Of all the things to bring me back to post something, it's an article by Ian O'Connor about Brock Osweiler. I don't have a strong opinion on O'Connor and really have no strong opinion on Osweiler either. Yet, here I am. Ian O'Connor thinks Osweiler made a mistake by leaving the Broncos. I think this is a ridiculous opinion knowing the facts as they happened.
1. Gary Kubiak only played Osweiler during the 2015 season when the Broncos' original starting quarterback, Peyton Manning, could not play due to injury.
2. As soon as Manning could play and Osweiler struggled, and remember Manning was a 39 year old noodle-armed quarterback at the time, Kubiak played Manning over Osweiler.
3. The Broncos didn't give Osweiler much consideration when he was a free agent, until the rumors he might leave started up and then they offered him $45 million over 3 years or 4 years at $64 million, depending on what you believe.
4. All indications are that Osweiler was "wanted" by the Broncos, but not really wanted. NFL teams are desperate for quarterbacks and so a young quarterback isn't treated like this if the organization REALLY thinks he's the long-term guy.
5. So Osweiler got $8 to $27 million and one more year (depending on what you believe) in a contract from the Texans, while the Broncos got to start Trevor Siemian over the guy they drafted in the first round, Paxton Lynch.
6. Indications {based on (a) how the Broncos kept Siemian around last year when they already had Manning and Osweiler and (b) this year started Siemian based solely on performance} are that if Osweiler came back to Denver, there is a chance he may not have even started. Clearly, Gary Kubiak likes Trevor Siemian.
But anyway, dumb move by Osweiler to get paid a lot of money and become a starter...or so says O'Connor. It's not like NFL players want to make as much money as possible and get playing time or anything. It's not like the NFL has non-guaranteed contracts either.
If success is determined only by the size of your bank account, then Brock Osweiler is your man.
Success for an NFL quarterback is determined (partially) by three things:
1. Size of your bank account.
2. How many Super Bowl trophies you have.
3. Individual awards you have received.
Though it's fun to ignore, Osweiler now has success with two of these three things. I would bet Ian O'Connor might get pissed off if ESPN decides they want to cut his pay. Or would he? Because he wouldn't want to be one of those people who thinks success is determined by the size of his bank account. We know O'Connor would never leave ESPN if another company offered him more money. He's too principled for that.
He was offered an $18 million wage to work for the Houston Texans and a $16 million wage to work for the Denver Broncos, and he took the extra loot.
What O'Connor neglects is Osweiler was offered $2 million less (I thought it was $3 million less) over a period of several years to work for the Broncos. Also, the guarantees in the Broncos contract could have been different because NFL contracts aren't 100% guaranteed. But let's pretend O'Connor is simply ignoring this in a desperate attempt to help prove his point and not because he doesn't understand how NFL contracts work. He works for ESPN, so there is no way he is simplifying a complex issue.
But we all know that happiness and prosperity in life, even in pro
football, are often defined by things that have nothing to do with
dollars and cents. Take championship rings, for instance. How much money
do you think Dan Marino would give back if it meant adding a Super Bowl
title to his otherwise staggering legacy?
Honestly, I think Dan Marino is perfectly fine with his legacy that doesn't include a Super Bowl ring. More importantly, Brock Osweiler HAS a Super Bowl ring. He won a Super Bowl ring last year, so it's staggering to me that Ian O'Connor ignores Osweiler has a Super Bowl ring and doesn't have to go chase one. He's won his Super Bowl and now wants to be a starter. Comparing Brock Osweiler to Dan Marino is stupid anyway.
More importantly, I think the issue is being confused here. The issue, as I see it and how everyone else should see it, isn't that Osweiler chose to be the starter in Houston over being the starter in Denver. Osweiler chose to take more money to be the starter in Houston as opposed to taking less money in Denver and compete for the starting job. What, O'Connor really thinks the Broncos and Kubiak had no clue what they had in Trevor Siemian? They just kept him as a 7th round pick on the roster when there were other more experienced quarterbacks out there and got lucky he has ended up being a capable starter (so far)? There is a reason, and Osweiler also knew the reason, the Broncos weren't tripping over themselves to outbid other teams for Osweiler. It's because they liked Siemian and they thought he could be the starter for them this year or in the future.
So Osweiler took more money to be a guaranteed starter after sitting behind another quarterback for four seasons. O'Connor wants the reader to believe the Broncos saw Osweiler as a starter, yet immediately benched him when a slightly better, older, less permanent quarterback option was presented? The Broncos then waited around to see if the better, older, less permanent quarterback would retire or not, while knowing it could affect their ability to re-sign Osweiler. Then when that better, older, less permanent option retired they saw Osweiler as a starter so much that they didn't really exert themselves to re-sign him. Don't be thick for the purpose of a column. Osweiler isn't very good, but he's not very good while being the starter for the Texans and making more money. The Broncos just didn't value Osweiler as much as he thought they should.
Osweiler sure had to be thinking that way Monday night, when the Broncos
made the NBA-sized quarterback look smaller than the fine ink in his
$72 million deal. ''
Maybe he was. Maybe he was upset that he didn't get to play with such a great defense. Maybe he was mad at himself for blowing a chance to be a starter on a playoff team. Or maybe he was mad he didn't play well, but understood that he probably wasn't going to be the starter in Denver long-term anyway so he's glad he got paid.
Osweiler was all over the place with his passes, and the Broncos hit him
hard on or after delivery every chance they got. Osweiler yelled at
wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, a much better football player than the quarterback, after one throw to nowhere.
The fact Hopkins is a better football player than Osweiler is very irrelevant. It's not a criticism of Osweiler necessarily. The list of players on the Broncos roster who are better than Trevor Siemian goes at least 10 players deep. If Siemian yells at one of them, then it doesn't mean much. Osweiler was awful against the Broncos, but pointing out a hierarchy of vocal criticism is silly.
Talib was asked at his locker if the Broncos were motivated not only
to end their surprising, two-game losing streak but also by a desire to
prove to Osweiler that he shouldn't have left.
"Definitely,
definitely," the cornerback said. "We know he looked up at those passing
yards in the fourth quarter. And maybe it wouldn't have looked like
that if he had stayed."
I mean, it wouldn't have happened if he had stayed because he wouldn't have had to play such a great defense. Unless the Broncos defense started playing defense for the Texans the lack of passing yards by Osweiler against the Broncos definitely would not have happened if he played for the Broncos. There is a chance Osweiler would be on the bench and have less money if he had stayed with the Broncos too. Let's just keep ignoring that though.
"We knew that he struggles with disguises," Ward said. "We'd seen that
from playing here and the film, so we tried to do that. We started kind
of slow in the beginning, but we got better as the game went on, and it
affected him."
And if Osweiler played for any other NFL team, outside of the Broncos, opposing defenses would never have studied film and seen he struggles with disguises. The Broncos have the only competent defense and defensive coordinator in the NFL and Osweiler would have thrived if he played for the Broncos. I guess this is the assumption to be made.
Not much didn't affect Osweiler in this game, and that might've had
the Broncos wondering if they should've tried to re-sign him after all.
But Elway did want him, and he drafted him in the second round to
someday lead the franchise the same year he signed Peyton Manning.
Elway wanted Osweiler, but it's almost like the Broncos didn't want Osweiler as much as O'Connor portrays here.
Osweiler slammed that door in his former boss' famous face, and that was a worse decision than any he made Monday.
This is overstating what Osweiler did by choosing to sign with a different team after the Broncos didn't offer him a contract he felt reflected his talent. Osweiler sat behind Peyton Manning for 3.5 years and then was pulled in the third quarter of a Week 17 game once Manning was healthy, after having gone 6-2 as the starter. The writing was on the wall, especially combined with the fact the Broncos didn't rush to lock Osweiler up when he could be a free agent, that the Broncos were pretty "blah" on him. The Broncos correctly evaluated Osweiler, that he wasn't going to be a quality NFL starter. But yeah, Osweiler "slammed that door" in Elway's face, right? How dare he attempt to improve his career and bank account.
O'Brien and Smith definitely know what they are doing, and they
definitely understood that they were taking a big, fat gamble on an
athletic, 6-foot-8 kid with seven career starts to his name.
Actually, if O'Connor did any research at all before regurgitating this column then he would know O'Brien didn't even meet Osweiler prior to the Texans signing him. So they "definitely knew what they are doing" and "they definitely understood" the "big, fat gamble" they were taking? I'm not entirely convinced.
But what in the world was Osweiler thinking when he left this
near-perfect situation in Denver? For that matter, what in the world was
his super-agent, Jimmy Sexton, thinking?
"I want to earn a large commission and get my client set for life." --- exactly what Jimmy Sexton was thinking.
"Denver may not want me as their starter judging by their actions since Week 17 and I can be the starter in Houston." --- exactly what Brock Osweiler was thinking.
Osweiler walked out on that program because he said he fit better in O'Brien's system.
How did that fit work out Monday?
Two issues I see here:
1. It can't be ignored that the Broncos have a really, really good defense. They make good quarterbacks look not-so-good. Osweiler isn't a good quarterback, but when seeing how the "fit" of the Texans offense worked out on Monday, the quality of the Broncos' defense must be acknowledged as well.
2. Osweiler said he fit O'Brien's system because he isn't going to say, "Man, I don't think this system is going to work for me" after getting paid $72 million to run the offensive system.
This may come as a shock to Ian O'Connor, but athletes (falls into his fainting chair) don't always tell the truth and/or their deepest thoughts to the media.
Even so, Osweiler should still be the Broncos' starter -- not the less talented Trevor Siemian
--
You can tell I take exception to this contention. Isn't it possible Osweiler wouldn't be successful in Denver and eventually be replaced by Trevor Siemian? It's not like Gary Kubiak didn't see both quarterbacks in practice every day or anything. So if/when Osweiler struggles, O'Connor doesn't think Osweiler would be benched (again, by the way) and replaced by Siemian? At that point, Osweiler certainly isn't getting a good deal on the free agent market IF the Broncos even decided to release him. He was the backup for 3.5 years in Denver. That's a long time for a competitive athlete to sit.
Osweiler isn't Derek Anderson, Matt Moore, Mark Sanchez or any of the other backup quarterbacks who got a chance to start and realize that's not where their value to an NFL team may lie. Osweiler hasn't gotten a chance to start and he wanted that I presume. I can't figure out why it's assumed Osweiler would (a) not be a bad starter in Denver and (b) would be the starter in Denver no matter what.
and the quarterback's representative, Sexton, has to take a hit for
that. Too often, agents confuse the richest deal with the best deal.
I can't imagine a scenario where Osweiler getting the most money and being the definitive starter wasn't the best deal for Osweiler. I also can't imagine a scenario where Osweiler would play worlds better for the Broncos than he has with the Texans.
If Sexton's client is telling the truth when he says his benching late
last season for a returning Manning didn't drive him out, then what was
the deal?
Again, this may come as a shock to Ian O'Connor, but athletes (falls into his
fainting chair yet again) don't always tell the truth and/or their deepest
thoughts to the media. So Osweiler is being diplomatic and not burning bridges by stating it wasn't the late season benching that drove him away. In truth, it doesn't matter. The deal probably was that he wanted to be a starter. Now he is.
This isn't to say Osweiler won't develop into a pretty good player in
this league. He beat the unbeaten Patriots last season, and he delivered
a thrilling comeback against the Colts last week, and he made a sweet,
third-and-8 run against Denver in the third quarter.
He's been a backup for 3.5 years. If he's going to develop into a pretty good player, then it has to start happening fairly soon. Osweiler understands this, which is why he went out and got paid when he had the chance to go out and get paid. This is as opposed to being a member of the Broncos, a successful team, yes, but also a team that committed to him in the same way I commit to writing regularly on this blog. Sure, that is what they would like to have happen in theory...unless something else comes along of course.
As he headed for his car after this sweetest of October victories, a
smiling Elway stopped near a stadium barrier to mingle with players'
family members and others looking for photos. He always walks -- or
hobbles -- with his shoulders pinned back and his barrel chest puffed
out. It seemed on this night that his chest was puffed out an extra inch
or two.
It feels good to win a game and show a decision Elway made was the right decision. Couldn't Elway feel good that he chose to not fully commit to Osweiler and instead give Trevor Siemian a shot? Isn't it possible Elway's chest-puffing is not from getting back at a quarterback who spurned him, but showing his evaluation of that quarterback as not being the future starter of the Broncos was the correct evaluation? In this scenario, isn't it possible Osweiler would have ruined his chance to be a starter had he re-signed with the Broncos?
Why not? It was painfully clear that Brock Osweiler, former Bronco, had put his money on the wrong horse.
Ignoring this painfully bad last sentence, this is also a horribly confused sentence. Osweiler didn't put any money on the wrong horse because he received the money. If anything, the Texans put money on the wrong horse, though their alternative may not have been any better. So it's clear the Broncos put money on the correct horse, at least in the short-term. See, the Texans HAVE the money to put on a quarterback, while Osweiler is the guy who received the money from the Texans.
The correct sentence here should be written as, "Why not? It was painfully clear the Broncos put their money on the correct horse."
Osweiler has a Super Bowl ring and wanted to be a starter. It's not a mistake that he made, but an attempt to be a definite NFL starter and make the most money possible. End of story.
Showing posts with label Denver Broncos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Denver Broncos. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Saturday, September 12, 2015
2 comments Mark Kiszla Says All the Broncos Need Is Love to Win the Super Bowl
Quick blog note. I have had to slow down my posting due to time issues. Mainly, I've had precious little time to write. I post everything in my spare time that doesn't take away from time with my family. It's like a subset of a subset of spare time if you will. So I don't have any real spare time of late and work has made me more busy to where I don't have time to look for terribly written articles at work. So bitching about bad sportswriting is the first thing to go. As terribly written as many of these posts may be grammatically and sentence structure-wise, they do take a little bit of time. It takes effort to write run-on sentences. Sometimes, like writing TMQ and MMQB, they take a lot more than a little bit of time. Finding the right articles takes some time as well and it's just not time I've had recently. So I'm looking to pump it back up to four posts per week and keep coming back to the site.
