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These are excerpts. To read the whole article click the link below.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/01/01/buffalo-bills-playoffs-black-monday-jon-gruden-mmqb-peter-king
Blue Sunday, Black Monday
By Peter King
BUFFALO BILLS
This was going to be another one of those crappy flights home at the end of another December to forget. Kyle Williams has seen 11 of those. He flew home from final-month crushing losses at Baltimore, Philadelphia, the Jets, Atlanta, the Jets again, New England, Miami, New England again, Oakland, Washington and, last year, the Jets, often on the brink of contention as the season really mattered. Every year, for 17 years in a row and all 11 of Williams’ NFL seasons with Buffalo, the Bills would trudge into the off-season, also-rans.
Now, this time, to add to the torture, the knife would be twisted a different way.
Buffalo beat Miami 22-16 Sunday. The game ended at 7:40 p.m. ET. To make the playoffs, the Bills needed Cincinnati to beat Baltimore 1,070 miles away. Baltimore led 27-24, late, and Williams and his teammates crowded around a 36-inch TV at one end of their locker room in south Florida after an inspirational win, one of the best of their lives. Many of the players were still in uniform. It felt tense in there, Williams said later. The Bengals had a last gasp: fourth-and-12 at the Ravens’ 49, with 53 seconds to play.
“I mean, this was it,” Williams said from the locker room a few minutes later. “I see Andy Dalton get pressured, he steps up in the pocket away from the pressure, and we’re all just thinking, Make a play. But, you know, fourth-and-12. How many plays can you make there? Dalton makes a good throw …”
A superb throw, in stride, to second-year wideout Tyler Boyd. The room begins to erupt.
“The guy breaks a tackle,” Williams said …
There goes Boyd. You know what Chris Berman would say here, right? The Bills’ fan of all Bills’ fans …
He could … go … all … the … way
Boyd does. Touchdown.
View: https://twitter.com/buffalobills/status/947718658855280641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.si.com%2Fnfl%2F2018%2F01%2F01%2Fbuffalo-bills-playoffs-black-monday-jon-gruden-mmqb-peter-king
“Pandemonium,” Williams said. “Guys hugging, guys crying. And all I can think of is, Baltimore’s got three timeouts left. They got Flacco. They got almost a minute. This isn’t over.”
That isn’t the ranting of a negative guy. It’s football realism, the kind you think about when you’ve been a Bill for 12 years like Williams has. But this time the football gods had Williams’ back. The Ravens had nothing left. And the Bills had their first playoff date in 18 years, breaking the longest postseason drought in American team sports. Seattle Mariners (16 years), you’re on the clock.
The NFL’s 98th season has had some weirdness—eight new playoff teams from 2016 for one thing. Another thing: The Jags and Rams being home playoff teams. Another thing: The Vikings being the Vegas favorites to win the NFC, and having a damn good shot to be the first team in 52 Super Bowls to play the big game on its home field. But the Bills making the postseason made grown men cry on Sunday night in Miami, and all over western New York.
I’ll get back to Williams in a moment, but what well-traveled guard Richie Incognito said to me from the bus on the way to the airport after the game just might make more Bills’ fans cry, again.
“This win is for the city of Buffalo,” Incognito said, straining to be heard over the happy racket on the bus. “This is for the people from all walks of life, the average Joes who show up at all our games, in rain, sun, wind, snow, sleet, everything. And all they do is root their asses off for us.
The city’s the butt of jokes. Everybody makes fun of us. But these people, they just keep coming and supporting us, week after week. They’re amazing. The city’s amazing. I am just so excited for them, for everyone in the city. I’m telling you, this win’s for them.
“But I am so happy for Kyle. He is a Buffalo Bill … the Buffalo Bill. Just so consistent, such a great teammate. For him to get to the playoffs and to do what he did today, it’s just perfect.”
What Williams did was touch the ball on offense, and score, for the first time in his career. It seemed like a throw-in, a cool play but nothing that significant. After a Miami pass-interference call gave the Bills the ball at the Dolphins’ one-yard line, Williams entered the game as the upback on what looked sure to be a running play. Buffalo led 13-0. Miami was listless, playing a third-string quarterback.
“We practiced the play during the week,” Williams said. “Ball at the one, I thought we might call it. So I go in. I’ve got a certain aiming point, and I’m focused on that. I can’t hear the snap count—there was too much noise. I have to go on movement of the ball. So I get the handoff and go from there.”
“What exactly are you thinking with the ball in your hand and the end zone in front of you?” I asked.
“I can tell you exactly: Don’t drop the ball. I played a little fullback in high school, and the one thing you learn to is hang onto it.”
View: https://twitter.com/buffalobills/status/947611058385993729?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.si.com%2Fnfl%2F2018%2F01%2F01%2Fbuffalo-bills-playoffs-black-monday-jon-gruden-mmqb-peter-king
No problem there. Williams barreled into the end zone without incident. Buffalo, 19-0. The Bills needed that touchdown, as it turned out. How about the Buffalo Bills going to the postseason for the first time since the 1999 season … and the winning touchdown was scored by 306-pound defensive tackle Kyle Williams?
Just too perfect, really. The whole day was perfect. “Where is today for me? In my poor career? Number one, obviously,” Williams said. “We accomplished stuff today that we set out to accomplish every year, and we did it. All the ups and down I’ve had, we’ve had, worth it. The surgeries, the losses, everything—worth it.”
This was an odd year for the Bills, in many ways. New coach (Sean McDermott), new GM (Brandon Beane), new ways of doing business. The Bills looked like they were playing for 2018 when they traded away big players like Sammy Watkins and Ronald Darby in deals for future draft choices. “People looked at us and said, ‘They’re tanking,’” said Incognito.
“And for some guys in the locker room, it was tough. We had talent going out the door. But [McDermott] basically said, Focus on us. Don’t worry about the noise outside the locker room.” I get that, but one of the tough things had to be that the coach and GM were new, and the locker room had no idea whether to trust everything they did.
Turns out, obviously, Beane knew what he was doing. The Bills are in the playoffs, and they’re one of the two big power-brokers (with Cleveland) in the April draft. But for now, draft, schmaft. For too long, the draft has been the high point of the first eight months of the NFL calendar year in Buffalo. Not this year.
“I never lost hope,” Incognito said. “Days like this are what gets you out of bed in the morning.”
Pause. “Can I tell you one story Kyle tells? I won’t be that good at it, but here’s the short version. Two brothers, out pounding a big rock with a big hammer, trying to break it up. One brother pounds it, pounds it, day after day after day. He gives up. Then one day his brother goes out. The first swing he hits the rock and it breaks. You just keep pounding. You never know when it’ll be the hit that breaks the rock.”
Incognito said he hope the fans were at the Buffalo airport when the plane got back. But you never know; on New Year’s Eve, with a temperature of 2 degrees, after midnight … wouldn’t there be better, and warmer places to be?
