Dan Shaughnessy uses the phrase "The Patriot Way" in this column. I am betting he does this just to annoy people like me. Dan doesn't like that the Patriots refused to pick up the option for Darrelle Revis and then weren't able to sign him in free agency. He makes this clear through snark and discussing how the "system" is more important than the players, as if this strategy hasn't worked for the Patriots in the past. So despite the Patriots having just won a Super Bowl, Dan spends some time being snarky and suggesting he knows what is better for the Patriots then the incompetent Bill Belichick does. After all, it's been a whole couple of months and the Patriots still haven't won another Super Bowl. Dan thinks the Patriots may never win another Super Bowl now that they have allowed Revis to go to the Jets in free agency. Someone should do something about how Bill Belichick is wrecking the Patriots team.
The Patriots just lost their best defensive player.
No, they re-signed Devin McCourty and Chandler Jones is still on the roster. Jerod Mayo is also coming back from injury, so it seems the Patriots still have quite a few guys who can be considered their best defensive player.
Greedy Darrelle is going to New York for a five-year, $70 million
contract. He’s going to make $48 million over the first three years of
his Jet contract. He’s now got $39 million in guaranteed money coming
his way.
Yes, of course Darrelle Revis is greedy for maximizing his market value. We all know Dan Shaughnessy would NEVER take an opportunity to earn more income and maximize his value. Never. Ever. So fuck Darrelle Revis for trying to make as much money as possible during his career. This makes him greedy and not a good businessman.
The clever Patriots would not go for that. They reportedly stopped short at a guarantee of $35 million.
So, if the reports are true, this New England team, flush with cash, lost its best defensive player for $4 million.
The Patriots had around $14 million in cap space around the time that Revis was signed by the Jets. I'm not sure that would count as being flush with cap space. They couldn't afford to sign Revis to the contract that the Jets signed him to. Revis is earning $16 million during the 2015 season. It seemed pretty well-known, at least to me, that the Patriots couldn't keep both McCourty and Revis. Of course, when has Dan allowed reality to seep into his criticisms?
Naturally, you are all OK with this. You are Patriots fans. Your team
just won a Super Bowl. You subscribe to a long-standing policy that your
team will not pay stupid money for talent. Sure, the Patriots have the
money, but that’s not the point.
No, it is the point. The point is that just because the Patriots have the money it doesn't mean they should spend that money.
The point is that players don’t matter. It is the system that matters.
The system wins Super Bowls. The coach wins Super Bowls. The owner wins
Super Bowls.
The quarterback wins Super Bowls too. At some point when this has been proven incorrect, then I would love for Dan Shaughnessy to point out when. The Patriots have shown they don't have to keep players who have hit free agency as long as they are able to find other players to serve as replacements. Dan is snarky about the system, but it works, so his snark is simply a sarcastic statement of fact.
Your team doesn’t do the foolish things that other teams do. And your
team just won the Super Bowl. So who is going to question the Patriot
way? Only a fool.
Or someone (namely, a sportswriter named "Dan Shaughnessy") who questions every move Boston-area teams make that don't match the conventional wisdom of what a team should do. Then when he is proven to be incorrect about his questioning of these moves, he simply moves on to the next issue he can gripe about sarcastically.
Clearly, the Jets are idiots. Again.
Maybe. Was the Jets' issue last year at the cornerback position? Partly, but that's a lot of money for a cornerback who the Jets already refused to pay just a few years ago. They may not be idiots, but it's a big investment in one player.
The Patriots rented Revis for one year and they got what they wanted.
They won a Super Bowl. So line up and guzzle the Patriots Kool-Aid.
This is Dan's defense mechanism. He gets snarky and says something like, "Well, it worked for the Red Sox didn't it? So every move they make from now on will work, won't it?" in a desperate effort to lower the bar and move the goal posts, while distracting the reader from the fact Dan's upcoming criticism has no validity. No one is guzzling the Patriots Kool-Aid. They won a Super Bowl with Revis. Their plan worked.
Never mind that the Patriots could keep on winning Super Bowls and keep their best defensive player.
Could they though? Really think about that, Dan. Think hard. I'm not sure the Patriots could have kept Revis and McCourty.
It’s more important that they win at the negotiating table. It’s all about the value.
While being sarcastic in an effort to make the Patriots seem as though they are cheap, Dan is missing the point. It is important to win at the negotiating table. Good teams keep an eye on their salary cap situation for this year and 2-3 years down the road. It IS all about value. Losing at the negotiating table is how teams end up with millions in dead money which restricts their ability to make offseason moves that improve the team.
Dan just doesn't understand. Maybe the Patriots are cheap, but it works. Maybe Dan would have a point if it weren't for two small issues:
1. The Patriots' strategy of being cheap has paid off for almost 15 years now. They have been the most successful NFL franchise since 2001 using this strategy.
2. It is all about value at the bargaining table in order to sustain the long-term success of a team.
It’s about the value because the Patriots are not only the best team on
the field. They are the smartest. They are the most clever. They are
playing chess while the other dimwits are playing checkers.
And now Dan is trying to overstate the case in order to enter the Theater of the Absurd since his opinion in the real world has been proven to sound stupid.
Pity those foolish Steelers and Giants and Ravens and Broncos. And Jets.
They do not know how to do business. The Patriots know how to win and
they know how to do business.
But it's true. The Patriots do know how to do business. The results on the field support this point of view. The Steelers, Giants, Ravens and Broncos aren't foolish. It's not a zero-sum game like Dan is desperately trying to prove is true. The Patriots aren't smarter than every other team in the same way McDonald's isn't smarter than Wal-Mart, Target or Burger King. They are all successful, it's just they each have a different way of doing business. Target isn't stupid because Wal-Mart is smart. The same theory applies here. The Patriots have a good way of doing business that is proven to be successful. It doesn't mean other NFL teams don't have a good way of doing business themselves.
Everybody in this NFL-crazed nation knew the Patriots were never going
to pay Revis $20 million for 2015, with a salary-cap hit of $25 million.
But not everybody knew the Jets were going to lose their minds. That’s
why they are the Jets.
So the Patriots should have given Revis the money the Jets gave Revis and this would have made the Patriots smart, but because the Jets gave Revis this money then they are losing their minds? I don't even understand the logic behind this comment.
They just added a great cornerback to their woeful, non-contending team.
And the smarter-than-everybody Patriots no doubt believe they have a
valid tampering claim against New York. It’s all there on tape. We heard
Jets owner Woody Johnson gushing about Revis in December. Not cool.
Dan's basic point seem to be that he is going to talk sarcastically about how smart the Patriots are compared to the Jets, while seeming to truly believe the Patriots are smarter than the Jets...or something like that. Maybe not. Maybe the Patriots would have been smart to re-sign Revis, all while the Jets were dumb for re-signing Revis.
So now it’s time to fire up the Patriots media cartel. Time to demonize Revis.
You mean by calling him "greedy"? Or was that Dan making fun of Patriots fans for calling Revis greedy while not actually calling Revis greedy, unless Dan suddenly decides he does think Revis is greedy, in which case Dan was completely serious in calling him "Greedy Revis"?
Has anybody noticed that Revis only had two interceptions last year?
Clearly, this guy is overrated. Right? And now we know for sure that he
cares only about money. If he really cared about winning football, he
would have stayed here for less. But no. Ultimately, Revis showed his
true colors. He chose money over legacy. What a loser.
Dan is changing tone here almost as much as I change tone. It's difficult to keep up with. Clearly, he is being sarcastic right now about Revis being a loser. Most NFL players care only about money, it's just Revis is in a position to actually make more money.
If I may stray from the party line for a moment, there might be some
legitimate questions here. If the Patriots were willing to make Devin
McCourty the highest-paid safety (five years, $47.5 million), in
football, why did they draw the line on Revis, who is better at corner
than McCourty is at safety?
Perhaps, and this is a point that Dan seems to consistently miss, the Patriots could really not afford to keep both of them. McCourty was cheaper, and while not as talented as Revis, he allowed the Patriots to do something defensively that couldn't be replaced with another safety that was on the market or in the draft. Revis may be a better corner than McCourty is a safety, but it may be easier for the Patriots to replace the production of Revis than it is to replace McCourty's production. There are outside forces which are present and can move a player's value to his current team up or down.
And how are they going to take the hit of also losing Brandon Browner in the defensive backfield?
They may commit fewer defensive holding or pass interference penalties.
Revis changed everything in 2014. In the six seasons after the
undefeated season of 2007, the Patriots were good, but never great; not
even when they got back to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis against the
Giants. They were always good enough to win the AFC East (like signing
up for AOL), but they were not good enough to keep good offenses off the
field when it mattered.
Oh, okay. Thanks for clearing up that the Patriots were good, but never great, when they went 72-24 over a six year span. The Patriots were 4-5 in the playoffs during that time and what happened again in the 7th year after the Patriots went undefeated? Oh yeah, they won the Super Bowl. I was always confused by whether the Patriots were good or great and always thought a 75% win rate in the regular season over six years was a pretty great record. It turns out that record is only good. I'm glad Dan Shaughnessy is here to point out the truths as his delusional mind sees them as it relates to a point he is looking to prove.
In 2014, Revis enabled the Patriots to play any kind of defense
Belichick wanted. Revis routinely erased the best receiver on the other
team. Calvin Johnson. A.J. Green, T.Y. Hilton. Revis got more Pro Bowl
votes than any corner in the NFL. More votes than flavor-of-the-year
Richard Sherman.
Richard Sherman is still a pretty good cornerback. I will not allow myself to be distracted by Dan Shaughnessy's shot at Richard Sherman based on such an idiotic metric as Pro Bowl votes.
We know the Patriots don’t like to work with a gun at their heads. They
like value. They don’t spend to the cap and they don’t like to overpay.
Just because somebody else is willing to pay stupid money, why should
New England?
It really is a good strategy if an NFL team can continue winning games while using this strategy. Why should the Patriots overpay for a player simply because another team chooses to use this strategy in order to acquire or keep a player? Because acquiring big name players and spending money is exciting and keeps the local beat writers with fresh stories they can write during free agency?
Ordinarily, this thinking works with the Patriots and their fans. It’s
“In Bill We Trust.’’ Fans support the team when Wes Welker leaves and
when Logan Mankins is traded. Usually, this blind loyalty is rewarded.
Most always this blind loyalty has been rewarded. As long as fans don't hold the Patriots to the absurd standard of "Have they won the Super Bowl every single season?" then the blind loyalty has been rewarded with nearly a decade-and-a-half of sustained success. I can't see in what world there should be criticism of how the Patriots deal with personnel. Regardless of how strong the AFC East has been, the Patriots have won four Super Bowls since 2001 and their strategy on how they value players has proven to work. It's not easy to be as good as the Patriots have been for as long of time as they have been good. Of course, Dan has no perspective and just assumes because the Patriots haven't won the Super Bowl 10 more times in the last 14 years, then a different strategy in valuing their personnel would have changed that. He sees the Patriots' way of thinking as the problem surrounding why the Patriots aren't MORE successful, as opposed to viewing this thinking as the reason the Patriots have been this successful. Dan sucks.
It seemed that Revis was different. He was the best player at a crucial position. He delivered a Super Bowl.
You would have thought he was a guy the Patriots could not afford to lose.
When an NFL team says, "We afford to lose this guy" because of that player's perceived value, then that is how teams often end up overpaying for players it turns out they could have afforded to lose, even if they didn't want to lose that player.
But there is no such player. It’s not about any one player. It’s about the system.
Which is a system, that like it or not, has been proven to work for the Patriots.
The Patriots usually win, and sometimes lose, but at the bargaining table the Patriot Way is the only way.
There is no real "Patriot Way," but the Patriots do have a philosophy that seems to work. Dan Shaughnessy, of course, thinks that HIS way is better than the Patriots' way of doing business. After all, the Patriots haven't won the Super Bowl 10 times in the past 14 years. That's quite the record of failure. Just imagine how successful the Patriots could have been if they had utilized the Shaughnessy Way of dealing with personnel. They may have created a dynasty over the last decade-and-a-half.
Showing posts with label New York Jets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Jets. Show all posts
Friday, March 27, 2015
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
5 comments MMQB Review: Everything Is the Fault of Josh Freeman and JaMarcus Russell Edition
Peter King talked about how free agency has finally worked like it should have in 1993 in last week's MMQB. He also talked about the Raiders difficulties in free agency and threw a few shots at Josh Freeman into the column, mostly because he hasn't done that in a month or so and he irrationally hates Josh Freeman for some reason. This week Peter essentially repeats some topics from the past couple of weeks including discussing Johnny Manziel's NFL future, the officiating in the NFL, how terrible Josh Freeman is (yes, he will not let this drop...it's vitally important everyone know how terrible Freeman is), while Peter also gives Starbucks some advice, and updates us on his fantasy baseball team.
The news here this week at the annual NFL meetings at a ritzy Ritz in central Florida? Officiating and an effort to create a more virtuous culture.
"Go run over those assholes and prove you are better than them by beating them into submission...but do it kindly and with grace!"
I love the idea of making football more virtuous. It's fun pretending that it's not an inherently dangerous game.
So that means officiating czar Dean Blandino is going to be the star of these meetings, not Roger Goodell or the rulesmeisters, Rich McKay or Jeff Fisher.
Peter will report on new proposed rules and how they are such a great idea, until these ideas aren't implemented at which point Peter will state these rules weren't going to work anyway.
At the risk of writing too much about officiating, I’m going to do it again this week.
Yes, because if there is one thing wrong with MMQB it's all this talk about the NFL and proposed rule changes. Peter is afraid he's going to write too much about the officiating, but he doesn't mind spending 40%-50% of the column on his own personal thoughts, favorite beers/coffees, congratulations/shoutouts/condolences/random correspondence to people to whom he could easily text these messages, and that damn "Adieu Haiku." Why take up valuable space commenting on the officiating when that MMQB space could be used describing how a guy on a plane took his socks off?
In a 30-minute conversation with Blandino on Sunday night, he told me that members of the league’s 17 officiating crews will be able to talk to each other on the field during games.
“We’re going to implement an official-to-official communications system, so all seven officials can communicate wirelessly,” Blandino said. “Each official will have an earpiece, a microphone, and just a little radio pack where they can communicate in a closed system, encrypted.
Oooooooo...it's encrypted. So now some hacker can't come in and hear the audio of just how confused the officiating crew is on what the correct call should be. That should save face. This is as opposed to the outdated system the officials now use called "talking to each other face-to-face" which wastes valuable time talking face-to-face as opposed to the new, improved system which will allow the officials to say, "I have no fucking clue what the right call is" without actually talking directly to each other face-to-face.
Who’s covering what receiver? Now they read the formation, they decide which receiver they’re going to cover, but there’s no check and balance. They’re 30, 40 yards away from the other officials they might need to talk to. Now they can communicate. I’ve got the widest guy, I’ve got the second guy inside.”
Snark aside, that does sound useful. Wait, why hasn't this been done before the 2014 season?
The benefit after the play, Blandino said, is that a back judge who see pass interference from behind the line of scrimmage will no longer have to run 25 or 30 yards to tell the referee whom the flag is on.
That's a good plan. Because I know personally I am afraid that middle-aged men who are having to keep up with world-class athletes on the field might have to run too much. Also, when officials are conferring on a call, this mike system provides the added benefit of seeing the officials just stand there talking while no one has a clue whether the officials have becoming permanently frozen or whether they are discussing what the correct call should be using their state of the art walkie-talkie system. It's good to hear the NFL has the same cutting-edge technology for officials that my friends and I used 20 years ago when playing in the woods.
The system is not an open mike [that proved chaotic during preseason trials] but rather a push-to-talk system. In my example, the back judge would push his button and say to the ref, “I’ve got a DPI [defensive pass interference] on 24 Baltimore,” and save a few seconds. Said Blandino, “It’s just a natural progression in communications improvement.”
Yes, the use of walkie-talkies is the natural progression in communications improvement. If they want, I think I still have my G.I. Joe walkie-talkies and they are free to use those if they want.
The replay proposal would work this way: Once the game referee announces on the field that he will be reviewing a play, a communications line from the league office will go live in the ref’s ear. On the other end he’ll have either Blandino or the NFL’s senior director of officiating, Alberto Riveron, a former ref.
“Between me and Al Riveron,” Blandino said, “we feel we can adjudicate multiple reviews going on at once. Over 65 percent of our reviews go to TV break anyway, so we have a built-in two-minute window [to help us].”
Oh good, so now the television timeouts are guaranteed so the officials can talk to the league office while reviewing a play. I'm just happy the NFL hasn't mandated commercial breaks between plays on any drive that lasts longer than five plays.
While a coach throws a challenge flag, and while the referee goes over to hear what the coach wants to challenge—and while the ref gets into position and announces the challenge—Blandino might have already had the chance to see three or four replays. So as the ref jogs over to the monitor to see the replays for himself and judge the call, he can have two men who sit in judgment of all refs, Blandino and Riveron, scout the play to advise him on the best angles to watch.
Terence Moore would not stand for this. This is NOT how things are traditionally done.
Once the ref is done talking to the coach and making the announcement, now the ref can be a part of that conversation. We feel a lot of times we can have it set up and a direction for the referee before he even gets [under the hood].”
It's almost like the official doesn't have to do anything and now the coaches and fans can get mad at two dudes sitting in an office in New York and not the actual officials. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Now for the logical question: When will the league go to centralized officiating review out of New York, with all replay reviews being handled in-house by Blandino’s staff? Hockey does it that way. Baseball will start doing it that way this year.
(Terence Moore kicks the dirt angrily)
The NHL has shown that the disconnect between the ice and Toronto is unimportant; all that matters is getting the play right. Eventually, I think the NFL moves replay review to New York, run by Blandino. The first step is making sure Blandino and Riveron don’t exacerbate the inconsistency of replay reviews by making a Triplette-like error.
If the two heads of officiating for the NFL can't get calls on instant replay correct then I'm not sure how they would expect the officials to get the calls correct? If Blandino and Riveron make the situation worse then they would end up being the laughingstock of the officials. They would be the typical boss that can't meet the standard they hold their subordinates to.
The worst-kept secret around the NFL is no long under wraps:
Mark Sanchez is a homosexual and his agent set up for him to date Hayden Panettiere to cover up for his relationship with Scotty McKnight? Then when that relationship fell apart Panettiere started dating McKnight to further keep Sanchez's sexuality under wraps?
If he passes his physical and his background check, Shawn Hochuli, son of Ed “Biceps of Stone” Hochuli, will make his NFL officiating debut this fall.
Oh, I was way off.
“Will he be on his dad’s crew?” I asked.
“That remains to be seen,” Blandino said. “I’m leaning in one direction, but we’ll see.”
Wait, so Blandino is leaning towards making Shawn Hochuli a member of One Direction? Now I'm really confused. I know the NFL is trying to expand to London, but I don't see how making an NFL official a member of One Direction expands the NFL's brand.
No word if he’s as verbose (hey, I like the verbosity!) as his dad. And though he looks to be in good shape, Shawn’s no match for the pumped-up Ed Hochuli.
But Peter is eager to see both Shawn and Ed in wet t-shirts in order to determine which one of them is in better shape. Peter has a call in to both Hochuli's to make this happen. You know what? Let's just make both of them shirtless so it leaves no doubt as to which one of them is in better shape and Peter would prefer it be a blind test so if he could be hiding behind a wall with just a peep-hole when making his determination, that would be great.
“Command and control as a way of running a business is gone,” said one league veteran who heard Seidman on Sunday night. “Collaboration is in now … Pete Carroll’s way, we’re all in this together. I think it was a good message on building values and a workplace culture on doing what’s right.”
Manziel returned to Texas on Thursday. He’ll gather with Whitfield and the receivers and go through two or three dry runs of the script between now and late Wednesday, so when Thursday comes Manziel will know exactly what’s coming—as if he doesn’t already.
“It’s going to come down a cold, isolated execution of a workout the NFL wants to see,” said Whitfield.
I can't fathom how NFL teams miss on quarterbacks in the draft with such a thorough and non-spontaneous workout that doesn't at all simulate game-action.
