The Daily Briefing Thursday, September 29, 2022

DALLAS

Dan Wetzel of YahooSports.com explores exactly how well QB COOPER RUSH has really played:

After Dak Prescott injured his hand in the Dallas Cowboys’ season opener — and was adequately replaced by backup Cooper Rush despite the Cowboys losing the game — team owner Jerry Jones suggested that maybe a quarterback controversy breaking out would be good for the team.

“Wouldn’t it be something if you had a dilemma as to which way you go?” Jones wondered.

This was dismissed as Jerry being Jerry, or more notably Owner Jerry being Owner Jerry. After all, the only thing Jones hates more than people talking down about the Cowboys is people not talking at all about the Cowboys.

Losing Prescott in Week 1 is a recipe for that. Plenty of pundits were already declaring the season over.

Still, wishing for a “quarterback controversy” to break out between your $40 million franchise QB and a 28-year-old undrafted journeyman seemed to be a bit much.

“It’s all marketing,” running back Ezekiel Elliott said. “He wants y’all to be clicking and listening too.”

Well, maybe it was. Maybe it was a way to keep the Cowboys in the headlines. Then again, what he said made sense. If Rush stepped in and played well, that was good for Dallas. It meant that the Cowboys were likely winning games. And besides, when does a team not want lots of talented options?

“Same thing that happened with Prescott,” Jones said, recalling how Dak beat out Tony Romo for the job back in 2016. “I think like that.”

Or maybe, just maybe, it was Jerry Jones knowingly — or confidently — predicting what he might have in Cooper Rush.

Maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t Owner Jerry talking, but General Manager Jerry laying the groundwork for people to acknowledge that he’s made a few nice moves of late.

That certainly includes Rush, who has thrown for 450 yards and two touchdowns while playing very well in consecutive starts (both wins).

Dallas is now 2-1 and a season that once was deemed doomed is barreling toward playoff contention. The Cowboys host a bumbling Washington team on Sunday and Prescott is already eyeing a Week 5 return against the Los Angeles Rams.

Head coach Mike McCarthy has been clear that there is no doubt who will be the starter when Prescott gets back. That doesn’t minimize what Rush has done — a victory over reigning AFC champion Cincinnati and then, Monday, on the road against the divisional rival New York Giants.

Nor does it discount what he still may do. Prescott may want to be back soon, but there are no guarantees.

Someone in Dallas saw something in Rush that no one else in the league did, enough to gamble that he was a capable and competent backup to Prescott.

Rush went undrafted in 2017 coming out of Central Michigan. Dallas signed him, but never played him. Over the next three seasons he threw a combined three passes. In 2020, he left for the Giants but never got off the practice squad.

He returned to Dallas for the 2021 season, but saw only one game of meaningful action — a Week 8 start where he went 24-of-40 for 325 yards, two touchdowns and an interception against Minnesota. The Cowboys won though. It was apparently enough.

Rather than find another backup for Prescott, Dallas doubled down on Rush. It’s paying huge dividends. Rush isn’t just running the offense well — and leaning on the running game of Elliott and Tony Pollard — but he is making plays in late-game situations.

“[Rush] has the makeup of a top quarterback,” Jones told 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday in his weekly radio interview.

He might. At least so far he is playing like it. It isn’t enough that there should be any hesitation when Prescott returns, but then again, Rush has at least one more week to show himself.

Know this, however: Dallas’ decision to believe in a guy with almost no in-game track record (just 50 regular season attempted passes before this year) is one of the franchise’s best decisions of late. It’s not drafting Micah Parsons (12th in 2021) or CeeDee Lamb (17th in 2020) or even Prescott in the 2016 fourth round, but the 2022 campaign is in a far different place because of it.

Jones has a mixed record as a general manager and once famously said that, based on results, the Cowboys owner should fire the Cowboys GM.

On this one, however, the front office got it right, and whether Jones was acting as ownership hype man or confident general manager, it seems he may have known what he was saying when he floated the idea of what Cooper Rush might do.

A QB controversy? No. Not yet and probably not ever.

Dallas still in the conversation … for all the right reasons? Absolutely.

NFC SOUTH

TAMPA BAY

Mayor Jane Castor tells the NFL that Tampa is good to go for Sunday Night Football.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

The mayor of Tampa says the city is already making progress in its recovery from Hurricane Ian, and the Buccaneers should host the Chiefs on Sunday night as scheduled.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor wrote on Twitter this morning that the city will be ready for Sunday Night Football.

“We made it through—now the recovery efforts begin. I can’t thank our City of Tampa teams enough. Our push crews are going out in full force to clear debris and keep our city safe,” Castor wrote. “On another note: we’re doing our best to keep the Buccaneers game here Sunday. I have assured the NFL that the only disturbance here Sunday is when the Bucs kick ass.”

The NFL has not officially confirmed that the Bucs game will go on as planned, but given the mayor’s enthusiastic endorsement, there appears to be little doubt that it’s game on for Sunday night.

NFC WEST

SEATTLE

S QUANDRE DIGGS still harbors a grudge at Matt Patricia, but not the Lions.  Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk.com:

Quandre Diggs made it clear what he thinks about former Lions coach Matt Patricia, refusing to call him by name during a 20-minute interview with reporters Wednesday. The Seahawks safety instead referred to Patricia’s two-plus seasons in Detroit as “the other regime.”

Patricia was fired during the 2020 season, 13 months after the Lions traded Diggs to the Seahawks.

Diggs will return to Detroit on Sunday — his first time to play there since the trade — with no hard feelings.

