The Daily Briefing Tuesday, September 13, 2022

AROUND THE NFL

Baker Mayfield, now in Carolina would have had revenge on the Browns – except Cade York’s 58-yard FG with 8 seconds left.

The Falcons would have had a stunning upset over hated rival New Orleans – except for a 51-yard FG by Will Lutz with 19 seconds left.

Cincinnati would have begun where they left off and Mitchell Trubisky would be 0-1 – except for a botched 29-yard Bengals FG in overtime (plus a blocked PAT in regulation).

Matt Ryan would be 1-0 with the Colts after a great comeback – except Rodrigo Blankenship missed a 42-yard FG in OT and instead Indy tied.

And – Monday night, Russell Wilson would have returned in triumph for the Seahawks – except Nathanial Hackett opted to settle for a 64-yard FG try that failed.  Now, Seattle successfully repulsed Wilson’s invasion.

Imagine the narrative difference, for players (especially QBs) and coaches, if one play went differently.

DETROIT

We think this stat from Scott Kacsmar is actually a positive for Detroit after Sunday with the Eagles:

@ScottKacsmar

#NFL Home teams to lose in regulation after scoring 35 points with 180+ rushing yards since 1970:

2022 Lions vs. Eagles

2001 Titans vs. Browns

1989 Redskins vs. Eagles

1972 Rams vs. Vikings

Was that a game between a team that is going to be the top seed in the NFC beating a team that will end up with the 7^th seed?

Or will the Eagles be the 7^th seed like last year, and the Lions says #12?

We kind of think it may be the former.

GREEN BAY

Even before Sunday in Minny, Peter King’s readers didn’t buy his pick of the Packers winning the NFC:

From Matthew J. Lemma: “I greatly, greatly respect your opinion, but why haven’t you realized yet that the Aaron Rodgers-led Green Bay Packers do nothing but disappoint come playoff time? They won a championship at the end of the 2010 season, which was before they began throwing money at Rodgers, but times have changed.”

I heard this from a lot of people, Matthew. I can’t dispute the crushing disappointments of the last two playoff seasons for Rodgers and the Packers, losing in the playoffs at home after being the one seed each year. And when I tried to figure out what I thought of the NFC this year, my first thought was, I don’t love any team. I have questions about the Packers, to be sure. You know what team they remind me of? The 1997 Broncos. That year, Denver was coming off a 1996 season as the top seed in the AFC with a 13-3 record, and the Broncos lost their first playoff game to Jacksonville at home, a crushing defeat that made many in Colorado think: That’s it for Elway. He’ll never win the big one. Well, he won the next two big ones. Not saying Rodgers will, but I am saying he’s under that sort of pressure as this year dawns. You very well may be right. I’ve got a feeling he’s going to respond to the questions about him and about the loss of Davante Adams with a good playoff run.

R-E-L-A-X.

Rodgers reacted to the struggles of WR CHRISTIAN WATSON and others on Sunday.  Jeff Kerr of CBSSports.com:

Aaron Rodgers played in Week 1 without two of his top three receivers from last season, the second consecutive year he took home MVP honors. Rodgers was without Allen Lazard (ankle), the only wide receiver on the roster who caught over 30 passes from last year still on the roster, in the Packers’ 23-7 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, Of course, former Green Bay star Davante Adams was traded to the Raiders in the offseason.

The results with Sammy Watkins, Randall Cobb, Christian Watson, and Romeo Doubs were disastrous. Rodgers completed just 22 of 34 passes for 195 yards with no touchdowns and an interception in the loss, finishing with a 67.6 passer rating. No. 2 running back A.J. Dillon was his leading receiver with five catches for 46 yards.

Rodgers had an opportunity to have a big-play touchdown on the Packers’ first offensive play of the game. Trailing 7-0 in the first quarter, Rodgers threw a bomb to a wide open Watson, who dropped the ball as the Packers drive soon stalled after three Rodgers incomplete passes.

Watson finished with just two catches for 34 yards.

“We knew there was going to be growing pains,” Rodgers said. “This is real football. It counts. It’s different. There’s nerves. I thought Christian (Watson) ran a great route to start the game. We talked about it during the week, do you really want to start off with a bomb shot, I said, what the hell, yeah, why not, this kid can really fly, let’s give him a chance.

“I was teasing Patrick (Peterson) after the game that we got him, he said, yeah, I wasn’t quite warmed up yet. But we’ve got to make those plays. But those are going to happen. It’s the mental mistakes that we’ve really got to clean up, and there was too many across the board.”

The drop set the tone for the young receivers, as Watson and Doubs combined for six catches and 71 yards on nine targets. The Packers didn’t have their top two tackles — David Bakhtiari and Elgton Jenkins — in the loss either, which was part of the disrupted flow of the offense.

