The DB’s sense of Week 1 was that the quality of play was pretty good, NFL average from the last several years when “quality” may have declined as safety rules took over, particularly in the amount of practice.

Not bad for no preseason.

We would be interested in your observations.

And, one reason may have been the officiating which escaped any major controversies, even with replay gone on pass interference penalties.

And holding penalties were in drastic decline –

NFL holding penalties

Week 1, 2019: 82

Week 1, 2020: 18

Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com:

Offensive holding penalties in the NFL plummeted to their lowest Week 1 total in at least 20 seasons, an unexpected drop that was noticeable throughout the league’s first weekend of games.

Officials threw only 18 flags for offensive holding across the league, a drop of 78% from Week 1 in 2019 and 58.6% from the five-year average from 2014 to 2018, according to ESPN Stats & Information data.

The NFL did not immediately respond to a request for context on the drop. And while it helped smooth over the league’s quality of play after an abridged training camp and canceled preseason, the trend is better viewed as part of a multi-year attempt to calibrate what is annually one of the most damaging fouls in the game.

The process began in Week 13 of the 2018 season, when the NFL instructed officials to step up enforcement against certain blocking techniques that they hadn’t previously penalized. The result was a one-week surge to 94 offensive holding calls, the most ever in any week that ESPN has data for.

The trend resumed at the start of the 2019 season, when the league made “lobster blocks” and other techniques a point of emphasis. Offensive holding flags increased to record numbers during the first two weeks of the season, jumping 66% percent from 2018. There were 178 such penalties in 64 games, including 82 in the first 32 games, before the NFL competition committee ordered a return to baseline numbers.

This season, the pendulum has swung initially in the other direction. The previous low in a Week 1 was 26 in 2001, the first year for which ESPN Stats & Information has weekly penalty data. As a result, there were only 199 total flags thrown in Week 1, including those that were declined or offset, the second-lowest total in Week 1 since 2001.

While it is possible that players have improved their techniques and blocking skills since the end of last season, the shift carries the same sudden hallmarks as previous pivot points in this process.

“Officials are good soldiers,” said ESPN officiating analyst John Parry. “They hear the message and they perform based on what they’ve been instructed to call. At this level, they are that good. Whatever the marching orders are, that’s how they will officiate.”

Baseball has made some emergency changes and may never go back (the runner on 2^nd extra inning rule, once ridiculed, for instance is appealing in actual implementation).

Hard to imagine four preseason games returning even when health is proclaimed by those in authority.

– – –

And this about QBs, more good news from Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

The NFL got a piece of good news to start the 2020 season: All 32 starting quarterbacks made it out of Week One unscathed.

No quarterbacks suffered serious injuries in Week One, and no quarterbacks were benched, either. That means 2020 is poised to be the first season since 2011 when all 32 quarterbacks who started Week One also started Week Two.

For all the concerns that this highly unusual offseason would result in more injuries, if anything the opposite has been true at the league’s most important position: No quarterbacks were injured in the first game this year, and the last time that happened was during the 2011 season, when the offseason was cut short by a work stoppage.

Last year there were two starting quarterback changes in the first week of the season: Jaguars Week One starter Nick Foles was injured and replaced by Gardner Minshew, and Jets Week One quarterback Sam Darnold was sick and replaced by Trevor Siemian.

– – –

If you don’t like field goals being routine, empty stadiums could be the ticket.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

NFL kickers had a brutal Week One. Empty stadiums may be to blame.

Kickers missed more field goal attempts in Week One of 2020 than they’ve missed in any opening week since 1982, when field goal kickers were far less accurate than they’ve become in recent years.

So what’s the problem? It may be empty stadiums. San Francisco kicker Robbie Gould predicted before the season that kickers would struggle because the wind affects kicks differently when there are no fans in the stadium.

“I think this year, stadiums will definitely be different from a wind perspective, because the fans usually in most stadiums will knock down the wind,” Gould said.

A data point in favor of Gould’s wind hypothesis is that kickers only struggled outdoors, not indoors. Kickers were 14-for-16 (88 percent) indoors, with the only misses coming from 54 yards and 55 yards. But outdoors, kickers went just 34-for-51 (67 percent). Perhaps Week One will prove to be nothing but a blip, but this is a situation that bears watching: Kickers have to adjust in this very different season.

