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If Peter King had his way, it would be Patriots vs. Patriots in the Super Bowl every season due to his massive man-crush on that team.
These are excerpts. To read the whole article click the link below.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/04/super-bowl-52-pick-patriots-seahawks-nfl-roster-cuts-trades-mmqb
Monday Morning QB: Roster Cuts, Surprising Trades and a Super Bowl 52 Prediction
By Peter King
ADAM GLANZMAN/GETTY IMAGES
I’m not saying New England and Seattle are smarter than everyone else in the NFL. Time will tell if they’ve made the right moves after each of them made a league-high five pre-cutdown trades in the NFL, on a weekend when more than 1,100 players got cut/traded/waived, the biggest transaction period in NFL history.
I am picking a New England-Seattle Super Bowl. The weekend put the exclamation point on that. But this weekend wasn’t the end of it.
“It never stops,” Seattle GM John Schneider said four minutes before stepping into a 6 p.m. Pacific Time meeting Saturday to see which of the 1,100 players on the street the Seahawks might be interest in claiming or bidding for. “This is a non-stop building of the roster now. We’re not smarter than anyone else—I can guarantee you that—so we’re just going to keep working.”
Briefly, I am picking a Super Bowl 49 rematch because—though each team has flaws—I like the quarterbacks, I like each coaches’ imagination, I like the offensive weapons (even the new and strange weaponry in New England), and I like the Seattle defense. A lot.
The acquisition of three-technique defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson by Seattle on Friday clinched it for me; I look at a Michael Bennett/Richardson/Jarran Reed/Cliff Avril front, with Frank Clark the nickel rusher or more, as the best in the NFC. Just about unblockable.
With the NFL’s 98th season starting Thursday in Foxboro (Chiefs at Patriots), the unprecedented roster churn less than a week before puts significant pressure on the coaching side and the player-acquisition side to fold in new players quickly. The Patriots and Seahawks, under Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll, have track records of getting new players up to speed quickly.
They’ll have to, with Week 1 challenges for New England from Kansas City’s pass-rush and its excellent special teams, and for Seattle from Green Bay’s passing game. But it’s going to be a competitive and typically mysterious season, and if you’d predict a Steelers-Giants Super Bowl, or Chiefs-Falcons, or Raiders-Packers, that’s no worse than my pick.
Let’s start with the weekend, and the most stunning trade, and then I’ll get to the two teams that fascinate me the most entering the NFL’s 98th season.
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It was a text message from New England at 7 p.m. Friday that started the trade that, when it was complete at midday Saturday, knocked people off their beach chairs on this Labor Day weekend. On Friday evening, a Patriots operative texted the Colts and asked, and I am paraphrasing: Any interest in Jacoby Brissett for Phillip Dorsett?
In the previous five pre-cutdown periods, there was an average of 10.2 trades per year across the NFL. This year, there were 25. “There was a lot of trolling, because there were going to be so many players out there,” said one AFC GM, who was active in the week leading up to the Saturday 4 p.m. ET cut deadline. “There was a lot of, ‘Any interest in this guy? He’s not gonna get to you on the waiver claim system. You’re too low.’”
In other words, if a young player, a rookie or impressive undrafted free agent was cut and hit the market, a team with a low waiver priority (a high-finishing team in 2016) would likely get undercut for the guy. That was a propellant for deals like the Patriots dealing a sixth-rounder for Cincinnati special-teams ace Marquis Flowers.
But that doesn’t account for what the Patriots did with the Colts in the stunning trade of the weekend. There was not a whisper of a rumor that the Pats would deal their No. 3 (but rising prospect) quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, this weekend, particularly with the absolutely unknown QB situation the Patriots have in 40-year-old Tom Brady and looming 2018 free agent Jimmy Garoppolo ahead of Brissett on the depth chart.
And though Indy had talked to teams (Rams, Patriots, several others) this summer about trading the underachieving Dorsett—two years, 51 catches since taken as the 29th overall pick in 2015—most around the league thought the Colts would get a mid-round pick, or a pick plus a swap of higher picks.
GETTY IMAGES (2)
So after the Patriots reached out, the Colts did their due diligence, watching tape of Brissett, especially liking his poise against a hard Houston rush in a September 2016 start. By noon Saturday the Colts had decided to do the deal. Interesting, really, to see how quickly deals developed on this weekend: When Indy staffers were at dinner Friday, they had no thought of doing anything significant at the quarterback position.
By lunch Saturday they had upgraded their backup quarterback position—significantly, they thought. Brissett will be an upgrade over Scott Tolzien, who still will likely play at least the opener next week while incumbent Andrew Luck continues to heal from offseason shoulder surgery. The Colts did not make this trade out of a fear for Luck’s health. They did it to get a three-year solid backup/developmental quarterback at a manageable average salary of $735,000 through the end of 2019.
Dorsett is undervalued now. Brissett had a good two-year run in the Patriots’ system, and New England probably maximized his value in part by his four-TD preseason game Thursday night. Trading Brissett is risky, but the way New England looked at it, I’m sure, is they’ll worry about the quarterback of the future in 2018, not now. Now is time to maximize a malleable receiver group. “If you want to get something, you’ve got to give up something,” Bill Belichick said Sunday.
A week before the season, New England found itself suddenly in big trouble on special teams with arguably the best kicking-game units in football, Kansas City’s, coming to Foxboro this week. Thus the trades for special-teams aces Marquis Flowers and Johnson Bademosi before final cuts.
I don’t expect Dorsett, who is not a good returner, to be in play as a punt-returner; if he plays Thursday night, I expect it to be in the regular offense, and I expect him to be used exclusively as a receiver this season.
What the Patriots have done on offense since the end of the season, even with the ACL tear suffered by reliable Julian Edelman, is bolster their capacity to play positionless football. This is probably the fastest receiver group Belichick has ever coached. Dorsett and Brandin Cooks, both sub-4.4 guys in the 40-yard dash, could line up wide, stretch the field and open up the intermediate areas like never before.
Chris Hogan is a 4.45 guy and figures to be in the slot with Danny Amendola a lot. I doubt Rex Burkhead, who is capable of playing the slot, will play much if at all there; I figure he’s going to be a versatile presence in the backfield only. Rob Gronkowski could be more of a move player than he has been, now that solid blocking tight end Dwayne Allen is in the house—we’ll see.
New England has the ability to be so much different on offense than the explosive team that put up 34, 36 and 34 points, respectively, on three postseason foes. Who knows what they’ll do. This is a team that has the potential to be much better on offense later in the season than in September.
