1. I think I still don’t know how the Jets won that game. Or rather, how the Giants lost it. Amazing to see the Giants season peak before Halloween.
2. I think If I were an NFL owner and/or the club manager launching a postseason coaching search in January, Jim HarbaughThe name wouldn’t be on my list. There’s too much smoke, whatever the outcome of this 2023 version of Spygate in Michigan may reveal.
3. I think It’s always strange when players leave in the middle of the season. But I feel more now that when players do that, they just fall into an abyss and even the most passionate fans think, “Okay.” Who’s next? Last week, Detroit wideout Marvin Jones said he was leaving the Lions to be with his family in San Diego, and the Lions responded by cutting him. He’s 33 and hasn’t been a factor this year. Not that Jones deserves a save, but he has caught more balls, 547, in his career Lance Alworth And John Stallworth; twice he had four touchdown catches in a game. And phew. He is gone. Eight paragraphs in the Detroit News on the Lions notebook the next day. Maybe it’s because Jones hasn’t said he’s retiring. But it’s pretty clear he’s probably done in Detroit, and who wants a 34-year-old receiver next year who hasn’t done anything at 33? Just a weird way to go out.
4. I find Joe Posnanski said it best: “The Deshaun Watson The saga just keeps getting stranger and stranger.”
Watson trade faces disaster
Mike Florio and Peter King discuss whether the Cleveland Browns were fleeced in their trade for Deshaun Watson after injuries and a disappointing performance so far.
5. I find All players are different, have different expressions and have different pain thresholds. So let’s put those things aside. Let’s just concern ourselves with performance. I asked Stathead, the Pro Football Reference statistics service, to rank every quarterback in the NFL – at least 200 attempts – by passer rating since the start of 2022. According to Stathead, 41 quarterbacks have made at least 200 pass attempts since Opening Day 2022. Re Watson’s appearance:
A. Watson’s rating of 79.8 is 38th among quarterbacks with at least 200 pass attempts over the last two seasons.
B. Watson’s passer rating is five points below Desmond Ridder And Sam Howellsix points behind Gardner Minshewnine points behind Jacoby Brissett10 points behind Taylor Heinicke16 points behind the current Houston successor CJ Stroudand 19 points behind Geno Smith.
As of this morning, C. Watson has received $90.77 million from the Browns since signing his fully guaranteed $230 million contract in March 2022. That number will be $91.37 million by the end of this season, according to overthecap.com.
D. To acquire Watson from Houston, the Browns sent the 13th and 107th picks in the 2022 draft and the 12th and 73rd picks in the 2023 draft and will send their first and fourth round picks in 2024.
The contract has a term of five years. It’s too early to say Watson is a bust from Cleveland. But if the Browns don’t have a clear idea of whether Watson is their long-term quarterback at the end of this season, that would be a miserable disaster. Imagine giving up three mid-first round picks, a third and two fourths, and $91.37 million and not feeling like you’ve solved a decades-long quarterback problem. Watson and Cleveland’s offense are under a lot of pressure to make progress by the end of the season. Lots of progress.
6. I find I heard something clever the other day. See if you agree. A good friend of mine, a fan of all Philly teams, made this comment: “It’s hard to imagine a more popular athlete in Philadelphia right now than Jason Kelce.” Who would it be? Bryce Harper, perhaps. Or maybe Joel Embiid. I don’t live there so I don’t know. I’d love to hear thoughts from the town of Brotherly Shove.
7. I find There’s something that’s kind of driving me crazy. So Josh Allen made more effort to avoid damaging hits, which is smart. A 17-game season is a killer for a guy who has rushed 246 times over the last two seasons. And even though Allen was injured twice as a passer rather than a runner, hits are hits, and the Bills started this season with the idea of running Allen less to take less punishment. Watching the game against Tampa, it was clear that the crowd wanted him to run more and be “the old Josh,” especially after he ran for an early touchdown and got the fans excited. All I would say is be careful what you wish for. Allen is running 4.5 times per game this year, as opposed to 7.5 times per game in 2021 and 2022. I understand that the offense is stagnant and Allen’s legs are an important part of a great offense. But the most important thing for the Bills is getting into the tournament. If I were a Bills mobster, I’d rather be 10-7, a wild card, and the sixth seed in the playoffs, playing exclusively on the road with a relatively healthy Allen… than 12-5, a division champion, and the third seed, with Allen trying to get through one home game and two away games to reach the Super Bowl.