“Detroit is what made me who I am now,” Diggs said Wednesday, via Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times. “So I’m forever grateful.”

The Seahawks stole Diggs from the Lions, because of Diggs’ rift with Patricia, giving up only a fifth-round selection in 2020 while getting back a 2021 seventh-round selection. Diggs has made the Pro Bowl the past two seasons and received a new three-year contract worth up to $39 million with $27 million guaranteed.

“I’m a pretty outspoken guy,” Diggs said, alluding to his relationship with Patricia. “Some people can’t take that. So there you go.”

Diggs, though, declined to “keep going down that same road. I mean, we’ve talked about it enough, about why the situation happened with me.”

He instead wants to remember the good times he had in Detroit.

“Detroit, when it took a shot on a sixth-round guy from Texas, it might have not been me,” Diggs said. “[And without that] I might not be who I am today.”

AFC WEST

DENVER

Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com studies the Broncos offense:

The Broncos’ offense is broken

If you endured the entirety of Sunday’s 49ers-Broncos matchup, you saw two offenses failing to move the ball consistently. The 49ers at least have the excuse of spending all offseason preparing for a Trey Lance-led attack before turning back to Jimmy Garoppolo, but the Broncos have no such excuse. Russell Wilson was supposed to lead this long-suffering offense to new heights. After three games, they’ve scored a grand total of 41 points. One year ago, with Teddy Bridgewater under center, Denver had a better record (3-0) and 76 points. This is not the ride Broncos country signed up to take this offseason.

You already know one of the reasons the Broncos have struggled. I covered coach Nathaniel Hackett’s disastrous game management after both Week 1 and Week 2, so I won’t belabor the point again here. The decision to hire former Ravens assistant Jerry Rosburg to help with those decisions should make Hackett’s process faster, but it remains to be seen whether they will make the right choices.

In the 49ers game, Rosburg talked Hackett out of a decision to go for it on fourth-and-inches from his own 34-yard line while trailing 10-5 in the fourth quarter. Disconcertingly for the Broncos, Rosburg’s advice was inaccurate. By Ben Baldwin’s model, the Broncos cost themselves nearly five points of win expectancy by punting in that situation. They were struggling on offense and might have failed, but then again, struggling on offense doesn’t make it any more likely they will get the ball back and march the entire field for a touchdown, either. They ended up winning the game in spite of that fourth-down call.

It’s fair to be disappointed by how Denver has struggled through three weeks. The offense looks disjointed and sloppy. The big plays that were the hallmark of Wilson’s best moments in Seattle have appeared here and there, but Denver’s rate of plays gaining 20-plus yards (6%) is league average, and it has only one 50-plus-yard play in three weeks, a 67-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Jeudy in the opener.

One of the problems, though, has been the Broncos haven’t had an alternative without those big plays. Their average snap has come with 8.8 yards to go, the fifth-worst mark in the league. They’re converting only 64.3% of their series into a new set of downs, which is seventh worst. Success rate is a stat that tracks how often an offense generates positive expected points and avoids falling off schedule to score. Their 37.8% success rate is the second-worst mark, ahead of the Panthers.

This was not true for Wilson’s offenses in Seattle. The Seahawks ranked seventh in success rate in 2020, which was his last full, healthy season as the starter. They were 20th in 2018, so it’s possible for a Wilson-led offense to be below average by this metric, but it’s uncommon for the Super Bowl winner to be at the reins of one of the league’s least consistent offenses. This could change for Denver in the weeks to come.

The biggest problem with the Broncos’ offense, though, is what happens at the end of their drives. They have made seven trips to the red zone and scored exactly one touchdown. That 14.3% touchdown rate is the worst mark in football. They have kicked four field goals and turned the ball over twice, on fumbles by Melvin Gordon and Javonte Williams at the goal line in Seattle. I’m not sure two fumbles by running backs at the goal line will convince Seahawks fans that teams should throw the ball more inside the 2-yard line, but it probably won the game for Seattle in Week 1.

Outside of the red zone, the Broncos rank 13th in the league in EPA per play, generating 0.05 EPA per snap. That’s fine. Inside the red zone? Their minus-0.66 EPA per play ranks last. Not ideal. We know they probably won’t keep losing fumbles at the goal line, so those drives should turn into field goals and touchdowns in the future.

We also know red zone performance, while incredibly important, can fluctuate wildly from week to week and year to year. The 0.71 EPA per play gap between Denver’s performance outside and inside the red zone is the largest of the past decade, but there are teams that have come pretty close through the first three weeks of the season, with the 2021 Chargers (minus-0.47 EPA per play) as a recent example. Those Chargers ranked 25th in red zone touchdown rate during the first three weeks of the season, but from Week 4 on, they led the league.

If we take the 30 teams that posted the largest negative gap between their EPA outside of the red zone and inside the red zone through the first three weeks of the season over the past decade, that trend didn’t keep up over the remainder of the season. Those teams posted an average EPA gap of minus-0.45 points per red zone play from Week 1 to 3. From Week 4 on, they were actually 0.03 points per play better in the red zone than they were outside of the opposition’s 20-yard line.

In other words, while the Broncos have been a mess in the red zone to start their season, their offense inside the red zone should expect to be about as efficient as their offense outside of it over the remainder of the season. It’s fair to wonder whether they have the sort of ceiling we would have imagined given their personnel after the Wilson trade, but they should be more productive in the weeks to come.