And I take you back to my conversation with Brady in February to explain why. I marveled at the precision of the timing routes to first-year Patriots Hogan and Malcolm Mitchell at crucial times in the Super Bowl, and this is what Brady said: “That's a lot of throws. That's 111 practices that we had. That's however many games. Films, meetings. It's got to be like clockwork. You're throwing it to a spot, he's turning, those are the ones the DBs have been covering all year too. It took great execution.”
Cooks, Dorsett, Burkhead. Allen, Mike Gillislee. When I think of folding in so many new guys to the New England offense, I think of 111 practices. It could take a while before it all fits together. The Patriots’ could change more than any offense in football between today and December. That’s not a bad thing.
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MORE CUTDOWN WEEKEND THOUGHTS
• On the Sheldon Richardson trade. (Richardson and a seventh-round pick from the Jets to Seattle for wideout Jermaine Kearse and a second-round pick.) Good for both teams. Might be great for Seattle. The Seahawks plan to try hard to sign Richardson beyond this year, and it’ll cost quite a bit; Richardson will be supremely motivated to play great in Seattle.
Next March, at 28, could be the last chance he’ll have to do a mega-deal in the NFL. The Jets can use the low second-round pick they’ll get for a player or as ammo to help them move up for their quarterback of the future next April. And Kearse is a good place-holder with a great worker-bee rep.
• The Seattle pre-cutdown haul. Six trades, with the biggest chip dealt being their second-round pick in 2018. When the picks that flew back and forth cancel out, Seattle might have gotten marginally better on the offensive line (Matt Tobin from the Eagles, Isaiah Battle from the Chiefs), but Richardson is the big key, particularly with the future of the rookie the organization loved, three-technique tackle Malik McDowell, in doubt after an ATV accident.
One thing that GM John Schneider does with his scouting staff is stress that, yes, he knows the offensive line needs help. But Anthony Muñoz is not walking through that door, so let’s not cry about it. Let’s find bodies better than the bodies we have.
• Brock Osweiler’s a Bronco. John Elway wanted to sign Osweiler as Denver’s quarterback of the future in March 2016 for about $16 million a year. He signed him Saturday night for 4.8 percent of that. But Osweiler’s better suited as a third-stringer or backup now; his accuracy is not NFL-effective. Elway made it clear Osweiler will be the backup to Trevor Siemian until Paxton Lynch returns from a shoulder injury in about a month.
After that? That’s in Siemian’s hands. If he plays well in the first month, the Broncos may be inclined to cut Osweiler and use the roster spot on another position of need. If not, Osweiler could have an on-field second act in Denver. Man, how weird it’s going to feel for Osweiler this week, back in that locker room after he made it clear he was happy to leave there 18 months ago.
• Dot dot dot … I like Sammie Coates in Cleveland—a big, imposing receiver who got trumped by Martavis Bryant’s return. Coates and Kasen Williams (waiver claim from Seattle) are intriguing weekend catches for the Browns … One of my favorite waiver claims: running back Alex Collins, by Baltimore. The Ravens’ backfield is the land of opportunity, and Collins runs hard … Like the T.J. Ward signing by the Bucs. Good leader, hard hitter.
Julio Jones will know where he is on downfield throws, to be sure … The Eagles’ offensive line got better with the one-year extension for Chance Warmack, who’s having a good second act with the Eagles after flopping in Tennessee … Interesting the Texans choose to go with Tom Savage and Deshaun Watson and no number three quarterback—though I’m sure Brandon Weeden will keep his phone handy for a call if Savage goes down … And the Niners kept only two quarterbacks, with Iowa rookie C.J. Beathard, camp star, being number two.
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Ezekiel Elliott Case: There Are No Winners
RODGER MALLISON/FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM/TNS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Whatever happens Wednesday—by which time the league should hear the results of the Ezekiel Elliott appeal of his six-game suspension for abusing girlfriend Tiffany Thompson in 2016, and by which time we should know if a Texas court will grant Elliott a restraining order so he can play Sunday against the Giants—both Elliott and the NFL will not look good after this case.
We know now Elliott admitted having rough sex with girlfriend Tiffany Thompson, admitted using illicit drugs (“in college,” was his proviso), could not stay away from a relationship with a woman he says got pregnant by him on purpose (the woman who alleges his drug use included “doing a bunch of coke”), and says he had sex with a woman (not Tiffany Thompson) whose breasts he exposed in public.
We know now the NFL, which should have learned from prior errors in sex-abuse investigations, did not allow the investigator—who interviewed Thompson six times and reportedly had problems with her credibility—to report her findings directly to commissioner Roger Goodell. In fact, Goodell should have demanded to speak with lead investigator Kia Roberts. Her findings were reported to Goodell, but not personally by Roberts.
She should have been allowed to tell him exactly what her concerns were, since she was the investigator who would have the most informed opinion on Thompson’s credibility. The NFL must at all costs in cases of abuse do everything right. Everything. Because the league knows the microscope of appeal will delve thoroughly into every aspect of their case.
And the aspect of Roberts knowing the accused better than anyone in the league and not conversing with Goodell about that is a blatant error, even if the chain of command in this case does not require Roberts to report to Goodell.
I don’t know if Elliott is guilty, or worthy of a six-game ban. But from reading the reports of this case, I sincerely hope the Cowboys do not simply fight for his freedom so he’ll be able to play the maximum number of football games this year. This guy needs to grow up. He needs to go to the Dak Prescott school of maturity. I am reminded of my conversation with coach Jason Garrett in training camp, when Garrett told me of his offseason admonitions to Elliott.
“I’ve had a number of talks with him,” Garrett said. “I’ve asked him, ‘What do you want to be?’ My point to him is, ‘If you maximize your abilities, you night be able to make $200 million off the field, like LeBron. Or you could make a million.’ I mean, say you’re AT&T, or you’re Pepsi. You’re looking for a spokesman for your product. What would you do right now? You’d probably say if you’re one of those companies, ‘Oh, we’ll go with Dak. Or we’ll go with Jordan Spieth.’ But that’s in his control.”
It’s not just about the money. It’s about Elliot’s career, and about his life.
For now, it’s also about his fate. Kia Roberts raises enough doubts about the case, and the veracity of Thompson’s testimony, that unless the metadata is crystal clear that Elliott abused Thompson, a six-game suspension seems excessive. That’s why the evidence, and the forensic examination of the data, is so vital in this case. And the appeals officer in the case, Harold Henderson, has to determine in very short order whether the metadata can be trusted. And if he thinks it can, then Elliott will have to convince a Texas judge the data is flawed—and quickly.
It’s hard for me to imagine Henderson erasing the suspension. But the sheer volume of conflicting stories between Elliott and Thompson make it realistic to think Henderson could knock the suspension down a couple of games. And though you never know what could happen in a court of law, it's also hard to believe Elliott could win this case on its merits. But there’s so much conflicting evidence in this case that any predictions you make on it are done at your own peril.
