MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK

Ravens QB Lamar Jackson not excusing 'bad' performance vs. Browns: 'I looked like a rookie'

Lamar Jackson pointed the thumb on Wednesday, and didn't mince words doing it.

The Baltimore Ravens quarterback threw four interceptions against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday and posted his worst single-game quarterback rating of the season (46.5) in a 16-10 escape of a win. And the 2019 NFL MVP is giving himself no pass for the performance.

"Bad passes, inaccurate, underthrown passes. That's all I seen. Bad reads," Jackson told reporters, via the team's web site. "I looked like a rookie.

"Ain't no excuses. I'm supposed to play Lamar ball and I didn't. … That was just a bad performance. Four interceptions. Hope that never, ever happens again. Not ever."

Jackson had never thrown four interceptions in an NFL game before Sunday. He leads the AFC North's top team, but he also leads an offense that has stumbled of late. Jackson also struggled mightily in his previous start, a 22-10 road loss at Miami on Nov. 11. He missed the Ravens' Week 11 win over the Chicago Bears due to an illness, giving way to Tyler Huntley for another dismal Ravens offensive output in a 16-13 win. Jackson is 7-3 as a starter this season, but his TD-INT ratio of 15-12 is concerning, as is the fact that with six regular season games left, he's already taken a career-high 30 sacks.

Jackson will try to rebound this Sunday against a Pittsburgh Steelers defense that is itself trying to rebound. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, whose team is desperate for a win at 5-5-1, railed against the Steelers' effort in a blowout 41-10 loss to the Bengals.

Jackson, for his part, is looking only in the mirror.


"I let it fester. I need to feel that pain," Jackson said. "That's pain right there."

NFL.com

 

He's been hurt.

 

He wasn't hurt when Winston started the season.

 

He's been battling the same foot injury all year.

 

FP stands for full practice, so, though the foot “injury” was present.. it obviously wasn’t hampering him enough to LOSE the battle to be the starting QB. He doesn’t show an injury designation to the right.

Winston won the QB battle, it wasn’t because of injuries to Hill.

 

Matt Nagy Announces Andy Dalton Will Start for Bears vs. Cardinals, Justin Fields Out

The Bears will look to upset one of the NFL's top teams, the Cardinals, on Sunday. Veteran quarterback Andy Dalton is getting the start, as rookie Justin Fields continues to recover from a rib injury suffered a few weeks ago.

Coach Matt Nagy told reporters that Dalton will be QB1 for Sunday's game, with Nick Foles as back up. Fields, who has started eight games for Chicago this season, has been out since Week 11's loss to Baltimore.

Dalton, who lost his starting job after the first two weeks of the season, led the Bears to a 16–14 win over the Lions last weekend. He completed 24 of 39 passes for 317 yards, one touchdown and an interception in the contest. Now, he looks to make it two straight with the 9–2 Cardinals coming to town, as the Bears cling to life in the playoff race.

Arizona hopes to have its young star quarterback Kyler Murray back for this one, after three weeks out with a high ankle sprain.

On the year, Dalton is completing 64.3% of his passes for 788 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions. The Bears are 2–1 in his starts.

Fields, meanwhile, has been up-and-down as a rookie. He is completing 58.1% of his throws for 1,361 yards, four touchdowns, and eight interceptions, adding 311 yards and two scores on the ground.

He looked to be turning the corner in the few weeks before his injury, playing well in losses to the 49ers and Steelers. In the latter game, he fell just short, after leading his team to a go-ahead touchdown late, before Ben Roethlisberger answered to win the game 29–27. Fields threw for 291 yards and a touchdown and added 45 rushing yards in that one.

The Bears and Cardinals kick off at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field.

SI

 

Brady didnt show one last year when he was hurt nor did Ben. Lots of teams play it loose with the injury report and hope they dont get caught.

 

The injury designation to the right is at game time. Players are often questionable all week and then at game time have no injury designation. Happens every week.

Taysom Hill at some point Week 1 had an injury designation for his foot or he wouldn't have been listed at all. It now has come out that he has been battling plantar fasciitis. Doesn't seem like much of a reach to think they've been managing his foot injury all season.

 

Yes, it’s Ben Roethlisberger’s last season in Pittsburgh



This week’s Sunday Splash! cycle started a little early, with a flat, predictable Saturday stone that may skip right over to the other side of Lake Obvious.

Via Adam Schefter of ESPN.com, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger “privately has told former teammates and some within the organization that he expects this to be his final season” with the team.


Few if any expected otherwise at this point. Roethlisberger, who turns 40 in March, has looked sluggish and ineffective this season. He wisely pivoted following an early three-game losing streak from trying to extend plays with his feet, because he just can’t do it like he once did.

Overall, he’s been better in recent weeks. He missed a game due to COVID after self-reporting symptoms, and he has been dealing with various injuries, injuries that are harder to recover from based on the wear and tear he has taken over the years and the fact that he’s definitely not a TB12 devotee.

One unnamed source told Schefter that it’s “highly unlikely” that Roethlisberger would play for another team in 2022. That’s not a surprise, either. He’ll be another year older, another year more likely to not be able to make it through the year. Another year closer to permanently losing the race with Father Time. It’s hard to imagine any team handing him the reins next year.

I was surprised he came back for 2021. The Steelers, as the rumors rattling around the NFL go, were surprised, too. They offered him a $4 million reduction in pay with no way to make it back in incentives. That number, as the thinking goes, was selected to be low enough to get him to pass on it but not so low as to be an insult. They were, as the same thinking goes, surprised that he accepted.