Panic level: A time for patience, not worry

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

EDGE JOEY BOSA is having surgery for a torn groin and will be on IR for a while.  He’s not the only key Charger going on the shelf.  Lindsey Thiry of ESPN.com:

Los Angeles Chargers edge rusher Joey Bosa and left tackle Rashawn Slater were placed on injured reserve Wednesday.

Bosa suffered a groin tear in the first quarter of Sunday’s 38-10 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

“It’s a tough loss for our defense,” safety Derwin James Jr. said. “But it’s on us to have his back and hold things down until he gets situated.”

Bosa, a four-time Pro Bowl selection, will undergo surgery, but coach Brandon Staley said it’s anticipated that he will return this season.

“It’s going to be a ways, but we expect him to come back,” Staley said. “He’s optimistic and ready to attack it. He’s in a really good frame of mind. It’s never easy when you have an injury like that.”

The Chargers are 1-2 as they prepare for back-to-back road games at Houston (0-2-1) and Cleveland (2-1).

In Bosa’s absence, second-year pro Chris Rumph II and veteran linebacker Kyle Van Noy are expected to step in. In Slater’s absence, the Bolts will turn to rookie Jamaree Salyer.

“He’s ready to play on the edge,” Staley said of Rumph, who will line up opposite Khalil Mack.

Staley also emphasized that flexibility and depth were among key motives in the offseason signing of Van Noy, who has the ability to play inside or outside linebacker.

The Bolts also claimed outside linebacker Derrek Tuszka off waivers Tuesday to provide depth.

Bosa has 1.5 sacks in three games this season. He has 59.5 sacks in seven seasons.

At left tackle, Slater tore his left biceps tendon in a loss to the Jaguars, causing him to undergo season-ending surgery.

Salyer, a sixth-round pick, played left tackle in his final two seasons at Georgia, where he helped the Bulldogs win a national championship last January.

“What we’re trying to do is keep the sides the same, keep continuity,” Staley said. “For us, we feel like that is the best option for us going into this game plan.”

“It means a lot to me that my coaches and teammates believe in me enough to give me the opportunity,” said Salyer, who becomes the second rookie to start on the line this season, along with right guard Zion Johnson, the 17th overall pick last April.

Thiry explains how the Chargers hope to overcome these and other losses:

The Los Angeles Chargers spent the offseason bolstering their roster in attempt to make a deep playoff, if not Super Bowl run.

But through a 1-2 start, which included splitting back-to-back division games against the Las Vegas Raiders (0-3) and Kansas City Chiefs (2-1), the Chargers suffered several injuries to key players, causing significant questions about the team’s trajectory as they prepare for a Week 4 game at Houston (0-2-1).

“It’s part of the NFL. It’s an attrition league and you have to be ready for it,” Chargers coach Brandon Staley said. “What you have to do is weather the storm and stay together. Then, make sure the guys are coming back as quickly as they can.”

The Chargers had a league-high eight players land in ESPN’s 2022 NFL rank, which predicts the top 100 players of the season. However, five of them, plus Pro Bowl center Corey Linsley, are dealing with significant injury issues.

Here’s a look at the most concerning situations.

Quarterback

It’s always of great concern when the franchise quarterback has an ailment, and for third-year quarterback Justin Herbert and his fractured rib cartilage, there’s no recovery in sight.

“This injury is going to be there for a while,” Staley said after a 38-10 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars last Sunday. “If you guys know the injury, it’s not like it’s going to feel better next week or the week after that. This thing is going to be present for a while. He felt good today. We’re going to continue to manage it the best we can.”

Herbert, 24, has avoided admitting to any pain, saying only that he’s feeling “good.”

But former NFL quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who suffered the injury during his 17-year NFL career, provided some insight into how Herbert might actually be feeling.

 “I’ve had this injury and it stinks,” Hasselbeck said on Sunday NFL Countdown, adding that the causes for concern are multiple. “Those little jabs, or the big hits, or can he throw? But it’s not even just that. It’s using your cadence. You can’t hardly even breathe when you have this injury… everything is bothering you.”

Playing through the injury, Herbert completed 25 of 45 passes for 297 yards and a touchdown, with an interception and lost sack-fumble.

Perhaps most concerning for the recovery of the young Pro Bowl quarterback moving forward, however, is that he’ll be playing behind a cobbled-together offensive line.

Offensive line

The Chargers have recently invested in their line, prioritizing protection for Herbert over the last two years.

In 2021, they signed veteran center Corey Linsley to a five-year, $62.5 million contract. Then, they selected left tackle Rashawn Slater with the 13th overall pick.

Last April, they used the 17th overall pick to select right guard Zion Johnson.

The line played together one game, in a season-opening 24-19 win over the Raiders, before it started to fall apart.

Linsley left the game in Week 2 because of a knee issue, and was inactive against the Jaguars, though Staley said Monday that the ninth-year pro was improving.

“He improved really over the last three or four days,” Staley said. “Really hopeful that he’s back in practice this week.”

In a much more devastating blow, Slater tore his left biceps tendon against the Jaguars and will miss the remainder of the season.

 “It’s going to be a tough loss for us,” Staley said about the Pro Bowl tackle. “But we’re going to make sure, over the next couple of days, that we put good contingencies in place, that we put a group out there that can really play together.”

Will Clapp, a fifth-year pro who spent the last four seasons in New Orleans — where offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi served as quarterbacks coach during that time — has stepped in for Linsley.

And at left tackle, Storm Norton took over when Slater left the game. Norton lost the starting job at right tackle to Trey Pipkins III during training camp.

Staley said it was to be determined how they will account for Slater’s absence moving forward.

