The Daily Briefing Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Raise your hand if you had the Bengals as the 2^nd seed in the AFC after four weeks – while the Chiefs are below the playoff line.  Here is our first AFC version of If The Season Ended Today:

LA Chargers    West    3-1                   1          2-0

Cincinnati        North   3-1                   1          2-0

Buffalo            East     3-1                   1          2-1

Tennessee      South   2-2                   1          1-1      

Baltimore         WC1    3-1                   2          2-1

Denver                        WC2    3-1                   2          2-1

Las Vegas       WC3    3-1                   3          3-1      

Cleveland                    3-1                   3          1-1

Kansas City                 2-2                   4          1-2

NFC NORTH

CHICAGO

A gut punch for the Bears as RB DAVID MONTGOMERY is headed to IR.  Cody Benjamin of CBSSports.com:

The Bears won on Sunday, topping the rival Lions to improve to 2-2 on the year, but they lost one of their most important players in the process, with running back David Montgomery exiting early with a knee injury. And they aren’t likely to get him back for a while. According to ESPN’s Dan Graziano, Montgomery has been diagnosed with a knee sprain and is expected to miss four to five weeks. A trip to injured reserve, which would guarantee a three-game absence, is likely in order; and it’s possible Montgomery won’t be back until Week 11, after the Bears’ bye.

A four-week absence would mean a Week 9 return against the Steelers, while a five-week absence would mean a Week 11 return against the Ravens, after Chicago’s Week 10 bye; though NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reports there’s a chance Montgomery could also be back in three weeks. Either way, the Bears are set to lean on backup Damien Williams for the foreseeable future. Williams himself was also injured in the team’s Week 4 win over Detroit, suffering a thigh bruise, but is expected to be OK and take over No. 1 duties moving forward, per NFL Media.

Williams has starting experience from his days with Dolphins (2014-2017) and Chiefs (2018-2020), but Montgomery had established himself as a centerpiece of Matt Nagy’s offense. A year after topping 1,000 yards on the ground, the former third-round pick totaled 309 rushing yards through four games, ranking fifth among all running backs. His production had also taken some pressure off rookie quarterback Justin Fields, who may or may not remain under center in Week 5 against the Raiders.

– – –

The Bears have made a move for a returner.  Marcel Louis-Jacques of ESPN.com:

The Dolphins have agreed to trade wide receiver Jakeem Grant to the Chicago Bears, a league source confirmed to ESPN.

NFL Network first reported the news and the compensation as a 2023 sixth-round pick.

Grant, the Dolphins’ primary returner since they drafted him in the sixth round in 2016, is one of the NFL’s best special teams players with five return touchdowns in his career; he ranks 11th among active players in non-offensive touchdowns. He was voted a second-team All-Pro last season, one year after signing a four-year, $19.7 million extension in 2019.

For his career, Grant has 978 punt return yards and 2,206 kick return yards.

He has had a slow start to the season, however, muffing a punt during Miami’s loss to the Colts in Week 4 and fumbling deep in the red zone in the team’s loss to the Bills in Week 2.

Filling in for Grant as the Dolphins’ primary returner will presumably be rookie Jaylen Waddle, who handled punt return duties when Grant was injured in Week 2.

MINNESOTA

The Vikings have not played defense as expected in their first four games.  Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com explores why that is so:

Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer scoffed at the notion that the run defense is a problem following a 14-7 loss to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.

For a fourth straight week, Minnesota got gashed on the ground. This time, they allowed a season-high 184 rushing yards to the Browns after giving up 106 to Seattle, 103 to Arizona and 149 to Cincinnati.

Zimmer leaned on his 27 years of NFL coaching experience to show why he’s not discouraged “one bit about the lack of stopping the run” and that those pressing him are too concerned about what the numbers reveal, like Cleveland breaking off nearly five yards per rush.

“I know all you guys are all stat guys, but when you look at it, what did they have? Seventy-eight plays? You’re going to have some of those where you’re going to get some yards, and that team is probably as good of a running team as there is in the league,” Zimmer said. “They were pulling the guard and the tackle, two guards, there was a lot of extra blockers coming over there, and we were in shell a lot during the day. I know everybody’s concerned about it, but I’m not.”

The Vikings spent millions this offseason to upgrade their defense with a heavy emphasis placed on stopping the run. They shelled out $20.8 million in total guarantees to defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson so they could play him next to nose tackle Michael Pierce and create an impenetrable force in the middle of the defensive line. It also why they redid Anthony Barr’s contract to keep him around for the 2021 season, though the linebacker has yet to play because of a knee injury.

Outside of an improved pass rush led by defensive ends Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen, who is technically still a backup, the Vikings’ return on investment elsewhere on defense has not materialized.

While Minnesota held Cleveland to one touchdown, the Browns’ method of keep-away via its rushing attack allowed them to dominate time of possession (35:32) and control the game. If the Vikings had been able to limit opposing rushers, the Browns probably wouldn’t have been able to run 78 plays.

The 21 runs Nick Chubb took for 100 yards and Kareem Hunt’s 14 carries for 69 yards were problematic but expected. The six plays Cleveland ran inside the Vikings’ 3-yard line that led to Hunt’s one-yard touchdown, which was aided by a fourth-down defensive holding call, tested the fortitude of this defense.

But it was Hunt’s 33-yard sprint on a third-and-20 draw play in the first half’s two-minute drill where the Vikings’ vulnerabilities were most apparent.

“I’m disgusted about that,” Zimmer said.

