The Daily Briefing Monday, May 22, 2023
THE DAILY BRIEFINGThe Commish is bound and determined to force the NFL to flex to Amazon. Mike Florio has more, including what was surely a coincidence in schedule making:
Whatever Roger wants, Roger gets. And Roger wants Thursday night flexing.
Commissioner Goodell came close in March. Two votes short. Twenty-two yes, eight no, two abstentions.
Of course, there wasn’t an official vote, because that would have officially made the effort a failure. Instead, the measure was tabled for two months. And, with a vote expected this week, it’s safe to say the Commissioner believes he has managed to move two of the 10 to yes.
That also assumes the group of 22 that previously voted for the move haven’t had a change of heart. Maybe one or more of those teams re-thought their position after Giants co-owner John Mara called the proposed late-season sliding of games from Thursday to Sunday and Sunday to Thursday as “abusive” to fans.
And Mara was right. It is abusive to fans, especially to those sufficiently passionate to spend the time and effort and money to travel to games, under the impression that games will happen when scheduled, not three days earlier or three days later.
Much remains unknown regarding how often this power, once the league office finagles it, will be used. How much notice will be given? How many games can be flexed from Thursday to Sunday and, in turn, Sunday to Thursday in a given year?
Also, will the league use it right away, or wait until next year? There’s no need to force the vote now, if it’s something that wouldn’t be used until 2024.
Then there’s the reality that most of the teams that opposed Thursday night flexing ended up with multiple Sunday-Thursday games in 2023. The league calls it a coincidence. There’s a belief in league circles that it wasn’t coincidental.
And the vague notion that there is price to pay for resisting the NFL’s idea of progress could be enough to get some of the holdouts to relent, this time around.
Regardless, it shouldn’t happen. The simple reality is that it likely will.
Because football is family. Except when you plan to take your family to a game in a warm climate over the holidays, only to find out that the game isn’t happening when it was supposed to be played.
NFC NORTH
CHICAGO WR DARNELL MOONEY is putting a chip on his shoulder. Bobby Kownack of NFL.com:
Darnell Mooney might not have Aretha Franklin on his offseason playlist.
Speaking to brothers Amon-Ra and Equanimeous St. Brown in an interview through The 33rd Team, the Bears wide receiver framed his goals for 2023 with little concern for whether or not succeeding garners extra respect for his game.
“Do whatever I can do for my team,” Mooney said. “I mean, ball out, of course. Dominate. Not really on the ‘respect my name’ anymore. I’m just going out for disrespect. I’m just disrespecting everybody now. Don’t really care about respect no more. Other than that, I just want to win. Don’t really care about anything else for real.”
Mooney’s impending disrespectful era comes after a 2022 season that many expected to build on a mini-breakout sophomore campaign (81 catches for 1,055 yards and four touchdowns) and serve as his welcome party to undisputed WR1 territory.
Instead, a myriad of factors led the speedy wideout’s production to decline. The Bears leaned heavy on the run game with the second-most ground attempts and best yardage output in the NFL. Justin Fields, in turn, attempted just 21.2 passes per start on the way to Chicago’s last place ranking in both passes and passing yards. Plus, when Chicago did air it out, teams were devoting more attention than ever to clamping down on Mooney as the primary receiving threat.
It led to a season with just 40 receptions (3.3 catches per game) for 493 yards and two touchdowns, which were all career lows, before Mooney fractured his ankle against the Jets in Week 12.
The good news is that he started cutting on his surgically repaired ankle this week as he gears up for his return.
“I am running,” Mooney told his fellow WRs. “I’m cutting. Started cutting today. I’ll be 100%. I got screws in my foot, so I’ll be a little robotic. Probably a thousand times better than I was.”
His joke about robotic enhancements aside, the Bears’ new offense still sets up well for Mooney to rebound.
Chicago could likely scale back Fields’ scrambling to avoid harm to its franchise quarterback after he rushed 160 times last season, and the WR corps to supplement such a decision is the deepest it’s been in years. D.J. Moore is the new headliner in a room that includes Chase Claypool, Velus Jones and fourth-round rookie Tyler Scott. It would come as no surprise if defenses shade heavily toward the former Panther after his blockbuster trade from Carolina.
The days of Mooney being peppered with passes are likely gone — he had 47 more targets than any other Bears pass catcher in 2021 and came just nine targets shy of leading the team again despite missing five games in 2022 — but he should have opportunities aplenty to take on defensive backs in lighter coverage.
Although his primary objective is winning, a return to form could also pay dividends for the former fifth-rounder during his contract year.
“They want to see me run and stuff,” Mooney said about the prospect of a new deal. “We’ll see. We’ll see. I’m in no rush.”
NFC EAST
PHILADELPHIA According to Bobby Kownack of NFL.com, a bike ride nearly turned tragic.
Philadelphia wide receiver A.J. Brown was nearly struck by a car while participating in the sixth annual Eagles Autism Challenge, a charity bike ride.
Brown was broadcasting the event on his Instagram Live when he came to an intersection and his phone suddenly appeared to flip upside down.
Luckily, the two-time Pro Bowler took to Twitter to clear up any fears shortly after, saying someone ran a stop sign and that he dropped his phone while getting out of the way.
He also jokingly stoked the fire between the Eagles and their most-hated foe, the Cowboys, by claiming he thinks he saw a star on the vehicle’s license plate.
At the end of the day, the Philly faithful can breathe easy. Their star wideout, who set career highs with 88 catches for 1,496 yards and tied his best touchdown mark with 11 in his first season with the team last year, is no worse for wear after his close call.
And in other fortunate news from Saturday, the Eagles were able to raise an event-record $6.2 million for autism research and care programs, per the team. – – – Pro Football Focus ranks the NFL rosters 1 to 32. Here is who they have on top with a tidy little summary:
1. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
Biggest strength in 2023: Trench play The Eagles led the league in pass protection and pass-rush grade in 2022, making life easier for everyone around them. Their offensive line allowed Jalen Hurts to become an MVP-caliber dual threat. Their defense finished with the third-most sacks in NFL history during the regular season. Their units up front are loaded with stars, including Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson, Haason Reddick and Brandon Graham. While Javon Hargrave is a big loss on the defensive interior, they had Jalen Carter fall into their laps in the draft. The Eagles’ offensive and defensive lines will keep them competitive despite departures elsewhere.