When the two sides decided to give it one more go, with the not-so-subtle goal of winning a Bettis-style walk-off Super Bowl, that seemed more delusional than usual, even as blind optimism in the NFL goes. I thought both sides would regret making one last ride together by November. As the first Sunday in December arrives, chances are that team and player would say, if attached to a lie detector test, that they probably should have gone their separate ways.

After the current season, they apparently will. They should. It’s been a Hall of Fame career for Roethlisberger. But it’s time for the Steelers to turn the page. And they need to hope that they can find their next franchise quarterback sooner than they got their last one, because it was 20 long years between Terry Bradshaw and Ben Roethlisberger.

PFT

 

Wasted season. Lose the rest of them. Get a decent draft slot for a change.

 

per PFT;
Ryan Clark and Ben Roethlisberger spent eight seasons playing together in Pittsburgh, but Clark dowen’t want to see Roethlisberger play any more.

Clark believes Roethlisberger’s play has deteriorated to such an extent that he’s actively hurting the Steelers by preventing their young players on offense from developing, and that Roethlisberger doesn’t belong on the field.


“I owe my Super Bowl ring to Ben Roethlisberger. With all that being said, time is up. It’s time to move on. It’s time to see what else you have in that locker room,” Clark said on ESPN. “Big Ben is hurting this team now. Big Ben is not allowing the other pieces around him to progress, to grow, to learn. Big Ben, he hurts Chase Claypool. He hurts Diontae Johnson. He hurts Najee Harris. He hurts the Pittsburgh offense as a whole. . . . It’s time for Big Ben to take a seat.”

It’s widely believed to be Roethlisberger’s last season in Pittsburgh. Clark sounds like he thinks Roethlisberger should have already played his last game.
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The games ive seen, it appears Ben's passes are floating... nothing on them. You'd think he would know if he can play 100% or not, I dont see him as someone who would hurt the team, but sometimes people are or get into denial that its over and ultimately are blind to the fact they are hurting the team. Tomlin and others must know whats going on, id think.

 

Gardner Minshew starts for Eagles vs. Jets with Jalen Hurts out



Gardner Minshew is the Eagles’ starting quarterback for today’s game against the Jets.

Jalen Hurts, who had been listed as questionable, will miss today’s game with an ankle injury.


For most of the week it appeared that Hurts was progressing toward playing against the Jets, but on Saturday Derrick Gunn reported that Hurts wouldn’t be able to go, and at pregame warmups this morning the Eagles made the final decision.

The 5-7 Eagles are still in playoff contention, and they obviously would prefer to have Hurts under center. But they traded for Minshew before the season because they think he has promise, and today he’ll get an opportunity to show what he can do.

PFT

 

Mike Tomlin: I thought it was funny that Big Ben retiring was seemingly a story this weekend



ESPN made some headlines this weekend with a report that Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is going to retire, but the story didn’t make Steelers coach Mike Tomlin do anything other than laugh.

Tomlin smirked when asked about the report after today’s game, saying that it just hasn’t been something they’re focused on in a locker room where everyone knows that there are more immediate concerns.


“Ben doesn’t allow it to become an issue,” Tomlin said. “Ben has been pretty solid in terms of his expressions that he’s singularly focused on what we’re doing now. He’ll deal with those things on the other side of his journey, and I’m with him on it. So it’s not a distraction. I thought it was funny that it was seemingly a story this weekend, to be honest with you.”

Roethlisberger had one of his better games of the season in today’s win over the Ravens, completing 21 of 31 passes for 236 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He’s at the tail end of his career, but for now the Steelers are trying to earn a playoff berth, and that’s their sole focus.

PFT

 

Figures he'd come out and have probably his best game of the season after these comments.

 

10 in a row and then he can ride off in the sunset.

 

Interceptions thrown? His skills are declining, but even I don't think he is THAT bad.

 

You’ll figure out what I mean after we sweep you under the division.

 

So...

How convinced is this crowd that Gardner Minshew should not be the full time starter over Jalen Hurts?

 

He had 1 win, so im sticking with Hurts, but he is a solid backup. Thats all I got.

 

Bears QB Justin Fields (ribs) medically cleared to play, will start vs. Packers

Justin Fields is back in the driver's seat for the Chicago Bears.

Coach Matt Nagy announced Wednesday that Fields has been medically cleared and will start Sunday night against the Green Bay Packers.

The rookie quarterback has missed the past two games since suffering a rib injury in Week 11.

The 4-8 Bears went 1-1 with Andy Dalton as the starter in Fields' absence. Nagy added it's unclear if Dalton or No. 3 QB Nick Foles will be the backup Sunday, as Dalton is dealing with a left hand injury.

Fields has had an up-and-down rookie season since taking over starting duties in Week 3. He's flashed brilliant big-play ability with his arm and legs and was getting more comfortable with his reads before the injury. But he's also showed a propensity to hold the ball and make mental errors, as most rookies are wont to do.

Fields has a 69.0 passer rating, second-lowest among 33 qualified QBs -- ahead of only fellow rookie Zach Wilson.

In a season already slipping away, the growth of the rookie quarterback is the most crucial process for Chicago down the stretch. How Fields develops will set the tenor of the Bears offseason and years to come.


It was a formality that Fields would regain the starting QB job as soon as he was healthy enough to clear a medical check. That return will come Sunday night in primetime against the rival Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.

NFL.com