The Daily Briefing Monday, September 26, 2022

AROUND THE NFL

@billbarnwell

At this point it feels weird to see NFL people actually studying on the tablets and not using them strictly for destruction

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The Pro Bowl as we knew it is over.  The AP:

The NFL is replacing the Pro Bowl with weeklong skills competitions and a flag football game, the league announced Monday.

The new event will replace the full-contact showcase started in 1951. It will be renamed “The Pro Bowl Games” and will feature AFC and NFC players showcasing their football and non-football skills in challenges over several days. The 2023 Games will be held in Las Vegas, and the flag football game at Allegiant Stadium is Feb. 5.

Peyton Manning and his Omaha Productions company will help shape programming and promote the event’s content throughout the week. Manning, a 14-time Pro Bowl pick during his Hall of Fame career, will provide his perspective and will also be a part of the coaching staff for flag game.

“The Pro Bowl is something that we’ve been looking at for a while, really continuing to evolve,” NFL executive Peter O’Reilly told The Associated Press. “Coming out of last year’s game, we really made the decision based on a lot of internal conversations, getting feedback from GMs and coaches, getting a lot of feedback from players. We think there’s a real opportunity to do something wholly different here and move away from the traditional tackle football game. We decided the goal is to celebrate 88 of the biggest stars in the NFL in a really positive, fun, yet competitive way.

“The feedback very directly from guys who had been in the Pro Bowl recently was to keep the construct of the week, make sure you’re having that multiday element. It was overwhelmingly positive both from players as well as from clubs.”

The Pro Bowl debuted in January 1951 in Los Angeles and stayed there for 21 seasons before the game moved to different cities from 1972 to 1980. Hawaii hosted from 1980 to 2009, and the game has had several homes in the years since, including Miami, Phoenix, Orlando and Las Vegas.

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The NFL also has its Super Bowl Halftime Show headliner.  This from Erin Donnelly ofYahooSports.com:

Rihanna been drafted to headline the Super Bowl LVII halftime show, the NFL has confirmed.

Following a report from TMZ that she’s been in discussions with the NFL and Roc Nation about performing at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Feb. 12, 2023, the pop star took to Instagram on Sunday to share a photo her tattooed hand holding up an NFL-branded football. The post also marks Rihanna’s first social media activity since giving birth to her first child in May.

Roc Nation, which oversees the halftime show, shared Rihanna’s post, adding the caption, “Let’s GO.” Jay-Z’s music entertainment agency — which features the “Umbrella” singer on its roster — also tagged Apple Music, which is replacing Pepsi as sponsor of the show.

Rihanna’s confirmation follows speculation that Taylor Swift was being considered for the halftime headliner gig. This past February saw the game’s first hip-hop headlined halftime show, featuring performances from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent and Anderson .Paak.

The Fenty Beauty mogul — who was photographed attending a Rolling Loud after-party with her partner, A$AP Rocky, on Saturday night — previously turned down the Super Bowl gig in solidarity with activist and former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

“I couldn’t dare do that,” she told Vogue in 2019. “For what? Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn’t be a sellout. I couldn’t be an enabler. There’s things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way.”

In a statement from the NFL announcing Rihanna’s performance, Jay-Z hailed the music star as a “generational talent, a woman of humble beginnings who has surpassed expectations at every turn.”

CHICAGO

QB JUSTIN FIELDS was not happy with is play Sunday, despite the win.  Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com:

The Chicago Bears escaped Week 3 with a 23-20 win over the Houston Texans on Sunday, thanks in large part to a late interception by linebacker Roquan Smith that set up Cairo Santos’ game-winning 30-yard field goal as time expired.

But quarterback Justin Fields continued to struggle.

After tallying 48 net passing yards in a loss at Green Bay in Week 2, he completed just 8 of 17 passes for 106 yards and two interceptions against Houston. He also fumbled twice and tallied a 27.7 passer rating, the lowest of his NFL career.

Following the game, Fields offered a harsh assessment of his performance.

“Straight up, I just played — I don’t want to say the A-word, but I played like trash,” Fields said. “Really just got to be better.”

Fields said he was most upset by his two interceptions and planned to begin the process of correcting his mistakes immediately.

“I’m going to go see the film tonight. I played terrible,” he said. “See what I could have done better and get better.”

Fields’ first interception came with 2:54 remaining in the first quarter when he tried to connect with Cole Kmet on a seam route and missed the tight end, whom he said was wide open. The second interception happened in the third quarter and was the byproduct of what Fields described as a poor decision coupled with a poor throw to wide receiver Darnell Mooney with three defenders around him.

“I got pressure, saw Cover 2, (the middle linebacker) running with Darnell,” Fields said. “When I saw that, I got hit while I was throwing, so next time I’ve got to take the check-down. So that’s one thing that I’m going to work on this week: getting pressure — boom — check down.”

