| The NFL has moved Monday Night’s game, the last of six Wild Card Weekend games to Glendale, Arizona. Greg Beacham of the AP: Sean McVay got calls from Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell and offensive coordinator Wes Phillips during the past week, but they had nothing to do with their teams’ upcoming wild-card playoff game. Friendship is much bigger than football, and McVay’s former colleagues were just making sure everything was all right with the Rams coach’s family amid the devastating wildfires across the Los Angeles metroplex. “It was more just friends checking up,” McVay said. Several days of wildfires and poor air quality forced the NFL on Thursday to take the extraordinary step of moving Monday night’s game to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. While the neutral site will be a sobering reminder of the devastation wrought on some parts of the Rams’ home city, both teams and their coaches realize they’ve got to focus on football for the week. “You feel helpless watching it from here, knowing how many people are being impacted,” said O’Connell, a North San Diego County native. “Definitely Southern California, I hold near and dear to my heart. I have some friends who have lost homes, and you just think about the impact it has on so many folks. … I know (the game) is going to be played, and we’ll just be going to play the football game regardless of where our plane lands.” Both teams expect to be ready to meet the challenges created in an intriguing matchup when the NFC West champion Rams (10-7) host the Vikings (14-3), who won more games than any wild-card playoff team in NFL history. Not many coaching staffs know each other better than the Rams’ coaches know the group led by O’Connell, Los Angeles’ offensive coordinator during its Super Bowl championship season three years ago. O’Connell has three former Rams assistants on his offensive staff, while McVay is a significant influence on O’Connell’s approach to being a head coach. These teams also met in Week 8 of the regular season — and the Rams became one of just two teams to beat the Vikings all season long. Los Angeles’ 30-20 win on a short-week Thursday was one of the Rams’ best performances of the season, but it won’t be a blueprint for the rematch, according to McVay. “You have to look at what’s recent,” McVay said. “What are the things that they might be trying to do, and what have we put on tape? It’s a balance of different things. That’s always the give and take, understanding that there is a game of inventory against one another, even though it was a little bit earlier in the season.”– – -The NFL announced Wednesday that the Jets, Browns and, as usual, the Jaguars will be the home teams for three games in London. The three host teams combined for 12 wins in 2024. It will be Jacksonville’s 14th game in the UK – and their game will be at Wembley Stadium. The other two are at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The NFL will also play games in Madrid and Berlin, and maybe Ireland, Brazil and Mexico City to boot to reach the goal of eight international games. The Dolphins have been said to be the likely hosts of the game in Madrid as they have Spanish marketing rights. The Steelers are the likely hosts in Dublin. – – -And this from NFL Nerd: @NerdingonNFLThere are four teams that can be forced on to Hard Knocks in August 2025: Atlanta FalconsCarolina PanthersSeattle SeahawksTennessee Titans The 2025 strength of schedule, based on 2024 record, shows that the NFC East and NFC North have the toughest draw and AFC East is among the divisions that got off easy (also, the 49ers have much the easier draw than the others in the NFC West): 2025 Strength of Schedule based on 2024 records (1 = most difficult, 32 = easiest) 1-NYG .5742t-CHI .5712t-DET .5714-PHI .5615t-DAL .5575t-GB .5575t-MIN .5578-WSH .5509-BAL .53310-PIT .52611t-KC .52211t-LAC .52213-CLE .51914-CIN .50915-DEN .50516-LV .50217-LAR .49118t-HOU .48118t-TB .48120-ATL .47821t-MIA .47421t-SEA .47423t-BUF .46723t-JAX .46725-IND .46426-NYJ .46027t-ARI .45727t-CAR .45729-TEN .45030-NE .42931-NO .41932-SF .415 |
| NFC WEST |
| LOS ANGELES RAMSTwo months after the fact, charges have been filed from the November DUI of WR DeMARCUS ROBINSON. ESPN.com: Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Demarcus Robinson has been charged with one count of misdemeanor DUI, the Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney told TMZ Sports on Thursday. The charge comes after he was arrested for suspicion of DUI on Nov. 25 after the California Highway Patrol said officers observed him driving more than 100 mph in a white Dodge sedan on US-101 northbound. A news release at the time of the arrest said officers “observed objective signs and symptoms of alcohol impairment.” Robinson will be arraigned in late February, the city attorney’s office told TMZ. News of the charge comes days before the Rams are scheduled to host the Minnesota Vikings in a wild-card playoff game Monday night. The Rams chose not to suspend Robinson after he was arrested in November, with coach Sean McVay saying then that the team will “let the legal process take place” and let the league go through its disciplinary process as well. “I think it was a bad decision he made. I don’t think that makes him a bad person. And I do believe this is something that with the words that he said, our guys will learn from it, and hopefully nobody’s ever going to repeat something like this,” McVay said then. |
