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Young Sean McVay has an old football soul
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 2 Replies
Young Sean McVay has an old football soul
Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay in the first half of a NFL pre-season football game against the Dallas Cowboys at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
By Mike Waldner, Columnist
A lot of people scratched their heads when the Rams went young and hired Sean McVay as their coach.
McVay was a dozen days short of his 31st birthday, making him the youngest coach in the modern era of the NFL, which apparently is loosely defined as since the leather helmet years.
It was easy to dismiss this as just another in a series of give-me-a-break decisions leading to an active run of 12 seasons without a winning record.
What prompted Rams president Kevin Demoff and general manager Les Snead to put their trust in a child?
South Bay Athletic Club members, a take-no-prisoners group of veteran observers, had an opportunity to hear for themselves in June when McVay and Snead visited the luncheon group in Redondo Beach.
In about four minutes, speaking off the cuff in his rapid-fire, stream-of-consciousness manner, McVay wowed his audience, no doubt just as he captured Demoff and Snead.
“Real quick, before we open it up for questions, I wanted to just talk about some of the core things and beliefs that we want to operate with,” he said.
That’s real quick, as when wide receivers Robert Woods and Sammy Watkins jitterbug to avoid press coverage and then get open to catch a Jared Goff pass.
Real quick is, as noted, how McVay speaks.
Real quick also is how his 2-1 team has made a positive impression early in this NFL season, distancing itself from memories of the 0-7 finish last year.
One of the things you notice about McVay is it is we-we-we, not I-I-I.
You see none of the insecurities of Lane Kiffin when he became the 31-year-old coach of the Raiders, courtesy of a take-leave-of-senses Al Davis decision after Steve Sarkisian rejected an offer to coach in Oakland.
“It starts with a process, and what we say our process is,” McVay said.
He can go on and on and on about process. And he did. What he says can be called clichés. But not dismissed. He brings a focus, intensity and belief former USC players will tell you they heard in 2001 when Pete Carroll became a Trojan.
This is a young man with an old football soul by virtue of his family tree. His father, Tim, played at Indiana. His grandfather, John, was the front office architect of five 49ers Super Bowl champions.
He is comfortable enough in his own skin to hire 70-year-old Wade Phillips as defensive coordinator and joke about the Hail Mary gap in their ages.
“He has more twitter swag than I do,” McVay told the SBAC. “He tweets that the Rams are the only staff in the league that have a defensive coordinator that needs Medicare and a head coach that needs day care.”
Talking about his approach to football, he said, “We got this from Coach (Bill) Walsh. He said, ‘If you always focus on the process instead of the results eventually the score will take care of itself.’ That’s what we want to make sure, that we’re always focusing on our process.
“And the next thing we talk about is our standard of performance. Our pursuit of excellence is non-stop, and it applies to everything that we do.”
He speaks of John Wooden, former 49er coaches Walsh and George Seifert, Mike and Kyle Shanahan and others.
“I feel very blessed,” he said. “You’re never going to have opportunities like this unless you’re around great teachers and mentors and coaches who are willing to invest in you.”
He knows about Wooden’s remarkable 10 NCAA basketball championships in 12 years. It is a wise young coach who studies the legendary UCLA coach.
“He is the epitome of what it looks like when it is right,” McVay said. “It’s being part of something bigger than yourself and having the shared success that is sustainable over time.
“It’s going to lead to good things and, hopefully, I’ll be able to come back here 10 years from now and not get booed off the stage and you’ll say, ‘I still like this guy.’”
He is beguiling without guile.
“This is great group of guys and a boat load of personality,” he said in closing his opening remarks. “So I’m having a good time.”
The SBAC members returned the compliment. They were having a good time with Sean McVay, as are the Rams.
[www.dailybreeze.com]
Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay in the first half of a NFL pre-season football game against the Dallas Cowboys at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
By Mike Waldner, Columnist
A lot of people scratched their heads when the Rams went young and hired Sean McVay as their coach.
McVay was a dozen days short of his 31st birthday, making him the youngest coach in the modern era of the NFL, which apparently is loosely defined as since the leather helmet years.
It was easy to dismiss this as just another in a series of give-me-a-break decisions leading to an active run of 12 seasons without a winning record.
What prompted Rams president Kevin Demoff and general manager Les Snead to put their trust in a child?
South Bay Athletic Club members, a take-no-prisoners group of veteran observers, had an opportunity to hear for themselves in June when McVay and Snead visited the luncheon group in Redondo Beach.
In about four minutes, speaking off the cuff in his rapid-fire, stream-of-consciousness manner, McVay wowed his audience, no doubt just as he captured Demoff and Snead.
“Real quick, before we open it up for questions, I wanted to just talk about some of the core things and beliefs that we want to operate with,” he said.
That’s real quick, as when wide receivers Robert Woods and Sammy Watkins jitterbug to avoid press coverage and then get open to catch a Jared Goff pass.
Real quick is, as noted, how McVay speaks.
Real quick also is how his 2-1 team has made a positive impression early in this NFL season, distancing itself from memories of the 0-7 finish last year.
One of the things you notice about McVay is it is we-we-we, not I-I-I.
You see none of the insecurities of Lane Kiffin when he became the 31-year-old coach of the Raiders, courtesy of a take-leave-of-senses Al Davis decision after Steve Sarkisian rejected an offer to coach in Oakland.
“It starts with a process, and what we say our process is,” McVay said.
He can go on and on and on about process. And he did. What he says can be called clichés. But not dismissed. He brings a focus, intensity and belief former USC players will tell you they heard in 2001 when Pete Carroll became a Trojan.
This is a young man with an old football soul by virtue of his family tree. His father, Tim, played at Indiana. His grandfather, John, was the front office architect of five 49ers Super Bowl champions.
He is comfortable enough in his own skin to hire 70-year-old Wade Phillips as defensive coordinator and joke about the Hail Mary gap in their ages.
“He has more twitter swag than I do,” McVay told the SBAC. “He tweets that the Rams are the only staff in the league that have a defensive coordinator that needs Medicare and a head coach that needs day care.”
Talking about his approach to football, he said, “We got this from Coach (Bill) Walsh. He said, ‘If you always focus on the process instead of the results eventually the score will take care of itself.’ That’s what we want to make sure, that we’re always focusing on our process.
“And the next thing we talk about is our standard of performance. Our pursuit of excellence is non-stop, and it applies to everything that we do.”
He speaks of John Wooden, former 49er coaches Walsh and George Seifert, Mike and Kyle Shanahan and others.
“I feel very blessed,” he said. “You’re never going to have opportunities like this unless you’re around great teachers and mentors and coaches who are willing to invest in you.”
He knows about Wooden’s remarkable 10 NCAA basketball championships in 12 years. It is a wise young coach who studies the legendary UCLA coach.
“He is the epitome of what it looks like when it is right,” McVay said. “It’s being part of something bigger than yourself and having the shared success that is sustainable over time.
“It’s going to lead to good things and, hopefully, I’ll be able to come back here 10 years from now and not get booed off the stage and you’ll say, ‘I still like this guy.’”
He is beguiling without guile.
“This is great group of guys and a boat load of personality,” he said in closing his opening remarks. “So I’m having a good time.”
The SBAC members returned the compliment. They were having a good time with Sean McVay, as are the Rams.
[www.dailybreeze.com]
Former Rams QBs impressed with Goff's progress
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 21 Replies
Former Rams QBs impressed with Goff's progress
Rams quarterback Jared Goff prepares to take the field against the 49ers at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara on Sept. 21. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Gary Klein
The list reads as a roll call of Super Bowl quarterbacks.
Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Matt Ryan and Eli Manning emerged from Sunday’s Week 3 games as the NFL’s top five in season passing yardage.
And in sixth place . . .
The Rams’ Jared Goff.
Few would have predicted this after watching the No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft mostly struggle in seven late-season starts (all losses) as a rookie.
But with new coach Sean McVay calling plays, a rebuilt offensive line providing better protection and a deeper and more talented receiving corps, Goff has helped lead the Rams to a 2-1 record and first place in the NFC West.
Former Rams quarterbacks are impressed.
“I like Goff, and I think he’s going to get much better,” said Roman Gabriel, the 1969 NFL most valuable player. “A lot of it has to do with talent, but this season it’s also having better protection. And having McVay, from what I see, is as much a part of it as anything.”
Said Jim Everett, a Pro Bowl selection in 1990: “He’s got new guys, a new system and a new coach that’s smart and just off the charts with creativity. You see the growth in his game from a guy who was deer-in-the-headlights to a guy grasping the system.”
Goff has completed 70.4% of his passes for 817 yards and five touchdowns, with one interception.
Before Monday night’s game between Dallas and Arizona, he ranked among the NFL’s top quarterbacks in several categories.
Among quarterbacks who’ve played enough to qualify for the statistical rankings, Goff’s 118.2 rating was third, trailing only Kansas City’s Alex Smith and New England’s Brady. He was third in completion percentage, and first in yards per attempt (10.1).
