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These are excerpts. To read the whole article click the link below.
*A story on Lawrence Phillips is included further down the page, and Mike Thomas gets a Goat of the Week award. Plus several snotty remarks by PK on Jared Goff and Jeff Fisher near the end of this article*
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/12/12/nfl-week-14-giants-cowboys-leveon-bell-peter-king
The NFL is a Wide-Open Race
Who is going to win Super Bowl 51? Who knows. Week 14 set the table for a frenetic finish. A look at the surging Giants, plus more notes on a quiet tailback mentorship, deflated footballs and an offer for Johnny Manziel
By Peter King
Week 14 proved there’s no mega-team in the NFL this year. Actually, Weeks 13 and 14 have proven that, particularly with America’s Teams—Dallas (Foes 25, Dallas 24 in the past eight quarters) and Oakland—struggling. And New England might be great, but the last time they played a good team (Seattle a month ago), they got beaten in Foxboro.
Some dangerous teams, Pittsburgh and Green Bay and Baltimore, might not even make the postseason. I want to join the party in Detroit, but four things stand in my way: The dislocated middle finger on Matt Stafford’s throwing hand and three remaining games—at the Giants, at the Cowboys, and Green Bay in Week 17. Yikes.
This is all you need to know about this season: It’s Dec. 12, and Tampa Bay and Tennessee are tied for first place in their divisions with three weeks to go.
So it’s just the way the NFL wants it. Mystery. Half the league has somewhere between a prayer (Tennessee, Baltimore), a shot (Seattle, Atlanta, Tampa Bay) and real hope (Kansas City, Dallas) of playing deep into January. With three-plus weeks left, look at the slate each week, and you’ll find intrigue.
• Tonight: Baltimore at New England.
• Week 15: Detroit at the Giants … New England at Denver … Tampa Bay at Dallas.
• Week 16: Minnesota at Green Bay (Christmas Eve) … and the Christmas Day double-header, Baltimore at Pittsburgh and Denver at Kansas City.
• Week 17: Green Bay at Detroit … the Giants at Washington … New England at Miami … Oakland at Denver.
Sit back, relax, enjoy the fight.
* * *
Photo: Al Bello/Getty Images
The Cowboys got vulnerable in the past two weeks because they played two very good defenses that pressured Dak Prescott and took away his best receiving weapons. The Giants likely gave Jerry Jones a sleepless night on the way home from Newark early this morning. In two games against New York this year, the 11-2 Cowboys had these problems:
• Dallas averaged 13 points and 294 yards in going 0-2.
• Dak Prescott recorded his two worst games of the season. Composite rating: 58.6.
• Prescott threw 14 passes to Dez Bryant in the two games. Bryant caught two.
• The Giants defense, particularly Sunday night in Jersey, was sound and physical and full of fury. “We played phenomenal,” said cornerback Janoris Jenkins. He’s absolutely right. The Giants never let Dak Prescott breathe Sunday night.
• The Cowboys defense got to Eli Manning and the offense, forcing four total turnovers. But Dallas turned those into just one touchdown.
And there’s this weapon that Dallas just doesn’t have. Well, no one does. Kansas City might—with Tyreek Hill—but it’s a little early to put him in Odell Beckham Jr.’s class. In three NFL seasons, Beckham has 34 touchdowns in 40 games.
It’s a play he’s run 500 times. Sixteen minutes left, Dallas up 7-3, Giants, so far unable to sustain a drive. Second-and-10, ball at the New York 39. Beckham split left, vet cornerback Brandon Carr ready to joust with him at the line, and Eli Manning calling for the snap.
“SET-HUT!!!”
Beckham dekes left-right-left and starts for the post, Carr a quarter-step behind. But this is the important thing: If Beckham gets inside Carr’s inside shoulder, his left shoulder, he knows he can win this—as long as middle ’backer Sean Lee, so instinctive, doesn’t come over to deflect the pass away. The pass has to be fast, and on him, NOW. The pass arrives at the 45, a little high, but easy to catch, and it’s happened so fast that Carr is a full step behind now. Running at full throttle, Beckham splits linebacker Anthony Hitchens and rookie corner Anthony Brown.
On the phone from the Meadowlands, Beckham picks it up.
“I used to catch that ball,” he said, “and I’d be a little timid. I’d want to be sure I had the ball and secured it. But the game is so fast. You’ve just got to hit it. Hit it! I took it around midfield, and I hit it, and I knew I had to just open it up.”
He did, as usual. That speed is rare, and Carr flailed at him and dove around the 7-yard line, but Beckham was gone. Beckham is David Ortiz; the Red Sox have gone down feebly for eight innings and trail by a run in the ninth, but Ortiz bombs a two-run homer to win. Beckham is Steph Curry; down by five with 50 seconds left, Curry hits a pair of threes to save the Warriors. Beckham is an odd dude, but he’s as dangerous a weapon as exists in football today.
And the Giants have him, and the Giants are 9-4 and will be playing in January in large part because of him. And that defense.
I asked Beckham if he thought the Giants might be in the Cowboys’ heads now, with the rest of the league being 0-11 against Dallas and the Giants being 2-0. Maybe in earlier days Beckham would have taken the bait. But not now.
“I don’t know,” Beckham said. “We beat ’em two times, and we’ve played pretty well, but our focus is on Detroit now. We’ve got work to do. We’ve got so much talent, and we know we can play better.”
The Giants joined the club Sunday night, the club of teams with a legitimate chance to play deep into January. The fortified defense will keep them in games like this one. The home-run hitter, Beckham, will win them.
* * *
Le’Veon Bell is Great. He’s Also a Mentor
Photo: AP :: Getty Images
Giants Sweep Cowboys is the headline of the week. But the story I like the most is the greatness of Le’Veon Bell, and his budding relationship with one of the future stars of the NFL.
First: There’s one back in football whose strange main characteristic is his calm. That’s right. A big part of Le’Veon Bell’s greatness is lying back and not attacking holes, but rather waiting ... waiting ... waiting until the right one opens.
