Bill O'Brien to the Patriots; Aaron Rodgers to the Jets?
NFL Conference Championship - In this Mailbag edition of Walkthrough…
- Aaron Rodgers/New York Jets rumors: total clickbait or just mostly clickbait?
- Were the experts DEAD WRONG about the Christian McCaffrey trade?
- Who gets paid first in the offseason: Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, Justin Herbert, or Tua Tagovailoa?
… and much more. But first…
Around the NFL
Let's kick things off with spins on the news cycle and the coaching carousel.
Patriots hire Bill O'Brien as offensive coordinator.
Any offensive coordinator is better than a pair of dingleberry quasi-coordinators. O'Brien knows how to do things like install a system and game plan. He can erase many of the fundamental mistakes Patriots fans saw this season, like passing concepts where no one is looking for the ball in the first three seconds after the snap (called on third-and-2, against a blitz).
O'Brien's greatest weaknesses are a passion for back-channel power struggles and a habit of throwing red-faced tantrums at superstar players. Bill Belichick can keep both habits in check, and the Patriots offense doesn't have any superstars to scream at. Mac Jones worked with O'Brien at Alabama and has probably seen it all already.
Goofus and Doofus nominally remain on the Patriots staff at press time, though neither will be coaching the West roster in the Shrine Game.
Belichick may keep Joe Judge in his quarterback coach role (he can be O'Brien's emotional punching bag), or invent some "kicking game coordinator" title so Judge can do a job for which he is qualified. Matt Patricia might return to his Dwight Schrute role in the front office.
Jerod Mayo is clearly being groomed as prince regent and had better hire someone to taste all of his food, just to be on the safe side.
Come to think of it, that was plenty of snark.
Saquon Barkley reportedly turned down a contract from the Giants in the $12-million-per-year range.
Barkley wants Christian McCaffrey money. His last 100-yard rushing game came on November 13. He averaged 5.9 yards per reception to McCaffrey's 8.9. CMC ranked first in receiving DYAR among running backs, Barkley 47th.
Three years at $36 million would be a reasonable offer for Barkley: that's in line with Nick Chubb, and it straddles the line between Running Backs Don't Matter extremism and just throwing cash around willy-nilly. Franchise-tagging Barkley as a pay-as-you-go contractor for 2023 also has its merits. So is letting Barkley test free agency at the same time as Josh Jacobs and Miles Sanders, just to see what happens.
Bills general manager Brandon Beane, when asked about the Bengals roster: "They had some lean years, and without getting too much into their build, I don't want to suck bad enough to have to get Ja'Marr Chase."
I rather appreciate Beane's low-key "f*ck you, don't blame that loss on me" attitude towards such questions. It's the GM's job to build a roster that goes 37-12 over three years. It's the coaches' and players' jobs to win individual games.
Colts plan second interview with Jeff Saturday.
It's like watching an ocean liner steer directly into an iceberg in slow motion.
Walkthrough Mailbag!
I solicited questions on Twitter early this week and harvested a bunch of great ones! Let's get straight to it!
What’s your thoughts on a Rodgers trade to NYJ? Even with the draft compensation, it feels better than getting Carr.
— Ali Siddiqui (@AliskarSiddiqui) January 24, 2023
Aaron Rodgers-to-the-Jets sounds like a cross between a made-for-megaclicks fairytale and a rerun of last offseason's Rodgers-to-the-Broncos fanfic. It appeared that Nathaniel Hackett would be named the Jets offensive coordinator at press time, but we should stop thinking of Hackett as Rodgers' bosom buddy and think of him instead as a golf caddie with the good sense to smile and nod along to Rodgers' sociopolitical braindumps in the name of tips.
Among other considerations (the compensation, Rodgers' probable unwillingness to do it), transplanting Rodgers' off-field persona to New York is a terrible idea. It's easy to be a contentious weirdo in Green Bay, where any media member who asks a probing question can be immediately exiled to the Marquette volleyball beat. Rodgers in New York would go over a lot like Russell Wilson in Denver—all the goofy stuff his old team got used to like a frog in a slow cooker suddenly becomes a major issue—except with the amplifiers turned up to 11.
Never say never in the modern NFL. But I cannot put a percentage chance on the likelihood of Rodgers to the Jets, because the New York market has its own gravity, and everyone is talking about it simply because everyone else is talking about it, not because of anything tangible.
The CMC trade was viewed as a massive overpay in the moment. Have the optics changed now that he's leading the niners (potentially) to the super bowl?
— Boone's Pacemaker (@BoonesPacemaker) January 24, 2023
Absolutely! And I am not sure it's "optics" so much as the difference between evaluating a probability and interpreting a result.
At the time of the Christian McCaffrey trade, when Jimmy Garoppolo had just replaced Trey Lance and the 49ers were 3-3, trading second-/third-/fourth-round picks (plus change) for a running back had, let's say, a 90% failure rate. But that means it also had a 10% success rate, with the caveat that we are being vague about what "failure" and "success" mean here.
Furthermore, Jon Lynch and Kyle Shanahan had a better handle and more control over the variables that might increase that success rate. Shanahan had a precise role in mind for McCaffrey, a firmer grasp on what his offense required, and so forth. Lynch knows his long-range budget and draft plans and we don't; he might have anticipated getting a third-round compensatory pick from the NFL for Ran Carthon's departure, for example. (A boss knows when their top lieutenants are being pursued.) In light of McCaffrey's impact on a final four team, it's worth asking if the success rate was closer to 20 or 25%: still a risk, but a more measured one.
Or perhaps the 49ers got lucky that McCaffrey stayed healthy and learned the system quickly. And maybe the 49ers lose by 24 points on Sunday, fall out of contention next year, and rue the day they traded for picks for a running back. But it's important to differentiate the broad, accurate assertion—trading real assets for a running back is a bad idea—from claiming the silly notion that the Niners still "lost" the trade because it did not exemplify theoretically optimal resource management.