8th. I findSpeaking of the Bills-Bucs game, it contained one of my pet peeves. On the Hail Mary (lofted a perfect 62 yards in the air into the end zone) Baker Mayfieldbtw), Tampa Bay tight end Cade Otten was held in a two-man vise/disturbed/thrown to the ground Taylor Rapp And Christian Benford the Buffalo perpetrators.
Except that there are never perpetrators in Ave Maria. Everything goes. There is no game like this in football, and perhaps all other sports, where officials see blatant pass interference and defensive holding (and sometimes some attacking penalties) and never throw a flag. This is a nuisance because how can the NFL’s management department expect us to believe that all plays will be officiated equally, regardless of the situation where Otten is ambushed by two Buffalo defenders and ends up on the ground with no flag is thrown? And then the NFL is counting on people forgetting what they did this morning because there were 14 games played on Sunday, making it easy for everyone to just move on. There’s nothing to see here.
Analysis of the no-call private investigator at Hail Mary in Bucs-Bills
Mike Florio and Peter King relive the final moments of Thursday night’s Bucs-Bills clash and explain why the NFL needs to “have a conversation” about uncalled pass interference plays on Hail Mary’s.
9. I find This is what should happen at Ave Maria. The competition committee and commissioner should present a decree at next spring’s league meeting stating that the game will be called something different in the future. Starting in 2024, jostling will be allowed when players get into position for the Hail Mary pass to fall to the ground. Pulling players down, blatantly holding them, or blocking them from play with two defenders results in pass interference, giving the attacking team an untimed down either at the site of the foul or at the one-yard line. Bottom line: Officials cannot allow a single play to constitute a corruption of the rules, which is exactly what the “Hail Mary” is now. It’s a joke, and the NFL allowed it to be that way.
10. I find These are my other thoughts of the week:
A. Good and important memory from Richard Deitsch on the former Twitter: a Boston Globe front page from February 16, 2018. 5.5 years later after the largest mass shooting in New England since Sandy Hook, it is haunting:
B. But thoughts and prayers.
C. TV Story of the Week: NBC News’ Emilie Ikeda on the deaths in Maine, including a heartbreaking interview with the wife of one of the victims, Joshua Seal – in sign language. Joshua Seal was deaf and an American Sign Language interpreter. When Elizabeth Seal speaks directly to her children about how much their late father loved them, the tragedy feels even worse:
D. What an incredibly strong woman Elizabeth Seal is to even be able to do this interview.
e. There is a GoFundMe page for the Seal family if you feel like doing something, anything, for one of the families that will never be the same.
Q. At least one lawmaker has come to his senses, the Boston Globe reports. Congressman Jared Golden of Maine, whose district was scarred by the shootings, changed course. According to Globe:
“I have spoken out against efforts to ban deadly weapons of war like the assault rifle used to commit this crime,” Golden said. “Now it’s time for me to take responsibility for this failure.”
Golden, who lives in Lewiston and represents Maine’s vast 2nd Congressional District, said there is “a false belief that our community is on top of a mass shooting.” He added that because of his determination to protect his daughter, his wife and his home community, he now opposes what he described as “deadly weapons of war.”
“Sometimes things happen that bring your worst nightmares to life. Yesterday that’s exactly what happened,” he said. “I will do everything I can to support the recovery of this community.”
G. Good for Golden, although it’s a shame that something like this has to happen in a politician’s backyard for him to do the right thing and advocate for meaningful gun control.
