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https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/01/08/n...onal-round-preview-drew-brees-mmqb-peter-king
Wild-Card Wows By Drew Brees, Saints Set Up NFL Divisional Playoff Matchup for the Ages
By Peter King
JONATHAN BACHMAN/GETTY IMAGES
Now that was a fun weekend. Marcus Mariota, tucking in his cape so we could hardly see it, threw two touchdown passes, caught a touchdown pass, made the block of the weekend and saved his coach’s job, all in three hours.
Atlanta’s defense made the best offense in football, the 2017 Rams, look like the 2016 Rams.
Jacksonville won a home playoff game for the first time in 18 years against a team playing a playoff game for the first time in 18 years. Drew Brees turns 39 a week from today, and the Saints don’t need him to be The Man anymore, but they needed him to play well to beat Carolina, and he did. “Still The Man,” said Saints running back Mark Ingram. “I’ve been telling you all year—don’t sleep on Drew.”
Now this is going to be a fun weekend coming up. A top-seeded home dog in the (Petrified) City of Brotherly Love on Saturday at dusk. Another promising young contender, Mariota, comes at the king, Tom Brady, on Saturday night.
The Roethlisberger Redemption Show trying to overcome a team playing like a bunch of scolded dogs (I will explain) on Sunday afternoon. Three good pieces of drama. Then the best game: the incredibly rebuilt Saints with their forever coach and quarterback against the team that’s so hot it prays the bye week didn’t cool it off. Saints-Vikings, in the last game of the round-of-eight.
This is a season that still doesn’t have an identity, beyond the anthem protests and the President Trump attacks. It’s sort of the changing of the guard, but not really—not with New England and Pittsburgh and Drew Brees and Matt Ryan still contenders for championship weekend. And it’s sort of the rise of the offseason ’dogs. But the Jaguars need Blake Bortles to be competent. Same with the Eagles and Nick Foles. Same with the Titans around Mariota.
What it comes down to in January, I think, isn’t the star power. It’s the games. And this weekend, Saints-Vikings is the best. It should be great.
The NFL could use some megastars. It’s a strange year in the league. In the final eight, the only remotely sure thing to me is New England over Tennessee. But we all can see the wounded top-seeded Eagles finding a way at home, same as we can see Atlanta flying into Philadelphia and winning. We all can see Jacksonville winning in Pittsburgh—and if you say you can’t, you haven’t watched that swarming defense. We all could flip a coin for Saints-Vikings.
This is how Minnesota’s defense ended the season, in the final three games:
Record: 3-0.
Points allowed per game: 5.7
Yards allowed per game: 200.3
Opponents completion rate: 48.6 percent.
Now, the Vikings faced Andy Dalton, Brett Hundley and Mitchell Trubisky down the stretch. This week they’ll face an all-timer. It’s been a strange year for Drew Brees, but a great year for the Saints. New Orleans was coming of three straight 7-9 seasons, and, truth be told, the Saints may have taken a decent trade offer for coach Asshole Face, just to start anew.
But Payton reinvented himself, sort of. He said with some pride that the Saints were going to be more run-reliant and less Brees-reliant; all the great offensive stats weren’t winning any January games, after all. Payton was convinced his team would be better off trying to win with defense and a running game than playing bombs-away.
So the Saints drafted a long-term right tackle, Ryan Ramczyk, in the first round, and a three-down back, Alvin Kamara, late in the third, fortifying the secondary with cornerback Marson Lattimore and safety Marcus Williams in between. I am not exaggerating when I say that the trio of GM Mickey Loomis, college scouting director Jeff Ireland (remember him, Dolfans?) and Payton had one of the best drafts in recent history.
All four of those players, remarkably, are above-average NFL starters as rookies. In fact, 14 of the 22 starters in Sunday’s wild-card win over Carolina were not active Saints in 2015. Talk about a changing of the guard.
Watching Minnesota in the last two weeks of the season—in the beatdown of Green Bay and the rout of Chicago—was educational. What a confident player Case Keenum is, against all odds. The Vikes’ quarterback should be Sam Bradford, or maybe a healed Teddy Bridgewater, by now.
But every time he steps on the field, Keenum shows he belong, and he shows GMs with quarterback holes (John Elway in Denver, John Dorsey in Cleveland, Mike Maccagnan with the Jets) to pay attention if for some reason the Vikings don’t aggressively try to re-sign him after the season.
And then there’s the defensive talent, led by instinctive difference-maker Harrison Smith at safety. The Vikings are the NFC Super Bowl favorites, the team with the best chance to make it to Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis, the team that could end the schneid of no team ever playing a Super Bowl at home.
Asshole Face and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael, play-designing … Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram, mandating respect in the run game … a better line than the Saints have had since their Super Bowl season … and the Jordan-led young defense. “These young cats, they don’t know what we’ve been through,” Jordan said. “Losing hurts. Most of these guys haven’t seen it. But that’s okay. The biggest difference in our team is how the locker room feels. These guys are so confident. They’re winners.”
What a test Sunday in Minneapolis. Brees against a tremendous front, and against a safety (Smith) with the sideline-to-sideline instincts of the guy he just beat (Luke Kuechly). The NFL, in the round of eight, has saved the best for last.
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DILIP VISHWANAT/GETTY IMAGES
More in a moment on an eventful week—the retirements of Carson Palmer and Bruce Arians, the Patriots defending their culture, the Raiders finally nabbing Jon Gruden, the continuing mayhem of instant-replay—and the looming divisional round. First, some voices of the wild-card games:
• Titans 22, Chiefs 21: Tennessee running back Derrick Henry (23 carries, 156 yards), on Marcus Mariota … Titans up 22-21, third-and-10, Kansas City 44. Chiefs blitz. Mariota hands to Henry. “It was a zone read play, and there was nothing there. I hit it outside, to the left, and it was gonna be me and [Chiefs linebacker Frank Zombo] behind the line of scrimmage. And there was Marcus. He made the block to take the guy out of the play.
Then all I had to do was get the first down and the game is over. That’s how it happened. Marcus, that’s just him being who he is, him being great. He has the kind of attention to detail on plays like that—he’s just one of the guys, trying to make a play for another one of the guys. Everybody was excited.” Seven teammates hopped around Mariota, congratulating the quarterback for one of the plays of the game. A block.
• Falcons 26, Rams 13: Atlanta linebacker Deion Jones (10 tackles, one very big pass defensed), on the play that clinched the game … Atlanta up 26-13, fourth-and-goal from the Atlanta 5-yard line, 2:11 left. Jones on wideout Sammy Watkins. “I was pretty much by myself on the coverage. Watkins used his body to get leverage on me, and in that situation I have to fight through it, or it’s going to be a pretty easy touchdown.
Every week on plays like that, it’s a fight. I mean, a physical fight. Like Coach Quinn said before the game, ‘This game’s gonna be a fight, and the defense has to be closers.’ So this is fourth down. The play had to be made.” Jones broke up the pass two yards deep in the end zone. Game over.
