1. I think I still don’t know how the Jets won that game. Or, rather, how the Giants lost it. Amazing to see the Giants’ season circling the drain before Halloween.
2. I think if I were an NFL owner and/or the club exec firing up a postseason coaching search come January, Jim Harbaugh’s name would not be on my list. Too much smoke there, whatever the investigative result of this 2023 version of Spygate at Michigan reveals.
3. I think it’s always odd to see players walk away in the middle of the season. But I sense more now that when players do, they just walk into an abyss, and even the most ardent of fans thinks, Ok. Who’s up next? Last week, Detroit wideout Marvin Jones said he was leaving the Lions to be with his family in San Diego, and the Lions responded by cutting him. He’s 33, and had been a non-factor this year. Not that Jones deserves a parade, but he did catch more balls in his career, 547, than Lance Alworth and John Stallworth; twice he had four TD catches in a game. And poof. He’s gone. Eight paragraphs in the Detroit News atop the Lions notebook the next day. Maybe it’s because Jones didn’t say he’s retiring. But it’s pretty clear he’s likely done in Detroit, and who would want a 34-year-old receiver next year who did nothing at 33? Just an odd way to go out.
4. I think Joe Posnanski said it best: “The Deshaun Watson saga just gets weirder and weirder and weirder.”
Watson trade is ‘knocking on disaster’s door’
Mike Florio and Peter King discuss if the Cleveland Browns have been fleeced so far on their trade for Deshaun Watson after injuries and underwhelming production.
5. I think all players are different, with different ways of expressing themselves, with different thresholds of pain. So let’s put those things aside. Let’s deal with performance only. I asked Stathead, the Pro Football Reference stat service, to rank all quarterbacks in the NFL—minimum 200 attempts—by passer rating since the start of 2022. Per Stathead, 41 quarterbacks have at least 200 pass attempts since opening day ‘22. Re Watson’s performance:
a. Watson’s 79.8 rating is 38th among quarterbacks with at least 200 pass attempts over the past two seasons.
b. Watson’s passer rating is five points shy of the ratings of Desmond Ridder and Sam Howell, six points behind Gardner Minshew, nine points behind Jacoby Brissett, 10 points behind Taylor Heinicke, 16 points behind current Houston successor C.J. Stroud, and 19 points behind Geno Smith.
c. Watson has been paid, as of this morning, $90.77 million by the Browns since signing his fully guaranteed $230-million contract in March 2022. That number, per overthecap.com, will be $91.37 million by the end of this season.
d. To acquire Watson from Houston, the Browns sent the 13th and 107th picks in the 2022 draft and the 12th and 73rd picks in the 2023 draft, and will send their first- and fourth-round picks in 2024.
The contract is a five-year deal. It’s too early to say Watson is a Cleveland bust. But if the Browns get to the end of this season without having a good idea whether Watson’s their long-term quarterback, that would be an abject disaster. Imagine surrendering three mid-first-round picks, one third- and two fourths-, and $91.37 million, and not feeling like you’ve solved a decades-long quarterback problem. There’s a lot of pressure on Watson, and the Cleveland offense, to show progress by the end of the season. A lot of progress.
6. I think I heard something smart the other day. See if you agree. A good friend of mine, a fan of all Philly teams, made this comment: “It’s hard to think of a more beloved athlete in Philadelphia right now than Jason Kelce.” Who would it be? Bryce Harper, perhaps. Or maybe Joel Embiid. I don’t live there, so I don’t know. I’d love to hear thoughts from the City of Brotherly Shove.
