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http://mmqb.si.com/2014/12/08/jj-watt-houston-texans-mvp-nfl-week-14/
Rob Foldy/Getty Images
Can J.J. Be MVP?
J.J. Watt is making his case—with actions, not words—as the best player in the NFL. Can a defensive player on an average team earn the honor? Plus, Cam Newton puts the Panthers back in the playoff race, the trade value of Jim Harbaugh and much more
By Peter King
To read entire article click the link above the pic.
Rams/Redskins/Burwell mentions:
Washington eats its young. Lather, rinse, repeat. Nothing changes in Washington under owner Daniel Snyder. Despair is followed by hope, which is followed by a ton of spending, which is followed by losing, which is followed by coach-firing, which is followed by more spending, which is followed by more losing, which is followed by coach-firing … and that’s the way it flows inside the Beltway. And you thought partisan politics was awful. Washington has finished in last place in the NFC East in five of the last six years, and is on track to do it a seventh time in eight years.
The team has had eight coaches this decade; that’s exactly how many coaches the other three teams in the division have had, combined, in this century. Yet the Washington Post reported over the weekend that Jay Gruden, handed a five-year guaranteed contract 11 months ago, would be “one and done,” or fired after one season, in the wake of the disaster that Robert Griffin III’s tenure has become. “We’ve been fighting uphill forever now,” veteran wideout Santana Moss told the Post. After the latest debacle, the 24-0 loss to St. Louis, Gruden told Washington’s NBC affiliate that he’d been told by GM Bruce Allen that the story was false. Maybe.
But coaches are never told a bad reality with three weeks left in a lost season. All possibilities (Griffin and Gruden returning together, Griffin and Gruden both departing, or anything in between) are on the table. My guess is Gruden returns, and Griffin does only if he turns over a studious leaf and works harder in the classroom.
******************************
Bryan Burwell: A good man, and a model for future journalists.
St. Louis media member Bryan Burwell passed away Thursday. He was 59. (The MMQB)
Bryan Burwell, a longtime newspaper columnist, TV reporter, talk-show host and web trailblazer, died at 59 on Thursday, just two months after being diagnosed with liver cancer. He packed a lot of life into 59 years, and his death really hit me hard. Hit a lot of people hard, particularly in St. Louis, where he was an esteemed sports columnist and web personality for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
I last saw Bryan at Rams training camp in August. He had a tripod with him, and as we talked, he connected his smart phone to the tripod, and plugged in a microphone with an “stltoday.com” mike flag on it. We talked about how his job and all of our jobs in the media have changed.
“My job used to be 100 percent writer,” he said that day. “Now it’s 75 percent web stuff, 25 percent writer.”
This is why young journalists should learn from Burwell. Fifty-nine years old, and re-inventing himself with a smart phone and tripod and microphone, setting it up for an interview for his daily segment on the paper’s website called “Upon Further Review.” There’s another reason why Burwell’s a heck of a model for young media people: On this day, he was excited about talking to the seventh or eighth defensive lineman on the roster, an undrafted rookie named Ethan Westbrooks from West Texas A&M.
Who gets excited about talking to the 51st guy on the roster? On this day, Burwell was that guy. Two reasons: Because Ethan Westbrooks was a story to Burwell; every player in camp was a story to him. And Westbrooks was the player who might keep Michael Sam from winning a spot on the active roster. (Turns out Westbrooks, indeed, beat out Sam for a spot.) That made the story more interesting. But I can tell you this: Burwell was excited about speaking to him. It was a Wednesday in August, a dog day of training camp, and this former HBO correspondent and New York columnist and well-traveled media guy who counted Magic Johnson as a trusted source, was excited about interviewing a bottom-of-the-roster player using his phone and tripod contraption.
Now that’s an admirable person in our business.
On Friday, I spoke to Chris Long, one of the only veteran Rams, about Burwell, and his words confirmed what I believed people he covered thought of him.
“I never hung out with Bryan,” Long said. “But after I heard about what happened, it really hit home. He was a personable, cool guy. I liked his demeanor. You know, there are good football players and bad football players, good media people and bad media people. But you just like people who do their job with respect for other people. When I first got here, we were a pretty bad team, and he’d write about us and he knew the story—there was no sense killing us because he figured it out, that we had a long way to go. He was always very even-keeled. He’d talk to me, and I never really knew if it was on the record or off the record, but I didn’t really care. Because I trusted he got it—he got the big picture.