Bell had the best game of his professional life Sunday in the Steelers’ 27-20 win over Buffalo. He’d never touched the ball more than 36 times in a game in his four-year career. On Sunday, he had the most productive day by a back against the Bills in their 57-season history, touching it 42 times for 298 yards; 236 yards came on the ground, on 38 carries.
His distinctive style—wait, wait and then hit the hole with speed and, if necessary, power—has earned Bell a fan in California. Last week, doing my podcast with Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey, who has declared for the 2017 NFL draft, the two-time collegiate national leader in all-purpose yards told me that Bell is the pro back he watches the most.
In fact, it’s more than watching. Though they haven’t met yet, McCaffrey and Bell have become video buddies. McCaffrey has sent Bell some of his tape, Bell has critiqued it, and McCaffrey has put that critique into play at Stanford.
“I love watching Le'Veon Bell,” McCaffrey said on campus last week. “I think he has a great mix of doing everything as a running back. He is a very good complete back. His patience, setting up his blocks so well, hitting the hole fast, breaking tackles, making people miss …
That’s the kind of stuff, when I look at his game and look at my game, what I really try to emulate is the aspect of patience, and not just running full-speed downhill. Let your blocks develop before you hit that hole, try to get in the best position of getting one on one with the safety in the open field, make him miss, and then turn on the jets from there.”
Bell got excited Sunday when I mentioned that McCaffrey was a fan.
“That’s my guy!” Bell said. “That means everything in the world to me. He’s a really special runner. I try to break some things down with him. He sent me a lot of his clips, to see what he could have done, what maybe I would have done on the same play—you know, to critique him a little bit. I think in this off-season I’ll meet up with him and work with him.
“He is a special player. You don’t see too many players who play the running back position who not only can run the ball and pass-protect, but who can catch the ball and who can run routes like a receiver. He’s very lean, very quick, great hands, can run any route … That caught me off guard when I first started watching him at the end of his sophomore year. He ran every route in the route tree.”
Back to the pennant race. Bell said the snow game in Buffalo didn’t bother him, nor did the workload, “because I grew up in that weather [in central Ohio]. Maybe you can’t cut as good as you normally would, but I embrace it. And coming to the Steelers was the perfect situation for me. I love the physical play.”
The patience, he says, is a byproduct of having an offensive line he trusts, knowing when it’s smart to burst through a hole and when to make the most of what he has in traffic. “He’ll sit back there in the backfield with the ball in his hands for four, five seconds before everybody makes their blocks,” said McCaffrey, exaggerating a bit. But you get his point. “As soon as he sees the hole, he hits it. That’s the kind of stuff I love to emulate.”
Now, Bell said, the Steelers have become one of those teams the league will fear in the playoffs. “I don’t think any team in the NFL wants to play us right now. Since week eight or nine, I’ve been saying this. Next week, we’ll play even better.” Scary thought for the rest of the AFC.
• McCaffrey on the prospect of any NFL coach allowing him to use his entire portfolio—rushing, receiving, punt-returning, kick-returning—in the pros: “My versatility has been my strong suit. I see how Stanford has used me, and that's how I would love to be used in the NFL too. I can do everything. I can run the ball between the tackles, I can pass-protect, I can go out in the slot and go outside and run routes against corners. I can do special teams, kick return, punt return. That is what I pride myself on, doing as many things as possible and doing them at a high level.”
* * *
Derek Carr would like to help Johnny Manziel
Photo: Joe Robbins/Getty Images
It seems comical that Johnny Manziel was picked 14 slots ahead of Derek Carr in the 2014 NFL draft. Last week, though, when I met with Carr for an NBC “Football Night” feature, he wasn’t gloating. He was sad for Manziel. Carr wants to help Manziel.
“What’s crazy,” Carr said as we drove in the predawn toward Oakland, “is, you know, I spent a lot of time around him. He’s such a good dude. I obviously wish him the best, you know I hope that … hopefully one day he’ll reach out, [I’d] be able to talk to him and be a friend to him.”
“You'd love the chance to help him?” I said.
“Absolutely, man,” Carr said. “Because he’s so talented, so I understand why he was drafted where he was. He could throw, could run, a dynamic athlete, dynamic player. Obviously he just had a little trouble. He’s still young though, so hopefully he'll get another chance someday and he'll be alright.”
Manziel flamed out with the Browns, in part because of addiction issues. Most recently he has been in Texas and Florida, and his family is worried about him surviving without structure and sobriety. But if he reaches out, Carr would lend a hand.
* * *
Some Great Journalism on Lawrence Phillips
Lawrence Phillips spent parts of three seasons in the NFL, playing for the 49ers, Dolphins and Rams.
Photo: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images
Showtime has a 90-minute documentary debuting Friday night (9 p.m. ET) on the troubled and violent life of former Nebraska/NFL/CFL/NFL Europe running back Lawrence Phillips, who died at 40 last January in a California prison. One of the most gifted running backs to enter the NFL, Phillips was a classic case of self-ruin, through a horrendous history of domestic violence, abetted by alcoholism.
The documentary, written ably by Armen Keteyian, Lars Anderson and Al Briganti, is as harrowing a piece of journalism as I’ve seen on a disturbed athlete wreaking havoc on the people around him. It is superb. Phillips, starting at Nebraska and ending after his far-too-short football career, had a pattern of violence with women.
The story is told so vividly—by the women he abused, by a prosecutor who worked to put him behind bars, and by the coaches who got stung by him—that it makes you wonder how this troubled human being kept getting chance after chance after chance in football.
“A wasted, gifted human being,” Dick Vermeil, his coach in St. Louis, says, his voice shaking. “It haunts me.”
Phillips’ last victim—that we know of—was a San Diego exotic dancer, Amaliya Weisler, who describes a torturous beating and strangulation in her apartment, and how she hid in a closet when Phillips returned.