Biggest weakness in 2023: Coverage between the numbers There weren’t many consistent weaknesses for the Eagles in 2022, but one theme when they struggled was their middle-of-the-field defenders being exposed in big spots. The Super Bowl was a microcosm of this, as the Chiefs picked on Philly’s linebackers, as well as Avonte Maddox in the slot. T.J. Edwards, the best player among the group, departed along with Kyzir White and safeties Chauncey Gardner-Johnson and Marcus Epps. The Eagles have some holes to fill over the middle.
X-Factor for 2023: S Reed Blankenship Following up on the aforementioned holes over the middle, Blankenship enters 2023 with a great opportunity to start after a surprising rookie year in which he finished with a 79.4 overall grade. He earned an 89.4 run-defense grade, fourth best among qualified safeties, and made some plays in coverage — including an interception of Aaron Rodgers. The Eagles will still have an elite pass rush and excellent outside cornerback play. They need Blankenship to be the glue in the middle.
Rookie to watch: DI Jalen Carter Carter was arguably the best player in the draft, and the Eagles secured his services with the ninth overall pick. He could not have landed in a better place. It’s a perfect succession plan for Fletcher Cox talent-wise. Aaron Donald was the last defensive tackle to win Rookie of the Year, when he did so in 2014. Carter is a good bet to do so in a defense perfectly suited for him.
Over/Under 10.5 win total: Over Super Bowl hangovers can be real, but the Eagles have the best quarterback in the NFC. They boast dynamic weapons on offense. Nobody in the league is better in the trenches. There are sore spots in the middle of their defense, but they have a strong chance to get back to the Super Bowl.
NFC SOUTH
CAROLINA QB BRYCE YOUNG is not your normal rookie QB in terms of his grasp of the offense. Myles Simmons of ProFootballTalk.com:
OTAs have gotten going on Monday with No. 1 pick Bryce Young taking the majority of first-team snaps at the Panthers’ first spring practice.
Head coach Frank Reich was complimentary of all three quarterbacks on the roster in his post-practice press conference, saying Young, Andy Dalton, and Matt Corral displayed strong decision-making and ball placement. But the story with the club’s QBs is going to be how quickly Young adapts to the pro game as the club gets this year’s top draftee ready to play.
When asked specifically about Young on Monday, Reich called the young QB’s command “10 out of 10.”
“Just complete command, control, poise,” Reich said. “You could tell the way he was seeing it, the way he was working through progressions, accuracy in the throw, ball placement of the throw, it was all very good.”
Reich also noted that he feels like it’s a good thing to have a veteran like Dalton on the roster, too.
“It’s really good for Bryce to kind of see Andy handle things the way he’s handled things,” Reich said. “And, obviously, Bryce has picked it up extremely fast. But it feels like we’ve got a good plan and we’re doing the right thing.”
While there aren’t any contact practices in the spring, the Panthers still plan to have Young get his reps with the first-team offensive line, Reich said. The club is especially cognizant of who’s playing center when Young is in.
There’s a long way to go between now and Week One, but so far Young has checked every box when it comes to potentially being a Day One starter.
TAMPA BAY Is there only room in the NFL for one “Krewe”? Gabriella Killett of NoLa.com:
Who in the NFL owns the rights to the word “krewe?”
New Orleans Saints fans might assume it’s their hometown favorites, but the NFC South rival Tampa Bay Buccaneers objected this week. The Bucs told the federal Trademark and Appeal Board on Tuesday that they were the first to use the term and thus have priority for it when marketing goods and services.
The Saints claimed “krewe” in a December 2021 application to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. That was shortly before the team announced it was renaming the Saintsations cheerleading group and other fan-focused units as the Saints Cheer Krewe.
Josh Gerben, a trademark lawyer in Washington D.C., took to Twitter this week to detail the branding battle. He said he was surprised the Bucs filed an objection, as the case “could have settled out of court.”
We found this, dating back to 1991, but that Krewe was abandoned.
1991 Tampa Initiates Krewe Of Honor In 1991, the Buccaneers organization initiated the “Krewe of Honor” to recognize top players, and featured a mural of the first class of three members (Lee Roy Selmon, Ricky Bell, John McKay). The display was located on the east side of the stadium. Quarterback Doug Williams was inducted September 6, 1992, and owner Hugh Culverhouse on September 5, 1993. No additional members were added before Tampa Stadium was closed and demolished; when the stadium was demolished in 1998, so was the Krewe.
Of the five members of the Krewe of Honor, Ricky Bell and Hugh Culverhouse have not made it to the replacement Ring of Honor.
NFC WEST
ARIZONA Pro Football Focus ranks the NFL rosters 1 to 32. Here is who they have at the bottom with a tidy little summary:
32. ARIZONA CARDINALS Biggest strength in 2023: Pass Protection Arizona’s 71.6 pass-blocking grade in 2022 was good for 13th in the league. D.J. Humphries, Will Hernandez, Kelvin Beachum and Josh Jones all put up 75.0-plus pass-blocking grades. The Cardinals suddenly have a glut of starting-caliber tackles at their disposal. Jones and rookie Paris Johnson Jr. have some versatility, so one of them will likely slide inside. The Cardinals’ offensive line isn’t as bad as some narratives make it out to be.
Biggest weakness in 2023: Everything Else The Cardinals graded out as the third-worst offense and sixth-worst defense in the NFL last year. Josh Jones was the highest-graded player on the entire team (75.8), and he started only nine games. Kyler Murray made nine big-time throws and 18 turnover-worthy plays before tearing his ACL in Week 14. Several high draft picks on defense continue to disappoint. New head coach Jonathan Gannon has a lot of work to do.
X-Factor for 2023: QB Kyler Murray Murray’s Week 1 status is far from certain. It’s hard to think the Cardinals stand a chance if Colt McCoy or fifth-round rookie Clayton Tune starts a significant number of games for them. When will Murray be back on the field? Will he be able to use his trademark scrambling ability? Can he return to his pre-2022 form throwing the football? Arizona may have the most uncertain quarterback situation in the league right now.
Rookie to watch: OL Paris Johnson Jr. The Cardinals did a masterful job trading down, then back up, to acquire Johnson with the sixth pick in the draft. Johnson has been versatile and very solid wherever he has played. He started at right guard and left tackle for Ohio State, the best zone run-blocking team in college football over the past two years. Johnson may slot in at left guard this year, but regardless, Arizona got a potential game-changer up front.