Denver Broncos beat writers tend to think of some odd ideas this time of year that they believe are necessary to win the Super Bowl. A few years ago, Mike Klis found the key to the Broncos winning the Super Bowl was to lose as many regular season games as possible. This year, Mike Kiszla, with a little help from Broncos legend Rod Smith, says the Broncos can win the Super Bowl by having a little bit more love in the locker room. Ubuntu, if you will, but not calling it that. The Broncos have all the talent in the world, but they need to be close in order to win the Super Bowl. Everyone probably doesn't remember how the 2014 Patriots were seen as an extremely close team and that's how they won the Super Bowl. You don't remember, because I'm not sure this is a real thing that happened. The Seahawks weren't a divided team, but there were differing opinions on the release of Percy Harvin among the players on the Seahawks roster, yet they found a way to be close enough to almost win the Super Bowl. Perhaps it wasn't the fact the Seahawks threw the ball near the goal line that lost them the Super Bowl, but was instead that the team spent too much time playing on their phones during the bus ride to the stadium. That lack of closeness could have lost them the Super Bowl.
It's a cool $70 million contract. But what Demaryius Thomas wants, money cannot buy. He envies the Super Bowl rings of Broncos legend Rod Smith.
No, literally...money CAN buy a Super Bowl ring.
"He wants a Super Bowl ring. ... And I kind of rub it on his chest," Smith said Tuesday.
You rub it on his chest? Why the fuck would your rub it in his chest? Don't normal braggarts rub things in the face of others?
If the Broncos want to get back to the Super Bowl and win it this time, Smith offered novel advice for an NFL franchise he loves like family.
Play in 3-4 playoff games, all while scoring more points than the opposing team in every playoff game? It's a winning strategy. Bank on it.
In the estimation of Smith, the Broncos have all the talent needed to win a championship. But the difference between hoisting the Lombardi Trophy and going home disappointed from the playoffs can often be attributed to the lack of brotherhood in the huddle.
No Ubuntu, no Super Bowl win for you. This is some high-level analysis here. Here I thought the Broncos could win the Super Bowl by having Peyton Manning not wear his arm out before the season is over or have Rahim Moore jump just a little bit later so he can bat a deep pass from Joe Flacco down.
Denver players need to stop living inside the cellphone and spend more time finding out what really makes the heart of a teammate tick.
But Mark, you HAVE to have a cellphone in order to answer this question.
How else does Kiszla expect these Broncos players to get to WebMD in order to find out what makes the heart of a teammate tick if they don't have their cell phones? Bring a laptop into the locker room?
"Put the (expletive) phones down and have real conversations with people," declared the 45-year-old Smith, so fired up he preached for more than an hour with passion hotter than the sun dancing in the gray flecks of his beard.
I bet Demaryius Thomas rubs it in Rod Smith's chest that Demaryius doesn't have gray flecks in his beard yet.
"Today, with social media, nobody knows who the hell they're working with.
I know who I am working with better than I ever could have because of social media. I'm friends with some co-workers on Facebook so I get to see pictures of their friends, family, loved ones, quotes they like, political views, the food they ate, and their opinion on a variety of topics. I would actually like to know the people I work with LESS than I currently do. I'm not sure Rod Smith has a firm grasp on how social media works.
You all work together, but you have no idea what makes him tick. This is the locker room right now. This is why the locker room is so divided. Everybody worried about 'likes' versus worried about what (a teammate) is going through at home.
Yes, because Von Miller is going to open up to Demaryius Thomas about his struggles at home. Perhaps they can talk about male impotence and figure out how to fight this battle together, as opposed to facing this issue alone.
But seriously, again, people put on Facebook the things they are going through all the time. I don't know if professional athletes do this, but I doubt they would open up in the middle of the locker room either.
I need to know that, because I've got to go to battle with this dude. But they're all disconnected."
They are connected through social media.
From linebacker Von Miller to receiver Emmanuel Sanders, the Broncos sent 10 players to the Pro Bowl after the 2014 season. They were also eliminated after one sad game in the playoffs. From the beginning, however, the Broncos were better at fantasy football than on the field, when the going got tough.
And of course, the reason behind the Broncos not being good when the going got tough is that they weren't close enough to each other. Were previous Super Bowl champions really close teams or something? Is there some sort of proven correlation that teams that like each other win more Super Bowls that I don't know about? Like the Patriots were super-close all year and that's how Malcolm Butler managed to intercept a pass on the goal line?
"The answer is not putting more pieces in. It's taking the pieces you have and putting them closer together."
Yes, but what if the pieces you have don't fit closer together? What if the pieces fit how they fit and success isn't determined by how these pieces fit anyway?
It's a simply powerful idea: What the Broncos need is not more talent in the locker room. It's more genuine love for one another.
It's a powerful idea and it's a very anecdotal idea that lacks the anecdotal evidence for me to even believe it. In fact, the very idea a team won a title because they were close is too anecdotal for me to ever believe. It seems too much like "Here is a result and let's fit in a narrative that explains this result."
while lamenting these kids in the league today don't know the meaning of true commitment, there's an expectation the final exclamation in his rant will be: Get off my lawn!
Despite the growling, what makes Smith a cuddly bear is knowing he was the same curmudgeon while earning his first trip to the Pro Bowl at age 29 that he is now in middle age.
This isn't a "Get off my lawn!" rant because Rod Smith has always wanted people to get off his lawn.
To this day, there's not a soul in Broncos Country who wants to see Denver back on top more than Smith. To help the cause, Smith has served as a mentor to Thomas, first in the refinement of receiving skills and later in the development of the quiet, unassuming D.T. as a leader.
Maybe Rod Smith and Mark Kiszla can help create a fictional "Broncos Way" and then state that is why the team will win the Super Bowl. Then any variation away from this "Broncos Way" will result in a few columns churned out about how the Broncos have lost the "Broncos Way" because failure occurred.
"As long as Peyton Manning's here, it's always going to be Peyton Manning's team," Smith said.
"Thanks," says Gary Kubiak.
But here's my theory: Since the Broncos signed Peyton Manning in 2012, the team has leaned so heavily on his Hall of Fame ability that when former coach John Fox told me for the umpteenth time that Manning raises all boats, I began to wonder who was in charge of this clambake.
So Mark Kiszla's theory is that the Broncos leaned on Manning so much that Kiszla wondered who was really in charge. His theory is that he has no theory but a question that he's wondering about. My theory about this column is whether it is really such a slow news day that writing about how the Broncos need to love each other more seemed like a good idea.
they raised him to such mythical status as a leader that Manning has lost touch with the common grunt in the Broncos locker room.
PEYTON MANNING IS THE HILLARY CLINTON OF THE NFL!
I've listened as too many teammates speak about Manning with hushed reverence, as if Manning were Santa Claus,
Yes, the same hushed reverence that Santa Claus receives in most NFL locker rooms.
What an odd statement. Santa Claus?
"I've listened as too many teammates speak about Demaryius Thomas with pure amusement and joy, as if Thomas were Dora the Explorer..."
omnipresent and the final arbiter of who's naughty or nice.
This is stupid to call Santa Claus the final arbiter of who's naughty or nice. Everyone knows that person is Roger Goodell.
When all the best plans go to pieces as the snap sails over the QB's head at the Super Bowl, however, there needs to be a strong voice that can rally downtrodden teammates,
Hey, how about the quarterback? I mean, the offense goes back to the bench and Manning can be a strong voice to rally his teammates.
while Manning sits on the bench and studies the All-22 photographs to analyze how it went wrong.
Ah, I get it. In order to become a close team, the Broncos offense should exclude Peyton Manning from any leadership opportunities and sneak off to meet while he's reviewing film from the previous drive. This, undoubtedly, will bring the team closer together. It moves the pieces closer together, almost like Manning and the rest of the Broncos offensive players are the Santa and Mrs. Claus of the NFL.
When Thomas insists his lucrative contract only makes him hungrier, it's music to the ears of Smith. His hunger is for championships. To get that ring, Thomas must instill the hunger in teammates.
This hunger must be instilled. And obviously "this hunger" is directly related to "being super-close with your teammates." It's pretty much the same thing, you know, since this entire column is about how the Broncos should be closer to each other and now Mark Kiszla is randomly discussing how the Broncos need to be hungrier.
"It pays off, honestly, when you're down in the fourth quarter and you've got a minute and a half left to win the game," Smith said.
Like when things got tough in the Super Bowl and the Broncos needed a first down, so John Elway ran for the first down to keep the drive alive? So when the leadership came from someone who happened to be the quarterback?
That's more than leadership. That's a band of football brothers, sharing the love.
Put down the phone, get to know your teammate, then win the Super Bowl. What happens if all 32 NFL teams do this? Will they all win the Super Bowl?
The best part of this column is one of the comments from a "macomment" who says in a very articulate way:
I think Rod has a good point. Drop that twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat, tumblr crap for the season and focus on football. PLEASE! I dumped facebook a couple years ago and never looked back.
And "maccomment" won the Super Bowl THE VERY NEXT SEASON. Coincidence? Probably not. He dumped Facebook and his life became much more fulfilling and obviously this anonymous Internet commenter's professional life is analogous to the professional life of an NFL player.
It's great not seeing ugly baby photos and closeups of your neighbor's dinner while being bombarded with focused advertisements.
You mean seeing things that help you to know more about your neighbor and friends? Those things that Mike Kiszla says the Broncos need to do more of by getting away from social media?
That being said, Fox showered the Broncos with love.
Yes, ugly babies aside, AND WITH THAT BEING SAID...
These guys don't need that kind of love ...
Not the John Fox kind of love. More of a tough love. Perhaps love bordering on the edge of child abuse. Instead of taking pictures of an ugly baby, go out and beat the shit out of an ugly baby until it chokes on it's pathetic baby tears and can't breathe through it's stupid baby mouth. THAT is the kind of love the Broncos need.
they need the type of love that Adrian Peterson delivers to his 4 yr old son so that none of us ever has to endure a half-baked effort like that playoff game against the Colts.
I agree. In order for the Broncos to play better as a team, they should all be beaten with a switch. I mean, obviously this is something that should occur. Nothing will bring the Broncos together closer than to know they each have the same scars from where Gary Kubiak bent them over his knee and beat them until they bled with a switch.
Denver Broncos beat writers tend to think of some odd ideas this time of year that they believe are necessary to win the Super Bowl. A few years ago, Mike Klis found the key to the Broncos winning the Super Bowl was to lose as many regular season games as possible. This year, Mike Kiszla, with a little help from Broncos legend Rod Smith, says the Broncos can win the Super Bowl by having a little bit more love in the locker room. Ubuntu, if you will, but not calling it that. The Broncos have all the talent in the world, but they need to be close in order to win the Super Bowl. Everyone probably doesn't remember how the 2014 Patriots were seen as an extremely close team and that's how they won the Super Bowl. You don't remember, because I'm not sure this is a real thing that happened. The Seahawks weren't a divided team, but there were differing opinions on the release of Percy Harvin among the players on the Seahawks roster, yet they found a way to be close enough to almost win the Super Bowl. Perhaps it wasn't the fact the Seahawks threw the ball near the goal line that lost them the Super Bowl, but was instead that the team spent too much time playing on their phones during the bus ride to the stadium. That lack of closeness could have lost them the Super Bowl.
It's a cool $70 million contract. But what Demaryius Thomas wants, money cannot buy. He envies the Super Bowl rings of Broncos legend Rod Smith.
No, literally...money CAN buy a Super Bowl ring.
"He wants a Super Bowl ring. ... And I kind of rub it on his chest," Smith said Tuesday.
You rub it on his chest? Why the fuck would your rub it in his chest? Don't normal braggarts rub things in the face of others?
If the Broncos want to get back to the Super Bowl and win it this time, Smith offered novel advice for an NFL franchise he loves like family.
Play in 3-4 playoff games, all while scoring more points than the opposing team in every playoff game? It's a winning strategy. Bank on it.
In the estimation of Smith, the Broncos have all the talent needed to win a championship. But the difference between hoisting the Lombardi Trophy and going home disappointed from the playoffs can often be attributed to the lack of brotherhood in the huddle.
No Ubuntu, no Super Bowl win for you. This is some high-level analysis here. Here I thought the Broncos could win the Super Bowl by having Peyton Manning not wear his arm out before the season is over or have Rahim Moore jump just a little bit later so he can bat a deep pass from Joe Flacco down.
Denver players need to stop living inside the cellphone and spend more time finding out what really makes the heart of a teammate tick.
But Mark, you HAVE to have a cellphone in order to answer this question.
How else does Kiszla expect these Broncos players to get to WebMD in order to find out what makes the heart of a teammate tick if they don't have their cell phones? Bring a laptop into the locker room?
"Put the (expletive) phones down and have real conversations with people," declared the 45-year-old Smith, so fired up he preached for more than an hour with passion hotter than the sun dancing in the gray flecks of his beard.
I bet Demaryius Thomas rubs it in Rod Smith's chest that Demaryius doesn't have gray flecks in his beard yet.
"Today, with social media, nobody knows who the hell they're working with.
I know who I am working with better than I ever could have because of social media. I'm friends with some co-workers on Facebook so I get to see pictures of their friends, family, loved ones, quotes they like, political views, the food they ate, and their opinion on a variety of topics. I would actually like to know the people I work with LESS than I currently do. I'm not sure Rod Smith has a firm grasp on how social media works.
You all work together, but you have no idea what makes him tick. This is the locker room right now. This is why the locker room is so divided. Everybody worried about 'likes' versus worried about what (a teammate) is going through at home.