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Stats of the Week: Cleveland Browns Continue to Hoard NFL Draft Picks
NICK CAMMETT/DIAMOND IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
Before we get to the stats of the week, let me preface by saying I have come to (semi-) praise the Browns, not bury them. That is because of the man at the top, Jimmy Haslam, who along with co-owner and wife, Dee Haslam, has practiced patience through some more lean times in the past year and a half.
I mean, they haven’t fired a major player in the football hierarchy for a whole 20 months, and reports are that coach Hue Jackson and football architects Sashi Brown, Andrew Berry and MLB alum Paul DePodesta are getting along pretty well in making the football calls.
Jenny Vrentas and I met with Jimmy and Dee Haslam in Cleveland in August, and I asked them what was the most important lesson they’d learned. Dee Haslam brought up something she’d heard the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, say: “Hire for where you want to be, not for where you are.”
Jimmy Haslam said about the challenges of the NFL versus the truck stop business: “It’s a lot harder than you think. Having been in business and having done at least okay there, to come into the NFL and think that’s necessarily going to transfer to running a pro sports franchise, it doesn’t work that way. The important thing is to get the right people in place, and … leave them there for a long time. And, in this league, you gotta have a quarterback.
“The group is working very well together. We have very healthy debate. If you and I went to dinner, I would predict we would have a lot of good and vigorous debate on subjects, which is good. If we agree on everything, there’s something wrong. We’ve put together a diverse group of skill sets—smart, work hard, bring a lot to the organization. This year, I don’t think we’ll be 15-1, but we’ll be better. We spend time talking about small victories.”
My biggest problem with the people who run the Browns—and it surfaced again last week with the cutting of Joe Haden—is they continue to build for the future by again and again letting go of good players. Not saying Haden was great (he’s fallen off from his two-time Pro Bowl status), and not saying he was worth his scheduled $11 million a year over the next three seasons. But the list of good players sent away is long, and these are not cancers—they’re good football players.
Taylor Gabriel, Alex Mack, Mitchell Schwartz, Terrelle Pryor, Tashaun Gipson, Andy Lee since New Year’s Day 2016 … players who would contribute to a winning team; Gabriel, Mack and Schwartz were key guys in the NFL playoffs last January. One contributing player was acquired Saturday, when the Browns got the better end of a deal, trading a sixth-round 2018 pick to Pittsburgh for a 2015 third-round receiver from Auburn, Sammie Coates, plus Pittsburgh’s seventh-round pick in 2019.
Part of the constant churn of the roster comes from the constant churn of club architects. The Browns have employed six GMs since 2008. Haslam’s most significant words in this interview: get the right people in place and leave them there for a long time. I’m hoping for the sake of Browns fans and the sheer misery of nine straight losing seasons (4-28 the past two years) that Sashi Brown gets the significant team-building time Ray Farmer and Mike Lombardi and Tom Heckert and George Kokinis and Phil Savage didn’t.
Now for the Stats of the Week.
I
In the eight drafts between 2008 and 2015, Cleveland had five general managers and five head coaches who made 10 first-round draft choices.
Nine of those ten first-round picks, who would now be between 24 and 33 and theoretically be in the prime of their careers, forming the backbone of a team for the long haul, are gone: Alex Mack, Joe Haden, Phil Taylor, Trent Richardson, Brandon Weeden, Barkevious Mingo, Justin Gilbert, Johnny Manziel and Cam Erving.
One, defensive tackle Danny Shelton, a 2015 pick, is still on the team.
II
The Browns are drafting enough players over a 37-month period to field a full game-day roster, and have two players left over. The Browns’ draft haul, annually, from 2015 to 2018:
Year -Total Picks
2015- 12
2016 -14
2017- 10
2018 -(As of Sept. 3) 12
Total: 48 (after the Sammie Coates acquisition on Saturday). Average NFL team’s picks over those four seasons: 32. (Teams get seven draft choices per season, and in the NFL, another 32 picks per year, approximately, are awarded as compensatory picks for teams that lose monied free agents.)
III
Assume the Texans finish with a better 2017 record than the Browns, and this will be true, if nothing changes about the 2018 draft between now and late April next year:
Cleveland will pick six players before Houston picks one.
IV
None of the eight quarterbacks and wide receivers on Cleveland’s roster as of this morning was on the roster in March 2016.
View: https://twitter.com/Hawk/status/903758122283618308?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.si.com%2Fnfl%2F2017%2F09%2F04%2Fsuper-bowl-52-pick-patriots-seahawks-nfl-roster-cuts-trades-mmqb
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QUOTES OF THE WEEK
“I’m kind of chasing him around. You know, like chasing a girl in high school.”
—Rams coach Sean McVay, as the team continues to deal with the holdout of its best player, defensive tackle Aaron Donald, who wants to be the highest-paid defensive player in football.
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POD PEOPLE
This week: a special podcast with tributes to Titans defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, as well as a conversation with LeBeau. The Hall of Fame former Detroit defensive back turns 80 on Saturday, a day before he’ll become the first 80-year-old coordinator in NFL history.
• LeBeau on the best wideout he ever covered: “Paul Warfield was as good as any of them … I covered Bob Hayes, who was a great player and an Olympic 100-meter champion. When he ran, half the stadium shook because he was so powerful. As a guy trying to run with him, you just had to watch and feel, and you knew when he was opening up, and you knew damn well you better give him some room.
But Paul, you couldn't do that with him, because if you took your eye off him for a second, he was already five yards somewhere else and there was never any physical exertion, seemingly, that this guy is really trying to run hard. Paul was like Fred Astaire in football cleats, man.”
• LeBeau, who imported the Zone Blitz to the NFL in 1984, on how he found it: “I was … out on a scouting mission for the Bengals in the early ’80s … and I was probably only talking to [LSU assistant coach] Bill Arnsparger for 15 minutes, but I admired what he had done as a defensive coach and some of the various movement patterns that he had started, and I'll never forget this, but he said, ‘All I was looking for was a safer way to create pressure.’
And that sentence was the atom that split for me, because I was going to Texas and I had an airplane flight and I got the gal to give me a supply of cocktail napkins and I started drawing right away on a safer concept of pressure. Blitzes up to that time were all what we call zero coverage, where everybody had a guy and you overloaded the protection by sending an extra guy …
I thought, Wouldn't it be nice to be able to get that pressure at least from one half of the defense and still keep a free safety where if something went wrong, he could tackle the guy and we could play the next down? I'm not sure that's what Bill meant, but that's how it focused into my mind right away.”