Over/Under 4.5 win total: Under The end result in Arizona will center around Kyler Murray. The Cardinals went 3-7 in games that Murray started and finished last season. His peripherals weren’t great, and at times his scrambling seemed to be his best weapon. This Cardinals team with a 2020-2021 version of Murray could probably win six or seven games, but we don’t know when he will come back and how he will look, especially when scrambling. The Cardinals allowed the second-most points in the NFL last year. They likely lose every game Murray doesn’t start — and most of them that he does.
AFC NORTH
CINCINNATI Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com with thoughts on what is known and not known about the contract negotiations of QB JOE BURROW:
The most telling comment from Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow regarding his ongoing contract talks came late in his recent press conference with reporters.
“I’m pretty clear on what I want in the contract and what I think is best for myself and the team,” Burrow said. “And so we’re on the road to making that happen.”
I’m pretty clear on what I want in the contract.
That would be an unusual way to articulate simple monetary demands. What do I want in the contract? Money. Lots and lots of money.
I’ve got a bias on this one. I have believed for years that the best way to strike the balance between player-friendly and team-friendly on a long-term deal for a franchise quarterback or player of similar impact is to use a percentage of the salary cap as the compensation the player receives, especially in the outer reaches of the arrangement.
For the first two or three years, everyone knows where the market is and where it’s likely heading. If the Bengals want Burrow to sign a contract that keeps him in orange and black for the rest of the decade and beyond, Burrow would (or should) “want in the contract” terms that protect him against the ongoing growth of the salary cap, and the ongoing escalation of the market.
Three years ago, when Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes signed his 12-year deal, he drove the maximum APY from $35 million to $45 million. Today, that number has moved to $52 million. And Mahomes now has to wait and to hope that the Chiefs will see fit to tweak a contract that has more and more lesser players making more and more money than Mahomes.
Burrow would (or should) “want in the contract” protection against that. The logic is simple. If you want me to commit to this team for the next decade or longer, I need to know my pay will always be comparable to my peers.
One way to do that would be to tie his compensation in future years to the exclusive level of the franchise tag. A better way to do that would be to tie his compensation to the cap.
Burrow knows that the Bengals need money and cap space for other players. What’s more fair than having the Bengals know the specific cents on the dollar that will be devoted to Burrow, and in turn the specific cents on the dollar they will have for anyone/everyone else?
So if Burrow has an annual floor of 16 percent of the cap (the final number probably would have nearly as many decimal points as pi) in the out years of the deal, the Bengals would have between 83 and 84 percent remaining for the rest of the team. Or maybe Burrow’s number would start at 17 percent, point something something something. Or 18. That would be determined in the final stages of the negotiations.
Over the years, multiple players have tried to persuade teams to use the cap-percentage, which the CBA allows. Darrelle Revis and Kirk Cousins are two of which we know. There might have been others who made an initial effort before realizing it was a non-starter.
There’s a chance that the Management Council frowns upon cap percentage, since the Management Council typically frowns upon any new approaches that would tip the scales toward the players, by giving others a fresh device they could pursue in their own deals.
But we saw what happened with Deshaun Watson. They all banded together and shouted down his five-year, fully-guaranteed contract as an aberration, the product of a dysfunctional team caught in a fit of desperation. If Burrow gets a cap percentage in the out years of his deal, they can do the same thing to the Bengals, decrying them as stupid or reckless or foolish or out of touch or whatever.
Bengals owner Mike Brown doesn’t seem to care about such things. He’s the rare contrarian in Club Oligarch, the guy who routinely casts one of the only “no” votes and who would seem to have no qualms about doing a win-win deal that, in turn, might force other teams to lose their edge when it comes to franchise quarterback deals.
Currently, Burrow is the quarterback most likely to be the first one to get future protection based on cap percentage. He’s got the nonchalant, understated confidence to “make it pretty clear on what I want,” if that’s what he wants. And the Bengals are sufficiently determined to keep him for the rest of his career (they’ve already sold stadium naming rights to raise more money to pay him) that they’ll consider anything he asks for.
More on the expected numbers from Paul Dehner, Jr. of The Athletic:
The Joe Burrow contract is coming. Nobody can say for certain when, and as Burrow pointed out Tuesday, that’s by design. But a feeling of inevitability has long hovered over the two sides as they work through the process this offseason.
Trying to understand the nuances of guarantees, structure, cash flow and cap hits can be nauseating. And for the average fan, just hearing news Burrow will be their quarterback for the foreseeable future will be all that matters.
Without jumping into the extreme weeds, here are the numbers that should matter most whenever the Burrow contract is done, according to those who understand this world as well as anyone.
Call this “The Joe Burrow Contract For Dummies” handbook on what to care about when the time comes.
Years Keep it simple: How long is Burrow signing up to play for the Bengals? This isn’t just a matter of extending the Super Bowl window, but rather, a significant sign of concessions made either by the team or player.
“The more years are always going to be better for the Bengals and obviously the player reps want fewer years,” said Brad Spielberger, salary cap analyst for Pro Football Focus, previously of Over The Cap. “That’s going to be the most fascinating part of it.”
When looking at the most unique quarterback contract in recent memory in terms of team-friendly structure, look no further than Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
His deal served as an extreme outlier when he signed a 10-year extension for $450 million in 2020. The length of the contract allowed the Chiefs to use roster bonuses and an important lever of rolling guarantees to pick and choose what years they wanted to take the largest chunks out of paying down his total contract. If there was a year they could take on a larger cap hit due to the structure of the roster, they would do it.
Such was the case when they traded Tyreek Hill to Miami. In other years they can be more conservative if necessary to maximize the roster, like this year when they needed to replace both starting tackles, signing Jawaan Taylor and Donovan Smith.
Rolling guarantees are creative and team friendly, but largely made powerful by a longer contract.
“I look at the longer-term deals as being better,” said Eric Eager, VP of research and development for SumerSports, a company headed by former Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff focusing on quantitative precision in roster building. “The player is never going to like that.
“If you run a guy on a three-year deal, after two years he’s going to come back to the table and negotiate a deal that’s the market rate again. So you never get the smoothing properties of the cap going up while your quarterback contract stays fixed, essentially.”
A look at the recent deals done by quarterbacks signing their second contract shows the range of length as well as three-year cash flow numbers that indicate a truer value up front in the contract.
