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The usual butt-kissing of the Patriots(he even threw in Tom Brady's mommy for good measure), so I'm not posting that. Few mentions of the Rams but Sean McVay was given Coach of the Week honors, so we'll start with that. The rest, if you're interested, can be accessed by clicking the link below.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/23/nfl-week-7-doug-baldwin-roger-goodell-joe-thomas-dan-quinn-mmqb
COACH OF THE WEEK
Sean McVay, head coach, Los Angeles Rams. It is Oct. 23. The Rams are 5-2. The Rams are averaging a league-high 30.3 points per game. The metamorphosis of this offense is complete. For my money the best example of it this year was Jared Goff—who decidedly is not a running threat—sucking in the Arizona defense at the 9-yard line late in the first half, pulling back the handoff, seeing eight Card defenders run like an amoeba to the center of the line, and there went Goff for a fairly easy touchdown run. McVay is so imaginative, and has created so many intelligent options for an offense that was so awful last year. He is the runaway coach of the year through seven weeks, in my book.
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“It just doesn’t make sense. We play Arizona. It’s a 45-minute flight [from Los Angeles to Phoenix]. But instead we’ve got Arizona and us [in London]. If we were to travel all the way from LA it’s 13 hours. But hey, whatever floats their boat.”
—Rams running back Todd Gurley, in London for Sunday’s Cards-Rams game, complaining about two western teams traveling to Europe to play a regular-season game.
It’s 10.5 hours, according to FlightAware, to fly non-stop from Los Angeles to London. (And the Rams flew from Jacksonville anyway.) But I get Gurley’s point. Imagine how teams will feel in 2022 or 2023 when the NFL puts a franchise in London, and the London team has a real home-field advantage, welcoming teams that have to fly six to 10 hours to play in England.
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Todd Gurley is a terrific and elusive receiver. Amazing that the Rams never thought of featuring him that way in his first two seasons.
(A snarky unintelligent question by PK. Could it be because Jeff Fisher was running the show instead of the offensive-minded Sean McVay? Duh)
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And that's it for PK's Rams coverage for the week. :baghead:
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The Fog, the Flag and the Football
By Peter King
JOE THOMAS: LONG LIVE THE STREAK
My first reaction after Cleveland tackle Joe Thomas suffered a triceps injury that knocked him out of the game for the first time in 167 NFL games: Is it possible his record streak will never be broken? Could this be a Cal Ripken streak, or maybe even one that’s harder to break? Ripken’s streak of 2,632 consecutive games played was achieved over 17 seasons and likely won’t be broken. But he came out of games. He didn’t play 2,632 complete games. Thomas’ streak was compiled over 11 seasons.
He played every play of his first 166 games in the NFL, since being drafted in 2007, and then 38 plays of his 167th game, against Tennessee, before getting injured while blocking for a Duke Johnson running play with 5:35 left in the third quarter. Thomas shoved a linebacker with his left hand, something he must have done 1,000 times in his career.
Only this time his arm buckled. Thomas fell to the ground in pain and had to leave the game. Second-year tackle Spencer Drango from Baylor will be the answer to a trivia question forever. He was the first Browns player other than Joe Thomas to play left tackle since 2006.
NFL GAMEPASS
There’s a high likelihood that Thomas tore the triceps—he was scheduled to have an MRI Monday morning—and if he did, his season’s over. In any case, the streak is over. By my possibly imprecise calculations (I went through Pro Football Focus snap counts Sunday night), an offensive lineman who learned from Thomas for the first four years of his career, Mitchell Schwartz, is slightly more than halfway to Thomas’ consecutive plays streak—assuming the PFF numbers are correct.
Schwartz played four years with Cleveland and now is in his second with the Chiefs, and he has played every regular-season play of a five-and-a-half-year career—87 games, 5,891 snaps. If he can play every play for the next five seasons, Schwartz will be in Thomas’ league.
View: https://twitter.com/SI_PeterKing/status/922312902530486272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.si.com%2Fnfl%2F2017%2F10%2F23%2Fnfl-week-7-doug-baldwin-roger-goodell-joe-thomas-dan-quinn-mmqb
Thomas was taking it well Sunday night, one friend said, and not angry or crushed about it. He figures he was fortunate to be on the field for every snap of 167 straight games, something that will be incredibly hard to top.
The legacy of Thomas is not just his durability, but his greatness: It’s likely he’ll be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame one day, an amazing achievement considering he’s played on the worst team in football for a decade. That how good, and how well-respected, Joe Thomas has been.
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The Derek Carr Throws That Saved the Oakland Raiders’ Season
THEARON W. HENDERSON/GETTY IMAGES
Derek Carr of the Raiders had such a fabulous, ridiculously clutch final drive on Thursday night, and I cannot let it pass without paying homage to the 26-year-old quarterback. This drive could become a defining moment in his ascending career.
“That drive,” the color man who did the game, Tony Romo, said Saturday night, “sent a message to his teammates and his coaches. He’s not a kid anymore. His poise, the throws he made the with their season on the line—and I had people say before the game, ‘Their season’s not over if they lose,’ but come on, as a player you know this was as must-win as any game you’ll play this season—showed that they’ve got a player now who can win any game.”
