The Daily Briefing Monday, October 10, 2022

Peter King, normally a player safety advocate, assesses Jerome Boger’s roughing call and the banishment of QB TEDDY BRIDGEWATER over a slight hitch to his gate after a tackle the way most of us do.  And Dean Blandino agrees:

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

That we had two events in Sunday’s NFL games—a player being removed because an injury spotter thought he saw him wobbly/shaky after a hit, and a hugely ticky-tack roughing-the-passer call—that really weren’t connected but seem connected by the jittery approach to concussions and player safety that has exploded in the last two weeks.

Could the spotter and the ref who made the phantom roughing call both have been erring on the side of extreme caution? That’s sure how it looked to me.

“I thought of it too,” former NFL VP of officiating Dean Blandino said Sunday night. “Are we being overly sensitive because of the Tua Tagovailoa situation?”

The line of the night came from a longtime NFL executive. “What’s that thing you guys in the media do every week after the games?” he said. “Overreaction Monday? As a league, I think today was Overreaction Sunday.”

I still don’t know the real story of Miami quarterback Teddy Bridgewater’s removal from the Dolphins’ game at the Jets after one offensive snap. In the irony of ironies, Bridgewater, Tagovailoa’s backup, was tackled hard on Miami’s first play and left the game for the locker room. He never returned. We were told the injury spotter in the press box saw in Bridgewater some ataxia; the QB was somehow unstable, per the spotter. In accord with the 20-hour-old NFL rule about motor instability—the rule that came into effect at 5 p.m. ET Saturday—Bridgewater was ruled out for the game. Maybe Bridgewater did stumble, but we never saw it. The Dolphins never saw it. CBS replays never showed it. ESPN reported he passed all concussion tests, but it didn’t matter. Bridgewater, after one snap, was finished.

And then, with three minutes left in a 21-15 game in Tampa, on a simple sack by Atlanta’s Grady Jarrett of Tom Brady, referee Jerome Boger called roughing on Jarrett. The video of Atlanta coach Arthur Smith was perfect—eyes wide open in horror, mouth agape, hands to his head. All I could think was, The league is headed for flag football if that’s a penalty. “If you can’t tackle the quarterback,” Tony Dungy said on NBC Sunday night, “it’s going to be impossible to play defense.”

Another former official told me Sunday night: “Officials aren’t immune from what’s going on in public, and of course they’re following the Tua story. But I can’t imagine making a call, or not making one, because of a situation like [the Tagovailoa story] hanging over the game.”

The roughing call was stunning because Boger’s a good official, and because officials are told to have situational awareness. Don’t decide the game on a ticky-tack call. The Tagovailoa mistake—allowing him back in a game after he struggled to stand twice and had to be helped off the field—shouldn’t be over-corrected by either of the calls that happened Sunday. If Bridgewater really was woozy, then let’s see some evidence from the spotter or from a CBS replay. The NFL has to be transparent here. And we need to hear from the league on the Boger call, because it was huge in the Falcons losing a game that could have given them first place in the NFC South.

– – –

Peter King:

I think there are many crazy things about the NFL this morning, but this is the craziest: The two Super Bowl teams eight months ago are a combined 4-6; the Giants and Jets are 7-3.

We would add, there are four teams in the NFC with one or fewer losses – and three are in the NFC East.

NFC NORTH

GREEN BAY

Having lost to one resurgent New York team on foreign soil, the Packers now face the prospect of defeat at the hands of the other at Lambeau.  QB AARON RODGERS heard negative talk in the Wembley Stadium locker room.  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com:

On Sunday, the Packers lost to one of New York’s teams, thanks in part to the Giants putting the cheese in a place where cheese isn’t designed to go. Next Sunday, the Packers face the other New York team.

And some players were talking in the locker room about the possibility of losing to the Jets. Cornerback Jaire Alexander, for example, said he’s not nervous after losing to the Giants, but that he will be nervous if they lose to the Jets.

He should have been more nervous about how his starting quarterback would respond.

“Frankly, I don’t like all this conversation about losing next week,” Aaron Rodgers told reporters after the 27-22 loss to the giants. “I’m a firm believer in the power of words and manifestation. We’ve got to check ourselves on that, because talking about that is not winning football. There was talk about it in the locker room, and I don’t like. [Jaire’s] my guy, but we don’t need to be talking like that.