The Bears attempted only six passes in the second half and leaned heavily on their run game while Fields struggled. Khalil Herbert, who finished with 20 carries for 157 yards and two touchdowns in place of an injured David Montgomery, shouldered the load for a run game that eclipsed 281 yards.

Chicago’s offense sought more balance after a paltry outing against the Packers and struggled to move the ball effectively with its passing game.

Bears coach Matt Eberflus addressed Fields’ shortcomings postgame and how the team can continue to instill confidence in his its young quarterback.

“I think when you are working with a young quarterback in a new offense, I think the people around him have to be solid,” Eberflus said. “So that’s important for us, meaning that the protection has to be good, the run game has to be good, the defense has to be really good and special teams, we’ve got to be awesome.

DETROIT

RB D’ANDRE SWIFT went down against Minnesota on Sunday.  Myles Simmons ofProFootballTalk.com:

The Lions may be without starting running back D’Andre Swift for a bit.

According to Tom Pelissero of NFL Media, Swift suffered a sprained shoulder during Sunday’s loss to the Vikings.

While Swift is not expected to need surgery to correct the issue, Swift still may miss playing time.

Kyle Meinke of MLive.com noted that Swift also said postgame that he re-injured his ankle during the contest. Swift was on the field for 41 percent of Detroit’s offensive snaps, rushing for 31 yards on seven carries and making three receptions for 15 yards.

Jamaal Williams took many of the snaps at running back, going 87 yards on 20 carries with a pair of touchdowns. Williams also caught a pair of passes for 20 yards.

So far this season, Swift has 231 yards rushing with one touchdown plus eight catches for 77 yards with a TD>

The Lions are back home to host the Seahawks next Sunday.

DALLAS

Looks like no WR MICHAEL GALLUP tonight.  Todd Archer of ESPN.com:

Michael Gallup’s return to the Dallas Cowboys’ lineup will have to wait one more week.

Gallup will be inactive for Monday’s game vs. the New York Giants, according to sources, despite a full week of practice as he returns from a torn ACL in his left knee suffered last January. Gallup was listed as questionable and has gone through two full-padded practices the past two weeks.

The Cowboys opted not to keep Gallup on the physically unable to perform list to start the season, which would have kept him out of the first four games and not allowed him to practice. The Cowboys play the Washington Commanders on Sunday at AT&T Stadium.

Gallup might not be the only offensive weapon the Cowboys will be without. Tight end Dalton Schultz, who is also listed as questionable, will test his injured right knee in early warm-ups to see if he can play. He has played in 61 straight games.

If Schultz does not play, then rookies Jake Ferguson and Peyton Hendershot will split the tight end duties. The Cowboys also plan to call up tight end Sean McKeon from the practice squad.

Without Gallup, the Cowboys will activate Jalen Tolbert, their third-round pick, for the first time this season to go along with CeeDee Lamb, Noah Brown, Simi Fehoko and KaVontae Turpin. Leading into the Giants game, Mike McCarthy said Gallup has looked good in practice, but the Cowboys want to be careful with his return in order for him to be effective for a large portion of the season

Veteran offensive lineman Jason Peters, 40, will be signed to the 53-man roster and be active Monday. Signed a few days before the season started after Tyron Smith suffered a torn hamstring, the Cowboys have increased Peters’ practice workload, but he is expected to play left guard and potentially split work with Matt Farniok. The Cowboys have been pleased with the work of their first-round pick Tyler Smith at left tackle through two games. Peters played left tackle for most of his career, but did play right guard for a spell while with the Philadelphia Eagles.

WASHINGTON

Peter King on a woeful week in Washington:

Goats of the week

The Washington Commanders. Just when you think it can’t get worse, the 13th top executive in the last year-and-a-half, COO Greg Resh, resigned last week after 13 months running the team’s business side, per The Washington Post. The Commanders followed that by playing like all 53 of them wanted to follow Resh out the door. They allowed six sacks … in the first half. The result of Washington’s possessions: punt, punt, punt, fumble, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, stopped on fourth down, stopped on fourth down, touchdown (with less than two minutes left). Philly 24, Washington 8, and it wasn’t that close.

TAMPA BAY

As Tampa hunkers down for a possible visit from Hurricane Ian, this from Greg Auman of The Athletic:

@gregauman

Bowles said Bucs are still monitoring approaching storm, communicating with the league and should have an answer later today. Team could practice elsewhere in next few days, and Sunday’s game could be shifted, either in when it’s played or (less likely) where it’s played.

DENVER

The first-place Denver Broncos punted on 17 consecutive drives, before QB RUSSELL WILSON led them to a TD late in Sunday’s game.  But they won both games that were involved in that streak – vs. Houston and San Francisco.