“We’re going to look through that over the next couple of days,” Staley said, when asked how jobs would be filled moving forward. “That’s what we’re going to try and determine, moving forward, is not trying to make too many moves where there is going to be a lot of moving pieces, where guys could potentially be doing a lot of new things. We’re going to try and keep things as consistent as we can.”

The Bolts also have reserve linemen Jamaree Salyer and Brenden Jaimes.

Pass rush

Star pass rusher Joey Bosa will be sidelined indefinitely because of a groin injury, taking away what was considered among the league’s top pass-rushing duos.

With an offense that was ready to make a playoff run in 2021, much of the offseason focus was placed on defensive improvements.

The Bolts traded second- and sixth-round picks to the Chicago Bears to acquire pass rusher Khalil Mack to pair with Bosa, but — after a promising start to the season — it’s unclear when the duo will be on the field together again.

“It’s of the nature of not day-to-day. It’ll probably be week-to-week,” said Staley of Bosa, adding that he was uncertain if the Pro Bowl edge rusher would be placed on injured reserve.

Mack has four sacks this season, which ranks second in the NFL. Bosa had 1.5.

The Chargers have been developing second-year pro Chris Rumph II, who is likely to play an increased number of snaps with Bosa out, and they also signed veteran linebacker Kyle Van Noy over the offseason.

Van Noy worked with the inside linebackers throughout training camp, but is considered a depth player on the edge, if needed. He moved to the position after Bosa was sidelined.

Wide receivers

The Bolts’ receptions leader since 2017, Keenan Allen has now missed two games, but Staley expressed optimism that the five-time Pro Bowler is closing in on a return since suffering a hamstring injury in Week 1.

“I think that you should see him back in practice this week,” Staley said.

If Allen is able to return, it certainly would be a welcome sight for a position group that is quickly thinning.

The Chargers kept only five receivers on their initial 53-man roster.

They lost reserve receiver Jalen Guyton for the season, with the fourth-year pro suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament late in the fourth quarter last Sunday.

The remaining healthy receivers: Mike Williams, a 1,000-yard receiver last season; second-year pro Joshua Palmer and DeAndre Carter, who was signed over the offseason as a return specialist but has provided an unexpected spark on offense.

Cornerbacks

The Chargers spent a premium on cornerback J.C. Jackson in free agency, signing him to a five-year, $82.5 million contract.

However, his short time with the Bolts has been somewhat mysterious.

Jackson underwent surprise ankle surgery on August 23 after feeling discomfort during practices.

He was inactive in Week 1, returned in Week 2 and played 100 percent of the snaps, then — despite a nine-day break, was inactive again in Week 3.

Staley said there were no setbacks in Jackson’s recovery, but that the fifth-year cornerback was dealing with inflammation.

“Nothing structural. The wound is feeling fine,” Staley said. “Making sure that he doesn’t go out there and have something else happen. There was just some inflammation that we were taking a look at, and being cautious, looking at the long term.”

In Jackson’s absence, cornerback Michael Davis — a starter the last three seasons, has started.

AFC NORTH

CLEVELAND

If past performance is any indication, excessive speed could have been involved in the spectacular crash of EDGE MYLES GARRETT.  Michael David Smith ofProFootballTalk.com:

Police have not said whether speeding was involved when Browns defensive end Myles Garrett was in a single-car accident this week. But Garrett reportedly has a history of unsafe driving.

Although police are still investigating the cause of this week’s crash, in which Garrett flipped his Porsche, WKYC reports that Garrett has at least six speeding tickets in the Cleveland area since 2017.

On September 24 of last year, Garrett was stopped for driving 120 mph. The very next day, he was ticketed again, this time for driving 105 mph. Both of those infractions happened on Interstate 71 in suburban Cleveland, where the speed limit is 70 mph.

Garrett’s repeated speeding offenses have resulted in nothing more than small fines which are unlikely to deter someone on a five-year, $125 million contract. Perhaps this week’s incident, in which he suffered shoulder and biceps injuries, will be enough to persuade him to drive safely.

The early tale was that Garrett thoughtfully put the lives of he and his passenger by braking for an animal crossing a slippery road.  But whether that was from 50, 70 or 100 mph has not been revealed.

Local authorities have issued their verdict.  Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com:

The Ohio State Highway Patrol has issued a citation to Browns defensive end Myles Garrett as a result of the car crash that sent him to the hospital on Monday.

According to multiple reports, has been cited for failure to control his vehicle. The citation goes on to note that “unsafe speed for the type of roadway being traveled appeared to be a contributing circumstance” to the crash, which saw Garrett’s Porsche flip over before coming to a stop.

AFC SOUTH

INDIANAPOLIS

It is not unusual for some running backs to miss a practice here or there, but it was noteworthy yesterday for RB JONATHAN TAYLOR.  Jack Baer of YahooSports.com:

Jonathan Taylor did not participate in practice for the Indianapolis Colts on Wednesday. That is reportedly a first in not just his NFL career, but pretty much his entire organized football career.

The Colts running back was reportedly held out of practice due to a toe injury, per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. The move is reportedly a precautionary one, as Taylor was feeling sore after last week’s win against the Kansas City Chiefs but is expected to play this week against the Tennessee Titans.

The top pick in most fantasy drafts this season, Taylor has so far posted 286 rushing yards and one touchdown on the ground, plus 43 receiving yards.

Even if he is on track to play, Taylor’s absence from practice is an unusual sight. After all, he said last season that he had never missed a single practice or game in the NFL, college or high school, per Joel Erickson of the Indianapolis Star.