But there they were, about 300 fans, at 12:45 this morning, singing and whooping and screaming when the Bills came off the plane onto the snowy tarmac. A fence separated them, but players went to the fence, took selfies and danced in glee. At his car, Williams took pictures and hugged a score of fans. An APreporter found Williams, who said, “These are the toughest damn people in the world, and I’m so thankful to represent them.”
They take after their team.
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A QUICK LOOK AT WILD-CARD WEEKEND
SATURDAY
4:35 p.m. ET: Tennessee (AFC 5th seed, 9-7) at Kansas City (AFC 4th seed, 10-6), ESPN.
The tale of three seasons for Kansas City is trending in the right direction, which is bad for the offensively shaky Titans. Chiefs’ first season: 5-0. Chiefs’ second season: 1-6. Chiefs’ third season: 4-0 (by an average of 11.8 points per game).
Kansas City had an odd JV type game on Sunday at Denver to cap the season, and now only the Titans stand between them and a rematch, in Foxboro, with the defending Super Bowl champion Patriots. For Tennessee to have a good chance in this game, the strange third season of Marcus Mariota is going to have to improve overnight; he finished the year with 13 touchdown passes and 15 picks, and with the best stiff-arm of his season.
On the way to beating the division champ Jags, Mariota converted a key late third down by straight-arming Jag safety Barry Church to the ground. More of that, please—more running, more physicality. Mariota as a weapon is Tennessee’s best chance at Arrowhead.
8:15 p.m. ET: Atlanta (NFC 6th seed, 10-6) at L.A. Rams (NFC 3rd seed, 11-5), NBC.
On the right day, any team in the NFC playoffs can beat any other team, particularly with the potholes in top-seed Philly’s game right now. Here, the key will be keeping an oppressive Rams front from wrecking an efficient Atlanta run game and Matt Ryan’s passing game. This has been an odd year for Ryan. His accuracy has plummeted five percent, and his plus-31 touchdown-to-interception differential last year sunk to plus-8 in 2017.
He’s had his share of dropped balls. But to beat the Rams, with a red-hot running game and a pass game with multiple little-known weapons, Ryan’s going to have to play mistake-free, the way he did in 2016, and his receivers have to cut down on the drops. The one interesting X factor here? How a team of playoff newbies in Los Angeles will approach the first home playoff game in L.A. since 1985.
SUNDAY
1:05 p.m. ET: Buffalo (AFC 6th seed, 9-7) at Jacksonville (AFC 3rd seed, 10-6), CBS.
The Doug Marrone Revenge Bowl, or something like that. Marrone, you recall, left the Bills in 2014 for what he thought would be greener pastures when he opted out of his contract—and then a head-coaching gig didn’t come for two seasons. The Jags had a great thing going until eight days ago, when the defense got abused by the Niners’ new Montana for 44 points, and then on Sunday, when Blake Bortles played a convincing 2016 version of himself in the 15-10 loss at Tennessee.
This is a strange match, because we don’t know what to expect of the up-and-down Jags, and we don’t know if LeSean McCoy (ankle) will be well enough to play. The Bills will have to fight the just-happy-to-be-there emotion, because their fans are waking up this morning (or this afternoon) thinking they made the Super Bowl. I bet Sean McDermott never thought part of his first-year head-coaching role would be to tamp down happiness in a franchise that hasn’t had any for 17 years.
4:40 p.m. ET: Carolina (NFC 5th seed, 11-5) at New Orleans (NFC 4th seed, 11-5), FOX.
This game does not set up well for Cam Newton and the Panthers. First: Newton’s on an inopportune cold streak, completing only 50 percent of his throws (he’s been wild high) over the last two weeks, and the Panthers have been held under 260 yards of offense in those two games. The Saints, meanwhile, had an odd loss in Tampa Bay on Sunday, but still are as multiple as they’ve been on offense in years. Alvin Kamara is a revelation, both from scrimmage and in the return game.
Who’d have thought he’d have been a more explosive rookie year than Christian McCaffrey? The New Orleans versatility has confounded the Panthers in 34-13 and 31-21 victories this year. You’d figure that Drew Brees would have some good moments against Carolina, knowing the division rival so well, but it’s the run game that has catapulted the Saints to dominance in the two meetings, with 149 and 148 rushing yards in the two regular-season games against the Panthers. Whatever Carolina coordinator Mike Shula has in reserve for this offense, he’d better bring it out now, or it’ll be a short playoff season for the Panthers.
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THE MVP RACE IS GOING TO BE CLOSE or (MUST...STOP...KISSING...PATRIOTS...ASS)
GETTY IMAGES (2)
It will be, at least, if my poll of 28 football people—nine active players, three retired players, a retired coach, two former front-office officials, and 13 other members of the media—mirrors what happens when the 50 voters for the official MVP award turn their ballots into the Associated Pressby Tuesday’s deadline.
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady edged Rams running back Todd Gurley in The MMQB poll for the 2017 MVP. I asked voters to pick five candidates, in order, and I used a 5-4-3-2-1 point scale to tabulate the votes. (The APasks its voters to vote for one, a winner-take-all system. I vote in that poll, but I like a system with more representation.)
Brady got 14.5 first-place votes, and Gurley 9.5—Baltimore safety Eric Weddle split his first-place vote between Brady and Gurley. The difference of the five first-place votes contributed to the difference in our poll. The results:
Player, Pos., Team, Total Points, First-Place Votes
1. Tom Brady, QB, New England, 109.5, 14.5
2. Todd Gurley, RB, L.A. Rams, 97.5, 9.5
3. Carson Wentz, QB, Philadelphia, 75, 2
4. Russell Wilson, QB, Seattle, 37, 1
5. Antonio Brown, WR, Pittsburgh, 25.5, 0
6. Drew Brees, QB, New Orleans, 18, 0
7. Ben Roethlisberger, QB, Pittsburgh, 11.5, 0
T-8. Le’Veon Bell, QB, Pittsburgh, 8, 0
T-8. Aaron Donald, DT, L.A. Rams, 8, 0
10. Case Keenum, QB, Minnesota, 6, 0
THE PANELISTS
Current Players: Terrell Suggs, Jason McCourty, Kyle Juszczyk, Ndamukong Suh, Joe Thomas, Richie Incognito, Russell Okung, Eric Weddle, Josh McCown
Ex-Players: Andrew Hawkins, Geoff Schwartz, Chris Simms
Former Executives/Coaches: Jimmy Johnson, Bill Polian, Amy Trask
Media: Rich Eisen, Steve Wyche, Jenny Vrentas, Jourdan Rodrigue, Bob Papa, Alex Stern, Albert Breer, Sam Farmer, Jarrett Bell, Andrea Kremer, Andy Benoit, Judy Battista, Peter King
There were several interesting votes from my panel:
• Dolphins defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh had Jacksonville’s Calais Campbell first on his list, mindful of the difference the first-year Jag made to his team’s starry defense.
