Terence Moore hates new ideas and new things. Not shockingly, if that new idea comes from Major League Baseball, all of a sudden Terence will think it's a great idea. After all, Terence writes for MLB.com. Of course, they would never edit him or stop him writing something, even it were a column arguing against a new MLB rule. Sure, I believe that. So nearly every year Terence writes a column about how great the one game Wild Card playoff is. As everyone knows by now, I hate the one game Wild Card playoff. It's exciting, sure, but I think it should be a three game playoff and don't understand why one more game is enough after a 162 game season to decide which Wild Card team gets to appear in the NLDS/ALDS. Terence Moore disagrees because that's what he is paid to do.
If you're a baseball fan who lives for October more than any other month of the season, you're thinking like me.
I'm a baseball fan and I really doubt that I am thinking like Terence Moore. Terence is probably thinking about the Big Red Machine and how they would undoubtedly could still beat a team made up of 2015 MLB All-Stars.
There is just too much time between now and the start of the Wild Card Games presented by Budweiser next week.
Not that Terence is a shill for MLB.com or anything like that when he talks about the Wild Card Games presented by Budweiser. When discussing the Wild Card Games presented by Budweiser, Terence can write what he wants when he wants to write it. If Terence says he doesn't like the Wild Card Games presented by Budweiser, then he doesn't have to like the Wild Card Games presented by Budweiser. It's simply the opinion of Terence Moore that he writes in a column presented by MLB.com.
We should enjoy the ride this weekend through the end of the regular
season. Afterward, with one more day to go, we should unleash a sigh of
relief as the Yankees make their first trip to the postseason in three
years as the likely hosts of the Astros, Angels or Twins on Tuesday
night in the American League Wild Card Game.
And the teams will battle in a one game playoff that will negate everything that team accomplished throughout the season. It will turn a 162 game season into an ace-off where the team with the best starting pitcher gets to go into the next round of the playoffs. Baseball may be a team game, but don't tell that to MLB or the Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser.
As for the National League, the Cubs will probably play their
winner-take-all game on the road against the Pirates, but that won't
happen until Wednesday. What a tease, especially since you know the
showdown between these two gifted teams is destined for instant-classic
territory.
Was it an instant classic? I don't think it was. It was a great pitching performance by Jake Arrieta, but it wasn't an instant classic. Though I understand that Terence has to do everything in his power to make it seem like the Wild Card Games that are presented by Budweiser are nothing if not totally epic.
You also know both Wild Card Games will feature intensity. Every inning,
every pitch, every millisecond will be huge. The winners advance to the
Division Series, and the losers are just done.
You know, I heard this could happen in a three game Wild Card series as well. Three games would test the depth and actual starting pitching strength of each team, which I know isn't something baseball is interested in after playing a 162 game schedule where a team's record is determined by the depth and starting pitching strength of each team, but it could be a pretty interesting three game Wild Card series presented by Miller Lite.
In a three game series, the winners still advance to the Division Series and the losers are still done. It's just a series that isn't determined by which team has the better ace.
So here's my humble assessment of baseball's current Wild Card system,
which is entering its fourth season: It works just fine, thank you.
What? This is a shocking conclusion. Terence has written every year around the end of the baseball season, not by directive from MLB.com of course, that the Wild Card system works great and he still believes this is true this year? What a turn of events.
There isn't a thing I would change.
And as a self-described "traditionalist" who didn't exactly love it when the first Wild Card was introduced, Terence saying there isn't a thing he would change about the one game Wild Card presented by Budweiser makes total sense.
Still, many around the game and beyond want a best-of-three series to
decide which of the two Wild Card teams in each league would reach the
Division Series, where they would face the team with the best record in
the regular season.
It would determine which team was better after a 162 game season. After all those games, I just don't like that a playoff spot comes down to one game. I feel like baseball is a team sport where the best teams have depth on their bench and in their starting pitching staff. I don't feel a one game Wild Card presented by Budweiser does justice in reflecting this.
Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein goes further than
that. He told the Chicago Tribune in September that he proposed a
best-of-three Wild Card series in which the opening games for each
league would be part of a day-night doubleheader for the host team.
I can see that and I think it would be fun. I lean towards just having three games in three days at the home team's park, but a doubleheader would fun. The ironic part is that I bet the old-timers who bitch about there not being enough doubleheaders during the season would complain this is too far away from the traditional postseason format.
But extending the postseason would not help baseball end the World
Series on a reasonable date each fall. This season, a potential Game 7
would occur on Nov. 4.
This is easily one of the worst reasons to not move the Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser to a a three game series. It's a horseshit excuse. The MLB season lasts from April to the very beginning of November over 162 games, but the potential of there being TWO MORE GAMES is just too unreasonable to be seriously considered. Here's a good idea. Move the season to 154 games. Problem solved. Again, the funny part about this is you would find traditionalists bitching about the move away from 162 games in order to fit in a new playoff format, even though the season would be moved back to 154 games. This is how many games were played back in the day when everything in baseball was perfect, the same age many traditionalist sportswriters harken back to.
I find it hilarious two more games, thereby being two more days of baseball, is just incredibly unreasonable. This from a league that has 162 games per year.
Translated: Just leave the current Wild Card setup alone. With a
one-game decider in each league to start October, you have zero
scheduling concerns.
Again, this is a remarkably weak excuse for keeping the one game Wild Card presented by Budweiser. After 162 games, scheduling concerns for two more games is the reason? Come on.
Mostly, single Wild Card Games create drama like crazy.
Then make the Divisional Series, the Championship Series, and the World Series one game series as well. They can even be presented by another beer company. If drama is the intent, then make every series a one game series. So is Terence arguing the World Series isn't dramatic enough with a seven game series? Is the intent of the playoffs to create drama or find out who the best MLB team is? If you want drama, every series should be one game. If you want to know who the best team is, eliminate the second Wild Card presented by Chase and use the 162 games each team plays on the season to make this determination, or make the Wild Card series a three game series.
Remember 2012 in Atlanta? The Cardinals slid past the Braves that
night due to an infield fly call that the hometown fans thought
resembled an "outfield fly."
Really? The first example of the drama created is an example that shows the incompetence of MLB's umpires to discern what is and is not an "infield fly"? If MLB thinks incompetent umpires are part of "the drama" then that explains why they allowed Eric Gregg to continue umping after the 1997 playoffs and why no one has done anything about Joe West's act. Drama created by incompetence doesn't seem like the best way to convince me to love the one game Wild Card presented by Budweiser.
There also was last year's AL Wild Card thriller in Kansas City.
Somehow, the Royals overcame two late-game deficits, including one of
7-3 in the eighth. They shocked the A's in the bottom of the 12th, and
that was four hours and 45 minutes after the first pitch.
And this game would have still have been played if the Wild Card was a three game series. It's just these same two teams would have had the chance to play AGAIN the next day to determine which team earns the right to make it to the ALDS.
Just like that, a Royals team that hadn't reached the postseason in 29
years did more than advance to the Division Series. Kansas City won the
pennant and the hearts of America, starting with its survival in that
wildest of Wild Card Games.
And in a three game series the Royals still would have had the chance to make it to the Division Series and continue to win the hearts of America.
"[The Wild Card setup is] fine the way it is now," Epstein also told the
Chicago Tribune. "You can never come up with a scenario that's
perfectly fair to everybody.
This is an absolutely true statement that is coming from a GM who has perhaps the best pitcher in the majors ready to go in the Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser with help from Chase in association with FanDuel provided by Goodyear. Epstein feels great with Arrieta starting the Wild Card game because he has been untouchable, so of course he thinks it's fine as it is now. There is no fair scenario, but I think there is a scenario that better reflects baseball is a team game.
Epstein's Cubs, by the way, are blessed with a wonderful "hand," and it is attached to the right arm of Jake Arrieta.
Among other things, no pitcher in baseball history has looked more
dominant than Arrieta during the second half of a season with an 11-1
record and a 0.80 ERA entering Friday. His overall numbers are also
impressive (21-6, 1.82 ERA, 229 strikeouts through 223 innings).
Now consider this: In five starts this season against the Pirates,
Arrieta is 3-1 with a 0.75 ERA, and he'll start next week's Wild Card
Game.
And that's fantastic for the Cubs. Arrieta is awesome. It does prove my point that the Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser becomes an "ace-off" with the team that has the best pitcher having the best chance to win the game. I prefer baseball as a team game where a playoff series winner is determined by the strength of that team's starting pitching staff, not just the strength of one pitcher.
Advantage: Cubs.
Yes, it is advantage Cubs. After 162 games, whichever team has the better starting pitcher wins the game. I think a better set up is possible.
Or is it?
Yes, it was advantage to the Cubs.
The Pirates will counter with Gerrit Cole,
and while he isn't Arrieta, he's fabulous enough at 19-8 with a 2.60
ERA. Not only that, Cole is a noted Cubs killer. In nine starts against
the North Siders, he has lost just once with seven victories and a 2.88
ERA.
Gerrit Cole is a great pitcher. He was not as great as Jake Arrieta was. That's fine, the Cubs deserved to win that game, but I wish it were possible to make it a three game series.
We haven't even mentioned the pending battle involving Chicago sluggers Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo against Pirates standouts Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte and the rest.
And these guys will still "battle" if there is a three game series. Why would fewer games of these four players "battling" be a bad thing? Terence using these four players as an example of the greatness of the Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser contradicts his point about the one game Wild Card being fine. This is because in a three game Wild Card series these four players would "battle" for possibly two more games. More fun! More drama! Why is this bad?
You also know Joe Maddon will keep things interesting on and off the field as the Cubs' manager and master psychologist.
Joe Maddon would also be present for all three games in a three game Wild Card series. Joe Maddon doesn't magically disappear into thin air if the Cubs have to play three games against the Pirates to earn the right to play in the NLDS.
See what I mean by Wild Card drama?
See what I mean by nothing changing and the drama would still be there? Saying, "These players and this manager will make for a fun time and make things interesting" isn't an argument for the current Wild Card set up. It's an argument to watch the Wild Card series, no matter how long of a series it may be. How did Terence Moore get to become a writer who gets to pen columns that are intended to be somewhat persuasive?
The same goes for the AL, where the Angels would put one of baseball's faces on national display in Mike Trout, and Trout has a noted slugging partner named Albert Pujols.
If it's the Twins or the Astros instead of the Angels, we're talking
about a bunch of talented youngsters to keep us entertained.
These players would all still be participating in a three game series. I don't understand what the fuck Terence is trying to prove here.
In
addition, Houston has Dallas Keuchel, a wonderful starting pitcher who leads the AL in victories (19) and innings pitched (226).
Yes, he is wonderful and fans will get to see him pitching wonderfully against the Yankees. Then fans can see Scott Kazmir and/or Colin McHugh pitch wonderfully against the Yankees. Then I can rest easy knowing the Astros used more than one pitcher to prove they deserve to make the ALDS after a 3 game series and 162 game season.
The Yankees are just the Yankees, and that's enough.
And yet, over the span of one game played after 162 other games were played it wasn't enough.
So is one Wild Card Game.
Just like the one Wild Card Game presented by Budweiser is not enough. Shorten the season if needed (it's pretty freaking long anyway, even if it were 154 games) and then make the Wild Card series a three game series. I think it best represents the team game that baseball has shown itself to be.
Showing posts with label terrible rule changes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrible rule changes. Show all posts
Monday, October 19, 2015
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
6 comments MMQB Review: Andy Dalton Is Totally Different Now Because He's Playing Well in the Regular Season Edition
Peter King declared the Philadelphia Eagles as being in trouble in last week's MMQB. He also stated that he doesn't think the Seahawks are in trouble. Of course, the Seahawks have Kam Chancellor back now, which helps their defense. Peter was also somewhat surprised the NFC East was a crazy division, even though it is generally a pretty crazy division every year. This week Peter talks about the boring week of NFL action, gets the "Patriots are going undefeated, maybe" train going fairly early before the Patriots even get close to the meat of their schedule, and talks about how this Andy Dalton who is playing well in the regular season is different from the other Andy Dalton from past years who played well in the regular season and then looked bad in the playoffs. The template is following a similar template from previous season, so I'm confused as to why this Dalton may be different. Isn't the real question about Dalton getting answered in the postseason?
This morning, we can see how a few more pieces fit into the 2015 NFL jigsaw puzzle. This wasn’t a particularly good weekend of pro football, and TVs across America must have clicked off with the three late-afternoon games being decided by 40, 27 and 26 points. (Average margin of victory on Sunday: 14.9 points.)
The NFL does this shit from time-to-time during the season. It's not that they schedule bad games later in the day, but they schedule just three or so games later in the day to where there isn't a lot of interest if a few of the games are blowouts.
But every week we find out a little more about where the year’s headed.
A larger sample size gives a better indication of what conclusions can be reached about the sample? You have to be kidding me this is true.
The Bengals are in fabulous shape in the AFC North. At 3-0 after a crushing 28-24 win at 0-3 Baltimore on Sunday, Cincinnati is set up nicely for the fifth playoff appearance in Andy Dalton’s five years. “I’m as comfortable playing this game as I’ve ever been,” Dalton said from Baltimore. A 121.0 passer rating would seem to back him up.
I pretend Peter is reading that first sentence in the voice of Tim Gunn and it makes my enjoyment of this passage increase two-fold. Peter has been really tough on Andy Dalton over the past few years. Dalton has been pretty good in the regular season, so the question arises when it comes to the playoffs. That's been the question for Dalton, if he can show up in the playoffs. Before Peter changes his narrative, he may want to consider what his narrative is first.
Jay Cutler, Tony Romo, Drew Brees … and now Roethlisberger. That’s four marquee quarterbacks hurt before the calendar turns to October. You can be sure the Competition Committee will be pushing for more offseason drill work for offensive linemen; players are now restricted from all offseason contact by the 2011 labor agreement.
Oh sure, nothing gets done until the marquee quarterbacks start getting hurt. And also, I love how Jay Cutler is conveniently a "marquee" quarterback and not a shitty quarterback when it's important to place him in that category to prove a point. Cutler is marquee now. When he is no longer injured, then he will be a trash quarterback again.
The Patriots wake the echoes … of 2007. They’re already using the “U” word in New England. As in “undefeated.” New England went 16-0 in 2007, and advanced to a flawless-looking 3-0 Sunday against Jacksonville. More about that later, but as one of the ’07 team leaders, Rodney Harrison, opined Sunday night: “It’s 2007 all over again. Tom Brady’s playing like he’s 29, 30 years old.”
Man, Peter is jumping on the "Can the Patriots go undefeated" train pretty damn quick this year. Hey, it could very well happen, but it's not even Week 4 yet. How about not hammering readers over the head with this story this early?
Indianapolis is the most fortunate decent team in the league. AFC South standings: T-1. Indianapolis/Jacksonville/Houston/Tennessee (1-2). The Colts, their season on the brink, went from disaster to tied for the division lead exiting September in one afternoon. You wouldn’t think a 35-33 win at Tennessee would make a coach emotional after a game. But Chuck Pagano was.
The Colts were always going to be fine because they play in the AFC South. It's like the NFC South of the AFC, minus having more than one really good quarterback. It's just not a great division right now. The Colts will be fine partly for that reason. Also, Chuck Pagano deserves to keep his job. I'm Team Pagano.
There’s a reason you don’t have to worry about Peyton Manning’s health. The Denver defense is huge. “We just have ball hawks,” safety David Bruton said, a few minutes after making his third huge defensive play of the month, an athletic pick of Matthew Stafford to clinch the 24-12 win over Detroit. Stafford couldn’t breathe against the defensive pressure.
Eh, even if the Broncos defense is awesome I would still worry about the health of Peyton Manning. The Broncos defense is better than I gave it credit for a few weeks ago, but I still think it's good to worry about Peyton Manning's health. I haven't seen Brock Osweiler play yet, so I can't really comment on whether he is any good or not, but I imagine the Broncos don't necessarily want to find out while jockeying for a playoff spot.
The Raiders, usually out of it by now, will actually have a winning record as October dawns. The Raiders (2-1) play on the road next week—and they are actually favored to beat Chicago.
Jimmy Clausen, everyone! He's like Brandon Weeden, just without the skill set and ability to win an NFL game in a pinch.
The quarterback, Derek Carr, is a big reason. “Having a quarterback is everything,” said Charles Woodson from Cleveland.
Okay guys, apparently it's important to have a good quarterback in order to win NFL games. I'm still working to confirm this is true, so I don't want to speculate much more at this point. The best teams usually have really competent quarterbacks.
It’s early-bye time for New England. No team likes the Week 4 bye. This year, only the Patriots and Titans have it. Strange to have a bye before the leaves turn in Foxboro. “Rest, let your muscles chill and do what you have to do to be ready for next game,” Rob Gronkowski said Sunday. Taking stock of this team, you don’t want to make too much of the almost-too-easy win over the Jaguars,
Repeat after me, now it means Peter King will make a bit much of the Patriots' win over the Jaguars. He's not going to go overboard or anything though. He'll just start talking about the Patriots going undefeated when there are still 13 games in the regular season left to be played, plus three games in the postseason. Again, let's keep the reactions normal and not go overboard based on a 3-0 start.
That was a sick team eight years ago. The ’07 Patriots started with 24, 24 and 31-point wins, and didn’t have a game closer than 34-17 (Week 5, Cleveland) in the first half of the season. This year, New England handled Pittsburgh, which made it close in the second half. Ditto Buffalo, and then the Jaguars rout. It’s easy now to say Brady has never been better, but he was: in 2007. In the first three weeks then, the 30-year-old Brady completed 79.5% of his throws with a plus-nine TD-to-pick ratio and a rating of 141.8. This year, he’s completing 72.2%, with a plus-nine and a rating of 119.6. It’s like quibbling over whether driving a Mercedes or a BMW is a smoother ride, but Brady set his all-time standard in 2007.
Let's not make too much of a home victory over an 0-3 team, but Peter wants his readers to see the parallels between this Patriots team and one of the greatest NFL teams of all-time. Again, he's keeping the discussion in hand and not writing something overly-presumptuous.
New England is likely to be favored in all of its remaining games—save, perhaps, for the Week 12 Sunday-nighter at Denver.
And who even cares if the Broncos have Peyton Manning healthy or not with that Broncos defense?
Harrison told me over the summer that the league did Brady and the Patriots a huge favor with the long-running investigation into Brady’s honor—he’d be supremely motivated to stick it to the league this year, even more motivated than the hyper-focused player usually is. So far, Harrison’s been spot on.
I think a lot of people knew the Patriots were going to do a "Fuck You" tour of the NFL. But yes, so far after playing three teams that didn't make the playoffs last year Harrison has been spot-on.
And Brady still has one thing to accomplish that he hasn’t yet in his previous 16 pro seasons: winning ‘em all. Going 19-0. You’d be naïve to think he hasn’t thought of that—many times.
It's fantastic to read that Peter isn't making too much of this victory over the Jaguars. He compares this team to the 2007 Patriots, says the Patriots are favored to win the rest of their games, and mentions that Tom Brady wants to go perfect on the season. It's a very low-key affair.
Think of the environment the Bengals walked into Sunday: Ravens home opener, Ravens at 0-2 in desperate straits knowing a loss would put them three games out in the division after three games, and then the little thing about the Ravens and Bengals not liking each other. And then think of Dalton getting stripped in the fourth quarter, having it returned for a score, and, after being up 14-0, trailing 17-14 with seven minutes left, crowd going nuts.
I'm really enjoying Peter's somewhat 180 degree turn on Dalton. All Peter wrote about is how the playoffs are where Dalton will be judged, but then when Dalton has a good regular season Peter is all-in on Dalton having turned a corner.
First down, Bengals’ 20. Dalton drops. Green runs a seam route deep up the left side, bracketed by safeties Kendrick Lewis and Will Hill; the left corner, Jimmy Smith, was singled on the outside receiver. Dalton threw a perfect strike 36 yards in the air, between the two safeties, and Green won the race against them and Smith, who came over to try to help. Too late: 80-yard touchdown. But the Ravens came back to take another lead. And here came Dalton again, taking over at his 20 again. “We’re going to need every one of you here,” he said in the huddle. “I trust every one of you to make plays right now.”
The Bengals players were all possibly thinking, "But we aren't sure if we trust you to make plays right now. Wait, it's the regular season? Well then, we trust you. In that playoffs? We are still shaky on that."