Goff’s only major blemish was a late interception that sealed the Washington Redskins’ victory over the Rams in Week 2 at the Coliseum.
Last Thursday, Goff completed 22 of 28 passes for 292 yards and three touchdowns in a 41-39 victory over the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium.
It was the second time in three games that the Rams, the NFL’s worst offense the previous two seasons, eclipsed 40 points.
“There’s a lot of things we can improve on as well,” Goff said, “but there’s no limits or expectations on ourselves. We’re just trying to continue to get better, continue to execute.”
Much of that responsibility falls on the 22-year-old Goff.
Vince Ferragamo, who led the Rams to the Super Bowl during the 1979 season, said Goff “was thrown in the fire last year with a really bad team.”
Goff benefited from the experience and an offseason of change.
“You can see that he’s more confident and more comfortable,” Ferragamo said.
McVay helped develop Kirk Cousins into an elite passer for the Redskins.
For Gabriel, 77, the arrival of McVay in Los Angeles was on par with his experience when Rams coach George Allen brought in assistant Ted Marchibroda as part of the 1966 staff.
“What I’d seen last year with Goff — I don’t like to demean any of the coaches — but [McVay] does just a super job like he did with Cousins in Washington,” Gabriel said. “I can see the difference. [Goff’s] footwork is much better.
“The only thing he needs to learn more now is to step up into the pocket rather than trying to get out of it.”
Everett said Goff’s growth has been evident in each successive game. His performance against the 49ers included several throws he had not demonstrated before.
“He wasn’t fading away, there was no hesitation,” Everett said. “He’d plant his foot and let it rip.”
McVay’s offense, Everett said, is keeping opponents guessing.
“Right now, there are no tendencies,” Everett said, adding, “No defensive coordinator can say, ‘Hey, this where they hang their hat right now,’ because they have NFL-caliber weapons and they don’t have to.”
Ferragamo noted that Goff has looked at ease throwing to receivers running post routes from the outset.
Now he is on the verge of perhaps taking the next step, of becoming “the general in charge,” Ferragamo said.
“Once he gets to that part, where you’re taking your team from behind, when you have to do that with a two-minute drill, that’s what I can’t wait to see,” Ferragamo said.
Rams quarterback Jared Goff scrambles away from pressure during the second quarter.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
[www.latimes.com]
Rams quarterback Jared Goff prepares to take the field against the 49ers at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara on Sept. 21. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Gary Klein
The list reads as a roll call of Super Bowl quarterbacks.
Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Matt Ryan and Eli Manning emerged from Sunday’s Week 3 games as the NFL’s top five in season passing yardage.
And in sixth place . . .
The Rams’ Jared Goff.
Few would have predicted this after watching the No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft mostly struggle in seven late-season starts (all losses) as a rookie.
But with new coach Sean McVay calling plays, a rebuilt offensive line providing better protection and a deeper and more talented receiving corps, Goff has helped lead the Rams to a 2-1 record and first place in the NFC West.
Former Rams quarterbacks are impressed.
“I like Goff, and I think he’s going to get much better,” said Roman Gabriel, the 1969 NFL most valuable player. “A lot of it has to do with talent, but this season it’s also having better protection. And having McVay, from what I see, is as much a part of it as anything.”
Said Jim Everett, a Pro Bowl selection in 1990: “He’s got new guys, a new system and a new coach that’s smart and just off the charts with creativity. You see the growth in his game from a guy who was deer-in-the-headlights to a guy grasping the system.”
Goff has completed 70.4% of his passes for 817 yards and five touchdowns, with one interception.
Before Monday night’s game between Dallas and Arizona, he ranked among the NFL’s top quarterbacks in several categories.
Among quarterbacks who’ve played enough to qualify for the statistical rankings, Goff’s 118.2 rating was third, trailing only Kansas City’s Alex Smith and New England’s Brady. He was third in completion percentage, and first in yards per attempt (10.1).
Goff’s only major blemish was a late interception that sealed the Washington Redskins’ victory over the Rams in Week 2 at the Coliseum.
Last Thursday, Goff completed 22 of 28 passes for 292 yards and three touchdowns in a 41-39 victory over the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium.
It was the second time in three games that the Rams, the NFL’s worst offense the previous two seasons, eclipsed 40 points.
“There’s a lot of things we can improve on as well,” Goff said, “but there’s no limits or expectations on ourselves. We’re just trying to continue to get better, continue to execute.”
Much of that responsibility falls on the 22-year-old Goff.
Vince Ferragamo, who led the Rams to the Super Bowl during the 1979 season, said Goff “was thrown in the fire last year with a really bad team.”
Goff benefited from the experience and an offseason of change.
“You can see that he’s more confident and more comfortable,” Ferragamo said.
McVay helped develop Kirk Cousins into an elite passer for the Redskins.
For Gabriel, 77, the arrival of McVay in Los Angeles was on par with his experience when Rams coach George Allen brought in assistant Ted Marchibroda as part of the 1966 staff.
“What I’d seen last year with Goff — I don’t like to demean any of the coaches — but [McVay] does just a super job like he did with Cousins in Washington,” Gabriel said. “I can see the difference. [Goff’s] footwork is much better.
“The only thing he needs to learn more now is to step up into the pocket rather than trying to get out of it.”
Everett said Goff’s growth has been evident in each successive game. His performance against the 49ers included several throws he had not demonstrated before.
“He wasn’t fading away, there was no hesitation,” Everett said. “He’d plant his foot and let it rip.”
McVay’s offense, Everett said, is keeping opponents guessing.
“Right now, there are no tendencies,” Everett said, adding, “No defensive coordinator can say, ‘Hey, this where they hang their hat right now,’ because they have NFL-caliber weapons and they don’t have to.”
Ferragamo noted that Goff has looked at ease throwing to receivers running post routes from the outset.
Now he is on the verge of perhaps taking the next step, of becoming “the general in charge,” Ferragamo said.
“Once he gets to that part, where you’re taking your team from behind, when you have to do that with a two-minute drill, that’s what I can’t wait to see,” Ferragamo said.
Rams quarterback Jared Goff scrambles away from pressure during the second quarter.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
[www.latimes.com]
Jared doesn't have an available picture or somebody really dislikes Goff.
- By Zero
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 7 Replies
How many more good games before Goff gets a picture?
***************************************************************************************************************
Early Week 4 Fantasy Football waiver wire: Wendell Smallwood, Sterling Shepard, Rishard Matthews are good stashes, while Jared Goff leads the quarterback streamers
by Dave Richard
https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/f...e-jared-goff-leads-the-quarterback-streamers/
Week 3 might be remembered for the studs who Fantasy owners benched than the players who put up big numbers. Stefon Diggs and T.Y. Hilton were sat down in roughly one-third of CBS Sports leagues, while Jordan Howard, DeMarco Murray, Sammy Watkins, Pierre Garcon and Chris Hogan were banished to the pine in at least 60 percent of our leagues.
This week is a microcosm of just how unpredictable Fantasy Football is. Case Keenum will finish as a top-10 quarterback -- and Blake Bortles will be top-5!
If you benched studs, hopefully you still made it out of the week with a win. If not, well at least you still have the studs on your team.
And here's more good news: There weren't a glut of injuries like we had in Week 2 -- Kelvin Benjamin's looms the largest, and even that isn't considered major. So that's a win for all of us.
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Better yet, the waiver wire will have a handful of very interesting names to help pad our rosters.
Running backs
Duke Johnson RB / Browns (69% owned)
Alvin Kamara RB / Saints (57% owned)
There isn't a reliable starter for Week 4 available here, but there's plenty of potential with each name. Johnson scored for the second week in a row and has remained a nice weapon in the Browns offense. However, he's also averaged eight touches and 68.0 total yards per game. His numbers will stink if he doesn't score. That also goes for Kamara, who's averaging even fewer touches and yards per game than Johnson.
Wendell Smallwood RB / Eagles (17% owned)
D'Onta Foreman RB / Texans (40% owned)
The guys to hone in on with the idea of stashing are Smallwood and Foreman. On the same week Darren Sproles went down with a hand injury, Smallwood had a team-high 13 touches for 80 total yards. If Sproles' wrist injury is serious, Smallwood is a cinch to see a lot of playing time, even if he has to share with LeGarrette Blount. Foreman, too, will share with Lamar Miller. However, he has not only looked the part as a physical runner, but also caught a pair of passes this week and turned them into gains of 34 and 31 yards. He's a must-stash, especially if you have Miller.
Quarterbacks
Blake Bortles QB / Jaguars (21% owned)
Jared Goff QB / Rams (23% owned)
Eli Manning QB / Giants (66% owned)
Andy Dalton QB / Bengals (55% owned)
All four of these guys posted their first 20-plus-point Fantasy game of the season. While Andy Dalton, Jared Goff and Eli Manning completed well over 70 percent of their passes and made use of their playmaking receivers, Blake Bortles had a blast-from-the-past, with an impressive four-score matchup against the Ravens in London. And it wasn't even in garbage time!