Rodgers showed his frustration during the game, especially since a dropped deep pass played an integral role in the offense finishing with just 5.3 yards per pass attempt. The drop wasn’t the source of Rodgers’ frustration.

“Obviously it would be great to have a 75-yard touchdown to start the game, but drops are going to happen. It’s part of the game,” Rodgers said. “It’s the mental stuff that we just can’t have because we’re hurting ourselves, whether we’re going the wrong way on a block or missing a protection-something, missing a hot, not running the right route, the right depth. There was just too many mental mistakes.”

MINNESOTA

Peter King makes Kevin O’Connell his Week 1 Coach of the Week:

Kevin O’Connell, coach, Minnesota. Game one couldn’t have gone much better for the latest branch of the Sean McVay tree. Last year’s Rams offensive coordinator orchestrated a well-balanced attack (28 runs, 32 passes plus one sack) in his NFL head-coaching debut. Plus, zero turnovers, 395 total yards, and a good 8.2 yards per pass attempt (to Aaron Rodgers’ 5.3). The Vikings clearly have responded well to the lighter, teaching-heavy approach of O’Connell after the hardline approach of former coach Mike Zimmer.

And O’Connell is determined to make WR JUSTIN JEFFERSON this year’s COOPER KUPP.  Albert Breer at NFL.com:

I think respect for Justin Jefferson might finally be catching up with where it is inside the league. And if you want to know where it is in the league, you’d be well-served to listen to what Aaron Rodgers said to the star receiver after his Packers fell 23–7 to Jefferson’s Vikings on Sunday in Minneapolis.

Rodgers told Jefferson, more or less, “You were the best player in the game today.”

“It means a lot coming from him, just being the type of player that he is,” Jefferson said over the phone, from the locker room postgame. “He’s one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game, so to hear that from him definitely is a little confidence-booster.”

Jefferson then raised his voice a little, and added, “I think he was just saying that because next time we play them, he’s gonna try to be the best player.”

If Jefferson plays on New Year’s Day—when the teams meet again—like he did on Sunday, that bar will be set awfully high. And what’s more impressive about Jefferson’s nine-catch, 184-yard, two-touchdown effort is that Green Bay had to know it was coming, and somehow, some way, was powerless to stop it.

Adam Thielen’s a good player. So is Dalvin Cook. But there was no question coming into this one who Kirk Cousins’s go-to guy was going to be—and new Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell had an interesting way, over the last few months, of preparing Jefferson for that.

O’Connell had Jefferson watch a lot of Cooper Kupp’s tape. He was Kupp’s coordinator in Los Angeles, and Kupp, last year, kept producing and producing and producing, even as first Robert Woods went down and then later Odell Beckham Jr. went down in the Super Bowl. The key, as Jefferson saw it, was how the Rams could move Kupp around liberally, because he knew every position, and how well Kupp knew the scheme.

So Jefferson went to work on learning it.

“It definitely looked difficult at first,” he said. “Coming into the spring with a new offense, having to learn a whole new offense, it was definitely tough.”

But in time, it became apparent to Jefferson what knowing the offense that way would do for him. And that was illustrated everywhere on Sunday—and maybe most so in how open he looked on his 35-yard touchdown catch from Cousins. Jefferson reeled that one in over the middle, and two Packers DBs got turned around and seemed to be moving in separate directions, allowing for Jefferson to get the corner on the defense and race to the pylon.

“I think it was a little miscommunication with the defense,” he said. “But that’s all of the concepts that were setting up for Cooper Kupp being wide open in the offense. This offense is just so dynamic with different concepts, and then we have players on the field to get the ball to. Somebody’s always gonna be open to make some type of play.”

Really, it was that way for a lot of Vikings on Sunday. Cousins finished 23-of-32 for 277 yards, two touchdowns and a 118.9 passer rating. Five different guys caught at least three balls. Dalvin Cook churned out 90 yards on 20 carries, and Alexander Mattison’s per-carry average was identical to Cooks, with his producing 36 yards on eight carries.

But the best player was very clearly the guy Rodgers identified as such. And in that player’s opinion, this is just the start.

“I mean, I’m always expecting to be the best player on the field at all times,” he said. “This is my statement year, just proving that I’m the best receiver in the league. So I just gotta stack these type of games every single week.”

DALLAS

Peter King:

Bad break for Dak. The Dallas offense was mostly putrid with Dak Prescott Sunday in the 19-3 loss to Tampa. What will it be like for maybe six games with Cooper Rush? The Cowboys managed 244 yards, one field goal and allowed four sacks and eight other hits on Prescott. Not as worrisome as the loss of Prescott but pretty damn worrisome: CeeDee Lamb, supposedly the franchise receiver, was targeted 11 times and caught two balls — for just 29 yards. ESPN’s Todd Archer estimated Prescott would be out about six weeks after undergoing a procedure to repair a break in his throwing hand. If so, it’ll be Rush who tries to slay the Bengals, Rams and Eagles over the next month-plus, after a nightmarish opener.