• Jaguars 10, Bills 3: Jacksonville defensive lineman Malik Jackson (one sack, one pass defensed), on making a bad franchise competitive ... “It feels like the city’s erupting. I’m just glad we could give Duval [County] the kind of team it deserves. We’re one of eight teams left. That’s why I was brought here from Denver, to win games like this. This game was a dogfight. But that’s all right—we like dogfights. Hard-nosed, old-school football. We play like scolded dogs.”
Huh? “Like Jaguars on the hunt, with reckless abandon. Eleven guys, playing all-out. We make everybody feel us. We have that angry northeast-football style of play, taught by our coach [Bronx native Doug Marrone]. I mean, we have some angry guys on this defense. I am going to put you in the dirt. Know what I’m saying? Pittsburgh’s next. We don’t care. Whoever it is, we’ll play. If America favors them, we don’t care.”
• Saints 31, Panthers 26: New Orleans defensive end Cam Jordan (one sack, two passes batted down, one vital intentional-grounding forced), on the great joy in beating Cam Newton and the Panthers for the third time this year ... “We had to remind ’em, the is our year. We knew Cam was gonna try to be a hero. We made him a traditional quarterback for sure. When he gets running, he gets more and more energetic, he’s the real Cam, Superman, the cape, all that.
We didn’t want him to run, so we kept him in the pocket. Late in the game we hurt him and he came back. What a competitor he is to come back. But all game, I wanted to make him as uncomfortable as possible. Got a good couple pressures, then got him on the grounding play. Such a huge win. I am going to send Cam a bottle of wine. A Jordan, from Sonoma, to remind him what it’s like to be 0-3 against us.”
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A DIVISIONAL ROUND PREVIEW
Atlanta (11-6, NFC 6th seed) at Philadelphia (13-3, NFC 1st seed), Saturday, 4:35 p.m., NBC. The news is fairly stunning. A six seed, a dome team playing in open air in January at one of the toughest places in the league to play, is a 2.5-point favorite over a one seed. No six seed has ever been favored over a one seed since the playoff field expanded to 12 teams in 1990. That’s the predicament the Eagles find themselves. The odds are Foles-centric, obviously. No one trusts Nick Foles to play a competent game this weekend.
In his last two games, collectively, he never hit 50 in two fairly significant categories: completion percentage (46.9 percent) and passer rating (48.2). So Eagles offensive coordinator Frank Reich, when putting the game plan together with Doug Pederson, must be mindful of making this a power-running, Giants-of-the-’80s football game. This is the way Philadelphia can win this game. Run LaGarrette Blount and Jay Ajayi 40 or 43 times behind a line the Eagles trust far more than their quarterback. Blount and Ajayi, combined, rushed for 4.83 yards per carry as Eagles this year.
This won’t work unless Foles can, maybe once a quarter, hit one of his receivers with something beyond an intermediate route. But unless they run effectively, Philadelphia’s not winning this game. One last thing: Bill Parcells used to say, It’s not average per carry I care about. It’s number of carries. In one of the biggest Super Bowl upsets ever, the Giants ran it 39 times and held the ball for 40:33 to beats Buffalo 27 years ago. That’s the blueprint. The Eagles need to eat the clock and keep the ball away from a better offense to win this game.
Tennessee (10-7, AFC 5th seed) at New England (13-3, AFC 1st seed), Saturday, 8:15 p.m., CBS. Distractions will mean nothing in this game. Nothing, maybe, except they will make Tom Brady want to shove it down the throats of those who think he’s a power-hungry warlord controlling his backups. As much as I think it’s silly to think of these Patriots as a two-touchdown favorite against any team in the playoffs, I also think it’s highly unlikely that rested New England can lose to Tennessee. The Titans will try to play smashmouth with Derrick Henry (that’s certainly what I’d do), to be sure, and get Marcus Mariota out on the flank for some run-pass options.
I think New England’s Josh McDaniels will call a smarter game than the Chiefs did against Tennessee. In other words, the Patriots will be significantly more balanced. In New England’s last two games, the Pats rushed for 340 yards and passed for 401 net yards … and averaged 33:16 in possession time while winning two games by a combined 41 points. Dion Lewis gives New England a true outside threat in the backfield, along with bigger backs to go inside against Jurrell Casey and Sylvester Williams.
(Challenging the Tennessee interior defense rarely goes well for any team.) Mariota gives the Patriots plenty to think about, and lots to game plan for. But the Patriots will be prepared. They’re a vastly improved defense since the first month of the season, and coming off a bye could make them better. Here’s a stat I like: Coming off their in-season bye, New England, in its next four games, allowed 16, 8, 17 and 3 points, respectively.
Jacksonville (11-6, AFC 3rd seed) at Pittsburgh (13-3, AFC 2nd seed), Sunday, 1:05 p.m., CBS. One of the stunning results of this NFL season happened in Week 5 at Heinz Field: Jacksonville 30, Pittsburgh 9. The first five-interception game of Ben Roethlisberger’s career left him saying afterward: “Maybe I don’t have it anymore.” The other day, Roethlisberger confirmed he wanted the Jags in the divisional game: “I’d love to prove that five interceptions wasn’t me in that game.” That’ll be the story all week, to be sure. But Pittsburgh will have other problems in this game—quite a few, in fact.
The Steelers got steamrolled for 231 rushing yards by Jacksonville, and Leonard Fournette had 181 of them, including a 90-yard dagger to cap the game in the fourth quarter. It’s clear the Jags have a problem on offense in the passing game. Blake Bortles is the AFC’s Nick Foles, players their teams have to game plan around to win.
On Sunday, after the 10-3 win over Buffalo, Doug Marrone tried to be nice, but the reality of the situation couldn’t be avoided: The Jags can’t trust Bortles. “I’d be a fool to sit here and say I’m not concerned,” Marrone said. “If you want to continue to keep playing, you have to do a better job.” Or, the Jags have to pick off Roethlisberger a couple of times, and play a grind-it-out game.
New Orleans (12-5, NFC 4th seed) at Minnesota (13-3, NFC 2nd seed), Sunday, 4:40 p.m., FOX. So the NFL lucked into this: The last game of the weekend shapes up as the best game of the weekend. The Saints, fortunately, get to play last on divisional weekend (can’t the NFL please find a better phrasing for the league’s round-of-eight than Divisional Playoff Weekend?) after a brutally physical game against the division rival Panthers. If you look for clues from the first time these two teams met, you’ll be disappointed. It was one of the two Monday-nighters from Week 1.
Vikes won, 29-19. Sam Bradford threw for 346 yards and Dalvin Cook ran for 127, and Adrian Peterson was the Saints’ headliner, and four Saints’ rookies were making their NFL debuts. Now the Saints visit Minneapolis again, and wouldn’t it be startling if New Orleans plays in U.S. Bank Stadium three times in five months? Of course, that would mean the team trying to be the first to play a Super Bowl on its home field would get knocked out … and that’s going to be a tough road for the Saints to travel.
I think this game is about the maturation of the Minnesota defense playing some great football down the stretch against some poor offenses—Cincinnati, Green Bay (minus Aaron Rodgers) and Chicago. Drew Brees, with a defined running game and a maturing defense, will be a superb test for the Vikings. The winner here will certainly deserve a spot in the NFC Championship Game.