Think about what Carr did 18 days after breaking three bones in his back, with the Raiders’ season on the line, trailing the no-doubt best team in the division—Kansas City—by six, with 1:47 left in the game, on second-and-20 from the Oakland 20.
At that moment, the Chiefs were 5-1, with a three-game lead on the 2-4 Raiders. What made the situation more dire for Oakland: Games away from home loomed against Buffalo, New England (in Mexico City), Kansas City and Philadelphia in the last 10 games. A fifth loss, and the playoffs would be nearly an impossible dream for Oakland, as Romo said.
I count four huge, winning Carr throws in the last 107 seconds of this game. With the season on the brink, Carr made four throws that no quarterback past or present could have placed any better, or made any more confidently. I find that extraordinary. With the kind of pressure Carr was facing, he made throws that were textbook, and if any one of them failed, there’s a good chance the Raiders would be 2-5 and playing for 2018 this morning. The throws that saved Oakland’s season, with videos here:
• First throw, second-and-20, Oakland 20, 1:47 left. With cornerback Terrance Mitchell singled against Amari Cooper in the left slot, Cooper ran a skinny post, trying to bisect two deep safeties. About 10 yards into his route he deked left, and Mitchell bit; that was enough for Carr to think he had the space to parachute a deep throw.
The ball traveled 44 yards in the air, perfectly thrown and timed, and got to Cooper a second before the safeties converged for the tackle. “The level of difficulty on that throw is off the charts because of the danger involved,” said the last Raiders quarterback to win the MVP, Rich Gannon. I reached out to Gannon on Saturday to dissect the final drive. “Such a tough throw to make.” Gain of 39.
• Second throw, fourth-and-11, Kansas City 42, 0:41 left. With nickel safety Eric Murray on tight end Jared Cook, Cook drags Murray on a short post from the left slot, and Carr hits him perfectly in a hole in the middle of the defense that—uncharacteristically for smart defenders like Kansas City’s—was just too big. Gain of 13.
• Third throw, third-and-10, Kansas City 29, 0:23 left. The play looked ugly from the start, two Raiders receivers flooding the same area inside the 10 on the way to the left pylon. Carr let it fly, and Cook skied above three others (two Chiefs, one Raider) in his area to come down with it, and he sprawled into the end zone a yard to the left of the pylon.
Replay would show him down at the half-yard line. “Unbelievable throw,” Gannon said. “The routes were run right; somebody got it wrong. But it’s right about that time you think he’s like Michael Jordan used to be at the end of games. You know, everybody get out of the way, get out of the lane. Let me handle this.” Gain of 28.
• Fourth throw, first-and-goal, Kansas City 2, 0:00 left (untimed down). After three accurately called penalties turned the final seven seconds on the clock into some Bizarro Football World event, Carr lined up in shotgun. Michael Crabtree was the key receiver to his left, Cooper to his right. We’d learn this later, but the Oakland offense had a roll-right red-zone play in the game plan, but not a roll-left here. Carr thought it best—I’m assuming because he trusted the physical Crabtree on lesser cover men than Marcus Peters on Carr’s right.
Carr took the snap and rolled left. “I was thinking when I saw that, ‘Oh no, what are they doing?’” Gannon said. “The sprint-right option is such a better play for him. On a scale of difficulty going to the left, it’s so easy to miss that throw, because it’s not a throw you normally make.” The throw was laid into Crabtree’s gut in the end zone, just beyond the left pylon. (Man, that pylon got a workout in the last 23 seconds.) The PAT gave Oakland a 31-30 win.
The first victory of Carr’s career, in 2014, came over the Chiefs, after an 0-10 Raider start. Since then he’d lost to the Chiefs in all five starts—by 18, 14, six, 16 and eight points … 0-5, by an average of 12.8 points per start.
In the giddy Oakland locker room, coach Jack Del Rio put Carr’s feat in perspective thusly to his team: “When you got a triggerman like DC, we’re gonna win a lot of games.”
“Poise is so important,” Romo said. “You think you’ve won three times, and you gotta come back and do it again.”
“He saved the season,” Gannon said. “Think of the range of emotions in the last 10 seconds. First you think you’ve won; the coaches take their headsets off. Game over. But the refs put the ball at the one. Then you get what you think is the winning TD to Crabtree, and you got offensive pass interference. The ball’s back at the 11. Now you think it’s gonna be really hard to win. Then on the last play he rolls left and throws the game-winner. Derek never blinked.
What strong inner confidence he has. Hopefully the offensive coordinator [Todd Downing] learned something in that game. He’s been taking some criticism, and he should. This is my belief: In critical situations, you cannot think about plays. You have to think about players. Forget ‘2 Jet Flanker Drive.’ Think about Derek Carr. Think about his best throws there.”
The Raiders did. Their best chance for the playoffs with that brutal schedule down the stretch? Let Carr drive the team.