New coach Nathanial Hackett seemed utterly clueless about game management decisions in his first two games – so he farmed things out to a stranger on Sunday night.  Peter King:

So here came the first big test in the grand Nathaniel Hackett experiment, with 12:48 to play in the fourth quarter Sunday night against San Francisco. The Niners led 10-5. Denver QB Russell Wilson, needing seven yards for a first down, scrambled for what appeared to be about six-and-a-half to about a foot shy of the first down at the Bronco 35-. But Wilson had reached his arm out, with the ball, very near the 35 as he went down.

Hackett has had three years of clock/judgment/timeout problems in his three weeks as an NFL head coach, which is why he made the unorthodox move last Tuesday of hiring a retired special-teams coach, Jerry Rosburg, as senior assistant/in-game decision-making. Now Rosburg had either one or two decisions to advise his boss on.

Decision one: Should Denver challenge the call on the field that Wilson was short of the first down?

“It’s a value challenge,” came Rosburg’s voice via headset to Hackett. So Denver challenged and failed; the Wilson reach for the first down would have mattered had he broke the plane of the goal line, but not in the field of play. Quirky rule, but in the field of play, the ball is spotted where it is when the knee hits the ground. Wilson was clearly short.

Decision two: Down five, playing poorly on offense, should Denver go for fourth-and-a-foot, or punt? “Punt,” Rosburg advised, and Hackett agreed. The Broncos defense was playing too well to risk failing at fourth-and-short and thus the team punted. When they got the ball back, Wilson drove Denver 80 yards for the go-ahead touchdown. All’s well that ends well, at least on this night.

Denver 11, San Francisco 10. Amazing that through the mayhem of the last 14 days – the ridiculous choice to try a 64-yard field goal in Seattle, the mismanagement of timeouts, the league-high four delay-of-game calls in two weeks, the win that felt like a loss in the post-Houston-game locker room last week – the Broncos are 2-1 and tied for first in the AFC West.

Such an odd debut to an NFL head-coaching career, realizing you don’t have people on your staff who can help you on things like time and game management – the Broncos have a very young staff – and think you’ve got to go outside the building for help. And doing it while in game-week preparation. I asked Hackett if it all felt embarrassing.

“No,” he said firmly over the phone from the stadium. “For me, I felt empowered that I was able to make a decision. Hey, let’s fix it. I’m the leader of the team. Let’s do it.

“This was the first time, the past two games, that I felt I was hurting my team. Did I have enough info? I don’t know. But I knew the setup wasn’t right. I needed help to make the tough decision.”

What a whirlwind. Hackett didn’t know Rosburg, who was living in Florida while retired. But after a flurry of phone calls and a Tuesday meeting in Denver, Hackett introduced him to the team in the squad meeting Wednesday. He told the players if he asked them to take a critical look at themselves if they erred, it’s right that he do the same as the head coach. He’d erred by not being ready to handle all the in-game decisions, and Rosburg was the fix-it agent.

There’s another little matter to tend to: the offense, and Wilson. The 12-play, 80-yard drive against the stout 49er D was the first time in three feeble games that the Broncos’ offense looked good. “Russell has come to a new state, a new organization, with 10 brand new guys in the huddle. It’s a completely new look, new team. He’s jumped in here and tried to make it as familiar as he could. On that winning drive, he said, I’m comfortable. I’m gonna use my legs here. I’ve got to make this happen. He did. Hopefully that’s the start of it for him.”

KANSAS CITY

Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com analyzes why the Chiefs fell from the ranks of the undefeated:

Dave Toub has a well-earned reputation as one of the NFL’s best special teams coordinators. Since arriving in Kansas City in 2013, Toub’s Chiefs teams consistently have been among the league’s top units. By Football Outsiders’ special teams metrics, they have ranked in the top four in seven of Toub’s first nine seasons with the organization.

Sunday did not burnish Toub’s résumé, as Kansas City’s special teams figured heavily in its upset loss at Indianapolis. By special teams expected points added (EPA), the Chiefs produced their second-worst special teams performance of Toub’s 164-game tenure. Other things went wrong, but it’s difficult to remember a Chiefs team getting so much wrong in one single game on special teams.

It started with Indy’s first punt of the game, which was muffed by returner Skyy Moore and recovered by the Colts on Kansas City’s 4-yard line. Quarterback Matt Ryan and Indianapolis punched the ball in three plays later for one of their two touchdowns on the day. Moore, the team’s second-round pick, was indecisive about fielding a second punt in traffic and let it bounce over his head to the 1-yard line, where it was downed by the Colts.

The Chiefs normally can count on a steady kicker in Harrison Butker, who missed only two field goals and three extra points during the entire 2021 campaign. With Butker sidelined by a left ankle injury, they have been using Matt Ammendola, who went 13-of-19 in a stint with the Jets last season. In Week 2, he hit all five of his attempts, including three extra points and two short field goals.