Recent QB second contracts
2023 Jalen Hurts Eagles 5 $106M 2023 Lamar Jackson Ravens 5 $156M 2023 Daniel Jones Giants 4 $113M 2022 Kyler Murray Cardinals 5 $108M 2021 Josh Allen Bills 6 $95M 2021 Dak Prescott Cowboys 4 $126M 2020 Patrick Mahomes Chiefs 10 $66M
Spielberger originally projected a Burrow contract at four years and $214 million. He might alter the years now, but acknowledges anything outside the standard set in recent quarterback contracts would indicate a specific request made by the quarterback to help the team.
“When I put that out, people said he would take the Mahomes model,” Spielberger said. “Unless Burrow comes over there and tells his reps what to do, there is a zero percent chance his reps are going to take anything more than five (years).”
Cash versus cap Andrew Brandt held the job of negotiating contracts and managing the cap for over a decade in Green Bay, as well as years on the agent side.
He serves as an analyst on sports business and there’s one figure he gets sick of hearing about when quarterback contract numbers are released.
Stop talking about cap hits, he said.
“That’s the least important thing,” Brandt said. “That gets way too much play.”
A common refrain in today’s roster analysis is that the cap isn’t real and can be easily manipulated. That’s true to an extent, but it falls on the club to take care of those details.
“When I negotiated for the Packers years ago, I told the agents, I told the media, I told fans, let me worry about that,” he said. “Let me worry about our cap. That’s not your problem. This idea of keeping the cap low or cap friendly, that’s all secondary to what is the deal, what is the cash, what is the contract.”
Cap is accounting. Cash is real. And in the case of Burrow, cash will be colossal. There’s only so much cash any team will want to take on in a single year of business and the Bengals are no different, even as a team that almost never tinkers with contract restructures.
Hence, the above acknowledgment of a three-year cash payout. Those numbers serve as a solid indicator of how much actual value was put up in the initial years of the contract versus comparable players.
Burrow should end up in the upper tier of the above group, if he doesn’t that means he decided to sacrifice money, something done by Tom Brady and Mahomes, for better or worse.
Nobody can say for sure what to expect in that range, but the Bengals have shifted from their normal range and spent among the lowest in the league in total cash the last two seasons for a reason. They also have a history of front-loading large chunks of cash — specifically a record for an offensive lineman of $33 million to Orlando Brown Jr. this year. That suggests this number could end up near record levels, as well.
Inevitably, any concessions to affect personnel around him would likely end up more about flexibility when the money comes and less about total cash payout.
The coin is coming, it’s merely a matter of delivery method.
How the structure could affect Higgins, Chase The question of the year in Cincinnati: Should the Bengals keep all three: Burrow, Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase?
All sides agree they would like to and, technically, of course, they can keep all three. But tough business decisions eventually must be made with eyes on the big picture.
If looking historically at the largest positional spending on the receiver and quarterback rooms combined relative to the cap illustrates a team’s willingness to top 30 percent of the cap at the most in any one season.
Cap percentage to QB/WR rooms
2022 Commanders 29.5% 2021 Packers 30.0% 2020 Colts 33.6% 2019 Vikings 27.8% 2018 49ers 31.9% 2017 Falcons 33.2% 2016 Falcons 30.5% 2015 Falcons 30.7% 2014 Dolphins 28.3%
The Falcons feature prominently on this list and their investment in Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Roddy White and in 2016 Mohamed Sanu landed a berth in Super Bowl LI. Still, they only had two seasons with double-digit victories as missed draft picks and injuries made it impossible to overcome the QB-WR outlay.
“It shows the fragility of a roster when you invest in a few positions,” said Eager, who records his SumerSports Podcast with then-Falcons GM Dimitroff (2008-’20). “Even if those positions are, in my opinion, two of the most valuable you can invest in, it just makes roster building really hard.”
For the Bengals to keep Higgins, Chase and Burrow together with a salary cap expected to balloon to about $240 million in 2024 and likely increase around $10-$15 million per year after that, Cincinnati would have to push the limits of QB/WR pay for at least a few seasons.
For example, 30 percent of $240 million is $72 million. Once you reach the 2025 and 2026 years when the heart of all three contracts would hit the books, the strain would grow substantially even with more revenue associated with a rising cap.
“I think it’s really, really hard,” Spielberger said of keeping all three. “In my mind, you are talking $100 million per year to three players. Yes, the cap is going to rise and all those things, sure, but if you are trying to maintain a good defense, which has certainly been very valuable to this team the last couple of years, it just gets really, really tough when you have that much money allocated to so few players.”
Brandt feels these excuses don’t hold water. Paying a quarterback top of the market shouldn’t keep a team from building around him.
“It’s a copout for teams to say, ‘Hey, we can’t pay our best players because we are paying a quarterback a lot of money,’” Brandt said. “It’s not true. It’s something that you have a $230 million cap and have half your team at least on rookie contracts. This is not hard.”
This also doesn’t have to be about Higgins. Even if the team opted to eventually move on from Higgins, a flexible structure to extend other players or add in free agency equally bolsters a competitive roster.
The most effective strategy to offset this contract would be the one the Bengals are currently employing by attacking premium positions in the draft a year or two earlier than they are needed, never forcing them to need to hit free agency for a big-ticket fill-in. The last seven selections in the first three rounds have come at premium defensive spots. Perfect examples are this year’s first-round pick Myles Murphy playing behind Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard, while last year’s first-round pick Dax Hill is now taking over for Jessie Bates at safety.
“That’s one thing I do love about what the Bengals are doing,” Eager said.
Burrow and the Bengals finding a structure that navigates the accounting of potential major deals with his top two receivers serves as another counter-measure. Hence, looking at total years, three-year cash and potential rolling guarantees to avoid all three large contracts hitting the books simultaneously will be near the top of the analysis.
The logistics of a complicated contract might feel exhausting, but no matter what the details, Burrow remaining with the Bengals for the long haul would represent a chance to win it all every year.
PITTSBURGH A candid admission from former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger to his successor QB KENNY PICKETT:
Ben Roethlisberger admits that he was ambivalent about Kenny Pickett following in his footsteps as the Steelers’ franchise quarterback.
Roethlisberger had Pickett as the guest on his podcast and told Pickett that he was nervous about Pickett playing so well that people would be glad the Steelers moved on.
“I’ll be completely honest, I’ll be super transparent here and I’m gonna get blasted,” Roethlisberger said. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but who cares at this point. I wouldn’t say that I wanted Kenny to necessarily fail, but when someone comes to replace you, I still feel like I had it, I hope he doesn’t come ball out. Because then it’s like, Ben who?”
Roethlisberger said that especially in Pickett’s first few starts, it was hard to want him to win.