| AFC NORTH |
| CLEVELANDThe Browns have called London (Charles London) and well-traveled Darrell Bevell about their open head coaching jobs. Cory Kinnan of Browns Wire: The Cleveland Browns will conduct an interview with Charles London for their vacancy as offensive coordinator. This is the second interview for the Browns after interviewing internal candidate Tommy Rees, who spent the season as their tight ends coach and passing game coordinator. Rees is considered a strong contender but the Browns will continue to shop around. According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the Browns and London will meet on Friday. London has been coaching in the NFL for nearly 20 years, starting as an offensive quality control coach with the Chicago Bears in 2007. He has also spent time coaching running backs at the NFL level before being named the quarterbacks coach of the Atlanta Falcons in 2021, where he spent two seasons. He then spent 2023 with the Tennessee Titans as the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator, then took the quarterbacks coaching gig with the Seattle Seahawks in 2024. Dolphins quarterback coach and pass game coordinator Darrell Bevell is expected to be one of the next candidates to interview for the open position as coordinator of the Cleveland offense. Bevell joins Tommy Rees and Charles London as candidates the Browns have tabbed to interview for their offensive coordinator vacancy. CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones was the first to report on the news. Bevell is an experienced coordinator with over two decades of NFL experience, including over 10 years as an offensive coordinator. He has been with the Dolphins organization for three seasons and had solid success in that time, making the playoffs in two of his three seasons. In 2024, the Dolphins were 15th in the NFL in average passing yards with 219.8 per game. This was impressive by Bevell’s offense giving the Dolphins were without their starting quarterback for six games this season.– – -Catherine Raiche, a lawyer in Quebec at one time, was a hot name when she worked for the Eagles, who media figures had touted as the first/next woman to be an NFL GM. Then she went to the Browns and vanished – only to re-surface this week under a new name. The one-time Catherine Raiche is now Catherine Hickman. With due respect to Hickman, who may be a competent person in a losing situation, this from Alex Raskin of the Daily Mail: To the befuddlement of NFL fans, the league-worst Tennessee Titans have requested permission from the Cleveland Browns to interview Catherine Hickman for their vacant general manager position. It’s nothing against Hickman, personally. She does have high-level experience after breaking into the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2019, and she previously worked for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League in her native Quebec. Instead, fans are primarily reacting to her recent resume with the 3-14 Browns, who have reportedly agreed to the request. ‘Right, cause the Browns are the ideal franchise to pull talent from,’ one fan wrote on X, where many others shared similar thoughts. ‘Why would we want anyone from the browns front office?’ one Titans fan asked. Another commenter decided to make a play on words: ‘Because the Browns are, excuse the pun, Titans of front office genius.’ Others were even less supportive of hiring someone from a franchise that has three playoff appearances – and just one postseason victory – since 1999. ‘Wow,’ one fan began. ‘… an NFL team looking to hire anyone from the Browns organization is mind numbing… there isn’t a single facet of the team that has excelled in anything… they’re the poster child for what NOT to do from top to bottom.. sorry Titans fans, I genuinely feel bad for yall.’ Others were curious if Hickman was involved in the disastrous 2022 trade for quarterback Deshaun Watson, who arrived in Cleveland for a bevy of draft picks and has since battled injuries, inconsistency, and the lingering stigma of sexual misconduct allegations. For better or worse, Hickman arrived in Cleveland months after Watson was acquired before the 2022 season. She’s been assistant general manager and vice president of football operations with the Browns since 2022 after being hired in 2019 as the football operations coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles. Hickman currently is the NFL’s highest-ranking female executive with a team. Meeting with Hickman will help Tennessee meet the Rooney Rule that requires a team to interview at least two outside candidates who are either a person of color or female for the Titans’ general manager opening. |