Washington honored Burwell in the press box for Sunday’s game against St. Louis. (Twitter)
“Then, yesterday, to see all the outpouring from everywhere about him. I saw what Mike Wilbon said about him on Twitter and Facebook—and Wilbon’s one of the greats. I never, ever realized how big Bryan was. That’s because he never let you know it. He wasn’t one to talk about himself, or what he’d done.”
Over the weekend I went back to see his interview and report on Westbrooks from August. It’s a five-minute video, with an enthusiastic but professional Burwell smoothly intro-ing the interview with Westbrooks at Rams camp, letting it run two or three minutes, then coming back to talk about the strange face tattoo Westbrooks has—a tiny happy face/sad face near his left eye.
“I had to ask,” Burwell said on the video, breaking into a grin. “‘Dude! Was this just the result of a regrettable wild weekend in college, or did you really think this through?!’” And he told the story of Westbrooks and the tattoo, as well as pointing out early in the video that this is the man who could be the roadblock to Michael Sam. This is one big way today people are consuming news: through storytelling on video. Lots of people in the business—the vast majority young and flexible and smart—are making their mark this way.
Bryan Burwell made his mark in so many ways, and it’s fitting the last way I saw him make his mark was smart, cutting-edge, informative and fun. Make him a lesson in journalism class, college professors and high school newspaper advisers. It’ll be a lesson your students will remember, a 59-year-old professional still learning at 59. I’ll miss the journalist, and the man.
"Thoughts and prayers to the family of Bryan Burwell. Respect and appreciation for one of STL's finest." Albert Pujols ✔ @PujolsFive
***************************
THE FINE FIFTEEN
15. St. Louis (6-7). The Rams are 3-1 in their last four, including three dominant defensive games: 22-7 over Denver, 52-0 over Oakland and 24-0 over Washington. First back-to-back shutouts by the Rams since 1945. That is pretty good.
*************************
Special Teams Players of the Week
Tavon Austin had four punt returns for 143 yards, including this 78-yarder for a touchdown. (Nick Wass/AP)
Tavon Austin, wide receiver/returner/Jet Sweeper, St. Louis. The Rams won’t say they’re disappointed with Austin since making him their first pick of the 2013 draft, but entering Sunday’s game the electric player from West Virginia had but six touchdowns in 24 career games. Not good enough for a guy who cost St. Louis four picks to move up in the draft. But he showed in Washington how valuable he can be. His 78-yard punt return capped the scoring in a 24-0 shutout, and he added seven touches for 60 yards. This is what the Rams need from the man who was the most dangerous weapon in the 2013 draft as a runner, receiver and returner.
*****************************
Coach of the Week
Gregg Williams, defensive coordinator, St. Louis. The Rams are the first team this season to shut out two straight foes (and the first Rams team to do it since World War II), and they’ve now held the Raiders and Washington to a combined 450 yards. Those are not two good offensive teams, but it’s the way St. Louis is winning right now—the rush is stifling, and the secondary has been playing clinging coverage. You wondered how long it would take the Rams to assume the personality of the go-for-broke Williams, and it looks like they’re there now.
**************************
Quotes of the Week
“If I have to motivate pro football players to play a pro football game, then we need to get new pro football players.”
—Washington coach Jay Gruden, after the 24-0 loss to St. Louis.
“Let me ask you a question. When did Nick Nolte take over the Rams?”
—Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, after showing video of a Nolte-ish Fisher discussing the Rams’ Ferguson controversy.
“The shame of it is, I’m not sure they care about Michael Brown or anything else. This was a reason to protest and to go out and loot. Is this the way to celebrate the memory of Michael Brown? Is this an excuse to be lawless? Somebody has to tell me that. I don’t understand it. I understand what the Rams’ take on this was. I’m embarrassed for the players more than anything. They want to take a political stand on this? Well, there are a lot of other things that have happened in our society that people have not stood up and disagreed about. I wasn’t in Ferguson. I don’t know exactly what happened.