“I understand there’s a reality in this game that there’s a win and a loss every single game, but there’s also a reality in life that what you’re putting your energy toward, that’s where your focus is going to go. So I’m not going to address the prospects of losing up here, other than we just lost this game.”

If that’s what Rodgers had to say publicly, it’s hard not to wonder what he said privately to those who dared to put negative energy over the operation.

The end result is that it’s the first time the Packers have been 3-2 under Matt LaFleur. Could they fan to 3-3? Rodgers pointed out that the margin for winning currently is small for the Packers. So, yes, they could end up being swept by both New York teams, and they could end up at .500 with 11 games to play.

NFC EAST

DALLAS

NEW YORK GIANTS

It sure seems as simple as going from horrible coaching to really good coaching.  Peter King on the new Giants team of Brain Daboll and Wink Martinadale now 4-1:

Coaches don’t win without players. Players don’t win without coaches. But of all the teams through the first month of the season, the New York Giants are the best example of a team that has gotten every drop out of its players through good teaching and coaching. Take Sunday in London. The Packers were six yards from tying the game with 66 seconds left. Aaron Rodgers dropped to pass, and here came from his right blitzing safety Xavier McKinney.

Last year, playing for Joe Judge and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham, McKinney was not asked to blitz. I mean, he told me he was never called on to blitz. McKinney came from Alabama and Nick Saban loved blitzing the safeties. McKinney missed it. So when defensive coordinator Wink Martindale took over this year, he immediately made a connection with McKinney when he told him he’d be calling lots of blitzes for him this year.

“My whole thought process on the play was to try to get to Rodgers, obviously,” he said from the Giants’ locker room in London. “I saw him look to my side, the single-receiver side, before I came, and I figured that’s where he was going. He was gonna get the ball out fast. I wanted to make a play so bad, so I timed my jump and got my hands on the ball.”

That was the decisive play in the 27-22 stunner by the 4-1 Giants. Martindale told McKinney after the game, “Hell of a play!”

“I told him, ‘Great play call,’” McKinney said. “We’ve got a real bond with our coaches. From the jump, they’ve given us the freedom to just go out there and play—don’t worry about mistakes. After losing here for a long time, we’re having so much fun.”

The Giants, because of injuries, are playing five new defenders in prominent roles—like former Cowboys linebacker Jaylon Smith—and all played at least 20 snaps Sunday. On offense, without injured wideouts Kenny Golladay, Wan’Dale Robinson and Kadarius Toney, offensive coordinator Mike Kafka has had to be imaginative. With Daniel Jones and Tyrod Taylor both injured last week, Kafka put Saquon Barkley in the Wildcat formation and he continued that in London against Green Bay. The Giants are improvising as well as any team in the league, and they may improvise all the way to the playoffs.

And this – his coach of the week:

Brian Daboll, head coach, N.Y. Giants. Let’s go back to those thrilling days of yesteryear. 2021. The Giants, 4-13, averaged 9.9 points a game in the last eight games, and coach Joe Judge found reasons for everything that was going wrong. One of the reasons why the Giants matched their 2021 win total Sunday, before the first leaf has changed in New Jersey, is because Daboll has the Bill Parcells attitude about obstacles put in a team’s way: Nobody gives a s—. The cap is screwed up, we’re playing five guys on defense who weren’t even on the team on Labor Day, we’ve got only one legit weapon (Saquon Barkley), but hey, find a way. That’s what Daboll and his underrated coaching staff continued to do in the 27-22 upset win over the Packers in London.

PHILADELPHIA

WASHINGTON

QB CARSON WENTZ is a Goat of the Week for Peter King for his failure at the goal line on Sunday:

Carson Wentz, quarterback, Washington. With the Commanders down 21-17, holding the ball first-and-goal at the Tennessee two-yard line, with 19 seconds and no timeouts left, Wentz had three or four shots to get the winning touchdown. He threw a rainbow that could have been intercepted on first down, tried to force a throw at the goal line on second down, and threw his third try right to linebacker David Long of the Titans on third down. The Commanders are 1-4 and already out of it in the top-heavy NFC East.

