Month: October 2017

Every scene Gerald McCoy touches turns to gold. He wears socks bearing the likenesses of pro wrestlers. He wears Incredible Hulk cleats. When Ed Hochuli comes to Bucs camp to clarify the rule changes to celebrations, McCoy breaks down the intricacies of what is and is not sexual. There is an entire montage dedicated to his excellence on the field. He hilariously riffs on the customer service at Chik-Fil-A. He has a superhero-themed man cave that depicts him as Football Batman.

McCoy already has the accolades: five Pro Bowls, three first-team All-Pro selections. But he deserves ad campaigns and the adoration of casual fans. This recap is conflicted on Jameis Winston but an unapologetic cheerleader for Gerald McCoy.

Sam Bradford’s night ends as Case Keenum enters the game. Bradford was efficient enough, completing 7 of 11 passes for 95 yards and not turning the ball over. Keenum did just enough to lead the Vikings on a field goal drive near the end of the first half.

Kasen Williams almost had another highlight play, but a sure touchdown went right through his hands. Fortunately for Seattle, Chris Carson made a crucial first down on a swing pass, bailing out Wilson under pressure. Mike Davis entered at running back and scored the second touchdown of the game, a 22-yard catch-and-run.

Minnesota’s defense had no coverage on Davis, who ran in nearly untouched out of the flat.

Darren McFadden is the direct backup, with Alfred Morris and Rod Smith also in the mix. Meanwhile, the Rams pulled off a stunning trade Friday, acquiring Sammy Watkins from the Buffalo Bills and giving Jared Goff a legitimate No. 1 receiver. Watkins reunites with former Bills teammate Robert Woods, both of whom will likely hang out on the bench all night.

On Thursday, a camp fight broke out between Will Pericak and Rodney Coe that escalated to Michael Bennett and ultimately ended with Frank Clark punching Germain Ifedi and costing both players some practices.

Training camp fights are common, but this immediately seemed different. A flying punch is not a scuffle, and comments from coaches, players, and media indicated that this was beyond the normal heated disputes teams see in practice.

The Bears have their own quarterback situation brewing in Chicago. No longer able to blame their woes on Jay Cutler, they traded up to draft quarterback Mitchell Trubisky with the No. 2 pick. Before that, Chicago also invested in veteran Mike Glennon. Trubisky will be given time to adjust to the NFL and the team’s offense, with the starting role going to Glennon and the No. 2 spot belonging to Mark Sanchez for now.

With all the weapons the Bears have in the run game, namely breakout rushers Jordan Howard and Jeremy Langford, the offense is expected to be heavily revolved around the ground game. The air attack lost Alshon Jeffery this offseason, but brought in veteran wideout Victor Cruz to complement third-year receiver Cameron Meredith. Meredith was forced into a bigger role last season, but that could lead to a big jump in production this year. The receiver group also welcomes back Kevin White, who due to injury has only played four games since he was drafted in 2015.

While preseason games aren’t usually too exciting, there are definitely a few reasons to watch this one. Both teams will have an opportunity to start fleshing out their QB situation, and the Bears have a chance for the first time since 2009 to see what their offense can be without Cutler. Plus, it’s still football, and that’s better than nothing.

Aaron Rodgers is giving away four free tickets to the Green Bay Packers preseason opener against the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday night. But to win the tickets, Packers fans have a riddle to solve.

First, Packers fans have to know which restaurant in the Green Bay area is Rodgers’ favorite. Then, they have to guess the quarterback’s favorite character on HBO’s Game of Thrones.

No part of this thought process makes any sense to me. If you were going to propose to someone at a sports game, wouldn’t you think to do it at a real sports game? And if so, don’t make it a Dolphins game! And if you do do it at a Dolphins game, make sure Jay Cutler isn’t there, because he’ll look super sad when he finds out about it even if he’s happy!

Here’s my official stance on marriage proposals, as previously stated:

I am anti-public proposal because asking someone to marry you seems like a very intimate moment (though I don’t know that for sure, because I have not been formally proposed to) and I can’t understand why you’d want to share that with a whole bunch of strangers.

Pretty simple stuff, right? Doesn’t leave a whole lot of wiggle room. The only caveats I granted were that if you must propose at a sporting event like, if it’s written in your dead grandmother’s will that if you don’t, your entire family will get boils, or you’ll have to Instagram your smoothie for a week that you have to be sure the person you’re proposing to will say yes. Because if you think there’s even a chance they’ll swat the ring out of your hand and sprint away, you shouldn’t ask to tether yourself to them forever on a jumbotron.

The Washington Nationals’ draft has been all about family. Not only did they pick a one-time batboy and son of manager Dusty Baker, but now they’ve added to the Washington, D.C. family tree. In the 20th round, the team selected Jake Cousins, the cousin of Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins.

That’s a lot of cousins!