“Early on I didn’t want you to succeed because you followed me up, I didn’t want it to happen. I think that’s probably the selfishness of me, and I feel bad for it,” Roethlisberger said.
But Roethlisberger told Pickett that after watching him, he came to appreciate him.
“As you started playing, I found myself rooting more and more for you,” Roethlisberger told Pickett. “I wanted you to succeed, I wanted you to win games, I wanted you to go in the playoffs. I feel bad that I felt that early on but I’m glad I transitioned to loving and rooting for you.”
Pickett told Roethlisberger that he appreciates his support, and his candor. Roethlisberger is surely not the only great player who feels that way after walking away.
AFC SOUTH
INDIANAPOLIS The Colts have “resolved” the tampering issue involving retired QB Andrew Luck. Stephen Holder of ESPN.com:
The tampering inquiry into the Washington Commanders’ attempts to seek information on the availability of former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck has been resolved to the Colts’ satisfaction, according to an NFL source.
The Colts earlier this month raised questions about the situation after ESPN reported that the Commanders had looked into Luck as a possible option as part of their quarterback due diligence in the spring of 2022. The Colts still own the rights to Luck, who retired in 2019, because he walked away with three seasons remaining on his contract.
But after further clarification, it has been determined that the Commanders never spoke to Luck or anyone in his immediate circle and, therefore, did not violate the NFL’s anti-tampering policy, the source told ESPN.
Colts owner Jim Irsay was initially miffed by the possibility of Washington reaching out to Luck, even phoning NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about the matter, according to a league source. Irsay also posted on Twitter about the issue, writing, “If any NFL team attempted to contact Andrew Luck (or any associate of him) … to play for their Franchise — it would be a clear violation of the League’s Tampering Policy.”
Tampering can be met with serious punishment when the NFL can establish that a violation occurred. In one example from last year, the Miami Dolphins were heavily sanctioned after an investigation concluded the team committed violations by illegally engaging with quarterback Tom Brady and Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton (who was still under contract with the New Orleans Saints at the time). Miami was stripped of first- and third-round draft picks, and owner Stephen Ross was fined and suspended.
Luck, who retired a few weeks shy of his 30th birthday, has never expressed any desire to return to the NFL and has repeatedly told associates he is finished playing for good.
THIS AND THAT
PAT McAFEE Richard Dietsch of The Athletic with a Q&A with other media mavens on the move of former NFL punter Pat McAfee to ESPN:
In the world of Big Media, the month of May is upfront season, when content companies invite the advertising community and other assorted suits for a presentation on why said company has the best content in the business (and thus, please give us your money). Media companies want to make news at these events, which is why you’ll see new shows and new talent announced. Last week, at their presentation at the North Javits Center in Manhattan, Disney announced that Pat McAfee has entered a new multi-year agreement with ESPN, and his weekday sports talk program, “The Pat McAfee Show,” will move to ESPN this fall. In addition to hosting the daily show, McAfee will continue his college football analyst role on “College GameDay,” and host alternate presentations of ESPN college football telecasts.
It’s a major and expensive talent acquisition — FanDuel was paying McAfee and Co. $120 million over four years, so this gives you the floor on what ESPN is paying — and it comes at a time when ESPN has been undergoing significant layoffs and cost-cutting. Naturally, it’s a big topic of interest in sports media circles, so I asked The Ringer’s editor-at-large and media writer Bryan Curtis and Washington Post sports and media writer Ben Strauss to join me in a discussion that I hope will provide insight on the move. If you want to listen to our entire conversation via audio, you can click here.
How did you view McAfee bringing his base of operation to ESPN?
Curtis: The classic (ESPN chairman) Jimmy Pitaro free agent acquisition. It really speaks to Pitaro’s approach to roster-building at ESPN, which is, go find somebody who’s really famous, give them a contract at the top of the market or that resets the top of the market, then put them on ESPN, not just for an hour or even two hours, but basically throughout the broadcast day so that eventually you get to this vision of ESPN where you have a very tiny number of people who are doing huge chunks of ESPN programming.
As McAfee said in his announcement, it’s going to go Greeny (Mike Greenberg) to Stephen A. (Smith) to McAfee. I don’t know if we know exactly how many hours McAfee is going to be on (the main ESPN channel), but we’re talking already six, seven hours of programming by three people. Then they’re going to come back in prime time as we’ve seen with Greenberg and Stephen A. and do more stuff. To me, that is the vision, and, of course, all that is happening as layoffs are happening at ESPN. ESPN is cutting people who are at the middle or bottom of the roster pay-wise for these stars.
Strauss: I think Brian’s right — it’s very Jimmy Pitaro — but I think there’s something else that Pitaro looks at. He talks about fans all the time and metrics. In this world of who is at the top, you can see exactly where some of these big audiences are today on digital and social in ways that you didn’t used to before. That’s probably true in all places in media. The New York Times is trying to figure out how to keep their star reporters because they could go to Puck or Politico for more money to be columnists. In the Substack-ified world, the people at the top have realized they are more valuable and they can take their audience to more places. Pitaro is happy to pay for that. You have the top of the market, which has become more valuable, and at the same time, the middle of the market is becoming less valuable in most decision-makers’ eyes. McAfee is a guy who is really fan-centric and has a connection to a sizable group of fans that Pitaro wants.
What I have found in the limited times I have written about McAfee on The Athletic — he pops as a subject. It reminds me of the days when anything written about Bill Simmons would draw significant page views. You see this on social media with McAfee as well. What have you noticed about his popularity and appeal in different avenues?
Curtis: The moment that stuck out to me was two WrestleManias ago when I was sitting at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and Pat McAfee came down the aisle to wrestle a match. Now, this is not media in the conventional sense of the word, but that stadium was electric. This is 90,000 people that went completely bananas. That is not something that any of the people who normally reside in our three columns would exactly get. So what you’re talking about is not just this big following through the YouTube show and the podcast, you’re talking about touching all these different worlds. It’s this huge sort of mass of people that will follow him anywhere or will read an article by somebody like us about him.
Strauss: Maybe I should write about it more (laughs) … McAfee’s show sort of dovetails with the NFL in the way they want to cover the NFL. His Aaron Rodgers interviews during the season were some of the most news-making enterprises of an entire NFL season. It was must-listen-to. I don’t know if it was riveting, but it was news. I think like he announced his darkness retreat on Pat McAfee’s show and he announced that he was going to the Jets on Pat McAfee’s show. Obviously, ESPN likes when it can make the news and cover the news and contain the news cycle within all of ESPN’s platforms. He’s made a lot of news on that show.