John Keim of ESPN.com on a nice moment in DC:

Washington Commanders rookie running back Brian Robinson sprinted out of the tunnel and raised his right arm as he headed toward cheering teammates. The crowd saved its loudest cheer for a player who had yet to play a snap. It was more than just a player introduction; it was a celebration of Robinson’s return from being shot twice exactly six weeks earlier.

“That was one of those remarkable feelings,” Robinson said after Washington’s 21-17 loss to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday. “I can’t even really explain it.”

Robinson was placed on the active roster Saturday and carried the ball a team-high nine times for 22 yards. He was expected to be Washington’s primary runner before he was shot, though while still sharing duties with Antonio Gibson and J.D. McKissic.

Had Washington owned a timeout late in the game, Robinson might have turned out to be a hero. The Commanders had a first-and-goal from the Tennessee 2-yard line with 19 seconds remaining, but without a timeout they couldn’t afford to run the ball.

NFC SOUTH

ATLANTA

More on Jerome Boger’s terrible call from Michael Rothstein of ESPN.com:

Referee Jerome Boger said Atlanta Falcons defensive lineman Grady Jarrett “unnecessarily” threw Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady to the ground as part of his explanation for the roughing the passer call on a key third down late in the Bucs’ win Sunday.

The Falcons were down by six with 3 minutes, 3 seconds to play when they appeared to stop the Buccaneers at midfield on Jarrett’s third-down sack of Brady, but Boger threw a flag, allowing the drive to continue and Tampa Bay to run out the clock in its 21-15 win.

Jarrett had wrapped Brady up and then rolled to the ground, bringing the quarterback along with him.

“What I had was the defender grabbed the quarterback while he was still in the pocket andunnecessarily throwing him to the ground,” Boger said in a postgame pool report. “That is what I was making my decision based on.”

Boger said, “No, not necessarily,” when asked whether he was instructed to watch for takedowns of quarterbacks like Jarrett’s on Brady following the injury to Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa earlier this season.

Brady shrugged when he was asked about the call, saying, “I don’t throw flags,” while Jarrett declined to speak with reporters after the game, a rarity for one of the Falcons’ longest-tenured players.

Falcons coach Arthur Smith said he didn’t talk with the officials following the call but he was caught by television cameras on the sideline with an animated reaction. Asked whether he thought it was roughing the passer, Smith sidestepped the question.

“I’m not going to get into that,” Smith said. “I haven’t seen the film, and I got to worry about how to coach that.”

Tampa Bay right tackle Tristan Wirfs joked about Brady’s age — he’s 45 — but said, “I think with Tom being who he is, he’s gonna get those calls more than not.”

Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles, however, said he didn’t think the call was made just because the quarterback in question was Brady.

“I saw that one being called. I saw it against Tua since he got it. I saw it in the London game this morning,” Bowles said. “So I think they’re starting to crack down on some of the things, slinging back, I don’t know. Right now, the way that they’re calling it, I think a lot of people would have gotten that call.”

Brady never left Jarrett’s grasp – so we question whether he was “thrown” to the ground.

And, as Brady had swung over Jarrett’s body, he still (in theory) could have sprung from Jarrett’s gap untackled.  Placing Brady on the ground was essential to the tackle unless there was a whistle saying he was in the grasp.

CAROLINA

Boom – on Monday morning owner David Tepper admits his first NFL coaching hire was an abject failure.  Michael David Smth of ProFootballTalk.com:

The Matt Rhule era in Carolina is over.

The Panthers parted ways with Rhule this morning, after an ugly loss to the 49ers dropped them to 1-4 this season and 11-27 in Rhule’s two and a half years as the Panthers’ head coach.

Rhule arrived in Carolina with a good reputation as a college head coach from his stints at Temple and Baylor, but he never managed to turn the Panthers around. If anything, they may be a worse team now than they were when he arrived.

The Panthers also announced that Steve Wilks, whose current title is defensive pass game coordinator and secondary coach, will take over as interim head coach. This will be Wilks’ second opportunity to be a head coach, having previously coached the Cardinals for one season.

Rhule’s name will immediately surface as a candidate for several college jobs, but his days as an NFL head coach are done.

While Matt Rhule knows his fate, QB BAKER MAYFIELD is physically booted, but may still retain his starting role.