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POD PEOPLE
This week’s conversations: Veteran Packer reporter Bob McGinn of BobMcGinnFootball.com, and longtime Dallas play-by-play voice Brad Sham.
McGinn, on how he thinks Aaron Rodgers plays on the edge too much for a franchise quarterback: “Rodgers was off to a very good start. He led the league in touchdown passes [after five weeks] and he led the league in something else too—sacks taken. He had 19 and tied with him was Carson Palmer, the immobile one. By my count [Rodgers] also had been knocked down 16 times. If you look at his record in both those categories throughout his career, they are both high. He holds the ball, he takes a lot of sacks, and when he extends plays, he lives a very dangerous life out there. Now this play in question, everybody does this type of thing, it's an escape right, you throw the ball, you get hit by an extremely fast linebacker.
But I want to bring a play up in the [Week 2] Atlanta game. They are down 11 with a minute left and the ball is on the Green Bay 12. This game is over; it's garbage time. From shotgun, there's pressure in the middle and he spins out to his left. Just dump the ball, right, Peter? … He holds it for 5.1 seconds and here comes Adrian Claiborne and absolutely levels him.
The pass flutters incomplete. He just gets drilled at the goal line. Now … he's extremely tough, but this stuff, he takes too many chances for his own safety and for the health of the franchise. The law of averages can catch up to you every three or four years—the [2013] broken collarbone, and now this one!"
• Sham, on how the Cowboys nearly hired Marty Schottenheimer to replace Tom Landry before the team was sold to Jerry Jones in 1989: “Most people who revile Jerry Jones do it because of his dismissal of Tom Landry. I always say, let's see how much you know, because Tex Schramm wanted to get rid of Tom Landry. I wrote a book in 2003 called ‘Stadium Stories,’ and one of the chapters I did was on Tex, and it was about six months before he died. I'd known him 35 years, but I spent a whole day with him, and he told me things that I didn't know. In 1986, Landry says to Schramm, ‘Get ready. Get the next guy. I'm thinking about [retiring].’
Landry hires the hottest young assistant coach in the NFL, Paul Hackett from the 49ers … He hired Hackett because Landry said get the next guy ready. Landry then proceeded to change everything Hackett did, and that was also the year that Herschel Walker got dropped in their lap in the middle of training camp. Landry then decides, without telling anyone, that he's not going to quit.
And either ’87 or ’88 in the spring, Landry holds a press conference, and Schramm had Marty Schottenheimer in Dallas showing him houses. He thought he was going to hire Marty Schottenheimer to replace Tom Landry, who was going to retire. Landry has his press conference, and that's when Schramm finds out that Landry is not quitting.
He says there's been a lot of speculation, but I want to tell everybody that I'm staying and I hope to coach into the ’90s, and we all thought he meant into his 90s. That's how Schramm found out.”
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Things I Think I Think
1. I think I got a kick out of Jamal Adams, the rookie safety of the Jets, telling Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News, “I’m going to change the position.” I got a kick out of this oddly timed bravado because:
• Adams has played seven NFL games.
• The man who is going to change the safety position was the 63rd-rated safety in the league through six games according to Pro Football Focus numbers. Also per PFF, Adams in coverage was allowing opposing quarterbacks a 133.8 rating. Perhaps instead of “changing the position” he could “change his cover technique for the better.”
• His coach, Todd Bowles, already changed the position in Arizona (and then some with the Jets) by turning hard-hitting safeties into linebacker/safety combo-platters by playing some safeties consistently close to the line in place of inside ’backers.
Clearly Adams is a bright prospect and has the chance to become one of the best safeties in football. And he did make some positive plays Sunday, including a tip that led to an teammate’s interception. But how does one “change a position”? Ronnie Lott is the best safety I’ve seen. He didn’t “change the position.” He “played the position well.”
2. I think these are my quick thoughts on Week 7:
a. A shame, of course, to see Carson Palmer go down with a broken left arm, maybe for the season, and maybe for his career. He turns 38 in December. Tell you what I'd do if I were Arizona GM Steve Keim: bring him back for one more tutoring/playing season, and draft his heir in the top 10 next April. Because it certainly looks like the Cards will have a top-10 pick after that putrid showing in London.
b. This has to be a record, part 1: After seven weeks, every team in the AFC has at least two losses. This has to be a record, part 2: Only one team entering the final game of Week 7 (the 5-1 Eagles, and that could change after the Washington-Philly Monday-nighter) in the 32-team league has zero or one loss.
c. I did not see Buffalo and Tampa Bay combining for 50 first downs and 881 total yards, I’ll tell you that.
d. Great graphic by NBC Sunday night, showing the release time of Tom Brady and Matt Ryan … an identical .33 seconds by both.
e. Most amazing defensively deficient play of the season (and stunning that it happened to the disciplined Bills): Jameis Winston floated a bomb down the left sideline in Buffalo for a touchdown to O.J. Howard—and there was not a Buffalo defenders within 18 yards of Howard.