But I know one thing: If we dismantle and limit the power of our policemen any more than we have already, then we’re going to have a lot of problems in this country. What do you do if someone pulls a gun on you or is robbing a store and you stop them? I don’t want to hear about this hands-up crap. That’s not what happened. I don’t know exactly what did happen, but I know that’s not what happened. This policeman’s life is ruined. Why? Because we have to break somebody down. Because we have to even out the game. I don’t know. I don’t get it. Maybe I’m just old fashioned.”
—Mike Ditka, to the Chicago Sun-Times, on the five Rams players who showed their support for the Ferguson protesters by coming out for the game eight days ago with their hands raised.
*********************************
At Washington on Sunday, St. Louis coach Jeff Fisher sent out as captains for the game Janoris Jenkins, Michael Brockers, Zac Stacy, Alex Ogletree, Stedman Bailey and Greg Robinson.
Coincidence that all six players came as draft picks in the trade for Robert Griffin III, who was standing on the opposite sideline? I think not.
**************************
What I liked:
It was another long afternoon in Washington. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
London Fletcher on CBS Sports Network, on Washington defensive coordinator Jim Haslett: “Jay Gruden better get him out the door, because he’s probably backstabbing Jay like he did everybody else … [Haslett] has no idea what he’s doing.”
Uh, that was London Fletcher’s boss last year. Must have been one fun defensive team meeting room.
What I Didn't Like:
Speaking of a terrible block, Washington left tackle Trent Williams giving up on a block that got quarterback Colt McCoy unfairly nailed.
Washington. Everything about that team. A disgraceful performance at home.
Greg the Leg.
***********************************
Johnny Hekker’s new deal includes the highest-ever guarantee for a kicker or punter. (Michael Thomas/Getty Images)
I think the headline of the week belongs to stlouisrams.com: “Punters Get Paid Like People Too,” after they rewarded versatile punter Johnny Hekker with a six-year, $18 million contract extension. I love this contract for St. Louis. Hekker is certainly worth 2 percent of the Rams’ cap space, especially because of how valuable he’s been in the fakery aspect of the punt team since arriving in St. Louis.
Rob Foldy/Getty Images
Can J.J. Be MVP?
J.J. Watt is making his case—with actions, not words—as the best player in the NFL. Can a defensive player on an average team earn the honor? Plus, Cam Newton puts the Panthers back in the playoff race, the trade value of Jim Harbaugh and much more
By Peter King
To read entire article click the link above the pic.
Rams/Redskins/Burwell mentions:
Washington eats its young. Lather, rinse, repeat. Nothing changes in Washington under owner Daniel Snyder. Despair is followed by hope, which is followed by a ton of spending, which is followed by losing, which is followed by coach-firing, which is followed by more spending, which is followed by more losing, which is followed by coach-firing … and that’s the way it flows inside the Beltway. And you thought partisan politics was awful. Washington has finished in last place in the NFC East in five of the last six years, and is on track to do it a seventh time in eight years.
The team has had eight coaches this decade; that’s exactly how many coaches the other three teams in the division have had, combined, in this century. Yet the Washington Post reported over the weekend that Jay Gruden, handed a five-year guaranteed contract 11 months ago, would be “one and done,” or fired after one season, in the wake of the disaster that Robert Griffin III’s tenure has become. “We’ve been fighting uphill forever now,” veteran wideout Santana Moss told the Post. After the latest debacle, the 24-0 loss to St. Louis, Gruden told Washington’s NBC affiliate that he’d been told by GM Bruce Allen that the story was false. Maybe.
But coaches are never told a bad reality with three weeks left in a lost season. All possibilities (Griffin and Gruden returning together, Griffin and Gruden both departing, or anything in between) are on the table. My guess is Gruden returns, and Griffin does only if he turns over a studious leaf and works harder in the classroom.
******************************
Bryan Burwell: A good man, and a model for future journalists.