– Carolina Panthers coach Matt Rhule didn’t want to discuss if he’d consider benching quarterback Baker Mayfield before next week’s game against the Los Angeles Rams, but a left ankle injury could take the decision out of his hands.

Mayfield injured the ankle late in the first half when a player fell on it. He limped into the locker room with 11 seconds left and played most of the second half before former XFL star PJ Walker came on to finish the 37-15 loss to the San Francisco 49ers that left Carolina with a 1-4 record.

Mayfield was wearing a walking boot when he met with reporters.

“A little painful right now,” Mayfield said of the injury. “I’m not real sure exactly what it is. We’ll examine that tomorrow and find out. So right now I’m managing the pain and learning to step in the boot.”

Mayfield entered the game with a 15.3 Total QBR that ranked last in the NFL and was the second worst by any quarterback in the first four games of a season since ESPN began tracking the stat in 2006.

He had a 25.5 Total QBR on Sunday, going 20-of-26 for 215 yards passing with no touchdowns and an interception returned for a touchdown late in the first half that Rhule called a “punch in the gut.”

NFC WEST

SEATTLE

Peter King has some thoughts on the Denver version of QB RUSSELL WILSON below in DENVER.  He also has some thoughts on the greatness of QB GENO SMITH:

When I met Smith in late August at the Seahawks’ facility, he was as grateful as a person could be for his first chance to be a regular starter since 2014. Smith told me that day that whatever happened – and he was confident he could have success – he thought he was in the perfect spot with an offense like the one he ran at West Virginia a decade ago. “As a person who entrenched his life into this game, I mean really put my life into this game, it’s an incredible story,” Smith told me. “Hero gets knocked down, nobody thinks he’ll get back up, and he gets up and gets another shot.”

Boy, has he run with it. The metrics of Wilson versus Smith so far:

Smith is shining in every metric, including the new Next Gen quarterback measuring stick called Passing Score. Next Gen Stats invented a metric called Passing Score, which grades every quarterback with a numerical grade between 50 and 99 based on seven factors: completion probability, expected yards after catch, expected points, win probability, interception probability, predicted expected points added and expected value of a pass attempt. A quarterback’s Passing Score isolates the factors that he can control. Through the Sunday night game, the NFL has played 29 percent of its regular-season schedule, and here’s the top five:

1. Geno Smith, 95

2. Patrick Mahomes, 94

3. Josh Allen, 90

4. Tua Tagovailoa, 88

T5. Jalen Hurts, 86

T5. Justin Herbert, 86

Wilson is 16th, with a score of 80.

Other metrics favor Smith early. The most glaring is completion percentage. Smith is first in the league at 75.2, while Wilson, in Denver, is 28th at 59.4.

Let’s compare the 2021 Seattle numbers with Wilson versus the 2022 Seattle numbers with Smith, per Next Gen:

Time to throw: Wilson 2.80 seconds last year, Smith 2.86 seconds this year. Virtually the same.

Sack rate: Wilson 7.6 percent, Smith 5.4 percent. Significant in sack-avoidance, because Smith is being pressured more this year (31.9 percent of his passing snaps) than Wilson’s 25.6 percent last year.

Tight-window throws (less than one yard of separation from the covering defensive player): Wilson 15.5 percent, Smith 10.8 percent. Also significant, because it shows Smith has been efficient in not forcing balls the way Wilson did at times last year.

Wilson’s deep throws don’t look the same. Wilson’s efficiency on deep passing has cratered. This is the fourth straight season his completion percentage on balls thrown 20 yards past the line of scrimmage are down, per Next Gen. It’s also one of the things the Seahawks had to measure in their long-term evaluation of Wilson:

2018: 31-63, 49.2 percent, first in NFL

2019: 35-82, 42.7 percent, fourth in NFL

2020: 26-68, 38.2 percent, 16th in NFL

2021: 26-71, 36.6 percent, 18th in NFL

2022 (Denver): 8-27, 29.6 percent, 21st in NFL

Overall, Smith has shown he’s no one-game wonder. The most telling part of his early success is that he’s stayed very cool under some significant pressure. Being pressured on 32 percent of his drops (a lot) and leading the league in completion rate with a big-league 8.3 yards per attempt shows that the faith of Carroll and GM John Schneider in Smith was well-placed.