| AFC SOUTH |
| TENNESSEEChad Brinker jumped Ran Carthon for a position deemed to be above GM, then had a hand in firing Carthon. Paul Kuharsky tries to figure out why he’s not really the GM and what a GM would do in the proposed Titans setup. He fails: Chad Brinker helped hire Brian Callahan. So why doesn’t the Titans president of football operations, a role that was just created last year, simply become the team’s general manager as the team moves on after firing Ran Carthon Tuesday? He and Callahan would certainly be aligned. Brinker said things have developed and are simply too big in an NFL front office now for one person to take on everything anymore. “We need a general manager,” he said. “The general manager of the 1990s is not what is now. This thing has grown, It is huge. There are a lot of different things going on. But at the heart of it all is the player acquisition and the coaching, yes. This is a very, very important job just like the head coach, These are the two key positions in the football program.” I didn’t arrive at a clear understanding of why Brinker doesn’t want the key front office position in the football program. The primary responsibilities of the general manager, per Brinker: Oversees the coaching staffOversees the personnel staffFree-agency strategyDraft strategyIntegrating coaching into the scouting process “This is a real general manager job,” he said. But again when I pressed him he added the caveat. “But I’ve got final authority on all football-related manners.” The Titans seem a bit put off as to why that caveat creates so much of a question. And perhaps Brinker, a new GM and Callahan will successfully reach a lot of consensus and Brinker won’t have to use that authority much. Still, it’s unconventional, certainly in Nashville, where GMs have traditionally had outright personnel power. And in announcing the change Amy Adams Strunk and Nihill didn;t just come out and say, “Well, things are different now.” Does that then make it an unattractive job for candidates who desire a traditional GM job with drafting and free-agent signing power, where only owner approval would be needed? The Titans will begin to submit permission requests on Tuesday evening. Brinker said he’s been getting a lot of inquiries. “This is an attractive job for a lot of people and particularly for those who grew up in this industry the way that I have,” Brinker said. “Who kind of cut their teeth as a scout and projecting players from college to pro and they just want to get up and focus on building a roster and not have to worry about running the video department, or an analytics team or the equipment room or whatever. “Just all they want to do is scout, go out on the road in the fall and find football players. Because we’ve got to get it right. We have to get good football players in this building, we have to get playmakers in this building, particularly at positions that influence the outcomes of games. We’ve got to get to a point where we have seven difference-makers or impact starters on our team.” It sounds like Brinker has the powers of a traditional GM – and he is hiring someone to do what a Director of Player Personnel would do with perhaps some greater responsibilities with the coaching staff. Anyway, here are the eight known candidates for the position: Chiefs Assistant GM Mike BorgonziBrowns Assistant GM & Vice President of Football Operations Catherine HickmanBills director of player personnel Terrance GrayDolphins senior personnel executive Reggie MckenzieColts assistant GM Ed DoddsBuccaneers assistant GM John SpytekFormer Falcons GM Thomas DimitroffSeahawks Matt Berry |
| AFC EAST |
| NEW ENGLANDChad Graff of The Athletic with some scoop on why Patriots management soured on Coach Jerod Mayo: The New England Patriots’ coaching staff came out of its Week 14 bye feeling good. Sure, the team had suffered through a six-game losing streak and had a 3-10 record, but there was optimism that the final stretch of the season would go well. Rookie Drake Maye was fully entrenched as the starting quarterback, and his continued improvement, the coaches hoped, would lead to a strong finish. They liked their plan entering that week’s game against the Arizona Cardinals. But they lost 30-17 in an uncompetitive snoozefest. The team looked incompetent, even with an extra week to prepare. That was the start of a terrible stretch that led to head coach Jerod Mayo’s swift firing Sunday night. On the long plane ride back to TF Green International Airport in Providence, R.I., most of Mayo’s assistants grabbed their laptops and studied cut-ups from the loss, the customary move for NFL coaches during the return flight after games. A few executives slept so they’d be ready to work once the team buses rolled into the Gillette Stadium parking lots a little before 4 a.m. Plane rides