St. Louis media member Bryan Burwell passed away Thursday. He was 59. (The MMQB)
Bryan Burwell, a longtime newspaper columnist, TV reporter, talk-show host and web trailblazer, died at 59 on Thursday, just two months after being diagnosed with liver cancer. He packed a lot of life into 59 years, and his death really hit me hard. Hit a lot of people hard, particularly in St. Louis, where he was an esteemed sports columnist and web personality for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
I last saw Bryan at Rams training camp in August. He had a tripod with him, and as we talked, he connected his smart phone to the tripod, and plugged in a microphone with an “stltoday.com” mike flag on it. We talked about how his job and all of our jobs in the media have changed.
“My job used to be 100 percent writer,” he said that day. “Now it’s 75 percent web stuff, 25 percent writer.”
This is why young journalists should learn from Burwell. Fifty-nine years old, and re-inventing himself with a smart phone and tripod and microphone, setting it up for an interview for his daily segment on the paper’s website called “Upon Further Review.” There’s another reason why Burwell’s a heck of a model for young media people: On this day, he was excited about talking to the seventh or eighth defensive lineman on the roster, an undrafted rookie named Ethan Westbrooks from West Texas A&M.
Who gets excited about talking to the 51st guy on the roster? On this day, Burwell was that guy. Two reasons: Because Ethan Westbrooks was a story to Burwell; every player in camp was a story to him. And Westbrooks was the player who might keep Michael Sam from winning a spot on the active roster. (Turns out Westbrooks, indeed, beat out Sam for a spot.) That made the story more interesting. But I can tell you this: Burwell was excited about speaking to him. It was a Wednesday in August, a dog day of training camp, and this former HBO correspondent and New York columnist and well-traveled media guy who counted Magic Johnson as a trusted source, was excited about interviewing a bottom-of-the-roster player using his phone and tripod contraption.
Now that’s an admirable person in our business.
On Friday, I spoke to Chris Long, one of the only veteran Rams, about Burwell, and his words confirmed what I believed people he covered thought of him.
“I never hung out with Bryan,” Long said. “But after I heard about what happened, it really hit home. He was a personable, cool guy. I liked his demeanor. You know, there are good football players and bad football players, good media people and bad media people. But you just like people who do their job with respect for other people. When I first got here, we were a pretty bad team, and he’d write about us and he knew the story—there was no sense killing us because he figured it out, that we had a long way to go. He was always very even-keeled. He’d talk to me, and I never really knew if it was on the record or off the record, but I didn’t really care. Because I trusted he got it—he got the big picture.
Washington honored Burwell in the press box for Sunday’s game against St. Louis. (Twitter)
“Then, yesterday, to see all the outpouring from everywhere about him. I saw what Mike Wilbon said about him on Twitter and Facebook—and Wilbon’s one of the greats. I never, ever realized how big Bryan was. That’s because he never let you know it. He wasn’t one to talk about himself, or what he’d done.”
Over the weekend I went back to see his interview and report on Westbrooks from August. It’s a five-minute video, with an enthusiastic but professional Burwell smoothly intro-ing the interview with Westbrooks at Rams camp, letting it run two or three minutes, then coming back to talk about the strange face tattoo Westbrooks has—a tiny happy face/sad face near his left eye.
“I had to ask,” Burwell said on the video, breaking into a grin. “‘Dude! Was this just the result of a regrettable wild weekend in college, or did you really think this through?!’” And he told the story of Westbrooks and the tattoo, as well as pointing out early in the video that this is the man who could be the roadblock to Michael Sam. This is one big way today people are consuming news: through storytelling on video. Lots of people in the business—the vast majority young and flexible and smart—are making their mark this way.
Bryan Burwell made his mark in so many ways, and it’s fitting the last way I saw him make his mark was smart, cutting-edge, informative and fun. Make him a lesson in journalism class, college professors and high school newspaper advisers. It’ll be a lesson your students will remember, a 59-year-old professional still learning at 59. I’ll miss the journalist, and the man.
"Thoughts and prayers to the family of Bryan Burwell. Respect and appreciation for one of STL's finest." Albert Pujols ✔ @PujolsFive
***************************
THE FINE FIFTEEN
15. St. Louis (6-7). The Rams are 3-1 in their last four, including three dominant defensive games: 22-7 over Denver, 52-0 over Oakland and 24-0 over Washington. First back-to-back shutouts by the Rams since 1945. That is pretty good.