In two drives during the last seven minutes, Dalton drove the Bengals 160 yards for two touchdowns … in a total of one minute and 58 seconds. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in what we’re doing,” Dalton said. “Once you’ve been in a system for a while and you know your receivers, you get a lot more confident, and that’s where I am with these guys right now.”
I will say this for Andy Dalton. He didn't have a lot to work with against the Colts last year in the playoffs and the way the Bengals have invested in offensive weapons for Dalton (Bernard, Hill, Eifert) will start to pay off for them once those players get more experience. So I haven't made excuses for Dalton in the past, but he didn't have a ton to work with in the playoffs last year and Jermaine Gresham wasn't exactly the most reliable of tight ends.
I’d like to see Dalton’s three October tests, all against pressure defenses (Kansas City at home, Seattle at home, at Buffalo), before saying anything definitive about him. But what I saw Sunday, I liked a lot.
It sounds like you are pretty high on him Peter. For good reason, but before the season you were hinting that you aren't even sure Dalton would make it through the whole season without A.J. McCarron replacing him.
Again: Dalton’s been a good regular-season quarterback (43-23-1, 107 touchdowns, 67 picks), and a maddening postseason one (0-4, one touchdown, six interceptions). Cincinnati won’t love him until that changes. But that can’t change in September, and what Dalton has done in September is all he can do. It’s been plenty good enough.
Excluding nationally televised games, Andy Dalton has usually done in September what he needs to do. Before any conclusions can be reached about Dalton, he would need to perform in the postseason before writers like Peter King get off his ass.
The city of Pittsburgh sighs.
The injury is a strain of the MCL and a bone bruise. But the ACL is intact. Roethlisberger thought the worst when he left the field, because of the pain. And the Steelers have to feel good that Tomlin banged the drum to get Vick in the building as the backup, because he’s played in the kind of games he’ll have to win beginning Thursday night—against Baltimore, in a rabid-rivalry game at home.
Yes, Mike Vick has played in these types of games. Has he played WELL in these games? That's the real question. Maybe he'll even prepare for the game for a little bit. Steelers fans shouldn't worry because Vick seems to pay attention and prepare for a few weeks, then gets bored with game preparation and starts committing turnovers. By the time Vick gets bored, Roethlisberger will hopefully be back from his injury.
Three questions for… Richie Incognito.
But first, a stat: Through three games, the former Dolphins guard—as mentioned above, Pro Football Focus’s top-rated guard in the NFL—has surrendered one quarterback disruption (either a quarterback sack, hit or pressure). The Dolphins’ starting guards have given up 26.
My sense is Incognito will enjoy that one.
Yeah, in your face Dolphins! That's what you get for getting rid of Richie Incognito after he bullied Jonathan Martin. Incognito got done wrong and now he's getting vengeance by playing well. This is a lesson to the Dolphins that if they don't let their players bully teammates then they will be punished for daring to have some semblance of a backbone.
Through three weeks, NFL teams have missed 14 of the newfangled extra points, after missing 26 in the previous four seasons combined. With the line of scrimmage for the PAT pushed back from the two- to the 15-yard line, it’s obviously not such a gimme anymore. And that’s good. When a play is 99.6% successful, the pertinent question is why they play should exist. I loved what happened Sunday night in the Detroit-Denver game, when Bronco Aqib Talib blocked a Lions extra point, and cornerback Chris Harris picked it up and ran it 52 yards toward the opposite end zone before being tackled by Detroit’s Eric Ebron. If Harris had made it all the way, Denver would have been awarded two points, and a 7-6 Bronco lead would have grown to 9-6. The change was made to add some excitement to a dull play, and while I wouldn’t call a 33-yard extra point kick “exciting,” it certainly makes the point or points after touchdown more interesting than before …
Yes, the extra point is more interesting now. How often is the extra point going to get blocked? Probably not very often, but I guess there is some excitement that could occur and that's a good thing. Peter's love of the new extra point rules is finally justified based solely on this one play.
Playing without Luke Kuechly (concussion), the Panthers bent on defense, giving Luke McCown-led New Orleans 380 total yards, but didn’t break at the end of a 27-22 win. One of the game’s rising-star corners, Josh Norman, plucked a McCown pass intended for Brandin Cooks out of the sky. “I saw a bone, and I went up and got it,” Norman said. A bone? “Yeah, a bone. The ball. God gave me wings to fly, and I went up and got it. All the guys on this defense can make plays. Do your job. Be in the defense. I’m doing some pretty good stuff. I think we all are.”
God gave Norman wings this year, but he apparently gave Norman a bad attitude and the ability to make mistakes over past seasons. Still, Norman is on a contract drive, so he should be rewarded for trying really hard this one year with a new contract where he wants to get paid like all the other overpaid Top-5 corners in the NFL get overpaid. He has earned the right to be overpaid.
Then Peter eulogizes Yogi Berra and apparently Peter was neighbors with Berra when Peter lived in Montclair. I'm sure that was a rough period of time for Yogi when Peter followed behind Berra when he walked around in public writing down all of his conversations. I wonder if Peter ever asked Berra if he considered Derek Jeter to be the greatest player in Peter's lifetime (but not really lifetime, because Peter only meant over whatever time span makes him seem less crazy)?
“I don’t care. It’s just a ball.”
—Tom Brady, asked how he felt about Danny Amendola—the receiver of Brady's 400th NFL touchdown Sunday in Foxboro—handing the ball to a fan in the end zone after making the historic catch.
Besides, the ball was probably slightly deflated anyway, and rather than Brady keep the ball and run the risk of the NFL finding out was underinflated by 0.3 PSI, it's better if a fan keeps the keep the ball. We wouldn't want Roger Goodell subpoenaing Brady's cell phone and a blood sample in order to prove he intentionally underinflated the football by a few tenths of a PSI. That would ruin the integrity of the game.
“I think there’s a little bit of karma coming back to him. Nelson Agholor hasn’t replaced Jeremy Maclin. Jeremy Maclin was a class-act guy. You can’t just replace people like they’re things, you know what I mean? Like they’re toys that you’re tired of playing with because you want something new. So I hope that he loses. I hope he loses every game.”
—Former Jets linebacker and current CBS NFL analyst Bart Scott, on Chip Kelly, to WFAN radio in New York.
Criticizing Bart Scott for these comments is a layup. And not just because Scott doesn't begin to realize how much stiches cost.
2. Jeremy Maclin left the Eagles to sign a free-agent contract last winter with Kansas City. In 2012, Maclin was the 28th-leading receiver in football, with 69 catches. In 2013, he missed the season with a torn ACL. In 2014, Maclin was the 13th-leading receiver in football, with 85 catches. He signed a five-year, $55-million contract with the Chiefs, which, at the time, was tied for the fourth-richest contract (per season) for a wide receiver in NFL history. Maybe letting Maclin walk for the fourth-richest receiver contract ever will be seen as a dumb decision in the long-term, though I doubt it. Smart teams let good players take exorbitant deals in free agency, and draft good players to replace them. I don’t know if this will work out; it’s obviously a gamble by the Chiefs to pay the money, and a gamble by Kelly to not meet Maclin’s demands. But I’d rather pay Agholor $2.3 million a year for the next four years (his rookie deal) than pay Maclin $11 million.
It's almost like Bart Scott, as an NFL analyst, is shitty at his job doing those things which involve actually analyzing a situation. Scott can't put aside his personal feelings and opinions and analyze a situation from a neutral point of view. Obviously CBS had to sign him to be one of their ridiculous vapid talking heads as soon as Scott retired. It's hard to find analysts who actually suck at analyzing.
3. Did Baltimore GM Ozzie Newsome “replace people like they’re things” when he let Torrey Smith and Pernell McPhee walk in the off-season, as he does every year? Did John Elway treat tight end Julius Thomas “like a toy” for letting him go to Jacksonville for $9.2 million a year in free agency? Or Jerry Jones, with DeMarco Murray, when Murray got $8 million a year in Philadelphia? No. They made business decisions.
Let's not forget that Bart Scott left the Ravens so that he could pursue a big free agent contract with the Jets. I don't think he thought that Newsome just replaced him without a second thought, but it was a business decision. This is why not every pro athlete that is loquacious should end up working in the media after his career is over. Talking and talking to where you say something smart are two different things.
It's hard to agree with Peter, but I do agree with him here. Comments like this from Bart Scott is why I don't ever watch NFL pregame shows. I don't need that type of stupidity in my life. I like football, not listening to idiots who think they know what they are talking about discussing football.
The Award Section
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Devonta Freeman, running back, Atlanta. The 2014 fourth-round pick from Florida State is supposed to be a complementary back, not a feature back.
I don't know why Freeman was supposed to be a complementary back. I guess it was his height that was the issue or something. I don't know if he was selected just to be a complementary back or anything of the like.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Josh Norman, cornerback, Carolina. Channeling his inner Odell Beckham Jr., with the Panthers protecting a 27-22 lead over the Saints with 80 seconds left, Norman, a rising-star cornerback,
Peter has mentioned Josh Norman three times in this column and each time he linked the story about Norman being a rising star where he labels Norman "a rising star" with the link. It just so happens to be a MMQB story and it's annoying. We get it. You want us to read the story. You don't have to link the same story over and over and over again.
Just a beautiful play, at the precise time his team had to have it. It was the difference between the Panthers being 3-0 and tied for the AFC South lead,
Yep Peter, the Panthers play in the NFC South, not the AFC South. Though even if their record were 2-1 then that would still be in the lead in the AFC South.
Norman added five tackles. He’s turning into one of the best cornerbacks in the league.
Norman is more motivated than he has ever been because he is a free agent after the season and he wants to get paid. He wants to get paid, so he's motivated. Therefore I hope the Panthers don't back up a Brinks truck and pay him. He's never put together a full season of great cornerback play, but wants to be paid like a Top-5 corner.
The first nine Chicago drives at Seattle ended in punts.
The first nine New England drives against Jacksonville ended in scores.
It's almost like one team started Jimmy Clausen at quarterback against a really good defense and the other team started Tom Brady at quarterback against a not really good defense.
Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
Police erected 40 miles of barriers in the city, and 818 tons of concrete barriers. The New York Post quoted a law enforcement source as saying security for the visit was like “a POTUS [visit] on steroids.” POTUS, as in President of the United States.
I’ve lived in Manhattan for only four years, but the prep for his visit was superb—like none I’ve seen. Nothing bad was happening to this Pope.
I like how a law enforcement "source" said the visit was like "a POTUS on steroids." Why did this source have to be anonymous or even a source? It can't be said out loud that the Pope's visit has an insane amount of security? Like this is some secret and they want to bait a person trying to kill the Pope into testing the security? Would this source really get in trouble for describing the amount of security around the Pope?
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think this is what I liked about Week 3:
Probably nothing, since it was a boring week of football and all.
a. Tom Brady, joining the 400 touchdown club. I’ll take a bet right now that he hits 500.
I think that is bet that a lot of people would take. It's Week 4 of the NFL season and Brady has averaged 32.5 touchdowns per season since he came back from his knee injury. So if Brady gets 25 more touchdowns this season (which he is on pace to obliterate), then he will only have to play about 2.5 seasons to get to 500 touchdowns. Barring a huge, career-ending injury I do think he will get to 500 touchdowns.
f. Lone Niner bright spot: the 37-yard punt return by Aussie Jarryd Hayne.
The media loves themselves some Jarryd Hayne. He's from Australia and has never played in the NFL before. Do you know this story? If you don't then you either (a) don't like the NFL, (b) are illiterate and can't read or (c) don't have a Twitter account or don't follow any NFL media members on Twitter or (d) are lying.
It is a great story, don't get me wrong. I've read it and heard it quite a bit.
h. You can’t stop Joseph Randle. You can only hope … aww, you know the rest.
You can only hope he doesn't steal men's underwear and cologne from a department store?
2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 3:
a. That mangy-looking ShopVac vacuuming the field in the Ed Jones Dome after the turf caught on fire.
Yes, there should be a nicer looking ShopVac available in order to vacuum the field, you know, for all the times that the turf catches fire and all.
Look Peter, the Rams are already packing up their shit to move to Los Angeles. The nice ShopVac is in a box somewhere, so they had to go with the uglier one. Sorry it offends your senses, but it's all they had when the other was packed up.
i. Whatever rehab plan Baltimore rookie receiver Breshad Perriman is on. Sixty-one days ago, he tweaked his knee in practice, a tweaking so seemingly minor that John Harbaugh said after practice that day—I was there—about Perriman’s availability: “It could be as early as tomorrow, or a couple of days at the most.” Perriman is practicing. There’s that.
Clearly, the only conclusion that can be drawn by this is that Breshad Perriman is a pussy. Either that or he just doesn't want to play. I know it is frustrating for fans to not see Perriman on the field, but John Harbaugh isn't a doctor and it obviously was more than just a minor tweak or else Perriman would be on the field already. Maybe he should find some of that deer antler spray in Ray Lewis's old locker.
k. St. Louis tight end Lance Kendricks, with an inexplicable drop, open behind the defense, for what should have been the go-ahead touchdown late in the first half against the Steelers.
An inexplicable drop. I bet the Steelers didn't even double-cover Kendricks when he lined up wide to the left. That's inexplicable too. You ALWAYS double-cover a tight end when he is split out wide. It's an Easterbrookian rule.
3. I think if I were Todd Bowles, I’d be worried about Darrelle Revis. He’s 30 now. He suffered a strained groin last week, and left Sunday’s game against the Eagles with some hamstring injury. Revis said post-game he was fine, and maybe he is. But this is the cornerstone of the New York secondary, obviously, and if we’re not even to the end of September and he’s got an iffy groin and hamstring, that’s troubling.
I'm sure Revis will miss a good portion of this season, come back and play well next season, and then stage a holdout for more money. So Todd Bowles probably should worry more about the eventual holdout than anything else.
4. I think if I were the 49ers, I’d be extremely concerned with Colin Kaepernick. His TD-to-Interception ratio in the past 10 games is 8-to-9, and he’s had one 300-yard passing game in that time. “I was 100% responsible,” he said about the embarrassing loss to Arizona on Sunday. Well, 80% maybe. But Kaepernick was awful.
I wouldn't worry about the guy that Ron Jaworski thinks could be the greatest quarterback in NFL history. He will be absolutely fine. The 49ers have simplified the offense or him (though they do have downfield passes in their system which they couldn't do with Alex Smith as the quarterback because he refuses to throw downfield) and everything will be fine. I don't know if I'm being sarcastic or not. Maybe a little bit, but Kaepernick is playing in a new offensive system. Give him some more time.
5. I think the NFL had better have a good explanation (Ed Hochuli, too) for Cam Newton’s postgame claim Sunday concerning a borderline late hit on him. Newton wanted a personal foul called on the hit but it wasn’t flagged, and he said after the game: “The response I got [from Hochuli] was, ‘Cam, you’re not old enough to get that call.’ I didn’t think you had to have seniority to get a personal foul or anything like that.” I’m sure Hochuli will say (assuming he agrees that this is what he said) that he was joking. But it’s not something to joke about. The league’s got to get on this one this morning.
Shocking no one, the NFL was basically like, "Nah, Newton was lying about that. We believe our official over Newton."
Maybe Newton was lying, but I think it's funny this is all over a late hit that really wasn't a late hit if you ask me. It was very borderline, but clearly if you saw the video then you saw Newton's face after Hochuli said something to him. Maybe instead of saying he wasn't old enough to get the call, he said that Newton is not an entertainer and icon. Perhaps that's the reason for Newton's shocked face.
10. I think these are my non-NFL thoughts of the week:
c. Jeter and Harbaugh, at the Big House. Cool sight before BYU-Michigan.
Yeah, super cool. Derek Jeter, the greatest player of Peter's generation.*
*Meaning over the last 25 years, which still isn't true.
f. Mike Trout doesn’t just hit home runs.
Yep, we know that Peter. You must have missed the last three seasons of arguments over the American League MVP award. Trout's defense was an integral part of this debate, but way to be three years late with your observations.
h. Having said that, I do hate the one-game wild-card playoff. It’s unfair for teams that have played 162 games to make the playoffs, and poof, it can be gone with one lousy inning.
I have always been against the one-game Wild Card playoff. I think it should be a three-game series. All of a sudden though, with no explanation, I think I don't hate the one-game Wild Card playoff anymore. It's like a flip switched somehow and my opinion changed after reading these two sentences that Peter wrote.
k. Can the three teams from the National League Central—as of Friday morning, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Chicago were 1-2-3 in major-league baseball in wins—just play a World Series round robin this year? Such a shame that, most likely, the Cubs and Pirates will meet in the play-in game, and three hours later, one of them will be out.
If the MLB playoffs still worked like they did before the Wild Card then one of these teams wouldn't even make the playoffs. Heck, if the MLB playoffs worked like they did before the second Wild Card then one of these teams wouldn't even be in the playoffs. So as much as I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate the one-game Wild Card playoff, in this case it at least gives one of these teams a chance to go further into the playoffs.
m. If you’re Joe Maddon, do you pitch Jake Arrieta at Pittsburgh in the play-in game? If you’re the Pirates, in line to play the third play-in game in three years, aren’t you tired of facing aces? Johnny Cueto and the Reds two years ago, Madison Bumgarner and the Giants last year, and probably Arrieta this year.
If you are the Pirates, don't you understand that if you are playing a one-game Wild Card playoff against another good team then you will probably face that other team's ace? If you are the Pirates, aren't you happy that you have Gerrit Cole? I don't get this comment. Most teams who are on the borderline of making the playoffs have an ace of some sort. In a one-game playoff, that's the guy who gets the start. Maybe the Pirates should try winning the division and avoiding the one-game Wild Card playoff.
o. Bryce Harper: 1.125 OPS. That is one insane number. No one in baseball is within 100 points of him.
Yeah, but his team isn't winning so he isn't as a valuable as a lesser player on a better team. How can Harper be valuable if he doesn't have better players around him than another player whose team made the playoffs does?
s. Beernerdness: So happy for the great people at Allagash Brewery in Portland, Maine. Allagash White, which is only the greatest beer of all time, won gold in the Belgian Witbier category this weekend at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver. That’s my little pet beer category, and Allagash White’s the best I’ve had.
(Bengoodfella shakes head sadly) I like Belgian Witbier okay, but open your mind to other beers or talk about different beers in a MMQB. Every week Peter talks about how much he likes white beers and Witbiers. I'm not sure if I have ever heard of Peter liking a darker beer. It's not a big deal, but he's really not a beer nerd if he only talks about one kind of beer, is he?
u. I know some would say, “Keep politics out of this, Pope Francis. You’re not qualified to talk about global warming, and you have no idea what’s causing the discord in the Mideast and it’s easy for you to say everyone should take in refugees—just stick to religion.” I say: “Keep the pressure on, Pope. Keep talking about things that matter, especially global warming. Go get ‘em.”
Peter's opinion is that some might say the Pope doesn't have the knowledge to give his opinion on these matters, but Peter thinks because these issues matter then the Pope should continue giving his opinion. I wonder if Peter would agree with this if the Pope started spouting off about gun rights and issues that Peter doesn't agree with? I think I know the answer. But yeah, keep spouting off about subjects that matter, because Peter agrees with you on these issues. I bet Peter doesn't like it if the Pope starts espousing opinions like those of Kim Davis. They did meet after all.
The Adieu Haiku
Pagano can speak.
Wall broken down in Nashville.
Colts ran through that thing.
This Adieu Haiku is broken down and this is another awful one. I think Peter ran through his creative ideas for a haiku about two years ago. Make it stop.
This morning, we can see how a few more pieces fit into the 2015 NFL jigsaw puzzle. This wasn’t a particularly good weekend of pro football, and TVs across America must have clicked off with the three late-afternoon games being decided by 40, 27 and 26 points. (Average margin of victory on Sunday: 14.9 points.)
The NFL does this shit from time-to-time during the season. It's not that they schedule bad games later in the day, but they schedule just three or so games later in the day to where there isn't a lot of interest if a few of the games are blowouts.
But every week we find out a little more about where the year’s headed.
A larger sample size gives a better indication of what conclusions can be reached about the sample? You have to be kidding me this is true.
The Bengals are in fabulous shape in the AFC North. At 3-0 after a crushing 28-24 win at 0-3 Baltimore on Sunday, Cincinnati is set up nicely for the fifth playoff appearance in Andy Dalton’s five years. “I’m as comfortable playing this game as I’ve ever been,” Dalton said from Baltimore. A 121.0 passer rating would seem to back him up.
