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame one night, and I had Mick Jagger to my right and George Harrison on my left.

“I go, ‘Okay. Millions of kids in 1964 picked up a guitar. Millions. A few of them learned to play a little bit. A few of those got in a little local band. A few of those might have gotten into a recording studio and made a demo and maybe they even had one record released. A few of those, maybe, made an album. A few of those had an album that was successful. A few of those had a career that lasted more than four or five years.

“You start whittling it down, and you realize, well, for better or for worse, I was the one that ended up on the stage that night. It’s as shocking to me as it is to anybody else. I put all the time and work in, but there’s still a lot of natural ability and luck that goes into it. And I never take it for granted.”

g. Over the years, I’ve realized how weary the non-Bruce segment of the populace is of the Springsteenaholics. All good. But if you’re a fan, this is the best interview of the guy I’ve ever heard.

h. Football Story of the Week: Logan Murdock of The Ringer with a really insightful piece on an oft-misunderstood player, cornerback Marcus Peters of the Ravens, confronting his football mortality.

i. I like the way Murdock writes it, because Peters talks to him like they’ve known each other for a long time, which they have. And Murdock doesn’t sanitize the language. The most interesting thing, I thought, was the stuff about his leadership role on the Baltimore D:

Along the way, he became the team’s elder statesman. When young defensive backs need reassurance, he’s there to provide a lesson. “He’s the guy in the DB room and even in the defensive room when things start going awry, he gets everybody back on the same page,” rookie safety Kyle Hamilton tells me. “When we’re maybe a little unfocused, he focuses back up and he’s a great vet in that way and gets everybody on the same page.”

And in a locker room with many players who were in grade school when Peters was drafted, he’s become a respected voice on the team.

“He a real individual, you know he gon’ keep it real,” Jackson tells me. “That’s what you want. I consider him an OG because he’s been in the league and he’s smart as f—, he knows what he’s doing when he’s out there on that field. He’s one in a million at that cornerback position. A lot of respect from me, fasho.”

j. “Fasho.” Had to think about that for a few seconds. “For sure.” Very nice job by Murdock. I learned a lot about Marcus Peters.

k. Dennis Byrd Remembrance of the Week: Thirty years ago this week, the former New York Jets defensive end was paralyzed in a game against Kansas City. I wrote about a player I’d never met for Sports Illustrated that week.

Byrd was eventually able to walk again through rehabilitation. Here he is having his jersey retired in 2012. (Al Pereira / Getty)

l. Byrd died in 2016. So many things I’ll never forget about this story. I tear up right now thinking about it. I read this story now and again to remind myself of the goodness that is in so many people who we never know. Byrd, a White man from Mustang, Okla., and roommate Marvin Washington, Black and from Dallas, got to be great friends, and Washington was a great resource for this story.

m. I speculated why Byrd, in the days after the on-field collision in New Jersey, became such a notable person when no one knew who he was before it happened. I wrote:

Maybe it was something Byrd said when he was praying with some friends in his hospital room the night before he underwent a seven-hour operation to clear debris from his injured spinal column and stabilize his spine. “God, I know you did this for a reason,” Byrd said. “I’m your messenger.”

Or maybe it was the message that Byrd’s wife, Angela, sent by way of Jet kicker and family friend Cary Blanchard to the huge press contingent waiting for word, any word, on Dennis’s condition. “Tell them Dennis says he’s glad God chose him for this, because he has the strength to handle it,” she said. “And tell them I’m glad God chose me as Dennis’s partner.”

His vision blurred by tears, Blanchard delivered the message.

…

On the Saturday night before the fateful game against the Chiefs, Byrd and Washington, roommates on the road and whenever the Jets stay in a local hotel the night before a home game, prayed together in their room at the Marriott Glenpointe, in Teaneck, N.J. Then they watched “A League of Their Own” on pay TV, and after that they talked for an hour before turning out the lights to go to sleep.

“I love you, Marvin,” Byrd said.

“I love you, Dennis,” Washington said.

“Every week we say that to each other before we go to sleep,” Washington says.

Washington once noticed that when they prayed in their room the night before a game, Byrd would roll something around in his hands, as someone might finger a rosary. It was a tiny leather sack. Dennis told him it contained locks of hair and personal trinkets from Angela and [daughter] Ashtin and jewelry that had belonged to his mother. “He does it so he can feel close to his family,” Washington says.

n. How much did Dennis Byrd resonate with America? About a week after that story ran in the magazine, I got a letter from a pastor who told me he’d read my story to his parish for his Sunday sermon. Not for part of the sermon. That was the sermon. I don’t credit me. I credit Byrd the person.

o. Can’t get too upset by the U.S. losing to the Netherlands in the World Cup. The Dutch are better. They finish so well, which we do not. And two of our three best players in the tournament (IMO), Sergiño Dest and Tyler Adams, will regret not keeping up on two goals on crosses in the box. Soccer’s a cruel game sometimes. It punishes you for lapses like the defensive ones Dest and Adams had.

p. Jewel of a goal against Iran, Christian Pulisic. How wonderfully fitting it was that the man who had been the great hope for the U.S. soccer movement for years, and who has shouldered that pressure with class since being a kid in Harrisburg, went to Qatar knowing if the U.S. didn’t survive the group phase and get to the knockout round, he would get the majority of the blame for not lifting his team. He not only scored the goal to get the U.S. to the round of 16, but he did it while endangering himself at full speed.

q. Andrew Beaton, the Wall Street Journal writer who mostly covers the NFL but also dabbles in other sports, is so good at finding the stories the rest of us wish we’d written. In Qatar, Beaton wrote this gem on U.S. goaltender Matt Turner, who shut out England and Iran in the group phase and allowed only a penalty-shot goal against Wales—zero non-penalty goals in three World Cup games (before allowing three, not much his fault, against Holland).

r. At Fairfield (Conn.) University, Turner’s claim to fame was a blooper of a goal he let in against Iona in 2013 that ESPN played about a thousand times. But his is the story of a player who wouldn’t let his worst moment define him—and was willing to do anything, like playing for a low-level pro team in Richmond for two years, to earn his chance to tend goal at the highest level of the sport. Wrote Beaton:

Before Turner became a goalkeeper for Arsenal and the U.S., he needed a bit of happenstance just to get a job with a lower league team like the Richmond Kickers. Scouts for Champions League clubs don’t exactly make a habit of combing through Fairfield University.

But on the advice of a friend who happened to attend Fairfield, Remi Roy, then the goalkeeping coach of the MLS’s New England Revolution, checked out Turner on tape. “It was a little bit of luck that my buddy called me and sent it to me,” Roy says.

Roy was impressed, but the team never had any intent on drafting Turner. That would’ve been wasting a draft pick when the Revolution could just sign him as an undrafted free agent. After that, the club needed somewhere to stash him.

Turner was nowhere near ready to play in MLS yet, so the Revolution worked out a deal with a lower-tier team: Turner would train all week in New England, and then after practices on Friday he would fly to play with the Richmond Kickers to get game action.

s. That’s the guy who shut out mighty England. There’s a lesson in that for all of us: Sometimes life does throw you too many obstacles to succeed, surely. But as much as you can, control your own life story.

t. Podcast of the Week: “Abbott Elementary” creator Quinta Brunson, interviewed by Doreen St. Felix on The New Yorker Radio Hour.

u. “Abbott Elementary” is wonderful—the only non-sports primetime TV show I watch regularly. Brunson reads her place and time so perfectly. This is an educational listen on Brunson, her thought process, and TV today.

v. Said Brunson:

“Abbott is really great because the stories of this school are unique to those walls. It doesn’t concern itself with world events. That was another cheat code of Abbott is I don’t have to bring in world events to the show. When we go into the Abbott writer’s room, the news doesn’t even matter, we are talking about what is going on with these people in this school.

“Abbott is so much inspired by everyday people. I find people who just wake up in the morning and go to their job—I find that to be the most triumphant. I watched my mom go to work every day. She never complained, which was so fascinating to me. My mother’s a teacher. She retired but her job is hard. I’m sure people in this room have hard jobs, way harder than mine. You get up and you put your clothes on and you get out of bed and you go to f—ing work and people probably aren’t that nice to you. You’re not getting paid as much as you should. I don’t care what you do, you’re not getting paid as much as you should be paid and that is the most triumphant act. There is nothing that I could do or the president could do or anyone can do that is more triumphant than someone going to their sh—y job.”

w. So cool.

x. Georgia-Ohio State, Michigan-TCU. I mean, you’ll have to tell me because it’s not my specialty. But that’s a pretty lukewarm twinbill for the football semis, isn’t it?

y. RIP, Christine McVie. One of my favorite voices in modern music.

z. My sympathy to the family of Kevin Monaghan and wife Hilary Walsh on the loss of their daughter Molly. When I got to NBC full-time in 2018, Kevin was my godfather and problem-solver, and he was invaluable to me. He still is. Now retired, Kevin and the family will deal with the death of Molly employing the same love and warmth they shower on everything in their lives. There was a memorial for Molly Monaghan Friday in the town where Kevin and Hilary raised the family, Montclair, N.J. There were so many people, maybe 500, who jammed a local pub, Egan and Sons, that it spilled over into the back courtyard. The love in that Irish bar was palpable. So many of Molly’s friends from high school, and so many business and personal friends there for Kevin and Hilary. The sadness in the place was heavy, the love for the family immeasurable.

 

Tampa Bay 24, New Orleans 20. I tried to talk myself into picking my preseason faves, but the Saints scored 12.5 points a game in November, and it’s hard to trust an offense in which the top two backs, Kamara and Ingram, might not combine for 1,000 yards.

 

N.Y. Jets at Buffalo, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET, CBS. I wouldn’t be so sure this game will be a breather for the Bills. Entering Sunday, the Jets were fourth in yardage allowed and fifth in points allowed. When the Jets shocked the Bills in the Meadowlands a month ago, they held Buffalo to a season low in yards (317) and sacked Josh Allen a season-high five times. Tape don’t lie. If the Jets don’t turn it over, this will be a game.

Philadelphia at N.Y. Giants, 1 p.m. ET, FOX. Giants staved off the Big Fade with their first tie in 25 years Sunday, but the Giants’ offense sputtered again. Now there are games against 11-1 Philly, 7-5-1 Washington and 10-2 Minnesota on the horizon. Yikes.

Miami at L.A. Chargers, 8:20 p.m. ET, NBC. Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert, the fifth and sixth picks in the 2020 draft, have faced each other once—25 months ago in Miami, in a clash between Brian Flores’ Dolphins and Anthony Lynn’s Chargers. Salvon Ahmed and Kalen Ballage—admit it, you’ve heard of neither—were the leading rushers in that game. Neither quarterback threw for 190 that day. Miami won. Not a game to put in anyone’s time capsule.

 

So you’re telling me

Almost two years between games

Is significant?

 



Read original article here

Sports

FMIA Week 7: Geno Smith Isn’t Surprised By His Hot Start And Inside The Christian McCaffrey Trade

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Okay, so it’s an odd season. I’d argue most seasons have a chunk of bizarre after seven weeks. The Cards were 7-0 on this date a year ago. Kansas City scored three points in Week Seven last year. Things happen.

This year, the weirdness includes Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson all having losing records. The defending Super Bowl champs, the Rams, are 3-3, and probably are lucky to be 3-3. The Jets and Giants have firm grips on playoff spots.

But the story of the first two months of this season is the comeback story of all comeback stories. Geno Smith is good. He’s really good. He’s the most accurate quarterback in football, he’s the third-highest-rated quarterback in football, he’s in the top five in MVP consideration right now, and he’s got the Seattle Seahawks alone in first place in the NFC West.

He’s also totally unsurprised.

“After not playing much for eight years,” I asked Smith Sunday evening, “what’s one or two things that have surprised you so far this year?”

“Nothing,” Smith told me evenly after Seattle’s 37-23 win at the Chargers Sunday. “Nothing has surprised me. In fact, I know I can play a lot better.”

On a day when Taylor Heinicke beat Aaron Rodgers, P.J. Walker beat Tom Brady, Christian McCaffrey wore a new number for a new team, and Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes chased perfection, Smith had a pretty modest day: 20 of 27, 210 yards, two TDs. He wasn’t even his team’s biggest star. Kenneth Walker, the rookie running back, was unstoppable.

When you haven’t played much for the last eight years, you could give a flip about things like credit and headlines. You exult in the everyday joy of playing football when you thought there was a pretty good chance you’d never have the chance to be handed the reins of a team again. Geno Smith was invisible for seven years. And now we see you, Geno. Everyone sees you.

Before I get into Geno Smith, a few words about the Sunday night game. Tua Tagovailoa played for the first time since his harrowing concussion experience 24 days ago, and as both he and coach Mike McDaniel said after Miami’s 16-10 win over Pittsburgh, he looked rusty. He hadn’t played or practiced for about two weeks, and it looked like he struggled at times with the speed of the game. He had three potential interceptions dropped — by Levi Wallace, Cameron Sutton and Terrell Edmunds — and a fourth could have been picked off.

More concerning, perhaps, was his first-half collision — caused by Tagovailoa — with rugged 234-pound Steeler linebacker Devin Bush. He told Melissa Stark in a post-game interview on NBC that plays like the Bush collision “are things I shouldn’t be doing.” Well, of course. But it could take time to break habits formed over years of football, including playing for Nick Saban at Alabama. For this game, all’s well that ends in a win, breaking a three-game Miami losing streak and leaving the Dolphins 4-3.

Smith won over Pete Carroll last year by his confidence when playing three games for the injured Russell Wilson. But no one in the organization thought when they traded Wilson that Smith would be a 30-percent upgrade over what Wilson would become in Denver.

His two touchdown throws to Marquise Goodwin against the Chargers were perfect examples of what Smith has become. On the first one, toward the right side of the end zone five yards in, Smith threw about 38 yards in the air to a spot where only Goodwin could make the catch. On the second, slightly deeper on the left side, Smith threw a high ball again that only Goodwin could catch, and he made it look easy over J.C. Jackson with his great leaping ability.

Not the greatest throws of the NFL weekend. But exactly where they should be, timed perfectly. Surprised Smith is completing 73.5 percent? You wouldn’t be if you watched those throws.

That’s where I’ll start our conversation — with Smith’s accuracy. The last time he was a regular starter, with the Jets in 2013 and ’14, he completed 57.5 percent. And yet, the 16-percent increase barely impresses him. I’m going to present his words as a stream of consciousness, because he spoke in long paragraphs and made quite a bit of sense, so I’ll let him explain this unexpected season.

”In my rookie year playing with the Jets, we went 8-8 and missed the playoffs by one game. The reality is, it’s hard to win the NFL with a young quarterback. That’s just the reality of the NFL. So much goes on that you have to know in order to be successful. Quarterbacking is a skill more than just a talent. I’m just happy I’ve just continued to develop.

“I know I might’ve struggled out the gate in pro football. That’s just the reality of the NFL. Sometimes they give up on you fast. The numbers at the beginning of my career are kind of skewed if you ask me. If you look at Peyton Manning, if you just judge his rookie season, you’d never think Peyton Manning would’ve become what he became. Steve Young too. Troy Aikman. The list goes on and on and on. Just gotta have patience with young quarterbacks. You gotta find the right young quarterbacks with the right mentality who are gonna continue to work and have a great attitude about the game and the struggle.

“Over the years, not playing was heartbreaking. I’m so competitive and I love playing so much that I really wanted to be out there every single game. But what’s that cliche? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? I know I’m better for all those years. Coming into this year, I wasn’t sure what would happen [after the trade of Wilson to Denver]. When Pete Carroll hit me up and was like, ‘Hey I’m giving you opportunity to compete for the job,’ I mean, that’s all you have to say to me. That was awesome. He’s shown faith in me. That’s just what I need.

“You ask me what am I focused on during the week. Playing hard, doing what I’m coached to do. It’s that simple. I don’t think about failure. My thought process is I need to run on the field with my linemen and play just as hard as they’re playing and do exactly what I’m coached to do and then let my talent take over after that. It’s that simple in my mind.

“Our success so far starts with the trust and belief of our head coach. Not many coaches would start two rookies on the offensive line, a rookie running back, two rookie cornerbacks. Not many coaches would be comfortable starting a quarterback who hasn’t played in many years. But Pete does it because he knows what he’s looking at. He’s played young guys before, lots of times. He’s taken chances on players, lots of time. He knows how to coach ball. You can see that this year.

“I think we’re built to last for this season and many seasons. But ultimately, it comes down to what we do, not what we say. It’s about the work we put in. it’s about the consistency. And our preparation and consistency and our togetherness. That’s all that matters. As long as we continue to build together, the sky’s the limit. It takes work. It takes hard work. We gotta embrace that part of it.”

That is one mature dude. No bitterness about being kicked to the curb for so long. Just gratitude for his place in the game, right here, right now.

Hello Next Gen!

10

Aided by FMIA’s partnership with Next Gen Stats this season, and telling a deeper story of one of the headlines of week seven, Joe Burrow’s dominance. And my interview with Burrow after Cincinnati’s most complete offensive performance of the season, a 35-17 rout of the Falcons.

Today: Joe Burrow’s best throw of the season, and how impossible it was for Atlanta to bother him Sunday.

Of the many impressive things about Burrow’s 481-yard performance Sunday, consider that Burrow had the best quick-throw game of any quarterback in the 112 games so far this season. Per Next Gen, on passes thrown in less than 2.5 seconds (notable because of the Bengals’ difficulty in protecting their QB this year), Burrow was 21 of 25 for 254 yards and two TDs with no interceptions. Completing 84 percent on quick throws. My, my.

Two other NGS nuggets that point to why the Bengals are euphoric that Burrow is their quarterback: Burrow may not have a peer when it comes to downfield throws right now. He was 15 of 20, 75 percent, for 335 yards and all three TDs on passes that traveled 10 yards or more past the line of scrimmage…Also, the Falcons blitzed on just two of 45 Burrow pass drops, and he threw for 467 yards against four or fewer rushers.

I want to isolate on two throws. The first traveled 42 yards in the air, on the first play of the second quarter in Cincinnati. Burrow threw a pass, per Next Gen, that had only a 19 percent chance of being completed, into completely tight coverage.

Cornerback Cornell Armstrong was in Chase’s grill, and a safety, Jaylinn Hawkins, was a tick late coming over from center field, but just a tick. As the ball fell to earth, Chase had to think of four things: staying inbounds, fending off Armstrong’s arms over his head, prepping for a good pop from a safety flying in from his left, and making a major contested catch.

Look at this Next Gen Tweet: This 32-year TD was the toughest completion of Chase’s career, as well as the toughest completion for Burrow this season.

 

When I talked to Burrow postgame, I was thinking of a couple of things: One, the fact that Chase catches 125 footballs after every practice, contested catches with a defender playing him, from a Jugs machine. Two, the intimate knowledge Burrow and Chase have of each other. There is no way on this earth Burrow is attempting this throw with a rookie he’s still getting used to. Burrow trusts that if Chase can’t catch this, no one will. And that’s how I framed the question to Burrow.

“I just have total, total confidence with Ja’Marr because of our time together,” said Burrow. Two years at LSU, two years now in Cincinnati. “Obviously, he’s pretty far out there. I try to be safe with the football, but I also know I can take some chances that maybe I shouldn’t. I do that because our receivers do a great job of being defenders if it looks like they’re not going to be able to catch it. I think that’s part of the reason why I’ve only thrown one interception since Week One. On this one, the safety had been cheating to his side, so I knew I had to get a little more pace on the ball [to get the ball to the corner pylon fast].”

Later in the second quarter, with a minute left, Cincinnati had a first down at the Atlanta 41-yard line. Chase, singled by Atlanta corner Darren Hall on the left sideline, ran a classic back-shoulder fade route, stopping at the Falcons 26-yardline as Hall wizzed past. Chase then bisected four Falcons on a straight diagonal, left to right, to the goal line.

It was the kind of throw you watch and think: That’s Tom Brady to Chris Hogan and Malcolm Mitchell in the Super Bowl comeback over Atlanta. That play comes from one thing: practice. And knowing each other extremely well.

“Absolutely,” said Burrow. “You can’t just throw that pass in a game. You have to have reps. Over and over. You’ve got to bank 100, 200 reps to have any confidence it’s going to work. Ja’Marr and I have run that a lot.”

It showed. Burrow’s familiarity with Chase, I would argue, led to one of the best games of his NFL life, and led to the Bengals being knotted with Baltimore at 4-3 atop the AFC North.

Or, at least “co-trade of the year.” The Tyreek Hill deal was pretty significant too. But when Christian McCaffrey-to-the-49ers was on the verge of happening last Thursday afternoon at the 49ers’ offices in Santa Clara, Calif., Niners GM John Lynch said to Kyle Shanahan, “If this happens, would you play him Sunday?” and Shanahan said no. Actually, from my conversation with Shanahan late Saturday night, his words were, “No way, man.”

But then, when the deal went down, Lynch and Shanahan got on the phone with the ex-Carolina Panther. One of the first things McCaffrey said to his new head coach was: “Coach, can you give me an iPad with the gameplan on it right away so I can be ready for Sunday?”

Well then. McCaffrey won the turf war over playing. Wearing number 23 just two days and three hours after first stepping foot inside the Niners’ facility, McCaffrey gave San Francisco 21 plays (per Next Gen Stats) against Kansas City, mostly in an active first half, with 10 touches for 62 hard-fought yards. He wasn’t the player of the game or even close. But the Niners’ 21-point defeat showed just how much this team needs an offensive jolt like the one McCaffrey should provide in the season’s final 10 games.

It’s highly likely the Niners’ trade of second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-round picks (the first three come in the 2023 draft) will be the biggest in-season trade this year. The trade deadline is in eight days. How it affects the three teams involved — Panthers, Niners, and the bridesmaid Rams — and what it says about aggression in trading today:

Niners: It’s undeniably a big risk.

This is McCaffrey’s ninth season — three at Stanford, six in the NFL — as a high-traffic running back. Easy to say, “He’s just 26,” but a 5-11, 205-pound back is bound to feel the effects of 21 touches a game in 102 college/pro games over nine years. (He exited Sunday with 1,997 college/pro career touches from scrimmage and 115 kick/punt returns, for 2,112 times being hit, often by large men.)

Every player is different. McCaffrey trains exceedingly hard, yet missed 23 games to hamstring, thigh, shoulder and ankle injuries over the 2020 and ’21 seasons. When Shanahan met the press in Santa Clara Thursday, he said: “I view everything as a gamble. I view making trades as a gamble. I view not making trades as a gamble.” To me, Saturday night, he put it this way: “You can sit there and not put yourself out there and not do something like this, and then where are you?”

His 10 touches for 62 yards is close to his career average. His prior NFL history was 5.8 yards per touch. Sunday, after being in his new playbook for about 15 minutes, he was 6.2 yards per touch. Next week McCaffrey’s certain to get a bigger load. The 3-4 Niners travel to the tarnished Super Bowl champion Rams in a very important game for San Francisco.

The case for the trade being a good risk for San Francisco: The Niners have a fairly manageable cap risk here — $690,000 this season and $12 million, not guaranteed, in each of the next three years. Shanahan made it clear they intend to keep McCaffrey beyond this year. To pay McCaffrey $12.7 million for the next 28 regular-season games is money very well spent if he plays most of the games; in that event, the Niners can judge whether to keep or cut him after the ’23 season.

The case for it being a poor risk: McCaffrey’s durability, of course, tops this list…Also, the loss of three picks in the top 140 of the draft (approximately) is big, obviously. As of today, San Francisco’s first picks in the 2023 draft will be around 102 and 105; those are Compensatory Picks at the bottom of the third round for losing two minority coaches and a minority GM in the last two years. The Niners wouldn’t pick again till their own choice in the fifth round, likely around pick 165 overall. Think of the picks they’ve had from round two through five under Shanahan/Lynch: George Kittle, Fred Warner, Deebo Samuel, Dre Greenlaw, Talanoa Hufanga. “For every one of those who’ve been great,” Shanahan told me, “I can name about 10 who haven’t been great.”

True…but one of the great draft-pick aggregators of all time, Jimmy Johnson, once told me: “I don’t know that I’m smarter than anyone else in the draft. All these picks just give me a chance to make mistakes and still come away with some good players.” San Francisco’s margin for error next April will be minuscule.

Carolina: Great tanking trade.

The Panthers are gold right now. Even with the win over Tampa Bay Sunday (I bet David Tepper was very quietly perturbed), they enter the last 10 games of the season 2-5, with the third overall pick in the 2023 draft. That’s almost certain to fluctuate in the next 10 weeks. But this is a draft stocked with quarterbacks. None is perfect, though. The Panthers may well get to have their pick of Bryce Young (Alabama), C.J. Stroud (Ohio State) or Will Levis (Kentucky), wherever they pick. After trading their best player, and with a mishmash at quarterback, it’ll be a surprise if they don’t pick in the top five next April, with some draft capital to move up if need be. They already had picks near the top of the first, second and fourth rounds, and this deal adds the Niner picks in rounds two, three and four.

Young, Stroud and Levis might not be Burrow, Herbert and Allen from recent top tens, but one or two will get hot in February and March. If it happens that the Panthers need to trade up a slot or two for the passer of their dreams, five picks in the second, third and fourth rounds will be good chips to play.

Credit GM Scott Fitterer for playing poker correctly. Even though the Rams were involved, L.A. never got close to the Niners’ offer of three picks in the top 130 (estimate) of next year’s draft plus a 2025 pick in round five. Fitterer got more for a back with McCaffrey’s injury history than he had a right to hope for.

Re tanking: It shouldn’t be a dirty word. If I’m a Panthers’ fan, I want my team to tank so as to gain the highest possible pick next year. What difference does it make if Carolina is 3-14 or 6-11? Winning five or six would mean the Panthers likely wouldn’t have their pick of the litter at quarterback, and that’s all that should matter to the franchise in the next six months.

Rams: They just said no.

“The price was driven by Niners versus Rams, not by Christian McCaffrey,” said one exec who was involved in the talks over the past week. The Rams had second- and third-round picks next year, but they’d traded their 2023 first-, fourth- and fifth-rounders already. L.A. was willing to give its two, but trading the three would have been exceedingly painful; it would have left them without a pick till the end of the fourth round, when they were slated to have a Compensatory Pick. Seeing that there’s a good chance the Rams will have major needs in the draft, particularly on the offensive line, next year, not picking till about 140th overall (the fourth-round Comp area) would have been a killer even for a gambler like Rams GM Les Snead.

But the price wouldn’t have been just second- and third-round picks; Carolina wanted more either in a draft pick or picks, or a young player. So the only reason this made sense for L.A. would have been to keep McCaffrey away from a team that looks better in the division right now. This was a good decision by L.A. You can’t allow the state of a rival to determine everything about your future plans.

Trading: More proof this isn’t your dad’s NFL.

Les Snead made the F Them Picks saying an ethos with the boom-or-bust (very boom so far) trades that built a Super Bowl team with the Rams. In training camp, Snead told me, “I go to Starbucks and people say, ‘F them picks!’ LeBron Tweeted about it. When that happened, finally my kids thought I was okay.”

When I started covering the NFL, GMs stayed forever and high picks were precious china in an arch-conservative league. Jimmy Johnson started to change that around 1990, but picks became trade chips mostly in the last 10 years. Younger decision-makers weren’t married to the ways of the past. Atlanta GM Thomas Dimitroff was 45 when he traded five picks to move up for Julio Jones in 2011. Snead was 41 when he got hired by the Rams in 2012. Howie Roseman of the Eagles was 40 when Chip Kelly was fired late in 2015; Roseman’s roster re-shaping contributed to a Super Bowl win five years ago and the Eagles, after a bold trade for A.J. Brown last draft weekend, are unbeaten today. Minnesota’s Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Detroit’s Brad Holmes made a rare big inter-division trade before the draft this year at the ages of 40 and 42, respectively. Brett Veach was 44 when he pulled off the Tyreek Hill mega-deal. And Shanahan, who doesn’t have the GM title but does have final roster say, was 41 at the time of the trade-up for Trey Lance, and 42 now at the time the Niners got McCaffrey. “It’s been cool to watch teams make trades now,” Shanahan said. “It used to drive me crazy early in my time in the league that it was so hard to trade.”

Other reasons beyond youth: GMs are more like coaches — more in win-now mode than two generations ago…Trading Compensatory Picks, legal for the past four years, gives GMs more ammo to make deals … Tanking, though unspoken, is understandable and valuable if it helps draft position, which encourages teams that start, say, 1-6, to make pre-deadline deals for better picks in the next draft.

Beyond all that, isn’t it just more fun when Kansas City gambles that it can win without Tyreek, and when the Niners gamble McCaffrey is the missing piece in a sleepy offense? Trades help make football compelling.

On Saturday night, Shanahan was already envisioning the multiple ways he would use McCaffrey. You’ll see him as a slot receiver for sure, and, as you saw Sunday, left out in space to take a quick pass and just try to make something happen — a la Percy Harvin, or even Deebo Samuel. “We’ve got a ton of options,” Shanahan said. “We can change the parts all over our offense and put different guys in, to take pressure off everybody. But like I told the team, We just added a really good player. But we gotta play better in all phases to really make it mean something.

Shanahan could have said that after McCaffrey’s first game as a Niner too. Getting shredded by Patrick Mahomes was a cold shower after the excitement of the McCaffrey deal. But the NFC West is winnable, and I doubt a good defense looks that bad again this season.

At the NFL fall meeting last week, Jim Irsay, who is not one of the more public-facing of the 32 NFL owners, stood in front of the media for 13 minutes at the Conrad Hotel in Manhattan. The words of the Colts’ owner about the well-tarnished owner of the Washington franchise, Daniel Snyder, were well thought out.

“I believe there’s merit to remove him as owner,” Irsay said.

You’ve read much of the rest of it — Irsay saying the NFL stands for an egalitarian workplace and Snyder and his organization had consistently demeaned women, saying he hoped but didn’t know if the required 24 owners would vote to remove him, and Washington firing back with a defensive statement.

Two days later, once the folderol of the first owner to call for Snyder’s removal died down, I asked Irsay why he did it.

“Did you know,” Jim Irsay said, “that George Halas came to my wedding? Did you know that, at one of my first league meetings, Art Rooney welcomed me and gave me a cigar? I’ve learned from Pete Rozelle, from Paul Brown. How fortunate I have been. We are all fortunate to be a part of this great league! And I know, at night, when I open up the door, there’s a mirror, and that’s the person I have to answer to. How do we all want to be remembered by our great-grandchildren?”

Irsay’s dad, Robert, owned the Colts, and Jim took over as Colts GM in 1984, two years out of SMU. He took over ownership at 37 in 1997 after his father died. For 25 years as owner, he has been mostly seen and not heard at league meetings. Until Tuesday, with his savaging of the Washington owner.

“When I got in this business,” Irsay told me in an hour-long phone conversation Thursday, “some of the greatest owners in the history of the league — Wellington Mara [Giants], Dan Rooney [Pittsburgh], Lamar Hunt [Kansas City] — showed a young man learning the game how to behave under pressure, with decency, with integrity, always putting the game first. The [NFL] shield means something. You don’t take every penny. Why did the New York Giants take a revenue-sharing deal for the TV contract way back in the sixties? So all teams would have an equal chance. Because Wellington Mara was for the good of the league. It’s so important, what we stand for as a league.

“When Lamar Hunt died [in 2006], I remember being at his wake. And [former commissioner] Paul Tagliabue turned to me and said, ‘Well Jim, they’re all gone now. It’s your turn.’ And I’ve thought about that.”

There are those who would say Irsay is a flawed person, not the best one to preach the anti-Snyder sermon. He got a six-game league ban by Roger Goodell for a DUI in 2014. There are those who would say Irsay should have said these words to the owners in a closed session and not first to the media. Fair on both counts.

But the overwhelming sentiment I heard from people around the league in the days after Irsay spoke his mind was It’s about time someone spoke up. The serial degradation of women for years inside the Washington organization concerned Irsay, who one day will leave his team to his three daughters, and because the league has been more and more concerned with attracting female fans and club employees. “In the workplace today, the standard that the shield stands for, you have to stand for that and protect that,” he said at the meetings.

Snyder’s fate may be decided by a Congressional investigation, which is ongoing. His fate may be decided by a league investigation into business and harassment practices by the organization and Snyder. It sounded to me like Irsay’s mind is made up: Snyder must go. He was passionate and aggrieved over the phone, even two and a half days later.

“Two things destroy great institutions,” Irsay said. “Being emotional, and rationalization. Rationalization — that’s saying, ‘Oh, it’s not that bad, we can deal with this. You know people are always gonna love the game. They’ll always turn on the TV to watch Mahomes Sunday.’ “

The stewards of the game, and Irsay emerged as one last week, have to be ready to act to be sure Snyder doesn’t continue to chip away at the institution.

This is presented as a public-service section of the column, because you should know about the anonymous people who one day this year might rule a key player — like your starting quarterback — out of a game. It happened in the Week Five Dolphins-Jets game when quarterback Teddy Bridgewater was declared out for the game under the league’s one-day-old ataxia standard, adopted in the wake of the Tua Tagovailoa wobbling after a big hit but being allowed to return to the game. Now, if a player shows any instability, also known as ataxia, he’s out for the day.

The Bridgewater case was odd because when TV cameras focused on him, no instability was seen. I asked the NFL’s medical director, Dr. Allen Sills, what happened to force Bridgewater out.

Sills said there are five independent officials upstairs watching a plethora of live and TV angles to check for players who might need to be checked out medically during the game. The five: two certified athletic trainers who act as spotters, one unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant (this is in addition to the two UNCs who work on either sideline during the game), and two video consultants who can quickly find all relevant replays when a player in question is hurt. If a player looks somehow impaired, the spotter or UNC can radio down to the sidelines to have the player examined. The booth can also communicate directly to the referee on the field and tell him to remove an impaired player.

No video angles shown publicly indicated Bridgewater was wobbly. It goes without saying that the spotters and the UNCs absolutely should err on the side of caution in these cases, but if a similar thing happens — for example — in a Kansas City playoff game as happened in the Dolphins-Jets game, there’s going to be an outcry from people wondering, “Why is Patrick Mahomes out of this game?”

Sills on the Bridgewater play: “What I can share with you in that particular case is the team in the booth, not one individual, thought they saw a stumble on one of the video views that they had, as well as the player grasping his head, or something to that effect. In their mind, with this new standard that they had literally been given the day before, they felt that that reached the level of calling down an identification [of an injured player] to the sideline.

“This is a process that will be an evolution. Are people being more cautious and conservative? Sure…In this process, we have spotters, UNCs, visiting team medical liaisons, team athletic trainers, team physicians. That’s over a thousand people that we’re trying to bring to that level of consistency…We want the standard to be what I call clear and obvious. There’s always going to be some element of medical judgment. But that’s not one person. That’s not ever happening. Our system is built around teams of professionals making those decisions.”

It’s certainly a better plan than the one that was in place — the one that allowed Tagovailoa’s head to thump hard on the turf against Buffalo, that witnessed him wobble unsteadily, then allowed him to return to the game. But I’d urge the league to be more transparent each time a player is removed from a game with no obvious sign of impairment. The league owes it to the public to explain what was seen that forced a player out for the day.

Chocolate Lab of the Week

Turf, wildlife manager, Seattle Seahawks. Turf’s a 9-year-old dog, a mainstay at the Seahawks’ training facility in Renton, on the shores of Lake Washington southeast of downtown Seattle. He patrols the grounds to keep the birds native to the area from sullying the pristine turf fields. Earlier this year, cancer was discovered in and around the front left leg of Turf. Two cancer surgeries resulted in the loss of the leg, and he’s still undergoing chemotherapy. Last week, Pete Carroll honored Turf at the Seahawks daily team meeting by telling his team: “Turf had cancer, and it came back, and he had to have a leg taken off. But he’s back. He ain’t got all of those legs, but he’s got enough of ‘em.” Then Turf hopped/jogged to the front of the meeting, to a big hand and a familiar tune.

On Friday, Turf’s Twitter and Instagram accounts, @Turfthedog, showed a canine determined to be the best three-legged dog on earth. He was quoted as saying:

“Not done living my best life, not even close.”

 

Offensive players of the week

Kenneth Walker, running back, Seattle. Three days after the rookie from Michigan State turned 22, he had his best game as a pro: 23 carries, 168 yards, two TDs in the 37-23 win over the Chargers in Los Angeles. Walker showed excellent vision in traffic and good speed in the open field. His 12-yard run for a score gave the Seahawks a 14-0 first-quarter lead, and the longest run of his short career, 74 yards, gave Seattle a 37-16 lead over a Chargers team that bulked up on run defense this year — but allowed 214 to the Seahawks in an embarrassing effort Sunday.

D’Onta Foreman, Chuba Hubbard, running backs, Carolina. They heard everything. They heard the season was over after the Christian McCaffrey trade, and they knew everyone handed the game to visiting Tom Brady. That, folks, is why they play the game. Foreman and Hubbard, afterthoughts on any depth chart in football, combined to rush 24 times for 181 yards and one TD — and Foreman gashed the Bucs’ D for a 60-yard run.

Josh Jacobs, running back, Las Vegas. The Raiders improved to only 2-4 Sunday by beating Houston, so there aren’t many headlines out of Las Vegas — yet. But one is Jacobs. For the first time in the 62-year history of the franchise, a back rushed for more than 100 yards and a touchdown in three straight games. On Sunday, in the 38-20 beatdown of the Texans, Jacobs rushed 20 times for 143 yards (7.2 per rush), with three touchdowns. Crucial road trip coming up for the Raiders: at New Orleans, at Jacksonville, with a practice week in Sarasota in between. Whatever they do, the Raiders should continue feeding Jacobs.

Joe Burrow, quarterback, Cincinnati. The other day on SiriusXM NFL Radio, Cincinnati running back Joe Mixon made what seemed to be a curious statement, as the Bengals were the 14th highest-scoring team in football: “Nobody has got an offense like us and we can put up points on anybody.” Burrow did something about that Sunday against Atlanta, with the most explosive passing day of the season in the NFL: 34 of 42, 481 yards, three TD passes, one TD sneak, no picks, with scoring passes of 60, 32 and 41 — all in the first half, giving the Bengals a 28-7 lead at the half.

Taylor Heinicke, quarterback, Washington. Playing for the first time all season in relief of the injured Carson Wentz, Heinicke showed why he’s such a beloved guy in the Washington locker room. After an ugly early pick-six put his team in a 14-3 hole against the favored Packers, he threw touchdown passes to Antonio Gibson and Terry McLaurin sandwiching the half, and Washington never trailed after that. He was 20 of 33 for 201 yards, with the two TDs and the pick. Surprisingly, he was just what the struggling Commanders needed.

Defensive players of the week

Frank Clark, defensive end, Kansas City. Made one of the plays of the NFL weekend to clinch Kansas City’s decisive 44-23 win over San Francisco on the West Coast. On third-and-nine from the Niners’ six-yard line and trailing 35-23, this was their last gasp. Clark whipped around the edge, making all-world Trent Williams whiff on his block, and chased down Jimmy Garoppolo for a sack and a safety. All the air was taken out of Levi’s Stadium and out of the Niners, and the game was over.

Andrew Adams, safety, Tennessee. Undrafted out of UConn in 2016, Adams is on his ninth NFL stop, and Sunday was his 37th NFL stop. Took a long time to score his first touchdown. Five minutes into the second quarter against Indianapolis, the Colts were driving to take the lead when Adams picked off Matt Ryan at his 24-yard line. He zipped downfield for 76 yards and the touchdown, making it 10-0. The Colts never had the lead in Nashville in Tennessee’s 19-10 lead. The ball sat on the shelf in Adams’ Nissan Stadium locker afterward. “I might give it to my dad, or put it up in my Man Cave,” Adams said. I’d vote for the dad.

Justin Houston, pass-rusher, Baltimore. His two sacks of Jacoby Brissett gave him 106 for his career and pushed him past J.J. Watt (104.5) into a tie with Trace Armstrong on the all-time sack list. (And in a tie with Too Tall Jones on the all-time unofficial sacks list; sacks became an official stat in 1982.) Houston’s been a good mentor for the young guys on the Ravens’ front, and Sunday he was the most productive one of their group.

Special teams players of the week

Tress Way, punter, Washington. Way knew Washington had to win the field-position battle to have a chance to win a game against the Packers Sunday. He did his part, punting four times for a 48.0-yard average, putting three of them inside the 20-. His best was a 68-yarder to the Green Bay one-yard line.

Marcus Kemp, wide receiver, Kansas City. Big day in the Awards for undrafted guys. Kemp was a street free-agent after being cut by the Giants in training camp. Kansas City signed him to the practice squad, and he was promoted for Sunday’s game at the Niners. Midway through the second quarter with KC up 14-13, Kemp was on the kickoff team, sprinted downfield from the wide right side, and knifed in unblocked to drop Ray-Ray McCloud at his 14- with a perfect form tackle. Want to know how to stay on the active 53? Make more plays exactly like that.

 

Coach of the week

Pete Carroll, head coach, Seattle. I thought Seattle erred in jettisoning Russell Wilson in favor of a passel of draft choices and Geno Smith, but Carroll and GM John Schneider clearly knew what they were doing. Here are the Seahawks after seven weeks, alone in first place in the NFC West…and the only team with a winning record in the division. Seattle had lost 11 of 18 entering this season and without Wilson, it looked like a total rebuild. But Carroll never bought into the doom and gloom and never let his team buy into it either.

Goats of the week

Mike Evans, wide receiver, Tampa Bay. Evans could play 25 years in the NFL and he’ll never drop an easier ball to catch than the one he muffed at the dawn of Bucs-Panthers, blowing a touchdown that the Bucs would desperately need. “No one play is the sole reason you lose, but that was definitely the biggest reason. I saw the light go out of us.” Carolina 21, once-mighty Bucs 3.

Charvarius Ward, cornerback, San Francisco. This was a game, against his former team Kansas City, that Ward had to have circled on his calendar. Bummer that he ended up being a goat in it. San Francisco has just scratched back into the game early in the fourth quarter and trailed 28-23 when KC had a third-and-11 at its 19-yard line. The crowd was bonkers in Santa Clara. Ward lined up too far to the defensive left of the formation on wideout Marquez Valdez-Scantling. Within a few yards off the line, Valdez-Scantling had two steps on Ward, somehow, and Mahomes lofted a hi-arcing strike downfield for the surprisingly wide-open Valdez-Scantling. Gain of 57 to the San Francisco 24-. Three plays later, on a Mecole Hardman TD scamper, the game was over.

Andy Dalton, quarterback, and Marquez Callaway, wide receiver, New Orleans. Yes, Dalton threw two pick-sixes in the last two minutes of the half in the Saints’ must-win loss at Arizona Thursday. He had three picks overall in the first half, dooming New Orleans. But Calloway was responsible for the second interception returned 38 yards for a touchdown, because Dalton’s pass was right in his hands, and it bounced off them and into the grasp of Cardinals DB Marco Wilson, who returned it for a touchdown. I give the partial Goat to Calloway for a simple reason: If he simply catches the ball in a 14-14 game with two minutes left in the first half, the Saints likely finish the half with a field goal or touchdown and a 17-14 or 21-14 lead at the half. But the pick gave Arizona a 20-14 lead, and a second pick by Dalton gave the Cards a 28-14 lead by the half.

 

Hidden person of the week

Kevin White, wide receiver, New Orleans. Caught one ball in the ridiculous 42-34 loss at Arizona. But it was a 64-yard reception, the longest catch of a star-crossed career (to put it mildly). Think of the life of White, the seventh overall pick (by Chicago) in the 2015 draft. Missed all of his rookie year with a broken left tibia. Missed all but four games in 2016 with a broken left fibula. Fractured his left shoulder blade in the opening game of 2017, missing the rest of the season. Had an uneventful fourth season in Chicago, then was cut loose. Didn’t play in 2019. Made the 49ers practice squad in 2020, but had zero catches. Got COVID late in the season. Signed with the Saints for the ’21 season, and had one catch. The 64-yard reception Thursday night was his first catch since his singular one last year. In his six seasons as an NFL wideout, White has 27 catches and zero touchdowns. Kudos to him for hanging in there and, at 30, still fighting for snaps with New Orleans.

 

I

“It’s about as dark as it’s gonna be right now…We’re gonna see how many people crumble when it’s dark, see how many people step up and start playing better and start coaching better.”

— Tampa Bay coach Todd Bowles, after the lowest point of the three-year Brady Era, a 21-3 loss at lowly Carolina.

 

II

“Different … I’ve never had teammates be vocal for me.”

— Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, asked by NBC Sports’ Maria Taylor what it was like to have unquestioned support by teammates this off-season.

That’s really interesting. Even if it’s not true, and there’s no way that it is, the fact that he felt this way and said it shows how unappreciated he felt in his early years in Miami.

 

III

“Nope.”

— Tua Tagovailoa, asked if he spoke to his first NFL head coach, Brian Flores, at Sunday night’s Steelers-Dolphins game. There’s speculation, informed speculation, that Tagovailoa didn’t love his handling by Flores, who reportedly wanted the franchise to trade for Deshaun Watson while Tagovialoa struggled. Flores now is a Steelers assistant.

 

IV

“There’s no such thing as tanking when it comes to myself and the guys in that locker room.”

— Carolina coach Steve Wilks, after the Panthers commenced tankage with the trade of Christian McCaffrey to San Francisco.

 

V

“The game is not softer. The game is safer.”

— NFL executive VP Troy Vincent, refuting claims that soft roughing-the-passer calls are damaging the game.

 

VI

“That last sack was my fault. Hopefully PFF can hear this and make the grade appropriate for whoever ended up getting beat on that.”

— Cincinnati center Ted Karras, in what I believe is a first in NFL history — an offensive lineman saying publicly he wanted a sack assigned to him in the Pro Football Focus grades. I kind of like the honesty.

 

VII

“It’s an ideal solution. No one likes it.”

— Jacksonville owner Shad Khan, to Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal, on the complicated solution to the knotty problem of who will pay the $791 legal settlement with St. Louis over the Rams’ move to Los Angeles. (More in Ten Things, number 9.)

In 2018, Robert Klemko, then of The MMQB and Sports Illustrated, wrote a piece about the Broncos’ desperate and seemingly eternal search for a long-term quarterback. Peyton Manning was a four-year respite from the search, but Denver hadn’t had one in two decades, since the retirement of John Elway. The 2018 candidate: Case Keenum (That experiment would last one year.) Klemko, in Denver, got Elway, in charge then of finding the heir to Elway, to talk about the importance of finding The Man.

“Everybody’s got to have hope, and the quarterback gives your team hope,” Elway said. “You have to know that if we’re all having a bad day, that guy can keep you in the game and give you an opportunity to win. I think we lost hope. And when you lose hope, you get down and you keep making mistakes.”