• LeBeau on calling plays at 80: “I never think about it. I'm just a football coach and I'm going to try to do my job. I never think of stuff like that. The secret for being able to work this long is I have had some wonderfully good players. I could name a ton of them that have played well for me and kept me working. I have great genes. My mom was 96, my dad was 88, my dad's sisters all went way into their 90s. LeBeaus are hard to get off the planet.”
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Things I Think I Think
1. I think the Su’a Cravens story, is, as one person close to the Washington hierarchy said Sunday, “just plain weird.” But also, as people begin to dig deeper on it, not as much of a shock as you’d think at first glance. Cravens, drafted at age 20 by Washington out of USC in the second round of the 2016 draft, told the organization Sunday morning he planned to retire.
The Washington Post reported club president Bruce Allen talked him out of it, and the team placed him on the exempt list, which will allow him one month to decide whether he’ll come back to football. Still, this was the projected starting strong safety, walking into the office of the team president seven days before the opening game of the season, saying he was retiring. A stunner to the public, to be sure.
But as our Albert Breer reported in March, some teammates were skeptical that Cravens, who missed the final three games of last year with a biceps injury, was injured to the point that he couldn’t play. And his absence was a factor (one of many) in the team losing to the Giants in Week 17 and missing out on the playoffs.
So even if Cravens chooses to come back to football, it’s fair to wonder how he would be received in the locker room by his teammates, some of whom may feel Cravens picked an inopportune time to quit.
In a revealing story about the Cravens departure Sunday, Mike Jones of the Postreported an eerie detail about how he told those in his defensive backfield group: “Saturday night, Cravens informed his fellow defensive backs in a group text message that he was retiring, a second person familiar with the situation said. Cravens, in the group message, praised each of his teammates for their skills and expressed gratitude for them and their role in his life.
He said that he had enjoyed playing with them, but was retiring on Sunday and ended the text message with, ‘Peace out,’ and then removed himself from the group chat. Members of the group chat were both shocked and angered by Cravens’s decision, players said. Some felt like in a sense, Cravens had let them down.” Good reporting by Jones … and in the culture of a locker room, it explains how it could be difficult if Cravens wants to come back to the team a month from now.
2. I think you can’t underestimate the kind of damage a player quite important to the welfare of a team can do by walking away after all the hay is in the barn preparing for a game. I don’t know if the Washington defense had been given the game plan yet for Philadelphia (usually that happens on Wednesday morning before a Sunday game, but with the last preseason game having been played on Thursday, the defensive coaches surely had most of the plan already prepared), but defensive coordinator Greg Manusky was surely planning for Cravens—a physical run-support player at 6-1 and 222 pounds—to be a major part of the plan.
3. I think the Jets can say whatever they want. Every action since the end of 2014—shedding Sheldon Richardson, Brandon Marshall, David Harris, Eric Decker, Breno Giacomini, the diminished Darrelle Revis and Nick Mangold, and adding a second-round pick in 2018—says this team is all about 2018 and ’19, with 2017 being only a bridge to happier days. They hope.
4. I think the Vikings punctured one of the feel-good stories from the 2016 draft. You remember wide receiver Moritz Boehringer, the German kid who blew away a U.S. pro dayprior to the draft and got lots of dratniks fired up about him … and he was one of the Vikings’ cuts over the weekend. Turns out he just didn’t make the adjustment to the pro game in terms of receiving mechanics and instincts.
5. I think the best response to the recent news about the release of the Paul Zimmerman book, “Dr. Z: The Lost Memoirs of an Irreverent Football Writer,” came from an old journalism friend of his and fellow Hall of Fame voter, Frank Cooney from San Francisco. I’ll share some of it: “Paul and I shared a lot of similar perspectives, and probably disagreed on just as many others. We each saw football a bit differently than our journalistic brethren, who he once referenced as ‘semi-pro,’ which I thought was hilarious.
We both played minor league football and cherish those memories and the perspective offered by the experience. We both love the game, our game, and passionately care about preserving the realities of history, despite not always agreeing on those realities. Paul reduces an impassioned antagonist to a mere foil. But it was as much fun as it was frustrating. Paul was THE VOICE in our Hall of Fame selection meetings.
Paul: ‘Dave Casper is the greatest tight end ever to play in the NFL.’ Done.
Paul: ‘Howie Long re-invented how to play on the defensive line.’ Done.
Although he often beat me up in those meetings, I miss THE VOICE. I was lucky to be able to disagree and agree with him face to face from the middle 60s until we were prematurely robbed of his unique self expression. So, thanks for bringing back a flood of memories.”
My pleasure. You can find the book several ways: through Triumph Books, Amazon, IndieBound, or Barnes and Noble.
6. I think Mark Craig of the Minneapolis Star-Tribunegot Adrian Peterson to talk some truth Sunday. There’s no way (and the Vikings know this) that Peterson was going to take his exile from Minnesota well, when the Vikings wouldn’t pay him his option-year salary with a cap cost of $18 million. Who could blame the Vikings with a 32-year-old running back?
I can’t think of one GM in the league who would have carried Peterson for that money, or anything close. But it has provided motivational fodder for Peterson this off-season, as he told Craig. The Vikings host New Orleans and Peterson in Week 1, and the Vikings are the host team for Super Bowl 52 as well.
“In my mind, we’re starting and ending the season in Minnesota,” Peterson told Craig. “Of course I want to stick it to them. I want to stick it to everyone we play. But going back to Minnesota, playing the Vikings? Yeah, I want to stick it to them.”
7. I think the one under-the-radar acquisition I loved over the weekend was the Giants dealing a low-round pick for Steelers cornerback Ross Cockrell. New York gets a feisty and physical insurance policy at a vital position. Watch the Steelers practice, as I did one day in August, and Cockrell really stands out for his run-support and fearlessness. He'll come in handy at a position that always needs reinforcement during a 16-game season.
8. I think Dallas has the most interesting quarterback roster in football. Imagine 13 months ago if you’d told anyone with the Cowboys that the 2017 opening-day Dallas depth chart at quarterback would read: 1. Dak Prescott; 2. Cooper Rush. End. Just amazing how fast things change in the NFL. Rush, by the way, is a Central Michigan Chippewa who completed 32 of his last 36 passes in the preseason and made Kellen Moore instantly obsolete.
9. I think I’m glad we can be done with all speculation to the contrary. One weekend of college football tells us Josh Rosen is the top pick in the 2018 draft. At least that’s what Twitter informed me late last night/early this morning. Good to know. Kidding, sort of.
Hats off to Rosen for a ridiculous comeback performance (292 passing yards, four touchdown passes in the fourth quarter) to beat Texas A&M. Seven more months to determine who's going number one to the Jets. Or Browns. Or Niners. Or whichever team.