• Okung had two Rams, Gurley and Aaron Donald, 1-2.
• Trask had Gurley’s teammate, left tackle Andrew Whitworth, fourth on her list and did not list Gurley; Trask, imaginatively, believes coach Sean McVay is essentially the Rams’ most valuable player, and it’s hard to argue with the results McVay helped the team create.
Of course, when the APvoters vote, they won’t have five choices. They’ll have one.
Brady won the MVP in 2007 and 2010. If he wins this year, he’d be the oldest MVP in league history, at 40. Brady could have been a slam dunk if he’d had a killer December, but he slipped to a rating of 81.4 over the last four games. Will that matter to the voters?
Brady’s being mortal will probably make it a race. Still, he led the NFL in passing yards (4,577), 10 seasons after the last time he led the NFL in that category. We’ll see with the AP voters if Gurley’s late rush (though he did not play Sunday in the Rams’ finale because his team had its division clinched) makes a difference.
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THE AWARD SECTION
CLASSY PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Duke Johnson Jr., running back, Cleveland. At Pittsburgh, with Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier watching from a private suite while still recovering from his spinal-cord injury, Johnson scored on a two-yard run early in the second quarter. He kneeled as through praying for Shazier, rose from the ground, gestured at the box where Shazier watched, and held up five fingers on his right hand and a fist on the left—the number “50,” Shazier’s number—and displayed it for Shazier to see. A touching, meaningful, excellent tribute by a visiting player to a fallen rival.
OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Frank Gore, running back, Indianapolis. In the 196th (and possibly last) game of his illustrious career, Gore rushed 24 times for 100 yards, making him the fifth player in NFL history to eclipse 14,000 rushing yards. If it’s over for him, Gore, 34, would finish with 14,026 rushing yards, fifth on the all-time list, and the respect of those he played with and against.
Andy Dalton, quarterback, Cincinnati. Dalton had a forgettable 2017 but finished with perhaps his best game of the year in helping the Bengals spoil the season of the rival Ravens. Dalton threw for 222 yards and three touchdowns, most notably the final 49-yard strike on 4th-and-12 to Tyler Boyd with 53 seconds left, to give Cincy the lead and eventually the win. Buffalo, don't let Dalton buy wings or a Genny Cream there anytime soon.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Jaylen Smith, linebacker, Dallas. Lots of head-shaking and hand-wringing when the Cowboys took Smith 34th overall in the 2016 draft—despite Smith’s ruined knee from the Fiesta Bowl as a Notre Damer, which threatened whether he’d ever play football at a high level again. Smith showed in the 6-0 shutout of the awfully shaky Eagles that he’s going to be a contributing player on a good defense going forward.
On a third-quarter series at frigid Lincoln Financial Field, Smith stuffed Brent Celek after a five-yard catch, then, six plays later, Smith burst through the right side of the Eagles line and enveloped Wendell Smallwood for a five-yard loss. That forced an eventual Eagles punt. Smith just looks like a good player after struggling to be competitive for much of two seasons.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
JuJu Smith-Schuster, wide receiver/returner, Pittsburgh. The Steeler stars got the day off on Sunday, with a first-round bye clinched. All except one. In a tight 21-21 game between the Browns and the Steelers JV team in the third quarter, Smith-Schuster took a kickoff at the Pittsburgh four-yard line, burst up the right seam, bounced out of two tackle tries near midfield, and ran for a 96-yard touchdown. For the day, Smith-Schuster was the most productive player in football: eight catches, 143 yards, one touchdown receiving; two kick returns, 122 yards, one touchdown returning … 265 all-purpose yards, two touchdowns.
Tyler Lockett, wide receiver/returner, Seattle. His 99-yard kickoff return, coming on the heels of a first-possession touchdown by the underdog Cardinals, tied a crucial game for the Seahawks early. And then …
Alvin Kamara, running back/returner, New Orleans. Two minutes later, on the other side of the country …Kamara’s 106-yard kickoff return, coming on the heels of a first-possession touchdown by the underdog Bucs, tied a crucial game for the Saints early.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Jeff Rodgers, special teams coordinator, Chicago. Very cool play set up by Rodgers, a St. Paul native coaching in his home area at the Vikings. He had ace punt-return threat Tarik Cohen back to return, and lined up defensive back Bryce Callahan as a sidecar on the other side of the field. When the punt was coming down—closer to Callahan than Cohen—Callahan ran to grab it while Cohen played like the ball was coming straight down to him.
The Vikings ran toward Cohen. Meanwhile, Callahan nabbed the punt at the Bears 41 and sprinted down the left side of the field. It’s hard to call a 59-yard punt return for touchdown an easy score, but that’s what it was … because of the play designed by Rodgers.
GOAT OF THE WEEK
Corey Coleman, wide receiver, Cleveland. A perfectly illustrative example of the madness of the past two Browns seasons. The scene: Steelers 28, Browns 24, 1:52 left, fourth quarter, fourth-and-two, Cleveland ball at Pittsburgh 27. DeShone Kizer gets the snap, gets out of trouble in the backfield, veers left a couple of steps, sees Coleman—the 15th overall pick in the 2016 draft—all alone at the Steelers 11. All alone. Kizer floats a perfect pass to Coleman.
The ball is coming right at Coleman’s face, and he sticks up both hands to catch a simple throw. The football goes straight through the hands. Incomplete. It would have been first-and-10 just beyond the 10-yard line. Instead, the Browns lose 28-24. Rather than (perhaps) pulling off a nice comeback to get their first win of the season, the Browns become the second NFL team ever to go 0-16.
You absolutely cannot write a story that better explains how the Browns have failed as miserably as they have this year than with the great receiving hope of the future, playing against a crew of many backups, with the game on the line, and muffing the simplest reception he’ll ever have as a professional player.
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STAT OF THE WEEK
You probably figured this, but the Cleveland Browns had the worst two-year stretch in the 98-season history of the NFL. The terrible three:
Team/ Years/ W-L
1. Cleveland/ 2016-17/ 1-31
2. Detroit/ 2008-09/ 2-30
3. St. Louis/ 2008-09/ 3-29
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THINGS I THINK I THINK WHEN I'M NOT THINKING ABOUT TOM BRADY
1. I think these are my quick thoughts on Week 17:
a. Camera work of the day: CBS, after Buffalo tight end Nick O’Leary opened the game at Miami with a touchdown reception, panned to the crowd to show an elderly man in a Bills hat … Jack Nicklaus. That is O’Leary’s grandfather.
b. Awful hit by safety Blake Countess of the Rams on Marquise Goodwin of the Niners. Just awful.
c. Great mental play by Carolina wideout Brenton Bersin, jogging unnoticed off the line on the Panthers’ first TD drive, and getting open for a 27-yard strike from Cam Newton. Bersin is a smart player who can play every spot on the Panthers’ receiver depth chart.
d. Applause to Jameis Winston for hanging in and making some big throws to help carry the Bucs past New Orleans. That gives hope that Winston can rebound from making the same bad decisions he has made for three seasons in Tampa Bay. Not saying he can’t change, but when then-offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter first met with Winston pre-draft in 2015, he talked to him about learning to be more careful with the football.