AFC WEST

DENVER

Peter King tries to give QB RUSSELL WILSON the benefit of the doubt for his awful play:

One of the major takeaways for me one month into the new era of the Denver Broncos: Wilson, by his awful play through five games, appears week after week to be eroding the trust the rest of his team has in him and causing teammates to think: This is the great Russell Wilson?

Thursday was the capper to a month when Wilson plummeted to his career rock-bottom. He’s apace to throw for 14 touchdowns this year; career average in his 10 Seattle seasons: 29. NFL Network reported Saturday Wilson had an injection to relieve pain near his throwing shoulder Friday in Los Angeles, and that he is expected to play week six at the Chargers. Has the shoulder been a factor in his play? That’d be conjecture, but Wilson has been throwing the ball with adequate velocity.

Whatever it is, there’s some reason why Wilson is struggling mightily for the first time in his career. The biggest play the Broncos made Thursday was a fluky one influenced by back judge Greg Steed. For some reason, Denver receivers Sutton and Montrell Washington were in the same place down the right seam for a deep Wilson pass, covered in a crowd by three Indy defensive backs. The Colt in the best position to make the play, safety Rodney Thomas, got taken out by Steed, who inexplicably was dead-center in the middle of this six-person traffic jam downfield. As Thomas went to break up the ball, he collided with Steed and was knocked off the play. Sutton came down with the 51-yard catch, which was a piece of luck and oh so indicative of the Denver season. The biggest play of the night came because the back judge should have flagged himself for pass interference.

The issues with Wilson and the Broncos one month into the season:

What happened to the mobile Wilson, the let-Russ-cook Wilson? Wilson is in different shape than in his younger Seattle years, and he may not be the same running threat he was early in his career. In his first six seasons, he averaged six rushing attempts per game. This year he’s run 14 times in five games (plus three kneel-downs), which basically means he’s running only when forced from the pocket. Significantly, he took his legs out of mothballs on the winning drive in the 11-10 win against San Francisco, running on two straight series, including a key third-and-six rush of 12 yards during the decisive TD drive. Nathaniel Hackett needs to put more designed runs, or option runs, in his gameplans, at least until Wilson shows competency playing from the pocket.

Wilson and Hackett might be oil-and-water. “That offense was not tailored for Russell Wilson,” said one NFC coach who has watched three of Denver’s games. “Hackett’s a guy who wants his quarterback to go all the way through his progressions.” Wilson, this coach says, won’t give each of his four reads a legitimate look before making a decision. Can middle ground be found? The other day, former Saints coach Sean Payton had an interesting comment to Colin Cowherd when asked about how to get the most out of Wilson. He said he’d research Wilson’s Seattle tape. “What I’d ask for,” Payton said, “is some of his greatest hits in Seattle, and to make sure we’ve got those song lyrics available and if not, let’s put ‘em in.” One example Payton cited is a Seahawks play he said he adopted for the Saints’ playbook—Wilson rolling right, stopping, and throwing a bomb back across the field to a receiver leaking away from where it looked like the play was headed.

Wilson’s been strangely inaccurate. Wilson’s completion percentage in his last four Seattle years: 66, 66, 69, 65. His percentage this year: 59. It’s weird how far off he is on some of his throws—two or three feet over receivers’ heads. Maybe it’s what Hackett told me two weeks ago, that Wilson was in one place for 10 years, and now he’s learning a new offense with new receivers in a totally different environment. Maybe. Maybe it’s got something to do with shoulder pain. But the efficiency regression has been stark.

Don’t exonerate Hackett. Good coaches can see what’s working and what isn’t and they can adjust. Let’s see if Hackett can figure ways to make his offense work after huge season-ending injuries in successive weeks to two cornerstone offensive players: running back Javonte Williams and left tackle Garett Bolles. Hackett might be regretting hiring such an inexperienced coaching staff. If he was getting trusted and consistent input on plays and clock management, he wouldn’t have had to make the emergency week-three hire of retired Ravens special-teams coach Jerry Rosburg to help him with game management. The one oddity, I thought, in the construction of his coaching staff was not keeping ego-less offensive line coach Mike Munchak, one of the best line coaches in football. Munchak has family in Denver and wanted to stay with the Broncos after they fired coach Vic Fangio last year. But Hackett instead hired Butch Barry, who’d never been a lead offensive line coach in the NFL. Could be because Hackett likes to run a wide-zone run game, while Munchak has coached more of a traditional gap running game. Either way, Munchak’s a highly respected coach and leader who could have had value far beyond the X’s and O’s.

