4 comments MMQB Review: The Seahawks Aren't Dead, But the Eagles Are Edition

Peter King used lyrics by The Knack to reveal that he potentially had sexual feelings for Marcus Mariota in last week's MMQB. Either that, or Peter doesn't really understand what "My Sharona" is about, which is probably more likely. Peter also discussed the Week 1 action and still clings hard to the idea there will be plenty of defensive encroachment calls on extra points (despite this not being true last year) that it will leave head coaches in a pickle as to whether to go for the extra point or try the two-point conversion. NFL head coaches are conservative by nature, good luck trying to get that change. This week Peter talks about how the Seahawks should not panic, five things NOBODY saw coming that are really six things that nobody saw coming (counting be hard...also, the Seahawks shouldn't panic but the Eagles should), and defends his friend Scott Pioli just a little bit. 

There is no travel note this week, but Peter does the Adieu Haiku of course. It can't all be perfect I guess.

Moral of the story after two weeks in the NFL: Nobody knows nothin’. 

It seems like every single NFL season Peter writes some variation of the revelation that nobody knows anything. Can we just assume from now on that nobody knows anything and the NFL is unpredictable instead of constantly expecting predictability and then being surprised when it doesn't happen?

I know that, after the second Sunday of the season, it looks an awful lot like a Green Bay-New England Super Bowl.

Because after Week 2 it's in no way incredibly way too early to say "It looks like these two teams will meet in the Super Bowl." Later in the 2015 season Peter will say, "we" thought that the Packers and Patriots would be in the Super Bowl earlier this season, but it turns out that was wrong. Then he'll act shocked his assumption after Week 2 was incorrect and blame "us" for thinking the same thing he did.

But football rarely looks in January the way it did in September; the four teams that played in the conference championship games last year were a combined 8-7 after four weeks.

Welp, nevermind then. It looks like a Packers-Patriots Super Bowl, unless you look at the historical data from last year. In that case, it looks like NOBODY KNOWS who will appear in the Super Bowl after Week 2. This is breaking news.

The Seahawks are not finished. At all.

I don't think anyone is writing the Seahawks off. I will say it is interesting that Peter's main feature in MMQB is how the Seahawks aren't done, while he seems to write-off a few teams later in this MMQB. So it's too early to write Seattle off, but other teams are finished?

But I ask you this: If the first quarter of the Seattle schedule had been reversed—Chicago and Detroit at home to start the season, St. Louis and Green Bay on the road in Weeks 3 and 4—the Seahawks might well be 2-0 right now, and no one would be throwing themselves off the top of Mount Rainier this morning. 

Okay, but the schedule wasn't reversed so this isn't a good point. The Seahawks lost on the road to a decent and really good team. They didn't play at home. If the real world was different, then yes, the Seahawks' record would be different. The real world isn't different, so the Seahawks 0-2 record is their real record. If a frog had wings then it wouldn't bump it's ass on the ground.

The way the schedule fell this season is that Seattle had its toughest two games in Weeks 1 and 2—at St. Louis (1-3 in the last four years there) and at Green Bay (best team in the NFC right now).

Yeah, fuck you Arizona. You aren't a difficult team to play at all. The Seahawks are excited they get to play those easy-to-beat Cardinals. I guess it's no big deal playing at Baltimore anymore. A few weeks ago it was crucial for the Ravens to get a home playoff game because they are so good at home, but now Peter thinks it's harder to play the Rams at home than it is to play the Ravens at home. Things change quickly in Peter's world it seems. Apparently the Ravens homefield advantage is good enough to get them to the Super Bowl, but not as strong as the Rams homefield advantage over the Seahawks.

I’ll be surprised if Seattle isn’t 2-2 when they head to Cincinnati in three weeks. The flawed Seahawks are still a top-10 team, even with the zits that have shown up in the first eight quarters. If I were offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, I’d be incorporating Jimmy Graham far more into the game plan as a post-up intermediate presence; Graham has been targeted only 10 times in eight quarters. It’s ridiculous that he has only 62 yards worth of catches so far. Wilson’s got to look for him more often. Rookie Tyler Lockett (six catches, 51 yards) needs to be featured more too. 

So let's see...Peter thinks Graham and Lockett need to be featured more, which means the Seahawks need to throw the football more, which means they should hand it off to Lynch less, which means they need to go away from the strength of the team. As a non-Seahawks fan, it sounds great to me. If I were a Seahawks fan, I would probably think it's good to get Graham and Lockett more involved, while also asking whether it's smart for the Seahawks to try and target Graham as much as the Saints did. Don't go away from the strength of the team to target these two guys.

But those are play-calling points of emphasis that can be fixed. Seattle is wounded, but with the Chancellor holdout and the schedule, we could see that coming. So much else around the league, we couldn’t. 

WE HAD NO IDEA THESE OTHER THINGS WOULD OCCUR! PETER DIDN'T SEE IT, WHICH MEANS NO ONE ELSE SAW IT EITHER!

Here is the Super Bowl matchup that it looks like will happen in February, unless it doesn't of course. It's going to be Packers-Patriots in the Super Bowl, unless it isn't. 

The five things we never saw coming

Except Peter lists six things "we" never saw coming. Five things or six things. Either way, just read it. Accuracy be damned. 

1. The NFC East is going to be one bizarre division this year. If you took a poll of fans of a certain knowledge before the season, my guess is that Washington would have been ranked fourth of the four teams in the division. This morning, with the crippling injuries to Dallas (and I think the Cowboys overcome them, because of their good defense and because Tony Romo and Dez Bryant should return for the final five or six weeks), Washington might be first.

I like how it's too early to count some teams out, but it's never too early to count some teams in. Washington has played the Rams and the Dolphins, with both games at home. If we can't count out the Seahawks because the first two games were against decent teams on the road, can't we not count on the Redskins being 1st in the division because they are 1-1 after two games against decent teams? Both teams played the Rams. One beat the Rams at home, one team lost to the Rams on the road. Apparently one result means something and the other result does not mean as much.

2. Incompetent Eagles. How is it possible that nothing works right for a Chip Kelly offense? I mean, nothing?

The Eagles are two games into the season with a new quarterback and a bunch of new personnel. I'm going to make excuses for them because I chose them to be in the Super Bowl, but it's possible nothing works right in Kelly's offense because of all the new personnel.

The second-most efficient running team in the league over the past two years is dead last running now, despite a huge commitment to it in the off-season. There is no more stunning statistic after two weeks than this one: 2014 rushing champion DeMarco Murray has rushed 21 times for 11 yards. The sacrificing of Evan Mathis and Todd Herremans on the offensive line has wounded the running game, and the inability of Sam Bradford, who looked absolutely incapable against Dallas on Sunday (first seven Eagle drives: 9, 6, 0, 2, 4, 12 and 0 yards) is something Kelly has to fix right now. Why? 

It seems like Peter answered this question of "why" when giving this information. Is it fixable? Yes, it definitely is. Will it be fixed? Who knows and that's why it's ridiculous to draw any conclusions after two games. It's too early to count any teams in or out.

3. Broken Baltimore. Something odd about John Harbaugh’s eighth team in Baltimore: It’s his first one to start 0-2. The mantra around the team after the 19-16 loss in Denver in Week 1 was that the loss of Terrell Suggs to season-ending Achilles surgery wouldn’t be deadly, because the defensive depth was good enough to cover up for him. Well, that was before Sunday’s game in Oakland. 

Two losses on the road...BUT ALL THE MORE REASON WHY IT'S SO IMPORTANT THAT THEY GET A HOME PLAYOFF GAME! AM I RIGHT OR WHAT?

Before the year, the Ravens told the league they’d prefer their four western games—at Denver, Oakland, San Francisco and Arizona—be parceled out, two at a time. So the league scheduled Denver and Oakland roadies in Weeks 1 and 2, and Niner and Cardinals games in Weeks 6 and 7. Surely the Ravens didn’t count on being in an 0-2 hole with a brutal five-game stretch coming up beginning Sunday. 

Oh no, I'm sure the Ravens were counting on losing their first two games of the season. They had it all planned out to lose their first two games and then win the rest of their games in order to get homefield advantage and win the Super Bowl. Losing the first two games was crucial to this plan.

4. Atlanta is 2-0. I credit Dan Quinn and the pass-rush he imported, an improving offensive line, a steady Matt Ryan, and the most acrobatic, sure-handed receiver playing today. Julio Jones has twice as many catches (22) as DeMarco Murray has rushing yards.

I am three times as old as DeMarco Murray has rushing yards! Every NFL team has scored more points than DeMarco Murray has rushing yards! I enjoy randomly comparing two statistics that really don't mean too much when compared to each other.

5. It took eight days for Johnny Football to produce a quarterback controversy in Cleveland. As I said on NBC Sunday night, my gut feeling is that if Josh McCown passes his concussion protocol this week—and McCown was not even at the stadium on Sunday, with the team preferring to keep him away from the bright light and noise that can sometimes exacerbate head trauma—he’ll keep his starting job.

McCown can't be near bright light and noise, does he have a hangover or a concussion? Because Johnny Manziel has had similar symptoms before and no one seems to have sympathy for him. 

“Johnny is definitely arrow up right now,” coach Mike Pettine said from Cleveland Sunday night. “He has been very interactive with the coaches, very involved, and those are the things we like. He’s been different, very different, in a positive way. On the other hand, you talk to some of the veterans, Joe Thomas and Brian Hartline, and they’re big fans of Josh too, as a player and a leader.”

Basically, the veterans want McCown to start, so no matter whether this is good for the current or future state of the franchise this is what is happening. 

6. The Bengals are Old Man River.

So what are we to make of the Bengals’ 2-0 start, and Dalton’s terrific start? Dalton has completed 68.3% of his throws in wins over Oakland and San Diego, with five touchdowns and no interceptions. The difference for Dalton this year could end up being a tight end the offense trusts instead of the inconsistent Jermaine Gresham. Tyler Eifert leads the team with 13 catches on 17 targets, 153 yards and three touchdowns—more, in each count, than star wideout A.J. Green.

Tyler Eifert has more catches than DeMarco Murray has rushing yards and has almost 15 times the number of receiving yards as Murray has rushing yards. 

With Green, Marvin Jones and Mohamed Sanu, and a very good receiving back in Gio Bernard, Dalton has five legitimate threats. If they stay upright, Dalton might finally break his January schneid this year. Might, mind you; might.

Or maybe not. Sure, Dalton had all five of these threats last year and wasn't able to win a playoff game, but things could be totally different this year. Maybe, it could happen. Might. Potentially, but not surely. It's uncertain. 