As cornerback Patrick Peterson added, “We just didn’t have enough guys to rally to make that tackle before the first-down marker. That’s just one of those plays I was talking about that happened in the game to where we played well enough, but it’s just that one play that kind of made a difference in the game.”

Four games in, the Vikings’ defense is struggling in many of the same places it did at this time last year.

The 4.8 yards per rush Minnesota has allowed through four games (4.08 yards per rush allowed Weeks 1 to 4 in 2020) is the third-worst mark in the NFL. Though the numbers don’t look all that different from a year ago, that’s a problem considering how many resources this team spent to fix it.

While the number of rushing first downs has dropped from 37 to 28 in the first four games and the successful play rate on defensive rushes EPA (expected points added) is better (52.8%), the Vikings are allowing a higher rate of runs to convert on third down (up from 46.2% to 54.2%) and more yards before contact.

The addition of Pierce, who opted out of the 2020 season, and Tomlinson was supposed to alleviate these issues in the run game, but they’re still there. Zimmer did not have an update on Pierce’s status on Monday after the nose tackle had an MRI on an elbow injury he aggravated in Sunday’s game, though he did announce he expects Barr to make his season debut next against the visiting Detroit Lions.

“Anthony Barr has been in the system for a long, long time, and there’s certain things we can do with him that we haven’t been able to do in these first four ballgames,” Zimmer said.

That addition should help considering Nick Vigil’s struggles against the run (ranked 44th of 48 linebackers with a minimum of 50% of snaps played), but it’s only one part of the overall issue for a defense that has yet to fulfill its promise of being better than it was during a rock-bottom 2020.

“I just keep seeing with my eyes the offense, how good they can be. And the defense, how much they’ve improved, and they’re playing together,” Zimmer said. “We were giving up 30-some points a game the first week or two. Now, last week it was 17. This week it’s 14. So I see the progress that we’re making. It might not show up in the wins and losses, but if we stick to the grindstone, it will.”

NFC EAST

WASHINGTON

WFT will be without a critical OL component for at least a few weeks.  Adam Schefter ofESPN.com with the tweet:

@AdamSchefter

WFT Pro-Bowl guard Brandon Scherff suffered a sprained MCL during Sunday’s win over Atlanta that is considered a likely 2-3 week injury, per source.

TE Logan Thomas suffered a hamstring injury Sunday that is expected to leave him week to week.

– – –

But they will have QB TAYLOR HEINICKE Sunday against the Saints, and John Keim ofESPN.com says that is a good thing:

Taylor Heinicke faked a handoff, turned and encountered a dangerous situation on Sunday: a free rusher coming right at him. Then the Washington Football Team quarterback did what he does best: He improvised. He stepped right, was spun around by the defender, stepped to his left and lofted a high toss into the end zone as another defender drilled him.

The bloop throw was caught for a touchdown by receiver Terry McLaurin in Washington’s 34-30 win against the Atlanta Falcons. It was yet another example of how Heinicke can overcome his flaws. He can run, he can extend plays and he can get out of situations most could not.

There’s a reason he’s only been sacked three times in 118 pass attempts. The elusiveness provides Washington another weapon on offense, which it needed in Sunday.

“That’s an advantage for us,” McLaurin said in an understatement.

“It’s a good part of my game,” Heinicke said in another understatement.

It’s not as if Heinicke simply runs around all the time; he only does it when needed. He’s run the ball 20 times for 87 yards — good but hardly Lamar Jackson. Heinicke did run the ball five times for 43 yards on Sunday, including a 20-yarder when he picked up a first down inside Atlanta’s 5-yard line. Washington coach Ron Rivera said that could become a bigger headache for defenses.

If a team plays man coverage, as Atlanta did on a handful of occasions, it might help against the receivers but it leaves gaps. With receiver Curtis Samuel back in the lineup, cornerbacks have to play for the deep ball so that leaves teams susceptible to big plays if the quarterback runs.

“You got to honor those guys and I think that also helps,” Rivera said. “It’s going to make things more difficult on paper.”

Heinicke’s ability to elude the rush has always been part of his game, dating to high school — which he attended 45 minutes from Atlanta. On the play before the pass to McLaurin, Heinicke had also escaped trouble. A blitz led to interior pressure on this third-and-9 and forced Heinicke to his right. Before another defender could get to him he stopped and hit running back J.D. McKissic for a first down.

“Throughout the years, high school and college, there’s been some bizarre plays so, you know, things like that happen. It’s a lot of fun, it’s really cool, but I feel like I’ve kind of been doing that, those type of plays throughout my life and I think that’s kind of the player I am. Again, I grew up watching Brett Favre, so I saw a lot of crazy stuff from him, so it’s a good part of my game.”

On the game-winning pass to McKissic, Heinicke wasn’t under duress, but he did slide to his left against a three-man rush. Then he stopped, spotted McKissic on the other side of the field and hit him. The running back did the rest on a 30-yard run.

“Even when he’s scrambling around, his eyes stay downfield,” McLaurin said. “He knows that he could give us opportunities to make plays down the field as well. Can’t say enough about him, the way he extends plays, the way he gives us a chance one each and every play. It’s like, no play’s ever dead when Taylor’s back there.”

NFC SOUTH

TAMPA BAY

It’s never a good thing when injuries pile up at one position, and they are piling up at cornerback for the defending champs.  Jenna Laine of ESPN:

The Bucs are now down three starting cornerbacks and have the league’s best rushing defense — inviting teams to pass, pass, pass. Richard Sherman can’t cover everyone, and they already pulled up two guys from the practice squad in Rashard Robinson and Pierre Desir. With no clear timetable for Sean Murphy-Bunting’s return and Jamel Dean still unable to push off on his ailing knee, things could get rough.