f. Good diagnosis by Chris Spielman of Fox, ripping the Dolphins for trying to strip the ball instead of trying to tackle Matt Forte as he converted a long third-down pass into a first down.
g. Chiefs are still 12-1 in their last 13 AFC West games.
h. But giving up 32 first downs and 505 yards … I mean, I give up. Is there a best team in football right now?
i. Good for you, Chris Long, donating your entire 2017 base salary ($1 million) to education causes.
j. The desperate Bruce Arians is the best Bruce Arians. Down 13-0 in the first half against the Rams, Arians went for it on fourth-and-one from his 35, and made it.
k. Todd Gurley is a terrific and elusive receiver. Amazing that the Rams never thought of featuring him that way in his first two seasons.
l. Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Startook a blowtorch to the Colts after the team got shut out for the first time in the regular season since 1993.
m. I know the way Jim Irsay thinks. And firing Chuck Pagano during the season would not surprise me.
3. I think I feel sorry for England. Poor England. First Brexit. Then ridiculously non-competitive football. Now, to the rescue … the Cleveland Browns? Three of the four London games have been played this year, with one remaining: Minnesota (5-2) versus 0-7 Cleveland on Sunday at Twickenham Stadium.
The NFL sold out all four games, and the average crowd at the four games will be more than 78,000. As for the quality of play: It has stunk. Margin of victory in the three games this year thus far: 37, 20 and 33 points.
At some point, the NFL’s going to have to play a really good game in London, not just a regular-season game for regular-season’s sake. Green Bay needs to go. Philadelphia hasn’t been. Next season will be eight years since the Broncos made the trip. It’s only right that the fine people of Western Europe see some of the best teams in the league, with something on the line.
4. I think that was a touching, lovely ceremony the 49ers put on for former wide receiver Dwight Clark, who has ALS and appeared with 37 of his former teammates at halftime of, fittingly, the Dallas-San Francisco game Sunday in Santa Clara. When the team asked him what he wanted to do, seeing that so many people wanted to see him and honor him, Clark said, “I just want to see my teammates.”
As Clark said Sunday: “And the 49ers heard that and flew in all these players so I could see them one more time.” With his strength in decline and struggling with his speech, Clark thanked his mates and his fans in an emotional speech that brought owner Eddie DeBartolo to tears. I have a feeling he wasn’t the only one.
5. I think I’d like to counter those who would empathize with Marshawn Lynch for running from the Raiders bench out onto the field. The reasoning goes: He was defending his cousin, Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters.
And when Lynch made contact with an official, maybe he didn’t know it was an official, or he wasn’t trying to hurt the official—he was just trying to get him out of the way. On NFL Network, “Good Morning Football” analyst Ike Taylor, the former Steeler corner, said: “Even though he got suspended, it showed me growth. He’s trying to be the mediator.” Taylor was effectively countered by fellow panelist Mike Garafolo in this back-and-forth:
Taylor: “When you’re in the heat of the moment, you’re not thinking.”
Garafolo: “You get paid a lot of money to think.”
Taylor: “You get paid a lot of money to play football. You don’t get paid a lot of money to think.”
Now, I know Ike Taylor, but not well. I’ve always found him to be a reasonable guy. But these are two minutes of television that do not make him look good, or reasonable. One: You do not run off the bench into a skirmish for any reason. Two: You do not make contact with an official for any reason. Three: Regarding the you’re-not-thinking-in-the-heat-of-the-moment response: Really?
What do coaches at every level tell you about fighting, about altercations on the field, regardless who’s right or wrong? They tell you: Walk away. Be smart. Don't take the bait. Don't get a penalty. Thinking is very much a part of football. So now here’s what we’re left with Lynch, who showed Taylor “growth”: By running onto the field and making contact with an official, he missed the second half of a game the Raiders absolutely had to win, and he was suspended for another game vital to the 3-4 Raiders—at Buffalo next week.
(He has appealed the suspension, but let’s assume he’ll serve the game.) In two crucial games, Lynch’s irresponsible action removes a vital player from six of the eight quarters. That’s a heck of a price to pay for such great mediation.
6. I think I love when the media—in this case the Fort Worth Star-Telegram—digs through the archives to find something that at one point would have been casually interesting but now seems incredibly so. The newspaper discovered a reader letter to the editor from 1989, criticizing Jerry Jones, in his first game as owner of the Cowboys, for sitting with Elizabeth Taylor during the national anthem.
Aside from how surprising that would be in any case, it is especially notable given how Jones says if any player does not stand at attention for the anthem, he won’t be playing for the Cowboys. Well, if an owner sits for the anthem, does it mean the owner will not own for the Cowboys?
7. I think it’s a little early to declare Andrew Luck out for the season, or to say he shouldn’t play the rest of the year because his shoulder’s not right. That’s a decision that doesn’t have to be made now, first of all, and if Luck is healthy enough to play, say, by Thanksgiving, and the Colts are a game out of first in the AFC South, well, why would you not consider him an option? Even if Jacoby Brissett is playing well enough and winning games, who would you have rather have in relief if Brissett struggles or is hurt—Scott Tolzien or Andrew Luck?