While it’s true the Bengals have to get the playoff thing off their backs, what they’ve done in the first two games shows it’s not something that beats them down. The next three weeks—at Baltimore, and Kansas City and Seattle at home, all defenses that can pressure the quarterback well—will give a good indication whether Dalton has enough weapons and can rise to the pressure he has to be feeling.

I like how Peter King has all along insisted the Bengals play well during the regular season, but it's the playoffs when they struggle, yet this year the Bengals are playing well during the regular season and Peter thinks this could mean something for the playoffs. Using Peter's past logic that the Bengals play well during the regular season then choke out in the playoffs, why would he be impressed regarding the Bengals playing well during the regular season? Why would things be different this year in the playoffs for the Bengals just because they are playing well in the regular season?

It’s the most worrisome time of the year

For the Romo-less Cowboys. Owner Jerry Jones is the sunniest guy in the NFL. Losses always have silver linings. But it was a sign of how down the Cowboys were, even after making the Eagles look like a bunch of Bad News Bears Sunday in boo-happy Philly, that Jones said he felt “as low as a crippled cricket’s ass.” (Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard that one

(Bengoodfella raises his hand)

… I didn’t think I’d see any hands.)

I just raised my hand. Just because Peter hasn't heard of this phrase doesn't mean no one else hasn't heard of the phrase. 

Dallas doesn’t have a strong backup (Brandon Weeden), and may be in the market for quarterback help this week. (Matt Cassel? Chad Henne?)

Do either of these players count as "quarterback help" really? 

For the 0-2 Giants. Sunday was the 50th game since their Super Bowl 46 win over New England. They’re 22-28, with zero playoff trips, since. Team president John Mara, seething at the end of the last season, has to be apoplectic after the Giants, who have now blown 13-point and 10-point leads—both in the fourth quarter—

It’s New York, so it won’t be long before the drumbeats increase for Tom Coughlin’s job.

It's any NFL city, so the drumbeats increase for the head coach's job in this situation no matter what city the team plays in. Wanting the head coach to be under fire or just fired isn't specific to New York. Most cities with an NFL team would have increased drumbeats for the head coach to lose his job if that team has a losing record over the last three seasons and starts off blowing two leads during the first two weeks of this season. 

For Matthew Stafford and the winless Lions. Detroit is 0-2, and this is the Lions’ reward: consecutive prime-time dates with Peyton Manning and the 2-0 Broncos Sunday at home, then at Seattle eight nights later in a game the Seahawks will have to have.

It is too early to draw conclusions, but remember how I was so skeptical the Jim Caldwell hire was a good one? Well, I was. I don't believe he is capable of sustaining a team's success when he's the head coach. I will say the Lions struggles this year is part of what I think to be an ongoing trend with Caldwell as the head coach.

Three questions with a UNC

Even the most rabid NFL fans will say, in response to that header, “Why are you asking questions to a University of North Carolina?”

Even the most ignorant resident of North Carolina will say there is no such thing as a University of North Carolina.

This UNC stands for unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant. There are two of these at each NFL game, one on each sideline. During a game they stand on the sideline. They have the power to stop the game if they see a player struggling with what appears to be a head injury.

They have "the power" to do this. Much like I have "the power" to do a lot of things at my job, except for the whole part when I get overruled. You can read some of the answers from this UNC and see that he seems to be very pro-NFL and very pro-"The NFL is doing all they can to help stop head trauma and I think they are doing a great job," which makes me wonder how much power this person truly has. 

The MMQB: In your time doing this, have you felt any subtle or overt pressure from teams to get a player back in the game?

Manley: I have never felt any pressure to keep a player in the game. I have been treated with the utmost respect. All I have felt is the teams are very proactive to do the right thing on the sidelines. I really have the ability to have a second opinion. Believe me, I wouldn’t do this if I felt I was being marginalized.

This is just the answer the NFL would want this gentleman to give. Roger Goodell is pleased.

The MMQB: Do you feel this is helping the league get players off the field who would otherwise be staying on the field with a head injury?

Manley: I know the NFL gets a bad rap in this area, but I can tell you they’re trying really hard. Guys who come to the sidelines get some of the best medical care that I see.

Guys, the NFL is trying SO HARD to make sure the players that end up with concussions get the best medical care, which is helpful considering doctors aren't entirely sure when a player may have a concussion that affects their brain in some way and there's no telling if a hard hit can jar the brain as much as a hit that doesn't look so hard. This medical care is super-important considering very little seems to be known about concussions and the exact effect they have on the brain. But if a player looks like he might have a concussion, the NFL is totally concerned. So when you see information about how many retired players have brain injuries, just remember how TOTALLY HARD the NFL is trying right now to cover up for  keep their players healthy.

I followed up with a question over the weekend, via email to Manley, about whether he has the power to keep a player out of the game if other medical authorities on-site disagree. In other words, can the UNC trump the other medics at the game?

I'm sure he CAN trump the other medics at the game. Excuse my jadedness (not a word?), but I don't know if I believe he would trump the other medics at the game in certain situations. So his word can trump the word of others, but would it always work this way like it's supposed to?

“It is my understanding,” Manley wrote back, “and it has been my actual experience, that if I believe a player has had a concussion, they cannot return to game.”

I believe this is true. I also believe that whether a player has a concussion or not could be a debate. For example, Jay Cutler clearly had a concussion in last week's game, but the Bears team refused to acknowledge this is true. Tony Siragusa desperately tried to get John Fox to acknowledge Cutler had a concussion (in a halftime interview) and Fox would not confirm. So the debate can lie in whether a player actually has a concussion or not. 

It’s not altogether strange for the top of a draft to crap out. But so fast? That could be the lasting story of the 2013 first round. The first overall pick, tackle Eric Fisher, is on the bench with the Chiefs. Four players in the top half of the first round look like looming busts, and the bottom half of the round looks stronger than the top half already.

These are the things that happen in a draft that is described as being weak by many draft analysts. Depth can be found where top-end talent can not be found. 

Surveying the carnage leads to one overriding conclusion: We hype drafts to a silly level of expectation. We overrate players just because of where they are picked. We can’t wait to see how they play before we rate success and failure. And then, a couple of years later, we look at a draft like the 2013 draft and say with some incredulity, “W-w-w-what happened?”

Yes, "we" hype drafts to a silly level of expectation. I hate how "we" write articles about the draft and post them on "our" NFL site for weeks on end during the months of March and April. I hate how "we" report from the combine and relay information "we" learned about what teams really think about certain players. I guess it's just part of how "we" hype the draft too much. Really, it's a great observation from Peter King about how "we" are responsible for his site's draft coverage. 

I’m going to get to the lesson of why a volume of compensatory picks should be as valuable as first-round picks in a few moments.

We know Peter feels this way because he's always infatuated with what team "owns" the upcoming draft because they have a boatload of picks. I can argue picking players smartly in the first round is much more important than compensatory selections. Here is some anecdotal evidence...in the last five drafts, my favorite team has only had 31 selections. They started as a 2-14 team after the 2010 season and from those 31 selections they have formed the core of their current team. They have 8-9 starters from these drafts. Throwing in the 11 selections from that team that are no longer with the team and you can see it's not the quantity of the selections that improved the team, but the fact they have chosen their first round and late round picks very wisely. A volume of compensatory picks can be valuable, but they are not as valuable as a first round pick that is chosen wisely. Compensatory picks give a team more chances to hit on a good player, but first round picks are generally players with higher-end talent.

If I were to rank the top quarter of that draft’s first round, I’d go this way:

1. Sheldon Richardson (13th overall).
2. Travis Frederick (31st).
3. Desmond Trufant (22nd).
4. Kyle Long (20th).
5. Xavier Rhodes (25th).
6. DeAndre Hopkins (27th).
7. Sharrif Floyd (23rd).
8. Ziggy Ansah (5th).

There are several messages here. The easy thing to say is that scouts stink, and the thought process of teams is flawed. What I would say is that scouting is an incredibly inexact science.

WHAT? Scouting is an inexact science? You don't say, Peter? Have you shared this insight with some of your NFL contacts so they can be as amazed as I am?

Peter then uses this opportunity to defend his friend Scott Pioli, who he thinks got a raw deal in Kansas City. If Scott Pioli was the GM of a team coached by Greg Schiano then I think security would have to physically remove Peter from the premises. Peter would want to be in that team's draft room, sidelines and potentially even disguise himself as a plant in the lobby of that team's building, just so he can be around the team as much as possible.

In this draft-evaluation business, you’ve got to be careful with making absolute statements. For example, GM Scott Pioli was ridden out of Kansas City after four seasons, in early 2013. But from his four drafts come the guts of the current Chiefs defense that looks so good right now: Dontari Poe and Allen Bailey on the line, 2014 NFL sack leader Justin Houston (with the 70th pick in 2011) at outside linebacker, and Eric Berry in the defensive backfield (if he can continue his comeback from lymphoma). The left tackle, Stephenson, was a Pioli third-round pick in 2012.

Yes, Pioli didn't do an awful job in every facet of his job. He hired Todd Haley and Romeo Crennel as his head coaches and the Chiefs went 23-41 during his time as GM. I don't know, that doesn't seem very good. 

Pioli had his share of misses, and didn’t leave Andy Reid with a quarterback of the future. 

The most important jobs that a GM has is to hire the right head coach, find a quarterback, draft well, sign free agents in a smart fashion so the team can win games. Pioli didn't do the first two well, and despite Peter's listing of only the good picks Pioli made, he spent first, second and third round picks on the following players in four drafts.

Tyson Jackson
Alex Magree
Dexter McCluster
Javier Arenas
Jonathan Baldwin
Jeff Allen

Pioli outright missed on two of his first round picks and hit on one second round pick. Oh, and he didn't find a quarterback (in fact, traded a second round pick for Matt Cassel) and never found a good head coach. Yes, he didn't draft terribly, but his team didn't win games. That's how he is judged, regardless of whether Peter King likes it or not.

But his hits go to show you—and the team’s relative success since his dismissal—that the tar-and-feathering business in personnel evaluation can be pretty misleading.

Pioli wasn't tar-and-feathered. He didn't win games, didn't find a quarterback, missed on 50% of his first round picks, and hired Todd Haley and Romeo Crennel as his head coaches. 

Also, I’ve become convinced—and this started with the way Jimmy Johnson/Jerry Jones were wheeling and dealing when Johnson got to the Cowboys—that the number of picks in a draft is far more important than the location of the picks. Johnson proved that, with lots of low-round gems that were drafted, in part, because the Cowboys believed in carpet-bombing drafts, collecting lots of picks because history says teams are bound to be wrong on even some of the seemingly surest things.