NFC WEST

ARIZONA

Vegas wise guys have been embracing the MVP candidacy of QB KYLER MURRAY says David Purdum of ESPN.com:

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray has overtaken Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes as the consensus favorite to win NFL MVP at U.S. sportsbooks.

Murray, at +550, is the favorite to win the Associated Press’ regular-season MVP award at Caesars Sportsbook. Mahomes is next at +600, followed by Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen at +800. Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady and Green Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers are each +900.

Mahomes had been the consensus favorite since the spring, when sportsbooks first began posting odds on MVP. But while Mahomes and the Chiefs are 2-2, the Cardinals are off to a 4-0 start behind Murray, who has attracted more bets to win the MVP than any other player at Caesars Sportsbook since the season began.

Murray entered the season at 25-1 to win MVP, but he quickly moved into the top tier of favorites and was 10-1 after Week 1.

Murray is completing 76.1% of his passes and has accounted for 12 touchdowns, while Mahomes has accounted for 15 touchdowns. Both quarterbacks have each thrown four interceptions this season.

Other quarterbacks are on the rise at sportsbooks, including Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, who has gone from +2,000 to +1,100 at Caesars, and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who has gone from +1,200 to +1,100.

The largest bet Caesars has taken on its MVP market so far is $20,000 on Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson at +1,500.

A quarterback has won the award 13 of the past 14 seasons.

Not the DB is a noted gambler, but we like the idea of Prescott at 11 to 1.

SAN FRANCISCO

Coach Kyle Shanahan cautions us not to assume that QB JIMMY GAROPPOLO’s hip will keep him out this Sunday in Arizona.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

Don’t count 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo out of Sunday’s game against the Cardinals just yet.

San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan said today that Garoppolo’s calf injury will be re-evaluated on Wednesday, and that there’s a chance that he could play on Sunday in Arizona.

Previous reports indicated that Garoppolo would miss a few weeks, but Shanahan sounded more optimistic than that about the possibility that the calf contusion isn’t so serious to force Garoppolo to miss a game.

Trey Lance replaced Garoppolo on Sunday, and that immediately raised the question about whether it would become Lance’s job for good. But Lance may go back to the sideline, if Garoppolo can go this week.

LOS ANGELES RAMS

WR ROBERT WOODS has fallen behind Cooper Kupp in catches and 2^nd-year man Van Jefferson is also getting open.  Kevin Patra of NFL.com says Coach Sean McVay has noticed.  Kevin Patra of NFL.com:

The last three years in L.A., Robert Woods averaged more than 132 targets per season, with Jared Goff under center. Through four games alongside Matthew Stafford, the underrated wideout has seen just 25 targets, catching 15 passes for 172 yards and two touchdowns.

During Sunday’s blowout loss to Arizona, Woods caught a garbage-time TD and flipped the ball away. The reaction was viewed as the veteran frustrated by his role in the offense.

That’s not how Sean McVay saw it. The Rams coach said Woods was simply frustrated by the offensive struggles last week.

“I’m not worried about Robert Wood’s demeanor and disposition,” McVay said, per the team’s official transcript. “He’s a captain. He was frustrated because I think that was a flip of, ‘we scored’, but that was a frustrating day for all of us. Nobody wants to be in that situation with the standards, the expectations that we have. But if you look at that drive, you talk about a guy that’s competing the right way. He made a handful of plays on that drive. Looked at him compete without the ball on the one screen that we threw to Van Jefferson.

“This guy’s a stud in every sense of the word. It is important to be able to get a handful of guys involved. That’s something that I always want to continue to be intentional about. I think that’s one of the benefits that we do have is we’ve got five eligibles. Want to be able to spread that wealth while also making sure that sometimes I’m calling plays where guys are the primary and the coverage doesn’t necessarily dictate where the read goes. So, when Robert’s involved, that’s a good thing for the Rams offense. That’s something that we want to continue to see displayed, but Robert is a leader, he’s a captain and he’s been doing a great job up to this point. We just need to get him some more opportunities and that starts with me.”

Woods’ frustration would be understandable. He’s been an afterthought as Stafford favors Cooper Kupp, who has generated 46 targets — 11.5 per game — in four weeks. Of Woods’ four-catch, 48-yards-and-a-score performance in Week 4, 3/30/1 came in garbage time with the Rams trailing 37-13.

It’s not unusual for Stafford to zero in on one receiver for stretches of a season. During his time in Detroit, he often fed targets to his favorite wideouts. It’s one byproduct of having a laser arm; you feel you can fit the ball into any window at any time. As with anything else, there is good and bad that come with force-feeding one player, as evidenced by Sunday’s struggles after the Kupp-Stafford combo dominated for three weeks.

Generally, in Detroit, however, when Stafford had multiple good receivers, the ball eventually spread its way around. Even in Calvin Johnson’s heyday, Golden Tate and Nate Burleson still ate plenty well as second-fiddles. It was the years that Detroit didn’t have a healthy complement that all the targets went towards Megatron.

Woods remains a good wideout, and eventually, as defenses adjust to take away Kupp, his opportunities will open up.

Those chances could come Thursday night against a Seahawks defense that has struggled to slow opposing pass offenses through the first four weeks of the season, ranking 27th in pass defense DVOA, per Football Outsiders metrics.