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THE WEEKLY REPLAY RANT
PATRICK MCDERMOTT/GETTY IMAGES
The final 22 seconds of the first half of the Falcons-Rams game took nine minutes, 22 seconds to play. The replay process continues to be dysfunctional and plodding.
Latest example: First quarter, Saturday night, Falcons at Rams. A Falcons punt falls to earth and—as replays would clearly show—bounces off Rams safety Blake Countess and then Rams returner Pharoh Cooper, and then into a pig-pile, and the Falcons recover. Ref Ed Hochuli signals: Falcons ball. Start the clock.
1:22. The third NBC replay clearly shows the ball first hit Countess’s foot. So then, obviously, the ball is free to be recovered by anyone. This is 82 seconds after Hochuli first made his signal, but there’s no question that the New York NFL officiating center has now seen several replays—and surely the replay that shows the ball hitting Countess’s foot.
2:17. Hochuli walks from sideline to address nation, presumably with a confirmation of the call on the field—Falcons ball.
2:22. Inexplicably, Hochuli gets on his mike for what should have been a confirmation of the call on the field. He says: “We will review the ruling.” FOR WHAT! WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!!!!
3:34. The Coliseum PA system begins playing the “Jeopardy” theme song.
4:09. Hochuli confirms the ruling, beginning, “The ball was first touched by the receiving team.” Al Michaels mutters on NBC: “No kidding.”
At the end, in all quarters and in living rooms all over America, there had to be the same disbelief in this broken process as I felt.
“We moan about it every week,” a disgusted Michaels said on NBC. “What are you gonna do?”
“Golden Globes speech,” Cris Collinsworth said.
This process simply must be streamlined. Within 82 seconds of the play happening on the field, we saw a replay confirming that two Rams touched the ball. It is inexcusable to take four minutes and nine seconds from the time a play happens to adjudicate it, when, in half that time, TV replays show exactly what happened.
In the last 22 seconds of the first half, there was a 3-minute, 31-second delay between the ruling of a Todd Gurley catch on the field and the near-running of the next play, and then the eventual overruling of the Gurley catch.
Officiating is hard. The NFL, by making it a science and drawing out the process, is turning off fans and going against the original intent of replay, which is to correct obviously wrong calls quickly. That’s not happening. At all. This has to be a priority for Roger Goodell, the Competition Committee and the Officiating Department in February.
Finally: The time of game was 3:17. The average time of game for a 2017 regular-season game was 3:05.51. You can’t make judgments on how the game is dragging based on one game, to be sure. But you can’t tell me that, with a streamlined replay process that should be significantly better with centralized replay and the tablet being brought to the field to make the referee’s replay-analysis quicker, you couldn’t have shaved at least four minutes off the process in the first half of this game alone.
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AS THE PATRIOTS TURN…
MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES
My takeaways from the kerfuffle over the ESPN Patriots’ expose about Tom Brady guru Alex Guerrero, and how the Jimmy Garoppolo trade went down, and whether this is the last year of the Kraft/Belichick/Brady team after 18 years together:
• The Patriots haven’t been as angry about anything since the Tom Brady deflated footballs scandal. Apoplectic might be a better word.
• I have never heard Robert Kraft more strident about anything—and that includes Spygate and Deflategate—than he was on the phone with me about the accusation that he mandated that Garoppolo be traded in a meeting with Belichick before the October trade deadline. As I wrote Saturday, Kraft said such an in-season meeting never happened.
Garoppolo was dealt to San Francisco for a second-round pick on Oct. 30. Kraft’s voice rose, his ire clear sentence after sentence, as he insisted he did not tell Belichick to make the trade. I have known Kraft since soon after he bought the team in 1994, and the one thing that sets him off is someone questioning his word. That’s why this set him off.
• Bill Belichick drawing a line in the sand, as both the Boston Globeand ESPN reported, about Guerrero has actually been a good thing for the organization. Before, there was a hazy line about Guerrero’s role with the team inside the building and on the sidelines.
I can’t think of any coaches who would then restrict the access of the man who is closest to a five-time Super Bowl quarterback and possibly the best quarterback in history. But Belichick did. Now players other than Brady can be treated by Guerrero, but only independently, at the facility adjacent to Gillette Stadium that Guerrero operates.
• I think Belichick coaches the team in 2018. Beyond that? We’re reaching the end of this great era. I just don’t know exactly when it’ll end. Kraft had some adamant words for me when I asked if there’s any way he’d consider trading Belichick. Basically, the answer was no, or maybe NO NO NO.
• I doubt this is the end, as I say. But think of what has transpired over 18 years if it is: five Super Bowl wins (perhaps a sixth in the next month), and a run of greatness that includes a league record 12 regular-season wins or more in each of the past seven seasons.
Think about it. Eighteen years. Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr and the publicly owned Packers lasted nine years together. Chuck Noll, Terry Bradshaw and the Rooney family lasted a far rockier 13 together. Bill Walsh, Joe Montana and Eddie DeBartolo lasted 10.
And that’s how I’ll leave this. In my time covering the NFL, 34 seasons, the gold standard of an owner-coach-quarterback trio, with much justification, has been San Francisco’s DeBartolo-Walsh-Montana. Ten seasons, seven playoff appearances, six division titles, three Super Bowl wins.
You decide if it’s time to rethink the best triumvirate in modern football history. Kraft, Belichick and Brady, in 18 years together, have 15 playoff appearances, 15 division titles and five Super Bowl wins. What will be will be going forward, but we’re not going to see a run like this again.
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DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Aaron Donald, defensive lineman, L.A. Rams. Pressure player of the weekend number one. Donald swarmed Matt Ryan relentlessly (particularly in the first half), getting half a sack and recording 10 pressures, per Pro Football Focus.
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FACTOID THAT MAY INTEREST ONLY ME
The Rams signed free-agent linebacker Kasim Edebali on Dec. 20.
The Rams played at Tennessee on Dec. 24. Edebali was inactive against the Titans, but Los Angeles won the NFC West title that day. Edebali, like all his teammates, got an NFC West championship cap in the locker room after the game.
The Rams cut Edebali on Dec. 27. The Saints signed Edebali on Dec. 28.
The Saints played at Tampa Bay on Dec. 31. Edebali was inactive against the Bucs, but New Orleans won the NFC South title that day. Edebali, like all his teammates, got an NFC South championship cap in the locker room after the game.
Eight days, zero snaps, two hats.
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1. I think three things about the Jon Gruden deal with Oakland:
• It’s a good hire. It truly is, and the Raiders (particularly the moribund offense that was awful in 2017) need a cold slap in the face from a nutty—in a good way—guy like Gruden. Derek Carr needs a competent mentor in the passing game to coach him hard, and to teach him how to captain a ship.
• It’s not without risks, to be sure. Gruden, in his last six seasons as an NFL head coach, won 45 and lost 53, and won zero playoff games, and developed no long-term quarterback. Isn’t all of that counter to why Mark Davis is hiring him?