More from Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com:

Thinking about this one critically, I’m not sure I chalk it up to much more than randomness. Were kickers really rusty? It’s possible, but they should have gotten plenty of action during practices in camp. They didn’t get to try any attempts during the preseason with the summer spectacle canceled, but for most veterans, that amounts to somewhere between six and 10 kicks over four weeks. Could those kicks really mean all that much? Inexperienced kickers might have felt the pressure of taking their shots in meaningful games, but Gostkowski has kicked in 28 playoff games and six Super Bowls. Was he really feeling the strain of kicking under the bright lights in Week 1?

My guess is that the kicking will bounce back to form in Week 2. We’ve had early-season panics about kickers in the past, and they lasted two or three weeks before things got back to normal. Nearly 18% of the attempts in Week 1 were also greater than 50 yards away, which is on the high end and makes successful attempts less likely. If they are still struggling to hit 75% of their field goals by the time we hit October, I’ll be more concerned.

NFC SOUTH

TAMPA BAY

Brett Favre seemed to question whether QB TOM BRADY could handle public critiques.  Jenna Laine of ESPN.com:

Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians says he does not care what people have to say about him pointing out quarterback Tom Brady’s mistakes publicly after Sunday’s loss to the New Orleans Saints.

Arians has not shied away from calling out players in the media in the past, and he said Wednesday that he believes his relationship with Brady is healthy.

“Tom and I are fine. I don’t really care what other people think. So it’s just what he and I think,” Arians said with a chuckle. “We left the stadium fine. We showed up today fine. There ain’t nothin’ to talk about.”

On Tuesday, Pro Football Hall of Famer Brett Favre said on his radio show, “The SiriusXM Blitz” with Bruce Murray, that unless the coach and quarterback have an understanding, calling out Brady publicly can lead to tension down the road.

“Getting to Bruce Arians’ comments, true or not, I think the last person you want to call out after the first game of the year is Tom Brady,” Favre said. “Now, maybe they had a mutual truce going into the game, going into the season. ‘Hey, I’m going to be hard on you. I want the guys to know we’re going to treat you the same even though technically I’m not, so are you OK with it?’ If they have that truce, great. If not, I think you are barking up the wrong tree.”

After Sunday’s game, Arians was asked about Brady’s two interceptions. He responded, “One was a miscommunication between he and Mike [Evans]. He thought Mike was going down the middle — it was a different coverage — Mike read it right. He should have been across his face, but Tom overthrew it. The other one was a screen pass with an outlet called. He threw the outlet, and it was a pick-six. Bad decision.”

Arians corrected himself Monday, saying Evans was actually at fault for the first interception.

But Favre still took issue.

“Dissension could easily enter quickly,” said Favre, who has a unique perspective, having spent 16 seasons with the Green Bay Packers before going to the New York Jets in 2008 and Minnesota Vikings from 2009 to 2010. “Maybe the Saints didn’t do anything that they were not ready for other than we didn’t protect very well, Tom gets hit a couple of times, you get a little jittery, it happens.”

Arians has maintained close relationships with his quarterbacks, telling ESPN when he was first hired by the Buccaneers in 2019 that quarterbacks “become my sons.” He even joked that getting a little too close with Ben Roethlisberger was one of the reasons the Pittsburgh Steelers let him go as offensive coordinator. Arians goes golfing with his quarterbacks. He invites them to his lake house in Georgia. And he believes in having an open and honest relationship with them.

But Arians also believes in holding them accountable, just like all his players, which is why he will put their names on weekly accountability sheets. It’s also why he cursed Brady out in a walk-through early in camp.

“He gets cussed out like everybody else,” Arians said of Brady during camp, adding, “He likes to throw the ball in walk-throughs, and we don’t throw the ball in walk-throughs.” Brady responded on Twitter, “I’m used to it!” with a laughing emoji.

Brady isn’t a stranger to hard coaching. He has been cursed at by Bill Belichick in training camp practices and got into a shouting match with former offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien.

What separates Arians from other coaches is that he avoids coachspeak and tends to be more candid with the media. If he thinks a player is underperforming or that the players around him need to step up, he’ll say so.

Still, he has showered Brady with praise. He abides by mentor Bear Bryant’s philosophy of “Coach them hard, hug them later.”

Favre said he thinks Arians should abide by Belichick’s methods of keeping things in-house.