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Each of them has nice matchups in Week 4 -- Dalton will see the Browns, Bortles plays at the Jets, Manning hits the road again to take on the Bucs and Goff will visit the Cowboys. But none of them have the kind of schedule that will make you want to hitch your wagon to them. That goes double for Goff, who will see a tough slate of games beginning in Week 5 against the Seahawks.
Wide receivers
Rishard Matthews WR / Titans (65% owned)
Marqise Lee WR / Jaguars (50% owned)
You know, we'll have bye weeks starting in Week 5, and if your receiver depth isn't so great, you'll want to check in on these guys. The headliners are Matthews and Lee, both de facto No. 1 receivers for their teams. Lee has 19 targets since Allen Robinsonwent down with a torn ACL while Matthews' 24 targets are six more than any other receiver on the Titans. Matthews should continue to look fresh against the Texans in Week 4, while Lee will see the Jets.
Sterling Shepard WR / Giants (55% owned)
So much for Brandon Marshall being the No. 2 receiver for the Giants. Shepard has outperformed Marshall in every game for Big Blue this year, and he only has two more targets than the 12-year veteran. There's some staying power with him as a potential No. 3 receiver from week to week, at least until the Giants unearth a running game.
Robby Anderson WR / Jets (17% owned)
Taylor Gabriel WR / Falcons (34% owned)
Anderson and Gabriel are similar players in that they're both fast, big-play guys. That was on display in Week 3 when Anderson caught a 69-yard score and Gabriel made good on a touchdown from 40 yards out. They're not expected to do this every week, but anytime they're in a favorable matchup, especially one expected to be high scoring, they're worth taking a chance on as a Flex or bye-week replacement. They're also nice DFS options. Gabriel has a little more appeal for Week 4, but Anderson is worth doubling-back for when the Jets play at the Browns in Week 5.
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Tight ends
Charles Clay TE / Bills (41% owned)
Cameron Brate TE / Buccaneers (37% owned)
As always, when it comes to tight ends we're looking for guys who have a chance to score in any given week. From there we hope to fall into a reliable option. Clay has scored in two of three matchups this season and will play at the Falcons in Week 4. Figuring the Bills will play from behind and that the matchup against Atlanta's linebackers will appeal to Tyrod Taylor, Clay could be worth taking a chance on.
Brate's in the same boat -- he finally came through to help Fantasy owners in Week 3 and will take on the Giants in Week 4. New York has allowed a touchdown to a starting tight end in each game this season, so Brate's potential for another end-zone visit is pretty strong.
MNF: Cowboys@Cardinals
- By Prime Time
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 138 Replies
https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/25/monday-night-football-preview-cardinals-cowboys
Monday Night Football Preview: Analyzing Cardinals-Cowboys in Week 3
ANDY BENOIT
GETTY IMAGES
Three things to watch, plus a couple more, in the Cowboys-Cardinals Monday Night Football game:
1. THE RUNNING GAME BATTLE
Ezekiel Elliott ran nine times for eight yards in Week 2 at Denver, and the Cowboys’ offense was reduced to a shell of itself. This team is built around its rushing attack. Without it the Cowboys lose much of the play-action and rollout game that Dak Prescott runs so well, and they’re left fighting through their rudimentary aerial concepts, hoping receivers can make plays.
So far, those receivers have not. Terrance Williams is a precise route-runner but only within the context of the play design. Defenses don’t pay him special attention. On the other side, Dez Bryant struggles to separate, which won’t change tonight against superstud corner Patrick Peterson. Bryant is at his best on downfield routes that come out of running formations. If the ground game isn’t rolling, those running formations aren’t used.
Dallas’s O-line is good enough to create zone-running lanes against any defense, but the Cardinals are not an easy one. They feature a lot of “reduced fronts,” with a nosetackle directly over the center and 3-technique defensive tackles clogging the B-gaps on both sides. These D-linemen are taught to penetrate.
It’s a great formula against most ground games and a near-perfect one against an outside zone game like Dallas’s. In two outings, the Cardinals have given 82 and 76 yards rushing, respectively, against the Lions and Colts, and have averaged 2.82 yards per attempt through the first two games, which ranked fourth in the league through that time span.
2. THE JUSTIN BETHEL FACTOR
The sixth-year corner is the obvious weak link on what’s otherwise a fast and talented Cardinals defense. The problem is, the Cardinals are a matchup-based D, which makes Bethel easy to isolate. Cowboys receivers Brice Butler and Terrance Williams are both battling ankle injuries.
Whoever has the best ankle of those two will have at least two or three deep shots dialed up for him on Monday night. Bethel tends to stay too flat in his initial off-coverage position, which can slow his transition out of his backpedal. The Cowboys will attack this.
3. CARDINALS PASSING ATTACK
Against Indianapolis last week the Cardinals lined up in a four-wide receiver set on 18 of 43 Carson Palmer dropbacks. This was going to be a staple package of theirs even before receiving back David Johnson went down. With him out, the Cardinals will do it even more.
That’ll be especially true Monday night, given that Dallas’s secondary is young and without two of its top four corners, Nolan Carroll and Chidobe Awuzie. Look for the Cardinals to go four-wide, cluster the receivers together and run criss-crossing patterns off of it. They have a great opportunity to confuse and out-leverage Dallas’s zone defensive backs.
BONUS HITTERS
• Keep an eye on Cardinals first-round rookie linebacker Haason Reddick. He’s young and explosive, but he also looked very much like a rookie last week at Indy. You want to go right at Reddick and make him think, rather than away from him, where he can use his speed and react. Look for the Cowboys to direct their play-action his way.
• If Arizona’s passing game gets derailed by a schematically simple but improving Cowboys D, it will happen up front. This makeshift offensive line can’t pass-protect. Bruce Arians, in fact, may have to alter his system and use more six-man protections.
(Arians prefers to block with five so that all five eligible receivers can get out in routes.) Cowboys defensive end Demarcus Lawrence was great in Weeks 1 and 2. He should be looking forward to facing offensive tackles Jared Veldheer and John Wetzel.
BOLD PREDICTION
My editors are forcing me to be bold, so here goes: The Cowboys will sack Carson Palmer at least four times. Final: Dallas 24, Arizona 16.
Monday Night Football Preview: Analyzing Cardinals-Cowboys in Week 3
ANDY BENOIT
GETTY IMAGES
Three things to watch, plus a couple more, in the Cowboys-Cardinals Monday Night Football game:
1. THE RUNNING GAME BATTLE
Ezekiel Elliott ran nine times for eight yards in Week 2 at Denver, and the Cowboys’ offense was reduced to a shell of itself. This team is built around its rushing attack. Without it the Cowboys lose much of the play-action and rollout game that Dak Prescott runs so well, and they’re left fighting through their rudimentary aerial concepts, hoping receivers can make plays.
So far, those receivers have not. Terrance Williams is a precise route-runner but only within the context of the play design. Defenses don’t pay him special attention. On the other side, Dez Bryant struggles to separate, which won’t change tonight against superstud corner Patrick Peterson. Bryant is at his best on downfield routes that come out of running formations. If the ground game isn’t rolling, those running formations aren’t used.
Dallas’s O-line is good enough to create zone-running lanes against any defense, but the Cardinals are not an easy one. They feature a lot of “reduced fronts,” with a nosetackle directly over the center and 3-technique defensive tackles clogging the B-gaps on both sides. These D-linemen are taught to penetrate.
It’s a great formula against most ground games and a near-perfect one against an outside zone game like Dallas’s. In two outings, the Cardinals have given 82 and 76 yards rushing, respectively, against the Lions and Colts, and have averaged 2.82 yards per attempt through the first two games, which ranked fourth in the league through that time span.
2. THE JUSTIN BETHEL FACTOR
The sixth-year corner is the obvious weak link on what’s otherwise a fast and talented Cardinals defense. The problem is, the Cardinals are a matchup-based D, which makes Bethel easy to isolate. Cowboys receivers Brice Butler and Terrance Williams are both battling ankle injuries.
Whoever has the best ankle of those two will have at least two or three deep shots dialed up for him on Monday night. Bethel tends to stay too flat in his initial off-coverage position, which can slow his transition out of his backpedal. The Cowboys will attack this.
3. CARDINALS PASSING ATTACK
Against Indianapolis last week the Cardinals lined up in a four-wide receiver set on 18 of 43 Carson Palmer dropbacks. This was going to be a staple package of theirs even before receiving back David Johnson went down. With him out, the Cardinals will do it even more.
That’ll be especially true Monday night, given that Dallas’s secondary is young and without two of its top four corners, Nolan Carroll and Chidobe Awuzie. Look for the Cardinals to go four-wide, cluster the receivers together and run criss-crossing patterns off of it. They have a great opportunity to confuse and out-leverage Dallas’s zone defensive backs.
BONUS HITTERS
• Keep an eye on Cardinals first-round rookie linebacker Haason Reddick. He’s young and explosive, but he also looked very much like a rookie last week at Indy. You want to go right at Reddick and make him think, rather than away from him, where he can use his speed and react. Look for the Cowboys to direct their play-action his way.