• There’s something about the money that seems—while certainly not unfair—a little bit out of whack with even the NFL’s warped reality. The Raiders are paying Jon Gruden $100 million to coach football for a decade. I’m truly not saying he won’t be worth it. But suppose he burns out in six years, or five. This is an intense human being who’s been out of the fire for nine years. What are the odds he lasts 10 years? Fifteen percent? Twenty? Thirty?
Four of the 32 NFL teams are being coached by a man who’s been in the coaching seat there for 10 seasons or longer. Say Gruden lasts six, and gets fired. Imagine the Raiders owing him $40 million, or whatever the structure of the deal mandates he gets paid in the final four years. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done this if I were Davis. I’m saying the Raiders could end up paying Gruden a sick sum to not work if this doesn’t work out.
2. I think these are my quick thoughts on wild-card weekend:
a. I thought Cam Newton was excellent on many levels Sunday, and if Kaelin Clay catches a perfectly thrown touchdown pass in the first quarter, there’s a good chance it’s Carolina at Minnesota on Sunday.
b. Never thought I’d see Asshole Face dancing in a locker room, or anywhere. That’s what beating one of your archrivals in the playoffs does.
c. New Orleans and Jacksonville have ridiculously punishing defenses.
d. If it’s only about football, Julius Peppers should certainly play next year.
e. Congrats to Brian Gutekunst for stepping into the seat held for the past quarter-century by Ron Wolf and Ted Thompson. I’ve heard nothing but good about Gutekunst; he’s a scout’s scout.
f. How much do you think Marcel Dareus loved bursting through the Bills’ line and dropping LeSean McCoy for a three-yard first-quarter loss?
g. No team reached midfield in the first quarter of Bills-Jags. “Field-position game,” said Tony Romo.
h. Calais Campbell saved the Jags four points with his shoelace tackle of Tyrod Taylor, running for the end zone inside the 5-yard line late in the first half.
i. Not saying it cost the Panthers the game, but as Ron Rivera said post-game, the fourth-down interception by Carolina’s Mike Adams cost the Panthers 20 yards on the biggest drive of the season. Said Rivera: "You wish he would have dropped it or batted it down, just knowing the situation and circumstances."
j. Most important number of the weekend: 74,300. That was the Rams-Falcons attendance at the Los Angeles Coliseum Saturday night. Pretty good.
k. Advice to the equipment managers who have to play at the Coliseum in December and January: Pack the longer cleats for night games.
l. Saved by the win: Eric Decker of the Titans, with a huge drop early at Kansas City, and a huge touchdown catch late.
m. Best example of the weekend of playoff pressure getting to a guy: Rams return man Pharoh Cooper. Every time the ball got near him on a return, it looked like he got nervous. Very nervous.
n. Al Michaels with the line of the first half Saturday night, when a laconic Larry David was shown on-screen: “Curb your enthusiasm, Larry.”
o. I heard that “Curb” theme song, Fred Gaudelli and Drew Esocoff.
p. Robert Alford played a very good game for the Falcons at cornerback. Two huge pass breakups, and only a 39.5 pass rating allowed, per Pro Football Focus.
q. The Rams thought Robert Woods was the hidden gem of their free-agent offseason shopping. And the way he played against Atlanta, particularly catching two seeds from Jared Goff, illustrated how important he’s been to the Ram offense.
r. Deion Jones is just 6'1", and weighs just 223, but he’s the perfect instinctive chaser in the middle of the Atlanta defense.
s. Man, Brian Poole of the Falcons is a heck of a tackler. Ask Todd Gurley.
3. I think this concussion protocol might just require an act of Congress to get right. Last week the NFL said it would mandate a locker-room evaluation for concussion “for all players demonstrating gross or sustained vertical instability (e.g., stumbling or falling to the ground when trying to stand).” On Sunday in New Orleans, Cam Newton got hit hard twice on a Saints’ pass rush, and he appeared to be squinting and wincing, particularly in his right eye, when the FOX cameras zoomed in.
After a couple of moments down, Newton headed for the sidelines, but couldn’t make it. He dropped to one knee, and team medics examined him again. He went inside the blue sideline tent and apparently never went to the locker room. Newton missed one play and went back in the game. Now, the Panthers may argue that Newton never demonstrated “gross or sustained” vertical instability. We’ll find out soon enough, as the NFL officially has launched an investigation into how things were handled. Expect much more on this story this week.
4. I think the best way to explain Mike Brown keeping Marvin Lewis—after he couldn’t get Jay Gruden or Hue Jackson—for a 16th season is this: Brown can’t quit Lewis. Brown is a prisoner of familiarity.
5. I think Lewis didn’t seem like a man all-in for the Bengals’ extension the day before it happened. I’m told he was investigating TV jobs to see what was out there.
6. I think the Panthers have it right. If the coach works, keep him—for a long time. And Ron Rivera is working well in Carolina. When you win 12, 7, 15, 6 and 11 games in five straight seasons, and make the playoffs in four of the five seasons, it’s a no-doubter that this is your coach of the future. Smart for GM Marty Hurney to get a two-year extension done before Sunday’s playoff game in New Orleans, leaving no doubt about the faith this suddenly shaky-at-the-top franchise has in the head coach.
7. I think this was an excellent point by retired and insightful quarterback Dan Orlovsky, after the mistake-prone crew of ref Jeff Triplette made multiple errors in Tennessee-Kansas City: “That’s on the NFL. Crews should be younger, in better physical condition, have annual tests for that, and their eyes. Greatest athletes in the world moving incredibly fast. These men aren’t equipped to handle that.” When the NFL studies crews, the league must study the athleticism and reaction times as well.
8. I think, of all the people leaving pro football at the end of this season, we cannot forget Len Dawson, who did his last Chiefs broadcast on the Kansas City radio network pregame show on Saturday afternoon. (Dawson, 82, works home games only.) He thus ends a 60-year affiliation with pro football. His career:
• 1957-1959—Pittsburgh. The fifth pick in the first round couldn’t win the starting job over Bobby Layne and got traded after the ’59 season.
• 1960-1961—Cleveland. He can’t beat out Milt Plum and gets released by ’61.
• 1962-1975—Kansas City. MVP of the AFL in 1962 (when the Chiefs were the Dallas TEx, Super Bowl IV MVP, Pro Football Hall of Famer. Check out this photo. That is Dawson, at halftime of Super Bowl I, in the bowels of the Los Angeles Coliseum 51 years ago, smoking a cigarette and drinking a Fresca. One of the classic old football images. Imagine Tom Brady sucking on a Camel.
• 1977-2001—HBO “Inside the NFL” host.
• 1985-2017—Chiefs radio network analyst, then pregame host.
What a football life he’s had. This is the mark of a good man, and impactful man: I have never met a soul who had a bad thing to say about Len Dawson. Godspeed to him. One of my favorite notes about Dawson is that he’s the seventh son from an Ohio family, and his father was a seventh son.