I pretend Peter is reading that first sentence in the voice of Tim Gunn and it makes my enjoyment of this passage increase two-fold. Peter has been really tough on Andy Dalton over the past few years. Dalton has been pretty good in the regular season, so the question arises when it comes to the playoffs. That's been the question for Dalton, if he can show up in the playoffs. Before Peter changes his narrative, he may want to consider what his narrative is first.
Jay Cutler, Tony Romo, Drew Brees … and now Roethlisberger. That’s four marquee quarterbacks hurt before the calendar turns to October. You can be sure the Competition Committee will be pushing for more offseason drill work for offensive linemen; players are now restricted from all offseason contact by the 2011 labor agreement.
Oh sure, nothing gets done until the marquee quarterbacks start getting hurt. And also, I love how Jay Cutler is conveniently a "marquee" quarterback and not a shitty quarterback when it's important to place him in that category to prove a point. Cutler is marquee now. When he is no longer injured, then he will be a trash quarterback again.
The Patriots wake the echoes … of 2007. They’re already using the “U” word in New England. As in “undefeated.” New England went 16-0 in 2007, and advanced to a flawless-looking 3-0 Sunday against Jacksonville. More about that later, but as one of the ’07 team leaders, Rodney Harrison, opined Sunday night: “It’s 2007 all over again. Tom Brady’s playing like he’s 29, 30 years old.”
Man, Peter is jumping on the "Can the Patriots go undefeated" train pretty damn quick this year. Hey, it could very well happen, but it's not even Week 4 yet. How about not hammering readers over the head with this story this early?
Indianapolis is the most fortunate decent team in the league. AFC South standings: T-1. Indianapolis/Jacksonville/Houston/Tennessee (1-2). The Colts, their season on the brink, went from disaster to tied for the division lead exiting September in one afternoon. You wouldn’t think a 35-33 win at Tennessee would make a coach emotional after a game. But Chuck Pagano was.
The Colts were always going to be fine because they play in the AFC South. It's like the NFC South of the AFC, minus having more than one really good quarterback. It's just not a great division right now. The Colts will be fine partly for that reason. Also, Chuck Pagano deserves to keep his job. I'm Team Pagano.
There’s a reason you don’t have to worry about Peyton Manning’s health. The Denver defense is huge. “We just have ball hawks,” safety David Bruton said, a few minutes after making his third huge defensive play of the month, an athletic pick of Matthew Stafford to clinch the 24-12 win over Detroit. Stafford couldn’t breathe against the defensive pressure.
Eh, even if the Broncos defense is awesome I would still worry about the health of Peyton Manning. The Broncos defense is better than I gave it credit for a few weeks ago, but I still think it's good to worry about Peyton Manning's health. I haven't seen Brock Osweiler play yet, so I can't really comment on whether he is any good or not, but I imagine the Broncos don't necessarily want to find out while jockeying for a playoff spot.
The Raiders, usually out of it by now, will actually have a winning record as October dawns. The Raiders (2-1) play on the road next week—and they are actually favored to beat Chicago.
Jimmy Clausen, everyone! He's like Brandon Weeden, just without the skill set and ability to win an NFL game in a pinch.
The quarterback, Derek Carr, is a big reason. “Having a quarterback is everything,” said Charles Woodson from Cleveland.
Okay guys, apparently it's important to have a good quarterback in order to win NFL games. I'm still working to confirm this is true, so I don't want to speculate much more at this point. The best teams usually have really competent quarterbacks.
It’s early-bye time for New England. No team likes the Week 4 bye. This year, only the Patriots and Titans have it. Strange to have a bye before the leaves turn in Foxboro. “Rest, let your muscles chill and do what you have to do to be ready for next game,” Rob Gronkowski said Sunday. Taking stock of this team, you don’t want to make too much of the almost-too-easy win over the Jaguars,
Repeat after me, now it means Peter King will make a bit much of the Patriots' win over the Jaguars. He's not going to go overboard or anything though. He'll just start talking about the Patriots going undefeated when there are still 13 games in the regular season left to be played, plus three games in the postseason. Again, let's keep the reactions normal and not go overboard based on a 3-0 start.
That was a sick team eight years ago. The ’07 Patriots started with 24, 24 and 31-point wins, and didn’t have a game closer than 34-17 (Week 5, Cleveland) in the first half of the season. This year, New England handled Pittsburgh, which made it close in the second half. Ditto Buffalo, and then the Jaguars rout. It’s easy now to say Brady has never been better, but he was: in 2007. In the first three weeks then, the 30-year-old Brady completed 79.5% of his throws with a plus-nine TD-to-pick ratio and a rating of 141.8. This year, he’s completing 72.2%, with a plus-nine and a rating of 119.6. It’s like quibbling over whether driving a Mercedes or a BMW is a smoother ride, but Brady set his all-time standard in 2007.
Let's not make too much of a home victory over an 0-3 team, but Peter wants his readers to see the parallels between this Patriots team and one of the greatest NFL teams of all-time. Again, he's keeping the discussion in hand and not writing something overly-presumptuous.
New England is likely to be favored in all of its remaining games—save, perhaps, for the Week 12 Sunday-nighter at Denver.
And who even cares if the Broncos have Peyton Manning healthy or not with that Broncos defense?
Harrison told me over the summer that the league did Brady and the Patriots a huge favor with the long-running investigation into Brady’s honor—he’d be supremely motivated to stick it to the league this year, even more motivated than the hyper-focused player usually is. So far, Harrison’s been spot on.
I think a lot of people knew the Patriots were going to do a "Fuck You" tour of the NFL. But yes, so far after playing three teams that didn't make the playoffs last year Harrison has been spot-on.
And Brady still has one thing to accomplish that he hasn’t yet in his previous 16 pro seasons: winning ‘em all. Going 19-0. You’d be naïve to think he hasn’t thought of that—many times.
It's fantastic to read that Peter isn't making too much of this victory over the Jaguars. He compares this team to the 2007 Patriots, says the Patriots are favored to win the rest of their games, and mentions that Tom Brady wants to go perfect on the season. It's a very low-key affair.
Think of the environment the Bengals walked into Sunday: Ravens home opener, Ravens at 0-2 in desperate straits knowing a loss would put them three games out in the division after three games, and then the little thing about the Ravens and Bengals not liking each other. And then think of Dalton getting stripped in the fourth quarter, having it returned for a score, and, after being up 14-0, trailing 17-14 with seven minutes left, crowd going nuts.
I'm really enjoying Peter's somewhat 180 degree turn on Dalton. All Peter wrote about is how the playoffs are where Dalton will be judged, but then when Dalton has a good regular season Peter is all-in on Dalton having turned a corner.
First down, Bengals’ 20. Dalton drops. Green runs a seam route deep up the left side, bracketed by safeties Kendrick Lewis and Will Hill; the left corner, Jimmy Smith, was singled on the outside receiver. Dalton threw a perfect strike 36 yards in the air, between the two safeties, and Green won the race against them and Smith, who came over to try to help. Too late: 80-yard touchdown. But the Ravens came back to take another lead. And here came Dalton again, taking over at his 20 again. “We’re going to need every one of you here,” he said in the huddle. “I trust every one of you to make plays right now.”
The Bengals players were all possibly thinking, "But we aren't sure if we trust you to make plays right now. Wait, it's the regular season? Well then, we trust you. In that playoffs? We are still shaky on that."
In two drives during the last seven minutes, Dalton drove the Bengals 160 yards for two touchdowns … in a total of one minute and 58 seconds. “I’ve got a lot of confidence in what we’re doing,” Dalton said. “Once you’ve been in a system for a while and you know your receivers, you get a lot more confident, and that’s where I am with these guys right now.”
I will say this for Andy Dalton. He didn't have a lot to work with against the Colts last year in the playoffs and the way the Bengals have invested in offensive weapons for Dalton (Bernard, Hill, Eifert) will start to pay off for them once those players get more experience. So I haven't made excuses for Dalton in the past, but he didn't have a ton to work with in the playoffs last year and Jermaine Gresham wasn't exactly the most reliable of tight ends.
I’d like to see Dalton’s three October tests, all against pressure defenses (Kansas City at home, Seattle at home, at Buffalo), before saying anything definitive about him. But what I saw Sunday, I liked a lot.
It sounds like you are pretty high on him Peter. For good reason, but before the season you were hinting that you aren't even sure Dalton would make it through the whole season without A.J. McCarron replacing him.
Again: Dalton’s been a good regular-season quarterback (43-23-1, 107 touchdowns, 67 picks), and a maddening postseason one (0-4, one touchdown, six interceptions). Cincinnati won’t love him until that changes. But that can’t change in September, and what Dalton has done in September is all he can do. It’s been plenty good enough.
Excluding nationally televised games, Andy Dalton has usually done in September what he needs to do. Before any conclusions can be reached about Dalton, he would need to perform in the postseason before writers like Peter King get off his ass.
The city of Pittsburgh sighs.
The injury is a strain of the MCL and a bone bruise. But the ACL is intact. Roethlisberger thought the worst when he left the field, because of the pain. And the Steelers have to feel good that Tomlin banged the drum to get Vick in the building as the backup, because he’s played in the kind of games he’ll have to win beginning Thursday night—against Baltimore, in a rabid-rivalry game at home.
Yes, Mike Vick has played in these types of games. Has he played WELL in these games? That's the real question. Maybe he'll even prepare for the game for a little bit. Steelers fans shouldn't worry because Vick seems to pay attention and prepare for a few weeks, then gets bored with game preparation and starts committing turnovers. By the time Vick gets bored, Roethlisberger will hopefully be back from his injury.
Three questions for… Richie Incognito.
But first, a stat: Through three games, the former Dolphins guard—as mentioned above, Pro Football Focus’s top-rated guard in the NFL—has surrendered one quarterback disruption (either a quarterback sack, hit or pressure). The Dolphins’ starting guards have given up 26.
My sense is Incognito will enjoy that one.
Yeah, in your face Dolphins! That's what you get for getting rid of Richie Incognito after he bullied Jonathan Martin. Incognito got done wrong and now he's getting vengeance by playing well. This is a lesson to the Dolphins that if they don't let their players bully teammates then they will be punished for daring to have some semblance of a backbone.
Through three weeks, NFL teams have missed 14 of the newfangled extra points, after missing 26 in the previous four seasons combined. With the line of scrimmage for the PAT pushed back from the two- to the 15-yard line, it’s obviously not such a gimme anymore. And that’s good. When a play is 99.6% successful, the pertinent question is why they play should exist. I loved what happened Sunday night in the Detroit-Denver game, when Bronco Aqib Talib blocked a Lions extra point, and cornerback Chris Harris picked it up and ran it 52 yards toward the opposite end zone before being tackled by Detroit’s Eric Ebron. If Harris had made it all the way, Denver would have been awarded two points, and a 7-6 Bronco lead would have grown to 9-6. The change was made to add some excitement to a dull play, and while I wouldn’t call a 33-yard extra point kick “exciting,” it certainly makes the point or points after touchdown more interesting than before …
Yes, the extra point is more interesting now. How often is the extra point going to get blocked? Probably not very often, but I guess there is some excitement that could occur and that's a good thing. Peter's love of the new extra point rules is finally justified based solely on this one play.
Playing without Luke Kuechly (concussion), the Panthers bent on defense, giving Luke McCown-led New Orleans 380 total yards, but didn’t break at the end of a 27-22 win. One of the game’s rising-star corners, Josh Norman, plucked a McCown pass intended for Brandin Cooks out of the sky. “I saw a bone, and I went up and got it,” Norman said. A bone? “Yeah, a bone. The ball. God gave me wings to fly, and I went up and got it. All the guys on this defense can make plays. Do your job. Be in the defense. I’m doing some pretty good stuff. I think we all are.”
God gave Norman wings this year, but he apparently gave Norman a bad attitude and the ability to make mistakes over past seasons. Still, Norman is on a contract drive, so he should be rewarded for trying really hard this one year with a new contract where he wants to get paid like all the other overpaid Top-5 corners in the NFL get overpaid. He has earned the right to be overpaid.
Then Peter eulogizes Yogi Berra and apparently Peter was neighbors with Berra when Peter lived in Montclair. I'm sure that was a rough period of time for Yogi when Peter followed behind Berra when he walked around in public writing down all of his conversations. I wonder if Peter ever asked Berra if he considered Derek Jeter to be the greatest player in Peter's lifetime (but not really lifetime, because Peter only meant over whatever time span makes him seem less crazy)?
“I don’t care. It’s just a ball.”
—Tom Brady, asked how he felt about Danny Amendola—the receiver of Brady's 400th NFL touchdown Sunday in Foxboro—handing the ball to a fan in the end zone after making the historic catch.
Besides, the ball was probably slightly deflated anyway, and rather than Brady keep the ball and run the risk of the NFL finding out was underinflated by 0.3 PSI, it's better if a fan keeps the keep the ball. We wouldn't want Roger Goodell subpoenaing Brady's cell phone and a blood sample in order to prove he intentionally underinflated the football by a few tenths of a PSI. That would ruin the integrity of the game.
“I think there’s a little bit of karma coming back to him. Nelson Agholor hasn’t replaced Jeremy Maclin. Jeremy Maclin was a class-act guy. You can’t just replace people like they’re things, you know what I mean? Like they’re toys that you’re tired of playing with because you want something new. So I hope that he loses. I hope he loses every game.”
—Former Jets linebacker and current CBS NFL analyst Bart Scott, on Chip Kelly, to WFAN radio in New York.
Criticizing Bart Scott for these comments is a layup. And not just because Scott doesn't begin to realize how much stiches cost.
2. Jeremy Maclin left the Eagles to sign a free-agent contract last winter with Kansas City. In 2012, Maclin was the 28th-leading receiver in football, with 69 catches. In 2013, he missed the season with a torn ACL. In 2014, Maclin was the 13th-leading receiver in football, with 85 catches. He signed a five-year, $55-million contract with the Chiefs, which, at the time, was tied for the fourth-richest contract (per season) for a wide receiver in NFL history. Maybe letting Maclin walk for the fourth-richest receiver contract ever will be seen as a dumb decision in the long-term, though I doubt it. Smart teams let good players take exorbitant deals in free agency, and draft good players to replace them. I don’t know if this will work out; it’s obviously a gamble by the Chiefs to pay the money, and a gamble by Kelly to not meet Maclin’s demands. But I’d rather pay Agholor $2.3 million a year for the next four years (his rookie deal) than pay Maclin $11 million.
It's almost like Bart Scott, as an NFL analyst, is shitty at his job doing those things which involve actually analyzing a situation. Scott can't put aside his personal feelings and opinions and analyze a situation from a neutral point of view. Obviously CBS had to sign him to be one of their ridiculous vapid talking heads as soon as Scott retired. It's hard to find analysts who actually suck at analyzing.
3. Did Baltimore GM Ozzie Newsome “replace people like they’re things” when he let Torrey Smith and Pernell McPhee walk in the off-season, as he does every year? Did John Elway treat tight end Julius Thomas “like a toy” for letting him go to Jacksonville for $9.2 million a year in free agency? Or Jerry Jones, with DeMarco Murray, when Murray got $8 million a year in Philadelphia? No. They made business decisions.
Let's not forget that Bart Scott left the Ravens so that he could pursue a big free agent contract with the Jets. I don't think he thought that Newsome just replaced him without a second thought, but it was a business decision. This is why not every pro athlete that is loquacious should end up working in the media after his career is over. Talking and talking to where you say something smart are two different things.
It's hard to agree with Peter, but I do agree with him here. Comments like this from Bart Scott is why I don't ever watch NFL pregame shows. I don't need that type of stupidity in my life. I like football, not listening to idiots who think they know what they are talking about discussing football.
The Award Section
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Devonta Freeman, running back, Atlanta. The 2014 fourth-round pick from Florida State is supposed to be a complementary back, not a feature back.
I don't know why Freeman was supposed to be a complementary back. I guess it was his height that was the issue or something. I don't know if he was selected just to be a complementary back or anything of the like.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Josh Norman, cornerback, Carolina. Channeling his inner Odell Beckham Jr., with the Panthers protecting a 27-22 lead over the Saints with 80 seconds left, Norman, a rising-star cornerback,
Peter has mentioned Josh Norman three times in this column and each time he linked the story about Norman being a rising star where he labels Norman "a rising star" with the link. It just so happens to be a MMQB story and it's annoying. We get it. You want us to read the story. You don't have to link the same story over and over and over again.
Just a beautiful play, at the precise time his team had to have it. It was the difference between the Panthers being 3-0 and tied for the AFC South lead,
Yep Peter, the Panthers play in the NFC South, not the AFC South. Though even if their record were 2-1 then that would still be in the lead in the AFC South.
Norman added five tackles. He’s turning into one of the best cornerbacks in the league.
Norman is more motivated than he has ever been because he is a free agent after the season and he wants to get paid. He wants to get paid, so he's motivated. Therefore I hope the Panthers don't back up a Brinks truck and pay him. He's never put together a full season of great cornerback play, but wants to be paid like a Top-5 corner.
The first nine Chicago drives at Seattle ended in punts.
The first nine New England drives against Jacksonville ended in scores.
It's almost like one team started Jimmy Clausen at quarterback against a really good defense and the other team started Tom Brady at quarterback against a not really good defense.
I do love the extra point rule...it's creating havoc
— trey wingo (@wingoz) September 27, 2015
Yes Peter, we get it. You like the new extra point rule and will do anything in your power to point out other people like it too and think it's the greatest NFL innovation since anonymous sources in the league office that lie to you and give you false information which you report as true, then later apologize for. The new rule is okay. You can lay off giving testimonials and having others give testimonials to the greatness of this new rule. Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week
Police erected 40 miles of barriers in the city, and 818 tons of concrete barriers. The New York Post quoted a law enforcement source as saying security for the visit was like “a POTUS [visit] on steroids.” POTUS, as in President of the United States.
I’ve lived in Manhattan for only four years, but the prep for his visit was superb—like none I’ve seen. Nothing bad was happening to this Pope.
I like how a law enforcement "source" said the visit was like "a POTUS on steroids." Why did this source have to be anonymous or even a source? It can't be said out loud that the Pope's visit has an insane amount of security? Like this is some secret and they want to bait a person trying to kill the Pope into testing the security? Would this source really get in trouble for describing the amount of security around the Pope?
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think this is what I liked about Week 3:
Probably nothing, since it was a boring week of football and all.
a. Tom Brady, joining the 400 touchdown club. I’ll take a bet right now that he hits 500.
I think that is bet that a lot of people would take. It's Week 4 of the NFL season and Brady has averaged 32.5 touchdowns per season since he came back from his knee injury. So if Brady gets 25 more touchdowns this season (which he is on pace to obliterate), then he will only have to play about 2.5 seasons to get to 500 touchdowns. Barring a huge, career-ending injury I do think he will get to 500 touchdowns.
f. Lone Niner bright spot: the 37-yard punt return by Aussie Jarryd Hayne.
The media loves themselves some Jarryd Hayne. He's from Australia and has never played in the NFL before. Do you know this story? If you don't then you either (a) don't like the NFL, (b) are illiterate and can't read or (c) don't have a Twitter account or don't follow any NFL media members on Twitter or (d) are lying.
It is a great story, don't get me wrong. I've read it and heard it quite a bit.
h. You can’t stop Joseph Randle. You can only hope … aww, you know the rest.
You can only hope he doesn't steal men's underwear and cologne from a department store?
2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 3:
a. That mangy-looking ShopVac vacuuming the field in the Ed Jones Dome after the turf caught on fire.
Yes, there should be a nicer looking ShopVac available in order to vacuum the field, you know, for all the times that the turf catches fire and all.
Look Peter, the Rams are already packing up their shit to move to Los Angeles. The nice ShopVac is in a box somewhere, so they had to go with the uglier one. Sorry it offends your senses, but it's all they had when the other was packed up.
i. Whatever rehab plan Baltimore rookie receiver Breshad Perriman is on. Sixty-one days ago, he tweaked his knee in practice, a tweaking so seemingly minor that John Harbaugh said after practice that day—I was there—about Perriman’s availability: “It could be as early as tomorrow, or a couple of days at the most.” Perriman is practicing. There’s that.