Things didn’t go quite as well in Week 3. Ammendola missed an extra point after Kansas City’s first touchdown, leading the Chiefs to (successfully) go for 2 on their subsequent score. In the fourth quarter, they attempted a fake field goal from the Indy 24-yard line with a four-point lead. It never looked like it would succeed and was well-covered from the start. I suspect the Chiefs would have kicked the field goal with Butker in the fold. Ammendola wasn’t responsible for the failed fake, but he did pull a 34-yarder wide under little pressure on the team’s next possession.

Converting either of those kicks would have turned Indianapolis’ next possession from a game-winning drive to a game-tying drive. The Colts took the ball 76 yards and used more than eight minutes of clock before scoring with 29 seconds to go, but they got some help from the Chiefs along the way. On a third-and-8 from the Indy 39-yard line, linebacker Nick Bolton appeared to end the Colts’ drive by sacking Ryan. After the play, though, defensive tackle Chris Jones was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, extending the possession with an automatic first down.

After the game, referee Shawn Smith indicated to a pool reporter the penalty was for “abusive language toward an opponent.” I have my misgivings about penalties for language on the football field, and it’s disappointing to see such a pivotal moment in a game determined by a referee’s opinion of what might have hurt Ryan’s feelings. It also seems like a rule that should be easy to avoid invoking in a key situation. Jones is a great player but getting penalized in that moment was a disaster.

It’s a shame, too, because this was otherwise an incredible performance by the Chiefs defense. They allowed a touchdown on that 4-yard field in the first quarter and otherwise limited the Colts to 134 yards of offense through the first three quarters. Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo seemed to be a step ahead of Ryan and coach Frank Reich, as the Chiefs sacked Ryan five times, knocked him down 10 times and seemed to have a steady stream of unblocked blitzers running free at the quarterback. When a team allows one drive of more than 50 yards all game, its defense typically has done enough to win.

The Chiefs didn’t win because of their special teams, but this was also a disappointing game for their offense. Patrick Mahomes left an early would-be touchdown pass to wideout Marquez Valdes-Scantling on the field with an overthrow, but the bigger problem Sunday came with the running game. As The Athletic’s Nate Tice noted on Twitter, Kansas City’s various halfbacks carried the ball 17 times and netted one first down. Just 11.8% of those rushes were considered successful by EPA, the worst mark for any team’s running backs in a single game this season. Clyde Edwards-Helaire finished with seven carries for a total of zero yards.

The Eagles were worse running the football by EPA this week and still won handily, so we know the running game alone wasn’t enough to sink the Chiefs. In terms of what to try to emulate when playing them, though, I wonder if the run is what opposing teams can hold onto as a possibility. Toub’s extensive track record tells us that what happened on special teams was a fluke. Jones won’t insult the opposing quarterback every week when Kansas City needs a first down. The Chiefs are generally well-coached and won’t beat themselves most weeks.

If a defense can stop the Chiefs from running the ball, though, it forces them to be one-dimensional. Being one-dimensional with Mahomes is likely the best possible single dimension in the NFL, but it limits what the offense can do and allows a defense to get its pass-rushers going against Kansas City’s tackles. Despite landing two great interior linemen in the 2021 draft — center Creed Humphrey and guard Trey Smith — and signing a Pro Bowl-caliber guard in Joe Thuney, the Chiefs didn’t seem to trust their running game in key situations a year ago, with the playoff loss to the Bengals an obvious example. If they can’t run the ball as this season goes along, it opens up more possibilities for teams to squeeze their passing attack on third-and-long.

LAS VEGAS

By a total of 13 points (and the Arizona game really wasn’t a 6-point loss), the Raiders are 0-3 and WR DAVANTE ADAMS is frustrated.  Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com:

There are two winless teams left in the NFL this season.

One of them is the Texans, which probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise given the low expectations they carried into the year. The Raiders being 0-3 is a bit more unexpected, but that’s where they find themselves after a late rally fell short in a 24-22 road loss to the Titans.

That loss comes after the Raiders blew a big lead against the Cardinals at home in Week Two and wide receiver Davante Adams said the early season results are not sitting well with him.

“Frustrated and angry,” Adams said, via SI.com. “Expect more. It’s not easy to win in this league. We know that. Nobody’s naive to the fact that nobody’s just going to lay down and just give you a victory, but at the end of the day we expect more and we will do better as we move forward.”

Adams later said frustration is OK “as long as you do something about it” and the challenge for the Raiders moving forward will be figuring out how to execute at a higher level quickly enough to keep the season from going completely off the rails.

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

Things seem to be unraveling quickly with the Chargers.  Week 3 brought a stunning blowout home loss and a critical injury.  Myles Simmons of ProFootballTalk.com:

Protecting quarterback Justin Herbert has just become more challenging for the Chargers.

According to Tom Pelissero of NFL Media, left tackle Rashawn Slater suffered a ruptured biceps tendon during Sunday’s loss to the Jaguars. Slater is now expected to miss the rest of the 2022 season.

The 13th overall pick of the 2021 draft, Slater became an immediate starter for the Chargers last year and was one of the best at his position. He was a Pro Bowler and second-team All-Pro as a rookie. He finished fourth in AP offensive rookie of the year voting.