AFC WEST

KANSAS CITY

What will WR JOSH GORDON, he of the immense talent, the many troubles and the long absence, bring to the Chiefs?  We may not have long to find out.  Nick Shook ofNFL.com:

Josh Gordon’s latest comeback attempt could see his debut as soon as this weekend.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid did not rule out Gordon potentially participating in Kansas City’s Week 5 showdown with Buffalo when speaking with reporters Monday.

“I’m just gonna play it by ear and see how he feels,” Reid said, via the Kansas City Star’s Sam McDowell. “Really, it’s more of a comfort thing with the offense. I don’t want to put him in a bad situation out there.”

Gordon hasn’t played a snap since the 2019 season, sitting out of 2020 due to a suspension received in December of 2019. He was conditionally reinstated and on track to appear in a game in 2020 before a setback in his battle with substance abuse resulted in the NFL rescinding his reinstatement in January.

Gordon was reinstated in late September and signed with the Chiefs’ practice squad, where he’s spent the last week getting up to speed. NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported Gordon has impressed in his first week with Kansas City, so much that a promotion to the active roster in Week 5 is not out of the realm of possibility.

It seems as if Reid is thinking the same as the Chiefs prepare to take on the 3-1 Bills. We’ll learn later this week whether Gordon is ready to help contribute to an already explosive Chiefs offense.

LOS ANGELES CHARGERS

Despite a roof overhead, lightning delayed the start of Monday Night’s game.  Bryan DeArdo of CBSSports.com:

With NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on hand, the NFL decided to delay the start of Monday night’s game between the Raiders and Chargers due to lightning. Instead of kicking things off at 8:15 p.m. ET, the Raiders kicked off to the Chargers at 8:50 p.m. ET.

Here’s a rundown of what exactly transpired on Monday night.

* Lightning was seen outside SoFi Stadium moments before Monday night’s game was slated to kick off.

* The NFL decided to delay the start of the game to 8:55 p.m. ET just minutes before the game’s initial kickoff time.

* About 20 minutes into the delay, the kickoff was moved up to 8:50 p.m. ET.

* While SoFi Stadium is a dome, the stadium’s open sides posed a safety risk.

* Fans were asked to exit their seats during the weather delay. Players were asked to leave the field.

* Chargers receiver Keenan Allen told ESPN’s Lisa Salters that he and his teammates waited in full uniform in their locker room during the delay.

* The game resumed following the 35-minute delay.

We question whether or not, SoFi is truly a “dome.”  The roof looks pretty darn flat.

Mike Sando of The Athletic has described it as a “carport.”  The covering seems to technically be more of a “canopy” than a “roof” – although it is still strong enough to hold up a massive scoreboard.

– – –

A note on QB JUSTIN HERBERT:

Justin Herbert’s quick success is now part of NFL history. During Monday night’s 28-14 victory over the Raiders, Herbert became the first quarterback in the Super Bowl era to complete 500 passes before his 20th start, according to NFL research.

Herbert — who made his 19th NFL start on Monday night — completed his 500th pass on a 4-yard connection to Jared Cook with 1:32 left in the second quarter. The completion helped set up Herbert’s third touchdown pass, as Los Angeles took a 21-0 halftime read over the visiting Raiders.

AFC NORTH

BALTIMORE

Five ultimately meaningless yards seem to matter to old-school Denver coach Vic Fangio.

The Ravens bucked tradition at the end of Sunday’s win over the Broncos when they elected to run the ball rather than take a knee after taking possession of the ball with three seconds left in a game they were winning 23-7.

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh elected to go that route because the Ravens had 97 rushing yards and he felt it was “meaningful” to get to 100 rushing yards for the 43rd straight game. That tied a record for the longest streak of all time, but it did not go over well with the Broncos.

A video from the sideline from KUSA showed a disgusted head coach Vic Fangio uttering several words that were bleeped out and he confirmed he wasn’t fond of the decision at a Monday press conference.

“Yeah I thought it was kind of bulls–t but I expected it from them,” Fangio said, via Mike Klis of KUSA. “37 years in pro ball and I’ve never seen anything like that. But it was to be expected and we expected it. . . . I just know how they operate. That’s just their mode of operation there. Player safety is secondary.”

Fangio was on the Ravens staff when Harbaugh was hired in 2008 and worked for him for two years. The two teams won’t meet again this season unless it is in the playoffs, but the final seconds of Sunday’s game will likely come up whenever the two men meet again.

John Harbaugh elaborated on his priorities and Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.comelaborates on Harbaugh’s elaborations:

Making Fangio’s comments more biting is the fact that Fangio worked for John Harbaugh in 2009, before joining Jim at Stanford in 2010 and following him to the 49ers.

“I mean, I thought we were on good terms,” Harbaugh told reporters on Monday when asked about Fangio’s comments. “We had a nice chat before the game. Known each other for a long time. But I promise you, I’m not gonna give that insult one second thought. What’s meaningful to us might not be meaningful to them. Their concerns are definitely not our concerns. And, you know, we didn’t expect to get the ball back, you know? But I had already decided — we decided — that if we got the ball back, we were gonna try to get the yards. And we got it back with three seconds left. So you’re throwing the ball in the end zone with 10 seconds left, I don’t know that there’s a 16-point touchdown that’s gonna be possible right there. So, you know, that didn’t have anything to do with winning the game. So like I said what’s meaningful to us might not be meaningful to them, and we’re not gonna concern ourselves with that.”

Harbaugh makes a good point; the chances of scoring, getting a two-point conversion, recovering an onside kick, scoring another touchdown, and getting another two-point conversion were far closer to none than slim. The Broncos may have been trying to get some reps for Drew Lock. Or maybe they just didn’t bother to think that it made sense to take a knee and call it a day.

