| Perhaps this is of interest: @_MLFootball🚨BREAKING: THERE ARE 16 BLACK STARTING QUARTERBACKS, THE MOST EVER IN #NFL HISTORY. Pat MahomesKyler MurrayMichael PenixLamar JacksonCaleb WilliamsDak PrescottJordan LoveCJ StroudBryce YoungGeno SmithSpencer RattlerRussell WilsonJustin FieldsJalen HurtsCam WardJayden Daniels For the first time ever more half the quarterbacks in the league are African American: an extremely historic moment for the league.– – -Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com on the “hold in” in the wake of EDGE MICAH PARSONS’ adept use of the tactic: In the immediate aftermath of the Micah Parsons trade, the Cowboys held a press conference aimed at declaring victory. The real winners — the Packers and Parsons — didn’t feel compelled to say a word about it on Thursday. Whether the Packers got the better of the deal remains to be seen. For now, it looks like the next in a line of rare but aggressive moves aimed at augmenting a high-end quarterback with a high-end defensive player. From Reggie White to Charles Woodson and now to Micah, the Packers don’t do it often. But when they do it, it tends to work. It worked very well for Parsons, who gamed the current system in his favor. Which means that the system, in time, will probably change. Here’s how the Micah Parsons project went. First, he didn’t hold out. He showed up. He declined to practice. He created a series of distractions and challenges for the Cowboys. Second, he didn’t cite his contract as the basis for his hold-in. If he had, at some point it would have had to end. Instead, he cited back tightness. It didn’t seem to be embellished, exaggerated, or fabricated. Third, he didn’t blink. The Cowboys believed he’d eventually decide to play football, even at a fifth-year option salary far below the market as it existed before Micah blew the lid off of it. As Week 1 approached, it became obvious that Micah’s commitment to getting what he deserved would overcome his desire to play football. Fourth, the Cowboys did blink. In lieu of sparking a showdown over whether Micah’s back was truly injured, they traded him at a time when they would have preferred to keep him for 2025 and to trade him after the season. Parsons, when he did speak to reporters more than a day after the trade, provided an important P.S. to the process by saying, “Physically, I’m great.” That raised eyebrows in the media. It also has raised eyebrows around the league. The recent misadventures of the NFL Players Association included a slam-dunk grievance arising from former NFLPA president, and former NFLPA chief strategy officer, suggesting that unhappy players should fake injuries. With Micah claiming he’s physically great two days after a report emerged that he’d be seeking a second opinion, it looks like Parsons incorporated Tretter’s advice and brilliantly navigated the current system to get what he wanted. Which leads to an obvious conclusion. The league will likely try to change the system in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement. In recent labor deals, the league has made it harder and harder to hold out. The 2020 CBA, which made it even harder to hold out, ushered in the age of the hold-in. The next CBA will find a way to usher out the hold-in. Or the league will at least try to do that. At the core, it’s about power. The NFL wants to keep it. The NFL doesn’t want the players to have it. Whether it’s through finagling fully-guaranteed contracts or through dictating which team they’ll play for or any other way to stand up to the system and win, the league wants to keep the teams in charge. The hold-in process gives players who are willing to cite an injury (real or imagined) and not play real power. It ultimately gave Parsons the power to get out of Dallas. Despite the spin from Jerry Jones that the trade makes the Cowboys better, they wanted to keep Parsons — at least for another season. Parsons stared them down. Parsons won. The league will collectively attempt to ensure that doesn’t happen again, to the Cowboys or to any other team. Mark it down as one of the things the NFL will attempt to jam into the next labor deal. |
| NFC NORTH |
| GREEN BAYSteve Zemis points this out: @stevetzemisPackers got Reggie WhiteBrett Favre won the SB at 27 Packers got Charles WoodsonAaron Rodgers won the SB at 27 Packers get Micah ParsonsJordan Love is 27 Spoilsports in the comments point out that the Packers did not win the Super Bowl until Woodson’s 5th season in Green Bay. They did not win the Super Bowl until White’s 4th season. |
| MINNESOTATE T.J. HOCKINSON makes the case for you to draft him in your Fantasy league: Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson was able to play 10 games last season after recovering from a torn ACL and MCL. But now he’s feeling healthier and more like himself entering 2025 and is expecting to make a clear on-field impact. “I’m one of the top route-running tight ends in the league,” Hockenson said recently, via Andrew Krammer of the Minnesota Star Tribune. “I pride myself on creating separation and you look at it and that’s what I do on Sundays. … There’s been times throughout my career I’ve had challenges and I’ve always been able to bounce back and be a better player than what I was.” “I have plenty of goals, and they’re to the standard I want them to be,” Hockenson added. “I obviously want to be the top tight end in this league. I want to be the best player in this league, but I’m also focused on being the best teammate I can be.” Hockenson has reached 900 yards with three different starting quarterbacks: Matthew Stafford and Jared Goff with the Lions, plus Kirk Cousins with Minnesota. He’s now trying to establish that kind of chemistry with J.J. McCarthy, noting that the young QB’s style of thinking about routes is a little bit like two of Hockenson’s former teammates. “J.J. is a lot like Staff and a little like Kirk,” Hockenson said. “Just depends on the routes and what we’re doing. ‘I want you here at this time, but on the same hand I want you to get open. I’m going to trust you.’” Hockenson finished 2024 with 41 receptions for 455 yards with no touchdowns. In 2023, he caught 95 passes for 960 yards with five TDs in 15 games before going down with his season-ending knee injury.. |