“Bruce Arians is the head coach, he’s gonna do it the way he wants to do it — and I’m not saying that it’s right or wrong — but what’s happened in New England for so many years is that it worked,” Favre said. “And I’m not saying that it’s the right formula, but it certainly is one of the right formulas. I just don’t see any good that comes out of calling your quarterback out.

“And we’re not just talking about a quarterback. We’re talking about the biggest acquisition maybe in football history. I don’t care if he’s 43 or 33 or 21. Say collectively, ‘We’ve gotta play better, from quarterback to kicker, we’ve gotta play better, we’ve gotta coach better. In order to get where we want to go, that’s what we’re gonna have to do.’ And leave it at that.”

As far as the public writing Brady and the Bucs off after one game, Arians said Wednesday, “I was amused when they handed us the Lombardi trophy in July. But, yeah, it’s part of the business. You go with it. It’s one week at a time, one day at a time. We win a few games, everybody will be back on the bandwagon, happy. [Laughs.] It’s just part of the game.”

NFC WEST

SEATTLE

The DB gets the sense that the NFL World has collectively decided that 2020 is the year that QB RUSSELL WILSON gets his full due for greatness (and maybe a deserved MVP).  Josh Alper from ProFootballTalk.com:

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has only coached against Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson three times, but he’s spent plenty of time watching him as he prepares for a fourth meeting on Sunday night.

During his Thursday press conference, Belichick made it clear that he likes what he’s seen from the NFC’s offensive player of the week from Week One. Wilson has plenty of other admirers, but Belichick thinks that the consensus opinion of the quarterback may still be selling him short.

“Honestly, I think he’s in a way maybe underrated by the media or the fans, I don’t know. I don’t really see anybody better than this player,” Belichick said, via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com.

Wilson has won both of his previous regular season matchups with the Patriots while completing 41-of-64 passes for 641 yards and six touchdowns. The third matchup came in Super Bowl XLIX and it ended with Wilson being picked off by Malcolm Butler on the final play of the game to seal a Patriots win.

All three games were close and a repeat would be a strong contender for the top game of Week Two.

AFC WEST

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

EDGE JOEY BOSA has an injury.  Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk.com:

Chargers defensive end Joey Bosa missed some snaps Sunday with an undisclosed issue, returning with a sleeve over his upper left arm.

Now, we know why.

The Chargers’ practice report revealed Bosa has a triceps injury, which kept him out of Wednesday’s practice.

“I felt a little fatigued, but my body, I felt great,’ Bosa said Monday when asked how he was feeling, via Gilbert Manzano of the Southern California News Group. “I felt like I was flying around. I felt really good. Felt like my pass rush moves were good.”

Bosa played 47 of 68 defensive snaps in the Chargers’ victory over the Bengals, making five tackles, a sack and three quarterback hits.

Running back Justin Jackson (quadriceps) and tight end Donald Parham Jr. (illness) also didn’t practice Wednesday.

AFC NORTH

BALTIMORE

Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com, after studying Week 1, thinks the Ravens are really going to let TE MARK ANDREWS cook in 2020:

Mark Andrews’ usage was way up

If you watched any highlights of the weekend’s action, you probably saw the Ravens tight end’s spectacular touchdown catch to open the scoring of the early games on Sunday. Andrews was the second-most productive fantasy football tight end in 2019, racking up 852 yards and 10 touchdowns in 15 games.

The only thing holding him back from taking another step forward seemed to be his usage rate. Whether it was a tight end rotation, nagging injuries or concerns over his Type 1 diabetes, the Ravens seemed hesitant to use Andrews on a full-time basis. The 2018 third-rounder didn’t play more than 55% of the offensive snaps in any game across his first two seasons. Travis Kelce, for comparison, played 95% of the offensive snaps for the Chiefs in 2018 and 92% last season.

In Week 1, though, Baltimore finally unleashed Andrews. He played a career-high 71% of the offensive snaps against the Browns despite the fact that the game had turned into a blowout by halftime. If we take out the fourth quarter, when Andrews mostly sat as the Ravens held a huge lead, the 25-year-old set a career high for snaps (36) and tied the second-most routes (21) he has run as a pro. If Andrews is going to play this frequently, it dramatically raises his ceiling and allows him to compete with Kelce and George Kittle as the NFL’s most productive tight end.