Two years ago, Andrew Luck went to great pains to show teams at his pro day that he was more mobile than he was perceived to be. Similarly, Manziel will throw more than half of his attempts from the pocket, because anyone who’s watched tape of him understands how good he is at improvising and throwing on the run.
He is great at improvising and throwing on the run, but he's also good at improvising and throwing ill-advised passes into traffic. I look no further than his Hail Mary pass in the Alabama game this year where he threw it up for grabs into the middle of the field, where fortunately one of his receivers came down with the ball.
“For better or worse,” said the NFL Network’s Mike Mayock on Friday, “what he needs to show the NFL, he can’t show in shorts and a T-shirt, and he won’t be able to show until training camp. I’m guessing the throws he needs to make from the pocket he’ll make on Thursday. People will want to see his arm strength and his accuracy from the pocket.”
I'm not completely downplaying an individual workout, but there are no defenders on the field. How Manziel throws the ball (and any quarterback for that matter) changes depending on if there are defenders in his face or defenders on his receiver or not. Maybe I do tend to be dubious of these individual workouts and what they can really tell an NFL team about a quarterback. They are so scripted and yet the media makes so much of them.
Bridgewater’s workout was surprising last week because the ball didn’t come out of his hand with the kind of velocity NFL teams hoped to see.
And we all know a quarterback can't succeed in the NFL if he doesn't throw the ball fast. The faster a quarterback throws the football, the better quarterback he will be. Right, Peyton Manning?
Bortles did well in his workout, but his deep balls weren’t accurate.
Plus, he sucks and his college coach isn't even sure he's a franchise quarterback.
So now it’s up to Manziel to see where he fits in this draft, with so many teams at the top of the draft needing a passer, and so many that are unsure if they can trust the confident 5-11 7/8 kid with the keys to their franchise. And it’s up to Whitfield to orchestrate the show on Thursday.
I just hope that George Whitfield doesn't teach Manziel to be an entertainer and an icon like he taught Cam Newton when working with him. That really draws Peter's ire and he will turn cold to Manziel and schedule no more lunch dates in the future.
Someone Smarter Than Me Must Explain This
Well, at least there are a lot of options available as to who can explain this.
Blaine Gabbert was traded on March 11 from the Jags to the 49ers for a sixth-round pick.
Matt Schaub was traded on Friday from Houston to Oakland for a sixth-round pick.
I can already explain it. Schaub is more expensive and older, while Gabbert is still young and is a pretty small risk for the 49ers to take on. There, it's been explained.
I’d be worried about Schaub, a lot, because last season it looked like he had Steve Sax disease—it appeared he was aiming many of his throws, and his decision-making was way off compared to his history. But the stunner in this comparison is not really the sixth-round pick the Texans got for a quarterback who hit a wall so smashingly in 2013. It’s that Jacksonville GM David Caldwell got anything at all for Gabbert. Lucky for him, San Francisco sees something in Gabbert that GM Trent Baalke thinks his coaching staff can salvage.
I'm surprised the Jaguars got anything for Gabbert too, but he's 8 years younger than Schaub and he's also cheaper. I think Peter should look at this way, can the 49ers find a better quarterback in the sixth round than Blaine Gabbert? I would argue they could not, so that somewhat explains the 6th round pick the 49ers gave up for Gabbert. Schaub can earn between $13-$21 million over the next two years, so this is taken into account when determining how high of a draft pick the Raiders would offer for him. It's not that difficult to see how these two quarterbacks were traded for the same sixth round pick compensation.
“His skill set does not transition to the National Football League, and it is a big, big risk. In fact, I see bust written all over him, especially if he’s drafted in the first round.”
— ESPN NFL analyst Merril Hoge on Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel.
What a surprise! An ESPN NFL analyst is saying controversial things and gaining attention for doing so. I never thought this would happen. I would never expect an ESPN analyst to say something so extreme about a popular player that could help to start the ESPN machine up in discussing this hot take on sports.
“Narrowing the goal post: We have talked about that a lot this year. We are at a place where field goals are made 86.6 percent of the time, which is really an amazing thing because in 1970 that number was around 59 percent. We have really moved up. We have had some really good discussions about that. I do not think there is enough momentum to do it this year, but I think there will be discussions with the goal post going forward.”
— Competition Committee co-chair Rich McKay of the Falcons, on the possibility of future NFL meetings taking up the debate of narrowing the width of the goal posts to make field goals and extra points more challenging.
I'm not sure having a discussion with the goal post will be very productive. I have found goal posts to be as smart as a goal post, but who knows, maybe with the mighty Jeff "8-8" Fisher on the Competition Committee he can sway the goal posts' representatives to be open to the goal posts being narrowed. I think in return the goal posts are going to request they all get a new paint job and a better health insurance plan, but I guess the discussions with the goal post will reveal the extent of the goal posts' demands.
“I’m a servant leader. I’m someone who wants to make everyone else around me better people, better players, with nothing in return. I’m not looking for any recognition or anything like that. I’m a team player, someone that’s willing to go the extra mile, willing to come in early and go the opposite way. Not go in that locker room and try to win guys over, but win guys over by going in that film room and that offensive room and learning the playbook right away, breaking down film, showing the guys that I understand what’s going on.
— Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, to the NFL Network on Friday, about why he thinks he should be the first pick in the May 8 draft.
Yeah, but Bridgewater isn't a playmaker and fun to watch like Johnny Manziel. Not to mention, the football doesn't seem like it's being thrown very fast by Bridgewater. Everyone knows to succeed in the NFL as a quarterback you must be fun to watch and throw the ball very, very fast. Really, these are the only two attributes a quarterback needs. Well, it also helps if a quarterback is tall and "looks" like a quarterback. That seems to bump guys like Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, and Blake Bortles up draft boards.
As the month wound down and the Jets started running out of time to cut Mark Sanchez and save $8.3 million on their salary cap, somehow Rex Ryan equivocated about Sanchez’s chance of remaining with the team.
Right down to the very end.
Ryan did this for two reasons. First, he didn't want to tell other NFL teams the Jets were releasing Sanchez just in case a team wanted to give a 6th round pick (which would naturally cause Peter to flip out at the idea of Sanchez AND Matt Schaub fetching 6th round picks in a trade) up for Sanchez, and second, Rex Ryan "equivocated" (what an edumencated person Peter shows himself to be in using such big words!) to the end because he was never sure Sanchez would be a part of the team. Well, there is a third reason. The Jets weren't going to release Sanchez until they had signed Vick.
Friday, 3:27 p.m.
“That could happen. That’s still a possibility.”
— Ryan, on the chances of Sanchez remaining a Jet, to ESPN Radio in New York.
Again, Ryan equivocated because there was still a chance the Jets wouldn't sign Vick or in the next few hours get a taker for Sanchez through trade. What else would Peter expect Rex Ryan to say?
Friday, 6:32 p.m.
“It’s official. We’ve signed QB Michael Vick.”
— @nyjets, the team’s official Twitter feed.
Friday, 6:48 p.m.
“I’d like to thank Mark for everything he’s done for this team and me personally.”
— Ryan, in a team-issued statement announcing the release of Sanchez.
It would have been presumptuous and stupid for Ryan to announce the Jets were releasing Sanchez prior to Sanchez actually having been released. What if the Jets don't sign Vick and decide to then keep Sanchez? I don't understand Peter's amazement at Ryan not committing to releasing Sanchez up until the very end.
Denver signed four marquee free agents—safety T.J Ward, cornerback Aqib Talib, pass rusher DeMarcus Ware and wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders—to deals worth, on paper, $125 million. But let’s say the four players last only two seasons each. It’s reasonable to expect the team wouldn’t give up on any of them after one year (except maybe Ware, who declined for Dallas last season and will be 32 on opening day this fall).
The two-year commitment for the four players: $61.5 million
The dead money if all are cut after two years: $10 million
I understand what point Peter is getting at here, but what if these players stay on the roster after three years? That's also a part of the analysis on whether the Broncos have helped their team now and in the future. I don't know the answer to this, I'm just asking, but what is the Broncos cap situation in 2016 of they have all three of these players on their roster? Would it handicap them in the post-Peyton era (assuming Peyton plays two more years)? That's what I would think is the real determination on whether these contracts were smart long-term and short-term deals. I don't know if investigating the Broncos cap situation two years in when the Broncos probably aren't going to release any of these four players is necessarily the best way of saying the team has set itself up in the short and long-term. That's the point Peter is trying to prove here.
So if the sky falls, and all four players bomb and are cut after two seasons, it will cost the Broncos about 6% of their 2016 cap dollars, seeing that the cap is projected to be somewhere in the $160 million area in 2016.
I wouldn't consider the dead money after two years to be too far in the future, especially since these players were all signed to contracts that go longer than two years. During the 2016 season the combined cap hits (according to Spotrac) would be about $33 million. Obviously, I'm not a salary cap genius, but I don't think the Broncos signed these four guys with intentions on cutting them after two years, so in the long-term I would look at the cost to the Broncos to keep these four guys on the roster after two years to see how they have set themselves up long-term during what could be the first year of the post-Manning era.
In other words, Denver GM John Elway and his cap lieutenant, Broncos director of football administration Mike Sullivan, have done a good job of spending today and not crippling the team tomorrow.
I'm not disagreeing, but a lot of contracts look good in the short-term, but the problems start to develop when the players are on the roster 3-4 years in the future and the cap number increases.
In the wake of the Matt Schaub trade from Houston to Oakland on Friday, and assuming Schaub starts at least one game for the Raiders in 2014, this will be the sixth consecutive year a non-homegrown quarterback will start for the Raiders.
Football people sometimes say if you take a quarterback very high in round one and he bombs, it could set the franchise back five years. Well, Russell was the first pick of the 2007 draft, and that colossal mistake has set the Raiders back seven years—and we may not be done counting yet.
I understand it's fun to blame everything on JaMarcus Russell, but the Raiders haven't been set back over the past seven years because of Russell. They have been set back because they missed the Russell pick and then have compounded this mistake by trading draft picks for quarterbacks who didn't work out in the long run, as well as made other bad personnel moves.
Oakland’s records since the day Al Davis drafted Russell: 4-12, 5-11, 5-11, 8-8, 8-8, 4-12, 4-12.
Oakland's record the four years prior to drafting Russell: 2-14, 4-12, 5-11, 4-12. So it wasn't like drafting Russell explains the Raiders problems over the past decade. There's more to it than that.
“@DHoyt77 if mercer beats duke I will give you season tickets 50 yard line first row.”
— @roddywhiteTV, the Atlanta wide receiver, to football fan Dylan Hoyt, after Hoyt proclaimed on Twitter that Mercer would beat Duke in the NCAA Tournament on Friday.
Well, Mercer beat Duke. And White didn’t keep his word. When the upset was official, Hoyt tweeted at White that he owed him some tickets. And White tweeted back: “I lost a bet and I will give him tickets to the bears game since he is a bears fan done with this bet.”
White has some explaining to do.
Of course he does, Peter. White made a bet on Twitter with some random guy, so this obviously means White has to give this guy season tickets on the 50-yard line first row. This was an official bet and all.
On Sunday, he claimed he would not pay up, saying, “Y’all people are crazy” for thinking he’s going to honor his words against a Twitter follower who had nothing to lose in the bet. If you’re going to break a promise, you should explain why instead of blaming the guy you made a deal with.
Without Peter King around to officiate bets, where would the world be?
“We can land a man on the moon but can’t find this plane on earth… smh”
— @DougBaldwinJr, the Seattle wide receiver on the Malaysian jet that has been missing for 17 days and is presumed lost in the Indian Ocean.
Yeah, because those are two comparable things and all. Searching for a plane in an area the size of the United States and sending a man to the moon, they are no different. I feel like Baldwin's Stanford education has let him down a little bit here.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
Tweeted from the Orlando International Airport on Sunday afternoon by free agent safety Ryan Clark: “Why do people who are in Zone 4 line up in front the gate when they announce they are getting ready to start the boarding process?”
Peter is vindicated! Other people find these common annoyances to be the worst too.
That, friends, is not the travel question of the week. It is the travel question of the millennium.
Can't those in Zone 1 make it to the line without the common folk getting in their way and messing up Peter's expensive clothes with their middle-class smell?
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think I would have the same dilemma right now that Bengals owner Mike Brown verbalized at the league meetings on Sunday: Do you step out on a ledge now and pay Andy Dalton the going rate for a good quarterback—say, $15 million a year—with a year left on his rookie contract, or do you let the deal run out and risk losing him in 2015?
Dalton has been a good and durable player in the regular season: 48 games, 48 starts, 30-18 record, 85.7 rating and a plus-31 TD-to-interception rate. And he is the only quarterback in Cincinnati history to lead his team to the playoffs in three straight years. But he’s been awful in the playoffs (0-3, 56.2 rating, minus-5 TD-to-pick rate), losing his three playoff games by an average of 14.7 points.
Since the Bengals are the only team from the 2011 draft facing this dilemma with one of their players this is a good point. Gosh, it must be tough for the Bengals to figure this one out. Dalton has led the Bengals to the playoffs three straight seasons, but hasn't been very good in those games. Is he not super-clutchy or is there another reason why he can't win a playoff game?
I know these same questions popped up when the Falcons were thinking offering an extension to Matt Ryan after he has been 1-4 in the playoffs with three of those games being at home. Wait no, those questions didn't pop up at all about Ryan and the Falcons handed him a $103 million contract as writers like Peter King smiled knowing this was the right move. Granted, Andy Dalton and Matt Ryan are two different quarterbacks. For instance, Dalton doesn't have the receiving corps that Ryan has, and Ryan is most definitely the superior quarterback, but I think it's funny Peter presents the dilemma purely in the realm of Dalton not being good in the playoffs. While this is true, this hasn't presented a dilemma for other franchises to award their quarterback a large contract extension.
To say he’s looked rattled in the postseason would be an understatement, as his meltdown against San Diego in January illustrated.
To be fair, the Chargers were one of the few defenses to give Peyton Manning trouble during the regular season and Dalton played the Texans (another team with a good defense) on the road in his other two playoff games.
Do you show faith in Dalton, or do you collect more evidence?
This is a decision that other NFL teams are going to have to make in the near future as well when their young quarterbacks want huge contract extensions. More often than not, the decision will be to give these quarterbacks the money of course. I just think it is interesting Peter couches the Dalton decision with the postseason results as the focal point.
2. I think I know which way I’d vote.
We know, Peter. We know.
I’d want to see one more season of proof out of Dalton before paying him close to Matt Ryan or Jay Cutler money. If he leads Cincinnati deep into the playoffs this year and it costs me a few million extra, so be it. But what I’ve seen so far doesn’t convince me he should be paid $15 million a year. If you’re going to cast your lot with a young quarterback, he has to be the man you believe will lead you to a Super Bowl.
Which is why Jay Cutler and Matt Ryan earn those big bucks, right Peter? Because they have led their team to a Super Bowl or there is evidence these two quarterbacks can lead their team to a Super Bowl? It's not like Cutler and Ryan have proven they can get their team to the Super Bowl, so it's not fair to say Dalton doesn't deserve Cutler/Ryan money as if those two quarterbacks have proven something in terms of getting their team to a Super Bowl that Dalton hasn't.
Watching Dalton, I like what I see, and I’ve liked his toughness in winning some big games. But he hasn’t shown me yet that he’s a January quarterback.
Again, Matt Ryan is 1-4 in the postseason. I guess Peter has seen all needs to know that Matt Ryan is worth the money? I'm just asking because Peter seems very focused with Dalton's January performance. Personally, I don't know if I give Dalton $15 million per year mostly because I'm not sure his performance can't be replicated by a quarterback making half of that amount. Of course the Bengals have to find a quarterback who can perform at Dalton's level for half the money. It's always easier said than done.
I also find it interesting that Peter says to wait another year to give Andy Dalton a contract extension (which again, I do agree with) since if the Ravens had extended Flacco prior to their Super Bowl run then they may have had the cap room to keep (Peter's boy) Anquan Boldin. Maybe. Possibly the Ravens could have kept Boldin and Peter wouldn't have ended up writing crazy shit like he could see the Ravens not re-signing Flacco to allow themselves to keep other players like Boldin. It's interesting to me that Peter doesn't think the Bengals may learn their lesson from seeing how Flacco's value dramatically increased after a Super Bowl run.
7. I think Jameis Winston’s pitching line as Florida State’s closer this spring—0.69 ERA, 4 for 4 in save opportunities, 13 strikeouts in 13 innings, .133 batting average against—shows he might have some pretty good leverage in his future.
So Peter is saying that Jameis Winston could pretend he wants to play baseball and then decide not to play for a team who may draft him that Winston doesn't want to draft him? Seems pretty early for the media to start the "Will Jameis Winston threaten to play baseball" train.
8. I think this is a pretty good postscript to the short piece I wrote on the incredible fall of Josh Freeman last week.
My God. Peter King has an absolute obsession with Josh Freeman. Peter wants everyone and anyone who is literate or read his MMQB over the past couple of months to know that Josh Freeman is a bust who has stolen money from multiple teams and most likely deserves to burn in Hell.
He’s gone, in six months, from a solid starting quarterback to a man who, at best, will struggle to be a backup or even a third quarterback this year.
As Peter has detailed for what seems like every week for the past six months. We get it. Josh Freeman isn't an NFL quarterback anymore. Where is Matt Flynn again? I forgot which team signed him this past offseason after he was the hot free agent quarterback two winters ago. Anyway, back to what a loser Josh Freeman is.
Gil Brandt of NFL.com checked in with his opinion the other day: “When Freeman was jettisoned by the Bucs, ending a rocky relationship, I thought he still had a chance to do something in the NFL, because he did have some talent. But I think I was wrong about him. I’m not sure if he has the desire to get better. At this point, I think Vince Young, who is out of football altogether, is better than him. I’m not sure if Freeman will get another chance in the league, though I could see someone bringing him into camp on a minimum salary.”
I feel like Peter goes online and searches for negative quotes about Josh Freeman or intentionally interviews his contacts on Josh Freeman's future prospects simply so he can point out how Freeman isn't signed in MMQB.
Consider that a good season last year in Freeman’s walk year could have netted him a $15 million-a-year deal this offseason, and you see what a crazy story this is.
Peter is also obsessed with this exact $15 million per year deal that quarterbacks can get. Not a penny more, not a penny less. Also, how could Freeman have gotten $15 million per year when he hasn't even taken his team to a Super Bowl yet? Quarterbacks can only get Matt Ryan or Jay Cutler money if they can take their team to the Super Bowl.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
e. Is it a rule that every athletic event played by a University of Oregon sports team must feature the Ducks wearing new uniforms?
It's not a rule, but the fact Peter notices the uniforms and notices they are different from game-to-game is the point of the Ducks wearing new uniforms.
h. I love North Dakota State’s coach, Saul Phillips. Talk about a guy who loves his players and whose players look like they love playing for him. Cool stuff.
Just super-groovy.
i. Nice hospitality by the city of Holyoke, Mass., for Saturday’s 39th annual 10K St. Patrick’s Day Road Race. (I had to drop out after a mile with a bum hamstring.)
"A bum hamstring" better known as "Peter saw a Starbucks and wanted to have one of the seven cups of coffee he has in a day."
j. Coffeenerdness: Sorry, Starbucks. The vanilla macchiato doesn’t make it. Too sugary. My tip for your R&D people: When in doubt, give it more of an intense espresso flavor and less a sweet one.
And of course Peter's opinion reflects the opinion of everyone who visits Starbucks and orders this drink. Because after all, Peter's opinion is the only one that counts. Because when making a vanilla drink with a spot of espresso there needs to be less sweetness and more flavor of that one shot of espresso in your vanilla drink.
k. Beernerdness: Thanks to the Broad Brook Brewing Company for the cool experience at your brewpub in East Windsor, Conn., on Saturday. I vote yes on Chet’s Pale Ale (bold, hoppy) and no on your new Pink Dragon Wit Belgian white ale (a little too sweetish).
So basically don't ever give Peter anything that is sweet. I wonder if Peter thinks the Pink Dragon Wit Belgian could have used a little more intense espresso flavor.
l. Tragically, Mick Jagger’s longtime girlfriend, L’Wren Scott, committed suicide a week ago. The New York Post quoted a “source” as saying, “The strange thing is that she had a small dinner party at her home Sunday night with a few friends, but nobody knew that she planned to take her own life the next day.” Strange. I thought it was customary for a person planning to kill herself to tell all of her friends the night before she did it.