He’s talked to Winston about 19 times since, about the same stuff, and there it was again, a pick into traffic in the first quarter against the Saints. Winston, though, rebounded from his nightmare ending last week and shaky sections of this game to have enough to win late.
e. Never saw a player block a field goal with his face until Raiders-Chargers on Sunday. Chargers kicker Nick Rose, trying a 50-yarder, kicked it way low, and it smashed into Raider defensive tackle Justin Ellis’ facemask. Ellis never did a thing.
f. Where has that 87-yard perfect rainbow from Derek Carr to Amari Cooper been all season, Raiders?
g. Cam Wake, with a 10-sack season at age 35. That’s a wow.
h. How about this: Wake, since turning 32, has 40 sacks in four seasons.
i. Justin Tucker’s an amazing kicker: 73 of 77 over the past two years, and perfect on those pesky PATs: 65 of 65.
j. Excellent performance by Matthew Stafford (140.4 rating) against the depleted Packers. There just haven’t been enough of those to save his coach’s job.
k. I almost feel sorry for Christian Hackenberg. The 51st pick in the draft in 2016 … two straight playing-out-the-string seasons … and the Jets don’t put him in even one of 32 games. Not one. A terrible pick by the Jets, and obviously now this is in the kid’s head. There’s no way it can’t be. He has to think his bosses think he’s a failure.
l. Orleans Darkwa: If you were trying to make a push for a 2018 roster spot in front of the new GM, you’re off to a good start. The 154-yard performance against Washington, sparked by the 75-yard touchdown gallop early, was vital in the Giants’ third win.
m. Ezekiel Elliott’s 10-game season: 983 yards.
n. Elliott’s 25-game career: 2,614 yards (104.5 yards per game). That’s about what the Cowboys expected when they picked him fourth overall in 2016.
o. Alvin Kamara is an amazing football player.
p. Offensive rookie of the year … I was thinking Ryan Ramczyk, but then Kamara had another game for the record books (even in a loss), and then Kareem Hunt won the rushing title. Tough call this year.
q. The dignity and class of Chuck Pagano …
r. Keenan Allen is going to be good, very good, for a long time.
s. Did you see Doug Baldwin catch that ball a quarter-inch off the rug in Seattle? That’s a great football play.
2. I think Larry Fitzgerald, publicly on the fence about returning for a 15th season in 2018, is most likely to play, even if with a new head coach he may not know. I think it’s now about leaving footprints in the historical sand for Fitzgerald.
3. I think I simply can’t believe the Colts would hire Seattle assistant head coach/offensive line coach Tom Cable as head coach, as Mike Silver of NFL.com suggests is possible. It would be impossible to win that press conference after the performance of the Seattle offensive line in recent seasons, and with the current #MeToo climate in this country. ESPN reported in 2009 that Cable was accused of abuse by three women.
4. I think it’s a great idea by Michael Gehlken of the Las Vegas Review Journal, getting fantasy football players to give back to the causes of the players who helped them win their fantasy leagues. And people are doing it; more than $10,000 has been donated to the Shriners Hospital for Children on behalf of Rams running back Todd Gurley. Gehlken is a fantasy player himself—he covers the Raiders as a beat—and last year thought of a way for NFLers to feel something less than disdain for all the fans who view them as fantasy football commodities only. “I appreciate that these players are not mere commodities,” said Gehlken from California on Saturday night.
“There has always been this frayed relationship between the players and those who play fantasy. People on Twitter will complain about a guy’s performance, or his injury. And so I thought last year, with Week 16 overlapping with Christmas Eve, why not see if I could get fantasy players to donate part of their league winnings to the charities supported by the guys who helped them win that money?
If you’re in Vegas, and you leave a blackjack table with some money, you give your dealer a chip, right? Here’s a way to think of a player in kind. The players don’t need the money. But their causes need the money.” This year fantasy guru Matthew Berry wrote about the cause, and it caught on. Several charities have benefited. If it sounds like something you’d support, here’s Gehlken’s Tweet about it:
View: https://twitter.com/GehlkenNFL/status/944976756368396288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.si.com%2Fnfl%2F2018%2F01%2F01%2Fbuffalo-bills-playoffs-black-monday-jon-gruden-mmqb-peter-king
5. I think, ladies and gentlemen of Browns and Giants and Jets nations, you’re going to have a very tough call to make. Do you fall in love with Sam Darnold or not? It’s not certain the USC quarterback will enter the 2018 draft after his second, and less impressive, college season—he turned the ball over 22 times in 14 games; his .631 completion percentage was down 4.1 points from 2016. But it’s likely he comes out. He looks very much like he needs a third college season.
This was part of Bill Plaschke’s excellent post-Cotton Bowl column, after Darnold’s awful performance in a 24-7 loss to Ohio State: “Darnold seemed stunned, walking into the interview room in full uniform and pads. He stared into space. He spoke with a glare. When asked about his future, which won’t need to be decided until the Jan. 15 declaration date, he didn’t seem ready to talk about it.
‘Right now I think I’m really just focused on hanging out with my teammates for the next couple of days, really just saying bye to the seniors because they put together such a great season,’ he said. ‘It’s tough. I’ll look at everything and make my decision after that.’ It was a scene seeped in sadness …”
6. I think I do not envy John Dorsey and Dave Gettleman, both in the market for franchise passers, picking 1-2 with this crop.
7. I think, based on the little knowledge I have of this crop, I might be tempted to trade down (but not too far) and take Baker Mayfield. Or, if I’m Dorsey, use the fourth overall pick (acquired from Houston last spring) and snag Mayfield there. For those of you who say, THAT’S WAY TOO HIGH, I would say this: If you believe in a quarterback and think he’s going to be your long-term guy, it’s never too high. By the way, I have no idea if Dorsey is a Mayfield guy over the others. But I will be very surprised if Mayfield is not picked in the top 10 come April 27.
8. I think the NFL doesn’t appreciate league leaders enough. Let’s take a moment to do that.
• Rushing champion: Kansas City rookie Kareem Hunt (1,327 yards), 22 yards more than Todd Gurley, who sat the last game because the Rams had the NFC West sewed up. Not bad for the Toledo Rocket, the sixth running back picked and 86th overall choice in last April’s draft.
• Passer rating: Alex Smith, also of the Chiefs, at 104.7.
• Passing yards: 40-year-old Tom Brady, with 4,577, 62 yards better than the re-tooled Philip Rivers.
• Receiving yards: Antonio Brown (1,533), despite missing the last two games with a calf injury.
• Receptions: Miami’s Jarvis Landry continued a brilliant early career, edging Larry Fitzgerald, 112 catches to 109.