Clearly, the only conclusion that can be drawn by this is that Breshad Perriman is a pussy. Either that or he just doesn't want to play. I know it is frustrating for fans to not see Perriman on the field, but John Harbaugh isn't a doctor and it obviously was more than just a minor tweak or else Perriman would be on the field already. Maybe he should find some of that deer antler spray in Ray Lewis's old locker.
k. St. Louis tight end Lance Kendricks, with an inexplicable drop, open behind the defense, for what should have been the go-ahead touchdown late in the first half against the Steelers.
An inexplicable drop. I bet the Steelers didn't even double-cover Kendricks when he lined up wide to the left. That's inexplicable too. You ALWAYS double-cover a tight end when he is split out wide. It's an Easterbrookian rule.
3. I think if I were Todd Bowles, I’d be worried about Darrelle Revis. He’s 30 now. He suffered a strained groin last week, and left Sunday’s game against the Eagles with some hamstring injury. Revis said post-game he was fine, and maybe he is. But this is the cornerstone of the New York secondary, obviously, and if we’re not even to the end of September and he’s got an iffy groin and hamstring, that’s troubling.
I'm sure Revis will miss a good portion of this season, come back and play well next season, and then stage a holdout for more money. So Todd Bowles probably should worry more about the eventual holdout than anything else.
4. I think if I were the 49ers, I’d be extremely concerned with Colin Kaepernick. His TD-to-Interception ratio in the past 10 games is 8-to-9, and he’s had one 300-yard passing game in that time. “I was 100% responsible,” he said about the embarrassing loss to Arizona on Sunday. Well, 80% maybe. But Kaepernick was awful.
I wouldn't worry about the guy that Ron Jaworski thinks could be the greatest quarterback in NFL history. He will be absolutely fine. The 49ers have simplified the offense or him (though they do have downfield passes in their system which they couldn't do with Alex Smith as the quarterback because he refuses to throw downfield) and everything will be fine. I don't know if I'm being sarcastic or not. Maybe a little bit, but Kaepernick is playing in a new offensive system. Give him some more time.
5. I think the NFL had better have a good explanation (Ed Hochuli, too) for Cam Newton’s postgame claim Sunday concerning a borderline late hit on him. Newton wanted a personal foul called on the hit but it wasn’t flagged, and he said after the game: “The response I got [from Hochuli] was, ‘Cam, you’re not old enough to get that call.’ I didn’t think you had to have seniority to get a personal foul or anything like that.” I’m sure Hochuli will say (assuming he agrees that this is what he said) that he was joking. But it’s not something to joke about. The league’s got to get on this one this morning.
Shocking no one, the NFL was basically like, "Nah, Newton was lying about that. We believe our official over Newton."
Maybe Newton was lying, but I think it's funny this is all over a late hit that really wasn't a late hit if you ask me. It was very borderline, but clearly if you saw the video then you saw Newton's face after Hochuli said something to him. Maybe instead of saying he wasn't old enough to get the call, he said that Newton is not an entertainer and icon. Perhaps that's the reason for Newton's shocked face.
10. I think these are my non-NFL thoughts of the week:
c. Jeter and Harbaugh, at the Big House. Cool sight before BYU-Michigan.
Yeah, super cool. Derek Jeter, the greatest player of Peter's generation.*
*Meaning over the last 25 years, which still isn't true.
f. Mike Trout doesn’t just hit home runs.
Yep, we know that Peter. You must have missed the last three seasons of arguments over the American League MVP award. Trout's defense was an integral part of this debate, but way to be three years late with your observations.
h. Having said that, I do hate the one-game wild-card playoff. It’s unfair for teams that have played 162 games to make the playoffs, and poof, it can be gone with one lousy inning.
I have always been against the one-game Wild Card playoff. I think it should be a three-game series. All of a sudden though, with no explanation, I think I don't hate the one-game Wild Card playoff anymore. It's like a flip switched somehow and my opinion changed after reading these two sentences that Peter wrote.
k. Can the three teams from the National League Central—as of Friday morning, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Chicago were 1-2-3 in major-league baseball in wins—just play a World Series round robin this year? Such a shame that, most likely, the Cubs and Pirates will meet in the play-in game, and three hours later, one of them will be out.
If the MLB playoffs still worked like they did before the Wild Card then one of these teams wouldn't even make the playoffs. Heck, if the MLB playoffs worked like they did before the second Wild Card then one of these teams wouldn't even be in the playoffs. So as much as I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate the one-game Wild Card playoff, in this case it at least gives one of these teams a chance to go further into the playoffs.
m. If you’re Joe Maddon, do you pitch Jake Arrieta at Pittsburgh in the play-in game? If you’re the Pirates, in line to play the third play-in game in three years, aren’t you tired of facing aces? Johnny Cueto and the Reds two years ago, Madison Bumgarner and the Giants last year, and probably Arrieta this year.
If you are the Pirates, don't you understand that if you are playing a one-game Wild Card playoff against another good team then you will probably face that other team's ace? If you are the Pirates, aren't you happy that you have Gerrit Cole? I don't get this comment. Most teams who are on the borderline of making the playoffs have an ace of some sort. In a one-game playoff, that's the guy who gets the start. Maybe the Pirates should try winning the division and avoiding the one-game Wild Card playoff.
o. Bryce Harper: 1.125 OPS. That is one insane number. No one in baseball is within 100 points of him.
Yeah, but his team isn't winning so he isn't as a valuable as a lesser player on a better team. How can Harper be valuable if he doesn't have better players around him than another player whose team made the playoffs does?
s. Beernerdness: So happy for the great people at Allagash Brewery in Portland, Maine. Allagash White, which is only the greatest beer of all time, won gold in the Belgian Witbier category this weekend at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver. That’s my little pet beer category, and Allagash White’s the best I’ve had.
(Bengoodfella shakes head sadly) I like Belgian Witbier okay, but open your mind to other beers or talk about different beers in a MMQB. Every week Peter talks about how much he likes white beers and Witbiers. I'm not sure if I have ever heard of Peter liking a darker beer. It's not a big deal, but he's really not a beer nerd if he only talks about one kind of beer, is he?
u. I know some would say, “Keep politics out of this, Pope Francis. You’re not qualified to talk about global warming, and you have no idea what’s causing the discord in the Mideast and it’s easy for you to say everyone should take in refugees—just stick to religion.” I say: “Keep the pressure on, Pope. Keep talking about things that matter, especially global warming. Go get ‘em.”
Peter's opinion is that some might say the Pope doesn't have the knowledge to give his opinion on these matters, but Peter thinks because these issues matter then the Pope should continue giving his opinion. I wonder if Peter would agree with this if the Pope started spouting off about gun rights and issues that Peter doesn't agree with? I think I know the answer. But yeah, keep spouting off about subjects that matter, because Peter agrees with you on these issues. I bet Peter doesn't like it if the Pope starts espousing opinions like those of Kim Davis. They did meet after all.
The Adieu Haiku
Pagano can speak.
Wall broken down in Nashville.
Colts ran through that thing.
This Adieu Haiku is broken down and this is another awful one. I think Peter ran through his creative ideas for a haiku about two years ago. Make it stop.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
7 comments MMQB Review: Peter King May Have Just Confessed He Wants to Sleep with Marcus Mariota Edition
Peter King talked about how perfect Aaron Rodgers was in last week's MMQB, as well as made his Super Bowl pick. Peter also had a travel note complimentary of Acela, which we all know will probably turn into a complaint about Acela in the coming weeks. This week Peter talks about the blessed-relief first week of NFL games, Marcus Mariotia's outstanding start to his NFL career, creeps me out by inadvertently confessing he's sexually attracted to Mariota (the creepy part being that Peter is significantly older than Mariota), and it turns out the PAT Revolution didn't work out how Peter thought it might. If you recall, Peter was a big proponent of moving the extra point back in order to give NFL teams more incentive to go for the two point conversion (that's the partial reason). After only one week, it didn't work that way.
Peter has also stopped doing the Fine Fifteen in MMQB, which is good news. It is pointless to rank NFL teams early in the season anyway. I'm lying, he's just not doing the Fine Fifteen until all of this week's games are played, which makes ranking all the NFL teams after one week seem to make so much more sense.
Now that was quite a way to end the first Sunday of a blessed-relief NFL Week 1.
No more talking about the Patriots deflating footballs! Ever! It's ov---
(Blessed relief because we’re not talking much about inflation of footballs … just 359 words here on the Brady vs. Goodell mess this morning.)
Oh. So Peter King thinks not talking about Brady v. Goodell is relief, but then he goes ahead and writes 359 words on the topic anyway. Hey, Peter can't control what he writes in this column (which is why he doesn't use the word "Redskins," because he can't control his own words), so don't blame him!
Can I start the 19th season of MMQB by telling you an observation I had Sunday evening about the incredible closeness of this game? Of these games?
It's a game of precociousness?
The games are so close, and they’re sometimes decided by the craziest of breaks, and human foibles, and mind-boggling decisions.
That’s a big reason, collectively, why America keeps coming back for more, no matter how fist-shaking angry it gets at the commissioner or the owners or players who mess up.
Thanks for telling America why we come back. Little did we know that we enjoyed watching the games. I thought I watched the NFL just so I would know what Peter was talking about when I read MMQB every week.
We start this morning with the first-ever opening-week duel of rookie quarterbacks drafted with the first two overall picks. Jameis Winston (Tampa Bay) versus Marcus Mariota (Tennessee) kind of snuck up on us, as it was eclipsed by the never-ending drama on Ted Wells’ field of play.
“I thought it deserved a little more attention,” Tennessee coach Ken Whisenhunt said from Tampa on Sunday night. “When we first saw the schedule—Week 1, 4:25 game—it seemed like they planned this because of the spectacle of it. And because we had the late game, I’m watching some of the pre-game shows this morning. They didn’t talk about it very much. I didn’t get that. This was a pretty big deal.”
The same head coach who wanted his rookie quarterback to throw an interception in order to get it over with and slow down the hype train wanted there to be more hype surrounding this rookie quarterback's first NFL start? Got it.
You could hear it in Whisenhunt’s voice, and see it on his face. It’s the kind of thing you’ve heard from Bill Parcells a few dozen times if you’ve been paying attention.
Bill Parcells. The greatest coach in the history of the NFL.*
*Only when he had one of the greatest head coaches in the NFL running his defense or on his staff as an assistant head coach. Without Bill Belichick as his defensive coordinator or assistant head coach, Parcells has a career record of 77-76. Probably means nothing...
Let’s not put this guy in Canton yet. Or, So, you’re fitting him for his gold jacket already? That was Whisenhunt.
It's very Parcells-like to not canonize a quarterback after one start. Other NFL head coaches would be raving about how Mariota will never throw an interception and will probably have a perfect passer rating over his entire career. Not Bill Parcells and Ken Whisenhunt though. They refuse to get ahead of themselves after Mariota makes one career start.
“You may not hear it in my voice,” he said, “but I’m really, really excited to have this kid.”
Finding a franchise quarterback = Keeping a head coaching job. It's basic math.
Next play: Harry Douglas burst from the slot past a good corner, ex-Titan Alterraun Verner, and caught a four-yard touchdown pass from Mariota. Easy stuff. At least it looked easy. Three minutes later, near the end of the half, after Winston's second interception of the half, Mariota flipped a quick curl to Walker for the final touchdown from a yard out.
I will say this about Jameis Winston. He's known for throwing interceptions (that's the perception at least) and giving him a shitty offensive line isn't going to help him get comfortable and throw fewer interceptions. Winston is a pocket passer and wasn't able to feel comfortable throwing the ball in the pocket. Until the Buccaneers do that for him, he can't succeed.
It’s totally unfair to draw conclusions based on four quarters
Everyone repeat after me...now Peter will proceed to draw some conclusions.
but you can say this about the two players. Mariota moved between shotgun and under-center snaps freely. He was comfortable throwing fast and throwing with time. He was extremely accurate. He looked so comfortable, as though this was the first game of his sixth season, not his first.
I'm not going to be a Winston apologist, but look at the offensive line the Titans have put around Mariota. They have worked hard to put a quality offensive line out there, even to the point they had the luxury of trading away a disappointing Andy Levitre rather than keep him on the bench for depth.
Winston was pressured more than Mariota, and he didn’t always respond to it well, going 16 of 33 with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
A rookie quarterback making his first-ever career NFL start didn't respond well to pressure? I can't believe this. Find me quarterbacks who respond well to pressure and these are among the best quarterbacks in the game, not quarterbacks making their first-ever NFL start. Again, Peter doesn't want to draw conclusions...
Rex Ryan coached six years in New Jersey, and so he heard the cacophonous noise around the Meadowlands on occasion. But a couple of things he hadn’t seen. One: Fans standing for most of three hours, which they did Sunday, so as not to miss anything in a 27-14 Bills’ victory over the favored Colts. Two: The RV parking lot adjacent to Ralph Wilson Stadium full late Saturday morning.
It's almost like Bills fans crave a winning team or something. I'll be impressed when that RV parking lot is full late Saturday morning when it's late November and December when it is cold as hell outside.
This was a revelation game for Buffalo. In a game between Tyrod Taylor and Andrew Luck, who do you think would have the 63.6 passer rating and who the 123.8 rating?
I don't know, is Tyrod Taylor on the Patriots team now? If so, I would expect the 63.6 rating to be what Luck has put up.
“I think we made a statement today,” Taylor said.
This one: We’re pretty good now, and we might get better, and we just might petition the league to play all 16 games at home.
“We’re gonna be tough to beat at home, I’m telling you,” Ryan said.
A Rex Ryan-coached team with an actual quarterback is a little bit terrifying. Really, the only thing that could bring the Bills down is if Rex hired his brother to be his defensive coordinator.
Judging by the first week of the season, they’d better be good at home—and on the road. Standings of the AFC East this morning:
Buffalo: 1-0
Miami: 1-0
New England: 1-0
New York Jets: 1-0
Great! Standings! They mean so much this time of year. Nobody in the AFC East has been defeated at this point in the season. Could this be the first time in league history an entire division manages to 16-0? Possibly. Peter doesn't want to jump to any conclusions, but he thinks at least two of these teams will go undefeated.
The defense is the real thing. If the offense can hold up its end—and really, you can say the same thing about any of the three AFC East challengers to New England—Buffalo will be in it till the end. That’s a big if, of course. It will depend on the maturation of Taylor.
So whether the Bills quarterback plays well or not will determine how well the team does this year? Very interesting point of view, if not controversial.
Some old friends are coming to town: Bill Belichick. Tom Brady. The schedule-maker came up with an unlikely AFC Game of the Week in Week 2.
AFC Game of the Week? No. AFC Game of the Century. Peter doesn't want to jump to conclusions, but this is probably the biggest Week 2 game in the history of the NFL. It's amazing the NFL schedule-makers came up with having the Jets and Bills play each other so early in the season. It's almost like they KNEW Rex Ryan was the head coach of the Bills or something and this game would be interesting to watch. Plus, the schedule-makers somehow remembered they had to schedule two Patriots-Bills games since the teams both play in the AFC East. Peter doesn't want to jump to conclusions, but this game could, and COULD being the key word, mess up the perfect record the AFC East teams have currently.
“Wait till next week,” Ryan said, chuckling over the phone. “Holy s---. I cannot wait.”
He said "shit." What a rebel.
You might have gone to bed by the time the Giants and Cowboys reached the final two minutes Sunday night in Texas, so let’s recap: Giants up 23-20, third-and-goal from the Dallas 1-yard line, 1:43 left. No timeouts left for Dallas.
The play here is to hand the ball off, hope the back scores, but if not, make sure the back doesn’t run out of bounds to stop the clock. If the back doesn’t score, let the clock run down to, say, one minute, and on fourth down do the same thing again. If he’s stopped, the Cowboys would get the ball at their one-yard line with about 55 seconds left.
The Cowboys would then be able to tie the game with a field goal, but also have to go 60 yards to even get close to field goal range. The Giants could also go the aggressive route with the quarterback they just handed a lot of guaranteed money to and hope he can seal the win for them with a touchdown. It's aggressive to not choose to run the ball, that's for sure.
The one thing that seems totally illogical is what the Giants did. Eli Manning rolled out and threw to the back of the end zone, to no one. The Giants kicked a field goal to go up 26-20. And the Cowboys got the ball after the kickoff at their 28-yard line with 1:29 left.
It wasn't a smart decision, that's for sure. It was an aggressive, "go for the throat" decision that trusted the same defense the Giants hoped wouldn't let the Cowboys go 60+ yards to tie the game with 55 seconds left would prevent the Cowboys from going 72 yards to win the game with 1:29 left.
With Manning manning up, and Coughlin doing the same, we at least know the Giants have standup guys. What we don’t know is why they would do something like this. Were they so confident in a specific play they had called? Did they think they’d catch the Cowboys loading up for the run and sneak in a quick touchdown pass?
Yes, they were confident in the play they had called, and yes, they thought they could catch the Cowboys loading up on the run. It wasn't the safest play and it wasn't the "smart" play. The Giants look like geniuses if it ends up working out though.
Hand it to Tony Romo (11 of 12 for 147 yards and two touchdown passes in the last eight minutes of the game) for driving 76 and 72 yards in the last two series for the win. But this one’s on the Giants. If Coughlin and Manning each want half the blame, it’s theirs.
While admitting the Giants are definitely to blame, if Romo and the Cowboys can go 72 yards with 1:29 left to win the game, couldn't they conceivably have gone 60+ yards with 55 seconds to go (if the Giants went for it on fourth down and then forced the Cowboys to be pinned on their own 1-yard line) or go 72 yards with 55 seconds left to win the game outright (if the Giants kick the field goal and then kickoff)? Again, the smart play isn't what the Giants chose to do, but Romo went 72 yards with no timeouts to win the game, so the idea of going 60+ yards to tie the game isn't incredibly far-fetched. Blame the Giants, but they were being aggressive and it didn't work out.
The MMQB’s Robert Klemko was in St. Louis Sunday and filed this about the backup for holdout strong safety Kam Chancellor…
Nothing noteworthy here, except the unnecessary use of italics.
Dejected, Bailey sat upright in his locker, located between Richard Sherman’s and Earl Thomas’s, in the visitor’s dressing room at the Edwards Jones Dome. He draped several towels over his head and closed his eyes. He felt as though he’d not only lost the game, but tarnished his family name.
I read this aloud with emphasis on the part in italics. It sounds silly to me when read aloud. Am I the only one who is bothered by this unnecessary use of italics to show emphasis when read aloud? I probably am, but it sounds ridiculous when sounded out and not written.
The PAT revolution? Not quite, but wait.
Moving the PAT didn't immediately change the NFL for the better and coaches who have always been risk-averse continued to be risk-averse even when given a slightly greater incentive to go for a two-point conversion? Certainly you must be kidding!
Imagine this scenario, painted for me by Indianapolis coach Chuck Pagano:
The Colts score a touchdown to go up nine points with 45 seconds left in the game. Now Pagano has to decide whether to go for the point-after touchdown, basically a 33-yard field goal, or to go for two, from the 2-yard line.
Or, as Pagano suggested, neither.
“Because the defense can score on the PAT or two-point conversion now, why would I go for either one?” Pagano told me. “Why wouldn’t I just take a knee and not go for anything?”
Why would a coach do this, besides the fact they are abnormally risk-averse people so manipulating them into going against their instincts isn't going to work unless it is taken to the extreme? Why would a coach take a knee and not go for anything? Because it guarantees a win, which is why most NFL head coaches will always go for the longer extra point over the two-point conversion.
So imagine a team, late in a game, up by four or nine, lining up to go for two and then the quarterback simply takes a knee to kill the play. I’m not saying it positively will happen. But I am saying it makes zero sense for a team up four or nine in the last minute or so to attempt either the one or two-point conversion.
You miss that extra point try now, don't you Peter? I was not against the extra point moving back, but I've never thought it would cause head coaches to go for two more often and do much more than make the extra point more difficult. That's fine. The extra point can be made more difficult, but there is always a change in strategy that isn't thought of when rules change and the fact a team may not even try an extra point or two-point conversion seems to be that change in strategy.
There’s nothing to gain. That’s Pagano’s opinion. Chip Kelly’s too. “We felt that way at Oregon, because the defense could score points,” the Eagles’ coach said.
As the NFL tries to force NFL head coaches to be more aggressive, they find a way to not be more aggressive. It's almost like the nature of being an NFL head coach will find it's way to being conservative no matter how many rules are adjusted to change this behavior.