Curtis: You know, it’s funny because he is not a reporter with a capital R or journalist with a capital J, but he’s very, very savvy about the media. I think that’s probably an underrated aspect of him. I’ll go on Twitter on a morning when the No. 1 story in sports is some LIV golf thing, which we can agree is probably not right in Pat’s wheelhouse topic-wise, and there is a Pat McAfee segment on LIV golf being pushed out. So I think there’s great programming intelligence behind that show where it’s like, yeah, we’re going to talk football, we’re going to do Pat stuff, we’re going to have all this fun, but we’re also going to hit these content marks that we need to hit and make sure that we are talking about all the things that are at the top of the trending topics list.
Give a shoutout to the producers working alongside him for that, such as producer Ty Schmit, because they have a real sense of digital media. We did see on social media, particularly on Twitter, some blowback about McAfee signing with ESPN. From my perspective, this wasn’t even a decision. If ESPN comes to you and says we’re going to pay you either equivalent or more than what FanDuel did, we will provide you with incredible distribution and incredible production support, and if it doesn’t work out, oh, well, you walk away at 40 years old with generational wealth for not just you but you’ve set up all your buddies on the show as millionaires, what exactly is the decision? There is no decision.
The only downside I see is, yeah, he’s got to deal with some people who believe he sold out to ESPN. So this leads me to this: Will ESPN change McAfee? I don’t think you pay that much money unless you’re paying for what he is. Secondly, he’s not an overtly political person. In terms of downside risk for the McAfee group, I don’t think there’s any. How do you guys see this?
Curtis: I totally agree with you. He (McAfee) just doesn’t have interest in that kind of stuff. He’s not going to make ESPN mad because he’s talking about that kind of stuff. I think the other thing about him that’s notable is his adaptability to his surroundings. If you watch him on WWE calling matches, he doesn’t go in and be like, “My job here is to be Pat McAfee and to put myself over.” No, it’s to learn the storylines, to execute what was then Vince McMahon’s vision and put over the wrestlers. If you watch him on “GameDay” this year, he’s sitting right in the middle of the desk and going, “I need to genuflect before Coach (Lee) Corso right now, I need to let Herby (Kirk Herbstreit) take care of this right now. It was all about figuring out what my place in this universe is.” He’s very smart about that. I think he’ll go into ESPN with the whole idea of, “How do I fit in (at) Disney, how do I fit into this network, but also how do I preserve enough of myself that my fans aren’t going to think I’m different?”
I wanted to ask you about this mega-deal coming as ESPN is laying off people.
Strauss: Do you not do this signing because you’re doing these layoffs? I think that’s probably unfair to the company. It’s up to us to look at it and say this is, you know, a little unseemly. This is tough for a lot of people. But I think internally is the most important thing. How do people inside ESPN feel being in this world where you are going to pick five or six people and give them all the money in the world and for everyone else, if you can get a better offer, take it? I sort of wonder what that does to the morale of the company and what it feels like to work there when there’s sort of a clear decision that there are these people that really matter and we’re just not sure about everybody else. It’s less an optics thing and more just how does it feel to work at ESPN? Do you feel good going to work at that place right now? I think morale is pretty low and people have a hard time with this most recent round of layoffs. And there’s going to be another one.
I think that is a smart way to look at it. Forget how it looks as an external story — how does it feel if you are, say, an operations person who works every day at Bristol’s campus.
Curtis: Yeah, I totally agree with Ben. Not only giving all these people the money, but giving them this enormous amount of power and leeway to do whatever the hell they want. We could probably argue that the five or six most powerful on-camera people in ESPN history all work at the network right now.
McAfee has been able to have anybody he’s wanted as a guest, including major competitors of ESPN. Ian Rapoport, a competitor of Adam Schefter, is on McAfee’s show a lot and has hosted the show. Shams Charania, who works for The Athletic and other entities, is a big competitor of Adrian Wojnarowski. Fox Sports and Amazon Sports staffers have been on McAfee, and the list goes. I don’t think they will say, “Pat, you cannot have X on,” but I do wonder as time goes on if ESPN management starts to say, “Hey, why don’t you bring Woj in for his breaking news?” How do you think that’s going to play?
Curtis: Well, the good news is insiders all like each other and there’s no competition between them (laughs). It’s kind of a fascinating question, and it might be the way the show changes the most. I wouldn’t be surprised if ESPN insiders are putting up their hands to be on McAfee. They realize what it can do for them. I’m sure Rapaport has been like, “Man, this has been great for me,” especially as a personality outside of like a tweet or a piece of breaking NFL news.
If you had to guess today, how forceful is ESPN management using a soft hand to say, “Hey, we’d really like you to use our insiders as opposed to the high-profile insiders that compete against our high-profile insiders?”
Curtis: I think the 1 to 1 in the major sports (who don’t work for ESPN) would be a really tough sell to put on that show regularly. Absolutely. … Because the insiders are the other most powerful people at ESPN. We left them off the list.
JIM BROWN Tim Layden of SI.com on the life of Jim Brown, a great athlete with a complicated off-field legacy:
On the occasion of a man’s death, society rushes to succinctly define that man. Jim Brown, the legendary Browns running back, has died, according to multiple reports. Brown’s wife, Monique Brown, confirmed the news of the icon’s death on Instagram Friday afternoon, announcing he “passed peacefully” in their Los Angeles home Thursday night.
He was 87 years old.
It would be succinct to define Brown as the best football player in history. There is plenty of statistical and visual evidence to support this superlative: Brown rushed for 12,312 yards in nine seasons and remains the only player in NFL history to rush for an average of 100 yards per game; he endures on grainy videotape as a superhuman performer, a force of nature who alternately overpowered, outran and outthought an entire sport, generations ahead of his time. Respected minds line up to praise him, without challenge. “The greatest football player, ever,’’ Bill Belichick told Sports Illustrated in 2015. “No doubt.”
Brown would appreciate this acclaim, because his ego remained firmly in place, even in the last years of his life. But he would do something else, too. He would laugh, in a knowing chuckle that was at one time in Brown’s life the ominous introduction to a corrective storm that would follow; and much later, the weary admission that nobody can fully grasp the scope of his life, without getting caught up in football feats accomplished decades earlier. The laugh would sound like this: “Heh, heh, heh …” And then would come the deeper truths of a long life, by turns pioneering, generous, controversial, caring, violent and polarizing. A remarkable life broken into disparate parts, such as few other athletes have lived.