Slater had not missed a snap in the 2022 season until suffering the injury during Los Angeles’ first possession of the second half on Sunday.

Storm Norton came in to replace Slater at left tackle. He’s appeared in 27 career games with 18 starts, 15 of which came for the Chargers last year.

With Herbert dealing with injured ribs, Los Angeles’ left tackle has magnified importance. If Norton continues to replace Slater, his first test will be against Houston in Week Four.

This from Peter King:

I think you’ve got to pull Justin Herbert, Brandon Staley, when you’re down 28 in the fourth quarter and your franchise quarterback is playing with a serious rib injury. It’s not even a question. I don’t care what Herbert wants. Sometimes the coach needs to be the adult in the room, and this was one of those times.

BALTIMORE

Peter King with this quote from Coach John Harbaugh on his QB LAMAR JACKSON:

He plays his way. He’s determined to play his way. But his way is fundamentally sound football. His way is winning football. He’s running the show out there. All the things you’d say an operator or manager does, he’s doing all of those things his way.

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Matthew Berry of NBC Sports declares a new number one tight end in the world of Fantasy Football:

With all due respect to Travis Kelce, Andrews (8-89-2) is officially the new TE1 and would rightfully go ahead of him in drafts if we redrafted today. Not only does he have a ridiculous target share, but he’s being targeted all over the field. When he’s making plays like this, I’m not really sure how you are supposed to stop him.

JACKSONVILLE

Doug Pederson will take a division-leading team into his old stomping grounds.  Peter King names his QB as one of Offensive Players of the Week:

Trevor Lawrence, quarterback, Jacksonville. Could it really be as easy as a simple head-coaching change? Is that what’s made Lawrence so good so fast in his second NFL season? He told me last week that Doug Pederson’s got the kind of personality a young teams loves—as a teacher and as a patient program-organizer. Whatever it is, Sunday’s 38-10 rout of the Chargers on the road was his most impressive NFL game yet. Lawrence threw for 262 yards, with three touchdowns and no turnovers. Suddenly, the Jaguars are 2-1, and a very interesting team, and the Jacksonville-at-Philadelphia game Sunday is more interesting than just a Pederson return to the Linc.

MIAMI

Peter King on Miami’s Rope-A-Dope win over the mighty Bills.

Miami’s good, and Miami’s not afraid of the big bad Bills. As I watch football each Sunday, I try to focus on one game in each window and follow one of the Red Zone channels to keep up with the other games. In the first window, I settled on Buffalo-Miami and was rewarded with a dramatic, intense game with a January competitive feel. This truly had playoff energy, all the way down to Buffalo offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey going nuts in the coach’s box upstairs as the clock ran out on the Bills in a 21-19 Dolphins win. The NFL’s story of September is Miami being 3-0, answering a ton of questions on offense, winning with a quirky and intelligent coach, and playing fun and intense football on both sides of the line.

This game … it was electric and a great illustration of how nothing lasts forever in the NFL. It doesn’t even last a month. We’d all been thinking Buffalo was the premier team in the sport (I still think the Bills are) and would skate away with the AFC East title. But after three weeks, Buffalo’s a game behind Miami. Think of it: On a sunny south Florida day with a heat index in the nineties, Buffalo’s offense was on the field for 40 minutes and 40 seconds, and for 90 snaps, and outgained Miami in yards 497-212. And Miami won the IV Bowl.

“It was, if I’m being honest with you man, it was a battlefield out there, honestly,” said one of the heroes of the day for Miami, second-year safety Jevon Holland. “People were going down. You had people coming in who didn’t really play much. It was chaotic. Fans were loud. People cramping. Drives … going 10 plays, 14 plays, 20 plays. The game was a beast. Just a beast.

“It’s difficult because the Bills offense is so electric and they can score at any point. And so, you have to be constantly, constantly on. That is draining, to constantly be operating at a very high level. But that’s what it takes to beat a team like that. You have to be perfect and that’s the standard you have to rise to.”

Holland started early, blitzing midway through the first quarter, strip-sacking Allen and setting up Miami’s first TD. Holland’s lithe but hits like Polamalu, and his sideline-to-sideline ability is striking. Ten tackles, two passes defensed, 1.5 sacks. The man was everywhere.

“What hurts right now?” I asked.

“Everything,” Holland said. “Everywhere.”

(And this team, somehow, has to get on a plane and play Thursday night in Cincinnati, after playing 90 snaps against the best offense in football in 90-something heat and humidity. Brutal.)