• If Arizona’s passing game gets derailed by a schematically simple but improving Cowboys D, it will happen up front. This makeshift offensive line can’t pass-protect. Bruce Arians, in fact, may have to alter his system and use more six-man protections.
(Arians prefers to block with five so that all five eligible receivers can get out in routes.) Cowboys defensive end Demarcus Lawrence was great in Weeks 1 and 2. He should be looking forward to facing offensive tackles Jared Veldheer and John Wetzel.
BOLD PREDICTION
My editors are forcing me to be bold, so here goes: The Cowboys will sack Carson Palmer at least four times. Final: Dallas 24, Arizona 16.
Peter King: MMQB - 9/25/17
- By Prime Time
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 6 Replies
These are excerpts. To read the whole article click the link below. The Rams are mentioned several times further down in the article.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/25/nfl-week-3-jake-elliott-eagles-kicker-giants
Monday Morning QB: NFL Week 3 Had It All
By Peter King
Jake Elliott was mobbed by teammates after his 61-yard field goal gave the Eagles a win over the Giants.
ABBIE PARR/GETTY IMAGES
It was really quite a day. Even the Week 3 games that stunk had storylines.
• Jacksonville obliterated the wounded Ravens in London. The Jags are averaging 29.7 points a game, have 13 sacks and boast a hard-to-play 2-1 record. The Jags do a lot of things well, and Blake Bortles isn’t losing games.
• Minnesota, playing without Sam Bradford for the second straight game, got a career game from Case Keenum (25 of 33, 369 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, 142.1 rating). The Vikes are hopeful of getting Bradford back for the NFC North trifecta coming up (Detroit, at Chicago, Green Bay), but Keenum’s not so frightening now.
• The Jets held the ball for 36 minutes—a big surprise considering how feeble the offense is—and held the imposing Dolphins to 30 yards rushing. New York 20, Miami 6. Not a lot of fun to watch unless you live in the Bowles home. But that’s how the Jets have to win: sturdy defense, efficient offense.
• Carolina has a Cam Newton issue. Panthers at Patriots next Sunday, in what could be the second and final meeting ever between Newton and Tom Brady. (AFC teams meet NFC teams once every four seasons.
And now let's see if I can squeeze in something about my mancrush Tom Brady even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the Panthers. :rimshot:
I probably should not bet against a 44-year-old Tom Brady playing at Charlotte in 2021.) Last eight quarters: Brady eight touchdowns passes, 142.9 passer rating; Newton zero touchdown passes, 62.1 passer rating. Newton got yanked by the Panthers, who got routed by the Saints, but he was still confident afterward. “Just be patient and know big things are ahead for us,” Newton said.
• Kansas City has a good one in Kareem Hunt. The 86th pick in the 2017 draft has a 113-yard lead in the rushing race after three games. If the Kansas City kid keeps up the 133.7-yard average per game, he might have a decent season.
Two other stories hit me Sunday, and I reached out and talked to the protagonist in both.
• Jake Elliott, hero. I didn’t even notice this till Sunday: the Bengals chose a kicker, Jake Elliott of Memphis, in the fifth round, 153rd overall, from Memphis in the April draft … and cut him Labor Day weekend, choosing to keep Randy Bullock. After a week on the Bengals’ practice squad, Elliott signed with the Eagles when Caleb Sturgis was hurt opening day. Normal enough story, till one second remained in a 24-24 Eagles-Giants tie at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday.
The preface: Before the game, coaches watched Elliott kicking on the field and decided they’d call on him if the kick was 56 yards or closer. Coincidentally, that’s the longest kick of his career, 56 yards, when he was in college. But with the ball at the Giants’ 43 with one tick left, Elliott did the quick math … 61 yards.
“I sprinted up to the coaches to put my word in,” Elliott said after the game. “I was real wide-eyed. I said, ‘Let’s go! LET’S GO!’”
The head coach, Doug Peterson, looked at this kid he barely knows, said nothing, and pointed out to the field. “I ran out there,” Elliott calmly recounted. “Normal flow. A little jittery. But I was zoned in. I couldn’t really tell you what I was thinking. I felt good about it. When I hit the ball, it felt good. You know when you’re a kicker, and you hit it really well, sometimes it feels like you haven’t really hit it that hard …”
“Like a baseball player hitting the ball on the sweet spot of the bat and not really feeling much?” he was asked.
“Exactly.”
Then, he said, he kicked it, and “I saw the ball in real life.” It veered a little bit right and kept going and going and appeared to slightly shave the inside of the right upright. Plenty of ball. Good.
The wide-eyed amazement of teammates he barely knows sprinting at him … FOX hustling him over for the Erin Andrews post-gamer on the field … Two teammates, Mychal Kendricks and Kamu Grugier-Hill, waiting to carry him off the field … The crowd, as loud as one observer said he’s heard it in two or three years, going bonkers.
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What will Elliott remember most? All of it, probably.
“It’s a little bit stunning,” Elliott said. “Surreal. Really surreal.”
That’s how you feel when you kick the longest field goal in Eagles history, the longest NFL field goal ever kicked in Philadelphia, and the longest field goal by a rookie in NFL history, and a dagger in the heart of the 0-3 Giants. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t beat out Randy Bullock three weeks ago.
• And speaking of strange Septembers … Jacoby Brissett won a game Sunday. Instead of Tom Brady on the sidelines giving him pointers between series, it was Andrew Luck. Three weeks ago, Brissett walked into a new world as a backup quarterback for the Colts, traded by the Patriots for wideout Phillip Dorsett. And Brissett was playing soon enough, put in while Luck rehabbed from shoulder surgery and after Scott Tolzien struggled badly in Week 1.
It’s clear Brissett will go back to a support role in two or three weeks when Luck returns from a longer-than-expected rehab. But the Colts know they’ve got a good and capable and subservient lieutenant for the next three seasons—
Brissett is signed through the end of 2019 at the highly reasonable average rate of $735,000 a year. Brissett had a nice game Sunday in the 31-28 survival test against the Browns: 17 of 24, 70.8 percent accuracy, one touchdown pass, no picks, two touchdown runs, 120.0 rating.
I’m not sure if a Colts fans will view this as a positive, but when interviewed, Brissett sounds very much like a Patriot. You can tell he took interview lessons from Bill Belichick.
“It’s hard to win in the NFL,” Brissett said. “I’m going to enjoy this one.”
On the craziness of the past month, since getting to Indianapolis: “It’s been a whirlwind. I’ve been lucky to have good people around me—good players, good coaches. My offensive line’s been great.”
On his smooth-looking touchdown pass, his first as a Colt, to wideout T.Y. Hilton: “I got the ball to the best player on the field, and he did the rest. I had plenty of time, so I’ve got to thank the line for that.”
On the best advice he got from Brady when he left New England: “Have fun. It’s football. And work, just work.”
Who knows how the trade’s going to measure out in three or four years. But Brissett’s got the demeanor—and the ability to win a game the Colts could not afford to lose—to make GM Chris Ballard very happy he made that deal.
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Game-Winning Catch Has Brandin Cooks ‘Thankful’ to be a New England Patriot
Through three games as a Patriot, Brandin Cooks has 10 catches for 256 yards and two touchdowns, including this toe-tapping game-winner Sunday against the Texans.
JIM DAVIS/THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES
The visiting Texans weren’t making it easy for New England, though, building a 33-28 lead with a little more than two minutes left in the game, and the Patriots would need to travel 77 yards to overcome Houston.
Tom Brady soon took his fifth sack. Then he was knocked down for the eighth time in the game.
Then he converted a third-and-18 throw to Danny Amendola, and ducked into the New England huddle, 29 seconds left, with the ball at the Houston 25-yard line.
“What’d he say in the huddle, other than the play?” I asked Brandin Cooks an hour after the game.
Cooks had to think for a moment. “No words, really,’’ he said. “You know, just, ‘Let’s go fellas. Do what we do best.’”
Cooks’ job was to beat his man, cornerback Kareem Jackson, down the left side, deep, and be ready for the ball near the goal line. “It’s just one of the things you know playing with Tom—run the best route you can on every snap, because you never know when it’s coming to you,” said Cooks.
Brady looked over his four options and let it fly for Cooks, who’d beaten Jackson by two steps and now had only to contend with the deep safety, Corey Moore, coming fast … and Cooks had to contend with the wide white stripe on the side of the end zone. The ball from Brady nestled into Cooks’ arms, just as Moore flew over his head and came close to battering him into the turf.
Cooks caught it, his two feet seemingly glued to the ground, as the official stared at him, stared at his two feet, and stared to see if he hung onto the ball as he fell to the turf, as if being toppled like a tree, straight over.
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Touchdown. The fifth one of Brady’s day, against one of the best defensive fronts in football. At age 40. To a talented receiver who was in second grade in Brady’s rookie year.
