The Daily Briefing Tuesday, October 11, 2022

AROUND THE NFL

Referee Carl Cheffers said he followed the roughing the passer rule when he penalized Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones late in the first half of Kansas City’s come-from-behind 30-29 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday night.

The Chiefs had just scored to trim their deficit to 17-7 when Jones stripped the ball from Raiders quarterback Derek Carr just before halftime. Jones landed on Carr while also coming up with the ball — replays showed it was clearly loose and that Jones cleanly recovered it — but Cheffers threw a flag for roughing the passer.

Cheffers, in a pool report following the game, explained that he saw Jones land on Carr with his full body weight while the quarterback was in the pocket.

Cheffers said Carr “gets full protection of all aspects of what we give the quarterback in a passing posture. So when he was tackled, my ruling was the defender landed on him with full body weight. The quarterback is protected from being tackled with full body weight.”

Cheffers said the fact Jones took the ball away from Carr was irrelevant.

“[Carr] gets passing protection until he can defend himself,” Cheffers said. “Just as if he had thrown the ball, he still gets protection. … That extends until he’s no longer in control of the ball.”

The Chiefs were irate at the penalty, which happened with less than two minutes to go in the half and was not reviewed.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid stormed off the sideline to argue. And after the teams traded field goals in the final minutes, leaving the Raiders ahead 20-10, Reid cornered Cheffers again as the teams headed to the locker room.

“I got it off my chest,” Reid said. “I said what I needed to say.”

Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes said he has seen Reid angrier — but not about an official’s call.

Jones said he braced himself with the arm not holding the ball so he wouldn’t land on Carr with his full body weight.

“How should I tackle people?” he said. “How should I not roll on him? I’m trying my best. I’m 325 pounds, OK? What do you want me to do? I’m going full speed trying to get the quarterback.”

Jones referenced a roughing the passer penalty on Atlanta Falcons defensive tackle Grady Jarrett the day before, for a seemingly innocuous tackle of Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady. The penalty gave the Buccaneers a first down and allowed them to run out the clock in a 21-15 victory, rather than giving the Falcons a chance to drive for the win.

“They have put such an emphasis on roughing the passer penalties that we’ve got to be able to review it in the booth,” Jones said. “That’s the next step. … Sometimes looks can be deceiving. Now it’s getting absurd. Now it’s costing teams games.

“I actually stripped the ball and gravity kind of took me to the ground. That’s a roughing the passer call at a critical situation in the game. It’s third down, and we’re down 10 points. … A lot of these roughing the passer calls would be called back [after video review].”

So per Boger, you can’t “throw” a QB to the ground, even if he never leaves the defenders hand is only a few inches off the ground when thrown.

And per Cheffers, you can’t land on him.  How do you get him to the ground legally?

Hall of Fame Coach Tony Dungy tweeted from his home in Tampa:

@TonyDungy

This is not football anymore. I know we have to protect the QB but Chris Jones was recovering a fumble. We have gotten ridiculous with this.

Tom Pelissaro of ESPN.com:

@TomPelissero

Chris Jones just became the first player in NFL history called for roughing the passer while holding the ball.

Aaron Schatz:

@FO_ASchatz

He’s supposed to magically move his body horizontally in mid-air like Matrix “bullet time.”

James Palmer:

@JamesPalmerTV

Chris Jones said he and Carr, who are friends, had a laugh about the roughing the passer call after the game. Jones said Carr told him he has no idea how that was called.

Ed Werder:

@WerderEdESPN

There is no possible way that Chris Jones could have completed the play without doing exactly what he did in tackling Derek Carr. The league is moving from unfair to impossible for defensive players.

Albert Breer:

@AlbertBreer

I don’t know what Chris Jones is supposed to do, just like I didn’t what Grady Jarrett was supposed to do yesterday. Common sense, refs.

Roughing the passer was supposed to be for hits after the quarterback has released the ball, hits with the helmet or extracurricular activities after the whistle.  The two Week 5 calls occurred without helmets being used in the act of finishing timely sacks in a logical manner.

PHILADELPHIA

We had heard that former QB Donovan McNabb wasn’t all in on his successor several times removed QB JALEN HURTS.  But there he was in the 5-0 Eagles locker room on Sunday.  Dan Gelston of the AP:

Donovan McNabb was all smiles in the Philadelphia Eagles’ locker room as he hit up Jalen Hurts for a big bro hug and a few encouraging words.