“I think you’ll see a change in the mentality, with more thought being put into the fact that the defense can return it now, and what impact that has,” Mike Pettine of the Browns said. “We already have a chart made.”
A chart! The Browns have a chart ready to go for when they are up four or nine points and need to make a decision on whether to kick the extra point, go for two or kneel the ball down. I have a feeling this chart may stay in near-mint condition for another season at least.
On our training camp trip, The MMQB asked head coaches if they planned to treat the PAT any differently this year with the line of scrimmage moved from the 2 to the 15-yard line—and with defenses now being able to score either one or two points on a failed conversion try returned to the far end zone. We got no sense that there would be a mass change from the one to two-point tries,
Roger Goodell should consider suspending head coaches who don't go for the two-point conversion enough, or perhaps, he should start docking draft picks from teams who don't go for the two-point conversion at a certain percentage after a touchdown. I may have just given Goodell an idea.
But most coaches were like Kelly. “The percentage in kicking from the 2 versus kicking from the 15, I think, goes from about 99.6 percent to 95.5 percent,” said Kelly, referring to the percentage of extra-point success in 2014, versus the percentage of field goals made from the low 30-yard-yard area. “The league wanted to encourage coaches to think about going for two, and I said you needed to change where you went from two from. [Kelly proposed moving the two-point line of scrimmage from the 2 to the 1-yard line.] I said, ‘It’s been on the 2-yard line and people haven’t gone for two, so why moving it back and changing four percentage points do you think that’s going to make a coach go for two?’
The NFL tried to incentivize teams to go for a two-point conversion by moving the extra point back to an area where kickers can still make a very high percentage of kicks. Maybe if they want teams to go for a two-point conversion more often they should incentivize teams in a positive manner to go for the two-point conversion. Moving up the two-point conversion to the 1-yard line would do that. A head coach will see that a kicker will maybe miss 3-4 extra points in a season, thereby leaving four points off the scoreboard, while only two missed two-point conversions (which are converted at a much lower rate than an extra point) will leave four points off the scoreboard on the season. If you just assume NFL head coaches will be conservative and take the points, you see why moving the extra point back won't necessarily result in an increased amount of two-point conversion tries. It's not shocking to me the NFL failed to see this when the extra point rule was changed.
But there will be more two-point tries, particularly if the defense jumps offside on the one-point tries.
Which, as I showed a few months ago, happened about six times or so last season. Defenses jump offside about at the same percentage that kickers will miss an extra point. And yet, Peter keeps relying on this "jump offside" scenario as something that will happen quite often when in reality this is not true.
That means teams will have a choice whether to take a five-yard penalty and put the PAT line of scrimmage at the 10-yard line, or go half the distance, from the 2 to the 1, and try a one-yard two-point play.
I'm betting when this happens 6-7 times this season (maybe less for offensive false starts on extra points), the majority of head coaches are going to choose to kick the extra point.
The opposite of that scenario actually played out in Week 1. The Chargers scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter to go up five points on the Lions, 26-21. San Diego lined up to go for two but committed a false start and had to move back five yards. Coach Mike McCoy opted to try the 38-yard PAT (rather than a 7-yard two-point try) and Josh Lambo's kick was no good. It's a good example of the little strategic decisions that the longer PAT now forces coaches to make.
It's also a great example of how this doesn't happen often and there is no strategic decision involved here. A two-point conversion from the 7-yard line or a 38-yard PAT? The PAT will win 9 times out of 10. I do like how Peter bashes the Giants for being aggressive, but he expects a two-point conversion try from the 7-yard line to be "a strategic decision." Bash teams for being aggressive and not just taking points, but then expect them to be aggressive and not take the points when it supports his point of view.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Tavon Austin, wide receiver/returner/running back, St. Louis. This was the kind of game the Rams expected when they drafted him in 2013. His 16-yard touchdown run as a lone back in the second quarter flummoxed the Seahawks, and his 75-yard punt return in the third quarter gave the Rams the biggest lead (11 points) that either team had all day.
It was a great punt return, but don't forget the Rams passed over Eric Reid, Kyle Long, Tyler Eifert, D.J. Fluker, Sheldon Richardson, Star Lotulelei, Travis Frederick, and Le'Veon Bell (among others) to draft Austin at #8 overall. A punt return touchdown isn't going to justify his draft position any time soon.
Could this be the year Austin breaks out, at long last?
Sure, let's look at Austin's other numbers from the game where Peter wonders if he will break out...two receptions on five targets and -2 receiving yards, plus four rushes for 17 yards (and a long of 16) and a touchdown. As long as Austin is used correctly (i.e. not as a receiver it seems) then he should have a good year. A breakout year? Probably not considering he was the #8 overall selection. But hey, the Los Angeles Rams are a team on the rise, so who knows what could happen?
Tyler Lockett, wide receiver/returner, Seattle. He is becoming everything the Seahawks hoped Percy Harvin would be—a dangerous returner and effective change-of-pace receiver. On his first career punt return Sunday at St. Louis, he weaved 57 yards through the Rams’ coverage team—untouched, it appeared. He had 119 returns yards and 34 receiving yards in his first NFL game.
Lockett had a punt return touchdown and receiving yards that amount to 5% of Austin's career total in the same game. One is a rookie 3rd round pick, while the other plays for a team Peter has close ties to and is a 3rd year #8 overall pick. I probably shouldn't compare them too much, but it's natural considering Peter named them both Special Teams Players of the Week.
Two positions, linebacker and wide receiver, have had their salary standings rewritten in the past two months.
In terms of average salary, five of the top six linebackers have signed mega-deals since mid-July. The final man came in Thursday, with Carolina’s Luke Kuechly ($12.4 million per year) becoming the highest-paid inside/middle backer of all time. (Justin Houston and Clay Matthews, outside guys, are the only linebackers higher than Kuechly on the list).
These are the types of things that happen when there are great, young linebackers in the NFL and their teams want to pay to keep them on the team.
And it’s the same number at wide receiver, five of the top six, that have signed since mid-July. A.J. Green of the Bengals averages out as the second-highest wideout deal in history (to Calvin Johnson), at $15 million per year.
The fear of injury, and fear of the franchise tag, are such great motivators. In baseball, with no franchise tag and significantly less fear of injury, stars go to market all the time. Stars rarely play the free market in the NFL.
It also helps that there is no salary cap in baseball, so the free market is truly free. The Bengals can offer A.J. Green a contract comparable to the other great players at his position and it's easy for him to accept since he knows he's not getting a 10 year $250 million contract on the free agent market. Non-guaranteed deals and the salary cap also play a big role in NFL teams being able to keep the players they draft. It's almost like there is a plan in there somewhere.
Entering tonight’s Philadelphia-Atlanta season opener, the two most efficient running teams in the NFL since 2013 are Seattle and Philadelphia.
Seattle wouldn’t be a surprise, with the pounding Marshawn Lynch and dual-threat quarterback Russell Wilson. But pass-happy Philly? Maybe the Eagles aren’t as pass-happy as we all think.
Stop writing "we" don't think the Eagles are a run-happy team. This has been shown and described many times. It's thought that Chip Kelly is pass-happy, but he loves running the football and the Eagles try to run the football. There is only so many times I can read "The Eagles love to run the ball, bet you didn't know that!" before it becomes annoying. Yes, Chip Kelly likes to run the football. It was kind of obvious given how he's invested in the offensive line and running backs, no?
Since opening day 2013, Philadelphia is fourth in total rushes, second in rushing yards, and second in yards per carry. And the Eagles, even if Sam Bradford stays healthy all season, won’t be much different this year, I don’t think. You don’t sign the NFL rushing champ (DeMarco Murray) in free agency, backstop him with a former first-round pick (Ryan Mathews), and employ one of the best change-of-pace backs (Darren Sproles) on the planet if you’re planning to be a passing team.
Right, which is why "we" knew the Eagles are a run-happy team whose high-paced offense leads one to believe they prefer to throw the football when it's been shown many times this assumption isn't true. "We" aren't all making the assumption still, despite Peter's need to teach his readers a lesson many already know.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think this is what I liked about Week 1:
d. Great play design by St. Louis offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, putting Tavon Austin as a lone back behind the quarterback and simply handing it to him.
Yes, great play design to get an extremely talented and fast running back/wide receiver the football with space to where he can run. I would ask why it took two seasons for the Rams to figure out they should do this, but I've learned not to question the genius of Jeff "8-8" Fisher. He knows more about misusing Austin's talent than I ever will.
h. The hustle by Andrew Luck, tackling Ronald Darby of the Bills after a Darby pick.
Great job throwing an interception and then tackling the guy who intercepted your pass! Kudos to you, Andrew Luck. Sure, it may have been better if you didn't throw the interception, but who cares about a silly interception?
s. DeAngelo Williams, who sure didn’t look like an insurance policy against the New England front, with his 127-yard opening night.
It's amazing what happens when you get motivated and in shape to play football. Remarkable how Williams went from slow in his cuts last year to fast in his cuts and able to bounce it outside again. I'm sure it had nothing to do with him getting lazy with his conditioning and the Steelers forcing him to lose weight. Good for him. It would be nice if it didn't require a change of scenery to get in shape though.
y. Jenny Vrentas’ story for The MMQB on J.J. Watt, which contained this nugget from Lawrence Taylor, the last defensive player to win the NFL MVP award: “I thought he should have been MVP. If he stays healthy, he could be all-timer.”
Peter is contractually obligated in every MMQB to mention how other football players think J.J. Watt is going to be a great player. As if watching him isn't enough to know this. I can't wait to watch Watt break Cam Newton in person this week. I'm sure after he has 20 tackles for loss, 10 sacks and 5 interceptions then Peter will find a quote where some ex-football player will say how great Watt is, as if we can't see already.
2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 1:
c. Peyton Manning is 39, and he looked weak-armed on throws to the sideline against Baltimore, and he spent the second half dink-and-dunking an awful lot of throws. Too early to draw any definitive conclusions, but something certainly to watch in the next couple of weeks.
Manning is probably dehydrated again. You know, that whole "dehydration" thing that caused him to lose his arm strength last year towards the end of the season. That probably is popping up again. I still can't believe Manning said his problem last year was dehydration. Perhaps he was dehydrated, but that's a hilarious excuse for his struggles (relatively of course) over the last few weeks of the 2014 season. Me thinks he deludes himself.
g. Jameis Winston.
h. Jameis Winston’s protection.
It's almost like those two go hand-in-hand or something. This couldn't be true though, could it?
l. Cam Newton, for not seeing Paul Posluszny on a first-half pick.
I predicted on Twitter that Peter King would point this throw out. He's so predictable.
I do also notice how Blake "He's totally a different quarterback, now he's making throws like Aaron Rodgers" Bortles threw an awful pick-six which went unmentioned by Peter. It's okay though. I just think it's interesting there are two awful interceptions and one resulted in a total swing of the game, but the one that didn't result in this total swing is the one Peter (predictably) mentions. Also, there is literally nothing else noted about this game that Carolina won 20-9 (without having Kuechly for the entire second half), so the only takeaway from Peter is that Cam Newton still sucks. Seems reasonable. It was an ugly game, that much I can admit.
m. The much-maligned run defense of the Colts, beaten by Bills rookie Karlos Williams for a 26-yard touchdown gallop late in the first half.
BUT LOOK AT ALL THE SHINY NEW TOYS ANDREW LUCK HAS!
s. Don’t want to make too much of the Browns stinking it up at the Meadowlands. But the NFL set up Cleveland to get off to a good start—at the Jets, Titans at home, Raiders at home. And watching the Browns turn it over five times and lose by 21 Sunday, with another day of crisis at quarterback, you just wonder when the black cloud over this franchise is going to go away.
I think the answer to the last part of this sentence is contained in the middle part of the sentence. Find a quarterback, find success. It's not that hard to see the correlation there.
v. Dez Bryant, dehydrated after one quarter of the first game of the season. Come on now.
7. I think it’s a story, the problems between Chuck Pagano and the Colts that Jason LaCanfora and then Jay Glazer discussed on the pre-game shows Sunday. My feeling is the basis of the problems between coach and organization is not a problem Pagano has with GM Ryan Grigson, but rather an issue at the door of owner Jim Irsay. Irsay likes Pagano. But I don’t think he knows if he wants Pagano to be his coach for the next five years. Here’s why: Pagano came from Baltimore as a defensive coach, and the Colts are still a team that has to win despite its defense too often.
I don't blame Pagano for having a bad defense. The Colts haven't invested in defense like they have invested in offense. Of Grigson's four drafts, he has chosen 18 offensive players and 12 defensive players. In the first three rounds of the draft Grigson has chosen 8 offensive players and 3 defensive players. He simply hasn't chosen to invest in the defense through the draft, instead choosing to do so in free agency. Pagano needs guys to work with if he's going to put together a championship defense.
Buffalo, on Sunday, gashed Indy for 147 rushing yards in 36 carries, proving the run defense is still a major issue.
That’s why, in my opinion, the Colts’ offer to Pagano was probably a lukewarm one. If the defense lets down Indy again, I doubt Pagano will face much of a roadblock from his owner about leaving.
Maybe Chuck Pagano should have built a better defense with the Colts, but the Colts haven't given him the options through the draft to improve the defense. That's how teams improve on either side of the ball, building through the draft, and the Colts simply haven't done that on defense. Pagano hasn't forgotten how to coach defense, that much I know.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
b. Pet peeve: The phrase “calendar year Grand Slam,” referring to what Serena Williams was trying to do. That comes from “the department of redundancy department.” A Grand Slam in tennis refers to winning all four big tennis tournaments (Australian, French, Wimbledon, U.S. Open) in the same year. So there’s no need to add “calendar year” to it.
Yes Peter, there is. There is a difference in a tennis player winning the Grand Slam, which is winning all four major tournaments in a row, and a tennis player winning the calendar year Grand Slam, which is winning all four major tournaments in one calendar year. Serena Williams can win all four tournaments and have won the Grand Slam, but not in the same calendar year. That's the difference.
e. Serena Williams is a great champion, and though I don’t know tennis at all,
Peter says he knows nothing about tennis. That means immediately look for a definitive statement from Peter as if he does know tennis very well.
"I'm not an expert on this topic, but here is a statement I will make as if I didn't just claim I have no idea what I'm talking about and I want you to take my opinion very seriously."
it seems to me she’s got a great chance to go down when she retires as the best woman to ever play the game.
But again, Peter doesn't know tennis at all, but treasure Peter's opinion as if it were gold.
g. Jim Harbaugh’s still got the passion, from the looks of that clipboard-flinging in the first half of his first game coaching in Ann Arbor.
Is that passion or is that acting like a spoiled child when he's coaching?
p. Speaking of dudes who are not declining: What has gotten into Yoenis Cespedes? Sixteen jacks and 41 RBI in his first 39 Mets games. I’m beginning to think the Mets are not going to blow it.
I can't imagine (contract year) what has gotten into Yoenis Cepedes (contract year) over the past couple of months (contract year). It's like he's flipped a switch (contract year) and turned into move than a power hitter who doesn't get on-base (contract year) very much. I wonder if this will continue to last (contract year) after the season when Cespedes gets a big free agent contract (nope, it won't)?
q. Incredulousness of the Week: The Nationals are two games over .500 with three weeks left in the season. And this: The Tampa Bay pitching staff has allowed fewer runs than the one with Scherzer, Strasburg, Gonzalez and Zimmerman.
Peter, just know who you are fucking with when you mess with the three-time Paper World Series Champions. They are the best team in the majors with the best pitching staff in the history of MLB. Just ask them, they will tell you how great they are. When they make the playoffs again, or maybe even catch fire and win a playoff series, we will all be sorry that no one admitted how great the Nationals are.
u. Some may wonder (some may cheer) about the lack of my rankings of the teams—the Fine Fifteen—in the column today. Many of you over the years have suggested I should wait till every game of the weekend is played before I rank the teams, and I’m stealing your collective idea this year. This season, the Fine Fifteen will be a standalone column on Tuesdays at The MMQB.
(Bengoodfella shakes fist at the sky out of anger that Peter didn't drop this needless exercise, but understands he does it because it's an easy way to attract questions and venom he can put in his mailbag...anything to find a way to create more content, even if you have to make the story yourself)
The Adieu Haiku
With due credit given to The Knack...
Got a song for you.
Ooh you make my motor run.
My Mariota!
It would actually be "M-m-m-my Mariota." Also, the song is about Sharona giving the singer sexual feelings hence she "makes his motor run," so does this mean Peter King has strong sexual feelings for Marcus Mariota. It's the precociousness isn't it?
So Peter clearly is one of those people who just recites song lyrics and has no idea what he's reciting. The lyrics in the chorus go:
Peter has also stopped doing the Fine Fifteen in MMQB, which is good news. It is pointless to rank NFL teams early in the season anyway. I'm lying, he's just not doing the Fine Fifteen until all of this week's games are played, which makes ranking all the NFL teams after one week seem to make so much more sense.
Now that was quite a way to end the first Sunday of a blessed-relief NFL Week 1.
No more talking about the Patriots deflating footballs! Ever! It's ov---
(Blessed relief because we’re not talking much about inflation of footballs … just 359 words here on the Brady vs. Goodell mess this morning.)
Oh. So Peter King thinks not talking about Brady v. Goodell is relief, but then he goes ahead and writes 359 words on the topic anyway. Hey, Peter can't control what he writes in this column (which is why he doesn't use the word "Redskins," because he can't control his own words), so don't blame him!
Can I start the 19th season of MMQB by telling you an observation I had Sunday evening about the incredible closeness of this game? Of these games?
It's a game of precociousness?
The games are so close, and they’re sometimes decided by the craziest of breaks, and human foibles, and mind-boggling decisions.
That’s a big reason, collectively, why America keeps coming back for more, no matter how fist-shaking angry it gets at the commissioner or the owners or players who mess up.
Thanks for telling America why we come back. Little did we know that we enjoyed watching the games. I thought I watched the NFL just so I would know what Peter was talking about when I read MMQB every week.
We start this morning with the first-ever opening-week duel of rookie quarterbacks drafted with the first two overall picks. Jameis Winston (Tampa Bay) versus Marcus Mariota (Tennessee) kind of snuck up on us, as it was eclipsed by the never-ending drama on Ted Wells’ field of play.
“I thought it deserved a little more attention,” Tennessee coach Ken Whisenhunt said from Tampa on Sunday night. “When we first saw the schedule—Week 1, 4:25 game—it seemed like they planned this because of the spectacle of it. And because we had the late game, I’m watching some of the pre-game shows this morning. They didn’t talk about it very much. I didn’t get that. This was a pretty big deal.”
The same head coach who wanted his rookie quarterback to throw an interception in order to get it over with and slow down the hype train wanted there to be more hype surrounding this rookie quarterback's first NFL start? Got it.
You could hear it in Whisenhunt’s voice, and see it on his face. It’s the kind of thing you’ve heard from Bill Parcells a few dozen times if you’ve been paying attention.
Bill Parcells. The greatest coach in the history of the NFL.*
*Only when he had one of the greatest head coaches in the NFL running his defense or on his staff as an assistant head coach. Without Bill Belichick as his defensive coordinator or assistant head coach, Parcells has a career record of 77-76. Probably means nothing...
Let’s not put this guy in Canton yet. Or, So, you’re fitting him for his gold jacket already? That was Whisenhunt.
It's very Parcells-like to not canonize a quarterback after one start. Other NFL head coaches would be raving about how Mariota will never throw an interception and will probably have a perfect passer rating over his entire career. Not Bill Parcells and Ken Whisenhunt though. They refuse to get ahead of themselves after Mariota makes one career start.
“You may not hear it in my voice,” he said, “but I’m really, really excited to have this kid.”
Finding a franchise quarterback = Keeping a head coaching job. It's basic math.
Next play: Harry Douglas burst from the slot past a good corner, ex-Titan Alterraun Verner, and caught a four-yard touchdown pass from Mariota. Easy stuff. At least it looked easy. Three minutes later, near the end of the half, after Winston's second interception of the half, Mariota flipped a quick curl to Walker for the final touchdown from a yard out.
I will say this about Jameis Winston. He's known for throwing interceptions (that's the perception at least) and giving him a shitty offensive line isn't going to help him get comfortable and throw fewer interceptions. Winston is a pocket passer and wasn't able to feel comfortable throwing the ball in the pocket. Until the Buccaneers do that for him, he can't succeed.