WASHINGTON

From what the DB could see Sunday, Washington has a nice bunch of weapons with which to support QB CARSON WENTZ.  This from Albert Breer of SI.com:

No one would draw up a fourth quarter like the Commanders had, but believe it not, they’re grateful for it. And eventually, Ron Rivera conceded that to me, when we discussed how the final frame started with Washington up 14–12 and quickly devolved with two Carson Wentz picks that led to the Jaguars going up 22–14, which ultimately set the stage for hosts to rally for a stirring 28–22 win.

“You know how many people said that to me privately afterwards, that it was the best thing that happened to [the players]?” Rivera told me, a few hours later. “I said, How can you say that? They said, Look, he bounced back from two disastrous interceptions. For him to come back in that situation, do what he did, that was pretty damn good. I was like, You know what? They’re right. They’re right. He stuck with it; he hung in there and he kept fighting.”

It’s one day, of course, and it wasn’t a perfect one for Wentz. He finished 27-of-41 for 313 yards, four touchdowns and the two picks. His team won, which is the important thing. There are a lot of things he wants to clean up.

But the truth is, he did answer some questions, mostly because the meltdown was there to be had, and Wentz didn’t just sidestep it—he flipped it on its head.

 “Obviously there’s a lot you can’t control in this game,” Wentz said over the phone, leaving the stadium. “For me, you dig yourself a hole and you want to go fix it. You want to go make it right. But at the same time, you can’t do it all in one play, so it’s just, Hey, how can I stay confident and just go make the next throw, go make the next play? And just keep checking them off, checking them off, and next thing you know, we were rolling.”

How they got rolling is relevant, too, because it plays right into the plan that Rivera and coordinator Scott Turner had to maximize Wentz coming out of his experience in Indianapolis—a plan that would work to create better rhythm for him in the passing game and leverage his big-play ability as a downfield thrower.

The first was accomplished via play selection. Turner called just four runs in the 17 snaps that encompassed the two scoring drives, which allowed for Wentz to gather momentum.

The second happened, in large part, because of what was around Wentz, which is a big reason the Commanders thought this would work from the start. Between Terry McLaurin, Jahan Dotson and Curtis Samuel alone, Washington has a skill group that can really run, get downfield and make real the threat that Wentz’s big arm brings.

“For sure,” Wentz affirmed. “I mean, quite frankly, I think they’d make a lot of guys in my position’s lives easy. And I think anybody in my shoes would be extremely lucky and extremely excited to get to work with those guys, because they’re all just different and dynamic in their own way. And, in some cases, very interchangeable because they all have speed, they can threaten the defense, they all do so much with the ball in their hands.”

In this case, with two big shots, it won Washington the game.

• The first came after Wentz connected with Logan Thomas to convert a third-and-8, which put the ball at the Jags’ 49. At the snap, both McLaurin and Samuel got vertical, which put safety Andre Cisco in a tough spot, forcing him to choose, and leaving McLaurin to run past Shaquill Griffin down the sideline. When Wentz launched the ball to McLaurin, Cisco came over to him, but the throw landed in the hole between Cisco and Griffin.

“Coach was feeling it, wanted to take a shot to Terry,” Wentz said. “They played a different coverage, but one we talked about all week. In that Cover-2 shell, Terry was able to kinda get in that hole shot, so to speak, and with his speed, I mean that makes it hard to defend. And we had Curtis running down the inside, so you put that speed on any safety, that puts them in a bind. That was a huge play for us.”

• The second came after Wentz dinked and dunked the Commanders 66 yards in 12 plays to get them to a third-and-8 on the Jags’ 24. And this one was simpler. Wentz saw man coverage, and had his matchup with Jacksonville’s Tyson Campbell covering the rookie Dotson, who would essentially shield Campbell from the ball before bringing it in down the left sideline.

“It was a double-move, and it was man-to-man on the backside there with Jahan,” Wentz said. “So that’s what we had talked about, that exact play against that look in that situation, and it’s nice to hit it the way you talk about it like that. That’s huge.”

And it wound up putting the Commanders up for good.

Which adds up to, for now, a nice start for Wentz in Washington, and what seems like a pretty good fit, too. The 29-year-old, for his part, wouldn’t go too much into how different this might be than Indy or Philly. He knows it’s early, and he doesn’t want to start slinging rocks at this point. But other people will say it for him.

That starts with the coach who welcomed him in March by telling him how he was wanted in Washington, and confidently told him on Sunday, after the second pick, that it was his game to win.