The Broncos are a four-alarm fire right now, but I can’t see neophyte owners making a knee-jerk move and replacing Hackett during the season. Rob Walton didn’t get to be worth $70 billion—richest owner in NFL history—by making panic decisions. Right now, Hackett should do four things:

+Bench Melvin Gordon, who has fumble-itis, for backup Mike Boone.

+Put a few designed runs on the play sheet for Wilson, starting Monday night at the Chargers, and stress to Wilson that he’s got to start using his legs to keep the defense from laying back and simply playing the pass.

+Do what Payton said—have quality-control coaches research the best of Wilson from Seattle and see what could work now

+Be completely open-minded about what’s not working and be willing to make changes you’d never dreamed of making a month ago, and tell Wilson everything’s on the table.

(It wouldn’t be a bad idea to de-brief local resident Peyton Manning on his thoughts either.)

I refuse to believe Wilson’s at or near the end. He’s too dedicated to his craft and to the sport to have his career fall off a cliff the way it has in the past month. I don’t know if he’ll be great again, but I do believe he’ll be a good NFL quarterback again.

For now, I don’t know if the Broncos can be fixed. But I do know that when there’s a stream of hundreds of Broncos fans leaving an overtime game, and it’s shown from inside and outside the stadium on a national broadcast, that’s not good. The Broncos are fortunate to have two wins. They won’t get many more, even with a top defense, if Wilson and Hackett can’t turn it around.

AFC NORTH

BALTIMORE

No doubt about the accuracy of PK JUSTIN TUCKER’s game-winner.  Peter King:

How perfect is Justin Tucker? The most efficient field-goal kicker ever beat the Bengals Sunday night with his fourth field goal, a 43-yarder, as time expired. Next Gen Stats, with sensors in the balls and all over the field, noted that Tucker’s winning kick was so perfectly down the middle that it would have split the uprights if the uprights were 18 inches apart.

CLEVELAND

The Falcons had no use for a former Pro Bowl linebacker and the Browns took LB DEION JONES off their hands over the weekend.  Cody Benjamin of CBSSports.com:

At long last, Deion Jones is moving on from the Falcons. Once an ascending star of Atlanta’s defense, the former Pro Bowl linebacker has yet to play this season, and if it were up to the Falcons, he reportedly would’ve played his last snap for them long ago. Now, the Browns have granted their wish, finalizing a deal to acquire the veteran in exchange for a swap of 2024 late-round draft picks, according to CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones.

As part of the trade, the Falcons will carry a dead-cap hit of $12.14 million in 2023, per NFL Media, since Jones still has two seasons remaining on the four-year, $57M extension he signed in 2019. The Browns, meanwhile, will only owe the 27-year-old linebacker roughly $1.39M for the remainder of the year, plus up to $320K in incentives for games played. Atlanta still saves roughly $22M from 2022-24 by parting ways with Jones, who’s missed the first five games while on injured reserve.

Jones underwent shoulder surgery in May and missed most of training camp before seeing a limited role at the end of the preseason. But the Falcons repeatedly attempted to trade him amid his rehab, The Athletic reported, over concerns about his attitude and work ethic. Statistically, Jones has been a productive starter when healthy, topping 100 tackles in all five seasons in which he’s played at least 15 games. His best marks came from 2016-17, when he drew Defensive Rookie of the Year consideration and had a combined 14 tackles for loss, six interceptions and two touchdowns.

The Browns, who are no strangers to acquiring controversial players, seemingly entered the market for linebacker help after recently losing starter Anthony Walker Jr. for the season. Cleveland has surrendered the fifth most rushing yards of all NFL teams so far this season, and figures to plug Jones into the starting lineup as soon as he’s activated off IR.