“Keeping Josh Allen from scrambling was important,” Holland said. “When he scrambles to his right, he is a very efficient, like, best-in-the-league top quarterback. That was what we tried to do, constant pressure from his right side, to get him going to his left. Trying to keep the pressure in his face, mix up the alignments in the front. Just keep him guessing on what defense we’re in, what coverage we’re in. And at the base of all of that movement and all of that smoke and mirrors was to play hard-nose football, stop the run, make him be one-dimensional. You measure your love for your teammates by your proximity to the ball at the end of each play. I think as a defense, we sell out trying to get to the ball because we love each other so much and we wanna play as hard as anybody else on the field for each other.”

Last week, it was Tua Tagovailoa throwing to Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle in a win for the ages, 42-38 in Baltimore. This week it was the defense bending and bending and bending but rarely breaking. Holding Buffalo to 19 points is a major accomplishment. There could be a race in the AFC East after all.

One other note, regarding Tagovailoa. When he exited the game, wobbly, midway through the second quarter after hitting his head on the turf, it was assumed he had a head injury and would probably not return. But he returned and played the second half. He said after the game he actually hurt his back, not his head. The NFL Players Association said it would investigate the injury to see if concussion protocol was followed. At each NFL game is an Unaffiliated Neurotrauma Consultant, a doctor who is on scene to monitor any head injury and can also give tests to determine if a player is okay to return to the game. The NFL said all protocols were followed. The wobbling is the troubling part, of course.

NEW ENGLAND

QB MAC JONES suffered an ankle injury late in Sunday’s loss.  Peter King:

I think, in the wake of Adam Schefter reporting Mac Jones suffered a high ankle sprain on the last play of the loss to Baltimore Sunday, I wonder how CBS (and Patriot Nation) feels about Brian Hoyer or Bailey Zappe versus Aaron Rodgers in the late doubleheader window next Sunday.

THIS AND THAT

WASHINGTON POST SAYS NFL “BLOCKS” BLACK COACHES

The Washington Post has a long, long piece, with five collaborative writers, on the hiring of Black head coaches – or lack thereof.  Here’s how it starts:

Despite the league’s end-zone pledge to “END RACISM,” Black coaches continue to be denied top jobs in a league in which nearly 60 percent of the players are Black.

It is a glaring shortcoming for the NFL, one highlighted by the findings of an investigation by The Washington Post. Black coaches tend to perform about as well as White coaches, The Post found. But while White candidates are offered a vast and diverse set of routes to the league’s top coaching jobs, Black coaches face a much narrower set of paths. They have had to serve significantly longer as mid-level assistants, are more likely to be given interim jobs than full-time ones and are held to a higher standard when it comes to keeping their jobs.

Since 1990, Black coaches have been twice as likely as others to be fired after leading a team to a regular season record of .500 or better.

Amid growing scrutiny of the issue, The Post compiled and analyzed three decades’ worth of data and conducted interviews with 16 of the 24 living current and former NFL head coaches who identify as Black, as well as dozens of other coaches, former players, team executives, agents and others.

The data quantifies the frustration felt by many of those coaches, which erupted into the public eye this year with a lawsuit by Brian Flores, fired by the Miami Dolphins in January, that accuses the league and its teams of racism in their hiring and firing practices. The lawsuit and its potential implications hover over the NFL as its new season unfolds with just three Black head coaches: Todd Bowles of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Lovie Smith of the Houston Texans and Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

That’s the same number as in 2003 — the year the NFL, under intense external pressure, introduced the Rooney Rule, which required teams to interview at least one candidate of color for open head coach and front-office jobs.

Taken together, The Post’s analysis mirrors the sentiment among Black coaches that they are playing by a different set of rules than their White counterparts. The result, Black coaches said, is a league in which many Black assistants have resigned themselves to the notion that they will never get an opportunity to be a head coach — a position that, in addition to the immeasurable prestige, also could pay, on average, 10 times what a mid-level assistant makes — while others have left the profession entirely.

“It seems like the criteria moves,” Leslie Frazier, defensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills, said in an interview. “One week, or one year, it’s ‘We want an offensive-minded guy.’ Another year: ‘We want a guy with a Super Bowl-winning background.’ What’s the criteria? Sometimes it’s because he’s ‘a great leader.’ Sometimes it’s because he ‘came up the same way I came up.’ But the common theme … is [an owner is going] to hire someone that looks like that owner.”

‘Minority coaches are frustrated’

The NFL is both a financial behemoth, with record revenue of $11 billion in 2021, and a cultural institution with unmatched reach into the national psyche: 75 of the country’s 100 most-watched television programs in 2021 were NFL games. Its sheer might and media reach give it unprecedented sway over American culture and have allowed it to survive controversies that could have smothered lesser enterprises, most recently the rift over players kneeling during the national anthem to protest police violence against Black people.

The league, led by Commissioner Roger Goodell, has acknowledged its failures in promoting Black coaches, defending itself by highlighting its efforts to create a pipeline of diverse coaches. But when it comes to the bottom line, the league characterizes itself as largely powerless to direct the hiring practices of 32 individual teams that are owned almost exclusively by White men. It declined to provide The Post with any data beyond the aggregate demographics of head coaches and coordinators from 2002 to 2022. It also declined to make Goodell available for an interview.