8. I think, also, that if I’m Colts GM Chris Ballard, I am hanging up in February or March or April when another quarterback-needy GM calls and says, “Let’s talk about Jacoby Brissett.”
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/23/nfl-week-7-doug-baldwin-roger-goodell-joe-thomas-dan-quinn-mmqb
COACH OF THE WEEK
Sean McVay, head coach, Los Angeles Rams. It is Oct. 23. The Rams are 5-2. The Rams are averaging a league-high 30.3 points per game. The metamorphosis of this offense is complete. For my money the best example of it this year was Jared Goff—who decidedly is not a running threat—sucking in the Arizona defense at the 9-yard line late in the first half, pulling back the handoff, seeing eight Card defenders run like an amoeba to the center of the line, and there went Goff for a fairly easy touchdown run. McVay is so imaginative, and has created so many intelligent options for an offense that was so awful last year. He is the runaway coach of the year through seven weeks, in my book.
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“It just doesn’t make sense. We play Arizona. It’s a 45-minute flight [from Los Angeles to Phoenix]. But instead we’ve got Arizona and us [in London]. If we were to travel all the way from LA it’s 13 hours. But hey, whatever floats their boat.”
—Rams running back Todd Gurley, in London for Sunday’s Cards-Rams game, complaining about two western teams traveling to Europe to play a regular-season game.
It’s 10.5 hours, according to FlightAware, to fly non-stop from Los Angeles to London. (And the Rams flew from Jacksonville anyway.) But I get Gurley’s point. Imagine how teams will feel in 2022 or 2023 when the NFL puts a franchise in London, and the London team has a real home-field advantage, welcoming teams that have to fly six to 10 hours to play in England.
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Todd Gurley is a terrific and elusive receiver. Amazing that the Rams never thought of featuring him that way in his first two seasons.
(A snarky unintelligent question by PK. Could it be because Jeff Fisher was running the show instead of the offensive-minded Sean McVay? Duh)
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And that's it for PK's Rams coverage for the week. :baghead:
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The Fog, the Flag and the Football
By Peter King
JOE THOMAS: LONG LIVE THE STREAK
My first reaction after Cleveland tackle Joe Thomas suffered a triceps injury that knocked him out of the game for the first time in 167 NFL games: Is it possible his record streak will never be broken? Could this be a Cal Ripken streak, or maybe even one that’s harder to break? Ripken’s streak of 2,632 consecutive games played was achieved over 17 seasons and likely won’t be broken. But he came out of games. He didn’t play 2,632 complete games. Thomas’ streak was compiled over 11 seasons.
He played every play of his first 166 games in the NFL, since being drafted in 2007, and then 38 plays of his 167th game, against Tennessee, before getting injured while blocking for a Duke Johnson running play with 5:35 left in the third quarter. Thomas shoved a linebacker with his left hand, something he must have done 1,000 times in his career.
Only this time his arm buckled. Thomas fell to the ground in pain and had to leave the game. Second-year tackle Spencer Drango from Baylor will be the answer to a trivia question forever. He was the first Browns player other than Joe Thomas to play left tackle since 2006.
NFL GAMEPASS
There’s a high likelihood that Thomas tore the triceps—he was scheduled to have an MRI Monday morning—and if he did, his season’s over. In any case, the streak is over. By my possibly imprecise calculations (I went through Pro Football Focus snap counts Sunday night), an offensive lineman who learned from Thomas for the first four years of his career, Mitchell Schwartz, is slightly more than halfway to Thomas’ consecutive plays streak—assuming the PFF numbers are correct.
Schwartz played four years with Cleveland and now is in his second with the Chiefs, and he has played every regular-season play of a five-and-a-half-year career—87 games, 5,891 snaps. If he can play every play for the next five seasons, Schwartz will be in Thomas’ league.
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Thomas was taking it well Sunday night, one friend said, and not angry or crushed about it. He figures he was fortunate to be on the field for every snap of 167 straight games, something that will be incredibly hard to top.
The legacy of Thomas is not just his durability, but his greatness: It’s likely he’ll be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame one day, an amazing achievement considering he’s played on the worst team in football for a decade. That how good, and how well-respected, Joe Thomas has been.
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The Derek Carr Throws That Saved the Oakland Raiders’ Season
THEARON W. HENDERSON/GETTY IMAGES
Derek Carr of the Raiders had such a fabulous, ridiculously clutch final drive on Thursday night, and I cannot let it pass without paying homage to the 26-year-old quarterback. This drive could become a defining moment in his ascending career.
“That drive,” the color man who did the game, Tony Romo, said Saturday night, “sent a message to his teammates and his coaches. He’s not a kid anymore. His poise, the throws he made the with their season on the line—and I had people say before the game, ‘Their season’s not over if they lose,’ but come on, as a player you know this was as must-win as any game you’ll play this season—showed that they’ve got a player now who can win any game.”