“To be honest, your brain knows you’re close,” Cooks said. “I can’t even describe to you what I did or why I did it. I can’t take you through it. It’s just the instincts of a receiver. You know how much space you have, and it’s not much.”
Cooks turns 24 today. He’s gone from one Hall of Famer (Drew Brees) to another (Brady) in one off-season. What’s next? Going to Green Bay in free agency and finishing his career with Aaron Rodgers? I asked him how he felt now, being dropped into the New England offense, being the go-to receiver for perhaps the greatest quarterback of all time on a team with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations. Again.
“Thankful, thankful, thankful,” said Cooks. “There are so many people who would love to play this game, and so many who would love to be in this position. It’s a gift from God. Truly, this is a gift from God.”
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The Award Section: Washington Defense Breaks Out; Jared Goff’s Confidence Grows
Raiders quarterback Derek Carr had nowhere to go against the Washington defense on Sunday night.
PATRICK SMITH/GETTY IMAGES
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Tom Brady, quarterback, New England. You’re kidding, right? Against the Houston defensive front, 25 of 35 for 378? Five touchdowns? No picks? This just in: Brady’s 40.
Deshaun Watson, quarterback, Houston. On the flip side, Watson just turned 22. He went into Foxboro, against the five-time world champs, and went toe-to-toe with Brady. Down eight in the third quarter, Watson engineered 70-, 67- and 49-yard drives to put the Texans up 33-28 with 2:24 left.
So what if the Houston lead couldn’t hold? Coaches hate moral victories, but there hasn’t been a moral victory in the first 46 games of this season anywhere close to Houston’s three-point loss in Foxboro. The Texans have a quarterback.
Jared Goff, quarterback, Los Angeles Rams. The more we see Goff, the better he looks in his sophomore season. Playing with a confidence belying his youth, and playing both in his high school and college backyard, Goff shredded the Niners in Santa Clara in a 22-of-28, 292-yard, three-touchdown, no-pick night.
DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Ryan Kerrigan, outside linebacker, Washington. Through two weeks, Oakland had most often looked like as explosive an offensive team as there was in football. On Sunday night, the Kerrigan-led swarm around Derek Carr limited the Raiders to seven first downs and a ridiculous 128 total yards. Kerrigan had a sack and three tackles for loss. If you’d have told me he had seven tackles behind the line, I wouldn’t been surprised.
Calais Campbell, defensive end, Jacksonville. At 32, it’s amazing how much Calais Campbell still affects the game. Playing 32 of the 53 defensive snaps in the 44-7 rout of the Ravens, Campbell had five quarterback disruptions: one sack, one quarterback hit, three hurries. He’s off to a terrific start (4.5 sacks in three games) with his new team.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Deon Lacey, linebacker, Buffalo. Last minute of the third quarter. Fourth-and-two, Denver ball at its 31. Punt formation. FAKE! Upback De’Angelo Henderson takes a direct snap, and here comes Lacey, not falling for the fake, tackling Henderson after a one-yard gain. A huge play in a close game by a man plucked off the waiver wire from the Dolphins. The stuff helped the Bills upset the previously unbeaten Broncos.
Matt Prater, kicker, Detroit. Becoming the first kicker in history to convert at least 10 field goals of 55 yards or longer, Prater kept the Lions in a seesaw game with field goals from 55, 40, 35 and 57 yards. Prater also has a current streak of converting 11 consecutive field goals of at least 50 yards. Since 2011, he has connected on 30 field goals over 50 yards, the most in the NFL during that span.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Pat Flaherty, offensive line, Jacksonville. The Jags held Baltimore’s power defense sackless Sunday in the 44-7 win over the Ravens in London. Respect the job Flaherty’s done in his first season with a new group: left tackle Cam Robinson, left guard Patrick Omameh, center Brandon Linder, right guard A.J. Cann, right tackle Jermey (cq) Parnell. Flaherty, 61, was Tom Coughlin’s prize line coach with the Giants, and Flaherty is reprising his outstanding work with the Jaguars—with Coughlin now in the front office.
GOAT OF THE WEEK
Marcus Cooper, cornerback, Chicago. It will take Cooper a long time to live this down—and, knowing the long memories of Bears fans in Chicagoland, they’ll never forget it. The Bears blocked a Pittsburgh field-goal try late in the first half of a 7-7 game, and Cooper picked it up and seemed headed for an easy 72-yard touchdown return. Cooper slowed up to show off inside the Pittsburgh 10-yard line, and that was all the time Steelers backup tight end Vance McDonald needed to catch Cooper—and knock the ball free at the one-yard line.
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“He’s a Hall of Famer with what he’s done already in his career.”
—Cris Collinsworth, on Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, after he made the game-clinching sack in the Rams’ 41-39 win over the 49ers
Collinsworth is a splendid analyst and a very good friend. But it would take something truly extraordinary for me to vote a man who has played three years and two NFL games into the Hall of Fame. Then again, this is what the Terrell Davis Hall of Fame vote has wrought: Davis had three other-worldly seasons and one very good one, and he was elected to the Hall this year.
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STAT OF THE WEEK: Value of coaching dept:
Look how much better second-year quarterback Jared Goff is, compared to rookie quarterback Jared Goff:
Rams W-L /Comp. Pct./ Avg. Yards/ TD-INT/ Passer Rating
0-7/ .546/ 155.6/ 5-7/ 63.6
2-1/ .704/ 272.3/ 5-1/ 118.2
Obviously, this can’t all be about coaching. But coach Sean McVay and his hands-on Goff guys—quarterback coach Greg Olson and offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur—have gone back and educated Goff about the littlest things.
Formations and pass-route combinations have been a big part of the education. Take Goff’s one-yard touchdown pass to Sammy Watkins on Thursday night—made possible by an interesting formation with Watkins paired with another receiver to the left of the formation that was as close to a pick play, but entirely legal, as an offense can run. It’s just smart stuff that makes life easier for the quarterback.
Having a significantly better offensive line helps. And the importing of Andrew Whitworth as a free-agent left tackle has meant the world. It’s like the importing of Chris Sale to the Red Sox pitching staff—it changes everything. Compare the protection from the left tackle for the Rams last year to the protection from the left tackle this year, stats courtesy of Pro Football Focus:
• 2016: Left tackle Greg Robinson allowed 40 sacks/significant pressures/hits of the quarterbacks in 511 pass drops. That’s one pressure per 12.8 pass attempts.
• 2017: Left tackle Andrew Whitworth has allowed one sack/significant pressure/hit of the quarterback in 84 pass drops. That’s one pressure per 84 pass attempts.
When I spoke with Whitworth on Saturday, he credited the teaching of McVay.
“The reality is, how many true teachers are there out there, rather than yellers and screamers,” Whitworth said. “The most impressive thing about Coach McVay is he’s a teacher. The greatest coaches are the ones who can not just stand in a classroom and instruct on the board what to do—but they can stand right beside me, looking through my eyes, and tell me how to do something. Teach me something. That can last forever. That’s what I see with coach McVay and Jared.
“Now, when I see Jared, I see a really confident guy. He’s told me, ‘I feel good about any single play we call. I just feel like I need to make the decisions. I don’t think, Is this what we should have called? Is this the right situation for this call?’ I think it’s important that after a play, Sean is not there to criticize him when he makes the wrong decision. He knows the only way for him to learn this is to go through it. It’s been good to watch.”
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POD PEOPLE
This week’s guest: Minnesota GM Rick Spielman.
• Spielman on what he was thinking the night before he finalized the sudden trade with Philadelphia for Sam Bradford last year: “I was thinking, I'm not going to get much sleep tonight, I knew that. I stared at the ceiling all night because I knew how big a decision this was going to be. Every morning at 5 I get up to walk my dogs and clear my head, but I knew after we'd done all our research and after we'd talked through it thoroughly with the coaches and the personnel people, that this was the best thing for our organization.
You have to go off of what you truly believe and usually you can tell inside your heart. And if you don't have any doubt after you sit there, and you know in your heart this is the best thing we can possibly do, then you just go with it. A lot of times it will work out. Sometimes it doesn't work out. With all the work, energy and effort we put into it, it was the best solution at the time.”
• Spielman on whether his Ohio football upbringing molded him into the GM he is today: “I believe so. The way we grew up, my dad was a high school coach for 30-plus years and ever since we've been able to walk, I remember my mom taking me and my brother out to my dad's practices. To sit there when you are three years old, all the way through your life and you are seeing your dad at a high school level deal with the adversities of wins and losses, the injuries … I always wanted to be a player.
Well, unfortunately, I didn't have the change of direction and the instincts that my brother [Chris Spielman, the longtime NFL linebacker] had, but I became a front office guy. So I always tell Chris, 'You had a great career, but mine is lasting a lot longer so far! You're still not playing and mine has lasted about 28 years so far!’”