The younger, baseball-ier Cousins cousin is a pitcher who played for the University of Pennsylvania and maintained a 3.15 ERA over 11 starts this year. We’ll have to see where he fits into the Nationals organization, but for now, Kirk Cousins is just happy to have some family in the city:

Take Josh Donaldson, for example. He was drafted in the supplemental first round back in 2007 by the Cubs. He spent six years as a catcher, occasionally trying other positions, and he was traded to the A’s in the interim. Everything that led to him getting drafted 48th overall in the draft was still there. Good bat speed. Athleticism. Max effort playing style.

Then he reinvented himself and became one of the best hitters in the galaxy.

The other 29 teams didn’t know he was going to do that. So is that how teams should evaluate these high schoolers and college kids? By guessing how they might respond to a revolution in how the game is played?

Not sure exactly what they were going for here. The Dodgers have a fine farm system, but they can’t just waste their first-round picks like this.

Lackey, who eternally looks like an angry Little League parent yelling at you to put his son in, is the very definition of PROFBO. He’s 38 and allowing all of the dingers. While his strikeout rate is still high (23.3 percent, just a shade below last year’s), his walk rate is slowly creeping up as the homers begin to spook him.

The Los Angeles Rams aren’t likely to be a Super Bowl contender in 2017, but the team could be a legitimate threat quickly if Jared Goff plays like a No. 1 overall draft pick.

That’s why the Rams have made an effort to provide him with as many tools as possible. That continued Friday when the Rams traded away cornerback E.J. Gaines and a second-round pick to acquire wide receiver Sammy Watkins and a sixth-round pick.

Watkins joins a roster that also includes another former Bills receiver, Robert Woods, who was signed in free agency. The Rams also drafted tight end Gerald Everett with its first selection and the team selected receivers Cooper Kupp and Josh Reynolds with two of its next three picks.

Los Angeles also added 35-year-old Andrew Whitworth up front to help protect Goff. The focus for the Rams this offseason has been to maximize the potential that made the team pick Goff in the first place.

Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and wide receiver Antonio Brown will continue to sit, and Le’Veon Bell is still holding out. The Falcons’ own superstar receiver, Julio Jones, won’t play either. Recently extended running back Devonta Freeman is out as well due to a concussion.

Just months after graduating from the University of Tennessee, Dobbs was an NFL starting quarterback. Kind of.

The rookie earned his team’s top spot behind center in Pittsburgh’s preseason opener after Roethlisberger decided to rest his eternally hobbled 35-year-old body. Backup Landry Jones might play, but Dobbs earns the start against Atlanta. The first-year passer led his team to a preseason win last week, but also threw a pair of interceptions and needed 15 passes to accumulate just 100 yards in a touch debut.

Unrelated soccer fashion take: the Sounders’ Pacific Blue jersey would be the best in MLS if they didn’t mess with the color of their crest.
Later, backup quarterback Ryan Griffin took a hard hit from a Cincinnati defender and left the game with a shoulder injury. Winston walked over to some offensive linemen, leaned in, and calmly told them I’m happy y’all are having fun, but Ryan just hurt his shoulder. He started to walk away. But keep having fun.

The picture of Winston, through two episodes, is of a quarterback quick to laugh, willing to admit his mistakes, and dedicated to something he takes seriously. As a viewer who entered the series critical of Winston’s past, I definitely feel like a sucker for buying into what I’ve seen. On the other hand, it’s a testament to how well the show is made.

Hackenberg played most of the game for the Jets, but leaned heavily on check downs. He finished 18-of-25 passing for 127 yards. Reminder: McCown had 72 passing yards on four attempts.

The Titans can hang their hat on a pretty solid defensive performance, with the exception of the first drive. There really aren’t many positives to take from the offensive showing.

Gerald Everett is already showing why the Rams thought highly enough of him to draft him in the second round. He has just two receptions for 12 yards, but he’s shown some athleticism and a nice gain on a crossing route was nullified by a holding penalty.

Kellen Moore couldn’t get the Cowboys in the end zone, but Cooper Rush dropped one right in the bread basket.

Beast Mode may not be playing, but he’s going to capture headlines anyway after it was revealed he sat during the playing of the national anthem before the game. He joins a lengthy list of players who followed in Colin Kaepernick’s footsteps with the protest.

America has six winners when it comes to major sports, but we don’t handle ties well. There can only be one, and now we need to settle it. There’s only one fair way to decide which team is the ultimate champion out of New England, Golden State, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Clemson, and North Carolina their mascots need to fight to the death.

In order to break this up, a series of one-on-one bouts need to be drawn up. In the interest of fairness, a committee made up of only me has settled on the only fair way for this to happen.

This is a curious one because it’s really about the here and now. A cub is a bear-in-training, and has yet to fully realize its power or ability. But the other is a penguin. There’s nothing scary about a penguin except the inside of their mouths, which are a friggin’ horror show.

Man. That’s like finding a fingernail in your hamburger and leading with a headline that reads, Report: French fries remain delicious.