in the NFL are typically quiet after losses. Coaches and execs sit up front, players toward the back. But in a move that surprised some at the front of the plane after such a lopsided loss, according to a team source, Mayo, the team’s first-year head coach who had been handpicked by owner Robert Kraft to succeed Bill Belichick, left his spot near the front and went back to where some players had gathered to play cards, choosing to hang out there while his assistants watched film. On a night when the frustration over a terrible performance had some wondering if their jobs were about to be in jeopardy, it was surprising to at least one person at the front of the plane to see the head coach mingling with players in such a casual way. “Look, there are a lot of ways to do the job,” a team source who was on the plane said. “It’s not that Jerod’s was definitely wrong. But I can’t say I’ve seen that before.” No one moment perfectly encapsulates all that went wrong in Mayo’s 12 months as the Patriots’ head coach. But to some on the plane, this felt like another example of Mayo going too far in the opposite direction of Belichick, the ultra-serious overseer of the Patriots for the previous 24 years. It’s also fair to note that an anecdote like that could be spun as a positive if the team were winning, as one player noted. If the Patriots were 13-4, maybe the narrative becomes, Look how cool the new coach is as he relates to his players! But in describing how and why things went wrong for Mayo and the Patriots, team sources pointed to a few things. Mayo, they felt, tried too hard to be 180 degrees different from Belichick, then struggled to apply and uphold discipline after positioning himself as a players’ coach. He wasn’t experienced enough for the job, something Kraft acknowledged Monday, because of a succession plan that went sideways as Belichick’s tenure collapsed. Then, when Mayo needed mentorship because he wasn’t fully prepared for the gig, he didn’t have anyone to lean on because his network of other coaches was so small after only ever playing and working for Belichick and the Patriots. And there’s also the obvious: Mayo was given arguably the worst roster in the NFL and was asked to deliver more wins with it than the greatest coach of all time did the year before. “I feel terrible for Jerod because I put him in an untenable situation,” Kraft said, assuming the blame for Mayo’s struggles. “I know that he has all the tools as a head coach to be successful in this league. He just needed more time before taking the job.” Now, the Patriots are looking for their third head coach in three years. Kraft, his son and team president Jonathan Kraft, executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf and senior personnel executive Alonzo Highsmith will run point on a quick-moving search that could wrap up this week. Soon, a new sense of optimism will arrive in Foxboro as the Patriots pair a new head coach with the promise of Maye. That relationship will be vital in a league in which success is often predicated on the union between coach and quarterback. But not too long ago, there was optimism for Mayo, too, who was seen by Kraft as the perfect person to follow Belichick, someone who could be a bridge to the franchise’s past success while ushering in a new era with a new approach. Instead, the Patriots are back where they began, seeking change after another 4-13 season.– – –When Kraft turned to Mayo, he knew the then-37-year-old hadn’t gotten the understudy experience he’d originally planned on, but the hope was Mayo would learn quickly on the job. But from day one, Mayo ran into issues. It started while trying to build out his coaching staff. Mayo’s entire eight-year professional playing career was with one team and one coach. So Mayo’s Rolodex was tiny. He interviewed more than a dozen candidates for the offensive coordinator job before Alex Van Pelt finally accepted the role. With the defensive coordinator role, the other most important spot on his staff, Mayo was surprisingly decisive. Even though Steve Belichick, Bill’s son, had been the Patriots’ defensive play caller in recent years while they routinely boasted top-10 units, Mayo didn’t offer him the chance to continue calling plays, according to a team source, opting instead for young defensive line coach DeMarcus Covington. Mayo offered Steve a lesser role, but the younger Belichick declined and left to become the defensive coordinator at the University of Washington. This season, the Patriots’ drop-off on defense was the biggest reason for their struggles. They ranked eighth in the league in defensive EPA per play in 2023. They ranked 30th in that category this season. Mayo’s lack of connections meant he had to lean on Wolf and others in the front office to fill out his staff. When it was completed, the Patriots had a first-time front-office leader (Wolf), a first-time head coach (Mayo), a first-time defensive coordinator (Covington), a first-time offensive play caller (Van Pelt), a