Regardless, the game came down to Baltimore with a 16-point lead, three seconds, left, and a decision to make: kneel or try to gain yardage? Harbaugh decided to gain yardage so that the Ravens could match a 44-year old record, set by the Steelers from 1974-77.

Maybe Harbaugh wouldn’t care if it wasn’t a Pittsburgh record. Maybe he shouldn’t care either way.

Indeed, this isn’t DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. This is a record that, frankly, I didn’t even know about until the Ravens went out of their way to match it.

Ultimately, the Ravens had every right within the confines of the rules to try to run a play. And to assume the risk of an unnecessary injury to the 11 players who were on the field. And to expose quarterback Lamar Jackson to potential injury by having him run the ball one last time. (It would be interesting to know whether Harbaugh would acknowledge that Jackson shouldn’t have run the ball and/or shouldn’t have even been in the game at that point.)

The irony (I never know if I’m using that properly) of Harbaugh’s decision is that, in a meaningless 2019 game to cap a 14-2 regular season after the top seed in the AFC had been clinched, he rested his starters. And the starters were flat in the divisional round game, arguably due to the passage of three weeks after their last reps of consequence.

But at least the backups kept alive the 100-yard rushing streak, with Gus Edwards alone getting more than 130 yards in a 28-10 win over the Steelers.

– – –

Meanwhile, the Ravens note that it has been almost impossible for opposing defenses to draw a flag when they pummel QB LAMAR JACKSON.

Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh said the team will submit a couple of unpenalized hits on Lamar Jackson for the NFL to review from Sunday’s 23-7 win in Denver.

Jackson hasn’t gotten a roughing the passer penalty since December 2019. That’s a stretch of 600 dropbacks for Jackson without a roughing call.

Asked whether Jackson is treated differently because he’s a running quarterback, Harbaugh said on Monday: “All the quarterbacks should be treated the same. I don’t think any quarterback should be judged any differently in terms of how they’re protected. That’s for sure.”

The hit that has drawn the most attention came after Jackson completed a 49-yard touchdown pass to Marquise Brown in the second quarter. Broncos defensive tackle Mike Purcell hit Jackson in his lower back, knocking the quarterback off his feet. Jackson raised his arms toward the official when no flag was thrown.

“I got hit, so I’m thinking there’s a flag,” Jackson said after the game.

A day later, Jackson saw that a fan had posted on Twitter: “Lamar gotta start complaining to the refs bout these late hits.” Jackson replied: “Everybody seen that” and added an angry emoji face.

Since Jackson made his first start in Week 11 of 2018, Ravens opponents have been flagged for roughing the passer nine times, which ranks 23rd in the NFL. Jackson was the quarterback on seven of those penalties, and Robert Griffin III drew a flag on two of them.

Harbaugh said Jackson did a good job of avoiding contact when running with the ball on Sunday.

“When you’re in the pocket, there’s nothing you can do to protect yourself,” Harbaugh said. “The rules are what protect quarterbacks in the pocket.”

Jackson dealt with a back injury last week that forced him to miss two practices. Harbaugh said Jackson came out of Sunday’s game in “really good shape.”

“He feels great right now,” Harbaugh said.

Jackson was deemed to have been roughed 6 times in 2019, a goodly number that was tied for 3^rd-most in the NFL that year.

But since  then, crickets.

Here are the most roughed QBs since the start of 2020:

 J.Allen            11

M.Ryan             8

K.Cousins          8

R.Tannehill        8

M.Stafford         6

C.Newton          5

P.Mahomes      5

B.Mayfield         5

T. Brady            4

R.Wilson            4

J.Goff                4

J.Garoppolo      4

Roethlisberger   4

Without even trying to explain those at the top – about 5 roughing the passer penalties over the last 20 games would seem to be a norm that Jackson could have been expected to have drawn.

Besides Jackson, those on the low end are Aaron Rodgers with 3, Derek Carr with 2, Deshaun Watson with 0.

CINCINNATI

CLEVELAND

PITTSBURGH

AFC SOUTH

HOUSTON

As far as the NFL is concerned, QB DESHAUN WATSON is free to do his thing on the field in 2021 despite the allegations and investigations that still swirl around him.  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com on the timeline for a trade.

The window for trading Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson (or anyone else) closes in four weeks. To make it as simple as possible, the Texans will either trade Watson to the Dolphins (or theoretically someone else) or they won’t, in the next 28 days.

The “someone else” remains unlikely, for now. Jay Glazer of Fox Sports reiterated over the weekend that, if it happens, it’s happening with the Dolphins.

Brian Flores won’t make “wholesale changes” on offense – ProFootballTalk

Still, as one source with knowledge of the situation recently explained it to PFT, there’s a lot of smoke but no fire — yet.

The fire could come at any time. The Dolphins, after winning in Week One, have lost three in a row. The quarterback with whom they cast their lot, Tua Tagovailoa, is currently injured. The quarterback on whom they passed, Justin Herbert, thrust himself onto the MVP short list last night.

It’s well known that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross wants Watson. It’s well known that the Dolphins have balked at the asking price. Given the team’s current performance, however, G.M. Chris Grier and coach Brian Flores currently may not be guaranteed to be employed when the time comes to use the draft picks they’ve stockpiled. Their best play to remain in place may be to pull the trigger on a Watson trade.

Time will tell. But not much time. Four weeks. It happens or it doesn’t by 4:00 p.m. ET on November 2.