Think about what Carr did 18 days after breaking three bones in his back, with the Raiders’ season on the line, trailing the no-doubt best team in the division—Kansas City—by six, with 1:47 left in the game, on second-and-20 from the Oakland 20.
At that moment, the Chiefs were 5-1, with a three-game lead on the 2-4 Raiders. What made the situation more dire for Oakland: Games away from home loomed against Buffalo, New England (in Mexico City), Kansas City and Philadelphia in the last 10 games. A fifth loss, and the playoffs would be nearly an impossible dream for Oakland, as Romo said.
I count four huge, winning Carr throws in the last 107 seconds of this game. With the season on the brink, Carr made four throws that no quarterback past or present could have placed any better, or made any more confidently. I find that extraordinary. With the kind of pressure Carr was facing, he made throws that were textbook, and if any one of them failed, there’s a good chance the Raiders would be 2-5 and playing for 2018 this morning. The throws that saved Oakland’s season, with videos here:
• First throw, second-and-20, Oakland 20, 1:47 left. With cornerback Terrance Mitchell singled against Amari Cooper in the left slot, Cooper ran a skinny post, trying to bisect two deep safeties. About 10 yards into his route he deked left, and Mitchell bit; that was enough for Carr to think he had the space to parachute a deep throw.
The ball traveled 44 yards in the air, perfectly thrown and timed, and got to Cooper a second before the safeties converged for the tackle. “The level of difficulty on that throw is off the charts because of the danger involved,” said the last Raiders quarterback to win the MVP, Rich Gannon. I reached out to Gannon on Saturday to dissect the final drive. “Such a tough throw to make.” Gain of 39.
• Second throw, fourth-and-11, Kansas City 42, 0:41 left. With nickel safety Eric Murray on tight end Jared Cook, Cook drags Murray on a short post from the left slot, and Carr hits him perfectly in a hole in the middle of the defense that—uncharacteristically for smart defenders like Kansas City’s—was just too big. Gain of 13.
• Third throw, third-and-10, Kansas City 29, 0:23 left. The play looked ugly from the start, two Raiders receivers flooding the same area inside the 10 on the way to the left pylon. Carr let it fly, and Cook skied above three others (two Chiefs, one Raider) in his area to come down with it, and he sprawled into the end zone a yard to the left of the pylon.
Replay would show him down at the half-yard line. “Unbelievable throw,” Gannon said. “The routes were run right; somebody got it wrong. But it’s right about that time you think he’s like Michael Jordan used to be at the end of games. You know, everybody get out of the way, get out of the lane. Let me handle this.” Gain of 28.
• Fourth throw, first-and-goal, Kansas City 2, 0:00 left (untimed down). After three accurately called penalties turned the final seven seconds on the clock into some Bizarro Football World event, Carr lined up in shotgun. Michael Crabtree was the key receiver to his left, Cooper to his right. We’d learn this later, but the Oakland offense had a roll-right red-zone play in the game plan, but not a roll-left here. Carr thought it best—I’m assuming because he trusted the physical Crabtree on lesser cover men than Marcus Peters on Carr’s right.
Carr took the snap and rolled left. “I was thinking when I saw that, ‘Oh no, what are they doing?’” Gannon said. “The sprint-right option is such a better play for him. On a scale of difficulty going to the left, it’s so easy to miss that throw, because it’s not a throw you normally make.” The throw was laid into Crabtree’s gut in the end zone, just beyond the left pylon. (Man, that pylon got a workout in the last 23 seconds.) The PAT gave Oakland a 31-30 win.
The first victory of Carr’s career, in 2014, came over the Chiefs, after an 0-10 Raider start. Since then he’d lost to the Chiefs in all five starts—by 18, 14, six, 16 and eight points … 0-5, by an average of 12.8 points per start.
In the giddy Oakland locker room, coach Jack Del Rio put Carr’s feat in perspective thusly to his team: “When you got a triggerman like DC, we’re gonna win a lot of games.”
“Poise is so important,” Romo said. “You think you’ve won three times, and you gotta come back and do it again.”
“He saved the season,” Gannon said. “Think of the range of emotions in the last 10 seconds. First you think you’ve won; the coaches take their headsets off. Game over. But the refs put the ball at the one. Then you get what you think is the winning TD to Crabtree, and you got offensive pass interference. The ball’s back at the 11. Now you think it’s gonna be really hard to win. Then on the last play he rolls left and throws the game-winner. Derek never blinked.
What strong inner confidence he has. Hopefully the offensive coordinator [Todd Downing] learned something in that game. He’s been taking some criticism, and he should. This is my belief: In critical situations, you cannot think about plays. You have to think about players. Forget ‘2 Jet Flanker Drive.’ Think about Derek Carr. Think about his best throws there.”
The Raiders did. Their best chance for the playoffs with that brutal schedule down the stretch? Let Carr drive the team.
* * *
POD PEOPLE
This week’s conversations: Veteran Packer reporter Bob McGinn of BobMcGinnFootball.com, and longtime Dallas play-by-play voice Brad Sham.