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Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick (and apolitical) thoughts of Week 3:
a. I can’t imagine the all-22 tape exonerating the official who called the offensive pass interference against San Francisco’s Trent Taylor in the last seconds of Rams 41, Niners 39. Huge call. Mega-huge call. And I will wait before judging, but man, that looked like the ultimate marginal call, and you’ve only got 16 of these football games. Even though neither team’s going to the Super Bowl this year, it matters.
b. I’ll tell you the impressive performance Sunday: The Titans running it 35 times for 195 yards, a 5.6 average, against the formidable Seahawks.
c. Was This Just a Dream First Quarter of the Year: Jacksonville outgained Baltimore in yards, 170 to minus-1, in the first 15 minutes in London.
d. You cannot make that unsportsmanlike call on Von Miller for offering to pick up a fallen Tyrod Taylor and then jerking the hand away. That is a gag. It is silly. It is not a penalty in the National Football League. Maybe in the 6-Year-Old Flag League of Bozeman, Mont.
e. I will hand it to Odell Beckham Jr. for this: He does have phenomenal hands. How ever he caught that ball at the edge of the left side of the end zone at Philly is just unfair.
f. I don’t want to give the Dolphins an excuse, and I know Adam Gase doesn’t either, but their Miami-to-California (for nine days)-to-Miami-to-New Jersey travel slate couldn’t have helped in the 20-6 loss to the Jets. Now in three days, they leave for London.
g. Jameis Winston, three interceptions. Beginning to think that’s going to be a pox on the talented lad.
h. That’s a stunner, the fact that Aaron Rodgers won his first OT game ever on Sunday. Also stunning: He’s 1-7 in overtime.
i. Marshawn’s night in the nation’s capital: eight touches, 26 yards, no points, 16 snaps. What’d he have, the flu?
j. Sixteen snaps? The man’s the missing link to your offense, Raiders. I know you want to keep him healthy for 16 weeks, but don’t put the guy in bubble wrap.
2. I think it seems like six weeks ago, not four days go, that the New York Times broke the story of Aaron Hernandez’s autopsy results—his brain had stage three chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which means he had the brain at death their examiners sometimes see in men in their sixties. The maddening part of trying to put your finger on the whys of this death and what it means for future football players is that we can’t be sure of many things here.
Hernandez’s family is suing the NFL, but we can’t be sure the NFL was the primary cause of this—at all. Hernandez played 28 games of high school football, and he played both ways in high school. He played 40 games at the University of Florida. He played 44 games with the Patriots. He played an undetermined amount of Pop Warner football in his younger days. I can accept that football was the root of the CTE.
But which football? All of it? I imagine it’s all of it, because if he got whacked a few time in Pop Warner before his brain was fully developed, that’s a dangerous thing too. My point: There’s a lot we don’t know about CTE, and about when players are most susceptible to damage from head trauma.
3. I think Troy Aikman said it right after Odell Beckham Jr., caught his first touchdown pass of the season, the 300th catch of his young career, and “celebrated” by going down on all fours in the end zone and raising his right leg, as if to urinate on the Lincoln Financial Field turf: “That’s not smart. It’s just dumb football.” Because it’s a 15-yard flag in a close game. That’s why.
4. I think Phil Mushnick’s got three weeks of columns on that play. If you’re not sure who that is, google him.
5. I think I think I’m not saying Ben McAdoo shouldn’t be a head coach in the NFL, but when I see him speak publicly, he does not inspire confidence that he should be a head coach in the NFL.
6. I think, at the risk of extending the Zeke Elliott-loafed story into an eighth day, I simply must call out Michael Irvin on his ridiculous deflecting defense of Elliott.
7. I think he didn’t win Goat of the Week honors because the Eagles beat the Giants, but Philadelphia coach Doug Pederson certainly made a goat-like decision that could have cost his Eagles the game Sunday.
With 2:43 left in the first half, and a fourth-and-eight at the Giants’ 43, and the Eagles up 7-0, Pederson chose to go for it instead of pinning New York deep in their territory with the Giants’ offense struggling. The Giants sacked Carson Wentz and drove for what appeared to be the tying TD—except Sterling Shepard dropped the tying touchdown pass.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/09/25/nfl-week-3-jake-elliott-eagles-kicker-giants
Monday Morning QB: NFL Week 3 Had It All
By Peter King
Jake Elliott was mobbed by teammates after his 61-yard field goal gave the Eagles a win over the Giants.
ABBIE PARR/GETTY IMAGES
It was really quite a day. Even the Week 3 games that stunk had storylines.
• Jacksonville obliterated the wounded Ravens in London. The Jags are averaging 29.7 points a game, have 13 sacks and boast a hard-to-play 2-1 record. The Jags do a lot of things well, and Blake Bortles isn’t losing games.
• Minnesota, playing without Sam Bradford for the second straight game, got a career game from Case Keenum (25 of 33, 369 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, 142.1 rating). The Vikes are hopeful of getting Bradford back for the NFC North trifecta coming up (Detroit, at Chicago, Green Bay), but Keenum’s not so frightening now.
• The Jets held the ball for 36 minutes—a big surprise considering how feeble the offense is—and held the imposing Dolphins to 30 yards rushing. New York 20, Miami 6. Not a lot of fun to watch unless you live in the Bowles home. But that’s how the Jets have to win: sturdy defense, efficient offense.
• Carolina has a Cam Newton issue. Panthers at Patriots next Sunday, in what could be the second and final meeting ever between Newton and Tom Brady. (AFC teams meet NFC teams once every four seasons.
And now let's see if I can squeeze in something about my mancrush Tom Brady even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the Panthers. :rimshot:
I probably should not bet against a 44-year-old Tom Brady playing at Charlotte in 2021.) Last eight quarters: Brady eight touchdowns passes, 142.9 passer rating; Newton zero touchdown passes, 62.1 passer rating. Newton got yanked by the Panthers, who got routed by the Saints, but he was still confident afterward. “Just be patient and know big things are ahead for us,” Newton said.
• Kansas City has a good one in Kareem Hunt. The 86th pick in the 2017 draft has a 113-yard lead in the rushing race after three games. If the Kansas City kid keeps up the 133.7-yard average per game, he might have a decent season.
Two other stories hit me Sunday, and I reached out and talked to the protagonist in both.
• Jake Elliott, hero. I didn’t even notice this till Sunday: the Bengals chose a kicker, Jake Elliott of Memphis, in the fifth round, 153rd overall, from Memphis in the April draft … and cut him Labor Day weekend, choosing to keep Randy Bullock. After a week on the Bengals’ practice squad, Elliott signed with the Eagles when Caleb Sturgis was hurt opening day. Normal enough story, till one second remained in a 24-24 Eagles-Giants tie at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday.
The preface: Before the game, coaches watched Elliott kicking on the field and decided they’d call on him if the kick was 56 yards or closer. Coincidentally, that’s the longest kick of his career, 56 yards, when he was in college. But with the ball at the Giants’ 43 with one tick left, Elliott did the quick math … 61 yards.
“I sprinted up to the coaches to put my word in,” Elliott said after the game. “I was real wide-eyed. I said, ‘Let’s go! LET’S GO!’”
The head coach, Doug Peterson, looked at this kid he barely knows, said nothing, and pointed out to the field. “I ran out there,” Elliott calmly recounted. “Normal flow. A little jittery. But I was zoned in. I couldn’t really tell you what I was thinking. I felt good about it. When I hit the ball, it felt good. You know when you’re a kicker, and you hit it really well, sometimes it feels like you haven’t really hit it that hard …”
“Like a baseball player hitting the ball on the sweet spot of the bat and not really feeling much?” he was asked.
“Exactly.”
Then, he said, he kicked it, and “I saw the ball in real life.” It veered a little bit right and kept going and going and appeared to slightly shave the inside of the right upright. Plenty of ball. Good.
The wide-eyed amazement of teammates he barely knows sprinting at him … FOX hustling him over for the Erin Andrews post-gamer on the field … Two teammates, Mychal Kendricks and Kamu Grugier-Hill, waiting to carry him off the field … The crowd, as loud as one observer said he’s heard it in two or three years, going bonkers.
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What will Elliott remember most? All of it, probably.
“It’s a little bit stunning,” Elliott said. “Surreal. Really surreal.”
That’s how you feel when you kick the longest field goal in Eagles history, the longest NFL field goal ever kicked in Philadelphia, and the longest field goal by a rookie in NFL history, and a dagger in the heart of the 0-3 Giants. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t beat out Randy Bullock three weeks ago.
• And speaking of strange Septembers … Jacoby Brissett won a game Sunday. Instead of Tom Brady on the sidelines giving him pointers between series, it was Andrew Luck. Three weeks ago, Brissett walked into a new world as a backup quarterback for the Colts, traded by the Patriots for wideout Phillip Dorsett. And Brissett was playing soon enough, put in while Luck rehabbed from shoulder surgery and after Scott Tolzien struggled badly in Week 1.
It’s clear Brissett will go back to a support role in two or three weeks when Luck returns from a longer-than-expected rehab. But the Colts know they’ve got a good and capable and subservient lieutenant for the next three seasons—
Brissett is signed through the end of 2019 at the highly reasonable average rate of $735,000 a year. Brissett had a nice game Sunday in the 31-28 survival test against the Browns: 17 of 24, 70.8 percent accuracy, one touchdown pass, no picks, two touchdown runs, 120.0 rating.
