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ALAMEDA, CA – Thursday night. First round. Choose 22 on the clock. Baltimore gets up, then Houston at 23, Oakland at 24, Philadelphia at 25. Two more selections for the Raiders to sweat before choosing a player at age 24 that they have been aiming for here for three months.
"There was an exchange," says someone in the Raiders newsroom. "Philadelphia is 22 now. Eagles at the clock.
Nooooo!
GM rookie executing his first project, Mike Mayock, froze. "I'm like," Sh-! " Moment of panic. THE EAGLES HAVE SAUTED FOR OUR GUY.
The coach, Jon Gruden, who had irascibly told Mayock that he had better not spoil the first lap of the Raiders' hat-trick, jumped out of his chair, seething. "That's our run," said Gruden. The coach and general manager knew that the Eagles loved the same player, Alabama running back Josh Jacobs, and now, going from 25% to the exchange, the Eagles would be able to steal the guy Gruden was holding to take one of the three cornerstone players in his offense.
Thirty seconds have passed, perhaps. Mayock studied the terms of the exchange, and during this time, defense coordinator Paul Guenther launched: "Wait, the Eagles have traded before Houston as well."
That's right, Thought Mayock. The Eagles did not just skip us. They also jumped on Houston. They went before Houston to Baltimore.
"Wait a minute, Jon," said Mayock to Gruden. "I think it's about the tackle. They do not go up for the half. "
"Really?" Said Gruden.
Mayock has known all football players since he was 18 as a reporter for the media. He is particularly well acquainted with the Eagles general manager, Howie Roseman, being a Philly guy and man of colors at Eagle's pre-season games over the past five years. He knows the list of Aigle players and the Roseman trading leader – he will not waste the gross capital traffic further than necessary. According to rumors, in NFL Street, the number one attack in Houston was Andre Dillard of Washington State. So, the Eagles had to look for Dillard.
They were, as it turned out. Dillard to the Eagles at 22. We are at home for free, Thought Mayock. Tytus Howard in Houston at 23 years old. And now…
"Can I call her?" Said Gruden, a suddenly energetic Golden Retriever. "Can I call?"
"Wait," said Mayock. The NFL had asked the teams not to choose for at least five minutes from the time limit for the first round, so that the league could make the televised presentations and not have the complete choices saved. Five minutes from the end of the period, Mayock said, go ahead, call Josh Jacobs.
A cliché to consider here is, There is a new sheriff in town.
More apt: There is a new adult in the room.
My 2019 preliminary cover game plan: in a nutshell, weird. Thursday, Denver. I just thought John Elway could do something extraordinary, and he sort of tried to find a tight cover for Joe Flacco (Noah Fant) and fall in Drew Lock, which he did not expect. Not to be done, with the 42nd choice … Friday, Oakland, catches up ahead of time by Raider and the dynamic Gruden-Mayock. "The confidence that I have [in the GM] is better than I have ever had, "Gruden told me. "The guy is sick. He is a maniacal worker. I like it. "… Saturday, Tempe. Kyler Murray and Josh Rosen, oh my god. Good songs on all these upcoming stops.
But first, the headlines of the weekend:
• Tyreek Hill must leave. An audio surfaced in Kansas City on Thursday, in connection with the injuries sustained by Hill's 3-year-old son, and he said, "Daddy did it." Plus, when the boy's mother told Hill that his son was terrified, Hill said. to her, "You must be terrified of me too, bitch." The Chiefs have ruled out their all-pro receiver, Hill, from the team's activities after hearing the tape, and must now move on to the next step: cut Hill, who was already walking a thin line after hitting the woman in question in the stomach when she was pregnant. The second round pick of sprinter Georgia Mecole Hardman (4.33 pace) signaled the end for Hill in Kansas City.
• The controversial giants find Eli's heir. All those who put Daniel Jones sixth overall – nine places ahead of Dwayne Haskins, 36 ahead of Drew Lock – well, you're clearly in the head of general manager Dave Gettleman. The Giants did not want to take a risk by choosing Josh Allen at age six and taking Jones with their second choice at age 17 (he would almost certainly have been at that time). On Sunday, Gettleman said, "I got upset for that. Anguish."