Jim Brown was not just the best football player ever to pull on pads and a helmet, he was also one of the most complex sports characters of the 20th century—on the field a transcendent ballcarrier, and off it a forceful social activist and a leader among the first generation of Black athletes to use their status as a weapon in the nascent civil rights movement. He walked away from football in 1966 at the age of 30—while still dominant—leaving not a period at the end of his football biography, but an ellipsis. By then, he had already begun building a formidable career outside of football. Brown helped start the Negro Industrial Economic Union (later renamed the Black Economic Union), which would provide financial assistance to more than 400 Black businesses. He launched a movie career in ’64 that would span five decades and 43 movies, and help expand the breadth of roles offered to Black actors. In the early ’90s, dispirited by gang violence in the inner cities, Brown founded the Amer-I-Can program, whose fundamental purpose was teaching life management skills to young Black men, both on the street and in prisons. Hundreds of gang members have visited his home in the Hollywood Hills, and in turn Brown has made hundreds of visits to prisons, his physical presence never dulled by age, often with a green, African kofi on his head. Brown’s conscience never lost its force; his voice never lost its impact.
Yet his relevance was irreparably damaged by a history of domestic violence that stretched across nearly his entire adult life and became even more pertinent to his legacy as society became more acutely intolerant of men—and especially athletes—who abuse women. The NFL star and activist faced numerous assault charges. In the first four cases the charges were either dropped or he was acquitted after female survivors decided not to testify against him. In 1999, Brown, who was 66 at the time, was arrested after Monique, then 25, called 911 from a neighbor’s house in Hollywood Hills to report that her husband had smashed the windows of her car after an argument with her.
The couple went public together and fought the charges in a series of media appearances. Jim was found guilty of vandalism, and, rather than accept any plea bargain, he served six months in prison. Late in life, Brown expressed a form of remorse at his behavior. “There is no excuse for violence,” Brown told Sports Illustrated in 2015. “There is never a justification for anyone to impose themselves on someone else. And it will always be incorrect when it comes to a man and a woman, regardless of what might have happened. You need to be man enough to take the blow. That is always the best way. Do not put your hands on a woman.” Whether these words would soften Brown’s legacy is left now to history.
Brown was married twice—to Sue Jones from 1958 until they were divorced in ’72—and to Monique (Gunthrop) from ’97 until his death. With four women he had eight children, including son Aris and daughter Morgan, whom he raised with Monique. Legendary Browns running back Jim Brown dies at 87.
James Nathaniel Brown was born February 17, 1936, in St. Simons Island, Georgia, to Swinton “Sweet Sue” Brown, an amateur boxer and semiprofessional football player with a penchant for cards and dice, and his wife, Theresa Brown. Sue abandoned Brown not long after he was born, and not long after that, Theresa moved to New York in search of work. Jim was raised until age 8 by his grandmother, who was named Nora, but who Brown called Mama. In ’44, Brown’s mother called for him, and Jim moved to Manhasset, Long Island, where Theresa was working as a maid. Where St. Simons had been mostly Black, rural and unspoiled; Long Island was largely white, crowded and intense.
Brown was an athletic prodigy who would eventually star in multiple sports—football, basketball, lacrosse and baseball—at Manhasset High School, where he also was watched over and mentored by a group of white professional men in the community who demanded that he study and involve himself in student government. Chief among them, lawyer Ken Molloy, a graduate of Syracuse, insisted that Brown enroll there in the fall of 1953, turning aside numerous other colleges recruiting Brown. Molloy told Brown that Syracuse was giving him a scholarship when, in fact, Molloy had raised the money himself to pay for Brown’s freshman year. In his ’89 memoir, Out of Bounds, written with Steve Delsohn, Brown called Molloy, who died in 1999, “A man who lives his life for others, especially kids. … I love Kenneth. I’m proud to be his friend.”
In the fall of 1953, Brown was the only Black player on the Syracuse freshman team, lived in a separate dormitory from other players and was buried at fifth-string tailback on the depth chart. The Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education case was six months away. “I came up at the crossroads of segregation,” Brown told SI’s Steve Rushin in ’94. That sentence would be the foundation of Brown’s life. He nearly left Syracuse that freshman year but endured, and not only earned a scholarship, but also became a first-team All-America running back as a senior and led Syracuse to the Cotton Bowl in ’57. He was an All-American in lacrosse under coach Roy Simmons, who Brown called, “the only coach at Syracuse who was good to me from the day I arrived.”
Brown was drafted sixth in 1957 and tore through a career remembered equally for its dominance and brevity. In Brown’s second season, he rushed for an NFL record 1,527 yards and an average of 5.9 yards per carry. He was powerful in the extreme, shedding tacklers like a combine down a wheat field. Giants All-Pro linebacker Sam Huff said, famously, “All you can do is grab hold, hang on and wait for help.” But he was also stunningly nimble for a large man. “He was a combination of a fullback and a halfback,” Belichick said. “He had great power and leverage, but he was also very elusive in the open field like a halfback. His quickness, straight-out speed and elusiveness were all exceptional. And he was all of 230 pounds. He was bigger than some of the guys blocking for him. I mean, they might have weighed more, pumped up, but Jim’s hands, his forearms, his girth, he was bigger.”
But Brown used his mind as efficiently as his body. “I studied the game,” he said. “I studied my opponents.” Ernie Green, who played with Brown in the Cleveland backfield, said, “I was never in the presence of anybody who prepared the way Jim Brown did.” Years later, when Belichick was the coach in Cleveland from 1991 to ’95, he marveled at the way Brown would explain to young running backs the ways in which to set up a tackler to miss. In the locker room, Brown was a commanding presence but often distant from many of his teammates. “Jim liked to be in control,” Frank Ryan, the Browns’ quarterback from ’62 to ’68, told SI in 2015. “But he was a tremendous football player. He was impressive in every possible way, just a superb athlete. We never really warmed up to each other, but I never lost my admiration for him.”
After the 1962 season, Brown’s sixth, he was among a group of players who supported owner Art Modell’s firing of legendary coach Paul Brown, a pioneering genius who Brown—and others—felt had been left behind by the game’s advances. The next season, under coach Blanton Collier, Brown rushed for an NFL record 1,863 yards (breaking his own record by 356 yards, with the season expanded from 12 to 14 games). The Browns won the NFL title in ’64. In ’65, Brown led the NFL with 1,544 rushing yards, 677 more than rookie Gale Sayers of the Bears, and at 29, was named league MVP for the third time. He never played another game.