“Everything he’s gone through the last couple of years, it kind of feels like us,” Rivera said. “We’ve been stepped on. We’ve been pushed around. Every time, people listen to what other people say about us. And I just felt he fit in and he deserved to know that we really appreciated him, we really wanted him and we were happy to have him on our team. So I just wanted him to know that that’s how we all felt.

“He’s the guy we wanted to be here. We wanted him to be our quarterback. And we just feel that a lot of things that he’s gone through, we can relate to.”

Including the test they mutually got, and passed, on Sunday.

CAROLINA

If you feel like Matt Rhule’s Panthers haven’t been very good at the end of close games, Scott Kacsmar has a stat for you:

Matt Rhule is now 0-14 in 4QC/GWD opportunities and 1-24 when the Panthers allow 17+ points.

TAMPA BAY

Todd Bowles serves notice that he believes the 2022 Buccaneers defense is better than last year – with some changes in personnel.

“I think we’ve got better chemistry this year. After the Super Bowl and time off, still some COVID stuff, we weren’t all together, didn’t put it in all the work. I think this year they’re a little closer just from more practice reps and being in synch with each other, so I think it’s totally different.”

Hmmmm.  Who was not brought back?

SAN FRANCISCO

Peter King:

San Francisco remains a news hub, even at 0-1. Impossible to draw many conclusions from a game played in a gigantic mud puddle. But two things of note from Sunday, on the day the Trey Lance era began with a 19-10 loss to the Bears at Soldier Field:

a. Jay Glazer reported before the game on FOX that coach Kyle Shanahan and GM John Lynch, after Jimmy Garoppolo got re-signed, asked 15 team leaders to be sure they had Trey Lance’s back if times got tough this season. According to Glazer, they said words to this effect to the 15 team leaders: Guys, we need your support here. We’ve got to make sure that you get Trey’s back. There will be some bumpy roads ahead. We’ve got to make sure that people aren’t clamoring to move on to Jimmy. We’ve got to make sure we have your support.” Clearly, they recognized that Garoppolo has lots of friends in the locker room and wanted to prevent the fracturing of the locker room if Lance went through a bad run.

b. Lance had a third-and-five at his 41- with 10 minutes left when he made the kind of throw he just can’t make. He zeroed in on his target, wideout Jauan Jennings and forced a throw without seeing safety Eddie Jackson lurking just to the right of Jennings. The pick was easy, and it led to the insurance touchdown three minutes later. Young quarterbacks are going to make mistakes like this one, particularly in god-awful conditions. But with Lance, these mistakes are going to be magnified. Fair or unfair, that’s how the 49ers have set this up with the signing of a quarterback who has played in two NFC championship games in the last three years.

RB ELIJAH MITCHELL will not be rewarding his Fantasy backers anytime soon. He’s going on IR with an MCL sprain and will be out about 8 weeks.  Six carries for 41 yards before going down against the Bears.

SEATTLE

QB GENO SMITH postgame:

@espn

“They wrote me off, I ain’t write back though.”

– – –

The bad news for the Seahawks amidst the jubilation is the injury to S JAMAL ADAMS. The Athletic:

Seattle Seahawks safety Jamal Adams suffered a “serious” knee injury in Monday’s game against the Denver Broncos, coach Pete Carroll said. After blitzing on a Broncos third down in the second quarter, Adams limped to the sideline and to the medical tent. After being ruled doubtful to return, Adams was carted to the locker room.

Carroll said the injury is “not a typical knee injury” and that there is quadriceps damage.

Adams, 26, went No. 6 in the 2017 NFL Draft. He is a three-time Pro Bowler and was a first-team All-Pro in 2019. Adams is beginning his third season with the Seahawks.

DENVER

Joe Buck said it well after the game – no team has ever run the clock down and left time on the clock to try to kick a 64-yard FG.  Time is usually never a consideration when that long of a field goal is tried.  Heck, even with the rundown to the timeout, Seattle would have had enough time to get into position for their own winning FG if the kick of PK BRENDAN McMANUS had been successful.

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com takes a swing at it.

Rarely in this day and age is there anything on which the vast majority of people agree. Tonight, we found something around which we could all rally.

In his first game as a head coach, Nathaniel Hackett made a bizarre decision to take the football out of Bronco quarterback Russell Wilson‘s hands with the game on the line, opting for a field goal.

Not a 34-yard field goal. Or a 44-yard field goal. Or a 54-yard field goal. Hackett opted to dial up a 64-yard field goal attempt — which would have been the second-longest in league history — in lieu of giving Wilson a chance to convert on fourth and five.

Making the situation even more bizarre was that the Broncos allowed nearly all of the play clock to expire before calling their first time out of the second half, with 20 seconds to play.