I’m not sure if a Colts fans will view this as a positive, but when interviewed, Brissett sounds very much like a Patriot. You can tell he took interview lessons from Bill Belichick.
“It’s hard to win in the NFL,” Brissett said. “I’m going to enjoy this one.”
On the craziness of the past month, since getting to Indianapolis: “It’s been a whirlwind. I’ve been lucky to have good people around me—good players, good coaches. My offensive line’s been great.”
On his smooth-looking touchdown pass, his first as a Colt, to wideout T.Y. Hilton: “I got the ball to the best player on the field, and he did the rest. I had plenty of time, so I’ve got to thank the line for that.”
On the best advice he got from Brady when he left New England: “Have fun. It’s football. And work, just work.”
Who knows how the trade’s going to measure out in three or four years. But Brissett’s got the demeanor—and the ability to win a game the Colts could not afford to lose—to make GM Chris Ballard very happy he made that deal.
* * *
Game-Winning Catch Has Brandin Cooks ‘Thankful’ to be a New England Patriot
Through three games as a Patriot, Brandin Cooks has 10 catches for 256 yards and two touchdowns, including this toe-tapping game-winner Sunday against the Texans.
JIM DAVIS/THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES
The visiting Texans weren’t making it easy for New England, though, building a 33-28 lead with a little more than two minutes left in the game, and the Patriots would need to travel 77 yards to overcome Houston.
Tom Brady soon took his fifth sack. Then he was knocked down for the eighth time in the game.
Then he converted a third-and-18 throw to Danny Amendola, and ducked into the New England huddle, 29 seconds left, with the ball at the Houston 25-yard line.
“What’d he say in the huddle, other than the play?” I asked Brandin Cooks an hour after the game.
Cooks had to think for a moment. “No words, really,’’ he said. “You know, just, ‘Let’s go fellas. Do what we do best.’”
Cooks’ job was to beat his man, cornerback Kareem Jackson, down the left side, deep, and be ready for the ball near the goal line. “It’s just one of the things you know playing with Tom—run the best route you can on every snap, because you never know when it’s coming to you,” said Cooks.
Brady looked over his four options and let it fly for Cooks, who’d beaten Jackson by two steps and now had only to contend with the deep safety, Corey Moore, coming fast … and Cooks had to contend with the wide white stripe on the side of the end zone. The ball from Brady nestled into Cooks’ arms, just as Moore flew over his head and came close to battering him into the turf.
Cooks caught it, his two feet seemingly glued to the ground, as the official stared at him, stared at his two feet, and stared to see if he hung onto the ball as he fell to the turf, as if being toppled like a tree, straight over.
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Touchdown. The fifth one of Brady’s day, against one of the best defensive fronts in football. At age 40. To a talented receiver who was in second grade in Brady’s rookie year.
“To be honest, your brain knows you’re close,” Cooks said. “I can’t even describe to you what I did or why I did it. I can’t take you through it. It’s just the instincts of a receiver. You know how much space you have, and it’s not much.”
Cooks turns 24 today. He’s gone from one Hall of Famer (Drew Brees) to another (Brady) in one off-season. What’s next? Going to Green Bay in free agency and finishing his career with Aaron Rodgers? I asked him how he felt now, being dropped into the New England offense, being the go-to receiver for perhaps the greatest quarterback of all time on a team with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations. Again.
“Thankful, thankful, thankful,” said Cooks. “There are so many people who would love to play this game, and so many who would love to be in this position. It’s a gift from God. Truly, this is a gift from God.”
* * *
The Award Section: Washington Defense Breaks Out; Jared Goff’s Confidence Grows
Raiders quarterback Derek Carr had nowhere to go against the Washington defense on Sunday night.
PATRICK SMITH/GETTY IMAGES
OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Tom Brady, quarterback, New England. You’re kidding, right? Against the Houston defensive front, 25 of 35 for 378? Five touchdowns? No picks? This just in: Brady’s 40.
Deshaun Watson, quarterback, Houston. On the flip side, Watson just turned 22. He went into Foxboro, against the five-time world champs, and went toe-to-toe with Brady. Down eight in the third quarter, Watson engineered 70-, 67- and 49-yard drives to put the Texans up 33-28 with 2:24 left.
So what if the Houston lead couldn’t hold? Coaches hate moral victories, but there hasn’t been a moral victory in the first 46 games of this season anywhere close to Houston’s three-point loss in Foxboro. The Texans have a quarterback.
Jared Goff, quarterback, Los Angeles Rams. The more we see Goff, the better he looks in his sophomore season. Playing with a confidence belying his youth, and playing both in his high school and college backyard, Goff shredded the Niners in Santa Clara in a 22-of-28, 292-yard, three-touchdown, no-pick night.
DEFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Ryan Kerrigan, outside linebacker, Washington. Through two weeks, Oakland had most often looked like as explosive an offensive team as there was in football. On Sunday night, the Kerrigan-led swarm around Derek Carr limited the Raiders to seven first downs and a ridiculous 128 total yards. Kerrigan had a sack and three tackles for loss. If you’d have told me he had seven tackles behind the line, I wouldn’t been surprised.
Calais Campbell, defensive end, Jacksonville. At 32, it’s amazing how much Calais Campbell still affects the game. Playing 32 of the 53 defensive snaps in the 44-7 rout of the Ravens, Campbell had five quarterback disruptions: one sack, one quarterback hit, three hurries. He’s off to a terrific start (4.5 sacks in three games) with his new team.
SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Deon Lacey, linebacker, Buffalo. Last minute of the third quarter. Fourth-and-two, Denver ball at its 31. Punt formation. FAKE! Upback De’Angelo Henderson takes a direct snap, and here comes Lacey, not falling for the fake, tackling Henderson after a one-yard gain. A huge play in a close game by a man plucked off the waiver wire from the Dolphins. The stuff helped the Bills upset the previously unbeaten Broncos.
Matt Prater, kicker, Detroit. Becoming the first kicker in history to convert at least 10 field goals of 55 yards or longer, Prater kept the Lions in a seesaw game with field goals from 55, 40, 35 and 57 yards. Prater also has a current streak of converting 11 consecutive field goals of at least 50 yards. Since 2011, he has connected on 30 field goals over 50 yards, the most in the NFL during that span.
COACH OF THE WEEK
Pat Flaherty, offensive line, Jacksonville. The Jags held Baltimore’s power defense sackless Sunday in the 44-7 win over the Ravens in London. Respect the job Flaherty’s done in his first season with a new group: left tackle Cam Robinson, left guard Patrick Omameh, center Brandon Linder, right guard A.J. Cann, right tackle Jermey (cq) Parnell. Flaherty, 61, was Tom Coughlin’s prize line coach with the Giants, and Flaherty is reprising his outstanding work with the Jaguars—with Coughlin now in the front office.
GOAT OF THE WEEK
Marcus Cooper, cornerback, Chicago. It will take Cooper a long time to live this down—and, knowing the long memories of Bears fans in Chicagoland, they’ll never forget it. The Bears blocked a Pittsburgh field-goal try late in the first half of a 7-7 game, and Cooper picked it up and seemed headed for an easy 72-yard touchdown return. Cooper slowed up to show off inside the Pittsburgh 10-yard line, and that was all the time Steelers backup tight end Vance McDonald needed to catch Cooper—and knock the ball free at the one-yard line.
* * *
“He’s a Hall of Famer with what he’s done already in his career.”
—Cris Collinsworth, on Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, after he made the game-clinching sack in the Rams’ 41-39 win over the 49ers
Collinsworth is a splendid analyst and a very good friend. But it would take something truly extraordinary for me to vote a man who has played three years and two NFL games into the Hall of Fame. Then again, this is what the Terrell Davis Hall of Fame vote has wrought: Davis had three other-worldly seasons and one very good one, and he was elected to the Hall this year.
* * *
STAT OF THE WEEK: Value of coaching dept:
Look how much better second-year quarterback Jared Goff is, compared to rookie quarterback Jared Goff:
Rams W-L /Comp. Pct./ Avg. Yards/ TD-INT/ Passer Rating
0-7/ .546/ 155.6/ 5-7/ 63.6
2-1/ .704/ 272.3/ 5-1/ 118.2
Obviously, this can’t all be about coaching. But coach Sean McVay and his hands-on Goff guys—quarterback coach Greg Olson and offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur—have gone back and educated Goff about the littlest things.
Formations and pass-route combinations have been a big part of the education. Take Goff’s one-yard touchdown pass to Sammy Watkins on Thursday night—made possible by an interesting formation with Watkins paired with another receiver to the left of the formation that was as close to a pick play, but entirely legal, as an offense can run. It’s just smart stuff that makes life easier for the quarterback.