Because being snide about a person having committed suicide is absolutely hilarious. What this "source" is saying is that L'Wren Scott appeared to be in good spirits and not depressed to the point she would kill herself. The sentence is structured and worded oddly, but it's clear "nobody knew" is referring to Scott's state of mind or spirits at the dinner party.
m. Can’t wait to see The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anyone seen it yet? Thoughts?
It's too sweet. Could have used a little less "Budapest" and more "hotel."
p. Starting Rotisserie lineup in my 12-team Jersey league: Evan Gattis (catcher), Victor Martinez (1B), Dustin Pedroia (2B), Ian Desmond (SS), Josh Donaldson (3B), Jay Bruce, Billy Hamilton and Brandon Moss (OF), Xander Bogaerts or Will Middlebrooks (DH). Starters: Michael Wacha, Alex Wood, Bartolo Colon, Jon Lester. Relievers: Kenley Jansen, Koji Uehara, Glen Perkins. Hopeful. Need one more bat and a starter, but I’ll let ’em play for a month or so and see where we are.
You need only one more starter, huh? Not too strong with Gattis as the starting catcher there. But yes, everyone cares about your fantasy team. Tell us more.
The Adieu Haiku
DeSean on market.
Something’s rotten in Denmark.
Chip weary of him?
And of course with the urgent discussion of Johnny Manziel's pro day and the Tweets/Quotes of the Week there was no time to discuss DeSean Jackson and what Peter had heard about him being back/not being back with the Eagles. Real NFL news can wait, because Ed Hochuli's son got hired by the NFL!
The news here this week at the annual NFL meetings at a ritzy Ritz in central Florida? Officiating and an effort to create a more virtuous culture.
"Go run over those assholes and prove you are better than them by beating them into submission...but do it kindly and with grace!"
I love the idea of making football more virtuous. It's fun pretending that it's not an inherently dangerous game.
So that means officiating czar Dean Blandino is going to be the star of these meetings, not Roger Goodell or the rulesmeisters, Rich McKay or Jeff Fisher.
Peter will report on new proposed rules and how they are such a great idea, until these ideas aren't implemented at which point Peter will state these rules weren't going to work anyway.
At the risk of writing too much about officiating, I’m going to do it again this week.
Yes, because if there is one thing wrong with MMQB it's all this talk about the NFL and proposed rule changes. Peter is afraid he's going to write too much about the officiating, but he doesn't mind spending 40%-50% of the column on his own personal thoughts, favorite beers/coffees, congratulations/shoutouts/condolences/random correspondence to people to whom he could easily text these messages, and that damn "Adieu Haiku." Why take up valuable space commenting on the officiating when that MMQB space could be used describing how a guy on a plane took his socks off?
In a 30-minute conversation with Blandino on Sunday night, he told me that members of the league’s 17 officiating crews will be able to talk to each other on the field during games.
“We’re going to implement an official-to-official communications system, so all seven officials can communicate wirelessly,” Blandino said. “Each official will have an earpiece, a microphone, and just a little radio pack where they can communicate in a closed system, encrypted.
Oooooooo...it's encrypted. So now some hacker can't come in and hear the audio of just how confused the officiating crew is on what the correct call should be. That should save face. This is as opposed to the outdated system the officials now use called "talking to each other face-to-face" which wastes valuable time talking face-to-face as opposed to the new, improved system which will allow the officials to say, "I have no fucking clue what the right call is" without actually talking directly to each other face-to-face.
Who’s covering what receiver? Now they read the formation, they decide which receiver they’re going to cover, but there’s no check and balance. They’re 30, 40 yards away from the other officials they might need to talk to. Now they can communicate. I’ve got the widest guy, I’ve got the second guy inside.”
Snark aside, that does sound useful. Wait, why hasn't this been done before the 2014 season?
The benefit after the play, Blandino said, is that a back judge who see pass interference from behind the line of scrimmage will no longer have to run 25 or 30 yards to tell the referee whom the flag is on.
That's a good plan. Because I know personally I am afraid that middle-aged men who are having to keep up with world-class athletes on the field might have to run too much. Also, when officials are conferring on a call, this mike system provides the added benefit of seeing the officials just stand there talking while no one has a clue whether the officials have becoming permanently frozen or whether they are discussing what the correct call should be using their state of the art walkie-talkie system. It's good to hear the NFL has the same cutting-edge technology for officials that my friends and I used 20 years ago when playing in the woods.
The system is not an open mike [that proved chaotic during preseason trials] but rather a push-to-talk system. In my example, the back judge would push his button and say to the ref, “I’ve got a DPI [defensive pass interference] on 24 Baltimore,” and save a few seconds. Said Blandino, “It’s just a natural progression in communications improvement.”
Yes, the use of walkie-talkies is the natural progression in communications improvement. If they want, I think I still have my G.I. Joe walkie-talkies and they are free to use those if they want.
The replay proposal would work this way: Once the game referee announces on the field that he will be reviewing a play, a communications line from the league office will go live in the ref’s ear. On the other end he’ll have either Blandino or the NFL’s senior director of officiating, Alberto Riveron, a former ref.
“Between me and Al Riveron,” Blandino said, “we feel we can adjudicate multiple reviews going on at once. Over 65 percent of our reviews go to TV break anyway, so we have a built-in two-minute window [to help us].”
Oh good, so now the television timeouts are guaranteed so the officials can talk to the league office while reviewing a play. I'm just happy the NFL hasn't mandated commercial breaks between plays on any drive that lasts longer than five plays.
While a coach throws a challenge flag, and while the referee goes over to hear what the coach wants to challenge—and while the ref gets into position and announces the challenge—Blandino might have already had the chance to see three or four replays. So as the ref jogs over to the monitor to see the replays for himself and judge the call, he can have two men who sit in judgment of all refs, Blandino and Riveron, scout the play to advise him on the best angles to watch.
Terence Moore would not stand for this. This is NOT how things are traditionally done.
Once the ref is done talking to the coach and making the announcement, now the ref can be a part of that conversation. We feel a lot of times we can have it set up and a direction for the referee before he even gets [under the hood].”
It's almost like the official doesn't have to do anything and now the coaches and fans can get mad at two dudes sitting in an office in New York and not the actual officials. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Now for the logical question: When will the league go to centralized officiating review out of New York, with all replay reviews being handled in-house by Blandino’s staff? Hockey does it that way. Baseball will start doing it that way this year.
(Terence Moore kicks the dirt angrily)
The NHL has shown that the disconnect between the ice and Toronto is unimportant; all that matters is getting the play right. Eventually, I think the NFL moves replay review to New York, run by Blandino. The first step is making sure Blandino and Riveron don’t exacerbate the inconsistency of replay reviews by making a Triplette-like error.
If the two heads of officiating for the NFL can't get calls on instant replay correct then I'm not sure how they would expect the officials to get the calls correct? If Blandino and Riveron make the situation worse then they would end up being the laughingstock of the officials. They would be the typical boss that can't meet the standard they hold their subordinates to.
The worst-kept secret around the NFL is no long under wraps:
Mark Sanchez is a homosexual and his agent set up for him to date Hayden Panettiere to cover up for his relationship with Scotty McKnight? Then when that relationship fell apart Panettiere started dating McKnight to further keep Sanchez's sexuality under wraps?
If he passes his physical and his background check, Shawn Hochuli, son of Ed “Biceps of Stone” Hochuli, will make his NFL officiating debut this fall.
Oh, I was way off.
“Will he be on his dad’s crew?” I asked.
“That remains to be seen,” Blandino said. “I’m leaning in one direction, but we’ll see.”
Wait, so Blandino is leaning towards making Shawn Hochuli a member of One Direction? Now I'm really confused. I know the NFL is trying to expand to London, but I don't see how making an NFL official a member of One Direction expands the NFL's brand.
No word if he’s as verbose (hey, I like the verbosity!) as his dad. And though he looks to be in good shape, Shawn’s no match for the pumped-up Ed Hochuli.
But Peter is eager to see both Shawn and Ed in wet t-shirts in order to determine which one of them is in better shape. Peter has a call in to both Hochuli's to make this happen. You know what? Let's just make both of them shirtless so it leaves no doubt as to which one of them is in better shape and Peter would prefer it be a blind test so if he could be hiding behind a wall with just a peep-hole when making his determination, that would be great.
“Command and control as a way of running a business is gone,” said one league veteran who heard Seidman on Sunday night. “Collaboration is in now … Pete Carroll’s way, we’re all in this together. I think it was a good message on building values and a workplace culture on doing what’s right.”
Expect to hear that as a refrain when owners
and club officials talk about the lessons of the week. There’s no doubt
the league will soon hand down whatever discipline is coming from the
Miami bullying case, and I’m told it’s going to be instructive and
treatment-based rather than simply punitive.
I think that's a really good move, because I'm sure if NFL players are lectured about the importance of being nice to each other and caring then they will simply start being as sweet as candy to each other. No punitive action required. If the NFL had just nicely asked the Saints to stop placing bounties on opposing teams' players then I'm sure the Saints would have just stopped and a fine lecture Danny Tanner-style would allowed the Saints to see the error of their ways more than any year-long suspension ever could.
So the long awaited pro day workout for Johnny Manziel will be held
Thursday at 11 a.m. in College Station, on the Texas A&M campus. It
will be a scripted 50- to 60-pass workout designed and run by Manziel’s
personal quarterback coach, George Whitfield. Manziel will have four
familiar receivers: college mates Mike Evans (himself a likely
first-round pick), Travis Labhart, Ben Malena and Derel Walker.
A completely scripted workout with receivers Manziel is used to throwing to sounds like the perfect way to determine if Manziel is going to be a quality NFL quarterback or not. Just as long as every NFL snap he takes during an actual game is perfectly scripted and there are no defenders on the field then I see no reason Manziel isn't the next Brett Favre.
Manziel returned to Texas on Thursday. He’ll gather with Whitfield and the receivers and go through two or three dry runs of the script between now and late Wednesday, so when Thursday comes Manziel will know exactly what’s coming—as if he doesn’t already.
“It’s going to come down a cold, isolated execution of a workout the NFL wants to see,” said Whitfield.
I can't fathom how NFL teams miss on quarterbacks in the draft with such a thorough and non-spontaneous workout that doesn't at all simulate game-action.
Two years ago, Andrew Luck went to great pains to show teams at his pro day that he was more mobile than he was perceived to be. Similarly, Manziel will throw more than half of his attempts from the pocket, because anyone who’s watched tape of him understands how good he is at improvising and throwing on the run.
He is great at improvising and throwing on the run, but he's also good at improvising and throwing ill-advised passes into traffic. I look no further than his Hail Mary pass in the Alabama game this year where he threw it up for grabs into the middle of the field, where fortunately one of his receivers came down with the ball.
“For better or worse,” said the NFL Network’s Mike Mayock on Friday, “what he needs to show the NFL, he can’t show in shorts and a T-shirt, and he won’t be able to show until training camp. I’m guessing the throws he needs to make from the pocket he’ll make on Thursday. People will want to see his arm strength and his accuracy from the pocket.”
I'm not completely downplaying an individual workout, but there are no defenders on the field. How Manziel throws the ball (and any quarterback for that matter) changes depending on if there are defenders in his face or defenders on his receiver or not. Maybe I do tend to be dubious of these individual workouts and what they can really tell an NFL team about a quarterback. They are so scripted and yet the media makes so much of them.
Bridgewater’s workout was surprising last week because the ball didn’t come out of his hand with the kind of velocity NFL teams hoped to see.
And we all know a quarterback can't succeed in the NFL if he doesn't throw the ball fast. The faster a quarterback throws the football, the better quarterback he will be. Right, Peyton Manning?
Bortles did well in his workout, but his deep balls weren’t accurate.
Plus, he sucks and his college coach isn't even sure he's a franchise quarterback.
So now it’s up to Manziel to see where he fits in this draft, with so many teams at the top of the draft needing a passer, and so many that are unsure if they can trust the confident 5-11 7/8 kid with the keys to their franchise. And it’s up to Whitfield to orchestrate the show on Thursday.
I just hope that George Whitfield doesn't teach Manziel to be an entertainer and an icon like he taught Cam Newton when working with him. That really draws Peter's ire and he will turn cold to Manziel and schedule no more lunch dates in the future.
Someone Smarter Than Me Must Explain This
Well, at least there are a lot of options available as to who can explain this.
Blaine Gabbert was traded on March 11 from the Jags to the 49ers for a sixth-round pick.
Matt Schaub was traded on Friday from Houston to Oakland for a sixth-round pick.
I can already explain it. Schaub is more expensive and older, while Gabbert is still young and is a pretty small risk for the 49ers to take on. There, it's been explained.
I’d be worried about Schaub, a lot, because last season it looked like he had Steve Sax disease—it appeared he was aiming many of his throws, and his decision-making was way off compared to his history. But the stunner in this comparison is not really the sixth-round pick the Texans got for a quarterback who hit a wall so smashingly in 2013. It’s that Jacksonville GM David Caldwell got anything at all for Gabbert. Lucky for him, San Francisco sees something in Gabbert that GM Trent Baalke thinks his coaching staff can salvage.
I'm surprised the Jaguars got anything for Gabbert too, but he's 8 years younger than Schaub and he's also cheaper. I think Peter should look at this way, can the 49ers find a better quarterback in the sixth round than Blaine Gabbert? I would argue they could not, so that somewhat explains the 6th round pick the 49ers gave up for Gabbert. Schaub can earn between $13-$21 million over the next two years, so this is taken into account when determining how high of a draft pick the Raiders would offer for him. It's not that difficult to see how these two quarterbacks were traded for the same sixth round pick compensation.
“His skill set does not transition to the National Football League, and it is a big, big risk. In fact, I see bust written all over him, especially if he’s drafted in the first round.”
— ESPN NFL analyst Merril Hoge on Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel.
What a surprise! An ESPN NFL analyst is saying controversial things and gaining attention for doing so. I never thought this would happen. I would never expect an ESPN analyst to say something so extreme about a popular player that could help to start the ESPN machine up in discussing this hot take on sports.
“Narrowing the goal post: We have talked about that a lot this year. We are at a place where field goals are made 86.6 percent of the time, which is really an amazing thing because in 1970 that number was around 59 percent. We have really moved up. We have had some really good discussions about that. I do not think there is enough momentum to do it this year, but I think there will be discussions with the goal post going forward.”
— Competition Committee co-chair Rich McKay of the Falcons, on the possibility of future NFL meetings taking up the debate of narrowing the width of the goal posts to make field goals and extra points more challenging.
I'm not sure having a discussion with the goal post will be very productive. I have found goal posts to be as smart as a goal post, but who knows, maybe with the mighty Jeff "8-8" Fisher on the Competition Committee he can sway the goal posts' representatives to be open to the goal posts being narrowed. I think in return the goal posts are going to request they all get a new paint job and a better health insurance plan, but I guess the discussions with the goal post will reveal the extent of the goal posts' demands.
“I’m a servant leader. I’m someone who wants to make everyone else around me better people, better players, with nothing in return. I’m not looking for any recognition or anything like that. I’m a team player, someone that’s willing to go the extra mile, willing to come in early and go the opposite way. Not go in that locker room and try to win guys over, but win guys over by going in that film room and that offensive room and learning the playbook right away, breaking down film, showing the guys that I understand what’s going on.
— Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, to the NFL Network on Friday, about why he thinks he should be the first pick in the May 8 draft.
Yeah, but Bridgewater isn't a playmaker and fun to watch like Johnny Manziel. Not to mention, the football doesn't seem like it's being thrown very fast by Bridgewater. Everyone knows to succeed in the NFL as a quarterback you must be fun to watch and throw the ball very, very fast. Really, these are the only two attributes a quarterback needs. Well, it also helps if a quarterback is tall and "looks" like a quarterback. That seems to bump guys like Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, and Blake Bortles up draft boards.
As the month wound down and the Jets started running out of time to cut Mark Sanchez and save $8.3 million on their salary cap, somehow Rex Ryan equivocated about Sanchez’s chance of remaining with the team.
Right down to the very end.
Ryan did this for two reasons. First, he didn't want to tell other NFL teams the Jets were releasing Sanchez just in case a team wanted to give a 6th round pick (which would naturally cause Peter to flip out at the idea of Sanchez AND Matt Schaub fetching 6th round picks in a trade) up for Sanchez, and second, Rex Ryan "equivocated" (what an edumencated person Peter shows himself to be in using such big words!) to the end because he was never sure Sanchez would be a part of the team. Well, there is a third reason. The Jets weren't going to release Sanchez until they had signed Vick.
Friday, 3:27 p.m.
“That could happen. That’s still a possibility.”
— Ryan, on the chances of Sanchez remaining a Jet, to ESPN Radio in New York.
Again, Ryan equivocated because there was still a chance the Jets wouldn't sign Vick or in the next few hours get a taker for Sanchez through trade. What else would Peter expect Rex Ryan to say?
Friday, 6:32 p.m.
“It’s official. We’ve signed QB Michael Vick.”
— @nyjets, the team’s official Twitter feed.
Friday, 6:48 p.m.
“I’d like to thank Mark for everything he’s done for this team and me personally.”
— Ryan, in a team-issued statement announcing the release of Sanchez.
It would have been presumptuous and stupid for Ryan to announce the Jets were releasing Sanchez prior to Sanchez actually having been released. What if the Jets don't sign Vick and decide to then keep Sanchez? I don't understand Peter's amazement at Ryan not committing to releasing Sanchez up until the very end.
Denver signed four marquee free agents—safety T.J Ward, cornerback Aqib Talib, pass rusher DeMarcus Ware and wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders—to deals worth, on paper, $125 million. But let’s say the four players last only two seasons each. It’s reasonable to expect the team wouldn’t give up on any of them after one year (except maybe Ware, who declined for Dallas last season and will be 32 on opening day this fall).
The two-year commitment for the four players: $61.5 million
The dead money if all are cut after two years: $10 million
I understand what point Peter is getting at here, but what if these players stay on the roster after three years? That's also a part of the analysis on whether the Broncos have helped their team now and in the future. I don't know the answer to this, I'm just asking, but what is the Broncos cap situation in 2016 of they have all three of these players on their roster? Would it handicap them in the post-Peyton era (assuming Peyton plays two more years)? That's what I would think is the real determination on whether these contracts were smart long-term and short-term deals. I don't know if investigating the Broncos cap situation two years in when the Broncos probably aren't going to release any of these four players is necessarily the best way of saying the team has set itself up in the short and long-term. That's the point Peter is trying to prove here.
So if the sky falls, and all four players bomb and are cut after two seasons, it will cost the Broncos about 6% of their 2016 cap dollars, seeing that the cap is projected to be somewhere in the $160 million area in 2016.
I wouldn't consider the dead money after two years to be too far in the future, especially since these players were all signed to contracts that go longer than two years. During the 2016 season the combined cap hits (according to Spotrac) would be about $33 million. Obviously, I'm not a salary cap genius, but I don't think the Broncos signed these four guys with intentions on cutting them after two years, so in the long-term I would look at the cost to the Broncos to keep these four guys on the roster after two years to see how they have set themselves up long-term during what could be the first year of the post-Manning era.
In other words, Denver GM John Elway and his cap lieutenant, Broncos director of football administration Mike Sullivan, have done a good job of spending today and not crippling the team tomorrow.
I'm not disagreeing, but a lot of contracts look good in the short-term, but the problems start to develop when the players are on the roster 3-4 years in the future and the cap number increases.
In the wake of the Matt Schaub trade from Houston to Oakland on Friday, and assuming Schaub starts at least one game for the Raiders in 2014, this will be the sixth consecutive year a non-homegrown quarterback will start for the Raiders.
Football people sometimes say if you take a quarterback very high in round one and he bombs, it could set the franchise back five years. Well, Russell was the first pick of the 2007 draft, and that colossal mistake has set the Raiders back seven years—and we may not be done counting yet.
I understand it's fun to blame everything on JaMarcus Russell, but the Raiders haven't been set back over the past seven years because of Russell. They have been set back because they missed the Russell pick and then have compounded this mistake by trading draft picks for quarterbacks who didn't work out in the long run, as well as made other bad personnel moves.