7. I think there’s something that sort of drives me batty. So Josh Allen has been trying harder to avoid injurious hits, which is smart. A 17-game season is a killer for a guy who has rushed 246 times in the past two seasons. And though Allen has gotten hurt twice while a passer and not a runner, hits are hits, and the Bills entered this season with the idea of running Allen less to take less punishment. Watching the game against Tampa, it was clear the crowd wanted him to run more and be “the old Josh,” particularly after he ran for an early touchdown and the fans went into a frenzy. I’d just say, be careful what you wish for. Allen is running 4.5 times per game this year, as opposed to 7.5 times per game over 2021 and ’22. I understand the offense has been stagnant, and Allen’s legs are a big component to a great attack. But the most important thing for the Bills is to get into the tournament. If I were a Bills mafioso, I’d rather be 10-7, a Wild Card, and the sixth seed in the playoffs, playing exclusively on the road with a relatively healthy Allen … than 12-5, a division champ, and the third seed with Allen trying to limp through one home game and two road games to get to the Super Bowl.
8. I think, speaking of the Bills-Bucs game, it contained a pet peeve of mine. On the Hail Mary (perfectly lofted 62 yards in the air into the end zone by Baker Mayfield, by the way), Tampa Bay tight end Cade Otten was held/interfered with/thrown down in a two-man vise with Taylor Rapp and Christian Benford the Buffalo offenders.
Except, on Hail Marys, there are never offenders. Anything goes. There is no play like this in football, and possibly in all of sports, where the officials see blatant pass interference and defensive holding (and some offensive penalties at times too) and never throw a flag. It’s a pet peeve because, how can the NFL officiating department expect us to believe all plays are officiated equally regardless of the situation when Otten gets mugged by two Buffalo defenders and lands on the ground and no flag is thrown? And then the NFL counts on people forgetting, which they’ve done this morning because 14 games were played Sunday, making it easy for everyone to just move on. Nothing to see here.
Analyzing uncalled PI on Hail Mary in Bucs-Bills
Mike Florio and Peter King revisit the final moments of Thursday night’s Bucs-Bills clash, explaining why the NFL ‘must have a conversation’ about uncalled pass interference plays on Hail Mary’s.
9. I think this is what should happen on Hail Marys. The Competition Committee and the commissioner should come out of next spring’s league meeting with a decree that says the play will be called differently going forward. Beginning in 2024, jostling will be allowed as players get in position for the Hail Mary pass to fall to earth. Pulling players down, blatantly holding them or locking them away from the play with two defenders will result in pass-interference, with an untimed down for the offensive team at either the spot of the foul or the one-yard line. Bottom line: Officials cannot allow one play to be a bastardization of the rules, which is exactly what the Hail Mary is now. It is a joke, and the NFL has allowed it to be that.
10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:
a. Good and important recollection from Richard Deitsch, on the former Twitter: a Boston Globe front page from Feb. 16, 2018. It’s haunting 5.5 years later after the biggest mass shooting in New England since Sandy Hook:
b. Thoughts and prayers, though.
c. TV Story of the Week: Emilie Ikeda of NBC News on the lives lost in Maine, including one heartbreaking interview with the wife of one of the victims, Joshua Seal—in sign language. Joshua Seal was deaf, and was an American Sign Language interpreter. When Elizabeth Seal talks directly to her children about how much their departed dad loved them, the tragedy just feels so much worse:
d. What an incredibly strong woman Elizabeth Seal is, to even be able to do that interview.
e. There is a GoFundMe page for the Seal family, if you’re of a mind to do something, anything, for one of the families that will never be the same.
f. At least one lawmaker has come to his senses, as reported by the Boston Globe. Congressman Jared Golden of Maine, whose district was scarred by the shootings, reversed course. Per the Globe:
“I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war, like the assault rifle used to carry out this crime,” Golden said. “The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure.”
Golden, who lives in Lewiston and represents Maine’s vast 2nd Congressional District, said there is “a false confidence that our community was above” a mass shooting. He added that because of his determination to protect his daughter, wife, and his home community, he is now opposed to what he called “deadly weapons of war.”