• Sacks: Arizona’s Chandler Jones, with two on the final day, finished with a league-high 17. He has 28 in 32 career games with the Cards.
9. I think if that’s it for Eli Manning in New York after 216 games, he went out with a good last game (Giants 18, Washington 10), with the crowd getting to adore him one last time at home, and with the class and dignity that have marked his career. He’s deserving of all the praise he gets, as one of the great Giants of the modern era.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/01/01/buffalo-bills-playoffs-black-monday-jon-gruden-mmqb-peter-king
Blue Sunday, Black Monday
By Peter King
BUFFALO BILLS
This was going to be another one of those crappy flights home at the end of another December to forget. Kyle Williams has seen 11 of those. He flew home from final-month crushing losses at Baltimore, Philadelphia, the Jets, Atlanta, the Jets again, New England, Miami, New England again, Oakland, Washington and, last year, the Jets, often on the brink of contention as the season really mattered. Every year, for 17 years in a row and all 11 of Williams’ NFL seasons with Buffalo, the Bills would trudge into the off-season, also-rans.
Now, this time, to add to the torture, the knife would be twisted a different way.
Buffalo beat Miami 22-16 Sunday. The game ended at 7:40 p.m. ET. To make the playoffs, the Bills needed Cincinnati to beat Baltimore 1,070 miles away. Baltimore led 27-24, late, and Williams and his teammates crowded around a 36-inch TV at one end of their locker room in south Florida after an inspirational win, one of the best of their lives. Many of the players were still in uniform. It felt tense in there, Williams said later. The Bengals had a last gasp: fourth-and-12 at the Ravens’ 49, with 53 seconds to play.
“I mean, this was it,” Williams said from the locker room a few minutes later. “I see Andy Dalton get pressured, he steps up in the pocket away from the pressure, and we’re all just thinking, Make a play. But, you know, fourth-and-12. How many plays can you make there? Dalton makes a good throw …”
A superb throw, in stride, to second-year wideout Tyler Boyd. The room begins to erupt.
“The guy breaks a tackle,” Williams said …
There goes Boyd. You know what Chris Berman would say here, right? The Bills’ fan of all Bills’ fans …
He could … go … all … the … way
Boyd does. Touchdown.
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“Pandemonium,” Williams said. “Guys hugging, guys crying. And all I can think of is, Baltimore’s got three timeouts left. They got Flacco. They got almost a minute. This isn’t over.”
That isn’t the ranting of a negative guy. It’s football realism, the kind you think about when you’ve been a Bill for 12 years like Williams has. But this time the football gods had Williams’ back. The Ravens had nothing left. And the Bills had their first playoff date in 18 years, breaking the longest postseason drought in American team sports. Seattle Mariners (16 years), you’re on the clock.
The NFL’s 98th season has had some weirdness—eight new playoff teams from 2016 for one thing. Another thing: The Jags and Rams being home playoff teams. Another thing: The Vikings being the Vegas favorites to win the NFC, and having a damn good shot to be the first team in 52 Super Bowls to play the big game on its home field. But the Bills making the postseason made grown men cry on Sunday night in Miami, and all over western New York.
I’ll get back to Williams in a moment, but what well-traveled guard Richie Incognito said to me from the bus on the way to the airport after the game just might make more Bills’ fans cry, again.
“This win is for the city of Buffalo,” Incognito said, straining to be heard over the happy racket on the bus. “This is for the people from all walks of life, the average Joes who show up at all our games, in rain, sun, wind, snow, sleet, everything. And all they do is root their asses off for us.
The city’s the butt of jokes. Everybody makes fun of us. But these people, they just keep coming and supporting us, week after week. They’re amazing. The city’s amazing. I am just so excited for them, for everyone in the city. I’m telling you, this win’s for them.
“But I am so happy for Kyle. He is a Buffalo Bill … the Buffalo Bill. Just so consistent, such a great teammate. For him to get to the playoffs and to do what he did today, it’s just perfect.”
What Williams did was touch the ball on offense, and score, for the first time in his career. It seemed like a throw-in, a cool play but nothing that significant. After a Miami pass-interference call gave the Bills the ball at the Dolphins’ one-yard line, Williams entered the game as the upback on what looked sure to be a running play. Buffalo led 13-0. Miami was listless, playing a third-string quarterback.
“We practiced the play during the week,” Williams said. “Ball at the one, I thought we might call it. So I go in. I’ve got a certain aiming point, and I’m focused on that. I can’t hear the snap count—there was too much noise. I have to go on movement of the ball. So I get the handoff and go from there.”
“What exactly are you thinking with the ball in your hand and the end zone in front of you?” I asked.
“I can tell you exactly: Don’t drop the ball. I played a little fullback in high school, and the one thing you learn to is hang onto it.”
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No problem there. Williams barreled into the end zone without incident. Buffalo, 19-0. The Bills needed that touchdown, as it turned out. How about the Buffalo Bills going to the postseason for the first time since the 1999 season … and the winning touchdown was scored by 306-pound defensive tackle Kyle Williams?
Just too perfect, really. The whole day was perfect. “Where is today for me? In my poor career? Number one, obviously,” Williams said. “We accomplished stuff today that we set out to accomplish every year, and we did it. All the ups and down I’ve had, we’ve had, worth it. The surgeries, the losses, everything—worth it.”
This was an odd year for the Bills, in many ways. New coach (Sean McDermott), new GM (Brandon Beane), new ways of doing business. The Bills looked like they were playing for 2018 when they traded away big players like Sammy Watkins and Ronald Darby in deals for future draft choices. “People looked at us and said, ‘They’re tanking,’” said Incognito.
“And for some guys in the locker room, it was tough. We had talent going out the door. But [McDermott] basically said, Focus on us. Don’t worry about the noise outside the locker room.” I get that, but one of the tough things had to be that the coach and GM were new, and the locker room had no idea whether to trust everything they did.
Turns out, obviously, Beane knew what he was doing. The Bills are in the playoffs, and they’re one of the two big power-brokers (with Cleveland) in the April draft. But for now, draft, schmaft. For too long, the draft has been the high point of the first eight months of the NFL calendar year in Buffalo. Not this year.
“I never lost hope,” Incognito said. “Days like this are what gets you out of bed in the morning.”
Pause. “Can I tell you one story Kyle tells? I won’t be that good at it, but here’s the short version. Two brothers, out pounding a big rock with a big hammer, trying to break it up. One brother pounds it, pounds it, day after day after day. He gives up. Then one day his brother goes out. The first swing he hits the rock and it breaks. You just keep pounding. You never know when it’ll be the hit that breaks the rock.”
Incognito said he hope the fans were at the Buffalo airport when the plane got back. But you never know; on New Year’s Eve, with a temperature of 2 degrees, after midnight … wouldn’t there be better, and warmer places to be?
