NFL - NEWS & NOTES

For the record -

@beachbum paid up on this with a $10 donation to the Boys and Girls club of America.

Thanks, Beach!

 

Ramen noodles the rest of the week!

 

I don't think anyone was listed as the underdog in all 17 games at this point last season. If I recall correctly, my Falcons were at the bottom of the ladder as dogs in 16 of 17. At this point of the preseason last year, they were projected to be the worst team in the entire NFL. That certainly wasn't the case, and without a bad run of midseason injuries they would likely have made the postseason (bearing in mind they only missed by one game anyway).

I don't see Arizona being a good team this year, but I also don't see them being the very worst this season. I'd put them ahead of Tampa, just for starters.

 

Tampa was a team I gave consideration too and the Texans also. Im a believer in Stroud, but i can also see him having decent numbers/stats, but still a losing record as sometimes it takes time for things to completely turn around on a 3 win team.

The schedule for the Cardinals is whats sealed the deal for me. They have one tough way to go (most do these days outside of a handful of teams in a parity laden NFL). Im also looking at the 1st year coach in Gannon and Murray scares me health-wise at QB.

Still dont know if the defense will turn things around in Arizona... they were lousy a year ago, gave up 449 points and the offense went pretty average with Murray down.... Tampa, Houston, Chicago, Washington, LA Rams, Indianapolis and Denver are all in the mix, but one never knows till they play the games. Its not uncommon in the NFL for a team to do a 180 in a season and thats why they play the games.

 

RIP

 

Omar Khan: I really hope Alex Highsmith is a Steeler for a long time



The Steelers are signing backup quarterback Mitch Trubisky to a contract extension and a member of the defense may be next up on that front.

Linebacker Alex Highsmith is heading into the final year of his contract after recording 14.5 sacks during the 2022 season. The Steelers typically don’t negotiate contract extensions once the regular season is underway, so there’s a window to get something done with Highsmith before he has a chance to push his price tag even higher with another productive year off the edge.

During a recent appearance on 93.7 The Fan, General Manager Omar Khan indicated that a deal with Highsmith is on his radar screen.

“We don’t like to talk specifically about an individual contract, but I’ll say this, he’s a Steeler,” Khan said. “Since the day he got here, he’s been awesome. He gets better and better every year, and I really hope Alex is here for a long time.”

T.J. Watt is signed through 2025 and extending Highsmith would set them up with an edge rushing corps for several years to come.

PFT
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The L4SN BOMBERS Fantasy team hopes he's around for a long time too... good points getter for me. #2 at the Edge position last season.

 

Obviously not what he's known for but I loved him in Dark of the Sun.

RIP

 

Jim Irsay’s list of all-time Top 5 players includes John Elway, excludes Peyton Manning

After news broke Friday that Jim Brown had died, he was remembered by many people as the greatest player in NFL history. Colts owner Jim Irsay was one of those people, but when Irsay tweeted a list of the Top 5 players in NFL history, it was some other names that raised eyebrows.

“On my list of Top 5 Greatest NFL Players of All Time, in our 103 year History, I have Top 5 as 1)Jim Brown 2)Tom Brady 3)John Elway 4)Deacon Jones 5)Reggie White,” Irsay wrote.

So Irsay included John Elway, who refused to play for the Colts when they drafted him in 1983. Elway so badly did not want to play for the Colts, then owned by Jim’s father Bob Irsay, that he threatened not to play pro football at all and instead pursue a baseball career. Eventually the Colts relented and traded him to the Broncos.

And Irsay did not include Peyton Manning, who won four league Most Valuable Player awards with the Colts and led them to the only Super Bowl they’ve won in the half century the Irsays have won the team.

After getting some criticism for that tweet, Irsay followed up.

“No doubt Peyton,Barry Sanders and Jerry Rice in Top 10 it’s just that Elway didn’t have great offensive players around him til the end,when he won 2 in a row and his feet we’re remarkable,from baseball talents,” Irsay wrote.