These are excerpts. To read the whole article click the link below.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/04/super-bowl-52-pick-patriots-seahawks-nfl-roster-cuts-trades-mmqb
Monday Morning QB: Roster Cuts, Surprising Trades and a Super Bowl 52 Prediction
By Peter King
ADAM GLANZMAN/GETTY IMAGES
I’m not saying New England and Seattle are smarter than everyone else in the NFL. Time will tell if they’ve made the right moves after each of them made a league-high five pre-cutdown trades in the NFL, on a weekend when more than 1,100 players got cut/traded/waived, the biggest transaction period in NFL history.
I am picking a New England-Seattle Super Bowl. The weekend put the exclamation point on that. But this weekend wasn’t the end of it.
“It never stops,” Seattle GM John Schneider said four minutes before stepping into a 6 p.m. Pacific Time meeting Saturday to see which of the 1,100 players on the street the Seahawks might be interest in claiming or bidding for. “This is a non-stop building of the roster now. We’re not smarter than anyone else—I can guarantee you that—so we’re just going to keep working.”
Briefly, I am picking a Super Bowl 49 rematch because—though each team has flaws—I like the quarterbacks, I like each coaches’ imagination, I like the offensive weapons (even the new and strange weaponry in New England), and I like the Seattle defense. A lot.
The acquisition of three-technique defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson by Seattle on Friday clinched it for me; I look at a Michael Bennett/Richardson/Jarran Reed/Cliff Avril front, with Frank Clark the nickel rusher or more, as the best in the NFC. Just about unblockable.
With the NFL’s 98th season starting Thursday in Foxboro (Chiefs at Patriots), the unprecedented roster churn less than a week before puts significant pressure on the coaching side and the player-acquisition side to fold in new players quickly. The Patriots and Seahawks, under Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll, have track records of getting new players up to speed quickly.
They’ll have to, with Week 1 challenges for New England from Kansas City’s pass-rush and its excellent special teams, and for Seattle from Green Bay’s passing game. But it’s going to be a competitive and typically mysterious season, and if you’d predict a Steelers-Giants Super Bowl, or Chiefs-Falcons, or Raiders-Packers, that’s no worse than my pick.
Let’s start with the weekend, and the most stunning trade, and then I’ll get to the two teams that fascinate me the most entering the NFL’s 98th season.
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It was a text message from New England at 7 p.m. Friday that started the trade that, when it was complete at midday Saturday, knocked people off their beach chairs on this Labor Day weekend. On Friday evening, a Patriots operative texted the Colts and asked, and I am paraphrasing: Any interest in Jacoby Brissett for Phillip Dorsett?
In the previous five pre-cutdown periods, there was an average of 10.2 trades per year across the NFL. This year, there were 25. “There was a lot of trolling, because there were going to be so many players out there,” said one AFC GM, who was active in the week leading up to the Saturday 4 p.m. ET cut deadline. “There was a lot of, ‘Any interest in this guy? He’s not gonna get to you on the waiver claim system. You’re too low.’”
In other words, if a young player, a rookie or impressive undrafted free agent was cut and hit the market, a team with a low waiver priority (a high-finishing team in 2016) would likely get undercut for the guy. That was a propellant for deals like the Patriots dealing a sixth-rounder for Cincinnati special-teams ace Marquis Flowers.
But that doesn’t account for what the Patriots did with the Colts in the stunning trade of the weekend. There was not a whisper of a rumor that the Pats would deal their No. 3 (but rising prospect) quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, this weekend, particularly with the absolutely unknown QB situation the Patriots have in 40-year-old Tom Brady and looming 2018 free agent Jimmy Garoppolo ahead of Brissett on the depth chart.
And though Indy had talked to teams (Rams, Patriots, several others) this summer about trading the underachieving Dorsett—two years, 51 catches since taken as the 29th overall pick in 2015—most around the league thought the Colts would get a mid-round pick, or a pick plus a swap of higher picks.
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So after the Patriots reached out, the Colts did their due diligence, watching tape of Brissett, especially liking his poise against a hard Houston rush in a September 2016 start. By noon Saturday the Colts had decided to do the deal. Interesting, really, to see how quickly deals developed on this weekend: When Indy staffers were at dinner Friday, they had no thought of doing anything significant at the quarterback position.
By lunch Saturday they had upgraded their backup quarterback position—significantly, they thought. Brissett will be an upgrade over Scott Tolzien, who still will likely play at least the opener next week while incumbent Andrew Luck continues to heal from offseason shoulder surgery. The Colts did not make this trade out of a fear for Luck’s health. They did it to get a three-year solid backup/developmental quarterback at a manageable average salary of $735,000 through the end of 2019.
Dorsett is undervalued now. Brissett had a good two-year run in the Patriots’ system, and New England probably maximized his value in part by his four-TD preseason game Thursday night. Trading Brissett is risky, but the way New England looked at it, I’m sure, is they’ll worry about the quarterback of the future in 2018, not now. Now is time to maximize a malleable receiver group. “If you want to get something, you’ve got to give up something,” Bill Belichick said Sunday.
A week before the season, New England found itself suddenly in big trouble on special teams with arguably the best kicking-game units in football, Kansas City’s, coming to Foxboro this week. Thus the trades for special-teams aces Marquis Flowers and Johnson Bademosi before final cuts.
I don’t expect Dorsett, who is not a good returner, to be in play as a punt-returner; if he plays Thursday night, I expect it to be in the regular offense, and I expect him to be used exclusively as a receiver this season.
What the Patriots have done on offense since the end of the season, even with the ACL tear suffered by reliable Julian Edelman, is bolster their capacity to play positionless football. This is probably the fastest receiver group Belichick has ever coached. Dorsett and Brandin Cooks, both sub-4.4 guys in the 40-yard dash, could line up wide, stretch the field and open up the intermediate areas like never before.
Chris Hogan is a 4.45 guy and figures to be in the slot with Danny Amendola a lot. I doubt Rex Burkhead, who is capable of playing the slot, will play much if at all there; I figure he’s going to be a versatile presence in the backfield only. Rob Gronkowski could be more of a move player than he has been, now that solid blocking tight end Dwayne Allen is in the house—we’ll see.
New England has the ability to be so much different on offense than the explosive team that put up 34, 36 and 34 points, respectively, on three postseason foes. Who knows what they’ll do. This is a team that has the potential to be much better on offense later in the season than in September.