The documentary is so thorough and well told that the next face you see in the piece is the San Diego County prosecutor, Nicole Rooney, describing the post-assault examination of Weisler. Rooney said she had “the worst strangulation marks that I ever saw where a victim lived.”
But it’s not just a thorough piece of reporting on the awful things that Phillips did. It’s an explanation of why he did them. The story begins at two Los Angeles-area youth homes after Phillips had been taken out of a loveless home. There’s no justification for doing what Phillips did, of course. But you get some idea why after the back story, told so well by Keteyian et al.
It’s a crowded landscape in the NFL media world. But I cannot recommend this 90-minute doc more highly. Subscribe to Showtime here.
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The Award Section
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Le’Veon Bell, running back, Pittsburgh. Playing in snow squalls in Buffalo (Bell’s going to want this video for his career time capsule), he rushed a career-high 38 times for a career-high 236 yards, added 62 receiving yards for a career-high 298 yards from scrimmage, in the 27-20 win. Bell had three touchdown runs, of three and five and seven yards, all in the first 40 minutes of the game. How about this for surprising? Bell told me afterward, “I’m not sore.” I’d like to ask him again this morning.
Mitchell Schwartz, tackle, Kansas City. Two games against the Raiders this year. Two times against that oppressive pass-rush. A total of zero sacks allowed, zero quarterback hits allowed, one quarterback pressure allowed, according to Pro Football Focus. Schwartz has been one of the best free-agent signings of 2016, another example of one who shouldn't gotten away from the line-needy Cleveland Browns.
DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
LeShaun Sims, cornerback, Tennessee. Pretty good year for mid- to late-round picks in the NFL. Malcolm Mitchell, No. 112; Blake Martinez, 131; Dak Prescott, 135; Tyreek Hill, 165. Sims, No. 157 out of Southern Utah, is trying to make a name for himself in Dick LeBeau’s secondary, and he was a strong part of the Titans’ 13-10 upset of the defending Super Bowl champion Broncos in Nashville on Sunday.
He had five tackles, one for loss, played a feisty corner for four quarters, and stripped Demaryius Thomas of the tying touchdown reception in the end zone with seven minutes left. Denver settled for a field goal, and those were the last points of the game. Kid’s a good player.
Vic Beasley, linebacker, Atlanta. Good players take advantage of bad foes. And the Los Angeles Rams have one awful offensive line. Beasley collected all three sacks of Jared Goff produced by the Falcons in the 42-14 rout of L.A., for a loss of 27 yards—and Beasley added a forced fumble and recovery, which he ran back for a touchdown. That gives him 13.5 sacks for the year, realizing the promise that he would be the pass-rush force the Falcons were expecting when he drafted in the first round in 2015.
Romeo Okwara, defensive end, New York Giants. Playing in place of the injured do-everything defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, Okwara, an undrafted free agent from Notre Dame, was terrific as JPP Jr. He led the Giants with eight tackles in the 10-7 win over the Cowboys on Sunday night, and he added his first career NFL sack and two more quarterback hits, plus a batted pass.
The storyline before this game was that Pierre-Paul’s absence would be a huge disadvantage for the Giants. It wasn’t much of a factor at all, because of Okwara. Afterward, Okwara was asked what advice Pierre-Paul had for him before the game. “He said to go out there and ball,’” Okwara said. The new kid’s good at following instructions.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Trey Burton, emergency long-snapper, Philadelphia. Being asked to make your first long-snap in the NFL is one thing, probably a scary thing. Being asked to make it with a division game on the line in the fourth quarter, on a field-goal attempt with your team down two points … that is one challenging play. Tight end Burton, subbing for injured tight end Brent Celek (who was subbing for injured regular long-snapper Jon Dorenbos) snapped from the Washington 24-yard line with five minutes left in the game.
Burton fired a spiral back slightly high that was corralled and put down for Caleb Sturgis to boot a 41-yard go-ahead field goal. The Eagles ended up losing, but Burton—who also caught an uncharacteristically high seven balls from Carson Wentz—had a day to remember. By the way, his last long snap in a game? In Pop Warner football, in Venice, Fla.
Tyreek Hill, wide receiver/returner, Kansas City. I have a feeling the 165th pick in the 2016 NFL draft will be in this award space for years to come. He just has a different gear. In the open field, if Hill gets going, his dekes and fakes are just too much for defenders—by the time they adjust, Hill is 10 yards past them.
On Thursday night Hill got one of those head starts in space and ran a punt back 78 yards, virtually uncontested, for a touchdown—on his way to 100 punt-return yards. He also had a 36-yard touchdown catch from Alex Smith. He’s just a very dangerous man right now. He’s also the ninth player since 1960 to have touchdowns via punt return, kick return, receiving and rushing in a single season.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Dick LeBeau, defensive coordinator, Tennessee. One point before I begin: DICK LEBEAU IS GOING TO BE 80 NEXT SEPTEMBER. Okay, let’s move on. It’s amazing to see the Titans over .500 on Dec. 12 … and just as amazing to see the LeBeau-coached D pitching a shutout over the defending Super Bowl champions through 47 minutes in Nashville on Sunday. With 13 minutes left in the game, Tennessee led 13-0, and the heroes on defense for Tennessee were many. The Titans are morphing into a respectable defense, with a big assist from the Hall-of-Famer.
GOATS OF THE WEEK
Mike Thomas, wide receiver/kick-returner, Los Angeles. Four yards deep in the end zone on the opening kickoff against Atlanta, Thomas bobbled the ball, and it took a forward hop that Atlanta linebacker Paul Worrilow recovered on the 3-yard line, leading to a Matt Ryan touchdown pass on the first scrimmage snap of the game. The Rams are putrid offensively, and every little mistake hurts them. Thomas handed the Falcons seven points seven seconds into the game.
Chandler Catanzaro, kicker, Arizona. I don’t know how many times I can excoriate the Cardinal specialists this year, but this unit is having one of the worst years of any special teams group in recent NFL history. Catanzaro doinked a 41-yard field goal off the upright in the second quarter, and then midway through the fourth quarter he had a PAT blocked—and the Dolphins ran it back for a two-point defensive conversion. So the four points Catanzaro didn’t score, and the two points the Dolphins did score because of his miss, were gigantic in a 26-23 loss that was decided on a Miami field goal as time expired.