One final thought here: this discussion reminds me of Fred Warner's $95-million contract extension in 2021. At the time, analytics hardliners decried the deal, as it was too much money spent on a mere off-ball linebacker. Again, the backfire rate on a contract like that is high, but each situation is unique, and the team that doesn't incur a little risk in the name of acquiring/keeping outstanding players ends up with lots of draft capital, cap space, and thinkpiece accolades a but half-decade of losing seasons.
Members of the 2020 draft class are eligible for extensions this year - what will this offseason look like in terms of the quarterback market, considering that Burrow, Tua, Herbert, and Hurts are all eligible?
— phillyphoebe (@phillyphoebe) January 24, 2023
I covered some of this weeks ago, but the circumstances have changed a bit, so let's restack:
- Howie Roseman loves to get ahead of the market and will try to go first.
- Neither Dean Spanos nor Mike Brown likes to spend a penny.
- Brown and the Bengals tend to dawdle on contract matters (see: Jessie Bates, approaching free agency for unknown reasons).
- Tua Tagovailoa's injuries and the fact that Stephen Ross is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs complicate the Dolphins situation.
- Lamar Jackson and Daniel Jones are complicating tangential factors.
So here's the guess: Howie goes first and signs Jalen Hurts to a Kyler Murray-flavored contract (without the icky stuff). The Chargers come next and give Herbert something with the same general shape as Hurts' deal, but with gaudier numbers. The Bengals try to play hardball with Burrow (the most accomplished of this group, his agent will remind them) and things will linger into next offseason. The Dolphins will either just extend Tagovailoa's fifth-year option and monitor his health in 2023 (reasonable) or give him a Deshaun Watson deal to prove some unfathomable point to themselves (on brand).
What's wrong with the Chargers? Why are they like this?
— LL (@lammylimes) January 24, 2023
Let's break this down:
- The Chargers would almost certainly have played the Chiefs in the divisional round if Mike Williams were healthy; one or two more first downs in the second half were all they needed to prevent the Jaguars comeback. That's squarely on Brandon Staley, who played Williams in a meaningless Week 18 game and got him hurt.
- Joe Lombardi's shortcomings as a coordinator got magnified by the Herbert Hivemind during the season, but he was indeed a poor fit who is a little too enamored with horizontal passing.
- The Chargers' bad injury luck with first-round picks—which manifested in Rashawn Slater this year (and Williams and Derwin James for spells)—is just that. We don't have adjusted games lost for this season ready just yet, but the Chargers will likely finish in the bottom quartile of the league.
- As mentioned above, Spanos is the kind of guy who irons his buy-two-get-one-free coffee-and-muffin coupons so they fit in his wallet more snuggly. But that was not really an issue this season. The bigger issue is that J.C. Jackson, the priciest acquisition, was both injured and awful.
The Chargers should be able to improve just by getting healthy and adding a receiver and some defensive depth in the draft, and they have a chance of leaping into the AFC S-tier. But Staley is a problem, and the ancient curse that plagues their top draft picks may be licking its chops for the tastiest prey.
I remember you had high praise for a Denver during their 2020 draft. Is one of the hidden reasons for their continued mediocrity that the class hasn’t panned out well? Why do you think it didn’t work out?
— Tom Cammalleri (@Broncfan07) January 24, 2023
With Jerry Jeudy, it's hard to differentiate among injuries, the Russell Wilson/Nathaniel Hackett dysfunction, and the whispers that Jeudy was not always 100% with a program which was not always 100% with itself. The fact that Jeudy came on late in 2022 indicates that Hackett was indeed a significant contributor.
Hackett also had issues with Albert Okwuegbunam, who resurfaced briefly in Week 17. KJ Hamler, sadly, is an injury case. I liked center Lloyd Cushenberry, but he looks like a draft whiff and also was hurt for the second half of 2022. Jeudy/Hamler/Albert O. didn't join Courtland Sutton and (injured in the preseason) Tim Patrick to become the almost Bengals-level receiving corps some were expecting. But I feel like the Greatest Show on Turf Rams would have derailed if their coach didn't know how timeouts worked and their quarterback was projecting his audibles onto the astral plane.
I am contractually obligated to ask "why isn't Kevin Williams even a semifinalist for the Hall of Fame?"
— Patrick Allison (@dbarawn) January 24, 2023
No idea. When I speak to selectors, we rarely have time do dive all the way down to non-semifinalist territory. A fan campaign would probably help separate Williams from a crowded field. Williams has a lot of eligibility left, but he needs to get on the semifinalist ballot soon so he can begin his climb. Maybe he will get the Vikings voters' attention after Jared Allen gets in. (Adrian Peterson won't need any lobbying.)
Williams' candidacy is a reminder of what could happen to defenders such as Fletcher Cox, Cameron Heyward, and Cameron Jordan, all of whom are probably considered Hall of Fame "locks" by their local fans.
How would you feel about an NBA-style shift in playoff seeding -- i.e., div winners still qualify, but seeding solely based on record, tiebreakers? To me, it's more equitable & gives more teams incentives in week 18. This year:
TB (7) @ SF (2)
SEA (6) @ MIN (3)
NYG (5) @ DAL (4)— Adam Bonin (@adambonin@mstdn.social) (@adambonin) January 24, 2023
This initially sounds great in the wake of the Buccaneers making the playoffs at 8-9. It does set up a scenario, however, where a 12-5 wild card in some division with two bottom-feeders, perhaps one year removed from a last-place finish, gets a home game over some team that emerged from an AFC North-style black-and-blue battle royal at 10-6-1 or something.
I generally advocate a light touch when it comes to changing playoff rules: the Buccaneers "earned" a home game by winning something, which matters at some fundamental level. As for Week 18, battling for the division crown might be de-incentivized if it doesn't come with an automatic home playoff game, and most Week 18 games are divisional matchups.