In 1964, Brown had begun an acting career, appearing in a western called Rio Conchos. In the 1965 offseason, he was working in a World War II movie called The Dirty Dozen. Production delays caused filming to drag past the start of Brown’s training. Modell threatened to fine Brown for every day of practice missed. On July 14, sitting in front of tank replicas on the movie set in London, Brown announced his retirement. The next day, he told SI’s Tex Maule: “I could have played longer. I wanted to play this year, but it was impossible. We’re running behind schedule shooting here, for one thing. I want more mental stimulation than I would have playing football. I want to have a hand in the struggle that is taking place in our country, and I have the opportunity to do that now. I might not a year from now.”
And later this: “I quit with regret but not sorrow.”
Half a century later, Brown reflected on the decision. In truth, it was only partly influenced by the movie delays. Brown was ready to leave, and Modell’s ultimatum pushed him over the edge. “You want the real story?” Brown asked an SI writer in 2015. “I had no bargaining power. But the only thing the Browns had over me was that if I wanted to keep playing football, I had to play for the Browns. But they couldn’t tell me I had to play football. Art was going to fine me for every day I stayed on the movie set? I said, ‘Art, what are you talking about? You can’t fine me if I don’t show up. S—, I’m gone now. You opened the door.’”
When asked about the ellipsis, the what if Jim Brown had played a few more years, Brown said, “My ego is such that I did what I did on the football field. If you like it, cool. If you don’t like it, that’s alright with me, because I can’t do it no more.”
Paul Wiggin, Brown’s teammate, said, in 2015, “Jim retired two years before I did. He could have played 10 years past me.” Brown retired as the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, a record that lasted until 1984, when Walter Payton went past him in 18 more games and 451 more carries. He remains the only player in NFL history to average more than 100 yards per game (104.3).
A new life started almost immediately. Brown moved to a home in the Hollywood Hills, where he would live the rest of his life, a modest house with a breathtaking view of the city below. Brown acted in 16 movies in nine years. His interracial love scenes with popular actor and sex symbol Raquel Welch in the 1969 movie 100 Rifles broke Hollywood. Brown was never considered a talented actor, but his roles stretched boundaries previously placed on Black actors.
In the volatile 1960s, Brown embraced the role of a civil rights warrior that would define much of his adult life. It was a role that he relished, even before he left football. In ’64 he wrote Off My Chest with sportswriter Myron Cope. The book was part memoir, part manifesto. On page 163, Brown wrote, “I crave only the rights I’m entitled to as a human being. The acceptance of the Negro in sports is really an insignificant development that warms the heart of the Negro less than it does that of the white man. … The problem is a little bigger than a ball game.” When Muhammad Ali refused induction into the U.S. Army in ’65, Brown was among the athletes who organized a civil rights summit in Cleveland. At a historic press conference, Brown sat next to Ali, flanked by Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Brown became a strident voice on race in America, a powerful presence that often made white audiences uncomfortable, which is exactly how Brown would have it.
Brown threw himself into the work. More than 400 businesses were aided by the Black Economic Union, which also helped fund college educations for Black high school students. When gang violence infected America’s inner cities, Brown set out to help its victims. Amer-I-Can employed—as Rushin wrote in 1994—”street-credentialed facilitators,” who would help teach basic life skills such as reading and managing personal finances. And Brown’s own bona fides were rarely questioned, but always proved. From Rushin’s ’94 story: “A visitor to one symposium on gangs in Brown’s home kept disrupting the host’s efforts to establish a dialogue. After Brown repeatedly asked the young man to excuse himself, the young man challenged Brown to step outside with him. Well, Brown and the young gang-banger wound up rolling out the back door in a comic book cloud of dust. Shortly thereafter, they reappeared and shook hands, and the meeting resumed.”
There’s little doubt that Brown saved lives. But for many years, he never dropped his personal wall of indignation or controlled his temper. It would flare during interviews, such as a 1994 encounter with a GQ reporter, in which, as reported by Mike Freeman in his 2006 book, Jim Brown: A Hero’s Life, during which Brown shouted at the writer, who had begun asking sensitive questions, “No interview! I don’t need no magazine story, big guy. Y’all came to me. I’m not like these sorry-ass mother—–rs, sitting around remembering their fame, these old Black athletes. … I’m living my life. I’m doing my work. Sheeee-it.’’
That temper did its worst damage in Brown’s treatment of women. The first publicized incident came in 1965, when Brown was found not guilty of assault against Brenda Ayres, then 18, after an incident in Brown’s hotel room. Three years later Brown was charged with assault with intent to commit murder when model Eva Bohn-Chin was found beneath the balcony of a second-floor apartment. Brown told police that Bohn-Chin jumped off the balcony, and charges were later dropped when Bohn-Chin refused to name Brown as the assailant. Thirty-four years later, filmmaker Spike Lee interviewed Bohn-Chin for his documentary, Jim Brown: All-American. When asked whether she had jumped off the balcony, Bohn-Chin said, emotionally, “Why would I jump?”
It was 17 years to the next documented incident, when Brown was described as having raped a 33-year-old guest in his home. The judge threw the case out, citing inconsistent testimony; a year later, in 1986, Brown was arrested and charged with assaulting his girlfriend, Debra Clark. Charges were dropped when Clark refused to prosecute. In ’99, Brown smashed Monique’s car windshield with a golf club, prompting a frantic 911 call by Monique and a massive police response that included 15 squad cars. Brown served six months on the vandalism charge. In 2015, Monique told SI, “We had an argument, and Jim damaged his own property. There has never been any domestic violence in our home. He has talked to our son. It is not something that Jim would ever tolerate.”
There were no more incidents at the time of Brown’s death. He would assure listeners he had changed over the years and understood his mistakes. In July 2015, he watched a video of his younger self on the football field and, when the show was finished, stood and nodded. “Thank you for showing that to me,” Brown said. “It’s funny. I keep seeing things I could have done better. Things I could have done differently. That’s the way it is with football.” He paused, and added, “That’s the way it is with life, too.”
Brown retained much of his stature deep into his life. Just before the opening tap of the third game of the 2015 NBA Finals, Lebron James of the Cavaliers spotted Brown sitting courtside and did a deep bow in respect. Brown nodded almost imperceptibly. You could almost hear the laugh. Heh … heh … heh.
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