The Broncos had a six-year run through the quarterback wilderness post-Manning, and six exceedingly shaky games by Russell Wilson is not enough time to measure anything in finality. But the depressing thing for Denver fans—and certainly for the Broncos veterans who thought acquiring Wilson was a solution—is that Wilson, so far, has been no better than the 11 men who started and failed to play themselves into a long-term job. In some ways, he’s been inferior.

The six seasons of Trevor Siemian, Paxton Lynch, Brock Osweiler, Joe Flacco, Case Keenum, Drew Lock, Brandon Allen, Jeff Driskel, Brett Rypien, Kendall Hinton and Teddy Bridgewater compared to the first six games of Wilson:

I

I have always found this amazing, and it came up in my brain the other day, after the Niners traded for Christian McCaffrey, who missed 23 games over the 2020 and ’21 seasons due to injury:

Jim Brown, a physical, bruising running back, played nine seasons in the NFL, from 1957 to 1965. The Browns played 118 regular-season and four playoff games in those nine seasons, and Brown started all 122 games.

That’s the notable thing. That, plus the fact he won eight NFL rushing titles in nine years.

 

II

Since wideout Michael Thomas was rewarded with a five-year, $96-million contract in July 2020 after setting the NFL record with 149 catches in 2019, here are some relevant stats:

  • Saints regular-season games: 40.
  • Thomas starts: 8.
  • 100-yard receiving games by Thomas: 2.
  • Games with TD catches for Thomas: 2.

III

The Yankees were 50-51 over their last 101 games, including playoffs.

H/T Bob Costas.

I

Attaway, Florio.

II

Simmons covers the NFL for Pro Football Talk and NBC Sports. Clever.

III

Beat writer Paul Schwartz with the evergreenest Tweet of the 2022 NFL season, on the invisible wide receivers of the New York Giants.

 

IV

Gay is the ever-clever sports columnist for the Wall Street Journal.

 

V

Touche to Garafolo, of NFL Network.

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com, or on Twitter @peter_king.

Hard to argue with Jesus. From Jesus Ortiz Merodio: “Although I am very excited about the arrival of Christian McCaffrey to the Niners (I have been a Niner for more than 30 years), I can’t help but remember the 1989 Vikings. That team thought that the missing piece to win it all was Herschel Walker and they gave up a lot to Dallas to get him. When the Cowboys won their third Super Bowl in four years in January 1996, it was obvious to see who was on the winning side of that deal. If the Niners win it all, there’s no complaining, but…I think Lynch is gambling instead of building thoughtfully.”

It’s a big gamble, Jesus. You’re right. And in denuding the 2023 draft, Lynch has taken a major gamble that only will look good if McCaffrey has at least two impactful seasons, in my opinion.

This is a good point. From Tim Phillips (who, unsurprisingly, is a data analyst): “In your [roughing-the-passer] comparison between Tom Brady and Matt Ryan, you used the number of games, but I think to better get an idea you should compare to the number of times the quarterback was sacked and hit. If we created a metric called OTF (opportunity to flag) and looked at the number of times the QB was sacked and knocked down since you won’t see a flag if a QB isn’t touched. Over that decade you quoted, Brady was sacked 249 times vs. 358 for Ryan. Unfortunately, I could only find knockdown stats back until 2015 (it was 554 vs 803). If you look at those numbers versus roughing the passer throws you see Brady is getting the flag a lot more often (4.5 percent of the time versus 3.5 percent). So based on the OTF metric, Brady gets the flag a lot more than Ryan.

Thanks a lot for that, Tim. And you’re right: OTF would be a better measure of the relative roughing calls between those two players. That’s my error for not thinking of that. You and about 30 others pointed out similar points. If I might have a “yeah but” point: Brady’s gotten 25 roughing calls over the past 10 years, or one per every 5.9 games. So I’m not buying the narrative of him getting all the calls.

Brady gets all the calls (forget the numbers — an avalanche of readers think like Dan Brown). From Dan Brown, of Atlanta: “The issue isn’t that he gets more roughing calls than others. It’s that questionable roughing calls go his way, and they often don’t for less-famous quarterbacks. The QBs who get roughing calls the most are also (except Josh Allen) among the QBs who get hit the most. We have the perception that Brady gets special treatment because we can remember feeling this way before, that tackling Brady gets you a penalty.”

Amazing how many readers feel the same. “We have the perception,” and “we can remember feeling this way before.” How do you think you would fare in a court of law if you said, “Judge, it’s common knowledge that the defendant is a liar and a cheat.” I appreciate the important prod from Tim Phillips and others that the number of times a quarterback gets hit should be factored in, not just the total flags. But the subjective emails…I don’t see the game that way.

What a good idea. From Jim McWilliams: “Thanks for steering us toward that Washington Post story about education in Bullhead City. Just a thought if you want a PS: Those teachers from the Philippines are precisely who we need immigrating to our country. How about offering expedited citizenship to teachers who’d like to move to the U.S.?”

Great thought, Jim. Really interesting. Hope someone in power in government reads your idea.

Tim would like me to apologize for belittling the injury suffered by the photographer shoved by Davante Adams. From Tim Loomas: “I suspect you would feel differently if you were the credentialed member of the press. Davante Adams apologized (as he should). Will you?”

No. The point was about the line in the police report after the photographer was shoved down — “The injuries are preliminarily thought to be non-life-threatening” — which was absurd at the time and remains so.

John criticizes my ignorance of college football. From John Roemer: “I have never understood the pride you have demonstrated throughout your career in stating ‘I know zero about college football,’ as you did in your column. The NFL is almost entirely stocked with former college football players. Albert Breer, your successor at MMQB, follows college football and makes knowledgeable comments about it on a weekly basis. I know you will say that you simply don’t have enough time. Yet you seem to spend countless, and I mean countless, hours following MLB, watching ‘Murder She Wrote,’ reading and sharing articles about chess cheating, women’s soccer, human composting, nachos, and dozens of other non-NFL related stories, including the treacherous world of politics…I would think you would be ashamed.”

Fair points, John. I am not ashamed. To every thing, there is a season. My season for getting to know college players is after the NFL season, before the draft, at the Combine and by interviewing NFL people. I could make the time to watch the college games, but I don’t want to spend most or all day of a second day during the week glued to a TV watching football, particularly on a day when I spend most of it writing, researching and talking to people about the NFL. I choose to spend a lot of time during the week reading things about life, and when I see something I think would be interesting for my readers, I put it in the column. At the end of the week, I write 9,000 to 10,000 words about pro football and maybe 1,500 words about other aspects of life. It’s not a point of pride to mostly ignore college football. I’m just being honest.

I would be curious if other readers agree with John, or if they like some other stuff in the column each week. Send me thoughts at peterkingfmia@gmail.com.

1. I think the greatest moment of Week Seven was this one — Charlotte native and Charlotte-raised and Charlotte-schooled Panthers interim coach Steve Wilks getting the game ball for his first win as the head coach:

“This is for you, brother,” owner David Tepper said, handing Wilks the ball. Wilks didn’t make a speech. He just said to the mass of players, “FAMILY ON THREE!” And the who crew did 1-2-3 FAMILY! I loved it mostly because. Wilks doesn’t have a great chance to get the full-time job, but he can always say, I got a team ready to play Tom Brady, and I got a team ready to embarrass Tom Brady’s team. That is really cool.

2. I think Todd Bowles did exactly what he should have done after the Bucs were so awful in Charlotte. Football at its essence is a mano y mano game. The Bucs are pathetic, but for a moment, he told them to forget about skill and greatness and all that. His point this week will be about pride and beating the guy across from you one-on-one and fighting harder than the other team. Backed into a corner, I don’t think the Bucs will be great this year, at all. But I do think they’ll come out and play really hard and pugnaciously Thursday night against Baltimore.

3. I think there’s not a lot more hope in Green Bay than Tampa. Did you see the video of Aaron Rodgers appearing to say, apparently to rookie wideout Romeo Doubs, “What the f— are we doing?!”

For the first time in six years, Rodgers and Brady are on simultaneous two-game losing streaks. I honestly can’t predict which has the better chance to come out of it soon, but I can say it won’t be Green Bay this week. Pack at Bills, next Sunday night, NBC. I do love Rodgers’ positive post-game determination. Asked if he feels it’s possible for Green Bay to right the ship in 2022, he said: “You’re G—d— right it does.” This is a team that just lost three straight to teams (Giants, Jets, Washington) that went a combined 15-36 last year. “Too many detail mistakes,” Rodgers said.

4. I think, re: the growing frenzy over who will sign Odell Beckham Jr., who will be 30 in two weeks, a couple of points to remember. He tore his ACL on Oct. 25, 2020 and missed the first two games of the 2021 season before returning to play on Sept. 26, 2021. That’s 11 months after the injury. Then, he tore the same ACL in the Super Bowl last Feb. 13. ACL tears and surgeries can be different, of course, and there were reports that the first surgery was tough for Beckham to come back from. But we’re now eight months from the surgery on his second ACL tear, and there’s a growing drumbeat about what team will sign Beckham and get this great offensive jolt from him. When? What if he’s not ready before late December — 10 months after the surgery? How big of a deal will it be to get a player at 30 coming off his second ACL in two years, particularly if he goes to a new team and has to get chemistry with a new quarterback he’s never played with? No one knows when Beckham will play, and no one knows how long it’ll take him to ramp-up to being the real OBJ.

5. I think, other than the Snyder stuff, there were a few nuggets out of the league meeting the other day in New York:

    1. Compared to a three-year average from training camps in 2019-’21, concussions were down 52 percent in camps this year, much of that due to the wearing of the foamy Guardian Caps by players at the more physical positions for the first month of camps.
    2. We’ve known for some time (I reported on the coming Black Friday game at length last spring), but now we know it’ll be at 3 p.m. on the day after Thanksgiving, Nov. 24, 2023, next season. It’s not going to be a one-year experiment, barring a disaster. “Black Friday is Amazon’s Super Bowl,” NFL chief media and business officer Brian Rolapp said, and this will be Amazon’s prize every year in its streaming package. Expect the NFL to give Amazon an above-average game at least in year one.
    3. Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal had the guts of the final agreement over who pays the $790 million settlement the league made with St. Louis over the move of the Rams to Los Angeles. The other 31 teams have paid $7 million per team, a total of $224 million, already. Rams owner Stan Kroenke will pay the league $320 million by March 2023, and he’ll pay another $283 million to the league in five years. But he’ll get that $283 million over time by keeping ticket revenue from visiting teams that, by league rule, home teams usually have to share. So the upshot is Kroenke pays $503 million over the next five years, and the other 31 teams pay him $283 million from ticket revenue over an extended period.
    4. As one top club official told me re: the settlement: “The bottom line is pretty simple: To pay $7 million to have the L.A. problem settled, and to have the best stadium in the league there, and to have a championship team there overnight, is well, well worth it.”
    5. Kudos to Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic for ferreting out a great and potentially very big point made by the NFL’s VP of international, Peter O’Reilly, at the fall meeting. “There is an opportunity, similar to the Jaguars, for another club to raise their hand if they would like to play internationally and build a model similar to Jacksonville,” O’Reilly said. That’s big for a couple of reasons. It shows the NFL is married to football in Europe — but probably not to a franchise or franchises in Europe, at least for now. The NFL would prefer to play a series of games, as it’s doing now, in England and other venues like cities in Germany. The debut game in Germany comes Nov. 13 in Munich, Seattle versus Tampa, with Tampa Bay being the home team and losing one of its nine Florida home games this year.

6. I think I am so tired of every statement the Washington franchise makes including some chest-pumping sentence like the one it distributed Tuesday in the midst of the Snyder-must-sell mayhem at the fall league meeting: “The Commanders have made remarkable progress over the past two years.”

7. I think I would ask, even in the wake of the surprising victory over Green Bay at FedEx Field Sunday: How?

  • By going 10-14 since opening day 2021, including 42- and 15-point losses at arch-rival Dallas?
  • By reducing the capacity of FedEx Field to avoid showing the yawning gaps of empty seats by a fan base that long since stopped caring about the team?
  • By seeing fans of the Cowboys and Eagles overrun the stadium while going 3-0 at FedEx Field over the past 1.5 seasons?
  • By the parade of 13 front-office executives leaving the teams for various reasons in the last year-and-a-half, capped by COO Greg Resh in September?
  • By the loud chant of “Sell the team! Sell the team!” at the stadium on Sunday in the midst of the best win of this season?

Does this franchise actually want credit for hiring decent people and going without scandals for two years? That’s what the other 31 other teams do regularly. And you want credit for being placid while running a 10-14 football team?

Defending Daniel Snyder is expected by lawyers paid to defend Daniel Snyder. But this franchise leads the league in Kevin Baconisms. In Animal House, Bacon, a cop, tried to quell a riot in a college town by shouting, “All is well!”

“Remarkable progress” will start when there’s an owner not named Snyder running the franchise.

8. I think it’s notable that more than a few former teammates of Russell Wilson in Seattle have joined in the piling-on of Wilson in the wake of his awful start in Denver. This from former Seattle fullback Michael Robinson on NFL Network, on Wilson: “How can you stand up there, and you know the offense looks like this, and you know all these questions are out here about you and this offense, and you say, ‘Oh, we just need to execute better. Let’s ride.’ If you’re a teammate in that locker room, you’re like, Dude! Be human! Please!!! Call somebody out! Be upset about something! Don’t just act like this is business as usual. Because at the end of the day, I think this is on the horizon for this team, and I hope it’s not. But I think it’s on the horizon. Mutiny is afoot. The guys in that locker room are gonna start to turn around and say, ‘Wow. Russell got paid … The new head coach is all happy, he got his money, he’s all good. But what about us? What about the guys in the locker room?’ “

9. I think that was a wow to me: Mutiny is afoot. But look at the guts of what Robinson is saying. The defense is playing at a top-five-in-the-league level, and every week they see a hyped quarterback, rightfully so, performing at a Trubisky level as the season slips away after an offseason of enormous hope.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. I live in Brooklyn. When I walk my dog Chuck or run an errand (we don’t own a car, so there’s lots of walking) I smell weed 10 times a day. I wonder if that’s a common experience everywhere in the country. I doubt it is.

b. You Want Your Heroes to Be Good People Story of the Week: From Patrick Healy of the New York Times, on lessons learned from the life of the late Angela Lansbury — all the way up to her demise

c. Wrote Healy, who covered Broadway for the paper in 2009, when he reported a story about Lansbury:

I had heard that Ms. Lansbury, who was then 84, used an earpiece that year while on Broadway playing Madame Arcati in Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” — a performance that earned her a fifth Tony Award.

I remember being nervous as I dialed her number. Nervous about whether I could persuade her to open up to me. Nervous about memorizing my own lines so I could explain the story and ask her questions.

I was most nervous about interviewing a star who meant something to me and my family — a star of my father’s favorite movie, “The Manchurian Candidate,” whom my parents and I loved to watch in “Murder, She Wrote” on Sunday nights.

Angela Lansbury was not nervous. Game to talk, quick with a laugh, candid. I’d assumed that aging and memory were vulnerabilities; she saw them as facts and addressed them confidently — first, she explained, with the “Blithe Spirit” team that offered her a special accommodation and now with me … “It’s not something you ever want to do, but if we’re going to play important roles at our age, where our names are above the title on the marquee, we’re going to ask for some support if we need it.”

d. That was one dignified woman.

e. Fun Football Story of the Week: Sam Borden of ESPN.com on the 20th anniversary of the last barefoot kick in NFL history

f. But Jeff Wilkins of the Rams says, “I was a fake barefoot kicker.”

g. Borden gets to the bottom of the mystery we never knew was a mystery, and he does it with a great bit of writing about the final time a kicker went shoeless while converting a kick in an NFL game:

Wilkins kicked this meaningless extra point wearing only one shoe. His kicking foot in that moment was unsheathed, his toes wiggling freely, gloriously naked beneath the hot Sunday lights of the Edward Jones Dome. Wilkins was kicking barefoot, and that extra point — on Oct. 20, 2002 — actually was significant: It represented the final time in NFL history that a kicker scored points while his little piggies were fully capable of going to the market.

h. Sam Borden, that was good. Really good.

i. Bizarro Vegas Story of the Week: Dawn Gilbertson of the Wall Street Journal, on people who pay $550 to watch football games at a Vegas casino

j. It’s $550, but hey — you get free drinks!

k. At the new hotel Circa, you can watch from a pool and gamble on every game. I mean, what a country.

l. Wrote Gilbertson:

A Caesars spokeswoman says the sportsbook started charging for seats several years ago when demand outpaced the supply. The bleacher seats arrived after they proved popular this spring during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, given the sportsbook’s “compressed space,” she says.

One new downtown Las Vegas hotel, Circa, was designed around the idea that people like watching live sporting events together and will pay a premium to do it in the right setting. Circa has a glittering three-story sportsbook, a sports bar it calls the world’s longest and Stadium Swim, a sprawling outdoor pool complex with a giant video screen aimed at sports fans. Chairs with five free drinks started at $275 last Sunday. Reserved couches required guests to spend a minimum of $1,000 on food and drink.

“They’re not really paying to watch football,” CEO and owner Derek Stevens says. “They’re paying for the experience.”

m. Radio Story of the Week: Kathlenn McGrory and Neil Bedi, in a ProPublica/NPR partnership, on workers who inhaled and worked around asbestos for years in western New York, breaking their silence about a silent killer

n. Asbestos is still legal in the United States? What, exactly, is wrong with us?

o. Reported McGrory and Bedi:

…In the early 1990s, the dangers of asbestos were already irrefutable. The United States had prohibited its use in pipe insulation and branded it so risky that remediators had to wear hazmat suits to remove it. But unlike dozens of other countries that banned the potent carcinogen outright, the United States never did.

Now … the Environmental Protection Agency appears poised to finally outlaw asbestos in a test case with huge implications. If the agency fails to ban a substance so widely established as harmful, scientists and public health experts argue, it would raise serious doubts about the EPA’s ability to protect the public from any toxic chemicals.

To fight the proposed ban, the chemical companies have returned to a well-worn strategy and marshaled political heavyweights, including the attorneys general of 12 Republican-led states who say it would place a “heavy and unreasonable burden” on industry.

Lost in the battle is the story of what happened in the decades during which the U.S. failed to act. It’s not just a tale of workers in hardscrabble company towns who were sacrificed to the bottom line of industry, but one of federal agencies cowed again and again by the well-financed lawyers and lobbyists of the companies they are supposed to oversee.

“It sounds like something that maybe would happen in the 1940s or the 1950s,” said Celeste Monforton, a lecturer in public health at Texas State University who studies occupational health and safety practices.

p. How shameful is it that this carcinogen that everyone for decades has known is a killer is still used in this country?

q. RIP, Charley Trippi, the College Football Hall of Famer and Pro Football Hall of Famer, who died last week at 100

r. Trippi, the running back, quarterback, punter, defensive back and returner for the Chicago Cardinals, was a rookie and the big star on the 1947 NFL championship team. He opened the scoring with a 44-yard TD run against Philadelphia on a frozen field at Comiskey Park, then added a 75-yard punt return in the second half.

s. Just think: Dec. 28, 1947, 75 years ago. The Cardinals moved to St. Louis in 1960, and then to Arizona in 1988. But that championship three-quarters of a century ago was the franchise’s last title. That’s how important Charley Trippi is to franchise lore.

t. Happy 60th, Jay Novacek.

u. And happy 73rd, Chzeslaw Marcol. (Chester Marcol, to you Packer fans of a certain age.) Marcol, the most distinctive-looking player in history, with a single-bar facemask and big glasses, had one of the craziest moments in Packer history. In 1980, Marcol had a field goal blocked against Chicago, recovered it, and ran it in for a touchdown to win the game — and later admitted he was high on cocaine when it happened.

v. I’ll need a little help here. Taylor Swift, teasing her new album “Midnights” by putting a trailer for it in the middle of the third quarter of the Saints-Cards game Thursday on Amazon Prime, and introduced by Al Michaels. Uhhhh, what? So I called a Swiftologist, Nora Princiotti of The Ringer, who has her dream job with her two first loves — football and music. She is a host on two podcasts for The Ringer — the Ringer NFL Show, and the Every Single Album music pod. She did have one beef: Michaels telling booth partner Kirk Herbstreit, who is the father of sons, “If you had a daughter she’d be over the moon.” As Princiotti said, boys and young men idolize her too.

w. Anyway, Princiotti, Saturday afternoon, after binge-listening to the album 20 times already, on this odd way of getting hype for a new album: “In music today, it’s not enough anymore to drop an album,” Princiotti said Saturday afternoon. “Being a pop star now requires visual elements, music videos, YouTube shorts, asking people to make short videos of the songs, using different markets to get your music out. She could have done [the trailer] on Instagram or YouTube — I would go anywhere to find it. But a football game was a different demographic. What Tay-Tay did [yes, Nora Princiotti called her ‘Tay-Tay’) by doing something different like going on Amazon was she eventized the album.”

“What?” I said.

“Eventize,” Princiotti said. “Made it a big event. She released it at midnight, then added seven more songs at 3 a.m., and released a music video Friday morning. She has a confounding habit of dropping clues, too. When she gave the commencement address at NYU this spring, some of the lines from that graduation speech appear as lyrics in the Midnights album. That’s an important part of her relationship with fans. Those clues help people get excited about the album.”

Princiotti made Swift sound like Sean McVay. “There’s a beautiful-mind thing going on in Tay-Tay’s head, a labyrinth of chaos,” she said.

x. That’s exactly what goes on in my head at 3:12 a.m. every Monday, trying to finish this column. It’s a labyrinth of chaos.

y. Kudos, Bryce Harper, for being tremendous when tremendous was demanded. What a clutch, clutch series Harper and Kyle Schwarber and about 10 other Phillies had in erasing the Pads. No shame in that series, San Diego. This was a classic case of a team getting broiling hot at the perfect time and hitting some tape-measure bombs.

z. You too, Houston. The Astros are 7-0 in the playoffs, and very deservedly so. I love this World Series. A week from tonight in game three in Philadelphia, I have a feeling the Kansas City and Seattle football decibel records will be in serious jeopardy.

New England 30, Chicago 12. Bill Belichick — who will pass Papa Bear Halas into second place all-time with a home win — spent seven minutes the other day talking up the Bears, which was very nice of him. That’s what coaches of good teams do when they’re playing an inferior team. There actually is one way Chicago could make a game of this: The Bears are running it very well, at 5.2 yards per rush, and the Pats have allowed 4.7. So there’s that. But at some point, Justin Fields is going to have to throw the ball, and that’s where things have gone haywire for the Bears this year.

Byes: Kansas City, L.A. Chargers.

Baltimore at Tampa Bay, Thursday, 8:15 p.m., Amazon Prime. I keep thinking Baltimore’s going to go on a run, and the Ravens certainly have the schedule to do so. Just think: After six weeks (before the Ravens played Cleveland Sunday), if you looked at the 11 games Baltimore had left, every team was .500 or worse. And now the Bucs are a four-alarm fire. Strange days indeed.

New England at N.Y. Jets, Sunday, 1 p.m., CBS. How wonderful is it for the league, and the AFC East, and for Fireman Ed, that this rivalry might actually become a rivalry? The Jets are entering a game against the Patriots actually being over .500 in late October. Nice change. How lopsided Pats-Jets has been:

  • New England’s 12-0 against New York since opening day 2016.
  • Pats won by a composite 79-19 last year.
  • Since 2010, Pats have won games in the series by 42, 30, 38, 35, 33 and 41.
  • At New England’s 54-13 win in Foxboro last year, ex-Pat Richard Seymour, in the house, said, “I wanted to come to our homecoming game against the Jets.”

Green Bay at Buffalo, Sunday, 8:20 p.m., NBC. Rough one for the Packers anyway, but they get the best team in football coming off the bye, in Buffalo, and with a voracious fandom seeing the home team for only the third time in the first eight weeks of the season, and with Green Bay looking as toothless as any time in the Aaron Rodgers Era. Yikes.

Cincinnati at Cleveland, Monday, 8:15 p.m., ESPN. Halloween night on Lake Erie, and the Bengals better come dressed as a win. Since Mike Brown drafted Burrow first overall in 2020, Cleveland’s 4-0 against the Bengals.

Almost Halloween,

and Giants have six wins. Same

as Bucs/Pack combined.



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FMIA Week 6: Allen-Mahomes Play Another Classic, And Von Miller Remembers The Toilet Paper That Got Him Here

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KANSAS CITY—You come to write about Allen-Mahomes V, and to see if Josh Allen could bury the vivid, bitter memory of last January’s playoff debacle here and stake the Buffalo claim as the best team in football, and of course that’s the story of the day, of the week, of the month in the NFL.

But there’s something else that happened in the 3 hours and 10 minutes of this tight duel. Something significant. In the four previous meetings between these great quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes and the Andy Reid offense averaged 32 points a game. In their 10 drives Sunday, everything Mahomes did was a struggle. Nothing was easy.

You realize it was a struggle because of the difference Von Miller made in his 46 snaps on the field. Miller wrecked Kansas City’s last three drives with play reminiscent of his Super Bowl MVP performance terrorizing Cam Newton seven years ago. First a tackle of a scrambling Mahomes from behind, then a third-down sack, and finally a pressure leading to the game-ending interception.

“Games like this one, this is why I came here,” said Miller, 33 going on 23, weary but happy, walking down the narrow hall to the Bills’ locker room after the game.

Buffalo is so much better on big stages because of a fearsome defensive front led by Miller. And because of his influence in cramped locker rooms like this one. “He’s my mentor,” defensive end Greg Rousseau said.

This from star linebacker Matt Milano: “Guys want to be like him. Von’s inspiring.”

Just about then, as the buzz in the Buffalo locker room began to die down, Miller had a moment with one of the heroes of the day. Cornerback Taron Johnson benefited from the Miller pressure on his game-sealing interception with 51 seconds left, and he was still beaming about it when Miller reminded him of one of his points of emphasis.

“Hey,” Miller, from the stool at his locker, said to Johnson, a few feet away. “Remember what I told you?”

“Don’t blink,” Johnson said

“That’s right,” Miller said. “We don’t blink.”

Buffalo 24, Kansas City 20, and it was closer than that.

“Millimeters,” Josh Allen said.

 

 

Ten sentences to encapsulate week six in the NFL before we tell the story of millimeters and Josh Allen, and Von Miller making a ton of difference in the game of the week.

  1. The Jets and Giants are 9-3, combined, for the first time since mastodons (or maybe Joe Willie Namath) roamed the earth.
  2. If the playoffs were this week, Daniel Jones and Zach Wilson would quarterback the two 5 seeds, while Aaron Rodgers would pilot the 7 seed in the NFC.
  3. Bill Belichick tied George Halas with his 324th win (regular-season and playoffs) Sunday, a 38-15 victory at Cleveland, and that had to feel good for the 70-year-old former resident of northeast Ohio.
  4. Football as Poetry Dept.: Belichick can pass Halas next Monday by beating Chicago.
  5. The Eagles got to 6-0 for the first time since their Super season of 2004 by beating the Cowboys, because Dallas got mortal performances from Micah Parsons (no sacks) and Cooper Rush (three picks).
  6. Wasting Away in Mediocrityville: Minnesota (5-1) is the only team above .500 of the 12 in the NFC North, South and West.
  7. The Niners might be really good, but how can we find out if they’ve got 11 of their starters on IR and four other stalwart starters (including groin-addled Nick Bosa) sidelined with lesser injuries?
  8. After the Bucs fell to 3-3 with a loss to the (gasp) Steelers, Tampa coach Todd Bowles said, “Guys that are living off the Super Bowl are living in a fantasy land.”
  9. Miami has gone from 3-0 to 3-3, and from Tua to Teddy to Skylar to Teddy and likely back to Tua next Sunday against the Steelers.
  10. How on God’s green earth the Colts are 3-2-1, I don’t know, but they travel to Tennessee (do they play the Titans every other week, or is it my imagination?) next week with a chance to be all alone in first place in the forlorn AFC South.

Life’s not normal in the NFL after six weeks, but it rarely is.

 

These two teams just seem destined to meet again. Kansas City and Buffalo have met in October of three straight regular seasons, and in late January in two straight playoffs, and please, please, please, let there be a third straight playoff game this January.

“This is Josh and Pat’s league,” said Jordan Palmer, the offseason quarterback tutor for quarterbacks including Allen, and a major admirer of Mahomes. “They are established, bonafide superstars in the league, and neither is 28 yet. They’re becoming a rivalry like Brady and Manning was.”
I’d say they’re there. Allen, 26, started his 67th game Sunday. Mahomes, 27, started his 69th. Mahomes leads the rivalry 3-2. (Tom Brady won the head-to-head with Peyton Manning, 10-6.)

Game recognizes game. You know what the most interesting crowd reaction from the 73,586 in Arrowhead Stadium Sunday was? It came with 9:49 left in the fourth quarter. Kansas City kicker Harrison Butker booted a 44-yard field goal to give the home team a 20-17 lead. From the crowd came a noise that was, well … polite applause.

Seriously. This game had ping-ponged from 0-0 after one quarter to 3-0 to 7-3 to 10-7 to 10-10 to 17-10 to 17-17, and you’d think taking a lead in the fourth quarter in such a tight game would mean joy to a crowd that year after year leads the AFC in decibels. But no. I’ll guess why: The Kansas City fans respect Allen so much that they knew handing the ball to him with nine minutes left was a recipe for either danger or disaster.

Buffalo went four-and-out, though, on the ensuing series. Kansas City went three-and-out, capped by Miller’s second sack of the day. So Buffalo got it back at its 24- with 5:31 left. The Bills converted a fourth-and-one at their 33- when Allen burrowed for two. They converted a third-and-two when Allen hit the smooth Stefon Diggs on an out-route for 11, and worked the ball to the KC 14-yard line with 69 seconds left.

There’s a reason I wrote what I consider a “combo lede” in this column. If the Bills won, Allen had to be the story, right? And he was … partially. Von Miller forced his way into the story, though. Without this next play, this column would have been Miller, Miller and more Miller. But there was this throw from Allen that reduced the crowd to sounding funereal. Silent, like no time all day.

It was second-and-12 from the Kansas City 14-yard line with 1:09 left. Allen took a deep drop, to the 23, and he motioned with his left hand to tight end Dawson Knox to move to an open spot, but Knox didn’t see it and … could this be headed for disasterville?

Sitting on an equipment box and waiting for his turn in the press conference room post-game, Allen explained what he saw and what he was trying to do.

“They tried to double Stef [Diggs], and I think the DB just got a little confused because Stef started inside at the snap and went outside [shallow, just off the line],” Allen said. “I was just trying to point Dawson to go inside because there was nobody there. But he went outside and I just kinda took a split second …”

A wide-angle view of the play shows Knox, near the left side of the end zone, blanketed by safety Justin Reid, with safety Deon Bush in the sightline of Allen-to-Knox. And if you slow the replay, you can see Allen motion Knox to the right, like, Get out of the corner—you got space inside.

But what’s not apparent from the first replay is the presence of the safety in the sightline, which made the degree of difficulty of the throw absolutely ridiculous. Allen had a covered tight end in the end zone, with a 6-foot safety about eight yards in front of Knox. Knox didn’t shift inside—he stayed out. Allen threw it anyway. “Josh just threw a dime,” Knox said.

“I did see the safety underneath,” Allen told me. “I just knew I had to get the ball up a little higher. Those are the ones where, I mean, it’s like, millimeters of distance of space that you have when you release the ball.”

Allen put his right hand in front of him, and put his thumb and index finger maybe a quarter-inch apart.

“Just millimeters,” he said.

“Inches,” Knox said.

Allen: “I trusted the throw. I saw how close it was to the DB. Dawson made a hell of a catch. Sometimes you get lucky.”

That’s not luck. That’s greatness.

As with Brady/Manning, Allen/Mahomes can engender the who’s better arguments. In the last 50 years, we’ve seen some good rivalries. But the vagaries of the schedule and the short intersection of great careers have combined to limit what could have been historic rivalries. Terry Bradshaw and Ken Stabler did have five playoff duels, but started against each other in Pittsburgh-Oakland games just twice more. Joe Montana never really had one great rival. Dan Marino and John Elway would have had a great rivalry, but they faced each other just once in the first 15 years of their careers.

Mahomes-Allen could grow to rival Brady-Manning. Brady was 25 and Manning 24 when they first played, in 2001. Their youth and long-term drive helped the rivalry last 15 seasons, till the 2015 playoffs.

Style of play, of course, is far, far different—but in some ways, the relative styles befit the eras of the game. Coaches and GMs a generation ago lusted for pocket quarterbacks. Manning and Brady were perfect stylistically in an age when passers were getting more protection from the league and weren’t sitting-duck targets as much as in the seventies and eighties. That has helped Brady last till 45 and it certainly helped Manning last till 39, when he won his second Super Bowl in his last game.

Mahomes and Allen both are mechanically very sound with plus arms. But as we’ve seen, they can both be circus performers. Peyton Manning never trucked safeties in the open field, as Allen does. “Tackling him is like tackling a defensive end,” KC linebacker Nick Bolton said. Manning never leapt over safeties, as Allen did Sunday on the game-winning drive. Tom Brady never rolled out and evaded four tacklers and threw a set-shot TD pass, as Mahomes can do.

One other thing these two teams have: excellent organizations to make sure Allen and Mahomes continue to be surrounded by cap-wise, scouting-smart teams. GMs Brandon Beane of the Bills and Brett Veach of Kansas City know how to keep the windows open around good quarterbacks. They know when to take shots—the way Beane and coach Sean McDermott did with Miller last spring.

The last time Buffalo played here, Kansas City scored 42 points, Mahomes threw for 378 yards and KC ran for 182. It was a defensive debacle. After that game, McDermott remembered something he learned as a young coach on Andy Reid’s staff in Philadelphia: Make sure you’re comfortable with each line, offense and defense.

McDermott and Beane liked their young talent on the defensive front. But they both wanted a horse. “We felt like we needed a player, a marquee player, to help us a little bit there for games like this,” McDermott told me after the game. “Blitzing Patrick Mahomes, that’s been well-publicized is not very effective. So you gotta be able to win with your front four.”

Miller was going to be 33, and the Bills weren’t sure how many snaps per game they’d get out of him. But Beane went all-out. Miller was certain at the start of free-agency he’d stay with the Rams, but Buffalo offered a better guarantee package in its six-year, $120-million offer, and Miller took it. After the game Sunday, he admitted to having some serious buyer’s remorse right away. “So tough leaving LA,” he told me. “Not only L.A. but Aaron Donald, man. I could’ve just rushed with Aaron Donald and Greg Gaines and rode off into the sunset.

“But to come here and have success and win the way we are and have this type of impact on a group of young guys, this is what it’s about. I battled through training camp. I was homesick and L.A.’s not even my home. I was homesick all the way through training camp.”

The craziest thing helped turn the tide: toilet paper.

“Bills Mafia started to make me feel at home when I was battling all that homesickness,” Miller said of the intensely loyal fan group that follows the Bills. “I said something in the media about how we were staying in a dorm in training camp, and the toilet paper was not that great. And Bills Mafia sent me tons and tons and tons of toilet paper. Wipes too! So that made me feel good.”

Right away, he became influential with the young players. He told Greg Rousseau, the 2021 first-round defensive end, that the best way to be an impact defensive player is to play like you’re on offense. “Always be aggressive,” Miller told Rousseau. And Don’t blink became the defensive mantra. Don’t be scared—you’re better than they are. Miller says it every day, over and over.

As I’d expected, McDermott, in the minutes after the game, already had his players pooh-poohing a seminal victory. There was joy in the locker room, but nothing over-the-top.

“How big was this,” I asked Allen, “considering the heartache you went through here last January?”

“It was good,” he said evenly. “Just try to find a way to win a game. That’s all it was.”

In some ways, he’s absolutely right to play it down. The Bills had a very nice win, stamping themselves as the team to beat in the AFC. And they made a great move to making the AFC tournament go through Orchard Park in January. Ask New England how it felt to play a playoff game against the Bills machine in sub-zero wind chill. The home-field edge could be huge for the Bills in three months. But if they don’t make it out of the AFC tournament in January, this win won’t be much salve.

What was proven Sunday is Buffalo now has a difference-maker on defense to make life hard for Mahomes. Buffalo knew it had that guy on offense, and Allen proved it again with the amazing touchdown throw to Knox. But with Miller, Buffalo’s got to be the favorite to get to that elusive fifth Super Bowl. Winning it, we’ll see.

 

1. The NFL has a Daniel Snyder problem. Oh really! The ESPN report last week claiming Snyder has been investigating and gathering dirt on NFL power players like Roger Goodell and Jerry Jones—a charge Snyder, through his franchise, denied—was the latest in a long line of major problems he is making for the NFL. There’s little question that commissioner Roger Goodell and a majority of the owners want to see Snyder sell the Washington franchise, but they may need more ammo to make him sell than they currently have.

It’s amazing how the two-decade Snyder regime has deteriorated a once-mighty franchise and continues to do so. He’s having trouble finding a state or municipality who wants to go into business with him building a new stadium, and the thought that D.C.-area power players would turn their business backs on a franchise that was a top-five NFL gem 25 years ago is shocking enough. I was told over the weekend that the league’s investigation into Snyder’s personal conduct by former U.S. attorney Mary Jo White could be the tipping point that could force Snyder out—if her investigation finds more wrongdoing by Snyder than is currently known. As the ESPN story by Seth Wickersham, Don Van Natta Jr. and Tisha Thompson relates, the woman with whom Snyder settled a sex-harassment charge for $1.6 million in 2009 could be a key element in White’s investigation.

ESPN reported that Snyder’s attorneys tried to keep the woman from interviewing with any of those investigating the owner or the team by offering her another payment, and that she would not take the payment. Snyder’s attorneys denied such an offer was made. ESPN also reported the woman was interviewed by White as part of the league’s investigation, which one source said could be the turning point in White’s investigation and in the league trying to remove Snyder as owner.

The NFL’s annual fall meeting is Tuesday in Manhattan, and it’s unlikely the Snyder case will be discussed there. Nothing of substance is expected to happen until White releases her report. But if the report has teeth about personal misconduct from Snyder, that could finally be the smoking gun to force the league to confront the Snyder headache head-on.

2. The Packers are in trouble. What odds could you have gotten from a wise guy back in the summer if you wanted to bet the Pack would lose to the Giants and Jets in succession in October? And not only lose, but be certainly outplayed, particularly in Sunday’s 27-10 loss to the Jets at Lambeau Field. “We’re in a pretty bad predicament right now,” said coach Matt LaFleur. The Packers aren’t able with a young receiver corps to rely on anything offensively. After the game, Aaron Rodgers said he thinks the offense needs to be simplified for the time being. “All of it,” Rodgers said. “I don’t want to get too specific. I’m not attacking anything. I think based on how we’ve played the last two weeks it’s going to be in our best interest to simplify things for everybody … the line, the backs, the receivers … and maybe that will help us get back on track.” Maybe facing Washington next week will help just as much.

3. How does a league divvy up a $790-million pie? The Rams’ owner, Stan Kroenke, said he’d pick up the league’s legal bills over the move from St. Louis to Los Angeles. On Tuesday, the league will finalize the arrangements for who, exactly, will fund the huge settlement paid to end the St. Louis challenge of the move. It’s certain no one will be happy with how the 32 owners will have to divvy up the cost. Kroenke can claim he did the other 31 franchises a solid by revitalizing the L.A. market and building the league’s biggest gem of any stadium, so they should kick in the majority of the cost of the settlement. (The league has already gotten each owner to pay $7.5-million for it—and most owners don’t think they should have even paid that much.) I heard that the NFL may consider making the two teams that moved near the same time as the Rams—the Chargers and Raiders—pay more than the other 29 teams in the league. Stay tuned.

4. Robert Kraft had a fairly Hollywood wedding party. In July, when Kraft buddy Elton John was playing Gillette Stadium on his farewell tour, he asked Kraft, then engaged, when he was planning to get married. Up in the air, Kraft told him. “Well, I want to perform at it,” Sir Elton told Kraft. “That will be my wedding gift.” So Kraft, 81, and his 47-year-old ophthalmologist bride, Dr. Dana Blumberg of New York, planned a wedding to fit in with the rock star’s current tour at an event space in Manhattan crafted out of an 1860s-era bank. Elton would be on the West Coast for shows in the Bay Area, Seattle area and Vancouver this month, but he had a gap day on Friday night, Oct. 14, and flew in from California to play a 45-minute set, including “Circle of Life.” The invitees weren’t told it was a wedding and didn’t find out until a video recorded by Al Michaels introducing the newlyweds was played at the event. Quite a guest list (of about 260) for the wedding party: Tom Brady, Ed Sheeran (one of the last to leave), Meek Mill, Drew Bledsoe, Roger Goodell, Kenny Chesney, Randy Moss, Adam Silver, Jon Bon Jovi … and probably the only time ever that Ed Sheeran will play guitar for a live Meek Mill rap song.

 

Hello, Next Gen!

FMIA has partnered with Next Gen Stats, the league’s new generation of advanced metrics and statistics, with data collected from 250 tracking devices per game on players, officials, pylons and footballs. I use NGS to help tell a deeper story about the game.

Today: How Artificial Intelligence is helping tell the story of defensive coverages—and how this new metric shows the precociousness of Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner.

Next Gen Stats created a model that allows AI to “watch” a play and immediately diagnose the coverage data—whether it’s man coverage, zone, or what kind of zone coverage. It can be done in real time, instead of with humans who’d want to run the tape back three or four times to ensure they had the correct type of coverage pre- and post-snap. This was the first weekend of games that Next Gen used the new model. I’ll be using data from it in the coming weeks.

A few choice items from week one of the AI model:

  • The Eagles are getting lots of mileage out of new defensive backs James Bradberry and C.J. Gardner-Johnson, and defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon is feeling more comfortable using more man coverage with those two plus Darius Slay because they’re all very good at it. (Gardner-Johnson, who played corner in New Orleans, has played safety 62 percent of his snaps, per Next Gen.) Last year, Gannon used man coverage on 21 percent of passing snaps; that’s up to 32 percent this year, a major increase. Last night, they used it 39 percent of the time and frustrated Dallas QB Cooper Rush (five-of-15, two interceptions against man) with it. Bradberry, who the Giants couldn’t afford to keep this year, has been a revelation for Philadelphia. He’s been targeted in man coverage 22 times but allowed only six catches for 44 yards. The Eagles have done a terrific job in acquiring versatile defensive backs over the last couple of seasons.
  • Sauce Gardner is every bit as good as he looks early on in his NFL career. On Sunday, against Aaron Rodgers, Gardner played man coverage on 11 of 42 coverage snaps and allowed no completions in two targets. So far this year, he’s allowed one reception for six yards in 40 man coverage snaps, the best record in man coverage of any cornerback in the league.
  • Without Tyreek Hill, Kansas City has faced man coverage on 46 percent of pass-drops, up from 30 percent last year. Patrick Mahomes threw both interceptions Sunday against zone.

 

Veteran Pro Football Hall of Fame voter Rick Gosselin wrote last week about the “true abyss” of qualified wide receivers, long since retired, who are long shots to ever make the Hall. It was so compelling to me that I asked him for a few words on the topic, just to educate people on 16 forgotten players who shouldn’t be.

Rick Gosselin on the bygone receivers who deserve better:

“There were eight Hall of Fame wide receivers who played in the 1971 NFL season. The only player who surpassed 1,000 yards in that 14-game season doesn’t have a bust in Canton, though. Otis Taylor of the Chiefs caught 57 passes for 1,110 yards and seven touchdowns that year.

While worthy receivers are waiting on the doorstep of the Hall of Fame—the Torry Holts, Andre Johnsons and Reggie Waynes—there is another segment of receivers with credentials just as sterling as those modern-era candidates. Those 16 deserving candidates, including Otis Taylor, can be found in the senior pool. They have never been finalists and most likely never will become finalists. One was named to the NFL’s 50th anniversary team (Boyd Dowler). Two more were first-team all-decade (Lavvie Dilweg and Gary Collins). One led the league in receiving five times (Lionel Taylor) and two others won three receiving crowns apiece (Sterling Sharpe and Billy Wilson). Del Shofner was the only receiver to catch 1,000 yards in passes in 1958—in a 12-game season.

“Gary Collins, a 10-year Browns receiver from the sixties, caught 70 career touchdown passes. So did Andre Johnson. But Collins caught his in 127 games. Johnson caught his in 193 games. Collins averaged a touchdown every 4.7 receptions, while Johnson averaged a touchdown every 15.2 catches. Jerry Rice, who might be the greatest receiver of all time, averaged one TD per 7.9 catches.

“Collins should have been a finalist at some point. So should Del Shofner, Otis Taylor, Lionel Taylor and so many others. But all now must wait from the depths of the senior pool for a call from Canton that likely will never come.”

 

Offensive players of the week

Bailey Zappe, quarterback, New England. Another start, another win (38-15 at Cleveland) for the fourth-round rookie from Western Kentucky. In his three appearances for the Patriots, Zappe’s passer ratings: 107.4 at Green Bay, 100.0 against the Lions at home, and 118.4 at Cleveland. On Sunday, Zappe recorded his first 300-yard passing game, going 24-of-34 for 309 yards. The 23-year-old from Victoria, Texas, just might be threatening Mac Jones’ hold on the starting job.

Matt Ryan, quarterback, Indianapolis. Matt Ryan is buying his offensive line a drink today. In the Colts’ 34-27 win over the Jaguars, Ryan dropped back 58 times and wasn’t sacked once. That’s a first for Ryan and Indianapolis this season (the QB was sacked six times in Denver last week alone). The time allowed Ryan to throw for 389 yards, with three touchdowns and zero picks. Quietly, Ryan just passed Dan Marino for seventh place on the all-time passing-yardage list.

Joe Burrow, quarterback, and Ja’Marr Chase, wide receiver, Cincinnati. LSU’s dynamic duo did not disappoint in their return to Louisiana. In their first game at the Superdome since winning the 2019 National Championship game as Tigers, Burrow and Chase combined for two touchdowns in the Bengals’ win over the Saints, including the game-winner with just over two minutes remaining. Burrow threw for 300 yards and three TDs, while Chase had seven receptions for 132 yards. Burrow arrived before the game wearing Chase’s LSU jersey and said post-game: “I wanted to pay tribute to people in Louisiana. What better way than wear a Ja’Marr championship jersey?”

 

Defensive players of the week

Two top-five rookies, playing just miles apart in New Jersey, share the award this week with a seasoned veteran.

Sauce Gardner, cornerback, N.Y. Jets. What a win for the entire Jets organization, and what a statement game for the rookie cornerback. Even with his game-opening pick six of Aaron Rodgers reversed, his elite ballhawk capabilities were on full display. Gardner tallied two pass breakups, including interrupting a Rodgers deep throw intended for Allen Lazard.