The Patriots and 49ers have carpet-bombed on picks over the past few years (much to Peter's glee as they "owned" the draft) and it's had mixed results for them in terms of finding talent. It all depends on how well that team drafts. That's always what a team's success is dependent on though. 

In the past five drafts, the Ravens have had 15 compensatory picks and turned them into two key pieces of the offensive line—starting tackle Ricky Wagner and third guard John Urschel—and starting fullback Kyle Juszczyk and pass-rusher Pernell McPhee. Love this irony: McPhee could net the Ravens a pick at the end of the fourth round in 2016 after he signed a five-year, $39-million contract with the Bears last spring. That’s the kind of personnel discipline, knowing when to let good players leave because you trust you can train new players who cost much less, that consistently good teams have.

Right, but there is a cycle there. Good teams draft well. The Ravens were smart to draft McPhee and then smart to draft his replacement so they could let him go. This isn't just a compensatory pick issue, but an issue for any team drafting. Every NFL team would love to draft a player and then have his replacement handy when he gets expensive. Good teams draft well. We know this already.

In the past five drafts, the Ravens hit on 4 of 15 compensatory picks. They have had five 1st round picks in that time and have hit on three of those picks that form the core of their defense. Compensatory picks are great, but first round picks is where more of the talent will lie. Good teams draft well though. Yes, we know.

“I haven’t heard anyone on our side talk about 18 games in a long time.”

—Steelers president and Management Council executive committee member Art Rooney II, on reports that the league’s owners want an 18-game regular-season schedule.

The reason no one on their side has talked about 18 games is because Roger Goodell is the one doing the talking for the owners AND because Goodell is holding this as a trump card for when he feels it's best to use it. What Rooney forgets is that Goodell does most of the talking for the owners on matters like an 18 game schedule. 

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK

Derek Carr, quarterback, Oakland. Few young players in the game have gotten puffed up the way the football world has puffed up Carr. Watching Sunday against the Ravens, Carr deserves it.

Who the hell has been puffing up Derek Carr so much? I don't even begin to understand this comment. How did I miss Carr being puffed up? If this is true, which I'm not sure of, then I completely missed it. This feels like a random comment to me. 

GOAT OF THE WEEK
 
Sam Bradford, quarterback, Philadelphia.

Jamaal Charles, RB, Kansas City. I know, I know. Andy Reid called the play with 35 seconds left in a tie game at his own 20, and Charles fumbled the ball, and Denver’s Bradley Roby ran it in for the win. Just kneel down, coach, and play for overtime. I agree. But Charles, to me, is the no-doubt GOTW.

Charles is the no-doubt Goat of the Week, except for the other guy that Peter named co-Goat of the Week. So Charles is no-doubt Goat of the Week, except for the fact there is doubt since he shares this non-honor. You gotta love Peter King.

The CBS/NFL Network telecast of the Thursday night between Denver and Kansas City was 5 hours and 7 minutes long, including a pre-game show and (longer) post-game show, which lasted longer on NFL Network than it did on CBS.

If you think the weekly fantasy football commercials are, say, plentiful, and if you think the competition for your weekly fantasy football dollar is pretty intense, well, you’re right on both counts. The breakdown of the stream of fantasy-game ads in the football telecast:

Total fantasy football spots: 19

Make them stop. Please, make them stop. I'm so tired of these commercials. 

FanDuel: 11 (including nine in pre- and post-game shows)
Draft Kings: 7 (including five during the game)
NFL.com: 1.

I will give them money to stop running these commercials. I think that's the point actually. FanDuel and Draft Kings want to just have the public pay them money to stop running these commercials. 

Ten Things I Think I Think

1. I think this is what I liked about Week 2:

k. Peterson, with what should be the new normal for him: 29 carries, 134 rushing yards, the most in the league in Week 2.

That's actually the old normal for Peterson isn't it? He's been in the Top 10 of rushing attempts five times during his career and has had more than 300 touches in a season five times. I'm not sure why Peter calls it "the new normal" because Peterson getting that many touches seems old to me. 

g. If anyone makes more physical, tough catches in traffic than Antonio Brown, I don’t know who it is.

v. Julio Jones, who is going to be very sore today. Boy, did he take some shots against the Giants. But he made some very big catches.

Maybe Julio Jones makes as many physical, tough catches as Antonio Brown. Or maybe that was just in one game. 

2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 2:

b. Of the many disastrous performances by the Eagles against Dallas, Byron Maxwell, who gave up a sloppy insurance touchdown to the Cowboys (and Brandon Weeden), takes the crown.

I can't believe a free agent cornerback got a ton of money in free agency after playing well on a defense with other good defensive players and then struggles to earn that contract on a new team with lesser defensive players. 

j. Ryan Mallett, a 49 percent passer in relief of Brian Hoyer.

Under things Peter liked, he wrote:

c. Carolina’s defense, through two weeks: 26 points allowed, and four of those quarters were played without Luke Kuechly.

So maybe Ryan Mallett was a 49% passer because the Carolina defense was good and didn't allow him to complete that many passes? Compliment the defense, then blame the quarterback for the defense's great play, that's how Peter rolls. 

k. Hold the ball, Vernon Davis.

l. Hold the bal, Anquan Boldin.

Hir an edito Pete. 

m. Detroit, for all we heard about how the loss of Ndamukong Suh wouldn’t hurt the defense. Lions have allowed 416.5 yards, on average, and 29.5 points, on average, in the first two weeks.

I file this under the same "What the fuck?" line of thinking that Peter had when it comes to thinking a lot of people in football have been puffing up Derek Carr. Who thought the Lions defense wasn't going to be affected by the loss of Ndamukong Suh? Who are these people that Peter is talking to who thinks Derek Carr is overhyped and the Lions won't be negatively affected by losing a few good defensive linemen? I feel like Peter is talking to Greg Schiano and that would explain a lot. 

p. Marcus, Marcus, Marcus. We put you in Canton too fast.

"We" didn't. "You" may have. 

w. Yo Adrian: Three fumbles?

Yo, Peter (there is a comma between "Yo" and "Adrian"...hir an edito), this is a reference to a line that is 40 years old. 

5. I think coaches certainly have the right to change their minds. All do it. But Houston Bill O’Brien yanking Brian Hoyer after three-and-a-half quarters for Ryan Mallett in the opener, and then inserting Mallett to start game two Sunday at Carolina, seems knee-jerk...I mean, I am not at practice, and I don’t see what O’Brien sees. But for Hoyer, a veteran who O’Brien knew as a player intimately from his experience with him over the years, to have lost his job after 12 series of one game is just not fair.

Brian Hoyer is only two years older than Ryan Mallett. I looked up their statistics this season and it shocked the hell out of me to see Hoyer was only two years older than Mallett. I could have sworn it was 4-5 years difference between them.

But I’ve got to hand it to Gary Myers of the New York Daily News: He’s done it with his new book, “Brady vs. Manning: The Untold Story of the Rivalry that Transformed the NFL.” (Crown Archetype, due out Tuesday.) There are stories from on the field, from all the games Tom Brady and Peyton Manning played against each other. There are stories from their relationship, and they are fairly close. But the best chapter in the book, for my money is “Boys will be boys,” the chapter on Brady and Manning the practical jokers—and the victims of practical jokes. One of the few players to play with both Brady and Manning is center Dan Koppen, who, having started at center and had both men’s hands under his rear end for a time, is uniquely qualified to discuss both quarterbacks in depth. Koppen’s best reveal, according to the book, happened as the football relationship between Koppen and Brady lengthened:

He farted on Brady’s hands in practice?

"He did,” Brady said, as if he were providing confirmation in testimony in a courtroom.

It's interesting that Myers refers to Brady "providing confirmation in testimony in a courtroom" given the fact Brady just got done doing that regarding his pissing contest with Roger Goodell. There are a lot of jokes about destroyed cell phones and deflated balls that can be made about Brady testifying as if in court about whether Dan Koppen farted on his hands in practice or not. It's an interesting way of describing how Myers believes Brady sounded. 

10. I think these are my non-NFL thoughts of the week:

d. I guess, also, that America knows Leonard Fournette now.

I knew Leonard Fournette before Saturday. Maybe you didn't Peter, but that doesn't mean other people in the world were as ignorant as you were about how good Fournette is at football. Don't assume your type of ignorance is seen through the football-watching world when it's just localized ignorance. "We" may watch more college football than you. 

f. I’m definitely going to see “Black Mass,” mainly because of my interest in the life and bad times of Whitey Bulger. But after reading A.O. Scott’s review in the New York Times, I’m preparing for it to be B or B-plus at best. After criticizing the portrayal of women in the movie as coming up short, Scott writes: “It’s possible, though, to think of the shortcomings of ‘Black Mass’ as fitting comeuppance for Bulger. He may have thought he was a big deal, but, in the end, all he merits is a minor gangster movie.”

Saw the movie and it was okay. I don't think the movie treated women any worse than any other movie has ever treated women, so I don't understand this criticism from A.O. Scott. It's not like gangster movies have a history of holding women up as great and any more than (1) minor annoyances that get in the way of business or (2) shrill nags who are only good for having children while the male characters go have affairs with other women who are minor annoyances and eventually get in the way of business. 

i. A three-hour debate? Whose idea was that?

Probably the idea of the 10 people on stage who all want time to tell America their ideas for how they can improve the United States. Guess what? If you don't like it, then don't watch the debate. This is especially true since Peter isn't going to be voting for a Republican anyway. 

j. Welcome, Pope Francis. I know you’ll just be getting to town Thursday evening, but if you want to de-snarl traffic Thursday night and take in a different kind of football game, I’d be happy to take you to Meadowlands for Giants-Washington that evening. New York coach Tom Coughlin and Giants owner John Mara, two of the most Catholic men in the National Football League, would love to see you.

I don't even know what to say to this. I know Peter is kidding, but why would the Pope hang out with him just so he can visit two guys who are very Catholic? He's the Pope, all he does is talk to very Catholic men on a daily basis. 

m. Beernerdness: Congratulations, Magnify Brewing (Fairfield, N.J.), for brewing the second-best Saison I’ve tasted, next to The MMQB Saison from Harpoon Brewery in Boston. Magnify’s Saison, called Search Saison, was a gem I found last week eating with friends at De Novo, a restaurant near the Upper Montclair, N.J., train station, just up the street from where the King family lived for 18 years.