AFC SOUTH

JACKSONVILLE

Our paper rock scissors starts in Jacksonville, as Peter King points out:

In regular-season games since Christmas Day 2019, Houston is 5-0 against Jacksonville and 4-28-1 against the rest of the NFL.

In the same time frame – Jacksonville is 4-2 against the Colts, 4-0 at home.

In the same time frame – the Colts are 4-0-1 against the Texans.

AFC EAST

MIAMI

Under the NFL’s new protocol, the eyes in the sky now have uncheckable game-changing power.  We saw it Sunday in New York as Marcel Louis-Jacques of ESPN.comreports:

The NFL pledged to err on the side of caution when it came to implementing its amended concussion protocol and stayed true to its word Sunday.

Miami Dolphins quarterback Teddy Bridgewater was placed into concussion protocol during their 40-17 loss to the New York Jets, despite passing a locker room examination, after a booth ATC spotter believed Bridgewater stumbled after he was hit on his first snap of the game. The perceived stumble triggered the recently added “ataxia” clause in the league’s concussion protocol — a “no-go” symptom that requires players be taken to the locker room and prohibited from returning to the game under any circumstances.

The NFL and NFL Players Association announced the amendment to the protocol late Saturday afternoon after a nearly two-week long investigation into whether protocol was properly followed with Tua Tagovailoa on Sept. 25. Bridgewater was making his first start of the season in place of Tagovailoa, who sustained a concussion in the Dolphins’ loss to the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 29 and is currently in concussion protocol.

Bridgewater’s removal from Sunday’s game forced rookie Skylar Thompson into the first game action of his career and left the Dolphins without their top two quarterbacks.

“It’s rough but the whole team has confidence in Skylar and I think our team in general doesn’t look at it like we’re a one-man savior at any spot,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said. “It’s a new set of circumstances of adversity so early but I didn’t think that the rest of the team’s response to losing Teddy had anything to do with losing the game.”

Bridgewater was in the Dolphins’ locker room after the game and will return to Miami with the team, as will wide receiver Tyreek Hill, who left MetLife Stadium wearing a walking boot on his left foot after it was stepped on in the fourth quarter. Left tackle Terron Armstead left the game with a toe injury and did not return; McDaniel said Armstead would remain in New York and was scheduled to see a specialist to get another opinion on the injury that’s lingered since Week 1.

Sunday marked the first instance of the NFL implementing the ataxia rule, which is defined as “abnormality of balance/stability, motor coordination or dysfunctional speech caused by a neurological issue.” In a joint statement, the NFL and NFLPA said that any player diagnosed with ataxia will be prohibited from returning to the game and receive follow-up care, as is required by the protocol.

Dolphins running back Raheem Mostert said Bridgewater’s absence was “a little discouraging” but that the team displayed a “next man up attitude” throughout the remainder of the game. Mostert, who ran for a season-high 113 yards and a touchdown, added that while he disagrees with the rules to an extent, they are to be taken seriously and followed.

“The rules are the rules,” he said after the game. “If a guy does pass the protocol concussion and if he’s able to play, I believe that he should be back. But, you know, we still can’t make any excuses, especially when you lose. I’m not saying that he’s the reason why we lost or anything like that, because at the end of the day, we gotta step up and do our part. But when it comes to those protocols, we’ve gotta take those things seriously.”

We love Louis-Jacques lead.  Err on the side of caution.

Hal Habib of the Palm Beach Post is more direct:

It took all of 10 seconds.

You knew that when the NFL amended its concussion protocol, giving more power to the concussion spotters overhead, that there would be a player yanked from a game who in reality was physically capable of continuing. You knew it would happen sooner or later, here or there.

You just didn’t know it would be just 10 seconds in and here, with the Dolphins and Teddy Bridgewater.

As we later learned, Bridgewater passed all tests after being taken to the locker room. But under NFL rules, because the spotter overhead thought he saw Bridgewater stumble after being hit on Miami’s first snap Sunday, Bridgewater wasn’t just down, he was out.

Boxers at least get a standing eight count. Bridgewater? Around 1:15 p.m., his workday was over, and no doctor, no passed test, could change that. The Dolphins would be in the hands of a rookie quarterback, Skylar Thompson, against the New York Jets, and it was only a question of how gutsy this team was going to be without its top two quarterbacks, top two offensive tackles, top cornerback and … need we continue?