| NFC EAST |
| DALLASWith EDGE MICAH PARSONS off to Green Bay, the Cowboys do a big money extension for another player quietly and without fanfare. Jon Machota and Dianna Russini of The Athletic: The Dallas Cowboys and cornerback DaRon Bland agreed to a four-year, $92 million contract extension, the team confirmed Sunday. The deal includes $50 million in guaranteed money, according to The Athletic’s Dianna Russini. Shortly after the news broke, Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer addressed reporters. “So well deserved. I’m thrilled for him and his family,” Schottenheimer said. “He’s a huge, huge piece for us. He has incredible ball skills and instincts. … DaRon has always had the ability to process things quickly.” Bland, 26, was an All-Pro in 2023 when he led the NFL with nine interceptions, including a league-record five interceptions returned for touchdowns. After the Cowboys selected him in the fifth round in 2022, he picked off five passes as a rookie, followed by his season with nine. He missed the first 10 games of last season after injuring his foot in training camp and did not record an interception in seven games. The deal comes just days after Dallas traded star pass rusher Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers for defensive tackle Kenny Clark and the Packers’ 2026 and 2027 first-round draft picks. The trade was the result of the Cowboys and Parsons being unable to come to terms on a contract extension. What it means for the CowboysThis is a good move by the Cowboys. They had been in contract discussions with Bland’s representatives throughout training camp. Bland was hopeful that something would get done before the start of the season. Dallas has now locked up arguably its best cornerback. Trevon Diggs signed a five-year, $97 million contract with Dallas in July of 2023. Diggs is at his best on the outside. Bland has the ability to play at a high level on the outside or defending slot receivers on the inside. Since the Cowboys have been criticized often for waiting too long to pay their top players, they deserve some credit for getting this one done without any type of holdout. Cornerback is a question mark spot with Diggs coming off a season-ending knee injury and third-round pick Shavon Revel working back from his own surgically repaired knee injury. Dallas has to have a good year from Bland.– – -Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com compares and contrasts the Texans with QB DESHAUN WATSON and the Cowboys and EDGE MICAH PARSONS: The Dallas Cowboys are no longer America’s Team. There’s a chance they aren’t even Texas’s team. Three years ago, the Houston Texans had a very similar situation to the one the Cowboys just resolved. Quarterback Deshaun Watson had requested a trade. He had sat out an entire season, with pay. He had more than 20 civil lawsuits pending. Texans G.M. Nick Caserio worked the situation masterfully, creating a four-team competition between the Saints, Panthers, Falcons, and Browns that allowed Caserio to name his price to each of them before they were allowed to even talk to Watson. The Cowboys could have done the same thing with linebacker Micah Parsons. But, as they often do, they waited too long to make a decision. More broadly, the Cowboys all too often seem to lack clear strategic vision. But, hey, that’s what happens when the General Manager never should have been the General Manager in the first place. Yes, the owner has the ability to give himself any job he wants. And, when Jerry Jones bought the team in 1989, he gave himself Tex Schramm’s job. Jones had no objective qualifications for Tex Schramm’s job. And here’s the biggest irony about the state of the team, nearly four full decades into Jerry’s run as G.M. While the front office under Jones has done a very good job of drafting and developing talent, they’ve mismanaged the one thing Jerry brought to the table when he bought the team — knowing when and how to do good deals. They built their team that won three Super Bowls in four years before the salary cap era began. Even since the spending limit was put in place, they’ve bungled big deals. They’ve waited too long to get guys extended. They’ve extended some of the wrong guys. Most recently, they blew the ideal window to get the most for Parsons. It’s a simple proposition. If they were going to trade Parsons, they should have made it known in early March that he would be available. Before teams spent their cash and cap allocations for 2025. Before they signed, or re-signed, pass rushers in free agency. Before they drafted young pass rushers. On Thursday night, Jones admitted that he was thinking about trading Parsons months ago. “This trade was not just thought about today,” Jones told reporters. “This trade has been going on in our minds and our strategies and being talked about — it’s been going on all spring. It culminated today and it came quick, but that’s the way things go.” Did they have trade talks before the draft? “We had them,” Jones said. “But we didn’t have them with anybody else.” They should have. If they had, they would have gotten more. Jones could brush that off as pure speculation. It’s more accurate to call it fact. More teams would have had the cap space in March. More teams would have had interest in March. More teams would have