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This season, 37 passers in the NFL have thrown at least 75 passes.
Cam Newton, the 2015 MVP, is 37th of 37 in completion percentage: 53.5 percent.
That’s 4 percentage points lower than the worst season of his career.
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Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick notes of analysis from Week 14:
a. Can Jared Goff throw a spiral—I mean consistently?
b. If Kansas City makes it that far, and the field on whatever January day they play isn’t slippery and treacherous, Tyreek Hill could very much tilt the field in a Chiefs-Patriots AFC playoff game.
c. Good news and bad news for Luke Kuechly, one of the best defensive players in the land. Good: The concussion protocol continued to work as it should Sunday, keeping him out of his third straight Panthers game since he suffered a scary concussion against New Orleans. Bad—he missed his third straight game Sunday.
d. The indiscriminate and grotesque left leg/hip injury suffered by San Diego running back Melvin Gordon at Carolina is just one more illustration that the biggest item on the union’s negotiating list for 2020 should be fully guaranteed contracts.
e. The more I see of Shane Ray, the more I like what I see of the second-year Denver defensive end—the athleticism and physicality and instincts.
f. Diving at knees in the open field might be legal, Harry Douglas, but it’s still bush league.
g. Oakland quarterback Derek Carr picked the wrong night to have his worst game of the season.
h. Teams on the playoff bubble no one will want to play in January: Pittsburgh and Green Bay … coincidentally, my preseason Super Bowl picks.
i. Great illustration Sunday night by Cris Collinsworth—who sees things so many analysts do not—of the nightmare fundamentals by left tackle Ereck Flowers on his matador act against Dallas defensive end Benson Mayowa, allowing Eli Manning to get strip-sacked for his second turnover of the game.
j. You’re not making a good case to be in the Opening Day 2017 quarterback derby in Cleveland, Robert Griffin III.
2. I think it’s always dangerous to pick on a quarterback after four NFL starts, but you can’t tell me the Rams didn’t drive home from the Coliseum last night, after Jared Goff’s nightmarish game against the Falcons, wondering if Goff was really everything they thought he’d be when they picked him number one last April. Goff looks tentative, with a highly questionable arm, and his decision-making was terrible against Atlanta.
3. I think though the Rams have him signed to a guaranteed deal through the end of the 2018 season, Jeff Fisher is going to have do something significant in the last three weeks of the season to prove he deserves to return. There’s the Albert Breer report of the friction between Fisher and the Rams’ player personnel side, which one team insider told Breer made the internal workings of the team feel like “Rams Junior High.”
Then there’s the fact that Sunday’s embarrassing 28-point home loss to the Falcons ensured the Rams’ fifth straight losing season under Fisher. Fisher’s records in his five years with the team: 7-8-1, 7-9, 6-10, 7-9, 4-9. It was logical that the Rams’ emphasis this season be on the transfer of the franchise from St. Louis to L.A., and progress would be judged by a different standard than playoffs-or-bust. But no one inside the Rams expected the worst of Fisher’s five seasons, and that’s exactly what this is becoming.
So what does Fisher need to do? No one knows, but a 1-2 finish, say, with another bad loss Thursday at Seattle is not what would show owner Stan Kroenke that Fisher’s got a hold of his floundering team. The Rams’ effort didn’t exactly get a ringing endorsement from Todd Gurley post-game Sunday. “Just going through the motions,” Gurley told the Los Angeles Times. “I feel like everyone is just playing to get through.” Not a good sign. Barring a significant-unseen improvement by New Year’s Day, it just doesn’t make any sense to alienate a fan base you’re trying to get to fall in love with you by bringing Fisher back.
4. I think the penalty on Washington safety Deshazor Everett for interfering with Philadelphia punt returner Darren Sproles was the kind of foul that might merit a special category in the rules. Situation: Punt coming down to Sproles, Everett sprinting toward Sproles and trying to time his hit just as the ball reaches Sproles … and BOOM—before the ball arrives, Everett destroys Sproles.
It’s as vicious a hit as you’ll see on an exposed punt returner. I don’t know if Sproles was concussed on the play—he wasn’t available after the game—but that’s the kind of hit that simply doesn’t belong in football. Rather than a fine, I think that hit ought to be strongly considered for a one-game suspension for Everett.
5. I think I hope Victor Cruz is not the only NFL player to come out strong against New York fullback Nikita Whitlock having his home broken into and defaced with a swastika and KKK sign. That’s got to be decried, from every corner of this game. To me, too few players and NFL people have spoken out about this.
6. I think, for all those interested in divining the thoughts of the future of Tom Brady, there is this from Sean McDonough: The ESPN play-by-play man for the Monday night package asked Brady about his future on Saturday during the TV production meeting, and wondered if Brady might play until he’s 45. “That sounds like a good age,” the 39-year-old Brady said. Brady is nothing if not cryptic, but it doesn’t surprise me a bit that he might—might—be thinking about playing at least six more years.
7. I think there’s nothing more stunning than the fact that the Lions—who have trailed in the fourth quarter in 12 of their 13 games—are the second seed in the NFC as of this morning, a half-game ahead of Seattle. Detroit is 9-4, Seattle 8-4-1. As our Andy Benoit writes today, Matthew Stafford might be in the driver’s seat for his first NFL MVP.
8. I think this is not foremost on everyone’s mind, even Giants fans, but I found myself thinking after their second win over the 11-2 Cowboys this year, GM Jerry Reese is safe. Reese went on that jillion-dollar defensive spending spree, and it looks like it’s worked out. It has elevated the Giants into contention to be a significant factor in January.
9. I think the most underrated skill player of his day moved into 10th place on the all-time receptions list Sunday in Detroit. Lions wideout Anquan Boldin is 36 going on 28, and he’s not thinking of stopping now, at 1,064 catches.