The greatest quarterback in Eagles history and the one leading the top team in the NFL have something in common: Each led the Eagles to a 5-0 start.

Have a sports betting question? Submit it here to have it answered by The Post’s Neil Greenberg.

McNabb did it under coach Andy Reid in 2004 and the Eagles went all the way to the Super Bowl. Hurts and coach Nick Sirianni are 5-0 after Sunday’s 20-17 win over the Arizona Cardinals. The future is wide open with how far the Eagles can go this season, but standing tall as the only unbeaten team in the NFL sure makes it seem like the future is bright.

The Eagles, who also started 5-0 in 1981, played their worst game of the season but still did enough behind Hurts and a new kicker — and a defense that gave up 357 yards and barely hung on — to win on the road.

Undefeated, yes. Perfect? Hardly.

“I personally hate hearing 5-0. I don’t like to hear it,” Hurts said. “Because nobody wanted to mention the record when we were 2-5 (last season). Nobody wanted to talk about that. So, I don’t want to hear it now. I don’t want to hear it now. Can we come in here and control the things we can, attack every day and just grow and climb. That’s what matters. The process. Not anything else.”

WHAT’S WORKING

Hurts had two rushing touchdowns but had an otherwise ordinary 239 yards passing and no touchdowns. But he is finding tight end Dallas Goedert, who had eight catches for 95 yards, including a crucial 16-yard gain on the final drive that set up the game-winning field goal.

“Dallas is a monster with the ball in his hands. He is a beast with the ball in his hands,” Sirianni said. “He went out and just finished that drive. It was a great play by those two guys.”

WHAT NEEDS HELP

The Eagles will of course take any victory. But the win in Arizona was easily their worst all-around performance of the season. The play-calling was puzzling on both sides: the Eagles used a prevent defense in the second half and gave up a first down on third-and-17 in the third quarter; the Eagles rolled out Hurts and he threw into traffic trying to hit Quez Watkins on third-and-goal from the 5 with 1:52 left. The pass fell incomplete and the Eagles were bailed out by their new kicker.

WASHINGTON

Sometimes a head coach is the last one off the sinking ship of a quarterback.  Ron Rivera is not that guy, per his comments on Monday.  Jason Owens of YahooSports.com:

The NFC East is in the midst of a revival.

The downtrodden division with a storied history lays claim to three of the NFL’s five best records through Sunday’s games with the 5-0 Philadelphia Eagles and 4-1 New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys.

Then there’s the Washington Commanders. Perhaps the most-beleaguered of once-proud NFC East franchises remains mired in the muck in 2022 amid a 1-4 start. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on Sunday when quarterback Carson Wentz threw a goal-line interception in the waning seconds of regulation that sealed a 21-17 win for the visiting Tennessee Titans.

On Monday, head coach Ron Rivera was asked why he thinks the rest of the division is making progress where the Commanders aren’t. His answer was blunt. And it didn’t sit right with former Commanders quarterback Alex Smith.

“Quarterback,” Rivera said.

That was it. A one-word answer. Meanwhile, Philadelphia is the only team in the division that appears to have a bonafide difference-maker behind center in Jalen Hurts.

The Giants are winning in spite of a lack of significant progress from Daniel Jones, a fourth-year former first-round pick whom the franchise declined to extend or even exercise the fifth-year option on his rookie contract. He’s thrown three touchdowns and two interceptions in five games for an offense that ranks 23rd in the NFL.

The Cowboys, meanwhile are playing with a backup quarterback. Dak Prescott hasn’t played since injuring his thumb in Dallas’ season opener. The Cowboys have since run off four-straight wins thanks to a swarming defense and steady play from backup quarterback Cooper Rush (4 touchdowns, 0 interceptions in four starts).

Rivera expounded on his one-word answer only when faced with a followup question focused on the Cowboys’ quarterback situation.

“They started with Dak,” Rivera said. “They build around Dak. And the offense is built around Dak. Their backup’s a guy that is very solid inside of what they do. And the truth is that this is a quarterback-driven league.

“If you look at the teams that have been able to sustain success, they’ve been able to build it around a specific quarterback.”

Rivera oversaw trade for Wentz: Does he regret it?