McGinn, on how he thinks Aaron Rodgers plays on the edge too much for a franchise quarterback: “Rodgers was off to a very good start. He led the league in touchdown passes [after five weeks] and he led the league in something else too—sacks taken. He had 19 and tied with him was Carson Palmer, the immobile one. By my count [Rodgers] also had been knocked down 16 times. If you look at his record in both those categories throughout his career, they are both high. He holds the ball, he takes a lot of sacks, and when he extends plays, he lives a very dangerous life out there. Now this play in question, everybody does this type of thing, it's an escape right, you throw the ball, you get hit by an extremely fast linebacker.
But I want to bring a play up in the [Week 2] Atlanta game. They are down 11 with a minute left and the ball is on the Green Bay 12. This game is over; it's garbage time. From shotgun, there's pressure in the middle and he spins out to his left. Just dump the ball, right, Peter? … He holds it for 5.1 seconds and here comes Adrian Claiborne and absolutely levels him.
The pass flutters incomplete. He just gets drilled at the goal line. Now … he's extremely tough, but this stuff, he takes too many chances for his own safety and for the health of the franchise. The law of averages can catch up to you every three or four years—the [2013] broken collarbone, and now this one!"
• Sham, on how the Cowboys nearly hired Marty Schottenheimer to replace Tom Landry before the team was sold to Jerry Jones in 1989: “Most people who revile Jerry Jones do it because of his dismissal of Tom Landry. I always say, let's see how much you know, because Tex Schramm wanted to get rid of Tom Landry. I wrote a book in 2003 called ‘Stadium Stories,’ and one of the chapters I did was on Tex, and it was about six months before he died. I'd known him 35 years, but I spent a whole day with him, and he told me things that I didn't know. In 1986, Landry says to Schramm, ‘Get ready. Get the next guy. I'm thinking about [retiring].’
Landry hires the hottest young assistant coach in the NFL, Paul Hackett from the 49ers … He hired Hackett because Landry said get the next guy ready. Landry then proceeded to change everything Hackett did, and that was also the year that Herschel Walker got dropped in their lap in the middle of training camp. Landry then decides, without telling anyone, that he's not going to quit.
And either ’87 or ’88 in the spring, Landry holds a press conference, and Schramm had Marty Schottenheimer in Dallas showing him houses. He thought he was going to hire Marty Schottenheimer to replace Tom Landry, who was going to retire. Landry has his press conference, and that's when Schramm finds out that Landry is not quitting.
He says there's been a lot of speculation, but I want to tell everybody that I'm staying and I hope to coach into the ’90s, and we all thought he meant into his 90s. That's how Schramm found out.”
* * *
Things I Think I Think
1. I think I got a kick out of Jamal Adams, the rookie safety of the Jets, telling Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News, “I’m going to change the position.” I got a kick out of this oddly timed bravado because:
• Adams has played seven NFL games.
• The man who is going to change the safety position was the 63rd-rated safety in the league through six games according to Pro Football Focus numbers. Also per PFF, Adams in coverage was allowing opposing quarterbacks a 133.8 rating. Perhaps instead of “changing the position” he could “change his cover technique for the better.”
• His coach, Todd Bowles, already changed the position in Arizona (and then some with the Jets) by turning hard-hitting safeties into linebacker/safety combo-platters by playing some safeties consistently close to the line in place of inside ’backers.
Clearly Adams is a bright prospect and has the chance to become one of the best safeties in football. And he did make some positive plays Sunday, including a tip that led to an teammate’s interception. But how does one “change a position”? Ronnie Lott is the best safety I’ve seen. He didn’t “change the position.” He “played the position well.”
2. I think these are my quick thoughts on Week 7:
a. A shame, of course, to see Carson Palmer go down with a broken left arm, maybe for the season, and maybe for his career. He turns 38 in December. Tell you what I'd do if I were Arizona GM Steve Keim: bring him back for one more tutoring/playing season, and draft his heir in the top 10 next April. Because it certainly looks like the Cards will have a top-10 pick after that putrid showing in London.
b. This has to be a record, part 1: After seven weeks, every team in the AFC has at least two losses. This has to be a record, part 2: Only one team entering the final game of Week 7 (the 5-1 Eagles, and that could change after the Washington-Philly Monday-nighter) in the 32-team league has zero or one loss.
c. I did not see Buffalo and Tampa Bay combining for 50 first downs and 881 total yards, I’ll tell you that.
d. Great graphic by NBC Sunday night, showing the release time of Tom Brady and Matt Ryan … an identical .33 seconds by both.
e. Most amazing defensively deficient play of the season (and stunning that it happened to the disciplined Bills): Jameis Winston floated a bomb down the left sideline in Buffalo for a touchdown to O.J. Howard—and there was not a Buffalo defenders within 18 yards of Howard.
f. Good diagnosis by Chris Spielman of Fox, ripping the Dolphins for trying to strip the ball instead of trying to tackle Matt Forte as he converted a long third-down pass into a first down.
g. Chiefs are still 12-1 in their last 13 AFC West games.
h. But giving up 32 first downs and 505 yards … I mean, I give up. Is there a best team in football right now?
i. Good for you, Chris Long, donating your entire 2017 base salary ($1 million) to education causes.
j. The desperate Bruce Arians is the best Bruce Arians. Down 13-0 in the first half against the Rams, Arians went for it on fourth-and-one from his 35, and made it.
k. Todd Gurley is a terrific and elusive receiver. Amazing that the Rams never thought of featuring him that way in his first two seasons.
l. Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Startook a blowtorch to the Colts after the team got shut out for the first time in the regular season since 1993.
m. I know the way Jim Irsay thinks. And firing Chuck Pagano during the season would not surprise me.