9. I think I’m going to miss talking to Bruce Arians, about football and other topics. I’ll have more from a recent conversation with Arians soon at The MMQB
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/01/08/n...onal-round-preview-drew-brees-mmqb-peter-king
Wild-Card Wows By Drew Brees, Saints Set Up NFL Divisional Playoff Matchup for the Ages
By Peter King
JONATHAN BACHMAN/GETTY IMAGES
Now that was a fun weekend. Marcus Mariota, tucking in his cape so we could hardly see it, threw two touchdown passes, caught a touchdown pass, made the block of the weekend and saved his coach’s job, all in three hours.
Atlanta’s defense made the best offense in football, the 2017 Rams, look like the 2016 Rams.
Jacksonville won a home playoff game for the first time in 18 years against a team playing a playoff game for the first time in 18 years. Drew Brees turns 39 a week from today, and the Saints don’t need him to be The Man anymore, but they needed him to play well to beat Carolina, and he did. “Still The Man,” said Saints running back Mark Ingram. “I’ve been telling you all year—don’t sleep on Drew.”
Now this is going to be a fun weekend coming up. A top-seeded home dog in the (Petrified) City of Brotherly Love on Saturday at dusk. Another promising young contender, Mariota, comes at the king, Tom Brady, on Saturday night.
The Roethlisberger Redemption Show trying to overcome a team playing like a bunch of scolded dogs (I will explain) on Sunday afternoon. Three good pieces of drama. Then the best game: the incredibly rebuilt Saints with their forever coach and quarterback against the team that’s so hot it prays the bye week didn’t cool it off. Saints-Vikings, in the last game of the round-of-eight.
This is a season that still doesn’t have an identity, beyond the anthem protests and the President Trump attacks. It’s sort of the changing of the guard, but not really—not with New England and Pittsburgh and Drew Brees and Matt Ryan still contenders for championship weekend. And it’s sort of the rise of the offseason ’dogs. But the Jaguars need Blake Bortles to be competent. Same with the Eagles and Nick Foles. Same with the Titans around Mariota.
What it comes down to in January, I think, isn’t the star power. It’s the games. And this weekend, Saints-Vikings is the best. It should be great.
The NFL could use some megastars. It’s a strange year in the league. In the final eight, the only remotely sure thing to me is New England over Tennessee. But we all can see the wounded top-seeded Eagles finding a way at home, same as we can see Atlanta flying into Philadelphia and winning. We all can see Jacksonville winning in Pittsburgh—and if you say you can’t, you haven’t watched that swarming defense. We all could flip a coin for Saints-Vikings.
This is how Minnesota’s defense ended the season, in the final three games:
Record: 3-0.
Points allowed per game: 5.7
Yards allowed per game: 200.3
Opponents completion rate: 48.6 percent.
Now, the Vikings faced Andy Dalton, Brett Hundley and Mitchell Trubisky down the stretch. This week they’ll face an all-timer. It’s been a strange year for Drew Brees, but a great year for the Saints. New Orleans was coming of three straight 7-9 seasons, and, truth be told, the Saints may have taken a decent trade offer for coach Asshole Face, just to start anew.
But Payton reinvented himself, sort of. He said with some pride that the Saints were going to be more run-reliant and less Brees-reliant; all the great offensive stats weren’t winning any January games, after all. Payton was convinced his team would be better off trying to win with defense and a running game than playing bombs-away.
So the Saints drafted a long-term right tackle, Ryan Ramczyk, in the first round, and a three-down back, Alvin Kamara, late in the third, fortifying the secondary with cornerback Marson Lattimore and safety Marcus Williams in between. I am not exaggerating when I say that the trio of GM Mickey Loomis, college scouting director Jeff Ireland (remember him, Dolfans?) and Payton had one of the best drafts in recent history.
All four of those players, remarkably, are above-average NFL starters as rookies. In fact, 14 of the 22 starters in Sunday’s wild-card win over Carolina were not active Saints in 2015. Talk about a changing of the guard.
Watching Minnesota in the last two weeks of the season—in the beatdown of Green Bay and the rout of Chicago—was educational. What a confident player Case Keenum is, against all odds. The Vikes’ quarterback should be Sam Bradford, or maybe a healed Teddy Bridgewater, by now.
But every time he steps on the field, Keenum shows he belong, and he shows GMs with quarterback holes (John Elway in Denver, John Dorsey in Cleveland, Mike Maccagnan with the Jets) to pay attention if for some reason the Vikings don’t aggressively try to re-sign him after the season.
And then there’s the defensive talent, led by instinctive difference-maker Harrison Smith at safety. The Vikings are the NFC Super Bowl favorites, the team with the best chance to make it to Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis, the team that could end the schneid of no team ever playing a Super Bowl at home.
Asshole Face and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael, play-designing … Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram, mandating respect in the run game … a better line than the Saints have had since their Super Bowl season … and the Jordan-led young defense. “These young cats, they don’t know what we’ve been through,” Jordan said. “Losing hurts. Most of these guys haven’t seen it. But that’s okay. The biggest difference in our team is how the locker room feels. These guys are so confident. They’re winners.”
What a test Sunday in Minneapolis. Brees against a tremendous front, and against a safety (Smith) with the sideline-to-sideline instincts of the guy he just beat (Luke Kuechly). The NFL, in the round of eight, has saved the best for last.
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DILIP VISHWANAT/GETTY IMAGES
More in a moment on an eventful week—the retirements of Carson Palmer and Bruce Arians, the Patriots defending their culture, the Raiders finally nabbing Jon Gruden, the continuing mayhem of instant-replay—and the looming divisional round. First, some voices of the wild-card games:
• Titans 22, Chiefs 21: Tennessee running back Derrick Henry (23 carries, 156 yards), on Marcus Mariota … Titans up 22-21, third-and-10, Kansas City 44. Chiefs blitz. Mariota hands to Henry. “It was a zone read play, and there was nothing there. I hit it outside, to the left, and it was gonna be me and [Chiefs linebacker Frank Zombo] behind the line of scrimmage. And there was Marcus. He made the block to take the guy out of the play.
Then all I had to do was get the first down and the game is over. That’s how it happened. Marcus, that’s just him being who he is, him being great. He has the kind of attention to detail on plays like that—he’s just one of the guys, trying to make a play for another one of the guys. Everybody was excited.” Seven teammates hopped around Mariota, congratulating the quarterback for one of the plays of the game. A block.
• Falcons 26, Rams 13: Atlanta linebacker Deion Jones (10 tackles, one very big pass defensed), on the play that clinched the game … Atlanta up 26-13, fourth-and-goal from the Atlanta 5-yard line, 2:11 left. Jones on wideout Sammy Watkins. “I was pretty much by myself on the coverage. Watkins used his body to get leverage on me, and in that situation I have to fight through it, or it’s going to be a pretty easy touchdown.
Every week on plays like that, it’s a fight. I mean, a physical fight. Like Coach Quinn said before the game, ‘This game’s gonna be a fight, and the defense has to be closers.’ So this is fourth down. The play had to be made.” Jones broke up the pass two yards deep in the end zone. Game over.