AFC SOUTH

INDIANAPOLIS

Lucas Oil Field will not be completely empty this week – and less so next week.

The Colts will have a small crowd of 2,500 for Sunday’s game against the Vikings, but that capacity is growing soon.

Owner Jim Irsay just announced that the Marion County Department of Health had approved a capacity of 7,500 for their Sept. 27 game against the Jets.

That’s roughly 12 percent of capacity of the 63,000-seat Lucas Oil Stadium.

We’ll see if this kind of exponential growth continues, particularly in light of the 10 Chiefs fans being asked to quarantine after one of around 16,000 fans at last week’s game tested positive for COVID-19.

Here is the full update for Week 2 vis a vis fans –  4 games with some fans.

Thursday, September 17

Cincinnati Bengals at Cleveland Browns – FirstEnergy Stadium

The Browns will allow up to 6,000 fans for the team’s first two home games in September (Week 2 vs. CIN and Week 3 vs. WAS).

Sunday, September 20

Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins – Hard Rock Stadium

The Miami Dolphins will allow a maximum of 13,000 spectators to attend this week’s home opener.

Minnesota Vikings at Indianapolis Colts – Lucas Oil Stadium

The Colts will allow a maximum of 2,500 spectators at this week’s home opener.

Atlanta Falcons at Dallas Cowboys – AT&T Stadium

The Cowboys have not yet revealed a specific number, however, AT&T Stadium is expected to allow 25 percent capacity for home opener.

AFC EAST

MIAMI

Keep an eye on RB MYLES GASKIN.  Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com:

The Dolphins’ primary running back wasn’t Jordan Howard or Matt Breida

It was Myles Gaskin, who played a team-high 63% of the snaps in the Week 1 loss to New England. The Dolphins, who signed Howard to a two-year, $10 million deal this offseason, announced that he was dealing with a hamstring injury during the game before retracting the statement as a mistake, but the veteran finished with just 7 yards on eight carries. Breida, for whom the Dolphins traded a fifth-round pick to acquire from San Francisco, had just five carries for 22 yards. Gaskin took nine carries for 40 yards and handled the bulk of the receiving work, adding four catches for 26 yards.

The Dolphins insinuated afterward that they might be playing something in the way of a hot-hand approach, but their decisions might be dictated by game script. Howard isn’t much of a receiver, so if the they find themselves trailing in the second half, the carries might end up getting split between Breida and Gaskin. Breida posted gaudy yards-per-carry figures in San Francisco, but a closer look at the numbers suggests he was a home run hitter. Removed from the Kyle Shanahan scheme, every week he doesn’t hit a home run might push more of the workload Gaskin’s way.

NEW ENGLAND

Are the Patriots working away from WR JULIAN EDELMAN?  Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com:

We saw less of Julian Edelman

One player who didn’t get as much playing time in Week 1 as I might have expected was the veteran Patriots wide receiver. Virtually an every-down player when healthy going back through 2013, Edelman’s role as a primary weapon for the Pats seemed to be solidified when Bill Belichick cut Mohamed Sanu at the end of training camp.

Instead, on Sunday, Edelman played just 58% of the offensive snaps during New England’s 21-11 win over Miami. The 34-year-old was on the field when the Patriots lined up in 11 personnel alongside fellow wideouts Damiere Byrd and N’Keal Harry, but when they went with two wide receivers, Edelman was the one who typically gave way. They played 27 snaps with two wideouts on the field, but while Byrd took 25 snaps and Harry 24, Edelman took just five. From 2017 to ’19, Edelman was on the field about 41% of the time in two-wideout sets, not accounting for injuries.

THIS AND THAT

PAC-12 and BIG TEN

In a surprise move, Gavin Newsom washes his hands over Pac-12 football, allowing his subjects freedom to do what they please.  Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury-News:

Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday said there is nothing in the California guidance to prevent Pac-12 teams from playing, a statement that seemingly contradicts his own rules.

“There is nothing in the state guidelines that denies the Pac-12 from having conference games,” Newsom said in response to a question from the Bay Area News Group.

“There is nothing that denies the games from occurring.”

Newsom said he spoke this morning with Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott.

“I want to make this crystal clear,” Newsom said. “Nothing in the state guidelines denies the ability for the Pac-12 to resume. That’s been a misrepresentation of the facts.”