come to the table in March. If Jones had handled it the right way, it would have unfolded as another Deshaun Watson-style competition. While it’s hard to imagine Parsons getting more than the compensation package he received from the Packers, the Cowboys would have gotten more than a 2026 and 2027 first-round pick and a soon-to-be 30-year-old defensive tackle who has made the Pro Bowl three times in nine seasons. Beyond the volume of picks, the Cowboys would have acquired selections that could have been used in 2025. As explained last week, they could have emerged with someone like Travis Hunter or Abdul Carter. And they could have gotten more than that. As it stands, they got a player whose prime will soon be ending (if it hasn’t already), a pair of future first-round picks that likely will land late in the round, and the cash and cap space saved by not paying a player who deserved a giant pile of both. No, the Cowboys will never admit that they made a mistake. At some level, they know. They screwed this one up, in multiple ways. Above all else, they waited too long to make Micah available. If they’d done it in March, they would have gotten more. Maybe, in hindsight, they should have hired Nick Caserio to be the G.M. before the Texans did. |
| NFC SOUTH |
| CAROLINAWR HUNTER RENFROW is a Panther after all. David Newton of ESPN.com: — The Carolina Panthers on Saturday announced plans to re-sign Hunter Renfrow less than a week after releasing the 2021 Pro Bowl wide receiver. It’s a one-year deal, a league source told ESPN. Renfrow will fill the roster spot of Jalen Coker, who was placed on injured reserve with a quad injury suffered in Thursday’s practice. Coker, who is expected to miss the first four to six games, had been tabbed to replace veteran Adam Thielen, who was traded to the Minnesota Vikings on Wednesday. Renfrow missed the 2024 season after being released by the Las Vegas Raiders following a 2023 season in which his production dropped significantly while he dealt with ulcerative colitis. There were times while dealing with the disease that Renfrow suffered through seven straight days of fever of 103 degrees. He wondered if he would play football again after disappointing 2022 and 2023 seasons. “I felt so bad those two years, and I felt like I let my teammates down so much,” Renfrow said when he began his comeback with Carolina in the spring. “Because I had expectations. I just signed a new contract [in 2022]. I had a new coaching staff that I was going to be perfect for. And I was just a dud. “I was like, ‘Man, I know I don’t feel well, but I do not want to play football again. Like, I do not want to let people down. I just want to go over here in my corner, do what I do, get into business.'” The Panthers kept in constant contact with Renfrow after releasing him, initially hoping to sign him to the practice squad while he got back to 100% after a hamstring injury during training camp slowed his comeback. Coach Dave Canales said Wednesday that he didn’t think Renfrow was quite back to the form he showed early in training camp when explaining the decision to cut him. But both Canales and general manager Dan Morgan repeatedly told Renfrow they wanted him to be a part of the organization. Coker’s injury sped up the process. “He’s got some freaky lateral quickness,” offensive coordinator Brad Idzik recently said of Coker. “And then when he opens up, he’s like big strides, a powerful first four steps, which simulates, ‘I’m going full-tilt vertical.’ |
| TAMPA BAYGreat news for some Bucs fans from Greg Auman of FoxSports.com: @gregaumanCool news for any Bucs fans who bought Emeka Egbuka No. 9 jerseys and now see he’s wearing 2: Fans who bought officially licensed 9 jerseys can trade them for new 2s at no additional cost. They’re encouraged to start at original point of purchase, but team store and Fanatics can also help the swap if that doesn’t work. |
| AFC WEST |
| KANSAS CITYCB TRENT McDUFFIE and the Chiefs have, so far, failed to reach agreement on an extension. Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk.com: The Chiefs and cornerback Trent McDuffie have not reached agreement on a contract extension and are not expected to before the start of the season, Nate Taylor of ESPN reports. The Chiefs have negotiated with McDuffie’s representation over the past six weeks, per Taylor, without coming to terms. McDuffie said Sunday that he expects to play this season on his current deal which is set to pay him a $2.61 million base salary. “Moving forward now, really, it’s just about the season and about [Friday’s] game,” McDuffie said, via Taylor. “I’m not too worried about the contract. That can just happen in the [next] offseason. Let’s just go out there and have a great year.” The Chiefs have exercised the fifth-year option on McDuffie’s contract with his 2026 salary of $13.6 million now fully guaranteed. General Manager Brett Veach said last week the sides are going to “continue that dialogue, and hopefully something gets worked out.” So, it’s not out of the question that McDuffie could get an extension this season. |
| AFC SOUTH |