Rivera greenlit the offseason trade for Wentz that saw the Commanders send a package to the Indianapolis Colts that included third-round picks in 2022 and 2023. The 2023 pick will convert to a second-round selection if Wentz plays 70% of Washington’s offensive snaps this season. It was a high price to pay for a quarterback the Colts were openly done with who was previously cast off by an Eagles team that drafted him with the No. 2 pick in 2016.

Through five games, it’s been more of the same for Wentz, whose six interceptions through five games are the third-most in the NFL. He flashes the big-play ability that made him a coveted prospect and was excellent on Sunday (25 of 38 for 359 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception) until his game-ending mistake. But he counters with too many mistakes for his team to overcome.

All of Washington’s woes certainly can’t be pinned on Wentz. There’s plenty of blame to go around, as there has been for the entirety of the Daniel Snyder time as team owner. But Rivera’s frustrations are understandable. It’s just shocking to hear an NFL coach express them out loud — especially one as measured as Rivera.

So does Rivera regret trading for Wentz? Given the chance to backtrack, he said no, but still failed to muster a full-throated endorsement of his starting quarterback.

“I’ve got no regrets about our quarterback,” Rivera continued. “I think our quarterback has done some good things. There’ve been a couple games that he’s struggled. You look at his numbers yesterday, and he was OK. Look at his numbers he’s had throughout the year.

“There was a time he was very solid. He had the unfortunate Philadelphia game. He struggled a little bit in the Dallas game. But the way he performed yesterday, it just shows you what he’s capable of. We chose him because we believe in him.”

It all didn’t sit well to a former QB who knows what it is like to be slid, professionally, out the door.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

Alex Smith spent his final NFL season playing for Ron Rivera in Washington, and Smith had some harsh words for Rivera today in response to Rivera blaming the quarterback for his team being in last place.

Smith said on ESPN that Rivera should not have put all the blame on Carson Wentz, and that a head coach needs to recognize that it’s a team game and everyone shares the responsibility when the team falls short.

 “I had a really hard time watching that,” Smith said. “When I heard it, I couldn’t believe it. I’m not here to defend Carson Wentz. He’s had a tumultuous career and ups and downs. But this is a defensive head coach that’s absolutely driving the bus over his quarterback.”

Smith noted that Washington’s defense and running game haven’t played particularly well, either, and so it’s unfair to suggest that it all falls on Wentz.

“The blame has got to be spread around,” Smith said. “This is a team sport. It is the ultimate team sport. How can a head coach stand up there in front of the media and utter one word, and it’s ‘quarterback’?”

Smith is right. Wentz has not played well this season, but he’s far from the only problem in Washington. And other teams find ways to succeed even without elite quarterback play: Just yesterday the Cowboys won their fourth straight game with Cooper Rush at quarterback, the Patriots won in a blowout with rookie third-stringer Bailey Zappe making his first career start, and the day’s highest-scoring game was played between offenses quarterbacked by Andy Dalton and Geno Smith. If other coaches can find ways to succeed with those quarterbacks, why can’t Rivera find a way to succeed with Wentz?

It wouldn’t be surprising if there are current Washington players who feel the same way Smith does. Rivera’s comments may not sit well in the Commanders’ locker room.

KANSAS CITY

TE TRAVIS KELCE was indefensible (to the point of being incomprehensibly undefended on his final TD) at the goal line Monday night.  Grant Gordon of NFL.com:

That was tight end Travis Kelce’s final stat line on a chaotic Monday night in which some short gains added up to a big win.

Kelce tallied a career-high four touchdown receptions to key the Kansas City Chiefs’ 30-29 win over the Las Vegas Raiders in which they rallied back from a 17-point deficit.

“I just worked my tail off for these guys and ran tonight,” Kelce told ESPN’s Lisa Salters after the game. “That’s all I did for [Chiefs] Kingdom. They showed up, showed out on a Monday night, knowing everybody’s got work tomorrow and they were in here loud and proud.”

Alhough Monday night’s game was an instant classic, Kelce’s line was hardly ordinary fare.

Kelce became the first player in NFL history to record four receiving touchdowns of fewer than 10 yards in a game, according to NFL Research. And before Monday evening, Marvin Jones, in 2019 with the Detroit Lions, held the record for the fewest receiving yards (93) by a player to catch four TDs, per NFL Research. Kelce set a new standard by 68 yards.