For the record, I also despise the idea of a 16-game playoff, but what I despise does not matter.
Hi Mike.
What’s the best team to not make the playoffs this season and how many playoff teams were they better than
Added to that, would you support a scenario where division winners didn’t make the playoffs by default and instead were rewarded with extra day 02 pick?
— BMORE8 (@BMORELJ08) January 24, 2023
To answer the second question first, keeping a division winner out of a 14-team playoff for any reason, even a losing record, is rather absurd. Rewarding them with a valuable consolation prize just makes this weirder. Some ideas work great in fantasy leagues but make no sense in the real world.
DVOA tells us that the Lions were the best team to not make the playoffs this year, and most readers would probably agree; even Jets fans must admit that their team came unglued while the Lions were peaking by season's end.
The Lions were better than the Seahawks, Jaguars, Buccaneers, and Chargers. That feels right. Switch the Jaguars' and Lions' divisions, for example, and the Lions cruise to the playoffs, probably with a better record than the Jaguars.
You own the Panthers, would you rather have Sean Payton or Shane Steichen as your HC?
If you had to pick from guys with ties to the team, would you prefer HC Frank Reich paired with DC Steve Wilks -or- HC Wilks with OC Reich?
Players voicing support for Wilks, does it matter?
— Ryan Daniels (@Daniels_Ryan) January 24, 2023
I would rather have Shane Steichen and the ninth overall pick than Payton and no pick, due to the utter lack of a quarterback on the roster. That said, it sounds like Payton was just using the Panthers to drive up his asking price and is now having second thoughts about his return to coaching because neither the Cowboys job nor the Rams job opened up.
The Frank Reich talk is heating up in Carolina, and he's a fine choice as long as the quarterback plan is "let's find someone young and develop him" and not "$96 million over three years for Derek Carr so we can maybe go 9-8."
Steve Wilks did a good-enough job down the stretch; employees will always endorse a familiar coach/manager/supervisor who gets promoted during a crisis and keeps the building from catching fire. I would at least consider him, but the standard worries when pairing (likely) a rookie quarterback with a defensive head coach whose headset catches fire every time there's a turnover apply here.
Which franchise(s) do players want most to play for over the next three years?
— Andrew Bogle (@bogle_andrew) January 24, 2023
Players want to get paid, win Super Bowls, and (distant third) enjoy a stable, reliable, day-to-day experience from a coaching/facilities/location standpoint. I think most players want to play for the Chiefs, 49ers, Bills (though weather is a minor factor in this extreme case), Eagles, and Ravens for those reasons. The Steelers would make the list if not for their penny-pinching contract habits and uncertainty at quarterback. The Giants and Seahawks are in the process of rebuilding their reputations on this front. So are the Lions, not so much because Dan Campbell is cool but because Campbell is starting to lead the team to victories.
Players don't want to play for the Commanders or Texans unless it's their best financial option. Not sure if any other organization is in this F-tier category right now.
I have gotten the sense in the past that players love playing for the Cowboys: Jerrah spends lavishly and treats them like princes, the facilities rock, coaching is surprisingly stable, and the team is always in the playoffs. How fans perceive a "circus" atmosphere sometimes looks different on the inside.
One more from me. Why is it so hard for bad coaches to fall off the coaching carousel?
Is it just the obvious reason - connections?
This is prompted the return of Bo’B to the league
— BMORE8 (@BMORELJ08) January 24, 2023
It's the obvious reason: connections. NFL coaching is a very insular community.
For what it's worth, Bill O'Brien did fall off the carousel to a degree: NFL head coach to college assistant is a rather perilous drop, and only the Patriots considered him as a coordinator candidate, after going a season with no coordinator.
Comments
103 comments, Last at 29 Jan 2023, 11:00am
#4 by Aaron Brooks G… // Jan 26, 2023 - 10:49am
Jerod Mayo is clearly being groomed as prince regent and had better hire someone to taste all of his food, just to be on the safe side.
Matt Patricia would accidentally poison his own food if he tried that.
And I am not sure it's "optics" so much as the difference between evaluating a probability and interpreting a result.
The arguments against were not so much probability-based as they were rooted in the analytic orthodoxy that All Running Backs are Worthless*
* -- unless they are actually slot receivers, because Slot Receivers are Awesome
And in that context, the optics were wrong.
What's wrong with the Chargers? Why are they like this?
They are stupid and cheap, and that's a bad combination.
#74 by Kaepernicus // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:04pm
The arguments against were not so much probability-based as they were rooted in the analytic orthodoxy that All Running Backs are Worthless*
* -- unless they are actually slot receivers, because Slot Receivers are Awesome
After watching the way Shanahan has used CMC I think the real question was "is slot Deebo Samuel at a 25% discount and 3 years of control worth a late 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th round draft pick?" Pretty sure every single analytics person would call that a good trade. The second part is the 49ers still have 11 draft picks next year and it seems really unlikely that they were going to find CMC level production from those 4 picks combined.
#5 by IlluminatusUIUC // Jan 26, 2023 - 10:50am
Bills general manager Brandon Beane, when asked about the Bengals roster: "They had some lean years, and without getting too much into their build, I don't want to suck bad enough to have to get Ja'Marr Chase."
I rather appreciate Beane's low-key "f*ck you, don't blame that loss on me" attitude towards such questions. It's the GM's job to build a roster that goes 37-12 over three years. It's the coaches' and players' jobs to win individual games.
You don't need a Top 5 pick like Chase required in order to get a top wideout, but you do need to invest meaningful assets at the position to see meaningful results. The Diggs trade, taking Knox, and a moderate contract for Jamison Crowder in the third are really the extent of his real attempts to fill that group for this season. After that, Davis, Shakir, Stevenson, and Hodgins were day 3 dart throws, McKenzie was a reclamation project, and Brown/Beasley were moderately priced free agents - four years ago.