| INDIANAPOLISIt looks like the cause of Jim Irsay’s death was about what you feared it might be. TMZ.com: Stunning new details surrounding Jim Irsay’s death in May … the legendary Indianapolis Colts owner reportedly passed away at the Beverly Hills Hotel while under the care of an addiction specialist. The Washington Post obtained the death certificate for 65-year-old Irsay … which listed his cause of death as cardiac arrest due to acute pneumonia, chronic atrial fibrillation and cardiac arrhythmia on May 21. The document is signed by Dr. Harry Haroutunian, who’d been tending to Irsay at the hotel in the days before his death, and he told police the cause of death was natural. According to WaPo, officials elected not to investigate or conduct an autopsy … as his death was not considered sudden, violent or unexpected. Beverly Hills PD investigated the incident for days, but responding officers saw no signs of an overdose or drug use. The report cites several anonymous sources who raised concern about the possibility Dr. Haroutunian’s prescribed dangerous amounts of opioids and ketamine to Irsay — who publicly battled addiction — for more than a year. For his part, Haroutunian told WaPo, “I dedicated 18 months of my life to try to care for him … as a brother.” He added … “We did everything we could to make him as comfortable as possible.” The report went on to state Irsay overdosed on 3 separate occasions since 2020 — including one TMZ Sports reported in 2023, which Irsay himself later refuted. The outlet claims the Colts hid Irsay’s apparent relapses from the public … instead referring to his lengthy recovery as a “severe respiratory illness.” Colts general counsel Dan Emerson told WaPo, the team “handled everything in an appropriate, professional, ethical and moral fashion … I really wish everybody would let my friend rest in peace.” Irsay had been open about his struggles with alcohol and prescription pills, and owned up to at least 15 rehab stints. He launched the “Kicking the Stigma” initiative in 2020 to help those with mental health and addiction issues … and reportedly donated upwards of $17 million to the cause. |
| TENNESSEEWR CALVIN RIDLEY, who was banned by the NFL for a year and who struggled with mental health issues, is now a deserved Titans captain. Turron Davenport of ESPN.com: As Tennessee Titans wide receiver Calvin Ridley heads into Year 2 with the franchise, he said he’s in a better headspace in his life after injuries and a mental health journey, which included a gambling suspension, derailed his career. In a detailed interview with ESPN, he discussed what losing football meant to him, as well as playing through a broken foot in 2020, what he has learned along the way and a detailed look at the gambling situation that led to him missing the 2022 season. Ridley is entering his second season with the Titans and is the team’s No. 1 receiver. He is one of five captains voted upon by his teammates. Ridley has come full circle since hitting what some would consider to be rock bottom. “The suspension gave me time to rest, get physically better, and mentally stronger,” Ridley told ESPN. “After that year, I was ready to come back.” At Ridley’s request, the Falcons gave him time away from football. He was able to rehab his foot and take care of his mental health. It also gave him time to connect with family. But on this one particular trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, things took a turn. Ridley spent time with his younger brothers, Riley and Clayton, and that’s when his gambling incident took place. He watched basketball on a Friday night with his brother and some friends who were placing bets on games via an app. Ridley joined them and made wagers, and it rolled over to college football games the next day. Then Sunday rolled around, and Ridley placed wagers on the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Falcons. “I downloaded the app sitting there not knowing that I was breaking a rule or anything,” Ridley said. “Those were the only two NFL games I bet.” He would go on to miss the rest of the season, and in March 2022, the suspension for gambling would come down. Ahead of the trade deadline in the 2022 season, Atlanta would trade the suspended Ridley to the Jacksonville Jaguars for conditional 2023 sixth-round and 2024 fourth-round picks. “Football has been my job since I was a kid,” Ridley said. “That’s all I ever did, man. I never worked a job.” Time away allowed Ridley to learn how to cope with his emotions, and when he finally got back to the playing field, he caught eight passes for 111 yards and a touchdown in his first game. He finished the season with 76 receptions for 1,016 yards and eight touchdowns. The Jaguars tried to bring him back, offering him a contract that averaged around $20 million annually. But Ridley decided to test the free agent market — signing a four-year, $92 million deal with the Titans. A grueling 3-14 season yielded some frustrating moments for Tennessee, but Ridley finished the season with 1,017 yards and four touchdowns on 64 receptions. “I learned a lot of tools during that process,” Ridley said of those years of tumult. “I still use those things today when it gets hard. I don’t let myself go too far down. I’ll flush out the bad thoughts, refresh my mind every time I go home.” Ridley returned to Atlanta earlier this month when the Titans had joint practices with the Falcons. Returning to the Falcons’ facility in Flowery Branch evoked a lot of emotions for Ridley, heightened by returning to the place where it started. “It was like, ‘Dang, how could I be working so hard for [Falcons] and they just flicked me without even trying to protect me or anything?'” Ridley said. Atlanta selected Ridley after a stellar career at Alabama with the 26th pick in the 2018 draft. After two solid seasons, he exploded for a career-high 1,374 yards in 2020. It was the ninth-highest single-season total in Falcons franchise history. And Ridley did it while playing with what would later be diagnosed as a broken left foot. The Falcons’ training staff initially diagnosed the injury as a bone bruise during the season, so Ridley resorted to painkillers to remain on the football field. It’s what he had done the previous two seasons when he was dealing with bone spurs on the same foot. Ridley ended up playing 15 games that season. Heading into OTAs in 2021, Ridley knew something wasn’t right because he couldn’t run, and it felt like something was