And I take you back to my conversation with Brady in February to explain why. I marveled at the precision of the timing routes to first-year Patriots Hogan and Malcolm Mitchell at crucial times in the Super Bowl, and this is what Brady said: “That's a lot of throws. That's 111 practices that we had. That's however many games. Films, meetings. It's got to be like clockwork. You're throwing it to a spot, he's turning, those are the ones the DBs have been covering all year too. It took great execution.”
Cooks, Dorsett, Burkhead. Allen, Mike Gillislee. When I think of folding in so many new guys to the New England offense, I think of 111 practices. It could take a while before it all fits together. The Patriots’ could change more than any offense in football between today and December. That’s not a bad thing.
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MORE CUTDOWN WEEKEND THOUGHTS
• On the Sheldon Richardson trade. (Richardson and a seventh-round pick from the Jets to Seattle for wideout Jermaine Kearse and a second-round pick.) Good for both teams. Might be great for Seattle. The Seahawks plan to try hard to sign Richardson beyond this year, and it’ll cost quite a bit; Richardson will be supremely motivated to play great in Seattle.
Next March, at 28, could be the last chance he’ll have to do a mega-deal in the NFL. The Jets can use the low second-round pick they’ll get for a player or as ammo to help them move up for their quarterback of the future next April. And Kearse is a good place-holder with a great worker-bee rep.
• The Seattle pre-cutdown haul. Six trades, with the biggest chip dealt being their second-round pick in 2018. When the picks that flew back and forth cancel out, Seattle might have gotten marginally better on the offensive line (Matt Tobin from the Eagles, Isaiah Battle from the Chiefs), but Richardson is the big key, particularly with the future of the rookie the organization loved, three-technique tackle Malik McDowell, in doubt after an ATV accident.
One thing that GM John Schneider does with his scouting staff is stress that, yes, he knows the offensive line needs help. But Anthony Muñoz is not walking through that door, so let’s not cry about it. Let’s find bodies better than the bodies we have.
• Brock Osweiler’s a Bronco. John Elway wanted to sign Osweiler as Denver’s quarterback of the future in March 2016 for about $16 million a year. He signed him Saturday night for 4.8 percent of that. But Osweiler’s better suited as a third-stringer or backup now; his accuracy is not NFL-effective. Elway made it clear Osweiler will be the backup to Trevor Siemian until Paxton Lynch returns from a shoulder injury in about a month.
After that? That’s in Siemian’s hands. If he plays well in the first month, the Broncos may be inclined to cut Osweiler and use the roster spot on another position of need. If not, Osweiler could have an on-field second act in Denver. Man, how weird it’s going to feel for Osweiler this week, back in that locker room after he made it clear he was happy to leave there 18 months ago.
• Dot dot dot … I like Sammie Coates in Cleveland—a big, imposing receiver who got trumped by Martavis Bryant’s return. Coates and Kasen Williams (waiver claim from Seattle) are intriguing weekend catches for the Browns … One of my favorite waiver claims: running back Alex Collins, by Baltimore. The Ravens’ backfield is the land of opportunity, and Collins runs hard … Like the T.J. Ward signing by the Bucs. Good leader, hard hitter.
Julio Jones will know where he is on downfield throws, to be sure … The Eagles’ offensive line got better with the one-year extension for Chance Warmack, who’s having a good second act with the Eagles after flopping in Tennessee … Interesting the Texans choose to go with Tom Savage and Deshaun Watson and no number three quarterback—though I’m sure Brandon Weeden will keep his phone handy for a call if Savage goes down … And the Niners kept only two quarterbacks, with Iowa rookie C.J. Beathard, camp star, being number two.
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Ezekiel Elliott Case: There Are No Winners
RODGER MALLISON/FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM/TNS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Whatever happens Wednesday—by which time the league should hear the results of the Ezekiel Elliott appeal of his six-game suspension for abusing girlfriend Tiffany Thompson in 2016, and by which time we should know if a Texas court will grant Elliott a restraining order so he can play Sunday against the Giants—both Elliott and the NFL will not look good after this case.
We know now Elliott admitted having rough sex with girlfriend Tiffany Thompson, admitted using illicit drugs (“in college,” was his proviso), could not stay away from a relationship with a woman he says got pregnant by him on purpose (the woman who alleges his drug use included “doing a bunch of coke”), and says he had sex with a woman (not Tiffany Thompson) whose breasts he exposed in public.
We know now the NFL, which should have learned from prior errors in sex-abuse investigations, did not allow the investigator—who interviewed Thompson six times and reportedly had problems with her credibility—to report her findings directly to commissioner Roger Goodell. In fact, Goodell should have demanded to speak with lead investigator Kia Roberts. Her findings were reported to Goodell, but not personally by Roberts.
She should have been allowed to tell him exactly what her concerns were, since she was the investigator who would have the most informed opinion on Thompson’s credibility. The NFL must at all costs in cases of abuse do everything right. Everything. Because the league knows the microscope of appeal will delve thoroughly into every aspect of their case.
And the aspect of Roberts knowing the accused better than anyone in the league and not conversing with Goodell about that is a blatant error, even if the chain of command in this case does not require Roberts to report to Goodell.
I don’t know if Elliott is guilty, or worthy of a six-game ban. But from reading the reports of this case, I sincerely hope the Cowboys do not simply fight for his freedom so he’ll be able to play the maximum number of football games this year. This guy needs to grow up. He needs to go to the Dak Prescott school of maturity. I am reminded of my conversation with coach Jason Garrett in training camp, when Garrett told me of his offseason admonitions to Elliott.
“I’ve had a number of talks with him,” Garrett said. “I’ve asked him, ‘What do you want to be?’ My point to him is, ‘If you maximize your abilities, you night be able to make $200 million off the field, like LeBron. Or you could make a million.’ I mean, say you’re AT&T, or you’re Pepsi. You’re looking for a spokesman for your product. What would you do right now? You’d probably say if you’re one of those companies, ‘Oh, we’ll go with Dak. Or we’ll go with Jordan Spieth.’ But that’s in his control.”
It’s not just about the money. It’s about Elliot’s career, and about his life.
For now, it’s also about his fate. Kia Roberts raises enough doubts about the case, and the veracity of Thompson’s testimony, that unless the metadata is crystal clear that Elliott abused Thompson, a six-game suspension seems excessive. That’s why the evidence, and the forensic examination of the data, is so vital in this case. And the appeals officer in the case, Harold Henderson, has to determine in very short order whether the metadata can be trusted. And if he thinks it can, then Elliott will have to convince a Texas judge the data is flawed—and quickly.
It’s hard for me to imagine Henderson erasing the suspension. But the sheer volume of conflicting stories between Elliott and Thompson make it realistic to think Henderson could knock the suspension down a couple of games. And though you never know what could happen in a court of law, it's also hard to believe Elliott could win this case on its merits. But there’s so much conflicting evidence in this case that any predictions you make on it are done at your own peril.