#8 by ChrisLong // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:21am
They've been a top 10 offense by DVOA the last three years, and top 5 in 2022 and 2020. Hard to look at those results and say "they didn't invest enough in the offense". Their offense scored 10 points in one game against a very good defense, it's not time for a freak out. If anything, this week's Film Room suggests that the problems mostly derived from Josh Allen's struggles to adjust to read and react to the defense's confusing looks, not the inability of the receivers to get open.
#12 by IlluminatusUIUC // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:35am
We have two superlative freaks in Allen and Diggs, and beyond that is a tremendous amount of inconsistency. Davis picked up most of his DYAR in a handful of super-explosive games, but his middling catch rate is going to limit the offense's ability to sustain drives unless he corrects it. McKenzie played his way off the starting roster and probably the team.
Maybe this looks different if Crowder doesn't break his ankle before he develops a rapport with Allen or if Shakir gets enough looks to establish himself, but overall this was a two-man show.
Re: 2020 - Beasley and Brown were much younger then. Both spent most of 2022 on their couches.
#95 by IlluminatusUIUC // Jan 27, 2023 - 11:15am
4 guys compressing the pocket + a spy will definitely work on Allen. The issue is that Allen then needs to see who is beating coverage and get to them faster, which he was consistently not doing while waiting for kill shots to open deep. The Bills do have some athletic tackles, so there's also some hope that they improve against the power rush.
#26 by OmahaChiefs13 // Jan 26, 2023 - 1:57pm
You don't need a Top 5 pick like Chase required in order to get a top wideout, but you do need to invest meaningful assets at the position to see meaningful results.
The 2022 Chiefs disagree.
Admittedly, it's a not-repeatable, not-sustainable edge case. But edge cases do exist.
#75 by Kaepernicus // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:10pm
This is also because Mahomes and Reid inhabit a different universe of skill vs. Allen and Dorsey. Mahomes and Burrow had to adjust to the onslaught of 2 high they ended up facing. They did it and have become more complete players. High end defenses are now countering this iteration of Allen. If he wants to stay in the upper echelon he needs to evolve.
#87 by OmahaChiefs13 // Jan 27, 2023 - 2:24am
This is also because Mahomes and Reid inhabit a different universe of skill vs. Allen and Dorsey.
I know...that's why I called it an edge case.
"Sign Patrick Mahomes" or "hire Andy Reid" aren't exactly prescriptive.
#94 by IlluminatusUIUC // Jan 27, 2023 - 11:12am
The 2022 Chiefs disagree.
They disagree in what way? Because the 22 Chiefs have, by some measures, invested more in their WR corps than Buffalo. Everyone WR got a target this year and how they were acquired:
Diggs (1st, 5th, 6th, 4th)
Davis (4th)
McKenzie (Cheap FA)
Shakir (5th)
Kumerow (Cheap FA)
Beasley (Cheap FA)
Crowder (Cheap FA)
Brown (Cheap FA)
Hodgins (6th)
Gentry (UDFA)
Smith-Schuster (Cheap FA)
Valdes-Scantling (Moderate FA)
Hardman (2nd)
Watson (UDFA)
Moore (2nd)
Toney (3rd, 6th)
KC has pushed more day 2 picks and money at the position than Buffalo outside of Diggs.
#96 by OmahaChiefs13 // Jan 27, 2023 - 11:30am
I suppose we could argue about how we're going to define "meaningful assets" and what the production thresholds are, but that doesn't feel terribly productive.
A cutoff of Day 2 could work, but is the value between, say, the 3rd round pick we sent for Toney really substantially more valuable than the 4th spent on Davis? Should we measure the total cap commitment (including future money) between Diggs and JJSS and MVS (if we're going to do that, we should certainly also include Kelce and Knox)
We could hash through all that, but it doesn't feel like it'd really drive the conversation forward.
I think my point was that the league's best offense by most any available metric was throwing to a WR room that represented (dropping the loose change at your cutoff) 2 round 2 picks, a round 3 pick, and less than $14m APY in FAs....and the lion's share of that production this season has come from the $14m.
It's fair to say by any reasonable definition that the results far exceed the investment as we usually measure "heavy investment".
And again, we're forced to acknowledge that this is an edge case with many asterisks....it's certainly not a prescriptive model. But it IS possible.
#42 by rh1no // Jan 26, 2023 - 2:50pm
The irony of this quote, of course, is that the Bills had the 22nd pick in the 2020 draft which was used to select Justin Jefferson, the only Wide Receiver in the league on a rookie contract who is arguably better than Ja'Marr Chase.
I get what Beane is trying to say, but by being a dick about the Bengals he just comes off as stupid and petty.
#93 by jackiel // Jan 27, 2023 - 9:31am
I’m not sure that I understand this logic. Because the owner refuses to spend money, the bengals are frequently drafting at the top of the draft. That’s how they have usually obtained their best players upon becoming playoff contenders. All Beane is saying is that they have had consistent access to top end talent by virtue of being bad. This is an easier approach than having to navigate trades and free agency while drafting near the end of a round since Cincinnati doesn’t really go big on trades and free agency (again, they’re cheap).
#9 by Mr Shush // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:26am
Yeah, as a fan of none of the teams involved, Williams does not belong in the same bracket as the other players mentioned. They're plausible candidates; he by all rights should be a mortal lock for rapid enshrinement, and his not being a semi-finalist is blisteringly insane. I'd guess there's a pretty good chance at least one player enshrined this year is less deserving.
#10 by Aaron Brooks G… // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:33am
There is a reasonable chance that all of them are less deserving.
\Thomas and Revis are probably ahead of Williams, but it's really close. None of them have any non-HOFers who had a better career at their position
#14 by BigRichie // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:57am
Thomas and Revis are definitely ahead of Williams, and that's not really close. No, Williams is not a 1st year/1st ballot guy.