I don't dislike Saison beers, but I'm becoming more belligerent about Peter only drinking fruity or non-beer tasting beer. I feel Peter is a few steps away from recommending a Smirnoff Ice or a Mike's Hard Lemonade.

r. Caught a few minutes of the lyrical Vin Scully on Saturday night, waxing about Roberto Clemente. Scully pointed out Clemente was at his best against many Hall of Fame pitchers. Six homers off Sandy Koufax. Batted over .400 against Warren Spahn. Leave it to Scully to tell his viewers why Clemente, who just had a day across major league baseball last week, mattered.

Don't tell Jerry Green that Roberto Clemente mattered. He's angry that advanced statistics don't give Clemente the due that he deserves, even though Green has no idea how to use these advanced statistics to even determine whether his assertion is true or not. 

The Adieu Haiku

Bad day at the Linc.
The Eagles look like fool’s gold.
Chip Kelly, unbowed.

Every Monday is a bad day when I read Peter's Adieu Haiku. What would Peter expect Chip Kelly to say though? "Oh sure, I've made a shit-ton of personnel mistakes this offseason and I'm changing my entire offensive system because I'm a terrible coach who doesn't understand the difference in college and professional coaching"? Is that what Peter thinks Kelly would say?

It's a long way from the "The Wisdom of Chip Kelly" section in MMQB isn't it?

0 comments Howard Bryant Says Chip Kelly May Be Racist In the Same Way George Washington Hated People from New England

I was surprised to learn this blog already had a "George Washington" tag. Of course the previous post had nothing to do with George Washington and was about a transgender basketball player. Here at BotB, we tackle the issues no one else will touch long before anyone is willing to address the issue. Today, possible editor-in-chief, but possibly not editor-in-chief so let's just keep wondering for another couple of years about it, of "The Undefeated" Howard Bryant says that Chip Kelly may not be racist. He just has the same cultural issue that George Washington faced during the Revolutionary War with the New Englanders. Bryant is clear in stating he's not wondering whether Kelly is racist or not, because that would be absurd, but the idea Kelly could have a problem with certain races is not absurd. Apparently that's different from being a racist by tying it into a broad cultural issue where Kelly suffers from the same non-racist semi-racist tendencies that the rest of society has.

FACED WITH A challenge far more grave than winning the NFC East, George Washington was named commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in June 1775.

"A challenge far more grave than winning the NFC East..."

Hey, George Washington never had to match wits with Chip Kelly, stop Odell Beckham Jr, shut down the Cowboys' running game or pretend to block so that Robert Griffin gets murdered by a pass rusher. Washington also never had to worry about his best general being lost for a year due to an ACL tear.

Before embarking on campaigns against the British, his first battle came in taking command of troops he hated. Washington reviled Massachusetts soldiers.

And just like how George Washington hated Massachusetts soldiers that he had no option but to work with, Chip Kelly deals with hating the players that he ultimately has a choice on whether to work with or not.

According to Edward G. Lengel's General George Washington: A Military Life, Washington "regarded the common soldiers of that colony as 'an exceeding dirty & nasty people.'"

Sadly, "Boston Strong" at one point wasn't an uplifting message of hope and unity, but a reference to the poor bathing habits of the Massachusetts colony. 

In 1776, author David McCullough likewise writes that Washington found New Englanders "to be men of a decidedly different sort than he had expected, and he was not at all pleased."

You may ask, "What does this have to do with Chip Kelly?" Don't worry, it will never be made entirely clear as to what George Washington not liking Massachusetts soldiers has to do with whether Chip Kelly is a racist or not. It seems Howard Bryant just got done reading a few books about the Revolutionary War and can't wait to share the knowledge he's learned. 

Reliance on a workforce has never required respecting or understanding it.

This is true. Most people who have a supervisor can agree they are relied on by their supervisor, but not respected or understood by this supervisor. While knowing reliance on a workforce never required respecting or understanding it, also know not relying on certain people in the workforce doesn't mean you don't respect or understand them. It just means you don't want them to work for you anymore. 

Steelers corner Brandon Boykin seemed to understand this about his former coach in Philadelphia, Chip Kelly. Boykin's belief that Kelly had difficulty relating to black players was met with the kind of disingenuous, passive-aggressive shock that explains why the topic of race often feels so intractable in this country.

It's not all disingenuous, passive-aggressive shock necessarily. It's more, "Oh okay, so this guy says Chip Kelly is a racist. I'm sure that could be true, but his opinion doesn't necessarily serve as concrete evidence his belief is correct." 

The public and the media machine largely dismissed Boykin's comments as preposterous, a predictable reflex whenever a black athlete suggests the white mainstream fails to understand the black experience.

I don't understand another person's experience in life, so I obviously don't understand "the black experience" which seems to be a collective experience of one group of people (a classification that I find to be oversimplifying things just a bit, but I get why it's done). To say "the white mainstream" fails to understand the black experience seems a little bit like Bryant is stating that just one group doesn't understand the black experience. I would bet that if an Asian group of people claimed to understand the black experience then Howard Bryant would think that's ridiculous. Yet here, he makes it "the white mainstream" as the group that fails to understand the black experience. This is a bit of finger-pointing at one specific group which is pretty lazy on Bryant's part.

Boykin then clarified his remarks, even though the Eagles provided all the necessary clarity in 2014 when they gave Riley Cooper a five-year, $25 million contract seven months after the receiver's use of a racist slur.

Again, I can't explain why the Eagles gave Riley Cooper this contract. Was it racism, was it the fact it wasn't a terrible contract for a 26 year old coming off a career year? I can't answer that and any attempt to answer this question is just speculation. 

Boykin, the thinking went, could not possibly be correct because, as a coach, Kelly leads dozens of highly paid black men, which is nearly as absurd as saying the manager of a nightclub cannot be sexist because the dancers he hires are women.

Any attempt to prove a point has to start with overstating your opposition's position. Bryant emphasizes "could not possibly" in an attempt to make it seem like Boykin's statements were taken as absolutely incorrect and not as potentially factual statements that simply lack any sort of evidentiary basis. Bryant overstates the thinking of those who don't immediately come to the conclusion Kelly is racist in order to prove that no one took Boykin's statement seriously. I'm not sure that was the case. The statement is taking seriously as an accusation, but an accusation that lacks concrete evidence, outside of Boykin's experience with Chip Kelly. Overstate the opposition's view in order to make yours seem more reasonable. That's the way to go.

So it would be unsurprising if Chip Kelly were a racist, or if he were simply uncomfortable with young black men. It would be equally unsurprising if neither of these things were true, 

But remember, we are working under the assumption that out of these two equally unsurprising things one of them is more likely true than the other. They are equal, except the assumption leans towards one conclusion over the other. I'm not sure that's the definition of "equal" or not.

but the anxious instinct to suggest Boykin was speaking irresponsibly ignores the fact that the tension he described between him and his white boss was unremarkable.

What? It was normal tension that results between a boss and an employee? But of course, it can't be normal tension because Boykin was being treated differently by Kelly. The assumption of being treated differently must stand. That's how it has to be if the equally unsurprising conclusions that Kelly is or is not racist leans in the direction Bryant feels it does. He has a conclusion he must reach. 

There aren't any employees in this country -- even among the white males who represent the default position of American leadership -- who haven't had at least one boss who didn't "get" them.

What if I told you that my employer doesn't "get" me because I'm a male? What if I told you that mostly females are hired by my employer and it only furthers my belief this is true? I'm sure Howard Bryant would think it's absolutely ridiculous that an employer would seem to favor one sex or another and dismiss my feelings. Because I'm among the default position of American leadership, so my irresponsible feelings are just the result of disliking being on an equal playing field with others and not a result of an actual true belief I have. The bottom line is people will believe a side of the Chip Kelly "is he racist or not?" story and then make up reasons why they believe it from there. It's how it goes and this includes Howard Bryant as one who does this. 

An "Is Kelly a racist or isn't he?" narrative is just the lazy masquerading as the profound, especially when Boykin never actually called Kelly a racist.

Bryant can decorate it however he wants with a discussion of George Washington, but "Is Kelly a racist or isn't he?" is essentially the conversation he is having in this column. 

The NFL already has a problem with black people, the ones who don't stay in their lane, the ones who talk. The problem is true of football, just as it is with Major League Baseball and dozens of other industries across America, including the media.

I have found major sports have a problem with any person who doesn't stay in their lane and who talks too much. I'm sure since Howard Bryant has worked in dozens of other industries across American (eye roll) he knows this to be true. I can say that other industries have a problem with any person who doesn't stay in his/her lane at work and gives their opinion more than it is wanted. I understand this is a part of Howard Bryant's experience, but rest assured, this is also the experience anyone who doesn't stay in their lane at work has as well. Sometimes in an effort to be treated more fairly, it's necessary to understand that the treatment you are receiving, even though it may not seem that way, is in many ways how others are treated as well. 

Every black person in America knows he must learn to navigate the white world to advance -- but that world needn't know very much or anything about him. It's the price of being a minority. Life isn't fair.

I can't argue with someone else's experience. Though again, I think Howard Bryant is going back to the "Is Kelly a racist or isn't he?" well and covering up for it by claiming systemic racism. Bryant is essentially making the argument Kelly is a racist because on a macro-level there is systemic racism. That's a whole other discussion that probably has very little to do with George Washington's feelings about the Massachusetts colony during the Revolutionary War. 

It is why the four most important teams in the history of baseball -- the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals and, yes, the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson lore -- have never hired a black manager.

To call these four teams the "most important teams in the history of baseball" seems to be confusing "important" with successful. It's how "fame" and "notoriety" seem to get confused at times as well. 

If these dynamics were not at work, neither the NFL nor MLB would have to force teams to interview minorities whenever a job comes open.

Yes, if the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, and Cardinals would just hire a black manager sometime soon then MLB and NFL could do away with any type of initiative intended to help minorities get interviews as a team's head coach/manager.  

What coaches don't have a problem with is Boykin's talent. There are 32 NFL teams and almost zero white starting running backs or cornerbacks.

As I said before, the whole "Well, Kelly HAS to work with these minorities because there aren't any white running backs or cornerbacks" position for why Kelly may be racist doesn't always work well for me. Yes, Kelly could still be a racist and sign or trade for non-white running backs or cornerbacks, but the point still remains that Kelly coaches these players and looks for a certain type of non-white/white running back or cornerback for his team. Kelly is looking for a certain type of running back or cornerback for his system. He's notoriously picky about players who buy into his system.

Washington disliked his workforce, but he needed it to win the war. Same goes for the NFL.