*A story on Lawrence Phillips is included further down the page, and Mike Thomas gets a Goat of the Week award. Plus several snotty remarks by PK on Jared Goff and Jeff Fisher near the end of this article*
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/12/12/nfl-week-14-giants-cowboys-leveon-bell-peter-king
The NFL is a Wide-Open Race
Who is going to win Super Bowl 51? Who knows. Week 14 set the table for a frenetic finish. A look at the surging Giants, plus more notes on a quiet tailback mentorship, deflated footballs and an offer for Johnny Manziel
By Peter King
Week 14 proved there’s no mega-team in the NFL this year. Actually, Weeks 13 and 14 have proven that, particularly with America’s Teams—Dallas (Foes 25, Dallas 24 in the past eight quarters) and Oakland—struggling. And New England might be great, but the last time they played a good team (Seattle a month ago), they got beaten in Foxboro.
Some dangerous teams, Pittsburgh and Green Bay and Baltimore, might not even make the postseason. I want to join the party in Detroit, but four things stand in my way: The dislocated middle finger on Matt Stafford’s throwing hand and three remaining games—at the Giants, at the Cowboys, and Green Bay in Week 17. Yikes.
This is all you need to know about this season: It’s Dec. 12, and Tampa Bay and Tennessee are tied for first place in their divisions with three weeks to go.
So it’s just the way the NFL wants it. Mystery. Half the league has somewhere between a prayer (Tennessee, Baltimore), a shot (Seattle, Atlanta, Tampa Bay) and real hope (Kansas City, Dallas) of playing deep into January. With three-plus weeks left, look at the slate each week, and you’ll find intrigue.
• Tonight: Baltimore at New England.
• Week 15: Detroit at the Giants … New England at Denver … Tampa Bay at Dallas.
• Week 16: Minnesota at Green Bay (Christmas Eve) … and the Christmas Day double-header, Baltimore at Pittsburgh and Denver at Kansas City.
• Week 17: Green Bay at Detroit … the Giants at Washington … New England at Miami … Oakland at Denver.
Sit back, relax, enjoy the fight.
* * *
Photo: Al Bello/Getty Images
The Cowboys got vulnerable in the past two weeks because they played two very good defenses that pressured Dak Prescott and took away his best receiving weapons. The Giants likely gave Jerry Jones a sleepless night on the way home from Newark early this morning. In two games against New York this year, the 11-2 Cowboys had these problems:
• Dallas averaged 13 points and 294 yards in going 0-2.
• Dak Prescott recorded his two worst games of the season. Composite rating: 58.6.
• Prescott threw 14 passes to Dez Bryant in the two games. Bryant caught two.
• The Giants defense, particularly Sunday night in Jersey, was sound and physical and full of fury. “We played phenomenal,” said cornerback Janoris Jenkins. He’s absolutely right. The Giants never let Dak Prescott breathe Sunday night.
• The Cowboys defense got to Eli Manning and the offense, forcing four total turnovers. But Dallas turned those into just one touchdown.
And there’s this weapon that Dallas just doesn’t have. Well, no one does. Kansas City might—with Tyreek Hill—but it’s a little early to put him in Odell Beckham Jr.’s class. In three NFL seasons, Beckham has 34 touchdowns in 40 games.
It’s a play he’s run 500 times. Sixteen minutes left, Dallas up 7-3, Giants, so far unable to sustain a drive. Second-and-10, ball at the New York 39. Beckham split left, vet cornerback Brandon Carr ready to joust with him at the line, and Eli Manning calling for the snap.
“SET-HUT!!!”
Beckham dekes left-right-left and starts for the post, Carr a quarter-step behind. But this is the important thing: If Beckham gets inside Carr’s inside shoulder, his left shoulder, he knows he can win this—as long as middle ’backer Sean Lee, so instinctive, doesn’t come over to deflect the pass away. The pass has to be fast, and on him, NOW. The pass arrives at the 45, a little high, but easy to catch, and it’s happened so fast that Carr is a full step behind now. Running at full throttle, Beckham splits linebacker Anthony Hitchens and rookie corner Anthony Brown.
On the phone from the Meadowlands, Beckham picks it up.
“I used to catch that ball,” he said, “and I’d be a little timid. I’d want to be sure I had the ball and secured it. But the game is so fast. You’ve just got to hit it. Hit it! I took it around midfield, and I hit it, and I knew I had to just open it up.”
He did, as usual. That speed is rare, and Carr flailed at him and dove around the 7-yard line, but Beckham was gone. Beckham is David Ortiz; the Red Sox have gone down feebly for eight innings and trail by a run in the ninth, but Ortiz bombs a two-run homer to win. Beckham is Steph Curry; down by five with 50 seconds left, Curry hits a pair of threes to save the Warriors. Beckham is an odd dude, but he’s as dangerous a weapon as exists in football today.
And the Giants have him, and the Giants are 9-4 and will be playing in January in large part because of him. And that defense.
I asked Beckham if he thought the Giants might be in the Cowboys’ heads now, with the rest of the league being 0-11 against Dallas and the Giants being 2-0. Maybe in earlier days Beckham would have taken the bait. But not now.
“I don’t know,” Beckham said. “We beat ’em two times, and we’ve played pretty well, but our focus is on Detroit now. We’ve got work to do. We’ve got so much talent, and we know we can play better.”
The Giants joined the club Sunday night, the club of teams with a legitimate chance to play deep into January. The fortified defense will keep them in games like this one. The home-run hitter, Beckham, will win them.
* * *
Le’Veon Bell is Great. He’s Also a Mentor
Photo: AP :: Getty Images
Giants Sweep Cowboys is the headline of the week. But the story I like the most is the greatness of Le’Veon Bell, and his budding relationship with one of the future stars of the NFL.
First: There’s one back in football whose strange main characteristic is his calm. That’s right. A big part of Le’Veon Bell’s greatness is lying back and not attacking holes, but rather waiting ... waiting ... waiting until the right one opens.