Yes, because Von Miller is going to open up to Demaryius Thomas about his struggles at home. Perhaps they can talk about male impotence and figure out how to fight this battle together, as opposed to facing this issue alone.
But seriously, again, people put on Facebook the things they are going through all the time. I don't know if professional athletes do this, but I doubt they would open up in the middle of the locker room either.
I need to know that, because I've got to go to battle with this dude. But they're all disconnected."
They are connected through social media.
From linebacker Von Miller to receiver Emmanuel Sanders, the Broncos sent 10 players to the Pro Bowl after the 2014 season. They were also eliminated after one sad game in the playoffs. From the beginning, however, the Broncos were better at fantasy football than on the field, when the going got tough.
And of course, the reason behind the Broncos not being good when the going got tough is that they weren't close enough to each other. Were previous Super Bowl champions really close teams or something? Is there some sort of proven correlation that teams that like each other win more Super Bowls that I don't know about? Like the Patriots were super-close all year and that's how Malcolm Butler managed to intercept a pass on the goal line?
"The answer is not putting more pieces in. It's taking the pieces you have and putting them closer together."
Yes, but what if the pieces you have don't fit closer together? What if the pieces fit how they fit and success isn't determined by how these pieces fit anyway?
It's a simply powerful idea: What the Broncos need is not more talent in the locker room. It's more genuine love for one another.
It's a powerful idea and it's a very anecdotal idea that lacks the anecdotal evidence for me to even believe it. In fact, the very idea a team won a title because they were close is too anecdotal for me to ever believe. It seems too much like "Here is a result and let's fit in a narrative that explains this result."
while lamenting these kids in the league today don't know the meaning of true commitment, there's an expectation the final exclamation in his rant will be: Get off my lawn!
Despite the growling, what makes Smith a cuddly bear is knowing he was the same curmudgeon while earning his first trip to the Pro Bowl at age 29 that he is now in middle age.
This isn't a "Get off my lawn!" rant because Rod Smith has always wanted people to get off his lawn.
To this day, there's not a soul in Broncos Country who wants to see Denver back on top more than Smith. To help the cause, Smith has served as a mentor to Thomas, first in the refinement of receiving skills and later in the development of the quiet, unassuming D.T. as a leader.
Maybe Rod Smith and Mark Kiszla can help create a fictional "Broncos Way" and then state that is why the team will win the Super Bowl. Then any variation away from this "Broncos Way" will result in a few columns churned out about how the Broncos have lost the "Broncos Way" because failure occurred.
"As long as Peyton Manning's here, it's always going to be Peyton Manning's team," Smith said.
"Thanks," says Gary Kubiak.
But here's my theory: Since the Broncos signed Peyton Manning in 2012, the team has leaned so heavily on his Hall of Fame ability that when former coach John Fox told me for the umpteenth time that Manning raises all boats, I began to wonder who was in charge of this clambake.
So Mark Kiszla's theory is that the Broncos leaned on Manning so much that Kiszla wondered who was really in charge. His theory is that he has no theory but a question that he's wondering about. My theory about this column is whether it is really such a slow news day that writing about how the Broncos need to love each other more seemed like a good idea.
they raised him to such mythical status as a leader that Manning has lost touch with the common grunt in the Broncos locker room.
PEYTON MANNING IS THE HILLARY CLINTON OF THE NFL!
I've listened as too many teammates speak about Manning with hushed reverence, as if Manning were Santa Claus,
Yes, the same hushed reverence that Santa Claus receives in most NFL locker rooms.
What an odd statement. Santa Claus?
"I've listened as too many teammates speak about Demaryius Thomas with pure amusement and joy, as if Thomas were Dora the Explorer..."
omnipresent and the final arbiter of who's naughty or nice.
This is stupid to call Santa Claus the final arbiter of who's naughty or nice. Everyone knows that person is Roger Goodell.
When all the best plans go to pieces as the snap sails over the QB's head at the Super Bowl, however, there needs to be a strong voice that can rally downtrodden teammates,
Hey, how about the quarterback? I mean, the offense goes back to the bench and Manning can be a strong voice to rally his teammates.
while Manning sits on the bench and studies the All-22 photographs to analyze how it went wrong.
Ah, I get it. In order to become a close team, the Broncos offense should exclude Peyton Manning from any leadership opportunities and sneak off to meet while he's reviewing film from the previous drive. This, undoubtedly, will bring the team closer together. It moves the pieces closer together, almost like Manning and the rest of the Broncos offensive players are the Santa and Mrs. Claus of the NFL.
When Thomas insists his lucrative contract only makes him hungrier, it's music to the ears of Smith. His hunger is for championships. To get that ring, Thomas must instill the hunger in teammates.
This hunger must be instilled. And obviously "this hunger" is directly related to "being super-close with your teammates." It's pretty much the same thing, you know, since this entire column is about how the Broncos should be closer to each other and now Mark Kiszla is randomly discussing how the Broncos need to be hungrier.
"It pays off, honestly, when you're down in the fourth quarter and you've got a minute and a half left to win the game," Smith said.
Like when things got tough in the Super Bowl and the Broncos needed a first down, so John Elway ran for the first down to keep the drive alive? So when the leadership came from someone who happened to be the quarterback?
That's more than leadership. That's a band of football brothers, sharing the love.
Put down the phone, get to know your teammate, then win the Super Bowl. What happens if all 32 NFL teams do this? Will they all win the Super Bowl?
The best part of this column is one of the comments from a "macomment" who says in a very articulate way:
I think Rod has a good point. Drop that twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat, tumblr crap for the season and focus on football. PLEASE! I dumped facebook a couple years ago and never looked back.
And "maccomment" won the Super Bowl THE VERY NEXT SEASON. Coincidence? Probably not. He dumped Facebook and his life became much more fulfilling and obviously this anonymous Internet commenter's professional life is analogous to the professional life of an NFL player.
It's great not seeing ugly baby photos and closeups of your neighbor's dinner while being bombarded with focused advertisements.
You mean seeing things that help you to know more about your neighbor and friends? Those things that Mike Kiszla says the Broncos need to do more of by getting away from social media?
That being said, Fox showered the Broncos with love.
Yes, ugly babies aside, AND WITH THAT BEING SAID...
These guys don't need that kind of love ...
Not the John Fox kind of love. More of a tough love. Perhaps love bordering on the edge of child abuse. Instead of taking pictures of an ugly baby, go out and beat the shit out of an ugly baby until it chokes on it's pathetic baby tears and can't breathe through it's stupid baby mouth. THAT is the kind of love the Broncos need.
they need the type of love that Adrian Peterson delivers to his 4 yr old son so that none of us ever has to endure a half-baked effort like that playoff game against the Colts.
I agree. In order for the Broncos to play better as a team, they should all be beaten with a switch. I mean, obviously this is something that should occur. Nothing will bring the Broncos together closer than to know they each have the same scars from where Gary Kubiak bent them over his knee and beat them until they bled with a switch.
Friday, September 19, 2014
5 comments Gregg Easterbrook Says the Broncos-Seahawks Rematch May or May Not End Up Like the Super Bowl Did
Gregg Easterbrook continued repeating topics from past TMQ's in last week's column. He also continued to get a little confused about whether O.J. Simpson was found guilty or liable in the civil suit brought against him by Ron Goldman's family. This week he talks about how Super Bowl rematches are so rare, criticizes how television shows portray the government as villains, and continues his bare-bones knowledge of football to give his shitty analysis of why blitzing is bad except when it isn't. I still can't believe Gregg gets paid to write a weekly NFL column.
Next Sunday, the Denver Broncos travel to Seattle for a Super Bowl rematch. Are the Broncos happy to have another chance to slay the dragon, or dismayed that stretching back to last season, two of four games that count will be against the league's best defense?
They will probably try not to worry about it too much and just win the game. There is always that option too. I don't know too much, but I do know NFL teams aren't generally worried about going back to last season to whine about how many games they have had to play against teams with a great defense, especially when one of those games was the Super Bowl. No team is dismayed about playing in the Super Bowl.
On only five occasions following the 47 previous Super Bowls -- or V times following the XLVII previous Super Bowls -- has the next regular season seen a rematch. So far teams that lost the Super Bowl are 2-3 against the victors in regular-season rematches the following season.
When Gregg says "Super Bowl rematches" it makes it sound like it is a rematch of two teams in the Super Bowl, who played against each other in the Super Bowl the previous year. That's not what Gregg means. He means a regular season matchup of the two teams that played in the Super Bowl. His phrasing is confusing.
The most recent Super Bowl rematch, Green Bay versus New England, occurred in 1997, so it's been nearly two decades since a regular-season rematch.
Riveting. When it comes to putting together facts or stats I don't care about, Gregg is unparalleled.
Considering the beatdown the Bluish Men Group defense put on the Broncs' high-tech offense in the Super Bowl, the odds would seem to favor another Seattle win. So would the Seahawks' league-best 18-1 stretch at home. So would Russell Wilson's sterling record versus the NFL's quarterbacking old guard. Wilson is 7-0 in starts against Tom Brady, Drew Brees, the Manning brothers and Aaron Rodgers. By comparison, he's 3-2 versus young guns Colin Kaepernick and Andrew Luck.
Russell Wilson isn't really 3-2 or 7-0 against these quarterbacks. It's his team that has these records against these quarterbacks' teams. Football is a team game.
When John Fox coached the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII at Houston, the neutral crowd didn't make much noise.
Yes, the neutral crowd of Patriots and Panthers fans didn't make any noise. Because no one team dominated the attendance, every fan in the stadium was quiet as a result and didn't make noise cheering for their team. Sure, I bet that happened.
When preparing the Broncos for Super Bowl XLVIII, Fox assumed the neutral crowd at Snoopy Stadium would be similar, like they were watching Masterpiece Theatre. Assuming this, Fox had the noise generators turned off at the Jets' practice facility where Denver prepared for the big game.
The Broncos assumed the crowd would be completely silent! This is a real thing that Gregg believes happened. Peyton Manning has never played in a loud stadium before, so naturally he was confused to hear all of that noise coming from the stands. The difference in the Seahawks and Broncos in the Super Bowl was that the Broncos didn't expect crowd noise and the Seahawks did. This is what Gregg would have you believe.
Denver seemed discombobulated by the noise level. ("Wow it's loud in here," one of my kids, attending with me, said a moment before the safety.)
Unlike the Super Bowl between the Patriots and Panthers where there was little noise during the game. John Fox just assumed no one would be cheering at the next Super Bowl and his players certainly had never played in a loud stadium before.
Some coaches tailor everything to specific places and opponents, others say they approach every game the same. Seattle coach Pete Carroll is in the former group, Fox in the latter. Example: Going into the Super Bowl, Carroll had the Seahawks prepare for a long halftime. Fox did not have the Broncos practice this.
The reason the Ravens won the Super Bowl the year before is John Harbaugh practiced the Ravens resting during halftime AND planned for the lights to go out during the game causing a further delay. Harbaugh had his players just sit around for 35 minutes, after they had rested at a simulated halftime, at every practice leading up to the Super Bowl and that is why the Ravens beat the 49ers. The 49ers just planned for a halftime, but failed to plan for the lights to go out.
When the New Orleans Saints onside kicked to start the second half of their Super Bowl collision with Indianapolis, Colts on the receiving team seemed unfocused. Some were checking out the double cheerleader squads both dancing at the Colts' end of the field.
It certainly sounds like somebody else (ummm...Gregg?) was checking out the double cheerleader squads dancing at the Colts' end of the field. Also notice how Gregg is capable of checking out these cheerleaders and still paying enough attention to the game to have talked about the onside kick that occurred after halftime, but he assumes the Colts' receiving team isn't capable of doing this as well.
I would also like to know how good of vision does Gregg Easterbrook have? He can see from where he was sitting at the Super Bowl the exact direction that the Colts players were looking, despite the fact they had helmets covering their face? He has to have the eyesight of an eagle, and yet, he wears glasses. He must wear super-powered glasses that give him vision even Superman would be jealous of.
Some were watching the final sets for The Who to be rolled off. The Colts weren't prepared for keeping focus during the unusually long halftime.
I know the Colts players were probably terribly interested in The Who's equipment being rolled off the field. See Gregg knows the Colts weren't prepared to focus, because along with superior eyesight, he also has the ability to read minds.
To prepare the Seahawks for the unusually long halftime, Carroll had them run plays, then go back to the locker room for half an hour of twiddling thumbs, then go back out and run plays at game tempo. Rich Cimini provides the details. Denver did not do any special halftime rehearsal. Result? The Broncs' special teams looked drowsy, too many players bunched on the same side, as Seattle ran the second-half opening kickoff back for a touchdown, turning the game into a rout.
While as an NFL head coach I would probably do the same thing Pete Carroll did, the game was already a rout at halftime anyway. It's not like if John Fox had changed his usual process (which he won't do, simply because he's a great coach but very conservative and can be set in his ways) then the Broncos would have won the Super Bowl.
One would think that in Sunday's rematch there's no way the Denver Broncos will repeat the mistakes they made in the Super Bowl. Yet history has a way of repeating itself.
Peyton Manning may throw another interception against the Seahawks, or he may not, either way history may or may not repeat itself.
Ongoing settlement talks for the main NFL concussion lawsuit last week led to a league-financed study roughly estimating that one former NFL player in three will develop later-life neurological damage. Since there are around 18,000 former NFL players, that estimate suggests 6,000 face neurological problems. A terrible number -- but nothing compared to what the estimate foretells about the larger football universe. About 3.7 million boys play youth and high school football, according to USA Football. If one-third of them face later-life neurological decay caused by football, that comes to 1.2 million cases of crippling head harm.
Except this number may not change because the same 6,000 NFL players that suffer neurological harm also played youth and high school football. It's not like these players just showed up one day on a college campus and started playing football. The 18,000 former NFL players also had teammates who played youth, high school and college football. So the data is even more convoluted because it leaves out those boys who played youth and high school football that didn't play in college and suffer from neurological problems. Then there would need to be information on those boys who played youth and high school football, plus college football, to see how many of them eventually faced neurological problems. Basically, Gregg's 1.2 million number isn't correct and he knows that.
Of course most youth and high school players never participate in as much football as those who go on to make the pros, and thus experience fewer head impacts. Cut the NFL rate in half, and that's still more than 500,000 cases of serious neurological harm caused by football. Cut the NFL rate to a tenth, and that's still more than 100,000 cases.
Okay, fine. But what if the 6,000 number is only indicative of those players who play football in the NFL? What if the rate of neurological problems for those who only played youth and high school football is much lower? After all, the 18,000 former NFL players are also part of an unknown million dollar figure of boys who played youth and high school football. So, while including these boys who played football at a lower level would increase the overall number of ex-football players suffering from neurological issues, it's possible the rate of neurological harm decreases as the level of competition decreases. After all, an NFL player takes much harder hits to the brain and body than a youth or high school football player. So 100,000 cases may still be an overestimation.
There's so much data here, it's almost impossible and misleading to throw out 100,000 cases of neurological damage and feel like you are telling your readers anything concrete. In order to have a reasonable number among the 3.7 million boys who will suffer neurological damage caused by football, Gregg would have to know how many boys played youth and high school football over a specific time period that a subset of the 18,000 former NFL players played. The 18,000 former NFL players could span 40-45 years of youth and high school football, while Gregg is taking his numbers from how many boys are playing youth and high school this year.
In other sports news, what if your team scored 68 points and lost?
I would say my basketball team needs to score more points.
I'm not talking about your basketball team; I'm talking about your NCAA college football team.
The twist! What a shocking turn of events! I hope there is more below about this.
See below.
Thank God. This is a very intriguing tease that I care deeply about.
I like how Gregg treats MMQB like a newscast where he teases items he writes about below. Just write what you are intending to write and quit with the tease crap in order to kill space.
Stats of the Week No. 1: During the regular season, the Cincinnati Bengals are on a 10-0 streak at home; during the playoffs, they are on an 0-3 streak at home.
Of course one streak spans less than a year and the other streak spans multiple years with completely different Bengals teams, but Gregg isn't interested in things like this. He prefers to throw facts out and hope his less-mindful readers think he's a genius.
College offensive tactics are the NFL trend of the moment, and the hosts showed a lot of Stanford's Four Horsepersons backfield, a run-first set. The result of these tactics? A 17-7 Santa Clara lead at intermission.
So during halftime, Bears defensive coordinator Mel Tucker changed tactics, switching to the Tampa 2 front that Brian Urlacher excelled in.
Santa Clara had plenty of blame to go around -- 16 accepted penalties (two more declined), including two automatic first-down fouls on Chicago third-down incompletions, one of which sustained a touchdown drive. The Niners dropped three interceptions. (After Jay Cutler threw two dropped interceptions on the same second-quarter possession, the Bears seemed so doomed the NBC announcers were talking about whether Jimmy Clausen -- 1-9 in his career -- would take over in the second half.)
It's almost like the three dropped interceptions and 16 accepted penalties had more to do with the 49ers losing than the change in tactics. After all, if the 49ers grab those interceptions and don't commit so many penalties than the Bears comeback probably isn't possible.
Jonathan Marin was horrible at right tackle, surrendering two "olé!" sacks on which he barely slowed Young.
Well, no wonder. None of these Jonathan Marin's look like they could play right tackle in the NFL. Why would the 49ers start Jonathan Marin when they have a guy like Jonathan Martin who has experience playing tackle in the NFL?
So does this mean Gregg will send out a correction or can I say, a la Gregg, that in TMQ Gregg Easterbrook got 49ers right tackle Jonathan Martin confused with various businessmen named "Jonathan Marin"?
Three touchdown passes for Chicago went to its very tall wide receivers when they were covered by 5-foot-10 Jimmie Ward. Cutler was looking for whomever was matched up against Ward, and Niners coaches did not give Ward help.
Who would have thought that the Bears would go after the rookie safety? Also, Ward is a safety. Oftentimes he IS the help and not the one requiring the help. Safeties when matched up with a receiver often don't get additional safety help over the top. I don't think that's very normal because it is usually the safety providing help to a linebacker or cornerback. Of course Gregg would expect the 49ers to provide their safety additional safety help.
Then there's Kaepernick. He is a gifted athlete who has an engaging personal story, and he looks great naked. (In consecutive offseasons, Kaepernick has stripped to pose for magazine covers.)
And yet, you still could have left this out since it wasn't relevant to the discussion of Kaepernick's performance against the Bears.
But increasingly it seems he is in over his head as an NFL quarterback. He had four turnovers versus the Bears, two coming when Kaepernick forced the ball toward Michael Crabtree. Attention Niners coaches: The entire league knows Kaepernick forces the ball to Crabtree; make him stop!
I'm sure the 49ers coaches never thought to do this. What a great idea!
Maybe the game will "slow down" for him (Drew Brees made a lot of mistakes at this point in his career, too).
Except the talent level of the Chargers team around Brees was much different from the talent level of the 49ers team around Kaepernick. By "different" I mean "not as good on defense" and Brees figured it out his third full year in the NFL. I'm sure Kaepernick will figure it out and I like to hear Gregg is writing Kaepernick off a bit for when the 49ers go on a 10-4 run to end the year. You know, similar to what happened last year after Gregg declared the zone-read as having been figured out by NFL defenses.
At Jersey/A, the Arizona Cardinals faced third-and-17. A false start stops the play, but New York Giants defender Jameel McClain ignores the whistle and runs several steps to drill backup quarterback Drew Stanton. With a first down via personal foul, the Cardinals go on to score a touchdown on the possession and continue on for the victory.
Doesn't Gregg mean "undrafted, hard-working Jameel McClain"? Wait, that doesn't fit his narrative that highly-paid, highly-paid glory boys drag their team down, while undrafted free agents work hard and don't make mistakes like this. Gotta keep that narrative going.
The conventional wisdom is that Hollywood roots for Barack Obama and expansion of government. Maybe so. Yet Tinseltown simultaneously indoctrinates audiences to believe government is evil.
It's almost like movies are considered to be entertainment and don't necessarily always reflect the beliefs of those screenwriters, producers, and directors who worked on the movie.
As recently as a decade ago, when "24" became a ratings monster, its interpretation of high-level government was quite unusual, and attributed to Surnow's politics. Now this worldview dominates network action fare.
Hey, remember when this was a football column and not a study of how the federal government is portrayed in fictional television shows and movies? You don't? Yeah, me neither, but it would be nice. A column about the NFL, not written by Gregg Easterbrook. That sounds good.
On CBS's "Hawaii Five-0," the CIA is assisting Chinese gangsters in their plot to destroy the U.S. economy. When Danno questions CIA motives, the agency takes him captive and tortures him; the CIA officer who helps Danno escape a U.S. government black-site prison is immediately executed by the agency. This is presented as standard CIA behavior.
No, it is presented as behavior that the CIA officers assisting the Chinese gangsters take part in. If it were standard CIA behavior then the CIA officer who helped Danno escape would not have helped Danno escape.
On the FX prime-time show "Justified," the FBI is helping mobsters bring heroin into the country; on the FX prime-time show "The Bridge," the CIA is helping Mexican cartels smuggle in heroin.
On "The Bridge" the CIA is not helping Mexican cartels smuggle in heroin, they are simply helping to choose the leadership of those cartels in an effort to control the drug trade between the United States and the Mexico. By the way, the CIA has helped "choose" new leaders of unstable countries in the past, so it's not an entirely far-fetched idea they would exert influence to get Mexican cartels to choose a head of that cartel they (the CIA) could control.
And if it's true that the Hollywood establishment wants voters to support Barack Obama, the prime-time worldview of traitors running Washington is not likely to help.
If somebody is influenced politically by watching "Hawaii Five-O," then...you know what, I am sure people are influenced politically in some fashion by these shows because people are idiots. Still, I would prefer Hollywood write the scripts they want to write instead of only writing television shows and movies that would influence voters to support one political party over another.
The defending champion Florida State program graduates just 58 percent of its players. That's okeydokey with the NCAA. But heaven forbid there should be telephone calls or text messages!
But Florida State is very good at mixing academics and athletics, because they are 6th in ESPN Grade. That's very impressive, isn't it? Florida State is the 6th best university in the Top 25 at combining academics and football. I don't see how Gregg can criticize them while also thinking ESPN Grade is such an excellent metric. It's almost like Gregg wants it both ways.
Latest Nutty Sports Contract: Over the weekend Robert Quinn signed a mega extension with about $41 million guaranteed. The Rams want to lock him up, contractually speaking, because he was second in sacks in 2013. But Les Mouflons were mediocre on defense in 2013, and since the start of that season, have allowed at least 30 points on six occasions. If Quinn is a franchise-quality defender, why is the St. Louis defense unimpressive?
Why? Because an NFL defense consists of more than one player, part of the reason a team may give up a lot of points is because they don't have an offense that can score points and keep the opposing team's offense off the field, the Rams were 15th in yards allowed per game and 13th in points allowed per game (which I don't think is mediocre, but average), and the Rams secondary isn't very good which impacts how many points the team gives up. Robert Quinn is 1 of 11 defenders. He can be a franchise-quality defender and the Rams can still give up 30 points six times in 18 games.
In Week 1, the Saints seemed to have the Falcons dead to rights, leading by 3 with Atlanta on its 20 with 1:20 remaining. Then New Orleans shifted into the prevent defense, and you don't need to know anything more about the contest.
They shouldn't have gone to a prevent defense. Start blitzing!
Sunday, the Saints seemed to have the Browns dead to rights, leading by a point with low-voltage Cleveland back at its 4 with 2:46 remaining. This time the Saints went to the opposite extreme, with too much blitzing. Third-and-3 on the Cleveland 24 with 1:34 remaining, New Orleans blitzed seven, easy first-down conversion.
They shouldn't have started blitzing. Lay back and rush only four!
Five-man blitz results in a short sack, which only seemed to encourage Saints defensive coordinator Rob Ryan.
I can't believe Rob Ryan saw a positive result and then tried to duplicate this result. Don't they say that madness is "Doing the same thing over and over again when you are getting a positive result." I don't know why Ryan would be encouraged to blitz more when blitzing worked.
Cleveland has first-and-10 on its 48 with 19 seconds remaining, holding a timeout. Ryan called a big blitz; quick 13-yard completion. Second-and-10 on the New Orleans 39 with 13 ticks remaining, Ryan called another big blitz. Wide receiver Andrew Hawkins ran up the field uncovered by anyone -- an uncovered guy going deep with 13 seconds remaining in the game! Hawkins caught a 28-yard pass that positioned the hosts for the winning field goal as time expired.
This would never have happened if Ryan had rushed four and made sure his safeties played deep, you know, like he did last week against the Falcons and Gregg criticized this move.
Consecutive late defensive collapses: Rob Ryan just can't seem to call the defense that is appropriate to the situation. That fourth-place New Orleans finish for defense last season? Maybe it was a misprint.
So what's your suggestion then, Gregg? Other than "Do whatever ends up working." Gregg rips the Saints for playing a passive prevent-type defense one week, then he rips them for blitzing the next week. Sure, the Saints should call whatever plays end up working, but what defensive plays would that be which wouldn't cause Gregg to use hindsight to criticize the result?
Leading ninth-ranked USC by six points, mega-underdog Boston College had first-and-goal on the Trojans' 6-yard line with about 30 seconds remaining. Rather than try for an extra touchdown to run up the score, coach Steve Addazio did the dignified thing and had his charges kneel.
It also happens that kneeling the ball down was the safe move in this situation. It's less likely for there to be a fumble on a kneel-down than there is to hand the ball off with the USC defenders trying to rip the ball away from the running back.
Peyton Manning and Julius Thomas got into an (uncharacteristic for Peyton) sideline shouting match over Thomas' allergy to blocking. With Seattle losing and Denver not sharp, perhaps both teams were looking ahead to their rematch.
And here I thought Jay Cutler was the only NFL quarterback who showed a lack of leadership by yelling at his offensive teammates for not blocking. I'm sure when Peyton Manning does it, he is showing leadership, while Cutler is just being an asshole that nobody likes.
Will the Mega-Trade For RG III Be Seen As a Mega-Blunder?
So it seems Gregg thinks both the Rams and the Redskins screwed up in this trade. How can the Redskins screw up by trading for Griffin while the Rams screwed up by trading the pick and not drafting Griffin?
Gregg from two weeks ago:
Chose Bradford over
Griffin: Regrets begin now.
The St. Louis Rams.
Forecast finish: 4-12
Gregg from a year ago:
Left RG III on
the table; can they rebound?
The St. Louis Rams.
Forecast finish: 4-12
I guess at this point the Rams should regret not drafting Griffin, while the Redskins should regret drafting Griffin?
During the contest, Cousins completed eight passes, including a touchdown pass, to the little-used Niles Paul. Because Cousins and Paul are backups, they are accustomed to tossing the ball around with each other. When a backup quarterback unexpectedly enters a game, defenders should be wary of any backup receiver who also enters.
Paul actually played a lot the previous week when Jordan Reed got injured, so he didn't enter the game when Kirk Cousins did. Also, Paul is a tight end, not a receiver. But these are just simple facts that shouldn't get in the way of Gregg's assertions being very correct. Why would reality impact what Gregg thinks to be true?
Week 1 fantasy-stats star Allen Hurns of Jacksonville was all by his lonesome when he dropped what would have been a 76-yard touchdown. Persons cornerback DeAngelo Hall was making the high school mistake of looking into the backfield trying to guess the play, and let Hurns run right past him.
Gregg can see from his television set where DeAngelo Hall was looking. I need to either find a set of glasses that give Gregg such great vision or have Gregg invite me over to use his 125 inch television set on Sundays.