• Washington finally gets a quarterback in the long run. After the failure of the RG III experiment in 2012, Washington went from smuggler to smuggler. At present, owner Dan Snyder hopes that Dwayne Haskins (who worked at Bullis School in Bethesda) in the state of Ohio will be the quarterback of the Griffin franchise.
• GM of the project: A stranger – Chris Grier of Miami, who, with two trades in one hour on Friday night, turned the 48th pick into Josh Rosen, a sixth-round pick and a second-round pick in 2020. The Dolphins now have a year to see if the 10th choice in the 2018 project, Rosen, could be the QB of the future … otherwise, Grier will have five more choices (from now on) in 2020 to find this franchise smuggler in a richer prospect crop of prospects. next april. "I know some people say we do tanking," Florida's Grier said Saturday night. "It's the thing furthest from the truth. It is about raising project capital and we now have a quarterback to compete with us. "
• The Steelers finally find a replacement Shazier. Mike Tomlin has passed for a playmaker and a defensive-type captain since the loss of Ryan Shazier in December 2017, as a result of a spinal injury. General Manager Kevin Colbert did something very unusual to help: he traded the first round for the first time in 16 years, Michigan speed linebacker Devin Bush paid tribute to his predecessor. Shazier is still trying to return to play football. "I know he's got the heart and the will," Bush said.
• Doug Baldwin could be done. The open sea and the Seattle team have undergone three out-of-season surgeries, 30 years old, and Executive Director John Schneider has acknowledged that Baldwin may be retiring. "Whatever happens, Doug will be one of the great players in the history of this program," said coach Pete Carroll. Out of Stanford, lightweight Baldwin has been cunning and extremely competitive to catch 551 balls and score 55 touchdowns in eight seasons. We will miss him, in many ways, if he is gone.
• A strange choice in Carolina. "It has nothing to do with Cam Newton," said general manager Marty Hurney after the Panthers opted for a third round against West Virginia quarterback Will Grier. Nothing? I do not buy what Hurney sells. Over the past two years, Newton has been operated on the rotator cuff (2017) and the arthroscopic shoulder (2019), both in the shoulder. Cam is 30 in two weeks. It's nice to say, "We need insurance at the most important sport station." Because that's it.
• See you soon SeaBass. Sebastian Janikowski, the last kicker to be drafted in the first round, retired on Sunday after a 19-year career, scoring the most goals scored 50 yards or more (58) in his career. In 2000, Al Davis wrote him in 17th place. It's a place ahead of Chad Pennington, 125 ahead of Shane Lechler, 182 ahead of Tom Brady. It's a whole journey.
• The road project is one of the best ideas of the NFL. Chicago was better than New York, Philadelphia was better than Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth was very good and Nashville, even drenched on Thursday night, was as good as Dallas-Fort Worth. Next year: Las Vegas. Whimsical warning.
For the rest of the column … come for the cardinals, then the giants, then the broncos. And please, stay on the lookout for raiders.
TEMPE, Arizona – Kliff Kingsbury learned several things during his four months as NFL head coach. It's one thing: "People are just piling up," said Kingsbury, serene, in a conference room at the Cardinals Training Center on Saturday night.
I asked Kingsbury if he had already told the combo that it was an "agreement made", the Cards prepared Kyler Murray first in the overall standings.
"No," he said. "Never."
I asked Kingsbury what he would have said if General Manager Steve Keim had told him a month ago that the best thing for the team was to keep Josh Rosen at the quarterback and to fish Nick Bosa.
"I would have said, 'Let's go to work,'" said Kingsbury. "That's why I signed here. I knew I was coming here to try to improve the offense. We were last in everything. Try to help Josh become a better player, more comfortable in the system, keep building it. It was my job. If that was what we were going to do, that's why I signed first. "
"The biggest misconception about your role in this?" I asked.