After the game, Hackett said they were “right on the line” of the distance from which kicker Brandon McManus can convert. But it was still a 64-yard field goal.

And they have Wilson. That’s why they gave up all those picks. That’s why they gave him all that money. To deliver in moments like that. Especially when he’s back in Seattle, for perhaps the only time in the balance of his career.

It’s indefensible. It’s incomprehensible. It’s inexcusable.

Fortunately for Hackett, he doesn’t have to answer directly to the many fans and media who think it was idiotic to not try to convert on fourth and five. But he will have to answer to owners who didn’t hire him to be the head coach. And Greg Penner, Rob Walton, and company will surely have some tough questions to ask Hackett.

He’ll have answers for them. Football coaches always do. And he has the security of a freshly-minted contract to protect him against the ultimate accountability for an ultimately bone-headed decision.

But he’d better redeem himself quickly. Even if he’ll never admit it to anyone but himself, he has to know that, in a moment of truth, he made the wrong call. And he would hardly be the first coach to make it only one year on the job. (It’s not as if the new owners can’t afford the buyout.)

Think of it this way. If he’d gone for it with Wilson and failed, would anyone by saying, “Man, you should have tried a 64-yard field goal instead of trusting your franchise quarterback?”

Maybe someone, somewhere would have made that argument. Maybe someone who thought they were playing the game in, you know, Denver. Maybe someone who would apply hindsight no matter the outcome.

McManus is a great kicker. There’s no way that he’s good enough that you opt for a kick that long at sea level when you’ve just made a massive investment in a quarterback in whom you supposedly have sufficient faith to gain five yards in a gotta-have-it situation.

If you don’t believe in Russell Wilson in that moment, why did you go all-in for him? That was the moment to lay the cards in the table and see what they had in Wilson.

Let Russ cook? It was let Russ watch. And Wilson may have some thoughts about the decision. Thoughts that he surely won’t be sharing publicly.

We would think that McManus at 64 yards was probably about 20% to make that kick, it was long enough – but throw in -5% for Denver’s chances of doing something with 15 seconds.  So, 15% – 20% chance of success.  Maybe you think, McManus had a better chance, but he’s not JUSTIN TUCKER.  Maybe, maybe – 35% – 40%.

We would think Wilson was about 50% to get the 5 yards for a maximum 59-yard kick with 40 seconds and two timeouts left to get closer.  The ensuing FG distance would make the difference – it could have been in the 30s up to 60 yards.  But we would spitball that he could have reached an 80% FG distance with one more first down.  Even at 55 yards, the chances for McManus go up hugely.

Now that is spitball analytics, we wonder what Hackett’s actual “experts” spit out.

KANSAS CITY

Andy Reid’s son is looking at four years in prison for the injuries that occurred in his drunk driving accident back in early 2021.  Dan Wetzel of YahooSports.com and the victim’s family think he is getting off easy.

Prosecutors in Missouri will seek no more than four years in prison for ex-Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid as part of a plea deal concerning a 2021 DUI crash. The incident injured Reid and five others, including then-5-year-old Ariel Young, who was left with significant brain injuries.

Young’s family ripped the plea deal, stating they hope Reid receives the maximum seven years in prison.

“The five victims of this crime are outraged,” attorney Tom Pardo said in a statement. “The prosecuting attorney is not seeking the maximum sentence allowable by law. The defendant is a prior offender whose actions caused a 5-year-old to be in a coma and seriously injured three others.”

Yet local attorneys say the deal isn’t out of line with such cases and they expect the judge to take the prosecutor’s suggested four year sentence and while sentencing isn’t until Oct. 28, they expect the four years to hold.

“The people that write the law say seven years is the maximum, so this is about what you’d expect,” said Chris Scott, a Kansas City defense attorney and former prosecutor. “The prosecution knows facts of the case that the public doesn’t, so if prosecutors feel that four years is fair then I would say it is fair.

“The victims and their family will get to speak at sentencing but I’d be stunned if the court didn’t follow the [recommendation],” Scott continued. “If the judge didn’t follow those agreements then nothing would get done. I’ve never seen a Jackson County, Missouri judge go against it.”

Reid, 37, is the son of Chief head coach Andy Reid. He admitted he was legally drunk on the night of Feb. 4, 2021 when he recklessly drove his Dodge Ram 84 miles per hour down an Interstate 435 on-ramp.

It was there he slammed into two cars parked in the breakdown lane. One car had engine trouble before calling a relative to come offer assistance. Young was among two children injured while sitting in the back seat of one of the hit vehicles.

Reid was working as Kansas City’s outside linebackers coach the night of the incident. The Chiefs were preparing for that weekend’s Super Bowl against Tampa Bay. He was hospitalized after the incident and did not coach in the team’s loss to the Buccaneers. His contract was not renewed at season’s end.