• Jaguars 10, Bills 3: Jacksonville defensive lineman Malik Jackson (one sack, one pass defensed), on making a bad franchise competitive ... “It feels like the city’s erupting. I’m just glad we could give Duval [County] the kind of team it deserves. We’re one of eight teams left. That’s why I was brought here from Denver, to win games like this. This game was a dogfight. But that’s all right—we like dogfights. Hard-nosed, old-school football. We play like scolded dogs.”
Huh? “Like Jaguars on the hunt, with reckless abandon. Eleven guys, playing all-out. We make everybody feel us. We have that angry northeast-football style of play, taught by our coach [Bronx native Doug Marrone]. I mean, we have some angry guys on this defense. I am going to put you in the dirt. Know what I’m saying? Pittsburgh’s next. We don’t care. Whoever it is, we’ll play. If America favors them, we don’t care.”
• Saints 31, Panthers 26: New Orleans defensive end Cam Jordan (one sack, two passes batted down, one vital intentional-grounding forced), on the great joy in beating Cam Newton and the Panthers for the third time this year ... “We had to remind ’em, the is our year. We knew Cam was gonna try to be a hero. We made him a traditional quarterback for sure. When he gets running, he gets more and more energetic, he’s the real Cam, Superman, the cape, all that.
We didn’t want him to run, so we kept him in the pocket. Late in the game we hurt him and he came back. What a competitor he is to come back. But all game, I wanted to make him as uncomfortable as possible. Got a good couple pressures, then got him on the grounding play. Such a huge win. I am going to send Cam a bottle of wine. A Jordan, from Sonoma, to remind him what it’s like to be 0-3 against us.”
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A DIVISIONAL ROUND PREVIEW
Atlanta (11-6, NFC 6th seed) at Philadelphia (13-3, NFC 1st seed), Saturday, 4:35 p.m., NBC. The news is fairly stunning. A six seed, a dome team playing in open air in January at one of the toughest places in the league to play, is a 2.5-point favorite over a one seed. No six seed has ever been favored over a one seed since the playoff field expanded to 12 teams in 1990. That’s the predicament the Eagles find themselves. The odds are Foles-centric, obviously. No one trusts Nick Foles to play a competent game this weekend.
In his last two games, collectively, he never hit 50 in two fairly significant categories: completion percentage (46.9 percent) and passer rating (48.2). So Eagles offensive coordinator Frank Reich, when putting the game plan together with Doug Pederson, must be mindful of making this a power-running, Giants-of-the-’80s football game. This is the way Philadelphia can win this game. Run LaGarrette Blount and Jay Ajayi 40 or 43 times behind a line the Eagles trust far more than their quarterback. Blount and Ajayi, combined, rushed for 4.83 yards per carry as Eagles this year.
This won’t work unless Foles can, maybe once a quarter, hit one of his receivers with something beyond an intermediate route. But unless they run effectively, Philadelphia’s not winning this game. One last thing: Bill Parcells used to say, It’s not average per carry I care about. It’s number of carries. In one of the biggest Super Bowl upsets ever, the Giants ran it 39 times and held the ball for 40:33 to beats Buffalo 27 years ago. That’s the blueprint. The Eagles need to eat the clock and keep the ball away from a better offense to win this game.
Tennessee (10-7, AFC 5th seed) at New England (13-3, AFC 1st seed), Saturday, 8:15 p.m., CBS. Distractions will mean nothing in this game. Nothing, maybe, except they will make Tom Brady want to shove it down the throats of those who think he’s a power-hungry warlord controlling his backups. As much as I think it’s silly to think of these Patriots as a two-touchdown favorite against any team in the playoffs, I also think it’s highly unlikely that rested New England can lose to Tennessee. The Titans will try to play smashmouth with Derrick Henry (that’s certainly what I’d do), to be sure, and get Marcus Mariota out on the flank for some run-pass options.
I think New England’s Josh McDaniels will call a smarter game than the Chiefs did against Tennessee. In other words, the Patriots will be significantly more balanced. In New England’s last two games, the Pats rushed for 340 yards and passed for 401 net yards … and averaged 33:16 in possession time while winning two games by a combined 41 points. Dion Lewis gives New England a true outside threat in the backfield, along with bigger backs to go inside against Jurrell Casey and Sylvester Williams.
(Challenging the Tennessee interior defense rarely goes well for any team.) Mariota gives the Patriots plenty to think about, and lots to game plan for. But the Patriots will be prepared. They’re a vastly improved defense since the first month of the season, and coming off a bye could make them better. Here’s a stat I like: Coming off their in-season bye, New England, in its next four games, allowed 16, 8, 17 and 3 points, respectively.
Jacksonville (11-6, AFC 3rd seed) at Pittsburgh (13-3, AFC 2nd seed), Sunday, 1:05 p.m., CBS. One of the stunning results of this NFL season happened in Week 5 at Heinz Field: Jacksonville 30, Pittsburgh 9. The first five-interception game of Ben Roethlisberger’s career left him saying afterward: “Maybe I don’t have it anymore.” The other day, Roethlisberger confirmed he wanted the Jags in the divisional game: “I’d love to prove that five interceptions wasn’t me in that game.” That’ll be the story all week, to be sure. But Pittsburgh will have other problems in this game—quite a few, in fact.
The Steelers got steamrolled for 231 rushing yards by Jacksonville, and Leonard Fournette had 181 of them, including a 90-yard dagger to cap the game in the fourth quarter. It’s clear the Jags have a problem on offense in the passing game. Blake Bortles is the AFC’s Nick Foles, players their teams have to game plan around to win.
On Sunday, after the 10-3 win over Buffalo, Doug Marrone tried to be nice, but the reality of the situation couldn’t be avoided: The Jags can’t trust Bortles. “I’d be a fool to sit here and say I’m not concerned,” Marrone said. “If you want to continue to keep playing, you have to do a better job.” Or, the Jags have to pick off Roethlisberger a couple of times, and play a grind-it-out game.
New Orleans (12-5, NFC 4th seed) at Minnesota (13-3, NFC 2nd seed), Sunday, 4:40 p.m., FOX. So the NFL lucked into this: The last game of the weekend shapes up as the best game of the weekend. The Saints, fortunately, get to play last on divisional weekend (can’t the NFL please find a better phrasing for the league’s round-of-eight than Divisional Playoff Weekend?) after a brutally physical game against the division rival Panthers. If you look for clues from the first time these two teams met, you’ll be disappointed. It was one of the two Monday-nighters from Week 1.
Vikes won, 29-19. Sam Bradford threw for 346 yards and Dalvin Cook ran for 127, and Adrian Peterson was the Saints’ headliner, and four Saints’ rookies were making their NFL debuts. Now the Saints visit Minneapolis again, and wouldn’t it be startling if New Orleans plays in U.S. Bank Stadium three times in five months? Of course, that would mean the team trying to be the first to play a Super Bowl on its home field would get knocked out … and that’s going to be a tough road for the Saints to travel.
I think this game is about the maturation of the Minnesota defense playing some great football down the stretch against some poor offenses—Cincinnati, Green Bay (minus Aaron Rodgers) and Chicago. Drew Brees, with a defined running game and a maturing defense, will be a superb test for the Vikings. The winner here will certainly deserve a spot in the NFC Championship Game.