I didn't see this play, but I would guess that what Gregg perceives as "looking into the backfield trying to guess the play" was actually the Redskins running zone coverage. This usually is the type of defense a team is running when Gregg accuses a cornerback of looking in the backfield. Gregg seems to think every NFL team runs man coverage, either that or he doesn't understand how zone coverage works.
Tesla's agreement with Nevada to build a battery factory is expected to create about 6,000 jobs in exchange for $1.25 billion in tax favors. That's about $208,000 per job. More jobs are always good. But typical Nevada residents with a median household income of $54,000 per year will be taxed to create very expensive jobs for others.
The way it usually works is a company creates more revenue for an area than just the pay the workers at that factory would receive. New jobs brings new spending, which brings more tax revenue.
Monday night's game had all kinds of tactical fun -- unbalanced lines, triple-tight end sets, lots of double-A blitzing. But the exhaustion effect of the quick snap was most prominent. Teams that face the Eagles may do well in the first half and think, "This Blur Offense isn't so hot, we're controlling them." Then it's the second half.
That's sort of the point isn't it? Chip Kelly keeps his team in good shape and ready to put constant pressure on the opposing team throughout the game in the hopes of wearing the opposing defense down.
TMQ's alternative-jersey Super Bowl picks were Denver over New Orleans or Seattle over Indianapolis. Two of my four predicted Super Bowl entrants opened 0-2, and the Colts just lost Robert Mathis for the season. Being wrong in front of the entire nation is not for the faint of heart!
Only 10 of my predicted 16 predicted Super Bowl entrants are doing well this season. But hey, I picked 16 teams to be in the Super Bowl, so just like Gregg, I can't wait to brag about how I was right about the Super Bowl matchup.
But I am sticking with my hand. The Tuesday Morning Quarterback Law of Panic holds: Don't panic now; there will be plenty of time for that later.
It's good to hear that Gregg isn't going to make another Super Bowl pick in the desperate attempt to be correct...yet. I'm sure by the end of the 2014 NFL season he will have made another Super Bowl pick unofficially. Probably around Week 13 when he will write, "I think Team X and Team Y will meet in the Super Bowl this year," then posit an obvious theory about why this is. That way Gregg has a Super Bowl pick he's made while having more information and two other Super Bowl picks he made at the beginning of the season.
The Packers-Jets contest tied in the third quarter, on first down Jersey/B run-blitzed seven defenders. Jordy Nelson ran a stop-and-go -- which TMQ thinks is football's most effective pass pattern -- and blew past a press corner, 80-yard catch-and-run for the winning points.
A stop-and-go is the most effective pass pattern. It also takes time to develop, so teams with bad pass protection probably should be wary of running a bunch of stop-and-go routes. Plus, a stop-and-go doesn't do much good if the corner isn't pressing the receiver or doesn't fall for the "stop" portion of the route.
I know, I know. How dare I point out the problem with Gregg just saying "This is football's most effective pass pattern." It's an effective pass pattern if run during certain circumstances.
Also, you can't see the route Nelson ran, but the guy in the NFL.com studio referred to it as a "double move," not a stop-and-go route.
Hidden Play Of The Week: Hidden plays are ones that never make highlight reels but sustain or stop drives. Carolina leading 3-0, Calvin Johnson dropped a well-thrown touchdown pass on third down, then the Lions missed the field goal try. The Cats went on to win by the new economy score of 24-7.
I'll go with the usual disclaimer: A play isn't hidden because it doesn't make a highlight reel. The term "highlight" refers to only the most important parts of the game being shown, and doesn't mean there aren't important plays that weren't shown, and usually a highlight is only 45 seconds to a minute or so long. A dropped touchdown pass is never really a hidden play for anyone who watched the game. If a person relies on a highlight to show him/her all of the important plays in a game, and assumes the highlight will show all of the important plays in a game, then that person is an idiot.
Oh, and check out what happens at the :10 second mark of this video. I guess this is a hidden play that doesn't show up in the highlights, but showed up in the highlights?
Adventures In Officiating: Late at Denver, Alex Smith appeared to fumble, with the Broncos recovering to ice the contest. On review, officials correctly determined that because his arm came forward with control of the ball, the down was an incompletion. Smith was in the pocket and the pass did not travel toward a receiver, so why wasn't it intentional grounding? The result was not intentional; Smith's arm was hit as he tried to throw.
Smith's arm was clearly moving forward and he was attempting a forward pass when he was hit by the defender. Therefore, it was an incompletion, not a forward pass. It wasn't intentional grounding because Smith didn't intentionally throw the ball into the fucking ground. This question doesn't need to asked, simply because it's so stupid and nonsensical. A pass isn't considered intentional grounding if the quarterback doesn't intentionally throw the ball to an area where there is no receiver and he is still in the pocket.
Why was Smith's arm hit? Chiefs tackle Eric Fisher, first overall choice of the 2013 draft, did an "olé!" block on DeMarcus Ware.
Oh, so a highly-drafted, highly-paid glory boy beat Fisher to get to Smith? Notice how Gregg points out Fisher's draft position, but conveniently leaves Ware's draft position out.
Les Mouflons leading 19-17, City of Tampa's Mike Evans caught a pass that put the Buccaneers in field goal range with 8 seconds showing. But Evans was hurt on the down, and Tampa was out of timeouts. Dazed, Evans tried to stagger off the field; he should have tried to line up, so Josh McCown could spike the ball.
Says the middle-aged, out-of-shape guy sitting on his couch drinking beer and eating chips who didn't just get hit hard by a world class athlete.
Santa Clara leading Chicago 10-0, the Bears completed a third-down pass deep into 49ers territory. Officials called the catch good on the field; Harbaugh/West challenged and the call was reversed, leading to a Bears punt. It sure seemed that a correct call on the field was made into an error by replay review. Even if the original call was wrong, it wasn't indisputably wrong -- unless the call on the field is so clearly wrong the referee has to look at it only once, the call on the field should stand.
Notice how Gregg states the officials got this call wrong based on his own belief on how replay should be handled by the NFL. This wasn't a bad call by the officials simply because they failed to meet Gregg's own standard for when a call should be overturned. Besides, officials and those who review challenged calls look at the play from more than one angle, so every call needs to be looked at more than once simply for confirmation the initial conclusion is correct. The idea an official or review official should only look at a call once in any situation is fallacy on Gregg's part.
The Football Gods Chortled: Iowa and Iowa State were tied with two seconds remaining in their annual rivalry contest. Iowa State launched a field goal attempt, which missed. But Iowa called timeout an instant before the snap, hoping to ice the kicker -- who hit on his second try, giving Iowa State the victory.
But Peter King said in this week's MMQB this type of thing (a coach call a timeout that ruins a scoring play by his team) can only happen in New York! My world is spinning now. Peter King couldn't be wrong or have excessive belief that certain things only happen in the city he lives in, could he?
Next Week: Will the Super Bowl rematch be true to form?
I don't know, but I'm sure the game will be decided by a highly-drafted glory boy doing something wrong (while Gregg ignores a good play by a player who is highly-drafted) or a cornerback looking in the backfield trying to guess the play.
Next Sunday, the Denver Broncos travel to Seattle for a Super Bowl rematch. Are the Broncos happy to have another chance to slay the dragon, or dismayed that stretching back to last season, two of four games that count will be against the league's best defense?
They will probably try not to worry about it too much and just win the game. There is always that option too. I don't know too much, but I do know NFL teams aren't generally worried about going back to last season to whine about how many games they have had to play against teams with a great defense, especially when one of those games was the Super Bowl. No team is dismayed about playing in the Super Bowl.
On only five occasions following the 47 previous Super Bowls -- or V times following the XLVII previous Super Bowls -- has the next regular season seen a rematch. So far teams that lost the Super Bowl are 2-3 against the victors in regular-season rematches the following season.
When Gregg says "Super Bowl rematches" it makes it sound like it is a rematch of two teams in the Super Bowl, who played against each other in the Super Bowl the previous year. That's not what Gregg means. He means a regular season matchup of the two teams that played in the Super Bowl. His phrasing is confusing.
The most recent Super Bowl rematch, Green Bay versus New England, occurred in 1997, so it's been nearly two decades since a regular-season rematch.
Riveting. When it comes to putting together facts or stats I don't care about, Gregg is unparalleled.
Considering the beatdown the Bluish Men Group defense put on the Broncs' high-tech offense in the Super Bowl, the odds would seem to favor another Seattle win. So would the Seahawks' league-best 18-1 stretch at home. So would Russell Wilson's sterling record versus the NFL's quarterbacking old guard. Wilson is 7-0 in starts against Tom Brady, Drew Brees, the Manning brothers and Aaron Rodgers. By comparison, he's 3-2 versus young guns Colin Kaepernick and Andrew Luck.
Russell Wilson isn't really 3-2 or 7-0 against these quarterbacks. It's his team that has these records against these quarterbacks' teams. Football is a team game.
When John Fox coached the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII at Houston, the neutral crowd didn't make much noise.
Yes, the neutral crowd of Patriots and Panthers fans didn't make any noise. Because no one team dominated the attendance, every fan in the stadium was quiet as a result and didn't make noise cheering for their team. Sure, I bet that happened.
When preparing the Broncos for Super Bowl XLVIII, Fox assumed the neutral crowd at Snoopy Stadium would be similar, like they were watching Masterpiece Theatre. Assuming this, Fox had the noise generators turned off at the Jets' practice facility where Denver prepared for the big game.
The Broncos assumed the crowd would be completely silent! This is a real thing that Gregg believes happened. Peyton Manning has never played in a loud stadium before, so naturally he was confused to hear all of that noise coming from the stands. The difference in the Seahawks and Broncos in the Super Bowl was that the Broncos didn't expect crowd noise and the Seahawks did. This is what Gregg would have you believe.
Denver seemed discombobulated by the noise level. ("Wow it's loud in here," one of my kids, attending with me, said a moment before the safety.)
Unlike the Super Bowl between the Patriots and Panthers where there was little noise during the game. John Fox just assumed no one would be cheering at the next Super Bowl and his players certainly had never played in a loud stadium before.
Some coaches tailor everything to specific places and opponents, others say they approach every game the same. Seattle coach Pete Carroll is in the former group, Fox in the latter. Example: Going into the Super Bowl, Carroll had the Seahawks prepare for a long halftime. Fox did not have the Broncos practice this.
The reason the Ravens won the Super Bowl the year before is John Harbaugh practiced the Ravens resting during halftime AND planned for the lights to go out during the game causing a further delay. Harbaugh had his players just sit around for 35 minutes, after they had rested at a simulated halftime, at every practice leading up to the Super Bowl and that is why the Ravens beat the 49ers. The 49ers just planned for a halftime, but failed to plan for the lights to go out.
When the New Orleans Saints onside kicked to start the second half of their Super Bowl collision with Indianapolis, Colts on the receiving team seemed unfocused. Some were checking out the double cheerleader squads both dancing at the Colts' end of the field.
It certainly sounds like somebody else (ummm...Gregg?) was checking out the double cheerleader squads dancing at the Colts' end of the field. Also notice how Gregg is capable of checking out these cheerleaders and still paying enough attention to the game to have talked about the onside kick that occurred after halftime, but he assumes the Colts' receiving team isn't capable of doing this as well.
I would also like to know how good of vision does Gregg Easterbrook have? He can see from where he was sitting at the Super Bowl the exact direction that the Colts players were looking, despite the fact they had helmets covering their face? He has to have the eyesight of an eagle, and yet, he wears glasses. He must wear super-powered glasses that give him vision even Superman would be jealous of.
Some were watching the final sets for The Who to be rolled off. The Colts weren't prepared for keeping focus during the unusually long halftime.
I know the Colts players were probably terribly interested in The Who's equipment being rolled off the field. See Gregg knows the Colts weren't prepared to focus, because along with superior eyesight, he also has the ability to read minds.
To prepare the Seahawks for the unusually long halftime, Carroll had them run plays, then go back to the locker room for half an hour of twiddling thumbs, then go back out and run plays at game tempo. Rich Cimini provides the details. Denver did not do any special halftime rehearsal. Result? The Broncs' special teams looked drowsy, too many players bunched on the same side, as Seattle ran the second-half opening kickoff back for a touchdown, turning the game into a rout.
While as an NFL head coach I would probably do the same thing Pete Carroll did, the game was already a rout at halftime anyway. It's not like if John Fox had changed his usual process (which he won't do, simply because he's a great coach but very conservative and can be set in his ways) then the Broncos would have won the Super Bowl.
One would think that in Sunday's rematch there's no way the Denver Broncos will repeat the mistakes they made in the Super Bowl. Yet history has a way of repeating itself.
Peyton Manning may throw another interception against the Seahawks, or he may not, either way history may or may not repeat itself.
Ongoing settlement talks for the main NFL concussion lawsuit last week led to a league-financed study roughly estimating that one former NFL player in three will develop later-life neurological damage. Since there are around 18,000 former NFL players, that estimate suggests 6,000 face neurological problems. A terrible number -- but nothing compared to what the estimate foretells about the larger football universe. About 3.7 million boys play youth and high school football, according to USA Football. If one-third of them face later-life neurological decay caused by football, that comes to 1.2 million cases of crippling head harm.
Except this number may not change because the same 6,000 NFL players that suffer neurological harm also played youth and high school football. It's not like these players just showed up one day on a college campus and started playing football. The 18,000 former NFL players also had teammates who played youth, high school and college football. So the data is even more convoluted because it leaves out those boys who played youth and high school football that didn't play in college and suffer from neurological problems. Then there would need to be information on those boys who played youth and high school football, plus college football, to see how many of them eventually faced neurological problems. Basically, Gregg's 1.2 million number isn't correct and he knows that.
Of course most youth and high school players never participate in as much football as those who go on to make the pros, and thus experience fewer head impacts. Cut the NFL rate in half, and that's still more than 500,000 cases of serious neurological harm caused by football. Cut the NFL rate to a tenth, and that's still more than 100,000 cases.