(I will go along with the argument that Williams should be progressing toward the Hall much faster than he is; just don't think we should be hyperbolically silly about it)
#25 by Chuckc // Jan 26, 2023 - 12:59pm
Arguing over which ballot he should get in on is silly. Either he's HOF-worthy or he's not.
I'd much rather see the process do one vote for each player, regardless of how many get voted in in a given year. You choose Yes or No and be done with it.
#21 by Aaron Brooks G… // Jan 26, 2023 - 12:28pm
It kind of is.
Using PFR as a proxy, Thomas is the 5th best OT ever. Revis is the 8th best DB. Williams is the 9th best DT. None of them have a non-HoFer ahead of them in the rankings.
The advantage for Thomas and Revis is there are a ton more OTs and DBs in the hall than DTs, so they have more guys behind them. But this also suggests DT is an overlooked position, so the exclusion of Williams is even worse, because the median HOFer at his position is much better than it should be.
#38 by BigRichie // Jan 26, 2023 - 2:32pm
OTs and DBs (especially cornerbacks) have been more important than DTs for 40-some years now. An interior DLman now does have to be an Aaron Donald or JJ Watt in order to have the same impact on the game that a great-but-not-generational OT and DB have. (and myself, I think Thomas and Revis were generational; Revis especially)
#47 by Mr Shush // Jan 26, 2023 - 3:45pm
I'm not really down with using PFR as a proxy. Subjectively, Revis and Thomas were hands down the best players at their positions of their era. Revis would probably start for my All Players I Have Actually Watched team. Williams was great, but he wasn't at that level. He's in the tier below with the likes of Willis and Allen (both of whom I also absolutely think belong).
#101 by Mr Shush // Jan 28, 2023 - 5:08pm
Seymour if you count him as playing the same position, Haynesworth while he still gave a shit, Sapp if he counts as the same era. But maybe the point is more that none of those guys - including Williams - were transcendent players like a Watt or Donald, and I think Revis was, and Thomas was at least close to it.
#77 by Kaepernicus // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:21pm
I think the dearth of DTs is also a style issue. Kevin Williams was a very good pass rusher by most measures but he was an incredible run defender. Alongside Pat Williams those Vikings teams had an incredible run of dominant rushing defenses that should be remembered.
#16 by Pat // Jan 26, 2023 - 12:02pm
You could probably do it on Twitter. Most Hall voters have Twitter accounts. Might be good to specifically start by tagging Mark Craig, who's the Minnesota rep. Part of me wonders whether you could push Domowitch too because Cox's case gets better if Williams is in, and being honest, there aren't really any good Philly candidates at the moment.
Could also remind Peter King that he voted Kevin Williams on his All Decade team for the 2010s.
#7 by Aaron Brooks G… // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:03am
Players don't want to play for the Commanders or Texans unless it's their best financial option. Not sure if any other organization is in this F-tier category right now.
For awhile players were avoiding the Browns because they didn't want to die of a staph infection or necrotizing fasciitis, which somehow the Browns medical staff couldn't control. Is that still a thing?
#22 by Robopunter // Jan 26, 2023 - 12:28pm
About 10 years ago the NFLPA pushed for more stringent guidance on "comprehensive and standardized infectious disease protocol." I'm not sure what, if anything, came of that. COVID protocols probably re-wrote that anyway.
More recently than the Browns (which was the worst publicly reported situation), the 2013 Bucs had multiple infections and in 2015 Daniel Fells (NYG at the time) nearly died of an infection.
There are conflicting opinions on whether rates of MRSA infections in the U.S. have fallen, but most of the research is focused on hospitals and a more vulnerable population of patients and wouldn't tell us much about NFL players. But it seems like there hasn't been a publicly reported case in the NFL since Fells, over seven years ago.
#11 by KnotMe // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:34am
The CMC trade was weird balance of:
1)How awesome he would be in the Niners offence (Shanny was right)
vs
2)What are the odds he's healthy enough to make a difference. (Hard to say, seems low)
cost: 2,3,4, 5th(2024)
I.e. do you trade for a guy who gives you a 50% chance to win a SB if healthy despite the fact that he has a 25% chance of doing so?
Given how well he seems to fit the trade seems somewhat more defensible considering they are in the conference game despite being on a third string QB. He's also young enough they probably get 1-2 more years of (possibly) elite production.
#39 by Aaron Brooks G… // Jan 26, 2023 - 2:34pm
DVOA loves change-up rushing attacks. It doesn't really favor rushing-first teams.
The counter-intuitive part is those changeup teams cannot impose their will when they need to rush, so they are situationally less valuable than the less purely-efficient teams that can run whenever the hell they want.
#59 by beargoggles // Jan 26, 2023 - 5:57pm
I’m not an injury scientist, but giving him a 25% chance to stay healthy seems like a gross exaggeration. Small sample size bias. It’s not like he has one body part that’s always gimpy.
Even so, yeah, I would probably baby him a bit during the regular season
#13 by theslothook // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:48am
I am generally on team running back is mostly worthless except for ones who receive. That's obviously an oversimplification; amazing running backs get yards others wouldn't. My issue is, in general, a very good run game = a slightly above average passing game and an amazing run game = a good passing game. And of course, no version of a nirvana run game will ever equal a top flight pass game. So the answer seems always to be get good at passing the ball.
As for Barkley and the rest of the names mentioned, I would not invest any money into them long-term. That's why the rookie wage scale has been a career knee capper to the position
#20 by mehllageman56 // Jan 26, 2023 - 12:26pm
The Jets would be better off with Carr than Rodgers, mostly because Carr is younger. Neither of them would get the Jets a Super Bowl, but Carr would probably get the Jets into the playoffs multiple years, which might not happen with Rodgers.