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THE WEEKLY REPLAY RANT
PATRICK MCDERMOTT/GETTY IMAGES
The final 22 seconds of the first half of the Falcons-Rams game took nine minutes, 22 seconds to play. The replay process continues to be dysfunctional and plodding.
Latest example: First quarter, Saturday night, Falcons at Rams. A Falcons punt falls to earth and—as replays would clearly show—bounces off Rams safety Blake Countess and then Rams returner Pharoh Cooper, and then into a pig-pile, and the Falcons recover. Ref Ed Hochuli signals: Falcons ball. Start the clock.
1:22. The third NBC replay clearly shows the ball first hit Countess’s foot. So then, obviously, the ball is free to be recovered by anyone. This is 82 seconds after Hochuli first made his signal, but there’s no question that the New York NFL officiating center has now seen several replays—and surely the replay that shows the ball hitting Countess’s foot.
2:17. Hochuli walks from sideline to address nation, presumably with a confirmation of the call on the field—Falcons ball.
2:22. Inexplicably, Hochuli gets on his mike for what should have been a confirmation of the call on the field. He says: “We will review the ruling.” FOR WHAT! WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED!!!!
3:34. The Coliseum PA system begins playing the “Jeopardy” theme song.
4:09. Hochuli confirms the ruling, beginning, “The ball was first touched by the receiving team.” Al Michaels mutters on NBC: “No kidding.”
At the end, in all quarters and in living rooms all over America, there had to be the same disbelief in this broken process as I felt.
“We moan about it every week,” a disgusted Michaels said on NBC. “What are you gonna do?”
“Golden Globes speech,” Cris Collinsworth said.
This process simply must be streamlined. Within 82 seconds of the play happening on the field, we saw a replay confirming that two Rams touched the ball. It is inexcusable to take four minutes and nine seconds from the time a play happens to adjudicate it, when, in half that time, TV replays show exactly what happened.
In the last 22 seconds of the first half, there was a 3-minute, 31-second delay between the ruling of a Todd Gurley catch on the field and the near-running of the next play, and then the eventual overruling of the Gurley catch.
Officiating is hard. The NFL, by making it a science and drawing out the process, is turning off fans and going against the original intent of replay, which is to correct obviously wrong calls quickly. That’s not happening. At all. This has to be a priority for Roger Goodell, the Competition Committee and the Officiating Department in February.
Finally: The time of game was 3:17. The average time of game for a 2017 regular-season game was 3:05.51. You can’t make judgments on how the game is dragging based on one game, to be sure. But you can’t tell me that, with a streamlined replay process that should be significantly better with centralized replay and the tablet being brought to the field to make the referee’s replay-analysis quicker, you couldn’t have shaved at least four minutes off the process in the first half of this game alone.
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AS THE PATRIOTS TURN…
MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES
My takeaways from the kerfuffle over the ESPN Patriots’ expose about Tom Brady guru Alex Guerrero, and how the Jimmy Garoppolo trade went down, and whether this is the last year of the Kraft/Belichick/Brady team after 18 years together:
• The Patriots haven’t been as angry about anything since the Tom Brady deflated footballs scandal. Apoplectic might be a better word.
• I have never heard Robert Kraft more strident about anything—and that includes Spygate and Deflategate—than he was on the phone with me about the accusation that he mandated that Garoppolo be traded in a meeting with Belichick before the October trade deadline. As I wrote Saturday, Kraft said such an in-season meeting never happened.
Garoppolo was dealt to San Francisco for a second-round pick on Oct. 30. Kraft’s voice rose, his ire clear sentence after sentence, as he insisted he did not tell Belichick to make the trade. I have known Kraft since soon after he bought the team in 1994, and the one thing that sets him off is someone questioning his word. That’s why this set him off.
• Bill Belichick drawing a line in the sand, as both the Boston Globeand ESPN reported, about Guerrero has actually been a good thing for the organization. Before, there was a hazy line about Guerrero’s role with the team inside the building and on the sidelines.
I can’t think of any coaches who would then restrict the access of the man who is closest to a five-time Super Bowl quarterback and possibly the best quarterback in history. But Belichick did. Now players other than Brady can be treated by Guerrero, but only independently, at the facility adjacent to Gillette Stadium that Guerrero operates.
• I think Belichick coaches the team in 2018. Beyond that? We’re reaching the end of this great era. I just don’t know exactly when it’ll end. Kraft had some adamant words for me when I asked if there’s any way he’d consider trading Belichick. Basically, the answer was no, or maybe NO NO NO.
• I doubt this is the end, as I say. But think of what has transpired over 18 years if it is: five Super Bowl wins (perhaps a sixth in the next month), and a run of greatness that includes a league record 12 regular-season wins or more in each of the past seven seasons.
Think about it. Eighteen years. Vince Lombardi, Bart Starr and the publicly owned Packers lasted nine years together. Chuck Noll, Terry Bradshaw and the Rooney family lasted a far rockier 13 together. Bill Walsh, Joe Montana and Eddie DeBartolo lasted 10.
And that’s how I’ll leave this. In my time covering the NFL, 34 seasons, the gold standard of an owner-coach-quarterback trio, with much justification, has been San Francisco’s DeBartolo-Walsh-Montana. Ten seasons, seven playoff appearances, six division titles, three Super Bowl wins.
You decide if it’s time to rethink the best triumvirate in modern football history. Kraft, Belichick and Brady, in 18 years together, have 15 playoff appearances, 15 division titles and five Super Bowl wins. What will be will be going forward, but we’re not going to see a run like this again.
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DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Aaron Donald, defensive lineman, L.A. Rams. Pressure player of the weekend number one. Donald swarmed Matt Ryan relentlessly (particularly in the first half), getting half a sack and recording 10 pressures, per Pro Football Focus.
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FACTOID THAT MAY INTEREST ONLY ME
The Rams signed free-agent linebacker Kasim Edebali on Dec. 20.
The Rams played at Tennessee on Dec. 24. Edebali was inactive against the Titans, but Los Angeles won the NFC West title that day. Edebali, like all his teammates, got an NFC West championship cap in the locker room after the game.
The Rams cut Edebali on Dec. 27. The Saints signed Edebali on Dec. 28.
The Saints played at Tampa Bay on Dec. 31. Edebali was inactive against the Bucs, but New Orleans won the NFC South title that day. Edebali, like all his teammates, got an NFC South championship cap in the locker room after the game.
Eight days, zero snaps, two hats.
* * *
1. I think three things about the Jon Gruden deal with Oakland:
• It’s a good hire. It truly is, and the Raiders (particularly the moribund offense that was awful in 2017) need a cold slap in the face from a nutty—in a good way—guy like Gruden. Derek Carr needs a competent mentor in the passing game to coach him hard, and to teach him how to captain a ship.
• It’s not without risks, to be sure. Gruden, in his last six seasons as an NFL head coach, won 45 and lost 53, and won zero playoff games, and developed no long-term quarterback. Isn’t all of that counter to why Mark Davis is hiring him?