Kayvon Thibodeaux, edge rusher, N.Y. Giants. After missing the start of his rookie season with a knee injury, it took until week six for Kayvon Thibodeaux to get the breakout moment fitting for his status as the number five overall pick. With the Giants holding a slim four-point lead and the Ravens driving late in the fourth, Thibodeaux strip-sacked Lamar Jackson, and Leonard Williams recovered to seal the win for the G-Men. The moment clearly meant a lot to Thibodeaux, whose Giants are now 5-1 and keeping pace in a red-hot NFC East.

Von Miller, linebacker, Buffalo. Through six games, the 33-year-old has shown himself to be one of the smartest offseason acquisitions of 2022. He has six sacks on the season, including two of Patrick Mahomes in Buffalo’s 24-20 win over the Chiefs on Sunday. The linebacker put pressure on Mahomes all afternoon, perhaps most impactfully on Kansas City’s final series of the game, with the Chiefs down four and looking for the go-ahead score. Miller split through the Chiefs’ O-Line on the first play of the drive, forcing Mahomes out of the pocket and into a game-sealing pick caught by Taron Johnson. The interception won’t show on Miller’s stat line, but he was the powerhouse behind it, and he’s the powerhouse of a Bills defense laser-focused on the Super Bowl.

 

Special teams players of the week

Will Parks, safety, N.Y. Jets. Toward the end of the third quarter, the Jets held a 10-3 lead when a Quinnen Williams sack ended a Packers drive. Rookie Micheal Clemons powered through the Green Bay line to block Pat O’Donnell’s punt and Will Parks snagged it at the 20-, taking it in for the score to make it 17-3. Even though the Packers would get within seven again, that score went a long way to making the game feel out of reach. It was the first touchdown of Parks’ career and the Jets’ second block of the day.

Ryan Wright, punter, Minnesota. The Minnesota Vikings are 5-1 and Wright was a huge factor in the fifth win. Wright boomed a 73-yard punt in the first quarter (net 75 after Tyreek Hill went back two yards on the return), and Wright’s 10 punts went for a combined 441 yards, with six downed inside the 20.

Quinnen Williams, defensive lineman, N.Y. Jets. On a rainy day in Green Bay, when an early three points would be especially golden, he blocked Mason Crosby’s 47-yard field goal attempt, keeping the game tied at zero and notching the first of what would be two blocked kicks for the Jets. In addition to the block, Sunday’s stat line for Williams included two sacks, three QB hits and a forced fumble. Jets coach Robert Saleh described Williams as “playing at a different level. If he keeps doing this, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be Pro Bowl, All-Pro, all the different accolades you can get.”

 

Coaches of the week

Arthur Smith, head coach, Atlanta. After starting 0-2, the Falcons have now won three of their last four, including a 28-14 win over the 49ers this week. The Falcons held the 49ers scoreless in the second half and Marcus Mariota, Smith’s prize QB pupil, was the picture of efficiency, going 13-of-14 for 129 yards, two touchdowns and zero interceptions. With $77 million in dead cap money, Smith is finding creative ways to win games.

Robert Saleh, head coach, N.Y. Jets. So much of New York’s 4-2 start comes back to the top. In his second season with the big job, Saleh has found a way to build a strong defense and to empower the offense to play his style, which will always include a strong run game. After the game, Saleh shared some of his halftime speech: “Just keep giving ‘em blow after body blow after body blow.” That’s what the Jets have been doing for six weeks now. Saleh has the receipts to prove it. 

 

Goat of the week

Lamar Jackson, quarterback, Ravens. Lamar Jackson has shown himself to be more than capable of making magic this season. But in week six he showed himself capable of making truly terrible decisions. Up 20-17 in the fourth with a chance to put the game out of reach, Jackson bobbled the snap on third-and-five but retrieved it, launching a pass on the run intended for Patrick Ricard. It went right into the hands of Giants safety Julian Love, and Saquon Barkley leapt into the end zone on the ensuing drive to put the Giants up 24-20. The Ravens got the ball back for their final drive of the game and Jackson was strip-sacked on second-and-ten, sealing the win for the Giants. A show of force from New York defensive coordinator Wink Martindale against his former team, and a costly error from Jackson that the Ravens can’t afford, even in a middling AFC North.

 

Hidden person of the week

Justin Reid, safety, Kansas City. The quarterbacks are bound to get the vast majority of attention in a KC-Buffalo game. Rightfully so. But Reid saved the home team four points—very likely—with a play early in the second quarter in the red zone. Buffalo had third-and-nine at the KC 21-, and Josh Allen found Isaiah McKenzie with a sliver of space just past the first-down sticks. A completion and first down here, and Allen, who moved up and down the field with ease in the first 16 minutes, would have brought Buffalo to the doorstep of a 7-0 lead. CRUNCH! Reid drove through McKenzie with a legal hit that made the ball pop out. Incomplete. Field goal. Buffalo led 3-0, but it was a win for the KC defense because of Reid.

The Jason Jenkins Award

Antonio Hamilton, cornerback, Arizona. Hamilton had earned a starting job in training camp with the Cards when, the morning after the last preseason game, he suffered severe burns on his feet in a cooking accident at home. After being treated at the Arizona Burn Center in Phoenix, Hamilton returned to play in week five against the Eagles. Then he brought four teammates with him and visited children at the Burn Center last Tuesday, per Howard Balzer of gophnx.com. Hamilton spent time with 10 burn victims and their families, taking his socks off to show them his burns and how he’s recovered. He wanted to remove the stigma of being a burn victim. “It’s just a blessing to able to come here and be with you all because we all share the same type of scars,” Hamilton told them, per Balzer. “Be proud of our scars. You are no different than anybody else. We just have a different story to tell.”

 

I.

To me, this is not going to be a high-scoring type of game … This is going to be a 24-20 type of game.

–CBS analyst Tony Romo, 10 minutes into the Buffalo-Kansas City game, when it was scoreless. The final: Bills 24, KC 20.

 

II.

Cool guys cry.

–Giants rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux, after strip-sacking Lamar Jackson late in the Giants’ upset of the Ravens Sunday—and after he shed some tears because of his play.

 

III.

He’s backed into a corner. He’s behaving like a mad dog cornered.

–An NFL owner granted anonymity in ESPN’s damning report on Washington owner Dan Snyder.

 

IV.

I have been unjustly smeared in the media. I have done nothing wrong.

–Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, in a statement to FOX News about his alleged role in the Mississippi welfare scandal. He has been connected to $8 million in spending, much of it for a volleyball center at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi.

 

V.

The injuries are preliminarily thought to be non-life threatening.

–Kansas City police report on the incident after last Monday’s game, when Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams shoved photographer Ryan Zebley to the ground.

Might be the funniest line in police report history.

Good lord. I’m glad he’s okay, but does he even have a black-and-blue mark anywhere?

 

“Brady gets all the calls.”

Some things are said so often that they’re taken as gospel, like that last sentence. Is it gospel? Not when it comes to roughing the passer.

A site called NFLpenalties.com has broken down penalties by player, team, and category of flag since 2009. I totaled the number of times Tom Brady got a flag for being a victim of roughing the passer and ranked him against all other quarterbacks in the league. The data:

In the last five years (including the first five weeks this year), Brady is 17th in the NFL with 10 roughing calls on players against him. Matt Ryan is first with 28, Carson Wentz second with 25, Josh Allen third with 24. The retired Ryan Fitzpatrick was roughed nine more times than Brady over the past five seasons.

In the last 10 years (including the first five weeks this year), Brady is eighth in the league with 25 roughing calls on players against him.

Comparing apples versus apples, or comparing immobile older quarterbacks, Brady has gotten .17 roughing flags per game over the past decade. Matt Ryan has gotten .29 per game.

 

Just to keep track: The Raiders’ head coach is McDaniels (Josh), the Dolphins’ head coach is McDaniel (Mike), the Ravens’ defensive coordinator is Macdonald (Mike), the Texans’ pass-game coordinator is McDaniels (Ben, Josh’s brother), the Hall of Fame Vikings’ guard is McDaniel (Randall), the Eagles’ assistant secondary coach is McDonald (D.K.), and the Ravens’ director of R&D is McDonald (David).

There’ll be a quiz tomorrow.

 

KANSAS CITY—I just want you to see this picture. Sunday, mid-afternoon, Arrowhead Stadium, a glorious 62 degrees, light breeze across the field, every seat filled for a huge football game that lived up to its billing. There are gorgeous venues in the NFL (Lambeau is my favorite), but this place on a day like this was special. It’s not Wrigley, it’s not Fenway. But it’s a place with history and spirit. If you come, get here early, and take in the smells of the parking lot. October football on a perfect midwestern day. Can’t beat it.

 

I.

The Baltimore cornerback, after the Ravens blew their third double-digit lead in six games to lose to the Giants.

 

II.

Lucy Burdge works for Audacy Sports.

 

III.

Pro Football Focus with a fairly wow screengrab from the Fox telecast of Minnesota-Miami, from south Florida.

 

IV.

Ian Rapoport with the Fine Factoid of the Year right there.

 

V.

Amen, Stephen Holder, who covers the Colts for ESPN.com.

 

VI.

Canter, a south Florida-based agent, on one of the silliest stories of the year—that the Dolphins removed a ping pong table from the locker room, getting praise from coach Mike McDaniel.

 

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com, or on Twitter @peter_king.

Here is my stance. From Craig M, via Twitter: “Confused on your stance on concussion protocol. Isn’t the current system what you were screaming for? Now you’re saying it’s gone too far? Totally confused! Go back and listen to your comments from two weeks ago. You were adamant you wanted a system where someone would pull a player off the field. We have that now.”

I support the removal of players when they show unsteadiness or motor impairment on the field, for sure. My problem with the system is what happened in the Dolphins-Jets game eight days ago. No one saw anything, except apparently the spotter who has the authority to remove players he deems too injured to continue playing. The spotter directed Teddy Bridgewater to leave the game after a hard hit on Miami’s first offensive snap of the game. Bridgewater left the game and walked to the locker room to be checked for effects of head trauma. Dolphins officials did not see Bridgewater struggle to stand or walk. The network airing the game, CBS, did not show him struggling in any way. A Miami TV station that shot video of the play and the aftermath released its footage Monday and there was no sign of Bridgewater being impaired. It could be that the spotter saw something valid, something that showed Bridgewater struggling. But we never saw it, and the spotter didn’t speak publicly about it. My point is, it’s a good thing for the league to enforce a rule that mandates an impaired player to be benched. But there needs to be transparency so that we can understand, when we don’t see the impairment, why a player is removed from the game.

Good idea from Australia. From Simon Woinarski of Sydney, Australia: “I’m a long-term fan from a long way away. In Australia our two main football games (Australian Rules Football and Rugby League) are also wrestling with rule modifications to protect athletes from concussion, with varying success, but I think there is something from Australian Rules that the NFL should consider in sack situation. That is whether the QB’s head makes violent contact with the ground in a slinging type tackle—if that happens, it should be an automatic roughing-the-passer penalty but if not, then it’s play on.”

Definitely worth consideration, Simon. Thanks a lot.

I am ignoring Cooper Rush. From Mark Barillaro of Connecticut: “You write yet another part of your weekly article on Taysom Hill while ignoring an actual quarterback, Cooper Rush. You would think that Taysom is a member of your family with the amount of coverage he has been given in your column.”

No player in the league this season topped Hill’s performance last week, Mark. Four touchdowns—three rushing, one passing—in only 23 offensive snaps, plus a fumble recovered on special teams. He rushed for 112 yards, leaving him with more rushing yards than Najee Harris or Josh Allen after five weeks. Having said that, you’re right—Cooper Rush deserves more attention than I have given him. There’s room to do both.

Ummmmm. From Bob Norcott: “The Philadelphia Eagles are the only undefeated team in the NFL the last two weeks and never got a MENTION in your column? Is that because it’s not Dallas, Buffalo, KC or Tom Brady’s team that is 5-0?”

I wrote 1,850 words to lead the column after they beat Jacksonville two weeks ago, Bob.

 

1. I think the best three teams in football, in order, are Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Kansas City.

2. I think if I’m Carolina GM Scott Fitterer, I wouldn’t be just listening to offers for Christian McCaffrey. I’d be trying aggressively to move him. When healthy, McCaffrey, obviously, is a top-five back in the league. But he’s missed 23 games due to injury since opening day 2020. The good news is McCaffrey’s 26, but his value will be severely diminished because of his injury issues. Fitterer’s got two weeks until the deadline. Question is: Will a team give a second-round pick for him? Not sure I would, unless I had a mega-need and was a strong playoff contender.

3. I think Buffalo linebacker Matt Milano is the best player who gets the least credit in the NFL.

4. I think this succession of events told me everything I need to know about who Carolina wide receiver Robbie Anderson is:

a. When Matt Rhule was hired to coach Temple in 2013, he okayed the move of the 6-3 Anderson from the secondary to wide receiver. Anderson responded with 791 receiving yards and nine touchdowns.

b. The program stuck with Anderson when he missed the 2014 season due to academic ineligibility. Rhule welcomed him back in 2015.

c. Anderson had 70 catches for 939 yards as a senior, and was signed as an undrafted free-agent by the Jets. After averaging 52 catches a year in four seasons with the Jets, Anderson hit free-agency. The Jets were lukewarm about re-signing him.

d. In 2020, Rhule, the new coach of the Panthers, signed Anderson to a two-year, $20-million contract, with $12 million guaranteed.

e. Anderson caught 95 balls for the Panthers in 2020 and in 2021 Rhule and GM Scott Fitterer authorized a two-year extension for Anderson for $29.5 million.

f. Rhule was fired by owner David Tepper last Monday.

g. This was the reaction of Anderson to the firing of the man who coached him in college and who, when Anderson’s free-agency market was soft, signed him to one contract and then another a year later: little more than a shoulder shrug and “It is what it is.”

h. On Sunday, in the first post-Rhule game, Anderson was kicked off the sidelines in Los Angeles by interim coach Steve Wilks, apparently for mouthing off to an assistant coach. That should give you an understanding of soon-to-be former Panthers receiver Robbie Anderson.

5. I think it looks bad for the future of running back Cam Akers with the Rams. He was de-activated over the weekend and coach Sean McVay said ominously about the player’s fate, “We’re working through some things.” Akers was the Rams’ first pick in the 2020 draft, the 52nd pick overall, and the highest pick L.A. had in any draft from 2018 to 2021, and, of course, more valuable than a normal 52nd pick because the Rams won’t have a first-round pick between 2017 and 2023 and mid-round second-rounders are important. But in 25 games with the Rams, Akers has had two 100-yard games. He’s wilted under hard coaching.

6. I think Julian Edelman’s implication on “Inside the NFL” last week about how to sack a quarterback these days was downright weird. Commenting on the roughing-the-passer call on Atlanta’s Grady Jarrett against Tom Brady, Edelman said: “Yes, that was a terrible call, but you’ve got to know what you’re getting into when you’re playing against Tom Brady. We’ve seen these calls over and over again. What did [Maxx] Crosby do when he had the sack [on Patrick Mahomes] last night? He just held him up. You’ve got to play smart.” What was that? Good for Jarrett, who was on the show. “You can’t be serious in what you just said,” he said to Edelman.

7. I think this is the bottom line: If you’re going to suggest a defensive player should hold up a quarterback on a sack instead of tackling him to the ground, you’re suggesting the NFL play regular-season games the way it has played the Pro Bowl, or you’re suggesting the NFL play flag football.

8. I think that was unbecoming of Tom Brady, and that’s putting it mildly, to try to kick Jarrett after the perfectly legal sack. Brady deserved the NFL fine.

9. I think this is my question about the Chicago Bears, who wore orange socks, orange jerseys and orange helmets Thursday night against Washington: Are Bears orange?

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. RIP Angela

b.

c. Lansbury.

d. I meant it that way. Pat Summerall would have appreciated it.

e. What a life. What an incredible life. Nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar during World War II at age 18. Earned a Tony 65 years later on Broadway. Imagine being among the best at what you do for 65 years!

f. My daughter Mary Beth’s favorite TV show of all time—she still binges on it—was “Murder, She Wrote,” about a widow who rode her bicycle through a small town in Maine and was a mystery writer and amateur private investigator. Lansbury was perfect for the role, and she said the job fit her perfectly because she was basically playing herself on the show. But everyone between 20 and 65, kid or parent of one in 1991, remembers Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts, the singing teakettle in Beauty and the Beast. A fantastic run.

g. Obit of the Week: Alex Traub of The New York Times, on farmer and YouTube star Andy Detwiler, who lost both arms in an accident on a farm at age 2 but went on to an amazing farming life.

h. The incredible Detwiler packed a lot of farming lessons into his 52 years of life, and documented many on YouTube. Wrote Traub:

In his videos, Mr. Detwiler performs farm chores with striking resourcefulness and dexterity.

In one, of him feeding goats, he approaches a stack of feed bags and says, “I don’t advise this to anybody,” then bites one of the bags, lifts it upright, unties the string around the top with his teeth, spits the string out, cranes his neck so that his chin and shoulder surround the bag and grasps it, narrating his technique along the way. He carries the bag to a barrel, drops it inside, picks it up again with his teeth and smoothly pours the contents inside.

He then scoops up some feed with his right foot, raises his foot to the camera, creating a close-up, and lectures about the feed (“there’s oats in it, and cracked corn”), standing on one foot all the while.

i. Awesome. Just awesome.

j. Never thought I’d see Bruce Springsteen cover The Commodores, but I absolutely love Bruce doing “Nightshift.” Cool to see him honoring other artists and branching into different music.

k. Incredulous that the Warriors didn’t suspend Draymond Green for the vicious punch of teammate Jordan Poole. What, exactly, would constitute a suspendable offense? A fine? For a guy who’s made $155 million in his career, and who’s making $25.8 million? For an offense coach Steve Kerr called “the biggest crisis that we’ve ever had”? That’s some real justice right there.

l. Interesting to hear Bob Costas, on the Yanks-Cleveland playoff series, say this of Aaron Judge, who is headed for free-agency this off-season: “There will be some active bidding, including from the San Francisco Giants, the team he grew up rooting for.” Bob Costas, not a rumor-monger.

m. Baseball Story of the Week: Lindsey Adler of The Athletic with an insightful and blunt piece on Yankees ace Gerrit Cole.

n. It’s odd to post a feature story in the middle of the playoffs on a player who you or may not have a shred of interest in. I did it because Adler, who obviously covers the Yankees beat well, got stuff out of Cole that an insightful writer, close to the team, gets. The story sucks you in. Reminds me in an odd way of an old story called “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” about a kid in England who turned to running to cope with emotional and physical distress in his life.

o. Adler on Cole, who passed on signing with his home-area Angels for the cauldron that is being a crucial piece for the New York Yankees in October:

Gerrit Cole spent 28 years working to own one of the most prestigious pieces of real estate in baseball: The ace of the New York Yankees. Here at the summit, though, loneliness pervades the luxury everyone else can see.

“I think it’s the hardest job in the league,” Cole says. “I don’t think there’s a harder place to be the ace. I think it’s the most hunted job in the league and I think it comes with the most weight. The division is a f—ing (gauntlet). Above all else, I’m paid to keep us in the game as long as I can and take the ball every single f—ing time that I can and charge straight into the fire.”

The home that greatness builds is one in isolation. Those who aspire to legacy spend their entire lives obsessed with the sensation of separating themselves from the pack. But when your position is unique, so is the experience. The demands are different. The interpretation of your performance is different.

“It’d be very nice to be living at home, playing with Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani,” Cole said. “I could be spending today grilling burgers and drinking beer and gambling on football games. Instead, I’m here at Yankee Stadium throwing a bullpen at 10 f—ing 40 am, but we’ve got the LDS [league division series] coming up, and I’m pumped.”

p. Almost makes you want to root for Cole, regardless of your fandom.

q. Important Education Story of the Week: Eli Saslow of The Washington Post on the impossible situation of staffing the school system in an American town, Bullhead City, Arizona.

r. Saslow is a master at getting inside a vital story in America and illuminating it perfectly, no matter how ugly it is. And this story is downright ugly. Depressing and ugly. He goes to Bullhead City, a place desperate to find teachers to teach out-of-control students. The superintendent, Carolyn Stewart, 75, had just gotten a note from one of her principals, who wrote in desperation: “We are one teacher away from not being able to operate the school.”

s. So desperate is the superintendent to staff her schools that the superintendent finds some teachers in the Philippines, outstanding teachers, willing to take the jump for more money to teach in America. Rose Jean Obreque is the best one. Per Saslow, this is what Obreque finds in an early day in her English classroom in Fox Creek Junior High School:

Obreque was straining her vocal cords to shout over them. “I want you to listen!” she said. “We are not in the jungle. We are human beings, right? We cannot proceed with all this disruption.”

“We cannot proceed!” one of the students yelled out, as if declaring victory, and others started to laugh and yell, too. “Please, have some respect!” Obreque said, but only a few students seemed to hear her. “Five, four, three, two, one,” Obreque shouted, but they weren’t quieting down, and there was nothing but more humiliation waiting for her at zero. She decided to try a tactic she’d used a few times in the Philippines, planting herself quietly at the front of the room, modeling silence, looking from one student to the next and waiting for them to recognize their own bad behavior.

A boy was chewing on the collar of his shirt. A girl was taping pencils to each of her fingers and then pawing at the boy next to her. Two boys were playing a version of bumper cars with their desks. A girl was pouring water from a cup into another girl’s mouth, and that girl was spitting the water onto the student next to her. “Ugh, miss teacher lady? Can I go wash off this spit water?” the student asked. A boy was standing up and intentionally tripping over his friend’s legs. A girl was starting a game of hangman on the whiteboard. A boy was walking up to the front of the classroom, holding out a piece of paper rolled into the shape of a microphone, and pretending to interview Obreque. “So, what do you think of life at Fox Creek?” he asked.

t. There is nothing to say other than we’ve got a crisis in American education, and if you want to look the other way and say, It doesn’t affect me, so I don’t care, fine. But you will care when millions, and I mean millions, of uneducated people leave school incapable of contributing to society or unwilling to do so. We need to line up squarely behind teachers and public and private education and support the people and institutions.

u. Family History Story of the Week: Siri Chilukuri of The Wall Street Journal with a story on how you can preserve family history by a collection of well-placed emails.

v. This is behind a paywall, but I’ll try to get the point across in case you can’t read it, through Chilukuri’s words:

Ryan Jobson, 32 years old, was feeling frantic. His father, 62, had just started to recover from a heart attack in his home in Woodstock, N.Y. The pair had always intended to spend time getting the elder Mr. Jobson’s story in writing—with a particular focus on his years as a student protester in 1970s Jamaica. But now Ryan, a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, was worried the time to put pen to paper would never come.

A former student introduced him to Storyworth. For $99, the company will send weekly prompts to an email address of your choice. Each email contains either a question you’ve written or chosen from the Storyworth library. (Sample queries: “Who are your favorite artists?”; “Do you have any regrets in life?”) The recipient types his or her responses, and has the option to attach related photos. After the year, it is all bound into a hardcover book.

Mr. Jobson gave it a shot. He expected to hear specific stories he already knew but was surprised to discover his father opened up more than he ever had before.

Entries to Storyworth can be accessed on your account page at any time, but those who have received their book say it can be a powerful tangible object. Mr. Jobson recalls that when his father saw the bound volume he said, “I don’t know how I did this.”

w. I know zero about college football, and I saw only the last quarter-plus of Tennessee 52, Alabama 49. But that was a special game, a special event. (And I do love the orange checkerboard end zone.) The way Tennessee played ‘Bama toe to toe reminded me of that Alabama-LSU game when Joe Burrow went wild in 2019. Good to see the Vols be prominent again—the game’s better when they’re contenders.

x. We all had Phils-Padres in the NLCS, right? The teams that won 111, 101 and 101 games are out of the NL derby, and the teams that won 87 and 89 games march on.

y. I could listen to Dan Shulman and Eduardo Perez call a baseball game on the radio every day. They were great over the weekend doing Yanks-Guardians, and I caught maybe 90 minutes of them doing the series. Made me wish I was in a car, doing a four-hour drive just so I could have them as companions.

z. You reap what you sow, Alex Jones—hopefully every day for the rest of your life.

 

L.A. Chargers 30, Denver 16. So the Broncos have had their mini-bye, 11 days, after the disastrous Thursday night home loss to Indianapolis, and their beleaguered fans are hoping for something, anything to improve on being 30th in third-down conversion, 32nd in red-zone efficiency and 32nd in scoring. The Browns entered the weekend averaging 11.6 more points per game than Denver’s 15.0. The pressure on Russell Wilson entering this game is large. “I can handle it,’’ Wilson said during the week. “I’m built for it. I’m built for the good times and the tough times. Really, how you get out of it as a team … is we’re going to focus on today.” Whatever works.

 

Significant week for byes, with three division leaders off: Buffalo, Minnesota, Philadelphia, along with the Rams.

New Orleans at Arizona, Thursday, 8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video. Call this the Surprisingly Teetering on the Brink of Irrelevance Bowl. Did you know this is the 52-week anniversary of the Cardinals’ last win at home? They’re 0-8 in Glendale since a week seven 2021 rout of the Texans. And did you know the Saints are 6-10 since last Nov. 1? A weirdly important game for both.

Kansas City at San Francisco, Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET, FOX. First meeting of the two teams since Super Bowl LIV three years ago, and first meeting of KC at Niners since Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick faced off in 2014. On that week five weekend in 2014, by the way, Patriots rookie QB Jimmy Garoppolo mopped up in the “We’re on to Cincinnati” game for Bill Belichick, and it was the second game in the college career of Texas Tech freshman Patrick Mahomes. He came into a lost-cause game in the second half for starter Davis Webb at Kansas State. Star of that game for the Wildcats: wide receiver Tyler Lockett. What a long strange trip it’s been.

Pittsburgh at Miami, Sunday, 8:20 p.m. ET, NBC. This looked like a compelling game back in May, when the schedule got announced, and it still may be. The Steelers came alive on defense Sunday to beat Tampa, and Tua Tagovailoa is likely to play after his 2.5-game absence with a concussion. Miami was an explosive 3-0 team with a healthy Tua, and now they’re a scarred 3-3. Can they rebound? Probably not if they can’t beat a flawed Pittsburgh team.

 

The league’s in good shape

with Mahomes, Allen starring.

Two guys who get it.

 



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Sports

FMIA Week 4: Hurts at Home in Philly, Players and Parents on Football Safety, and the Case for Aaron Donald

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PHILADELPHIA – “Fifty-something degrees, wind’s blowing 20 or 30 miles an hour, raining sideways, down 14-nothing,” Jalen Hurts said an hour after the remnants of Hurricane Ian had played havoc with a football game here.

He could have continued this way: We’re 20 minutes into a game where we’re getting nothing done, I’ve thrown a pick-six, now it’s third-and-goal from the Jacksonville 16, and I scramble for 13 desperate yards, trying to get something going. Now it’s fourth down just inside the Jacksonville four-yard line.

The play here’s the gimme field goal. Get something on the board.

No. Coach Nick Sirianni chose to go for it. Offensive coordinator and play-caller Shane Steichen dialed up a pass. Hurts took a shotgun snap, looked fast at three covered targets, and took off around the 13-yard line. “Good quarterbacks bail you out when you don’t call the right play,” Sirianni said later. Around the three-, Hurts dove for the end zone and pinged violently off 235-pound rookie linebacker Devin Lloyd at the goal line, the ball bouncing out of Hurts’ hands when he was clearly over the line. Touchdown.

The collision … intense. “It happens, it happens. Football. You just do what you gotta do right there,” Hurts said.

Hurts, coach’s son, isn’t a celebrator, and he jogged to the sidelines. The Eagles were back in it on this miserable day. Sirianni found Hurts.

“You know why I went for it?” Sirianni told him. “I went for it because I trusted you.”

Eagles 29, Jaguars 21. The 4-0 Eagles, the NFL’s last unbeaten team. Now, in a hallway outside the Eagles’ locker room, Hurts looked like he was ready for a GQ cover shoot: Sky blue suit, white shirt with HURTS embroidered on each cuff, skinny navy tie, shiny blue pocket square, polished black dress shoes, gold watch. The playing conditions, a distant memory.

What wasn’t a distant memory?

“I went for it because I trusted you.”

Thinking about it, Hurts smiled slightly. “That’s something I really appreciate,” said Hurts, an unemotional sort.

Just five years ago, the Eagles were basking in the glow of their first Super Bowl win. Now, with almost an entirely new cast led by the 53rd pick in the 2020 draft, they might contend to win number two. Just as Doug Pederson trusted Nick Foles in 2017, Nick Sirianni trusts Jalen Hurts in 2022. Football’s a funny, and transient, game.

From A to Z, Adams (Davante) to Zappe (Bailey), with a lot of alphabetic trouble around the letters “UNC,” this was one crazy week in the league where they play for pay.

Davante Adams made some beautiful music in the Raiders’ first win of the year, catching nine balls for 101 yards and eliminating the dumb “Where’s Davante?” questions.

“Gross motor instability” will disqualify players from playing football in that game, per Mike Florio, which is wise.

Jack Jones, a totally unknown New England rookie corner, pick-sixed Aaron Rodgers and then had the nerve to diss him. Kids these days.

Mahomes. That’s it. Just Mahomes.

Zach Wilson of the 2-2 (!) Jets beat the Men of Tomlin. Caught a TD pass too.

Cooper Rush will never lose a football game again. Question is, will he ever start another one?

DOINK! DOINK! Saints will hear that in their sleep.

Jim Irsay is not going to stand for this. He really isn’t. I can feel him fixing to blow from here.

Saquon the QB! Of the 3-1 Giants!

Jamaree Salyer played one of the best games in the NFL Sunday, and you’ve never heard of him. Admit it.

“Hindsight you take the points.” John Harbaugh’s not apologizing. Huge win for the Bills, another crusher for Baltimore.

The Lions. My gosh, the Lions. Average score of their four games: Foes 35.25, Detroit 35.00. Leos are 1-3.

Bailey Zappe (pronounced Zapp-ee) gave the Patriots a chance in Green Bay Sunday, which means that I’ve buried the lede in this column.

Aaron Donald … is in my Lawrence Taylor League now. To me, it’s a big deal.

Now back to the Eagles, and to Jalen Hurts. Hey: I thought it was always sunny in Philadelphia.

 

It is sunny, on Jalen Hurts’ side of the street. You know why? Because his team won the game. The Eagles won it in a different fashion than in the bombs-away way they’d won in September, running it 50 times for 210 yards, keeping the ball for almost 40 minutes. Fine with Hurts.

“The point about today,” Hurts said, “is more so about the conditions of the football game and not letting that deter us from our goal and our execution and what we wanted to do. Our ball security – we had that interception early, the pick-six. But you look at the turnover differential, I think it was five to one, just one for us. (True.) We put ourselves in a 14-0 hole. We hadn’t been in a hole like that all year. In these conditions, we played a different game. We just handled it.”

This is the thing you notice about Hurts. He knows the only thing that matters is winning, particularly in a city like this one. Winning humbly, winning with a worker-bee attitude, winning with gratitude.

Philadelphia is ferocious and merciless. Cross Philadelphia, and you’re dead. Play with a Philadelphia attitude – as Hurts did Sunday, down 14-0, knowing he’d sacrifice anything to score on the fourth-and-goal run, and car-crash into the end zone – and you can be a king.

Time will tell if that happens with Hurts here. But his center, Jason Kelce, already thinks Hurts is “the epitome of what a Philadelphia athlete is. He’s the ultimate underdog, and this city loves underdogs.”

The quick bio doesn’t really start off as an underdog story: Hurts was coached by his dad in Channelview, Texas, and recruited by Nick Saban to quarterback Alabama in 2016. He won the job as a true freshman, kept it for two years, lost it to Tua Tagovailoa in 2018, and transferred to Oklahoma for the 2019 season. (I wonder how many quarterbacks have been both first-team all-SEC and first-team all-Big 12. There’s at least one.)

Doug Pederson didn’t see a short (6-1) quarterback with good mobility (4.59 seconds in the 40-). He saw a smart quarterback who knew when to run but didn’t use it as a crutch, with a plus-arm that many draftniks didn’t see, with a chip on his shoulder that he’s used in the right way. GM Howie Roseman wanted a good backup QB for Carson Wentz because he’d been hurt a lot, and so late in round two in April 2020, here came Hurts.

He’d been through so much at such a high level by the time he got to the Eagles that Wentz feeling threatened by him was something he never paid attention to. That wouldn’t help him be a better player. “First time he ever stepped in the huddle as a rookie was in Green Bay,” Kelce said. “You want your quarterback to be confident in his ability but almost stoic. He made everyone feel he was in complete control. Ever hear that saying that 80 percent of how you communicate is by body language? Jalen’s definitely one of those 80-percent body-language guys.”

He’s got one other Rocky Balboa trait: To knock him off, you’re going to have to knock him out. He just sprang up from that hit by Devin Lloyd Sunday. I don’t know how. But that was a powerhouse right hook from Apollo Creed, and Hurts acted like it was a glancing blow.

“I’ve never lost faith,” Hurts told me. “I’ve been at the top of the mountain and I’ve been in the valley low. Through it all I’ve always been who I am and I’ve tried to stay true to who I am – being a man of God and keeping Him at the center of everything. I’ve never lost faith. I’ll never ever ride waves. Never get too high, never get too low. I just always try to keep the main thing the main thing and control what I can and try to be the best quarterback and best man I can be for my team.”

Talk to people around the Eagles, and you’ll hear this recurring theme about Hurts: This is the first year he’s had the same offense two seasons in a row, so of course he’d be a better player. And he certainly is. Who’d have thought, a quarter of the way through the season, that you’d look at the leaders in yards-per-pass-attempt, the category that most often has the big throwers atop the list, and see this man in first place:

Jalen Hurts, 9.1 ypa

Having two deep threats, A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, helps. But it’s more than that. It’s the quickness of his decision-making. It’s comfort in the system. It’s, even when he tucks and runs, as he did down 14-0 near the goal line Sunday, the discipline of going from 1 to 2 to 3 so fast, and knowing the throw’s not there and knowing instantly the best option is to run. That knowledge base is helped by having the exact same people around him daily for a second straight year—Kelce the center, Sirianni the head coach, Steichen the offensive coordinator, Brian Johnson the QB coach, Kevin Patullo the passing game coordinator.

As Sirianni said post-game, the benefit of players like Tom Brady and Drew Brees and Philip Rivers commanding the same offense year after year is obvious. “They have a mental rolodex, and they know when the defense looks a certain way, they’re going here with the ball, period.”

I fully expected Hurts to say what a great relief it was to finally have the same offense and same mentors for a second year. But he didn’t. Again, he saw the sunny side.

“I’ve always tried to use that as a positive,” he said. “I learned something from Lane Kiffin, from Brian Daboll, from Mike Locksley, from Steve Sarkisian, at Alabama. Learning all those different ways of thinking of football conceptually really helped me. Then coach [Lincoln] Riley at Oklahoma. Then coach Pederson. Now my coaches here.

“I’ve been a sponge. I’ve observed and learned. I apply their lessons to the way I think.” All the way back to high school, and coach Averion Hurts in Channelview, Texas.

“Everything’s simplified in high school,” he said. “You play your best when you have a simple mind, right? Sometimes, when I run a play now, and it’s something like high school, I think, ‘I ran that play for coach Hurts back at Channelview.’”

One other point about Hurts that’s compelling. It’s too early to think the Eagles are certain that Hurts is their quarterback for the next 10 years. Why make that call now anyway, when there’s no real reason to? It’s certainly trending that way – that Hurts will be the franchise guy here. But until he is, and until the Eagles have to lay out the money for Hurts, they can build a more complete team. That more complete team was on display Sunday in the south Philly rain.

The Eagles signed free-agent pass-rusher Haason Reddick for three years and $45 million; he had two strip-sacks of Trevor Lawrence in the fourth quarter. And Roseman took advantage of the Giants’ horrible cap management by pilfering corner James Bradberry for one year and $7.25 million. With five minutes left in the third quarter and the Jags down 20-14, Bradberry baited Lawrence into a huge interception at the Eagles’ seven-yard line.

The Eagles are a continuum. From the looks of it, the 24-year-old Hurts will be at fulcrum for a long time. Good for the Eagles. Bad for the rest of the NFC East.

 

The best stories in the NFL on Sunday:

1. The Zappe-Rodgers showdown was a barnburner.

Packers 27, Patriots 24, overtime. In fact, Green Bay had to play all 70 minutes to get the win, and afterward Aaron Rodgers said, “This way of winning, I don’t think, is sustainable because of the pressure it puts on our defense.” Weird season for the Packers, who are 3-1 despite missing Davante Adams desperately. Lucky season too, because the Pack is in the midst of the most generous six-game stretch – Chicago, at Tampa Bay, New England, Giants (in London), Jets, at Washington – on its schedule, by far. Amazing to think Green Bay’s got the 3-1 Giants in London next Sunday. Yes, 3-1.

Against the Patriots, it wasn’t so much what rookie Bailey Zappe from Western Kentucky did; it’s what Rodgers didn’t do. Among other things, Rodgers threw a bizarrely late sideline route that rookie corner Jack Jones picked off and ran back for a touchdown. What’s more, Jones threw shade at Rodgers for it. “Personally,” Jones said, “I feel it’s disrespectful to throw an out route on me.” Hey kid: They threw out routes on Deion Sanders! (Not many, but some.) How did the 121st pick in the draft get so big-headed to think one of the best quarterbacks ever was insulting him by throwing the kind of route that’s thrown 162 times a week in the NFL? Man, that was weird.

Rodgers and Belichick post-game. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)

On the bright side, it was cool to see Bill Belichick and Rodgers, in what is very likely their last meeting on the field, spend significant time talking before and after the game. Belichick, 70, and Rodgers, 38, would have to meet in a Super Bowl unless both hang on till the next Pats-Pack meeting in 2026.

2. Every year in the NFL, reality bites.

I remember on my visit to Steelers training camp how taken aback Mike Tomlin was by the mere suggestion that the Steelers might regress to the mean this year, post-Roethlisberger. Well, we’re just about there. Sunday in Pittsburgh: Jets 24, Steelers 20, dropping the home team to 1-3.

And while we’re at the business of strange NFL developments, consider this: Teams repping New York City (Jets, Giants) are a combined 5-3. Teams repping the state of California (Niners, Rams, Chargers) are 5-5.

Anyway, what the Towel-wavers probably cannot fathom is Jets QB Zach Wilson carrying a 20-10 deficit into the last 13 minutes, driving New York 81 yards in 11 plays for a TD to narrow it, and then driving 65 yards in 10 plays for another TD to win it. “That was some of the most fun I’ve had playing football,” Wilson said. Well, overcoming a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter by completing 10-of-12 to beat the team Mike Tomlin coaches is a pretty big deal.

Re: Tomlin, the fact that he yanked starting quarterback Mitchell Trubisky less than three-and-a-half games into his Steeler trial is another big deal. Now it’s Kenny Pickett’s turn to try to justify the faith the Steelers placed in him by drafting him 20th last April. Talk about a trial by fire: Pittsburgh faces Buffalo, Tampa Bay, Miami and Philadelphia in the next four weeks. Yikes.

3. Great Mahomes throws, ranked:

  1. No-look pass to Demarcus Robinson, 2018, vs. Baltimore.
  2. Fourth-down cross-body bomb to Tyreek Hill, 2018, vs. Baltimore.
  3. Lofted basketball shot over traffic to Clyde Edwards-Helaire, 2022, vs. Tampa:

Discuss.

That’s how I’d rank them, anyway. Mahomes on the two-yard hoop shot to Edwards-Helaire: “I saw Clyde and just kinda flicked it up to him. I was thinking about getting to the pylon, but then I realized Clyde was open.”

Sometimes, I think Mahomes could make fairly normal throws, but tossing the throw like he did in Tampa is just stupidly fun. Why not do it? Why not insert more fun in the game?

4. A sentence and a quote on four other events:

  • The Colts are in trouble, rushing for just 3.5 yards a carry and getting Matt Ryan beat up, and trust me, the owner is stewing over being 0-2-1 in the division – with a win over Kansas City. “We are all pissed,” defensive captain DeForest Buckner told The Athletic.
  • The Lions are first in points scored and last in points allowed. “I have a lot of faith in [defensive coordinator] Aaron Glenn, but I think we need to take a deep dive on our defense from coaching on down,” said Dan Campbell.
  • Cooper Rush is 3-0 as Dak Prescott’s relief pitcher, and I’m not buying his aw-shucks-I’m-so-lucky routine. “All the breaks you catch, I guess I’m just kind of lucky,” he said after the 25-10 win over Washington.
  • With the Chargers needing to protect QB Justin Herbert (ribs) and left tackle Rashawn Slater out, sixth-round rookie Jamaree Salyer, who moved from guard to play tackle Sunday in Houston, was a gem in the 34-24 Chargers win. “He’s a stud – calm, poised, strong,” said coach Brandon Staley.

 

Hello, Next Gen: AD & LT

Before I write about Aaron Donald, I want you to watch a short video of Donald’s 100th career sack, eight days ago against Kyler Murray of the Cardinals:

So … There’s an avalanche of newfangled (and very valid) stats we can use as measurable metrics in football today. When I started covering the game in 1984, the NFL was three decades away from tracking the speed and exertion of players with tiny trackers embedded into uniforms, for instance. In the eighties, you had to trust your eyes.

My eyes told me, covering Lawrence Taylor and the New York Giants for four of their glory years, that Taylor was the best defensive player I saw then, and I’d probably ever see, a merciless roadrunner/hostage-taker of offensive souls. Not only was Taylor a sack machine and fast enough to beat any tackle on the edge, but he could bull-rush like a nose tackle. Boy, was he mean. Effectively mean.

Today, I’m here to say Aaron Donald joins Lawrence Taylor on my personal two-player Mount Rushmore of Defense of the last four decades. Donald, truly, is probably better, and I can’t believe I’m saying that. But you know how Bulls-philes who love Michael Jordan said there’d never be anyone like Jordan, ever? Maybe not. But LeBron’s close. Kobe’s close. Same with there’ll-never-be-another-Joe Montana. Well, Tom Brady came along. I’m not a fan of watching some all-timer play and saying there’ll never be another one as good, or nearly as good. There almost always is.

Metrics say it, and my eyes see it in their 39th season of watching great players play: Aaron Donald is at least as destructive, and at least as impactful, on a game as Lawrence Taylor was.

The final bit of proof came eight days ago, in Arizona, in the video you just watched. Donald was lined up across from right guard Will Hernandez of the Cardinals, in an uncommon (for Donald) one-on-one, no-chip-help look. Per Next Gen Stats, Donald was 6.15 yards from Murray, in the shotgun, at the snap of the ball. When Donald beat Hernandez to the inside on the pass-rush, Donald was 2.36 yards from Murray when both were in full gallop, Murray trying to evade Donald. Donald dove at Murray at the Arizona 34-, and clipped the QB’s ankle with one outstretched whack of the hand, and Murray went down. Murray intentionally grounded the ball while going down, but the officials ruled he was down before releasing it, and that was Donald’s 100th sack.

Next Gen Stats records speeds of everything, including players at all points of the game. The burst of Donald coming off jousting with Hernandez showed him running 14.09 mph to catch Murray. What’s significant about that? Donald, while sacking Murray, had a faster burst to catch a quarterback than any of the great edge players in football—Micah Parsons, T.J. Watt, Khalil Mack, Myles Garrett, Joey Bosa, Nick Bosa—had in the first three weeks of this season.

This is the essence of Aaron Donald: At 31, after seriously considering retirement last winter, he can still bull-rush and toss aside a 335-pound guard, then catch one of the fastest quarterbacks in NFL history for a sack.

It’s perfect and just, really, that Donald has more sacks than any player in football since he broke into the league in 2014, and his 100th came against a quarterback who runs a 4.38 40-yard dash in full retreat mode.

“I’m an edge rusher playing inside,” Donald told me the other day, driving home from work.

Those six words have to be the most accurate and telling words that Donald has ever spoken about football, because an edge rusher stout enough to dominate inside is exactly what Donald is.

Donald before last Sunday’s game against the Cardinals. (Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images)

“I think I’ve opened some doors about the position since I came into this league,” he said. “When I was drafted, I wasn’t that 6-4, 300-pound interior lineman everyone was looking for. I was 6-1, 280 … but really I played at 265. I heard it all: You ain’t big enough. You can’t be an interior defensive lineman in this league at 265.

“I think what people forget is, my sophomore year at Pitt, I played the edge. I played 5-technique. (A 5-technique defensive end plays just outside the shoulder of the tackle and has to be powerful against the run as well as a good rusher.) And I played pretty well. So if I had to do it now, I think I could do it. I don’t know how successful I’d be, but I know I could it.”

Donald would be pretty damn good. But the shorter path to the quarterback fits his quickness and power like no other player in football—outside or inside. One more Next Gen Stats piece of gold: Since NGS began compiling stats in 2016, he has 458 quarterback pressures, 86 more than any other defensive player in football.

There are other Taylor/Donald things to consider. Donald, entering the Rams game at San Francisco tonight, is averaging .77 sacks per game in his 130-game career, rushing mostly from the inside; Taylor averaged .77 sacks per game in his 184-game career, rushing largely from the outside. Donald had two fourth-quarter sacks, critical plays, in his lone Super Bowl win over Cincinnati. Taylor had no sacks in either of the Giants’ Super Bowl wins he played in. That matters, but it’s not huge.

Both play angry. I once saw Taylor, in a replacement game in 1987, try to gouge the eyes of a Buffalo tackle who’d consistently played him dirty. In August, I saw Donald rip off the helmet of teammate Ron Havenstein in a camp brawl and hurl it in the air. Not a good trait, obviously, but indicative that even in practice Donald plays with intensity. Their competitive streaks match.

If I had to draft one of them at 22, I’d take Donald. I can’t think in my little football world of a bigger compliment to give a defensive player than to say I’d choose him over Taylor.

Donald is not a big talker, especially about himself. But on his ride home Thursday, it was clear he knows what he’s done so far, and also that he knows he still has more greatness to chase.

“My expectation entering the league was never this,” Donald said. “It’s so hard to talk about it, honestly, hearing my named mentioned with all the greats. Hard to find the words. I’ve surpassed anything I’ve ever dreamed of, but I have so much more to do. I won’t let it all soak in till I’m finished, whenever that is.”

Donald has committed to play through the end of 2023. Selfishly, I hope there’s more.

 

Tua and Player Safety

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The best thing that can be said about the Tua Tagovailoa concussion drama is that the league and the players union seem on the verge of taking the game to a safer place with their joint admission that they “anticipate changes to the [concussion] protocol” in the coming days.

But the process of how they’re getting there is clunky, at best. From the time Tagovailoa was slammed to the turf in Miami eight days ago, to being rag-dolled to the turf in Cincinnati Thursday night and stretchered off the field, what seemed obvious over the five-day period was made questionable by the adults in the room. And late Saturday, after reports of the NFL players union dismissing the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant (UNC), which is their right under the concussion protocol, the league and union admitted they had a fractured process.