The Jets eventually won 40-17 in a score that bears little resemblance to how much the Dolphins made them sweat, cutting the deficit to 19-17 entering the fourth quarter. That’s merely a footnote to the firestorm of the past couple of weeks, when Tua Tagovailoa suffered a concussion — or two, since the NFL now says there’s no way to know for sure.

Tagovailoa played, Bridgewater did not after similar stumbles

Here’s what we do know: Tagovailoa was allowed to play four days after stumbling badly.

Bridgewater was ruled out after a stumble noticed perhaps only by the guy up above whose job it is to watch for such things, a guy who has to know he’s being watched closer than ever as everyone is hyper sensitive to these things.

Before digging deeper into what happened Sunday and how the Dolphins responded to it, let’s take a deep breath and look at the big picture. The NFL knows that even the new protocol isn’t perfect. It accepts the fact — yes, fact — that by opening the door toward erring on the side of caution, it’s also opening a can of worms. Namely, that healthy players will get benched when they shouldn’t. And that those players could go by the names of Brady and Rodgers and Mahomes, in games that go by the name Super Bowl.

Better to have heartache for teams and fans, the NFL is basically saying, than headaches (and much worse) for players. Sorry, but if you can’t live with that logic, you’re not really a fan.

Being in reality-check mode doesn’t mean you can’t also ask if the NFL hasn’t gone too far, that a simple tweak of the tweaking would allow the overhead spotters, team doctors and unaffiliated neurological consultants to put their heads together after players are thoroughly examined during a game and decide when a stumble is nothing more than just that.

“If a guy does pass the protocol concussion and he’s able to play, I believe he should be back,” Dolphins running back Raheem Mostert said.

To be fair to the spotter, the side of Bridgewater’s head solidly hit the turf when he was hit by Sauce Gardner. Bridgewater was flagged for intentional grounding in the end zone, giving the Jets a safety. So the spotter clearly had reason to be watching the QB while the CBS cameras and most of the rest of us were watching the huddle of zebras to see if they were going to flag the Dolphins.

It would have been nice to hear from the spotter via a pool report, but the NFL did not respond to a request to get the spotter’s explanation for what he’d seen.

“Wild.” That’s how one Dolphins player reacted after it was explained to him that Bridgewater was KO’d because he passed every test except the spotter’s.

“My first hearing it,” center Connor Williams said. Guard Rob Hunt: “That’s news to me. I guess that’s that new protocol thing, huh?”

There had been talk that players would start watching their Ps and Qs when getting up off the turf now for fear of incurring the wrath of the spotter. Perhaps we saw that at the end of this game when ex-Hurricane Braxton Berrios was smacked by Dolphins safety Jevon Holland on a touchdown run. Berrios stayed on one knee for an extended time, seemingly encouraged to do so by teammate Jeff Smith, who had one hand on Berrios’ shoulder.

This is the NFL’s new concussion protocol

Is getting up turning into an art form?

“I think so,” Dolphins tight end Durham Smythe said. “Obviously, this is a new thing. One week into these new protocols. I think that’s something that I guess you have to take into account a little bit more now. But like I said, I think the intentions are right. We appreciate that to a degree but like I said, there’s going to be mistakes, if this was a mistake. That’s going to happen. That’s part of the game. It’s a physical game. You’re trying to keep people safe in a dangerous game, things like this are going to happen.”

NEW ENGLAND

Is QB BAILEY ZAPPE the next Tom Brady?  Peter King:

Surprising score of the day: New England 29, Detroit 0—especially after the Lions scored 45 last week in a loss to Seattle. I remember on my trip to Patriots camp seeing Bill Belichick spend a good half of a practice one-on-one with Zappe. Reminded me of the times early in Tom Brady’s career when Belichick spent big chunks of time coaching him. On Sunday, Zappe had an efficient showing (17-of-21, 188 yards, 100.0 rating) and threw a 24-yard TD to Jakobi Meyers. “When I heard about his college stats and all those touchdowns, I figured you don’t throw for that many touchdowns (62 last year at Western Kentucky) without being able to play the game,” Meyers said post-game. “You saw Bill with him so much in training camp, preparing for days like this.”