Irsay did not explain why he left Manning out of his Top 5.

PFT
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In defense of Irsay, anybody can have an opinion on who the "All-time Top 5 Players in NFL History" are. Its all in the eyes/mind of the beholder, IMO. You can look at stats until your blue in the face or blind, but stats are all relative to different era's, circumstances and situations. If you ask 10 different so called NFL experts, who the All-Time Greats are, you could get 10 different answers and there is nothing wrong with that.

For example; @dirk275 would probably have Minshew on that list ... @gidion72 may pick Franco... @Underdog would have Tom or even, Sam Bam Cunningham... Its all conversational, debatable and fun to talk about. I might add tho, when it comes to Jim Brown and Tom Brady, they are OBVIOUS... all the rest are simply slotted positionally by opinion.

BTW - @Torgo might even pick, Kim McQuilken, QB - Falcons (1974-77). His dreadful passing record over the course of five NFL seasons reads as such—2-5 record as a starter, 39.7 percent completion rate, four touchdowns and 29 interceptions.

Good morning... Enjoy your day!

 

A little tid-bit on Jim Brown;

He averaged 5.2 yards per carry, for every carry of his nine-year career. He averaged more than 100 rushing yards per game, for every game of his nine-year career.

He obliterated the single-season rushing record in only his second season, gaining 1527 yards in only 12 games. That equates to 2,163 yards in a modern 17-game season.

His career high of 1,863 yards in a 14-game season translates to 2,262 under today’s schedule.

Imagine that.

 

He also won the NFL rushing title in eight of his nine years in the league.

 

In the CBS days, I frequently named McQuilken whenever someone went overboard claiming that some backup was the worst QB in NFL history. The kiddies thought Joey Harrington or Chris Redman were the worst ever? They could not imagine the horror that was watching Kim McQuilken.

His worst ever game is probably his 1975 performance against the Vikings. He completed five passes and had five interceptions. See the highlights for yourself:



The sad thing is that the starter ahead of him his rookie year, Bob Lee (who was back with Minnesota in 1975 and is briefly in the video above), really wasn't much better.

And the even sadder thing is Atlanta had sacrificed its future in 1973 to trade for Lee. They traded their previous QB Bob Berry (who was actually better than Lee) and their future 1974 first round pick to the Vikings for Lee and aging linebacker Lonnie Warwick. Atlanta's 1974 draft gets my vote as one of the absolute worst in league history. McQuilken was part of that draft class.



If they hadn't figured it out already, the game against the St. Louis Cardinals in 1973 should have been the big clue to tell Atlanta's top brass that they messed up big time making the trade for Lee. That game gets my vote for the all time worst QB game play (by both teams) in NFL history.

You thought those Amazon Thursday night fiascos last year were bad? Get this... in the Falcons vs Cardinals game in '73, BOTH starting QBs had a passer rating of 0.0.

Keep in mind that if every single pass you throw is incomplete, your rating is 39.58. To get any lower than that, you have to throw interceptions on top of having virtually no completions.

Gary Keithly started for St. Louis in place of the injured Jim Hart. He only attempted 10 passes, completing 2 for a whopping 9 yards. He also threw 1 interception - which was returned 38 yards for a touchdown. So... Atlanta had over four times the yards of St. Louis on passes thrown by the Cardinals QB - plus a touchdown.

But Bob Lee was not to be outdone. His 3 for 16 performance gained 27 yards, but his 4 sacks lost 38 yards. Even without the turnovers, his passing game LOST 11 net yards for the Falcons. On top of that, he threw 2 interceptions AND had a hilarous fumble. You'll have to see that one for yourself to appreciate it. Check out the YouTube video for the fumble and the other lowlights of the game:



Pat Sullivan did come in later to replace Lee. He didn't do anything special, but he also didn't throw any interceptions, so he escaped with a passer rating of 44.0. But both starters were 0.0, which definitely sets the record for all time worst QB passer rating for a winning team. I kinda doubt we'll ever see another game in our lifetimes where a team wins by 22 points with 9 yards passing and a pick six against them.