Okay, fine. But what if the 6,000 number is only indicative of those players who play football in the NFL? What if the rate of neurological problems for those who only played youth and high school football is much lower? After all, the 18,000 former NFL players are also part of an unknown million dollar figure of boys who played youth and high school football. So, while including these boys who played football at a lower level would increase the overall number of ex-football players suffering from neurological issues, it's possible the rate of neurological harm decreases as the level of competition decreases. After all, an NFL player takes much harder hits to the brain and body than a youth or high school football player. So 100,000 cases may still be an overestimation.
There's so much data here, it's almost impossible and misleading to throw out 100,000 cases of neurological damage and feel like you are telling your readers anything concrete. In order to have a reasonable number among the 3.7 million boys who will suffer neurological damage caused by football, Gregg would have to know how many boys played youth and high school football over a specific time period that a subset of the 18,000 former NFL players played. The 18,000 former NFL players could span 40-45 years of youth and high school football, while Gregg is taking his numbers from how many boys are playing youth and high school this year.
In other sports news, what if your team scored 68 points and lost?
I would say my basketball team needs to score more points.
I'm not talking about your basketball team; I'm talking about your NCAA college football team.
The twist! What a shocking turn of events! I hope there is more below about this.
See below.
Thank God. This is a very intriguing tease that I care deeply about.
I like how Gregg treats MMQB like a newscast where he teases items he writes about below. Just write what you are intending to write and quit with the tease crap in order to kill space.
Stats of the Week No. 1: During the regular season, the Cincinnati Bengals are on a 10-0 streak at home; during the playoffs, they are on an 0-3 streak at home.
Of course one streak spans less than a year and the other streak spans multiple years with completely different Bengals teams, but Gregg isn't interested in things like this. He prefers to throw facts out and hope his less-mindful readers think he's a genius.
College offensive tactics are the NFL trend of the moment, and the hosts showed a lot of Stanford's Four Horsepersons backfield, a run-first set. The result of these tactics? A 17-7 Santa Clara lead at intermission.
So during halftime, Bears defensive coordinator Mel Tucker changed tactics, switching to the Tampa 2 front that Brian Urlacher excelled in.
Santa Clara had plenty of blame to go around -- 16 accepted penalties (two more declined), including two automatic first-down fouls on Chicago third-down incompletions, one of which sustained a touchdown drive. The Niners dropped three interceptions. (After Jay Cutler threw two dropped interceptions on the same second-quarter possession, the Bears seemed so doomed the NBC announcers were talking about whether Jimmy Clausen -- 1-9 in his career -- would take over in the second half.)
It's almost like the three dropped interceptions and 16 accepted penalties had more to do with the 49ers losing than the change in tactics. After all, if the 49ers grab those interceptions and don't commit so many penalties than the Bears comeback probably isn't possible.
Jonathan Marin was horrible at right tackle, surrendering two "olé!" sacks on which he barely slowed Young.
Well, no wonder. None of these Jonathan Marin's look like they could play right tackle in the NFL. Why would the 49ers start Jonathan Marin when they have a guy like Jonathan Martin who has experience playing tackle in the NFL?
So does this mean Gregg will send out a correction or can I say, a la Gregg, that in TMQ Gregg Easterbrook got 49ers right tackle Jonathan Martin confused with various businessmen named "Jonathan Marin"?
Three touchdown passes for Chicago went to its very tall wide receivers when they were covered by 5-foot-10 Jimmie Ward. Cutler was looking for whomever was matched up against Ward, and Niners coaches did not give Ward help.
Who would have thought that the Bears would go after the rookie safety? Also, Ward is a safety. Oftentimes he IS the help and not the one requiring the help. Safeties when matched up with a receiver often don't get additional safety help over the top. I don't think that's very normal because it is usually the safety providing help to a linebacker or cornerback. Of course Gregg would expect the 49ers to provide their safety additional safety help.
Then there's Kaepernick. He is a gifted athlete who has an engaging personal story, and he looks great naked. (In consecutive offseasons, Kaepernick has stripped to pose for magazine covers.)
And yet, you still could have left this out since it wasn't relevant to the discussion of Kaepernick's performance against the Bears.
But increasingly it seems he is in over his head as an NFL quarterback. He had four turnovers versus the Bears, two coming when Kaepernick forced the ball toward Michael Crabtree. Attention Niners coaches: The entire league knows Kaepernick forces the ball to Crabtree; make him stop!
I'm sure the 49ers coaches never thought to do this. What a great idea!
Maybe the game will "slow down" for him (Drew Brees made a lot of mistakes at this point in his career, too).
Except the talent level of the Chargers team around Brees was much different from the talent level of the 49ers team around Kaepernick. By "different" I mean "not as good on defense" and Brees figured it out his third full year in the NFL. I'm sure Kaepernick will figure it out and I like to hear Gregg is writing Kaepernick off a bit for when the 49ers go on a 10-4 run to end the year. You know, similar to what happened last year after Gregg declared the zone-read as having been figured out by NFL defenses.
At Jersey/A, the Arizona Cardinals faced third-and-17. A false start stops the play, but New York Giants defender Jameel McClain ignores the whistle and runs several steps to drill backup quarterback Drew Stanton. With a first down via personal foul, the Cardinals go on to score a touchdown on the possession and continue on for the victory.
Doesn't Gregg mean "undrafted, hard-working Jameel McClain"? Wait, that doesn't fit his narrative that highly-paid, highly-paid glory boys drag their team down, while undrafted free agents work hard and don't make mistakes like this. Gotta keep that narrative going.
The conventional wisdom is that Hollywood roots for Barack Obama and expansion of government. Maybe so. Yet Tinseltown simultaneously indoctrinates audiences to believe government is evil.
It's almost like movies are considered to be entertainment and don't necessarily always reflect the beliefs of those screenwriters, producers, and directors who worked on the movie.
As recently as a decade ago, when "24" became a ratings monster, its interpretation of high-level government was quite unusual, and attributed to Surnow's politics. Now this worldview dominates network action fare.
Hey, remember when this was a football column and not a study of how the federal government is portrayed in fictional television shows and movies? You don't? Yeah, me neither, but it would be nice. A column about the NFL, not written by Gregg Easterbrook. That sounds good.
On CBS's "Hawaii Five-0," the CIA is assisting Chinese gangsters in their plot to destroy the U.S. economy. When Danno questions CIA motives, the agency takes him captive and tortures him; the CIA officer who helps Danno escape a U.S. government black-site prison is immediately executed by the agency. This is presented as standard CIA behavior.
No, it is presented as behavior that the CIA officers assisting the Chinese gangsters take part in. If it were standard CIA behavior then the CIA officer who helped Danno escape would not have helped Danno escape.
On the FX prime-time show "Justified," the FBI is helping mobsters bring heroin into the country; on the FX prime-time show "The Bridge," the CIA is helping Mexican cartels smuggle in heroin.
On "The Bridge" the CIA is not helping Mexican cartels smuggle in heroin, they are simply helping to choose the leadership of those cartels in an effort to control the drug trade between the United States and the Mexico. By the way, the CIA has helped "choose" new leaders of unstable countries in the past, so it's not an entirely far-fetched idea they would exert influence to get Mexican cartels to choose a head of that cartel they (the CIA) could control.
And if it's true that the Hollywood establishment wants voters to support Barack Obama, the prime-time worldview of traitors running Washington is not likely to help.
If somebody is influenced politically by watching "Hawaii Five-O," then...you know what, I am sure people are influenced politically in some fashion by these shows because people are idiots. Still, I would prefer Hollywood write the scripts they want to write instead of only writing television shows and movies that would influence voters to support one political party over another.
The defending champion Florida State program graduates just 58 percent of its players. That's okeydokey with the NCAA. But heaven forbid there should be telephone calls or text messages!
But Florida State is very good at mixing academics and athletics, because they are 6th in ESPN Grade. That's very impressive, isn't it? Florida State is the 6th best university in the Top 25 at combining academics and football. I don't see how Gregg can criticize them while also thinking ESPN Grade is such an excellent metric. It's almost like Gregg wants it both ways.
Latest Nutty Sports Contract: Over the weekend Robert Quinn signed a mega extension with about $41 million guaranteed. The Rams want to lock him up, contractually speaking, because he was second in sacks in 2013. But Les Mouflons were mediocre on defense in 2013, and since the start of that season, have allowed at least 30 points on six occasions. If Quinn is a franchise-quality defender, why is the St. Louis defense unimpressive?
Why? Because an NFL defense consists of more than one player, part of the reason a team may give up a lot of points is because they don't have an offense that can score points and keep the opposing team's offense off the field, the Rams were 15th in yards allowed per game and 13th in points allowed per game (which I don't think is mediocre, but average), and the Rams secondary isn't very good which impacts how many points the team gives up. Robert Quinn is 1 of 11 defenders. He can be a franchise-quality defender and the Rams can still give up 30 points six times in 18 games.
In Week 1, the Saints seemed to have the Falcons dead to rights, leading by 3 with Atlanta on its 20 with 1:20 remaining. Then New Orleans shifted into the prevent defense, and you don't need to know anything more about the contest.
They shouldn't have gone to a prevent defense. Start blitzing!
Sunday, the Saints seemed to have the Browns dead to rights, leading by a point with low-voltage Cleveland back at its 4 with 2:46 remaining. This time the Saints went to the opposite extreme, with too much blitzing. Third-and-3 on the Cleveland 24 with 1:34 remaining, New Orleans blitzed seven, easy first-down conversion.
They shouldn't have started blitzing. Lay back and rush only four!
Five-man blitz results in a short sack, which only seemed to encourage Saints defensive coordinator Rob Ryan.
I can't believe Rob Ryan saw a positive result and then tried to duplicate this result. Don't they say that madness is "Doing the same thing over and over again when you are getting a positive result." I don't know why Ryan would be encouraged to blitz more when blitzing worked.
Cleveland has first-and-10 on its 48 with 19 seconds remaining, holding a timeout. Ryan called a big blitz; quick 13-yard completion. Second-and-10 on the New Orleans 39 with 13 ticks remaining, Ryan called another big blitz. Wide receiver Andrew Hawkins ran up the field uncovered by anyone -- an uncovered guy going deep with 13 seconds remaining in the game! Hawkins caught a 28-yard pass that positioned the hosts for the winning field goal as time expired.
This would never have happened if Ryan had rushed four and made sure his safeties played deep, you know, like he did last week against the Falcons and Gregg criticized this move.
Consecutive late defensive collapses: Rob Ryan just can't seem to call the defense that is appropriate to the situation. That fourth-place New Orleans finish for defense last season? Maybe it was a misprint.
So what's your suggestion then, Gregg? Other than "Do whatever ends up working." Gregg rips the Saints for playing a passive prevent-type defense one week, then he rips them for blitzing the next week. Sure, the Saints should call whatever plays end up working, but what defensive plays would that be which wouldn't cause Gregg to use hindsight to criticize the result?
Leading ninth-ranked USC by six points, mega-underdog Boston College had first-and-goal on the Trojans' 6-yard line with about 30 seconds remaining. Rather than try for an extra touchdown to run up the score, coach Steve Addazio did the dignified thing and had his charges kneel.
It also happens that kneeling the ball down was the safe move in this situation. It's less likely for there to be a fumble on a kneel-down than there is to hand the ball off with the USC defenders trying to rip the ball away from the running back.
Peyton Manning and Julius Thomas got into an (uncharacteristic for Peyton) sideline shouting match over Thomas' allergy to blocking. With Seattle losing and Denver not sharp, perhaps both teams were looking ahead to their rematch.
And here I thought Jay Cutler was the only NFL quarterback who showed a lack of leadership by yelling at his offensive teammates for not blocking. I'm sure when Peyton Manning does it, he is showing leadership, while Cutler is just being an asshole that nobody likes.
Will the Mega-Trade For RG III Be Seen As a Mega-Blunder?
So it seems Gregg thinks both the Rams and the Redskins screwed up in this trade. How can the Redskins screw up by trading for Griffin while the Rams screwed up by trading the pick and not drafting Griffin?
Gregg from two weeks ago:
Chose Bradford over
Griffin: Regrets begin now.
The St. Louis Rams.
Forecast finish: 4-12
Gregg from a year ago:
Left RG III on
the table; can they rebound?
The St. Louis Rams.
Forecast finish: 4-12
I guess at this point the Rams should regret not drafting Griffin, while the Redskins should regret drafting Griffin?
During the contest, Cousins completed eight passes, including a touchdown pass, to the little-used Niles Paul. Because Cousins and Paul are backups, they are accustomed to tossing the ball around with each other. When a backup quarterback unexpectedly enters a game, defenders should be wary of any backup receiver who also enters.
Paul actually played a lot the previous week when Jordan Reed got injured, so he didn't enter the game when Kirk Cousins did. Also, Paul is a tight end, not a receiver. But these are just simple facts that shouldn't get in the way of Gregg's assertions being very correct. Why would reality impact what Gregg thinks to be true?
Week 1 fantasy-stats star Allen Hurns of Jacksonville was all by his lonesome when he dropped what would have been a 76-yard touchdown. Persons cornerback DeAngelo Hall was making the high school mistake of looking into the backfield trying to guess the play, and let Hurns run right past him.
Gregg can see from his television set where DeAngelo Hall was looking. I need to either find a set of glasses that give Gregg such great vision or have Gregg invite me over to use his 125 inch television set on Sundays.
I didn't see this play, but I would guess that what Gregg perceives as "looking into the backfield trying to guess the play" was actually the Redskins running zone coverage. This usually is the type of defense a team is running when Gregg accuses a cornerback of looking in the backfield. Gregg seems to think every NFL team runs man coverage, either that or he doesn't understand how zone coverage works.