*************************
Special Teams Players of the Week
Tavon Austin had four punt returns for 143 yards, including this 78-yarder for a touchdown. (Nick Wass/AP)
Tavon Austin, wide receiver/returner/Jet Sweeper, St. Louis. The Rams won’t say they’re disappointed with Austin since making him their first pick of the 2013 draft, but entering Sunday’s game the electric player from West Virginia had but six touchdowns in 24 career games. Not good enough for a guy who cost St. Louis four picks to move up in the draft. But he showed in Washington how valuable he can be. His 78-yard punt return capped the scoring in a 24-0 shutout, and he added seven touches for 60 yards. This is what the Rams need from the man who was the most dangerous weapon in the 2013 draft as a runner, receiver and returner.
*****************************
Coach of the Week
Gregg Williams, defensive coordinator, St. Louis. The Rams are the first team this season to shut out two straight foes (and the first Rams team to do it since World War II), and they’ve now held the Raiders and Washington to a combined 450 yards. Those are not two good offensive teams, but it’s the way St. Louis is winning right now—the rush is stifling, and the secondary has been playing clinging coverage. You wondered how long it would take the Rams to assume the personality of the go-for-broke Williams, and it looks like they’re there now.
**************************
Quotes of the Week
“If I have to motivate pro football players to play a pro football game, then we need to get new pro football players.”
—Washington coach Jay Gruden, after the 24-0 loss to St. Louis.
“Let me ask you a question. When did Nick Nolte take over the Rams?”
—Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, after showing video of a Nolte-ish Fisher discussing the Rams’ Ferguson controversy.
“The shame of it is, I’m not sure they care about Michael Brown or anything else. This was a reason to protest and to go out and loot. Is this the way to celebrate the memory of Michael Brown? Is this an excuse to be lawless? Somebody has to tell me that. I don’t understand it. I understand what the Rams’ take on this was. I’m embarrassed for the players more than anything. They want to take a political stand on this? Well, there are a lot of other things that have happened in our society that people have not stood up and disagreed about. I wasn’t in Ferguson. I don’t know exactly what happened.
But I know one thing: If we dismantle and limit the power of our policemen any more than we have already, then we’re going to have a lot of problems in this country. What do you do if someone pulls a gun on you or is robbing a store and you stop them? I don’t want to hear about this hands-up crap. That’s not what happened. I don’t know exactly what did happen, but I know that’s not what happened. This policeman’s life is ruined. Why? Because we have to break somebody down. Because we have to even out the game. I don’t know. I don’t get it. Maybe I’m just old fashioned.”
—Mike Ditka, to the Chicago Sun-Times, on the five Rams players who showed their support for the Ferguson protesters by coming out for the game eight days ago with their hands raised.
*********************************
At Washington on Sunday, St. Louis coach Jeff Fisher sent out as captains for the game Janoris Jenkins, Michael Brockers, Zac Stacy, Alex Ogletree, Stedman Bailey and Greg Robinson.
Coincidence that all six players came as draft picks in the trade for Robert Griffin III, who was standing on the opposite sideline? I think not.
**************************
What I liked:
It was another long afternoon in Washington. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
London Fletcher on CBS Sports Network, on Washington defensive coordinator Jim Haslett: “Jay Gruden better get him out the door, because he’s probably backstabbing Jay like he did everybody else … [Haslett] has no idea what he’s doing.”
Uh, that was London Fletcher’s boss last year. Must have been one fun defensive team meeting room.
What I Didn't Like:
Speaking of a terrible block, Washington left tackle Trent Williams giving up on a block that got quarterback Colt McCoy unfairly nailed.
Washington. Everything about that team. A disgraceful performance at home.
Greg the Leg.
***********************************
Johnny Hekker’s new deal includes the highest-ever guarantee for a kicker or punter. (Michael Thomas/Getty Images)
I think the headline of the week belongs to stlouisrams.com: “Punters Get Paid Like People Too,” after they rewarded versatile punter Johnny Hekker with a six-year, $18 million contract extension. I love this contract for St. Louis. Hekker is certainly worth 2 percent of the Rams’ cap space, especially because of how valuable he’s been in the fakery aspect of the punt team since arriving in St. Louis.