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Stats of the Week: Cleveland Browns Continue to Hoard NFL Draft Picks
NICK CAMMETT/DIAMOND IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
Before we get to the stats of the week, let me preface by saying I have come to (semi-) praise the Browns, not bury them. That is because of the man at the top, Jimmy Haslam, who along with co-owner and wife, Dee Haslam, has practiced patience through some more lean times in the past year and a half.
I mean, they haven’t fired a major player in the football hierarchy for a whole 20 months, and reports are that coach Hue Jackson and football architects Sashi Brown, Andrew Berry and MLB alum Paul DePodesta are getting along pretty well in making the football calls.
Jenny Vrentas and I met with Jimmy and Dee Haslam in Cleveland in August, and I asked them what was the most important lesson they’d learned. Dee Haslam brought up something she’d heard the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, say: “Hire for where you want to be, not for where you are.”
Jimmy Haslam said about the challenges of the NFL versus the truck stop business: “It’s a lot harder than you think. Having been in business and having done at least okay there, to come into the NFL and think that’s necessarily going to transfer to running a pro sports franchise, it doesn’t work that way. The important thing is to get the right people in place, and … leave them there for a long time. And, in this league, you gotta have a quarterback.
“The group is working very well together. We have very healthy debate. If you and I went to dinner, I would predict we would have a lot of good and vigorous debate on subjects, which is good. If we agree on everything, there’s something wrong. We’ve put together a diverse group of skill sets—smart, work hard, bring a lot to the organization. This year, I don’t think we’ll be 15-1, but we’ll be better. We spend time talking about small victories.”
My biggest problem with the people who run the Browns—and it surfaced again last week with the cutting of Joe Haden—is they continue to build for the future by again and again letting go of good players. Not saying Haden was great (he’s fallen off from his two-time Pro Bowl status), and not saying he was worth his scheduled $11 million a year over the next three seasons. But the list of good players sent away is long, and these are not cancers—they’re good football players.
Taylor Gabriel, Alex Mack, Mitchell Schwartz, Terrelle Pryor, Tashaun Gipson, Andy Lee since New Year’s Day 2016 … players who would contribute to a winning team; Gabriel, Mack and Schwartz were key guys in the NFL playoffs last January. One contributing player was acquired Saturday, when the Browns got the better end of a deal, trading a sixth-round 2018 pick to Pittsburgh for a 2015 third-round receiver from Auburn, Sammie Coates, plus Pittsburgh’s seventh-round pick in 2019.
Part of the constant churn of the roster comes from the constant churn of club architects. The Browns have employed six GMs since 2008. Haslam’s most significant words in this interview: get the right people in place and leave them there for a long time. I’m hoping for the sake of Browns fans and the sheer misery of nine straight losing seasons (4-28 the past two years) that Sashi Brown gets the significant team-building time Ray Farmer and Mike Lombardi and Tom Heckert and George Kokinis and Phil Savage didn’t.
Now for the Stats of the Week.
I
In the eight drafts between 2008 and 2015, Cleveland had five general managers and five head coaches who made 10 first-round draft choices.
Nine of those ten first-round picks, who would now be between 24 and 33 and theoretically be in the prime of their careers, forming the backbone of a team for the long haul, are gone: Alex Mack, Joe Haden, Phil Taylor, Trent Richardson, Brandon Weeden, Barkevious Mingo, Justin Gilbert, Johnny Manziel and Cam Erving.
One, defensive tackle Danny Shelton, a 2015 pick, is still on the team.
II
The Browns are drafting enough players over a 37-month period to field a full game-day roster, and have two players left over. The Browns’ draft haul, annually, from 2015 to 2018:
Year -Total Picks
2015- 12
2016 -14
2017- 10
2018 -(As of Sept. 3) 12
Total: 48 (after the Sammie Coates acquisition on Saturday). Average NFL team’s picks over those four seasons: 32. (Teams get seven draft choices per season, and in the NFL, another 32 picks per year, approximately, are awarded as compensatory picks for teams that lose monied free agents.)
III
Assume the Texans finish with a better 2017 record than the Browns, and this will be true, if nothing changes about the 2018 draft between now and late April next year:
Cleveland will pick six players before Houston picks one.
IV
None of the eight quarterbacks and wide receivers on Cleveland’s roster as of this morning was on the roster in March 2016.
View: https://twitter.com/Hawk/status/903758122283618308?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.si.com%2Fnfl%2F2017%2F09%2F04%2Fsuper-bowl-52-pick-patriots-seahawks-nfl-roster-cuts-trades-mmqb
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QUOTES OF THE WEEK
“I’m kind of chasing him around. You know, like chasing a girl in high school.”
—Rams coach Sean McVay, as the team continues to deal with the holdout of its best player, defensive tackle Aaron Donald, who wants to be the highest-paid defensive player in football.
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POD PEOPLE
This week: a special podcast with tributes to Titans defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, as well as a conversation with LeBeau. The Hall of Fame former Detroit defensive back turns 80 on Saturday, a day before he’ll become the first 80-year-old coordinator in NFL history.
• LeBeau on the best wideout he ever covered: “Paul Warfield was as good as any of them … I covered Bob Hayes, who was a great player and an Olympic 100-meter champion. When he ran, half the stadium shook because he was so powerful. As a guy trying to run with him, you just had to watch and feel, and you knew when he was opening up, and you knew damn well you better give him some room.
But Paul, you couldn't do that with him, because if you took your eye off him for a second, he was already five yards somewhere else and there was never any physical exertion, seemingly, that this guy is really trying to run hard. Paul was like Fred Astaire in football cleats, man.”
• LeBeau, who imported the Zone Blitz to the NFL in 1984, on how he found it: “I was … out on a scouting mission for the Bengals in the early ’80s … and I was probably only talking to [LSU assistant coach] Bill Arnsparger for 15 minutes, but I admired what he had done as a defensive coach and some of the various movement patterns that he had started, and I'll never forget this, but he said, ‘All I was looking for was a safer way to create pressure.’
And that sentence was the atom that split for me, because I was going to Texas and I had an airplane flight and I got the gal to give me a supply of cocktail napkins and I started drawing right away on a safer concept of pressure. Blitzes up to that time were all what we call zero coverage, where everybody had a guy and you overloaded the protection by sending an extra guy …
I thought, Wouldn't it be nice to be able to get that pressure at least from one half of the defense and still keep a free safety where if something went wrong, he could tackle the guy and we could play the next down? I'm not sure that's what Bill meant, but that's how it focused into my mind right away.”