I guess the challenge is that no one wants to read a headline that starts with Tebow struggles again if they’re only interested in him succeeding. So the AP is forced to do some serious gymnastics if they want to get those glorious, nourishing Tebow clicks.

Tebow is still hitting better than anyone should expect from a 29-year-old who hadn’t played baseball in a decade, which is a testimony to his athleticism. And Ted Berg of USA Today makes some great points about Tebow’s promotion to High-A:

Also, the Florida State League in the summer is notorious as one of the worst places to play. Empty ballparks, crushing humidity.

I once wrote that under no circumstances should a human ever propose marriage to another human at a sporting event. I probably didn’t go far enough. I don’t think dogs should propose to other dogs at stadiums either, nor should fish propose to fish, bears to bears, robots to robots, or any other thing that could possibly become sentient enough to tether itself to any other thing ’til death do it part.

Ngata (6x), Seymour (5x), Williams (5x), Wilfork (4x), Jenkins (3x), Smith (3x), Haynesworth (2x), and Campbell (2x) are the only defensive tackles that started their careers from 2000-09 to earn multiple All Pro nods during their careers; compare that to the seven players from the 2010-present with multiple All Pros on their resume (Watt, Suh, McCoy, Atkins, Donald, Wilkerson, Cox) and those that are likely to earn their second in the coming years (Harrison, Short, Dareus) and the quality difference is pretty apparent.

All Pro nods aren’t a perfect measure of a player’s contributions on the field, but it’s certainly a reasonable measure of a player’s chances of making the Hall of Fame; the same people that vote for one are voting for the other, and they would all likely consider the top defensive tackles from 2000-09 to come up short in comparison to those from 2010-present- and it’s hard enough for a defensive tackle to reach the Hall of Fame.

If I were a Hall of Fame judge, I would argue that Wilfork joins Seymour, Williams, Ngata, and Smith as the top five defensive tackles of the generation. I would also argue that he should be in the top three of that group with Seymour and Williams- but I don’t know if that would be enough to warrant him a selection into the Hall of Fame.

It’s tough to gauge what exactly McCarron could bring to the table. But a second-round draft pick isn’t much to acquire a potential upgrade at quarterback and a 26-year-old who could try to prove he’s a long-term solution for the team.

The same argument could be made for other young backups, including the Packers’ Brett Hundley, who was reportedly on the trade block during the 2017 NFL draft.

Finding other potential starting talent on the trade market can be hard to forecast (who in the world saw the Sam Bradford trade coming last year?), but the Jaguars have to be aggressive if one comes available.

Bortles is dragging down a good roster, and the Jaguars are just being silly at this point if they don’t look elsewhere.

Just before he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last week, Jones said he wasn’t expecting a suspension for Elliott.

One of the final steps of the investigation came in May, when the NFLPA handed over Elliott’s phone records and other documents to the league. Elliott met with league investigators last October and with NFL officials earlier this month, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.

The first violation of the league’s personal conduct policy carries a six-game suspension, but the suspension can be reduced for mitigating circumstances.

Elliott tweeted a statement from his personal account after the suspension was handed down, saying he disagreed with the NFL’s decision while also apologizing to fans:

Elliott played college football for three seasons at Ohio State. He was selected by the Cowboys with the fourth overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft. Elliott led the league with 1,631 rushing yards in his rookie season.

Elliott can participate in all preseason activities. His suspension will begin Sept. 2 and he can return to the Cowboys’ roster on Monday, Oct. 23.

The Packers will travel to Washington in a showdown between big-armed passers.

And then there’s the Jets, who may be worth watching just for the spectacle of their wide receiving corps. Charone Peake and Robby Anderson lead a unit that will be catching passes from either Josh McCown, Bryce Petty, or Christian Hackenberg this fall. That group has the potential to be gruesome, and like a car crash it may be difficult to look away.

Here’s the full slate of games for Saturday, including a Jets/Lions tilt that will make the Detroit secondary seem much more proficient than it actually is. Follow along with us for score updates, highlights, injury news, and much more.

The Mike Glennon era in Chicago hasn’t gone too smoothly in preseason. Keep making throws like this and the Mitch Trubisky show may have to start sooner rather than later.

The Texans continue racking up bone-headed penalties, with the latest one being a blatant kick-catch interference.

What a dumb penalty on Eddie Pleasant. Ran into punt returner for 15-yard penalty. That’s 7 on the Texans. Special teams have joined in.

Rookie running back D’onta Foreman saw his first reps in the second quarter, playing third on the Texans’ depth chart behind Miller and Blue. He gets three straight carries but fails to pick up a first down.

The first game up features the Steelers taking on the Giants, with both teams looking to build on last year’s playoff campaigns. Rookie Joshua Dobbs will start in place of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. They also won’t have Le’Veon Bell, who is holding out and still hasn’t signed his franchise tender, but they’re potentially getting back Martavis Bryant after he sat out 2016 with a suspension.