Great tie-in here. Because Washington can not choose his workforce, while Kelly has the ability to a greater extent to choose his workforce. That's what Kelly is doing and whether Kelly is choosing African-American players he can "control" or those who fit his system and personality is up for debate. Just know statements from ex-players that Kelly is sort of racist should be taken with the same grain of salt as evidence from ex-players that Kelly isn't racist. The conclusion you want to draw without further evidence one way or another is your own. Just don't draw your conclusion on this issue and act like the equally as unsurprising other conclusion is simply not just as likely. That's what Howard Bryant seems to be doing here. 

Kelly might have an issue, he might not, but the routine reflex to dismiss the obvious historical reality that people from different racial, cultural and class backgrounds might struggle to understand one another in the workplace is a much bigger problem than Chip Kelly ever could be.

So the conclusion is that people in a workplace won't always get along? Howard Bryant has to go so far back as to use George Washington as an example of this? Anyone who has a job knows this is true. It turns out that everyone who doesn't understand someone else in the workplace because of a different background may or may not be racist. It's funny, because I don't understand people who come from my same background either. It's almost like people are different from each other and every misunderstanding can't be placed into a little box with a convenient label.

7 comments Advanced Statistics Loses Again to "Being There" To Watch a Player's Brilliance

Advanced statistics loses again unfortunately. Jerry Green show how advanced statistics can't measure things that aren't quantifiable like "being there" to see how great a player is. In your face statistics! You can't measure things that can't be quantified! Where is your statistical-based God now? Go cry in your mom's basement, losers!

I am always amused at articles that say, "Statistics can't measure the grace Player X played the game with" as if there is a way to measure these intangible things and it's only Sabermetrics or advanced statistics that come up short. Yes, those things that can't be quantified will nearly always remain non-quantified. Jerry Green can't measure the grace Clemente played the game with either, even if he saw Clemente play.

Jerry Green thinks Roberto Clemente is better than Willie Mays and somehow this has something to do with advanced statistics disagreeing with his premise. Also Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is prominently involved in Green's reasoning for why Clemente is better than Mays. Okay, then.

The greatest player in the history of Major League Baseball sat in the ramshackle shed of the visitors' clubhouse in venerable Crosley Field in Cincinnati. He fidgeted and twisted his neck and his shoulders, an athlete in perpetual motion. He was attended by a trainer who massaged his shoulders and an interpreter to translate back and forth between English and Spanish.

I did not know that David Eckstein spoke Spanish. You learn something new every day.

Roberto Clemente might not have been the perfect baseball player. But no other player in the game's 140 seasons has been closer to perfection.

140 seasons of baseball. It's the Twitter-versary for baseball, much to the chagrin of Jerry Green, the man who hates technology. 

Not Ty Cobb. Not Babe Ruth. Not Willie Mays. Not even Mike Trout, the Irreplaceable.

It is a personal opinion, arrived at belatedly, that Clemente was the baseball player nonpareil.

This is a personal opinion and isn't fact? In this article, Jerry Green will disagree with his own previous opinion on who the greatest baseball player of all-time was, so it's good to know Jerry recognizes his opinion is an opinion and not a fact, or else he would run the risk of playing loose with facts. We all know those who don't like advanced statistics would never play loose with facts or be blind to facts/realities in order to further their own agenda. 

It is an opinion that might be shared by only few other ancient souls captivated by sports.

Or Pittsburgh Pirates fans. Or people who really believe Clemente is one of the best baseball players of all-time. 

For sure, today's Internet blogging juveniles with their higher-brow obsession with metrics will launch darts at this premise.

I genuinely have no idea what Internet blogging juveniles have to do with whether Roberto Clemente is the greatest baseball player of all-time or not. I'm not sure Jerry Green knows either. He just knows that every single article he writes about baseball must contain one shot at Sabermetrics or advanced statistics. So apparently Jerry believe that Willie Mays is a Sabermetrics God and Roberto Clemente is the lowly, traditional statistics loser who just can't get a fair break from advanced statistics.

Of course, Clemente is 8th all-time in WAR, which just happens to be one of Green's favorite advanced statistics punching bag stats, but like I said, Jerry would never play loose with facts or be blind to reality. Jerry just doesn't care to do the required research. Why do work when you have an opinion? Clemente is 8th all-time in WAR, but Jerry Green has set up a reality where Internet blogging juveniles will launch darts at the premise Clemente is the greatest player in MLB history.

But they did not see Roberto Clemente play with grace and sharpened skills and with pride in his carriage.

No, "they" did not. That's why these metrics only have Clemente as #1 in baseball history in total zone runs for a right fielder. If they respected him more, perhaps he could be higher than that. But no, these same high-brow metrics only have Clemente as #2 all-time in total zone runs for all outfielders. What a bunch of disrespect from a group of people who never saw Clemente play one game in the majors. Because everyone who uses advanced statistics is young. This is a fact, so don't bother arguing with it.

Clemente's major problem -- yearning for acceptance and stature as a ballplayer -- was quite simple.

He played baseball in Pittsburgh.

What follows will show that playing in Pittsburgh wasn't the issue. It was that Clemente played in a time with other flashy athletes and he wasn't a flashy player. So playing in Pittsburgh wasn't the issue as much as the age in which Clemente played and how the media covered athletes at the time. But yeah, Pittsburgh was the entirety of the issue according to Jerry Green. Now Jerry Green will show this is not the entirety of the issue. 

He played in Pittsburgh in an era during which marvelous athletes were publicized and glorified. Television was in its adolescence, still a new medium. Print journalism dominated, and newspapers reached out to cover celebrated athletes.

Pittsburgh was the problem though. Not the media's fascination with "interesting" or flashy athletes. That wasn't part of the issue. 

Namath, Ali – they were the greatest and we the press (still a 1960s word) believed and said so.

They were extroverts and their images were splashed on the covers of national magazines as they were in the daily print press.

And then there was Roberto Clemente. The greatest of all baseball players.

Jerry Green wants everyone to know this is an opinion. Not a fact. Don't be confused and think Jerry Green's opinions are always facts. But he's right, so this opinion may as well be a fact, no matter what those high-brow, WAR-loving assholes who use advanced statistics tell you. 

He played in the same sports era as the wondrous Willie Mays. They were rivals on the field. But Willie had the luxury of playing in New York and then in San Francisco when the Giants moved to California. 

We all know athletes on the West Coast receive all the acclaim that athletes on the East Coast receive. That's why Paul Goldschmidt is widely thought among casual fans to be such a great hitter. 

Willie got the acclaim. We-the-press kowtowed to Willie.

And Roberto was locked in isolation.

Pittsburgh though. Playing in Pittsburgh was the problem. Not the media's coverage of Clemente. It's never the media's fault. 

"If I could sleep, I could hit .400," was one of Clemente's favorite sayings.

If a frog had wings, then it wouldn't bump it's ass on the ground. I can see why Clemente didn't get coverage like Ali and Namath did. He just seemed to lack the ability to be cocky or brag about himself. 

He talked about lacking the acclaim of other ballplayers. Mays, his contemporary and rival, in particular. He talked about his pains and aches and his prowess.

His envy of other ballplayers with more recognition was obvious. But also showing was dignity and charm and elegance and kindness.

This is true, but Jerry isn't doing a great job of proving it as true. 

"Nobody does anything better than me in baseball," was another of Clemente's noted quotes.

Elegance and charm. Dignity. Again, I can see why Clemente wasn't covered like Namath and Ali were covered. If he only had the faith in his own ability to the point of cockiness, then perhaps he could have caught the press's eye with a quote about how great he was. Unfortunately, Clemente wasn't capable of this type of thing. 

We'll never know how much more greatness Roberto Clemente had within him after the day he collected his 3,000th hit for the Pirates in the final game of the 1972 season. He was 38 and planned to continue playing.

If Clemente had just played for a few more years and not died then he could have been further disrespected by those who like new school metrics by ending his career as among the Top 5 players all-time in WAR. What disrespect these young kids give to Clemente. 

The well-known story defines Roberto Clemente. He died in the crash of a cargo plane carrying relief supplies from Puerto Rico to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

Those of us who then voted in the elections of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown quickly broke the five-year rule. We voted Roberto into the Hall of Fame in a special election.

I look for Hall of Fame members to disconnect the brakes on the car Jack Morris is driving in the hopes he drives off a cliff so that the groundswell of support and emotion for his career will allow them to break the five-year rule and vote him into the Hall of Fame immediately. They will do ANYTHING to get him in, even if they have to murder the one they love to do it. 

Mays hit more home runs during a longer career than Clemente. Clemente had a higher career batting average, .317 to Mays' .302.

Clemente hit 240 home runs in an 18 year career. Mays hit 660 home runs in a 22 year career. But yes, it was the "longer career" that caused Mays' home run stats to look so much better than Clemente's home run stats. Great comparison to even make it seem somewhat like Mays' longer career had something to do with his having 440 more home runs than Clemente. 

Each was an amazing five-tool player – the non-metric evaluation of baseball player's lasting worth. Clemente and Mays, along with Al Kaline, in those years of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1960s, could hit, hit for average, run, throw and field – the traditional five tools.

I like how Jerry differentiates between the "1960's" and the "early 1960's."

Three years ago, after watching rookie Mike Trout as he devastated the World Series-bound Tigers in three games in Anaheim, I invoked memories of Willie Mays. Trout is the rare five-tool player in today's baseball. Then I claimed that Mays was the greatest baseball player ever, and that Trout was the most accomplished player to enter the game in 40 years.

Upon further review, I dispute myself.

Roberto Clemente entered the game in 1955. Mike Trout entered the game in 2011. It's possible that Jerry's comment about Trout is correct. 

Clemente, without checking the updated sabermetrics, was the greatest. 

You are only making yourself sound ignorant and bitter writing things like this. 

He was a superior hitter to Mays, without the power. He had a stronger arm. They were equal as fielders.

But, can Clemente be a superior hitter "without the power"? Even adjusting for the four year difference in their careers and discounting the last four years of his career, Mays still would have had more home runs by a large margin, more RBI's by a large margin, while only have 74 fewer hits, and a batting average that was 0.15 lower than Clemente's batting average. I'm using traditional statistics, not updated Sabermetrics. Even using Jerry's own favored metrics, I'm not sure his conclusion Clemente was better is correct.  

Roberto did not have the glitz of Mays – nor of Trout, bolstered by his Los Angeles exposure.

We all know the exposure Mike Trout receives from playing on the West Coast for the Angels. 

Clemente had one flaw. He played in Pittsburgh.