“They were trying to take Kelce out of the game,” Chiefs head coach Reid said after the game. “I mean he had 25 yards and four touchdowns. So, I mean that’s a pretty good day, but kind of a weird number.”

A weird stat line, indeed, but Kelce making an impact for the Chiefs is hardly strange.

Kelce, who tied the Chiefs’ franchise record with a catch in 131 straight games, has been a constant season after season, building a rapport with Patrick Mahomes that’s rarely seen and marveled at by their future Hall of Fame head coach.

“They work so well together,” Reid said. “How they play off of each other, I think, is big. That doesn’t always happen in this league where you find a guy that you have that mojo with there — whatever you want to term it.”

Though those 25 yards were on the low end for Kelce — his lowest output since Week 17 of last year, in fact — the four TDs matched a franchise record. More than all that, they keyed a resounding Chiefs comeback.

“Just keep fighting,” said Kelce of the message after the team fell behind, 17-0, in the second stanza. “We know what’s real. We got a great team. We know we got a lot of heart in the Chiefs locker room. We just keep bringing it every single day and you’ll see it in games like that.”

LAS VEGAS

The Raiders played for the lead, lost by a point, and the Twitter/Media second-guessers were out in full force.  Josh McDaniels defended the two-point attempt, that failed by perhaps two inches, after the game with Paul Gutierrez of ESPN.com:

— Las Vegas Raiders coach Josh McDaniels defended his decision to attempt a 2-point conversion rather than kick a game-tying extra point late in the fourth quarter Monday night, a call that his players supported, as well.

And they did so even as the attempt failed, with the Raiders ultimately losing to the Chiefs 30-29 to fall to 1-4 entering their bye week.

“I felt like in that situation, [Kansas City] had a lot of momentum offensively, obviously in the second half,” McDaniels said. “We had a play that we felt really good about. I thought we would get a look that gave us a shot at it.”

Josh Jacobs, who rushed for a career-high 154 yards with a touchdown on 21 carries, was stuffed just shy of the goal line with 4:27 still remaining on the game clock.

“That’s what we wanted,” Jacobs said. “We knew we was going to be in that situation. It’s crazy, all week we were talking about third-and-1s, fourth-and-1s, 2-point play.

“When I got the ball and the safety shot the hole, I knew it was going to be hairy. I really blame myself because I could have reached the ball over. I know we harp on not reaching the ball, but that was a situation where it wouldn’t have mattered if I did. So, I’ll just put that on my shoulders. I could have reached the ball over.”

After the Las Vegas defense forced a punt, the Raiders took over with 2:29 to play and faced a fourth-and-1 at their own 46-yard line with 41 seconds left. With no timeouts, the Raiders attempted a deep throw rather than run the ball up the gut, and quarterback Derek Carr’s pass intended for Davante Adams fell incomplete as Adams and slot receiver Hunter Renfrow ran into each other down the field.

Jacobs said he had no issue with the playcall there, either, since Las Vegas was out of timeouts.

Carr said he knew the Raiders would attempt a 2-point conversion before they started the drive that pulled them within one point at 30-29.

“I liked it, I like being aggressive, especially on the road, I’m all on board,” said Carr, who passed for 241 yards and two touchdowns without an interception while completing 19 of 30 attempts.

“When we scored, I was excited, but I was already telling people, ‘Hey, 2!’ And then I looked at Josh [McDaniels], and he said it in my headset … from my view, I thought Josh [Jacobs] was in. I thought his knee stayed off the ground.

“I mean, we’re this close from being up 31-30,” added Carr, placing his hands inches apart.

Adams, meanwhile, said he was “all-in” on the call to go for 2.

“You’ve got to buy in; that’s the only way you can make a play work,” he said after catching three passes for 124 yards, with two TDs.

“You’ve got to be for it. That’s [the coaches’] job to make that call, so I was fine with it because I felt we had a shot to put it in.”

McDaniels is just 6-21 as a head coach since starting 6-0 with the Denver Broncos in 2009.

“We had a chance,” McDaniels said. “We had a fair fight in it. They played a little bit better than we did. We gave ourselves an opportunity to take the lead there and put a little bit more extra pressure when they had the ball, nothing more nothing less, just being aggressive and trying to win the game. I know it was 4:30 [remaining in the game] or whatever the time was, but our team felt good about it and felt like it was the right call at the right time.”