It’s totally unfair to draw conclusions based on four quarters
Everyone repeat after me...now Peter will proceed to draw some conclusions.
but you can say this about the two players. Mariota moved between shotgun and under-center snaps freely. He was comfortable throwing fast and throwing with time. He was extremely accurate. He looked so comfortable, as though this was the first game of his sixth season, not his first.
I'm not going to be a Winston apologist, but look at the offensive line the Titans have put around Mariota. They have worked hard to put a quality offensive line out there, even to the point they had the luxury of trading away a disappointing Andy Levitre rather than keep him on the bench for depth.
Winston was pressured more than Mariota, and he didn’t always respond to it well, going 16 of 33 with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
A rookie quarterback making his first-ever career NFL start didn't respond well to pressure? I can't believe this. Find me quarterbacks who respond well to pressure and these are among the best quarterbacks in the game, not quarterbacks making their first-ever NFL start. Again, Peter doesn't want to draw conclusions...
Rex Ryan coached six years in New Jersey, and so he heard the cacophonous noise around the Meadowlands on occasion. But a couple of things he hadn’t seen. One: Fans standing for most of three hours, which they did Sunday, so as not to miss anything in a 27-14 Bills’ victory over the favored Colts. Two: The RV parking lot adjacent to Ralph Wilson Stadium full late Saturday morning.
It's almost like Bills fans crave a winning team or something. I'll be impressed when that RV parking lot is full late Saturday morning when it's late November and December when it is cold as hell outside.
This was a revelation game for Buffalo. In a game between Tyrod Taylor and Andrew Luck, who do you think would have the 63.6 passer rating and who the 123.8 rating?
I don't know, is Tyrod Taylor on the Patriots team now? If so, I would expect the 63.6 rating to be what Luck has put up.
“I think we made a statement today,” Taylor said.
This one: We’re pretty good now, and we might get better, and we just might petition the league to play all 16 games at home.
“We’re gonna be tough to beat at home, I’m telling you,” Ryan said.
A Rex Ryan-coached team with an actual quarterback is a little bit terrifying. Really, the only thing that could bring the Bills down is if Rex hired his brother to be his defensive coordinator.
Judging by the first week of the season, they’d better be good at home—and on the road. Standings of the AFC East this morning:
Buffalo: 1-0
Miami: 1-0
New England: 1-0
New York Jets: 1-0
Great! Standings! They mean so much this time of year. Nobody in the AFC East has been defeated at this point in the season. Could this be the first time in league history an entire division manages to 16-0? Possibly. Peter doesn't want to jump to any conclusions, but he thinks at least two of these teams will go undefeated.
The defense is the real thing. If the offense can hold up its end—and really, you can say the same thing about any of the three AFC East challengers to New England—Buffalo will be in it till the end. That’s a big if, of course. It will depend on the maturation of Taylor.
So whether the Bills quarterback plays well or not will determine how well the team does this year? Very interesting point of view, if not controversial.
Some old friends are coming to town: Bill Belichick. Tom Brady. The schedule-maker came up with an unlikely AFC Game of the Week in Week 2.
AFC Game of the Week? No. AFC Game of the Century. Peter doesn't want to jump to conclusions, but this is probably the biggest Week 2 game in the history of the NFL. It's amazing the NFL schedule-makers came up with having the Jets and Bills play each other so early in the season. It's almost like they KNEW Rex Ryan was the head coach of the Bills or something and this game would be interesting to watch. Plus, the schedule-makers somehow remembered they had to schedule two Patriots-Bills games since the teams both play in the AFC East. Peter doesn't want to jump to conclusions, but this game could, and COULD being the key word, mess up the perfect record the AFC East teams have currently.
“Wait till next week,” Ryan said, chuckling over the phone. “Holy s---. I cannot wait.”
He said "shit." What a rebel.
You might have gone to bed by the time the Giants and Cowboys reached the final two minutes Sunday night in Texas, so let’s recap: Giants up 23-20, third-and-goal from the Dallas 1-yard line, 1:43 left. No timeouts left for Dallas.
The play here is to hand the ball off, hope the back scores, but if not, make sure the back doesn’t run out of bounds to stop the clock. If the back doesn’t score, let the clock run down to, say, one minute, and on fourth down do the same thing again. If he’s stopped, the Cowboys would get the ball at their one-yard line with about 55 seconds left.
The Cowboys would then be able to tie the game with a field goal, but also have to go 60 yards to even get close to field goal range. The Giants could also go the aggressive route with the quarterback they just handed a lot of guaranteed money to and hope he can seal the win for them with a touchdown. It's aggressive to not choose to run the ball, that's for sure.
The one thing that seems totally illogical is what the Giants did. Eli Manning rolled out and threw to the back of the end zone, to no one. The Giants kicked a field goal to go up 26-20. And the Cowboys got the ball after the kickoff at their 28-yard line with 1:29 left.
It wasn't a smart decision, that's for sure. It was an aggressive, "go for the throat" decision that trusted the same defense the Giants hoped wouldn't let the Cowboys go 60+ yards to tie the game with 55 seconds left would prevent the Cowboys from going 72 yards to win the game with 1:29 left.
With Manning manning up, and Coughlin doing the same, we at least know the Giants have standup guys. What we don’t know is why they would do something like this. Were they so confident in a specific play they had called? Did they think they’d catch the Cowboys loading up for the run and sneak in a quick touchdown pass?
Yes, they were confident in the play they had called, and yes, they thought they could catch the Cowboys loading up on the run. It wasn't the safest play and it wasn't the "smart" play. The Giants look like geniuses if it ends up working out though.
Hand it to Tony Romo (11 of 12 for 147 yards and two touchdown passes in the last eight minutes of the game) for driving 76 and 72 yards in the last two series for the win. But this one’s on the Giants. If Coughlin and Manning each want half the blame, it’s theirs.
While admitting the Giants are definitely to blame, if Romo and the Cowboys can go 72 yards with 1:29 left to win the game, couldn't they conceivably have gone 60+ yards with 55 seconds to go (if the Giants went for it on fourth down and then forced the Cowboys to be pinned on their own 1-yard line) or go 72 yards with 55 seconds left to win the game outright (if the Giants kick the field goal and then kickoff)? Again, the smart play isn't what the Giants chose to do, but Romo went 72 yards with no timeouts to win the game, so the idea of going 60+ yards to tie the game isn't incredibly far-fetched. Blame the Giants, but they were being aggressive and it didn't work out.
The MMQB’s Robert Klemko was in St. Louis Sunday and filed this about the backup for holdout strong safety Kam Chancellor…
Nothing noteworthy here, except the unnecessary use of italics.
Dejected, Bailey sat upright in his locker, located between Richard Sherman’s and Earl Thomas’s, in the visitor’s dressing room at the Edwards Jones Dome. He draped several towels over his head and closed his eyes. He felt as though he’d not only lost the game, but tarnished his family name.
I read this aloud with emphasis on the part in italics. It sounds silly to me when read aloud. Am I the only one who is bothered by this unnecessary use of italics to show emphasis when read aloud? I probably am, but it sounds ridiculous when sounded out and not written.
The PAT revolution? Not quite, but wait.
Moving the PAT didn't immediately change the NFL for the better and coaches who have always been risk-averse continued to be risk-averse even when given a slightly greater incentive to go for a two-point conversion? Certainly you must be kidding!
Imagine this scenario, painted for me by Indianapolis coach Chuck Pagano:
The Colts score a touchdown to go up nine points with 45 seconds left in the game. Now Pagano has to decide whether to go for the point-after touchdown, basically a 33-yard field goal, or to go for two, from the 2-yard line.
Or, as Pagano suggested, neither.
“Because the defense can score on the PAT or two-point conversion now, why would I go for either one?” Pagano told me. “Why wouldn’t I just take a knee and not go for anything?”
Why would a coach do this, besides the fact they are abnormally risk-averse people so manipulating them into going against their instincts isn't going to work unless it is taken to the extreme? Why would a coach take a knee and not go for anything? Because it guarantees a win, which is why most NFL head coaches will always go for the longer extra point over the two-point conversion.
So imagine a team, late in a game, up by four or nine, lining up to go for two and then the quarterback simply takes a knee to kill the play. I’m not saying it positively will happen. But I am saying it makes zero sense for a team up four or nine in the last minute or so to attempt either the one or two-point conversion.
You miss that extra point try now, don't you Peter? I was not against the extra point moving back, but I've never thought it would cause head coaches to go for two more often and do much more than make the extra point more difficult. That's fine. The extra point can be made more difficult, but there is always a change in strategy that isn't thought of when rules change and the fact a team may not even try an extra point or two-point conversion seems to be that change in strategy.
There’s nothing to gain. That’s Pagano’s opinion. Chip Kelly’s too. “We felt that way at Oregon, because the defense could score points,” the Eagles’ coach said.
As the NFL tries to force NFL head coaches to be more aggressive, they find a way to not be more aggressive. It's almost like the nature of being an NFL head coach will find it's way to being conservative no matter how many rules are adjusted to change this behavior.
“I think you’ll see a change in the mentality, with more thought being put into the fact that the defense can return it now, and what impact that has,” Mike Pettine of the Browns said. “We already have a chart made.”
A chart! The Browns have a chart ready to go for when they are up four or nine points and need to make a decision on whether to kick the extra point, go for two or kneel the ball down. I have a feeling this chart may stay in near-mint condition for another season at least.
On our training camp trip, The MMQB asked head coaches if they planned to treat the PAT any differently this year with the line of scrimmage moved from the 2 to the 15-yard line—and with defenses now being able to score either one or two points on a failed conversion try returned to the far end zone. We got no sense that there would be a mass change from the one to two-point tries,
Roger Goodell should consider suspending head coaches who don't go for the two-point conversion enough, or perhaps, he should start docking draft picks from teams who don't go for the two-point conversion at a certain percentage after a touchdown. I may have just given Goodell an idea.
But most coaches were like Kelly. “The percentage in kicking from the 2 versus kicking from the 15, I think, goes from about 99.6 percent to 95.5 percent,” said Kelly, referring to the percentage of extra-point success in 2014, versus the percentage of field goals made from the low 30-yard-yard area. “The league wanted to encourage coaches to think about going for two, and I said you needed to change where you went from two from. [Kelly proposed moving the two-point line of scrimmage from the 2 to the 1-yard line.] I said, ‘It’s been on the 2-yard line and people haven’t gone for two, so why moving it back and changing four percentage points do you think that’s going to make a coach go for two?’
The NFL tried to incentivize teams to go for a two-point conversion by moving the extra point back to an area where kickers can still make a very high percentage of kicks. Maybe if they want teams to go for a two-point conversion more often they should incentivize teams in a positive manner to go for the two-point conversion. Moving up the two-point conversion to the 1-yard line would do that. A head coach will see that a kicker will maybe miss 3-4 extra points in a season, thereby leaving four points off the scoreboard, while only two missed two-point conversions (which are converted at a much lower rate than an extra point) will leave four points off the scoreboard on the season. If you just assume NFL head coaches will be conservative and take the points, you see why moving the extra point back won't necessarily result in an increased amount of two-point conversion tries. It's not shocking to me the NFL failed to see this when the extra point rule was changed.
But there will be more two-point tries, particularly if the defense jumps offside on the one-point tries.
Which, as I showed a few months ago, happened about six times or so last season. Defenses jump offside about at the same percentage that kickers will miss an extra point. And yet, Peter keeps relying on this "jump offside" scenario as something that will happen quite often when in reality this is not true.
That means teams will have a choice whether to take a five-yard penalty and put the PAT line of scrimmage at the 10-yard line, or go half the distance, from the 2 to the 1, and try a one-yard two-point play.
I'm betting when this happens 6-7 times this season (maybe less for offensive false starts on extra points), the majority of head coaches are going to choose to kick the extra point.
The opposite of that scenario actually played out in Week 1. The Chargers scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter to go up five points on the Lions, 26-21. San Diego lined up to go for two but committed a false start and had to move back five yards. Coach Mike McCoy opted to try the 38-yard PAT (rather than a 7-yard two-point try) and Josh Lambo's kick was no good. It's a good example of the little strategic decisions that the longer PAT now forces coaches to make.
It's also a great example of how this doesn't happen often and there is no strategic decision involved here. A two-point conversion from the 7-yard line or a 38-yard PAT? The PAT will win 9 times out of 10. I do like how Peter bashes the Giants for being aggressive, but he expects a two-point conversion try from the 7-yard line to be "a strategic decision." Bash teams for being aggressive and not just taking points, but then expect them to be aggressive and not take the points when it supports his point of view.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Tavon Austin, wide receiver/returner/running back, St. Louis. This was the kind of game the Rams expected when they drafted him in 2013. His 16-yard touchdown run as a lone back in the second quarter flummoxed the Seahawks, and his 75-yard punt return in the third quarter gave the Rams the biggest lead (11 points) that either team had all day.
It was a great punt return, but don't forget the Rams passed over Eric Reid, Kyle Long, Tyler Eifert, D.J. Fluker, Sheldon Richardson, Star Lotulelei, Travis Frederick, and Le'Veon Bell (among others) to draft Austin at #8 overall. A punt return touchdown isn't going to justify his draft position any time soon.
Could this be the year Austin breaks out, at long last?
Sure, let's look at Austin's other numbers from the game where Peter wonders if he will break out...two receptions on five targets and -2 receiving yards, plus four rushes for 17 yards (and a long of 16) and a touchdown. As long as Austin is used correctly (i.e. not as a receiver it seems) then he should have a good year. A breakout year? Probably not considering he was the #8 overall selection. But hey, the Los Angeles Rams are a team on the rise, so who knows what could happen?
Tyler Lockett, wide receiver/returner, Seattle. He is becoming everything the Seahawks hoped Percy Harvin would be—a dangerous returner and effective change-of-pace receiver. On his first career punt return Sunday at St. Louis, he weaved 57 yards through the Rams’ coverage team—untouched, it appeared. He had 119 returns yards and 34 receiving yards in his first NFL game.
Lockett had a punt return touchdown and receiving yards that amount to 5% of Austin's career total in the same game. One is a rookie 3rd round pick, while the other plays for a team Peter has close ties to and is a 3rd year #8 overall pick. I probably shouldn't compare them too much, but it's natural considering Peter named them both Special Teams Players of the Week.
Two positions, linebacker and wide receiver, have had their salary standings rewritten in the past two months.
In terms of average salary, five of the top six linebackers have signed mega-deals since mid-July. The final man came in Thursday, with Carolina’s Luke Kuechly ($12.4 million per year) becoming the highest-paid inside/middle backer of all time. (Justin Houston and Clay Matthews, outside guys, are the only linebackers higher than Kuechly on the list).
These are the types of things that happen when there are great, young linebackers in the NFL and their teams want to pay to keep them on the team.
And it’s the same number at wide receiver, five of the top six, that have signed since mid-July. A.J. Green of the Bengals averages out as the second-highest wideout deal in history (to Calvin Johnson), at $15 million per year.
The fear of injury, and fear of the franchise tag, are such great motivators. In baseball, with no franchise tag and significantly less fear of injury, stars go to market all the time. Stars rarely play the free market in the NFL.
It also helps that there is no salary cap in baseball, so the free market is truly free. The Bengals can offer A.J. Green a contract comparable to the other great players at his position and it's easy for him to accept since he knows he's not getting a 10 year $250 million contract on the free agent market. Non-guaranteed deals and the salary cap also play a big role in NFL teams being able to keep the players they draft. It's almost like there is a plan in there somewhere.
Entering tonight’s Philadelphia-Atlanta season opener, the two most efficient running teams in the NFL since 2013 are Seattle and Philadelphia.
Seattle wouldn’t be a surprise, with the pounding Marshawn Lynch and dual-threat quarterback Russell Wilson. But pass-happy Philly? Maybe the Eagles aren’t as pass-happy as we all think.
Stop writing "we" don't think the Eagles are a run-happy team. This has been shown and described many times. It's thought that Chip Kelly is pass-happy, but he loves running the football and the Eagles try to run the football. There is only so many times I can read "The Eagles love to run the ball, bet you didn't know that!" before it becomes annoying. Yes, Chip Kelly likes to run the football. It was kind of obvious given how he's invested in the offensive line and running backs, no?
Since opening day 2013, Philadelphia is fourth in total rushes, second in rushing yards, and second in yards per carry. And the Eagles, even if Sam Bradford stays healthy all season, won’t be much different this year, I don’t think. You don’t sign the NFL rushing champ (DeMarco Murray) in free agency, backstop him with a former first-round pick (Ryan Mathews), and employ one of the best change-of-pace backs (Darren Sproles) on the planet if you’re planning to be a passing team.
Right, which is why "we" knew the Eagles are a run-happy team whose high-paced offense leads one to believe they prefer to throw the football when it's been shown many times this assumption isn't true. "We" aren't all making the assumption still, despite Peter's need to teach his readers a lesson many already know.
Jameis Winston, 2013 calendar year: 13-0
Jameis Winston, 2014 calendar year: 13-0
Jameis Winston, 2015 calendar year: 0-2 (0-2 vs. Mariota)
— Football Perspective (@fbgchase) September 13, 2015
So Winston is playing Mariota one-on-one now and football isn't a team game? Aaron Rodgers can't beat Russell Wilson either, so are there conclusions to be drawn from this based on "Wilson v. Rodgers"? Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think this is what I liked about Week 1:
d. Great play design by St. Louis offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, putting Tavon Austin as a lone back behind the quarterback and simply handing it to him.
Yes, great play design to get an extremely talented and fast running back/wide receiver the football with space to where he can run. I would ask why it took two seasons for the Rams to figure out they should do this, but I've learned not to question the genius of Jeff "8-8" Fisher. He knows more about misusing Austin's talent than I ever will.
h. The hustle by Andrew Luck, tackling Ronald Darby of the Bills after a Darby pick.
Great job throwing an interception and then tackling the guy who intercepted your pass! Kudos to you, Andrew Luck. Sure, it may have been better if you didn't throw the interception, but who cares about a silly interception?
s. DeAngelo Williams, who sure didn’t look like an insurance policy against the New England front, with his 127-yard opening night.
It's amazing what happens when you get motivated and in shape to play football. Remarkable how Williams went from slow in his cuts last year to fast in his cuts and able to bounce it outside again. I'm sure it had nothing to do with him getting lazy with his conditioning and the Steelers forcing him to lose weight. Good for him. It would be nice if it didn't require a change of scenery to get in shape though.
y. Jenny Vrentas’ story for The MMQB on J.J. Watt, which contained this nugget from Lawrence Taylor, the last defensive player to win the NFL MVP award: “I thought he should have been MVP. If he stays healthy, he could be all-timer.”
Peter is contractually obligated in every MMQB to mention how other football players think J.J. Watt is going to be a great player. As if watching him isn't enough to know this. I can't wait to watch Watt break Cam Newton in person this week. I'm sure after he has 20 tackles for loss, 10 sacks and 5 interceptions then Peter will find a quote where some ex-football player will say how great Watt is, as if we can't see already.
2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 1:
c. Peyton Manning is 39, and he looked weak-armed on throws to the sideline against Baltimore, and he spent the second half dink-and-dunking an awful lot of throws. Too early to draw any definitive conclusions, but something certainly to watch in the next couple of weeks.
Manning is probably dehydrated again. You know, that whole "dehydration" thing that caused him to lose his arm strength last year towards the end of the season. That probably is popping up again. I still can't believe Manning said his problem last year was dehydration. Perhaps he was dehydrated, but that's a hilarious excuse for his struggles (relatively of course) over the last few weeks of the 2014 season. Me thinks he deludes himself.
g. Jameis Winston.
h. Jameis Winston’s protection.
It's almost like those two go hand-in-hand or something. This couldn't be true though, could it?
l. Cam Newton, for not seeing Paul Posluszny on a first-half pick.
I predicted on Twitter that Peter King would point this throw out. He's so predictable.
What a horrible, horrible throw. Now THAT is what Peter King will talk about tomorrow as opposed to the three dropped passes...
— Ben (@bengoodfella) September 13, 2015
I do also notice how Blake "He's totally a different quarterback, now he's making throws like Aaron Rodgers" Bortles threw an awful pick-six which went unmentioned by Peter. It's okay though. I just think it's interesting there are two awful interceptions and one resulted in a total swing of the game, but the one that didn't result in this total swing is the one Peter (predictably) mentions. Also, there is literally nothing else noted about this game that Carolina won 20-9 (without having Kuechly for the entire second half), so the only takeaway from Peter is that Cam Newton still sucks. Seems reasonable. It was an ugly game, that much I can admit.
m. The much-maligned run defense of the Colts, beaten by Bills rookie Karlos Williams for a 26-yard touchdown gallop late in the first half.