Well, that and he wasn't covered by the media like other athletes during his time were covered. But mainly it was the whole Pittsburgh thing though, right? Maybe I'm being too high-brow for Jerry's tastes about all of this. 

7 comments MMQB Review: Peter King May Have Just Confessed He Wants to Sleep with Marcus Mariota Edition

Peter King talked about how perfect Aaron Rodgers was in last week's MMQB, as well as made his Super Bowl pick. Peter also had a travel note complimentary of Acela, which we all know will probably turn into a complaint about Acela in the coming weeks. This week Peter talks about the blessed-relief first week of NFL games, Marcus Mariotia's outstanding start to his NFL career, creeps me out by inadvertently confessing he's sexually attracted to Mariota (the creepy part being that Peter is significantly older than Mariota), and it turns out the PAT Revolution didn't work out how Peter thought it might. If you recall, Peter was a big proponent of moving the extra point back in order to give NFL teams more incentive to go for the two point conversion (that's the partial reason). After only one week, it didn't work that way.

Peter has also stopped doing the Fine Fifteen in MMQB, which is good news. It is pointless to rank NFL teams early in the season anyway. I'm lying, he's just not doing the Fine Fifteen until all of this week's games are played, which makes ranking all the NFL teams after one week seem to make so much more sense.

Now that was quite a way to end the first Sunday of a blessed-relief NFL Week 1.

No more talking about the Patriots deflating footballs! Ever! It's ov---

(Blessed relief because we’re not talking much about inflation of footballs … just 359 words here on the Brady vs. Goodell mess this morning.)

Oh. So Peter King thinks not talking about Brady v. Goodell is relief, but then he goes ahead and writes 359 words on the topic anyway. Hey, Peter can't control what he writes in this column (which is why he doesn't use the word "Redskins," because he can't control his own words), so don't blame him!

Can I start the 19th season of MMQB by telling you an observation I had Sunday evening about the incredible closeness of this game? Of these games? 

It's a game of precociousness?

The games are so close, and they’re sometimes decided by the craziest of breaks, and human foibles, and mind-boggling decisions.

That’s a big reason, collectively, why America keeps coming back for more, no matter how fist-shaking angry it gets at the commissioner or the owners or players who mess up.

Thanks for telling America why we come back. Little did we know that we enjoyed watching the games. I thought I watched the NFL just so I would know what Peter was talking about when I read MMQB every week.

We start this morning with the first-ever opening-week duel of rookie quarterbacks drafted with the first two overall picks. Jameis Winston (Tampa Bay) versus Marcus Mariota (Tennessee) kind of snuck up on us, as it was eclipsed by the never-ending drama on Ted Wells’ field of play.

“I thought it deserved a little more attention,” Tennessee coach Ken Whisenhunt said from Tampa on Sunday night. “When we first saw the schedule—Week 1, 4:25 game—it seemed like they planned this because of the spectacle of it. And because we had the late game, I’m watching some of the pre-game shows this morning. They didn’t talk about it very much. I didn’t get that. This was a pretty big deal.”

The same head coach who wanted his rookie quarterback to throw an interception in order to get it over with and slow down the hype train wanted there to be more hype surrounding this rookie quarterback's first NFL start? Got it.

You could hear it in Whisenhunt’s voice, and see it on his face. It’s the kind of thing you’ve heard from Bill Parcells a few dozen times if you’ve been paying attention.

Bill Parcells. The greatest coach in the history of the NFL.*

*Only when he had one of the greatest head coaches in the NFL running his defense or on his staff as an assistant head coach. Without Bill Belichick as his defensive coordinator or assistant head coach, Parcells has a career record of 77-76. Probably means nothing...

Let’s not put this guy in Canton yet. Or, So, you’re fitting him for his gold jacket already? That was Whisenhunt.

It's very Parcells-like to not canonize a quarterback after one start. Other NFL head coaches would be raving about how Mariota will never throw an interception and will probably have a perfect passer rating over his entire career. Not Bill Parcells and Ken Whisenhunt though. They refuse to get ahead of themselves after Mariota makes one career start.

“You may not hear it in my voice,” he said, “but I’m really, really excited to have this kid.”

Finding a franchise quarterback = Keeping a head coaching job. It's basic math. 

Next play: Harry Douglas burst from the slot past a good corner, ex-Titan Alterraun Verner, and caught a four-yard touchdown pass from Mariota. Easy stuff. At least it looked easy. Three minutes later, near the end of the half, after Winston's second interception of the half, Mariota flipped a quick curl to Walker for the final touchdown from a yard out.

I will say this about Jameis Winston. He's known for throwing interceptions (that's the perception at least) and giving him a shitty offensive line isn't going to help him get comfortable and throw fewer interceptions. Winston is a pocket passer and wasn't able to feel comfortable throwing the ball in the pocket. Until the Buccaneers do that for him, he can't succeed.

It’s totally unfair to draw conclusions based on four quarters

Everyone repeat after me...now Peter will proceed to draw some conclusions.

but you can say this about the two players. Mariota moved between shotgun and under-center snaps freely. He was comfortable throwing fast and throwing with time. He was extremely accurate. He looked so comfortable, as though this was the first game of his sixth season, not his first.

I'm not going to be a Winston apologist, but look at the offensive line the Titans have put around Mariota. They have worked hard to put a quality offensive line out there, even to the point they had the luxury of trading away a disappointing Andy Levitre rather than keep him on the bench for depth.

Winston was pressured more than Mariota, and he didn’t always respond to it well, going 16 of 33 with two touchdowns and two interceptions.

A rookie quarterback making his first-ever career NFL start didn't respond well to pressure? I can't believe this. Find me quarterbacks who respond well to pressure and these are among the best quarterbacks in the game, not quarterbacks making their first-ever NFL start. Again, Peter doesn't want to draw conclusions...

Rex Ryan coached six years in New Jersey, and so he heard the cacophonous noise around the Meadowlands on occasion. But a couple of things he hadn’t seen. One: Fans standing for most of three hours, which they did Sunday, so as not to miss anything in a 27-14 Bills’ victory over the favored Colts. Two: The RV parking lot adjacent to Ralph Wilson Stadium full late Saturday morning.

It's almost like Bills fans crave a winning team or something. I'll be impressed when that RV parking lot is full late Saturday morning when it's late November and December when it is cold as hell outside.

This was a revelation game for Buffalo. In a game between Tyrod Taylor and Andrew Luck, who do you think would have the 63.6 passer rating and who the 123.8 rating?

I don't know, is Tyrod Taylor on the Patriots team now? If so, I would expect the 63.6 rating to be what Luck has put up. 

“I think we made a statement today,” Taylor said.

This one: We’re pretty good now, and we might get better, and we just might petition the league to play all 16 games at home.

“We’re gonna be tough to beat at home, I’m telling you,” Ryan said.

A Rex Ryan-coached team with an actual quarterback is a little bit terrifying. Really, the only thing that could bring the Bills down is if Rex hired his brother to be his defensive coordinator.

Judging by the first week of the season, they’d better be good at home—and on the road. Standings of the AFC East this morning:

Buffalo: 1-0
Miami: 1-0
New England: 1-0
New York Jets: 1-0

Great! Standings! They mean so much this time of year. Nobody in the AFC East has been defeated at this point in the season. Could this be the first time in league history an entire division manages to 16-0? Possibly. Peter doesn't want to jump to any conclusions, but he thinks at least two of these teams will go undefeated.

The defense is the real thing. If the offense can hold up its end—and really, you can say the same thing about any of the three AFC East challengers to New England—Buffalo will be in it till the end. That’s a big if, of course. It will depend on the maturation of Taylor.

So whether the Bills quarterback plays well or not will determine how well the team does this year? Very interesting point of view, if not controversial.

Some old friends are coming to town: Bill Belichick. Tom Brady. The schedule-maker came up with an unlikely AFC Game of the Week in Week 2.

AFC Game of the Week? No. AFC Game of the Century. Peter doesn't want to jump to conclusions, but this is probably the biggest Week 2 game in the history of the NFL. It's amazing the NFL schedule-makers came up with having the Jets and Bills play each other so early in the season. It's almost like they KNEW Rex Ryan was the head coach of the Bills or something and this game would be interesting to watch. Plus, the schedule-makers somehow remembered they had to schedule two Patriots-Bills games since the teams both play in the AFC East. Peter doesn't want to jump to conclusions, but this game could, and COULD being the key word, mess up the perfect record the AFC East teams have currently. 

“Wait till next week,” Ryan said, chuckling over the phone. “Holy s---. I cannot wait.”

He said "shit." What a rebel.

You might have gone to bed by the time the Giants and Cowboys reached the final two minutes Sunday night in Texas, so let’s recap: Giants up 23-20, third-and-goal from the Dallas 1-yard line, 1:43 left. No timeouts left for Dallas.

The play here is to hand the ball off, hope the back scores, but if not, make sure the back doesn’t run out of bounds to stop the clock. If the back doesn’t score, let the clock run down to, say, one minute, and on fourth down do the same thing again. If he’s stopped, the Cowboys would get the ball at their one-yard line with about 55 seconds left.

The Cowboys would then be able to tie the game with a field goal, but also have to go 60 yards to even get close to field goal range. The Giants could also go the aggressive route with the quarterback they just handed a lot of guaranteed money to and hope he can seal the win for them with a touchdown. It's aggressive to not choose to run the ball, that's for sure.

The one thing that seems totally illogical is what the Giants did. Eli Manning rolled out and threw to the back of the end zone, to no one. The Giants kicked a field goal to go up 26-20. And the Cowboys got the ball after the kickoff at their 28-yard line with 1:29 left.

It wasn't a smart decision, that's for sure. It was an aggressive, "go for the throat" decision that trusted the same defense the Giants hoped wouldn't let the Cowboys go 60+ yards to tie the game with 55 seconds left would prevent the Cowboys from going 72 yards to win the game with 1:29 left.

With Manning manning up, and Coughlin doing the same, we at least know the Giants have standup guys. What we don’t know is why they would do something like this. Were they so confident in a specific play they had called? Did they think they’d catch the Cowboys loading up for the run and sneak in a quick touchdown pass?

Yes, they were confident in the play they had called, and yes, they thought they could catch the Cowboys loading up on the run. It wasn't the safest play and it wasn't the "smart" play. The Giants look like geniuses if it ends up working out though.

Hand it to Tony Romo (11 of 12 for 147 yards and two touchdown passes in the last eight minutes of the game) for driving 76 and 72 yards in the last two series for the win. But this one’s on the Giants. If Coughlin and Manning each want half the blame, it’s theirs.