#31 by Noahrk // Jan 26, 2023 - 2:14pm
If you get to the playoffs, you can get to the Super Bowl with a bit of luck. I think Carr is a "win with" QB, barely, rather than a "win despite" QB who just happened to have a bad season in what was supposed to be his moment of triumph. I suspect McDaniels had a big hand in that. For the Jets, it's a matter of deciding between the high-variance path (draft a QB) or the safe but uninspiring path. Either might work, either might fail.
#79 by Kaepernicus // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:32pm
Not to mention New York seems like an awful culture fit for Carr. The biggest reason the Hackett hire makes no sense is they had a perfect candidate sitting there in Jimmy G. They had already shown that the offense could be potent with Mike White and Josh Johson(!!!). Jimmy is a perfect example of accurate, competent QB play, and has experience with high stakes football. He also seems like the type of player that would thrive in the New York media market. I think one of the angels people are missing on Hackett to the Jets is he was OC of the 2017 Jags that famously made Blake Bortles look competent. This seems like an owner push to save Zach Wilson.
#29 by serutan // Jan 26, 2023 - 2:11pm
but we should stop thinking of Hackett as Rodgers' bosom buddy and think of him instead as a golf caddie with the good sense to smile and nod along to Rodgers' sociopolitical braindumps in the name of tips.
Change the part after "smile and nod along to" to "Manning's game plans in the name of tips" and you have Adam Gase.
#30 by Paul R // Jan 26, 2023 - 2:13pm
You know, if the Titanic had steered directly towards the iceberg and hit it head on, it would have stayed afloat long enough for help to arrive and all the passengers to get to safety. Steering away at the last minute caused the iceberg to scrape along the side of the ship, opening up more holes and flooding many more compartments.
Don't know what this recommends re the Colts interviewing Saturday again. I'm not so sure Indy is that much of a sinking ship. On one hand, they do need a coach, an OC, a new quarterback, right guard, right tackle, left tackle, #1 receiver, and some more talent at CB and safety. On the other hand, they play in the AFC South, so only acquiring a few of those pieces by next season can make them competitive.
#37 by theslothook // Jan 26, 2023 - 2:29pm
With a smart coaching staff and the right pick; a turnaround is very possible.
However; considering all of the decisions that have come in the last year - I am fully convinced they are going to make all the wrong decisions. I have made the grim forecast that the Colts are headed for a Jaguars style lost decade.
#40 by Oncorhynchus // Jan 26, 2023 - 2:40pm
The Lions were better than the Seahawks, Jaguars, Buccaneers, and Chargers. That feels right. Switch the Jaguars' and Lions' divisions, for example, and the Lions cruise to the playoffs, probably with a better record than the Jaguars.
I mean, the Lions were better than the Vikings too. For that matter so were the Packers. The Lions didn't miss the playoffs because they played in a stronger division. They missed the playoffs because the NFC North had to play the NFC East and AFC East this year and because vagaries of schedule and luck means the Vikings got to play against Teddy Bridgewater (and then Skylar) instead Tua during his brief period of going Super Saiyan and got to play against Josh Allen right after he decided to moisturizer his hands in a vat of butter.
#52 by Joey-Harringto… // Jan 26, 2023 - 4:10pm
This is all true. Luck and timing play an outsize role with so few games relative to other sports. The Lions lost out on the H2H tiebreaker because they happened to play the Seahawks way back in week 4, when Geno went on a Super Saiyan run himself, and the Lions were fielding a Big-12 level defense, instead of later in the year, when the Lions defense rose to somewhat competent, and Geno was crashing back to Earth (of course, they can also point to to deciding not to show up the Panthers game, too).
#44 by Moridin // Jan 26, 2023 - 3:19pm
My thoughts for the playoff home game scenario is only to leave as is, except when a division winner doesn't have a .500 or better record, which in that case loses their home game to their opponent team as "punishment" (in theory, could lose to their next opponents as well if they finished below .500 far enough). I guess ignore the exception if both teams are sub-.500. Otherwise, leave the pattern the way it is.
#45 by rh1no // Jan 26, 2023 - 3:24pm
Mike Brown gets a lot crap for being cheap, and he deserves most of it. Historically, he's been cheap. He's screwed the people of Hamilton County into paying $1.1B of tax dollars for a stadium that hasn't returned nearly the same economic value to the community. He's prioritized hiring friends amd family over competent -- and more expensive-- professionals. He's refused to build the Bengals an indoor practice facility, forcing them to practice in extreme weather during the winter. And he's severely under-invested in the scouting department, making it hard to build and maintain successful teams.
But Mike Brown is also the least wealthy NFL owner, with a net worth that's less than the value of the Bengals. And the value of the Bengals? Lowest in the league. Given that the latest CBA requires teams to put guaranteed contract money into escrow, Brown is at a very real disadvantage as to what he can offer players, what he can offer coaches, and how quickly he can move on from personnel mistakes. And at least some of his poor decisions have been based on things like loyalty to his friends and his father's ideals. After all, this is a guy who turned down tens of millions of dollars to rename Paul Brown stadium ... if he were truly cheap, he would've sold out his dad's memory years ago and run off with the bag
The truth of the matter is that the Bengals have been modernizing their operations in order to be competitive. They finally renamed Paul Brown stadium to Paycor stadium in order to use the cash from the naming rights to secure big contracts for key players. The Bengals paid the second-most money in free agency in 2020 and the seventh-most money in 2021, but those are contracts to players like BJ Hill, Alex Cappa, DJ Reader, and Cameron Heyward ... guys who are getting contracts with less than 50% of their money guaranteed.
Bates isn't getting a contract because the Bengals can't afford to pay him the same type of guaranteed money that top safeties command. At least, the Bengals can't afford to keep Bates around if they're also going to hand out mega-contracts to Burrow, Chase, and Higgins ... WHICH THEY 200% ARE GOING TO DO.