H. Innovative Story of the Week: Time Magazine’s 200 Best Inventions of 2023. Four I Liked:
I. The Loftie Clock, the bedtime clock that can do everything a smartphone can do, except the annoying phone light.
J. The Stakt Mat, a training mat. Twice as thick as a yoga mat, comfortable as a soft mattress.
k. Kraft Heinz 360Crisp, a device that prevents microwaveable foods from becoming soggy. A crispy grilled cheese sandwich in the microwave, with the cardboard container the sandwich is in being the key to success? Count me in.
l. LeapFrog Magic Adventures Telescope, a telescope for kids that I wish I had used before. Kids can take photos of their space discoveries, and “Kids can also watch videos and view images taken by NASA and the European Space Agency through the telescope’s viewfinder.”
M. Music Story of the Week: Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times on 89-year-old Frankie Valli, who still sings despite saying he will cut his shows in half in 2024.
N. Photographer Brian van der Brug’s portrait is worth a click in this story. Valli looks damn good for 89.
O. Wood wrote:
Valli performs 75 to 80 well-attended concerts each year, including a performance in May at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood where the final tune prompted a sing-along so loud that Valli told the audience, “You can hear us in Sacramento.”
“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he continues, his “what do I want from myself” accent somewhat softened by his years living in California. “It’s not so much the work, but the travel. It used to be that you went to work and stayed there for a week. That wasn’t so bad. Now everything is a one-nighter, which means you finish the show, go to bed, get up at 6 a.m., drive to the airport, go to the next job and do the same thing again.” Valli, a small, bird-like guy in Skinny jeans and elegant sneakers, sighs. “It’s tough.”
—
Does he prefer texting or calling?
“Call,” he says. “I’m very non-electronic. Do you see all these people getting into trouble? Look at Hunter Biden.”
From the kitchen, Valli’s wife calls out, “No political talk, please,” which he ignores long enough to wonder why both parties oppose term limits and wonder “how all these people in politics become millionaires.”
Can we think of the Last Encores tour as a kind of term limit for Frankie Valli? He seems to like this idea.o
“When I’m done, I just want to go to a place where it’s very quiet and there’s no radio or TV,” he says. “Maybe painting or something, then something else.”
P. It’s amazing that the man who sang the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 17, 1962 is still churning out his hits.
Q. Exactly: “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” the country’s biggest hit 61 years ago. And so many more.
R. A few baseball insights: So much admiration for the Diamondbacks. He won four of five games against the heavily favored Phils after losing Game 2 10-0 and losing 2-0. One of the best comebacks I’ve ever seen in a postseason series – and a great series through and through. And then to be so good at the higher stage in Texas… man, that’s impressive.
S. I said, “one of.”
T. I love this Arizona catcher, the 23 year old Gabby Moreno. (Ketel Marte And Corbin Carroll (also.) I watched a lot of baseball in October and saw Moreno suffer a concussion from a backswing in the series in Milwaukee. He then hit a three-run home run Clayton Kershaw to start the three-game NLDS win over the Dodgers and hit another bomb in the deciding NLDS Game 3 as the surprise No. 3 hitter in the lineup. And he had the game-winning hit in Game 7 of the NLCS at Citizens Bank Park and the home run that gave Arizona a 1-0 lead early in Game 2 of the World Series. What a month. But his defense was even better.
u. Moreno made a throw in Game 6 of the NLCS that was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen from a catcher.
v. Check this out: Moreno blocked a ball in the dirt, held it with a runner first in front of him, chased after it and fired a shot put to reach it Kyle Schwarber by one millimeter every second. What a throw.
w. It’s not too fashionable to take a few sentences to praise a baseball umpire, but a home plate umpire Trip Gabriel in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series was great. This is the most precise work in a big game that I can remember.
X. How much exactly would I have to pay New Balance to stop broadcasting “HEY YOU”? Shohei Ohtani commercially? No matter how much it would cost, it would be worth it.
j. RIP, Brooks Thomas, former Jets PR man and mentor to many in the industry. A very good man.