INDIANAPOLIS

JACKSONVILLE

Lindsay Jones of The Athletic is all over Urban Meyer – journalistically:

Imagine the gall it took for Jaguars coach Urban Meyer to step in front of cameras Monday morning and attempt to explain away a viral video of a woman — who was decidedly not his wife — grinding on him as someone who was trying to entice him onto a dance floor.

“It was stupid,” Meyer said. “I should have left.”

But clearly Meyer thinks we’re the ones who are stupid. That we’re just going to watch the clips of Meyer at that bar last week and take him at his word and move on, even if our eyes and brains are telling us not to.

The problem isn’t necessarily Meyer’s actions that night. That’s an issue for him to deal with privately with his wife and family.

The issue is how easily Meyer was willing to lie about it, and his hubris in continuing to believe he’ll become a successful NFL coach. His Jaguars are 0-4, and Meyer’s tenure in Jacksonville has quickly turned from a curiosity to a spectacular disaster.

There’s so much to unpack in the latest Meyer drama, which began Thursday night in Cincinnati, when his Jaguars blew a late lead against the Bengals and fell to 0-4.

Rather than flying back to Florida on the team’s chartered plane that night, Meyer said he stayed behind in Ohio to spend time with his grandchildren.

Since being hired by the Jaguars earlier this year, Meyer has routinely eschewed NFL norms, but this is an especially odd one.

While the upside of a Thursday night game is that the weekend can serve as a mini-bye week, that off-time is typically only a treat for players. It’s unheard of for a head coach to not travel with his team and spend the day following a game in the office with his staff.

And for the head coach of a young, struggling team to skip out on that step? It’s not just disrespectful to his players and his fellow coaches, but also it should have Meyer’s bosses questioning his commitment and ability to do this job.

Perhaps Meyer’s latest misstep would be easier to write off had it occurred in a vacuum. We’d be able to excuse Meyer’s stay in Ohio or regard the personal indiscretions as a one-time mistake.

But this just seems to be how Meyer operates, and owner Shad Khan should have known this when he hired Meyer and gave him complete control of football operations earlier this year. Khan was counting on Meyer’s individual star power and popularity in North Florida to re-energize the fan base of a team that won just one game in 2020. What Khan got was a team that might not be any better on the field and a head coach who has been an embarrassment off it.

Let’s recap the missteps in Meyer’s first nine months in Jacksonville:

1. He hired Chris Doyle to be the Jaguars’ director of sports performance, despite the fact Doyle left the University of Iowa in 2020 after multiple former players accused the school’s former strength coach of racist remarks and bullying. In a news conference, Meyer said he personally vetted Doyle and that he “felt great about the hire” because he had known Doyle for more than 20 years. Meyer linked their past together to the University of Utah, though Doyle was only in Salt Lake City for one season, in 1998, and Meyer didn’t coach there until 2003-2004. Doyle resigned from the Jaguars in February following criticisms of his hiring.

2. The NFL fined Meyer and the Jaguars in July after an investigation by the league and the NFLPA determined the team had violated rules that limit contact during organized team activities. According to ESPN, the league fined Meyer $100,000, and the team $200,000. The Jaguars will also lose two offseason practices next year.

3. Remember the Tim Tebow Thing? In May, Meyer signed Tebow, his former star pupil from the University of Florida, to play tight end. Never mind that Tebow had strictly played quarterback during his NFL career (and had been unwilling to consider other positions while trying to stick as a starting quarterback). He also hadn’t played in an NFL game since 2012. The move reeked of a publicity stunt in Tebow’s hometown, and the idea that a 33-year-old former college star would become an impactful locker room leader and a strong moral presence was misguided. Tebow, as expected, struggled to learn the nuances of the new position and was released during the first round of roster cuts in August.

4. One of the more perplexing football moves was a seemingly unnecessary quarterback competition in training camp between Trevor Lawrence, the No. 1 pick in the draft, and Gardner Minshew. The latter was eventually traded to the Eagles for a sixth-round draft pick. It’s one thing to encourage competition and ensure players earn their spots. It’s another to limit the first-team reps of your franchise quarterback when he (and his teammates) desperately need them.

5. According to a document obtained by The Athletic last month, the Jaguars started the season with one of the three lowest vaccination rates in the league. This, despite Meyer telling reporters that the team considered vaccination status when making roster decisions. That prompted the NFL Players Association to open an investigation and the team to release a statement the next day that said “no players were released because of their vaccination status.”

Meyer called the league protocols “pretty punitive” as they relate to unvaccinated players, and Meyer’s wife, Shelley, frequently posts tweets in which she disagrees with vaccine requirements.

And then there are the issues on the field.

The Jaguars were blown out by the Texans in Week 1, 37-21. Houston has been outscored 95-30 and lost every game in the three weeks since. Jacksonville is one of only two winless teams remaining in the NFL, joining the Detroit Lions.

There have been a handful of exciting moments, most notably Jamal Agnew’s 109-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against the Arizona Cardinals. Yet Jacksonville is 0-4 for the first time since 2014, and despite some encouraging signs from Lawrence, it’s the only team that has failed to score more than 21 points in a game this season.

Could Khan have anticipated this sort of mess? He might have been blinded by Meyer’s collegiate winning percentage: Meyer was 187-32 as a head coach at Bowling Green, Utah, Florida and Ohio State, winning national titles at Florida in 2006 and 2008 and at Ohio State in 2014. Perhaps he believed Meyer could build a winning college-style program in Jacksonville. Still, it would have been terribly naïve of Khan to think that Meyer’s first NFL team wouldn’t have the same type of off-field baggage that surrounded him in college.