That status does come with some caveats. He did miss a mandatory minicamp this recent offseason due to an unspecified injury, so at best you can only say he’s never missed an in-season practice. And he was limited for some practices last year, and left one game early with a quad injury during his freshman year at Wisconsin.

Even with all that, Taylor’s durability is undeniably impressive. One of the major knocks on him when he entered the NFL draft was the question of how much tread had been taken out of his tires during his three seasons as the starting running back at Wisconsin, as he had posted a whipping 926 carries in 41 games.

And yet, here we are. He has a strong case as the top running back in the NFL, and it’s noteworthy that he only missed a practice.

– – –

Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com has studied the 2022 version of QB MATT RYAN:

Matt Ryan (and the Colts offense) might be toast

The Colts pulled out their first win of the season Sunday, but it wasn’t thanks to much help from their offense. Their defense and special teams won the day against Kansas City, while the offense scored two touchdowns. One came on a 4-yard field after a muffed punt by Chiefs return man Skyy Moore, while the other required an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on defensive tackle Chris Jones to extend a drive.

Frank Reich’s offense ranks 32nd in DVOA through three weeks. That’s down from 13th in the NFL a year ago, and that was a season with the much-maligned Carson Wentz at quarterback. The Colts’ latest veteran signal-caller is Ryan, and with the 37-year-old throwing more interceptions than touchdowns over three games to start his Indy career, there are concerns they might have acquired a lemon from the Falcons.

With aging quarterbacks, the first concern publicly is always that their arm strength has gone. It’s too early in the season to draw conclusions in ink, but there are reasons to be worried about Ryan. On deep throws (passes traveling 16 or more yards in the air), he is 6-of-14 for 151 yards with three interceptions. His QBR on those passes is a mere 34.5, which ranks just below Joe Flacco for 28th in the league. Ryan was far better in every category as a deep passer last season.

There are some extenuating circumstances here in a 14-pass sample. Rookie wideout Alec Pierce dropped a would-be touchdown in the opener on a good throw. Ryan still looks like he’s growing comfortable in Indianapolis’ offense and with his new receivers, so there have been moments in which he has looked hesitant with his throws or put them in places where his receivers didn’t end up running. Hopefully, those issues recede as the season goes along.

The Colts also still seem to be sorting out their pass protections, which is strange for a team with a veteran quarterback in Ryan and a star center in Ryan Kelly. They looked flummoxed at times against the Chiefs, who were able to do things NFL defenses simply shouldn’t be able to do. It’s one thing for an edge rusher to win one-on-one against a tackle, but they were blowing the core components of pass protection. They allowed unblocked rushers up the A-gap (on either side of the center) on three different plays and an unblocked rusher up the B-gap on a fourth. That’s unforgivable for any offensive line, let alone a good one. Indianapolis also blew a protection on a L’Jarius Sneed fourth-and-1 strip sack.

Right guard Danny Pinter, a full-time starter for the first time after Mark Glowinski left in free agency, looked overmatched Sunday. He was run over altogether on one sack by edge rusher Frank Clark, while Jones repeatedly gave him trouble. Those are two great players, to be fair, but Pinter also struggled to move from one assignment to the other when the blitzer he was expecting to come didn’t arrive, regardless of who that blitzer was. Indy doesn’t have much depth on the interior, so he’s going to need to figure this out on the fly.

Leaving aside Ryan’s teammates, there are real worries about the lack of zip on his passes. He has to be able to hit shots into holes against Cover 2 or back-shoulder passes in this offense, and even when he has completed those throws, they’ve been more like lobs than the sort of driven passes we typically see from NFL quarterbacks. It might be telling that Indy took only one single shot downfield against the Chiefs, a 50/50 ball Ryan completed to Pierce in the shadow of his own end zone for a 30-yard gain.

It’s fair to note Ryan isn’t exactly playing with great playmakers at receiver, although that shouldn’t impact the zip on his throws. With Pierce and Michael Pittman Jr. missing the Week 2 loss to the Jaguars, Ryan’s targets at receiver have gone to Ashton Dulin, Kylen Granson, Mike Strachan and Dezmon Patmon. Pittman can be a borderline No. 1 wideout when healthy, and his absence was a huge hindrance, but there’s no depth within this receiving corps.

Parris Campbell, finally healthy after missing most of the past three season because of injuries, hasn’t been noticeable on the field. His 110 routes lead the team, but he has mustered only 47 receiving yards on eight targets. The 2019 second-round pick, drafted just ahead of DK Metcalf, Diontae Johnson and Ohio State teammate Terry McLaurin, is averaging just 0.43 yards per route run this season. Out of 95 qualifying wideouts, that figure ranks 94th through three weeks, ahead of only Arizona’s A.J. Green.

Where Ryan still succeeds is distributing the ball on quick game. Given the opportunity to use his brain and experience before the snap and make a short throw after the snap, he has been effective. His 82.0 QBR on throws within 2.5 seconds of getting the snap ranks eighth best, while his 82.8% adjusted completion percentage (a measure that weights difficulty by air yards and removes throwaways and drops) on those attempts ranks first.

You can make an offense out of quick game, especially if you run the football effectively. Jonathan Taylor’s fantasy managers are beginning to worry after two consecutive middling games by the superstar back, but I’m not concerned. We’re not seeing teams stack up defenders near the line of scrimmage against him, as just under 15% of his carries have come against a loaded box, which is way below players such as Leonard Fournette and Derrick Henry.