Oakland’s records since the day Al Davis drafted Russell: 4-12, 5-11, 5-11, 8-8, 8-8, 4-12, 4-12.
Oakland's record the four years prior to drafting Russell: 2-14, 4-12, 5-11, 4-12. So it wasn't like drafting Russell explains the Raiders problems over the past decade. There's more to it than that.
“@DHoyt77 if mercer beats duke I will give you season tickets 50 yard line first row.”
— @roddywhiteTV, the Atlanta wide receiver, to football fan Dylan Hoyt, after Hoyt proclaimed on Twitter that Mercer would beat Duke in the NCAA Tournament on Friday.
Well, Mercer beat Duke. And White didn’t keep his word. When the upset was official, Hoyt tweeted at White that he owed him some tickets. And White tweeted back: “I lost a bet and I will give him tickets to the bears game since he is a bears fan done with this bet.”
White has some explaining to do.
Of course he does, Peter. White made a bet on Twitter with some random guy, so this obviously means White has to give this guy season tickets on the 50-yard line first row. This was an official bet and all.
On Sunday, he claimed he would not pay up, saying, “Y’all people are crazy” for thinking he’s going to honor his words against a Twitter follower who had nothing to lose in the bet. If you’re going to break a promise, you should explain why instead of blaming the guy you made a deal with.
Without Peter King around to officiate bets, where would the world be?
“We can land a man on the moon but can’t find this plane on earth… smh”
— @DougBaldwinJr, the Seattle wide receiver on the Malaysian jet that has been missing for 17 days and is presumed lost in the Indian Ocean.
Yeah, because those are two comparable things and all. Searching for a plane in an area the size of the United States and sending a man to the moon, they are no different. I feel like Baldwin's Stanford education has let him down a little bit here.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
Tweeted from the Orlando International Airport on Sunday afternoon by free agent safety Ryan Clark: “Why do people who are in Zone 4 line up in front the gate when they announce they are getting ready to start the boarding process?”
Peter is vindicated! Other people find these common annoyances to be the worst too.
That, friends, is not the travel question of the week. It is the travel question of the millennium.
Can't those in Zone 1 make it to the line without the common folk getting in their way and messing up Peter's expensive clothes with their middle-class smell?
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think I would have the same dilemma right now that Bengals owner Mike Brown verbalized at the league meetings on Sunday: Do you step out on a ledge now and pay Andy Dalton the going rate for a good quarterback—say, $15 million a year—with a year left on his rookie contract, or do you let the deal run out and risk losing him in 2015?
Dalton has been a good and durable player in the regular season: 48 games, 48 starts, 30-18 record, 85.7 rating and a plus-31 TD-to-interception rate. And he is the only quarterback in Cincinnati history to lead his team to the playoffs in three straight years. But he’s been awful in the playoffs (0-3, 56.2 rating, minus-5 TD-to-pick rate), losing his three playoff games by an average of 14.7 points.
Since the Bengals are the only team from the 2011 draft facing this dilemma with one of their players this is a good point. Gosh, it must be tough for the Bengals to figure this one out. Dalton has led the Bengals to the playoffs three straight seasons, but hasn't been very good in those games. Is he not super-clutchy or is there another reason why he can't win a playoff game?
I know these same questions popped up when the Falcons were thinking offering an extension to Matt Ryan after he has been 1-4 in the playoffs with three of those games being at home. Wait no, those questions didn't pop up at all about Ryan and the Falcons handed him a $103 million contract as writers like Peter King smiled knowing this was the right move. Granted, Andy Dalton and Matt Ryan are two different quarterbacks. For instance, Dalton doesn't have the receiving corps that Ryan has, and Ryan is most definitely the superior quarterback, but I think it's funny Peter presents the dilemma purely in the realm of Dalton not being good in the playoffs. While this is true, this hasn't presented a dilemma for other franchises to award their quarterback a large contract extension.
To say he’s looked rattled in the postseason would be an understatement, as his meltdown against San Diego in January illustrated.
To be fair, the Chargers were one of the few defenses to give Peyton Manning trouble during the regular season and Dalton played the Texans (another team with a good defense) on the road in his other two playoff games.
Do you show faith in Dalton, or do you collect more evidence?
This is a decision that other NFL teams are going to have to make in the near future as well when their young quarterbacks want huge contract extensions. More often than not, the decision will be to give these quarterbacks the money of course. I just think it is interesting Peter couches the Dalton decision with the postseason results as the focal point.
2. I think I know which way I’d vote.
We know, Peter. We know.
I’d want to see one more season of proof out of Dalton before paying him close to Matt Ryan or Jay Cutler money. If he leads Cincinnati deep into the playoffs this year and it costs me a few million extra, so be it. But what I’ve seen so far doesn’t convince me he should be paid $15 million a year. If you’re going to cast your lot with a young quarterback, he has to be the man you believe will lead you to a Super Bowl.
Which is why Jay Cutler and Matt Ryan earn those big bucks, right Peter? Because they have led their team to a Super Bowl or there is evidence these two quarterbacks can lead their team to a Super Bowl? It's not like Cutler and Ryan have proven they can get their team to the Super Bowl, so it's not fair to say Dalton doesn't deserve Cutler/Ryan money as if those two quarterbacks have proven something in terms of getting their team to a Super Bowl that Dalton hasn't.
Watching Dalton, I like what I see, and I’ve liked his toughness in winning some big games. But he hasn’t shown me yet that he’s a January quarterback.
Again, Matt Ryan is 1-4 in the postseason. I guess Peter has seen all needs to know that Matt Ryan is worth the money? I'm just asking because Peter seems very focused with Dalton's January performance. Personally, I don't know if I give Dalton $15 million per year mostly because I'm not sure his performance can't be replicated by a quarterback making half of that amount. Of course the Bengals have to find a quarterback who can perform at Dalton's level for half the money. It's always easier said than done.
I also find it interesting that Peter says to wait another year to give Andy Dalton a contract extension (which again, I do agree with) since if the Ravens had extended Flacco prior to their Super Bowl run then they may have had the cap room to keep (Peter's boy) Anquan Boldin. Maybe. Possibly the Ravens could have kept Boldin and Peter wouldn't have ended up writing crazy shit like he could see the Ravens not re-signing Flacco to allow themselves to keep other players like Boldin. It's interesting to me that Peter doesn't think the Bengals may learn their lesson from seeing how Flacco's value dramatically increased after a Super Bowl run.
7. I think Jameis Winston’s pitching line as Florida State’s closer this spring—0.69 ERA, 4 for 4 in save opportunities, 13 strikeouts in 13 innings, .133 batting average against—shows he might have some pretty good leverage in his future.
So Peter is saying that Jameis Winston could pretend he wants to play baseball and then decide not to play for a team who may draft him that Winston doesn't want to draft him? Seems pretty early for the media to start the "Will Jameis Winston threaten to play baseball" train.
8. I think this is a pretty good postscript to the short piece I wrote on the incredible fall of Josh Freeman last week.
My God. Peter King has an absolute obsession with Josh Freeman. Peter wants everyone and anyone who is literate or read his MMQB over the past couple of months to know that Josh Freeman is a bust who has stolen money from multiple teams and most likely deserves to burn in Hell.
He’s gone, in six months, from a solid starting quarterback to a man who, at best, will struggle to be a backup or even a third quarterback this year.
As Peter has detailed for what seems like every week for the past six months. We get it. Josh Freeman isn't an NFL quarterback anymore. Where is Matt Flynn again? I forgot which team signed him this past offseason after he was the hot free agent quarterback two winters ago. Anyway, back to what a loser Josh Freeman is.
Gil Brandt of NFL.com checked in with his opinion the other day: “When Freeman was jettisoned by the Bucs, ending a rocky relationship, I thought he still had a chance to do something in the NFL, because he did have some talent. But I think I was wrong about him. I’m not sure if he has the desire to get better. At this point, I think Vince Young, who is out of football altogether, is better than him. I’m not sure if Freeman will get another chance in the league, though I could see someone bringing him into camp on a minimum salary.”
I feel like Peter goes online and searches for negative quotes about Josh Freeman or intentionally interviews his contacts on Josh Freeman's future prospects simply so he can point out how Freeman isn't signed in MMQB.
Consider that a good season last year in Freeman’s walk year could have netted him a $15 million-a-year deal this offseason, and you see what a crazy story this is.
Peter is also obsessed with this exact $15 million per year deal that quarterbacks can get. Not a penny more, not a penny less. Also, how could Freeman have gotten $15 million per year when he hasn't even taken his team to a Super Bowl yet? Quarterbacks can only get Matt Ryan or Jay Cutler money if they can take their team to the Super Bowl.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
e. Is it a rule that every athletic event played by a University of Oregon sports team must feature the Ducks wearing new uniforms?
It's not a rule, but the fact Peter notices the uniforms and notices they are different from game-to-game is the point of the Ducks wearing new uniforms.
h. I love North Dakota State’s coach, Saul Phillips. Talk about a guy who loves his players and whose players look like they love playing for him. Cool stuff.
Just super-groovy.
i. Nice hospitality by the city of Holyoke, Mass., for Saturday’s 39th annual 10K St. Patrick’s Day Road Race. (I had to drop out after a mile with a bum hamstring.)
"A bum hamstring" better known as "Peter saw a Starbucks and wanted to have one of the seven cups of coffee he has in a day."
j. Coffeenerdness: Sorry, Starbucks. The vanilla macchiato doesn’t make it. Too sugary. My tip for your R&D people: When in doubt, give it more of an intense espresso flavor and less a sweet one.
And of course Peter's opinion reflects the opinion of everyone who visits Starbucks and orders this drink. Because after all, Peter's opinion is the only one that counts. Because when making a vanilla drink with a spot of espresso there needs to be less sweetness and more flavor of that one shot of espresso in your vanilla drink.
k. Beernerdness: Thanks to the Broad Brook Brewing Company for the cool experience at your brewpub in East Windsor, Conn., on Saturday. I vote yes on Chet’s Pale Ale (bold, hoppy) and no on your new Pink Dragon Wit Belgian white ale (a little too sweetish).
So basically don't ever give Peter anything that is sweet. I wonder if Peter thinks the Pink Dragon Wit Belgian could have used a little more intense espresso flavor.
l. Tragically, Mick Jagger’s longtime girlfriend, L’Wren Scott, committed suicide a week ago. The New York Post quoted a “source” as saying, “The strange thing is that she had a small dinner party at her home Sunday night with a few friends, but nobody knew that she planned to take her own life the next day.” Strange. I thought it was customary for a person planning to kill herself to tell all of her friends the night before she did it.
Because being snide about a person having committed suicide is absolutely hilarious. What this "source" is saying is that L'Wren Scott appeared to be in good spirits and not depressed to the point she would kill herself. The sentence is structured and worded oddly, but it's clear "nobody knew" is referring to Scott's state of mind or spirits at the dinner party.
m. Can’t wait to see The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anyone seen it yet? Thoughts?
It's too sweet. Could have used a little less "Budapest" and more "hotel."
p. Starting Rotisserie lineup in my 12-team Jersey league: Evan Gattis (catcher), Victor Martinez (1B), Dustin Pedroia (2B), Ian Desmond (SS), Josh Donaldson (3B), Jay Bruce, Billy Hamilton and Brandon Moss (OF), Xander Bogaerts or Will Middlebrooks (DH). Starters: Michael Wacha, Alex Wood, Bartolo Colon, Jon Lester. Relievers: Kenley Jansen, Koji Uehara, Glen Perkins. Hopeful. Need one more bat and a starter, but I’ll let ’em play for a month or so and see where we are.
You need only one more starter, huh? Not too strong with Gattis as the starting catcher there. But yes, everyone cares about your fantasy team. Tell us more.
The Adieu Haiku
DeSean on market.
Something’s rotten in Denmark.
Chip weary of him?
And of course with the urgent discussion of Johnny Manziel's pro day and the Tweets/Quotes of the Week there was no time to discuss DeSean Jackson and what Peter had heard about him being back/not being back with the Eagles. Real NFL news can wait, because Ed Hochuli's son got hired by the NFL!
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
3 comments MMQB Review: New Jersey Super Bowl Edition
Last week Peter King fought off strong feelings about Peyton Manning while admiring Manning's bare upper torso, he only got slightly less excited about the world getting the Super Bowl that obviously everyone wanted to see. Peter also marveled at how underrated the traffic in Denver is, because that's a real thing and all. This week Peter talks about how things are getting real for Richard Sherman, thinks the fact Peyton Manning hasn't faced any of the Seahawks defensive backs is a very significant storyline mostly because he has to fill five pages and has to create significant storylines that aren't really significant, wastes space with an interview of Lil Wayne, and tells us the New York Super Bowl should be the New Jersey Super Bowl.
Well now, a Jersey City dateline, six days before the Super Bowl. There’s something I never thought I’d see. Or type. A Super Bowl in New Jersey.
It's only 2-3 years in the making so I can see how the suddenness of the Super Bowl being in New Jersey would still come as a shock to Peter.
But the hype machine for Super Bowl XLVIII alighted in the Garden State Sunday night, so let’s go there, to the tamest interview station of them all.
Richard Sherman’s. Of course.
This goes against the narrative that the media wants to write about Richard Sherman being just a loud-mouthed black guy. How terrible that reality doesn't match the narrative the media pursues.
I bring you these gems from Sherman’s riser Sunday night at the Jersey City Westin, a week before Seattle-Denver just up the street in East Rutherford:
“We have a team full of competitors who want to go against the best team, the best offense. We have a tremendous amount of respect for them.”
“It’s all going to come down to who plays the best football.”
“It really comes down to the execution.”
“It’s going to be a battle of wills.”
All right! Who went and stole Richard Sherman?!
It's almost like Richard Sherman doesn't shout taunts into the camera towards specific opponents on a weekly basis and isn't quite the out of control player that the media has enjoyed painting him as over the last few weeks.
Someone asked him about being referred to as a thug last night, and instead of rolling his eyes and flashing anger, he said: “I think it did have some effect on opening up the channels of communication and conversation and dialogue. I think I had some impact on it, and I want to have a positive impact. I want people to understand that everybody should be judged by their character and who they are as a person and not by the color of their skin. That’s something we’ve worked to get past as a nation, as a country and we’re continuing to work on it. It’s healthy.
I’ve heard him talk like that several times, when the cameras aren’t around. I think as a person, that’s who he is.
I think a lot of people are different at work as compared to how they act in a regular, everyday setting. I'm much more patient when it comes to everyday activities, while I'm not as patient when it comes to being in a work setting. So I think it's silly to judge Sherman on his actions after the NFC Championship game and am not surprised he doesn't act like that in all of his interviews.
But this week, I expect him to be the filtered Richard Sherman. Maybe with a message Tuesday, Media Day, in Newark, for the national TV audience, but nothing too incendiary.
I thought it was very interesting that Richard Sherman wasn't specifically known for having an incendiary message until 10 minutes after the NFC Championship game, at which point the media was awaiting Sherman's next incendiary message as if he yells into television cameras all the time.
The Broncos and Seahawks are staying 1.3 miles apart, just up from the Hudson River. Outside the Denver hotel is the better view: the icy Hudson, with the new World Trade Center glistening to the east. A beautiful sight.
Really, much like the Denver traffic this sight is underrated.
But Denver has the more arduous practice road. They’ll have a 31-mile escorted trek to the Jets’ practice facility in the rolling hills of Florham Park, and will make the trip for the first time today for a light 2:55 p.m. practice.
Are the Broncos having to walk to the practice facility or something? Peter describes their practice road as arduous, but they are taking a bus or other modern transportation to get there, so the Broncos just have to sit in a bus a little longer than the Seahawks. I'm sure they will find a way to recover and make the Super Bowl competitive.
Seattle is about eight miles away from the Meadowlands.
Better get the sled dogs fed, make sure they have their winter coats well fluffed and prepare for the arduous journey across the New Jersey landscape.
Denver coach John Fox did the smart thing, figuring he’ll have his team on buses for 70 to 90 minutes a day today, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: He’s going to encourage his players to do homework on the trips.
Do homework, but no cheating off each other's papers. The Broncos team will never learn how to do Algebra if they start sharing answers or allow Demaryius Thomas to give them all of the answers. Plus, this bus ride will be the perfect time to prepare for Mrs. Sides' big spelling test on Monday.
In addition, Fox and FOX will get together Wednesday afternoon on the bus. He’ll do his weekly TV production meeting with the TV team of Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and the network’s production staff while driving back from the Jets’ facility after practice. Smart and efficient.
As someone who has experience with John Fox quotes, here's what he'll say.
"This isn't my first rodeo."
"The Seahawks practice too."
"A punt isn't a bad play."
"It is what it is."
That about sums it up for the Foxisms.
Pete Carroll will coach the Super Bowl in a stadium in the same Jersey parking lot as the one where he got his first head-coaching shot. In fact, this month is the 20-year anniversary of Pete Carroll getting his first NFL head-coaching job.
This month is also the 19-year anniversary of Carroll getting fired from his first NFL head-coaching job.
That’s right. Carroll Chudzinskied the Jets’ job.
I remember nothing past last week and have no access to Wikipedia, so that is brand new information that I just learned.
That was a strange mix of a Jets team. (That is not the first time, nor the last, for that.) Boomer Esiason and Art Monk teamed that day for five aerial connections for 108 yards. Esiason to Monk! Bet you didn’t know they ever played on the same team.
No, I completely knew they played on the same team. I know this may shock Peter, but some of us actually have a memory and are able to remember something that occurred prior to the year 2000.
With the clock running and the ball at the Jets’ 8 with 32 seconds left, Marino hustled to the line. The man who called the plays into Marino’s helmet that season was backup Bernie Kosar,
I BET YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW BERNIE KOSAR PLAYED IN THE NFL!
Plus, Bernie Kosar was a quarterback. I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT!
That’s right: The Jets finished on a five-game losing streak. In the last week of the season, Carroll called Esiason into his office and told him, “Boomer, we’re gonna make some major changes around here, and you’re gonna love them.”
"I'm getting fired. I bet that just thrills you. And oh yeah, the Jets are going to hire Rich Kotite. It might be best to just retire or demand a trade."
But after the last loss, owner Leon Hess,
Leon Hess is a real person. I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT!
“To this day I have no idea why Mr. Hess fired Pete after one season,” Esiason said. “He was brilliant. He was the Chip Kelly of his time. I wish he’d have stayed our coach.”
Chip Kelly wasn't always the head coach of the Eagles. Few people probably remember he was the head coach at Oregon.
This is a very significant storyline this week.
I just don’t know exactly how to quantify it.
Mostly because it's a fairly contrived storyline.
Peyton Manning has never faced any of the eight Seattle defensive backs in the regular season or playoffs. He has faced the Seahawks twice in the preseason, but not when it’s counted since Oct. 4, 2009, a span of 68 games, including postseason. And, obviously, they have never faced him in a real game either.
This is incredible. How will Peyton Manning know how to throw the football and how will the Seahawks secondary understand how to play defense since they have never played each other? There is going to be mass confusion.
I think it's impossible to quantify the fact Manning and the Seahawks secondary haven't played each other before and probably pretty needless to do so as well.
Now the question: Who gets the edge—Manning or the Seattle secondary—because of the lack of exposure these two sides have had to each other?
Who knows? Maybe we will have to watch the Super Bowl to find out which team has the advantage. What a shocking conclusion! It's almost like the actual game being played on Sunday has meaning and any attempts to really quantify what could happen during the game is useless.
At first blush I’d say Manning, because, well, as Richard Sherman said a few days ago, “You can’t get in Peyton Manning’s head. If you get in his head, you’ll get lost.” Manning, and his new coordinator-in-crime, Adam Gase, are very good are figuring out things to show a defense that they’ve never seen before.
This week Manning will go to the line of scrimmage and start yelling "Boise, Boise" and all of the Seahawks defenders will be confused because he isn't yelling "Omaha."
But do you know you’ll be seeing what you’ve seen regularly this year? Andre Caldwell was thrown 19 balls in a late-season three-game stretch; Jacob Tamme got 13 Manning targets in an earlier three-game run. Manning, when he needs to, involves the rest of the roster, not just his big four.