"That I drove here and that I was like" We're going to take Kyler Murray, "said Kingsbury. "First of all … I do not have that kind of juice coming in the door. It was not like that at all. "
It was about an hour after the roughing. Kingsbury and the man who hired him, Keim, came together to discuss a crazy Cardinals football season: Josh Rosen's 10th row draft a year ago, hiring a coach who had been sacked by Texas Tech to drive the franchise. the marginalization of Rosen, drafting Murray, unloading Rosen in Miami, writing three receivers to turn the Cards offensive into Kingsbury's personal game, Madden.
I turned to Keim, who put his general manager career at stake with this coaching hiring and this preliminary choice, and asked him, "Have you seriously weighed up the choice to keep Rosen and tell him," Sorry, Kliff, I do not give you your guy?
"Absolutely," says Keim. "It's my job." Every spring, your mind races around with different scenarios. "At the end of the day, you had to watch and say again," What's going to really catapult us for us to be different? "I've always been a visual guy and I've always been successful in evaluating the quarterbacks when I trusted my instincts and my guts .. J & # 39; I missed the guys who watched the game, felt the game, you tried to invent and because everything was connecting the dots.You watched them and said, "OK, they'll play a role, because they look like this, I'm not saying it's Josh Rosen, I'm saying that I've had my true success, some of the guys I've loved who have been great NFL players, based on their instinct.
"When I closed my eyes and saw Kyler Murray running in red and white around the State Farm Stadium, for whatever reason, all I saw was a fire." 39, artifice, excitement, to see absolutely. [environment] where fans have to go and see this thing. Being the architect was a phenomenal solution for me. "
Interesting way to evaluate: screening through visualization. "I'm visualizing them or I just have bullets bigger than my brain," Keim said. "I'm not afraid of making a mistake. It could cost me my career, but at the same time, to be good and successful, you have to be willing to take risks, the ones you believe in. "
Clearly, this is the reason for this era in Cards' history. Arizona tried his luck on Kingsbury and took another on Murray. It is a drifting franchise, with a general manager with a position in play, a head coach that the league considers dubious, and now a 5-10 quarter that the new coach has been waiting for since the second year of school Texas secondary. (True story: Kingsbury, then Texas Tech coach, offered Kyler Murray, the 5-year-old and 5-year-old quarterback, a full scholarship as a sophomore at Allen High in 2012. ]
Keim said he did not study Murray until he studied the prospects of free agents. So it's not until mid-March, said Keim, that he used the Murray cassette. Until then, he said, there is no way for the organization to make the decision to draft Murray because Keim has the final word on the project. "I was reluctant to study it because I knew what we had at Josh Rosen," Keim said. "Watching the first game, I watched the second game, I could not lower the gamepad. All I wanted to do was continue watching this kid on a tape. I do not know if I wrote "wow" 100 or 500 times, but my hand was tired of writing it. Since I've done that, I've never seen a guy who can run like him and run like him. I saw guys who could do one of them, but I never evaluated a guy who has the skills to do both things at such a high level. I was also studying guys I fell in love with, like Nick Bosa, Quinnen Williams, who really had to really weigh which player had the biggest impact for us. It became crystal clear in the end it was Kyler Murray. "
Keim insisted that Kingsbury express his opinion and depart from the evaluation process. "What I respect most about Kliff is that he has never interrupted the process," said Keim, while Kingsbury was sitting at the conference table. "He never came once, punching the table and saying," I want Kyler Murray. I have to have it. I knew he loved him as a player, but he let the process take care of himself. For me it was the only way for us to do things right. "
So now, having hired four players to help Kingsbury manage his attack, let's see where these Cardinals are. Kingsbury's offensive, cousin of Mike Leach's air raid program, will often be led by four full-width receivers and one back; It's important to have specific roles for receivers, but in the case, for example, of UMass's Andy Isabella's second round receiver, Kingsbury found a receiver that can be used in the slot, on the outside and on Jet Sweep type games because Isabella is experienced in all three roles. Kingsbury is likely considering an offense, at least initially, with Isabella and former but still productive Larry Fitzgerald in either box, with Christian Kirk and this year's 103rd pick, 6-5 Hakeem Butler , outside each side. And, of course, the strong runner and catcher David Johnson should get 300 backfield keys. There will also be an unhindered consistent element, so some of these Arizona games will be the toughest track matches.