stabbing his foot. “My foot was messed up,” Ridley said. “But, I’ve always been that guy — ‘Nah, I’m all right, I’m going to play. I’m going to keep playing on it.'” After the previous staff was fired after a 4-12 record, the new head trainer sent Ridley to a specialist in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where it was immediately determined that he had a broken foot. Ridley had surgery that June and rushed back, eager to take on his new role as the No. 1 receiver after the new regime had traded Jones to the Titans. Ridley has excelled at the sport since he was 8, but for the first time, he began to have second thoughts about being able to “kick DBs’ asses” because of the injured foot. “If your mental ain’t good, your confidence isn’t there anymore,” Ridley said. “That’s what I was trying to tell them.” To make things worse, Ridley’s home was burglarized during the Falcons’ season opener against the Philadelphia Eagles. The game was in Atlanta, so Ridley’s wife, Dominique, and their then-1-year-old daughter weren’t at the house. Security footage revealed several armed intruders ransacking the home. Dominique struggled to sleep at night and couldn’t stand it when Ridley wasn’t with her in the house. Ridley started to feel the “weight of the world on his chest.” After two away games and a home game, the foot clearly wasn’t getting any better. Ridley asked for time to heal both mentally and physically. His “mind was messed up” from wanting to be home to protect his family and not being the same caliber of player. The team allowed him to miss the Week 5 game, a 27-20 win over the New York Jets in London. That game was followed by the bye week, giving Ridley two weeks to stay off the foot. Ridley returned in Week 7 only to catch four passes for 26 yards. After five games, Ridley stepped away from football to focus on his mental health. “I never felt like that before,” Ridley said. “Mental health is real.” The version of Ridley that takes the field now for the Titans is in a different place — football is fun for him again. A big part of his excitement stems from rookie quarterback Cam Ward’s arrival after being the No. 1 pick in the draft. “I could feel something in me,” Ridley said. “It was like, this kid’s good and I got to be good. I can’t fall behind. I got to be a help. I got to be a big help cause it’s time to dominate.” The duo shined in OTAs, minicamp and then training camp. Fittingly, Ward’s first completion of the preseason was a 27-yard strike to Ridley on a dig route against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “That boy right there is different,” Ward said. “I ain’t never thrown to no receiver that moves and cuts like him. He’s one of the top-five receivers in the NFL. I’m blessed to play with him because he’s going to make me look good.” It wasn’t easy for Ridley, 30, to turn things around the way he did, but Titans coach Brian Callahan chimed in about where he’s at today. “There’s probably not a guy that practices as hard as [Ridley] on a snap-to-snap basis,” Callahan said Thursday on why Ridley was chosen to be one of the team captains. “He’s really grown in his leadership. I’m actually really proud of Rid and the things that he’s accomplished in that realm over the course of the offseason. He’s deserving of it, he has earned it, and I’m glad his teammates see it the same way.” |
| THIS AND THAT |
| BROADCAST NEWSNetworks with larger inventories are not necessarily allowing their talent to contribute to the streaming platforms’ “one off” broadcasts. Case in point, ESPN blocking Jason Kelce from moonlighting with YouTubeTV on Friday. Mike Florio: For Friday night’s inaugural YouTube NFL stream from Brazil featuring the Chiefs and Chargers, Jason Kelce was a no-brainer option to contribute to the broadcast. Unfortunately, ESPN had a two-word response: “No way.” Via Ryan Glasspiegel of FrontOfficeSports.com, ESPN blocked Kelce from participating in the game. Jason’s brother, Travis, plays for the Chiefs (if you haven’t heard). They share a wildly popular podcast, New Heights (if you haven’t heard). It had massive YouTube numbers during a recent episode featuring Travis’s future wife, Taylor Swift (if you haven’t heard). And Jason has served as a spokesperson for YouTube’s Sunday Ticket (if you haven’t seen). But ESPN, like other broadcasters, are now very stingy when it comes to sharing talent with other networks. It has complicated the efforts of YouTube and Netflix to staff their “one-off” NFL telecasts. Of course, Jason Kelce could have added a term in his contract allowing such moonlighting — if he’d known ESPN would be adopting a policy of preventing on-air employees from taking on other assignments. Given that ESPN pays Jason $8 million per year, there’s a good chance ESPN would have agreed to it at the time they were recruiting him. Then there’s the fact that the NFL will, pending regulatory approval, own 10 percent of ESPN. On one hand, the NFL has an interest in enhancing the YouTube presentation. On the other hand, the NFL has an interest in protecting ESPN’s interests. It would be interesting to know what the outcome of the YouTube Kelce request would have been if the ESPN-NFL deal had already been finalized. Which means it will be interesting to see how such issues will be handled after the deal is finalized — and the NFL has a more effective way to call ESPN with a two-word message, “Relax, guy!” |