Much of the reason Caldwell got those balls thrown to him is because Wes Welker was injured. Welker is healthy now, so I think the fact Caldwell got thrown 19 passes over three weeks is a bit misleading. Though I'm sure it will certainly confuse the Seahawks to know they have to cover every wide receiver or tight end for the Broncos rather than just the big four.
But Seattle has an edge here in that Manning hasn’t been able to replicate the Seahawks’ talent, size and physicality in practice. Other than Sherman staying at left corner—that’s an absolute given—we won’t know for sure until the game starts how Seattle plans to defend the wideouts.
This is as opposed to if Manning had faced the Seahawks secondary before he would know exactly how Seattle plans to defend the wideouts for the Broncos?
For once, the beaten-up story angle of the week (just watch)—Peyton Manning against the best secondary in football—could turn out to be the overwhelming story of the Super Bowl.
And they have never faced each other, so the game is actually going to have to be played before conclusions can be drawn. How is Peter supposed to start creating narratives in this situation? It's not fair.
The Browns coaching hire. It’s a tangled web in Cleveland—and I say that with much respect for Mike Pettine, hired as the eighth head coach in the reconstituted Browns’ 15-year history. Pettine did a fabulous job with the Bills in his one year as coordinator (Buffalo sacks in 2012: 36; in 2013: 57) and should breathe life into a team that underperformed on defense this season.
Pettine has done a great job with his defenses over the years. Let's me just say if his name were Mike Gruden or Mike Ryan then he would probably already have a head coaching job. But it does suck that Pettine was the 15th (or so) choice of the Browns.
I have heard McDaniels was the apple of owner Jimmy Haslam’s eye from the time a four-man team of Browns officials met with McDaniels in New England for seven-and-a-half hours on Wild Card Saturday, and that GM Mike Lombardi had at least two conversations with McDaniels about re-entering the coaching derby in the days after New England’s loss to Denver in the AFC title game.
Speaking of Mike Lombardi, notice how Bill Simmons has stayed the hell away from commenting about the Browns long and fruitless coaching search? I firmly believe if Mike Lombardi wasn't one of Bill's good friends then he would have made some jokes about the Browns front office and how inept they are in one of his (rare and getting rarer) Friday NFL columns. It pays to have friends in the media it seems, as Bill has stayed the hell away from jokes about Lombardi.
I have also heard, after Bill Belichick pushed hard for his friend Greg Schiano to get in the Cleveland race, that some in the Browns’ hierarchy were revved up by Schiano’s interview with the club early last week.
The Browns have barked up the "Head coaching candidate affiliated with Bill Belichick" twice before and neither candidate worked after being hired as the head coach. But hey, Mike Lombardi is be a genius, right? Why not keep going for recycled head coaching candidates?
They don’t have a long-term quarterback of the future (unless Brian Hoyer, 28, is far better than he’s shown in his four-team, four-start NFL career), and they don’t have anyone to coach one. That’s the biggest problem with the Browns now. There’s no consensus as to who will be the offensive coordinator, and certainly no consensus as to whom the team will draft in May for the new coordinator to coach.
And this much we know, Rob Chudzinksi was the problem. I mean, obviously.
On Adam Gase. The Denver offensive coordinator did the smart thing, as did his former boss in Denver, McDaniels. The coaches of Peyton Manning (Gase) and Tom Brady (McDaniels) both withdrew from the search in Cleveland and will be back piloting their explosive offenses with legendary quarterbacks in 2014 rather than coaching the Browns. Gase is 35 and has a bright future.
He's very good at choosing two plays that his quarterback can run and then allowing his quarterback to choose the play or audible out of it if necessary. If Adam Gase were the offensive coordinator on a video game, he wouldn't even be using "Coach Mode" since the team has to run the play you call in that mode. Gase runs the Broncos offense in "Coach, unless you have a better idea than go ahead and call that play, Mode" if he were the offensive coordinator on a video game.
Nothing against Adam Gase and I wouldn't have wanted the Cleveland Browns job either if I could write Peyton Manning's coattails a little longer and get a better job offer. I don't think I would want to work for the Browns either.
Speaking of McDaniels … Which no one in Denver likes to do. People in Denver figure McDaniels “ran off” Jay Cutler, which he didn’t do, and then drafted Tim Tebow and got fired in the midst of a crash-and-burn 4-12 season. So the venom spews. But let’s be fair here. Look around the Broncos roster, which McDaniels had control of in 2009 and 2010. From the 2009 draft: Knowshon Moreno (1,586 yards from scrimmage and 13 touchdowns this year), defensive end Robert Ayers (sack of Tom Brady in the AFC title game) and special-teams captain David Bruton are here. From the 2010 draft: the two leading receivers—Demaryius Thomas (92 catches, 14 touchdowns) and Eric Decker (87 catches, 11 TDs)—are here, plus starting guard Zane Beadles.
To be ever more fair, I think this goes to show the talent of Brian Xanders as a GM and John Fox as a head coach more than it shows the coaching ability of Josh McDaniels. I recognize most of these guys were really young when they played under McDaniels, but they have flourished under Fox, and Xanders is the guy most responsible for choosing them. So I know Peter is trying to rehab Josh McDaniels' image in a way, but I think Brian Xanders deserves a shout-out too.
He has said time and again that when he compared teams, he liked the young receivers that Denver had. Who would have been in their place, and would they have passed Manning’s muster? Or would be have looked at Larry Fitzgerald and the Manning-friendly offense of Ken Whisenhunt in Arizona a little more fondly? Point is, McDaniels shouldn’t be a Denver pariah in this Super Bowl week. He should be thanked.
Not Brian Xanders? He doesn't merit a mention here? Check out what's done in terms of personnel acquisition. I think he should be thanked more than Josh McDaniels should be thanked.
Well, I never thought I’d be interviewing a rapper for The MMQB. But one of our writers, Robert Klemko, knew how passionate a football fan Lil Wayne is, and Klemko met his publicist, and one thing led to another, and Tuesday night the publicist said to me: “I’m patching you through to Wayne.”
I would love to have heard this conversation recorded. I'm surprised Peter didn't ask Lil Wayne which U2 album he thought was the best and whether he watched "The Office" or not. On a more realistic note, this is the type of addendum to MMQB that causes it to feel bloated. I think the full interview Lil Wayne should be posted as a separate article on THE MMQB rather than spend space in MMQB, but I'm not Peter's editor, so perhaps he thought it fit in well with MMQB. To me, it just adds to the bloat.
“A lot of the writers think I’m boring. So I’m going to go all Richard Sherman on you.”
—Boston Red Sox GM Ben Cherington, to Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe.
Riveting. I'm glad this quote was included in MMQB. I mean, I really think this quote is super-important to my understanding of the NFL and MLB.
Peter left out his "Fine Fifteen" this week, which was probably a smart move. I did say the following last week though,
1. Seattle (15-3)
2. Denver (15-3)
I'm guessing Peter will have these teams arranged in this order this week and then flip-flop them once he picks the Broncos to win the Super Bowl despite the fact no games have been played which would give him no logical reason to flip-flop their spots, though it wouldn't shock me if Peter put Seattle #1 in his Fine Fifteen and then picked the Broncos to win the Super Bowl.
Take a wild guess which team Peter has picked to win the Super Bowl? I'll give you a hint, it's not Seattle. Peter did something similar earlier in the year when he put the Kansas City Chiefs at #1 in his "Fine Fifteen" until the week where the Broncos and Chiefs played. At that point, he moved the Broncos head of the Chiefs despite the fact the Chiefs had not lost and had a bye week the week before. What changed on the bye week that could have moved the Chiefs out of the #1 spot on the "Fine Fifteen"? Other than they played the Broncos of course? So Peter's "Fine Fifteen" isn't the most accurate measurement of which team Peter believes is the strongest in the NFL. He ranks Seattle above the Broncos in the previous week's "Fine Fifteen," no games are played the following weekend, and then picks the Broncos to beat the Seahawks.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
I have never covered a Super Bowl in the town where I lived, so even though I think it’s a bad idea to have the Super Bowl in an outdoor freezer, I am pleased to be home this week. To get my credential for the week’s media responsibilities, I left my apartment on the east side of Manhattan Sunday about 2:30 p.m., and walked nine blocks to the Sheraton Times Square, which is the media hotel for the Super Bowl. I picked up my press credential, then boarded a bus at 3:30 for the Broncos’ team hotel in Jersey City, across the Hudson River.
Now these Broncos and Seahawks players can see firsthand all of the big city annoyances that Peter has to deal with on a weekly basis. There are people on the train minding their own business doing weird things while Peter stares intently at them, the Starbucks baristas don't always make every cup of Peter's coffee perfectly and tourists take pictures of the Apple logo. How insane.
What will be odd about this Super Bowl: The media events with the teams, and the team hotels, and the practice sites, and the Super Bowl, will be in New Jersey. Everything else—the parties, the major-domo press conferences, the media center—will be in Manhattan.
But where will Bruce Springsteen be? Isn't he the shining example of New Jersey?
I'm sure Jon Bon Jovi, who is a Jersey guy and apparently a diehard Patriots fan because he is friends with Robert Kraft/a front runner, will be at the game too. They will be in New Jersey, doesn't that count for something, Peter?
I lived in New Jersey with my family for 24 years. I love the state. Not every inch of it,
NOT TO NAME ANY NAMES, BUT HE'S TALKING TO YOU THREE MILES OF LOWER NEW JERSEY!
So I’m a little sensitive about the New York-ification of everything major league that goes on in New Jersey. Like this Super Bowl. The teams are in Jersey. The practices are in Jersey. The players and coaches meet the press in Jersey. The game’s in Jersey.
But it’s the New York Super Bowl.
Well, it's the media that writes this story so they could be directionally correct if they wanted to, but they choose not to. I think part of the reason this is considered the New York Super Bowl is because the Giants and Jets play at the stadium the Super Bowl will be played in and they are both New York teams.
Peter thinks that's bad, he should try living in North Carolina with South Carolina always lurking and looking to confuse everyone that North Carolina wants anything to do with South Carolina. It didn't help that Jerry Richardson named the Panthers the "Carolina Panthers," but South Carolina also insists on talking to North Carolina at parties and just generally being that cousin who doesn't get invited to family reunions but shows up anyway somehow.
I’ll be drinking in Hoboken Tuesday night, thank you.
I bet Peter will be drinking an Allagash White.
“Richard Sherman seems to be on his best behavior during his first Super Bowl media exposure. Unfortunately.”
—@MichaelJLev, of the Orange County Register, tweeting from the Richard Sherman news conference Sunday night.
It's so sad Sherman isn't acting up so sportswriters can call him a thug and generally turn his behavior into a narrative about the entire Seahawks team.
Ten Things I Think I Think
3. I think new Tampa Bay GM Jason Licht (pronounced “Light”) had an interesting take the other day when asked who would have the final say on the draft—him or coach Lovie Smith. (It’s widely thought around the league that the buck will stop with Smith on all football decisions.) Said Licht: “There will be no arguments on draft day
So the buck will stop with Lovie Smith then?
We’ll have arguments on players. I’m going to plead my case. I told Lovie, during the interview process, that if he doesn’t like a player, I’m going to be in his office 20 times trying to prove why my player, that I like, is the guy that we need, and I’m sure he’ll do the same thing. If we don’t come to an agreement, the answer is easy, it lies in itself—we won’t take that player.”
This sounds like one of the worst ideas I have heard as it pertains to a head coach and a GM deciding which player to take. So if neither party can agree on a player then they just won't take the player? What if the Buccaneers are choosing between Johnny Manziel and Blake Bortles and Smith likes Bortles while Licht likes Manziel? Will no decision be made and the Buccaneers just won't take a quarterback? This seems counterproductive to me, especially if the Buccaneers need a quarterback.
I’ll be interested to follow that down the line.
Yeah, me too. This method of conflict resolution as it pertains to which player to take seems like a bad way to go about player evaluation and selection. At some point, there has to be a player that neither Licht or Smith can agree upon and they will just not make a decision at all as opposed to making a decision both are unhappy with. This does sound like how Congress goes about their business, but I'm thinking it will cause more gridlock and bad will than just letting Smith or Licht have their way. What do I know though? When there is a conflict over a decision on which player to choose, choosing neither player seems like a bad idea to me.
7. I think San Francisco offensive coordinator Greg Roman, unfortunately, may turn out to be the offensive version of Mike Zimmer, who had to wait far too long for his chance to be a head coach. Cleveland not interviewing Roman … absolutely amazing.
Earlier this year, Peter was wanting more minority candidates to receive interviews for NFL head coaching jobs. Yet I can't help but notice every time he discusses an NFL head coaching candidate who deserves an interview or has waited too long for an interview he always mentions a white guy and not a minority.
9. I think I will make this promise to you, as Super Bowl Week dawns: I promise I will not hit you over the head with weather reporting/complaining. It’ll get a mention now and again, but not a daily pounding.
Peter hit us with weather report and was complaining about the weather in a previous MMQB. So Peter go his weather complaining in earlier in the season.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
d. Bieber. Lohan. How do you tell them apart?
One is a girl but looks like a 40-year old woman and the other is a boy but is slowly looking more and more like a girl.
i. How do the Asbury Jukes wear all Rangers stuff?
They put the clothes over their head and then put their arms through the holes of the Rangers gear they wear. Probably the same way Jon Bon Jovi is a big Patriots fan despite the fact he is from New Jersey and owned a Philadelphia arena league team.
k. Beernerdness: Had the good fortune to meet Jim Koch, the Sam Adams brewer, on the SI Now show the other day in New York. We talked craft beer, and he handed me one of his new ones. “Cold Snap.” A wheat beer, he said
Yep, and "Cold Snap" isn't all that great. It's like a wheat beer for people who like the taste of Bud Light.
with spices like coriander and orange peel. And I’m thinking, “Hmmm. Allagash White.”
And I'm thinking there aren't too many beers I consider real beers if you have to put an orange peel in it.
So I popped it open Friday night. A tad darker than Allagash, but the same nose and similar taste. Loved it.
It tastes mediocre, so of course Peter loved it. I gave it a 2.5 on the Untapped app (which is an awesome beer app where you get to rank the beers you drink and share beers you drink with friends) and I was probably being generous.
l. Matt Garza to the Brew Crew. I like it. Good signing. If healthy, he should win 15.
Congrats Brewers! Your signing of Matt Garza has Peter King's approval! Given Peter's knowledge of baseball and individual baseball players, how can this not thrill you?
The Adieu Haiku
Sad thing re Pro Bowl:
End of Tony Gonzalez.
At least in football.
Oh, so Tony Gonzalez will continue living and not die. Thanks for clearing up it's the end of Tony Gonzalez, but only in football. I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW TONY GONZALEZ PLAYED BASKETBALL IN COLLEGE!
Well now, a Jersey City dateline, six days before the Super Bowl. There’s something I never thought I’d see. Or type. A Super Bowl in New Jersey.
It's only 2-3 years in the making so I can see how the suddenness of the Super Bowl being in New Jersey would still come as a shock to Peter.
But the hype machine for Super Bowl XLVIII alighted in the Garden State Sunday night, so let’s go there, to the tamest interview station of them all.
Richard Sherman’s. Of course.
This goes against the narrative that the media wants to write about Richard Sherman being just a loud-mouthed black guy. How terrible that reality doesn't match the narrative the media pursues.
I bring you these gems from Sherman’s riser Sunday night at the Jersey City Westin, a week before Seattle-Denver just up the street in East Rutherford:
“We have a team full of competitors who want to go against the best team, the best offense. We have a tremendous amount of respect for them.”
“It’s all going to come down to who plays the best football.”
“It really comes down to the execution.”
“It’s going to be a battle of wills.”
All right! Who went and stole Richard Sherman?!
It's almost like Richard Sherman doesn't shout taunts into the camera towards specific opponents on a weekly basis and isn't quite the out of control player that the media has enjoyed painting him as over the last few weeks.
Someone asked him about being referred to as a thug last night, and instead of rolling his eyes and flashing anger, he said: “I think it did have some effect on opening up the channels of communication and conversation and dialogue. I think I had some impact on it, and I want to have a positive impact. I want people to understand that everybody should be judged by their character and who they are as a person and not by the color of their skin. That’s something we’ve worked to get past as a nation, as a country and we’re continuing to work on it. It’s healthy.
I’ve heard him talk like that several times, when the cameras aren’t around. I think as a person, that’s who he is.
I think a lot of people are different at work as compared to how they act in a regular, everyday setting. I'm much more patient when it comes to everyday activities, while I'm not as patient when it comes to being in a work setting. So I think it's silly to judge Sherman on his actions after the NFC Championship game and am not surprised he doesn't act like that in all of his interviews.
But this week, I expect him to be the filtered Richard Sherman. Maybe with a message Tuesday, Media Day, in Newark, for the national TV audience, but nothing too incendiary.
I thought it was very interesting that Richard Sherman wasn't specifically known for having an incendiary message until 10 minutes after the NFC Championship game, at which point the media was awaiting Sherman's next incendiary message as if he yells into television cameras all the time.
The Broncos and Seahawks are staying 1.3 miles apart, just up from the Hudson River. Outside the Denver hotel is the better view: the icy Hudson, with the new World Trade Center glistening to the east. A beautiful sight.
Really, much like the Denver traffic this sight is underrated.
But Denver has the more arduous practice road. They’ll have a 31-mile escorted trek to the Jets’ practice facility in the rolling hills of Florham Park, and will make the trip for the first time today for a light 2:55 p.m. practice.
Are the Broncos having to walk to the practice facility or something? Peter describes their practice road as arduous, but they are taking a bus or other modern transportation to get there, so the Broncos just have to sit in a bus a little longer than the Seahawks. I'm sure they will find a way to recover and make the Super Bowl competitive.
Seattle is about eight miles away from the Meadowlands.
Better get the sled dogs fed, make sure they have their winter coats well fluffed and prepare for the arduous journey across the New Jersey landscape.
Denver coach John Fox did the smart thing, figuring he’ll have his team on buses for 70 to 90 minutes a day today, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: He’s going to encourage his players to do homework on the trips.
Do homework, but no cheating off each other's papers. The Broncos team will never learn how to do Algebra if they start sharing answers or allow Demaryius Thomas to give them all of the answers. Plus, this bus ride will be the perfect time to prepare for Mrs. Sides' big spelling test on Monday.
In addition, Fox and FOX will get together Wednesday afternoon on the bus. He’ll do his weekly TV production meeting with the TV team of Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and the network’s production staff while driving back from the Jets’ facility after practice. Smart and efficient.
As someone who has experience with John Fox quotes, here's what he'll say.
"This isn't my first rodeo."
"The Seahawks practice too."
"A punt isn't a bad play."
"It is what it is."
That about sums it up for the Foxisms.
Pete Carroll will coach the Super Bowl in a stadium in the same Jersey parking lot as the one where he got his first head-coaching shot. In fact, this month is the 20-year anniversary of Pete Carroll getting his first NFL head-coaching job.
This month is also the 19-year anniversary of Carroll getting fired from his first NFL head-coaching job.
That’s right. Carroll Chudzinskied the Jets’ job.
I remember nothing past last week and have no access to Wikipedia, so that is brand new information that I just learned.
That was a strange mix of a Jets team. (That is not the first time, nor the last, for that.) Boomer Esiason and Art Monk teamed that day for five aerial connections for 108 yards. Esiason to Monk! Bet you didn’t know they ever played on the same team.
No, I completely knew they played on the same team. I know this may shock Peter, but some of us actually have a memory and are able to remember something that occurred prior to the year 2000.
With the clock running and the ball at the Jets’ 8 with 32 seconds left, Marino hustled to the line. The man who called the plays into Marino’s helmet that season was backup Bernie Kosar,
I BET YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW BERNIE KOSAR PLAYED IN THE NFL!
Plus, Bernie Kosar was a quarterback. I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT!
That’s right: The Jets finished on a five-game losing streak. In the last week of the season, Carroll called Esiason into his office and told him, “Boomer, we’re gonna make some major changes around here, and you’re gonna love them.”
"I'm getting fired. I bet that just thrills you. And oh yeah, the Jets are going to hire Rich Kotite. It might be best to just retire or demand a trade."