“The NFL and the NFLPA agree that modifications to the Concussion Protocol are needed to enhance player safety,” Saturday’s joint statement said. “The NFLPA’s Mackey-White Health & Safety Committee and the NFL’s Head Neck and Spine Committee have already begun conversations around the use of the term ‘Gross Motor Instability’ and we anticipate changes to the protocol being made in the coming days based on what has been learned thus far in the review process.”

When I talked to NFL Chief Medical Officer Allen Sills Sunday morning, he stressed that no decisions had yet been made about changes to the concussion protocol. He made the point that it’s possible that when players stumble on the field after a play—as Tagovailoa did against Buffalo four days before he was concussed in Cincinnati—it’s not always because of head trauma. “Sometimes players stumble and it’s not coming from the brain,” Sills said. “Did he (Tagovailoa) stumble from a brain concern or something else?”

It’s plausible, of course. We’ve got to be cognizant that it’s possible—possible—that Tagovailoa might not have had head trauma the previous Sunday against Buffalo, when he was shoved by linebacker Matt Milano and his head slammed against the turf. Tagovailoa claims it was his back, not head, that hurt. And apparently the UNC and Dolphins team medical officer who examined him at the half agreed, because he returned to play that afternoon.

But there’s a problem with clearing a player to return to play after he: a) has his head slammed to the turf; b) demonstrates instability getting up; c) has to go to a knee to steady himself to avoid falling. First, did the medical officials see the back of Tagovailoa’s head slam into the turf? They should have, because they’re supposed to review visual evidence of the incident. And when the head hits the turf at great force, and it is followed by a player appearing punch-drunk and needing to go to the ground to avoid falling, that must be cause for a player to be removed from the game immediately.

Mike Florio reported Sunday night that the “gross motor instability” loophole is going to be removed from the concussion protocol. That is the best result from this ugly situation.

Not that other factors should come into play on a pure safety issue. But you’d be naïve to think the NFL isn’t concerned about its long-term talent pool. And think of parents of young athletes who saw Tagovailoa get knocked down, return to play, then get stretchered off the field four days later. What must they be thinking?

I asked my readers, particularly those with kids who might play football, how the situation affected them. This, from George Recine of Andover, Mass.: “I played four years of high school and four years of college football. I believe strongly in the good football has done for me and can do for my 9-year-old son. I want him to be able to play when the time comes. But my wife was watching the game with me Thursday night, and when Tua’s fingers locked in that grotesque position she turned to me and said, ‘And that’s why Charlie’s not playing football.’ What possible comeback could I have had?”

Multiply Recine by how many? Fifty thousand? More? Don’t dismiss those parents. They matter to the NFL.

The NFL says it’s serious about player health and head trauma. Now’s the time to prove it. Force a player to the bench when he suffers a major blow to the head and can’t stand or walk straight. In this case, that’s where the fix must start.

 

Rob Ninkovich, the former linebacker who won two Super Bowls with the Patriots, retired after his last one five-and-a-half years ago. He played 11 seasons, and Bill Belichick asked him to come back for a 12th in 2017. Ninkovich said no. Now with ESPN, Ninkovich is a thoughtful voice on football, longevity, injuries, risk, and life after football. His thoughts on 24-year-old Tua Tagovailoa:

“I think if 54-year-old Tua could talk to 24-year-old Tua, he would ask him, ‘What were you thinking?’ Twenty-four-year-olds think they’re indestructible. A football player is made to never want to come off the field. He never wants to surrender. And head injuries are the hardest injury for athletes to accept. You don’t know the effect of most of them till later in life.

“But you have to protect the player from the player.

“My career started to come to an end when my daughter was born. I was 30 years old, and we beat Seattle in the Super Bowl that year. My mom wanted me to retire then. She said, ‘You defied all the odds—what else is there?’ Two years later, I was still playing, and we beat Atlanta. But I knew I was retiring.

“The Patriots reached out multiple times about playing, and I was tempted. It was actually a very stressful time. I got shingles that off-season from the stress. It’s one of the hardest decisions you can ever make, as a football player. You’re stopping your lifelong dream, voluntarily. You’re never gonna put the pads on again. It’s so final.

“But if you’ve played for a few years, and you have decent money saved for life after football, and you’re deciding whether to play one more year … The price you pay for one more year of salary is you might take another 850 shots to the head. Is it worth it? It wasn’t for me.

“The league preaches safety all the time. But then they add a 17th game, and one game a year for every team on three days’ rest, the Thursday night game. What really bothers me is Tua is a highly talked-about person in a highly sought-after position, so this gets a ton of attention. Rightfully so. But what about offensive linemen or lesser-known players when this happens to them? Nobody notices. It’s brushed under the rug.

“The whole thing is upsetting. It’s the families, the wives and the children, who will deal with the consequences of things like these far down the road. They’ll be dealing with what happened to these players when they were 24 years old.”

 

Offensive players of the week

Cooper Rush, quarterback, Dallas. With Dak Prescott openly campaigning to play next week at the Super Bowl champion Rams, let’s take a moment to appreciate Cooper Rush. He’s now 4-0 as a Dak relief pitcher, including three wins in a row since Prescott went down opening day with the broken thumb. He’s also the first Cowboys quarterback in history to win each of his first four starts. In Sunday’s 25-10 win over the Commanders, Rush went 15-of-27 for 223 yards and two touchdowns, including a 30-yard pass to CeeDee Lamb at the start of the fourth to make it a two-score game. Will Dak Prescott be ready to regain his job next week? Suddenly, it’s not so vital.

Saquon Barkley, running back, New York Giants. Barkley’s splashy return to form continued this week in the Giants’ win over the Bears with 31 carries for 146 yards, his second game of the season surpassing 100 rush yards. The Bears’ defense has been its (relative) strength this season, but they had few answers for Barkley. Daniel Jones added 68 yards on the ground and rushed for two scores of his own before leaving the game with an ankle injury. When backup Tyrod Taylor entered concussion protocol, Barkley stepped up to play Wildcat QB. “Like you were eight years old playing with your friends,” Barkley said post-game of watching Brian Daboll draw up plays on a grease board on the sideline.

Zach Wilson, quarterback, New York Jets. It wasn’t a perfect performance from Wilson in his first start since his August knee surgery, but it was a fun one. The second-year QB went 18-for-36 for 252 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions against Pittsburgh. Before he ever threw a touchdown pass in the 2022 season, he caught one. In a Jersey twist on the Philly special in the second quarter, Wilson handed off to wide receiver Garrett Wilson, who flipped it to Braxton Berrios, who found Zach Wilson in the end zone for the 10-0 lead. More importantly, Wilson powered the Jets to the fourth-quarter comeback: Down by 10 in the fourth, he went 10-of-12 for 128 yards and a five-yard TD pass to Corey Davis. More amazing, perhaps, than winning in Pittsburgh: the Jets are 2-2.

Rashaad Penny, running back, Seattle. A bit like his team, Penny got off to a slow start this season, with zero touchdowns entering this week. In Detroit, Penny cemented the Seahawks’ win with a pair of long second-half touchdowns, from 36 and 41 yards out, the latter extending Seattle’s lead from three to 10 points with 2:14 left to play. When the Lions again closed the gap to 3 points, making it 48-45, Penny ended their comeback hopes when he converted on third-and-five with 58 seconds remaining. He went for 151 yards, 10 more than his season total entering the game.

 

Defensive players of the week

Jordan Poyer, safety, Buffalo. Late in the fourth quarter of a game tied at 20, the veteran safety picked off Lamar Jackson in the end zone on fourth and goal, arguably the most pivotal moment of the Bills’ 17-point comeback and 23-20 win over the Ravens. Credit as well to rookie defensive tackle Prince Emili, who was elevated from the practice squad for each of Buffalo’s last two games and who tipped Jackson’s pass. It was the second interception of the day for Poyer (both came in the fourth quarter), and his fourth of the season – he has at least one interception in each of the three games he’s played in this year.

Haason Reddick, linebacker, Philadelphia. More fourth-quarter heroics as Reddick strip-sacked Trevor Lawrence twice in the final frame. The first put the Eagles on the road to a Miles Sanders touchdown and a 29-14 lead. The second came just inside the two-minute warning, with the Jaguars at the start of a fresh set of downs, and sealed the 29-21 victory for Philadelphia, the only undefeated team in the NFL. Reddick, who has been making impact plays at Lincoln Financial Field since his days at Temple, signed a three-year, $45 million deal with the Eagles ahead of this spring, and has so far played up to the money, with 3.5 sacks through four games to start the season.

 

Special teams player of the week

Ryan Wright, punter, Minnesota. Executed a classic fake punt to rescue the Vikes after another stalled drive, late in the third quarter in London against the Saints. With Minnesota up 16-14 late in the third quarter, on fourth-and-two from the New Orleans’ 47-yard line, Wright, a rookie, tossed a 13-yard completion to another rookie, wideout Jalen Nailor. Minnesota turned that into a 46-yard field goal and a 19-14 lead early in the fourth quarter. Wright, by the way, was a pretty logical faker: He threw 30 touchdown passes as a high school quarterback in 2016 and ’17 in California, at the aptly named California High School. Vikes 28, Saints 25.

 

Coach of the week

Bill Belichick, head coach, New England. All you need to know about the Belichick gameplan is this: Someone named Bailey Zappe played most of the game at quarterback for New England in hallowed Lambeau Field against Aaron Rodgers … The game went to overtime … Zappe had a higher passer rating than Rodgers … Rodgers threw a pick-six to another unknown Pats rookie, Jack Jones … And the Packers needed all 10 minutes of OT to eke out a 27-24 win. The Patriots are 1-3, but if Belichick ever coached a game that was a moral victory, this was it.

 

Goat of the week

Trevor Lawrence, quarterback, Jacksonville. Football giveth, football taketh away. A week after he gave a 262-yard, 3-TD, no-turnover performance in a road win against the Chargers, Lawrence all but handed the Eagles a win on Sunday – or perhaps it’d be more accurate to say he dropped the win in their laps. After the Jaguars went up 14-0 early, Lawrence turned the ball over five times – including four lost fumbles for a 21st-century record, per ESPN – resulting in 22 of the Eagles’ 29 total points on the day. The Jaguars fall to 2-2 in rainy Philadelphia.

 

Hidden person of the week

Jason Kelce, center, Philadelphia. Should a 12-year veteran of the trenches really still be road-grading people at age 34, at the highest level of the game? Kelce is. In his 126th straight start, Kelce was the center of a great Eagles offensive line against a strong Jaguar defensive front Sunday. Case in point: 30 seconds left in the half, game tied at 14, Philly ball at the Jax 10-. Handoff to Kenneth Gainwell, and Kelce erased defensive lineman Adam Gotsis at the point of attack, then veered off to shove a Jags linebacker on the next level. Kelce too often is the hidden guy—to everyone other than those who know the game.

 

The Jason Jenkins Award

John Metchie III, wide receiver, Houston. In July, Metchie, a second-round pick for the Texans out of Alabama, announced that he’d been diagnosed with a form of leukemia that would likely keep him out for the entirety of his rookie season. This week, he brought his “hospital family” to NRG Stadium for a surprise tour and dinner to thank them for their support and compassion – the group included nurses, doctors, and some of the patients the 22-year-old Metchie met during treatment. “Keep a strong faith, win day by day and brick by brick,” Metchie said of what he’s learned while fighting Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia. “No matter what situation you’re in, how down you are or up you are, it’s always a blessing to be able to be a blessing to somebody else.”

 

I.

CTE takes you to a dark place, and I want these players to know, it’s not worth it. Please take care of yourself. Don’t depend on the NFL. Don’t depend on anybody.

—Rodney Harrison, on NBC’s “Football Night in America,” with a poignant message for current players.

 

II.

I’m going to look at everything.

–Detroit coach Dan Campbell, after his defense gave up 48 points to a mediocre offensive team, Seattle, on Sunday.

 

III.

In the end, Rodgers was just too good. He made some throws that only Rodgers can make. We had pretty good coverage on some of those and he was just too smart, too good, too accurate. In the end he got us.

—Bill Belichick after what might’ve been his last game against Aaron Rodgers, an overtime loss for the Patriots at Lambeau.

 

IV.

I probably evaluated over 100 players in the NFL with concussions or potential concussions in my 26 years in the league. If you’re trusting the players to give honest objective information, you shouldn’t, because the brain is not functioning the way it should and won’t give you necessarily the truth.

—Mike Ryan, longtime NFL athletic trainer and current NBC sports medicine analyst for Sunday Night Football.

 

V.

Greatest receiver in the history of football and certainly in that era.

—Bill Belichick on Hall of Famer Green Bay receiver Don Hutson who, in the first quarter-century of professional football, had three times as many catches for three times the yardage and three times the touchdowns of any receiver in football.

 

VI.

It’s a blessing to be an American.

–Philadelphia 76er Joel Embiid, who was born in Cameroon, on being sworn in as an American citizen in Philadelphia last month.

 

Number of undefeated teams entering October 2020: 7.

Number of undefeated teams entering October 2021: 5.

Number of undefeated teams entering October 2022: 1.

 

I.

Let the record show that the first in-game lead of 2022 for the Arizona Cardinals came on Oct. 2 at 6:34 p.m. ET.

II.

On Sept. 29, 2019, Teddy Bridgewater threw for 193 yards quarterbacking the New Orleans Saints, with left tackle Terron Armstead protecting his blind side. On defense that day for the Saints: defensive end Trey Hendrickson, cornerback Eli Apple and safety Vonn Bell, who accounted for two takeaways (both fumble recoveries).

On Sept. 29, 2022, Teddy Bridgewater threw for 193 yards quarterbacking the Miami Dolphins, with left tackle Terron Armstead protecting his blind side. On defense that day for the Bengals: defensive end Trey Hendrickson, cornerback Eli Apple and safety Vonn Bell, who accounted for two takeaways (both interceptions).

 

I.

BOSTON—This is what happens when you take the train to Boston for a noon lunch, have four hours till your train back to New York leaves, and there’s a meaningless baseball tilt in town on a lovely early-fall day. You’ve just got to walk over to Fenway, take full advantage of your four hours, drink a couple of Cisco Shark Tracker Light Lagers from Nantucket, and enjoy J.D. Martinez’s last big hit in Boston (very likely), a two-run eighth-inning home run, to top the pesky O’s. The evidence of the day:

II.

Francisco Alvarez, a highly touted 20-year-old catcher for the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate in Syracuse, finished his season, or so he thought, last week with a Wednesday home matinee against the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. He, his parents, and a friend set out Thursday morning for a 24-hour drive to Miami, where Alvarez would begin his off-season.

About 13 hours into the drive, on Thursday night, Alvarez was near Greenville, S.C., when his phone rang. It was a representative of the Mets, telling him he was being called up by the Mets for their series against the Braves, which just so happened to be the biggest series of the baseball season, beginning Friday night. You’ll need to get to Atlanta, the rep said.

Luckily, Atlanta was just a 2-hour, 20-minute drive south on I-85, so Alvarez got there in time to get some sleep. About 26 hours after getting the fateful phone call, Alvarez, who started and batted seventh for the Mets, strode to the plate with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning, Mets down 5-2, one out, and 42,402 in Truist Park on their feet (37,000 more than in his final game of the Triple-A season) and loud. Alvarez, facing vet closer Kenley Jansen, with 387 career saves.

First pitch, fouled off. Second pitch, swinging strike. Third pitch, flailing strike.

The Mets lost 5-2, and the National League East was tied exiting the evening, Mets and Braves, at 98-59 with five games left.

There will be better days, Francisco. But probably none as unusual.

 

I. 

Oh.

 

II.

McLane, who covers the Eagles for the Philadelphia Inquirer, as Doug Pederson’s Jags were stomping the Eagles 14-0 at the Linc after one quarter Sunday.

 

III.

Terron Armstead, the former Saint, watching his old team take the lead over Minnesota in fourth quarter on a run-dominated drive.

 

IV.

Mike Tomlin showing some dad pride.

 

V.

Carlin, who might be a 52 long, hosts a show on ESPN radio.

 

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com, or on Twitter @peter_king.

I’m giving you the floor this week. Presented without comment:

“You only get one brain.” From Marc Stewart, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho: “I was watching the Dolphins-Bengals game with my teenage sons. It was horrifying to watch Tua’s fingers frozen in place. My oldest son, 16, shouted, ‘I don’t want to see that again.’ My youngest, 13, said ‘Is he dying?’ I didn’t know what to say to them except that this why neither one of you are playing football. Soccer is much safer. My wife and I decided that the risk for brain injury, paralysis or death wasn’t worth them playing football. You only get one brain.”

Still loves football. From Matt Kaplan, of Ardsley, N.Y.: “I have three high school sons who’ve played football since third grade and have had no concussions. I thought the Tua situation was an abomination. Just because the independent doctor cleared him doesn’t mean the team and the broader support network should have permitted it. [But] the benefits of team work, discipline and hard work far outweigh the risks for my sons. Their lives have been significantly enriched by playing football.”

He’s sickened. From J Lentner, of Oneonta, N.Y.: “I have been watching the NFL since the seventies. I vividly remember the Theisman injury and watching the replay over and over in college. Thursday night, I was surprised by my reaction. I had to turn off the game. I knew about Tua’s injury on Sunday and the controversy surrounding it. Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s the history of CTE, maybe it was seeing the ‘fencing’ that he went through. So I turned to a baseball game of which I had no rooting interest. I’ll likely watch the NFL on Sunday but I am still living with what I saw.”

Boycotting football. From Bill Piwonka, of Oregon: “My son played tackle football through eighth grade and I absolutely loved watching him play, but was happy when he decided to stop in high school. He graduated college a few years back, and got together with 10 high school buddies Monday, prior to Tua’s injury last night. Every one of them—most played in high school—said they didn’t want their sons playing football.”

Blunt warning. From Nate Taylor, of Loakewood, Ohio: “Our blind allegiance to the shield will be the downfall of this great game. The instant gratification culture has caught up with the NFL at the expense of so many. We don’t let players develop or sit out a week to play it safe because we have to win now. Today. This year. Nothing else matters. You can’t put a price tag on life and health and cognitive awareness. If we are going to continue to ask them to entertain us then we all need to demand that they are treated like humans, not commodities.”

Sad evening. From Jochen Haas: “Thursday was the first time I switched off a game because I was disgusted at myself for supporting young lives being ruined by brain damage for my entertainment. I never thought the NFL ever really took CTE seriously enough but at least was moving in the right direction. I worked in neuroscience for a few years and I still think people do not understand what concussions really do to your brain and the lasting damage it can bring to you and your loved ones.”

Good point. From Jeremy Bullock: “My thought is: I’m glad I have all girls and I don’t have to tell them they can’t play tackle football.”

Two other emails this week:

The Mississippi welfare story. From Jeff Detra: “Your weekly podcast is always a must listen for me, but I have never felt compelled to reach out to you and thank you before. However, your conversation with Anna Wolfe, the Mississippi Today reporter, was riveting to me. She has rightfully received accolades on many platforms for her incredible reporting on the embarrassing Mississippi welfare scandal, but hearing her choke up talking about the people affected by this atrocity shows her incredible empathy and support for those less fortunate. I was deeply moved and impressed by her.”

I think it’s so great that smart, dogged reporters want to cover poverty. Poverty in the state is her beat, and she’s owning it.

I was hoping no one noticed. From David Lopan, via Twitter: “Your Saints are looking great, Peter!”

Lot of season to go, David. (He said bravely, stupidly.)

 

1. I think, for as shaky as the 1-3 Saints have been, they’re a double-doink – maybe 10 inches of a kick – away from being tied for the NFC South lead.

2. I think if I’d been writing the headline on the Saints’ 28-25 loss to Minnesota for the New Orleans Times Picayune last night, this would have been my headline: DOINK. DOINK.

3. I think I was highly impressed with the Jags Sunday. Competitive team, hustle to the ball at all times, good edge presence led by Josh Allen. Trevor Lawrence needs to have a better sense of pressure in the pocket and he must take care of the ball better, obviously. They could use a receiver to take some of the heat off Christian Kirk. But Duval wasn’t built in a day.

4. I think Jets alums and fans suffered a double blow over the weekend with the deaths of offensive linemen Marvin Powell and Jim Sweeney. Powell was a four-time all-Pro, a mauler and technician on the line. Sweeney was a versatile lunch pail guy. He started every game for 11 straight years in his career, going from left guard to left tackle to center. I knew Sweeney, who was a classic blood-and-guts ballplayer and a valued teammate. I saw his friend and ex-teammate Jeff Lageman—he’s a Jacksonville radio voice—in the press box here Sunday, and he said, “Jim could have played in the fifties, which is the ultimate compliment I can give a player. So tough, such a great guy in the locker room.”

5. I think the hole got deeper for Brett Favre the other day when Katie Strang and Kalyn Kahler of The Athletic reported on some questionable giving patterns by Favre’s Favre 4 Hope foundation. In 2018, they reported, Favre 4 Hope—whose mission was to aid “charitable organizations whose focus is to provide support for disadvantaged children,” plus assistance to breast cancer patients—gave the Southern Miss Athletic Foundation $60,000. That same year, The Athletic reported, no other charity received more than $10,000 from the Favre foundation. Maybe that’s not illegal, but it certainly is unethical.

6. I think it’s not incredibly concerning, because today is Oct. 3, and the draft is almost seven months away. But it’d worry me, if I were a GM with a potential quarterback need, that Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, the potential first pick in the 2023 draft, hurt his shoulder Saturday against Arkansas. Nick Saban played down the injury after the game, but did you hear what Gary Danielson said on CBS during the game? “I tore my rotator cuff on a play exactly like that.” And Pro Football Talk reported that Young “was in pain and could be heard yelling loudly” on the field. We shall see.

7. I think the possible change to MVP voting reported by CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones is tremendous news. The 50 voters (national NFL media people, chosen by the Associated Press) who choose the MVP after the final game of the regular season have annually been asked to choose one player for the award. Now, per Jones, the AP is considering ranked-choice voting, the way other sports’ MVPs are chosen. Voters would vote for a number of players in descending order, with point values assigned to each. For instance, if the AP asks voters to pick five, the players on each ballot could be assigned point totals of 10 for first place, seven for second place, five for third place, three for fourth place, one for fifth place. I love the idea. As one of the voters, I hope the AP institutes it for this season.

8. I think the NFL doesn’t deserve praise for changing the Pro Bowl to a skills competition and flag-football event. The NFL dallied on this decision for years while an embarrassing display of non-football with players giving 36-percent effort was shown on national TV.

9. I think this Pro Bowl decision should have been made 15 years ago. I’d always hear from the pro-Pro Bowl crowd, But it gets good ratings—better than big NBA games! The NFL could show Patrick Mahomes playing marbles and get good ratings. That’s no excuse for continuing to show a product that has demeaned the NFL for years.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. Hurricane Ian Story of the Week: Linda Robertson of the Miami Herald with a vivid account of what search and rescue is like on Fort Myers Beach.

b. This is startling, eye-opening and tough to read in spots. The power of a hurricane must, must, must be respected. It’s great journalism by Robertson.

c. Writes Robertson, quoting a first responder, a Miami firefighter who traveled to the area to help with search and rescue, describing the task at hand from the front lines:

“We received a head’s up that a neighbor was missing. Fourth house down on Anchorage. But there is no house here. They told us to look for a blue roof. But there is no blue roof here. We found it on the next block,” he said. “We were looking for two bodies on Andre-Mar Boulevard. We had to hunt for clues — the color of the paint, a house number, the make of the car that used to be in the driveway. We found them 200 yards from where the house had stood.”

d. Whew.

e. The American League MVP should be Aaron Judge, and it wouldn’t be close if not for Shohei Ohtani being as other-wordly as he’s been—capped by pitching a near-no-hitter last week and hitting 34 home runs. But Judge should get the award, and probably will in a rout.

f. Winning needs to count in the MVP award, I believe. The Yankees are 26 games over .500, close to winning 100 games. The Angels are 15 games under, and have been under .500 every day since June 5. They haven’t played a meaningful game in the last four months of the season. I realize sometimes an MVP can come from a bad team and should come from a bad team if the performance is so great it overrides a great performance on a great team. But the way Aaron Judge, with the weight of baseball’s biggest franchise on his shoulders for most of 162 games, has carried the Yankees while passing Babe Ruth and (as of today) tying Roger Maris for the most homers in American League history … and for being this close to winning the Triple Crown—he’s got to win it.

g. Story of the Week: Ksenia Ivanova and Catherine Porter of The New York Times on “Panic, Bribes, Ditched Cars and a Dash on Foot: Portraits of Flight from Russia:”

h. “People were running so fast that the wheels from their suitcases were falling off.”

i. Some 200,000 Russians – mostly men – have escaped, including through a thin gorge separating Russia from the country of Georgia. Wrote Ivanova and Porter:

DARIALI, Georgia — They are bus drivers, programmers, photographers, bankers. They have driven for hours, bribed their way through many police checkpoints — spending a month’s wages in some cases — and then waited at the border, most of them for days, in a traffic jam that stretched for miles.

Many grabbed their passports, abandoned their cars and crossed the frontier on foot, fearing that Russia would slam shut one of the last, precious routes to leave the country. The Kremlin dispatched teams to border crossings to weed out draft-eligible men and hand them conscription notices, and rumors spread on social media that it would seal the border.

Most of those who left had no idea when they would return home, if ever.

j. Ivanova, a photographer, found Russians in the woods and on the roads of Georgia and took their photos, and briefly told their stories. One of her subjects was Vladimir, a geologist from St. Petersburg:

His grandmother adores Putin. His mother hates Putin.

Vladimir thinks the Russian president is a madman who isn’t bluffing about using nuclear weapons — one reason he waited in line for 13 hours to cross the border.

“Every Russian family has someone who supports the war, and someone who’s against it,” he said. “It’s just some families fell apart because of it, and some have not.”

He went to one antiwar protest, but quickly realized both its danger and its futility, he said. “There’s probably 10 times more police than protesters,” he said. “It’s all pointless.”

k. That’s one of the things I absolutely love about reporters, about newspapers, about this craft: This story took you somewhere you cannot go, to see things you could not know. Fantastic.

l. Alarming Story of the Week: Oliver Whang of The New York Times on the rising percentage of burnout among American physicians.

m. If 63 percent of all U.S. doctors are experiencing at least one tangible symptom of burnout, we as a country are in big, big trouble. Wrote Whang:

Results released this month and published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, a peer-reviewed journal, show that 63 percent of physicians surveyed reported at least one symptom of burnout at the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, an increase from 44 percent in 2017 and 46 percent in 2011. Only 30 percent felt satisfied with their work-life balance, compared with 43 percent five years earlier.

“This is the biggest increase of emotional exhaustion that I’ve ever seen, anywhere in the literature,” said Bryan Sexton, the director of Duke University’s Center for Healthcare Safety and Quality, who was not involved in the survey efforts.

The most recent numbers also compare starkly with data from 2020, when the survey was run during the early stages of the pandemic. Then, 38 percent of doctors surveyed reported one or more symptoms of burnout while 46 percent were satisfied with their work-life balance.

n. We need more doctors. We need shorter hours for the doctors we have.

o. Football Story of the Week: Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle on 49ers linebackers coach Johnny Holland, who doesn’t sound like he’s battling a disease that may kill him.

p. In 2019, Holland was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of cancer that has no known cure. He needs to bottle his optimism, patent it, and sell it for thousands of dollars.

q. “If you can get through the storm, you’ll see the sunshine.” Wrote Branch:

Multiple myeloma has no cure and is infamous for roaring back after periods of remission. Barring a medical breakthrough, Holland’s battle will not end in victory.

Holland is back in remission. He’s in his 11th month of a clinical trial at UCSF that has eliminated the abnormal plasma cells that were multiplying about a year ago, forcing him to leave the team for the only time since he was diagnosed. He feels good. His biggest physical ailment is a balky hip that needs to be replaced, a reminder of the ex-linebacker’s seven-year NFL career with the Packers. So how often is his cancer in the back of his mind?

“Oh, all the time,” Holland said. “‘When is it going to come back? How long will this treatment work?’ You just don’t know.”

r. Radio Story of the Week: From NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, Eric Westervelt reports on the five-year anniversary of the Las Vegas shooting that killed 60 people.

s. Never found a motive. How is it possible that no motive was ever found?

t. “It’s something that’s forever, unfortunately, going to be part of me.”

u. The crime scene is now one of the parking lots for the Las Vegas Raiders.

v. No easy segue from that.

w. Newspaper Tease of the Week: A lifestyle section tease, referring to a story inside the paper, from The Wall Street Journal: “Can you teach an old dog to crop his pants?” Crop, meaning cut off the bottoms so the pants will be shorter. And not meaning anything else. At all.

x. Hey Dave Sims! Great call on the Cal Raleigh home run that sent the Mariners to the playoffs for the first time in 21 years.

y. “THE DREAM LIVES! THEY ARE GOING TO THE PLAYOFFS! THE DROUGHT IS OVER!”

 

z. I HAVE TO SEE “The Greatest Beer Run Ever.”

 

              San Francisco 23, L.A. Rams 20. Toughest game of the weekend to pick. Rams are better, Niners more desperate at 1-2 and coming off a pathetic offensive performance in the 11-10 loss in Denver. Until the Rams edged San Francisco in the NFC title game last January, Jimmy Garoppolo was 6-0 as a starting quarterback against the Rams. I’m gambling Garoppolo will play well enough at home tonight, and use Deebo Samuel as his 2021 self, to make it 7-0 in the regular season against L.A.

 

Brutal week of games coming up. Might be a good week to peek at the foliage, because this could be the worst slate this year. Picking through the iffy tilts:

Miami at N.Y. Jets, Sunday, 1 p.m., CBS. All eyes, all week, on Tua.

Dallas at L.A. Rams, Sunday, 4:25 p.m., FOX. Cooper Rush, 4-0, might have another week or two before Dak Prescott returns, but no player in the NFL has improved his stock as much in the first month of the season as Rush has.

Philadelphia at Arizona, Sunday, 4:25 p.m., FOX. Jalen Hurts at Kyler Murray. The future at the future.

Cincinnati at Baltimore, Sunday, 8:20 p.m., NBC. Tough slate for Baltimore here. Miami, New England, Buffalo and Cincinnati, all in the span of 22 days, and then roadies at Tampa and New Orleans before the week 10 bye. Ravens could know their ’22 fate by the middle of November.

 

Got some Mahomes news.

Starting Vegas magic show.

Penn and Teller! Out!

 



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Sports

FMIA Week 3: Broncos’ Coaching Experiment Pays Off, Dolphins Win ‘Beast’ Game, and What We Learned About the NFL in September

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So here came the first big test in the grand Nathaniel Hackett experiment, with 12:48 to play in the fourth quarter Sunday night against San Francisco. The Niners led 10-5. Denver QB Russell Wilson, needing seven yards for a first down, scrambled for what appeared to be about six-and-a-half to about a foot shy of the first down at the Bronco 35-. But Wilson had reached his arm out, with the ball, very near the 35 as he went down.

Hackett has had three years of clock/judgment/timeout problems in his three weeks as an NFL head coach, which is why he made the unorthodox move last Tuesday of hiring a retired special-teams coach, Jerry Rosburg, as senior assistant/in-game decision-making. Now Rosburg had either one or two decisions to advise his boss on.

Decision one: Should Denver challenge the call on the field that Wilson was short of the first down?

“It’s a value challenge,” came Rosburg’s voice via headset to Hackett. So Denver challenged and failed; the Wilson reach for the first down would have mattered had he broke the plane of the goal line, but not in the field of play. Quirky rule, but in the field of play, the ball is spotted where it is when the knee hits the ground. Wilson was clearly short.

Decision two: Down five, playing poorly on offense, should Denver go for fourth-and-a-foot, or punt? “Punt,” Rosburg advised, and Hackett agreed. The Broncos defense was playing too well to risk failing at fourth-and-short and thus the team punted. When they got the ball back, Wilson drove Denver 80 yards for the go-ahead touchdown. All’s well that ends well, at least on this night.

Denver 11, San Francisco 10. Amazing that through the mayhem of the last 14 days – the ridiculous choice to try a 64-yard field goal in Seattle, the mismanagement of timeouts, the league-high four delay-of-game calls in two weeks, the win that felt like a loss in the post-Houston-game locker room last week – the Broncos are 2-1 and tied for first in the AFC West.

Such an odd debut to an NFL head-coaching career, realizing you don’t have people on your staff who can help you on things like time and game management – the Broncos have a very young staff – and think you’ve got to go outside the building for help. And doing it while in game-week preparation. I asked Hackett if it all felt embarrassing.

“No,” he said firmly over the phone from the stadium. “For me, I felt empowered that I was able to make a decision. Hey, let’s fix it. I’m the leader of the team. Let’s do it.

“This was the first time, the past two games, that I felt I was hurting my team. Did I have enough info? I don’t know. But I knew the setup wasn’t right. I needed help to make the tough decision.”

What a whirlwind. Hackett didn’t know Rosburg, who was living in Florida while retired. But after a flurry of phone calls and a Tuesday meeting in Denver, Hackett introduced him to the team in the squad meeting Wednesday. He told the players if he asked them to take a critical look at themselves if they erred, it’s right that he do the same as the head coach. He’d erred by not being ready to handle all the in-game decisions, and Rosburg was the fix-it agent.

There’s another little matter to tend to: the offense, and Wilson. The 12-play, 80-yard drive against the stout 49er D was the first time in three feeble games that the Broncos’ offense looked good. “Russell has come to a new state, a new organization, with 10 brand new guys in the huddle. It’s a completely new look, new team. He’s jumped in here and tried to make it as familiar as he could. On that winning drive, he said, I’m comfortable. I’m gonna use my legs here. I’ve got to make this happen. He did. Hopefully that’s the start of it for him.”

 

Sunday was a perfect day to illustrate the topic of this column: What have we learned about the NFL in September?

Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen played on Sunday. They quarterbacked their teams to 12, 14, 17 and 19 points, respectively. Now, this could be a coincidence, and of course it’s only three weeks of games (not including the last games of the month, Cowboys-Giants tonight and Dolphins-Bengals on Thursday). The season’s just 17-percent complete.

But the two big national games with offensive geniuses galore that closed out Sunday football ended with scores of 14-12 and 11-10. To see Rodgers and Brady struggle as they have, to see Russell Wilson throw two touchdown passes in three games with a starry receiving corps … something just might be up.

I do think part of what we’re seeing is a reflection of how defenses are playing, with the consistent two-deep-safety look that’s a part of the game’s current trendy D, the scheme that forces offenses to win underneath with long drives. Perfect example Sunday in Tampa: Midway through the third quarter, the Bucs had two safeties lined up 18 yards deep against Aaron Rodgers, showing nothing before the snap or very early in the snap. Tampa safety Logan Ryan waited, waited, waited and then, when Rodgers threw, Ryan jumped the route of the receiver and picked it off.

Did you see the snippiness between Patrick Mahomes and KC offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy Sunday, just before halftime in Indy? That was prompted by Mahomes misfiring on two downfield throws because, as he said later, “The Colts were in a deep coverage.” (Logical for end-of-half situations, of course.) But the Colts are like so many other defenses. They’d prefer you try to beat them with 13-play drives, not eight-. The logic: offenses have a better chance to turn it over, or to get to a fourth-and-long, in 13 plays than eight.

A Rodgers reaction on Sunday. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Now, two-deep snaps are being used about the same as through three weeks last year. But as one team analyst told me, there’s significantly more complexity to an offensive playbook than defensive. So it makes sense that early in the season, offenses wouldn’t be as in-sync as defenses would. Again—three weeks is not a time to make definitive judgments. It’s just time to raise an eyebrow.

As Mike Vrabel once said about defensive football, coverage is about figuring out the worst thing that can happen to you and doing whatever is necessary to prevent that thing from happening. Disguising deep safeties is certainly not the only reason why scoring is down 5.0 points per game through three weeks, but it’s something to watch.

Three other September stories that stick out:

Miami’s good, and Miami’s not afraid of the big bad Bills. As I watch football each Sunday, I try to focus on one game in each window and follow one of the Red Zone channels to keep up with the other games. In the first window, I settled on Buffalo-Miami and was rewarded with a dramatic, intense game with a January competitive feel. This truly had playoff energy, all the way down to Buffalo offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey going nuts in the coach’s box upstairs as the clock ran out on the Bills in a 21-19 Dolphins win. The NFL’s story of September is Miami being 3-0, answering a ton of questions on offense, winning with a quirky and intelligent coach, and playing fun and intense football on both sides of the line.

This game … it was electric and a great illustration of how nothing lasts forever in the NFL. It doesn’t even last a month. We’d all been thinking Buffalo was the premier team in the sport (I still think the Bills are) and would skate away with the AFC East title. But after three weeks, Buffalo’s a game behind Miami. Think of it: On a sunny south Florida day with a heat index in the nineties, Buffalo’s offense was on the field for 40 minutes and 40 seconds, and for 90 snaps, and outgained Miami in yards 497-212. And Miami won the IV Bowl.

“It was, if I’m being honest with you man, it was a battlefield out there, honestly,” said one of the heroes of the day for Miami, second-year safety Jevon Holland. “People were going down. You had people coming in who didn’t really play much. It was chaotic. Fans were loud. People cramping. Drives … going 10 plays, 14 plays, 20 plays. The game was a beast. Just a beast.

“It’s difficult because the Bills offense is so electric and they can score at any point. And so, you have to be constantly, constantly on. That is draining, to constantly be operating at a very high level. But that’s what it takes to beat a team like that. You have to be perfect and that’s the standard you have to rise to.”

Holland started early, blitzing midway through the first quarter, strip-sacking Allen and setting up Miami’s first TD. Holland’s lithe but hits like Polamalu, and his sideline-to-sideline ability is striking. Ten tackles, two passes defensed, 1.5 sacks. The man was everywhere.

“What hurts right now?” I asked.

“Everything,” Holland said. “Everywhere.”

(And this team, somehow, has to get on a plane and play Thursday night in Cincinnati, after playing 90 snaps against the best offense in football in 90-something heat and humidity. Brutal.)

“Keeping Josh Allen from scrambling was important,” Holland said. “When he scrambles to his right, he is a very efficient, like, best-in-the-league top quarterback. That was what we tried to do, constant pressure from his right side, to get him going to his left. Trying to keep the pressure in his face, mix up the alignments in the front. Just keep him guessing on what defense we’re in, what coverage we’re in. And at the base of all of that movement and all of that smoke and mirrors was to play hard-nose football, stop the run, make him be one-dimensional. You measure your love for your teammates by your proximity to the ball at the end of each play. I think as a defense, we sell out trying to get to the ball because we love each other so much and we wanna play as hard as anybody else on the field for each other.”

Last week, it was Tua Tagovailoa throwing to Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle in a win for the ages, 42-38 in Baltimore. This week it was the defense bending and bending and bending but rarely breaking. Holding Buffalo to 19 points is a major accomplishment. There could be a race in the AFC East after all.

One other note, regarding Tagovailoa. When he exited the game, wobbly, midway through the second quarter after hitting his head on the turf, it was assumed he had a head injury and would probably not return. But he returned and played the second half. He said after the game he actually hurt his back, not his head. The NFL Players Association said it would investigate the injury to see if concussion protocol was followed. At each NFL game is an Unaffiliated Neurotrauma Consultant, a doctor who is on scene to monitor any head injury and can also give tests to determine if a player is okay to return to the game. The NFL said all protocols were followed. The wobbling is the troubling part, of course.

Nothing fluky about the Eagles. Maybe the Eagles learned something from the post-Super Bowl Eagles. The 2018 and ’19 Eagles had a combined 19-16 record and made the playoffs each year, but weren’t formidable, and collapsed to 4-11-1 in 2020. That’s when they cleaned house and shipped out the quarterback and coach. They had another playoff year last year, a marginal one, but GM Howie Roseman didn’t use the off-season to tinker. He made big moves, and good ones, like acquiring wideout A.J. Brown in a trade, signing free agents Haason Reddick, James Bradberry and Kyzir White, and drafting Jordan Davis. Defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon has six new toys for his defensive rotation. In the 24-8 rout of Washington Sunday, the Eagles D had nine sacks of old friend Carson Wentz.

Jalen Hurts threw for 340 yards with 3 TDs and 0 INT against Washington on Sunday. (Photo by Andy Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

But the Eagles have come out of the gate fast mostly because of the maturity and growth of quarterback Jalen Hurts. He’s more accurate (61.3 percent last year, 67.4 so far this year), and his 9.4 yards-per-attempt leads all NFL passers. Jalen Hurts, mind you. In a league full of great young arms (and old ones), no one’s moving the ball downfield as well as Hurts is. At 24, it’s very likely Hurts is the Eagles’ quarterback of the future; he’d have to regress strikingly this year to lose the chance. That’s great for the Eagles too, because they’ve got two first-round picks next year, and Roseman can either fill other holes in 2023 or dangle one or both picks to a team needing a quarterback. It’s a good position to be in, and the Eagles deserve it.

The Bengals get a lifeline. Cincinnati found itself in must-win territory in the Meadowlands Sunday, odd for the defending AFC champion in September. But the chance of making the playoffs after an 0-3 start are slim, so the 27-12 win over the Jets was welcome relief. Maybe more important than the score was Bengals’ sack total allowed: two.

 

Hello, Next Gen!

10

In our partnership with Next Gen Stats, I looked into the punishment QB Joe Burrow has been taking. Even after the respite of sacks taken Sunday, it’s still not good. Per Next Gen, Burrow was pressured 15 times Sunday against the Jets. For the three-game season, he’s been pressured on 32.9 percent of his pass attempts. That’s very likely unsustainable. Remember after the narrow loss to the Rams in the Super Bowl, when the Bengals absolutely, positively said they would take better care of Burrow? In 2021, he was pressured on 28.5 percent of his pass drops, so the fixes haven’t worked.

Now, two sacks is good. Fifteen pressures on 38 pass drops, not so good. Protection for Burrow, who the Bengals hope is their franchise quarterback for the next 15 years, is most definitely still a work in progress.

 

The waters around Brett Favre got choppier Saturday with ESPN and Mississippi Today reports claiming Favre – even after Mississippi officials allegedly allocated $4 million in state welfare funds for a volleyball arena at his alma mater Southern Miss – pressed the then-governor for up to $2 million more in 2019. ESPN’s Anthony Olivieri, citing text messages from a court filing in the burgeoning scandal, said former Gov. Phil Bryant texted Favre that improper use of welfare funds “could result in a violation of Federal Law.”

In early 2020, after Bryant had left office, ESPN reported he had a text exchange with Southern Miss president Rodney Bennett that suggests Favre – who earned $141 million in salary in his NFL career – had personally guaranteed the completion of the volleyball complex. Favre’s interest in volleyball stemmed from his daughter, Breleigh, being on the university’s team. “The bottom line,” Bennett texted the ex-governor, per ESPN and Mississippi Today, “is [Favre] personally guaranteed the project, and on his word and handshake we proceeded. It’s time for him to pay up – it really is just that simple.”

“Like all of us,” Bryant texted Bennett, per ESPN, “I like Brett. He is a legend but he has to understand what a pledge means.”

The tangled web gets worse for Favre with each news story – there were also extensive reports by Front Office Sports (claiming that Favre pushed to use welfare funds for an indoor football facility at Southern Miss) and Mississippi Today (with private communications between the governor and several others, including Favre) Saturday night. The FBI is currently investigating the misuse of millions in state welfare funds after multiple people involved have already pleaded guilty to counts of malfeasance; two of them are connected to Favre, and both, theoretically, could sing for lighter sentences. However, since the people in power have all changed since this story surfaced—with a new governor, new head of the state welfare agency, and a new nominee for U.S. attorney for the southern district of Mississippi – it’s impossible to know whether Favre will be charged in the case.

Favre in 2015. (Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images)

But the more evidence we learn, the more possible it is that Favre could be in hot water. Favre’s attorney has said that the former quarterback did not know that the funds used for the volleyball complex were state welfare funds. The FBI investigation should suss that out.

It’s interesting that the U.S. attorney nominee, Todd Gee, is the deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section at the U.S. Justice Department. This case, with so much evidence that the country’s most poverty-stricken state diverted funds to friends and cronies of the powerful, proves that integrity has been in short supply in Mississippi.

Anna Wolfe, a reporter for online newspaper Mississippi Today, has been at the forefront of a vast amount of reporting on the Mississippi welfare scandal, including Favre’s alleged involvement in the volleyball arena. (Favre has denied knowing where the funds came from.) The case took another turn Thursday, when John Davis, the former head of the state’s welfare agency, the Department of Human Services, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of misusing millions in welfare dollars. Davis and nonprofit founder Nancy New, who already pled guilty to multiple charges connected to the scandal, were integral, per Mississippi Today, in funneling $4 million to Favre’s project.

Wolfe will be my guest this week on The Peter King Podcast, which will go live Tuesday. What struck me during our weekend conversation:

State leaders in Mississippi, including the governor, seem very much like Favre fanboys. “I think that’s exactly on the nose,” Wolfe said. “[State officials] were more than willing to help as a way to get close to him. There were messages at one point where while they were trying to find a way to get more money from the welfare department to the volleyball facility in about 2019. [Favre] was texting with John Davis and Nancy New and he sent a text to Nancy that said, ‘I love John so much and you.’ And you think about what kind of feelings that generated in those people who held the purse strings, you know, for the state. The fact that Brett Favre was telling them that he loved them, right? There were text messages at one point that talked about Brett Favre talking with another business associate about buying John a really nice truck, or buying vehicles or giving gifts to these people in exchange for their help … It’s kind of a good ol’ boys system on full display.”

If it seems crazy that state welfare funds could be used for a volleyball arena, that’s because it is crazy. Wolfe said these state officials knew that they could target a state fund called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for this kind of project “because the federal regulations around the fund are so lax. States essentially get this money from the federal government every year and they don’t have to give it out to people through direct cash assistance … They were denying, prior to this, up to 99 percent of people who were applying for this program. That created a scenario where they were still getting all this money and basically had it to spend. They weren’t giving it out to needy families. The federal government wasn’t paying attention … The [state] officials know that they can manipulate this fund in order to appease [Favre].”

This is not a victimless crime. Wolfe found victims. One in five Mississippians lives in poverty. Wolfe went to a poor neighborhood near the Southern Miss campus. “These people are not going over to the campus at USM to this state-of-the-art volleyball facility to get services, right? We talked to a lot of people who had tried to go to the local community action agency – these are federally funded agencies that provide rental assistance, or energy assistance to get your light bill paid … We talked to another guy who had his child taken away five years prior to this and he was homeless at the time … He was trying to get rental assistance so that he could get his child back from CPS. They told him they didn’t have any programs for him or any money available for him.”

Wolfe got emotional just talking about some of 99 percent of people who were denied assistance, so close to a volleyball arena the state spent millions in welfare funds to build. Wouldn’t anyone?