Burrow is going to get paid very soon after the season is over. The Bengals' best hope to stay competitive for the foreseeable future is if Burrow takes a team-friendly contract with low guaranteed money that allows Cincinnati to keep talent everywhere else on the team. Brady did this for YEARS with the Patriots, so I don't think it's unreasonable for the Bengals to at least make him an offer like this. But rest assured, Burrow can ask for anything he wants and the Bengals will give it to him.
Okay, I have just spent 15 minutes of my life defending Mike Brown's spending habits. Time to go take a shower and re-evaluate all the decisions that have led me to this point ...
#50 by Joey-Harringto… // Jan 26, 2023 - 4:04pm
You would obviously know better than me, but I recall reading a story about how the Bengals started the process of building a real scouting department and stopped being such penny-pinchers around the time Brown's daughter Katie Blackburn started becoming more involved in running the team. Is that actually true, or just a media narrative?
#53 by KnotMe // Jan 26, 2023 - 4:12pm
I don't know. But a large number of NFL teams would be improved by the owner not trying to make decisions and just having basic professionalism about it. Which sounds like the case here.
I thought teams got revenue sharing from the league, so they can pretty much all spend what they want on players modulo the cap. I think Mike Brown being less rich than other owns only affects his ability to spend on facilities and non-players. Is that right?
#65 by rh1no // Jan 26, 2023 - 6:32pm
The NFL requires owners to put guaranteed money from player contracts into escrow to ensure players get paid no matter what.
Mike Brown is worth around $900MM, but most of that is tied to the value of the Bengals franchise. So if he signs Burrow, Chase, and Higgins for contracts with guarantees of, say, $300MM, he needs to be able to pony up that much before the ink is dry. Unlike Robert Kraft or Jerry Jones, Mike Brown doesn't have that kind of cash lying around, so the Bengals have to be more creative in their contracts.
Check out the link in my comment above. It does a really great job of explaining rhe situation.
#78 by Hoodie_Sleeves // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:25pm
Current cap is roughly $180m/yr and current revenue sharing is roughly $350m a year.
There is abso-fucking-lutely no way Mike Brown has to put his own money in the pot. Stop believing the whoa-is-me billionaire propaganda.
#98 by Raiderfan // Jan 27, 2023 - 3:32pm
Not quite:
”The NFL salary cap in 2023 has not been confirmed, but a recent report from NFL Network put the potential value at more than $220 million. There are still some elements to be considered that will alter the value, but we could see the salary cap rise by more than $15 million between 2022 and 2023. For the time being, the “projected salary cap” for the NFL in 2023 has been placed at around $225 million by a number of sites and is the number”. pro Football Network
#103 by Pat // Jan 29, 2023 - 11:00am
You're both right. Well, your numbers are wrong, but within 20% or so, good enough.
Teams absolutely do have years that they have negative cash flow due to having to escrow huge contracts (like the Browns this year). But you're (mostly) right in that it's not (usually) the owner's personal money. The teams are all incorporated entities, they take on debt on their own.
But (again!) - there is a per-team debt limit (of $600M) so there can be years when huge contracts hit (or capital improvements!) and the owner literally does have to inject money to avoid it. I doubt this has ever happened, but it might've with the Browns. Still doubt it: the Packers only carry around like $100M of true debt, so adding an additional $200M wouldn't get them close - but the Packers have far more solid financials than the Bengals.
But (again again!) given that teams are solidly profitable, if the owner would just let the profits accumulate for a team, they would easily be able to handle those liabilities without taking on debt.
#72 by rh1no // Jan 26, 2023 - 9:07pm
I think that's right. That's the narrative I've heard, too, and it seems to track with the facts.
Brown took over from his dad in 1990 and the next decade was TERRIBLE, even by Bengals standards. We wasted so many draft picks on guys like David Klingler, Dan Wilkinson, Akili Smith, Ki-Jana Carter ... you get the picture. But after Katie Blackburn was named EVP of football operations in 2001, our fortunes started to change.
We named Marvin Lewis head coach, and gave him a lot of input in personnel decisions. We drafted Carson, Ocho, Houshmandzadeh, Big Whit, Dalton, AJ Green ... I know a lot of these guys are punchlines to other organizations, but this was a period of unparalleled success for the Bengals. The AFC North was responsible for four Super Bowl winners between 2001 and 2018, and the Bengals still managed to win the division four times while making the playoffs as a wild card 3 more times.
Obviously we kept Marvin Lewis a few years too long. But we made the smart decision to tank and rebuild, and lucked our way into some generational talents in Burrow and Chase.
We still have the smallest scouting department in the NFL, which I think is a combination of being cheap and also efficient. We haven't drafted any worse than other teams since the turn of the century, so maybe other scouting departments are a bit bloated.
Burrow has the capability of transforming Cincinnati the same way LeBron transformed Cleveland. I hope Katie is a positive force who sees this possibility and will use Burrow and Chase ro attract more investment in the city and the franchise so we can keep growing.
Or, you know, maybe we just got really really lucky and it's all going to come crashing down at any moment. We are the Bengals, after all. But I genuinely think we have been on the upswing for the past 20 years and am optimistic that we can keep building on our success.
#81 by mehllageman56 // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:38pm
The Bengals have been cheap under Mike Brown, but they have been fairly well run for a while. Not sure if that was due to Marvin Lewis or Katie Blackburn, or both (probably both), but it's hilarious that the Bengals got to the AFC Championship game this year because they could play better in cold weather. Perhaps having state of the art indoor practice facilities is overrated.
#92 by Joey-Harringto… // Jan 27, 2023 - 9:11am
"Brown took over from his dad in 1990 and the next decade was TERRIBLE"
Yea, I came of age watching football in the 90's, and the Bengals set the standard for terrible football (at the time, my Lions were in one of their rare periods of sustained regular season success).