According to his coaching friends, the Kingsbury system is different from the system of his weekly plan. Choosing the Patriots in the sixth round in 2003, Kingsbury spent this season (second season of the New England Super Bowl) in injury to an arm, but his philosophy of Bill Belichick was to vary the weekly game plan. With Belichick, every game plan is a snowflake; no one is alike. And although Kingsbury's attack is both open and regular, he will be sure to adapt it to his opponent of the week as well.
Kingsbury told me that Murray's system would be "very similar" to that of his Oklahoma project under the progressive Lincoln Riley. "His ability to escape the pocket, to escape this line player when they can not escape, is unique. And always be able to stay back, monitor the field and be able to get the ball out on time, to monitor its progress … When you separate people, it is a weapon in different ways. It's difficult on the defenses, because if you want to rush him and he takes off, good luck to catch up. And if you sit, he can always separate you. The way we divide people, the tempo in which we play, is the guy who can really blossom into the system.
"We are going to play at times wider than most players in the league. We will use the entire field to cover five wide and quarterback, which is difficult on the defenses. "
I was really curious to see how Kingsbury, in 2012, after holding the position of head coach at Texas Tech, could have been equally seduced by a tiny quarterback in Allen, Texas. "Well," said Kingsbury, "nobody could touch him, he could throw it out of his pocket, the mechanics were great. He was the fastest player on the field. I've always thought that it could be great. I had never seen anything like it on the field, a combination of this kind of speed and explosiveness and a real loose passer. So we have developed a relationship over the years. He always knew that I believed in him and that I saw great things coming. It was a crazy and crazy race to see how it all went. I think everyone just assumed that since he was too small he could not play at the next level. "
So, here is Murray, on the next level, and on the next level after that. The highest level. The NFL
It will be an excellent football test season in Arizona. In the NFL this year, no coach / quarterback coach platter will be subject to more scrutiny. A coach with a losing college record, and the first quarterback of less than 6 feet to be selected in the first round. And number one in the general classification! Kingsbury and Murray will be a television not to be missed and the visualization of Keim not to be missed.
"I think we are both competitive and we have a chip on our shoulder," Kingsbury said. "What was said there …" His voice was lost. He knows. "Now it's time to leave. We have heard the whole speech and the speech is done now. That's what we do from now on. When he came in here [Friday]we both had this conversation and that state of mind. It was more the subject of our meeting.
"Are you celebrating the fact that you finally got your guy after all these years chasing him?"
"Not yet, no," Kingsbury said. "We will not celebrate until we win some games."
Last two points:
• Josh Rosen was wrong, but he will have a good chance of sticking to Arizona. About this deal with Miami, Keim strove to get a first-round pick for him (no such luck), then he concluded the best deal possible instead of bringing a player completely back unhappy to a team with a fresh start. "We spoke several times Thursday night," said Chris Grier, general manager of Miami, but Steve was good. We would not give one, this year or the next year. [Friday] we again communicated and laughed that it was in the media that we agreed to enter into an agreement when we had not done so. Then they stayed a few hours without speaking. In the meantime, Miami traded the 48th choice to the Saints and, as the 65th overall approached, Grier and Keim again spoke and negotiated the deal: the 65th pick and a fifth round pick in 2020 for Rosen. "There are a lot of potential benefits in the contract for us," Grier said. And for Rosen, he has one year to convince Grier, his owner Steve Ross and his coach Brian Flores that he should be the long-term starter of Miami, and not a smuggler among the best prospects in 2020.