3. I think I feel sorry for England. Poor England. First Brexit. Then ridiculously non-competitive football. Now, to the rescue … the Cleveland Browns? Three of the four London games have been played this year, with one remaining: Minnesota (5-2) versus 0-7 Cleveland on Sunday at Twickenham Stadium.
The NFL sold out all four games, and the average crowd at the four games will be more than 78,000. As for the quality of play: It has stunk. Margin of victory in the three games this year thus far: 37, 20 and 33 points.
At some point, the NFL’s going to have to play a really good game in London, not just a regular-season game for regular-season’s sake. Green Bay needs to go. Philadelphia hasn’t been. Next season will be eight years since the Broncos made the trip. It’s only right that the fine people of Western Europe see some of the best teams in the league, with something on the line.
4. I think that was a touching, lovely ceremony the 49ers put on for former wide receiver Dwight Clark, who has ALS and appeared with 37 of his former teammates at halftime of, fittingly, the Dallas-San Francisco game Sunday in Santa Clara. When the team asked him what he wanted to do, seeing that so many people wanted to see him and honor him, Clark said, “I just want to see my teammates.”
As Clark said Sunday: “And the 49ers heard that and flew in all these players so I could see them one more time.” With his strength in decline and struggling with his speech, Clark thanked his mates and his fans in an emotional speech that brought owner Eddie DeBartolo to tears. I have a feeling he wasn’t the only one.
5. I think I’d like to counter those who would empathize with Marshawn Lynch for running from the Raiders bench out onto the field. The reasoning goes: He was defending his cousin, Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters.
And when Lynch made contact with an official, maybe he didn’t know it was an official, or he wasn’t trying to hurt the official—he was just trying to get him out of the way. On NFL Network, “Good Morning Football” analyst Ike Taylor, the former Steeler corner, said: “Even though he got suspended, it showed me growth. He’s trying to be the mediator.” Taylor was effectively countered by fellow panelist Mike Garafolo in this back-and-forth:
Taylor: “When you’re in the heat of the moment, you’re not thinking.”
Garafolo: “You get paid a lot of money to think.”
Taylor: “You get paid a lot of money to play football. You don’t get paid a lot of money to think.”
Now, I know Ike Taylor, but not well. I’ve always found him to be a reasonable guy. But these are two minutes of television that do not make him look good, or reasonable. One: You do not run off the bench into a skirmish for any reason. Two: You do not make contact with an official for any reason. Three: Regarding the you’re-not-thinking-in-the-heat-of-the-moment response: Really?
What do coaches at every level tell you about fighting, about altercations on the field, regardless who’s right or wrong? They tell you: Walk away. Be smart. Don't take the bait. Don't get a penalty. Thinking is very much a part of football. So now here’s what we’re left with Lynch, who showed Taylor “growth”: By running onto the field and making contact with an official, he missed the second half of a game the Raiders absolutely had to win, and he was suspended for another game vital to the 3-4 Raiders—at Buffalo next week.
(He has appealed the suspension, but let’s assume he’ll serve the game.) In two crucial games, Lynch’s irresponsible action removes a vital player from six of the eight quarters. That’s a heck of a price to pay for such great mediation.
6. I think I love when the media—in this case the Fort Worth Star-Telegram—digs through the archives to find something that at one point would have been casually interesting but now seems incredibly so. The newspaper discovered a reader letter to the editor from 1989, criticizing Jerry Jones, in his first game as owner of the Cowboys, for sitting with Elizabeth Taylor during the national anthem.
Aside from how surprising that would be in any case, it is especially notable given how Jones says if any player does not stand at attention for the anthem, he won’t be playing for the Cowboys. Well, if an owner sits for the anthem, does it mean the owner will not own for the Cowboys?
7. I think it’s a little early to declare Andrew Luck out for the season, or to say he shouldn’t play the rest of the year because his shoulder’s not right. That’s a decision that doesn’t have to be made now, first of all, and if Luck is healthy enough to play, say, by Thanksgiving, and the Colts are a game out of first in the AFC South, well, why would you not consider him an option? Even if Jacoby Brissett is playing well enough and winning games, who would you have rather have in relief if Brissett struggles or is hurt—Scott Tolzien or Andrew Luck?
8. I think, also, that if I’m Colts GM Chris Ballard, I am hanging up in February or March or April when another quarterback-needy GM calls and says, “Let’s talk about Jacoby Brissett.”