Bell had the best game of his professional life Sunday in the Steelers’ 27-20 win over Buffalo. He’d never touched the ball more than 36 times in a game in his four-year career. On Sunday, he had the most productive day by a back against the Bills in their 57-season history, touching it 42 times for 298 yards; 236 yards came on the ground, on 38 carries.
His distinctive style—wait, wait and then hit the hole with speed and, if necessary, power—has earned Bell a fan in California. Last week, doing my podcast with Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey, who has declared for the 2017 NFL draft, the two-time collegiate national leader in all-purpose yards told me that Bell is the pro back he watches the most.
In fact, it’s more than watching. Though they haven’t met yet, McCaffrey and Bell have become video buddies. McCaffrey has sent Bell some of his tape, Bell has critiqued it, and McCaffrey has put that critique into play at Stanford.
“I love watching Le'Veon Bell,” McCaffrey said on campus last week. “I think he has a great mix of doing everything as a running back. He is a very good complete back. His patience, setting up his blocks so well, hitting the hole fast, breaking tackles, making people miss …
That’s the kind of stuff, when I look at his game and look at my game, what I really try to emulate is the aspect of patience, and not just running full-speed downhill. Let your blocks develop before you hit that hole, try to get in the best position of getting one on one with the safety in the open field, make him miss, and then turn on the jets from there.”
Bell got excited Sunday when I mentioned that McCaffrey was a fan.
“That’s my guy!” Bell said. “That means everything in the world to me. He’s a really special runner. I try to break some things down with him. He sent me a lot of his clips, to see what he could have done, what maybe I would have done on the same play—you know, to critique him a little bit. I think in this off-season I’ll meet up with him and work with him.
“He is a special player. You don’t see too many players who play the running back position who not only can run the ball and pass-protect, but who can catch the ball and who can run routes like a receiver. He’s very lean, very quick, great hands, can run any route … That caught me off guard when I first started watching him at the end of his sophomore year. He ran every route in the route tree.”
Back to the pennant race. Bell said the snow game in Buffalo didn’t bother him, nor did the workload, “because I grew up in that weather [in central Ohio]. Maybe you can’t cut as good as you normally would, but I embrace it. And coming to the Steelers was the perfect situation for me. I love the physical play.”
The patience, he says, is a byproduct of having an offensive line he trusts, knowing when it’s smart to burst through a hole and when to make the most of what he has in traffic. “He’ll sit back there in the backfield with the ball in his hands for four, five seconds before everybody makes their blocks,” said McCaffrey, exaggerating a bit. But you get his point. “As soon as he sees the hole, he hits it. That’s the kind of stuff I love to emulate.”
Now, Bell said, the Steelers have become one of those teams the league will fear in the playoffs. “I don’t think any team in the NFL wants to play us right now. Since week eight or nine, I’ve been saying this. Next week, we’ll play even better.” Scary thought for the rest of the AFC.
• McCaffrey on the prospect of any NFL coach allowing him to use his entire portfolio—rushing, receiving, punt-returning, kick-returning—in the pros: “My versatility has been my strong suit. I see how Stanford has used me, and that's how I would love to be used in the NFL too. I can do everything. I can run the ball between the tackles, I can pass-protect, I can go out in the slot and go outside and run routes against corners. I can do special teams, kick return, punt return. That is what I pride myself on, doing as many things as possible and doing them at a high level.”
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Derek Carr would like to help Johnny Manziel
Photo: Joe Robbins/Getty Images
It seems comical that Johnny Manziel was picked 14 slots ahead of Derek Carr in the 2014 NFL draft. Last week, though, when I met with Carr for an NBC “Football Night” feature, he wasn’t gloating. He was sad for Manziel. Carr wants to help Manziel.
“What’s crazy,” Carr said as we drove in the predawn toward Oakland, “is, you know, I spent a lot of time around him. He’s such a good dude. I obviously wish him the best, you know I hope that … hopefully one day he’ll reach out, [I’d] be able to talk to him and be a friend to him.”
“You'd love the chance to help him?” I said.
“Absolutely, man,” Carr said. “Because he’s so talented, so I understand why he was drafted where he was. He could throw, could run, a dynamic athlete, dynamic player. Obviously he just had a little trouble. He’s still young though, so hopefully he'll get another chance someday and he'll be alright.”
Manziel flamed out with the Browns, in part because of addiction issues. Most recently he has been in Texas and Florida, and his family is worried about him surviving without structure and sobriety. But if he reaches out, Carr would lend a hand.
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Some Great Journalism on Lawrence Phillips
Lawrence Phillips spent parts of three seasons in the NFL, playing for the 49ers, Dolphins and Rams.
Photo: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images
Showtime has a 90-minute documentary debuting Friday night (9 p.m. ET) on the troubled and violent life of former Nebraska/NFL/CFL/NFL Europe running back Lawrence Phillips, who died at 40 last January in a California prison. One of the most gifted running backs to enter the NFL, Phillips was a classic case of self-ruin, through a horrendous history of domestic violence, abetted by alcoholism.
The documentary, written ably by Armen Keteyian, Lars Anderson and Al Briganti, is as harrowing a piece of journalism as I’ve seen on a disturbed athlete wreaking havoc on the people around him. It is superb. Phillips, starting at Nebraska and ending after his far-too-short football career, had a pattern of violence with women.
The story is told so vividly—by the women he abused, by a prosecutor who worked to put him behind bars, and by the coaches who got stung by him—that it makes you wonder how this troubled human being kept getting chance after chance after chance in football.
“A wasted, gifted human being,” Dick Vermeil, his coach in St. Louis, says, his voice shaking. “It haunts me.”
Phillips’ last victim—that we know of—was a San Diego exotic dancer, Amaliya Weisler, who describes a torturous beating and strangulation in her apartment, and how she hid in a closet when Phillips returned.
The documentary is so thorough and well told that the next face you see in the piece is the San Diego County prosecutor, Nicole Rooney, describing the post-assault examination of Weisler. Rooney said she had “the worst strangulation marks that I ever saw where a victim lived.”