Jacobs may have been fine with the bomb attempt on 4^th down, but the DB wasn’t.  Even with no timeouts, run Jacobs, get first down, spike the ball with 30 seconds left – and you need maybe 10 more yards for outstanding PK DANIEL CARLSON to have a shot at the winning FG…

– – –

We commend WR DAVANTE ADAMS for the way he played Monday night, even if he couldn’t cleanly secure a key pass while his feet were on the ground in the final minute.  And he’s likely to be hearing from NFL Justice after boorish behavior on his way off the field.  To his credit, Adams tried to do damage control immediately after.  Frank Schwab of YahooSports.com:

Davante Adams was frustrated after the Las Vegas Raiders’ 30-29 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. He’ll regret how he took out that frustration.

On his way back to the locker room after the game, Adams shoved a cameraman to the ground. ESPN’s cameras caught the act and played it on “SportsCenter” after the game. It’s not a good look for Adams and the NFL will not take kindly to it either.

Adams was clearly upset as the game ended. He and teammate Hunter Renfrow collided downfield on a fourth-and-1 pass that fell incomplete and practically ended the game. Adams slammed his helmet down in anger as he reached the sideline.

In the locker room afterward, in comments shown on ESPN, Adams apologized.

“Before I answer anything else, I want to apologize to the guy — some guy running off the field, and he ran, jumped in front of me when we’re coming off the field and I bumped into him, kind of pushed him and I think he ended up on the ground,” Adams said. “I wanted to say sorry to him for that. That was frustration mixed with him running, literally running in front of me, and I shouldn’t have responded that way. But that’s how I initially responded so I want to apologize to him for that.”

It’s interesting that Adams spun it as “I bumped into him, kind of pushed him” when it was a pretty clear shove.

Adams also apologized on Twitter.

The shove came right after a crazy back-and-forth game. The Raiders blew a 17-0 lead. They seemed to tie it on Adams’ second long touchdown of the game but decided to go for a two-point conversion and didn’t get it. They had a shot at the end to win it but Adams was on the wrong end of two big plays during Las Vegas’ final drive. Adams seemed to catch a pass that would have gotten the Raiders into Chiefs territory, but replays showed he juggled the ball a bit and didn’t get both feet down in bounds. It was ruled incomplete. Then came the fourth-down collision with Renfrow and the helmet slam on the sideline.

Adams has become a bigger star this season after a trade to the Raiders. He has been on more national commercials. He is one of the best receivers in the NFL and made some huge plays on Monday night. But his night ended with an unfortunate and blatant shove. The NFL will be discussing that in their offices on Tuesday.

This angle, which you may not have seen before, does buttress Adams contention that the media person did appear suddenly in front of him – copy and paste into browser https://twitter.com/i/status/1579682203339960320

MIAMI

Did QB TEDDY BRIDGEWATER get up slowly after he was hit on the first pass of Sunday’s game in New York?  Yes.   Did he “stumble” as the NFL says its independent spotter claimed?  A big no, if you look at the video according to Josh Moser of Channel 7 in Miami.  Feel free to watch.

@TheMozKnowz

Here is our video of the hit Teddy Bridgewater took on the #Dolphins 1st offensive play from scrimmage that forced him out vs. #Jets. The spotter said he saw Teddy, “stumble.” We did not see a stumble & the Dolphins have not seen any video of Bridgewater stumbling. #nfl #FinsUp

https://twitter.com/i/status/1579570745319231488

Should/could the eye in the sky have asked for Bridgewater to be removed from the game and checked out?  Sure.

Should he/they have the absolute right to banish Bridgewater from the entirety of the game, with no appeal based on that evidence?  We say no.

And the spotters proceed about their business anonymously.

THIS AND THAT

FEMINIZED FOOTBALL?

Jason Whitlock of The Blaze reacts to what he saw in Week 5:

A sport intended to groom young boys and men to compete in a meritocracy has bowed to the feminist worldview of diversity, inclusion, and equity. The NFL strives to be everything for everybody. The push for inclusion has caused the league to prioritize safety.

Safety is a woman’s priority. Men seek thrills and danger. Men aren’t sadistic. We’re made different by design. Our love of danger leads to progress and advancement. Men called “roughnecks” built skyscrapers in the 1920s. Forty percent of them fell to their deaths or disablement. Women never would have done it.