But after the last loss, owner Leon Hess,
Leon Hess is a real person. I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT!
“To this day I have no idea why Mr. Hess fired Pete after one season,” Esiason said. “He was brilliant. He was the Chip Kelly of his time. I wish he’d have stayed our coach.”
Chip Kelly wasn't always the head coach of the Eagles. Few people probably remember he was the head coach at Oregon.
This is a very significant storyline this week.
I just don’t know exactly how to quantify it.
Mostly because it's a fairly contrived storyline.
Peyton Manning has never faced any of the eight Seattle defensive backs in the regular season or playoffs. He has faced the Seahawks twice in the preseason, but not when it’s counted since Oct. 4, 2009, a span of 68 games, including postseason. And, obviously, they have never faced him in a real game either.
This is incredible. How will Peyton Manning know how to throw the football and how will the Seahawks secondary understand how to play defense since they have never played each other? There is going to be mass confusion.
I think it's impossible to quantify the fact Manning and the Seahawks secondary haven't played each other before and probably pretty needless to do so as well.
Now the question: Who gets the edge—Manning or the Seattle secondary—because of the lack of exposure these two sides have had to each other?
Who knows? Maybe we will have to watch the Super Bowl to find out which team has the advantage. What a shocking conclusion! It's almost like the actual game being played on Sunday has meaning and any attempts to really quantify what could happen during the game is useless.
At first blush I’d say Manning, because, well, as Richard Sherman said a few days ago, “You can’t get in Peyton Manning’s head. If you get in his head, you’ll get lost.” Manning, and his new coordinator-in-crime, Adam Gase, are very good are figuring out things to show a defense that they’ve never seen before.
This week Manning will go to the line of scrimmage and start yelling "Boise, Boise" and all of the Seahawks defenders will be confused because he isn't yelling "Omaha."
But do you know you’ll be seeing what you’ve seen regularly this year? Andre Caldwell was thrown 19 balls in a late-season three-game stretch; Jacob Tamme got 13 Manning targets in an earlier three-game run. Manning, when he needs to, involves the rest of the roster, not just his big four.
Much of the reason Caldwell got those balls thrown to him is because Wes Welker was injured. Welker is healthy now, so I think the fact Caldwell got thrown 19 passes over three weeks is a bit misleading. Though I'm sure it will certainly confuse the Seahawks to know they have to cover every wide receiver or tight end for the Broncos rather than just the big four.
But Seattle has an edge here in that Manning hasn’t been able to replicate the Seahawks’ talent, size and physicality in practice. Other than Sherman staying at left corner—that’s an absolute given—we won’t know for sure until the game starts how Seattle plans to defend the wideouts.
This is as opposed to if Manning had faced the Seahawks secondary before he would know exactly how Seattle plans to defend the wideouts for the Broncos?
For once, the beaten-up story angle of the week (just watch)—Peyton Manning against the best secondary in football—could turn out to be the overwhelming story of the Super Bowl.
And they have never faced each other, so the game is actually going to have to be played before conclusions can be drawn. How is Peter supposed to start creating narratives in this situation? It's not fair.
The Browns coaching hire. It’s a tangled web in Cleveland—and I say that with much respect for Mike Pettine, hired as the eighth head coach in the reconstituted Browns’ 15-year history. Pettine did a fabulous job with the Bills in his one year as coordinator (Buffalo sacks in 2012: 36; in 2013: 57) and should breathe life into a team that underperformed on defense this season.
Pettine has done a great job with his defenses over the years. Let's me just say if his name were Mike Gruden or Mike Ryan then he would probably already have a head coaching job. But it does suck that Pettine was the 15th (or so) choice of the Browns.
I have heard McDaniels was the apple of owner Jimmy Haslam’s eye from the time a four-man team of Browns officials met with McDaniels in New England for seven-and-a-half hours on Wild Card Saturday, and that GM Mike Lombardi had at least two conversations with McDaniels about re-entering the coaching derby in the days after New England’s loss to Denver in the AFC title game.
Speaking of Mike Lombardi, notice how Bill Simmons has stayed the hell away from commenting about the Browns long and fruitless coaching search? I firmly believe if Mike Lombardi wasn't one of Bill's good friends then he would have made some jokes about the Browns front office and how inept they are in one of his (rare and getting rarer) Friday NFL columns. It pays to have friends in the media it seems, as Bill has stayed the hell away from jokes about Lombardi.
I have also heard, after Bill Belichick pushed hard for his friend Greg Schiano to get in the Cleveland race, that some in the Browns’ hierarchy were revved up by Schiano’s interview with the club early last week.
The Browns have barked up the "Head coaching candidate affiliated with Bill Belichick" twice before and neither candidate worked after being hired as the head coach. But hey, Mike Lombardi is be a genius, right? Why not keep going for recycled head coaching candidates?
They don’t have a long-term quarterback of the future (unless Brian Hoyer, 28, is far better than he’s shown in his four-team, four-start NFL career), and they don’t have anyone to coach one. That’s the biggest problem with the Browns now. There’s no consensus as to who will be the offensive coordinator, and certainly no consensus as to whom the team will draft in May for the new coordinator to coach.
And this much we know, Rob Chudzinksi was the problem. I mean, obviously.
On Adam Gase. The Denver offensive coordinator did the smart thing, as did his former boss in Denver, McDaniels. The coaches of Peyton Manning (Gase) and Tom Brady (McDaniels) both withdrew from the search in Cleveland and will be back piloting their explosive offenses with legendary quarterbacks in 2014 rather than coaching the Browns. Gase is 35 and has a bright future.
He's very good at choosing two plays that his quarterback can run and then allowing his quarterback to choose the play or audible out of it if necessary. If Adam Gase were the offensive coordinator on a video game, he wouldn't even be using "Coach Mode" since the team has to run the play you call in that mode. Gase runs the Broncos offense in "Coach, unless you have a better idea than go ahead and call that play, Mode" if he were the offensive coordinator on a video game.
Nothing against Adam Gase and I wouldn't have wanted the Cleveland Browns job either if I could write Peyton Manning's coattails a little longer and get a better job offer. I don't think I would want to work for the Browns either.
Speaking of McDaniels … Which no one in Denver likes to do. People in Denver figure McDaniels “ran off” Jay Cutler, which he didn’t do, and then drafted Tim Tebow and got fired in the midst of a crash-and-burn 4-12 season. So the venom spews. But let’s be fair here. Look around the Broncos roster, which McDaniels had control of in 2009 and 2010. From the 2009 draft: Knowshon Moreno (1,586 yards from scrimmage and 13 touchdowns this year), defensive end Robert Ayers (sack of Tom Brady in the AFC title game) and special-teams captain David Bruton are here. From the 2010 draft: the two leading receivers—Demaryius Thomas (92 catches, 14 touchdowns) and Eric Decker (87 catches, 11 TDs)—are here, plus starting guard Zane Beadles.
To be ever more fair, I think this goes to show the talent of Brian Xanders as a GM and John Fox as a head coach more than it shows the coaching ability of Josh McDaniels. I recognize most of these guys were really young when they played under McDaniels, but they have flourished under Fox, and Xanders is the guy most responsible for choosing them. So I know Peter is trying to rehab Josh McDaniels' image in a way, but I think Brian Xanders deserves a shout-out too.
He has said time and again that when he compared teams, he liked the young receivers that Denver had. Who would have been in their place, and would they have passed Manning’s muster? Or would be have looked at Larry Fitzgerald and the Manning-friendly offense of Ken Whisenhunt in Arizona a little more fondly? Point is, McDaniels shouldn’t be a Denver pariah in this Super Bowl week. He should be thanked.
Not Brian Xanders? He doesn't merit a mention here? Check out what's done in terms of personnel acquisition. I think he should be thanked more than Josh McDaniels should be thanked.
Well, I never thought I’d be interviewing a rapper for The MMQB. But one of our writers, Robert Klemko, knew how passionate a football fan Lil Wayne is, and Klemko met his publicist, and one thing led to another, and Tuesday night the publicist said to me: “I’m patching you through to Wayne.”
I would love to have heard this conversation recorded. I'm surprised Peter didn't ask Lil Wayne which U2 album he thought was the best and whether he watched "The Office" or not. On a more realistic note, this is the type of addendum to MMQB that causes it to feel bloated. I think the full interview Lil Wayne should be posted as a separate article on THE MMQB rather than spend space in MMQB, but I'm not Peter's editor, so perhaps he thought it fit in well with MMQB. To me, it just adds to the bloat.
“A lot of the writers think I’m boring. So I’m going to go all Richard Sherman on you.”
—Boston Red Sox GM Ben Cherington, to Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe.
Riveting. I'm glad this quote was included in MMQB. I mean, I really think this quote is super-important to my understanding of the NFL and MLB.
Peter left out his "Fine Fifteen" this week, which was probably a smart move. I did say the following last week though,
1. Seattle (15-3)
2. Denver (15-3)
I'm guessing Peter will have these teams arranged in this order this week and then flip-flop them once he picks the Broncos to win the Super Bowl despite the fact no games have been played which would give him no logical reason to flip-flop their spots, though it wouldn't shock me if Peter put Seattle #1 in his Fine Fifteen and then picked the Broncos to win the Super Bowl.
Take a wild guess which team Peter has picked to win the Super Bowl? I'll give you a hint, it's not Seattle. Peter did something similar earlier in the year when he put the Kansas City Chiefs at #1 in his "Fine Fifteen" until the week where the Broncos and Chiefs played. At that point, he moved the Broncos head of the Chiefs despite the fact the Chiefs had not lost and had a bye week the week before. What changed on the bye week that could have moved the Chiefs out of the #1 spot on the "Fine Fifteen"? Other than they played the Broncos of course? So Peter's "Fine Fifteen" isn't the most accurate measurement of which team Peter believes is the strongest in the NFL. He ranks Seattle above the Broncos in the previous week's "Fine Fifteen," no games are played the following weekend, and then picks the Broncos to beat the Seahawks.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
I have never covered a Super Bowl in the town where I lived, so even though I think it’s a bad idea to have the Super Bowl in an outdoor freezer, I am pleased to be home this week. To get my credential for the week’s media responsibilities, I left my apartment on the east side of Manhattan Sunday about 2:30 p.m., and walked nine blocks to the Sheraton Times Square, which is the media hotel for the Super Bowl. I picked up my press credential, then boarded a bus at 3:30 for the Broncos’ team hotel in Jersey City, across the Hudson River.
Now these Broncos and Seahawks players can see firsthand all of the big city annoyances that Peter has to deal with on a weekly basis. There are people on the train minding their own business doing weird things while Peter stares intently at them, the Starbucks baristas don't always make every cup of Peter's coffee perfectly and tourists take pictures of the Apple logo. How insane.
What will be odd about this Super Bowl: The media events with the teams, and the team hotels, and the practice sites, and the Super Bowl, will be in New Jersey. Everything else—the parties, the major-domo press conferences, the media center—will be in Manhattan.
But where will Bruce Springsteen be? Isn't he the shining example of New Jersey?
I'm sure Jon Bon Jovi, who is a Jersey guy and apparently a diehard Patriots fan because he is friends with Robert Kraft/a front runner, will be at the game too. They will be in New Jersey, doesn't that count for something, Peter?
I lived in New Jersey with my family for 24 years. I love the state. Not every inch of it,
NOT TO NAME ANY NAMES, BUT HE'S TALKING TO YOU THREE MILES OF LOWER NEW JERSEY!
So I’m a little sensitive about the New York-ification of everything major league that goes on in New Jersey. Like this Super Bowl. The teams are in Jersey. The practices are in Jersey. The players and coaches meet the press in Jersey. The game’s in Jersey.
But it’s the New York Super Bowl.
Well, it's the media that writes this story so they could be directionally correct if they wanted to, but they choose not to. I think part of the reason this is considered the New York Super Bowl is because the Giants and Jets play at the stadium the Super Bowl will be played in and they are both New York teams.
Peter thinks that's bad, he should try living in North Carolina with South Carolina always lurking and looking to confuse everyone that North Carolina wants anything to do with South Carolina. It didn't help that Jerry Richardson named the Panthers the "Carolina Panthers," but South Carolina also insists on talking to North Carolina at parties and just generally being that cousin who doesn't get invited to family reunions but shows up anyway somehow.
I’ll be drinking in Hoboken Tuesday night, thank you.
I bet Peter will be drinking an Allagash White.
“Richard Sherman seems to be on his best behavior during his first Super Bowl media exposure. Unfortunately.”
—@MichaelJLev, of the Orange County Register, tweeting from the Richard Sherman news conference Sunday night.
It's so sad Sherman isn't acting up so sportswriters can call him a thug and generally turn his behavior into a narrative about the entire Seahawks team.
Ten Things I Think I Think
3. I think new Tampa Bay GM Jason Licht (pronounced “Light”) had an interesting take the other day when asked who would have the final say on the draft—him or coach Lovie Smith. (It’s widely thought around the league that the buck will stop with Smith on all football decisions.) Said Licht: “There will be no arguments on draft day
So the buck will stop with Lovie Smith then?
We’ll have arguments on players. I’m going to plead my case. I told Lovie, during the interview process, that if he doesn’t like a player, I’m going to be in his office 20 times trying to prove why my player, that I like, is the guy that we need, and I’m sure he’ll do the same thing. If we don’t come to an agreement, the answer is easy, it lies in itself—we won’t take that player.”
This sounds like one of the worst ideas I have heard as it pertains to a head coach and a GM deciding which player to take. So if neither party can agree on a player then they just won't take the player? What if the Buccaneers are choosing between Johnny Manziel and Blake Bortles and Smith likes Bortles while Licht likes Manziel? Will no decision be made and the Buccaneers just won't take a quarterback? This seems counterproductive to me, especially if the Buccaneers need a quarterback.
I’ll be interested to follow that down the line.
Yeah, me too. This method of conflict resolution as it pertains to which player to take seems like a bad way to go about player evaluation and selection. At some point, there has to be a player that neither Licht or Smith can agree upon and they will just not make a decision at all as opposed to making a decision both are unhappy with. This does sound like how Congress goes about their business, but I'm thinking it will cause more gridlock and bad will than just letting Smith or Licht have their way. What do I know though? When there is a conflict over a decision on which player to choose, choosing neither player seems like a bad idea to me.
7. I think San Francisco offensive coordinator Greg Roman, unfortunately, may turn out to be the offensive version of Mike Zimmer, who had to wait far too long for his chance to be a head coach. Cleveland not interviewing Roman … absolutely amazing.
Earlier this year, Peter was wanting more minority candidates to receive interviews for NFL head coaching jobs. Yet I can't help but notice every time he discusses an NFL head coaching candidate who deserves an interview or has waited too long for an interview he always mentions a white guy and not a minority.
9. I think I will make this promise to you, as Super Bowl Week dawns: I promise I will not hit you over the head with weather reporting/complaining. It’ll get a mention now and again, but not a daily pounding.
Peter hit us with weather report and was complaining about the weather in a previous MMQB. So Peter go his weather complaining in earlier in the season.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
d. Bieber. Lohan. How do you tell them apart?
One is a girl but looks like a 40-year old woman and the other is a boy but is slowly looking more and more like a girl.
i. How do the Asbury Jukes wear all Rangers stuff?
They put the clothes over their head and then put their arms through the holes of the Rangers gear they wear. Probably the same way Jon Bon Jovi is a big Patriots fan despite the fact he is from New Jersey and owned a Philadelphia arena league team.
k. Beernerdness: Had the good fortune to meet Jim Koch, the Sam Adams brewer, on the SI Now show the other day in New York. We talked craft beer, and he handed me one of his new ones. “Cold Snap.” A wheat beer, he said
Yep, and "Cold Snap" isn't all that great. It's like a wheat beer for people who like the taste of Bud Light.
with spices like coriander and orange peel. And I’m thinking, “Hmmm. Allagash White.”
And I'm thinking there aren't too many beers I consider real beers if you have to put an orange peel in it.
So I popped it open Friday night. A tad darker than Allagash, but the same nose and similar taste. Loved it.
It tastes mediocre, so of course Peter loved it. I gave it a 2.5 on the Untapped app (which is an awesome beer app where you get to rank the beers you drink and share beers you drink with friends) and I was probably being generous.
l. Matt Garza to the Brew Crew. I like it. Good signing. If healthy, he should win 15.
Congrats Brewers! Your signing of Matt Garza has Peter King's approval! Given Peter's knowledge of baseball and individual baseball players, how can this not thrill you?
The Adieu Haiku
Sad thing re Pro Bowl:
End of Tony Gonzalez.
At least in football.
Oh, so Tony Gonzalez will continue living and not die. Thanks for clearing up it's the end of Tony Gonzalez, but only in football. I BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW TONY GONZALEZ PLAYED BASKETBALL IN COLLEGE!
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
12 comments MMQB Review: Rex Ryan Ruins the Jets Season Even Though It Was Already Ruined Edition
Peter King tried to help Chuck Pagano search for motivation through tragedy in last week's MMQB. Peter also slightly bemoaned the Ravens trading Anquan Boldin, yet again, and told us what a productive awesome offense the Rams will have this season. Unfortunately, the running back and offensive line positions aren't exactly a sure-thing to be even above average, but---
(Peter King breaks in yelling) "Look! Something shiny!"
What was I writing about again? I can't remember. Anyway, Peter gave us a rundown of the NFL camps he visited and talked about how Jon Gruden (gasps in surprise) still wants to be an NFL head coach. This week Peter asks if Arian Foster's (I always accidentally spell it "Fister" everytime I write his name...what's wrong with me? Don't answer that) workload is catching up to him, talks about ESPN and Frontline (isn't Frontline a type of anti-tick cream-ish thing for cats?), and offers us an exclusive chance to be in his daughter's Fantasy Football league, which sounds like a weird prize to me.
Battle of the heavyweights here Sunday. When it was mostly first-teamers versus first-teamers through the first half, the score was the rejuvenated Saints (with some frisky new pups on defense) 17, Texans (minus J.J. Watt and Arian Foster) 16. If the Saints can play defense, they have a chance to play deep into January.
Fortunately the Saints have Rob Ryan as their defensive coordinator. He has turned so many defenses around, but only in his head, I can't see how the Saints aren't a top-5 defense this year.
If the Texans can get 16 games out of the idled Foster, they can win the Super Bowl.
The Texans have gotten 16 games out of Foster twice in his career and neither time did they win the Super Bowl. The Texans "could" win the Super Bowl if they get 16 games out of him, so I guess this statement isn't exactly Peter going too far out on a limb.
The bizarrely undrafted Foster, of course, has been an incredibly productive back over the past three years,
It's been discussed widely why Arian Foster wasn't drafted of course, so I'm not sure why Peter is still confused. Very few people immediately after the 2009 draft were saying it is odd Foster wasn't drafted, but now it is "bizarre" Foster wasn't drafted...or at least is bizarre to those like Peter who won't do any research as to why Foster wasn't drafted. Here are the reasons why Foster wasn't drafted:
1. Running backs are being devalued. It's just the simple fact of the matter the NFL is a passing league now. Foster was around the 20th rated running back in the 2009 NFL Draft. 22 running backs were chosen in the draft.
2. Foster was a part of a running back by committee in his senior year at Tennessee which resulted in him only putting up 570 yards on 131 carries with one touchdown. Those aren't numbers that really entices the NFL to draft you.
3. To add into Foster's sub-par senior year, there were also issues with Foster fumbling (but only in key times, which makes the fumbles stick out more) and pass-protecting. Add into the fact the Phillip Fulmer Tennessee coaching staff did not give rave reviews about Foster to NFL scouts and it made it hard for the NFL to justify drafting him.
4. When it came time for the Combine, Foster had a pulled hamstring so he couldn't run. That's not enticing for NFL scouts either. If you are a running back who had a sub-par senior year performing well at the Combine is a good way to catch an NFL scout's eye.
5. Then at Foster's Pro Day he ran a 4.71 40-yard dash. That's not exactly fast for a running back.
So Foster was a non-productive running back who had a college coaching staff that clearly didn't believe in him and found him hard to coach. To make matters worse, Foster was injured at the Combine and didn't put up good numbers on his Pro Day. The only thing "bizarre" in this situation is that Peter King thinks it was bizarre for Foster to go undrafted. It doesn't make sense in retrospect, but it made sense at the time.