The proximity of the incident to the Chiefs offices and training facilities suggest Reid may have been drinking on the job. The team and Young’s family reached an agreement last year to cover all medical costs “for the rest of her life.”

Last week, when Reid first released a statement that he would plead guilty and expressing how sorry he was about the incident, Young’s mother, Felicia Miller, took to social media to condemn him.

“Shove your ‘Sorry’ up your ASS,” she wrote on Facebook.

Miller and other family members wore T-shirts that read “Justice for Ariel” at Monday’s hearing on the plea deal. Reid could receive as little as parole. The judge could also ignore the recommendation of the prosecutor and sentence him to longer. The family’s opinion may impact that decision.

Part of the family’s anger is that Reid has had a lifetime of substance abuse issues and prior run-ins with the law. In 2007, Britt Reid was sentenced to up to 23 months in prison for a road-rage incident in Pennsylvania, where his father formerly coached the Philadelphia Eagles (he was paroled into a treatment program).

Reid also pleaded guilty to DUI and drug charges in a separate incident that year after he drove his vehicle into a shopping cart in a parking lot.

“I regret what I did,” Reid said at the hearing on Monday. “I made a huge mistake. I apologize to the family. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

Reid’s employment with Kansas City was almost completely due to nepotism. He lacked the résumé, let alone the clear legal background, for a coveted NFL assistant job. Reid has not said where he was drinking prior to the crash, although he previously told police that he “left work” before the incident. The crash scene is about a half-mile from the Chiefs facility.

There are no bars, restaurants or residences between the building and the onramp, if Reid had taken a direct route there. As an assistant coach, Reid was also under the league’s then-strict COVID policies, which would have prohibited him from walking into any establishment.

The team initially said it was “gathering information” about the incident. NFL team facilities have significant surveillance — including inside the building, so at the time, the NFL could monitor and investigate COVID-distancing violations.

Yet the team has not released any findings publicly.

The Chiefs did not immediately respond to a request for a statement on Monday. Reid’s sentencing is set for Oct. 28.

BALTIMORE

Peter King points out how the Ravens have a history of seeing guaranteed money go for naught:

Why the Ravens balked. With ESPN’s Sunday report that talks on a new contract for Lamar Jackson broke down, at least in part, because Jackson wanted a fully guaranteed contract and the Ravens wouldn’t give it to him, some perspective: On Oct. 30, 2020, left tackle Ronnie Stanley signed the biggest contract ever for a left tackle; it included $64.2 in fully guaranteed money. Two days later, Stanley suffered an ankle injury against Pittsburgh. Since that day, and including the missed game Sunday against the Jets, Stanley has not played in 28 of the Ravens’ last 29 games. At 28, Stanley has to be considered a question mark for the short- and long-term future. In Lamar Jackson’s 62 NFL games entering Sunday, he’d averaged 10.7 rushes per game. I can’t imagine them ever considering a fully guaranteed contract for Jackson, especially given their recent experience with healthy guarantees. Remember the stat from FMIA last week: The new contracts for Russell Wilson, Derek Carr, Kyler Murray and Aaron Rodgers, on average, contain full guarantees of 47 percent. The fully guaranteed Deshaun Watson deal is an outlier, and the Ravens are surely treating it as such. P.S. After the 24-9 win over the Jets: Maybe betting on himself will be a good thing for Jackson, who threw three touchdowns in the Meadowlands Sunday.

CLEVELAND

People are scrambling today to add PK CADE YORK to their Fantasy teams.  Peter King:

It was very hard Sunday, watching new Cleveland kicker Cade York kick the winning field goal from 58 yards out with eight seconds left at Carolina, to not think of Evan McPherson. The coolness of York, the huge leg of York (his 58-yarder would have been good from 70) were mindful of the Cincinnati kicking hero on the Bengals’ Super Bowl run last year. “I’m buddies with Evan,” York said from the Browns’ locker room Sunday afternoon. “Me and him both performed at a high level in college and it really isn’t much different, honestly, when you come to the NFL.” Last year, McPherson, chosen in the fifth round, was the only kicker picked in the NFL Draft. This year, York, picked in the fourth round, was the lone kicker too. Both are from the SEC — York from LSU. “Today felt like college still,” he said. The kick itself was a sort of dynamic curveball, starting out like a line drive just to the right of the right upright and drawing back till it hit the net, almost straight down the middle. “Pretty surreal moment,” he said of making a 58-yarder to win his first NFL game.

PITTSBURGH

Peter King sums up the craziness as Pittsburgh won in overtime:

The Steelers scratched and clawed, overcame what might be a crippling injury to T.J. Watt, got a breakout game from third-year linebacker Alex Highsmith, and had reinforced to them how important a piece Minkah Fitzpatrick is to their team. Fitzpatrick’s pick-six on the sixth snap of the game and his amazing blocked PAT to force overtime at the end of the fourth quarter…those are the kind of plays Tomlin-coached teams make, and a big reason why he’s never had a losing season in 15 years atop the Steelers.