BUT LOOK AT ALL THE SHINY NEW TOYS ANDREW LUCK HAS!
s. Don’t want to make too much of the Browns stinking it up at the Meadowlands. But the NFL set up Cleveland to get off to a good start—at the Jets, Titans at home, Raiders at home. And watching the Browns turn it over five times and lose by 21 Sunday, with another day of crisis at quarterback, you just wonder when the black cloud over this franchise is going to go away.
I think the answer to the last part of this sentence is contained in the middle part of the sentence. Find a quarterback, find success. It's not that hard to see the correlation there.
v. Dez Bryant, dehydrated after one quarter of the first game of the season. Come on now.
7. I think it’s a story, the problems between Chuck Pagano and the Colts that Jason LaCanfora and then Jay Glazer discussed on the pre-game shows Sunday. My feeling is the basis of the problems between coach and organization is not a problem Pagano has with GM Ryan Grigson, but rather an issue at the door of owner Jim Irsay. Irsay likes Pagano. But I don’t think he knows if he wants Pagano to be his coach for the next five years. Here’s why: Pagano came from Baltimore as a defensive coach, and the Colts are still a team that has to win despite its defense too often.
I don't blame Pagano for having a bad defense. The Colts haven't invested in defense like they have invested in offense. Of Grigson's four drafts, he has chosen 18 offensive players and 12 defensive players. In the first three rounds of the draft Grigson has chosen 8 offensive players and 3 defensive players. He simply hasn't chosen to invest in the defense through the draft, instead choosing to do so in free agency. Pagano needs guys to work with if he's going to put together a championship defense.
Buffalo, on Sunday, gashed Indy for 147 rushing yards in 36 carries, proving the run defense is still a major issue.
That’s why, in my opinion, the Colts’ offer to Pagano was probably a lukewarm one. If the defense lets down Indy again, I doubt Pagano will face much of a roadblock from his owner about leaving.
Maybe Chuck Pagano should have built a better defense with the Colts, but the Colts haven't given him the options through the draft to improve the defense. That's how teams improve on either side of the ball, building through the draft, and the Colts simply haven't done that on defense. Pagano hasn't forgotten how to coach defense, that much I know.
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
b. Pet peeve: The phrase “calendar year Grand Slam,” referring to what Serena Williams was trying to do. That comes from “the department of redundancy department.” A Grand Slam in tennis refers to winning all four big tennis tournaments (Australian, French, Wimbledon, U.S. Open) in the same year. So there’s no need to add “calendar year” to it.
Yes Peter, there is. There is a difference in a tennis player winning the Grand Slam, which is winning all four major tournaments in a row, and a tennis player winning the calendar year Grand Slam, which is winning all four major tournaments in one calendar year. Serena Williams can win all four tournaments and have won the Grand Slam, but not in the same calendar year. That's the difference.
e. Serena Williams is a great champion, and though I don’t know tennis at all,
Peter says he knows nothing about tennis. That means immediately look for a definitive statement from Peter as if he does know tennis very well.
"I'm not an expert on this topic, but here is a statement I will make as if I didn't just claim I have no idea what I'm talking about and I want you to take my opinion very seriously."
it seems to me she’s got a great chance to go down when she retires as the best woman to ever play the game.
But again, Peter doesn't know tennis at all, but treasure Peter's opinion as if it were gold.
g. Jim Harbaugh’s still got the passion, from the looks of that clipboard-flinging in the first half of his first game coaching in Ann Arbor.
Is that passion or is that acting like a spoiled child when he's coaching?
p. Speaking of dudes who are not declining: What has gotten into Yoenis Cespedes? Sixteen jacks and 41 RBI in his first 39 Mets games. I’m beginning to think the Mets are not going to blow it.
I can't imagine (contract year) what has gotten into Yoenis Cepedes (contract year) over the past couple of months (contract year). It's like he's flipped a switch (contract year) and turned into move than a power hitter who doesn't get on-base (contract year) very much. I wonder if this will continue to last (contract year) after the season when Cespedes gets a big free agent contract (nope, it won't)?
q. Incredulousness of the Week: The Nationals are two games over .500 with three weeks left in the season. And this: The Tampa Bay pitching staff has allowed fewer runs than the one with Scherzer, Strasburg, Gonzalez and Zimmerman.
Peter, just know who you are fucking with when you mess with the three-time Paper World Series Champions. They are the best team in the majors with the best pitching staff in the history of MLB. Just ask them, they will tell you how great they are. When they make the playoffs again, or maybe even catch fire and win a playoff series, we will all be sorry that no one admitted how great the Nationals are.
u. Some may wonder (some may cheer) about the lack of my rankings of the teams—the Fine Fifteen—in the column today. Many of you over the years have suggested I should wait till every game of the weekend is played before I rank the teams, and I’m stealing your collective idea this year. This season, the Fine Fifteen will be a standalone column on Tuesdays at The MMQB.
(Bengoodfella shakes fist at the sky out of anger that Peter didn't drop this needless exercise, but understands he does it because it's an easy way to attract questions and venom he can put in his mailbag...anything to find a way to create more content, even if you have to make the story yourself)
The Adieu Haiku
With due credit given to The Knack...
Got a song for you.
Ooh you make my motor run.
My Mariota!
It would actually be "M-m-m-my Mariota." Also, the song is about Sharona giving the singer sexual feelings hence she "makes his motor run," so does this mean Peter King has strong sexual feelings for Marcus Mariota. It's the precociousness isn't it?
So Peter clearly is one of those people who just recites song lyrics and has no idea what he's reciting. The lyrics in the chorus go:
"Never gonna stop, give it up, such a dirty mind
I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind
My, my, my, aye-aye, whoa!
M-m-m-my Sharona
M-m-m-my Sharona"
I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind
My, my, my, aye-aye, whoa!
M-m-m-my Sharona
M-m-m-my Sharona"
So Peter has a dirty mind and doesn't mind getting touched by the younger kind, or perhaps getting touched by a younger kind of quarterback. Due credit given to The Knack, zero credit given to Peter for not knowing the rest of the song's lyrics.
Friday, September 4, 2015
4 comments Phil Mushnick Is Still Old and Really, Really Cranky
Phil Mushnick hates so many things it's not worth listing them all. He hates showy athletes, hates announcers for using words he hates, and felt after his son's death was the best time to take a shit on Adrian Peterson. His online column (Mushnick probably spends time being self-loathing about the fact he has to publish columns on the Internet) is basically just a list of things that make him so angry because they didn't used to be that way. In two articles today, it's hard to say exactly all of the things that Phil is railing against, but it's instant replay, the way headlines are written, people being mean to Curt Schilling, and Jon Stewart.
Here is his first article of screeds against random things that pop into his mind which piss him off.
Well, it finally happened. Didn’t make much news or noise, but that figures given baseball’s new replay rules have been widely celebrated for “getting it right.”
I'm shocked the new replay rules don't work perfectly after one year. Usually rule changes in a professional sporting event immediately works effortlessly with no issues.
In the top of the fifth inning in Aug. 20’s White Sox-Angels, Chicago’s Jose Abreu, with runners on first and third, hit a shot down the line that third-base ump Dana DeMuth ruled foul. Play, naturally, immediately stopped.
But the White Sox challenged the call. And there it was: The ball appeared to have nicked the line. Fair ball! Now what?
The umpires decide what bases to award the White Sox. I get the snark about "getting it right" but Mushnick is essentially going to argue that the umpires using hypotheticals to award bases to players is not preferable to the call being absolutely wrong. I would disagree, but I also am not a cranky person who can't handle any sort of change.
The umps held a meeting, a caucus to negotiate a settlement. It ended only after they reached an agreement on a guess of what, among scores of things that could have happened, as to what might have next happened. They determined — guessed — that because the runner on first was going on the pitch, both runners should score, and Abreu should be awarded second, as if it were a ground-rule double, which it was not.
I disagree with the conclusion here. I think the runner on first should be awarded third base just as if it were a ground rule double, but otherwise I have no issue with instant replay working in this exact way. It's almost impossible to know what really would have happened, so there has to be some educated guessing involved, assuming the umpires have the directive from MLB to get the call right by using instant replay. There is no other way, outside of guessing, to determine what would have happened had the call been correct initially.
So, in the name of “getting it right,” a pile of things that never happened — all of them impossible to determine would have happened — were deemed to have not happened while other impossibilities to determine were deemed to have happened.
You mean sort of like how defensive pass interference is called in the NFL and the offensive team is given the ball at the spot of the foul when there is no evidence that if there were no defensive pass interference the offensive player would have caught the ball? Or evidence the offensive player would have caught the ball and run for a touchdown? There is also no evidence the offensive player would have caught the ball, fumbled and then the defensive player would have run it back for a touchdown had the pass interference not occurred? Sort of how the NFL just assumes the offensive player would have caught the ball, and rewards the offensive team accordingly, when defensive pass interference occurs? I'm sure Phil Mushnick has no issue with this rule because it's not new and scary.
The White Sox took a 6-1 lead based on nothing more conclusive than a bunch of maybes as they related to the offense, the defense, and where that ball might’ve wound up then how it might’ve been played — had it been played.
This is what has happened on ground rule doubles for a long, long time now. A runner gets stopped at third base (if he were on first base) based on an assumption of how the ball would have been played. The alternative is that the call is entirely wrong without instant replay and the White Sox will keep the lead they have, but not keep the chance to have the big lead they should have had. So get it wrong or guess in an attempt to get it right?
Once that foul ball, via replay rule, was determined to have been fair, imaginary baseball — official fantasy league baseball — was invoked.
I wish fantasy sports didn't exist so sportswriters would stop referring to real baseball as "fantasy baseball" when something happens in the sport that they don't like. It's a lazy fallback joke and it's tiring.
The mind wanders and wonders … Game 7 of the World Series, bottom of the ninth. A ball initially ruled foul is reviewed, reversed. The umps gather to try to figure it out, to try to figure what can’t possibly be determined, then rule on what would’ve or might’ve happened, though it didn’t.
So in criticizing a pile of things that never happened---all of them impossible to determine would have happened---Phil Mushnick uses a situation that has never happened and it is impossible at this point to determine would happen in the World Series?
(Phil Mushnick) "Stop using hypothetical actions by runners on-base to determine what the score in the game would be in a hypothetical situation had the call been made correctly. Now here is a hypothetical situation with hypothetical actions by the umpires that I will use to determine how the World Series would end..."
Is the World Series over? “Gee,” says the crew chief, “I guess so.”
Instant replay has ended an NFL game before when a call was upheld or overturned. It happened in the Packers-Seahawks game a few years ago. This may never happen in the World Series, but I like how Phil criticizes using hypotheticals in order to get a call on the field correct using instant replay by using his own hypothetical situation.
One of my favorite parts of Super Bowls is the solemn chat with the losing coach just outside the locker room, usually his back to a cinderblock wall.
Inevitably, whether the score was 52-10 or 28-27, he is asked: “What would you have done differently?” Almost always, he answers he would do nothing differently, which, given that his team lost, makes no sense. He would do it all the same, again. And lose the same, again.
Not necessarily. It's possible the issue wasn't the play call, but the execution of the play call. So a coach could easily decide to call the same play again, but have his quarterback choose to throw to a different receiver, run with the football or throw the ball to the receiver in a different spot where the defender can't catch the ball. This is the difference in a results-oriented mindset and a more educated mindset. If I get in a car accident driving to the grocery store using a different route than I usually use to get to the grocery store, it doesn't mean I should never go the different route again because I will get in another accident.
The Golf Channel becomes comical when it goes into Tiger Woods Scramble Mode. When Woods shot a first-round 64 two Thursdays ago, GC apparently canceled all staff vacations, on-air personnel instructed to hyperventilate.
For a person whose job it is to cover the media, Phil Mushnick has a shitty grasp on how ratings work. Tiger Woods is in contention, which means there is more interest in the golf tournament. The ratings reflect this, so naturally a network will cover the story that the people watching the tournament are interested in.
CBS was no better. Though Woods last Sunday was in the next-to-the-last pairing — “penultimate pairing,” as per ESPN from the British Open — Woods was listed first among those in second place, two behind leader Jason Gore. But Tom Hoge, tied with Woods, played with Gore.
Again, ratings. It doesn't matter how the players are sorted, but CBS wanted any person flipping channels to see Tiger is high on the leaderboard. Phil Mushnick covers the media. Networks like ratings and Tiger brings in ratings.
ESPN’s late Sunday crawl read, “Davis Love wins the Wyndham as Tiger falters.” Reader Rich Monahan: “As if one was the reason for the other!”
This is very Easterbrookian on the part of Rich Monahan. It's not at all how that sentence is structured, as if one was the reason for the other. If I write, "I wrote in my notebook as my sister tried to color in the lines of her coloring book," I'm not indicating one event has a correlation to the other or indicating any causation. I'm simply stating what I'm doing while my sister is doing something else.
Another example: "Phil Mushnick bitches about stupid shit in his column as really good writers are unemployed." Wait, maybe I'm implying there should be some causation there...
Carlos Gomez, as a Brewer and now with the Astros, has been a conspicuous showoff, a me-first fool well worth the Yankees’ collective disdain over the past week.
But Gomez, who claims his teammates love such behavior from him — he’s delusional if he believes that — should be asked this:
Phil Mushnick knows Carlos Gomez is delusional for thinking his teammates love his behavior, because Phil Mushnick has been in the Brewers' and Astros' locker room to know whether his teammates like him or not? Not at all. Mushnick is assuming Gomez is delusional based on his own beliefs and assumptions. Basically, Mushnick is determining what Gomez's teammates think---while ignoring it's impossible to determine what they think---when ignoring other possibilities and deeming them to not have happened.
Would you instruct the kids in your life to exploit baseball, a team game, to demonstrate their excessive self-regard, or would you urge them toward modesty? Is public immodesty the professional legacy you choose for yourself?
That's a great question to ask. Carlos Gomez clearly needs a moral compass like Phil Mushnick to help him raise his children in the proper way. That is what is so great about Phil Mushnick. He knows how everyone should behave and act at all times and believes himself to be the final arbiter on what is and is not proper behavior. He has that excessive self-regard and displays some public immodesty by telling others what the proper behavior in a given situation might be.
Now Phil Mushnick uses history to determine that Curt Schilling should not have been punished for comparing extremist Muslims to Nazis. Of course, because outrage has to take a back seat to actually reading and understand what Schilling put on his Facebook page, Phil Mushnick is outraged at Schilling being punished.
Schilling deleted the Tweet and even apologized for it. So clearly he knew what he posted was going to be offensive to some and chose to delete it off his Facebook page entirely. There is a recent history of people being outraged just to be outraged, but Schilling knew he shouldn't have posted what he posted and deleted it accordingly. He made a mistake, owned up to it and then got punished. We all move on. BUT, Phil Mushnick is angry that ESPN blatantly read what Schilling posted and didn't take history into account. Sure, Phil spends many of his columns only reading the body language and actions of players (see: Carlos Gomez, above) and then judging them harshly on those actions without investigating the history or reason behind those actions, but it's different for him. Phil Mushnick can rush to a snap judgment and condemn a person accordingly, but everyone else should not do this.
ESPN last week suspended its lead baseball analyst, Curt Schilling, not for talking games to death, but for a social-media message equating Nazis with current, extremist Muslims.
The message was comparing extreme Muslims now to Nazis in 1940, prior to the United States entry into World War II. I could be way off, but the indication being that extreme Muslims could become a threat on-par with Nazis and that even non-extreme Muslims will eventually take up the point of view of extreme Muslims. Again, I could be looking into it too much, but the year 1940 seems to indicate to Americans (yes, there was fighting prior to the Americans entering the war) that extremist Muslims could eventually recruit non-extreme Muslims to their cause to the point there is another world war.
“Curt’s tweet was completely unacceptable, and in no way represents our company’s perspective. We made that point very strongly to Curt and have removed him from his current Little League assignment pending further consideration.”
Completely unacceptable? Out of line with ESPN’s perspective?
Curt Schilling apologized for it. We live in an age where everyone is offended by everything. I recognize this. When Schilling apologizes for what he posted, it tells me that he recognizes the fallacy of posting this on his Facebook page. Remember, Schilling never apologized for his science v. God debate with Keith Law that got Law suspended. He isn't going to apologize just because he feels he hurt some feelings, so he must really think he was in the wrong. Maybe he just wanted to avoid a suspension, who knows?
So, then what — very strongly, no less — is ESPN’s perspective?
To not compare extreme Muslims to pre-Americans-entering-World War II Nazis. That's their perspective.
and “in no way represents our company’s perspective” was not only historically true, Schilling under-tweeted the truth. Islamists and Nazis were teammates!
Tens of thousands more eastern Muslims fought for Nazi Germany. Their mutual attraction was a shared desire to murder Jews.
So Phil Mushnick's reaction is to basically say, "Muslims have always been on the side of Nazis, so Curt Schilling should have lumped even more non-extremist Muslims in with Hitler and his political party."
Interesting.
After the war, “rat lines” that provided escape and sanctuary to Nazi war criminals led to safekeeping in Islamic countries, especially Egypt and Syria. And little about radical Islam, as it today festers and explodes, has changed since the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century.
While this could possibly be true, there are radical sects of every religion that probably have gone unchanged for generations and every religion is responsible in some way for death and destruction. The Crusades weren't exactly a bloodless affair, but it doesn't mean the modern day conservative Christian is a danger to society. My point is Islam may have been historically tied to Nazi Germany, but this doesn't necessarily mean a baseball analyst should be posting brief tidbits that serve as a warning about the growth of radical Islam and comparing it to Nazi Germany in 1940. Maybe someone will read this sentence in 100 years and laugh at the naive American who was eventually wiped out by radical Islam...
So what Schilling tweeted was (a) true, (b) a vast understatement, and (c) intolerable to ESPN, so at odds with the company’s position that ESPN had no choice but to publicly censure and punish him.
It's not that the facts aren't necessarily true, though I have no evidence the facts are true, but it's the insinuation behind those facts that Schilling was seemingly making. There was an insinuation that non-extreme Muslims would eventually join the radical cause. Again, that's how I read it.
Yet it rhymes with the media’s selective outrages and selectively quiet pandering. And pandering continues as the frightened media’s path-of-least-resistance substitute for hard, unfortunate truths.
Maybe, but I think Phil Mushnick is reading a bit too much into this. If I posted something on this blog that said (these are made up numbers),
"In 1933, African Americans made up 15% of the population of the United States population and violent crime was at it's lowest totals. Today, African Americans make up 45% of the United States population and violent crime is as high as it has been in the history of the United States."
If I wrote that, then I am only writing true things, but it doesn't mean that I'm not insinuating or encouraging my reader to make another assumption within the information I'm reporting. I wasn't offended by what was on Schilling's Facebook page, but combined with his argument with Keith Law, I can see why he was suspended. Naturally, Phil Mushnick is outraged.
Saturday night’s FOX 5 News sports report, anchored by Tina Cervasio of MSG renown, was an exercise in staggering group pandering. As her “amusing” kicker, she reported that Steve Smith, now a Ravens wide receiver, was ejected from that night’s preseason game. She didn’t say why he was tossed, but it was for fighting.
Usually if a football player is ejected from a game, it isn't for passing out flowers to his opponents. Even casual football fans know this. So there was obviously something that got Smith ejected and the reason can be explained, but it's a safe assumption he did something excessively violent or that wouldn't go over well in a normal work place.
After his first-quarter ejection Saturday, Cervasio said Smith entered a suite to sit with his son, from where they tweeted a smiling “selfie,” along with his son’s happy message: “when ur dad gets ejected.” The kid added this was the first time he watched his father’s team play while seated with his father.
Isn’t that charming, family bonding predicated on Dad being thrown out of the game.
It is exciting and charming for a kid to watch a football game with his dad. Though I'm sure Phil Mushnick is very concerned about the example Steve Smith is setting for his son. Thank God that Mushnick is here to tell others how they should or should not parent.
This brought approving, if not forced laughter from Cervasio and the pandering news folks also on the set. Anchor Antwan Lewis gave it final, full approval with, “That’s pretty cool.” Yeah, fabulous.