I texted Favre over the weekend to see if he’d discuss any of the charges or the story as a whole. He declined. Knowing him, I feel sure he’d love to talk to defend himself – not only because he’s a talkative guy but because it’s likely he has some points to use in his defense. But that’s not for now.

I bet the public knocks are killing him. Favre’s reputation among his NFL peers has taken a major hit. Sage Rosenfels, the former quarterback, backed up Favre in Minnesota in 2009. They were close enough that, on the sidelines in the 2009 NFC title game, after Favre threw the incredible across-his-body interception that led to the winning New Orleans field goal, Rosenfels says Favre told him, “I choked.” Last Thursday, Rosenfels Tweeted: “Since retirement, I have been lucky to avoid stealing millions of dollars from the poorest people in my state.”

Ouch. Imagine a teammate who got along famously with a big star (and vice versa), sharing a quarterback room and a season, sending a dagger of a tweet like that. It shows the outrage of so many at Favre.

Pending the adjudication of this case, that probably won’t be the worst shot at Favre.

 

FOX NFL analyst Sean Payton, in his (we assume) gap year from coaching, on what he misses about coaching, on how he was able to move on from his year suspension over the Saints’ bounty scandal, and on what his time away has helped him discover about himself:

“If I was a dog, I would be a retriever. I don’t do well hanging out by myself. You with me? I need company.

“When you go online and you’re gonna buy a dog and if you’re single, living in an apartment, they’ll give you four or five breeds that are very comfortable if they don’t ever see a human being. Alright? Then if you’re in a family of five and you’re gonna buy a dog—I would definitely be someone that wants to be around and interact with people. The camaraderie of the staff and the locker room with the Saints, I miss. I’m starting to get some of that with TV in the studio.

“The other day when that [Saints-Bucs] game was being played was one of the first times that I’ve missed it. I missed being a part of the draft. I always enjoyed that process. But the other afternoon watching and just seeing the type of game that was unfolding, that’s one of those moments. There’s nothing better than being a part of the success with your players and fellow coaches. It’s hard to replace that. People try all sorts of ways to do it.

“Do I think I’ll coach again this upcoming season? Or a better way maybe would be, do I think I coach again? I do think at some point I’ll coach again. That being said, as you chase perfection in this other career, it’s one of those things where if you feel like you continue to get better and those people that are experts at it, if others feel like, hey, he can be really, really good, that’s the type thing that pulls at you. Now, if they’re like, don’t quit your day job, then it’s an easy decision.”

“How’d you overcome the bitterness at being suspended for a year?”

“I would consider myself a glass-half-full person. Early, for the first two or three months, it was that. Then it’s like, well this is ridiculous because now they’re gonna win twice. So I really remember diving into CrossFit and fitness and working out, training. And then in the longer term, I just choose to be happy and choose to be positive. [Bitterness] was creating a side of me that certainly wasn’t gonna contribute to anything positive going forward. So, time and a little bit of wisdom, too.”

 

Offensive players of the week

DeVonta Smith, wide receiver, Philadelphia. Smith is such a multi-dimensional receiver, and it was all on display late in the first half of an eight-catch, 169-yard game at Washington Sunday. He sprinted deep downfield and floated above two Washington defensive backs to nab a 45-yard strike from Jalen Hurts, coming down at the two-yard line. On fourth-and-goal from the two-, with one second left in the half, Hurts threw to the left corner to Smith and he made a contested catch to put this one out of reach at the half, 24-0. Both catches were really hard. Smith’s become one of the best receivers in the NFL, and he’s only 20 games into his pro career.

Lamar Jackson, quarterback, Baltimore. Jackson is playing at such a consistently high level in this vital personal season (the contract, you know) that it’s tempting to look for other guys to highlight because he does such outstanding things so consistently. Four touchdown passes, one TD run in the midst of another 100-yard rushing day, putting up 37 points at Belichickland. Through three weeks, the Ravens are averaging 33 points a game and four Jackson touchdowns a game (passing or rushing).

Trevor Lawrence, quarterback, Jacksonville. Could it really be as easy as a simple head-coaching change? Is that what’s made Lawrence so good so fast in his second NFL season? He told me last week that Doug Pederson’s got the kind of personality a young teams loves—as a teacher and as a patient program-organizer. Whatever it is, Sunday’s 38-10 rout of the Chargers on the road was his most impressive NFL game yet. Lawrence threw for 262 yards, with three touchdowns and no turnovers. Suddenly, the Jaguars are 2-1, and a very interesting team, and the Jacksonville-at-Philadelphia game Sunday is more interesting than just a Pederson return to the Linc.

 

Defensive players of the week

Jevon Holland, safety, Miami. One of the Dolphins’ picks in the bountiful four-picks-in-the-top-50 in 2021, Holland continued to put his physical stamp on the Miami defense in the 21-19 upset of the Bills in the Hard Rock Stadium broiler. With 1.5 sacks and 10 tackles in the biggest game of his young pro life, Holland proved to the Bills and to the rest of the league the Miami defense can play.

Roquan Smith, linebacker, Chicago. The Chicago Bears enter October with a winning record, and for those who’ve watched 12 quarters of September Bear football, it’s not because of the offense. Smith had 16 tackles and a crucial interception with 65 seconds left in a 20-20 game, returning it to the Houston 12. A Cairo Santos field goal won it for the 2-1 Bears.

Nick Bolton, linebacker, Kansas City. Rare to honor a player when his team loses, but Bolton was fantastic Sunday in the 20-17 loss at Indy. Nine tackles and two sacks of Matt Ryan. His best play wasn’t a sack, but rather a stoning of the NFL rushing champion. Eleven minutes left, KC up 17-13 at the winless Colts, fourth-and-one Indy at the Kansas City 32-. What play do the Colts call? Of course: give it to Jonathan Taylor, who tried to leap over the defensive front for the first down. Here came Bolton, who grabbed Taylor with both hands, lifted him up and stopped him a foot short of the line to gain. Five minutes after his stoning of Taylor, Bolton sacked Ryan for a loss of eight.

 

Special teams players of the week

Corliss Waitman, punter, Denver. What a performance by the first-year Bronco on Sunday night over the Niners: 10 punts, six inside the 20-, one downed at the half-yard line, in a game Denver won by one point.

Henry Anderson, defensive lineman, Carolina. With Carolina trouncing the Saints 13-0 in the final minute of the first half, New Orleans needed something, anything, to get back in the game. That something would be a 30-yard chip shot by sure-footed kicker Wil Lutz. But Anderson fought through the middle of the Saints’ protection, put one arm as high as it could go, and that arm blocked the kick. Great individual play at a huge time for Carolina, and the Panthers held New Orleans scoreless for the 47 minutes of the game.

Matt Haack, punter, Indianapolis. Huge factor in the Colts’ upset of KC early. In the first eight minutes of the 21-17 win, Haack dropped a punt at the KC eight-yard line that was muffed and turned over by Skyy Moore, leading to a Colt TD. His next punt backed up Kansas City to its one-yard line. The Colts’ special teams had been a negative through the first two weeks, but not in this victory.

 

Coach of the week

Joe Barry, defensive coordinator, Green Bay. The Bucs were beat up and without Tom Brady’s security blankets at receivers, to be sure. But this was a top defensive plan and effort against a great quarterback playing at home, and Green Bay held Brady and the Bucs to 12 points, 285 yards of offense, and two of 11 on third down. That had to be one sweet three-hour plane ride home to Wisconsin for Barry and his staff Sunday night.

 

Goats of the week

The Washington Commanders. Just when you think it can’t get worse, the 13th top executive in the last year-and-a-half, COO Greg Resh, resigned last week after 13 months running the team’s business side, per The Washington Post. The Commanders followed that by playing like all 53 of them wanted to follow Resh out the door. They allowed six sacks … in the first half. The result of Washington’s possessions: punt, punt, punt, fumble, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, stopped on fourth down, stopped on fourth down, touchdown (with less than two minutes left). Philly 24, Washington 8, and it wasn’t that close.

 

Hidden person of the week

Anthony Walker Jr., linebacker, Cleveland. The next-man-up ethos rules the day in the NFL, especially with the injury epidemic alive and well in the league. The loss of Walker, the Browns’ leading tackler since opening day 2021, for the season to a torn quad (just imagining that makes me wince) Thursday night, is a major blow to a team that’s going to rely on defense to try to stay in the pennant race till Deshaun Watson starts playing in December. “He’s a huge, huge, huge part of our football team—what he brings to us on the field and off the field,” coach Kevin Stefanski said. This is why: In a scoreless game in the first quarter, Pittsburgh was driving for the first points at the Cleveland 34-yard line. On successive plays, Walker stopped Steelers receiver George Pickens for a loss of two on a catch in the right flat, then stoned running back Najee Harris after a gain of four on the next pass play. Two plays, gain of two. The Steelers missed a 49-yard field goal, and Cleveland took the ball and drove for the opening TD. The Browns will miss Walker.

 

The Jason Jenkins Award

Joe Savage, founder/director, Roads of Hope. Savage, the brother of longtime NFL scout (and former Browns GM) Phil Savage, runs Roads of Hope, an independent agency that since 2015 has been rescuing orphans and young people who would be trafficked in Ukraine and Moldova. He and his other Roads of Hope counselors taught American football to a group of kids the group was helping and split them into two teams—the Jets and Bengals. They played a football game in the small country of Moldova. “They’d never seen football in their lives,” said Monty Lobb, a Roads of Hope board member. Watch some of the highlights here.

Phil Savage is now a senior football adviser with the Jets. His brother’s doing some meaningful work where it’s desperately needed, and it looks like Joe Savage is having some fun doing it.

 

I.

Success is not final. Failure’s not fatal.

–Colts quarterback Matt Ryan, breaking down the team huddle in the locker room after the upset win over Kansas City.

Indy’s 1-1-1, which is neither final nor fatal, I guess.

 

II.

He plays his way. He’s determined to play his way. But his way is fundamentally sound football. His way is winning football. He’s running the show out there. All the things you’d say an operator or manager does, he’s doing all of those things his way.

–Baltimore coach John Harbaugh, on Lamar Jackson, after the 37-26 win over New England.

 

III.

I look like I had a bad day on the Stock Exchange.

–FOX analyst Greg Olsen, tie undone, shirt moist, in the Raymond James Stadium broadcast booth/sauna during Bucs-Packers.

 

IV.

Wouldn’t it be something if you had a dilemma as to which way to go?

–Dallas owner Jerry Jones, looking into his crystal ball and wondering aloud what happens if Cooper Rush plays great and the Cowboys sweep their Rush-started games before Dak Prescott is fully healed from his broken thumb.

No Jerry. Just don’t.

 

V.

There is no quarterback controversy. Dak is our quarterback.

–Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy, a day after Jones said what he said.

 

VI.

We’ve exhausted ourselves with programs, initiatives, making sure [owners] are aware of who’s out there. But we don’t make the hire … We’re still dealing with America’s original sin, slavery, and the misconception of who Black men are.

–NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent, who is at the fore of the league’s effort to hire more minority coaches, to The Washington Post in remarks for the paper’s deep dive into the poor record of minority hires.

 

I.

In the spring of 2021, with the Giants desperate for deep-threat receivers to spice up the worst wideout group in the NFL, New York’s then-GM Dave Gettleman and then-coach Joe Judge stocked the roster with a pricy free-agent receiver, Kenny Golladay, and a first-round receiver, Kadarius Toney.

Last week against Carolina, Golladay played two snaps. Toney caught two passes for zero yards.

Bottom line:

Cash earned by Golladay and Toney through the 2022 season: $45,281,438.

Touchdowns scored by Golladay and Toney through 19 Giants games: zero.

II.

It would be pretty interesting if Aaron Judge does not hit another home run till Saturday, at home against the Orioles. If his next homer comes Saturday:

Judge’s 61st home run, matching Roger Maris’ American League season record of 61 home runs, would come 61 years to the day after Maris hit his 61st … in ‘61.

 

I.

Before Miami’s 21-19 upset of the Bills Sunday, Tua Tagovailoa had started three games against Buffalo and lost by 30, 35 and 15 points.

 

II.

The Miami Hurricanes lost by 14 on Saturday to Middle Tennessee, which lost early in the month by 37 to James Madison. Which obviously means if James Madison played Miami, JMU would win by 51.

But my favorite college factoid comes from the defensive tussle at my alma mater in Athens, Ohio. Ohio 59, Fordham 52, with 85 passes thrown, 1,040 passing yards gained. Zero interceptions.

 

I.

Sanchez knows a little bit about butts being too involved in big NFL plays, as we saw with Miami punter Thomas Morstead Sunday.

 

II.

Translation: Miami punter Thomas Morstead was forced to punt on a short field because the Dolphins were backed up to their goal line, and he punted directly into the buttocks of his personal protector Trent Sherfield, a wide receiver. Hilarity resulted on the internet.

 

III.

Barnwell writes about the NFL for ESPN.

 

IV.

ESPN’s Chris Mortensen, with important news Sunday morning

 

V.

The owner of the Colts, giving as he often does.

 

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com, or on Twitter @peter_king.

Last week, I asked fans and patrons of the Chicago Bears—who have announced their intention to build a domed stadium in suburban Arlington Heights—this question: Would you prefer to see the team play in a domed stadium, a stadium with a retractable roof (which the team has said is cost-prohibitive), or an open-air stadium? I’ll tell you the results from people who wrote to me by noon ET Saturday, and I’ll give you a sample of their feelings.

I got 103 votes. The results:

Stadium with retractable roof: 45

Open-air stadium: 44

Domed stadium: 14

What you said:

Retractable fans

Nick Skweres, Chicago: ”While I appreciate and love the history of Bear weather and all the classic games it has contributed to, a stadium with a dome is what the Bears need most right now. For the franchise to be more successful, the Bears need to own their stadium and be able to bring in more revenue through concerts, potentially hosting a Super Bowl, or the Final Four and other major sporting events. The Bears need a dome—not for the comfort of the fans, but for the greater good of the franchise. That’s why I’ll cast my vote for a retractable roof.

Ed Dillon: “Weather games are fun to watch on TV. They are not so comfortable in person. My father was at Wrigley Field for Gale Sayers’ six TD game and I was at the 1988 playoff game vs Washington (minus-4 temp/minus-12 windchill). I unequivocally vote for 1, stadium with retractable roof; 2, stadium with dome. Give me climate control in all seasons.”

Ed Schell: “Retractable roof. ‘Bear weather’ is a myth.”

Open-air fans

Douglas Yeo, Chicago: “Long-time Bears season-ticket holder, section 309. Open-air stadium, hands down. Our family loves football ‘in the elements.’ It’s part of the game. It adds excitement and unpredictability. It creates priceless memories.”

Steven Ratti, Fargo, N.D.: “Open-air [football] is football! That IS Chicago! If they get a dome, Walter Payton will be looking down, shaking his head.”

Edmund Burke, Chicago: “The Bears are supposed to be Grabowskis, not Smiths. I’d rather forego getting a Super Bowl in Chicago than play in a corporate-named, generic dome. Open-air, baby. This isn’t Indianapolis.”

Ryan Tom, Indianapolis: “We go up once a year and buy tickets for a December to sit out in the elements. If they build a dome, our trips are done.”

Dome fans

Erik Leach, La Grange Park, Ill.: “Getting to and from Soldier Field and watching primarily a garbage team in garbage weather is not appealing to me. I don’t need to read one more story on turf management and crappy field conditions or watch a game with players slipping all over the place while fans are freezing or being soaked or both in some of the worst seats in football.”

Scott Freeman: ”Only people who don’t sit outside in Chicago think it should be a dome. My dad was a season-ticket holder for over 20 years. I was at the Fog Bowl. It’s tolerable when the Bears are good. When they aren’t it’s miserable. It’s not fun to watch your team lose and be uncomfortable. Build a dome!”

Lots of mail concerning the top of the column last week, when I wrote about a key play in the Miami victory over Baltimore that Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel called the “F it” play:

Thanks for censoring the “F it” play. From Josh Hook, of Detroit: “I really appreciate you censoring the Dolphins play. This isn’t because, my 45-year-old ears can’t handle it. I think about the young kids relying on your coverage. Parents are trying to make sure their kids aren’t growing up too fast.”

Once the coach of the team that had a huge win, with the tide turning arguably on a play with an explicit name, told me about it, there was no way I wasn’t going to use it. I had to figure out the best way to get the point across while not slapping people in the face with it. Thanks for the note.

You shouldn’t have used “F it” in the column. From Paul Casey: “It seems ironic to me that exactly one week after rightly castigating the ‘F-you’ guy at the Yankees game, you use the same word in the title of your column. If such language is unacceptable at any sporting event in America, why do we glamorize its use by a coach?”

Paul, I absolutely see your point—and many others made the same one to me in the last few days. But there’s a difference here. In one case, a fan screamed an epithet at an opposing player, and said it at such a volume that hundreds if not thousands—including the two children sitting with him—heard it. In the other case, an NFL coach used a salty phrase to name a play, and that play became a turning point in the big game of the week. It’s not the job of the writer to glamorize the use of a name of a play. It’s our job to report on it once we uncover it. Thanks for the note.

 

1. I think you’ve got to pull Justin Herbert, Brandon Staley, when you’re down 28 in the fourth quarter and your franchise quarterback is playing with a serious rib injury. It’s not even a question. I don’t care what Herbert wants. Sometimes the coach needs to be the adult in the room, and this was one of those times.

2. I think one of the things we won’t pay nearly enough attention to – but should in the wake of Sunday’s games – is Aaron Donald’s 100th career regular-season sack in Arizona in his ninth season. And how he got it. He chased down Kyler Murray from behind. That man is one of the biggest jewels in recent football history.

3. I think, in the wake of Adam Schefter reporting Mac Jones suffered a high ankle sprain on the last play of the loss to Baltimore Sunday, I wonder how CBS (and Patriot Nation) feels about Brian Hoyer or Bailey Zappe versus Aaron Rodgers in the late doubleheader window next Sunday.

4. I think it’s pretty weird to have three unbeaten teams left on Sept. 26 (Miami and Philly, 3-0, and the 2-0 Giants), and weirder still that there could be two on Sept. 27 in the fairly logical event that Dallas beats the Giants tonight in New Jersey.

5. I think that was a thoughtful piece The Washington Post did on why Black coaches have struggled to get the same opportunities as other coaches. Read for yourself. It’s educational. Two points that stood out to me:

a. There are bright and shiny metrics that say the opportunity is not the same. “Since 1990,” the paper reported, “a Black head coach who wins at least nine games and a White coach who wins at least six have roughly the same chance of being fired.”

b. Offensive “minds” given a chance to be head coaches are overwhelmingly White. This passage is stark, and startling: “Of the six minority head coaches in the NFL this season, five — [Todd] Bowles, [Ron] Rivera, [Robert] Saleh, [Lovie] Smith and [Mike] Tomlin — come from defensive backgrounds. Only [Mike] McDaniel comes from the offensive side. In essence, the NFL has decided it’s okay for Black men to be quarterbacks — just not to coach them. And in the process, coaches said, the league has failed to learn from the lessons of the White QB era. ‘A lot of the Black quarterbacks [of earlier eras], their skill set was outside the box of what the NFL did,’ [Tony] Dungy said. ‘They just needed people to think a little bit differently. And that’s what it took for the quarterbacks. Now all of a sudden … we’ve got this young group of quarterbacks that is [setting] the league on fire. And I think the same thing is true with coaching. We’ve got some coaches who have that same brilliance [but aren’t] getting an opportunity. We think we’re hiring the best. We think that we aren’t missing anything, but we are.’”

6. I think the story is good and smart because it takes away the passion and strong opinions on this issue and boils it down to hard facts. I believe it will be a good contribution to the coaching carousel this winter. I’m not saying it’s wrong for owners to continually look for “the next Sean McVay,” because McVay has spawned success in other coaches like Matt LaFleur and Zac Taylor and perhaps Kevin O’Connell. But owners can’t think just because a guy rubbed shoulders with a boy wonder like McVay that he’s going to be a great NFL coach. The shame of the hiring process, or at least part of the shame is that if, say, Houston offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton builds a top-15 offense piloted by the 67th pick in the 2021 draft, Davis Mills, that should probably count as an outstanding coaching job, and should catapult him into the running for head-coaching jobs. Why? Because Hamilton took over the 30th-ranked team in scoring, post-Deshaun Watson, coming off an 8-25 stretch over the past two years. He’s coming from further back in the back than wherever the latest McVay-touched assistants would be coming from.

7. I think those who think the story of Robert Sarver now agreeing to sell the Suns and Mercury in Phoenix after his lewd and racist statements came to light will prompt Daniel Snyder to sell the Washington Commanders are being a bit presumptuous. First, we don’t know what the current league investigation into Snyder will yield. It could be ugly, but it could be just unseemly. In the NBA, you have the union and superstars like LeBron James saying Sarver should be stripped of the team. Who, exactly, is crying out for a similar action in the NFL? Tom Brady? The players union? Players on his own team? There have been scattered sell-the-team cries in the media and the public, but until there’s more damaging revelations against Snyder, I only see him selling if he wants to sell. That’s truly unfortunate for Washington fans, because Daniel Snyder is an anchor on the future of the franchise.

8. I think you won’t see players walking out on a team, or getting very vocal against the owner, over sexual harassment and workplace issues. Racial issues, yes. But that doesn’t seem to be part of the issue in Washington.

9. I think if Snyder really loved the team, he would sell. By not selling, Snyder is showing he loves owning the team more than he loves the team.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. Football Story of the Week: Andrew Beaton of The Wall Street Journal on how a noted hedge-fund manager, Paul Tudor Jones, is using analytics and algorithms to build a roster-crafting tool to get an edge in building the perfect football roster.

b. As Jones told Beaton: “So many of the same principles that have been so successful in financial trading, it was really evident to me that they would be perfectly applicable in player selection for an NFL team.”

c. Very interesting: Jones and his son Jack, who founded the business, have hired ex-Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff as CEO. Dimitroff talked in the story about how the Falcons used to hash over scenarios pre-draft and pre-free agency, but now this company called SumerSports can churn out and grade thousands – even millions, according to Dimitroff – of potential rosters, with strengths and weaknesses for all.

d. Ime Udoka. What a story. Really sad in a sports sense because of how a young star coach preaching strong defense helped transform the Celtics, and got the team within two games of a very unlikely NBA title. But it’s worse for the people involved in the story, whatever the story really is and how deep the story goes. I found myself thinking there’s about 65 percent of it that we don’t know. “Feels like nothing has gone right for this team since Bill Russell died on the last day of July,” Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy wrote.

e. Is a year suspension correct? Impossible to know without knowing all the facts. Impossible to know, too, whether he’ll ever coach the team again.

f. Story of the Week: Peter Sagal for The Atlantic, personalizing one of the senseless gun deaths in America that we’ve, unfortunately, become numb to: “Killed for Walking a Dog: The mundanity and insanity of gun death in America.”

g. You may have heard of Peter Sagal. He’s the host of NPR’s news quiz show, “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” This shows the reportorial side of Sagal, and we should be so grateful he flexed his journalistic muscles here.

h. Wrote Sagal:

There is no particular reason people should care about the shooting of Isabella Thallas, which is why, as far as I can tell, not many people did. She was the only casualty, and there was no mystery as to who shot her, and in a country in which guns kill more than 40,000 people every year—well, who has the time to stop and mourn for just one of them?

But there was something about this killing, on the side of a Denver street on a sunny June morning in 2020, that captured my attention. I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened to Bella Thallas. Maybe it was her age—about that of my own daughters—or maybe it was the specific circumstances of her murder, which were both mundane and completely insane.

For two years I tracked down what news I could find in the Denver press and looked in vain for the national coverage that I assumed would follow but never did. Eventually, I wrote to Bella’s family—her mother, father, sister, boyfriend—and talked to them about who Bella was and what happened on the day she died. There isn’t and never will be any satisfactory explanation for what happened to her, but I came as close as I could to understanding what was lost when it did.

i. Just as that lede sets up a tough, tough story to read, Sagal also presents the money lesson of this senseless killing with a deranged person using an AK-47 with an illegal large-capacity magazine: “Whenever we go outside, to work or school, to walk our dogs, to attend our parades, we know without saying and accept without protest that gunshots might ring out and take our lives or the lives of those we love. But we don’t think about it – we don’t scan the rooftops, because there’s no point. The gun could come from anywhere at any time, and so we do what humans do: We pretend that nothing is wrong and go about our day.”

j. It’s so, so wrong, and so, so true.

k. The incredible cheating scandal that we don’t know enough about: Bill Chappell of National Public Radio on longtime world chess champion Magnus Carlsen first losing to 19-year-old challenger Hans Niemann, then, two weeks later, quitting in a match against Niemann amid a multitude of cheating allegations.

l. Chappell reports that the loss to Niemann two weeks before the latest dropout made the rematch even more dramatic:

The drama [after the first match] threw chess into a tizzy, and fueled anticipation for Monday’s match between Carlsen and Niemann in the online tournament. But after Niemann made his first move as white, Carlsen responded with a single move as black and then quit.

“What?!” numerous commentators said in unison on video streams, as they struggled to grasp what had just happened. Carlsen offered no explanation, as he promptly turned off his video camera. But his resignation was quickly seen as a protest and a refusal to play Niemann, of the U.S.

Many involved in chess are now calling for Carlsen, the Norwegian who has ruled global chess for the past decade, to give a full account of his actions. Some also say the International Chess Federation should review the case, both to uncover any cheating and to address the damage done when one of the greatest players of all time refuses to play in a tournament he has entered.

“The implications of this are horrifying,” grandmaster Maurice Ashley told NPR. “It’s terrible.”

Ashley watched Monday’s match as a fan. To put the experience in perspective for fans of other sports, he suggests thinking of LeBron James and the L.A. Lakers trotting out to half-court for the opening tipoff of a big game — only to let the ball roll out of bounds and then exit the arena.

“This is literally the best player in the world playing in a tournament and simply quitting” without explanation, Ashley said.

m. Why does everyone think it’s insane to give a historic baseball to a man who has broken a hallowed record, eschewing a financial windfall in favor of maybe getting a meet-and-greet and some autographed stuff out of it? A person should do what he or she wants with such a baseball, or with any item from a sports event. I don’t understand why people would be critical of a person who chooses to give a valuable baseball to Aaron Judge—assuming, at some point, that Judge will tie and then break the American League record for home runs in the coming days. If you love the Yankees, it sounds pretty reasonable to do Aaron Judge a solid and just give him the ball.

n. Very cool move by Michael Kay, the TV voice of the Yankees. Kay said he turned down the chance to call a possible history-making game on Apple+ Friday night out of respect to play-by-play announcer Stephen Nelson.

o. The point, of course, is that Kay knew the game could have been the one Aaron Judge tied the American League single-season home run record of 61, or the game he broke the record. But Kay told Front Office Sports, “I wouldn’t feel right doing it.” A very mensch thing for Kay to do.

p. Fifty years ago this Friday, Roberto Clemente laced his 3,000th, and final, regular-season hit. My wife, a 14-year-old Clemente fan growing up in Pittsburgh, took the streetcar to the game with two school friends and was one of 13,177 (that’s all?) in Three Rivers Stadium that Saturday afternoon. She cut newspapers into confetti to take to the game and launched said confetti when Clemente ran out to play right field the next inning. The double off Jon Matlack was also Clemente’s last hit ever in Pittsburgh. He went 0-for-7 in the NLCS at home against Cincinnati in a series the Pirates lost. Three months later, Clemente, 38, died on a mission of mercy, flying supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

q. Kudos, Albert Pujols, on home runs 699 and 700 Friday night in consecutive at-bats against the best team in baseball, the Dodgers. Re: Pujols as he heads into the last 10 days of his regular-season baseball life:

The Babe: Pujols, with 2,208 RBI, needs seven to pass Babe Ruth for second place on the all-time RBI list.

Strikeouts: Giancarlo Stanton has struck out 95 times or more 11 times in 13 big-league seasons. Pujols has never struck out 95 times in any of his 22 seasons.

Steals: Seen as a lumbering hits machine at the dawn of his career, Pujols worked at his stolen-base game. In the six seasons from his age-25 to -30 seasons, he averaged over 10 steals a year.

Fear factor. Pujols was walked intentionally 116 times in his three best seasons in succession (2008-’10).

Home runs. Since Aug. 14, Aaron Judge has 14 home runs, Pujols 13.

r. Happy trails, Zdeno Chara. One of the most distinctive athletes in all of sports retired the other day and he deserves every plaudit. A 6-foot-9 defenseman. Six-nine! Played 1,680 games! Lasted till age 45! All of it—pretty amazing.

s. What a cool thing, too, the Federer-Nadal final doubles match was. Great way (except for the loss) for Roger Federer to go out. Tennis really did that right.

t. You may have missed Chuck the dog making his live-and-in-person national TV debut the other day. So I bring you this Tweet:

u. That’s me (foreground), and my 7-year-old dog Chuck (behind my left shoulder), from The Colin Cowherd Show on Thursday. Chuck’s a curious lad. He seems shy from that grainy head you see, but I can tell you he is not in real life.

v. I have a personal appeal to make this morning.

w. I’m on the Board of a New Jersey nonprofit, Write on Sports, which I’ve written about from time to time. Write on Sports has programs designed to boost the writing and reading skills of adolescent students, many in underserved communities, by writing and reading about sports. We have our 17th-annual gala Wednesday in Weehawken, N.J., and I have a few quick announcements to make.

x. I have a link to the auction that goes with the event, and it includes some things you might like to bid on, including a lunch for four guests with me and CBS/YES broadcaster Ian Eagle, who is a friend of Write on Sports. Lots of cool stuff we’ve got up for bids that you can see here.

y. The event kicks off at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the EnVue Hotel, 550 Avenue at Port Imperial, Weehawken.

z. Thanks for whatever support you can give the event and our cause. It’s so rewarding to see young people improve (and some jump up full grade levels) their writing ability when they write about things they love.

 

Dallas 19, N.Y. Giants 16. Yes, I’m picking Cooper Rush, undrafted in 2017, to beat Daniel Jones, drafted sixth overall in 2019, at the home of Daniel Jones. But as you can tell by the final score, I’m not feeling so convinced about the former Giants’ practice-squadder. I’m gambling the Cowboys’ patchwork line can keep a resurgent Giants’ D from wrecking the unbeaten (2-0) Rush’s night. By the way, Mike McCarthy: Give the ball to Tony Pollard.

 

Miami at Cincinnati, Thursday, 8:15 p.m., Amazon Prime Video. Last time Joe Burrow and Tua Tagovailoa met: Nov. 9, 2019, in Tuscaloosa, when the Joe Burrow Experience was on display in a very, very big way for the Tigers of LSU. LSU 46, Alabama 41. I don’t think you knew that when you watched an absolutely classic college football game (so classic that even I watched every snap), that you were watching eight skill players who’d be drafted in the top 22 of the next two drafts. Let’s count ‘em. From the ’20 draft: Burrow (first pick), Tagovailoa (sixth pick), Henry Ruggs (12th pick), Jerry Jeudy (15th pick), Justin Jefferson (22nd pick). From ’21: Ja’Marr Chase (fifth pick), Jaylen Waddle (sixth pick), DeVonta Smith (10th pick). No wonder 87 points were scored that day in Bryant-Denny Stadium.

New Orleans vs. Minnesota, Sunday, 9:30 a.m. ET (Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London), NFL Network. First of five international games in eight weeks (London, London, London, Munich, Mexico City). Gotta love that sweet 9:30 a.m. ET start time. Get ready for some French Quarter football on the TVs in all the bars at 8:30 a.m.

Jacksonville at Philadelphia, Sunday, 1 p.m., CBS. A week after the Carson Wentz Bowl, it’s the Doug Pederson Bowl. The Eagles 2022 season is the precise reason why we should call it the National Transient League. Eagles versus Franchise QB of the Future, Wentz, in September and November. Eagles versus only coach in history to lead them to a Super Bowl crown in October. Eagles versus QB who has a statue outside the Linc, who passed them to that Super Bowl title, Nick Foles, in November. All of those in an eight-week span.

Kansas City at Tampa Bay, Sunday, 8:20 p.m., NBC. Patrick Mahomes just turned 27, has never been in the same division as Tom Brady, and this is already the fifth head-to-head he’s played against Brady. I bet Mahomes remembers the 37-31 AFC Championship Game heartbreak and the 31-9 Super Bowl heartbreak a lot more than the 2019 regular-season win in Foxboro.

 

Much crazy so far.

Giants could be 3-0

tonight. Craziest.

 



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Sports

FMIA Week 2: Mike McDaniel’s ‘F- You’ Play Powers Dolphins’ Comeback and How 49ers Adjust Without Trey Lance

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Saturday night, Marriott Hotel, suburban Baltimore. Last Dolphins team meeting before facing the Ravens. “I want to see us respond when we don’t have the lead,” Miami coach Mike McDaniel said. “This is the National Football League. It happens. And believe me, fellas, there’s nothing as good as silencing a crowd on the road when the clock hits zero.”

Sunday afternoon, halftime, M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore. Ravens 28, Dolphins 7. A pall over the locker room. McDaniel told his players to forget the scoreboard and just play, and whatever happens, happens, and he had faith in them to play great in the second half. Afterward, he told me he was concerned with what he saw in his players as major adversity struck. “I thought our guys were defeated, and I understood why,” McDaniel told me. “They had high hopes for the game, and it wasn’t starting out that way.”

Then the “F-it” play happened.

This is a family website, and so McDaniel will have to leave a small bit to the imagination here. But the big play of Miami’s ridiculous comeback, honestly, was called the “F— it” play.

Midway through the fourth quarter, Miami was still down 14, and sputtering, Tua Tagovailoa going incomplete-incomplete, with the clock under eight minutes now, with a third-and-10 at the Baltimore 48-yard line.

“So we had a play ready, in case things weren’t going right, or in case there were various frustrations,” McDaniel said, an hour after the game, just outside the team bus waiting to take the team to the airport. “We installed that play with the expletives, that the quarterbacks knew as the “F— it” play. Tua loved the play. If we really needed to make something happen, that was the play we’d call.”

Well, f—. What the quarterback wants, the quarterback gets…especially when the quarterback is in the midst of the biggest hot streak of his young NFL life.

Week Two…in the league where they play…for pay.

Trey Lance out, Jimmy Garoppolo in. “We lost our starting quarterback in the first quarter of Week Two,” Kyle Shanahan told me on his drive home Sunday night. “Incredibly sad for Trey, but the stars aligned for us to get Jimmy back, and now we need him.”

Still want to enforce the study habits of Kyler Murray, Cards?

The brightest new non-QB star in football plays for the Dee-troit Lions. I’ll tell you why Amon-Ra St. Brown will have a champion-chip on his shoulder for as long as he plays football.

Should we really be surprised that Matt Ryan and the Colts still can’t win in Jacksonville? I don’t think so.

The Giants and Daniel Jones are 2-0. The Bengals and Joe Burrow are 0-2. Just like we thought.

Who will be the first to report exclusively that Nathaniel Hackett will enroll in Coaching Mechanics 101 at Colorado-Boulder this week? That is one messed-up sideline, and the Broncos are lucky to be 1-1. (Eighteen drives in two weeks, two touchdowns.)

Bucs-Saints. Mike Evans–Marshon Lattimore…Ravens-Steelers. Ray Lewis-Hines Ward.

Rams scrape by Falcons. Need a panicky late safety to ensure it. Sean McVay, whatever he says to the press, has to be thinking, “I never could have imagined this.”

Joe Flacco for governor of New Jersey.

Nervous: Jacoby Brissett, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Russell Wilson, Ron Rivera.

Very nervous: Matt Rhule, Frank Reich, Jameis Winston, Bengals offensive line.

Happy: The Dolphins, who don’t often score 35 points in a half.

“At halftime,” McDaniel said to me, “I was focused on guys finishing the game the right way and to our standard. I wasn’t thinking about anything but let’s score on our next possession.”

Finally, early in the fourth quarter, some luck: the Ravens went for it up 35-21 with nine minutes to go, fourth-and-one at the Miami 40-. Two former Patriots, Elandon Roberts and Trey Flowers, stoned Lamar Jackson on a run, and Miami got it back at its 41-yard line.

On third-and-10, McDaniel decided to go for it. F— it. What did they have to lose? The design: Three receivers left, Hill alone on the right, hoping Hill could get two steps on the corner. The cornerback, as it turned out, was an old pro, Marcus Peters. “We had talked the night before at the quarterback meeting,” McDaniel said. “Tua knew he liked the opportunity there. He goes, ‘Yeah, third-and-12, third-and-long, I really like the F-it play.’”

Why? Because who wouldn’t like Hill singled (with sort of passive safety help late, as it turned out) against any corner?

“In practice,” McDaniel said, “we didn’t really execute it well. But give credit to Tua: He didn’t blink.”

Interesting fourth quarter for the Dolphins — duh, of course it would be, scoring 28 on a good team on the road. But there was another reason: The football world wondered if Tagovailoa would be cool connecting with a speed receiver deep downfield. On that play, Tagovailoa threw it 46 yards beyond the line of scrimmage — “air yards,” in modern football lingo — and that would be a trend in this quarter. For the first three quarters, Tagovailoa averaged 5.6 air yards per attempt, per Next Gen Stats. Fourth quarter: 11.1 yards.

Tua wasn’t done. Hill wasn’t done. Next series: third-and-six at the Miami 40-yard line. Were the Ravens feeling the heat of being on the field so much, running so much? Could this be a case of load management catching up with Baltimore, while the Dolphins, after practicing in the oppressive south Florida heat, still had something left? Again, an interesting perspective from Next Gen Stats: Baltimore’s DBs ran a total of 6,131 yards in this game. That’s the most yards any secondary has run in a game since the start of the 2021 season.

And on this play, with Hill singled on the left side against rookie cornerback Jalyn Armour-Davis, he blew past Armour-Davis, who looked like he thought he should have safety help. But no safety help was coming. “I knew there was a potential there that they’d go zero [zero coverage, or blitzing and leaving the receivers all singled], so I wasn’t totally surprised because the corner was playing flat-footed, thinking his rush was going to get home.”

Nope. The 60-yard TD to Hill tied it at 35. From there, Baltimore went ahead on a 51-yard field goal from Justin Tucker, and Miami took over at its 32- with 2:12 to go. Who would be surprised that the Dolphins would finish a 547-yard day with a Tua-to-Jaylen Waddle seven-yard TD with 14 seconds left?

“Typically in the NFL, you have to learn hard lessons the bad way,” McDaniel said. “I was proud they were able to learn a lesson of mental fortitude in a game where it got out of hand super quickly. Just play the four quarters and figure it out later.”

But this game was bigger than just that lesson. The outside noise in 2022 football is impossible to ignore, and Tagovailoa has been benched, booed, and questioned in his 29 months in Miami. He had to listen to the Deshaun Watson rumors last year, knowing his coach wanted to take a shot on Watson. Then he had to get used to a new coach who stressed with him over and over that he was the future. And now, after the first two weeks of this season, after going to 4-0 against New England and strafing Baltimore with a six-touchdown game, maybe the world (and Tua himself) will finally believe the quarterback of the future in Miami is the quarterback of the present.

“What’d you say to Tua after the game?” I said to McDaniel.

“I said, ‘The weight should be lifted off your shoulders, man. All you did was do exactly what we talked about. Hopefully at least for a week you can shut up all the people that you’re trying not to listen to.’ I’m hoping Sundays feel different to him now. You need kind of a shock and awe moment for that to happen.”

Throwing four touchdown passes against the Baltimore Ravens in 13 minutes…if that’s not shock and awe, what is? The Tua Era is here.

In a cruel bit of I-told-you-so fate, Kyle Shanahan can feel good about the controversial decision to backstop Trey Lance with Jimmy Garoppolo three weeks ago. Because Lance’s first season as a starter lasted exactly 73 minutes, and now, again, this franchise will go as far as Garoppolo will take it.

Lance will undergo surgery to repair a broken ankle and possible further damage to his right leg today in California. It’s highly likely he’ll be out till the 2023 offseason.

“I’m sorry,” is about all Shanahan could figure to say by the time he got to the injured Lance late in the first quarter against Seattle in Santa Clara. “You were playing your ass off.”

Ninety minutes after the game, Shanahan, driving home, tried to be pragmatic about the constant in the 49ers’ world since Shanahan and GM John Lynch took over in 2017. “Four of our six years here we’ve lost the starting quarterback to injury,” he said. “I mean, you just deal with it. You’ve got to. Our team really loves Trey. But these guys, they plan on winning games regardless of the obstacles.

“We’ll be somber Monday morning, but this league doesn’t wait for anybody. It’s unbelievable, really, what’s happened here. We’ve only played two years without a major quarterback injury. But really, this is the first time we’ve had a really good Plan B. It’s a long time since this franchise had a quarterback situation like this one, with two guys we know can win — probably back to Joe Montana and Steve Young. I’m not comparing these guys to Joe and Steve, but I’m talking about going into games now knowing we’ve still got a great chance.”

As much as Shanahan didn’t want to just move on, he knows he’s got to. Garoppolo, playing for the first time since January and since spring shoulder surgery, was an effective 13 of 21 for 154 yards, with a TD and no turnovers. The Niners entered the day 3-17 against Seattle in their last 20 meetings; Garoppolo piloted the team to a 24-7 edge over Seattle in his 47 minutes of play. He started five of five for 80 yards, including a zipped 38-yard TD to tight end Ross Dwelley. Garoppolo’s a metronome: You know exactly what you’re getting with him, and if the Niners can stay relatively healthy on defense, they should be able to be strong playoff contenders again — even after the crushing news of Sunday.

At 1-1, San Francisco has a chance to gain ground on the division in the next month. They’re at Denver, home to the mysterious Rams, at 0-2 Carolina, at 0-2 Atlanta. Then the schedule gets tough.

As for Lance, the reversal of fortune is shocking, after an offseason of debate about whether he’s ready to be The Man for a playoff team. And he’ll enter 2023 mostly the same way he entered 2022: with tremendous uncertainty. After starting one college season (at the mid-major level, at North Dakota State), he’ll have made four NFL starts in two seasons. Shanahan will profess confidence in him, and it’s likely he’ll believe it. But Lance will still be a major question mark, and as for who will backstop him then…that’s too far in the future to matter this morning. What matters now is a road trip this week to Denver, when another team won’t care about San Francisco’s woes. In the NFL, that’s cruel reality. Next man up. Veteran man up, in this case.

Huge influencers on Sunday football:

Cornerback Jamel Dean, in Tampa’s bitterly fought 20-10 win in New Orleans, changed the game. While the Bucs get up to speed offensively — no sideline Tablet is safe until the Bucs start averaging more than the 19.5 points a game they’ve put up in the first two weeks — they’ll have to survive with a defense that’s started red-hot. Sunday’s hero was Dean, the fourth-year corner whose two fourth-quarter interceptions led to 10 Tampa Bay points and broke open a 3-3 game.

This was a slugfest, as usual, between two teams that hate each other the way the Steelers used to hate the Ravens back in the day. “Oh my God,” Dean said from the Bucs’ locker room, “this is always a heavyweight fight.” It really was a fight in the fourth quarter, when three plays before Dean’s first pick, Tom Brady started jawing with Saints corner Marshon Lattimore, shoving ensued, and Bucs receiver Mike Evans flew into the fray and blasted Lattimore.

The outcome — not of the fight, but of the game — might have been bigger than just one game. Credit Jameis Winston for playing with four fractured back vertebrae, per Jay Glazer, but his play late isn’t going to give the Saints the kind of confidence they’d like to have to dethrone Tampa in the NFC South. His two picks in the fourth quarter both came on the Bucs’ side of midfield. “That first one,” said Dean of his end-zone pick, “I knew I had to get it. If I don’t, that could be a touchdown. I’d rather not give up a touchdown.” Understandable. Winston’s got to avoid the turnovers if the Saints have a shot to play deep into January, and that’s always been a challenge for him. For the Bucs, turnovers by Brady aren’t the issue. The leaky offensive line is, and the schedule. Next for Tampa: Green Bay and Kansas City, both at home.

Quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who led the Jags’ stunning 24-0 shutout of Indianapolis, wasn’t really the national story Sunday; the Colts’ continuing and confounding incompetence in north Florida was. But Jacksonville, depending on the outcome of 0-1 Tennessee’s game in Buffalo tonight, will exit week two either alone or tied for first in the AFC South. And the continuing development of Lawrence (25 of 30, 235 yards, two TDs, no turnovers) was a big reason why.

“What’s the throw you’re most proud of today?” I asked him Sunday evening.

He thought for a moment and said, “It was a simple one. I think it was just a three- or four-yard gain. But I chucked it out to James Robinson, maybe made it second-and-six or whatever.”

Actually, it came on the first series of the third quarter. On second-and-12 from midfield, he dumped it to Robinson for a gain of four. Then he threw an incompletion, and Jacksonville punted.

That was a highlight play?

“Our plan was to take what the defense gave us, whether that’s five, seven yards a throw, whatever it was,” he said. “Really, we were able to do that the whole game and run the ball effectively and control the clock. I think that’s just a good lesson in general for us moving forward — instead of trying to force a ball in a tight window that wasn’t really there and keeping my eyes downfield for too long and throwing it away, make the play that’s there. That’s the next step I’ve been trying to take is just being really smart with the ball, knowing where my outlets are.”

Lawrence seems happier with coach Doug Pederson than he was with the Urban Meyer regime. “I think we’re really similar personality-wise,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know him and then on the football field he’s a really smart coach. His approach is great and it’s been awesome for our team.” Add in two strong edge players, Josh Allen and first overall pick Travon Walker, and Lawrence can afford to play patient and smart. He knows he won’t have to score in the thirties to win most weeks.

Wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, with 116 yards receiving and 68 yards rushing, continued to make a huge mark on the NFL in Detroit’s 36-27 win over Washington. A smooth route-runner with excellent hands, St. Brown has the Justin Jefferson-like ability to find a way to be open enough; even when the defense knows he’s going to be targeted 10 or 12 times every game, he finds enough space to make play after play. In the last eight Lions’ games, Detroit’s a surprising 4-4, and look at the production St. Brown has in catches in those eight games: 10, 8, 8, 9, 8, 8, 8 and 9 receptions.

Talking to St. Brown, what I found interesting was how big a factor in his life the 2021 draft was. He’s from Anaheim and went to USC, and he expected (and was told by NFL people) he’d likely be a day-two pick. So he had a party with family and friends on Friday of draft weekend; the NFL had a camera there. But the day came and went, and St. Brown wasn’t picked till round four, on Saturday.

“Even today, talking to you, I still get really emotional just thinking about it, talking about it,” St. Brown said from the Lions’ locker room. “It was a day I’ll never forget. I was furious. But it changed who I am, the way I work, the way I see things. When I get tired in a workout, I won’t quit — I’ll do extra. When I think about that day, that flips the switch for me, and it makes me work harder and longer.