| THE WEEK 18 FLEXMitch Goldich of SI.com, with the help of special guest Mike Tirico, ranks the 16 games on Week 18 in terms of their likelihood of being the NBC flex. I was standing in the checkout line at the supermarket, minding my own business, when the familiar voice in my headphones suddenly jolted me to attention. Mike Tirico, NBC’s play-by-play man for Sunday Night Football (and just about every other sport) was on my colleague Jimmy Traina’s podcast. We were entering Week 16 of the 2024 season, and Jimmy asked him to predict which Week 18 game would get flexed to Sunday night. “Is there somebody for SI.com, who every week writes a column on forecasting the Week 18 game?” Tirico asked. “I don’t know if it’s weekly,” Traina said. “But I have a colleague of mine, Mitch Goldich, before the season …” “That’s what it is!” Tirico said, starting to get more excited. “I saw that, maybe Week 1, and I was just laughing. That’s pretty funny. I hope we dust that off and do that [again].” I must say, after nine years of writing this preseason column and absorbing comments on social media like, “Who reads this?” it’s pretty validating to now be able to answer: Mike Tirico! Welcome, one and all, to my 10th Annual Preseason Week 18* Sunday Night Football Flex Power Rankings! (*Of course, it used to be Week 17 when I started.) As most people whose lives revolve around the NFL prepare for Game No. 1 in just a few days—including Tirico, who will be in the booth with Cris Collinsworth for Eagles-Cowboys on Thursday—I am ready to zoom ahead to Game 272, the Crown Jewel of the Regular Season™. I can’t say I had any grand plans to celebrate the column’s tin anniversary (I really thought it was going to be a more exciting metal when I consulted Wikipedia), but it felt obvious that December night that I needed to call in a special guest. After all, he found me. “I [get in] ridiculous search mode, just kind of reading whatever I can get my hands on,” Tirico told me when we spoke in August. “I remember just kind of stumbling on it.” Tirico has called Game 272 since 2022, and admits he takes a peak at the Week 18 slate after the schedule is released in May. “And I’ll let you in on this. As we go from city to city, we’ll go to practice, see the home team, go to dinner, do our meetings. Invariably, once we get to November, we begin our own in-house parlor game, Where do you think we’re gonna be, Week 18? And somebody will say, Oh, we’re not gonna be there; we’ll be there. And it kinda goes back and forth.” I can relate! It’s been a favorite game of mine ever since NBC started waiting until the last possible minute to flex the game with the most playoff stakes into prime time on the final night of the season. “And it’s one of those things that you realize, no matter how much energy you put into this, it is 100% wasted energy,” Tirico said. “Because there’s nothing you can do about it, you don’t control it, but it’s just fun to speculate.” Last year, his crew got to call maybe the most-hyped regular-season finale in the history of this column. The Vikings and Lions came into the week both sitting at 14–2, knowing the winner would claim the NFC’s No. 1 seed and the loser would have to go on the road for wild-card weekend as the No. 5 seed. “I think for the regular season, that’s as unique a game in terms of stakes as you can ever have,” Tirico said. It’s pretty much the dream matchup, and hard to imagine it being topped, except with a more exciting finish on the field (like we’ve seen, for example, in the hectic Chargers-Raiders game that ended the 2021 season). But it’s fun to dream about the upcoming season and the endless possibilities. “Never anticipate what’s gonna happen in the NFL season, because we never know. I would say there are like four or five realistic, these two teams look like playoff team matchups, that look really good out there.” It was around this point in the conversation that I let him in on the open secret … that I’m terrible at this. That in nine seasons of picking, I’ve only had the eventual flexed game in my top three once. That I’ve never picked the winner. That this was a bit of a phone-a-friend situation to improve my odds. “So in other words,” he asked, “you are an expert at this until we look at your results?” Boom, roasted. In my defense, Tirico rattled off his initial pool of candidates and quickly got to seven games, plus a sleeper, which took us to half the league. I think that only proves my point that this is hard. “And if you look at any of those games,” he added, “those are really, really fun games.” He and I also disagree on the No. 1 pick, which adds another fun wrinkle if people are choosing what to root for as the season winds down. So I’ll share my rankings below, make some references to his thoughts and then see if I get bested in my own prediction column. Let’s get to the rankings … 16. Saints at FalconsThe first few games are usually the easiest to place on the list, as I quickly eliminate some of the teams with the longest odds of making the playoffs. The Saints are sinking this game. Even if it matters to the Falcons, I have a hard time seeing this one getting flexed. 15. Titans at JaguarsI slotted this one in ahead of Saints-Falcons, because there’s just a perennially lingering AFC South vibe that anything can happen in that division. Still, I think Cam Ward’s Titans will need at least another year to be ready for prime time, and the division favorites are in the other AFC South game. 14. Dolphins at PatriotsThis game features two teams seemingly headed in different directions, and it would take a lot for both the Dolphins and Patriots to be in the hunt come Week 18. I won’t have either in the playoffs when our MMQB staff picks are revealed later this week, so I can’t have this game ranked very high. 13. Browns at BengalsI’ve seen sites giving the Browns the league’s worst odds of making the playoffs, so you may be surprised to see me list this game above three others. However, the Bengals are the first team we’ve gotten to that I’d consider a real box office draw. The league would like to have a game that matters to both teams in the Game 272 time slot. But if