But it’s not just a thorough piece of reporting on the awful things that Phillips did. It’s an explanation of why he did them. The story begins at two Los Angeles-area youth homes after Phillips had been taken out of a loveless home. There’s no justification for doing what Phillips did, of course. But you get some idea why after the back story, told so well by Keteyian et al.
It’s a crowded landscape in the NFL media world. But I cannot recommend this 90-minute doc more highly. Subscribe to Showtime here.
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The Award Section
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Le’Veon Bell, running back, Pittsburgh. Playing in snow squalls in Buffalo (Bell’s going to want this video for his career time capsule), he rushed a career-high 38 times for a career-high 236 yards, added 62 receiving yards for a career-high 298 yards from scrimmage, in the 27-20 win. Bell had three touchdown runs, of three and five and seven yards, all in the first 40 minutes of the game. How about this for surprising? Bell told me afterward, “I’m not sore.” I’d like to ask him again this morning.
Mitchell Schwartz, tackle, Kansas City. Two games against the Raiders this year. Two times against that oppressive pass-rush. A total of zero sacks allowed, zero quarterback hits allowed, one quarterback pressure allowed, according to Pro Football Focus. Schwartz has been one of the best free-agent signings of 2016, another example of one who shouldn't gotten away from the line-needy Cleveland Browns.
DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
LeShaun Sims, cornerback, Tennessee. Pretty good year for mid- to late-round picks in the NFL. Malcolm Mitchell, No. 112; Blake Martinez, 131; Dak Prescott, 135; Tyreek Hill, 165. Sims, No. 157 out of Southern Utah, is trying to make a name for himself in Dick LeBeau’s secondary, and he was a strong part of the Titans’ 13-10 upset of the defending Super Bowl champion Broncos in Nashville on Sunday.
He had five tackles, one for loss, played a feisty corner for four quarters, and stripped Demaryius Thomas of the tying touchdown reception in the end zone with seven minutes left. Denver settled for a field goal, and those were the last points of the game. Kid’s a good player.
Vic Beasley, linebacker, Atlanta. Good players take advantage of bad foes. And the Los Angeles Rams have one awful offensive line. Beasley collected all three sacks of Jared Goff produced by the Falcons in the 42-14 rout of L.A., for a loss of 27 yards—and Beasley added a forced fumble and recovery, which he ran back for a touchdown. That gives him 13.5 sacks for the year, realizing the promise that he would be the pass-rush force the Falcons were expecting when he drafted in the first round in 2015.
Romeo Okwara, defensive end, New York Giants. Playing in place of the injured do-everything defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, Okwara, an undrafted free agent from Notre Dame, was terrific as JPP Jr. He led the Giants with eight tackles in the 10-7 win over the Cowboys on Sunday night, and he added his first career NFL sack and two more quarterback hits, plus a batted pass.
The storyline before this game was that Pierre-Paul’s absence would be a huge disadvantage for the Giants. It wasn’t much of a factor at all, because of Okwara. Afterward, Okwara was asked what advice Pierre-Paul had for him before the game. “He said to go out there and ball,’” Okwara said. The new kid’s good at following instructions.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Trey Burton, emergency long-snapper, Philadelphia. Being asked to make your first long-snap in the NFL is one thing, probably a scary thing. Being asked to make it with a division game on the line in the fourth quarter, on a field-goal attempt with your team down two points … that is one challenging play. Tight end Burton, subbing for injured tight end Brent Celek (who was subbing for injured regular long-snapper Jon Dorenbos) snapped from the Washington 24-yard line with five minutes left in the game.
Burton fired a spiral back slightly high that was corralled and put down for Caleb Sturgis to boot a 41-yard go-ahead field goal. The Eagles ended up losing, but Burton—who also caught an uncharacteristically high seven balls from Carson Wentz—had a day to remember. By the way, his last long snap in a game? In Pop Warner football, in Venice, Fla.
Tyreek Hill, wide receiver/returner, Kansas City. I have a feeling the 165th pick in the 2016 NFL draft will be in this award space for years to come. He just has a different gear. In the open field, if Hill gets going, his dekes and fakes are just too much for defenders—by the time they adjust, Hill is 10 yards past them.
On Thursday night Hill got one of those head starts in space and ran a punt back 78 yards, virtually uncontested, for a touchdown—on his way to 100 punt-return yards. He also had a 36-yard touchdown catch from Alex Smith. He’s just a very dangerous man right now. He’s also the ninth player since 1960 to have touchdowns via punt return, kick return, receiving and rushing in a single season.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Dick LeBeau, defensive coordinator, Tennessee. One point before I begin: DICK LEBEAU IS GOING TO BE 80 NEXT SEPTEMBER. Okay, let’s move on. It’s amazing to see the Titans over .500 on Dec. 12 … and just as amazing to see the LeBeau-coached D pitching a shutout over the defending Super Bowl champions through 47 minutes in Nashville on Sunday. With 13 minutes left in the game, Tennessee led 13-0, and the heroes on defense for Tennessee were many. The Titans are morphing into a respectable defense, with a big assist from the Hall-of-Famer.
GOATS OF THE WEEK
Mike Thomas, wide receiver/kick-returner, Los Angeles. Four yards deep in the end zone on the opening kickoff against Atlanta, Thomas bobbled the ball, and it took a forward hop that Atlanta linebacker Paul Worrilow recovered on the 3-yard line, leading to a Matt Ryan touchdown pass on the first scrimmage snap of the game. The Rams are putrid offensively, and every little mistake hurts them. Thomas handed the Falcons seven points seven seconds into the game.
Chandler Catanzaro, kicker, Arizona. I don’t know how many times I can excoriate the Cardinal specialists this year, but this unit is having one of the worst years of any special teams group in recent NFL history. Catanzaro doinked a 41-yard field goal off the upright in the second quarter, and then midway through the fourth quarter he had a PAT blocked—and the Dolphins ran it back for a two-point defensive conversion. So the four points Catanzaro didn’t score, and the two points the Dolphins did score because of his miss, were gigantic in a 26-23 loss that was decided on a Miami field goal as time expired.