Don't be such a crab. Steve Smith by all appearances seems to be a really good father. Would it have been better if Smith got kicked out of the game and then didn't sit with his family? He's been kicked out of a preseason game (and may have been trying to get kicked out...I wouldn't put it past him), so why not sit with his family? Then his son took a picture of them watching the game together. This isn't a threat to humanity on-par to the Nazi-like rise of Islam.
Reader Wesley Drake, as likely did tens of thousands, thought the tear-filled Wilmer Flores “trade to Milwaukee” drama to be extra special, something that made all feel good for all the right reasons.
But then Drake, as did others, learned that Steiner Collectibles and Flores had joined to exploit the story for every tear-soaked dollar that suckers could spend. Flores autographed photos of him crying, Steiner peddled them.
He's making money off his own pain. That's absolutely something he is entitled to do. It could be tongue-in-cheek or it could be an easy way to make a dollar. What does it matter? Would it be better if Flores was not a part of these photos? Would his lack of participation in not autographing them be any less pathetic if someone else made money off the pain he was feeling at the time?
“Now,” writes Drake, “I feel like an idiot.”
You bought an autographed picture of a man crying and then emailed Phil Mushnick about it. I would say the second part of that last sentence probably indicates you are self-aware enough to know it's not just a feeling.
Was there no one with the Mets or perhaps Flores’s agent to discourage such a pathetic sell? Was there no one to tell Flores, perhaps naïve but not starving, that there are other, better ways to make an extra buck?
Again, why should he not make money off his own pain? It may be pathetic, but if there is a market for it, who cares? Plus, it's nice that Flores can autograph them and not take himself so seriously, even when photographed in a vulnerable moment like he was.
Saturday, during the Red Sox-Mets game, one of the most trusted voices of New York sports, Howie Rose, retold the warm-the-cockles, trade-that-wasn’t story. He said that Flores, now a crowd favorite, “is very shy” and that “he was almost embarrassed” by all the attention. Hmmm.
Maybe “almost” covered it. He couldn’t have been that embarrassed.
He could have been that embarrassed and decided rather than continue to be embarrassed, fully knowing the pictures of him crying are not going away, why not embrace the embarrassment and participate?
Et tu, Jon Stewart? If Stewart thought himself an idealist rather than an easy, cheesy populist, he blew it last week when he lent his presence to a WWE ringside skit.
My feelings about wrestling will always remain untold, because I don't want to tell others what to and not to like, but is Jon Stewart participating in a WWE skit really worth bitching about? I can't figure out how Jon Stewart being a part of a fake wrestling match could somehow be an indication there is no one left to corrupt and the sky of morality in sports is definitely falling.
Perhaps he didn’t care that the McMahon family has for decades headed a drug-death mill for wrestlers, or that the McMahons’ form of entertaining kids is to have wrestlers point to their genitals while hollering, “Suck it!”
Yep, I'd say he probably didn't give a shit. It's fake and it's entertainment. What's the difference in Stewart participating in a WWE skit and acting in a movie where he plays a morally corrupt character? Either way, he is acting. Go find something else to be outraged about.
But for 16 years, Stewart sat on a Comedy Central set and lampooned America’s biggest big shots for failure to choose right over wrong.
Participating in a WWE wrestling skit is "failing to choose right over wrong?" Really? Phil Mushnick needs to retire. For someone who doesn't like athletes who grandstand and have excessive self-regard, he does a hell of a lot of moral grandstanding and holds himself in high regard.
Here is his first article of screeds against random things that pop into his mind which piss him off.
Well, it finally happened. Didn’t make much news or noise, but that figures given baseball’s new replay rules have been widely celebrated for “getting it right.”
I'm shocked the new replay rules don't work perfectly after one year. Usually rule changes in a professional sporting event immediately works effortlessly with no issues.
In the top of the fifth inning in Aug. 20’s White Sox-Angels, Chicago’s Jose Abreu, with runners on first and third, hit a shot down the line that third-base ump Dana DeMuth ruled foul. Play, naturally, immediately stopped.
But the White Sox challenged the call. And there it was: The ball appeared to have nicked the line. Fair ball! Now what?
The umpires decide what bases to award the White Sox. I get the snark about "getting it right" but Mushnick is essentially going to argue that the umpires using hypotheticals to award bases to players is not preferable to the call being absolutely wrong. I would disagree, but I also am not a cranky person who can't handle any sort of change.
The umps held a meeting, a caucus to negotiate a settlement. It ended only after they reached an agreement on a guess of what, among scores of things that could have happened, as to what might have next happened. They determined — guessed — that because the runner on first was going on the pitch, both runners should score, and Abreu should be awarded second, as if it were a ground-rule double, which it was not.
I disagree with the conclusion here. I think the runner on first should be awarded third base just as if it were a ground rule double, but otherwise I have no issue with instant replay working in this exact way. It's almost impossible to know what really would have happened, so there has to be some educated guessing involved, assuming the umpires have the directive from MLB to get the call right by using instant replay. There is no other way, outside of guessing, to determine what would have happened had the call been correct initially.
So, in the name of “getting it right,” a pile of things that never happened — all of them impossible to determine would have happened — were deemed to have not happened while other impossibilities to determine were deemed to have happened.
You mean sort of like how defensive pass interference is called in the NFL and the offensive team is given the ball at the spot of the foul when there is no evidence that if there were no defensive pass interference the offensive player would have caught the ball? Or evidence the offensive player would have caught the ball and run for a touchdown? There is also no evidence the offensive player would have caught the ball, fumbled and then the defensive player would have run it back for a touchdown had the pass interference not occurred? Sort of how the NFL just assumes the offensive player would have caught the ball, and rewards the offensive team accordingly, when defensive pass interference occurs? I'm sure Phil Mushnick has no issue with this rule because it's not new and scary.
The White Sox took a 6-1 lead based on nothing more conclusive than a bunch of maybes as they related to the offense, the defense, and where that ball might’ve wound up then how it might’ve been played — had it been played.
This is what has happened on ground rule doubles for a long, long time now. A runner gets stopped at third base (if he were on first base) based on an assumption of how the ball would have been played. The alternative is that the call is entirely wrong without instant replay and the White Sox will keep the lead they have, but not keep the chance to have the big lead they should have had. So get it wrong or guess in an attempt to get it right?
Once that foul ball, via replay rule, was determined to have been fair, imaginary baseball — official fantasy league baseball — was invoked.
I wish fantasy sports didn't exist so sportswriters would stop referring to real baseball as "fantasy baseball" when something happens in the sport that they don't like. It's a lazy fallback joke and it's tiring.
The mind wanders and wonders … Game 7 of the World Series, bottom of the ninth. A ball initially ruled foul is reviewed, reversed. The umps gather to try to figure it out, to try to figure what can’t possibly be determined, then rule on what would’ve or might’ve happened, though it didn’t.
So in criticizing a pile of things that never happened---all of them impossible to determine would have happened---Phil Mushnick uses a situation that has never happened and it is impossible at this point to determine would happen in the World Series?
(Phil Mushnick) "Stop using hypothetical actions by runners on-base to determine what the score in the game would be in a hypothetical situation had the call been made correctly. Now here is a hypothetical situation with hypothetical actions by the umpires that I will use to determine how the World Series would end..."
Is the World Series over? “Gee,” says the crew chief, “I guess so.”
Instant replay has ended an NFL game before when a call was upheld or overturned. It happened in the Packers-Seahawks game a few years ago. This may never happen in the World Series, but I like how Phil criticizes using hypotheticals in order to get a call on the field correct using instant replay by using his own hypothetical situation.
One of my favorite parts of Super Bowls is the solemn chat with the losing coach just outside the locker room, usually his back to a cinderblock wall.
Inevitably, whether the score was 52-10 or 28-27, he is asked: “What would you have done differently?” Almost always, he answers he would do nothing differently, which, given that his team lost, makes no sense. He would do it all the same, again. And lose the same, again.
Not necessarily. It's possible the issue wasn't the play call, but the execution of the play call. So a coach could easily decide to call the same play again, but have his quarterback choose to throw to a different receiver, run with the football or throw the ball to the receiver in a different spot where the defender can't catch the ball. This is the difference in a results-oriented mindset and a more educated mindset. If I get in a car accident driving to the grocery store using a different route than I usually use to get to the grocery store, it doesn't mean I should never go the different route again because I will get in another accident.
The Golf Channel becomes comical when it goes into Tiger Woods Scramble Mode. When Woods shot a first-round 64 two Thursdays ago, GC apparently canceled all staff vacations, on-air personnel instructed to hyperventilate.
For a person whose job it is to cover the media, Phil Mushnick has a shitty grasp on how ratings work. Tiger Woods is in contention, which means there is more interest in the golf tournament. The ratings reflect this, so naturally a network will cover the story that the people watching the tournament are interested in.
CBS was no better. Though Woods last Sunday was in the next-to-the-last pairing — “penultimate pairing,” as per ESPN from the British Open — Woods was listed first among those in second place, two behind leader Jason Gore. But Tom Hoge, tied with Woods, played with Gore.
Again, ratings. It doesn't matter how the players are sorted, but CBS wanted any person flipping channels to see Tiger is high on the leaderboard. Phil Mushnick covers the media. Networks like ratings and Tiger brings in ratings.
ESPN’s late Sunday crawl read, “Davis Love wins the Wyndham as Tiger falters.” Reader Rich Monahan: “As if one was the reason for the other!”
This is very Easterbrookian on the part of Rich Monahan. It's not at all how that sentence is structured, as if one was the reason for the other. If I write, "I wrote in my notebook as my sister tried to color in the lines of her coloring book," I'm not indicating one event has a correlation to the other or indicating any causation. I'm simply stating what I'm doing while my sister is doing something else.
Another example: "Phil Mushnick bitches about stupid shit in his column as really good writers are unemployed." Wait, maybe I'm implying there should be some causation there...
Carlos Gomez, as a Brewer and now with the Astros, has been a conspicuous showoff, a me-first fool well worth the Yankees’ collective disdain over the past week.
But Gomez, who claims his teammates love such behavior from him — he’s delusional if he believes that — should be asked this:
Phil Mushnick knows Carlos Gomez is delusional for thinking his teammates love his behavior, because Phil Mushnick has been in the Brewers' and Astros' locker room to know whether his teammates like him or not? Not at all. Mushnick is assuming Gomez is delusional based on his own beliefs and assumptions. Basically, Mushnick is determining what Gomez's teammates think---while ignoring it's impossible to determine what they think---when ignoring other possibilities and deeming them to not have happened.
Would you instruct the kids in your life to exploit baseball, a team game, to demonstrate their excessive self-regard, or would you urge them toward modesty? Is public immodesty the professional legacy you choose for yourself?
That's a great question to ask. Carlos Gomez clearly needs a moral compass like Phil Mushnick to help him raise his children in the proper way. That is what is so great about Phil Mushnick. He knows how everyone should behave and act at all times and believes himself to be the final arbiter on what is and is not proper behavior. He has that excessive self-regard and displays some public immodesty by telling others what the proper behavior in a given situation might be.
Now Phil Mushnick uses history to determine that Curt Schilling should not have been punished for comparing extremist Muslims to Nazis. Of course, because outrage has to take a back seat to actually reading and understand what Schilling put on his Facebook page, Phil Mushnick is outraged at Schilling being punished.
Schilling deleted the Tweet and even apologized for it. So clearly he knew what he posted was going to be offensive to some and chose to delete it off his Facebook page entirely. There is a recent history of people being outraged just to be outraged, but Schilling knew he shouldn't have posted what he posted and deleted it accordingly. He made a mistake, owned up to it and then got punished. We all move on. BUT, Phil Mushnick is angry that ESPN blatantly read what Schilling posted and didn't take history into account. Sure, Phil spends many of his columns only reading the body language and actions of players (see: Carlos Gomez, above) and then judging them harshly on those actions without investigating the history or reason behind those actions, but it's different for him. Phil Mushnick can rush to a snap judgment and condemn a person accordingly, but everyone else should not do this.
ESPN last week suspended its lead baseball analyst, Curt Schilling, not for talking games to death, but for a social-media message equating Nazis with current, extremist Muslims.
The message was comparing extreme Muslims now to Nazis in 1940, prior to the United States entry into World War II. I could be way off, but the indication being that extreme Muslims could become a threat on-par with Nazis and that even non-extreme Muslims will eventually take up the point of view of extreme Muslims. Again, I could be looking into it too much, but the year 1940 seems to indicate to Americans (yes, there was fighting prior to the Americans entering the war) that extremist Muslims could eventually recruit non-extreme Muslims to their cause to the point there is another world war.
“Curt’s tweet was completely unacceptable, and in no way represents our company’s perspective. We made that point very strongly to Curt and have removed him from his current Little League assignment pending further consideration.”
Completely unacceptable? Out of line with ESPN’s perspective?
Curt Schilling apologized for it. We live in an age where everyone is offended by everything. I recognize this. When Schilling apologizes for what he posted, it tells me that he recognizes the fallacy of posting this on his Facebook page. Remember, Schilling never apologized for his science v. God debate with Keith Law that got Law suspended. He isn't going to apologize just because he feels he hurt some feelings, so he must really think he was in the wrong. Maybe he just wanted to avoid a suspension, who knows?
So, then what — very strongly, no less — is ESPN’s perspective?
To not compare extreme Muslims to pre-Americans-entering-World War II Nazis. That's their perspective.
and “in no way represents our company’s perspective” was not only historically true, Schilling under-tweeted the truth. Islamists and Nazis were teammates!
Tens of thousands more eastern Muslims fought for Nazi Germany. Their mutual attraction was a shared desire to murder Jews.
So Phil Mushnick's reaction is to basically say, "Muslims have always been on the side of Nazis, so Curt Schilling should have lumped even more non-extremist Muslims in with Hitler and his political party."
Interesting.
After the war, “rat lines” that provided escape and sanctuary to Nazi war criminals led to safekeeping in Islamic countries, especially Egypt and Syria. And little about radical Islam, as it today festers and explodes, has changed since the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century.
While this could possibly be true, there are radical sects of every religion that probably have gone unchanged for generations and every religion is responsible in some way for death and destruction. The Crusades weren't exactly a bloodless affair, but it doesn't mean the modern day conservative Christian is a danger to society. My point is Islam may have been historically tied to Nazi Germany, but this doesn't necessarily mean a baseball analyst should be posting brief tidbits that serve as a warning about the growth of radical Islam and comparing it to Nazi Germany in 1940. Maybe someone will read this sentence in 100 years and laugh at the naive American who was eventually wiped out by radical Islam...
So what Schilling tweeted was (a) true, (b) a vast understatement, and (c) intolerable to ESPN, so at odds with the company’s position that ESPN had no choice but to publicly censure and punish him.
It's not that the facts aren't necessarily true, though I have no evidence the facts are true, but it's the insinuation behind those facts that Schilling was seemingly making. There was an insinuation that non-extreme Muslims would eventually join the radical cause. Again, that's how I read it.
Yet it rhymes with the media’s selective outrages and selectively quiet pandering. And pandering continues as the frightened media’s path-of-least-resistance substitute for hard, unfortunate truths.
Maybe, but I think Phil Mushnick is reading a bit too much into this. If I posted something on this blog that said (these are made up numbers),
"In 1933, African Americans made up 15% of the population of the United States population and violent crime was at it's lowest totals. Today, African Americans make up 45% of the United States population and violent crime is as high as it has been in the history of the United States."
If I wrote that, then I am only writing true things, but it doesn't mean that I'm not insinuating or encouraging my reader to make another assumption within the information I'm reporting. I wasn't offended by what was on Schilling's Facebook page, but combined with his argument with Keith Law, I can see why he was suspended. Naturally, Phil Mushnick is outraged.
Saturday night’s FOX 5 News sports report, anchored by Tina Cervasio of MSG renown, was an exercise in staggering group pandering. As her “amusing” kicker, she reported that Steve Smith, now a Ravens wide receiver, was ejected from that night’s preseason game. She didn’t say why he was tossed, but it was for fighting.
Usually if a football player is ejected from a game, it isn't for passing out flowers to his opponents. Even casual football fans know this. So there was obviously something that got Smith ejected and the reason can be explained, but it's a safe assumption he did something excessively violent or that wouldn't go over well in a normal work place.
After his first-quarter ejection Saturday, Cervasio said Smith entered a suite to sit with his son, from where they tweeted a smiling “selfie,” along with his son’s happy message: “when ur dad gets ejected.” The kid added this was the first time he watched his father’s team play while seated with his father.
Isn’t that charming, family bonding predicated on Dad being thrown out of the game.
It is exciting and charming for a kid to watch a football game with his dad. Though I'm sure Phil Mushnick is very concerned about the example Steve Smith is setting for his son. Thank God that Mushnick is here to tell others how they should or should not parent.
This brought approving, if not forced laughter from Cervasio and the pandering news folks also on the set. Anchor Antwan Lewis gave it final, full approval with, “That’s pretty cool.” Yeah, fabulous.
Don't be such a crab. Steve Smith by all appearances seems to be a really good father. Would it have been better if Smith got kicked out of the game and then didn't sit with his family? He's been kicked out of a preseason game (and may have been trying to get kicked out...I wouldn't put it past him), so why not sit with his family? Then his son took a picture of them watching the game together. This isn't a threat to humanity on-par to the Nazi-like rise of Islam.
Reader Wesley Drake, as likely did tens of thousands, thought the tear-filled Wilmer Flores “trade to Milwaukee” drama to be extra special, something that made all feel good for all the right reasons.
But then Drake, as did others, learned that Steiner Collectibles and Flores had joined to exploit the story for every tear-soaked dollar that suckers could spend. Flores autographed photos of him crying, Steiner peddled them.
He's making money off his own pain. That's absolutely something he is entitled to do. It could be tongue-in-cheek or it could be an easy way to make a dollar. What does it matter? Would it be better if Flores was not a part of these photos? Would his lack of participation in not autographing them be any less pathetic if someone else made money off the pain he was feeling at the time?
“Now,” writes Drake, “I feel like an idiot.”
You bought an autographed picture of a man crying and then emailed Phil Mushnick about it. I would say the second part of that last sentence probably indicates you are self-aware enough to know it's not just a feeling.
Was there no one with the Mets or perhaps Flores’s agent to discourage such a pathetic sell? Was there no one to tell Flores, perhaps naïve but not starving, that there are other, better ways to make an extra buck?
Again, why should he not make money off his own pain? It may be pathetic, but if there is a market for it, who cares? Plus, it's nice that Flores can autograph them and not take himself so seriously, even when photographed in a vulnerable moment like he was.
Saturday, during the Red Sox-Mets game, one of the most trusted voices of New York sports, Howie Rose, retold the warm-the-cockles, trade-that-wasn’t story. He said that Flores, now a crowd favorite, “is very shy” and that “he was almost embarrassed” by all the attention. Hmmm.
Maybe “almost” covered it. He couldn’t have been that embarrassed.
He could have been that embarrassed and decided rather than continue to be embarrassed, fully knowing the pictures of him crying are not going away, why not embrace the embarrassment and participate?
Et tu, Jon Stewart? If Stewart thought himself an idealist rather than an easy, cheesy populist, he blew it last week when he lent his presence to a WWE ringside skit.
My feelings about wrestling will always remain untold, because I don't want to tell others what to and not to like, but is Jon Stewart participating in a WWE skit really worth bitching about? I can't figure out how Jon Stewart being a part of a fake wrestling match could somehow be an indication there is no one left to corrupt and the sky of morality in sports is definitely falling.
Perhaps he didn’t care that the McMahon family has for decades headed a drug-death mill for wrestlers, or that the McMahons’ form of entertaining kids is to have wrestlers point to their genitals while hollering, “Suck it!”
Yep, I'd say he probably didn't give a shit. It's fake and it's entertainment. What's the difference in Stewart participating in a WWE skit and acting in a movie where he plays a morally corrupt character? Either way, he is acting. Go find something else to be outraged about.
But for 16 years, Stewart sat on a Comedy Central set and lampooned America’s biggest big shots for failure to choose right over wrong.
Participating in a WWE wrestling skit is "failing to choose right over wrong?" Really? Phil Mushnick needs to retire. For someone who doesn't like athletes who grandstand and have excessive self-regard, he does a hell of a lot of moral grandstanding and holds himself in high regard.
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