But there they were, about 300 fans, at 12:45 this morning, singing and whooping and screaming when the Bills came off the plane onto the snowy tarmac. A fence separated them, but players went to the fence, took selfies and danced in glee. At his car, Williams took pictures and hugged a score of fans. An APreporter found Williams, who said, “These are the toughest damn people in the world, and I’m so thankful to represent them.”
They take after their team.
* * *
A QUICK LOOK AT WILD-CARD WEEKEND
SATURDAY
4:35 p.m. ET: Tennessee (AFC 5th seed, 9-7) at Kansas City (AFC 4th seed, 10-6), ESPN.
The tale of three seasons for Kansas City is trending in the right direction, which is bad for the offensively shaky Titans. Chiefs’ first season: 5-0. Chiefs’ second season: 1-6. Chiefs’ third season: 4-0 (by an average of 11.8 points per game).
Kansas City had an odd JV type game on Sunday at Denver to cap the season, and now only the Titans stand between them and a rematch, in Foxboro, with the defending Super Bowl champion Patriots. For Tennessee to have a good chance in this game, the strange third season of Marcus Mariota is going to have to improve overnight; he finished the year with 13 touchdown passes and 15 picks, and with the best stiff-arm of his season.
On the way to beating the division champ Jags, Mariota converted a key late third down by straight-arming Jag safety Barry Church to the ground. More of that, please—more running, more physicality. Mariota as a weapon is Tennessee’s best chance at Arrowhead.
8:15 p.m. ET: Atlanta (NFC 6th seed, 10-6) at L.A. Rams (NFC 3rd seed, 11-5), NBC.
On the right day, any team in the NFC playoffs can beat any other team, particularly with the potholes in top-seed Philly’s game right now. Here, the key will be keeping an oppressive Rams front from wrecking an efficient Atlanta run game and Matt Ryan’s passing game. This has been an odd year for Ryan. His accuracy has plummeted five percent, and his plus-31 touchdown-to-interception differential last year sunk to plus-8 in 2017.
He’s had his share of dropped balls. But to beat the Rams, with a red-hot running game and a pass game with multiple little-known weapons, Ryan’s going to have to play mistake-free, the way he did in 2016, and his receivers have to cut down on the drops. The one interesting X factor here? How a team of playoff newbies in Los Angeles will approach the first home playoff game in L.A. since 1985.
SUNDAY
1:05 p.m. ET: Buffalo (AFC 6th seed, 9-7) at Jacksonville (AFC 3rd seed, 10-6), CBS.
The Doug Marrone Revenge Bowl, or something like that. Marrone, you recall, left the Bills in 2014 for what he thought would be greener pastures when he opted out of his contract—and then a head-coaching gig didn’t come for two seasons. The Jags had a great thing going until eight days ago, when the defense got abused by the Niners’ new Montana for 44 points, and then on Sunday, when Blake Bortles played a convincing 2016 version of himself in the 15-10 loss at Tennessee.
This is a strange match, because we don’t know what to expect of the up-and-down Jags, and we don’t know if LeSean McCoy (ankle) will be well enough to play. The Bills will have to fight the just-happy-to-be-there emotion, because their fans are waking up this morning (or this afternoon) thinking they made the Super Bowl. I bet Sean McDermott never thought part of his first-year head-coaching role would be to tamp down happiness in a franchise that hasn’t had any for 17 years.
4:40 p.m. ET: Carolina (NFC 5th seed, 11-5) at New Orleans (NFC 4th seed, 11-5), FOX.
This game does not set up well for Cam Newton and the Panthers. First: Newton’s on an inopportune cold streak, completing only 50 percent of his throws (he’s been wild high) over the last two weeks, and the Panthers have been held under 260 yards of offense in those two games. The Saints, meanwhile, had an odd loss in Tampa Bay on Sunday, but still are as multiple as they’ve been on offense in years. Alvin Kamara is a revelation, both from scrimmage and in the return game.
Who’d have thought he’d have been a more explosive rookie year than Christian McCaffrey? The New Orleans versatility has confounded the Panthers in 34-13 and 31-21 victories this year. You’d figure that Drew Brees would have some good moments against Carolina, knowing the division rival so well, but it’s the run game that has catapulted the Saints to dominance in the two meetings, with 149 and 148 rushing yards in the two regular-season games against the Panthers. Whatever Carolina coordinator Mike Shula has in reserve for this offense, he’d better bring it out now, or it’ll be a short playoff season for the Panthers.
* * *
THE MVP RACE IS GOING TO BE CLOSE or (MUST...STOP...KISSING...PATRIOTS...ASS)
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It will be, at least, if my poll of 28 football people—nine active players, three retired players, a retired coach, two former front-office officials, and 13 other members of the media—mirrors what happens when the 50 voters for the official MVP award turn their ballots into the Associated Pressby Tuesday’s deadline.
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady edged Rams running back Todd Gurley in The MMQB poll for the 2017 MVP. I asked voters to pick five candidates, in order, and I used a 5-4-3-2-1 point scale to tabulate the votes. (The APasks its voters to vote for one, a winner-take-all system. I vote in that poll, but I like a system with more representation.)
Brady got 14.5 first-place votes, and Gurley 9.5—Baltimore safety Eric Weddle split his first-place vote between Brady and Gurley. The difference of the five first-place votes contributed to the difference in our poll. The results:
Player, Pos., Team, Total Points, First-Place Votes
1. Tom Brady, QB, New England, 109.5, 14.5
2. Todd Gurley, RB, L.A. Rams, 97.5, 9.5
3. Carson Wentz, QB, Philadelphia, 75, 2
4. Russell Wilson, QB, Seattle, 37, 1
5. Antonio Brown, WR, Pittsburgh, 25.5, 0
6. Drew Brees, QB, New Orleans, 18, 0
7. Ben Roethlisberger, QB, Pittsburgh, 11.5, 0
T-8. Le’Veon Bell, QB, Pittsburgh, 8, 0
T-8. Aaron Donald, DT, L.A. Rams, 8, 0
10. Case Keenum, QB, Minnesota, 6, 0
THE PANELISTS
Current Players: Terrell Suggs, Jason McCourty, Kyle Juszczyk, Ndamukong Suh, Joe Thomas, Richie Incognito, Russell Okung, Eric Weddle, Josh McCown
Ex-Players: Andrew Hawkins, Geoff Schwartz, Chris Simms
Former Executives/Coaches: Jimmy Johnson, Bill Polian, Amy Trask
Media: Rich Eisen, Steve Wyche, Jenny Vrentas, Jourdan Rodrigue, Bob Papa, Alex Stern, Albert Breer, Sam Farmer, Jarrett Bell, Andrea Kremer, Andy Benoit, Judy Battista, Peter King
There were several interesting votes from my panel:
• Dolphins defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh had Jacksonville’s Calais Campbell first on his list, mindful of the difference the first-year Jag made to his team’s starry defense.
• Okung had two Rams, Gurley and Aaron Donald, 1-2.