He returned to practice last week amid concern he might be ready for the start of the season but not ready for a 325-carry grind. (Plus, of course, however many times he’d have to carry the ball in the playoffs.)
Foster had 650 carries in college. He's a workhorse when healthy.
“I’m fine,’” said Foster. “My body feels great. I actually think all this time [off] might help.”
“Why?” I said.
Why would time off from playing football help a football player's body feel better? Really, Peter? You don't understand why rest might make a person's body feel better?
Foster was treated with injections to relieve pain in his back, and he said he’s pain-free now. His doctors cleared him to resume all football activity, and he said, “They think it’s over, but you never know.”
If Arian Foster was Robert Griffin he would call a weekly press conference to update everyone on how his back is feeling and then do as many interviews as possible updating us on how his back is feeling. Foster would also make sure there was a camera on him at all times in order to let everyone know exactly how his rehab is going in order to make sure his name stays in the news.
“My body feels great,” he said. “It’s because I haven’t had the grind of camp.
Think about it: During the season, you never play football six days in a row. You get your body tired and worn down during training camp. When you don’t have that on you, you feel fresh.
I think this is basic common sense, but what do I know? I'm not sure why Peter's reaction to learning Foster feels fresher was "why?"
Let the debate between old and new school begin. Don’t tell Mike Tomlin this; he thinks you have to toughen up your players in camp in order to play tough during the season. But all of you out there prepping for your drafts—you’ll have to ask yourself if you’ve got the third or fourth pick and are thinking seriously of Foster, “Do I feel lucky?”
Great fantasy football advice from Peter. When I join his daughter's fantasy football league I will consider this advice very seriously.
The Eagles could run 1,200 plays.
If Andy Reid were still the head coach of the Eagles, then 200 of these would be screen passes.
Now, Vick threw two brainlock passes during the game—one an interception, one while he was going down for a sack that was the classic careless Vick we’ve seen at times in his star-crossed career. And this was probably his worst offensive performance of the three preseason games, though his numbers were good. “The thing I’m most proud of is I didn’t approach this preseason the way I approached the last three or four years. I came to play,” Vick said.
I'm not a big Mike Vick fan. I have never have been and probably never will be, but the current Eagles offense seems perfect for him. Still, didn't we hear that Vick didn't always practice hard while he was with the Falcons, he was the last person there and the first to leave and that sometimes he didn't seem motivated to improve? Then when he re-joined the NFL after doing his stint in jail I remember him stating that was going to change and he was a new type of player with a new work ethic. Now it appears over the past couple of seasons Vick really hasn't had anyone pushing him for the starting job that hard and he apparently wasn't "coming to play" during the preseason. Once Foles pushed him for the job, he started "coming to play" and working hard again. I guess my question is what will happen once Vick has locked up the starting quarterback job again? Will he again not entirely be dedicated to improving himself as the Eagles starting quarterback?
Two impressive things about the Saints. One: their rookie class. Kenny Stills, the fifth-round receiver from Oklahoma, made a great catch against the Texans down the left sideline on a bomb,
A Saints receiver caught a really long pass in a preseason game! Clearly this is proof the team is going places. Peter thinks this Saints offense is going to be one to watch.
Two: defensive end Cameron Jordan, who had a sack and was buzzing around Matt Schaub for much of the first quarter.
Jordan wasn't actually trying to sack Schaub, but as he was buzzing around Schaub he accidentally tripped him and got rewarded with a sack. Otherwise, Jordan prefers to just run around the quarterback creating a sort of invisible barrier to where the quarterback knows there is pressure around him, but Jordan prefers not to sack the quarterback. He prefers just buzzing around the quarterback in circles.
Jordan and J.J. Watt were the best big ends in the 2011 draft, and he looked to have some of Watt’s quickness, spin moves and strength Sunday.
Because it seems all defensive line comparisons automatically go back to J.J. Watt. Is the defensive lineman like J.J. Watt or not? That's all that Peter cares about.
Defensive coordinator Rob Ryan plans to move Jordan—son of former NFL tight end Steve Jordan—around on the defense.
How can you not trust Rob Ryan's decision-making give his record as a defensive coordinator? So clearly this is a brilliant decision.
“I was a Swiss Army knife last year,” he said after the game.
I think it's fair to say Cameron Jordan buzzed around many spots on the Saints defense last year.
The head coach of the Jets, Rex Ryan, committed career suicide Saturday night in New Jersey. On the 52nd play of a preseason game, with 11:21 left in the fourth quarter (a point of the game when no starting player plays in August), behind an offensive line full of backups, when his opening-day quarterback appeared to have no idea he was going to play, with undrafted free agents Joseph Collins from Weber State and Ryan Spadola from Lehigh running down passes, Ryan inserted Mark Sanchez into the game.
I think it's obvious why Rex Ryan did this. He hates Mark Sanchez and wanted to watch Sanchez get hurt. Maybe he wanted to pay back Sanchez for playing so poorly last year. His plan worked. But...the Jets are Ryan's team and as the head coach he can insert whichever players into the game that he wants to. Of course there are ramifications and repercussions for injuring Sanchez, but Ryan was going to be fired after this season anyway if the Jets failed to play well, so he probably just expedited the process.
“Why compete, period?” Ryan explained after Sanchez, leveled by Giants defensive tackle Marvin Austin on his ninth play in the game, went out with a shoulder injury. “We put him out there with guys. We’re there to win.”
You play to win the game! Though I guess if Rex Ryan was trying to win the game that still doesn't explain why he put Mark Sanchez in the game. Because see, Sanchez isn't very good and the best way to win is to not have Sanchez on the field. Well, that is unless the backup quarterback for your team is a rookie who isn't ready to start in the NFL.
The fourth quarter of a preseason game is no place to strut his manly stuff and repeat the silly mantra, “We’re there to win.”
I am sure Peter thinks if the Jets had just kept Darrelle Revis this never would have happened. You trade Revis, you invite franchise destruction.
Next year, Ryan’s either going to be on a network set doing some pregame show, or coordinating some defense somewhere. The Adam Sandler movie star-turn? A souvenir of a time long past.
Just like Adam Sandler is a souvenir of the past! In fact, the only way Adam Sandler could further ruin his movie career is if he cast Mark Sanchez in his next painfully unfunny film. So I would say Rex Ryan appearing in an Adam Sandler movie sounds about right.
Can the Jets do some ticket deal like six-for-the-price-of-one? Six: in honor of their needlessly fallen quarterback’s number, of course.
I realize this is a big story because it deals with the Jets, but is Sanchez being injured really that big of a deal to the Jets chances this season? It's not like he is even an average quarterback. It's not like he was even a slightly below average quarterback last season. He was awful. So Peter trying to squeeze some more mileage out of this story by acting as if the Jets are going 4-12 because of their fallen quarterback's injury is silly. Sanchez was going to win the starting quarterback job backing into it. He didn't suck as badly as Geno Smith sucked, so that's how he was going to get the starting quarterback job. Let's not act like this injury took the Jets out of playoff contention. This took them from a 5-11 team to a 3-13 team.
Observations from a third preseason game in Jacksonville:
1. There is a team in Jacksonville? Peter didn't know that.
2. Why didn't the Jets sign Tim Tebow? Didn't Tebow go to Florida State? It makes sense for Tebow to play in Jacksonville in that case.
3. Brett Favre always liked Jacksonville.
4. The Jaguars should have drafted Tavon Austin.
1. Jacksonville’s optimistic about Blaine Gabbert being ready to play against Kansas City in the season opener, and maybe he can play 22 days after cracking a bone at the base of his thumb against the Jets last week. But I shook hands with Gabbert on the field before the game, and his right thumb is casted, with the cast due off, tentatively, four days before the opener.
Imagine being a Jaguars season ticket seller or ticket holder. Can they offer some kind of six-for-the-price-of-one deal? Six of course in honor of Gabbert's yards per attempt in 2012. This injury takes the Jaguars from having a 4-12 season to probably not changing that record at all.
2. The Jags are serious about wedging Denard Robinson into the game in as many as five spots—wide receiver, slot receiver, running back, quarterback and kick returner.
Gregg Easterbrook is still confused as to why the Jaguars just didn't sign Tim Tebow. After all, Tebow can play zero positions as effectively as Denard Robinson plays five positions.
On Caldwell’s magnetic team depth chart board, right next to the quarterbacks and running backs, was a category labeled “OW.” For “offensive weapon.” That’s the label Robinson gave himself after Jacksonville picked him in the fifth round last April.
But Gregg Easterbrook wants to know why you would spend a fifth round choice on Robinson when you have Tebow's ability to play zero positions available to you? He's vexed.
I wouldn’t trust Blackmon after his track record of alcohol abuse.
Peter doesn't trust anyone who has a history of alcohol abuse since he heard Bernie Kosar make negative comments about the Rams. That was a betrayal that cut very deep.
And to hear the Jaguars insiders talk glowingly about opening-day starters Cecil Shorts III and Ace Sanders—the Pedroia-sized Jag version of Tavon Austin
Who had $500 in the "Peter King will make a Dustin Pedroia comparison in the same sentence where he mentions Tavon Austin" pool? No one? There should have been a pool for this.
5. I have no idea who’s going to rush the passer.
Denard Robinson?
I have no idea who’s going to cover Andre Johnson, Reggie Wayne or Kenny Britt.
Denard Robinson?
Gus Bradley’s always been good at figuring ways to invent pressure, and he’d better be this year. This sets up to be one of the worst pass defenses in football this year.
I hate to break it to Peter, but there are limits to inventing pressure. A coach can't invent defensive pressure if there aren't guys on the team who can pressure the other team. Bradley had two really good corners to play with in Seattle so that made things a little easier for him in inventing pressure.
Bray learned a hard lesson in the realities of the relationship between the NFL and Big TV on Thursday, a few days after commissioner Roger Goodell, NFL Network president Steve Bornstein and two ESPN executives clashed over the reporting of the issue by ESPN and Frontline. The league believes the reporting of the story has been one-sided, showing team doctors often ignoring players’ best interests to return them to games when they weren’t physically fit to do so.
It's almost like the NFL has a vested interest in these types of reports and won't allow their partners to participate if they don't like the type of reporting that will be shown on the program.
The project both sides were working on, a two-part documentary called “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis,” will still air on Oct. 8 and 15, just not without the ESPN imprimatur. But much of the reporting on the show was done by ESPN reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, who have a book coming out about the league’s failings as a watchdog for scores of former players suffering from head trauma.
This is sort of like how ESPN all of a sudden decided they didn't want Bruce Feldman to publish a book even though they knew what the book was about beforehand.
Did ESPN have to do anything? No. The network holds rights to NFL games through 2021, and the NFL had no leverage here. The only thing the NFL might have been able to do here is fudge with future ESPN schedules, though that’s not in anyone’s best interests, because the NFL wants the TV ratings to be as good as the networks want them to be.
So basically ESPN just pulled out because they wanted to support the NFL, fully knowing if they didn't support the NFL there wasn't a ton of leverage to where the NFL could punish ESPN for not complying with their wishes. This almost makes it worse that ESPN pulled out since they didn't have to be afraid of what the NFL could do to them.
But look what’s happened here. Now that the story has broken that the league leaned hard on ESPN, the public has lashed back hard at the NFL for trying to curtail the network’s reporting—whether that’s exactly what happened or not. (And surely the league wanted the ESPN reporting to take a different tack.) So the result is going to be that the two Frontline stories will have far bigger ratings now. Think about it. You’re a football fan. You see the headlines about the NFL reportedly pressuring ESPN to report the concussions story differently, or not at all. You had no idea before this happened that any such documentary was even in the works. But now, admit it: You’re now might actually watch this two-part show. I would have anyway, but now it’s an urgent watch.
I hate to agree with Peter on this, but I tend to 100% agree. I didn't even know there was a documentary that would have been shown on this issue and there was no chance I was watching it. Now, I may DVR it just to see what is reported and what the NFL had such an issue with being reported.
It’s unrealistic to think that if the NFL was so strident about its objections to the reporting, ESPN at a corporate level wasn’t going to do something to smooth things over.
It's not unrealistic, especially given the fact ESPN is in the business of entertainment and hard-hitting journalism when possible, but they are certainly aren't going to risk billion dollar relationships for the sake of hard-hitting reporting.
“You listen to our strength and conditioning guys. I asked them the other day from top to bottom if you can rank our guys, and Michael was our number one in terms of his attitude, work ethic, helping other players, everything in terms of weight room, off‑the‑field things.
—Eagles coach Chip Kelly on Michael Vick, two days after naming him the Eagles’ starting quarterback.
Again, being jaded like I am, I can't help but believe Vick is great off-the-field, but on-the-field is my issue with him. It's Vick's motivation in terms of work ethic that seems to show up only when he is competing for a spot, but his motivation seems to wane as he gets closer to being named the starting quarterback or already knows the position is his for the taking. Good for Chip Kelly to motivate Vick this offseason. It was a smart move to force Vick to compete for the starting quarterback position.
“You know what the greatest honor I’ve ever received as a player is? In my fourth year and my fifth year, I was named team captain. That is to this day the single greatest achievement of my career as a football player, because the men in this room chose me to lead them.”
—New England quarterback Tom Brady, speaking to the Michigan football team in Ann Arbor Thursday morning at the invitation of coach Brady Hoke.
Just as a side note, one of the criticisms heard from Panthers fans in regard to Cam Newton is that the team hasn't elected him a team captain yet and that's why he isn't a leader. It took Tom Brady until he had won a Super Bowl to be named a team captain, so it doesn't always happen overnight. This is important to know when judging any player who hasn't been named team captain yet. Sometimes it takes time.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
Delta to Jacksonville, Saturday morning. Front door closes. You know the drill. Cell phones off. Female flight attendant to me, firmly: “Sir, please power down your cell phone.” Which I did. Flight attendant to white-haired man in the seat behind me, “Sir, please power down your cell phone.”
Notice how Peter says "You know the drill," yet HE HAD NOT TURNED OFF HIS CELL PHONE YET EITHER. He had to be told by the flight attendant to turn off his phone. So yes, we know the drill, but do you know the drill Peter? This story isn't about Peter, but I can't help but laugh at how he had to be firmly asked by the flight attendant to power down his phone.
The man, maybe 67, says, “I have it in airplane mode. It’s okay.”
Flight attendant: “Sir, it has to be powered off for takeoff. Completely off.”
The man turns into Dr. Evil,
He started telling a long story about his odd upbringing and then began rapping "It's a Hard Knock Life" with his midget sidekick?
spewing about his dog dying of cirrhosis of the liver, and how can she do this to him, and the phone takes a long time to power off, and, well, he was spewing so fast I missed some of it. But lots of verbal bile spews.
This guy was basically doing the same thing Peter does to a cab driver who doesn't know his way around the city or when the coffee at the hotel isn't ready at 6am.
Also, I can't believe that Peter really missed part of the verbal bile spews. He writes down the conversation of complete strangers who are across the room on the phone but he couldn't get the transcript of an argument on a plane? Peter must be out of practice in writing down people's conversations. Look for a long, transcribed conversation in next week's MMQB.
2. I think, after this weekend, the Jadaveon Clowney Draft Sweepstakes has three leading contenders: the Raiders, the Jets, the Jaguars.
What's going to be hilarious is that all three of these teams could need quarterbacks after this season as well. So when a college quarterback blows up this year I think it will be hilarious if one of these teams overthinks the draft and takes one of the quarterbacks over Clowney. Obviously a lot can change in the next eight months, but at this point Clowney looks like the #1 overall pick. Defensive end isn't as sexy of a position to draft #1 overall as quarterback would be though.
3. I think if E.J. Manuel can’t play in Week 1 against New England, I vote for Matt Leinart. Always thought he deserved one more shot.
I did too and then I stopped thinking he deserved one more shot because Peter King thought Leinart deserved one more shot.
4. I think the toughest thing about making my picks this year—you’ll see them in Sports Illustrated this week—is how I simply couldn’t find that worst-to-first team that happens every year. I just couldn’t find one. I hate the fact that my picks are mostly predictable, but this was just one of those preseasons.
It's a good thing the point of preseason predictions isn't to be shocking, but to attempt to correctly pick the records of each NFL team.
6. I think I’m just not feeling Hard Knocks: Return to Bengaldom this year. No buzz. No real excitement. I do like the inside stuff, and the control I see Marvin Lewis showing over his team, but there’s not a story that tugs at me.
What "Hard Knocks" needs in Peter's opinion is more Meryl Streep. She is such a gem.
8. I think the best play I saw all weekend was Ben Tate’s terrific block on the onrushing Will Smith, taking him out before he could clobber Matt Schaub. That’s the kind of play coaches notice more than great runs.
Great play by the Texans backup running back here. This coming from Peter in the same MMQB where he basically said the Texans Super Bowl hopes ride on Arian Foster being healthy for 16 games. Maybe if Ben Tate can block and run with the football the Texans won't be in such bad shape for a few games without Foster. Either way, Peter is wrong. The Texans Super Bowl hopes ride on Matt Schaub more than anyone else on the Texans roster.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
c. Larry David, for once, did a clunker with Clear History. To me, it plodded. Got through about 50 minutes and said, “Enough.”
It definitely could have used some more Meryl Streep. What a gem. She is a national treasure who deserves to be in an Adam Sandler movie at least once.
f. Happy 30th birthday, Laura King! Many more! Like, 70 of them!
I'm sure Peter's daughter will be thrilled this takes the place of a card for her birthday.
g. All I know is, after the Jake Peavy performance Sunday night at Dodger Stadium—he threw a complete game against a good lineup—I want him to be on my team in pickup anything.
Peter had never heard of this Jake Peavy fellow before he joined the Red Sox. It's amazing to Peter how many good baseball players are out there that he just hasn't heard of before.
h. Hey! pay attention to my Twitter feed this week. You’ll have a chance to win a spot in my daughter Mary Beth’s fantasy football league up in Seattle. I’m in it. So there’s ninth place to battle for—with me.
This probably has to be the weirdest award that could be given out by Peter. A spot in his daughter's fantasy league? I know people play public leagues all the time with strangers, but for Peter to be giving away a spot in his daughter's league is a little weird. Maybe a spot in one of Peter's fantasy leagues, but why would I want to be in a league with his daughter?
The Adieu Haiku
Rex Ryan. Hot seat.
Jon Gruden studies Geno
down there in Tampa.
Because sportswriters are contractually obligated to tie Jon Gruden's name to any potential head coaching job in the NFL. I'm starting to believe part of the reason Gruden will be so highly sought after is because sportswriters keep telling us that he is going to be highly sought after by constantly mentioning his name for open (or not open) head coaching vacancies.
(Peter King breaks in yelling) "Look! Something shiny!"
What was I writing about again? I can't remember. Anyway, Peter gave us a rundown of the NFL camps he visited and talked about how Jon Gruden (gasps in surprise) still wants to be an NFL head coach. This week Peter asks if Arian Foster's (I always accidentally spell it "Fister" everytime I write his name...what's wrong with me? Don't answer that) workload is catching up to him, talks about ESPN and Frontline (isn't Frontline a type of anti-tick cream-ish thing for cats?), and offers us an exclusive chance to be in his daughter's Fantasy Football league, which sounds like a weird prize to me.
Battle of the heavyweights here Sunday. When it was mostly first-teamers versus first-teamers through the first half, the score was the rejuvenated Saints (with some frisky new pups on defense) 17, Texans (minus J.J. Watt and Arian Foster) 16. If the Saints can play defense, they have a chance to play deep into January.
Fortunately the Saints have Rob Ryan as their defensive coordinator. He has turned so many defenses around, but only in his head, I can't see how the Saints aren't a top-5 defense this year.
If the Texans can get 16 games out of the idled Foster, they can win the Super Bowl.
The Texans have gotten 16 games out of Foster twice in his career and neither time did they win the Super Bowl. The Texans "could" win the Super Bowl if they get 16 games out of him, so I guess this statement isn't exactly Peter going too far out on a limb.