“On the way home that Friday night, I was crying. I got on the Jugs machine late that night, Friday night in California. I got on the machine till I was exhausted, then I went to bed. At that point it was go time for me. I didn’t care who picked me. I was just going to prove myself from that day on.”

Nineteen games and 107 catches into his NFL career, he’s off to a great start.

A screed now, on instant replay. I’ve always been a huge proponent of being able to correct obvious, clear and indisputable mistakes by officials on the field. But I’m really bothered by the current system of replay, because correcting obvious, clear and indisputable mistakes is not what the system does now.

I think instant replay overreaches. If you have NFL+, you can judge two plays early in the season for yourself. That’s how I looked at a catch by Detroit tight end T.J. Hockenson that was confirmed after review in Week One and an interception by Chargers cornerback Asante Samuel Jr., that was overturned in Week Two after review. The two plays:

Hockenson, in the Philadelphia-Detroit game, dove for a Jared Goff pass on the last play of the third quarter against Philadelphia. Replay showed the ball completely out of his hands as he fell earthward, and then he grabbed it and attempted to secure it as he hit the ground. The nose of the ball hit the turf, Hockenson hit the turf, his hands appeared to move down the football as he secured it on the ground. Coach Nick Sirianni challenged. The catch was confirmed by Walt Anderson in the New York officiating command center.

Samuel, in the Chargers-Kansas City game Thursday night, bobbled and lost and re-caught an interception as he fell to the ground in the third quarter. It was ruled an interception on the field. Replay showed the ball in Samuel’s grasp as both the player and ball hit the ground, and it appeared the ball may have hit the ground and was not totally secure as it did so. “Appeared” being the operative word there. It did not look conclusive to me. The call was overturned by Anderson.

I do not know how the Hockenson play stands and the Samuel play does not. That’s the problem that I see: These two plays were tremendously similar — in each case, they’re so close and could have been ruled either way on the field. In each case, I believe, each should have been upheld because they didn’t pass the “clear and obvious” standard to be overturned. If you had 100 non-partisan people watch the two plays, there’s no way either would have been 100-0 to keep or overturn, and there’s no way it would have been 90-10, and probably not even 80-20 either way.

The NFL has lost its way on replay. As former vice president of officiating Mike Pereira, now a FOX rules analyst, told me: “We’ve been micromanaging replay for years, and this is what’s resulted. We’re reviewing and reversing plays where half the viewers would reverse and half wouldn’t. We all knew that technology improved and clarity of the video improved that we would overuse the system. So I’m not a fan of where we are on replay.”

Nor am I. I still favor replay, used correctly, because we don’t want games decided on egregiously incorrect calls. The league needs to re-familiarize itself—Anderson in particular—with the definition of clear, obvious and indisputable, before it’s too late and owners and coaches get fed up with a system that all too often is capricious.

Hello, Next Gen!

This season, FMIA has partnered with Next Gen Stats, the league’s new generation of advanced metrics and statistic, with data collected from 250 tracking devices per game on players, officials, pylons and footballs. Each week, I’ll use NGS to help tell a deeper story or stories about the games that week.

Today: How Patrick Mahomes is adjusting without Tyreek Hill.

Pretty well, so far. There is no disputing how dominant Hill can be and has been in the first two weeks for Miami. But Kansas City has been borderline explosive without him. Mahomes is a league-best plus-seven in TD-to-interception ratio (7-0). He also is the early league leader — and ahead of his career bests — in passer rating (127.9) and yards-per-attempt (9.9), with 73 percent accuracy.

With the speedy Hill last year, KC receivers averaged 11.0 yards per catch. Without Hill and with a cadre of four new receivers this year, KC receivers are averaging 11.0 yards per catch.

Next Gen Stats make Mahomes’ first two weeks even more impressive, particularly when you consider he’s getting pressured far more this season so far.

Mahomes is throwing quicker than last year, getting blitzed at a much higher rate, and is more accurate. It’s almost like he likes being rushed—in part, of course, because with fewer bodies in coverage, he has a better chance to find a receiver quicker.

Look at the air yards numbers. Air yards is how far past the line of scrimmage each Mahomes pass travels, on average. It’s actually slightly further this year, per NGS, than last year when Hill was stretching defenses for Mahomes.

What’s most impressive about this chart? Mahomes has had to get familiar with four new receivers to the team this year — JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Justin Watson and Skyy Moore. Those four receivers have averaged nine catches for 112 yards in the two games so far.

Watson’s 41-yard touchdown that got KC back in the game Thursday night was an outlier, but a classic football play. Mahomes had what for him was an otherworldly time to throw — 3.84 seconds. The Chargers blitzed, sending linebacker Drue Tranquill up the A gap (over the center, essentially) and running back Jerick McKinnon stone Tranquill—giving Mahomes the extra second to find, throw and lead Watson for the touchdown.

Next Gen Stats has one more gem about Mahomes, and one more reason why the blitz is simply not a smart move when playing defense on him. Since 2018, when Mahomes became Kansas City’s full-time starter, he’s faced the lowest blitz rate of the 49 quarterbacks with at least 500 attempts since then — just 19.0 percent of his pass attempts.

The compelling part, per Next Gen: Mahomes, since opening day 2018, has thrown three interceptions versus the blitz. But when rushed by four or fewer defenders, he has thrown 33 interceptions. When defensive coordinators who love to send pressure face Kansas City, they’d be wise to dial back their gameplans and keep seven men back. If not, chances are Mahomes will shred them.

Mahomes wears a band on one arm with a built-in fitness tracker from the company WHOOP that monitors his daily sleep, recovery, effort, strain and heart performance. The readings have changed how he works and helped him understand the impact of sleep and diet on his fitness and preparedness.

Last season, during the grueling playoff games against Buffalo, WHOOP found that Mahomes’ heart rate late in the game was higher when watching Josh Allen bring the Bills back to take a late lead (about 170 beats per minute) than it was when he was in the game bringing Kansas City back to tie in the final 13 seconds (156-159 bpm).

That both seems incongruous and telling about Mahomes. His trainer said it was about Mahomes being in a “flow” state — when a person is immersed in an activity he’s an expert in, even an activity with high stress like an NFL playoff game, his heart rate is more under control.

“When you’re playing, you’re focused,” Mahomes told me. “You’re not really worried about what’s going on outside. You’re trying to do your job and win the football game. For me, you go back to your routine. You go back to doing what you’ve done every single drive, every single play of your career. I think that’s why you saw my heart rate kinda lower when I played than when I was watching, when I didn’t have control of the game watching from the sidelines. There was nothing I could do.”

Another interesting note: Mahomes’ sleep performance in training camp this year wasn’t as efficient as either in camp last year or during the ’21 season. That could be — and probably is — because his hours were long this summer. He and his offensive mates had to work harder than in normal years because Mahomes was getting four new wide receivers in gear to hit the ground running to start the season. The work has paid off so far, obviously, with a 2-0 record and two impressive offensive games.

Chargers running back Austin Ekeler, on the physical test of playing Thursday night football on the road after playing on Sunday.

I talked to Ekeler last Tuesday night, exactly 48 hours before he’d take the field in Kansas City.

“The body definitely hurts. We all have different hardships that we have to go through in our lives. For us in the NFL season, injury, just trying to stay healthy, is a trial. As of now, I’m sitting here, my shoulders are still sore. My hip is still sore. My quads are still sore from getting hit. Usually takes three or four days to actually heal up and I can get a good lift and I can feel like ‘OK, I’m ready to play again.’ Then we have a little bit more time after that. But this week, right as soon as the [Sunday] game ends, after the game immediately we bring all of our dry needling, all of our massage, all of the cold tub, hot tub, trainers, we’re already starting treatment immediately when the game ends. Coach passed out some game balls in the locker room. Then straight to treatment because we’re trying to get a jump start. But one thing that we can’t obviously make up is the time that it takes.

“So I get in the shower, then I’m going straight to the recovery room. I’ll go put these NormaTec [compression] pants on my legs. They’re squeezing blood out of my legs right so I can get new flush in there. Just trying to keep down inflammation and let new blood come in there, nutrients and things like that. Also jumping in the ice bath as well to continue to keep this blood circulating.

“Monday morning, I started to feel my shoulders. I didn’t know my shoulders were this sore after the game. My hip didn’t hurt after the game either until I got home and then it started stiffening up on me. Then the next morning, I wake up like, ‘OK, yeah, that’s definitely sore.’”

How ready will you be to play a football game Thursday night?

“You’ll see 100 percent of what I got left. I’ll definitely have some sore spots. See what’s going on with this hip. Just right on the bone. That’ll probably still be sore. That might even still be sore for a whole week. It’s a violent game we play. But yeah, I would say pretty close to 100 percent because we’re still just in week two.

“Amazon wanted us for their first primetime game, so we’ll go out and give ‘em a show.”

Ekeler led all Chargers with 23 touches from scrimmage for 94 yards in the 27-24 Kansas City win.

“Division opponent, crowd all jacked up, the adrenalin, I felt 100 percent at the start of the game,” Ekeler said Saturday. “What I’ve found is the adrenalin makes you not feel any pain in a place like that. At the end of the game and the next day, I felt it. My neck is sore. My lower back is sore — took a helmet to the back. Quads are sore. But it’s normal soreness for this game. A normal person might be saying, ‘Whoa, this hurts.’ But I’m a football player. I actually feel pretty good.”

Offensive players of the week

Tua Tagovailoa, quarterback, Miami. In a performance that would make Dan Marino jealous, Tagovailoa threw four touchdown passes in the last 13 minutes in Baltimore — not against a JV defense — to lift Miami to a shocking 42-38 comeback victory over the Ravens. He completed 72 percent of his throws for 469 yards, six TDs and two picks in one of the greatest performances in the history of a proud franchise.

Amon-Ra St. Brown, wide receiver, Detroit. If the first two weeks of the season have catapulted one player to stardom above any other, it’s St. Brown, the 112th pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. He caught nine balls for 116 yards and two touchdowns in the win against Washington and added 58- and 10-yard runs for a 184-yard day. These are not your father’s, uncle’s or grandfather’s Lions. They’ve scored 71 points in two games, and as St. Brown told me postgame, “We will compete like no other team in the league.”

Kyler Murray, quarterback, Arizona. I clocked it: Murray scrambled/ran/survived for 20.87 seconds on a two-point conversion run in the fourth quarter to keep the Cardinals in the game and trailing 23-15. That’s one of the most amazing plays I’ve ever seen a quarterback make. Then, over the last 4:43 of the game, he led Arizona on an 18-play, 73-yard drive, finishing with a three-yard TD run and a two-point conversion pass to force overtime. And the Cards won in overtime on the Byron Murphy scoop and score. After three quarters, Arizona trailed 23-7 and it looked like the mega-heat would be on Kliff Kingsbury and Murray this week for an 0-2 start. But all is right with the world. The Cardinals are a frenetic 1-1 with some hope.

Joe Flacco, quarterback, New York Jets. The football world, and Jets’ fandom, rolled eyes at the 37-year-old Flacco starting in place of Zach Wilson till the kid’s ready to return from a knee injury. And when he couldn’t escape Myles Garrett for most of Sunday, the negativity intensified. Then Flacco led two road TD drives in the last two minutes, making the Jets the first team to overcome a 13-point deficit inside the two-minute warning of the fourth quarter to win an NFL game since 2001. Good for the steely Flacco, who never blinked down the stretch of a game no one gave the Jets a chance to win.

 

Defensive players of the week

Jamel Dean, cornerback, Tampa Bay. His two fourth-quarter interceptions won the game for Tampa Bay, breaking a four-game regular-season losing streak against the Saints. Dean picked off Jameis Winston with 12 minutes left in a 3-3 game, leading to the go-ahead touchdown, and he picked off Winston again with seven minutes left, leading to an insurance field goal. On a day when the Tampa offense sputtered for the second straight week, the defense, and Dean, picked the Bucs up.

Jaylen Watson, cornerback, Kansas City. Imagine being a rookie, the 243rd pick in the draft, the 36th corner picked in the draft, in your second game in the NFL, and veteran defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has you on the field with 11 minutes to go, 17-17 game, Justin Herbert with the ball at the KC three-, and he takes the snap, and he’s staring your way. That’s what Watson was faced with Thursday night, game on the line. Turns out tight end Gerald Everett was supposed to come back for the ball on a short curl route, but either he was too exhausted to do so or just ran the wrong route. Either way, Watson jumped the route at the KC one-yard line and returned it for the touchdown that turned the tide in the game. Not bad for a guy who had to work at Wendy’s during the 2019 football season, out of college because of academic trouble and rekindled his career at Washington State in 2020 and ’21.

Aidan Hutchinson, defensive end, Detroit. After a quiet first week, Hutchinson made his presence felt early in the win over Washington. On Washington’s first, fifth and seventh possessions, all in the first half, he had a sack that either forced a punt or soon led to a punt. When a foe has 13 drives (except one kneel-down drive) and one player terminates three of them, that’s a very good day for the player.

Micah Parsons, edge rusher, Dallas. Two sacks, five hits of Joe Burrow, and a commanding presence in a game the Dak Prescott-less Cowboys desperately needed, and got. Parsons is the kind of player who affects the game the way Lawrence Taylor once did.

Special teams player of the week

Devin Duvernay, kick-returner, Baltimore. His 103-yard kickoff return for touchdown on the first play of the Dolphins-Ravens game was remarkable for its speed and for the hopelessness of the Miami defenders. They never had a chance. Not bad for Duvernay, the 92nd pick in the 2020 draft who has far outplayed his draft slot.

Coach of the week

Mike McDaniel, head coach, Miami. Lots of candidates in this crazy, crazy week. But McDaniel told his team at halftime he loved having adversity, and he loved coaching these players, and they should love the game even when adversity strikes. And, yes, it does help to have Tua Tagovailoa throwing to Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill. But he has built in short order a rapport with the quarterback and the team that allows them to think it’s not over when they’re down by three touchdowns with 12 minutes to go. And it wasn’t.

Goats of the week

Gunner Olszewski, punt-returner, Pittsburgh. The former Patriot said to New England media the other day: “Playing the old team, the team that didn’t want you, sure I want to go out there and show what I can do.” Late in the third quarter at Heinz Field, with the Patriots holding a 10-6 lead, Olszewski did. The Patriots’ punt hit Olszewski in the facemask, New England recovered, and scored to go up 17-6. That was a huge play in New England’s 17-14 win.

Cade York, kicker, Cleveland. Hero in his first NFL game last week (58-yard winning field goal at Carolina), goat in his second. The rookie from LSU got a clean snap and clean hold on a PAT with 1:55 left — and pushed it right. The kick kept the Cleveland lead at 13 points, and the Jets rallied to win, 31-30.

The Colts. They just aren’t that good. Of all the games of the Ballard-Reich Era, Sunday’s 24-0 loss at Jacksonville is the most embarrassing.  

 

Hidden person of the week

Patrick Ricard, fullback/defensive lineman, Baltimore. One of the game’s unique players made one of the plays of the early season. On a first-half Lamar Jackson scramble, Ricard, a blocking back anytime the Ravens get near the goal line, erased linebacker Elandon Roberts, then got further downfield to block Eric Rowe on the same Jackson run. Pretty amazing play by Ricard — even if it came in a shocking loss like Sunday’s 42-38 Miami defeat.

 

The Jason Jenkins Award

A weekly award honoring the late Miami Dolphins community relations executive for his selfless service to the south Florida community. Send nominations to peterkingfmia@gmail.com.

Terry McLaurin, wide receiver, Washington. He founded the Terry McLaurin Foundation last week, hosting scores of underserved children from the District of Columbia and children and mentors from Big Brothers Big Sisters at FedEx Field. Each child got a pair of shoes, while foster parents and Big Brothers Big Sisters mentors got grocery gift cards from the foundation.

I

It’s a haunting moment for anyone on the football field.

— 49ers tackle Mike McGlinchey, on the severe ankle injury to QB Trey Lance that will end his season.

 

II

Sorry for breaking that tablet. I think that’s gonna be another Twitter meme.

— Tom Brady, after the win in New Orleans and after the Tablet destruction on the sidelines of the Superdome, on Instagram.

 

III

It’s a long season. We’ll take our medicine for the pathetic performance today, coaches and players.

— Colts coach Frank Reich, after the 24-0 loss in Jacksonville.

 

IV

Obviously that’s an emotional one, and we’re freaking out.

— Jets QB Joe Flacco, to Aditi Kinkhabwala of CBS on the field after the Jets beat Cleveland 31-30.     

 

V

The Colts have entered the fourth quarter of [their two games this year] trailing by a combined 44-3.

— Zak Keefer of The Athletic.

Jacksonville is 5-30 since the start of the 2020 season…0-17 on the road.

Highlights (or, in the case of the Colts, lowlights) in that 35-game Jaguars span:

  • While the Jags are 5-30 since opening day 2020, Indy is 20-14-1.
  • Since opening day 2020, Jags are 3-2 against Indianapolis, 2-28 against everyone else.
  • Jags QBs (Minshew, Lawrence) in the three wins over the Colts: seven TD passes, zero interceptions, 127.2 rating.
  • Colts QBs (Rivers, Wentz, Ryan) in the three losses: two touchdown passes, six interceptions, 68.9 rating.
  • On the day of the last Colts’ victory over the Jaguars in Jacksonville, Odell Beckham Jr., made the catch of his life, the one-hander in the end zone on Sunday Night Football for the Giants that made him famous.

I

Since opening day 2021, Dak Prescott is 11-7 with a 99.5 passer rating, and Cooper Rush is 2-0 with a 93.63 rating.

I’m just saying.

II

Tackle David Bakhtiari, 30, signed a four-year extension worth $92 million late in the 2020 season. Of the Packers’ last 20 games, Bakhtiari has missed 19 with a knee injury.

I

Domonique Foxworth, an ESPN analyst, once played for the Ravens, so he should know.

II

Michael David Smith is the managing editor of ProFootballTalk.

III

Stephen Holder, Tweeting in the first half of another Indy meltdown in Jacksonville, covers the Colts for ESPN.com.

IV

Longtime Colts beat writer, now a college prof, as the Colts were trailing 24-0 in the fourth quarter to their nemesis of all nemeses, Jacksonville.

V

Brad Spielberger is Pro Football Focus’ salary cap analyst.

That is not just a fun fact. It’s a grotesque fact.

VI

Ken Olin is an actor, producer and director.

VII

Julian Edelman, Tweeting as Justin Herbert played hurt Thursday night, is the former New England Super Bowl champion.

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com, or on Twitter @peter_king.

The Russell Wilson treatment.From Jean Hermlin, of Paris: “Re Russell Wilson: It’s pretty obvious there is a lot of animosity from guys who were former leaders on the team towards him. Why do you think that is the case and have you ever seen anything like it? Mike Sando of The Athletic detailed how several players who had been staying away from the team (Michael Bennett, Richard Sherman, Marshawn Lynch) are now more actively involved, and now we have this quote of Pete Carroll saying, ‘As much as anything, it was representing the guys that played before, it meant a lot to those guys.’

Obviously, I don’t know the dynamics behind the scenes on other teams (or this one, really), but I’ve never had the feeling anything remotely close was happening with the Bradys, Mannings, Breeses of the world.”

The reaction of the fans in Seattle shocked me, Jean. I understand booing a guy through the course of the game; no venue in sports today is as influential as Seattle’s home field, and the fans showed that for four quarterbacks. But I do not understand booing the quarterback of the team for the most glorious decade in franchise history during the pregame as well. As I wrote last week, the Seahawks in the 10 years before Wilson arrived made the playoffs three times and were a combined two games over .500; the Seahawks in Wilson’s 10 years made the playoffs eight times and were 51 games over .500. True — many veterans, particularly on defense, found Wilson to be a little bit of a goody-two-shoes whose fame overshadowed a great defense. Maybe it’s because I’m older now, and I wish so often that fans would be classier, and it’s possible to be classy and intensely loyal at the same time. But I didn’t like the whole of what I saw last Monday.

Easy for me to say Chicago should have a dome — I don’t have to sit in bad weather. From Anthony Elms, of Omaha: “You wrote, ‘Imagine the moments in Bears history we’d have missed with a stupid dome.’ And how many of those five moments were you sitting out in that horrendous weather for? I love it when someone who won’t be personally affected advocates for someone else to deal with more hardship.”

“Hardship?” I was in the Soldier Field press box the day of the Sean Landeta whiffed punt in 1985, with the Bears on the way to winning the Super Bowl, and I doubt you’d find many in the stands that day complaining about sitting in the cold. I was in the stands for none of the games I mentioned. The point is, though, what do Bears fans think? I’d be curious to see a poll of long-time Bears’ season-ticket holders on the topic. In fact, I ask Bears’ ticket-holders right here and now: If a new stadium is built for the Bears, would you prefer:

1. Open-air stadium.

2. Stadium with a retractable roof.

3. Stadium with a permanent dome.

Send votes/responses to me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com this week. Put “Bears dome” in the subject line. Thanks. And thanks for your note, Anthony. Maybe a vast majority of Bears’ fans would like it to be 72 degrees and condition-less for every game. I doubt it, but we’ll see.

On my story about a loud F-you guy at Yankee Stadium. From Jonathan Manz, of Portland, Ore.: “Love your column. You’re right, comments like the one you heard at the Yankees-Twins game have no room in sports. To send the right message, I would like to see more professional athletes high five or shake the hands of their opponents after games – just like we were taught in Little League. That would help at least send the right message to the fans.”

That’s a great idea, actually. Thanks, Jonathan.

People have a lot of opinions about the Hall of Fame. From Jaxon Ombach: “Your comment that ‘Voters for the Hall of Fame should not be in the morals-judging business, they should be in the football-judging business’ has really not sat well with me. Career stats should play heavily into the decision making of whether someone is Hall of Fame-worthy player. I think it is important to judge their character at the same time. In the world we live in today, it is not enough for anyone to just be good at a sport, or a job, but to be a good person as well.”

You’ve got a lot of backing from other fans and emailers, Jaxon. But the Hall of Fame would have to change the longstanding bylaws of the election process for that to happen. Per the bylaws: “The only criteria for election to the Hall of Fame are a nominee’s achievements and contributions (positive or negative) as a player, coach or contributors to professional football in the United States of America.” The reason I don’t want to get involved in the personality/citizenship side of this is that I don’t want to judge how much morals or off-the-field life should mean to a football person’s candidacy for the Hall of Fame. It’s not the way Hall selections have been made for the first 59 years of the place.

Take a stand, King. From Eric Wojsik: “Hiding behind the Hall of Fame rules to only consider what a player does on the field is cowardly, if not hypocritical. As you asked, should a player or coach be disqualified for domestic abuse? I don’t know; I’m not a HOF voter, but I do know such behavior must at least be considered along with every other nuance of a candidate’s career, peers, and era. If you chose to, Mr. King, you could take a stand to show such abhorrent behavior does not get a free pass for one of the highest honors in the game simply because one is a spectacular player, coach, or owner.”

I agree with the bylaws; I don’t want to be the morality police. Do you want 49 sportswriters/sportscasters/retired players sitting in judgment of all aspects of the lives of players and coaches and owners? If the Hall wants to change the bylaws after six decades of voting on football factors only, that’s the right of the institution, but I’ve never once, in 30 years on the committee, heard a voter or Hall executive say or imply, “We should include every aspect of a person’s life — citizenship, public service, possible military service, criminal record — when we discuss Hall of Fame candidacies.” If that makes me a coward in your eyes, so be it.

Educate thyself on Monarchy funding. From Jason Williams, of London: “I just wanted to inform you that the Royal Family gets what’s called a sovereign grant each year that is voted on in parliament. The grant last year was 86 million pounds, which equates to £1.29 per person in the country. The last report I could find stated that in 2017 the Royal Family uplifted the economy by £1.7 billion due to tourists, visitors etc.”

Good information. Thanks, Jason.

1. I think that gigantic elf at midfield of the Browns stadium looks downright bizarre and, quite frankly, idiotic.

2. I think I listen to a lot of Andrew Siciliano and Scott Hanson on the two NFL red zone channels (except yesterday with Siciliano, because the DirecTV was out in my house and on my laptop), and I can tell you on all the Sundays I’ve ever listened to either, I heard the strangest sentence on Sunday. This was the explanation from Hanson about why there is a 40-foot-by-30-foot Brownie the Elf logo on the field: “Per Scottish folklore, from hundreds of years ago, apparently the elf pops up in your home and helps you do chores.”

3. I think there will be a chorus of “it’s way too early for that,” and I understand that sentiment. But is Kenny Pickett warming up in the bullpen yet? The Trubisky-led offense has put up 30 points in nine offensive quarters (almost nine; there was an OT last week in Cincinnati), and 255 offensive yards per game won’t cut it long-term.

4. I think I’ll have more to say about my Amazon experience next week (I wanted to give the pregame and game crews a couple of weeks before saying much), but I was impressed with the picture quality on both my laptop and smartphone. I know some TV users had buffering issues, but none of that with the smaller screens, at least for me. This week, I’m going to take some time watching the alternate ‘cast.

5. I think I thought I was a Jimmy-Johnsonologist and knew pretty much everything about his NFL life. But as part of an NFL Icons series on EPIX, there’s a Jimmy Johnson documentary airing Saturday at 10 p.m. ET, with a fresh interview plus lots of stuff from the hallowed archives of NFL Films. It’s hosted by Rich Eisen. Great line in there from Johnson about great franchises: “The downfall of every organization is you start fighting over who gets the credit.” And there’s this nugget that I never heard:

Johnson: “A lot of people look at our franchise and they say, ‘Well, the Herschel Walker trade made this franchise.’ Well, people don’t understand that we had fifty-one trades in the five-year period there. Fifty-one trades, that was more than the entire rest of the league put together.”

(It wasn’t, but 51 is a lot of trades.)

Eisen: “Johnson nearly had fifty-two trades. In 1992, he tried to negotiate a deal with his former offensive coordinator David Shula, who had just been named head coach of the Bengals.”

Johnson: “We had a defensive back that was a decent player, but we were going to release him, and I didn’t want him to go to one of our opponents. And so David Shula was at Cincinnati. I said, ‘David,’ I said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a defensive back, pretty good player can help you if you want to make a trade.’ He said, ‘Well, what do you want for him?’ I said, ‘You know, you can give me a case of beer.’ He said, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘Hey, you don’t even have to give me a case of beer. You can buy me a drink at the convention or something.’ So he called back, and he says, ‘Uh, Jimmy, I’m sorry, we can’t make the trade.’ I said, ‘What!’ Everybody was skeptical of me after the Herschel Walker trade. They thought I was trying to pull the wool over their eyes.”

6. I think it’s downright weird to see the Bucs 2-0 and Tom Brady with 402 passing yards.

7. I think it’s never a good sign anytime you ask someone this question about a business deal: “Is there anyway [sic] the media can find out where it came from and how much?”

The excellent reporting of Mississippi Today’s Anna Wolfe unearthed that text message — it’s what Brett Favre asked the head of an agency that collected and allocated millions of dollars in state welfare funds, as he was allegedly angling to get money from the state to help Southern Miss build a volleyball facility. (Favre’s daughter, Breleigh, played volleyball there.)

Now, Mississippi is the poorest state in the country, with per capita income of about $22,000 per adult. World Population Review said earlier this year that 18.8 percent of state residents live in poverty, with an alarming 27.9 percent of children below the poverty line. So anyone knowingly using state welfare funds for a pet project like this volleyball facility would be subject to prosecution — never mind that Favre made $141 million in his NFL career. He claims he did not know the funds he was seeking came from state welfare coffers. In time, we’ll learn whether that is true, because a civil lawsuit in Mississippi seeks to plumb the depths into the murky state welfare agencies. The governor at the time, Phil Bryant, and others including Favre are under fire for channeling $5 million in state welfare funds toward the volleyball project.

Wolfe’s reporting makes Bryant sound like a Favre fanboy. Imagine the athletic director of Southern Miss pushing for upwards of $5 million for a standalone volleyball facility in a state that’s so poor. Hard to believe Bryant would have spent so much time and energy on such a project unless Favre, the greatest athlete in state history, was pushing it. Mississippi Today asked Favre in 2020 if he’d discussed the volleyball facility with the governor and he said, “No.” This, despite the uncovering of evidence by Wolfe of multiple meetings of Favre and Bryant discussing the facility—and the governor even advising Favre on how to word a proposal to get the money so funding for the facility could pass muster through the state.

It looks bad for the former governor and for Favre. Morally, Favre already looks very bad. Legally, if it’s proven that Favre knowingly used a very poor system to bankroll a pet project, it’s going to be much worse for him, and justifiably so.

8. I think this is now ancient history, but here’s the overriding point about Nathaniel Hackett choosing to try a 64-yard field goal instead of going for it on fourth-and-five from the Seattle 46-yard line last Monday: I hope Hackett has learned from this, but I’m not so sure he has. Although he said a day later, “We definitely should have gone for it,” he also reiterated that the team “had a plan” to get to the 46- and then try the field goal. “We said 46-yard-line was where we wanted to be,” he said. To still be saying that a day after is just crazy to me. Who wants to get in position to kick a 64-yard field goal in anything other than absolute desperation with zero other alternatives? This is the NFL’s 103rd season, and there have been two field goals that long in history — from 64 and 66, and Brandon McManus’ long was 61. I’d be concerned if I were the new Denver owners or GM George Paton that the coach is still talking about the logic of it the next day.

9. I think this was a masterful piece by Greg Bishop of Sports Illustrated on the return of Tyrann Mathieu to the hometown that could have killed him. Writes Bishop:

Maybe this is a fairytale after all. Enigma to adversary to hero. Maybe, he thinks, it could be perfect. Storybook. Roll credits. The End.

The thought is forceful but fleeting, like the thunderclaps in the distance. Look closely. Notice the ink on his right leg, row after row of nearly identical crosses that explain why his relationship with his hometown is as much thorns as flowers.

The tattoos represent his torture and his torment, the friends and family members Mathieu lost during childhood alone. He added all 22 at once, over two sessions, one for each cross and one for the initials denoting each individual who died.

Fairy tale? Please. Tyrann Mathieu has a graveyard on his leg.

It’s different, this homecoming. It’s glorious. It’s terrifying. He left New Orleans as a young adult soon to lose his way and returns as a father of three. He departed disgruntled and comes back enlightened. He left fearful and returns not with the resolve of someone who had conquered their fears but one who learned to navigate them.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. How great is “Abbott Elementary?”

b. My wife and I have been watching the show about a struggling inner-city Philadelphia grade school with a disastrous principal and wonderfully hopeful star teacher, and it’s sad and funny and cynical and great. I can see why so many people are hooked on it—it appeals to all ages. The star, Quinta Brunson, is also the writer, and she won an Emmy for her writing last week. As she told Vanity Fair, “When someone will come up to me on the street, or even on social media, and say that they’ve been watching it with their eight-year-old child, or their 70-year-old grandmother, that’s, like, almost too humbling to function.”

c. Inside Football Story of the Week: Kalyn Kahler of Defector with a gem on how NFL teams scout officials. Great stat in here: Ref Bill Vinovich’s crew has been last in called penalties for each of the last four years. That’s why networks like Vinovich on the primetime games. They’re liable to go faster with Vinovich.

d. Writes Kahler:

Every year at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis, the analytics company Pro Football Focus meets with their clients and prospective clients to hear feedback on their product. And over the last five or six years, PFF analyst Steve Palazzolo says teams kept bringing up officiating. Specifically, they wanted PFF to track penalties by the individual official who threw the flag. The league only provides teams with data on penalties by crew, which isn’t granular enough for NFL coaches, who want to know which side or field judges call the most PI, or which line judge calls the most false starts. (The answer? “Jeff Bergman,” says a third game management coach. “If you have him, he calls it tight.”)

“Almost every team said, Hey, yeah, we do this on our own, if you guys could do this, it would be really helpful,” Palazzolo says. “There was need, and demand was high.”

So this year, for the first time, PFF has added this stat to its NFL product. Teams can search by official, by penalty, or by position, like back judge or side judge. And within that database, each penalty is linked to the film.

“The refs aren’t too happy about it,” Palazzolo says.

e. Fat Leonard is on the lam. Kristina Davis and Greg Moran on an escapee, Leonard Glenn Francis, who swindled the U.S. Navy out of at least $35 million

f. Interesting, too, to read this Newsweek column about the tentacles of the Fat Leonard scandal

g. Podcast segment of the Week: Melissa Harris-Perry, with producer Katerina Barton, of The Takeaway, the public radio podcast, with a question we’re all asking, all over the country: What’s going on with the teacher shortage?

h. Listen to the teacher from New York City, a middle-school math teacher (I should say, a former middle-school math teacher) about why he left the profession after six years:

“Our job is difficult and I was like, ‘Over the last six years I’ve put in 12-hour days than most of my friends that make two, three, four times what I make.’ I lost belief in how big of an impact I can make or what my impact was. By the end of the day, I was exhausted. Emotionally, physically, psychologically, I was just done … I think when I realized that I couldn’t be entirely emotionally invested as I feel that I should, I was just like, “I got to step away, because otherwise, I’m not going to be the best service to our kids.”

i. This is serious. Really serious. We’ve got to be sure we support the teachers in this country. We cannot fight them on every little curriculum thing so many teachers and librarians are fighting about these days. Support teachers. Support them.

j. Someone had to tell the Queen’s bees, and the queen bee, that the Queen died, per Daniel Victor of the New York Times.

k. The Daily Mail had an exclusive on the subject, which prompted the New York Times’. And which was so positively British. Re the Mail: “The Royal Beekeeper has informed the Queen’s bees that the Queen has died.”

l. Victor found Stephen Fleming, a beekeeper for 25 years and co-editor of British beekeeping magazine BeeCraft (THERE IS A BRITISH MAGAZINE FOR BEEKEEPERS). After a beekeeper friend of his died, Fleming said he went to the friend’s property and gave the bees the bad news. Wrote Victor:

John Chapple, the beekeeper at Buckingham Palace, declined to comment. The Daily Mail reported that he had placed black ribbons tied into bows on the hives before telling them in hushed tones that the queen had died and that they would have a new master.

Mr. Fleming said most beekeepers would most likely be aware of the tradition, but not as many would practice it.

“It’s generally thought to be a good and nice thing to do,” he said.

m. I have three baseball observations.

n. Schedulenerdness: MLB scheduled the A’s to play three series in nine weeks in Houston, all in mid-month, in three straight months. You can look it up: July 15 to 17, Aug. 12 to 14, Sept. 15 to 18. In the span of 31 home games, 10 were against Oakland. I bet that was easy marketing for execs in Houston, selling 10 games in the middle of the pennant race against a team with zero recognizable names. Well, they do have Tony Kemp.

o. One question for those excited about the prospect of Jacob deGrom on the free agency market this offseason, which I guess will be the case. Since opening day this season, Miami’s Sandy Alcantara has started 30 games and pitched 212.2 innings. Since opening day 2020, deGrom has started 36 games and pitched 214.1 innings. It’s impossible to not love deGrom as a player, of course, and of course, the 2020 season was shortened because of Covid. But pick some standout pitchers under the age of 35. Since the start of 2020, Alcantara has pitched 460.1 innings, Gerrit Cole 436.2, Julio Urias 393.1, Zack Wheeler 422.1, Corbin Burnes 405.2. Some team is going to drill way, way down on the risk of paying deGrom at or near the top of the market and do it, I’m sure. But even in the risky business of pitching, that’s a dangerous contract.

p. Aaron Judge is just so fabulous — at-bat, in the field, in the clubhouse, as a teammate — that even for a person who had two Yankee-loving brothers but could never bring myself to do anything but truly dislike that team…I find myself drawn to his at-bats like a mosquito to a light bulb. Much respect to the tall guy.

q. This is one amazing story: The founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, gave away the company because he loves the planet and fears for it.

r. Patagonia is worth $3 billion. Chouinard gave it away.

s. Wrote David Gelles of the Times:

Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed set of trusts and nonprofit organizations. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe.

“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” Mr. Chouinard, 83, said in an exclusive interview. “We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving this planet.”

As a pioneering rock climber in California’s Yosemite Valley in the 1960s, Mr. Chouinard lived out of his car and ate damaged cans of cat food that he bought for five cents apiece.

Even today, he wears raggedy old clothes, drives a beat-up Subaru and splits his time between modest homes in Ventura and Jackson, Wyo. Mr. Chouinard does not own a computer or a cellphone.

“I was in Forbes magazine listed as a billionaire, which really, really pissed me off,” he said. “I don’t have $1 billion in the bank. I don’t drive Lexuses.”

t. Long live Yvon Chouinard.

u. Happy 58th, Bob Papa! Happy 59th, Trey Wingo. And happy 60th, Ken Rosenthal. None of you look a day over 57.

v. And happy trails, Roger Federer. I’m no tennis buff, but winning 20 majors and being number one in the world for 237 consecutive weeks is worth a tip of all of our caps. Best to you, sir.

The NFL is experimenting with a staggered-start doubleheader tonight in primetime: Tennessee-Buffalo on ESPN at 7:15 p.m., Minnesota-Philadelphia on ABC at 8:30 p.m. Starting at the beginning of the second half of Titans-Bills, ESPN and ABC will periodically show double-box action on both channels, and there will be a small scorebox on-screen from the other game during each game.

The NFL is doing this, essentially, to extend what would be a three-hour, 15-minute window of football in prime time to four hours, 30 minutes…and to blanket the Disney channels — ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, ESPN+ — with 75 more minutes of football on Monday night than usual, and to ensure that if the Bills are up 27-6 at the half that the audience will move to the other game and watch more football instead of cruising Netflix.

Next season, ESPN will have three such Monday night twinbills. No decision has been made on the times of games, or which weeks the doubleheaders will fall. But starting games before say 8:45 p.m. means the NFL can put Eastern Time Zone franchises in the late window; if the NFL were to choose, say, a 10 p.m. or 10:15 p.m. start, that would eliminate 17 of the 32 NFL teams that exist in Eastern Time from playing in those games. I have heard reliably that it’s very unlikely the NFL will return to 10 ET or 10:15 ET starts for games again.

Buffalo 33, Tennessee 20. Compare and contrast:

1. In their last three games (two playoff, one regular-season), the Bills have scored 16 touchdowns and punted four times — including zero last week in Los Angeles against the Rams. Remember when punter Matt Araiza was a brilliant draft pick to plug one of the few holes the Bills had on the roster?

2. In their last three games (two regular-season, one playoff), the Titans have been outscored 65-64 by the Texans, Bengals and Giants. That’s embarrassing. That includes scoring 43 points in their last 10 quarters played, dating back to Jan. 9. I don’t know how they keep up with the Bills in emotionally charged Orchard Park tonight.

Minnesota 28, Philadelphia 25. Should be a great game — Jefferson/Thielen/Osborn at Brown/Smith/Goedert (and maybe, eventually, Quez Watkins) — with two quarterbacks out to prove they’re better than the public thinks. I like the Vikes. Kirk Cousins is 2-0 with 79-percent completions with the Vikings against Philly, including 1-0 at the Linc. He’s bonded well with Kevin O’Connell. You’ll be up late tonight. This is going to be a fun, competitive game, and could be the kind of statement game Minnesota needs. Wins over the Packers and Eagles in the first two games would validate the Vikings as serious threats to Green Bay in the NFC North.

Buffalo at Miami, Sunday, 1 p.m., CBS. Early indicator whether there will be any sort of race in the AFC East this year. Tagovailoa just might make it possible.

Green Bay at Tampa Bay, Sunday, 4:25 p.m., FOX. Since turning 41, Tom Brady is 3-0 head-to-head against Aaron Rodgers, and Brady’s team has put up 31, 38 and 31 points in those wins. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: We could be seeing the last Rodgers-Brady duel here.

San Francisco at Denver, Sunday, 8:20 p.m., NBC. A Shanahan as head coach roams the sidelines in Denver for the first time since 2013, when Washington coach Mike Shanahan got shelled by the Peyton Manning Broncos, 45-21; Denver scored the last 38 points of the game. This will be cool, and probably a bit emotional, for young Kyle, who was at his dad’s side for lots of his Denver coaching tenure.

It’s darn hard to fit

Tagovailoa in a

regular haiku.



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FMIA: Trey Lance Is NFL’s 2022 Mystery Man And Why The Chiefs Are Just Fine Without Tyreek Hill

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SANTA CLARA, Calif.—“So,” I asked Niners GM John Lynch Sunday, “what’s the story with Jimmy Garoppolo? What’s he been doing every day?”

From his office desk in the shadow of the 49ers’ stadium, Lynch craned his neck toward the picture window on the side of his office. He pointed to the far practice field, where a solitary figure was working out and throwing footballs efficiently.

Garoppolo, who quarterbacked this team to a win over Aaron Rodgers and the top-seeded Packers eight months ago, is a strange sight to behold these days. He works out, throws and rehabs apart from his teammates, most often when they’re inside in meetings. When the other 89 men on the San Francisco roster are practicing outside, Garoppolo is usually inside, or on his way home. I heard he does not have a playbook, does not attend quarterback or team meetings and barely knows new quarterbacks coach Brian Griese.

While Garoppolo awaits his fate — he’s most likely to be released before Labor Day unless a needy team suffers a major quarterback injury or Deshaun Watson is banned for the season in Cleveland — the new kid, Trey Lance, spent Sunday taking every snap of practice. Seriously: every one. Lance played little in the preseason opener Friday and won’t play next weekend at Minnesota, so afternoons like Sunday are crucial in his development.

Lance has thrown 389 passes in real football games since he graduated from high school, and this Final Four team in 2021 is working to try to be a Final One team in ’22. So every rep is gold for him now. And for his coach, Kyle Shanahan, who thinks that Lance, eventually, can take this team deeper into the playoffs and do more things with his arm and legs than Garoppolo could.

But whether Lance can do it is one of football’s great mysteries entering this season. Shanahan really likes coaching Lance and loves his potential, but sitting in his office after practice Sunday, he made a startling admission that really should be startling about a player who’s had one starting season—that in FBS football—in the last four years.

“Is Trey ready to take it on his shoulders?” Shanahan said. “He shouldn’t be. He hasn’t gone through it enough.

“I believe in him as a man, as a person. I believe in his talent. I don’t think he is going to make or break our season, just like in 2019 and last year, I didn’t think Jimmy was going to make or break our season.

“But what sucks is when you’re learning how to play and you’re not there yet, how do you not get worse sometimes when that pressure’s on you and you need to go through the growing pains?”

Complicated story, as you can see.

Column three from the camp trail, with storylines from Tampa to the Rocky Mountains and beyond:

  • In Kansas City camp, I find the Big Reds plotting a logical and offensively unpredictable Life After Tyreek.
  • In Denver, Russell Wilson, the empowered one, has all the wide receivers and tight ends reporting for work an hour early for extra practice time.
  • Get to know Paulson Adebo, Davis Mills and Robert Hainsey. And get to love Cam Jordan’s ‘stache.
  • Patrick Mahomes has no patience for you belittling his contract.
  • I’m not bashing Deion Sanders over what he said about the Hall of Fame.
  • Andy Reid went to Italy, not for the reasons most of us do.
  • Take as much time as you need, Tom Brady.
  • I get taken to task by a Browns fan.

We’ll continue with my trip to the Niners on Sunday, and a coaching point that says a lot about Shanahan, and maybe as much about Lance.

Most places I go, practice gets a little humdrum at times. I’ve been watching summer football practices since 1984, when I covered the Bengals, and I once had the audacity during a blazing-hot two-a-day full-padded practice to ask Cincinnati owner Paul Brown — only one of the greatest coaches in the history of this game — whether he ever got tired of four hours of football practice, daily, in the heat of camp.

“Young man!” Brown said sharply. “This is our lifeblood!”

Bad question.

I thought of that Sunday, watching Lance take every snap of a camp practice. For Lance, this is lifeblood stuff. Part of the heavy load was because the Niners had a game Friday night, so Shanahan wanted most of those who played big swaths of the game to sit out Sunday, with those who didn’t play Friday night getting lots of work here. Lance got 11 snaps Friday, ergo he played a lot Sunday.

I loved it. Facing lots of first-teamers on an excellent defense is the best medicine for Lance right now. I compared Lance of 2021 camp to Lance of today (no tape, just recalling from my mind’s eye), and the words that came to mind were “more decisive.” He’s more confident, more sure in the pocket. No wasted motion. The footwork is significantly better.

He made three superb throws, I thought, on Sunday: a lofted corner route to Deebo Samuel, throw right on target…a red zone TD throw, with soft, excellent touch, to tight end Ross Dwelley in the right corner of the end zone. “You stayed in,” the back judge working the practice said to Dwelley, nodding…a three-quarters-motion throw, also for a TD, to tight end George Kittle, who had to stretch to make the catch. The awareness, avoiding the rush by coming down with the arm angle on the throw, was perfect.

Trey Lance threw for 603 yards in his rookie season with the 49ers. (NBC Sports)

“Mentally,” he said later, “I feel like things are a lot more clear for me. I understand the offense, and I’m able to play fast.”

That’s the good. I worry a bit about the accuracy. In this practice, he threw high on a 15-yard cross for Brandon Aiyuk, a throw that should be easy. He missed an open Samuel twice, by my count.

There’s a lot to learn in all aspects of the game. Before practice Sunday, Shanahan met with the full team and reviewed the win over Green Bay. What bugged Shanahan was some of the sloppiness, even on big plays. One of the big stars for the Niners was rookie third-round wideout Danny Gray, who caught a 76-yard TD bomb from Lance in the first quarter. “Your game is speed,” Shanahan told him. Yet Gray broke from the line in a bad stance, negating his best asset, and the TD made everyone overlook it.

Same thing with Lance. On an early handoff to running back Trey Sermon, Lance was supposed to carry out a bootleg fake, so maybe a defender or two would chase him and not Sermon. No. Lance just watched the play develop, and didn’t carry out the fake. Shanahan said: Great, you threw a touchdown pass and we won. But you’ve got to do everything well, not just some things.

When I asked Shanahan about it, the answer was some about his own players, some about coaching, some about society. I think his answer’s important — all of it — to coaches and players.

“I don’t have to think too hard about things,” Shanahan said. “I just say what’s there. These guys are told after games they’re successful because they won a fantasy football game for their uncle or something. If you get the numbers and stuff, you played good, according to everybody. That doesn’t tell you anything. Nothing. We talk about what actually happened on the play. We can say we had a good game because we won, but that’s not really what we’re focused on here in the preseason. We’re focused on the product and how you did it.

“It’s up to me to teach these guys that the people who are deciding whether you make the team or people around the league who are deciding if you don’t make it here, whether they could sign you to their active roster, how those people see the play. I want them to know what coaches who are studying you see on tape. Then you actually get the reality. Stats don’t dictate success. Doing it the right way dictates success.”

So…the near future. What’s it say?