“He’s kind of seen it all,” said Trubisky, after his first Steeler win and Tomlin’s 163rd. “I saw him after the game, and he gave me a nice firm handshake and said, ‘Good work. Good work.’ “

The number of times this game should have been over…Count them:

1. The Fitzpatrick blocked PAT at the end of regulation, keeping it 20-20

2. The way-too-high Cincinnati field-goal snap with 3:37 left in OT, causing Evan McPherson to shank a 29-yarder wide left, keeping it 20-20.

3. Chris Boswell clanging a 55-yard knuckleball off the left upright with 2:27 left in OT, keeping it 20-20.

4. Joe Burrow getting sacked out of field-goal range to midfield with 1:34 left in OT, keeping it 20-20.

Then Trubisky made the two plays he needed — two passes to tight end Pat Freiermuth, for 26 and 10 yards, to get the Steelers into position to give Boswell another chance. Boswell drilled the 53-yarder straight down the middle. Trubisky looked up and saw :00 on the scoreboard, and he looked like Jim Valvano when he won the Final Four for N.C. State, looking for someone to hug.

“There are days you ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ “ Trubisky said. “All the training, all the prep, all the stuff you put your body through. Sometimes you’ve got to play this long and make enough plays to keep putting yourself in position to have a chance to win.”

– – –

Three doctors have already looked at EDGE T.J. WATT’s torn pectoral muscle.  Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com:

We know that Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt tore his pectoral muscle during Sunday’s overtime win over the Bengals, but the wait to learn how long he will be out as a result of that injury goes on.

Watt was set for an MRI on Monday and he’ll continue consulting with doctors about next steps on Tuesday. Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that Watt is scheduled to meet with doctors to get second and third opinions about the injury.

Per the report, Watt will likely miss the rest of the season if doctors determine he needs surgery. If they find he does not need an operation, he could be back in as little as six weeks.

Alex Highsmith had three sacks on Sunday and will be joined by Malik Reed on the edge for however long Watt is out of action.

There is good news for RB NAJEE HARRIS (and perhaps, Watt).  Bryan DeArdo ofCBSSports.com:

Monday was a good day as far as Steelers injury updates were concerned. Shortly after it was reported that star linebacker T.J. Watt may not have suffered a fully torn pec muscle, news broke that Pro Bowl running back Najee Harris should be good to go for Sunday’s game against the Patriots after tests on his knee came back negative, according to ESPN.

Both players sustained their injuries during the second half of Sunday’s overtime win over the Cincinnati Bengals. Harris had 12 touches on Sunday that included Pittsburgh’s first offensive touchdown of the season on a one-yard pass from quarterback Mitch Trubisky. The reigning defensive player of the year, Watt tallied six tackles (three for loss), a sack and an interception prior to leaving the game.

A lower body injury sidelined Harris for a significant portion of training camp. He put himself through a grueling workout regimen upon returning from that injury that included doing extra cardio that lasted for up to an hour following training camp practices. Harris was preparing for another possible heavy workload this season after toting the rock 395 yards in 18 games (including the postseason) as a rookie.

“I just want to be prepared for anything that’s presented to me during the season,” Harris said during the final week of camp. “So if it’s a heavy workload, I want to be prepared for that. I was down for two weeks. I kind of went back conditioning-wise, but I’ve been doing a lot of swimming, hills, running extra, even the plays after practice, just running extra. Any way that I can stay in shape.”

HOUSTON

This:

@ScottKacsmar

Thinking about the boos for Russ and wondering how loud Houston fans will be when Deshaun Watson comes to town in December.

BUFFALO

QB JOSH ALLEN remembers being on the other side of the autograph line, which is why he signs as many as he can.  Peter King:

“I remember being that kid,” he said.

“There’s a really cool story. I don’t know if he minds me telling this story, but I was a big Giants fan — Giants, 49ers, Warriors. I went to a Giants game. I got a Buster Posey ball.

“He came by, he signed for me. I was so excited. I went to grab the ball and my finger swiped across the name, so it had like streak marks in it. You could barely make it out. But I still put it up in my room.

“Much later, I ended up going to my agency in Nashville, [Creative Artists Agency], and I actually talked to his agent and I told him that story. A week later, I’ve got a bat signed by Buster Posey. So, Buster, thank you, big fan obviously. That was pretty cool. That was probably my biggest one. We had a Jerry Rice [signed] ball. I think we had a Steve Young [signed] ball at one point. So, it was pretty cool.