His Florida teams, in particular, were rife with drama, and Meyer was notoriously lax about letting players with drug and disciplinary issues remain with the program. An investigation by the New York Times in 2013, following the arrest of former Gators tight end Aaron Hernandez on murder charges, found that 31 Gators were arrested during Meyer’s Florida tenure. Meyer cited health issues in stepping down as Florida coach at the end of the 2010 season.

And Meyer’s legacy at Ohio State is complicated. He re-established the Buckeyes as a national power, leading Ohio State to an undefeated season in 2012 and winning three Big Ten titles, but his time in Columbus ended unceremoniously.

He was suspended for three games in 2018 following a university investigation on his handling of domestic violence allegations against Zach Smith, one of Meyer’s longtime assistant coaches. Meyer publicly denied having any knowledge of a history of domestic abuse by Smith against Smith’s former wife, despite text messages between Courtney Smith and Meyer’s wife and comments from Zach Smith in an interview with ESPN that indicated otherwise. Meyer ultimately retired at the end of the 2018 season after being diagnosed with a brain cyst that caused debilitating headaches, and returned to broadcasting for two years (a role he also held during his one year between coaching jobs at Florida and Ohio State).

When Khan hired Meyer in January, it was one of the most surprising moves of the 2021 NFL job cycle.

Meyer had long been an intriguing name in NFL circles because of his college success, history of developing college players into top NFL draft picks and his extensive experience with the spread offense. But his hiring to the NFL came with plenty of questions about how he’d make the transition to professional football, if his college-style motivational tactics would resonate with veteran players, and how he’d handle a massive rebuild.

Those who have tried it before him, such as Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly, have produced mixed results.

Those questions about Meyer remain unanswered, though week by week, it appears he is not up for the challenge. And now it’s on us — and, especially, on Khan — if we keep believing he might be.

This from Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com:

The Urban Meyer situation in Jacksonville is bad. It could get worse.

Former NFL executive Michael Lombardi posted an ominous tweet on Tuesday, a day after Meyer addressed during a press conference the social-media uproar over photos and videos of the Jaguars coach with women other than his wife.

“According to two Jacksonville sources, there are many closed-door meetings happening over the last two days in the football offices and none of them have anything to do with the Titans,” Lombardi said. “Stay tuned. This might get ugly.”

It’s already ugly. Meyer, after a loss he described as “devastating, heartbreaking,” did not return with his team to Jacksonville. He says he stayed in Ohio to visit his grandchildren. Unless that’s some sort of euphemism, he definitely was not with his grandchildren for part of the stay in Ohio.

Meyer’s judgment and lack of self-awareness is stunning. Apart from engaging in behavior of which his family (specifically, his wife) would not approve, he did it in a public place. Posing for photos. And ignoring the reality that, even when not smiling for the cameras, the cameras are still watching.

What did he think would happen? Did Meyer, whose quarter-zip top displayed an Ohio State logo, think he still had sufficient power and influence in Ohio to ensure that no one would post the photos or videos on social media? Or does he just not understand how the world currently works?

Regardless, whatever flaw in his brain caused him to think the situation wouldn’t create a storm of scrutiny and controversy arguably can manifest itself in all sorts of other ways, including within the confines of the many judgments he makes as a football coach.

Meyer ultimately needs to have credibility in a locker room full of adult males, most if not all of whom are surely raising an eyebrow and wondering what’s wrong with the guy who is responsible for their collective professional fates. Will they still listen to him? Will they still follow him? Will they question every decision he makes, every strategy he employs?

Apart from whether the Jaguars decide to end the relationship with Meyer, it becomes difficult to envision Meyer continuing in the job. He acknowledged on Monday that his family is upset. His wife undoubtedly is the most upset of the bunch. And for Meyer to achieve and maintain the very fragile balance of putting so much of his time and effort into coaching an NFL team, he needs Mrs. Meyer to be fully on board with it. Otherwise, an incredibly demanding and challenging job becomes virtually impossible to perform.

Before seeing Lombardi’s tweet (and some in league circles strongly believe one of his sources is Jaguars G.M. Trent Baalke), I said on PFT Live that it’s hard to imagine Meyer returning in 2022. At this point, he may not make it to the end of 2021.

At this point, he may not make it to the end of the week.

The DB can’t help but think that those in Jacksonville now know they made a mistake with Meyer in the first place – and maybe this scandal could be a reason to jettison him without being obligated for the bulk of his long term, big money contract.

And we would add, if you lived in Florida at the time of his “health-related” departure from the Gators, you couldn’t help but hearing tales (unverified, we admit) of other reasons that Meyer left.

As we go to press – this from Mike Silver on Twitter:

@MikeSilver

1) The Urban Meyer situation in Jacksonville has reached a crisis point, especially in the locker room. One player told me, ‘He has zero credibility in that stadium. He had very little to begin with.’

2) Players were particularly put off by the fact that Meyer canceled Monday’s team meeting, as he dealt with the uproar over the videos of him and a young woman getting cozy in that Ohio bar. ‘He even canceled the team meeting. He was too scared,’ a player said.

3) Instead Meyer ‘only apologized to position groups individually.’ He portrayed the woman in the videos as a random person who was ‘just there dancing.’ Suffice it to say, his audience was highly skeptical.

4) Said one player: ‘We looked at him like, WTF? Right when he left everyone started dying laughing. And he knew it.’

5 Bottom line, said the player: ‘It’s bad. I don’t know how he’s gonna function.’

AFC EAST

NEW ENGLAND

Mike Sando notes that Bill Belichick has lost more than his GOAT QB in recent years.