The Niners have two weeks to cut the roster to 53. Theoretically, they would want to make a decision on Garoppolo by then, because in an ideal world they don’t want a guy they have no intention of keeping count against their 53. But that’s out of their hands unless Cleveland or Seattle figures it would be smart to trade something for him. If they keep Garoppolo, they’d have to expose a make-it player on cutdown day and they could lose a valuable special-teams performer, let’s say. The next landmark is the week before the Sept. 12 opener. If Garoppolo is on the roster then, the club would have to guarantee his $24.2-million salary for the season.

The reality is that the Niners likely won’t keep Garoppolo with the big salary. But then there’s the danger of releasing Jimmy G before the season, and a motivated Garoppolo going to Seattle, for example (San Francisco’s Week Two foe), and interfering with the Niners’ contention plans.

With or without the solitary figure on the practice field, this team is Lance’s now. And I would advise patience for Niners fans. It’s absurd to expect a savior to show up at Soldier Field in the Sept. 12 opener. Shanahan will be ready to take some pain in 2022. Will Niners Nation?

ST. JOSEPH, Mo.—I’m trying to keep up, charting offensive formations and plays in my notebook in a fast Kansas City practice at Missouri Western State University. When it was over, and when Patrick Mahomes had piloted about 50 snaps of work with the first-team offense, I noticed one thing in the 27 plays I’d been able to sprint-chart: The post-Tyreek Hill offense was utterly unpredictable.

Most noticeable was the usage of JuJu Smith-Schuster. I’d expected him to mimic his Pittsburgh slot-receiver role. In Smith-Schuster’s last two seasons as a Steeler, he was used 78.8 percent of the time in the slot, per PFF. But on this day, nine of the 27 plays I was able to chart had Smith-Schuster in the slot. The rest of the time he was split wide, left, split wide right, or a motion man, or once in what appeared to be jet-motion.

I think this team is energized by the outside impression of, They’re screwed without Tyreek. This camp visit left me feeling very much like when I left Green Bay and just figured Aaron Rodgers will figure it out without Davante Adams. I’m slightly less certain about Kansas City, but my gut feeling is Andy Reid and Mahomes will figure it out without Hill.

Imagine lining up the speed of Mecole Hardman wide right and Marquez Valdez-Scantling wide left; tight end Travis Kelce everywhere; Smith-Schuster in the slot and outside; sure-handed fifth receiver Justin Watson mostly outside, and Reid’s new Swiss Army Knife, rookie Skyy Moore, everywhere including the backfield. (I saw that the other day — Moore explodes out of the backfield.)

Ever hear the expression, You couldn’t wipe the smile off his face? When I met with Smith-Schuster after practice, he was the kid who got a date with the Homecoming Queen, scored the winning touchdown against the archrival and found out he got straight A’s on his report card…all in the same day.

“It’s been fun, man, I’ll tell you that,” Smith-Schuster said. He loved life as a Steeler but thought he was in a Pittsburgh pigeonhole playing almost only in the slot. “This is what I’ve been waiting to do. Everyone has to know everybody’s position. You have to know the outside, inside. You could play anywhere. To be on so many personnel groups where we got so many great receivers who could play inside and outside, I love it. That’s what I’ve been wanting to do, to be used in so many different ways. It’s so great, the way Coach Reid gives Patrick Mahomes so many different options on every play.”

I was struck by how rejuvenated this offense seems. Truly, Reid likes Hill, is happy for him to be the highest-paid receiver in NFL history and knows Hill wanted to leave. So why keep Hill when his heart is elsewhere…and when giving him up and getting five draft picks in the process is the best thing for this team and for its ’23 and ’24 salary cap?

But was it the best thing for the team? We’ll see — and Reid acknowledged it, sort of, in his cinder block dorm room on the campus of this small, classic middle-America university. Reid knows if Hill didn’t take the deal to max out his income and be closer to his family, the unhappiness about his personal life could have spilled over to his professional life. Now he’s got four new receivers giddy to be playing with Mahomes and coming to work every day saying, Whaddaya got me today, coach?

“It’s good for him and it’ll be good for us,” Reid told me, sitting in the kind of dorm room he’s been living in for the last 10 summers here as coach of his second NFL team: small and rectangular, the kind of room I’d bet some freshman from Lee’s Summit will occupy in a month. “It’s a win-win. I think it’ll help him in his career with the Dolphins. Financially it’s phenomenal for him and his family.

“For us, it gives you a little juice that maybe you need when you’ve been someplace for 10 years.”

Read that last sentence again. Reid’s rejuvenated. He’s saying he likes the chance to reinvent his receiver room. In Reid’s 10th season here, he gets to be a teacher again. He’s got to get four new guys in the offense — all of whom could play 40 snaps on a given Sunday in the most competitive division in the NFL in years — ready to hit the ground running in 27 days when KC opens at Arizona. From what I saw in 90 minutes of tempo offense last week, this offense has the juice Reid wants. Hardman, the speedster in the Hill mode, gets to be handed some of Tyreek’s old plays to see if he can be a big star. The four newbies—Valdez-Scantling, Smith-Schuster, Moore and the out-of-nowhere Watson—are all cramming to be targets for Mahomes. Kelce will play everywhere and be the NFL’s best security blanket east of Cooper Kupp.

I came here wondering if I should feel for the 2019 Super Bowl champs as they retooled after losing the electric Hill. I left thinking, Who wouldn’t miss Tyreek Hill? But there aren’t many teams with the versatility and the tools that this passing game has.

Mahomes has become a devotee (and spokesman for) WHOOP. You may have heard of it. WHOOP connects data from a device worn on the wrist that tracks your recovery, your sleep, and the daily strain on your body, and reports constant movement, heart rate and stress level by the second to an app on your phone. WHOOP is basically a health conscience. You drink a lot one night, it shows up. Get a bad night’s sleep, it shows up. Anyway, you can see the work Mahomes is putting in at training camp. He shared one of his daily summaries that showed only a 58 percent recovery … because he’d gotten only 5 hours, 41 minutes of sleep and clearly had a day full of strain, physical and mental, at training camp in practice and drills. That’s life this summer for Mahomes, because of all the work and teaching he takes on in training camp. He called that day, in a text shared with me, “a coach reid training day lol.”

“I can’t just focus on my job anymore,” Mahomes told me. “I’ve got to focus on every single person, every single detail.”

Sounded like it was contributing to his occasional exhaustion. But he said: “I think it’ll make me a better quarterback.”

Reid credited Mahomes for taking a major step forward in being open to the new receivers and understanding the whys of trading Hill.

“They showed me the plan,” Mahomes told me. “They showed me the reasons that this had to be done at this time. I obviously talked to Tyreek as well, tried to do whatever I could to bring him back. Once we kind of got past that bridge and he was going somewhere else, they had a great game plan of getting these receivers that we have out here now. Kind of keep this thing moving forward.”

Mahomes is a pragmatist. If he didn’t trust Reid and GM Brett Veach to know how to build a team for the next decade, he’d never have signed a 10-year deal two years ago. But there’s no question — he won’t say it — that Mahomes hears the outside world. He knows people think the other three teams in the mega-strong AFC West have gotten better while the world thinks Kansas City has regressed, and its six-season streak of AFC West titles is about to end.

“When you have a guy as special as Tyreek when you get any type of man coverage, you’re kind of saying forget the read, I’m going to get this guy a chance to go out there and make a play. Now, the thing is, you don’t know where that go-to guy’s going to be every single game. We’ll have a lot of different personnel [groups], a lot of different receivers, and tight ends and running backs on the field. It’s going to be hard for defenses to gameplan against.”

I’m just saying: I left that practice the other day, with the dizzying array of players playing everywhere, and I believe Mahomes is onto something. How do you gameplan against this offense, even minus Hill?

Last point out of Mayberry RFD, aka KC camp:

I’m only tangentially interested in the social-media noise on all things NFL, but one thing I’ve noticed is the drumbeat of Mahomes’ contract looks bad. Too many players are jumping over it. He should be unhappy.

“Do you hear that stuff?” I asked. “What do you think?”

“If you’re ticked off making all the money that I’m making, you’re probably a little bit messed up. I know I’m going to be taken care of for the rest of my life. Being in this organization and being on the platform that the NFL has given me, I’ve been able to make money off the field as well. If you watch some of the great quarterbacks, man, it’s not always about getting the most money. It’s about going out there and winning and having a legacy that you can kind of live with forever. For me, that’s what I want. Obviously, I want to make money and be able to buy everything I want and all that different type of stuff, but that’s not the reason I started playing football. The reason I started playing football was to win Super Bowls, to enjoy these relationships that I’m building on this field with all my friends who are my teammates. I think at the end of the day if I do that, I’ll be a happy guy in the end.”

That’s the guy you want leading your team.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Last Thursday, 7 a.m., Broncos training camp, indoor turf field. Players have to be at training camp at 8, but this 7 a.m. meeting has become a regular camp thing. No coaches out here, except coach Russell Wilson, working with the 17 wide receivers and tight ends on the roster. Four hours from now, the young receivers and tight ends would have a big test in a joint practice against Dallas’ defense, and now Wilson was going over coaching points, points about routes, with every receiver on the field.

One of the plays Wilson would call against Dallas was a deep route designed for likely starting tight end Albert Okwuegbunam. Wilson told “Albert O” (Wilson’s moniker for him) he wanted him to take a slightly different cut upfield on a specific route. Okwuegbunam practiced it, got it down, and Wilson said, “Exactly!”

Against the Cowboys, about 45 minutes into practice, the play for Albert O was called. The tight end took the new path, Wilson hit him, and the play gained about 40 yards. Later, Wilson singled out that play as one that was made possible by the cadre of tight ends and receivers coming out an hour early, voluntarily, before coach Nathaniel Hackett’s required report time. “It’s the ownership of the players owning our own offense,” Wilson said. “This has to be a player-ran kind of team. Coach Hackett gives us the keys to do that.”

Wilson has given this team, this organization, this region a giant shot of adrenaline this summer. On consecutive days last week, Peyton Manning and John Elway, the two best quarterbacks in franchise history, showed up to watch. Kenny Chesney’s been a spectator, as has the mayor of Denver. It was 95 degrees with no shade for a midday workday Thursday practice, and 6,500 fans packed the sideline berm to watch. Wilson spent 80 minutes post-practice signing for fans, doing media, playing with his kids on the field, greeting team legends Rod Smith and Terrell Davis and their families, and talking to one of his Wilson’s QB advisors, Marc Trestman. Basically, he’s the mayor of this place. He’s taken over. It’s happened in a matter of months.

For Wilson, this summer is mindful in a larger way of summer 2011, when Wilson, a transfer from North Carolina State, showed up as a fifth-year player at Wisconsin. Five weeks later he was a captain of the team. Four months later, he quarterbacked the Badgers to a win in the inaugural Big Ten Championship Game.

“This is Wisconsin all over again,” agreed one veteran Wilson-watcher. His coach then, Paul Chryst, talked about Wilson setting a tone for the 2011 season from the moment practice started that summer.

Ditto Denver. “He’s a machine,” said GM George Paton. “You don’t really understand it until you see his car here at 5:30 in the morning and then see him roaming the halls at 9 at night.”

Another person who knows Wilson well said the collaboration between Wilson and Hackett is different than what he experienced in Seattle: “Coach and Russell are not coach-player. They’re partners.” They seem to be having a good time. Hackett, a Star Wars freak who likes to keep the atmosphere very light, and Wilson were debating naming audible calls after Star Wars characters one day last week.

This franchise, of course, has been in a quarterback desert since Manning retired after 2015. Eleven quarterbacks started here in the past six years, and the franchise is on its first five-season losing streak in a half-century. That’s why not a soul in these parts questioned Paton trading 2022 and ‘23 first- and second-round picks, plus three useable players, to Seattle for Wilson. No price for a franchise QB is too steep, particularly when the alternative was Drew Lock.

The honeymoon’s in full bloom now. And though I think Hackett/Wilson is going to work, a few things have to happen for the union to flourish.

Wilson’s got to accept all principles of the West Coast Offense, including selling play-action, getting the ball out to open receivers, and not trying to wait-wait-wait for the big plays. NFL Films must have 50 Seattle plays of Wilson from his last two or three Seattle seasons running around, extending plays, trying to make something, anything happen behind a leaky offensive line. Here, in OTAs and in camp, Hackett told me he’s working on cutting those down and forcing Wilson to take earlier options. He said: “It’s gotten to the point that I go, ‘Hey, you’re late.’ Or Russ says it before I do. Or he talks about it because he knows that that’s the standard I want. I don’t want him to be touched. I don’t want him to have to run around. Now sometimes, you have to, but those ones I can’t control. The more that he feels that and understands that, the better it’s going to be.”

There’s also the matter of playing in an ungodly division. The AFC West is so strong top to bottom, as one coach told me last week, that any road division win shouldn’t be considered an upset. Wilson could be his classic self with a 101.8 career rating and 11.3 wins on average a year (including playoffs), and it might not lead to the promised land in a division with Mahomes, Herbert and Carr. Kansas City’s won six straight division titles, and even without Tyreek Hill, the offense looks ridiculously formidable.

What’s the old coaches’ saying? Control what you can control? So Wilson is doing that, as much as he can. The Broncos lost the sure-handed 6-4 target Tim Patrick to an ACL injury in camp, which will hurt Wilson. What he really needs is the return of Denver’s poor man’s Tyreek Hill, ex-second-rounder K.J. Hamler, trying to return from a combination ACL and torn hip labrum injury. The Courtland Sutton/Jerry Jeudy 1-2 punch is good, but no team survives on two receivers these days. There’s optimism about Hamler, who had two solid days of practice last week, but he’s a small guy coming back from a severe injury. So no guarantees there.

After 10 years in Seattle, Russell Wilson begins his first year in Denver. (NBC Sports)

I heard something from Sutton at camp that intrigued me. Wilson actually varies his cadence to throw curves at the defense. I’ve never heard of this before. I wish I knew exactly how Wilson did it, but I don’t — it’s proprietary information. But the fact is, Wilson is drilling down with his receivers so they understand how each cadence varies from the norm.

“All the different cadences we have, we try to give ourselves an advantage of getting off the ball and catching the defense off guard,” Sutton said. “He makes it all sound the same, which is dangerous. If we understand when the ball’s supposed to be snapped, we can play at a different level, a different speed. It’s fun to be able to manipulate it the way he does because it gives us that small advantage. It allows us to be able to play fast.”

Sutton mirrors many in the organization, player and coaches and staffers, on Wilson as the rising tide lifting all boats. “He brings that buzz of energy we’ve really needed,” Sutton said. “People who were here when Peyton played say it’s the same kind of feeling.”

The early-morning sessions, conducted against a virtual defense on the indoor field, have helped the receivers understand what Wilson sees too. “I really feel like when you talk football with him it’s like he’s playing the game — playing the game in his mind,” Sutton said. “He’s envisioning the defensive line, linebackers, safeties, corners, the fans. Everybody. He wants us to master the little details the same way he has. All those little details, they hit for him because he sees the game in a different light than other people.”

Wilson told me he loved his “great first decade in the league” with Seattle, which was, altogether, a glorious time for football in the Pacific Northwest. But here, he can be more of a coach to a young group, with a coach who lets him run his own walk-throughs and be the titular head of the organization. The honeymoon’s on. Now, about breaking Kansas City’s six-year stranglehold atop the division…

Teams I’ve seen, and camps I’ve visited, compartmentalized:

Saints

When I saw them: Saturday interviews at their downtown Houston hotel, then the preseason opener at the Texans.

Five things: Weird to see the Saints for the first time since 2005 without Sean Payton lording over the team. “People ask me what I’m doing differently,” Payton’s successor, Dennis Allen, told me. “Not a lot. This team was in great condition when I took over. It’s like walking into your house on Thanksgiving and the table’s set and the food’s ready. All I’ve got to do is carve the turkey.” One difference in the two fellows, perhaps: Payton was a fiery gameday coach, and Allen will likely be calmer, particularly with his players and officials. Allen was 8-28 in his first head-coaching spin with the Raiders in 2012-’14 after the death of Al Davis…Ran into Andy Dalton, the best backup quarterback in football, at the hotel. “So happy to be here,” he said and with good reason. He led the Saints’ lone TD drive Saturday night on his first and only series of the game. Excellent insurance for Jameis Winston, coming back from his torn ACL…Winston’s had a minor foot injury and didn’t make the trip to Houston, but his knee’s been good and all expectations are that he’ll be ready to play at full health in September when the Saints have a 15-day NFC South test: at Atlanta, Tampa at home, at Carolina…The receiver group was New Orleans’ weakness last year. Now it might be the strength of the team. Imagine an opening day threesome of Michael Thomas and rookie Chris Olave outside and sage vet Jarvis Landry in the slot with Tre’Quan Smith and Marquez Callaway playing significant snaps. Thomas has been hurt most of the last two years; his 149-catch 2019 season is a distant memory. “The last few days in practice we saw the Michael Thomas of before the injuries,” Allen said. “We think he’ll be ready.”…Tyrann Mathieu and Marcus Maye will be the starting safeties, barring a surprise. There will be hitting.

Player to watch: CB Paulson Adebo. While talking to me at the team hotel about Adebo Saturday afternoon, Coach Allen said: “There’s Adebo now. That’s a corner.” Adebo’s 6-1 and a well-built 195; walking through the hotel, he carried himself confidently and could have passed for a safety. The Saints are very high on the former third-rounder from Stanford to be a fixture at left corner opposite Marshon Lattimore. “He’s had an outstanding camp,” Allen said. “He challenges every play. Totally unafraid.” With the big receivers of the NFC South — 6-5 Mike Evans, 6-3 Robbie Anderson and 6-5 Drake London — the Saints think they have a physical matchup corner to challenge bigger wideouts.

He said it: Pro Bowl defensive lineman Cam Jordan, when I asked, What continues to drive you?…“My mustache.”

Then he said: “The idea that I want more. I always want more. I feel like, last year, I’m looking at the playoffs on the outside and I want more. I sat there and announced some in-game announcements in the Super Bowl and that was the first time I actually was able to stomach being in the Super Bowl. My energy is, let’s try and win one.”

Cam Jordan has 107 career sacks over 11 seasons with the Saints. (NBC Sports)

What I’ll remember: Jarvis Landry, a little emotional, about his homecoming in his ninth year as a pro. He grew up in the area and played at LSU, and he smiled like a kid in his Saints hoodie at the game Saturday night. “I really can’t explain what this means to me, because I never thought I’d play here,” he said. “It’s surreal, emotional and so motivating.”

Texans

When I saw them: Friday interviews at their NRG Stadium facility, then Saturday preseason opener against the Saints, NRG Stadium.

Five things: Reality bites. The Texans won the meaningless summer opener, when the bottom 30 guys on their roster beat the bottom 30 on the Saints. But they’re not ready for prime time. On the first three snaps of the game, running back Marlon Mack got leveled for a two-yard loss, then wideout Chris Conley got stopped for a loss of one and a sideline gain short of the sticks. The offensive line is still a question, even after the investments in Laremy Tunsil and Tytus Howard at tackle…Lovie Smith’s got two years for his patient, teaching approach to work. Houston’s not going to repeat the one-year run of David Culley last year. There’s still a buzz of Josh McCown coaching here at some point hanging over the franchise, but for now Smith is GM Nick Caserio’s kind of coach with a team that has a long way to go…Best young offensive skill player on the roster: wideout Nico Collins, the big second-year target from Michigan. If he’s healthy for 17 games, Collins, 6-4 and physical, could become QB Davis Mills’ favorite target, with an outside chance at a 1,000-yard season. Collins has had a very good camp…Hard not to dream about the future, with Houston having its own and Cleveland’s first-round picks in 2023. The Texans have five picks in the first three rounds next year. Everyone, including Mills, knows the Texans will be scouting Ohio State QB C.J. Stroud and Alabama’s Bryce Young hard this fall…One day there will books dissecting the Deshaun Watson post-mortem, but talking to people inside the team, they’re just relieved he’s not here to compromise a second straight season.

Player to watch: QB Davis Mills. Out to prove his 102.4 rating over his last five games (with a head-to-head outdueling of Justin Herbert) was no fluke. Interesting perspective about why he chose to come out from Stanford in the 2021 draft despite having just one starting season and having the world tell him: Kid, you’re not ready. Go back to play for David Shaw another year. “I heard it,” he said. “But if you remember, there was a lot of uncertainty then with Covid [in January 2021]. Would we be able to train as a team at Stanford? Would it be a normal year with a normal schedule? There were no guarantees.” Now he’s got a season to prove he should be the long-term guy. Interesting thing I talked about with Mills: He’s lucky to have been the 67th pick in the 2021 draft with zero pressure on him, instead of the first (Trevor Lawrence) or second (Zach Wilson), with instant production demanded. “Didn’t Peyton [Manning] set the rookie interception record?” Mills said. “I got to play, then watch and learn, then play, in my first year, and I thought I had a lot of growth by the end.”

He said it: Coach Smith on his style with a young and impressionable team: “I don’t think you can coach on fear. I don’t know a teacher at any level who yells and dog-cusses his student.”

Lovie Smith enters his first season as head coach of the Houston Texans. (NBC Sports)

What I’ll remember: The confidence of Mills. “We’re ready to go out and shock the world,” he told me. We can chuckle at that, because the Texans have too many holes to shock the world. But there is a certainty about him that will make this season intriguing, even if the Texans go 4-13.

Buccaneers

When I saw them: Aug. 3 at Bucs training camp. Indoor practice after a stretch of debilitating heat in Tampa area. (Obviously, before Tom Brady left on his 10-day sabbatical.)

Five things: The Bucs brought every major coach and player back from the 2020 Super Bowl team and did win 14 games, but they lost, justifiably, to the Rams in the Divisional Round at home. This year, the plan was different. Imports: receivers Russell Gage and Julio Jones, guard Shaq Mason, safeties Keanu Neal and Logan Ryan, defensive tackle Akiem Hicks. “I’ve thought a lot about what we did last year, and I’d probably do the same thing again,” GM Jason Licht told me. “But we’re excited about the fresh blood. A lotta guys want to come and play with Tom.”…Ryan’s been one of coach Todd Bowles’ favorite additions. “He wants to learn every position, he holds guys accountable, he communicates. He can play safety, nickel and emergency corner. The ultimate professional,” Bowles said…Strange to see Bruce Arians at practice, watching from a golf cart mostly and contributing to the dialog with the quarterbacks and coaches. He resigned in the spring and is staying on as a consultant…Julio Jones is a total unknown. The day I was there he was one of five players to have a vets’ day off, and the Bucs are being cautious with a guy who rarely practices in-season now and played only 38 percent of the snaps his last two years. They’ll probably jettison a younger receiver and keep Jones. For Brady’s sake, I hope the younger receiver isn’t the Edelman-like Scotty Miller, who should have a fourth or fifth receiver role on some team…

Player to watch: Center Robert Hainsey. A pall fell over the Bucs on the second day of training camp when center Ryan Jensen, one of the players Tom Brady viewed as vital to his success, went down with a knee injury — perhaps for the season. Coupled with the loss of both starting guards in the offseason, a solid front was crumbling before Brady’s eyes. Taking over for Jensen was Hainsey, a third-round college right tackle at Notre Dame who’d spent last year and this offseason making the transition to center. What a leap of faith the Bucs are showing in Hainsey. I spent 20 minutes with him after practice, and the most notable thing about this now vital player, I thought, was that he is not at all scared about the prospect of being the first line of defense for the GOAT. “I think when the bullets are flying, we’re rolling and I’m communicating, getting everyone on the same page. Tom will know he’s got a guy in front of him he can trust,” said Hainsey, who’s very confident for a guy who’s never started a game at center in the NFL. “I would expect him to make it as hard on me as possible so by the time we get to game time, he knows I’m ready to go.” In practice, he looked prepped. Part of that comes from getting tutored by A.Q. Shipley, a former NFL center and Bucs assistant line coach last season who was tasked with getting Hainsey up to speed on playing center in the big leagues. Hainsey trained with Shipley for eight weeks in Arizona this offseason. “I think it’s going to go well,” Shipley said. “I’ve hammered the mental side of the position with him, and he’s responded well. He’s ready.” He’ll need to be.

He said it: Quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen on the mechanics and throwing of Tom Brady: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him throw the football better. It’s remarkable — 45 years old and the ball comes off his hand with such zip, throw after throw. How does that happen with someone who’s 45? It’s like a lot of things about him. It defies common sense. This just hasn’t happened before. What he’s done is incorporate his whole body into his throws. He has trained his arm to be a part of his throwing, not all of it.”

What I’ll remember: The ease and cool of Bowles in his return shot at being a head coach. He’s got no fear in his second full-time around. A coach needs to exude an I-belong-here vibe, and that’s Bowles.

I

Jacoby is starting week one.

— Cleveland coach Kevin Stefanski, after the Browns’ first preseason game Friday in Jacksonville, on quarterback caretaker Jacoby Brissett.

 

II

Egregiously awful from Quincy, and he knows that. He knows better. And those are the plays that Quincy has to get out of his game if he wants to become the linebacker that I think he can be.

— Jets coach Robert Saleh, after New York linebacker Quincy Williams put an illegal late hit on Philadelphia QB Jalen Hurts.

The hit was ridiculous, and good for Saleh, publicly calling out one of his own players for doing something that has no place in the game.

 

III

This may be the most talented Dolphins team since Wannstedt took them to the playoffs.

— Former Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson to the Miami Herald.

Dave Wannstedt, the Miami coach from 2000 to midway through 2004, coached playoff teams in 2000 and 2001.

 

IV

I’ve got to voice my support for Kyle Shanahan’s hat. I have seen that they are trying to make him change. I just want to say, let my guy live. The camouflage pattern they offered [for us to wear], it’s not doing it. If you are in a deer blind in New Braunfels, Texas, you can pull it off, but not on the sideline.

— Arizona coach Kliff Kingsbury, on the league telling Shanahan he can’t wear the non-NFL-sponsored flat-brimmed cap he’s worn on the sidelines for games.

 

V

Once he left that press conference nobody heard from him for weeks and weeks. He didn’t return calls, he didn’t return texts — he basically just vanished. And we were looking at each other going, ‘What just happened?’

— An unnamed 49ers assistant coach on the 2018 Niners coaching staff, to Mike Silver, new sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, on Jimmy Garoppolo’s reported lack of attention to detail after signing his $137-million contract extension in early 2018.

Russell Wilson went to Wimbledon this year with his wife, Ciara. Knowing Wilson, I thought he’d have gone for the education as well as the fun. I asked him what he learned from the great tennis players that means something in his professional life.

“You know me too well.”

(I don’t, really.)

“Well, I think I learned, ‘One serve at a time. One serve at a time. One serve at a time. Just the ability to go in and go out, to regain your focus. To be able to…The crowd roars, and the crowd boos, ‘ahh,’ ‘ooh,’ and the crowd roars again. One serve at a time. One stroke at a time. It’s just, one moment at a time. I think that that is what you gain. That’s what I search for when I watch sports. One free throw at a time for Steph Curry. One shot, one moment, one pitch, one at-bat. You know?

“The ability to refocus, to refocus, to refocus, to refocus, to refocus, over and over and over and over again. That’s what tennis is. That’s why I went to Wimbledon. It was an amazing experience. Obviously, we had a blast, me and Ciara, and sitting in the Royal Box. But to be able to watch greatness too, it was really special.”

Regarding Deion Sanders’ statement to “Well Off Media” claiming the Pro Football Hall of Fame is being watered down by a plethora of new enshrinees:

Sanders said, “The Hall of Fame ain’t the Hall of Fame no more…There needs to be an upper room. My head don’t belong with some of these other heads that’s in the Hall of Fame. I’m sorry. I’m just being honest. And a lot of y’all Hall of Famers are thinking the same thing. This thing is becoming a free-for-all now, man.”

Leave it to Deion: My head don’t belong with some of these other heads that’s in the Hall of Fame.

Let’s examine that.

In the 1970s, 43 men were enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

In the 1980s, 45 men were enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

In the last 16 months, 36 men were enshrined in the Hall of Fame. (That would have been the last two years, but Covid delayed by eight months the celebration for the Centennial Class of 15 men elected by a specially appointed subcommittee of the Hall of Fame.)

The Centennial Class is going to have an impact on future classes for years to come. The idea of the Centennial Class was, at least in part, a brainchild of Hall voter Rick Gosselin, who believed a “cleanup class” of players and coaches who’d been vital in the first 40 years or so of the NFL but overlooked by early Hall voters would do justice to the history of the league as it celebrated its 100th season. The Hall agreed and established a voting bloc of 25 voters — some Hall electors, some distinguished NFL people like Bill Belichick and Ozzie Newsome. But Gosselin’s blueprint got waylaid. Only four of the 15 Centennial Class members were true old-timers from the game’s first 40 seasons. The other 11 men who got in through the Centennial passgate were involved in the game as players, coaches, GMs or a commissioner since 1970.

Now some of those elected will influence future classes. And, presumably, incur more wrath from Hall critics like Sanders.

Four of the last 36 people elected were coaches. Examining the average record of the last four coaches in—Bill Cowher, Jimmy Johnson, Tom Flores, Dick Vermeil:

Average record: 120-93.

Average Super Bowls won 1.5 (six total by the four coaches).

Coaches with at least 120 wins and one championship not in the Hall: 12.

Those 12 coaches, with their career wins: Bill Belichick 321, Andy Reid 252, Tom Coughlin 182, Mike Shanahan 178, Mike Holmgren 174, Pete Carroll 163, Mike Tomlin 162, Sean Payton 161, Mike McCarthy 153, John Harbaugh 148, George Seifert 124, Jon Gruden 122.

And what of Marty Schottenheimer (205 wins) and Dan Reeves (201)? They never won Super Bowls, but as the ninth- and 10th-winningest coaches ever, should they be eliminated because they have zero rings? Schottenheimer coached 13 teams to the playoffs in 21 seasons, and he can’t get a sniff. That’s not right. Championships are important in this process and should be. The fact that Schottenheimer has the ninth-most wins ever and doesn’t have a Super Bowl win shouldn’t be disqualifying.

When Sanders throws a Molotov cocktail at the Hall process, it’s easy to say he’s way off base. But his contention, stripping away the inflammatory words, is that it’s easier to get in the Hall than it used to be. And he’s right about that.

I

The Broncos hired an “instructional designer” on their coaching staff when Nathaniel Hackett was named coach. John Vieira, who went to college at UC-Davis with Hackett and has been a good friend since then, is on staff now. He coaches the coaches. “He teaches teachers how to teach,” Hackett said.

Vieira’s a great example of teaching people how to reach Gen Z and engage with players so they’ll soak in the learning, as Hackett told me. “At first, everyone thought, who the hell is this guy? John wondered, ‘Am I gonna have enough work?’ Then they saw my first team meeting with the presentation John created, with graphics popping off the screen, and video of a basketball game with our guys’ heads on the players. And everybody was like, Whoa. That opened up the floodgates. I walked by his office the next day and there’s two coaches in there telling him what they want for their meeting.

“Learning’s about inspiration. It’s about keeping things fresh. In a long season, you gotta continually do that.”

 

II

Now this was cool: Walking into the Texans press box at NRG Stadium Saturday night before the New Orleans-Houston game, I was greeted with this new display:

Former Houston Chronicle Texans scribe John McClain in front of the team’s new John McClain Media Wall of Fame. (NBC Sports)

Yes, John McClain is the charter member of the John McClain Media Wall of Fame in Houston. It recognizes those who cover the franchise and football in the area. Of course, he should be the first member of his own club. McClain covered football in Houston and Waco for 51 years, reported on the Oilers in their heyday and covered every Texans event since their inception for the Houston Chronicle.

He retired from the Chronicle March 31 at 70, but I’m not sure I’d call writing a web column, doing 10 weekly talk shows in six cities and three Texans podcasts and planning to be a sports columnist for a soon-to-be-announced local website, “retired.”

The Texans didn’t tell him they were doing this. One day in the spring they told him to come up to the press box for an event, and when he walked off the elevator he saw the John McClain Media Wall of Fame — he had no clue — and they asked him to say a few things.

“I can’t tell you the last time I got choked up — maybe when Old Yeller died,” he said Saturday night. “But I was blown away by this. It’s something else.”

I

Thursday, 7:24 pm MT, United Airlines, Denver to Houston flight, delayed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the reason we have not pushed off the gate is that we don’t have fuel.”

Oh.

 

II

Andy Reid and his wife, Tammy, took a vacation to Italy this offseason.

When they got there, Andy Reid had a conversation with one of the locals at the start of the trip.

Local: “What kind of wine do you like?”
Reid: “I don’t drink wine.”

Local: “Coffee — what about coffee?”

Reid: “I don’t drink coffee.”

Local: “YOU DON’T LIKE WINE OR COFFEE — WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN ITALY?”

Reid: “I like to eat.”

I

The all-purpose sports site is not kidding.

Mom to Wynton: “If you get up there, and you stay for one day, you made it. You made it to the mountaintop.”

Bernard’s debut: 1 for 3, infield single to third in the seventh inning at Coors Field off vet Chris Devenski, stolen base, final run scored in a 5-3 Colorado win over Arizona.

 

II

Don’t pet it.

 

III

Pompei, long-time Bears’ authority, now writes for The Athletic, pointing out the condition of Soldier Field before Saturday’s preseason opener.

 

IV

The former MLB pitcher and current quarterback-throwing and pitcher guru. Man, I love those words.

 

V

BaseballBros celebrates all things baseball.

 

VI

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com, or on Twitter @peter_king.

Objects to the “rigged” comment about the Browns. From John Janovec of Norton, Ohio: “In a league rife with hypocrisy, I find it laughable that the league, the other 31 owners, and you find it unseemly that the Browns ‘rigged’ Deshaun Watson’s contract this year to minimize any financial losses suffered as a result of games lost to suspension. Where was the outrage in 2016 when the Patriots restructured Tom Brady’s contract in a similar fashion to minimize any financial losses he would suffer as a result of his four-game suspension?”

You make a point worth considering, John, but let’s examine the difference in the two situations. Brady cut his 2016 salary from $9 million to $1 million while at the same time adding two years to his contract, before serving his four-game ban. He saved $1.88 million by doing that. Compare that to Watson six years later. If Watson has his suspension upped to, say, 10 games, he will be docked $575,000 for the games missed. His total 2022 compensation is $46 million, so if that were used as a base for the fine, a 10-game ban would cost Watson $27.1 million of his $46 million. A little bit different, Watson gains an advantage of $26.5 million if his fine is just $575,000.

One other thing I’d like to address. The Browns didn’t cheat by setting up the contract this way. When I used “rigged,” it doesn’t mean they did anything illicit. That’s just the effect of the way they did the deal, with 98 percent being in a bonus and a relatively tiny portion in salary. They’re allowed to do it. They’ve done it with other contracts as well to soften the blow of the big contract in the first year. Obviously, though, I believe the league needs to fine Watson significantly because of the games he’s missing. Is it fair, really, for a player suspended for more than half the season — if that’s what happens — to make 98 percent of his compensation for the year? Of course not.

He doesn’t like Aaron Rodgers. From Joe Saraco of Elkins Park, Pa.: “Here’s a clown who is perfectly willing to go to the jungle to use hallucinogenics but refused to take a scientifically proven vaccine to protect himself and family and teammates from a deadly virus. Was he ‘immunized’ while he was in the jungle? I really think you should have questioned him on this. I’m 66 years old and have always had a fondness for the Packers because of their greatness in my youth but I can never root for Rodgers to have success. I think back to a description of then Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Curt Schilling by the GM at the time, Ed Wade, who said, ‘He’s a horse on the field but a horse’s ass off the field.’ “

Rodgers is a complicated guy, Joe. I fervently disagreed with his vax stand and wrote that. But I think it’s laudable that he’s trying — at least in his mind — to better himself and perhaps build a bridge with his estranged family. Hard to find fault with that.

Why Scully mattered. From Ron Lawton: “Thinking about Vin Scully and other fine baseball announcers, it strikes me that I would tune to a baseball game because of the announcer (Vinnie in particular) but I watch football on TV because of the match ups. For all the money that the TV guys make, I can’t say that I ever tuned to a game (or away from the game) because of the broadcasters. Baseball radio announcers matter, football TV guys don’t.”

Great point. Scully is one guy I think tens of thousands of people found so inviting that they’d listen to him even if they were only marginally interested in the game.

 I flunked geography. From Dorron Katzin: “Why did your schedule last week have you travel from Green Bay to Chicago to Minneapolis? I live in Chicago. When my wife and I were first married, her parents had a summer home west and north of Green Bay, so I made that trip many times. Chicago to Green Bay to Minneapolis is somewhat shorter. I am curious why you traveled from Green Bay to Chicago to Minneapolis.”

It’s all schedule-related, Dorron. Because I wanted to do the Vikings on Saturday and drive six hours to St. Joseph, Mo., on Sunday for Kansas City’s Monday practice, and because the Packers had “Family Night” practice Friday night (not good for spending time with players or coaches), Thursday was the best day for to be in Green Bay. I flew from Tampa to Green Bay late Wednesday, saw the Packers practice Thursday morning (and got Matt LaFleur and Rodgers afterward), and that meant Bears on Friday. I would have preferred Bears-Pack-Vikes in that order, but you can’t always get what you want.

On the topic of my age. From Josh Hager, Las Vegas: “65??? 65!?!?! As I read today — as a decades-long reader — I still see the same sharpness to your thinking and writing. I actually get to work early on Mondays so I can read your column, guilt-free. Don’t let anyone but you tell you when to slow down!”

That is so good of you to say, Josh. Thank you. I don’t feel 65, but the birth certificate, as they say, is what it is. I want to respect that and stay active and try to outrun my family history.

Lots of objections to me saying the addition of Rich Bisaccia as Green Bay special-teams coach would be more significant than the subtraction of Davante Adams for the Packers in 2022. From Daniel Ruiz (via Twitter): “Coach Rich is awesome. Raiders fans and players know that more than most. And Rodgers is great, but if he can’t win with Adams he will with a special teams coach?”

Well, Daniel, I could look really dumb for saying that if Rodgers is inefficient and the Packer offense struggles. It’s just a gut feeling. Green Bay will be much improved at its weakest area, special teams, by adding one of the best special-teams coaches in the game after falling out of the playoffs last year due to a blocked punt by San Francisco at Lambeau Field. My point is that Rodgers has a history of figuring out how to win with a lesser receiving corps, and I think he’ll do it again, and they’re not totally bereft there with the early-camp emergence of Romeo Doubs. But we’ll see. Those beating me up over this could be right, but I’ll stand by what I wrote.

1. I think my first reaction to Deshaun Watson telling reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala he was “truly sorry to all the women that I have impacted in this situation,” was, it’s about time. “The decisions that I made in my life that put me in this position I would definitely like to have back,” he said. “But I want to continue to move forward and grow and learn and show that I am a true person of character.” Okay. Flashback to the press conference introducing Watson last spring. Watson then: “I never disrespected and I never harassed any woman in my life.” So … which is it?

2. I think it’s good to see Watson taking responsibility, finally. And it’s probably a case of being lawyered up for a long time, but the first thing Watson has to address if he’s really coming clean is to explain why he said for months he never did anything wrong. If he truly felt that way, what switch was flipped, and when, and why?

3. I think the most significant quarterback news of the preseason weekend was not Kenny Pickett going 13 of 15 with a walkoff TD pass in his preseason debut for the Steelers — immediately becoming the most popular man in Pittsburgh. The most significant news was Joe Burrow returning to practice Sunday after 18 days away (appendicitis surgery). Any doubt he opens the season under center for the AFC champs…pfft. Gone.

4. I think the team that goes away to camp the longest is Kansas City, and when I went to St. Joseph, Mo. last week to take the temperature of this perennial contender, I found out a couple of interesting things — interesting to me, anyway — about going away. Reid enters his 10th season as Kansas City coach (where has the time gone?), and he has steadfastly kept his love of going away to training camp intact at a time when scores of teams are retrenching and staying at home facilities. This year, Reid’s team will be away at camp the longest of any team in the league: 27 days (minus the days away from St. Joseph, Mo., for preseason games and league-mandated off days). In his cinder block dorm room at Missouri Western State University, an hour before a recent morning practice, he said: “Peyton Manning told me, ‘I love that you still go away to camp. That’s the best.’ I think it creates an atmosphere where you can totally focus on football. No distractions. We’re here, we’re working. It’s all football. It’s great for camaraderie, for guys getting to know each other. One other advantage for us is it gives our fields back at our facility a break. They take a lot of wear and tear. Having a long period with no one on them means they’ll be in good shape for the season when we get back.”

5. I think I feel strongly about this Tom Brady deal about taking 10 days off for a personal matter in the middle of training camp. Very strongly. Brady has so much currency in the bank with coaches and teams regarding dedication to the job and devotion to his craft that when he comes to the Bucs and says he needs 10 days away, my response would be: “Take more if you need it.”

6. I think I don’t care to speculate on what it might be. He deserves the right to call his shot here and to keep the reason to himself.

7. I think only one thing in the preseason meant anything much this weekend: 17 penalties by the Cowboys. That has to stop, and it has to stop now. Ridiculous.

8. I think, re Seattle defensive lineman Shelby Harris saying the 2022 training camp experiment of some position groups wearing the padded Guardian Caps surrounding their helmets, “They’re stupid:” I am going to resist the temptation to say “That’s stupid.” I don’t play football. So I don’t know if Harris’ contention is correct. He thinks because linemen and linebackers who wear the caps could get so used to the extra padding they’ll let their guards down once the Guardian Caps come off, and use their helmets to make contact more than they would without the experience of Guardian Caps. Harris might be right. But when I was in Steelers camp, I thought what T.J. Watt said to me was smart: “I don’t know if they’re going to do any good. But they can’t hurt. Anything I can do to have a chance to play longer and do less damage [to the brain], I’m in favor of.” Harris’ contention that guys will get used to the extra padding and play more carelessly…I guess it’s possible. But to assume players will lead with their heads more, to me, is a faulty assumption.

9. I think for those surprised Watson started the first preseason game for Cleveland, why? If I were Stefanski, I’d be playing Watson and the first-team offense max snaps in games before he has to leave the team for his multi-week suspension. As I wrote last week, it’s tough to count on Watson being ready to hit the ground running with a new team after almost two seasons of not playing in real games.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. Football Story of the Week: Seth Wickersham of ESPN.com on the life and times of Sean McVay

b. Two words come to mind: masterful, vivid.

c. Wickersham’s great. We in the business know that. A story like this reinforces the importance of granular details and stories from the heart of a person’s being, when knitted together in a well-written jigsaw puzzle, make up the perfect story.

d. Wrote Wickersham of the time when, as a young head coach, he supremely ticked off his young offensive coordinator, Matt LaFleur:

During one practice, there was a disagreement between offensive line coach Aaron Kromer and LaFleur. McVay entered the fray, weighed in, backed Kromer and went about practice, not thinking much of it.

Later that day, LaFleur entered his office, livid that McVay had sided with Kromer. “You showed me up in front of the players,” LaFleur said. “With all due respect, you should just fire my ass right now.”

McVay felt his blood pressure rise. The Rams were playoff-bound — and LaFleur, one of his best friends, was complaining about this?

“You know what?” McVay replied. “I f—ing hate this job. I’m f—ing quitting. F— this s—. I hate myself. I hate that I’m treating you like this …”

“No!” LaFleur said. “You can’t do that!”

e. The quote about trading for Stafford with the five F-bombs and the hanging courage just adds to the unvarnished truth.

f. American Story of the Week: Marin Cogan of The Highlight, via Vox (H/T “Sunday Long Reads), on the most dangerous road in the country, an eight- to-10-lane highway in Pasco County, Fla.

g. I never think of these gigantic roads with stoplights and excessive speeds as death traps, but they were never made for pedestrian traffic to traverse, and this story tells you why.

h. Writes Cogan:

Crashes are so ubiquitous that some talk about an old bumper sticker on cars that read: “Pray for me, I drive on US-19.” Another part of US-19, in neighboring Pinellas County, is sometimes called “death valley.” But the road is pretty much unavoidable for most people trying to move freely through the area, and the alternatives aren’t much better. No one is more endangered on the road than those who use it unprotected by a ton of steel — and there are a lot of them.

“This road has so many cars,” says Julie Bodiford, a nurse who lives in the area, “and it’s death after death.”

Julie’s brother, Kevin Bodiford, knew US-19 well. He didn’t have a car and he liked to walk, so the 33-year-old traveled it often, to visit friends and to move between his extended family’s houses. Each morning, he met his mom for coffee at the 7-Eleven on US-19 and New York Avenue in Hudson; it was their daily ritual, the way he checked in with her to let her know that he was okay.

Just after 2 a.m. on June 10, 2021, Kevin was walking on the side of the road. Surveillance footage from the 7-Eleven shows him in a baby blue shirt, blue shorts, a UNC baseball cap, and a backpack. He’d been at a friend’s house for a bonfire earlier in the night; Julie thinks he was headed for their mom’s house.

In the official crash report from that night, the police said that Bodiford was trying to cross the road. The footage Kevin’s family obtained from a nearby business is grainy, but it shows something else: Kevin walks, and a truck towing a trailer passes him without incident. Then he appears to stop. Headlights illuminate his body. A white Chevrolet pickup truck plows through. In the video, Kevin is there one moment and gone the next. He was thrown from the road. His backpack was knocked off. The driver tapped the brakes and drove off, leaving Kevin to die on the side of the highway.
i. Five years, 48 pedestrian deaths. Wow.

j. Coffeenerdness: Flew United a few times last week, and man, those folks need to up their coffee game. It’s more coffee-flavored water than real coffee.

k. Beernerdness: Maybe it was the 94-degree practice in Denver Thursday. Maybe it was my fondness for wheat ale. Or maybe a combination of the two. Whatever, I highly recommend a beer I had at Elway’s in the Denver airport before flying to Houston: Beehive American Wheat Ale (Bristol Brewing Company, Colorado Springs, Colo.). Talk about a perfect beer for just the right time…light, very cold, classic wheat taste and spices. I got a second one.

l. Nice Roasted Corn and Chicken Chowder at Elway’s, BTW.

m. Lindsay Jones: So happy to see someone as distinguished as you get a job as influential as helping run NFL coverage at The Ringer. Great deal. And made for all the right reasons. Good for you.

n. Societal Story of the Week: Danielle Abril of the Washington Post, on the change of life as a young white-collar worker today: “Gen Z workers demand flexibility, don’t want to be stuffed in a cubicle.”

o. Headline says it all. Writes Abril:

When Ginsey Stephenson moved to San Francisco for work in February, she finally met and mixed with her colleagues for the first time. It was something the 23-year-old had longed for since entering the professional world out of college seven months prior.

The boutique public relations firm she works for follows a hybrid schedule of three days in the office per week, meaning she no longer has to nervously message people on Slack she had never met in person. Most importantly, being in the office has helped her transition from working from her parents’ Virginia home — much like she did in school — to life as a working adult.