This lasted until Marvin Lewis took over (and Matt Millen took over the Lions to set a new standard for terrible football). As you point out, Lewis keeping his teams competitive while inhabiting the same division as the Ravens and Steelers is fairly impressive, as was completely re-making the team to stay competitive after losing his star QB and WR circa-2011.
As Burrow said himself, the Bengals' Super Bowl window is his whole career, so I think some optimism that this is real and sustainable is warranted.
#49 by Mr Shush // Jan 26, 2023 - 3:52pm
O'Brien's greatest weaknesses are a passion for back-channel power struggles and a habit of throwing red-faced tantrums at superstar players.
Honestly, O'Brien's biggest weakness is that he is a sub-Millen level general manager with no clue whatsoever as to what players are worth. As a head coach, he was fine. Not good, but fine. As an OC he's probably above average.
#51 by Joey-Harringto… // Jan 26, 2023 - 4:06pm
Exactly. It was Bill O'Brien, GM, who got himself booted from Houston, not Bill O'Brien, HC. He was very much like Bobby Ross coaching the Lions in the late 90's (got two playoff appearances in 3 years out of a slow and undertalented roster...that he himself mostly built).
#97 by Pat // Jan 27, 2023 - 1:08pm
Why do you think he was bad? To be clear, it's (obviously) an engineering degree because "rocket science" doesn't exist. But he turned down an industry job offer to coach (at a massive pay cut) so "bad" doesn't really apply.
You could say he was bad at the "rocket" part (I have no idea if he was) since it wasn't a space job, but the whole "aeronautical engineering is rocket science" thing is silly anyway since it's such an incredibly broad field.
#61 by ahmadrashad // Jan 26, 2023 - 5:58pm
Also my initial reaction was the Tunsil trade was fool's gold for Miami, because with a guy like that you could be set at RT for 15 years. I don't follow either teams so I don' t know who "won the trade", but you hear Miami fans crying about the OL and ....
#69 by ChrisS // Jan 26, 2023 - 7:06pm
I remember him being an above average coach, good game plans, players ready to play, players put in positions to succeed, limited mental errors. Where he was below average was on in game day decisions, time out usage, challenges, 4th down decisions.
#76 by MJK // Jan 26, 2023 - 11:12pm
O’Brien has his work cut out for him. New reports make clear just how terrible Patricia and Judge were.
https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/01/26/inside-the-most-dysfunctional-patriots-season-under-bill-belichick-ive-never-seen-anything-like-it
Credit to Mike Tanier…his excoriating criticism of them back in the off-season was justified
i honestly don’t understand why people think bringing O’Brien back is a bad idea. He was a good OC that helped Brady develop from an excellent QB to the GOAT, was a good head coach in Houston, and a good OC at AlaBama. And what the Pats offense needs most right now is competence and stability.
though the rumors that they were going to pursue DeAndre Hopkins are probably shot now…
#84 by ahmadrashad // Jan 27, 2023 - 12:25am
O’Brien was the sacrificial "bad guy" when the Texans suddenly went from AFC contenders to losers.
I'm honestly surprised to see FO commenters repeating this narrative, considering everything and all the horrible shit which has happened there since then. I'd guess you put thumbs on this board and you get knee-jerk reddit-type posts.
This might not be a good take either, but the original oilman owner died and his doofus son took over. He found out about all the player antics going on, and decided the team needed more Jesus. (Which in Watson's case was maybe true.) His hiring pattern since has been "Men of Christ" and maybe O'brien just didn't fit that model.
I don't really follow the Texans beyond general news, so flame away, but that place is still a mess, depending on the next draft. .
#102 by Mr Shush // Jan 28, 2023 - 5:20pm
This is a really bad take. O'Brien fought an internal power struggle to get control of personnel decisions, and used that control to make a series of terrible moves which gutted the roster of talent, of which the most egregious was the unfathomably stupid Johnson/Hopkins trade, which only makes sense through a lens of total failure to understand the value of veteran running backs in general, quite apart from the specifics of Johnson being no longer good and continually hurt. His combination of lousy talent evaluation and failure to understand roster construction at even the most remedial level left the team with no cap room, no draft picks and a terrible group of players. After some cleanup, the team is still short on talent, but at least there is now the draft capital and cap space for a proper rebuild.
#64 by big10freak // Jan 26, 2023 - 6:14pm
FWIW Rodgers does the post game press conference and that’s it because he has no interest in taking questions from a Tom Silverstein who is professional but more than willing to ask questions Rodgers does not want to handle. Hence his weekly connection with Pat to give his thoughts without being challenged.
Suggesting the local GB media is soft or weak or would punish a beat writer for upsetting any player does them a disservice. They just don’t get a chance with 12
#73 by Muldrake // Jan 26, 2023 - 10:17pm
Players don't want to play for the Commanders or Texans unless it's their best financial option. Not sure if any other organization is in this F-tier category right now.
Am mildly surprised Cardinals don't fall down to this level given the study time clause in the Kyler Murray contract....are players not concerned about working for management that would put that into a contract nor the fact that the QB has such a reputation for playing video games instead of studying that the clause would exist?
It just seems like it's a mess there even if they make a good coach hire...which they don't exactly have a great track record of (outside of Arians).
#82 by liquidmuse3 // Jan 27, 2023 - 12:10am
I dunno, Aaron Rodgers’ buddy Joe Rogan did pretty well in LA, it was only during the height of covid hysteria & his move to Texas where media coverage got weird, & we’re a year or two past that now. What’s weird is you think Rodgers is so toxic that he’d be some sort of media pariah in NYC, when his eccentricities would make him a star (they haven’t really had a star since Namath (old/hick Favre doesn’t count), & that went ok). Plus, the WSJ & the Post also exist in NY, it’s not just gonna be NYT hit pieces. & Aaron dated pretty seriously a hippie lefty or two, he’s really some toxic Trumpster to you?