However, state guidelines clearly prevent players from practicing in cohorts larger than 12, which makes football difficult. (See below.)

Crucially, Newsom said the state would be willing “to engage the Pac-12” on the rules governing cohorts — a development that could allow the teams to practice and compete.

“We’re committed to working with the Pac-12,” Newsom said. “Remember, these are student athletes.”

The conference is unable to restart its football season because of safety concerns and state restrictions.

The first hurdle should be cleared later this month, when rapid-response, daily antigen tests are delivered to athletic departments.

USC and UCLA have quickly received permission from LA County to practice.

And this from the Mountain West:

@Brett_McMurphy

Mountain West “aggressively exploring” options to play 8-game fall season, culminating w/Dec. 19 MW title game, sources told @Stadium. . This would allow league to be eligible for NY6 bowls. Not all schools might play w/Hawaii, Fresno & Air Force biggest unknowns for full season

– – –

Never one to just say, “You know, maybe we’ll find out that the Big Ten would have been better off to stick with Kevin Warren’s original plan,” Christine Brennan of USA Today (who somehow has a position on the Northwestern Board of Trustees) declares September 16, 2020 to be the darkest day in the history of the conference.

For decades, the Big Ten has thought of itself as a different kind of sports conference, one that proudly touts the academic achievements and Great Lakes values of its like-minded, highly-regarded, internationally-ranked research institutions. The Big Ten wasn’t the SEC; it wasn’t the Big 12. It was better than that, and it was happy to tell you all about it.

As proof, one only had to look at the conference’s prudent August decision to shut down fall sports in the midst of the global pandemic. It was only natural that the Big Ten would follow the Ivy League, and that the Pac-12 would follow the Big Ten. It was a tough decision, heartbreaking and costly, but it was the right one.

That’s the Big Ten for you, concerned about science, medicine and safety. Let the football factories of the SEC, Big 12 and ACC (Clemson’s playground) continue playing; the Big Ten was doing the right thing looking out for its student-athletes, treating them almost no differently than the student body at large, and that was all that mattered.

Then came Wednesday, the darkest day in Big Ten sports history, the day the vaunted conference caved. It choked. It got scared. It became the SEC.

Just as the Big Ten was looking smarter by the day as COVID-19 outbreaks popped up at Michigan State, Wisconsin and Maryland while other conferences playing football announced COVID-related postponements and soaring cases, the league’s presidents reversed themselves and decided to steer their schools and their football programs right into the teeth of what are predicted to be some of the worst days of the pandemic in October and November.

And how are they doing it? With a mountain of daily antigen tests, special delivery for Big Ten football teams only. Rapid tests for football players, but apparently not for the elderly in Ann Arbor or Columbus or Evanston, or for school children and teachers in Bloomington or New Brunswick or Minneapolis, or for students paying for their education amid the outbreaks in East Lansing or Madison or College Park.

So how will this work? Smooth as silk, I’m sure. Let’s look at Michigan State. The other day, all MSU students were asked to self-quarantine – and 30 large houses, including 23 fraternities and sororities, were ordered into mandatory quarantine – after the school announced 342 new coronavirus cases.

“This is an urgent situation,” Ingham County Health Officer Linda S. Vail said. “The exponential growth of COVID-19 cases must stop.”

So hey, Michigan State, let’s start football! What could go wrong? Here was LSU head coach Ed Orgeron’s COVID strategy Tuesday: “Not all of our players but most of our players have caught it. I think that hopefully they won’t catch it again, and hopefully they’re not out for games.”

This is the Nebraska-ization of the Big Ten. Who would have thought that when Nebraska and Ohio State and a few of the league’s other squeakiest wheels started whining about missing out on football, the Big Ten presidents would buckle rather than stand up to them?

Or, we could call it the Trumpeting of the Big Ten. It was just two weeks ago that Trump, desperate to win votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, told the conference to play football. Originally, the league stood its ground. Rutgers president Jonathan Holloway aptly called it “cheap politics.” But wouldn’t you know, the university presidents ended up following right along, giving Trump exactly what he wanted.

I never would have expected the Big Ten presidents to be so shaky, so fearful, so afraid of their own shadow. I grew up in Big Ten country, in the suburbs of Toledo, Ohio, in a family that spent fall Saturdays at Michigan games. I went to Northwestern University, where I received undergraduate and master’s degrees. I’m still very involved at NU to this day; in addition to being a professor of practice at the Medill School of Journalism, I’m a member of Northwestern’s 64-person board of trustees. I had no role in any votes or decisions NU made about playing sports in the pandemic.