“I actually love going into the office — it feels more organic,” Stephenson said. “But I don’t know how anyone went into the office every day. I don’t know if we were cut out to work in a pre-covid world.”

p. Office mandates…weird. Understandable, but weird.

q. When in Houston the other day, on the 12th floor of a downtown hotel, I looked at the office building across the street. I could make out the insides of eight floors. The bottom two had people in them on Friday, working, apparently. The six above them, empty.

r. This is a vibrant city, or used to be. When my producer Annie Koeblitz and I drove to interview some Texans in mid-morning Friday, it was like a ghost town downtown. When we came back in the afternoon, same thing. I hope people come back to work, for the sake of the cities.

s. On my night table at home is “Path Lit by Lightning: The life of Jim Thorpe,” by David Maraniss. Fired up to dive into it. The Maraniss treatment on anyone is excellent, and his work on one of the great athletes in history who we know so little about is an important contribution to the sporting world.

t. How many times do we have to see the Nets try to live with the superstar ethos and fail (Garnett/Pierce as ancients, Durant/Irving/Harden as incendiary devices) before we say: Perhaps the way to build a team is to, you know, build a team.

u. Scott Pioli used to have a saying on his wall in New England as Bill Belichick’s chief personnel man. “Individuals go to Pro Bowls. Teams win championships.”

v. Wow, Fernando Tatis. Eighty games. I don’t pretend to know everything about the story, but for a player to take a medication with ingredients he wasn’t aware of (if that’s the case here) is mind-boggling. Doesn’t Tatis have people around him who could monitor that stuff? Shouldn’t he? Eighty games. The Padres’ season. It’s just not understandable that one player could make a mistake that massive.

w. Warm thoughts and wishes to one of the great gentlemen in the game, Len Dawson, who has entered hospice care at age 87 in Kansas City. Such a good man.

Ruling on Watson.

We wait. No way I’d wait now.

Settlement: 12 games.



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FMIA: 2022 NFL Draft Top 10 Buzz, Including A Trade And Two QB Picks

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It’s the first Monday in April. You know what that means. In the spring, a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of the draft.

That is one bad mauling of a poem. But we’re 24 days before round one, and I have not given you Kiperians any red meat on the biggest moment of the NFL’s offseason calendar.

That changes today.

Before we get to the news of the week—why guaranteed contracts really do matter, Daniel Snyder finally might be nearing the end, why I see Patrick Mahomes opening the Amazon Prime schedule, the reason Adam Schefter stayed at ESPN, the real hidden strategy of the new playoff overtime rule, and why there is a story about urine in the column—I’m going to give you your draft fix for the week.

My take on the top 10 picks in the 2022 NFL Draft, and who goes where, with one trade that makes all the sense in the world:

1) Jacksonville Jaguars
Aidan Hutchinson, edge rusher, Michigan

Safest pick at a need position, and the kind of long-term cornerstone the Jaguars are crying out. Put him opposite Josh Allen, sprinkle in the underrated Dawuane Smoot, and all of a sudden the Jags have the kind of pass-rush that’s going to give foes real issues. One other thing: Smoot and Allen have expiring contracts at the end of this year. Young greatness is vital on the edge.

2) Detroit Lions
Travon Walker, edge rusher, Georgia

Walker edges Kayvon Thibodeaux here (gee, I wonder if Thibodeaux will be ticked off), in part because of versatility. At 275, Walker will be a lightish 3-technique defensive tackle on occasion, but more likely a strong two-way defensive end with good run-stuffing ability. If it is Thibodeaux, then potential and pass-rush wins. If it’s Walker, it’s best all-around player/worker bee in the Dan Campbell mold.

2022 NFL Draft edge rusher prospect Travon Walker. (Getty Images)

3) Houston Texans
Evan Neal, OL, Alabama 

Second straight team that wouldn’t surprise me taking Thibodeaux because of the promise. But when I think of GM Nick Caserio, I think of long-term program-builder, and I think “Saban dude.” As a disciple of Bill Belichick, Caserio learned to trust Belichick’s best pal in coaching, Nick Saban, and Saban is all-in on this versatile long-term lineman. Neal can start at right tackle if need be and play four spots on the line, and is a near-lock to earn a second contract from the Texans.

4) New York Jets
Sauce Gardner, CB, Cincinnati

I hear the Jets, like many teams, are leery of the best cornerback talent in this draft, LSU’s Derek Stingley, who had a super-weird career in the SEC. Gardner’s a fascinating prospect. In 33 college games, he didn’t allow a touchdown in coverage. “I don’t plan to allow one in the NFL either,” he said at the combine. At 6-2 and 188 pounds (likely to be able to play at 195 or so), Gardner is the kind of big corner teams lust for.

5) New York Giants
Ikem Ekwonu, T, North Carolina State 

The legend is true: Accepted at Harvard and Yale, chose to go to the better football school. One of the brightest players to enter the draft in years, the athletic Ekwonu would be the kind of perfect piece to continue a crucial Giants’ rebuild on the line. A tandem of Andrew Thomas and Ekwonu at left and right tackle—if Thomas continues his progress (two sacks alowed in 800 snaps in 2021)—could give Daniel Jones a real chance to show he deserves the Giants’ QB job.

6) Carolina Panthers
Kenny Pickett, QB, Pittsburgh

When Matt Rhule was the Temple head coach in the spring of 2016, he sealed the deal with top QB recruit Kenny Pickett from south Jersey. When Rhule took the Baylor job, Pickett de-committed and went to Pitt … and made the most of his opportunity there. You just get the sense the Panthers aren’t sold on Sam Darnold and are desperate for an upgrade. Drafting Pickett (2021: 67-percent passer, 42 TDs, seven interceptions) is no sure thing, at all. But the Panthers are still searching at quarterback, and Pickett would give them hope.

7) Los Angeles Chargers (trade with New York Giants)
Charles Cross, T, Mississippi 

Chargers deal the 17th pick in this draft, plus 2023 first- and sixth-round picks, for this choice. Wild guess on my part. Giants don’t want to make this pick—they want an extra first-rounder in 2023 in case they need ammo to go get a quarterback, or simply for depth in a draft likely to be stronger in the first round. The Chargers want a long-term starter opposite young Rashawn Slater. Works for both teams—except the Giants certainly would prefer dealing for a worse team’s top pick in 2023. The Chargers’ pick could be in the mid-twenties or lower. The Giants could also try to engage Pittsburgh (20th overall this year) if the Steelers are quarterback-smitten … because Pittsburgh would likely have a better first-round pick in 2023 than the Chargers would.

8) Atlanta Falcons
Malik Willis, QB, Liberty 

Lots to be concerned about here, because Willis needs a redshirt year under a smart QB coach like Arthur Smith, and he needs to be schooled in working his progressions most importantly. But Smith is a patient teacher, and he won’t need to play this year with Marcus Mariota in the saddle for at least 2022. There’s something about Willis’ fit. He’s a local kid from Roswell High (23 minutes from downtown Atlanta), teammates love him, very positive, and he has a big arm. Owner Arthur Blank could view him as a perfect long-term pilot of his franchise. I’m fascinated with the prospect of this.

2022 NFL Draft quarterback prospect Malik Willis. (Getty Images)

9) Seattle Seahawks
Derek Stingley, CB, LSU 

One of the strangest prospects to come out in years. Was superb as a true frosh in 2019, and had great practice battles with Ja’Marr Chase. But Stingley played only 10 games in the last two years due to ankle, illness and Lisfranc issues, and now teams don’t know what to think of him. But the Seahawks are desperate for corners this spring, and the 6-1 Stingley could be the kind of big and competitive corner Seattle longs for. “He’s got the best feet of any corner I’ve ever seen,” one evaluator says. That could be enough for a corner-needy team like Seattle to take this chance. Note 1: LSU’s Pro Day is Wednesday, and Stingley’s performance there will be very important for his draft stock. Note 2: The Vikings are interested in Stingley too, and they might view a one-year Patrick Peterson mentorship (LSU ties) worthy of trying to trade up for him.

10) New York Jets
Kayvon Thibodeaux, edge rusher, Oregon 

Asking around, people told me, Gotta give the Jets a receiver with one of the first-round picks. And they could go Drake London or one of the Ohio State stars here. And they could deal their picks at 35 and/or 38 overall up into the first round to get a wideout too. At some point, I think Robert Saleh might sidle up to GM Joe Douglas and tell him he can find a good wideout (or two) with those two high second-round picks. But the Jets could also strike gold with Thibodeaux, the rusher of a thousand opinions who could go as high as two overall. This is why the draft is so fun, because of arguments on guys like Thibodeaux.

I’ll do my customary mock draft in three weeks, in the column of April 25. What you’ve just read is a combo-platter of what I’m hearing and what I think would be smart. It’s definitely not a prediction of what will happen. This is going to be a fun month and a compelling draft.

1. Bruce Arians left the Bucs at the right time 

Four points about Bruce Arians handing the Tampa Bay coaching job to Todd Bowles:

• What’s the biggest issue in the league right now? It’s the one “that hung over the league meetings” last week, per one high-ranking club official, the paucity of minority head coaches and top assistants. As Arians departs, he leaves behind a Super Bowl contender with a coaching staff that has its top six coaching posts filled by Black men—head coach, offensive coordinator, special-teams coordinator, two co-defensive coordinators, assistant head coach. There are six other Black assistants on the Tampa Bay coaching staff, and two full-time female assistant coaches. The NFL, at its owners meetings last week, continued high-level talks to figure out ways to legislate chances for more minority coaches. The NFL ordered every team to have at least one minority coach on the offensive side of the ball. The Bucs have four of them.

• He didn’t leave Todd Bowles in the lurch. He left him with Tom Brady and a Super Bowl roster. “I’d rather leave Todd in possession to be successful and not have to take some [crappy] job.” Arians told me and Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times. A back-pat, to be sure. But it’s the result of Arians leaving.

• What really happened at the end of the Arians era? Was he pushed overboard by Tom Brady? We don’t know. All parties deny it, but because associates of Brady said Brady was beginning to chafe at Arians after two seasons with him, a level-jump has been made. The jump: Brady said he’d come back if Arians was gone, and then Arians was gone, and so Brady must have done it. I don’t doubt the friction, and I don’t know if Brady acted on the friction. Anyone got the facts to support it? If so, let’s hear them.

• Let’s talk about great quarterbacks who had major problems with their coaches. Terry Bradshaw hated Chuck Noll. Phil Simms and Bill Parcells had some major battles, one on Monday Night Football in Indianapolis. John Elway chafed at the controlling Dan Reeves. Joe Montana had big issues with Bill Walsh. Mike Holmgren had some with Brett Favre in Green Bay. Troy Aikman thought Barry Switzer was a clown. Russell Wilson butted heads with the Seattle coaches. That’s life in the NFL. Strong-willed people slap each other around sometimes.

I believe, regardless how the end happened, it’s a good thing to acknowledge a retiring head coach who saw coaches for who they are and how well they could coach, and who won 29 games and a Super Bowl with a great quarterback and those coaches over a two-year period, and who left a championship contender in the hands of a Black coach who is—as close as I can tell—universally respected in the sport.

2. The Deshaun Watson guaranteed contract has some owners sweating

Every year, after the Super Bowl, the NFL totals the guaranteed money that each team has on its books. Sometime in March, the teams are told how much money they need to have in escrow to cover the cost of those contracts. In the case of Watson, when the league does its accounting next winter, it will tell the Browns they’ll have to put $184 million (the sum total of the final four years of the contract owed to Watson) in escrow to cover the commitment to Watson. This is done once a year, and because the Watson deal was done after this, Cleveland gets a break in year one … but not for the final four years. So, you ask, why does this matter? Because the next two quarterbacks likely to be in line for mega-deals, Joe Burrow of Cincinnati and Justin Herbert of the Chargers, are employed by owners that have football as the family business. Mike Brown (Bengals) and Dean Spanos (Chargers) don’t have anywhere near the liquidity of teams with money from other businesses behind them; Haslem, for instance, is a truckstop magnate.

Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson. (Getty Images)

The guarantee for Watson stunned GMs and club presidents—I can tell you that. Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ contract is 19-percent guaranteed. Buffalo QB Josh Allen’s is 39-percent guaranteed. It’s likely that when it comes time for Burrow or Herbert to do a new deal (they’re eligible after the 2022 season), the teams will argue that Watson’s deal is a one-off and they can’t do that. But contracts always get piggybacked. Agents and players will certainly try to continue the fully guaranteed trend.

3. Expect the NFL to have two huge Thursday games to start the year

As I’ve written, this is going to be a different season on TV, with the Thursday night move to Amazon Prime. With the season-opener hosted by the Super Bowl Rams on Thursday night in Week 1 (Sept. 8) on NBC, and the Amazon Prime debut slated for Thursday in Week 2 (Sept. 15), I think the NFL wants to make each game a very big one. The Amazon game, in particular, is worth noting, because the NFL wants to be good to a new partner and the NFL wants to show one of the globe’s richest men, Jeff Bezos, that a partnership with the NFL can be lucrative for both parties.

Last week in this space, I projected a Broncos-Rams season-opener at SoFi. I’ll stick with that, though it’s not a certainty by any means. I do feel the Broncos are likely to be on one of the first two Thursday games, because Amazon would love to have the Broncos and Russell Wilson too. One asterisk: Because the ratings for the Dallas-Tampa Bay game were so monstrous last year, it may be that the NFL wants to put a monster game in the opener (Buffalo? San Francisco?) so the ratings drop from Dallas-Tampa won’t be as notable. We’ll see.

Now for the Amazon opener. I’ve heard they want Kansas City and the Patrick Mahomes star power. Smart choice, if they can get it. As for the foe, I’m guessing Denver if the Broncos don’t make the opener, or the rejuvenated and explosive Chargers. Russell Wilson or Justin Herbert. Three times Herbert and Mahomes have faced off, and high-scoring tight games (margins of 3, 6 and 6) have resulted. Traditionally, the Week 2 Thursday-nighter has been a repository of mediocrity. This year, just watch: it will be an homage to Bezos.

4. Adam Schefter stayed at ESPN because it’s comfortable

I assumed Schefter, at some ungodly salary, would go to one of the gambling companies that have invaded sports in the last year. So I was a bit surprised to hear Thursday that Schefter re-upped with ESPN—for a five-year term, he told me over the weekend. He’ll be with the company now till at least mid-2027, when he will be 60.

“The media landscape is shifting fast,” Schefter said. “In the end, I felt more comfortable being in a traditional media world.”

Schefter met with the major players in the gambling space. He wouldn’t discuss money, but it’s clear he could have made more had he chosen to leave ESPN. How much more? Millions, I assume. But four weeks ago today, he made up his mind to stay at ESPN. That’s when he had breakfast at a Connecticut diner with ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro. “Within three minutes of sitting down,” Schefter said, “I thought to myself, I can’t leave this guy. He was likeable, relatable, a regular guy. I felt right then I had clarity. A burden was lifted. I knew I wanted to stay.” Of course the money had to be right, and based on ESPN’s recent Aikman-Buck-Manning-Manning spending spree, Pitaro is going to spend to get what he wants, and he showed now he’ll spend to keep a cornerstone player to his valuable NFL coverage like Schefter.

ESPN is changing in a few ways under Pitaro. He wanted a starrier, more permanent Monday night booth, and so he paid a reported $33 million a year for Buck and Aikman and sizably for Peyton and Eli Manning to do the quirky Manningcast. Pitaro allowed Kirk Herbstreit to work NFL Thursday night games on the side for Amazon Prime; I doubt that would have happened pre-Pitaro.

5. There’s a fascinating hidden stratagem to the next overtime rule

You know the owners voted 29-3 for a new playoff overtime system; now each team will get the chance to possess the ball, and if it’s tied at the end of the second possession, the game becomes sudden death.

First reaction for most people: Look for teams to want the ball second—allowing them to know what they need to do to either win the game or tie it to continue it into a third possession.

There’s one more bit of strategy, as pointed out by former Saints coach Sean Payton. He said if wind or weather was a factor in a playoff game, he’d choose to defend a goal (take the wind, in other words). So that’s one more thing to think about. “Even if it’s not much wind,” Payton said, “I want that 8 mph breeze at my back—because I know I’m going to get at least one possession.”

I checked with Competition Committee chair Rich McKay, who double-checked with Walt Anderson of the league’s officiating department. Anderson said yes, the winner of the overtime toss in the playoffs can choose to receive or kick off, or could choose the choice of goal to defend. The coin-toss winner can only pick one of those three options. So choosing to defend a goal means the coin-toss loser will have the option to receive or kick off.

One other thing a smart GM told me over the weekend: “In a game with two great quarterbacks, I think a coach might want the ball first. That means if each team scores a touchdown and the extra point on the first two possessions [of overtime], the first team can win the game with just a field goal on the third possession.” It’s an interesting conundrum, potentially. The bottom line is this new rule is not as simple to divine as it appeared when it got passed in Florida the other day.

6. The Bobby Wagner signing is very smart

I love the signing for the Rams and for Wagner, who will have a couple of years to try to win a second Super Bowl and to burnish his already legit Hall of Fame case. A few things on this deal:

• Wagner goes to the Rams on a five-year, $50 million deal. But he’s a 32-year-old linebacker entering his 11th season, so expect the guaranteed money to be in the first two years.

New Rams linebacker Bobby Wagner. (Getty Images)

• Wagner is not on the decline, which was significant to the Rams; he was PFF’s second- and 11th-rated linebacker in the last two seasons.

• The Rams have an inside ‘backer they love in second-year man Ernest Jones, and really didn’t have a big need for the Seattle vet. That helped them land Wagner because he knew (he acted as his own agent) he had to drive a hard but not overwhelming bargain.

• He gets to play the Seahawks twice a year. I would imagine that would motivate any borderline Hall of Famer, the chance to play against the team that let you walk out the door.

• The cap-poor Rams would never have engaged Wagner if they’d been able to sign Von Miller. But the Bills made Von Miller, 33, a surprisingly rich man, and so the Rams has some money left in couch cushions to procure Wagner.

7. The NFL has to stay vigilant on new minority offensive coach hires

Eight weeks ago, in this column, I wrote:

“I’d recommend this rule: Every team would be required, starting with the 2022 regular season, to have a full-time minority coach who would touch the quarterback and passing game every day. Not a quality-control coach, but rather an assistant quarterbacks coach, or with some such title. This coach would work alongside the coordinator, quarterback coach and quarterbacks in the granular world of teaching/coaching the most important position on the field—and increase the pool owners are so desperate to choose from right now.”

At the league meetings, the NFL voted to do exactly that, mandating that teams without a minority or female coach on the offensive side of the ball hire one. Paying for said coach will come from a fund provided by the league. (Not crazy about that. Oh, you’re the coach the league paid to get sent here. But that can be addressed in the future.) My point about this is simple. This added coach cannot be just a box that is checked. This coach has to get real responsibility on offense, preferably touching the quarterback every day. So many of those coaches get into the coordinator and head-coach pipeline and advance in the system to get head-coaching jobs. If the NFL is serious about this—and it must, must, must be—they need to have some sort of compliance officer checking with each team throughout the season, making sure the added coach is not doing gofer work but real work to learn how to get to the next level.

8. The bad news keeps coming out of Washington

If there’s meat on the bone to the latest charge against Washington owner Daniel Snyder, the NFL might finally have the sort of poison pill that would force Snyder to sell the team. On Saturday night, A.J. Perez of Front Office Sports reported that the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which is investigating allegations of sexual and financial misdeeds in the Washington front office, has been informed by one source that the team did not give the full share of ticket revenue to visiting teams, as required by NFL bylaws. In the NFL, 40 percent of all ticket revenue is kicked into a league pool of revenue, and every team gets one-32nd of the pie each year. If the Washington franchise didn’t give the full 40 percent, that would be the kind of offense that, per Pro Football Talk, could be a “death knell” for Snyder’s ownership.

It’s curious that a) the NFL has continued to defend Snyder and allowed him to hold onto his franchise, which is the biggest sinking ship in the NFL by far, and b) Snyder would want to continue to be the most hated man inside or outside the Beltway, taking gut punch after gut punch as his once-proud franchise bleeds so much money and fandom. But if the Perez story is true, it would be a way out for the NFL, and allow the league to get an owner into Washington who would restore its legitimacy.

9. The Matt Ryan-Falcons divorce needed to happen

Falcons owner Arthur Blank told the Atlanta media (and me, later) that he hadn’t made the final call on whether the Falcons would have traded for Deshaun Watson—had Watson told the Falcons they were his first-choice team. For a team that investigated Watson and then spent 75 minutes with him and then made the Texans an offer for him that GM Nick Caserio found acceptable, let’s just say I find it questionable if Watson wanted to come they might have said no.

Blank said wonderful things to me about Matt Ryan, and I believe he truly loves the guy. But the contract and cap number were onerous, and after one more year (this one) of a heavy ($40.5 million) number, they’ll be clean next year. Cap problems have cost the Falcons three players of good value in recent classes: linebackers Foyesade Oluokun (now a Jaguar) and De’Vondre Campbell (Packers) and center Alex Mack (49ers).

New Colts quarterback Matt Ryan. (Getty Images)

“Getting out from under this tremendous burden is going to be big for our team,” Blank told me. “It’s really hard to build a complete team when the quarterback is making 25, 20 percent of our cap. Next year, as of now, we could be $110 million under the cap, and we’ll be able to operate aggressively [in free agency] if that’s what we choose to do.”

It’s always easy to say, Just push money into the future on the cap. But when the cap goes down or is relatively stagnant, as happened in Covid times with league and team revenue reduced, big contracts eventually come due. Ryan going to the Colts was good for the Falcons, good for Ryan (who needed a fresh start) and potentially season-changing for the Colts.

10. John McClain, Texas original, rides off into the sunset

McClain, a sportswriter in Waco and Houston for the last 51 years, retired Thursday. No sportswriter I’ve known sounds like Texas the way this longtime chronicler (mostly for the Houston Chronicle) of pro football sounds—deep Texas drawl, nearly all the time sounding hoarse, and sounding very, very important. This is the kind of reporter the 70-year-old McClain was: He once was certain the Texans were in talks with Butch Davis to become their head coach in 2006, and he thought Davis was in owner Bob McNair’s home. McClain had been in the home and figured the interview would be happening in McNair’s study, and when he approached the house, he saw a crew of yard caretakers grooming the grounds. McClain grabbed a rake from their truck and started raking in the direction of the study … and drat! He couldn’t spot Davis or McNair. But the owner was so impressed with the doggedness that he gave McClain the scoop when Gary Kubiak got the job. 

McClain had a nose for news. And stories. I called him Friday and asked for one.

“Well, I once pissed off Sammy Baugh’s porch,” he said, sounding more Texas than the state itself. “I’m pretty sure no other sportswriter’s ever done that.”

Do tell.

“In 1998, Sammy Baugh was the last surviving member of the first Hall of Fame Class in 1963. He was 84. Lived on a ranch in west Texas, outside a town called Rotan, Texas. A friend of mine named Cowboy Bill Lamza knew Sammy and I asked if he could set up an interview for me with Sammy. We flew to Lubbock and drove to Sammy’s ranch. Sammy was great. Told great stories about football in the thirties and forties. Talked about his minor-league baseball life—he played minor-league ball with guys who’d become the Gashouse Gang with the Cardinals.

“I get great stuff from him. Five hours of tape. We go to leave, and Sammy, a great host, gives us peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches for the road. And I ask him, ‘Why’d you choose to live way out here?’ And he says he loves living way out in the country. He says, ‘Anytime I want to take a piss, I can come out here and take it right off my porch.’ And he says, ‘I gotta take one now. You wanna join me?’

“Well, of course I did. So I did, and now I can say I got to take a piss with one of the greatest players of all time, right off his porch.”

Very McClain.

“Hey,” he drawled, “you got time to hear one more?”

Got all day, John. McClainians will still get to hear that voice. He’ll continue to do 10 weekly radio talk shows in six states. Call him up. Ask him for a story.

I

“Part of me was excited to coach Blaine Gabbert as the quarterback and prove to everybody, ‘Kiss my ass. He’s good.’ You know?”

—Bruce Arians, to me and Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times, on a temptation he had before stepping aside as coach of the Bucs. He said he wouldn’t have retired if Tom Brady did not come back.

II

“I can help make you a better team. I can help you win games … I’d love to come in for a workout. I’d love to sit down with you and have that conversation about how I can help make you a better team.”

—Colin Kaepernick, the honorary captain at the Michigan spring game Saturday, asked by Detroit TV reporter Jeanna Trotman what message he has for NFL teams.

Kaepernick, 34, said he was “just looking for an opportunity, for a door to open.” He last played an NFL game five years and three months ago.

III

“I don’t think people understand [the impact] of Andrew Luck stepping away. I’d like to see how any other franchise could possibly survive a generational talent at 29 years old who walks away in the middle of preseason. Just gone.”

—Colts owner Jimmy Irsay, on the team’s five starting quarterbacks in the last five seasons (including 2022).

IV

“Not everything is a storybook ending.”

—Colts coach Frank Reich, on the way the 2021 season ended—with his hand-picked quarterback, Carson Wentz, playing poor football and Indy missing the playoffs by losing at Jacksonville.

V

“Fake news.”

—Miami coach Mike McDaniel, on reports that Tom Brady might be traded to the Dolphins.

VI

“Can we get this guy the hell out of this league?”

—Rams coach Sean McVay, on Tom Brady.

VII

“I’m so lucky. Such a lucky guy.”

—Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, weepy, in a really good feature story on CBS before the two Final Four games Saturday.

The last of Chuck Noll’s 209 NFL coaching wins came in 1991, when he was 59 years, 351 days old.

The first of Bruce Arians’ 95 NFL coaching victories came in 2012, when he was 60 years, 4 days old.

(Now, Arians is credited in NFL statistical history with only 86 regular-season and playoff victories. But this is a lie. The NFL ruled that Arians’ 9-3 record as interim coach of the Colts in 2012—when head coach Chuck Pagano was on a leave of absence, being treated for leukemia—goes on Pagano’s record. The only problem is, we watched those games. Arians was on the sidelines, making the decisions and coaching the team. He was the head coach for 12 games. He won the NFL Coach of the Year that season. His job as head coach of the Colts for 12 games got him the Arizona Cardinals head-coaching job in 2013, which eventually led to him getting the Bucs’ head-coaching job in 2019, which resulted in him being the Super Bowl-winning coach in the 2020 season in Tampa. So no more nonsense, please, about the nine wins in 2012 when Bruce Arians coached the Colts not belonging to Bruce Arians.)

I

Many of you know that Drew Bledsoe is a vintner now, with three labels under his Bledsoe Wine Estates mini-empire. Recently, he and his winemaker, Josh McDaniels (ironically enough), were bottling a new Pinot Noir at their Walla Walla, Wash., vineyard and they had quite a surplus of the new concoction left over. I called Bledsoe to ask about the name.

When they tasted the extra Pinot, they both loved it. Why waste it, Bledsoe thought; it’s really good. “Let’s bottle it,” Bledsoe said. “Let’s f—ing go!”

Bledsoe-McDaniels LFG Pinot Noir was born. On sale now. Why do I get the feeling that some folks in the six-state New England region might try to find a bottle?

II

Grant Wahl Note of the Week:

Manchester City will play Bayern Munich at Lambeau Field on July 23.

III

In his farewell column after a 51-year Texas journalism career, John McClain of the Houston Chronicle thanked 144 people for their help in his sportswriting life.

IV

First UNC-Duke basketball game: Jan. 24, 1920.

First Packers-Chicago Bears football game: Oct. 14, 1923.

I

The Saints coach tweeted as Cincinnati and KC went to overtime in the AFC title game Jan. 30.

Turns out this game was an outlier in OT coin-flip winners winning the game—KC got the ball first but the Bengals intercepted Patrick Mahomes on the first series, and went on to kick a field goal to win on the next possession. It’s the previous week that had the big impact, as it turned out. The Bills lost the OT coin toss and Mahomes drove the length of the field on the first possession to win. Payton, though, had the right reading of the tea leaves.

II

Tu is the head of production at Wondery Media. 

III

Wetzel writes for Yahoo Sports.

IV

Rovell covers the business of sports for Action Network.

Now THAT is news you can use!

V

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com, or on Twitter @peter_king.

Good point about ties from Wales. From Paul Sewter, of Cardiff, Wales: “There is no reason why the regular season games can’t just be ties, and do away with the need for overtime. With the NFL’s decision to make a 17-game season (and you just know 18 games is coming too) doing away with overtime would surely help to reduce injuries/concussions etc. Secondly, there’s no problem with ties!! Look how the Steelers/Lions result added to the end of season excitement.”

Paul, I am coming around to your way of thinking. I think it’s smart. Throw an olive branch to the union and play fewer downs per season, and then make the playoffs more equitable. Along the way, inject some strategy and urgency to the end of regular-season games, when one team might be okay with a tie and the other desperate for a win.

Never thought of this. From Scott Kohl, of St. George, Kans.: “I wonder how all the mega-trades during 2022 free agency will affect the TV ratings. I’m a Raiders fan. Since Las Vegas traded away their first and second-round picks, I have ignored all of the mock draft predictions. I also do not plan to watch the primetime TV slots because my team has no picks in the first two rounds. Turns out that 25% of the NFL teams are not picking in Round 1 of the 2022 draft. I suspect I’m not alone in my ignoring all of the pre-draft-hype because my team traded away their top picks.”

Interesting, Scott. I’ll pay attention to that. Particularly in Vegas, where the hometowners don’t have a pick scheduled till late in round three, it could be odd with the draft being held there.

Another happy customer. From David Michael Ryan, of Houston: “The height of your hypocrisy is you will vote for Ben Roethlisberger to be in the Hall of Fame in five years. You will defend this by claiming you only consider what happens between the lines, not outside. You will do nothing to change this. Yet, it did not prevent you from the character assassination of Tom Brady, and now Deshaun Watson. Watson was cleared by two grand juries. I am one of those formerly devoted readers who go back to the SI days, your column was must-read every week. Be better!”

Those are not parallel situations, David. When we vote for the Hall of Fame, the instructions are clear: Consider what happens in the games, not what has happened off the field. You say I will do nothing to change this. That’s correct, and I don’t want it to be changed. Character assassination of Tom Brady? I’m pretty sure you’re the only reader of this column who thinks I’ve assassinated Brady’s character.

He likes me. From John P. Gallagher of Lakewood, Ohio: “Thank you for your insight and humanity … and for all those who merely read you to get their sports ‘fix,’ they come away a little more well-read.”

That is so nice, John. Thanks a lot.

On Matt Ryan and dead money. From @bensonshow, on Twitter: “Not a dumb person, but could you at some point explain NFL ‘dead money’ rules in layman’s terms. Seems if ATL trades Ryan’s contract, that’s it, unless they agree to pick up some money, like in other sports. Why is there dead money?”

Thanks for asking. Sometimes we throw terms like that around so often and assume everyone knows what they mean. Dead money is salary-cap space a team must keep on its cap when a player with cap charges remaining is either traded or let go. So, in the case of Matt Ryan, the Falcons re-did his contract four years in a row because it was such an anchor on their cap, pushing money into the future to fit under the cap today. So by the time they traded Ryan to Indianapolis, they had to take all of the money assigned to future years on the cap and assign it to this year’s cap. The benefit to the Falcons is that the bloated Ryan cap charge—$40.3 million this year—wounds them this year but allows them a lot of freedom in 2023.

1. I think teams are going to have to make up their own minds, of course, about Oregon edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux, a likely top 10 pick in the draft April 28. But I wonder how his post-Pro Day comments will go over in front offices around the league. Pro Football Talk had an item on Thibodeaux on Saturday. Per Antwan Staley of the Eugene Register-Guard, Thibodeaux said at his Pro Day on Friday: “The most ridiculous thing I’ve heard is that I’m not the best player in this draft. I really don’t listen to anything else, but that to me, that’s outrageous. With the film, with the numbers and what I can do as far as my ability, I have confidence in what I can do.” Thibodeaux is trying to combat his rep as one who doesn’t play with a full motor every play. “It is easy to see a snippet of something because that’s what media does,” Thibodeaux said. “Just watch the whole tape, you will be able to see.” Teams are doing that, and I hear some teams have that opinion of him—great player who coasts on some plays. We’ll see if that becomes a factor closer to the draft.

2. I think I hear Detroit, with the second pick, likes Thibodeaux, who would at least fit what the Lions desperately need. Detroit hasn’t had a rusher with more than 10 sacks in five years.

2022 NFL Draft pass-rush prospect Kayvon Thibodeaux. (Getty Images)

3. I think it’s not just the $780 million settlement fee that NFL owners are arguing about. There’s an ad hoc league committee of owners trying to find a solution to who will actually pay the bill—when most owners thought Rams owner Stan Kroenke had agreed to pick up the costs for whatever the league would owe St. Louis after its lawsuit. But there’s also a legal bill the league has incurred, and who will pay for that. Call this the NFL’s $900-million problem. (Or however much the NFL’s St. Louis-related legal fees are—they’ll be in the tens of millions for sure.)

4. I think the thing I like about the contract cornerback Xavien Howard just signed with Miami is how he and agent David Canter continued to gain ground on first-round players playing beyond their first contracts with the teams that draft them. Judging by the end of the second year of Howard’s new contract in 2023, and comparing that deal to two prominent first-round starters drafted 20 and 22 picks ahead of Howard, here’s how all three will stand financially at the end of the 2023 season, presuming no contract restructuring by then:

16th overall pick, tackle Taylor Decker, Detroit: 8 years, $66.77 million.
18th overall pick, center Ryan Kelly, Indianapolis: 8 years, $50.08 million.
38th overall pick, cornerback Xavien Howard: 8 years, $84.95 million.

5. I think it’s good to see the Patriots add a needed receiver, dealing a 2023 third-round pick to Miami for DeVante Parker and a fifth-round pick Saturday. But they’re still third in the division, behind Miami and Buffalo, in wideout weapons (Parker, Jakobi Meyers, Kendrick Bourne, Nelson Agholor, N’Keal Harry). Picking 21st and 54th in the draft, I doubt New England’s out of the receiver business. 

6. I think no one should care very much that the Bengals pushed back the start of their offseason program two weeks, to May 2. If the Bengals go 8-9 this year and fall to the floor of the AFC North with a thud, not one single person will say, It’s all because Zac Taylor pushed back the start of the offseason program two weeks.

7. I think offseason workouts have always been overrated. Not that I think they’re unimportant. They matter. But think of it this way, related to the Bengals. Cleveland and Baltimore both went home for the offseason on Monday, Jan. 10. (Pittsburgh went home a week later, after a first-round playoff loss.) The Bengals practiced for the next five weeks and played four games. So, players in Cleveland and Baltimore will have had 14 weeks between their last games and the start of the April 18 offseason program. Cincinnati will have had 11 weeks between its last game and the start of the offseason program … and the Bengals had five weeks of practice that two of the teams in the division didn’t have. In many ways, I wouldn’t have faulted Taylor if he gave his players more time off than he did. 

8. I think I got a kick out of Cleveland owner Jimmy Haslam saying he didn’t feel a cold shoulder from his peers at the meetings last week. Well, owners aren’t going to walk up to other owners and say, “I am really ticked off at you for that idiotic $230-million guaranteed contract.” But that’s what they were thinking. When one owner, Baltimore’s Steve Bisciotti, says of the Watson contract, “Damn, I wish they hadn’t guaranteed the whole contract,” do you think Bisciotti is ticked off at the deal? Damn right he is. “I don’t know that [Watson] should’ve been the first guy to get a fully guaranteed contract. To me, that’s something that is groundbreaking, and it’ll make negotiations harder with others.” It’s just silly to think other owners and teams that have to get young quarterbacks signed aren’t angry with the Haslams.

9. I think, sometimes, I look back on life in the business and get pretty amazed. Like, this past week, I saw somewhere this was the 40th anniversary of North Carolina freshman Michael Jordan sinking the winning jumper to beat Georgetown for the national championship. I covered that game in New Orleans for my first paper out of college, the Cincinnati Enquirer, at 24, and will never forget the experience. A friend of mine found a clip of my story from two days after the game, with my formal babyface column logo. I wrote: “Jordan, the hero Monday night, was the skycap Tuesday. His 15-foot jump shot clinched North Carolina’s first NCAA championship since 1957 on Monday, but Tuesday he carried the bulky team film projector from the UNC bus to the charter flight at New Orleans International Airport. ‘The freshmen always carry the film projector,’ said Rick Brewer, UNC’s sports information director. Tuesday happened to be Jordan’s turn. ‘That’s the system. It never changes.’ “ Aaah. Those were the days, on an airport tarmac with 10 or 15 other writers, chatting with a couple of the main characters before the national champs left town.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. What a game, UNC over Duke. Terrific. Spine-tingling. What sports should be about. But can we please not make the result of a college basketball a life-changing event for those who love either team? And can we not pelt column-inch snowballs at the Duke players and Mike Krzyzewski for either choking or coming up small or somehow blowing two straight games against North Carolina? I saw both. Great events. Sometimes when two very good teams play, it’s simply a matter of the better team winning and not the losing team gagging it away. Saturday’s game was a sports classic. Duke missed some free throws, but from what I saw, North Carolina won a game it deserved. 

b. Obit of the Week: William McDonald of the New York Times on the remarkable life of softball pitcher/pro golfer Joan Joyce, one of the best women’s athletes in history.

c. You haven’t heard of her? Well, that’s a great sign of how invisible women’s sports once were. McDonald has such a great lede on the story of Joyce’s life, and it involves Ted Williams:

On a warm August night in 1961, Ted Williams, the “Splendid Splinter” who had finished his Hall of Fame baseball career the year before as the last hitter to bat .400 in a single season, strode to the plate before an overflow crowd at Municipal Stadium in Waterbury, Conn., to face a young softball pitching phenom by the name of Joan Joyce.

The occasion was a charity fund-raising exhibition. Williams was in his Boston Red Sox uniform, No. 9. Joyce stood on the mound 40 feet away (regulation in women’s softball, as opposed to 60 feet 6 inches in major-league baseball), clad in the red-and-white jersey and shorts she wore as the premier pitcher for the Raybestos Brakettes, one of the top teams in the women’s game, with its home field 30 miles to the south in suburban Stratford, Conn.

It was one of several such exhibitions in which Williams and Joyce faced off in the early 1960s, but the one in Waterbury — Joyce’s hometown, where the fans were chanting “Joanie, Joanie Joanie!” — proved to be the most memorable …

With a slingshot-like underhanded delivery, Joyce, a couple of weeks shy of her 21st birthday, took her full arsenal of blazing pitches to the mound that night: curveballs, sliders, fastballs and her trademark “drop ball,” which sunk over the plate. And while she warmed up, Williams, who was approaching 43 but coming off a sterling, age-defying final season in Boston (hitting .316 and swatting 29 home runs), studied the movement of her ball.

d. I can’t give away the outcome. You’ve got to read it.

e. And read about the time Joan Joyce faced Hank Aaron too. As a kid growing up in Connecticut, Joyce was a legend, and I’m thrilled to see an obit of this size for someone as impactful on women’s sports as Joyce was.

f. The best sports event I’ve seen this offseason: UConn 91, North Carolina State 87, double overtime, in the women’s East Regional final last Monday. How clutch those women were. Paige Bueckers, with a Final Four berth almost totally on her shoulders, making shot after shot. And N.C. State, at crucial times, draining contested threes. What a game. The five-point UConn win over Stanford was dramatic too, but nothing like the double-OT tilt.

g. More of Aliyah Boston, please. And kudos to the South Carolina women’s basketball team for a second NCAA title under Dawn Staley. That is the power program in all of women’s basketball, and Staley’s the architect.

h. More of the Sue Bird/Diana Taurasi Manningcast-like booth, please.

i. I read somewhere women’s basketball isn’t compelling. Riiiiight.

j. Just Who Are We As A People Story of the Week: Matthew Stanmyre of NJ.com on bad behavior that just won’t quit at youth and high school sports events. Wrote Stanmyre:

The final buzzer blared at Saddle Brook High School, and before Kris DeBlasio could take his place for the postgame handshake line this February, the father of one of his basketball players sprinted from the bleachers, pushed in front of him and jabbed a finger in his face.

“You are a detriment to every kid on this team,” the man snarled. “And you’re a terrible [expletive] coach.”

The morning after the second incident, DeBlasio, 44, decided enough was enough. He informed the school district he was resigning after three seasons at Saddle Brook. “There’s just a constant barrage of negativity toward coaches and officials at all levels of sports, at all schools,” DeBlasio said. “The entire culture is just totally out of control.”

k. There’s one other factor making it worse now, Stanmyre writes. Social media just exacerbates it. Stanmyre quotes Brian Delahant, president of the U.S. Amateur Baseball League, as saying: “It used to be that if a fight happened at the field, it’s done; but now it goes to the social media warriors. No one can leave the problem at the field and move on. If they feel wronged, it sticks with them. Now because of the way social media is, it really ignites the issue and makes it a lot larger of a problem.”

l. I coached girls softball in New Jersey for 17 years in a previous life. Seven of those years were spent coaching travel teams, a more serious level of the game with a higher commitment, more practice, etc. Each year, before the start of the season, we’d have a team meeting and I’d hand out a list of rules for players and parents. The parent rules included two that I explained were unbreakable, and violations would result in a warning and after that with another problem, well, we’d have to “part ways.”

m. Rule 1: When you drop your child off for the game or practice, please do not communicate with her until the game or practice is over. (Let the coaches coach; don’t overwhelm the players with multiple messages. If you entrust the coaches to work with your daughter, treat it like you would a school class and let the teachers teach.) Rule 2: If you have a problem with anything team-related, call me and we’ll discuss it. Don’t bring it up around your daughter or the other players. (No need for an exercised parent, probably upset about playing time or maybe a coach’s decision, to air that around kids.)

n. I had one problem in seven years: a dad who called pitches for his pitcher daughter from the bleachers. She had to find another team. Overall, it worked great. We ran a disciplined and very fun program. I used drills borrowed from Mike Candrea, the softball coach at Arizona, from a coaching clinic I attended one year. One of them was a huge difference-maker on our 10U team, the Montclair Bears. Players would line up, right knee on the ground, gloved hand pointed at her partner in playing catch, and the throwing hand would come directly overhand throwing the ball at the partner. To be warmed up, every player had to throw and catch 10 straight balls with sound mechanics. A dropped ball, and they had to start over. It helped kids learn that the most important thing in softball is throwing and catching, and you’re going to be able to do that if you play for our team. Drills like this, plus the daily bunting practice, showed the parents we had a plan, so trust us. One other thing: We always waited for a rainy day to teach proper sliding techniques. We told the parents to expect soaked children at the end of practice. They had a ball watching me illustrate the right way to slide, and even more fun doing it eight or 10 times themselves. I’m sure some of the parents don’t look back with great memories; that’s life. But what meant something to me was coaching the daughters of two excellent high school coaches in the area, and they were our biggest supporters. I miss those days.

o. Crime Story of the Week: Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times on how the death of a dad in Beverly Hills led to the discovery of a huge drug-delivery network in L.A..

p. What a winding road and tentacle-filled story. Villainous fentanyl. Wrote Finnegan:

Ray Mascolo was spending a Sunday evening at home in Beverly Hills with his Chihuahua puppy, Versace, when his yearlong stretch of sobriety came to an end.

“What’s good babe,” Mascolo, 37, texted a woman listed in his iPhone as “Mimi Snowie.”

She replied with a menu offering acid ($40), ecstasy ($20), mushrooms ($120) and half a dozen other drugs. They cut a deal: a gram of cocaine and two oxycodone pills for $160, plus a $30 delivery fee. Mimi, whose full name is Mirela Todorova, dispatched an aspiring television actor, Kather Sei, to drop off the drugs, authorities say.

The next morning, a maintenance worker walked into Mascolo’s house on North Beverly Drive. The Chihuahua led him to Mascolo’s body on the kitchen floor. The drugs had been laced with fentanyl.

Mascolo’s November 2020 death set in motion a federal investigation that uncovered a booming drug delivery service Todorova is accused of running from her apartment on Hollywood Boulevard.

q. War Correspondent of the Week: Richard Deitsch of The Athletic on Isabelle Khurshudyan, the former hockey beat writer covering the war from inside Ukraine for the Washington Post.

r. Good get by Deitsch. Khurshudyan covered the Caps and Alex Ovechkin but her heart was in foreign correspondent work. She’s based in the coastal Ukrainian city of Odessa. 

s. Khurshudyan, fluent in Russian, to Deitsch: “I think at some point, maybe when I leave here, I think it will all hit me, all of the destruction I’ve seen. In the moment, you try to keep some professional detachment while empathizing with people and recognizing the horrible things they’re going through. It’s a weird feeling as a reporter.”

t. Personal Story of the Week: Kalyn Kahler of Defector on the search for Uncle Art, buried in Plot H, Row 15, Grave 96 in faraway Luxembourg. Wrote Kahler:

A few years ago, on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, I was overcome with curiosity about what happened to my grandpa’s uncle, who I knew had died in World War II. So I called him to ask, and he told me Uncle Art had died in the Battle of the Bulge. He left behind his wife, Hazel, in Boone, Iowa. They didn’t have any kids, but he’d been a successful salesman for a casket company. So where is he buried? I asked my grandpa. Did they send him back here?

No, he was buried somewhere in Europe. 

Somewhere in Europe?! Where? He didn’t know or couldn’t remember. 

So I got on my laptop and within 10 minutes of searching, I had pulled up a photo of Uncle Art’s grave, at the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial, just outside of Luxembourg City. I sent my grandpa the information and asked him if anyone in the family had ever gone to visit. He wasn’t sure and thought maybe his aunts had gone at some point. I felt sad thinking about Uncle Art resting so far from Iowa without anyone visiting him, so I made a pact with myself that the next time I traveled to Europe, I’d make a pit stop in Luxembourg.

u. Just a cool story of family curiosity leading to the grave of an uncle she never met. Well done by my former colleague at The MMQB.

v. Let’s fast-forward to the day after Thanksgiving, England-USA, World Cup, 2 p.m. Somehow, I think there will be Black Friday Interruptus around that time.

w. Now we’ve reached the part of the program, right before the start of the baseball season, when I tell you about my Rotisserie Team in the 12-team league I’m in with friends from my Jersey days, and you tell me how bad I will stink:

Infield: Abreu, Betts (Mookie has 2B-eligibility in our league), Semien, Arenado.
C: G. Sanchez (I know, I know).
OF: Schwarber, Buxton, Verdugo, Baddoo.
DH: C.Seager.
Starters: Webb, F.Valdez, Snell, Skubal, Sale, L.Gilbert, Syndergaard, Matz.
Closers: Pressly, Gallegos, R.Suarez.

Happy trails, McClain.
There’re originals in life,
and then there is you.



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