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This season, 37 passers in the NFL have thrown at least 75 passes.
Cam Newton, the 2015 MVP, is 37th of 37 in completion percentage: 53.5 percent.
That’s 4 percentage points lower than the worst season of his career.
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Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick notes of analysis from Week 14:
a. Can Jared Goff throw a spiral—I mean consistently?
b. If Kansas City makes it that far, and the field on whatever January day they play isn’t slippery and treacherous, Tyreek Hill could very much tilt the field in a Chiefs-Patriots AFC playoff game.
c. Good news and bad news for Luke Kuechly, one of the best defensive players in the land. Good: The concussion protocol continued to work as it should Sunday, keeping him out of his third straight Panthers game since he suffered a scary concussion against New Orleans. Bad—he missed his third straight game Sunday.
d. The indiscriminate and grotesque left leg/hip injury suffered by San Diego running back Melvin Gordon at Carolina is just one more illustration that the biggest item on the union’s negotiating list for 2020 should be fully guaranteed contracts.
e. The more I see of Shane Ray, the more I like what I see of the second-year Denver defensive end—the athleticism and physicality and instincts.
f. Diving at knees in the open field might be legal, Harry Douglas, but it’s still bush league.
g. Oakland quarterback Derek Carr picked the wrong night to have his worst game of the season.
h. Teams on the playoff bubble no one will want to play in January: Pittsburgh and Green Bay … coincidentally, my preseason Super Bowl picks.
i. Great illustration Sunday night by Cris Collinsworth—who sees things so many analysts do not—of the nightmare fundamentals by left tackle Ereck Flowers on his matador act against Dallas defensive end Benson Mayowa, allowing Eli Manning to get strip-sacked for his second turnover of the game.
j. You’re not making a good case to be in the Opening Day 2017 quarterback derby in Cleveland, Robert Griffin III.
2. I think it’s always dangerous to pick on a quarterback after four NFL starts, but you can’t tell me the Rams didn’t drive home from the Coliseum last night, after Jared Goff’s nightmarish game against the Falcons, wondering if Goff was really everything they thought he’d be when they picked him number one last April. Goff looks tentative, with a highly questionable arm, and his decision-making was terrible against Atlanta.
3. I think though the Rams have him signed to a guaranteed deal through the end of the 2018 season, Jeff Fisher is going to have do something significant in the last three weeks of the season to prove he deserves to return. There’s the Albert Breer report of the friction between Fisher and the Rams’ player personnel side, which one team insider told Breer made the internal workings of the team feel like “Rams Junior High.”
Then there’s the fact that Sunday’s embarrassing 28-point home loss to the Falcons ensured the Rams’ fifth straight losing season under Fisher. Fisher’s records in his five years with the team: 7-8-1, 7-9, 6-10, 7-9, 4-9. It was logical that the Rams’ emphasis this season be on the transfer of the franchise from St. Louis to L.A., and progress would be judged by a different standard than playoffs-or-bust. But no one inside the Rams expected the worst of Fisher’s five seasons, and that’s exactly what this is becoming.
So what does Fisher need to do? No one knows, but a 1-2 finish, say, with another bad loss Thursday at Seattle is not what would show owner Stan Kroenke that Fisher’s got a hold of his floundering team. The Rams’ effort didn’t exactly get a ringing endorsement from Todd Gurley post-game Sunday. “Just going through the motions,” Gurley told the Los Angeles Times. “I feel like everyone is just playing to get through.” Not a good sign. Barring a significant-unseen improvement by New Year’s Day, it just doesn’t make any sense to alienate a fan base you’re trying to get to fall in love with you by bringing Fisher back.
4. I think the penalty on Washington safety Deshazor Everett for interfering with Philadelphia punt returner Darren Sproles was the kind of foul that might merit a special category in the rules. Situation: Punt coming down to Sproles, Everett sprinting toward Sproles and trying to time his hit just as the ball reaches Sproles … and BOOM—before the ball arrives, Everett destroys Sproles.
It’s as vicious a hit as you’ll see on an exposed punt returner. I don’t know if Sproles was concussed on the play—he wasn’t available after the game—but that’s the kind of hit that simply doesn’t belong in football. Rather than a fine, I think that hit ought to be strongly considered for a one-game suspension for Everett.
5. I think I hope Victor Cruz is not the only NFL player to come out strong against New York fullback Nikita Whitlock having his home broken into and defaced with a swastika and KKK sign. That’s got to be decried, from every corner of this game. To me, too few players and NFL people have spoken out about this.
6. I think, for all those interested in divining the thoughts of the future of Tom Brady, there is this from Sean McDonough: The ESPN play-by-play man for the Monday night package asked Brady about his future on Saturday during the TV production meeting, and wondered if Brady might play until he’s 45. “That sounds like a good age,” the 39-year-old Brady said. Brady is nothing if not cryptic, but it doesn’t surprise me a bit that he might—might—be thinking about playing at least six more years.
7. I think there’s nothing more stunning than the fact that the Lions—who have trailed in the fourth quarter in 12 of their 13 games—are the second seed in the NFC as of this morning, a half-game ahead of Seattle. Detroit is 9-4, Seattle 8-4-1. As our Andy Benoit writes today, Matthew Stafford might be in the driver’s seat for his first NFL MVP.
8. I think this is not foremost on everyone’s mind, even Giants fans, but I found myself thinking after their second win over the 11-2 Cowboys this year, GM Jerry Reese is safe. Reese went on that jillion-dollar defensive spending spree, and it looks like it’s worked out. It has elevated the Giants into contention to be a significant factor in January.
9. I think the most underrated skill player of his day moved into 10th place on the all-time receptions list Sunday in Detroit. Lions wideout Anquan Boldin is 36 going on 28, and he’s not thinking of stopping now, at 1,064 catches.