While admitting the Giants are definitely to blame, if Romo and the Cowboys can go 72 yards with 1:29 left to win the game, couldn't they conceivably have gone 60+ yards with 55 seconds to go (if the Giants went for it on fourth down and then forced the Cowboys to be pinned on their own 1-yard line) or go 72 yards with 55 seconds left to win the game outright (if the Giants kick the field goal and then kickoff)? Again, the smart play isn't what the Giants chose to do, but Romo went 72 yards with no timeouts to win the game, so the idea of going 60+ yards to tie the game isn't incredibly far-fetched. Blame the Giants, but they were being aggressive and it didn't work out.

The MMQB’s Robert Klemko was in St. Louis Sunday and filed this about the backup for holdout strong safety Kam Chancellor…

Nothing noteworthy here, except the unnecessary use of italics.

Dejected, Bailey sat upright in his locker, located between Richard Sherman’s and Earl Thomas’s, in the visitor’s dressing room at the Edwards Jones Dome. He draped several towels over his head and closed his eyes. He felt as though he’d not only lost the game, but tarnished his family name.

I read this aloud with emphasis on the part in italics. It sounds silly to me when read aloud. Am I the only one who is bothered by this unnecessary use of italics to show emphasis when read aloud? I probably am, but it sounds ridiculous when sounded out and not written.

The PAT revolution? Not quite, but wait.

Moving the PAT didn't immediately change the NFL for the better and coaches who have always been risk-averse continued to be risk-averse even when given a slightly greater incentive to go for a two-point conversion? Certainly you must be kidding!

Imagine this scenario, painted for me by Indianapolis coach Chuck Pagano:

The Colts score a touchdown to go up nine points with 45 seconds left in the game. Now Pagano has to decide whether to go for the point-after touchdown, basically a 33-yard field goal, or to go for two, from the 2-yard line.

Or, as Pagano suggested, neither.

“Because the defense can score on the PAT or two-point conversion now, why would I go for either one?” Pagano told me. “Why wouldn’t I just take a knee and not go for anything?”

Why would a coach do this, besides the fact they are abnormally risk-averse people so manipulating them into going against their instincts isn't going to work unless it is taken to the extreme? Why would a coach take a knee and not go for anything? Because it guarantees a win, which is why most NFL head coaches will always go for the longer extra point over the two-point conversion.

So imagine a team, late in a game, up by four or nine, lining up to go for two and then the quarterback simply takes a knee to kill the play. I’m not saying it positively will happen. But I am saying it makes zero sense for a team up four or nine in the last minute or so to attempt either the one or two-point conversion.

You miss that extra point try now, don't you Peter? I was not against the extra point moving back, but I've never thought it would cause head coaches to go for two more often and do much more than make the extra point more difficult. That's fine. The extra point can be made more difficult, but there is always a change in strategy that isn't thought of when rules change and the fact a team may not even try an extra point or two-point conversion seems to be that change in strategy.

There’s nothing to gain. That’s Pagano’s opinion. Chip Kelly’s too. “We felt that way at Oregon, because the defense could score points,” the Eagles’ coach said.

As the NFL tries to force NFL head coaches to be more aggressive, they find a way to not be more aggressive. It's almost like the nature of being an NFL head coach will find it's way to being conservative no matter how many rules are adjusted to change this behavior. 

“I think you’ll see a change in the mentality, with more thought being put into the fact that the defense can return it now, and what impact that has,” Mike Pettine of the Browns said. “We already have a chart made.”

A chart! The Browns have a chart ready to go for when they are up four or nine points and need to make a decision on whether to kick the extra point, go for two or kneel the ball down. I have a feeling this chart may stay in near-mint condition for another season at least.

On our training camp trip, The MMQB asked head coaches if they planned to treat the PAT any differently this year with the line of scrimmage moved from the 2 to the 15-yard line—and with defenses now being able to score either one or two points on a failed conversion try returned to the far end zone. We got no sense that there would be a mass change from the one to two-point tries,

Roger Goodell should consider suspending head coaches who don't go for the two-point conversion enough, or perhaps, he should start docking draft picks from teams who don't go for the two-point conversion at a certain percentage after a touchdown. I may have just given Goodell an idea.

But most coaches were like Kelly. “The percentage in kicking from the 2 versus kicking from the 15, I think, goes from about 99.6 percent to 95.5 percent,” said Kelly, referring to the percentage of extra-point success in 2014, versus the percentage of field goals made from the low 30-yard-yard area. “The league wanted to encourage coaches to think about going for two, and I said you needed to change where you went from two from. [Kelly proposed moving the two-point line of scrimmage from the 2 to the 1-yard line.] I said, ‘It’s been on the 2-yard line and people haven’t gone for two, so why moving it back and changing four percentage points do you think that’s going to make a coach go for two?’

The NFL tried to incentivize teams to go for a two-point conversion by moving the extra point back to an area where kickers can still make a very high percentage of kicks. Maybe if they want teams to go for a two-point conversion more often they should incentivize teams in a positive manner to go for the two-point conversion. Moving up the two-point conversion to the 1-yard line would do that. A head coach will see that a kicker will maybe miss 3-4 extra points in a season, thereby leaving four points off the scoreboard, while only two missed two-point conversions (which are converted at a much lower rate than an extra point) will leave four points off the scoreboard on the season. If you just assume NFL head coaches will be conservative and take the points, you see why moving the extra point back won't necessarily result in an increased amount of two-point conversion tries. It's not shocking to me the NFL failed to see this when the extra point rule was changed.

But there will be more two-point tries, particularly if the defense jumps offside on the one-point tries.

Which, as I showed a few months ago, happened about six times or so last season. Defenses jump offside about at the same percentage that kickers will miss an extra point. And yet, Peter keeps relying on this "jump offside" scenario as something that will happen quite often when in reality this is not true.

That means teams will have a choice whether to take a five-yard penalty and put the PAT line of scrimmage at the 10-yard line, or go half the distance, from the 2 to the 1, and try a one-yard two-point play.

I'm betting when this happens 6-7 times this season (maybe less for offensive false starts on extra points), the majority of head coaches are going to choose to kick the extra point. 

The opposite of that scenario actually played out in Week 1. The Chargers scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter to go up five points on the Lions, 26-21. San Diego lined up to go for two but committed a false start and had to move back five yards. Coach Mike McCoy opted to try the 38-yard PAT (rather than a 7-yard two-point try) and Josh Lambo's kick was no good. It's a good example of the little strategic decisions that the longer PAT now forces coaches to make.

It's also a great example of how this doesn't happen often and there is no strategic decision involved here. A two-point conversion from the 7-yard line or a 38-yard PAT? The PAT will win 9 times out of 10. I do like how Peter bashes the Giants for being aggressive, but he expects a two-point conversion try from the 7-yard line to be "a strategic decision." Bash teams for being aggressive and not just taking points, but then expect them to be aggressive and not take the points when it supports his point of view.

SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

Tavon Austin, wide receiver/returner/running back, St. Louis. This was the kind of game the Rams expected when they drafted him in 2013. His 16-yard touchdown run as a lone back in the second quarter flummoxed the Seahawks, and his 75-yard punt return in the third quarter gave the Rams the biggest lead (11 points) that either team had all day.

It was a great punt return, but don't forget the Rams passed over Eric Reid, Kyle Long, Tyler Eifert, D.J. Fluker, Sheldon Richardson, Star Lotulelei, Travis Frederick, and Le'Veon Bell (among others) to draft Austin at #8 overall. A punt return touchdown isn't going to justify his draft position any time soon.

Could this be the year Austin breaks out, at long last?

Sure, let's look at Austin's other numbers from the game where Peter wonders if he will break out...two receptions on five targets and -2 receiving yards, plus four rushes for 17 yards (and a long of 16) and a touchdown. As long as Austin is used correctly (i.e. not as a receiver it seems) then he should have a good year. A breakout year? Probably not considering he was the #8 overall selection. But hey, the Los Angeles Rams are a team on the rise, so who knows what could happen?

Tyler Lockett, wide receiver/returner, Seattle. He is becoming everything the Seahawks hoped Percy Harvin would be—a dangerous returner and effective change-of-pace receiver. On his first career punt return Sunday at St. Louis, he weaved 57 yards through the Rams’ coverage team—untouched, it appeared. He had 119 returns yards and 34 receiving yards in his first NFL game.

Lockett had a punt return touchdown and receiving yards that amount to 5% of Austin's career total in the same game. One is a rookie 3rd round pick, while the other plays for a team Peter has close ties to and is a 3rd year #8 overall pick. I probably shouldn't compare them too much, but it's natural considering Peter named them both Special Teams Players of the Week.

Two positions, linebacker and wide receiver, have had their salary standings rewritten in the past two months.

In terms of average salary, five of the top six linebackers have signed mega-deals since mid-July. The final man came in Thursday, with Carolina’s Luke Kuechly ($12.4 million per year) becoming the highest-paid inside/middle backer of all time. (Justin Houston and Clay Matthews, outside guys, are the only linebackers higher than Kuechly on the list).

These are the types of things that happen when there are great, young linebackers in the NFL and their teams want to pay to keep them on the team. 

And it’s the same number at wide receiver, five of the top six, that have signed since mid-July. A.J. Green of the Bengals averages out as the second-highest wideout deal in history (to Calvin Johnson), at $15 million per year.

The fear of injury, and fear of the franchise tag, are such great motivators. In baseball, with no franchise tag and significantly less fear of injury, stars go to market all the time. Stars rarely play the free market in the NFL.

It also helps that there is no salary cap in baseball, so the free market is truly free. The Bengals can offer A.J. Green a contract comparable to the other great players at his position and it's easy for him to accept since he knows he's not getting a 10 year $250 million contract on the free agent market. Non-guaranteed deals and the salary cap also play a big role in NFL teams being able to keep the players they draft. It's almost like there is a plan in there somewhere. 

Entering tonight’s Philadelphia-Atlanta season opener, the two most efficient running teams in the NFL since 2013 are Seattle and Philadelphia.

Seattle wouldn’t be a surprise, with the pounding Marshawn Lynch and dual-threat quarterback Russell Wilson. But pass-happy Philly? Maybe the Eagles aren’t as pass-happy as we all think.

Stop writing "we" don't think the Eagles are a run-happy team. This has been shown and described many times. It's thought that Chip Kelly is pass-happy, but he loves running the football and the Eagles try to run the football. There is only so many times I can read "The Eagles love to run the ball, bet you didn't know that!" before it becomes annoying. Yes, Chip Kelly likes to run the football. It was kind of obvious given how he's invested in the offensive line and running backs, no? 