first-time special teams coordinator (Jeremy Springer), a first-time offensive line coach (Scott Peters), a first-time wide receivers coach (Tyler Hughes) and a first-time linebackers coach (Dont’a Hightower). It’s not that any one of them was a bad hire individually but that all of them together led to too many people figuring out their jobs on the fly. As a result, Mayo was left without an experienced sounding board during the more difficult days of the season. But that wasn’t the only issue. Mayo, according to team sources with knowledge of the situation, struggled with discipline and how to enforce it. Before the Patriots’ Week 17 game against the Los Angeles Chargers, he told broadcast crews he was going to bench running back Rhamondre Stevenson because of his recent fumbles. But when it was time to do so, he had a change of heart and let the running back start. “I still don’t know what happened with that,” a team source said. “Honestly, Jerod is a good guy. I just don’t think he was ready for all the big decisions and discipline and focus the job takes.” The best coaches often have such a command of the locker room that players echo whatever they say. But that didn’t exist with the Patriots. Last week, linebacker Jahlani Tavai criticized the hometown fans for booing the team. Mayo addressed the topic in a team meeting, essentially coaching the group on the proper way to phrase looming questions on the issue. A few hours later, Tavai doubled down on his original comments. He never apologized. The NFL is a results business. If rookie receiver Ja’Lynn Polk had gotten his toe on the ground in a Week 5 game against the Miami Dolphins and the Pats had gotten a successful 2-point play against the Tennessee Titans, they would have had six wins and Mayo probably would have returned. Wins matter. There was also the elephant in the room: The best free-agent coach, Mike Vrabel, is a Patriots Hall of Fame player who maintains a good relationship with Kraft. To keep Mayo would be to turn down Vrabel a second time without so much as an interview. Still, the last month of the season weighed on Kraft. The Patriots were blown out by the Cardinals, squandered a 14-point lead against the Buffalo Bills and were smoked 40-7 by the Chargers. Kraft had been going back and forth on the Mayo decision, but those losses sealed it despite a surprising Week 18 win over the Bills. “I don’t like losing, and I don’t like losing the way we lost,” Kraft said. “Things were not developing the way we would have liked. It was time to move on.” A year ago, Kraft sat next to Mayo on a celebratory day in a posh and renovated area of Gillette Stadium, thrilled and confident he was ushering in a new era. But little of the ensuing year went as planned. The lack of connections and mentors. The trouble filling out the coaching staff. The first-timers at every meaningful spot. The trouble balancing being a players’ coach with being a disciplinarian. It’s only fair to recognize that Mayo was dealt a bad hand. The roster he was given by Belichick and Wolf was more flawed and devoid of talent than any other in the league. In the end, Mayo was done no favors with the situation he was dropped into. But he also didn’t do much to help himself. |
| THIS AND THAT |
| WILD CARD WEEKEND PICKSThe DB will make our annual foray into postseason prognostication: (5) Chargers at (4) TexansSaturday, 4:30 p.m. ET | CBS/Paramount+ | FOX BET: LAC -3 (42.5 O/U)ESPN FPI prediction: LAC, 52.8% (by an average of 0.9 points) The Chargers finished with some vavoom (other than the home game with the Buccaneers). The Texans don’t have last year’s pizazz. DB Pick – Chargers by 13 (6) Steelers at (3) RavensSaturday, 8 p.m. ET | Prime Video | ESPN BET: BAL -10.0 (43.5 O/U)ESPN FPI prediction: BAL, 72.2% (by an average of 9.0 points) We don’t see why this would be any different than December 21 when the Ravens won by 17. DB Pick – Ravens by 15 (7) Broncos at (2) BillsSunday, 1 p.m. ET | CBS/Paramount+ | FOX BET: BUF -8.5 (47.5 O/U)ESPN FPI prediction: BUF, 68.1% (by an average of 7.1 points) The Broncos may make it interesting, but the Bills prevail. DB Pick – Buffalo by 6 (7) Packers at (2) EaglesSunday, 4:30 p.m. ET | Fox | FOX BET: PHI -5 (45.5 O/U)ESPN FPI prediction: PHI, 51.2% (by an average of 0.4 points) A good team against a very good team. Philly takes it at home. DB Pick – Eagles by 8 (6) Commanders at (3) BuccaneersSunday, 8 p.m. ET | NBC/Peacock | FOX BET: TB -3 (50.5 O/U)ESPN FPI prediction: TB, 58.3% (by an average of 3.3 points) This will be the best game of the weekend with heroics by both quarterbacks. We flip a coin DB Pick – Commanders in OT (5) Vikings – (4) Rams (now in Glendale, Arizona)Monday, 8 p.m. ET | ESPN/ABC/ESPN+ | FOX BET: MIN -2.5 (47.5 O/U)ESPN FPI prediction: MIN, 53.9% (by an average of 1.2 points) With the location change and commotion in LA (there are players and coaches with homes at risk from the fires) we are flipping our pick from where we began the week DB Pick – Vikings by 4 |