• LeBeau on calling plays at 80: “I never think about it. I'm just a football coach and I'm going to try to do my job. I never think of stuff like that. The secret for being able to work this long is I have had some wonderfully good players. I could name a ton of them that have played well for me and kept me working. I have great genes. My mom was 96, my dad was 88, my dad's sisters all went way into their 90s. LeBeaus are hard to get off the planet.”
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Things I Think I Think
1. I think the Su’a Cravens story, is, as one person close to the Washington hierarchy said Sunday, “just plain weird.” But also, as people begin to dig deeper on it, not as much of a shock as you’d think at first glance. Cravens, drafted at age 20 by Washington out of USC in the second round of the 2016 draft, told the organization Sunday morning he planned to retire.
The Washington Post reported club president Bruce Allen talked him out of it, and the team placed him on the exempt list, which will allow him one month to decide whether he’ll come back to football. Still, this was the projected starting strong safety, walking into the office of the team president seven days before the opening game of the season, saying he was retiring. A stunner to the public, to be sure.
But as our Albert Breer reported in March, some teammates were skeptical that Cravens, who missed the final three games of last year with a biceps injury, was injured to the point that he couldn’t play. And his absence was a factor (one of many) in the team losing to the Giants in Week 17 and missing out on the playoffs.
So even if Cravens chooses to come back to football, it’s fair to wonder how he would be received in the locker room by his teammates, some of whom may feel Cravens picked an inopportune time to quit.
In a revealing story about the Cravens departure Sunday, Mike Jones of the Postreported an eerie detail about how he told those in his defensive backfield group: “Saturday night, Cravens informed his fellow defensive backs in a group text message that he was retiring, a second person familiar with the situation said. Cravens, in the group message, praised each of his teammates for their skills and expressed gratitude for them and their role in his life.
He said that he had enjoyed playing with them, but was retiring on Sunday and ended the text message with, ‘Peace out,’ and then removed himself from the group chat. Members of the group chat were both shocked and angered by Cravens’s decision, players said. Some felt like in a sense, Cravens had let them down.” Good reporting by Jones … and in the culture of a locker room, it explains how it could be difficult if Cravens wants to come back to the team a month from now.
2. I think you can’t underestimate the kind of damage a player quite important to the welfare of a team can do by walking away after all the hay is in the barn preparing for a game. I don’t know if the Washington defense had been given the game plan yet for Philadelphia (usually that happens on Wednesday morning before a Sunday game, but with the last preseason game having been played on Thursday, the defensive coaches surely had most of the plan already prepared), but defensive coordinator Greg Manusky was surely planning for Cravens—a physical run-support player at 6-1 and 222 pounds—to be a major part of the plan.
3. I think the Jets can say whatever they want. Every action since the end of 2014—shedding Sheldon Richardson, Brandon Marshall, David Harris, Eric Decker, Breno Giacomini, the diminished Darrelle Revis and Nick Mangold, and adding a second-round pick in 2018—says this team is all about 2018 and ’19, with 2017 being only a bridge to happier days. They hope.
4. I think the Vikings punctured one of the feel-good stories from the 2016 draft. You remember wide receiver Moritz Boehringer, the German kid who blew away a U.S. pro dayprior to the draft and got lots of dratniks fired up about him … and he was one of the Vikings’ cuts over the weekend. Turns out he just didn’t make the adjustment to the pro game in terms of receiving mechanics and instincts.
5. I think the best response to the recent news about the release of the Paul Zimmerman book, “Dr. Z: The Lost Memoirs of an Irreverent Football Writer,” came from an old journalism friend of his and fellow Hall of Fame voter, Frank Cooney from San Francisco. I’ll share some of it: “Paul and I shared a lot of similar perspectives, and probably disagreed on just as many others. We each saw football a bit differently than our journalistic brethren, who he once referenced as ‘semi-pro,’ which I thought was hilarious.
We both played minor league football and cherish those memories and the perspective offered by the experience. We both love the game, our game, and passionately care about preserving the realities of history, despite not always agreeing on those realities. Paul reduces an impassioned antagonist to a mere foil. But it was as much fun as it was frustrating. Paul was THE VOICE in our Hall of Fame selection meetings.
Paul: ‘Dave Casper is the greatest tight end ever to play in the NFL.’ Done.
Paul: ‘Howie Long re-invented how to play on the defensive line.’ Done.
Although he often beat me up in those meetings, I miss THE VOICE. I was lucky to be able to disagree and agree with him face to face from the middle 60s until we were prematurely robbed of his unique self expression. So, thanks for bringing back a flood of memories.”
My pleasure. You can find the book several ways: through Triumph Books, Amazon, IndieBound, or Barnes and Noble.
6. I think Mark Craig of the Minneapolis Star-Tribunegot Adrian Peterson to talk some truth Sunday. There’s no way (and the Vikings know this) that Peterson was going to take his exile from Minnesota well, when the Vikings wouldn’t pay him his option-year salary with a cap cost of $18 million. Who could blame the Vikings with a 32-year-old running back?
I can’t think of one GM in the league who would have carried Peterson for that money, or anything close. But it has provided motivational fodder for Peterson this off-season, as he told Craig. The Vikings host New Orleans and Peterson in Week 1, and the Vikings are the host team for Super Bowl 52 as well.
“In my mind, we’re starting and ending the season in Minnesota,” Peterson told Craig. “Of course I want to stick it to them. I want to stick it to everyone we play. But going back to Minnesota, playing the Vikings? Yeah, I want to stick it to them.”
7. I think the one under-the-radar acquisition I loved over the weekend was the Giants dealing a low-round pick for Steelers cornerback Ross Cockrell. New York gets a feisty and physical insurance policy at a vital position. Watch the Steelers practice, as I did one day in August, and Cockrell really stands out for his run-support and fearlessness. He'll come in handy at a position that always needs reinforcement during a 16-game season.
8. I think Dallas has the most interesting quarterback roster in football. Imagine 13 months ago if you’d told anyone with the Cowboys that the 2017 opening-day Dallas depth chart at quarterback would read: 1. Dak Prescott; 2. Cooper Rush. End. Just amazing how fast things change in the NFL. Rush, by the way, is a Central Michigan Chippewa who completed 32 of his last 36 passes in the preseason and made Kellen Moore instantly obsolete.
9. I think I’m glad we can be done with all speculation to the contrary. One weekend of college football tells us Josh Rosen is the top pick in the 2018 draft. At least that’s what Twitter informed me late last night/early this morning. Good to know. Kidding, sort of.
Hats off to Rosen for a ridiculous comeback performance (292 passing yards, four touchdown passes in the fourth quarter) to beat Texas A&M. Seven more months to determine who's going number one to the Jets. Or Browns. Or Niners. Or whichever team.