Having a significantly better offensive line helps. And the importing of Andrew Whitworth as a free-agent left tackle has meant the world. It’s like the importing of Chris Sale to the Red Sox pitching staff—it changes everything. Compare the protection from the left tackle for the Rams last year to the protection from the left tackle this year, stats courtesy of Pro Football Focus:
• 2016: Left tackle Greg Robinson allowed 40 sacks/significant pressures/hits of the quarterbacks in 511 pass drops. That’s one pressure per 12.8 pass attempts.
• 2017: Left tackle Andrew Whitworth has allowed one sack/significant pressure/hit of the quarterback in 84 pass drops. That’s one pressure per 84 pass attempts.
When I spoke with Whitworth on Saturday, he credited the teaching of McVay.
“The reality is, how many true teachers are there out there, rather than yellers and screamers,” Whitworth said. “The most impressive thing about Coach McVay is he’s a teacher. The greatest coaches are the ones who can not just stand in a classroom and instruct on the board what to do—but they can stand right beside me, looking through my eyes, and tell me how to do something. Teach me something. That can last forever. That’s what I see with coach McVay and Jared.
“Now, when I see Jared, I see a really confident guy. He’s told me, ‘I feel good about any single play we call. I just feel like I need to make the decisions. I don’t think, Is this what we should have called? Is this the right situation for this call?’ I think it’s important that after a play, Sean is not there to criticize him when he makes the wrong decision. He knows the only way for him to learn this is to go through it. It’s been good to watch.”
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* * *
POD PEOPLE
This week’s guest: Minnesota GM Rick Spielman.
• Spielman on what he was thinking the night before he finalized the sudden trade with Philadelphia for Sam Bradford last year: “I was thinking, I'm not going to get much sleep tonight, I knew that. I stared at the ceiling all night because I knew how big a decision this was going to be. Every morning at 5 I get up to walk my dogs and clear my head, but I knew after we'd done all our research and after we'd talked through it thoroughly with the coaches and the personnel people, that this was the best thing for our organization.
You have to go off of what you truly believe and usually you can tell inside your heart. And if you don't have any doubt after you sit there, and you know in your heart this is the best thing we can possibly do, then you just go with it. A lot of times it will work out. Sometimes it doesn't work out. With all the work, energy and effort we put into it, it was the best solution at the time.”
• Spielman on whether his Ohio football upbringing molded him into the GM he is today: “I believe so. The way we grew up, my dad was a high school coach for 30-plus years and ever since we've been able to walk, I remember my mom taking me and my brother out to my dad's practices. To sit there when you are three years old, all the way through your life and you are seeing your dad at a high school level deal with the adversities of wins and losses, the injuries … I always wanted to be a player.
Well, unfortunately, I didn't have the change of direction and the instincts that my brother [Chris Spielman, the longtime NFL linebacker] had, but I became a front office guy. So I always tell Chris, 'You had a great career, but mine is lasting a lot longer so far! You're still not playing and mine has lasted about 28 years so far!’”
* * *
Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick (and apolitical) thoughts of Week 3:
a. I can’t imagine the all-22 tape exonerating the official who called the offensive pass interference against San Francisco’s Trent Taylor in the last seconds of Rams 41, Niners 39. Huge call. Mega-huge call. And I will wait before judging, but man, that looked like the ultimate marginal call, and you’ve only got 16 of these football games. Even though neither team’s going to the Super Bowl this year, it matters.
b. I’ll tell you the impressive performance Sunday: The Titans running it 35 times for 195 yards, a 5.6 average, against the formidable Seahawks.
c. Was This Just a Dream First Quarter of the Year: Jacksonville outgained Baltimore in yards, 170 to minus-1, in the first 15 minutes in London.
d. You cannot make that unsportsmanlike call on Von Miller for offering to pick up a fallen Tyrod Taylor and then jerking the hand away. That is a gag. It is silly. It is not a penalty in the National Football League. Maybe in the 6-Year-Old Flag League of Bozeman, Mont.
e. I will hand it to Odell Beckham Jr. for this: He does have phenomenal hands. How ever he caught that ball at the edge of the left side of the end zone at Philly is just unfair.
f. I don’t want to give the Dolphins an excuse, and I know Adam Gase doesn’t either, but their Miami-to-California (for nine days)-to-Miami-to-New Jersey travel slate couldn’t have helped in the 20-6 loss to the Jets. Now in three days, they leave for London.
g. Jameis Winston, three interceptions. Beginning to think that’s going to be a pox on the talented lad.
h. That’s a stunner, the fact that Aaron Rodgers won his first OT game ever on Sunday. Also stunning: He’s 1-7 in overtime.
i. Marshawn’s night in the nation’s capital: eight touches, 26 yards, no points, 16 snaps. What’d he have, the flu?
j. Sixteen snaps? The man’s the missing link to your offense, Raiders. I know you want to keep him healthy for 16 weeks, but don’t put the guy in bubble wrap.
2. I think it seems like six weeks ago, not four days go, that the New York Times broke the story of Aaron Hernandez’s autopsy results—his brain had stage three chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which means he had the brain at death their examiners sometimes see in men in their sixties. The maddening part of trying to put your finger on the whys of this death and what it means for future football players is that we can’t be sure of many things here.
Hernandez’s family is suing the NFL, but we can’t be sure the NFL was the primary cause of this—at all. Hernandez played 28 games of high school football, and he played both ways in high school. He played 40 games at the University of Florida. He played 44 games with the Patriots. He played an undetermined amount of Pop Warner football in his younger days. I can accept that football was the root of the CTE.
But which football? All of it? I imagine it’s all of it, because if he got whacked a few time in Pop Warner before his brain was fully developed, that’s a dangerous thing too. My point: There’s a lot we don’t know about CTE, and about when players are most susceptible to damage from head trauma.
3. I think Troy Aikman said it right after Odell Beckham Jr., caught his first touchdown pass of the season, the 300th catch of his young career, and “celebrated” by going down on all fours in the end zone and raising his right leg, as if to urinate on the Lincoln Financial Field turf: “That’s not smart. It’s just dumb football.” Because it’s a 15-yard flag in a close game. That’s why.
4. I think Phil Mushnick’s got three weeks of columns on that play. If you’re not sure who that is, google him.
5. I think I think I’m not saying Ben McAdoo shouldn’t be a head coach in the NFL, but when I see him speak publicly, he does not inspire confidence that he should be a head coach in the NFL.
6. I think, at the risk of extending the Zeke Elliott-loafed story into an eighth day, I simply must call out Michael Irvin on his ridiculous deflecting defense of Elliott.
7. I think he didn’t win Goat of the Week honors because the Eagles beat the Giants, but Philadelphia coach Doug Pederson certainly made a goat-like decision that could have cost his Eagles the game Sunday.
With 2:43 left in the first half, and a fourth-and-eight at the Giants’ 43, and the Eagles up 7-0, Pederson chose to go for it instead of pinning New York deep in their territory with the Giants’ offense struggling. The Giants sacked Carson Wentz and drove for what appeared to be the tying TD—except Sterling Shepard dropped the tying touchdown pass.
NFL Attendance articles
- By Merlin
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 104 Replies
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeoz...tests-rise-and-tv-ratings-slump/#5902b6d54eec
Mike Ozanian , FORBES STAFF
Towards the end of last season some felt the NFL's ratings dip would be temporary and therefore would not ultimately hurt the networks by forcing them to reimburse advertisers. Instead, the opposite has happened.
Ratings for the the NFL have been worse this season and attendance for some games has also been disappointing. The networks will pay over $5 billion this season to televise the NFL and were already facing unflattering margins on advertising profits. An article in The Hollywood Reporter reckons the drop in NFL ratings could trim the broadcaster's earnings by $200 million. Disney's ESPN, meanwhile, also continues to get hammered by cord-cutting.
It's just two weeks into the 2017 NFL season. But the trend is not good for the league and its networks. No one seems happy.
Follow me on Twitter @MikeOzanian
Mike Ozanian , FORBES STAFF
Towards the end of last season some felt the NFL's ratings dip would be temporary and therefore would not ultimately hurt the networks by forcing them to reimburse advertisers. Instead, the opposite has happened.
Ratings for the the NFL have been worse this season and attendance for some games has also been disappointing. The networks will pay over $5 billion this season to televise the NFL and were already facing unflattering margins on advertising profits. An article in The Hollywood Reporter reckons the drop in NFL ratings could trim the broadcaster's earnings by $200 million. Disney's ESPN, meanwhile, also continues to get hammered by cord-cutting.
It's just two weeks into the 2017 NFL season. But the trend is not good for the league and its networks. No one seems happy.
Follow me on Twitter @MikeOzanian
Take it in, my friends
- By Bootleg
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 16 Replies
I know it's only three games, but this is a wonderful sight.
What a friggen turn-around!
From ESPN's leader boards:
EDIT: Goff is #6 after Sunday night. Still.... the point stands! Goff is playing with the big boys now!
What a friggen turn-around!
From ESPN's leader boards:
EDIT: Goff is #6 after Sunday night. Still.... the point stands! Goff is playing with the big boys now!