“At the end of the day, we don’t make the hires,” said Troy Vincent, a former all-pro cornerback who played for four NFL teams and now is the league’s executive vice president of football operations. “We’ve exhausted ourselves with programs, initiatives, making sure that [owners] are aware of who’s out there [as candidates]. But we don’t make the hire. And so it’s been a difficult challenge for us, but we’ve got to keep pushing. And we believe that what we’re doing is the right thing until hearts change. …

“We’re still dealing with America’s original sin — slavery — and the misconception of who Black men are. So we’re just trying different things.”

Despite the league’s long-standing issues surrounding its dearth of Black leadership, the NFL and the vast majority of its teams have lagged behind corporate America in incorporating basic best practices that could diversify its top roles. The league hired its first chief diversity and inclusion officer in 2020 only after widespread protests following the murder of George Floyd prompted businesses nationwide to reckon with systemic racism. Twenty-three NFL franchises now have a “DEI lead” — a staffer tasked with “fostering a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment” — but only 11 are dedicated full-time to the role, league officials said.

As part of this project, The Post contacted all 32 teams seeking interviews with its owner (or, in the case of the publicly owned Green Bay Packers, its top executive). Only one — the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Art Rooney II, for whose father, Dan, the Rooney Rule is named — agreed to be interviewed for this story before it was published.

“Most of us were not expecting it to turn in the wrong direction the way it did and to the extent it did and over the time period that it did,” Rooney said of the recent downturn in the number of Black head coaches. “I don’t think there’s any one reason that you could point to. It’s obviously a trend that was not expected [and] not welcomed. … It may have taken us too long to get to this point. We’re addressing the situation. But I’m just pleased to say at this point that I do think there’s a consensus and a collective effort to address it.”

In public statements, the NFL and its team owners often tout the league’s “holistic” approach to diversity, using metrics such as the number of minority head coaches and general managers and the rising number of women in coaching and front-office roles. Aside from Bowles, Smith and Tomlin, three additional head coaches are people of color: Miami’s Mike McDaniel, who is biracial; the New York Jets’ Robert Saleh, who is Lebanese American; and the Washington Commanders’ Ron Rivera, who is Latino.

But for many Black coaches, that word — “diversity” — obscures the real problem.

“The NFL doesn’t have a diversity problem. The NFL has a Black problem,” said Dennis Thurman, a former defensive coordinator for the Jets and Bills who left pro football in 2020 to join Deion Sanders’s coaching staff at Jackson State, a historically Black university. “There aren’t that many Hispanics playing in the NFL. There aren’t that many Asians. There aren’t women on the field in the NFL. I understand them wanting to be inclusive, and I applaud what they’re doing for those groups.

“But the issue is not women. It’s not Asians. It’s not Hispanics. The majority of players in the NFL are Black. They use the word ‘diversity.’ It’s real slick. But, no, uh-uh. That’s not the issue.”

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Of the league’s 31 majority team owners, only two identify as people of color: Bills co-owner Kim Pegula, who is Asian American, and Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan, who is Pakistani American. After reports that the sale of the Denver Broncos might usher in the league’s first Black majority owner, the franchise recently was sold to a group led by Walmart heir Rob Walton.

While the Rooney Rule is easily adhered to — the Detroit Lions, fined $200,000 in 2003, are the only team to have been found in violation — it hasn’t altered the bottom line, in part because it is so easily gamed. In Flores’s lawsuit, he refers to many of these meetings as “sham interviews” — a concept that comes up frequently in conversations with other coaches and executives.

Anthony Lynn, the former coach of the Chargers, said he interviewed with six franchises before landing that job. He was offered more interviews, he said, but refused to meet “with an organization that had not already interviewed a minority because I did not want to be a token interview.”

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At some franchises, the Rooney Rule has made no impact on head coaching hires, and it has not even helped Black coaches land the offensive and defensive coordinator roles that almost universally precede head coaching jobs.

In 2003, the year the rule was implemented, 22 percent of coordinators were Black, according to data compiled by the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University and The Post. By 2020, that number was 18 percent, forcing the NFL to tacitly acknowledge the policy’s shortcomings by extending it to coordinator positions. Last season, 27 percent of coordinators were Black.

At 13 NFL franchises, still no Black full-time head coach.

Those 13 franchises are Atlanta, Buffalo, Carolina, Jacksonville, Washington, Seattle, New Orleans, Tennessee, Dallas, Baltimore, New England, Rams and Giants.

The five teams with the highest percentage of games coaches (since 1990) by a Black coach are Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Tampa Bay and Indianapolis (ranging from about 50% for the Bengals to 30% for the Colts).