• Trask had Gurley’s teammate, left tackle Andrew Whitworth, fourth on her list and did not list Gurley; Trask, imaginatively, believes coach Sean McVay is essentially the Rams’ most valuable player, and it’s hard to argue with the results McVay helped the team create.
Of course, when the APvoters vote, they won’t have five choices. They’ll have one.
Brady won the MVP in 2007 and 2010. If he wins this year, he’d be the oldest MVP in league history, at 40. Brady could have been a slam dunk if he’d had a killer December, but he slipped to a rating of 81.4 over the last four games. Will that matter to the voters?
Brady’s being mortal will probably make it a race. Still, he led the NFL in passing yards (4,577), 10 seasons after the last time he led the NFL in that category. We’ll see with the AP voters if Gurley’s late rush (though he did not play Sunday in the Rams’ finale because his team had its division clinched) makes a difference.
* * *
THE AWARD SECTION
CLASSY PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Duke Johnson Jr., running back, Cleveland. At Pittsburgh, with Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier watching from a private suite while still recovering from his spinal-cord injury, Johnson scored on a two-yard run early in the second quarter. He kneeled as through praying for Shazier, rose from the ground, gestured at the box where Shazier watched, and held up five fingers on his right hand and a fist on the left—the number “50,” Shazier’s number—and displayed it for Shazier to see. A touching, meaningful, excellent tribute by a visiting player to a fallen rival.
OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Frank Gore, running back, Indianapolis. In the 196th (and possibly last) game of his illustrious career, Gore rushed 24 times for 100 yards, making him the fifth player in NFL history to eclipse 14,000 rushing yards. If it’s over for him, Gore, 34, would finish with 14,026 rushing yards, fifth on the all-time list, and the respect of those he played with and against.
Andy Dalton, quarterback, Cincinnati. Dalton had a forgettable 2017 but finished with perhaps his best game of the year in helping the Bengals spoil the season of the rival Ravens. Dalton threw for 222 yards and three touchdowns, most notably the final 49-yard strike on 4th-and-12 to Tyler Boyd with 53 seconds left, to give Cincy the lead and eventually the win. Buffalo, don't let Dalton buy wings or a Genny Cream there anytime soon.
DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Jaylen Smith, linebacker, Dallas. Lots of head-shaking and hand-wringing when the Cowboys took Smith 34th overall in the 2016 draft—despite Smith’s ruined knee from the Fiesta Bowl as a Notre Damer, which threatened whether he’d ever play football at a high level again. Smith showed in the 6-0 shutout of the awfully shaky Eagles that he’s going to be a contributing player on a good defense going forward.
On a third-quarter series at frigid Lincoln Financial Field, Smith stuffed Brent Celek after a five-yard catch, then, six plays later, Smith burst through the right side of the Eagles line and enveloped Wendell Smallwood for a five-yard loss. That forced an eventual Eagles punt. Smith just looks like a good player after struggling to be competitive for much of two seasons.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
JuJu Smith-Schuster, wide receiver/returner, Pittsburgh. The Steeler stars got the day off on Sunday, with a first-round bye clinched. All except one. In a tight 21-21 game between the Browns and the Steelers JV team in the third quarter, Smith-Schuster took a kickoff at the Pittsburgh four-yard line, burst up the right seam, bounced out of two tackle tries near midfield, and ran for a 96-yard touchdown. For the day, Smith-Schuster was the most productive player in football: eight catches, 143 yards, one touchdown receiving; two kick returns, 122 yards, one touchdown returning … 265 all-purpose yards, two touchdowns.
Tyler Lockett, wide receiver/returner, Seattle. His 99-yard kickoff return, coming on the heels of a first-possession touchdown by the underdog Cardinals, tied a crucial game for the Seahawks early. And then …
Alvin Kamara, running back/returner, New Orleans. Two minutes later, on the other side of the country …Kamara’s 106-yard kickoff return, coming on the heels of a first-possession touchdown by the underdog Bucs, tied a crucial game for the Saints early.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Jeff Rodgers, special teams coordinator, Chicago. Very cool play set up by Rodgers, a St. Paul native coaching in his home area at the Vikings. He had ace punt-return threat Tarik Cohen back to return, and lined up defensive back Bryce Callahan as a sidecar on the other side of the field. When the punt was coming down—closer to Callahan than Cohen—Callahan ran to grab it while Cohen played like the ball was coming straight down to him.
The Vikings ran toward Cohen. Meanwhile, Callahan nabbed the punt at the Bears 41 and sprinted down the left side of the field. It’s hard to call a 59-yard punt return for touchdown an easy score, but that’s what it was … because of the play designed by Rodgers.
GOAT OF THE WEEK
Corey Coleman, wide receiver, Cleveland. A perfectly illustrative example of the madness of the past two Browns seasons. The scene: Steelers 28, Browns 24, 1:52 left, fourth quarter, fourth-and-two, Cleveland ball at Pittsburgh 27. DeShone Kizer gets the snap, gets out of trouble in the backfield, veers left a couple of steps, sees Coleman—the 15th overall pick in the 2016 draft—all alone at the Steelers 11. All alone. Kizer floats a perfect pass to Coleman.
The ball is coming right at Coleman’s face, and he sticks up both hands to catch a simple throw. The football goes straight through the hands. Incomplete. It would have been first-and-10 just beyond the 10-yard line. Instead, the Browns lose 28-24. Rather than (perhaps) pulling off a nice comeback to get their first win of the season, the Browns become the second NFL team ever to go 0-16.
You absolutely cannot write a story that better explains how the Browns have failed as miserably as they have this year than with the great receiving hope of the future, playing against a crew of many backups, with the game on the line, and muffing the simplest reception he’ll ever have as a professional player.
* * *
STAT OF THE WEEK
You probably figured this, but the Cleveland Browns had the worst two-year stretch in the 98-season history of the NFL. The terrible three:
Team/ Years/ W-L
1. Cleveland/ 2016-17/ 1-31
2. Detroit/ 2008-09/ 2-30
3. St. Louis/ 2008-09/ 3-29
* * *
THINGS I THINK I THINK WHEN I'M NOT THINKING ABOUT TOM BRADY
1. I think these are my quick thoughts on Week 17:
a. Camera work of the day: CBS, after Buffalo tight end Nick O’Leary opened the game at Miami with a touchdown reception, panned to the crowd to show an elderly man in a Bills hat … Jack Nicklaus. That is O’Leary’s grandfather.
b. Awful hit by safety Blake Countess of the Rams on Marquise Goodwin of the Niners. Just awful.
c. Great mental play by Carolina wideout Brenton Bersin, jogging unnoticed off the line on the Panthers’ first TD drive, and getting open for a 27-yard strike from Cam Newton. Bersin is a smart player who can play every spot on the Panthers’ receiver depth chart.
d. Applause to Jameis Winston for hanging in and making some big throws to help carry the Bucs past New Orleans. That gives hope that Winston can rebound from making the same bad decisions he has made for three seasons in Tampa Bay. Not saying he can’t change, but when then-offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter first met with Winston pre-draft in 2015, he talked to him about learning to be more careful with the football.