The NFL’s preference to maximize safety and limit danger poses the greatest threat to America’s most popular sport. It’s a far more damaging initiative than the league’s promotion of Black Lives Matter and anti-American sentiment.

People watch football because we’re entertained by seeing men flirt with danger in pursuit of a goal.

Football is far less entertaining than it was 20 years ago, before an onslaught of rules changes softened the game and demonized hard hits. Yesterday’s Atlanta-Tampa Bay game was ruined when referee Jerome Boger flagged a Falcons defensive lineman for a routine sack of Tom Brady. The roughing-the-passer penalty cost Atlanta any chance of a comeback.

On Miami’s first offensive play against the New York Jets, officials monitoring the game removed quarterback Teddy Bridgewater because he allegedly briefly staggered when getting to his feet after a routine hit. Bridgewater was not allowed to return to the game. Facing Miami’s third-string quarterback, the Jets won in a romp.

The Brady and Bridgewater plays are a direct result of the Tua Tagovailoa controversy two weeks ago. Tagovailoa, who is fragile, suffered brief paralysis after a routine hit. Without a shred of evidence, broadcasters and social media influencers connected Tagovailoa’s brief paralysis to a hit he suffered four days earlier.

Broadcasters demonized the Dolphins organization and the team’s head coach for allowing Tua to play. The NFLPA demanded an investigation and then worked with the NFL to enact immediate new rules related to concussion protocols. Those new rules are why Bridgewater disappeared yesterday after one play.

We all want football to be safe. When it’s not safe, we want to blame somebody.

The game isn’t meant to be safe. It’s meant to be dangerous and entertaining. People are going to get hurt. It’s inevitable. It’s no different from boxing or mixed martial arts. It’s no different from working on a skyscraper in the 1920s.

The NFL won’t make this argument because the league wants to be all things to all people. It wants to avoid upsetting women and men who have been feminized to the point that they might as well be women.

The NFL fears moms. Women who won’t let their sons play football because the sport is too dangerous. They’re the same women who won’t let their kids go to school without wearing a mask. They’re women who want to remove all the risks from life.

Women and beta males desire for all of us to sit in our homes playing video games, communicating over social media, watching 50-year-old Queen Latifah beat up men in “The Equalizer” TV series, and waiting for our next booster shot.

They want us all to transition into women. Their plan is working.

I’ve watched football for 50 years. I turned off my television when I saw Tua’s momentarily disfigured fingers locked in the air. I briefly lost my appetite for football. That has never happened before. It speaks to the impact of football concussion propaganda. I’ll watch someone get knocked out in the ring or octagon and jump for joy.

But we have been programmed to see violence in football as savage and gruesome. Fifteen years ago, Chris Berman and Tom Jackson could react to NFL big hits the way Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier still do at UFC events. We’re all still allowed to enjoy seeing fighters get put in the concussion protocol. It’s socially unacceptable to enjoy it on the football field.

We pretend that the grossly exaggerated CTE pandemic only affects football players.

We’ve been feminized. We’ve been programmed to prioritize our emotions and feelings over logic and fact.

We no longer know when, how, and where we should feed and support man’s innate desire to take risks. We’ve been convinced swiping left and right on Tinder is a better venue for risk-taking than a football field. More kids will be permanently and severely damaged in a hospital operating room undergoing gender-affirming surgery than playing football.

You get my point? The very people trying to make the world safer are actually making it more dangerous.

Football isn’t for women. Trying to make the game more palatable to women is a mistake. It’s why Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray showed up to work on Sunday wearing a lime green Hillary Clinton pantsuit.

Among other things, feminized football turns men into runway models.

NFL vs. COLLEGE – TWO DIFFERENT JOBS

Dan Wolken of USA TODAY sees colleges preparing to lavish millions of dollars on Matt Rhule, now revealed to be a failure as an NFL coach.  He makes the case that they are two different jobs.

Matt Rhule wasn’t merely fired Monday by the Carolina Panthers. He was pretty much laughed out of the NFL, so hopelessly out of his depth that it would have been far more cruel to keep him around than hand him a check with several zeroes on the end and send him on his way now.

As an NFL coach, Rhule lost 11 of his last 12 games. His inability to put a competent offense on the field made him a punchline. The words stubborn and predictable stuck to him like plastic wrap. And from now until December, he’ll be the hottest candidate in all of college football.