Since opening day 2013, Philadelphia is fourth in total rushes, second in rushing yards, and second in yards per carry. And the Eagles, even if Sam Bradford stays healthy all season, won’t be much different this year, I don’t think. You don’t sign the NFL rushing champ (DeMarco Murray) in free agency, backstop him with a former first-round pick (Ryan Mathews), and employ one of the best change-of-pace backs (Darren Sproles) on the planet if you’re planning to be a passing team.

Right, which is why "we" knew the Eagles are a run-happy team whose high-paced offense leads one to believe they prefer to throw the football when it's been shown many times this assumption isn't true. "We" aren't all making the assumption still, despite Peter's need to teach his readers a lesson many already know. 

Jameis Winston, 2013 calendar year: 13-0 Jameis Winston, 2014 calendar year: 13-0 Jameis Winston, 2015 calendar year: 0-2 (0-2 vs. Mariota)

— Football Perspective (@fbgchase) September 13, 2015

So Winston is playing Mariota one-on-one now and football isn't a team game? Aaron Rodgers can't beat Russell Wilson either, so are there conclusions to be drawn from this based on "Wilson v. Rodgers"?

Ten Things I Think I Think

1. I think this is what I liked about Week 1:

d. Great play design by St. Louis offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, putting Tavon Austin as a lone back behind the quarterback and simply handing it to him.

Yes, great play design to get an extremely talented and fast running back/wide receiver the football with space to where he can run. I would ask why it took two seasons for the Rams to figure out they should do this, but I've learned not to question the genius of Jeff "8-8" Fisher. He knows more about misusing Austin's talent than I ever will.

h. The hustle by Andrew Luck, tackling Ronald Darby of the Bills after a Darby pick.

Great job throwing an interception and then tackling the guy who intercepted your pass! Kudos to you, Andrew Luck. Sure, it may have been better if you didn't throw the interception, but who cares about a silly interception? 

s. DeAngelo Williams, who sure didn’t look like an insurance policy against the New England front, with his 127-yard opening night.

It's amazing what happens when you get motivated and in shape to play football. Remarkable how Williams went from slow in his cuts last year to fast in his cuts and able to bounce it outside again. I'm sure it had nothing to do with him getting lazy with his conditioning and the Steelers forcing him to lose weight. Good for him. It would be nice if it didn't require a change of scenery to get in shape though. 

y. Jenny Vrentas’ story for The MMQB on J.J. Watt, which contained this nugget from Lawrence Taylor, the last defensive player to win the NFL MVP award: “I thought he should have been MVP. If he stays healthy, he could be all-timer.”

Peter is contractually obligated in every MMQB to mention how other football players think J.J. Watt is going to be a great player. As if watching him isn't enough to know this. I can't wait to watch Watt break Cam Newton in person this week. I'm sure after he has 20 tackles for loss, 10 sacks and 5 interceptions then Peter will find a quote where some ex-football player will say how great Watt is, as if we can't see already. 

2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 1:

c. Peyton Manning is 39, and he looked weak-armed on throws to the sideline against Baltimore, and he spent the second half dink-and-dunking an awful lot of throws. Too early to draw any definitive conclusions, but something certainly to watch in the next couple of weeks.

Manning is probably dehydrated again. You know, that whole "dehydration" thing that caused him to lose his arm strength last year towards the end of the season. That probably is popping up again. I still can't believe Manning said his problem last year was dehydration. Perhaps he was dehydrated, but that's a hilarious excuse for his struggles (relatively of course) over the last few weeks of the 2014 season. Me thinks he deludes himself. 

g. Jameis Winston.

h. Jameis Winston’s protection.

It's almost like those two go hand-in-hand or something. This couldn't be true though, could it? 

l. Cam Newton, for not seeing Paul Posluszny on a first-half pick.

I predicted on Twitter that Peter King would point this throw out. He's so predictable.

What a horrible, horrible throw. Now THAT is what Peter King will talk about tomorrow as opposed to the three dropped passes...

— Ben (@bengoodfella) September 13, 2015

I do also notice how Blake "He's totally a different quarterback, now he's making throws like Aaron Rodgers" Bortles threw an awful pick-six which went unmentioned by Peter. It's okay though. I just think it's interesting there are two awful interceptions and one resulted in a total swing of the game, but the one that didn't result in this total swing is the one Peter (predictably) mentions. Also, there is literally nothing else noted about this game that Carolina won 20-9 (without having Kuechly for the entire second half), so the only takeaway from Peter is that Cam Newton still sucks. Seems reasonable. It was an ugly game, that much I can admit.

m. The much-maligned run defense of the Colts, beaten by Bills rookie Karlos Williams for a 26-yard touchdown gallop late in the first half.

BUT LOOK AT ALL THE SHINY NEW TOYS ANDREW LUCK HAS!

s. Don’t want to make too much of the Browns stinking it up at the Meadowlands. But the NFL set up Cleveland to get off to a good start—at the Jets, Titans at home, Raiders at home. And watching the Browns turn it over five times and lose by 21 Sunday, with another day of crisis at quarterback, you just wonder when the black cloud over this franchise is going to go away.

I think the answer to the last part of this sentence is contained in the middle part of the sentence. Find a quarterback, find success. It's not that hard to see the correlation there.

v. Dez Bryant, dehydrated after one quarter of the first game of the season. Come on now.

7. I think it’s a story, the problems between Chuck Pagano and the Colts that Jason LaCanfora and then Jay Glazer discussed on the pre-game shows Sunday. My feeling is the basis of the problems between coach and organization is not a problem Pagano has with GM Ryan Grigson, but rather an issue at the door of owner Jim Irsay. Irsay likes Pagano. But I don’t think he knows if he wants Pagano to be his coach for the next five years. Here’s why: Pagano came from Baltimore as a defensive coach, and the Colts are still a team that has to win despite its defense too often.

I don't blame Pagano for having a bad defense. The Colts haven't invested in defense like they have invested in offense. Of Grigson's four drafts, he has chosen 18 offensive players and 12 defensive players. In the first three rounds of the draft Grigson has chosen 8 offensive players and 3 defensive players. He simply hasn't chosen to invest in the defense through the draft, instead choosing to do so in free agency. Pagano needs guys to work with if he's going to put together a championship defense. 

Buffalo, on Sunday, gashed Indy for 147 rushing yards in 36 carries, proving the run defense is still a major issue.

That’s why, in my opinion, the Colts’ offer to Pagano was probably a lukewarm one. If the defense lets down Indy again, I doubt Pagano will face much of a roadblock from his owner about leaving.

Maybe Chuck Pagano should have built a better defense with the Colts, but the Colts haven't given him the options through the draft to improve the defense. That's how teams improve on either side of the ball, building through the draft, and the Colts simply haven't done that on defense. Pagano hasn't forgotten how to coach defense, that much I know. 

10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:

b. Pet peeve: The phrase “calendar year Grand Slam,” referring to what Serena Williams was trying to do. That comes from “the department of redundancy department.” A Grand Slam in tennis refers to winning all four big tennis tournaments (Australian, French, Wimbledon, U.S. Open) in the same year. So there’s no need to add “calendar year” to it.

Yes Peter, there is. There is a difference in a tennis player winning the Grand Slam, which is winning all four major tournaments in a row, and a tennis player winning the calendar year Grand Slam, which is winning all four major tournaments in one calendar year. Serena Williams can win all four tournaments and have won the Grand Slam, but not in the same calendar year. That's the difference. 

e. Serena Williams is a great champion, and though I don’t know tennis at all, 

Peter says he knows nothing about tennis. That means immediately look for a definitive statement from Peter as if he does know tennis very well.

"I'm not an expert on this topic, but here is a statement I will make as if I didn't just claim I have no idea what I'm talking about and I want you to take my opinion very seriously." 

it seems to me she’s got a great chance to go down when she retires as the best woman to ever play the game.

But again, Peter doesn't know tennis at all, but treasure Peter's opinion as if it were gold. 

g. Jim Harbaugh’s still got the passion, from the looks of that clipboard-flinging in the first half of his first game coaching in Ann Arbor.

Is that passion or is that acting like a spoiled child when he's coaching? 

p. Speaking of dudes who are not declining: What has gotten into Yoenis Cespedes? Sixteen jacks and 41 RBI in his first 39 Mets games. I’m beginning to think the Mets are not going to blow it.

I can't imagine (contract year) what has gotten into Yoenis Cepedes (contract year) over the past couple of months (contract year). It's like he's flipped a switch (contract year) and turned into move than a power hitter who doesn't get on-base (contract year) very much. I wonder if this will continue to last (contract year) after the season when Cespedes gets a big free agent contract (nope, it won't)?

q. Incredulousness of the Week: The Nationals are two games over .500 with three weeks left in the season. And this: The Tampa Bay pitching staff has allowed fewer runs than the one with Scherzer, Strasburg, Gonzalez and Zimmerman.

Peter, just know who you are fucking with when you mess with the three-time Paper World Series Champions. They are the best team in the majors with the best pitching staff in the history of MLB. Just ask them, they will tell you how great they are. When they make the playoffs again, or maybe even catch fire and win a playoff series, we will all be sorry that no one admitted how great the Nationals are. 

u. Some may wonder (some may cheer) about the lack of my rankings of the teams—the Fine Fifteen—in the column today. Many of you over the years have suggested I should wait till every game of the weekend is played before I rank the teams, and I’m stealing your collective idea this year. This season, the Fine Fifteen will be a standalone column on Tuesdays at The MMQB.

(Bengoodfella shakes fist at the sky out of anger that Peter didn't drop this needless exercise, but understands he does it because it's an easy way to attract questions and venom he can put in his mailbag...anything to find a way to create more content, even if you have to make the story yourself)

The Adieu Haiku

With due credit given to The Knack...

Got a song for you.
Ooh you make my motor run.
My Mariota!

It would actually be "M-m-m-my Mariota." Also, the song is about Sharona giving the singer sexual feelings hence she "makes his motor run," so does this mean Peter King has strong sexual feelings for Marcus Mariota. It's the precociousness isn't it? 

So Peter clearly is one of those people who just recites song lyrics and has no idea what he's reciting. The lyrics in the chorus go:

"Never gonna stop, give it up, such a dirty mind
I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind
My, my, my, aye-aye, whoa!
M-m-m-my Sharona
M-m-m-my Sharona"

So Peter has a dirty mind and doesn't mind getting touched by the younger kind, or perhaps getting touched by a younger kind of quarterback. Due credit given to The Knack, zero credit given to Peter for not knowing the rest of the song's lyrics.

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.