Taylor averaged an outrageous 1.7 yards over expectation per carry a year ago, meaning he gained an average of nearly two yards more than what a typical back would do with the same blocking on the same play, per the NFL Next Gen Stats model. This season, he has not been quite as effective, but he’s still 0.4 yards over expectation, which ranks 15th in the league for backs with at least 20 carries.

The big plays have been missing for the 2021 All-Pro, however. Taylor produced eight gains of 30 yards or more as a runner last season, which led the league. He also carried the ball more often than anybody else, but given his rush attempts, he generated a 30-plus-yard gain once every 41.5 carries. This season, on 61 attempts, Taylor doesn’t have a single run longer than 21 yards. This likely isn’t much more than randomness.

Taylor will get better as the year goes along, and the Colts should be able to sort out some of their pass-protection issues. From their perspective, though, they’ll be hoping Ryan’s arm doesn’t decline. They would be on the hook for $18 million in dead money if they need to move on from the 2015 MVP after the season, a hit that will hinder them if they extend Taylor’s contract and need to find a new signal-caller.

Ryan never was expected to be a long-term commitment, but he was supposed to be an upgrade on Wentz and a short-term stabilizer. Right now, the Colts look like they’re still a work in progress on offense, which is dangerous in advance of a divisional matchup against the rival Titans on Sunday.

Panic level: Cautious optimism … for now

AFC EAST

BUFFALO

CB DANE JACKSON is back at Bills practice.  Michael David Smith ofProFootballTalk.com:

Bills cornerback Dane Jackson suffered one of the scariest injuries of this NFL season when he took a hard hit to the head, was stretchered off the field and taken to the hospital in an ambulance last Monday night. But Jackson has recovered well enough that he’s already back at practice.

Jackson wore a red non-contact jersey in his first day back at practice today, and he told reporters that every exam showed there was no long-term injury to his head or neck. Jackson said the hardest thing was the unknown of being strapped down in the ambulance ride and unsure how seriously he had been hurt.

 “It was pretty scary. It was pretty scary for sure,” he said. “Really, the unknown was the most scary part, but once I knew everything was OK I could relax. . . . I was worried about my son at home, my mom, everybody was crying.”

Jackson said the people of Buffalo have been incredibly supportive, with Bills fans sending him cards and get-well gifts.

“It was crazy the amount of support I received,” Jackson said. “I got letters to my house, edible arrangements to my door.”

Jackson said he isn’t sure whether he’ll play on Sunday against the Ravens, but feels good about his health.

MIAMI

This from Mike Florio:

One of the burdens of being a good team is that other teams will try to come up with ways to beat you. Legal and/or otherwise.

Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports that NFL Security is investigating whether someone was filming the team’s practice on Wednesday.

There are no other details at this point.

Obviously, it’s against the rules for teams to spy on other teams. It’s unclear who was doing it, if it was happening, what was recorded, and how the Dolphins even became aware of it.

The Dolphins visit the Bengals tonight. Any upcoming opponent would be a potential suspect, if it’s something that some other team was doing in order to get an edge against the Dolphins.

“No details”?  We saw this with video:

@barstoolsports

Someone at the University of Cincinnati’s campus, has snuck into the Dolphins practice. Filming all of their plays, and have been posting them to twitter.

This League.

And this:

@stoolpresidente

The @MiamiDolphins have asked our @UCBarstool to delete videos of the Dolphins practicing.   My decision below  (reupload cause didn’t want his number in there)

Dave Portnoy shows the letter from the Dolphins, then a thumbs down meme.

THIS AND THAT

QBS ON THE BRINK

Joel Corry of CBSSports.com identifies three QBs who he thinks are seeing their starting jobs slip away:

Head coaches usually don’t bench quarterbacks during the earliest stages of the season. It usually takes a little time for a change to be made. Here are three quarterbacks whose starting jobs could soon be in jeopardy without improved play.

Mitchell Trubisky, Steelers

Trubisky was signed to a two-year, $14.285 million contract worth up to $26.785 million through incentives to help transition from Ben Roethlisberger, who retired after 18 years with the Steelers. Selecting Kenny Pickett with the 20th overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft put Trubisky on notice that he wasn’t Pittsburgh’s long-term solution at quarterback.

Pittsburgh’s offense has been struggling with Trubisky under center. Trubisky has been criticized for a reluctance to throw the football down the field. He is averaging a league-worst 5.5 yards per pass attempt. Trubisky also ranks 26th in the NFL with a 60.2 completion percentage and has a 77.7 passer rating, which is 29th.

Offensive coordinator Matt Canada has come under fire as well for the problems with the offense. The Steelers are 31st in the league with 272.7 yards for per game and have only scored four offensive touchdowns in three games.

Mike Tomlin has never had a losing season in his 15 years as Steelers head coach. Extending the streak to 16 seasons may not be an easy task given the 1-2 start and the upcoming schedule. After the Jets on Sunday, the Steelers face the Bills, Buccaneers, Dolphins and Eagles in succession. Realistically, the Steelers could be 1-7 or 2-6 after that stretch heading into a bye week. It wouldn’t be surprising for Tomlin to make a switch to Pickett after the bye if the offense is still stagnant.

Baker Mayfield, Panthers

Mayfield’s disappointing 2021, while playing most of the season with a torn labrum in his left (non-throwing) shoulder, prompted the Browns to explore options at quarterback despite already picking up his fully guaranteed $18.858 million, fifth-year option. The 2018 first overall pick became expendable after the Browns unexpectedly gave up 2022, 2023 and 2024 first-round picks, a 2022 fourth-round pick, a 2023 third-round pick and a 2024 fourth-round pick to the Texans for Deshaun Watson and a 2024 sixth-round pick in March.

The Browns kept Mayfield until the middle of July before dealing him to the Panthers for a conditional 2024 fifth-round pick, which becomes a fourth-round pick with him taking at least 70% of Carolina’s offensive snaps this season. It was necessary for Cleveland to eat $10.5 million in a pre-trade salary conversion and Mayfield had to give up some guaranteed money to facilitate the move. Mayfield reduced his remaining salary by $3.5 million from $8.358 million to $4.858 million with the ability to make the money back through not so easily achievable incentives. Between the two teams, Mayfield is assured of making $15.358 million this year.

Mayfield won a preseason quarterback competition with Sam Darnold, 2018’s third overall pick, for the starting job while learning Carolina’s offense on the fly. The early returns for Mayfield haven’t been good as the Panthers have gotten off to a 1-2 start. Mayfield’s 51.9 completion percentage is 31st in the NFL. He also ranks near the bottom in passer rating (25th) and passing yards (29th).

Mayfield has been plagued by inconsistency throughout his career. He was a leading candidate for 2018 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year. Mayfield rebounded from a sophomore slump in 2019 to play the best football of his NFL career during the second half of the 2020 season, which helped the Browns earn a playoff berth for the first time since 2002. He regressed in 2021 while playing through injury.

Head coach Matt Rhule may have a low tolerance for subpar quarterback play because of a shaky future with the Panthers. He has an 11-25 record as Carolina’s head coach. Darnold was put on injured reserve to start the season because of a left ankle sprain. He is eligible to return after Week 4. Rhule turning to Darnold at some point once he comes off injured reserve might be inevitable if Mayfield doesn’t starting playing like he did in 2020 and the losses keep mounting.

Jameis Winston, Saints

Winston was Plan B for the Saints after a failed pursuit of Watson. He returned to the Saints on a two-year, $28 million contract with $21 million in guarantees. Incentives and salary escalators make the deal worth as much as $39 million.

Winston had significantly cut down on the turnovers that plagued him during his five years with the Buccaneers (2015-19) before suffering a season-ending left knee injury during a Week 8 victory over his former team in 2021. Only three interceptions were thrown in the seven games Winston played last season.

Winston is playing through four fractures in his back but he seems to have regressed in his decision-making. He has already thrown five interceptions in three games. Just as concerning is New Orleans’ almost nonexistent offense in the first half of its three games this season given that Winston has much better weapons at his disposal than in 2021. Michael Thomas, the 2019 NFL Offensive Player of the Year, has returned from an ankle injury that kept him out of action last season. The Saints traded up to take Chris Olave with the 11th overall pick in the 2022 Draft. Jarvis Landry took a modest one-year, $3 million deal (worth up to $6 million through incentives) after the Browns released him.

The Saints have scored 10 total points and averaged only 129 yards for 4.5 yards per play in the first half of games. In the second half, New Orleans is averaging 13.7 points, 244 yards and 7.3 yards per play and 38 of the Saints’ 51 points have come in the fourth quarter. The sluggish offense is a major reason why the Saints, who are expected to challenge the Buccaneers for the NFC South title, have a 1-2 record.

The Saints have a seasoned backup in Andy Dalton. The 12-year veteran has a 77-69-2 record as a starter. Dalton is on a one-year, $3 million deal worth up to $6 million through incentives. Winston is tied for the NFL lead in interceptions. Continuing to be among the league leaders isn’t a blueprint for job security.

Trubisky has two backups in MASON RUDOLPH and KENNY PICKETT that might be more appealing.

We would think Mayfield and Winston can go longer, because the backups are less appealing.

MVP

The NFL’s MVP voting process has been rather stark for an eternity – 50 first place votes, no other.  So no one has ever thought QB RUSSELL WILSON, for one, is worth a first in any given year.

Jonathan Jones of CBSSports.com hears that the powers that be might be re-thinking things:

The Associated Press is mulling changes to the way its 50 voters ultimately chose the NFL’s Most Valuable Player, sources tell CBS Sports.

For years, voters have submitted one name and one name only for the league’s top on-field award. Now, the AP is considering ranked-choice voting for MVP, a system where voters rank multiple candidates by preference. Sources say several voters have pushed for this system for years.

The AP’s award has long been considered the true NFL MVP, even though other outlets have also issued MVPs over the years. Last year, Aaron Rodgers won his second consecutive NFL MVP title and fourth overall when he got 39 votes to Tom Brady’s 10. Cooper Kupp got the other vote.

There hasn’t been any genuine intrigue around who would win the award in at least a decade, since Adrian Peterson got 30 1/2 votes to Peyton Manning’s 19 1/2 in 2012. By the time the regular season ends — and usually even a week or two before the finale — a regular NFL observer can determine who will be named that season’s MVP by the time it’s awarded at NFL Honors during Super Bowl week.

Ranked-choice would give voters more flexibility and a greater voice in the results, though it’s unclear if their ballots would finally be made public. It would also get more players involved in the MVP voting. There’s no doubt Russell Wilson would have gotten an MVP vote of some sort over the past decade if ranked-choice voting had been the system.

For more than 40 years, the NBA has done ranked-choice voting with media members. Voters rank MVP candidates one through five, with 10 points going to first-place, seven points to second, five to third, three to fourth and one point to fifth.

An inherent danger in all ranked-choice voting is that someone may have fewer first-place votes than a competitor but far more second-place votes that ultimately win them the award. How the Associated Press decides to weigh these votes will need to ensure that isn’t a possibility. At this point it’s unclear how many candidates voters would be able to rank, and it’s also not known how many points would be assigned to those rankings.

The closest vote in recent history was 2003 when Peyton Manning and Steve McNair shared the award. Each player got 16 votes, with four other players splitting the remaining 18 votes. It’s possible, though unlikely, that Manning and McNair still would have shared the award had there been rank-choice voting.

Voters felt good enough to give their votes to Tom Brady, Jamal Lewis, Priest Holmes and Ray Lewis that year. They would have been split on ranking McNair over Manning or Manning over McNair (or maybe not giving a top-three vote to either of them.)

The MVP voting panel is comprised of 50 sportswriters and broadcasters from across the country who cover the NFL on a daily, national basis. The MVP is a regular-season award, and voters must submit their ballots before the start of the postseason.

RE-ALIGNMENT?

The NFL has been the same 32 teams in the same eight divisions for 20 years, even after some franchise movement.  Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic wonders if there could be any kind of change.

It’s been 20 years since the NFL realigned teams within its conferences, creating the symmetrical eight four-team divisions split between the AFC and NFC. So, what would it take for a change to happen again?

When getting hypothetical about it, maybe expansion, a new team overseas or even a multi-league promotion/relegating setup like soccer leagues around the world could spark changes in the current structure. But don’t hold your breath.

The economic and competitive pressures that forced the shifting and adding of teams more than two decades ago were a moment in time, not easily replicated. In other words, don’t expect a change in the existing alignment anytime soon.

“As (the late Houston Texans owner) Bob McNair told me some years ago, 32 teams, four per division, four divisions in each of two conferences, is about as geometrically perfect and competitively perfect as possible,” said Marc Ganis, a sports consultant, referring to the league’s alignment of eight four-team divisions within two conferences.

And it’s not just the symmetry. There is a core economic difference between now and then. Local gate revenue now gets shared, making a pretty compelling case against clubs hopscotching divisions.

A little history: The NFL began pooling revenues in 1961, a landmark choice that quickly proved prescient and set the league on the road to riches, as sharing made most teams competitive. The most valuable revenue a team pooled was media, but it didn’t stop there. Visiting teams soon got 40 percent of the host club’s gate receipts (it’s actually 33 percent because teams calculate the gate off 85 percent of their revenues, and 40 percent of 85 is 33 percent). This became known as VTS, as in Visiting Team Share of gate revenue.

Nevertheless, over time, the system began to create inequities. Divisions with strong markets like the NFC East were richer because the teams were sharing plum ticket windfalls. The exception in the East was the Arizona Cardinals, which had bounced around from Chicago to St. Louis and then to Phoenix.

“Washington had a huge gate. Philly had a huge gate. New York had a huge gate. Dallas had a huge gate,” said Frank Hawkins, a former NFL chief financial officer. “When Arizona was not selling out at home, they were living on the VTS that they would get because all four of those teams were season sellouts.”

Arizona being so far west had no business playing in an eastern division (arguably, neither does Dallas, but the Cowboys are not leaving the East). But why would the Cardinals agree to move if four times a year (visits to Dallas, Philly, New York and Washington, D.C.) they could count on one-third of a rich gate?

Because in 2001, the NFL voted to pool all VTS and evenly distribute it among all clubs, making it akin to national revenue like broadcast media. The move became effective in 2002 when the expansion Houston Texans entered the league, the year the Cardinals moved to the NFC West.

“We now have some swings in visiting-team shares,” then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue said in 2001 when previewing the change in 2002, according to The Washington Post. “It’s being reduced somewhat by all the new stadiums, but pooling visiting shares will facilitate the ultimate (realignment) decision. The economics of a road game will be neutralized so that the gate won’t be affected if a team has to move to a division with teams with smaller stadiums.”

The change meant it didn’t matter if one division had strong gate revenue across the board and another grouping was weaker; pooling VTS smoothed out some of that imbalance. That took away objections, for example, from the Cardinals to move to the NFC West.

Could anything trigger a new round of realignment? One factor might be expansion, a topic that is not on the NFL’s radar. The owners have had a great model for the past 20 years and, in any event, don’t want to share their national TV money with more teams.

But hypothetically, adding two teams — and presumably, it would have to be two teams to have the same number of clubs per conference — could spark realignment. The key would be protecting the natural divisional rivalries, Hawkins said.

But now getting way hypothetical, Hawkins said adding more teams would be too much, so the only solution would be two leagues.

“I don’t know if you’d ever get realigned, but again, absent expansion,” he said. “If you expand, the question then becomes: Do you go to a promotion/relegation system?”

That is the system in global soccer and has, from an intellectual standpoint, been volleyed about in U.S. sports circles forever. The truth is the NFL would never go for it. For one, as owners such as the Walton family, which now owns the Denver Broncos, pay increasingly huge sums for teams, they would be none too happy to find their prized acquisition could be relegated to a lower division.

Also, the relegation and promotion systems don’t typically involve leagues with salary caps, meaning there is more parity in the NFL. That makes the risk of relegation far greater than for a big-spending club like Chelsea FC.

One other development could theoretically revive realignment: a team relocating overseas, such as to London. Say the Jacksonville Jaguars moved to London. Would it make more sense to put them in the AFC East?

Ganis, who is acquainted with NFL executives and owners, said even if the Jaguars moved to London, it is only an hour or two longer on the plane to AFC South cities.

But it is far more likely for the NFL to play more games in London than to relocate a team there.

“I’m talking about a full season of games, not just three games,” Ganis said. “With the 17th regular-season game (added last year), I think there’s going to be many more international games. And London is a perfect place to go.”