For Nebraska, Wisconsin, Georgia Tech or some other school whose job hasn’t opened yet, Rhule will be about as sure of a bet as they could make. He completely turned around Temple in four years. He rebuilt scandal-ridden Baylor in three. For any school with decent resources, Rhule would offer hope of building a College Football Playoff contender.

The fact that Rhule will be able to return to campus with a reported $40 million buyout and his choice of job shows why it was a no-brainer for him to take his shot in Carolina. But it also offers an old lesson for the NFL, which maybe owners will finally learn: Stop looking to college football for coaching candidates.

The NFL’s off-and-on fascination with coaches who have won big in the college ranks has a long and complicated history. But with Urban Meyer last year and Rhule this season crashing out of the league, the point has been driven home in a way that might finally resonate throughout the league: They may play the same sport in college, but it’s a vastly different game.

At various points over the last several years, there has been NFL buzz surrounding Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, LSU’s Brian Kelly, USC’s Lincoln Riley, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Michigan State’s Mel Tucker, Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald, Stanford’s David Shaw, Iowa State’s Matt Campbell and Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell.

All of them have been terrific football coaches. Any of them might defy the odds and work wonders in the NFL. But given what we’ve seen lately, why would an NFL team even go there?

Anyone familiar with Meyer’s career could have predicted what a trainwreck he turned out to be in Jacksonville. Being a paranoid control freak who motivates through intimidation and mind games might work with college kids, but it’s dead on arrival in a locker room full of professionals. His 11 months as an NFL coach went about as poorly as expected.

Rhule, on the other hand, looked like a reasonable NFL prospect. In college, he was known for being cutting edge, willing to embrace analytics and incorporate new ideas. He had also spent a year around the NFL as an assistant coach, so in theory, he came in with eyes wide open about the differences between the two levels.

And still, he didn’t even last 2 1/2 seasons.

Rhule’s firing leaves just one coach — Arizona’s Kliff Kingsbury — who was not primarily a product of the NFL’s coaching ladder. And at 2-3 this season, his job may not be particularly safe either.

None of this means that college is devoid of great football minds or that the NFL game is so advanced that you’d need a Rosetta Stone to navigate it.

What it does mean is that the jobs have probably never been more different.

As Nick Saban, Chip Kelly, Steve Spurrier, Lou Holtz and Bobby Petrino can attest, there’s nothing new about successful college coaches struggling to adapt to the NFL.

But even as NFL teams remain enamored with certain concepts and trends that incubate in college football, the divide between what the two jobs require only grows bigger every year.

When you ask college coaches what percentage of their time they actually spend coaching these days, the answers are often shocking. As one coach’s agent recently told USA TODAY Sports, the amount of preparation from week to week has sunk to shockingly poor levels because of how much is asked of them on a daily basis.

So many of college coach’s precious hours these days are occupied by name, image and likeness deals, monitoring the transfer portal, media appearances, Twitter, booster functions, working on relationships, dealing with parents and quality control issues on their own staff that it’s difficult to find space for the actual football part.

Given the current environment, you can understand why a college coach would be drawn to an NFL job that is all about football 12 months a year. But for an NFL team, it’s hard to justify guaranteeing tens of millions of dollars anymore to a coach who has spent at least 50 percent of his time succeeding in areas that just aren’t relevant in their league.

It’s not a coincidence that most of the coaches who return from the NFL do very well in their second go-round in college. Even after going 15-17 with the Miami Dolphins, there was little doubt Saban would win national titles at Alabama. Spurrier made South Carolina into a nationally relevant program. Petrino had Arkansas on the verge of national title contention before being fired for off-field issues. Even Kelly has dragged UCLA back into the mix.

Rhule will undoubtedly do the same wherever he lands, which is why a school like Nebraska should do whatever it can to court him. He’s too good of a college coach not to succeed.

The NFL was just a different beast. There’s no shame in that for Rhule. But there should be a lesson in it for everyone else.

Mike Sherman of the Oklahoma Watch has read Wolken’s column before:

@MikeSherman

Lou Holtz’s firing… Dennis Erickson’s firing… Steve Spurrier’s firing… Nick Saban’s firing… Bobby Petrino’s firing… Urban Meyer’s firing… Jimmy Johnson’s fir…

Jimmy Johnson is kind of the unicorn that everyone is chasing when they hire a college coach – as his firing had little to do with his performance in the Cowboys job.