This from the Post on Hall of Fame Coaches Bill Parcells and Tony Dungy:

For teams that have managed to diversify, much of the work appears to have been done by head coaches with enough power to overcome the owners’ discomfort. Parcells’s coaching tree is one of the most successful — and one of the more diverse — in NFL history. He recommended Romeo Crennel for his first job and was an early promoter of Lynn and Bowles. In 2003, he made Carthon the first (and so far only) Black offensive coordinator of the Cowboys.

This was how Parcells summed up his view of hiring assistants: “If you can help, come on in. If you can’t, get out of here.”

But the work of providing opportunities for Black coaches has disproportionally been done by other Black coaches. Among this subset, one name stands out: Tony Dungy.

Of the 16 Black men who became full-time head coaches after Dungy, five served as assistants under him and a sixth, Steve Wilks, was an assistant under one of his proteges (Smith). Marvin Lewis, an intern with Kansas City while Dungy was an assistant there, went on to become the Cincinnati Bengals’ head coach, and two more Black future head coaches, Hue Jackson and Vance Joseph, were on Lewis’s Bengals staffs.

In essence, Dungy helped develop more than half of the Black men who followed him into the NFL’s head coaching ranks.

One of Dungy’s first hires with the Bucs was Herm Edwards as his defensive backs coach and assistant head coach in 1996. By 2001, Edwards had been hired as head coach of the Jets.

As Edwards recalled: “The first thing [Dungy] did, he said: ‘You’re going to be a secondary coach. But I’m going to [make you] the assistant head coach, and that’s more important than being a coordinator.’ He said, ‘I’m going to teach you how to be a head coach.’ … And so when he made decisions, I was involved. And there were times I had opportunities to leave to become a coordinator, and I chose not to. And Tony would [say]: ‘You don’t need to do that. Just trust me. You will be a head coach.’ And within five years, I was.”

Having served as the league’s main engine for inclusion for much of his career, Dungy retired in 2009 — turning a strong Colts team over to another protege, Jim Caldwell, who took Indianapolis to the Super Bowl in his first season.

“What Tony did for me during that stretch, it’s a model for [making] certain that you put a guy in the best position to succeed,” Caldwell said. “… He wanted me to see everything. He allowed me to literally do it all. … So by the time I took over the job, I had a really good feel for it.”

It would take a few more years after Dungy’s exit, as his proteges cycled through various hirings and firings, but once that engine idled, the NFL’s progress died out.

“I get frustrated when I hear about the ‘pipeline,’ ” Dungy said. “ ‘We’ve got to do this, we’ve got to do that to get more people in the pipeline.’ The pipeline is full of people. We’ve just got to get ownership to notice and to see some of these guys and get that to become the trend.”

Peter King’s thoughts:

 I think that was a thoughtful piece The Washington Post did on why Black coaches have struggled to get the same opportunities as other coaches. Read for yourself. It’s educational. Two points that stood out to me:

a. There are bright and shiny metrics that say the opportunity is not the same. “Since 1990,” the paper reported, “a Black head coach who wins at least nine games and a White coach who wins at least six have roughly the same chance of being fired.”

b. Offensive “minds” given a chance to be head coaches are overwhelmingly White. This passage is stark, and startling: “Of the six minority head coaches in the NFL this season, five — [Todd] Bowles, [Ron] Rivera, [Robert] Saleh, [Lovie] Smith and [Mike] Tomlin — come from defensive backgrounds. Only [Mike] McDaniel comes from the offensive side. In essence, the NFL has decided it’s okay for Black men to be quarterbacks — just not to coach them. And in the process, coaches said, the league has failed to learn from the lessons of the White QB era. ‘A lot of the Black quarterbacks [of earlier eras], their skill set was outside the box of what the NFL did,’ [Tony] Dungy said. ‘They just needed people to think a little bit differently. And that’s what it took for the quarterbacks. Now all of a sudden … we’ve got this young group of quarterbacks that is [setting] the league on fire. And I think the same thing is true with coaching. We’ve got some coaches who have that same brilliance [but aren’t] getting an opportunity. We think we’re hiring the best. We think that we aren’t missing anything, but we are.’”

6. I think the story is good and smart because it takes away the passion and strong opinions on this issue and boils it down to hard facts. I believe it will be a good contribution to the coaching carousel this winter. I’m not saying it’s wrong for owners to continually look for “the next Sean McVay,” because McVay has spawned success in other coaches like Matt LaFleur and Zac Taylor and perhaps Kevin O’Connell. But owners can’t think just because a guy rubbed shoulders with a boy wonder like McVay that he’s going to be a great NFL coach. The shame of the hiring process, or at least part of the shame is that if, say, Houston offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton builds a top-15 offense piloted by the 67th pick in the 2021 draft, Davis Mills, that should probably count as an outstanding coaching job, and should catapult him into the running for head-coaching jobs. Why? Because Hamilton took over the 30th-ranked team in scoring, post-Deshaun Watson, coming off an 8-25 stretch over the past two years. He’s coming from further back in the back than wherever the latest McVay-touched assistants would be coming from.