• There’s something about the money that seems—while certainly not unfair—a little bit out of whack with even the NFL’s warped reality. The Raiders are paying Jon Gruden $100 million to coach football for a decade. I’m truly not saying he won’t be worth it. But suppose he burns out in six years, or five. This is an intense human being who’s been out of the fire for nine years. What are the odds he lasts 10 years? Fifteen percent? Twenty? Thirty?
Four of the 32 NFL teams are being coached by a man who’s been in the coaching seat there for 10 seasons or longer. Say Gruden lasts six, and gets fired. Imagine the Raiders owing him $40 million, or whatever the structure of the deal mandates he gets paid in the final four years. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done this if I were Davis. I’m saying the Raiders could end up paying Gruden a sick sum to not work if this doesn’t work out.
2. I think these are my quick thoughts on wild-card weekend:
a. I thought Cam Newton was excellent on many levels Sunday, and if Kaelin Clay catches a perfectly thrown touchdown pass in the first quarter, there’s a good chance it’s Carolina at Minnesota on Sunday.
b. Never thought I’d see Asshole Face dancing in a locker room, or anywhere. That’s what beating one of your archrivals in the playoffs does.
c. New Orleans and Jacksonville have ridiculously punishing defenses.
d. If it’s only about football, Julius Peppers should certainly play next year.
e. Congrats to Brian Gutekunst for stepping into the seat held for the past quarter-century by Ron Wolf and Ted Thompson. I’ve heard nothing but good about Gutekunst; he’s a scout’s scout.
f. How much do you think Marcel Dareus loved bursting through the Bills’ line and dropping LeSean McCoy for a three-yard first-quarter loss?
g. No team reached midfield in the first quarter of Bills-Jags. “Field-position game,” said Tony Romo.
h. Calais Campbell saved the Jags four points with his shoelace tackle of Tyrod Taylor, running for the end zone inside the 5-yard line late in the first half.
i. Not saying it cost the Panthers the game, but as Ron Rivera said post-game, the fourth-down interception by Carolina’s Mike Adams cost the Panthers 20 yards on the biggest drive of the season. Said Rivera: "You wish he would have dropped it or batted it down, just knowing the situation and circumstances."
j. Most important number of the weekend: 74,300. That was the Rams-Falcons attendance at the Los Angeles Coliseum Saturday night. Pretty good.
k. Advice to the equipment managers who have to play at the Coliseum in December and January: Pack the longer cleats for night games.
l. Saved by the win: Eric Decker of the Titans, with a huge drop early at Kansas City, and a huge touchdown catch late.
m. Best example of the weekend of playoff pressure getting to a guy: Rams return man Pharoh Cooper. Every time the ball got near him on a return, it looked like he got nervous. Very nervous.
n. Al Michaels with the line of the first half Saturday night, when a laconic Larry David was shown on-screen: “Curb your enthusiasm, Larry.”
o. I heard that “Curb” theme song, Fred Gaudelli and Drew Esocoff.
p. Robert Alford played a very good game for the Falcons at cornerback. Two huge pass breakups, and only a 39.5 pass rating allowed, per Pro Football Focus.
q. The Rams thought Robert Woods was the hidden gem of their free-agent offseason shopping. And the way he played against Atlanta, particularly catching two seeds from Jared Goff, illustrated how important he’s been to the Ram offense.
r. Deion Jones is just 6'1", and weighs just 223, but he’s the perfect instinctive chaser in the middle of the Atlanta defense.
s. Man, Brian Poole of the Falcons is a heck of a tackler. Ask Todd Gurley.
3. I think this concussion protocol might just require an act of Congress to get right. Last week the NFL said it would mandate a locker-room evaluation for concussion “for all players demonstrating gross or sustained vertical instability (e.g., stumbling or falling to the ground when trying to stand).” On Sunday in New Orleans, Cam Newton got hit hard twice on a Saints’ pass rush, and he appeared to be squinting and wincing, particularly in his right eye, when the FOX cameras zoomed in.
After a couple of moments down, Newton headed for the sidelines, but couldn’t make it. He dropped to one knee, and team medics examined him again. He went inside the blue sideline tent and apparently never went to the locker room. Newton missed one play and went back in the game. Now, the Panthers may argue that Newton never demonstrated “gross or sustained” vertical instability. We’ll find out soon enough, as the NFL officially has launched an investigation into how things were handled. Expect much more on this story this week.
4. I think the best way to explain Mike Brown keeping Marvin Lewis—after he couldn’t get Jay Gruden or Hue Jackson—for a 16th season is this: Brown can’t quit Lewis. Brown is a prisoner of familiarity.
5. I think Lewis didn’t seem like a man all-in for the Bengals’ extension the day before it happened. I’m told he was investigating TV jobs to see what was out there.
6. I think the Panthers have it right. If the coach works, keep him—for a long time. And Ron Rivera is working well in Carolina. When you win 12, 7, 15, 6 and 11 games in five straight seasons, and make the playoffs in four of the five seasons, it’s a no-doubter that this is your coach of the future. Smart for GM Marty Hurney to get a two-year extension done before Sunday’s playoff game in New Orleans, leaving no doubt about the faith this suddenly shaky-at-the-top franchise has in the head coach.
7. I think this was an excellent point by retired and insightful quarterback Dan Orlovsky, after the mistake-prone crew of ref Jeff Triplette made multiple errors in Tennessee-Kansas City: “That’s on the NFL. Crews should be younger, in better physical condition, have annual tests for that, and their eyes. Greatest athletes in the world moving incredibly fast. These men aren’t equipped to handle that.” When the NFL studies crews, the league must study the athleticism and reaction times as well.
8. I think, of all the people leaving pro football at the end of this season, we cannot forget Len Dawson, who did his last Chiefs broadcast on the Kansas City radio network pregame show on Saturday afternoon. (Dawson, 82, works home games only.) He thus ends a 60-year affiliation with pro football. His career:
• 1957-1959—Pittsburgh. The fifth pick in the first round couldn’t win the starting job over Bobby Layne and got traded after the ’59 season.
• 1960-1961—Cleveland. He can’t beat out Milt Plum and gets released by ’61.
• 1962-1975—Kansas City. MVP of the AFL in 1962 (when the Chiefs were the Dallas TEx, Super Bowl IV MVP, Pro Football Hall of Famer. Check out this photo. That is Dawson, at halftime of Super Bowl I, in the bowels of the Los Angeles Coliseum 51 years ago, smoking a cigarette and drinking a Fresca. One of the classic old football images. Imagine Tom Brady sucking on a Camel.
• 1977-2001—HBO “Inside the NFL” host.
• 1985-2017—Chiefs radio network analyst, then pregame host.
What a football life he’s had. This is the mark of a good man, and impactful man: I have never met a soul who had a bad thing to say about Len Dawson. Godspeed to him. One of my favorite notes about Dawson is that he’s the seventh son from an Ohio family, and his father was a seventh son.
9. I think I’m going to miss talking to Bruce Arians, about football and other topics. I’ll have more from a recent conversation with Arians soon at The MMQB
Seriously??? The biggest mugging in NFL history, and King reports it as though it were a great defensive play. What a load of crap!! :headexplosion:
