AROUND THE NFL

Daily Briefing

So, we’ve had a pair of 7^th seeds in the playoffs for the first time since the strike-shortened 1982 season.

In terms of respectability, they went 1-for-2 with Indianapolis extending Buffalo while Chicago was a punching bag for the Saints.

Peter King with thoughts from veteran scribe Howard Balzer on how the Bears got into the playoffs:

8. I think, as it turns out, the Bears were the worst team in the playoffs, and it wasn’t particularly close. Washington, with an offense run by Taylor Heinicke (an unemployed math student at Old Dominion till he was signed off the street 33 days ago), had a much better attack than Chicago’s in the wild-card round. The Bears went 3-8 in their last 11 games, and now they’ve been over .500 once in the last eight years. I feel winds of change coming; I just don’t know what they are.

9. I think this is my thoughtful football idea of the week. It comes from longtime football writer Howard Balzer:

The 8-8 Chicago Bears qualified for the playoffs instead of the 8-8 Arizona Cardinals, and odds are very few people know how the Bears won the tiebreaker for the final NFC wild-card spot. It was because of Chicago’s better record against common opponents: 3-2 to Arizona’s 1-4. The Bears defeated Carolina and the N.Y. Giants, lost to the Rams and split with the Detroit Lions, while the Cardinals beat the Giants, and lost to the Panthers, Lions and Rams (twice). The unfairness of breaking that tie among wild-card teams from different divisions is that the minimum number of games is four, a small sample size. The next tiebreaker, strength of victory, would have more games as a test. Combined record of the teams Arizona beat: 56-71-1, a .441 percentage. For Chicago: 43-85, a percentage of .336. It seems clear this should be reconsidered by the NFL.

What also should be changed is the league’s insistence that a division winner have a home game in the first round of the playoffs. The Competition Committee has suggested it be altered on numerous occasions, but the owners have refused. The Washington-Tampa Bay game marked the 25th time since divisional realignment in 2002 that a wild-card team had to travel to play a division winner with a worse record. In only three seasons has there not been one of those matchups. After the Buccaneers won Saturday night, it gave the visitors a 13-12 record. It makes sense for the opening round to be seeded by record. That would have resulted in first-round matchups of Washington at New Orleans, Chicago at Seattle and the L.A. Rams at Tampa Bay. In both cases, it’s time for the NFL to do the right thing.

NFC NORTH

GREEN BAY

Peter King on why he voted for QB AARON RODGERS for MVP over 2) Bills QB JOSH ALLEN and 3) Chiefs QB PATRICK MAHOMES:

• Aaron Rodgers, 1st. One lousy game out of 16 (Bucs 38, Pack 10 in Week 5), and he needed to win all the way till the end for Green Bay to get NFL home-field and the lone bye. I think it’s remarkable that in a season when the Packers drafted his heir in April, drafted or signed zero help for him at needy WR/TE positions, didn’t have an offseason program to get better in-tune with important weapons like Robert Tonyan, and when Rodgers had as much pressure on him individually as in any of his 13 starting seasons, that he played so fluidly, so flawlessly. I’ve never seen a quarterback who makes the game look as easy as Rodgers. This is the best overall crops of quarterbacks starting now that I’ve seen in 37 seasons covering the NFL, and sometimes I think we play down Rodgers’ greatness because of how good all the new kids are, particularly Mahomes. But Rodgers is an all-timer by any measure, and this season was an absolute masterpiece.

Rodgers had 14 games of 105-passer-rating or higher (Allen 8, Mahomes 8). Rodgers was 8.7 percent more accurate in 2020 than 2019 (a career-best 70.7 to 62.0 last year), showing the completion of his partnership with Matt LaFleur in the Green Bay offense, which is an amazing uptick for a veteran player the year he turned 37. His 121.5 passer rating is second-best all-time to himself (122.5 in 2011). His plus-43 TD-to-interception margin is his best ever. In the end, I thought this decision was pretty clear-cut.

NFC EAST

DALLAS

Over the weekend, the Cowboys canned DC Dick Nolan, and now it looks like Dan Quinn will be Mike McCartney’s new DC.  Adam Schefter and Todd Archer ofESPN.com:

Dan Quinn is the favorite to become the Dallas Cowboys’ next defensive coordinator, according to sources.

Quinn would take over for Mike Nolan, who was fired last week by coach Mike McCarthy, and would inherit a defense that had one of the worst seasons in Cowboys history.

Quinn, who is flying to Dallas for his first interview, according to a source, was fired as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons after five games in 2020 after having held the job since 2015. He posted a 43-42 record and took the Falcons to the Super Bowl in his second season.

One year in as Cowboys’ coach, Mike McCarthy says ‘we have a lot of work to do’

Going with Quinn would be a signal of a return to the scheme the Cowboys employed from 2013 to ’19 under Monte Kiffin, Rod Marinelli and Kris Richard.

Quinn, 50, was the Seattle Seahawks’ defensive coordinator in 2013-14 before becoming Atlanta’s head coach. He employed a 4-3 scheme that mostly used a single-high safety look and helped the Seahawks to consecutive Super Bowl appearances. The Seahawks finished No. 1 in yards and points allowed in his two seasons.

Owner and general manager Jerry Jones was eager to move away from the scheme the Cowboys used in McCarthy’s first year because he thought it was too simplistic. Nolan brought a hybrid defense that would use multiple coverages and disguises that would confuse offenses, but that never really happened.

PHILADELPHIA

After thinking it over for a week, the Eagles have fired Coach Doug Pederson.  Tim McManus of ESPN.com:

The Eagles have fired coach Doug Pederson, a source tells ESPN’s Dan Graziano, ending a partnership that delivered the first and only Super Bowl title in the city’s history.

Pederson was expected to remain as coach despite a 4-11-1 finish, but multiple meetings with owner Jeffrey Lurie over the last week left his boss unconvinced Pederson had a sound vision for how to address the myriad of issues facing the team, sources said, from navigating the Carson Wentz situation to fixing an offense that finished 26th in scoring (20.9 PPG) and 28th in passing yards (207.9 YPG) in 2020.

Lurie was also not sold on Pederson’s plans regarding his coaching staff, sources said. Pederson pushed for pass game coordinator/quarterbacks coach Press Taylor to be elevated to offensive coordinator rather than bringing a more established candidate in. The issue of how to fill the void left by defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, who plans to take the year off from football in 2021, was also unresolved.

Wentz regressed dramatically in his fifth year and was replaced in the lineup by rookie Jalen Hurts for the last quarter of the season. Wentz has planned to ask for a trade in the offseason because his relationship with Pederson is fractured beyond repair, according to league sources. The trust issues between the two work both ways, sources said, despite Pederson recently saying that his relationship with Wentz was fine.

Sources describe an offense in 2020 that lacked an identity, in part as a result of a sizable and mismatched group of assistants and consultants brought in last offseason who struggled to get on the same page. The absence of a central vision for what the offense should look like made quarterbacking an uphill climb, and all the voices created a cacophony for both Pederson and Wentz alike, sources said.

As for Hurts, a second-round pick last April, there was not firm clarity from Pederson on wether he had a sense that the franchise had its quarterback of the future if the Eagles should move on from Wentz. The handling of the season’s final game in which Hurts was pulled in favor of Nate Sudfeld in a 20-14 loss to Washington also left questions about whether Pederson had lost his players’ confidence.

Pederson became just the eighth head coach to win a Super Bowl within his first two years at the helm when the Eagles beat the New England Patriots to capture the Lombardi Trophy during the 2017 season. That was the first of three straight playoff appearances for the Eagles under Pederson before the wheels came off in 2020. He compiled a record of 46-39-1 over five season with the Eagles, including four playoff wins.

WASHINGTON

Here is what QB TOM BRADY said to QB TAYLOR HEINECKE, the hero in defeat Saturday night per Peter King:

FMIA: After the game, cameras showed you tapping Brady on the shoulder, then having a conversation with him. What’d he say?

Heinicke: “Yeah. It’s always really cool when you’re talking to a future Hall of Famer. Probably the best quarterback to ever play the game. It’s a neat experience. He just told me I played a hell of a game, showed a lot of grit out there. And just to keep working. Again, for that to come from him, it’s pretty neat. Not a lot of people get to experience that.”

NFC SOUTH

TAMPA BAY

With New Orleans on the horizon, the Buccaneers have activated LB DEVIN WHITE from the Covid list.

NFC WEST

LOS ANGELES RAMS

This from Troy Aikman via Peter King:

“I played against Reggie White. I played against Lawrence Taylor. I gotta tell you: This guy is the best defensive player I’ve ever seen.”

—Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman on Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, on the FOX telecast of Rams-Seahawks.

AFC WEST

KANSAS CITY

For whatever reason or reasons, Eric Bienemy isn’t getting as much insider buzz on the coaching carousel as we might think from looking at his achievements from the outside.  Peter King tries to prop up his candidacies:

We’re still a good week or two away from the musical chairs stopping in the coach-hiring process in in 2021. I hear more buzz around other candidates than I do about Kansas City offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, thought to be a leading Black candidate for the past two or three years. That could certainly be flukish. But with the climate in this country and this league right now, and with Bieniemy having been passed over recently, I think if the 51-year-old right-hand man to Andy Reid doesn’t get a job in this cycle with six openings, the league will face heavy pressure internally and externally. The league has already put measures in place to increase the number of Black head coaches from two (two!) of the 26 men who currently hold the jobs. But if Bieniemy is passed over again, I think players will be very vocal about it.

On Saturday, I spoke to one football person who has known Bieniemy for more than 20 years, and has been in locker rooms and on sidelines with him. He said of Bieniemy: “Eric has a fire in his belly unlike anyone I have seen in football. Natural leader of men, going way back. When he gets on a player, and he does it a lot, the player knows he cares about him. The first time he walks into a room as head coach, Black guys will love him, white guys will love him, and he’ll get their attention. It’s a cliché, I know, but they’ll run through a wall for him. As a player at Colorado, there’s a famous story about him. In their national championship season [1990], they’re 1-1-1 and losing after three quarters, and Texas is running all over them. At the end of the third quarter, with the teams switching ends, Eric brings the whole offense onto the field to confront the defense. Jumps in their grill for being soft. They rallied to win the game. I’ve never seen a player lead like that in my life.”

AFC NORTH

CLEVELAND

Peter King with a sign of what Kevin Stefanski has going on with his Browns.

On Heinz Field Sunday night, after Cleveland won its first playoff game in 26 years, wide receiver Jarvis Landry was being shepherded to a post-game radio interview by the Browns’ media man, Peter John-Baptiste. Landry stopped. “Wait!” he said.

Landry said, “I gotta talk to coach. Now. I need to see him.”

After one of the weirdest football games (and surrounding events) in the season of COVID, John-Baptiste dialed up the COVID-positive quarantined head coach of the Browns, Kevin Stefanski, alone in his basement in Cleveland. But not on the phone. Landry wanted to FaceTime with the absent coach. “It’s one of the things I visualized all day—us winning, me talking to Coach so he could share the win with us. I needed to see him,” Landry said later.

Now, on the same field that had been a House of Horrors for Cleveland—the Browns had lost 17 straight at Heinz Field before this redemptive 48-37 win against all odds Sunday night—a surprised Stefanski saw one of the heroes of the night. Once a coach, always a coach.

“Hey Jarvis,” Stefanski said, “put your mask on.”

Then it was Landry’s turn. “Hey! We coming back home with a dub! [W, or win.] Get your ass back in the building! Let’s do it again this week!”

Pleasantries, then Landry had to run. Before they parted, one last message from Stefanski.

“This is the last game I’ll ever watch from this basement,” Stefanski told him.

King can really do a deep dive.  Here is part, part, of his look at Cleveland’s week starting with how “Blake” got to Cleveland.

A week in the corona-wracked season of the Cleveland Browns begins, actually, on the Saturday before the week started. This was the day before the Cleveland-Pittsburgh regular-season finale, and GM Andrew Berry was worried. Cleveland’s two offensive line coaches, Bill Callahan and Scott Peters, tested positive for COVID-19, and the Browns couldn’t take the chance that the virus would bubble up Sunday and take a player or players off the offensive line.

Berry phoned Jets GM Joe Douglas, a friend, in New Jersey at 9:38 a.m. Berry didn’t want to blindside Douglas by pillaging one of his practice-squad players without telling him. So Berry explained about the line coaches, and his fear that there might be a spread, and he needed an insurance tackle, and he liked second-year practice-squadder Blake Hance of the Jets. The Jets were going to Foxboro that day, and Berry wanted to make sure he could sign Hance before the Jets left for Massachusetts. Douglas understood. In fact, he had Jets personnel coordinator Christina Wedding print Hance’s Jets termination letter and his agreement with Cleveland, so Hance could sign them and they could be filed with the league.

Now for the COVID issue. It’s good that Berry liked Hance—the Browns were going to try to sign him for 2021 camp anyway—because Cleveland needed a player who was within driving distance of Cleveland and had been in a regular team testing program. Huh? If a player flies to a new city, he must test negative for five days while quarantining because of the risk of COVID-contact in an airport or airplane. If Berry had been the Seattle GM, with the nearest NFL city 15 hours away by car (Niners), it would have been totally impractical to get a player on the same day it occurred to a GM to sign him. But there are 11 NFL teams within a seven-hour drive of Cleveland. Hance was on one of them, six-and-a-half hours and 443 miles away by car, and he had tested negative that morning in Florham Park, N.J., home of the Jets. He had a car. After signing the contracts, Hance packed his things, hopped on I-80, and was at the Browns’ Intercontinental Hotel by 7 p.m., ready for virtual meetings with his new team.

In an elevator at the hotel, masked, he saw someone he recognized. Hance was a training-camp cut of Washington in 2019, blocking in camp for quarterback Case Keenum. Now he saw Keenum, the backup to Baker Mayfield.

“I know you, right?” Keenum said, trying to place the face—hard to do, when the face is masked.

“Case, it’s Blake—Blake Hance,” he said.

Whoa. Keenum wondered what this masked man from his past was doing in the Browns hotel the night before the biggest game of the year.

“I’m on the team now,” Hance said.

Blake Hance is going to have a great story to tell his grandchildren one day. Said Berry, who started the wheels turning: “It’s very much a 2020 story.”

Tuesday

5:15 a.m. Phone rings in GM Berry’s home. He’s gotten used to the pre-dawn calls from club infection control officer Joe Sheehan from a busy two weeks of COVID, but now they’ve got to discuss a real gut punch: Sheehan says coach Kevin Stefanski has tested positive for COVID, as well as Pro Bowl guard Joel Bitonio. They’re out for the team’s first playoff game in 18 years. The head coach. Out.

11 a.m. Words spreads that Stefanski’s out for the game. On the Browns Teamworks app, a message is sent out informing them of the new positive tests, including Stefanski and the longest-tenured and most respected Brown, guard Joel Bitonio. Texts fly from friend to player, coach to player, player to player. “Really shocking,” one player says. “Kevin is so serious about wearing the mask that I have barely seen his face this year. The mask is always on. I think I’ve heard him yell four times all season—once at a ref and three times at players about wearing masks. For him to get it is unbelievable.”

3 p.m. Stefanski, in an all-team Zoom meeting, speaking to 105 players and staff, informs the team there’s been some additional positive tests. “One was me,” he says, as matter-of-factly as if he stepped outside into 70-degree weather and said, “Nice day.” The tone in his meeting surprises more than a few on the videoconference: No grief, not even a sign of disappointment. Stefanski has been a classic flat-liner all season. He’s not going to change now. He tells his players: “You’ve been ready for curveballs all season. This is just another one.”

Thursday

Facility still closed. Morning install meetings, afternoon virtual walkthrough. No on-field practice for the second straight day.

2:45 p.m. Seven players, six coaches on the COVID list, no practice. A sign that Stefanski’s message is getting through? Jarvis Landry, in a break from a workout in his home gym, says: “Coach Stefanski talks about it all the time. We gotta hit the curveball. We’ve been thrown another one. Been tough for us, but at the end of the day we gotta answer the call. It is what it is. It’s 2021, but it feels like 2020 still.”

Friday

8 a.m. Could there finally be some good news? The Browns began testing every player and coach with both the more reliable PCR test (flown to a lab in New Jersey with the results coming back overnight) and the less-reliable rapid tests. Starting strong safety Ronnie Harrison tested negative on the PCR test Thursday, but positive on the rapid test, called the MESA test. So he’s out for Sunday . . . unless he tests negative on both tests for three straight days, which would make the league rule the Thursday positive rapid test a false positive. With their best corner (Denzel Ward) and part-time starting corner Kevin Johnson both out with the virus, Cleveland needs Harrison against the potent Steeler passing game. Will the Browns have him? The Saturday and Sunday tests will tell.

4 p.m. With the league ruling the danger of spread among active Browns players to be low enough, the Browns open their facility, sort of, for players and coaches to return in three shifts of 10 minutes each for practice.

5 p.m. On the field during practice, Keenum is not close to Mayfield. Maybe 15 feet away most often, or further. In fact, Mayfield’s not near anyone for any length of time. Wouldn’t the two quarterbacks want to share thoughts on this play or that, or tips on facing the dangerous T.J. Watt? “I need to stay as far away from Baker as I can,” says Keenum. “If there’s any two people who shouldn’t be close, it’s me and Baker.” Inference: One, at least, always needs to be COVID-free.

Saturday

Travel day. Perhaps the strangest travel day in the august history of the Cleveland Browns. The trip from the Browns facility to downtown Pittsburgh, in light traffic, is one hour, 55 minutes—about 128 miles. It’s always a bus trip. Not this year. “This year,” GM Berry says, “the idea is to create more space, with people not in enclosed spaces for long.” So on this day, two planes, a 161-seat Boeing 737 and a 280-seat Boeing 777, ferry about 60 players and staff per plane on the 26-minute flight to Greater Pittsburgh International Airport.

That’s not all, because those 120 passengers don’t comprise the whole team.

To be even safer, all 19 coaches who will be available for the game (five on the COVID list will miss the game) are picked up at their homes by drivers from a Cleveland car service, with a plexiglass divider between front and back seat, and driven to the team hotel in Pittsburgh. Everyone from acting head coach Mike Priefer to coaching assistant Ryan Cordell (pressed into service to coach the offensive line) are transported by car.

To be even safer, five players, including Ronnie Harrison (suspected false positive) and tackle Jack Conklin (non-COVID illness) were also picked up at their Cleveland homes in five private cars with plexiglass dividers and driven two hours to the Pittsburgh hotel.

Cost for the 24 limo rides: $445 per coach and player; $10,680 total. Plus tip.

“Anything,” Berry says, “to decrease the risk of transmission.”

7:35 p.m. One Browns employee told me the Stefanski-Berry combination has been good to handle this crisis. “Because nothing bothers either one of them. They’re the guys you want around you in a storm,” the employee said. Before settling in for an evening of work at his hotel, Berry, friends with Oklahoma City Thunder GM Sam Presti, was asked about the team’s approach to a week a reporter termed “a bad dream.” Berry said: “I don’t consider this a bad dream. We’re in the NFL playoffs. That’s a great opportunity. Sam Presti told me, ‘How you define a professional is his ability to perform at the highest level in the toughest circumstances. This week has made me think of that.”

– – –

11:42 p.m. Craziest thing. With about 10 minutes to play, the backup playing for Joel Bitonio, Michael Dunn, left with an injury. And here came Berry’s New York Jets insurance policy, Blake Hance, who’d raced from New Jersey to Cleveland eight days earlier to fill a roster hole. And in this game, Blake Hance, who’d never played in an NFL game and just met most of his teammates on this weekend, lined up to block four-time Pro Bowl tackle Cam Heyward on the first snap of his NFL life. And he did so. He actually played 15 snaps. No sacks allowed. No hits on Mayfield allowed. Very clean uniform.

So in his post-game interview with Michele Tafoya, Mayfield said: “We had Michael Dunn step in at left guard for Joel Bitonio, and then Michael got hurt, and then a guy named Blake that I introduced myself to literally in the locker room before the game stepped up in the fourth quarter.” When the emergency guy who’d driven 443 miles to join the team rushes onto an NFL field for the first time and blocks Cam Heyward, you get this strong feeling: Things might be turning for the Cleveland Browns.

Monday

12:03 a.m.: Acting head coach Mike Priefer sits in a chair outside the Browns locker room to do a Zoom press conference with the Cleveland media. Born in Cleveland in 1966, he grew up worshiping the Sam Rutligliano Browns. One of the first things he does is thank the fans of Cleveland after the first Browns playoff win since 1994 “because I grew up one of them, so I know what this means.” Then he got choked up and couldn’t continue for several seconds. This morning, northeast Ohio knows exactly how he felt.

PITTSBURGH

QB BEN ROETHLISBERGER looked like a guy taking it all in one last time after Sunday night’s game.  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com:

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger‘s red eyes and wet cheeks said plenty about his future. His decision to linger on the bench long after the game ended said plenty about his future. When he met with the media via video conference after Sunday night’s playoff loss to the Browns, Roethlisberger didn’t say much about his future.

“Well it’s gonna start between me and God,” Roethlisberger said regarding the looming decision on whether to continue to play. “A lot of praying. And then, you know, a lot of talking with my family, discussions, decisions. And, you know, I still have a year left on my contract. I hope the Steelers want me back, if that’s the way we go. There’ll be a lot of discussions, but now’s not the time for that.”

The reference to having a year left on his contract, and to the Steelers wanting him back, likely wasn’t an accident. Roethlisberger has received $12.5 million that he hasn’t yet earned; if he retires, the Steelers have the right to ask for all of it back. If they cut him, he owes nothing.

“I hope the Steelers want me back,” he said. His cap number of $41.25 million becomes official on March 17, at a time when the total team spending limit may be as low as $175 million. If they want him back, they need to him sign an extension that kicks the cap can to a future year.

What if he says, “I’m just going to play out my contract”? The Steelers may have to release him in order to reduce his cap charge by $19 million. And then he’d become a free agent, able to sign with a new team if he wants.

It’s impossible to envision Roethlisberger in any other uniform. Just like it was impossible to envision Tom Brady or Peyton Manning or Brett Favre or Philip Rivers in any other uniform. Maybe Ben will decide that he wants to keep playing, but that he wants a fresh start.

These are the options: (1) retire; (2) play; (3) force a release in order to avoid owing $12.5 million and retire; or (4) force a release and sign with another team.

It’s a story that will hover over the team and the league for the next two months. And if the Steelers end up moving on, they’d better have a solid fallback plan at the position or they could be left in the AFC North’s dust, given that the division features star quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson, Baker Mayfield, and Joe Burrow.

AFC SOUTH

HOUSTON

Mike Sando of ESPN.com on the mess in Houston:

One critical variable in the Deshaun Watson drama with the Houston Texans will determine, ultimately, whether the 25-year-old franchise quarterback plays another down for the team that drafted him in 2017. Forget the usual assurances suggesting Houston would never, under any circumstances, trade Watson. Ten years ago, the Cincinnati Bengals’ notoriously stubborn patriarch, Mike Brown, vowed he would not trade franchise quarterback Carson Palmer, but Brown underestimated the No. 1 variable at work in these situations — a variable that will determine what happens with Watson as well.

A year ago Tuesday, Watson and the Texans built a 24-0 playoff lead over the eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and then lost the game, 51-31. The Texans have been outscored by 124 points since building that big lead — the fourth-worst scoring differential in the NFL — while posting a 4-13 record. This, despite Watson leading the league this season in expected points added (EPA) per attempt, a notch ahead of MVP favorite Aaron Rodgers. Watson, surely weary over the dismantling of the Texans’ roster, is now upset over the team’s clumsy handling of its general manager and coaching searches. As a result, Watson “could play hardball with the Texans about a trade,” ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported.

The standard league reaction will be to dismiss such reports on the thinking that players blink first in standoffs with team owners. Players usually do blink first, but not always, and based on recent evidence, anyone who spots Texans owner Cal McNair at a poker table is encouraged to pull up a chair. After driving the NFL news cycle through wild-card weekend, Watson’s situation invites closer inspection, so we’ll begin the Pick Six column with NFL insiders’ analysis of the situation, including the key variable and relevant comps. The full Pick Six menu this week:

1. Watson expressed his frustration through a since-deleted Tweet (“some things never change”) after the Texans hired Nick Caserio without consulting him. Could he really force a trade?

The key variable for Watson is whether the Texans’ mishandling of their roster and alleged breaking of a promise to include him in their GM and coaching searches has left the quarterback sufficiently upset to force a trade. By sufficiently upset, we mean upset enough to possibly imperil short-term earnings. Watson pocketed nearly $30 million this past season under terms of a new contract. He has earned about $40 million for his career. The no-trade clause in his contract would effectively allow Watson to steer any trade to a team of his liking, provided he’s willing to sit out if necessary. If he is willing to sit out, then he has power.

“Watson represents an example of player empowerment like we see in the NBA,” a longtime NFL exec said. “Because he has enough money in the bank, he can say, ‘No, you are going to do it the way I want to do it or else you do not have me.’ This is presuming he believes the DeAndre Hopkins trade and other moves were irrational, and the GM was hired in a ridiculous way, and his feelings are heartfelt. If those things are true, he can absolutely get traded where he wants to get traded, because of his no-trade clause.”

The Palmer situation could be instructive. The first pick in the 2003 NFL draft, Palmer generally played well for the Bengals, but he grew so weary of Cincinnati’s ownership that he vowed to never again play for the team. Most importantly, Palmer meant it. Whether Watson feels similarly is not yet known.

“I will never set foot in Paul Brown Stadium again,” Palmer said back in 2011. “I have $80 million in the bank. I don’t have to play football for money. I’ll play it for the love of the game, but that would have to be elsewhere.”

Brown, the Bengals’ owner, decided to wait out Palmer. He declared the team had no plans to make a trade. Palmer did not blink. Brown traded him to the Oakland Raiders that October. The rest of Palmer’s career was better than his career with Cincinnati. He’s now in the Arizona Cardinals’ Ring of Honor.

“Usually, it takes an emotional component beyond the business component for a player to stick to his guns,” the exec said. “Caserio understandably can take the approach he does not believe a player will pass up the kind of money he has on the table, but if I’m Watson, maybe I think I can hold my breath longer than he can, because I’m 25 years old and I have a lot of great years left.”

Watson’s agent, David Mulugheta, also represents cornerback Jalen Ramsey, who wanted out of Jacksonville and was able to force a trade from the Jaguars to the Los Angeles Rams last season. In that case, there was an emotional component, namely Ramsey’s frustration with the organization and its leadership at that time. Reports suggested Ramsey came away from an exchange with then-Jaguars exec Tom Coughlin feeling disrespected, and he wasn’t going to play with the team for the long term. Watson could plausibly feel the same way if McNair sought and then disregarded the quarterback’s input on key hires, including the quarterback’s suggestion that the team look into Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy for the head coaching job. Perhaps the Texans can smooth over the situation. Perhaps not.

“We are going to find out how emotionally committed Watson is,” the exec said. “Most players are not that committed. They say they are, but they really are not, and if you do wait them out, the player ends up giving in usually.”

Palmer was in his early 30s when he forced his way out of Cincinnati. No quarterback as young and productive as Watson has been traded since … when? When the Denver Broncos shipped Jay Cutler to Chicago after his third season, Cutler had the first-round pedigree without the surging production, or the rich second contract, that differentiate Watson and make him a Texans cornerstone. One coincidence: Denver’s new coach at that time, Josh McDaniels, had come to the Broncos from the Patriots, just as Caserio is coming to the Texans from New England. The Patriots for years were not afraid to part with high-profile players, including elite talents. As for Cutler, he ranked ninth in EPA per pass attempt in 2008, his final year with the Broncos, but he tossed 18 interceptions, second-most in the league. Watson put up MVP-caliber numbers this season while playing for a team that lost primarily because its defense ranked 31st in EPA.

Any GM candidate could be drawn to Houston because of Watson, especially a candidate who saw in New England how much life changed after Tom Brady’s departure. A candidate with six Super Bowl rings also might wonder how any player coming off a 4-12 season could expect to factor in team decision making at the highest levels, especially a player with one postseason victory on his resume.

“I would never trade him — never, ever, ever,” another exec said. “If you are that pissed, then stop playing football, retire. What has Watson done? Caserio could say, ‘Look, play your ass off and in a few years, if this isn’t what you like, then we can address it, but you signed this contract, and when Bill O’Brien got fired, you weren’t disappointed, either, so you knew what you were signing up for.”

Quarterbacks have forced trades in the distant past. Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton had played six seasons for the Minnesota Vikings when, in 1967, he grew so disenchanted with then-coach Norm Van Brocklin that he threatened to retire. Van Brocklin resigned. The Vikings traded Tarkenton to the New York Giants for three draft choices and a player to be named later, then reacquired Tarkenton after another five seasons. Teams could more easily win while minimizing the quarterback in those heavily run-oriented days. That’s not as realistic now.

“Watson will get over this with a new coach,” a former head coach predicted. “What is he going to do, play bad intentionally? Of course not.”

When Hall of Famer Dan Marino was entering his age-24 season with the Miami Dolphins, contract talks became so bitter that Marino accused owner Joe Robbie of having “unfairly misled and taken advantage” of him. Marino’s agent even released to the media a five-page play-by-play of negotiations painting the team in unflattering light, complete with phone records. Robbie went public in return, threatening to “cheerfully reveal the excessive demands” that Marino’s agent had supposedly made. In the end, Marino and the Dolphins spent the next 15 seasons together. Marino retired a Dolphin. He works for the team to this day.

Watson’s Texans are not Marino’s Dolphins. They do not have Don Shula (or anyone) coaching their team. Their owner is the unproven McNair, who within the past two years allowed a series of questionable moves involving high-profile players. The Texans additionally are not coming off a Super Bowl season the way Miami was when Marino took aim at Dolphins ownership.

Chris Mortensen reported that there is “informed speculation” that Watson would be interested in Miami as a landing spot.

“The quarterback coming out and saying, even indirectly, that he’d take a trade to Miami is weird,” another exec said. “Miami has a quarterback they already took. If you are the Texans, maybe you try to minimize the situation, handle it internally and try to get your ducks in a row. You gotta be careful what you say publicly because the owner coming out and saying he has reached out and hasn’t talked to Watson yet makes them look inept.”

The Dolphins hold the third overall pick, acquired from Houston in the Laremy Tunsil trade, plus their own first-round choice, No. 18. They own the Texans’ second-round choice, also acquired in the Tunsil trade. Houston’s roster needs significant reinforcements through the draft and the team has very little capital, but in what world would Tua Tagovailoa appeal as a replacement for Watson? Perhaps in a world where Watson is not available to them.

“If a team is offering you a high first-round pick this year, future high picks and a young player, at a certain point, we can really jump-start our program here,” an exec said.

The Texans are guilty of having an inexperienced owner who gave too much power to O’Brien, did the same with subsequent hire Jack Easterby and then gave Watson the impression he would be part of the GM and head coach hiring processes, without following through to the quarterback’s liking.

“The biggest problem some of these teams have is, they put the quarterback on a different level than the rest of the team,” another exec said. “They make them like they are an advisor or assistant coach or somewhere in between and it’s not good for the team. These guys, as sharp as some of them are, are not capable of knowing who to draft or whatever. When you do that, it goes bad. It doesn’t matter if it’s Tom Brady and he has been there 20 years. That is not their job. If you make that mistake, there is no turning back.”

The Texans could be in the process of turning back from including Watson in such matters. Caserio learned from Bill Belichick, who was not known for consulting players or even staff members on key decisions.

“I think this is much ado about nothing,” another exec said. “The most important thing they can do is get a head coach Deshaun believes in, which they can still do.”

With the Watson mess, could Jim Caldwell be emerging?  Mike Florio ofProFootballTalk.com:

The Texans currently have a mess on their hands. Their best way to clean it up could entail hiring Jim Caldwell to serve as the team’s next coach.

A buzz is building in league circles that Caldwell could be the next coach in Houston.

Last month, the Texans interviewed Caldwell, who previously coached the Colts and the Lions, before hiring G.M. Nick Caserio. With the team desperately needing a solution to the now obvious and well-documented discontent of quarterback Deshaun Watson, Caldwell could be the calming influence the team needs.

Would Caserio want Caldwell? Former Lions G.M. Bob Quinn, who worked with Caldwell in Detroit, fired Caldwell after a pair of 9-7 seasons. Some would say that the firing of Caldwell became a matter of “when” not “if” once Quinn got the job, given the reality that Quinn seemed to be determined to eventually hire Matt Patricia to coach the team.

Caldwell, 65, has a 62-50 record in the regular season, and a 2-4 mark in the playoffs. He has had no other interviews in the current cycle.

If the Texans would hire Caldwell in an effort to undo the damage done to the relationship with Deshaun Watson, why wouldn’t they simply interview and/or hire Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy? That approach would seem to be too much of a capitulation to Watson, who recommended Bieniemy for the job.

It’s nevertheless possible that Watson has mentally crossed the Rubicon regarding his time in Houston. Even without Watson, however, Caldwell could be the right man at the right time to stabilize a team that has descended into a state of dysfunction that the organization has never before seen.

INDIANAPOLIS

Will QB PHILIP RIVERS be back for a second season in Indianapolis?  Mike Wells ofESPN.com:

– The Indianapolis Colts, a proud franchise that didn’t have anything to worry about at quarterback for nearly 20 years, are asking the same question they did after their season ended a year ago.

Who will be their starting quarterback in Week 1 next season?

Veteran Philip Rivers was an upgrade over Jacoby Brissett this season. He had better passing numbers in all categories and even led the Colts back to the playoffs.

Rivers has talked like he wants to play an 18th season, but the Colts have to determine if they want to bring him back to make a run at a Super Bowl in 2021.

If not, will the Colts go the free-agency route or fill the need by making a trade for a veteran such as the Philadelphia Eagles’ Carson Wentz or the Detroit Lions’ Matthew Stafford? Or is Jacob Eason, who spent his rookie season as the No. 3 quarterback on the depth chart, ready to make that leap into the starting role?

Rivers and Brissett will both be free agents this offseason, so things are very much up in the air.

The foundation is there elsewhere on the roster, but the Colts need to figure out who is quarterbacking them next season if they expect to take another step and compete with the likes of the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen and the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes in the AFC.

“Whatever is God’s will for me and my family, if it’s here playing another year in Indy, then we’ll be here,” Rivers said. “And if it’s not, then I’ll be on the sideline with a ball cap, coaching the heck out of a high school football team down in south Alabama.”

Rivers, who signed a one-year, $25 million contract in March 2020, had the third-highest completion rate (68.0%) of his career, dropped his interception total from 20 to 11 and moved into the top five on the NFL’s all-time passing yardage and touchdown lists this season.

He did everything the Colts asked him to do with the exception of winning a Super Bowl, which can’t be put solely on his shoulders.

“I mean, Philip is a great player,” Colts coach Frank Reich said. “I have a great relationship with him. He is a great leader on this team. Those things will have time to work themselves out. He’s got a one-year contract. Obviously, there is a lot of stuff that goes into that decision, but I’m very excited. He exceeded expectations in my mind about what he was bringing to the team this year on and off the field.”

Reich said Sunday that he wants Rivers to be his starting quarterback next season. The two had an emotional conversation after Saturday’s 27-24 playoff loss to Buffalo.

Running it back with the 39-year-old Rivers means the Colts are prolonging the most obvious issue: They still don’t have a long-term, franchise quarterback.

“It’s obviously a critical position,” Reich said. “I have a lot of confidence in our ability as an organization, the leadership that [general manager] Chris [Ballard] brings. I feel like we have an owner (Jim Irsay) who understands the landscape and will give us what we need and will be involved in the discussions on such a critical position. Yeah, we’re looking for an answer. We have to make the answer for next year, but because of Philip’s age, that certainly has to be a perspective in discussion.”

Something else the Colts have to worry about is whether Rivers is the right quarterback to try to help them move beyond the wild-card or divisional round of the playoffs.

For all the positives Rivers brought to the Colts this season, the reality is he’ll be 40 years old in December and how the quarterback position is played has changed some.

Rivers has never been the most mobile quarterback in the league, but that’s how the game is played more often than not now with the likes of Mahomes, Allen and the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson.

“Absolutely, the way that happens is everybody gets incrementally better,” Reich said about winning if Rivers returns. “Maybe at 39, going to be 40, maybe that’s going to be harder physically, but there are other ways to keep getting better. I sit here right now — and please don’t read anything into this because any coach would say this — this team is close. I think we had everybody in the locker room this year we needed to win a world championship. But I’m 59 years old, been in the NFL 27 years — it doesn’t work that way.”

The quarterback buzz will be there in Indianapolis until the franchise says what it’s going to do at the position.

There will be plenty of it when it comes to Wentz because of his familiarity and relationship with Reich.

Reich was Wentz’s offensive coordinator with the Eagles when the quarterback was having an MVP-caliber season before suffering a season-ending knee injury in December 2017. Wentz passed for 3,296 yards, 33 touchdowns and seven interceptions in 13 games that season.

But significant questions surround Wentz’s health and where he is mentally. He has played in all 16 games just twice in his five seasons in the NFL and was benched in favor of rookie Jalen Hurts this season.

And you can’t forget about the financial implications of any team taking on Wentz, if the Eagles decide to move on from him.

Philadelphia signed the quarterback to a four-year, $128 million contract extension in 2019 that comes into play next season. The deal includes nearly $70 million guaranteed.

Stafford, who will turn 33 in February, is also a possibility.

He is older than Wentz (28) and younger than Rivers, while sporting a cheaper price tag.

Don’t be alarmed by Stafford’s $34.95 million cap hit in 2021. He’s due only $9 million in base salary. That’s a bargain for a player who has thrown for 45,109 career yards, 282 touchdowns and 144 interceptions while not always having the best talent around him in Detroit.

The thing about Reich is he believes he can fix any quarterback’s flaws and win with anyone.

He thought he could do it with Brissett after Andrew Luck’s sudden retirement in August 2019. He did it with Rivers when the Los Angeles Chargers decided to move in another direction a year ago. And Reich will try to do it again with whoever starts for him in 2021.

That’s just him.

Remember, Reich’s the same person who didn’t ask one question about Luck’s health during his interview with the team prior to becoming head coach in the winter of 2018.

“I remember last offseason, before the Colts signed Philip, I had a number of quarterbacks reach out to me and say they would love to play in Indianapolis because of Frank,” ESPN NFL analyst Matt Hasselbeck said. “That says a lot about Frank as a coach and as a person.”

THIS AND THAT

NICK WAS NICE

Tim Keown of ESPN.com was among many media types who like the Nickelodian telecast.

I am decades removed from Nickelodeon’s target demographic, and watching the network’s first NFL playoff game Sunday afternoon necessitated a suspension of all snark and sarcasm, but you are about to read words I never imagined typing: The Nick broadcast was a hell of a lot of fun, maybe the best experience I’ve had watching a game this season.

There were so many references I didn’t get. The Saints played the Bears, and we were told Alvin Kamara, who was compared to Alvin of Chipmunk fame for some reason, loves scoring touchdowns as much as someone I’ve never heard of loves orange soda. I had, and have, no idea why players’ heads would occasionally be topped with a giant hamburger. And at one point in the second quarter, something reminded someone of what would happen if Ned Bigby and Billy Loomer got into a weightlifting contest. Again, no clue.

There were a lot of mentions of studying and homework and tests, but the moment I knew I was all-in was when Nate Burleson described Drew Brees by saying, “He’s the kid at recess who never misses at dodgeball,” which we can all agree is a level of perfection rarely reached even by non-Nick analysts.

Yes, the gimmick was a four-hour commercial for the network, but every other broadcast is a four-hour commercial for the NFL, so that’s a wash. Burleson was a delightful companion, good in a born-for-this way, and if the NFL has plans to continue this type of youth outreach, he should get every assignment. The idea was to introduce and explain the game to kids who might not otherwise watch, and Burleson said things such as, “When a flag is on the ground, usually someone messed up” and, “The nose of the ball touched the ground like a dog smelling something” and, “A trick play is the closest the NFL has to a prank.” A trip down the field? “Gaining 10 yards is like little homework assignments,” he said. “The red zone is like the test, and if you can get into the end zone and get your six points, that’s when you ace the test.” It was Mister Rogers meets John Madden.

Penalties were explained by Young Sheldon (again, never seen it) who informed us that a false start — a particular specialty of the Bears on Sunday — “is like when my dad starts shoveling in dinner before Mom says grace.” Play-by-play man Noah Eagle, a 45-year-old voice emanating from a 24-year-old body, told me on Thursday that he planned on “getting the basics in there” but always keeping in mind that he’s speaking to “an 11-year-old who maybe hasn’t tried football before.” To that end, we can all share in Eagle’s disappointment in the players’ pedestrian choices for favorite ice cream (a whole lot of chocolate and vanilla).

(Sadly, the Nick broadcast presented no respite from the State Farm commercials. It might be tough love, but it’s never too early for kids to learn a harsh truth: There is no Rodgers Rate.)

Sure, they missed stuff. When Taysom Hill struggled to get up after a big hit, Burleson’s early reaction was to brush it off as the equivalent of scraping your knee at recess — “You get banged up, you get back up and you go out there and play another down.” And it would have been nice to see a replay of what precipitated an unsportsmanlike conduct call against Bears tight end — and vociferous objector — Cole Kmet. Cordarrelle Patterson let out a very audible F-bomb after he was called for a penalty on a punt return. What will we tell the children? Nothing, apparently. And I still have no idea why Bears receiver Anthony Miller was ejected from the game, but I do know more about cartoon slime than I did when the day began, and I know that Saints coach Sean Payton said he would be happy to be slimed if he won, and then was after he did.

(Nickelodeon-age me, a being that existed before Nickelodeon, was calling into sports-talk radio and proposing trades — “Reggie Jackson for Jackie Hernandez, who says no?” — so maybe this was the broadcast I never knew I needed. I’m thinking demographically targeted broadcasts are the way of the future — an old-folks version will feature nonstop complaints about celebrations and a play-by-play guy muttering, “Act like you’ve been there,” before kicking it down to a sideline reporter who reminds everybody that players used to go both ways back in the day.)

There were several replay reviews, some of them controversial, but not for one minute did I wish there was a rules expert on hand to tell me what I just saw. It took nearly an entire half of play before any mention of an offensive or defensive coordinator, and it happened only because the camera happened to catch Bears defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano on the sideline. Not once were we informed that a great play by a defensive end or a wide receiver was actually attributable to a coordinator “dialing up a blitz” or “calling the perfect play at the perfect time.” My one regret: I think I speak for an entire Nick-watching nation in wishing we had been presented with a Nickified version of the Manti Te’o story, especially since it could have been packaged as a PSA. I get it, but still. For the sake of the country and all.

Gabrielle Nevaeh Green, a 15-year-old Nick star who was a complete mystery to me before Sunday, worked the booth with Burleson and Eagle. At one point, she blurted out, “Ooh, I love the kicking,” which immediately put her at odds with the analytics crowd. She didn’t seem to care. She asked Burleson, “What’s it feel like to be tackled?” which is a wonderful question, one that Joe Buck might ponder but would never consider asking. “Getting tackled feels like falling down wooden stairs combined with hitting your shin on the bed,” Burleson answered, and I waited in vain the rest of the broadcast for Green to ask, “Why is every punt returner named Harris?”