“Sometimes things happen that bring your worst nightmares to life. Yesterday, this is what happened,” he said. “I will do everything I have to support this community’s recovery.”
g. Good for Golden, though it’s a shame something like this has to happen in a politician’s backyard for him to do the right thing and advocate for meaningful gun control.
h. Innovative Story of the Week: Time magazine’s 200 best inventions of 2023. Four I liked:
i. The Loftie Clock, the bedtime clock that does everything the smartphone does except the distracting phone light.
j. The Stakt Mat, a workout mat. Twice as thick as a yoga mat, comfy as a soft mattress.
k. Kraft Heinz 360Crisp, a device that keeps microwavable food from getting soggy. A crispy grilled cheese sandwich in the microwave, with the key being the paperboard container the sandwich nestles in? I’m in.
l. LeapFrog Magic Adventures Telescope, a telescope for kids that I would have loved to use way back in the day. Kids can take photos of their space discoveries, plus this: “Kids can also watch videos and view images taken by NASA and at the European Space Agency through the telescope’s viewfinder.”
m. Music Story of the Week: Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times on 89-year-old Frankie Valli, who is still singing, though he says he will cut back his shows by half in 2024.
n. The portrait by photographer Brian van der Brug is worth the click on this story. Valli looks damn good for 89.
o. Wrote Wood:
Valli plays 75 or 80 well-attended concerts every year, including a gig in May at Inglewood’s YouTube Theater in which that last tune sparked a singalong so robust that Valli told the audience, “They can hear us in Sacramento.”
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” he continues, his whaddya-want-from-me accent softened slightly by his years living in California. “It’s not so much the work — it’s the travel. Back in the day, you went to a job and you stayed there for a week. That wasn’t so bad. Now everything is one-nighters, which means you finish the show, get to bed, get up at 6 in the morning, go to the airport, go to the next job and do the same thing all over again.” A small, birdlike guy dressed in skinny jeans and dress sneakers, Valli sighs. “It’s tough.”
—
Does he prefer to text or call?
“Call,” he says. “I’m very un-electronic. You see all these people getting into trouble? Look at Hunter Biden.”
From the kitchen, Valli’s wife calls out, “No political talk, please,” which he ignores long enough to ask why both parties refuse term limits and to wonder “how all thesenguys in politics become millionaires.”
Might we think of the Last Encores tour as a kind of term limit for Frankie Valli? He seems to like that idea.o
“I just want to go someplace when I’m done that’s very quiet and doesn’t have radio or TVs,” he says. “Maybe paint or something, get into something else.”
p. It is amazing that the man who sang the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 on Nov. 17, 1962, is still belting out his hits.
q. That’s right: “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” biggest hit in the country 61 years ago. And so many more.
r. A few baseball takeaways: So much admiration for the Diamondbacks. Winning four of five against the heavily favored Phils after losing Game 2, 10-0, to go down 0-2. One of the best comebacks I’ve seen in a postseason series—and a great series through and through. And then being so good on the higher stage in Texas … Man, that’s impressive.
s. I said, “one of.”
t. I love that Arizona catcher, the 23-year-old Gabby Moreno. (Ketel Marte and Corbin Carroll too.) I’ve watched a lot of October baseball, and I saw Moreno get clobbered and concussed by a backswing in the series at Milwaukee. Then he hit a three-run homer off Clayton Kershaw to start the three-game NLDS sweep of the Dodgers and hit another bomb in the NLDS Game 3 clincher as the surprise No. 3 hitter in the lineup. And he had the winning hit in Game 7 of the NLCS at Citizens Bank Park, and the home run to put Arizona up, 1-0, early in Game 2 of the World Series. What a month. But his defense has been even better.
u. Moreno made a throw in Game 6 of the NLCS that’s one of the best plays I’ve seen a catcher make.
v. Look at that: Moreno blocked a ball in the dirt, kept it in front of him with a runner on first, chased it down, and fired a bullet strike to get Kyle Schwarber at second by a millimeter. What a throw.
w. Not too fashionable to take a couple of sentences to praise a baseball umpire, but home plate ump Tripp Gabriel in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series was superb. That’s as precise a job in a big game as I remember.
x. How much, exactly, would I have to pay New Balance to stop airing the HEY YOU Shohei Ohtani commercial? However much it’d cost, it’d be worth it.
y. RIP, Brooks Thomas, former Jets PR man and mentor to many in the business. A very good man.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