While much of the blame for the awful about-face goes to the university presidents who chose money and football over sanity and caution, new Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren also contributed greatly to this public relations nightmare. This is a man who clearly is in way over his head. The poor guy was outmaneuvered by a few loud-mouth football coaches, for heaven’s sake. No matter how he explains it, it’s clear that he and the league flip-flopped so Ohio State can try to win a national title and the league can still make lots of money off the backs of 18-to-22-year-olds in the middle of a pandemic.

As we move into October and November, into what the experts say will be our worst days as COVID combines with the flu, the stops and starts of the conferences that are trying to play now tell us there are likely to be postponements and perhaps cancellations of Big Ten games.

Maybe some teams will get through a full season. Perhaps others will have to stop after a game or two, or miss games in the middle. Hopefully no one will get sick or spread COVID to others. We’ll see. This is the potential chaos the Big Ten chose when it decided to sell its soul for a few football games.

Joe Kinsey of Outkick has some other bad days in Big Ten history to compare:

Where do I even start with this absurd, flaming hot take? Do I start with the college message boards where you can’t go an hour without being reminded of Jerry Sandusky (60 year max sentence) molesting kids in showers? Do I start with the dark cesspools of Facebook where Ohio State fans tried to build a defense for Zach Smith in his quest to torture his wife turned ex-wife?

If returning to playing football during COVID-19 is the darkest day in Big Ten history, give us fans a double shot of days like this. The Big Ten didn’t announce they’d be murdering college athletes. They announced there would be a season and if players want to opt-out, that’s a call they can make..

You know how many times she mentioned Jerry Sandusky in that column? ZERO. I used an Apple-F command on Chrome. His name doesn’t appear. You know how many times she mentioned a doctor at Michigan State doctor, Larry Nassar, being sentenced to 175 years in jail for sexually assaulting minors? ZERO.

Let’s crank it down several notches here and think back to a very dark day at Ohio State and for the conference. Surely Christine would mention a dark day when Woody Hayes punched a Clemson player in one of the ugliest moments in college football history. She didn’t.

What about Bob Knight choking Neil Reed? Crickets. She didn’t mention Bob.

Christine’s not worried about college football players. She’s worried about an election and it has warped her brain into using college football players as pawns in this game she and other blue checkmarks are playing.

Today wasn’t the darkest day in Big Ten history by a long shot and Christine knows it, but she has to keep this act going. She has an election to win.

BROADCAST NEWS

The Week 1 TV ratings are in – and in general it was business as usual on Sunday, with the help of TOM BRADY’s Buccaneers debut – and fairly significant declines for the four primetime games.  Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic:

NFL TV ratings, and viewership for all sports, were always going to be a political football in this crazy election year, with teams and leagues to a varying degree embracing social justice initiatives.

So when reports emerged Friday that the NFL’s Thursday night season opener shed over 2 million viewers, a double-digit percent decline, the news gained traction with headlines like “NFL Ratings Crash Over 16% for Woke Season Opener.” And similar reaction repeated itself after a report yesterday of an even larger decline for “Sunday Night Football” of more than 20 percent. President Donald Trump, who has used the NFL as a punching bag in previous years, said at a campaign rally that the NFL was “boring.”

But here’s the thing: While those earlier TV ratings reports were not “fake news,” they were incomplete. The earlier reported figures were a snapshot of the audience, and too low. The numbers weren’t wrong at the time, but it is akin to reporting vote totals before the counting has finished. When NBC’s final viewership figures came in, ratings for the season opener were down a more modest 5 percent.

“Every morning Nielsen puts out preliminary national ratings that reflect the times that entertainment programming airs,” said a broadcasting executive at one of the networks that carries NFL games. “So if ‘The Simpsons’ airs at 8 p.m. ET and 8 p.m. PT, that’s reflected in those prelim numbers … But sports obviously air live. So when an NFL game runs from 8-11 ET and 5-8 PT, what Nielsen (preliminarily) reports is 8-11 PT, which is local programming that rates much lower than the game. This happens every time there’s a major primetime sports event. The Nielsen prelim number is always inaccurate and the inaccuracy is always on the low side. It’s frustrating and it’s usually an inaccurate number that’s reported by entertainment press (for whom these prelim numbers are typically pretty reliable) rather than sports press.”

An NBC Sports spokesman said, “I know where it came from … it’s wrong, but those entertainment writers use it because it exists.”

The “it” in the quote was the figure 16.5 million, which is what was reported as the viewership for SNF, which would mark a whopping 27 percent decline from the year before.  But by the next day when Nielsen reported the complete picture, the audience had risen 3 million viewers, leaving the decline at 14 percent.

Now, 14 percent is still a big decline, especially when the game involves the Dallas Cowboys and Los Angeles Rams, one a brand name team, and both from large markets. But it’s only one game, coming off no preseason contests and a summer like no other. And Fox Sports’ Sunday afternoon broadcast of Tom Brady’s debut for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers outpaced the same 2019 window by 2 percent. CBS Sports has not yet released its ratings, but given some of the less-than-stellar AFC matchups on display, it’s a good guess that ratings may be off a bit in Week 1.

Ratings have been mixed since sports returned from the pandemic hiatus. The ratings for the NBA, playing during an untraditional time, are down. MLB’s are on the rise, while some events, like the Kentucky Derby and US Open Tennis Championships, have suffered sharp declines.

After noting on Twitter that after eight days, US Open ratings were down 46 percent, Janie Johnson, a right-wing author and media influencer with over 200,000 Twitter followers, responded on Twitter: “Maybe all #BlackLivesMatter BS!” This is a common thread in certain circles: Either fans just don’t want sports and other issues to intersect, or they find the messaging political and off-putting.

Experts who follow the media universe don’t give much weight to the notion that ratings in a particular instance may be down due to a sport giving a platform to social messaging.

“If you were to look at a basket of rationales or reasons why the ratings are down, I think the social justice movement piece of it is not even within the top five reasons why the NFL ratings are down if it’s even in there,” said Dan Cohen, senior vice president of Octagon’s global media rights consulting division, talking specifically about football. “First and foremost, it’s about cord-cutting. And that is across the board … Number two, is because of the fact that this fragmentation of content is at an all-time high. I mean, the proliferation of new platforms is, there’s over 300 different platforms of video content to subscribe to now to watch in terms of, and that’s just, that’s not linear, those are digital platforms in the U.S.

“Eleven times this month, you’re going to have all the major sports on television the same day,” Cohen added. “That’s only happened six times in history.”

– – –

That said, people are watching sports. According to a member of ESPN’s research team, “Let’s put this weekend in sports in context. Americans spent almost 500M hours watching sports events this past Thursday-Sunday. That’s the best Thurs-Sun performance since Super Bowl weekend and fell just short of that mark (498.2M hours vs. 499.9M hours).”

So for most sports like the NFL, ratings gyrations of the kind seen in Week 1 should not be terribly concerning. After all, using another measure, jersey sale interest is up.

Fanatics founder Michael Rubin tweeted yesterday: “Football is back! NFL sales jump more than 35% for opening weekend vs last year, setting a record for best start ever to the NFL season.”

As for tennis, however, the nearly halving of the audience must come as a red flag.  The tournament could serve as a harbinger of what life is like without Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, who skipped the event, played before no fans.

“If you don’t have those guys it’s hard,” said Cohen. “It’s golf without Tiger.”

STATE OF PROTEST

In addition to TE TYLER EIFERT (“David Dorn”) and QB DWAYNE HASKINS (“Davon McNeal “), add Pittsburgh T ALEJANDRO VILLANUEVA to the list of those going off script (or trying to).  Paul Mirengoff at PowerlineBlog.com:

Alejandro Villanueva plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He is a military combat veteran, having served in Afghanistan.

This season, all of the Steelers except for Villaneuva will wear the name of Antwon Rose on their helmets. Villaneuva intends to wear the name of Alwyn Cashe, instead.

Cashe, a black man, was a U.S. Army sergeant. He died of injuries suffered in Iraq in 2005.

Rose, also black, was a criminal. He was part of a group that committed a drive-by shooting in the Pittsburgh area, and likely was the shooter.

The police stopped the group’s car which, they observed, had bullet holes in the side. The officers ordered the driver to get out of the car. As they were handcuffing the driver, Rose and another accomplice left the car and ran away. An officer shot at, and killed, Rose. At the time of his death, Rose had gun powder residue on his hand. However, Rose was unarmed when he was shot.

Rose had participated in at least one other drive-by shooting. Video footage showed him in the front passenger seat of a car while another man, the guy who was running away with Rose when Rose was later killed, fired at a man through the rear window.

The officer who killed Rose was tried for criminal homicide. A jury acquitted the officer. Three African-Americans were on that jury.

It’s shocking that the Pittsburgh Steelers want to honor a guy who participated in at least two drive-by shootings and was likely the shooter in one of them. How anyone could root for a team with such players is beyond me.

Couldn’t the players have picked another “victim” of “racial injustice” to honor? Maybe not. It seems that Rose was the first person killed by the East Pittsburgh Police Department since at least 2015 and that no more deserving victim has come along since Rose’s death in 2018.

I guess “systemic police racism” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not in Pittsburgh, anyway.

It’s not just the Steelers’ players who are to blame for honoring a two-time drive-by shooting participant. According to this report, the NFL has said that only pre-approved names can appear on helmets this year, and that the approved names list will consist only of victims of “racial injustice.”

I take this to mean that Rose’s name is (or soon will be) on the NFL pre-approved list.

Cashe’s name isn’t. He’s only a war hero.

Will the NFL allow Villanova to wear Caste’s name on his helmet anyway? We’ll see. At least his coach, Mike Tomlin (also black), reportedly is supporting the patriotic player.

Readers may recall that Villanova bucked the team once before. In 2017, Tomlin told the entire team to stay in the locker room for the national anthem. Villanueva left the locker room, stood, and saluted.

Villanova’s decision not to a wear Cashe’s name on his helmet drew criticism from Rose’s mother. She complained:

The Pittsburgh Steelers took a team vote. Obviously one person didn’t like the results so they chose to do something different. I have nothing against vets and absolutely appreciate everything that they have done and continue to do for us. But this one person showed us exactly who he is and obviously he didn’t approve of how the vote turned out.

(Emphasis added)

I agree that Alejandro Villanueva is showing “exactly who he is,” and I salute him.

Actually, here is what Villanueva did in Week 1:

Steelers offensive lineman Alejandro Villanueva chose to cover the name of police shooting victim Antwon Rose Jr. on the back of his helmet during Pittsburgh’s game against the New York Giants on “Monday Night Football.” Villanueva chose instead to write the name Alwyn Cashe, a veteran who died during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2005.

As the NFL has allowed players to wear helmet decals honoring the victims of systemic racism, the Steelers decided as a team to honor Rose — a Black teenager shot in the back by a white police officer in Pittsburgh in 2018 after he ran from a vehicle that was pulled over — for the entirety of the season. The now-former East Pittsburgh officer was charged with murder, but a jury found him not guilty in March 2019.

Villanueva, a former Army Ranger who served three tours in Afghanistan, decided to break from the team and replace Rose’s name with Cashe’s, a Sgt. 1st Class who died after trying to rescue soldiers from a burning vehicle in Iraq. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said Tuesday that he approved of his player’s decision.

“As an organization, and myself as the head coach of the organization, we’re going to support our players however they chose to participate and express themselves, or to not participate or not express themselves, as long as they do so thoughtfully and with class,” said Tomlin Tuesday during a press conference. Tomlin added that Villanueva’s choice didn’t warrant an explanation.

C MAURKICE POUNCEY has now joined Villanueva in rejecting the choice of Rose as an appropriate “victim” of violence after learning more about the case.  Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com:

Steelers captain Maurkice Pouncey on Thursday announced his intention to make his own choice about what name to put on the back of his helmet, becoming the second player to break from the team’s decision to wear the name of police shooting victim Antwon Rose Jr. on helmets for the 2020 season.

“I was given limited information on the situation regarding Antwon, and I was unaware of the whole story surrounding his death and what transpired during the trial following the tragedy,” Pouncey, a vocal advocate for the police communities in Pittsburgh and in his hometown, wrote in an Instagram post. “I should have done more research to fully understand what occurred in its entirety.

“… Make no mistake, I am against racism and I believe the best thing I can do is to continue helping repair relationships between the police and their communities.”

Pouncey was not made available by the team prior to Thursday’s practice to further clarify his social media statement.