 

Excellent post... I enjoyed that, especially the old Vikings, Falcons footage.

 

Opposition increases to new fair catch rule

The next evolution in the kickoff rule was supposed to be the adoption of the NCAA-style rule that results in a fair catch inside the 25 being placed at the 25. That apparently won’t be happening.

As recently explained by Albert Breer of SI.com, special-teams players and coaches have accelerated the opposition to the rule.

The proposal was passed unanimously by the Competition Committee in March. The issue was tabled from March to May, an acknowledgement that the vote would have failed if it had happened at the annual meeting in Arizona.

Based on Breer’s report, it sounds as if it’s even more likely to fail now.

The issue, according to Breer, was discussed last week during a regularly-scheduled call among the league’s special-teams coordinators. They decided to recruit special-teams players to participate in active opposition against the rule.

One concern with the rule is that it will spark more squib kicks inside the 25, which couldn’t be fair caught and would have to be returned. That could create more, not less, chaos on special teams.

The proposed change comes from an overriding desire to make the most dangerous play in the game, as the league has called it, more safe. It’s been a focal point for the past decade or so, with gradual changes aimed at making the play safer.

It started with efforts to spark fewer returns. Several years ago, a more comprehensive change to the rules was devised to reduce the full-speed nature of the impacts during kick returns.

One question that emerged in the aftermath of the March meetings was whether playing surface has a role in the question of injuries during kickoff returns.

If switching to grass could make the play safer, it’s another reason to switch to grass. But the NFL has no desire to do it, because it would be expensive to do so.

So in lieu of spending a little extra money to make the game safer in all phases, the NFL would rather make dramatic changes to one of the most important aspects of special teams.

PFT

 

BS!! It's always a good thing to see the kicker drop that ball inside the 5 yard line and get the coverage. With this rule? Just kick it into the stands. Non play!!

 

I love that the PFT writer ripped the league for not using safer turf. The field for the Lions vs Panthers game failed the league's own safety tests, but the league forced the game to proceed on schedule anyway.

You really want to reduce injuries? Start by knocking out that BS and focus on making every field safer.

https://www.si.com/nfl/lions/news/l...xt=It was tough.”,standards set by the league.

 

Darnell Mooney plans to “ball out” and dominate in return from ankle injury



Bears wide receiver Darnell Mooney wasn’t able to build on his breakout 2021 season last year.

Mooney had 81 catches for 1,055 yards in 2021, but was limited to 40 catches for 493 yards in 12 games before fracturing his ankle. Mooney had surgery to repair the injury and said in a conversation with Amon-Ra and Equanimeous St. Brown for The 33rd Team that he expects to be 100 percent by the start of the season.

Once he’s back to full speed, Mooney said he also plans to push his game to an even higher level.

“Do whatever I can do for my team, or whatever,” Mooney said. “I mean ball out, of course. Dominate. Not really on the ‘respect my name’ anymore. I’m just disrespecting everybody now. I don’t really care about respect no more. Other than that, I just want to win. I don’t really care about anything else, for real.”

Mooney was the No. 1 receiver last season, but DJ Moore‘s arrival changes the dynamic at wideout this year. If the pairing works out, it should help Justin Fields progress as a quarterback and make for a more competitive offense in Chicago.

PFT

 

Besides the Clegg test, you have studies that 'prove' grass is safer and this has been known by the League and the Players Union for quite some time. So, why does the NFL not take care of this business and do the right thing when they march around in self-righteousness over making the game safer? The NFL goes out of their way with 'player safety' in changing the game dramatically in talk of tackling techniques, Kickoff returns, fair catches and the likes, but cant make a safe playing surface? Why change the game itself when you can start by changing the surface? All surfaces, in my opinion, ought to be equal, no more of this kind here, that kind there, kinda stuff. Its a fairness issue as well as a player safety issue.