The bizarrely undrafted Foster, of course, has been an incredibly productive back over the past three years,
It's been discussed widely why Arian Foster wasn't drafted of course, so I'm not sure why Peter is still confused. Very few people immediately after the 2009 draft were saying it is odd Foster wasn't drafted, but now it is "bizarre" Foster wasn't drafted...or at least is bizarre to those like Peter who won't do any research as to why Foster wasn't drafted. Here are the reasons why Foster wasn't drafted:
1. Running backs are being devalued. It's just the simple fact of the matter the NFL is a passing league now. Foster was around the 20th rated running back in the 2009 NFL Draft. 22 running backs were chosen in the draft.
2. Foster was a part of a running back by committee in his senior year at Tennessee which resulted in him only putting up 570 yards on 131 carries with one touchdown. Those aren't numbers that really entices the NFL to draft you.
3. To add into Foster's sub-par senior year, there were also issues with Foster fumbling (but only in key times, which makes the fumbles stick out more) and pass-protecting. Add into the fact the Phillip Fulmer Tennessee coaching staff did not give rave reviews about Foster to NFL scouts and it made it hard for the NFL to justify drafting him.
4. When it came time for the Combine, Foster had a pulled hamstring so he couldn't run. That's not enticing for NFL scouts either. If you are a running back who had a sub-par senior year performing well at the Combine is a good way to catch an NFL scout's eye.
5. Then at Foster's Pro Day he ran a 4.71 40-yard dash. That's not exactly fast for a running back.
So Foster was a non-productive running back who had a college coaching staff that clearly didn't believe in him and found him hard to coach. To make matters worse, Foster was injured at the Combine and didn't put up good numbers on his Pro Day. The only thing "bizarre" in this situation is that Peter King thinks it was bizarre for Foster to go undrafted. It doesn't make sense in retrospect, but it made sense at the time.
He returned to practice last week amid concern he might be ready for the start of the season but not ready for a 325-carry grind. (Plus, of course, however many times he’d have to carry the ball in the playoffs.)
Foster had 650 carries in college. He's a workhorse when healthy.
“I’m fine,’” said Foster. “My body feels great. I actually think all this time [off] might help.”
“Why?” I said.
Why would time off from playing football help a football player's body feel better? Really, Peter? You don't understand why rest might make a person's body feel better?
Foster was treated with injections to relieve pain in his back, and he said he’s pain-free now. His doctors cleared him to resume all football activity, and he said, “They think it’s over, but you never know.”
If Arian Foster was Robert Griffin he would call a weekly press conference to update everyone on how his back is feeling and then do as many interviews as possible updating us on how his back is feeling. Foster would also make sure there was a camera on him at all times in order to let everyone know exactly how his rehab is going in order to make sure his name stays in the news.
“My body feels great,” he said. “It’s because I haven’t had the grind of camp.
Think about it: During the season, you never play football six days in a row. You get your body tired and worn down during training camp. When you don’t have that on you, you feel fresh.
I think this is basic common sense, but what do I know? I'm not sure why Peter's reaction to learning Foster feels fresher was "why?"
Let the debate between old and new school begin. Don’t tell Mike Tomlin this; he thinks you have to toughen up your players in camp in order to play tough during the season. But all of you out there prepping for your drafts—you’ll have to ask yourself if you’ve got the third or fourth pick and are thinking seriously of Foster, “Do I feel lucky?”
Great fantasy football advice from Peter. When I join his daughter's fantasy football league I will consider this advice very seriously.
The Eagles could run 1,200 plays.
If Andy Reid were still the head coach of the Eagles, then 200 of these would be screen passes.
Now, Vick threw two brainlock passes during the game—one an interception, one while he was going down for a sack that was the classic careless Vick we’ve seen at times in his star-crossed career. And this was probably his worst offensive performance of the three preseason games, though his numbers were good. “The thing I’m most proud of is I didn’t approach this preseason the way I approached the last three or four years. I came to play,” Vick said.
I'm not a big Mike Vick fan. I have never have been and probably never will be, but the current Eagles offense seems perfect for him. Still, didn't we hear that Vick didn't always practice hard while he was with the Falcons, he was the last person there and the first to leave and that sometimes he didn't seem motivated to improve? Then when he re-joined the NFL after doing his stint in jail I remember him stating that was going to change and he was a new type of player with a new work ethic. Now it appears over the past couple of seasons Vick really hasn't had anyone pushing him for the starting job that hard and he apparently wasn't "coming to play" during the preseason. Once Foles pushed him for the job, he started "coming to play" and working hard again. I guess my question is what will happen once Vick has locked up the starting quarterback job again? Will he again not entirely be dedicated to improving himself as the Eagles starting quarterback?
Two impressive things about the Saints. One: their rookie class. Kenny Stills, the fifth-round receiver from Oklahoma, made a great catch against the Texans down the left sideline on a bomb,
A Saints receiver caught a really long pass in a preseason game! Clearly this is proof the team is going places. Peter thinks this Saints offense is going to be one to watch.
Two: defensive end Cameron Jordan, who had a sack and was buzzing around Matt Schaub for much of the first quarter.
Jordan wasn't actually trying to sack Schaub, but as he was buzzing around Schaub he accidentally tripped him and got rewarded with a sack. Otherwise, Jordan prefers to just run around the quarterback creating a sort of invisible barrier to where the quarterback knows there is pressure around him, but Jordan prefers not to sack the quarterback. He prefers just buzzing around the quarterback in circles.
Jordan and J.J. Watt were the best big ends in the 2011 draft, and he looked to have some of Watt’s quickness, spin moves and strength Sunday.
Because it seems all defensive line comparisons automatically go back to J.J. Watt. Is the defensive lineman like J.J. Watt or not? That's all that Peter cares about.
Defensive coordinator Rob Ryan plans to move Jordan—son of former NFL tight end Steve Jordan—around on the defense.
How can you not trust Rob Ryan's decision-making give his record as a defensive coordinator? So clearly this is a brilliant decision.
“I was a Swiss Army knife last year,” he said after the game.
I think it's fair to say Cameron Jordan buzzed around many spots on the Saints defense last year.
The head coach of the Jets, Rex Ryan, committed career suicide Saturday night in New Jersey. On the 52nd play of a preseason game, with 11:21 left in the fourth quarter (a point of the game when no starting player plays in August), behind an offensive line full of backups, when his opening-day quarterback appeared to have no idea he was going to play, with undrafted free agents Joseph Collins from Weber State and Ryan Spadola from Lehigh running down passes, Ryan inserted Mark Sanchez into the game.
I think it's obvious why Rex Ryan did this. He hates Mark Sanchez and wanted to watch Sanchez get hurt. Maybe he wanted to pay back Sanchez for playing so poorly last year. His plan worked. But...the Jets are Ryan's team and as the head coach he can insert whichever players into the game that he wants to. Of course there are ramifications and repercussions for injuring Sanchez, but Ryan was going to be fired after this season anyway if the Jets failed to play well, so he probably just expedited the process.
“Why compete, period?” Ryan explained after Sanchez, leveled by Giants defensive tackle Marvin Austin on his ninth play in the game, went out with a shoulder injury. “We put him out there with guys. We’re there to win.”
You play to win the game! Though I guess if Rex Ryan was trying to win the game that still doesn't explain why he put Mark Sanchez in the game. Because see, Sanchez isn't very good and the best way to win is to not have Sanchez on the field. Well, that is unless the backup quarterback for your team is a rookie who isn't ready to start in the NFL.
The fourth quarter of a preseason game is no place to strut his manly stuff and repeat the silly mantra, “We’re there to win.”
I am sure Peter thinks if the Jets had just kept Darrelle Revis this never would have happened. You trade Revis, you invite franchise destruction.
Next year, Ryan’s either going to be on a network set doing some pregame show, or coordinating some defense somewhere. The Adam Sandler movie star-turn? A souvenir of a time long past.
Just like Adam Sandler is a souvenir of the past! In fact, the only way Adam Sandler could further ruin his movie career is if he cast Mark Sanchez in his next painfully unfunny film. So I would say Rex Ryan appearing in an Adam Sandler movie sounds about right.
Can the Jets do some ticket deal like six-for-the-price-of-one? Six: in honor of their needlessly fallen quarterback’s number, of course.
I realize this is a big story because it deals with the Jets, but is Sanchez being injured really that big of a deal to the Jets chances this season? It's not like he is even an average quarterback. It's not like he was even a slightly below average quarterback last season. He was awful. So Peter trying to squeeze some more mileage out of this story by acting as if the Jets are going 4-12 because of their fallen quarterback's injury is silly. Sanchez was going to win the starting quarterback job backing into it. He didn't suck as badly as Geno Smith sucked, so that's how he was going to get the starting quarterback job. Let's not act like this injury took the Jets out of playoff contention. This took them from a 5-11 team to a 3-13 team.
Observations from a third preseason game in Jacksonville:
1. There is a team in Jacksonville? Peter didn't know that.
2. Why didn't the Jets sign Tim Tebow? Didn't Tebow go to Florida State? It makes sense for Tebow to play in Jacksonville in that case.
3. Brett Favre always liked Jacksonville.
4. The Jaguars should have drafted Tavon Austin.
1. Jacksonville’s optimistic about Blaine Gabbert being ready to play against Kansas City in the season opener, and maybe he can play 22 days after cracking a bone at the base of his thumb against the Jets last week. But I shook hands with Gabbert on the field before the game, and his right thumb is casted, with the cast due off, tentatively, four days before the opener.
Imagine being a Jaguars season ticket seller or ticket holder. Can they offer some kind of six-for-the-price-of-one deal? Six of course in honor of Gabbert's yards per attempt in 2012. This injury takes the Jaguars from having a 4-12 season to probably not changing that record at all.
2. The Jags are serious about wedging Denard Robinson into the game in as many as five spots—wide receiver, slot receiver, running back, quarterback and kick returner.
Gregg Easterbrook is still confused as to why the Jaguars just didn't sign Tim Tebow. After all, Tebow can play zero positions as effectively as Denard Robinson plays five positions.
On Caldwell’s magnetic team depth chart board, right next to the quarterbacks and running backs, was a category labeled “OW.” For “offensive weapon.” That’s the label Robinson gave himself after Jacksonville picked him in the fifth round last April.
But Gregg Easterbrook wants to know why you would spend a fifth round choice on Robinson when you have Tebow's ability to play zero positions available to you? He's vexed.
I wouldn’t trust Blackmon after his track record of alcohol abuse.
Peter doesn't trust anyone who has a history of alcohol abuse since he heard Bernie Kosar make negative comments about the Rams. That was a betrayal that cut very deep.
And to hear the Jaguars insiders talk glowingly about opening-day starters Cecil Shorts III and Ace Sanders—the Pedroia-sized Jag version of Tavon Austin
Who had $500 in the "Peter King will make a Dustin Pedroia comparison in the same sentence where he mentions Tavon Austin" pool? No one? There should have been a pool for this.
5. I have no idea who’s going to rush the passer.
Denard Robinson?
I have no idea who’s going to cover Andre Johnson, Reggie Wayne or Kenny Britt.
Denard Robinson?
Gus Bradley’s always been good at figuring ways to invent pressure, and he’d better be this year. This sets up to be one of the worst pass defenses in football this year.
I hate to break it to Peter, but there are limits to inventing pressure. A coach can't invent defensive pressure if there aren't guys on the team who can pressure the other team. Bradley had two really good corners to play with in Seattle so that made things a little easier for him in inventing pressure.
Bray learned a hard lesson in the realities of the relationship between the NFL and Big TV on Thursday, a few days after commissioner Roger Goodell, NFL Network president Steve Bornstein and two ESPN executives clashed over the reporting of the issue by ESPN and Frontline. The league believes the reporting of the story has been one-sided, showing team doctors often ignoring players’ best interests to return them to games when they weren’t physically fit to do so.
It's almost like the NFL has a vested interest in these types of reports and won't allow their partners to participate if they don't like the type of reporting that will be shown on the program.
The project both sides were working on, a two-part documentary called “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis,” will still air on Oct. 8 and 15, just not without the ESPN imprimatur. But much of the reporting on the show was done by ESPN reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, who have a book coming out about the league’s failings as a watchdog for scores of former players suffering from head trauma.
This is sort of like how ESPN all of a sudden decided they didn't want Bruce Feldman to publish a book even though they knew what the book was about beforehand.
Did ESPN have to do anything? No. The network holds rights to NFL games through 2021, and the NFL had no leverage here. The only thing the NFL might have been able to do here is fudge with future ESPN schedules, though that’s not in anyone’s best interests, because the NFL wants the TV ratings to be as good as the networks want them to be.
So basically ESPN just pulled out because they wanted to support the NFL, fully knowing if they didn't support the NFL there wasn't a ton of leverage to where the NFL could punish ESPN for not complying with their wishes. This almost makes it worse that ESPN pulled out since they didn't have to be afraid of what the NFL could do to them.
But look what’s happened here. Now that the story has broken that the league leaned hard on ESPN, the public has lashed back hard at the NFL for trying to curtail the network’s reporting—whether that’s exactly what happened or not. (And surely the league wanted the ESPN reporting to take a different tack.) So the result is going to be that the two Frontline stories will have far bigger ratings now. Think about it. You’re a football fan. You see the headlines about the NFL reportedly pressuring ESPN to report the concussions story differently, or not at all. You had no idea before this happened that any such documentary was even in the works. But now, admit it: You’re now might actually watch this two-part show. I would have anyway, but now it’s an urgent watch.
I hate to agree with Peter on this, but I tend to 100% agree. I didn't even know there was a documentary that would have been shown on this issue and there was no chance I was watching it. Now, I may DVR it just to see what is reported and what the NFL had such an issue with being reported.
It’s unrealistic to think that if the NFL was so strident about its objections to the reporting, ESPN at a corporate level wasn’t going to do something to smooth things over.
It's not unrealistic, especially given the fact ESPN is in the business of entertainment and hard-hitting journalism when possible, but they are certainly aren't going to risk billion dollar relationships for the sake of hard-hitting reporting.
“You listen to our strength and conditioning guys. I asked them the other day from top to bottom if you can rank our guys, and Michael was our number one in terms of his attitude, work ethic, helping other players, everything in terms of weight room, off‑the‑field things.
—Eagles coach Chip Kelly on Michael Vick, two days after naming him the Eagles’ starting quarterback.
Again, being jaded like I am, I can't help but believe Vick is great off-the-field, but on-the-field is my issue with him. It's Vick's motivation in terms of work ethic that seems to show up only when he is competing for a spot, but his motivation seems to wane as he gets closer to being named the starting quarterback or already knows the position is his for the taking. Good for Chip Kelly to motivate Vick this offseason. It was a smart move to force Vick to compete for the starting quarterback position.
“You know what the greatest honor I’ve ever received as a player is? In my fourth year and my fifth year, I was named team captain. That is to this day the single greatest achievement of my career as a football player, because the men in this room chose me to lead them.”
—New England quarterback Tom Brady, speaking to the Michigan football team in Ann Arbor Thursday morning at the invitation of coach Brady Hoke.
Just as a side note, one of the criticisms heard from Panthers fans in regard to Cam Newton is that the team hasn't elected him a team captain yet and that's why he isn't a leader. It took Tom Brady until he had won a Super Bowl to be named a team captain, so it doesn't always happen overnight. This is important to know when judging any player who hasn't been named team captain yet. Sometimes it takes time.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
Delta to Jacksonville, Saturday morning. Front door closes. You know the drill. Cell phones off. Female flight attendant to me, firmly: “Sir, please power down your cell phone.” Which I did. Flight attendant to white-haired man in the seat behind me, “Sir, please power down your cell phone.”
Notice how Peter says "You know the drill," yet HE HAD NOT TURNED OFF HIS CELL PHONE YET EITHER. He had to be told by the flight attendant to turn off his phone. So yes, we know the drill, but do you know the drill Peter? This story isn't about Peter, but I can't help but laugh at how he had to be firmly asked by the flight attendant to power down his phone.
The man, maybe 67, says, “I have it in airplane mode. It’s okay.”
Flight attendant: “Sir, it has to be powered off for takeoff. Completely off.”
The man turns into Dr. Evil,
He started telling a long story about his odd upbringing and then began rapping "It's a Hard Knock Life" with his midget sidekick?
spewing about his dog dying of cirrhosis of the liver, and how can she do this to him, and the phone takes a long time to power off, and, well, he was spewing so fast I missed some of it. But lots of verbal bile spews.
This guy was basically doing the same thing Peter does to a cab driver who doesn't know his way around the city or when the coffee at the hotel isn't ready at 6am.
Also, I can't believe that Peter really missed part of the verbal bile spews. He writes down the conversation of complete strangers who are across the room on the phone but he couldn't get the transcript of an argument on a plane? Peter must be out of practice in writing down people's conversations. Look for a long, transcribed conversation in next week's MMQB.
2. I think, after this weekend, the Jadaveon Clowney Draft Sweepstakes has three leading contenders: the Raiders, the Jets, the Jaguars.
What's going to be hilarious is that all three of these teams could need quarterbacks after this season as well. So when a college quarterback blows up this year I think it will be hilarious if one of these teams overthinks the draft and takes one of the quarterbacks over Clowney. Obviously a lot can change in the next eight months, but at this point Clowney looks like the #1 overall pick. Defensive end isn't as sexy of a position to draft #1 overall as quarterback would be though.
3. I think if E.J. Manuel can’t play in Week 1 against New England, I vote for Matt Leinart. Always thought he deserved one more shot.
I did too and then I stopped thinking he deserved one more shot because Peter King thought Leinart deserved one more shot.
4. I think the toughest thing about making my picks this year—you’ll see them in Sports Illustrated this week—is how I simply couldn’t find that worst-to-first team that happens every year. I just couldn’t find one. I hate the fact that my picks are mostly predictable, but this was just one of those preseasons.
It's a good thing the point of preseason predictions isn't to be shocking, but to attempt to correctly pick the records of each NFL team.
6. I think I’m just not feeling Hard Knocks: Return to Bengaldom this year. No buzz. No real excitement. I do like the inside stuff, and the control I see Marvin Lewis showing over his team, but there’s not a story that tugs at me.
What "Hard Knocks" needs in Peter's opinion is more Meryl Streep. She is such a gem.
8. I think the best play I saw all weekend was Ben Tate’s terrific block on the onrushing Will Smith, taking him out before he could clobber Matt Schaub. That’s the kind of play coaches notice more than great runs.
Great play by the Texans backup running back here. This coming from Peter in the same MMQB where he basically said the Texans Super Bowl hopes ride on Arian Foster being healthy for 16 games. Maybe if Ben Tate can block and run with the football the Texans won't be in such bad shape for a few games without Foster. Either way, Peter is wrong. The Texans Super Bowl hopes ride on Matt Schaub more than anyone else on the Texans roster.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
c. Larry David, for once, did a clunker with Clear History. To me, it plodded. Got through about 50 minutes and said, “Enough.”
It definitely could have used some more Meryl Streep. What a gem. She is a national treasure who deserves to be in an Adam Sandler movie at least once.
f. Happy 30th birthday, Laura King! Many more! Like, 70 of them!
I'm sure Peter's daughter will be thrilled this takes the place of a card for her birthday.
g. All I know is, after the Jake Peavy performance Sunday night at Dodger Stadium—he threw a complete game against a good lineup—I want him to be on my team in pickup anything.
Peter had never heard of this Jake Peavy fellow before he joined the Red Sox. It's amazing to Peter how many good baseball players are out there that he just hasn't heard of before.
h. Hey! pay attention to my Twitter feed this week. You’ll have a chance to win a spot in my daughter Mary Beth’s fantasy football league up in Seattle. I’m in it. So there’s ninth place to battle for—with me.
This probably has to be the weirdest award that could be given out by Peter. A spot in his daughter's fantasy league? I know people play public leagues all the time with strangers, but for Peter to be giving away a spot in his daughter's league is a little weird. Maybe a spot in one of Peter's fantasy leagues, but why would I want to be in a league with his daughter?
The Adieu Haiku
Rex Ryan. Hot seat.
Jon Gruden studies Geno
down there in Tampa.
Because sportswriters are contractually obligated to tie Jon Gruden's name to any potential head coaching job in the NFL. I'm starting to believe part of the reason Gruden will be so highly sought after is because sportswriters keep telling us that he is going to be highly sought after by constantly mentioning his name for open (or not open) head coaching vacancies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)