He’s talked to Winston about 19 times since, about the same stuff, and there it was again, a pick into traffic in the first quarter against the Saints. Winston, though, rebounded from his nightmare ending last week and shaky sections of this game to have enough to win late.
e. Never saw a player block a field goal with his face until Raiders-Chargers on Sunday. Chargers kicker Nick Rose, trying a 50-yarder, kicked it way low, and it smashed into Raider defensive tackle Justin Ellis’ facemask. Ellis never did a thing.
f. Where has that 87-yard perfect rainbow from Derek Carr to Amari Cooper been all season, Raiders?
g. Cam Wake, with a 10-sack season at age 35. That’s a wow.
h. How about this: Wake, since turning 32, has 40 sacks in four seasons.
i. Justin Tucker’s an amazing kicker: 73 of 77 over the past two years, and perfect on those pesky PATs: 65 of 65.
j. Excellent performance by Matthew Stafford (140.4 rating) against the depleted Packers. There just haven’t been enough of those to save his coach’s job.
k. I almost feel sorry for Christian Hackenberg. The 51st pick in the draft in 2016 … two straight playing-out-the-string seasons … and the Jets don’t put him in even one of 32 games. Not one. A terrible pick by the Jets, and obviously now this is in the kid’s head. There’s no way it can’t be. He has to think his bosses think he’s a failure.
l. Orleans Darkwa: If you were trying to make a push for a 2018 roster spot in front of the new GM, you’re off to a good start. The 154-yard performance against Washington, sparked by the 75-yard touchdown gallop early, was vital in the Giants’ third win.
m. Ezekiel Elliott’s 10-game season: 983 yards.
n. Elliott’s 25-game career: 2,614 yards (104.5 yards per game). That’s about what the Cowboys expected when they picked him fourth overall in 2016.
o. Alvin Kamara is an amazing football player.
p. Offensive rookie of the year … I was thinking Ryan Ramczyk, but then Kamara had another game for the record books (even in a loss), and then Kareem Hunt won the rushing title. Tough call this year.
q. The dignity and class of Chuck Pagano …
r. Keenan Allen is going to be good, very good, for a long time.
s. Did you see Doug Baldwin catch that ball a quarter-inch off the rug in Seattle? That’s a great football play.
2. I think Larry Fitzgerald, publicly on the fence about returning for a 15th season in 2018, is most likely to play, even if with a new head coach he may not know. I think it’s now about leaving footprints in the historical sand for Fitzgerald.
3. I think I simply can’t believe the Colts would hire Seattle assistant head coach/offensive line coach Tom Cable as head coach, as Mike Silver of NFL.com suggests is possible. It would be impossible to win that press conference after the performance of the Seattle offensive line in recent seasons, and with the current #MeToo climate in this country. ESPN reported in 2009 that Cable was accused of abuse by three women.
4. I think it’s a great idea by Michael Gehlken of the Las Vegas Review Journal, getting fantasy football players to give back to the causes of the players who helped them win their fantasy leagues. And people are doing it; more than $10,000 has been donated to the Shriners Hospital for Children on behalf of Rams running back Todd Gurley. Gehlken is a fantasy player himself—he covers the Raiders as a beat—and last year thought of a way for NFLers to feel something less than disdain for all the fans who view them as fantasy football commodities only. “I appreciate that these players are not mere commodities,” said Gehlken from California on Saturday night.
“There has always been this frayed relationship between the players and those who play fantasy. People on Twitter will complain about a guy’s performance, or his injury. And so I thought last year, with Week 16 overlapping with Christmas Eve, why not see if I could get fantasy players to donate part of their league winnings to the charities supported by the guys who helped them win that money?
If you’re in Vegas, and you leave a blackjack table with some money, you give your dealer a chip, right? Here’s a way to think of a player in kind. The players don’t need the money. But their causes need the money.” This year fantasy guru Matthew Berry wrote about the cause, and it caught on. Several charities have benefited. If it sounds like something you’d support, here’s Gehlken’s Tweet about it:
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5. I think, ladies and gentlemen of Browns and Giants and Jets nations, you’re going to have a very tough call to make. Do you fall in love with Sam Darnold or not? It’s not certain the USC quarterback will enter the 2018 draft after his second, and less impressive, college season—he turned the ball over 22 times in 14 games; his .631 completion percentage was down 4.1 points from 2016. But it’s likely he comes out. He looks very much like he needs a third college season.
This was part of Bill Plaschke’s excellent post-Cotton Bowl column, after Darnold’s awful performance in a 24-7 loss to Ohio State: “Darnold seemed stunned, walking into the interview room in full uniform and pads. He stared into space. He spoke with a glare. When asked about his future, which won’t need to be decided until the Jan. 15 declaration date, he didn’t seem ready to talk about it.
‘Right now I think I’m really just focused on hanging out with my teammates for the next couple of days, really just saying bye to the seniors because they put together such a great season,’ he said. ‘It’s tough. I’ll look at everything and make my decision after that.’ It was a scene seeped in sadness …”
6. I think I do not envy John Dorsey and Dave Gettleman, both in the market for franchise passers, picking 1-2 with this crop.
7. I think, based on the little knowledge I have of this crop, I might be tempted to trade down (but not too far) and take Baker Mayfield. Or, if I’m Dorsey, use the fourth overall pick (acquired from Houston last spring) and snag Mayfield there. For those of you who say, THAT’S WAY TOO HIGH, I would say this: If you believe in a quarterback and think he’s going to be your long-term guy, it’s never too high. By the way, I have no idea if Dorsey is a Mayfield guy over the others. But I will be very surprised if Mayfield is not picked in the top 10 come April 27.
8. I think the NFL doesn’t appreciate league leaders enough. Let’s take a moment to do that.
• Rushing champion: Kansas City rookie Kareem Hunt (1,327 yards), 22 yards more than Todd Gurley, who sat the last game because the Rams had the NFC West sewed up. Not bad for the Toledo Rocket, the sixth running back picked and 86th overall choice in last April’s draft.
• Passer rating: Alex Smith, also of the Chiefs, at 104.7.
• Passing yards: 40-year-old Tom Brady, with 4,577, 62 yards better than the re-tooled Philip Rivers.
• Receiving yards: Antonio Brown (1,533), despite missing the last two games with a calf injury.
• Receptions: Miami’s Jarvis Landry continued a brilliant early career, edging Larry Fitzgerald, 112 catches to 109.
• Sacks: Arizona’s Chandler Jones, with two on the final day, finished with a league-high 17. He has 28 in 32 career games with the Cards.
9. I think if that’s it for Eli Manning in New York after 216 games, he went out with a good last game (Giants 18, Washington 10), with the crowd getting to adore him one last time at home, and with the class and dignity that have marked his career. He’s deserving of all the praise he gets, as one of the great Giants of the modern era.