Tesla's agreement with Nevada to build a battery factory is expected to create about 6,000 jobs in exchange for $1.25 billion in tax favors. That's about $208,000 per job. More jobs are always good. But typical Nevada residents with a median household income of $54,000 per year will be taxed to create very expensive jobs for others.
The way it usually works is a company creates more revenue for an area than just the pay the workers at that factory would receive. New jobs brings new spending, which brings more tax revenue.
Monday night's game had all kinds of tactical fun -- unbalanced lines, triple-tight end sets, lots of double-A blitzing. But the exhaustion effect of the quick snap was most prominent. Teams that face the Eagles may do well in the first half and think, "This Blur Offense isn't so hot, we're controlling them." Then it's the second half.
That's sort of the point isn't it? Chip Kelly keeps his team in good shape and ready to put constant pressure on the opposing team throughout the game in the hopes of wearing the opposing defense down.
TMQ's alternative-jersey Super Bowl picks were Denver over New Orleans or Seattle over Indianapolis. Two of my four predicted Super Bowl entrants opened 0-2, and the Colts just lost Robert Mathis for the season. Being wrong in front of the entire nation is not for the faint of heart!
Only 10 of my predicted 16 predicted Super Bowl entrants are doing well this season. But hey, I picked 16 teams to be in the Super Bowl, so just like Gregg, I can't wait to brag about how I was right about the Super Bowl matchup.
But I am sticking with my hand. The Tuesday Morning Quarterback Law of Panic holds: Don't panic now; there will be plenty of time for that later.
It's good to hear that Gregg isn't going to make another Super Bowl pick in the desperate attempt to be correct...yet. I'm sure by the end of the 2014 NFL season he will have made another Super Bowl pick unofficially. Probably around Week 13 when he will write, "I think Team X and Team Y will meet in the Super Bowl this year," then posit an obvious theory about why this is. That way Gregg has a Super Bowl pick he's made while having more information and two other Super Bowl picks he made at the beginning of the season.
The Packers-Jets contest tied in the third quarter, on first down Jersey/B run-blitzed seven defenders. Jordy Nelson ran a stop-and-go -- which TMQ thinks is football's most effective pass pattern -- and blew past a press corner, 80-yard catch-and-run for the winning points.
A stop-and-go is the most effective pass pattern. It also takes time to develop, so teams with bad pass protection probably should be wary of running a bunch of stop-and-go routes. Plus, a stop-and-go doesn't do much good if the corner isn't pressing the receiver or doesn't fall for the "stop" portion of the route.
I know, I know. How dare I point out the problem with Gregg just saying "This is football's most effective pass pattern." It's an effective pass pattern if run during certain circumstances.
Also, you can't see the route Nelson ran, but the guy in the NFL.com studio referred to it as a "double move," not a stop-and-go route.
Hidden Play Of The Week: Hidden plays are ones that never make highlight reels but sustain or stop drives. Carolina leading 3-0, Calvin Johnson dropped a well-thrown touchdown pass on third down, then the Lions missed the field goal try. The Cats went on to win by the new economy score of 24-7.
I'll go with the usual disclaimer: A play isn't hidden because it doesn't make a highlight reel. The term "highlight" refers to only the most important parts of the game being shown, and doesn't mean there aren't important plays that weren't shown, and usually a highlight is only 45 seconds to a minute or so long. A dropped touchdown pass is never really a hidden play for anyone who watched the game. If a person relies on a highlight to show him/her all of the important plays in a game, and assumes the highlight will show all of the important plays in a game, then that person is an idiot.
Oh, and check out what happens at the :10 second mark of this video. I guess this is a hidden play that doesn't show up in the highlights, but showed up in the highlights?
Adventures In Officiating: Late at Denver, Alex Smith appeared to fumble, with the Broncos recovering to ice the contest. On review, officials correctly determined that because his arm came forward with control of the ball, the down was an incompletion. Smith was in the pocket and the pass did not travel toward a receiver, so why wasn't it intentional grounding? The result was not intentional; Smith's arm was hit as he tried to throw.
Smith's arm was clearly moving forward and he was attempting a forward pass when he was hit by the defender. Therefore, it was an incompletion, not a forward pass. It wasn't intentional grounding because Smith didn't intentionally throw the ball into the fucking ground. This question doesn't need to asked, simply because it's so stupid and nonsensical. A pass isn't considered intentional grounding if the quarterback doesn't intentionally throw the ball to an area where there is no receiver and he is still in the pocket.
Why was Smith's arm hit? Chiefs tackle Eric Fisher, first overall choice of the 2013 draft, did an "olé!" block on DeMarcus Ware.
Oh, so a highly-drafted, highly-paid glory boy beat Fisher to get to Smith? Notice how Gregg points out Fisher's draft position, but conveniently leaves Ware's draft position out.
Les Mouflons leading 19-17, City of Tampa's Mike Evans caught a pass that put the Buccaneers in field goal range with 8 seconds showing. But Evans was hurt on the down, and Tampa was out of timeouts. Dazed, Evans tried to stagger off the field; he should have tried to line up, so Josh McCown could spike the ball.
Says the middle-aged, out-of-shape guy sitting on his couch drinking beer and eating chips who didn't just get hit hard by a world class athlete.
Santa Clara leading Chicago 10-0, the Bears completed a third-down pass deep into 49ers territory. Officials called the catch good on the field; Harbaugh/West challenged and the call was reversed, leading to a Bears punt. It sure seemed that a correct call on the field was made into an error by replay review. Even if the original call was wrong, it wasn't indisputably wrong -- unless the call on the field is so clearly wrong the referee has to look at it only once, the call on the field should stand.
Notice how Gregg states the officials got this call wrong based on his own belief on how replay should be handled by the NFL. This wasn't a bad call by the officials simply because they failed to meet Gregg's own standard for when a call should be overturned. Besides, officials and those who review challenged calls look at the play from more than one angle, so every call needs to be looked at more than once simply for confirmation the initial conclusion is correct. The idea an official or review official should only look at a call once in any situation is fallacy on Gregg's part.
The Football Gods Chortled: Iowa and Iowa State were tied with two seconds remaining in their annual rivalry contest. Iowa State launched a field goal attempt, which missed. But Iowa called timeout an instant before the snap, hoping to ice the kicker -- who hit on his second try, giving Iowa State the victory.
But Peter King said in this week's MMQB this type of thing (a coach call a timeout that ruins a scoring play by his team) can only happen in New York! My world is spinning now. Peter King couldn't be wrong or have excessive belief that certain things only happen in the city he lives in, could he?
Next Week: Will the Super Bowl rematch be true to form?
I don't know, but I'm sure the game will be decided by a highly-drafted glory boy doing something wrong (while Gregg ignores a good play by a player who is highly-drafted) or a cornerback looking in the backfield trying to guess the play.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
0 comments Mike Klis Is Still Not Taking the Broncos Super Bowl Loss Very Well
We first heard from Mike Klis when he stated the key to winning the Super Bowl is to lose games. Well, the Broncos dutifully did as he suggested and lost the Super Bowl, but that probably doesn't count as what Klis was talking about. Then we heard from Mike Klis when he started dropping excuses/reasons for the Broncos Super Bowl loss. He was acting like an angry fan-boy who couldn't handle that his favorite team lost the Super Bowl. Well, Mike is still acting like a baby and still not taking the Broncos Super Bowl loss very well. He's very excited for the Broncos to face the Seahawks twice (yes, he is including the abomination that is an NFL preseason game) so the Broncos can exact revenge. Because we all know a victory in Week 3 is directly equal to a Super Bowl victory. It's pretty much the same thing. My apologies to those who read Mike Klis in the Denver area. He sounds hideous. I'm sure all in the Denver area get tired of his schtick.
Can't anybody tell those mouthy Seahawks in Seattle to shut up?
I wasn't aware the Seahawks were still talking junk about the Broncos and their Super Bowl victory over the Broncos. It sounds like Mike Klis is reminiscing rather than the reality being that the Seahawks are still rubbing their Super Bowl victory in...at least to my knowledge.
"We really felt like we could knock the crud out of these guys," Carroll said shortly after 43-8.
That was seven months ago. It's a new season. Let it go. Carroll was cocky after the Super Bowl victory and now he's stopped talking about it. Perhaps Mike Klis should take the hint and do the same.
Seattle linebacker K.J. Wright said his team would beat the Broncos "90 out of 100. They might've got lucky those other 10 times."
I'm pretty sure Mike Klis used this exact quote in his last bitter, fan-boy column about the Broncos losing to the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. If he's going to write a column which starts off insinuating the Seahawks are still being "mouthy" and not shutting up, then he may want to find new quotes that show this to be truth. Otherwise, this column is just message board material. Actually, it's worse than message board material because it's intended to be sports journalism.
Act like you've won it before. Oh, wait. They hadn't.
What a burn. Act like the Broncos have won it in the last 15 years or don't have a 2-5 record in Super Bowls. Nothing against the Broncos, but a team that has gone 2-5 in the Super Bowl doesn't exactly have room to taunt a team that has gone 1-1 in Super Bowls and just manhandled the 2-5 team in the Super Bowl. "Count the rings" usually feels like a loser's argument coming from the loser of the Super Bowl.
"That's where they get their edge from," Broncos defensive tackle Terrance Knighton said. "They have a quarterback (Russell Wilson) who came in underrated. People don't talk about their offensive line. Sherman was a fifth-round pick. Then they have receivers with chips on their shoulders.
"That's how they make themselves feel better, or build their image. But they have the right talk."
The Seahawks incessant talk could hide some inferiority complex, but they are the reigning Super Bowl champions. To shut them up, you have to beat them. The Seahawks will have the right talk until they can no longer back that talk up.
Chest-thumping became cheap shot, though, when another windbagged Seattle linebacker, Bobby Wagner, took the bait from ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, a loquacious man himself.
"They looked scared out there," Wagner said. "Nobody wanted to catch the ball. Nobody wanted to come up the middle. ... They were very timid."
Bobby Wagner said these things back immediately after the Super Bowl. Come on, write a new article and don't just take the same quotes from the old less-than-message board material article and claim the Seahawks are still talking shit. No one needs to close the Seahawks big mouths because they aren't running their mouths anymore.
It's correct to say Seattle destroyed the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII. Beat them up. Bullied them.
But scared to come up the middle? Demaryius Thomas set a Super Bowl record with 13 catches — averaging 9 tough yards per reception.
It's correct to say Demaryius Thomas did have these 13 catches for 9 yards per reception, but that's a little misleading. Here is the funny part, Mike Klis knows it's misleading but doesn't really care.
Granted, the record meant nothing. Many of those catches were in garbage time. But it does mean Wagner's claim is a lie.
Granted the record that Mike Klis just recited as if it meant something in response to Bobby Wagner's comments made 7 months ago means nothing to him, but wouldn't it be cool if this record did mean something?
Let's look at Demaryius Thomas's catches to see if Wagner's claim is a lie. He's probably using hyperbole, but let's see the yardage of catches Thomas made, where he made them, and when he made them.
From the play-by-play:
1- P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to DEN 40 for 2 yards (1st quarter)
2- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass short right to D.Thomas to DEN 22 for 6 yards (2nd quarter)
3- P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas to DEN 25 for 3 yards (2nd quarter)
4- P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas to DEN 37 for 7 yards (2nd quarter)
5- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short right to D.Thomas to DEN 40 for 1 yard (2nd quarter)
6- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short right to D.Thomas to SEA 34 for 9 yards (2nd quarter)
7- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass deep left to D.Thomas to SEA 43 for 19 yards (2nd quarter)
8- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas to SEA 46 for 4 yards (3rd quarter)
9- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to SEA 43 for 3 yards (3rd quarter)
10- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to SEA 44 for 10 yards (3rd quarter)
11- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass deep left to D.Thomas to SEA 21 for 23 yards (3rd quarter)
12- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas for 14 yards (3rd quarter)
13- P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to DEN 45 for 17 yards (4th quarter)
So Mike Klis is partially wrong. 7 of the 13 catches Thomas made were in the first half, not garbage time. Thomas did have more yardage in garbage time though.
Thomas caught four passes over the middle for gains of 2, 3, 10, 17 yards.
Thomas caught three passes on the right for gains of 6, 1, and 9 yards.
Thomas caught 6 passes on the left for gains of 3, 7, 19, 4, 23, and 14 yards.
Thomas averaged 8 yards per catch in the middle, 5.3 yards per catch on the right, and 11.7 yards per catch on the left. It's not right to negate one of the catches but I think it's important to know his average in the middle would have been 5 yards per catch if the last catch in the fourth quarter when it was a 43-8 game wasn't counted. So Thomas does seem to have gotten more yardage in garbage time, but not more receptions. I don't believe the Broncos were scared to come over the middle, but Thomas did gain 71 of his 118 yards in the second half when the Seahawks were playing a softer defense. His average yards per catch was 6.7 in the first half. It's impossible to know if the Broncos were scared or not, but the numbers reflect while Thomas caught the ball for longer gains in the second half, in the first half when the game wasn't entirely decided the Seahawks had managed to keep his gains to a minimum.
It's nearly impossible to know if Wagner's claim is a lie anyway and it doesn't really matter.
Wes Welker caught eight passes. He receives between the hash marks.
Welker's catches during the Super Bowl:
1- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to DEN 25 for 5 yards (1st quarter)
2- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to SEA 43 for 16 yards (2nd quarter)
3- 1st and 10 at SEA 43 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to SEA 38 for 5 yards (2nd quarter)
4- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to W.Welker to DEN 37 for 14 yards (3rd quarter)
5- 1st and 20 at DEN 10 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to DEN 13 for 3 yards (3rd quarter)
6- 1st and 10 at DEN 41 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to W.Welker to SEA 47 for 12 yards (3rd quarter)
7- 1st and 10 at SEA 36 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to W.Welker pushed ob at SEA 14 for 22 yards (3rd quarter)
8- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to SEA 47 for 7 yards (4th quarter)
Five of Welker's eight catches were over the middle. So for the sake of fairness I'm not going to leave out an assertion Mike Klis makes that has merit. It doesn't seem the Broncos were scared to go over the middle. If that's his big victory coming from the Super Bowl, that Bobby Wagner exaggerated in making this statement, then I hope it's a great moral victory for Klis.