The Patriots lost more than Brady. They also lost part of what made Belichick great.

The case for the great quarterback being more important than the great coach was strong before Sunday night. The won-lost records for Belichick leave little doubt: 219-64 (.774) with Brady starting, compared to 62-75 (.452) with other quarterbacks in the lineup. The non-Brady totals include 36-44 (.450) when Belichick was with Cleveland and 26-31 (.456) with New England.

The combination of great coaching and great quarterback was nearly unbeatable for the Patriots over two decades. The coaching component goes deeper than Belichick. That is where New England has suffered greatly. This team lost more than an all-time great quarterback.

“They had a really fundamental change in their staff the year Brian Flores left (to become head coach of the Dolphins),” an NFL team executive said. “They lost Flores, Josh Boyer, Chad O’Shea, Jerry Shlupinski — guys that were products of the systematic structure Belichick had set up to develop coaches. You cannot say they have that now.”

The table below shows coaches and front-office staffers who, along with Brady, spent a combined 132 seasons with Belichick in New England. All retired or departed the team since the end of the 2018 season. Those staffers and Brady’s replacement, Jones, have spent a combined 43 seasons with Belichick in New England, a figure that counts the first four weeks of 2021 as a full season. That is a staggering difference in organizational horsepower, institutional knowledge and staff-development infrastructure.

Patriots did welcome back former Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia to the defensive staff. This is Patricia’s 15th season with Belichick in New England, giving the staff a veteran defensive presence to help mentor others on that side of the ball. Josh McDaniels remains the offensive coordinator, which also helps. But consider the heavy losses to all areas of the football operation, and then consider how much more difficult overcoming those losses might be without Brady to mask deficiencies.

“They look very similar to everyone else,” another exec said. “The interesting thing is, what will the quarterback (Mac Jones) look like in Week 11, Week 12? The top quarterback is the equalizer.”

The Patriots declined on their offensive line when Scarnecchia stepped away for the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Belichick settled on Cole Popovich to replace Scarnecchia after the veteran line coach retired for good, only to have Popovich leave after declining to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

There have been other, subtler departures. None was particularly significant on its own. Collectively, they helped create the disparity shown in the table above.

“They had a bunch of guys who let their contracts expire and got out of there, guys like Chad O’Shea and Brendan Daly,” an exec said. “Joe Judge left, Brian Flores left. I don’t know how many teams have lost as many 10-year staff members in this short of time. There aren’t even that many assistant coaches in the league who have 10 years in one spot.”

Andy Reid in Kansas City has several: Eric Bieniemy, Andy Heck and Dave Toub. Seattle’s Pete Carroll has a few. But that kind of continuity is uncommon. Losing so much of it in a short period of time is like clear-cutting a forest. New trees require years to grow. It’s easier to see the floor in the meantime.

NEW YORK JETS

If a car crashes in Florida, does it really happen if the media don’t know about it.  S MARCUS MAYE has been charged for a long ago accident that avoided media scrutiny until now.  Rich Cimini of ESPN.com says it may be more than the media that did not know about the DUI:

New York Jets safety Marcus Maye is facing charges from a DUI arrest and car crash that occurred Feb. 22 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, according to Broward County court records.

The arrest, which had not been previously reported by the media, subjects Maye to the NFL’s personal-conduct policy — meaning it could result in a suspension. An Oct. 20 Zoom hearing is scheduled between Maye’s attorney and the state attorney, per court records.

Failure to report an incident is grounds for discipline under league policy.

Maye, 28, was charged with driving under the influence and two other misdemeanors: DUI/damage to property and person and leaving the scene of a crash, according to the booking report. He posted a bond of $1,500.

The league is reviewing the matter under its personal-conduct policy, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said. It appears the Jets were not made aware of the arrest.

“We’re not going to comment on a pending legal matter,” a Jets spokesman told ESPN on Monday.

Maye’s agent, Erik Burkhardt, said in a statement to ESPN: “It is an ongoing legal matter and our attorney has advised us we cannot comment. We are confident it will be positively resolved. We look forward to Marcus getting back on the field soon.”

Maye, traveling by himself in a 2018 Mercedes, allegedly crashed into the left rear of a Volvo while driving north on the Florida Turnpike at 7:33 p.m. There were no injuries, the traffic citation says, but the driver of the Volvo — Jamila Abraham of Belle Glade, Florida — filed a civil suit and is seeking in excess of $30,000, per court filings.

It was Maye’s first DUI offense, according to court documents.

The arrest occurred two weeks before Maye, voted by teammates as the Jets’ MVP in 2020, was given the franchise tag by the Jets. By rule, the two sides had until July 15 to work out a long-term contract, but they never got close to an agreement, sources told ESPN.

As a result, Maye is playing on a one-year deal for the amount of the tag — $10.6 million.

General manager Joe Douglas said at a March 3 news conference that the organization’s plan was to keep Maye “long term.” At the time, Burkhardt criticized the organization on Twitter for refusing to “take care of their best player.”

Maye is recuperating from an ankle injury that occurred in Week 3 and forced him to sit out Sunday’s 27-24 overtime win against the Tennessee Titans. He’s expected to miss three to four weeks.

Burkhardt tweeted last week that Maye will be healthy by the Nov. 2 NFL trading deadline, fueling speculation that the safety wants to be moved.

A second-round pick in 2017, Maye is the longest-tenured member of the Jets. He has appeared in 57 games — all starts — and has six interceptions.