a player like Joe Burrow is in a win-and-in game against a team that’s already been eliminated, that would be the next best thing. And if Joe Flacco happens to be riding a miracle season to the cusp of playoff contention—or a certain third-string quarterback who gets a lot of attention is given a chance to start a meaningless game—yes, that would be appealing to NBC. 12. Panthers at BuccaneersThe Buccaneers have won the NFC South four consecutive seasons, and I expect them to make it five. But I think there’s a decent chance they’ll have it wrapped up by Week 18 and may only be playing for seeding. This game slides up my list a little because of the Panthers’ frisky end to the 2024 season, but there are still just too many other games where I think both teams could be in the playoff mix. 11. Cowboys at GiantsWe know the Cowboys are a major draw for TV ratings (even without Micah Parsons) and that NBC would love to feature them here for the same reasons they’ve been elevated as the Eagles’ opponent in the Week 1 opener. Dallas famously played in this time slot three consecutive seasons from 2011 to ’13, once against each NFC East rival, though the team hasn’t been back in over a decade. If Russell Wilson or Jaxson Dart have the Giants in a position to care about this game, I think it would be an easy choice, which is why these two markets will never be ranked 15th or 16th on this list. But I just don’t see it this year. 10. Chiefs at RaidersIt seems fitting to have the Chiefs one spot ahead of the Cowboys, given the conversation in recent years about whether Kansas City has overtaken Dallas as the new king of television ratings. NBC similarly would be thrilled to have a bonus Chiefs game on the schedule in January. However, the schedule makers didn’t pair up K.C. with either of the AFC West teams that earned wild-card spots last season and are expected to contend. If Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly have the Raiders in the mix, this would be a great rivalry game to finish out the season. But in a world where the league really does prioritize playoff stakes over ratings for this time slot, this game has a ceiling. 9. Jets at BillsThis is Tirico’s sleeper game, and he has an excellent point. The potential for great stakes are clear. The Bills are favorites to win the AFC East for the sixth consecutive season, though there’s always a risk that they’ll have it clinched and won’t need to play their starters. The Jets would be an appealing team if they’re fighting to end the league’s longest playoff drought in Aaron Glenn’s first season. But the big thing this game has going for it is that it’ll be the final regular-season game at Highmark Stadium, where the Bills have played since 1973. The team has already announced it’ll wear the throwback red helmets this week. Everyone expects the Bills to be in the playoffs, but if they’re surprisingly locked into a wild card, this would very likely be the final game there, period. If there’s no perfect game to flex, maybe a public funeral for The Ralph would be a fun way to end the season. You can practically already picture that sendoff coming on one more frigid (maybe snowy) night with the Bills Mafia under the red heat lamps, an emotional season finale even if there are no stakes. Tirico is totally right, but upon further reflection, I think that would be an ideal use of the league’s Week 18 Saturday time slots. In fact, I’ve basically convinced myself that this will be the Saturday nightcap—unless the Bills need to play at the same time as another AFC contender for fairness reasons, in which case it wouldn’t be as likely to get flexed to Sunday night anyway. 8. Colts at TexansWe’re now up to the top half of this list, and entering the pool of games Tirico and I agree are real contenders. “The AFC South is always in the mix,” he said. And it’s true. Out of every division in football, that’s the one that in many years feels like you could take the teams, shake them up like dice and roll them into any random order. Texans fans may not want to hear that, as their team has won the division in each of C.J. Stroud’s first two seasons and may be establishing itself as the class of the AFC South for a while. But old feelings die hard, and if the Colts can hang around, it wouldn’t be a shocker to see these teams trying to claw for their ninth or 10th win to get into the playoffs. 7. Cardinals at RamsThis is the one game I had in my top seven that Tirico didn’t have in his quick rundown of candidates (though, for what it’s worth, I didn’t press him on it). I just think the NFC West is this year’s hardest division to handicap. I could see the Rams, 49ers and Seahawks finishing in any order from one through three, and I know there are plenty of people out there who view the Cardinals as their NFC sleeper team. Everyone is familiar with the Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford narratives at this point (and who knows if we’ll have more reporting by January about whether Stafford will be back in 2026). The Cardinals would be a nice story if they’ve taken another step forward in Jonathan Gannon’s third season. Kyler Murray still has just one career playoff game, which was an ugly loss against these Rams in this very building. We’re solidly into the games I can really picture getting flexed. 6. Seahawks at 49ersI just made my thoughts on the NFC West clear. I’m putting this one slightly above Cardinals-Rams, because I think it’s more likely to be with the division title on the line. Though, once again, if the Rams win the division, this game could easily be for a wild-card berth. It would be a rematch of the game that ended the 2019 regular season, when Dre Greenlaw tackled Jacob Hollister at the goal line in the final seconds to give San Francisco the No. 1 seed. This game is also being played at Levi’s Stadium, home of Super Bowl LX, which is on NBC this season. That may not mean much to you, but it would be one of those in-game storylines that everyone talks about, how the eyes of the football world will be back on the same building five weeks later. (And networks do like to send their crews to the Super Bowl stadium in advance, in case that’s any sort of tiebreaker.) 