It wasn't a case of intimidation," said Broncos tight end Julius Thomas, who caught four Super Bowl passes. "That's certain. When you win and you're the Super Bowl champion, you've earned the right to say whatever you want. That's something that can't be taken away from them.
Yeah, but Mike Klis wishes the Seahawks would stop mouthing off about their Super Bowl victory, even though they haven't really mouthed off about it publicly in several months. In Mike's fan-boy head, the Seahawks are still chirping about intimidating the Broncos. It's causing him to go insane.
The Broncos and Seahawks meet again in their preseason opener, Aug. 7 at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. The starters won't play long. Just long enough to get some pushing and shoving in.
But if the Broncos win this game, then revenge is Mike Kli---I mean, revenge is the Broncos to savor!
The teams meet again for keeps in Week 3 of the regular season.
Yes, this regular season game is "for keeps." The season ends after this game is played. If the Broncos are able to defeat the Seahawks in Week 3 then the Super 48 title will be handed to Denver and the Seahawks will forever be shamed. This Week 3 game is "for keeps," just as long as the other 13 games each team plays, as well as the playoffs, aren't counted as being part of the 2014 NFL season, which apparently is how Mike Klis views it.
That game will be played in Seattle. Home of the gloats.
I'm pretty sure the Seahawks stopped gloating a few months ago. The reality in Mike's head isn't adjusting well to this.
The visiting team's locker room figures to have a filled bulletin board.
Does the visiting team's locker room even get a bulletin board to hang comments the home team has made in the past on? I feel like a bulletin board isn't provided to the visiting team. Maybe the comments will be written on the whiteboard in the Broncos locker room. Even if the Broncos beat the Seahawks 43-8, it won't make up for the Super Bowl loss. It may be revenge, but it will be a bittersweet revenge. Well, except for a sportswriter like Mike Klis who seems to think a regular season game counts as playing "for keeps."
"Me, personally, I'm tired of hearing about it: Seahawks, Seahawks, Seahawks," Knighton said. "We accomplished some things last year. Not everything we wanted, but we took a step forward from the year before. We're going to reload, and when the time comes, we'll be ready to play them. And it's a good thing we play them twice."
And when/if the Broncos beat the Seahawks we can be sure that Mike Klis will write a column about how the loud mouthed Seahawks have finally been shut up, despite the fact they quit talking smack about the Broncos a few months ago, and he will believe revenge was really sweet and the teams are now considered "even." Good for him. It won't be true, of course. If the Seahawks win that Week 3 game, which is apparently the most crucial regular season game ever, then I'm sure Mike Klis will complain further about the Seahawks big mouths...or just blame it all on injuries.
Can't anybody tell those mouthy Seahawks in Seattle to shut up?
I wasn't aware the Seahawks were still talking junk about the Broncos and their Super Bowl victory over the Broncos. It sounds like Mike Klis is reminiscing rather than the reality being that the Seahawks are still rubbing their Super Bowl victory in...at least to my knowledge.
"We really felt like we could knock the crud out of these guys," Carroll said shortly after 43-8.
That was seven months ago. It's a new season. Let it go. Carroll was cocky after the Super Bowl victory and now he's stopped talking about it. Perhaps Mike Klis should take the hint and do the same.
Seattle linebacker K.J. Wright said his team would beat the Broncos "90 out of 100. They might've got lucky those other 10 times."
I'm pretty sure Mike Klis used this exact quote in his last bitter, fan-boy column about the Broncos losing to the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. If he's going to write a column which starts off insinuating the Seahawks are still being "mouthy" and not shutting up, then he may want to find new quotes that show this to be truth. Otherwise, this column is just message board material. Actually, it's worse than message board material because it's intended to be sports journalism.
Act like you've won it before. Oh, wait. They hadn't.
What a burn. Act like the Broncos have won it in the last 15 years or don't have a 2-5 record in Super Bowls. Nothing against the Broncos, but a team that has gone 2-5 in the Super Bowl doesn't exactly have room to taunt a team that has gone 1-1 in Super Bowls and just manhandled the 2-5 team in the Super Bowl. "Count the rings" usually feels like a loser's argument coming from the loser of the Super Bowl.
"That's where they get their edge from," Broncos defensive tackle Terrance Knighton said. "They have a quarterback (Russell Wilson) who came in underrated. People don't talk about their offensive line. Sherman was a fifth-round pick. Then they have receivers with chips on their shoulders.
"That's how they make themselves feel better, or build their image. But they have the right talk."
The Seahawks incessant talk could hide some inferiority complex, but they are the reigning Super Bowl champions. To shut them up, you have to beat them. The Seahawks will have the right talk until they can no longer back that talk up.
Chest-thumping became cheap shot, though, when another windbagged Seattle linebacker, Bobby Wagner, took the bait from ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, a loquacious man himself.
"They looked scared out there," Wagner said. "Nobody wanted to catch the ball. Nobody wanted to come up the middle. ... They were very timid."
Bobby Wagner said these things back immediately after the Super Bowl. Come on, write a new article and don't just take the same quotes from the old less-than-message board material article and claim the Seahawks are still talking shit. No one needs to close the Seahawks big mouths because they aren't running their mouths anymore.
It's correct to say Seattle destroyed the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII. Beat them up. Bullied them.
But scared to come up the middle? Demaryius Thomas set a Super Bowl record with 13 catches — averaging 9 tough yards per reception.
It's correct to say Demaryius Thomas did have these 13 catches for 9 yards per reception, but that's a little misleading. Here is the funny part, Mike Klis knows it's misleading but doesn't really care.
Granted, the record meant nothing. Many of those catches were in garbage time. But it does mean Wagner's claim is a lie.
Granted the record that Mike Klis just recited as if it meant something in response to Bobby Wagner's comments made 7 months ago means nothing to him, but wouldn't it be cool if this record did mean something?
Let's look at Demaryius Thomas's catches to see if Wagner's claim is a lie. He's probably using hyperbole, but let's see the yardage of catches Thomas made, where he made them, and when he made them.
From the play-by-play:
1- P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to DEN 40 for 2 yards (1st quarter)
2- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass short right to D.Thomas to DEN 22 for 6 yards (2nd quarter)
3- P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas to DEN 25 for 3 yards (2nd quarter)
4- P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas to DEN 37 for 7 yards (2nd quarter)
5- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short right to D.Thomas to DEN 40 for 1 yard (2nd quarter)
6- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short right to D.Thomas to SEA 34 for 9 yards (2nd quarter)
7- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass deep left to D.Thomas to SEA 43 for 19 yards (2nd quarter)
8- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas to SEA 46 for 4 yards (3rd quarter)
9- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to SEA 43 for 3 yards (3rd quarter)
10- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to SEA 44 for 10 yards (3rd quarter)
11- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass deep left to D.Thomas to SEA 21 for 23 yards (3rd quarter)
12- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to D.Thomas for 14 yards (3rd quarter)
13- P.Manning pass short middle to D.Thomas to DEN 45 for 17 yards (4th quarter)
So Mike Klis is partially wrong. 7 of the 13 catches Thomas made were in the first half, not garbage time. Thomas did have more yardage in garbage time though.
Thomas caught four passes over the middle for gains of 2, 3, 10, 17 yards.
Thomas caught three passes on the right for gains of 6, 1, and 9 yards.
Thomas caught 6 passes on the left for gains of 3, 7, 19, 4, 23, and 14 yards.
Thomas averaged 8 yards per catch in the middle, 5.3 yards per catch on the right, and 11.7 yards per catch on the left. It's not right to negate one of the catches but I think it's important to know his average in the middle would have been 5 yards per catch if the last catch in the fourth quarter when it was a 43-8 game wasn't counted. So Thomas does seem to have gotten more yardage in garbage time, but not more receptions. I don't believe the Broncos were scared to come over the middle, but Thomas did gain 71 of his 118 yards in the second half when the Seahawks were playing a softer defense. His average yards per catch was 6.7 in the first half. It's impossible to know if the Broncos were scared or not, but the numbers reflect while Thomas caught the ball for longer gains in the second half, in the first half when the game wasn't entirely decided the Seahawks had managed to keep his gains to a minimum.
It's nearly impossible to know if Wagner's claim is a lie anyway and it doesn't really matter.
Wes Welker caught eight passes. He receives between the hash marks.
Welker's catches during the Super Bowl:
1- (Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to DEN 25 for 5 yards (1st quarter)
2- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to SEA 43 for 16 yards (2nd quarter)
3- 1st and 10 at SEA 43 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to SEA 38 for 5 yards (2nd quarter)
4- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to W.Welker to DEN 37 for 14 yards (3rd quarter)
5- 1st and 20 at DEN 10 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to DEN 13 for 3 yards (3rd quarter)
6- 1st and 10 at DEN 41 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to W.Welker to SEA 47 for 12 yards (3rd quarter)
7- 1st and 10 at SEA 36 (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short left to W.Welker pushed ob at SEA 14 for 22 yards (3rd quarter)
8- (No Huddle, Shotgun) P.Manning pass short middle to W.Welker to SEA 47 for 7 yards (4th quarter)
Five of Welker's eight catches were over the middle. So for the sake of fairness I'm not going to leave out an assertion Mike Klis makes that has merit. It doesn't seem the Broncos were scared to go over the middle. If that's his big victory coming from the Super Bowl, that Bobby Wagner exaggerated in making this statement, then I hope it's a great moral victory for Klis.
It wasn't a case of intimidation," said Broncos tight end Julius Thomas, who caught four Super Bowl passes. "That's certain. When you win and you're the Super Bowl champion, you've earned the right to say whatever you want. That's something that can't be taken away from them.
Yeah, but Mike Klis wishes the Seahawks would stop mouthing off about their Super Bowl victory, even though they haven't really mouthed off about it publicly in several months. In Mike's fan-boy head, the Seahawks are still chirping about intimidating the Broncos. It's causing him to go insane.
The Broncos and Seahawks meet again in their preseason opener, Aug. 7 at Sports Authority Field at Mile High. The starters won't play long. Just long enough to get some pushing and shoving in.
But if the Broncos win this game, then revenge is Mike Kli---I mean, revenge is the Broncos to savor!
The teams meet again for keeps in Week 3 of the regular season.
Yes, this regular season game is "for keeps." The season ends after this game is played. If the Broncos are able to defeat the Seahawks in Week 3 then the Super 48 title will be handed to Denver and the Seahawks will forever be shamed. This Week 3 game is "for keeps," just as long as the other 13 games each team plays, as well as the playoffs, aren't counted as being part of the 2014 NFL season, which apparently is how Mike Klis views it.
That game will be played in Seattle. Home of the gloats.
I'm pretty sure the Seahawks stopped gloating a few months ago. The reality in Mike's head isn't adjusting well to this.
The visiting team's locker room figures to have a filled bulletin board.
Does the visiting team's locker room even get a bulletin board to hang comments the home team has made in the past on? I feel like a bulletin board isn't provided to the visiting team. Maybe the comments will be written on the whiteboard in the Broncos locker room. Even if the Broncos beat the Seahawks 43-8, it won't make up for the Super Bowl loss. It may be revenge, but it will be a bittersweet revenge. Well, except for a sportswriter like Mike Klis who seems to think a regular season game counts as playing "for keeps."
"Me, personally, I'm tired of hearing about it: Seahawks, Seahawks, Seahawks," Knighton said. "We accomplished some things last year. Not everything we wanted, but we took a step forward from the year before. We're going to reload, and when the time comes, we'll be ready to play them. And it's a good thing we play them twice."
And when/if the Broncos beat the Seahawks we can be sure that Mike Klis will write a column about how the loud mouthed Seahawks have finally been shut up, despite the fact they quit talking smack about the Broncos a few months ago, and he will believe revenge was really sweet and the teams are now considered "even." Good for him. It won't be true, of course. If the Seahawks win that Week 3 game, which is apparently the most crucial regular season game ever, then I'm sure Mike Klis will complain further about the Seahawks big mouths...or just blame it all on injuries.
Friday, April 11, 2014
3 comments Hey Everyone, Woody Paige Has a Really Terrible Idea!
Woody Paige's work hasn't been seen much on this blog lately. Ever since Tim Tebow was traded by the Broncos to the Jets Woody hasn't been as obviously terrible in his writing. In fact, it's been two years since I posted something written by Woody Paige on this blog. But boy, look at what a run Woody was on there for a while. That's what worshiping Tebow will get you. Today, Woody Paige believes it is a good idea to bring Mike Shanahan back as an aide on the Broncos staff. If this weren't the real world then this would be a great idea. An experienced coach to add to the Broncos staff? Great idea, do it. Unfortunately, this is the real world and the addition of a Super Bowl-winning head coach to the Broncos staff, much less a Super Bowl-winning coach who was still an NFL head coach until last year, much less a Super Bowl-winning coach who won his two Super Bowls with the Broncos is just not a good idea. The last thing John Fox's heart needs is a guy who won two Super Bowls with the very team Fox coaches looking over his shoulder. Terrible idea.
After the disgusting, dissatisfying loss in the Super Bowl,
The Broncos got their ass-kicked by one of the best defenses of the last 20 years. These things happen.
John Elway has quickly and decisively proved with the signings of The Big Three the past week that the Broncos are all in again for the 2014 season.
After the disgusting, dissatisfying loss in the Super Bowl,
The Broncos got their ass-kicked by one of the best defenses of the last 20 years. These things happen.
John Elway has quickly and decisively proved with the signings of The Big Three the past week that the Broncos are all in again for the 2014 season.
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