“Again, I remember being that kid, wanting the autographs, looking up to guys in my position. It’s the least I can do to wave, high-five, fist-bump, maybe sign a little something here and there. I can’t sign everybody’s, but I try to.”

MIAMI

Scott Kacsmar with a stat that we decided to be positive and put in the Dolphins section:

@ScottKacsmar

Tua Tagovailoa is the first QB to win 4 straight games against Bill Belichick’s Patriots. Not just the first four, but any four.

Tua. 6 total TD, 2 INT, 6.72 YPA in those 4 games. OFF scored 22, 17, 20, 13 in those games.

This is where the Patriots are.

NEW ENGLAND

Greg Bedard in the Boston Sports Journal is annoyed at Bill Belichick – for not being grumpy enough:

Now on the losing end of four straight games to the Miami Dolphins — a team his Patriots squad used to use a welcome mat not too long ago — Bill Belichick strode to the podium at Hard Rock Stadium after Sunday’s 20-7 loss.

How much would he grunt? Any death stares? How many many times would he say they needed to coach it better, play better? Would he be steaming?

The answers to those questions would be not at all, nope, one time-ish and nope.

The days of Belichick ripping his team a new one, just being downright miserable about a loss — Bill Parcells long ago nicknamed Belichick “Doom” — seem to be just about gone. Now we’re left with Brightside Bill.

After his team trailed the Dolphins by at least two scores for over 37 minutes, after falling behind 17-0 at halftime to a rookie coach installing a new offense with a defense missing a top cornerback, after giving up a strip-sack score and two fourth downs — the second of which went for a 41-yard touchdown — after his new-look offense was totally punchless and needed 15 plays and nearly 9 minutes to score its first touchdown of the year in the third quarter, and after allowing Tua Tagovailoa to beat him for the FOURTH STRAIGHT TIME, Belichick had this to say after the game:

“Well, it’s obviously a disappointing start here,” Belichick said. “It was really a pretty even game. Two big plays, 14 points, really skewed the game.”

Really a pretty even game.

Two big plays really skewed the game.

What in the Sam hell is he talking about?

Is he technically correct? Yes. But that was one very rose-colored way to look at this game.

If this was against, say, the Bills or the Chiefs or even the Cowboys and Bucs like last year, then that would be fine. A few plays short against a talented and well-coached team, you could totally understand and would agree. Moral losses, if you will.

But the New England Patriots are getting moral losses against … the Dolphins … and Mike McDaniel?

No, no, no. That’s not the way it works in New England. Or at least it’s not the way it used to work under a coach who famously said they don’t make excuses.

Except they kind of do. A lot in recent years, since they are 17-18 since Tom Brady’s departure and 19-22 since Thanksgiving 2019.

There was the 2020 salary cap excuse. There were the last two Bills losses last year, when the defense reportedly did show up to those games, and Belichick wondered if they were just bad nights or if that’s who they were. Evidently the answer was no, because Belichick and his coaches constantly talk about how statistically they were a good defense last year (ignoring how they did that vs. bad or injured offenses). Belichick even did it twice in an interview with Dan Shaughnessy just this week:

“We were pretty high up there statistically last year. We didn’t play well obviously in the Buffalo game and a couple of other games, but I wouldn’t say we had a bad year defensively. At least not statistically.”

I thought stats were for losers and the scoreboard was the only thing that mattered.

Apparently not, because despite never getting within two scores of the mighty Dolphins, the Patriots were only a few plays away.

It’s OK to be a few plays away from a good team. The Dolphins are not yet a good team. They looked like a team being coached by a first-time head coach installing a new offensive system, and not having corner Byron Jones. At least they have a real excuse for not being a well-oiled machine in the opener.

What’s the Patriots’ excuse?

Belichick is blissfully whistling past the graveyard, probably because he’s surrounded by all his guys now on his coaching staff. Maybe it’s tougher for him to put the screws to them like he did the former coaches around here.

The Patriots returned nine of 11 starters on offense, adding Devante Parker (no one was replaced at receiver, just slotted lower) and subbing out Shaq Mason for rookie Cole Strange (who got benched in the first half).

The Patriots last year, with Mac Jones as a rookie and four new targets via free agency, averaged 20 points, 22.5 first downs, 386 total yards, 256.5 passing yards and 129.5 rushing yards against Miami (and the first game was the first-ever game for Jones and Co.).

This year: 7 points, 17 first downs, 271 yards, 213 passing yards and 78 rushing yards.

Hmmm. I wonder what’s different about this season with the offense.

The defense did fine, but still can’t find a way to get Tagovailoa — as average as a QB gets — off the field when it really needs to.

Oh, but I forgot. It’s just a couple of plays. The results were skewed.

Belichick may be living in an alternate universe, but the rest of us are not – even his own team.