5. Lions at BearsI think this one is a little less likely to matter for both teams than the previous three games on the list, but I’m giving it a bump because of how quickly the NFL would pick it if it matters at all. The Lions are veterans of the time slot (this would mark three times in four years). And, of course, one of the top storylines of the offseason was Ben Johnson finally leaving his job as Lions offensive coordinator to take the head coaching job in Chicago. Seeing him go up against Dan Campbell in a game with playoff stakes would be must-see TV. Especially after his bold opening press conference, slinging unprovoked arrows all over the NFC North. Even if the game doesn’t matter to Chicago, there could be a cool parallel here. To conclude the 2022 season, the league flexed a Lions-Packers game into this time slot. Detroit was eliminated earlier in the day, but Campbell’s crew played their butts off and knocked the Packers out of the playoffs, too. If the Bears are in the same situation against the mighty Lions, it would be fun to see Johnson’s team go all out as he tries to build up his new team like his old one. But let’s keep going. The final four games on my list all feature two teams that made the playoffs last season. 4. Packers at VikingsThe NFC North was the best division in football last season, and I have both of its matchups in the top five here. The Packers and Vikings both made the playoffs last year, and this game could be for the division crown, wild-card berths or both. It’s also another great rivalry, and the Packers’ late addition of Micah Parsons is probably going to make them a bigger story all year. I think we usually focus on QBs with starpower and Q rating, but J.J. McCarthy is one of the most interesting unknowns of the season. The Vikings went 14–3 with Sam Darnold. If Kevin O’Connell can coach a great first NFL season out of McCarthy, there’s no reason a team with Brian Flores’s defense and Justin Jefferson can’t contend. The Minnesota crowd would give us an awesome prime-time atmosphere, too. 3. Chargers at BroncosThis is another game where both teams were wild cards last season and are expected to contend again this year. And now the Broncos seem to be the league’s No. 1 hyped potential sleeper team, while the world’s hot take economy would definitely be interested in seeing whether Justin Herbert wins a big game. The Chiefs have won the AFC West nine seasons in a row. If this is finally the year they stumble, the stakes would be massive for one of these teams to break through. But even if this is just a game where one team will make the playoffs and the other will go home, we have seen in years past that that could be good enough to get flex treatment. I think it’s more likely to be the case here than in many of the mid-tier games on the list. 2. Ravens at SteelersI’ve teased that Tirico and I had different games rated No. 1, and here’s his top game sitting in my No. 2 spot. “If this is Aaron Rodgers’s last year, then why not one game to win the division, or perhaps make the playoffs and keep his career going?” he said. And he’s right. However you feel about him, Rodgers would be ratings gold. I think people will be fascinated in how he does in Pittsburgh, whether he’ll get back to the playoffs for the first time since he left Green Bay, if he’ll keep Mike Tomlin’s streak of .500 seasons alive, if he’ll be good enough to warrant coming back in 2026, etc., etc. I don’t know that the Steelers are really a Super Bowl contender, but they were good enough to make the playoffs behind a combo of Russell Wilson and Justin Fields last year, and they always seem to be in the mix. The Ravens might be the best team in the AFC, and even if the AFC North is settled by Week 18, this could easily be a game dripping with playoff seeding ramifications for them. This is also a classic rivalry that honestly makes me think of Sunday Night Football, and it would feel very much at home here. It would be a great way to end the season. But … 1. Commanders at EaglesOut of all 16 games, this is the one I think is most likely to be a straight-up de facto division championship game. The defending champion Eagles are favorites, but the NFC East famously hasn’t had a repeat champion since 2004. The Commanders exploded onto the scene in Jayden Daniels’s rookie season and this would be a rematch of last year’s NFC title game, a blowout that might be best remembered for Frankie Luvu jumping over the pile to stop the tush push. This would also be a rematch of the infamous Nate Sudfeld game, when these two teams were flexed into this time slot to close out the wacky 2020 season. (That one was 13th on my preseason list, but in my defense the Washington Football Team won the NFC East at 7–9. You see, this is hard!) If it’s picked again this year, you can bank on it being a more enticing game. We know how much every TV network loves the NFC East, and this would be an easy pick if the game is meaningful. Yes, even over Aaron Rodgers. So my prediction is that Tirico will finish the regular season in the same place where he starts it: the broadcast booth at Lincoln Financial Field. Though, again, you all know my track record on this. So I look forward to seeing who’s right. He did say this was 100% wasted energy, but I am happy to have wasted more of it and appreciative that this year he decided to join me. |