• Steve Keim has an interest in being right. Keim began his card career by hiring Bruce Arians. He stole Carson Palmer in Oakland for a seventh round pick, winning 50 games in his first five years as General Manager. Then come a lot of bad intentions: hire Sam Bradford for stupid money, hire Steve Wilks as head coach and give him one season only, and trade for Rosen. Examining Rosen's Trade … Keim made the 10th, 79th and 152nd selections a year ago for the 10th pick, so the cards could choose Rosen. Keim has just given Rosen the 65th pick and a fifth in 2020. Which means, basically, he traded the 15th, 79th and 152nd choices of a draft for a UMass slot receiver. The man, Andy Isabella, has weight on his shoulders for his career in the NFL. The Cardinals could have had Derwin James, Orlando Brown and Deon Cain with these three choices. Instead, they had a one year trial with Rosen. And now, a Mid-American Conference receiver. These are not jobs for play-it-safers. But Keim must quickly win a series of wins, otherwise it will be the team of someone else to handle in general.
Weird weekend of travel, and I was writing out an early Sunday morning in Phoenix, at a table at the back of my hotel. A middle-aged man approaches, introduces himself. "Fan of the giants," said the guy. "Tell me about the ledge. Does Gettleman know what he's doing? "
"I'll give you one," Gettleman himself said on the phone an hour later. "I was at my bagel store this morning. Guy said to me, "Dave, excellent choice."
Just a feeling: the bagel guy is not the majority of Giants fans.
My big question to Gettleman after the weekend was centered on the return of quarterback Duke Daniel Jones at six o'clock. (That's the question Giants fans are worried about right now?) Actually, I had a few questions. It was the first time, and then, why was Gettleman trying to trade with Denver at 10 am – which John Elway told me in Denver after the first round.
Why, I asked, did not Gettleman do what the chalk had said over there – get the desperately needed huckster, Josh Allen, at six, then take the calculated risk of let Jones slip and get him in with the second round pick (17th) or in a slight increase of 17?
"I got upset for that," said Gettleman from his office in New Jersey. "I have agonized. Before the project, we discussed it thoroughly in groups – last Friday and then Wednesday. Obviously, we had a lot of esteem for Josh Allen. But what I learned is that you do not play with a quarter. If he's your guy, you take him. If you put 32 general managers in one room and give them pentathol sodium [truth serum], all of them would tell you how cute they were in a repechage and it cost them the player they wanted. So you do not become cute there. You do not become cute with a quarterback. "
Gettleman told me that he "knew full well" that there were two teams that wanted to be between 6 and 17 years old. I could not find them, although I certainly can not say for sure that two do not exist. Either way, Gettleman thought it was not a risk to take. So, instead of having a certain percentage of luck getting Allen at six and Jones at age 17 (or earlier in an exchange), the Giants have Jones at six and defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence at age 17. Stuffer, of course, is easier than finding a hedge. We will see how it works.
But let's get into the exercise and look at both teams and Jones, starting with Jacksonville at seven. No; just signed Nick Foles. Detroit; very unlikely with Matthew Stafford internally. Buffalo; no, Josh Allen (Qy Wyoming) just wrote last year. Denver at 10: I was there and Broncos had Drew Lock number one on his QB board. Bengals at 11 years old; doubtful, but I do not know for sure. Green Bay at 12; highly improbable. Miami at age 13; unknown. Atlanta at 14; no way. Washington at age 15 seemed locked in Dwayne Haskins. Carolina at 16; highly improbable. So Miami, maybe. I can not find another that seems likely to have had Jones in the line of fire, although that does not mean it was not.
The bile that Gettleman was targeting was, even to New York standards, extreme. Mike Francesa of the WFAN has called the Giants "football clowns … chronic losers" with a general manager "who has no plan." In the last page of the page, Gettleman looked helpless and a title "BLUE'S CLUELESS". On Twitter, someone posted "The Summary of Dave Gettleman" and this:
Gettleman talks about it when he says things like he had fallen "in love" with Jones after watching him play three sets at the Senior Bowl … as if it were all he had to see to mortgage the Giants franchise on Jones. He obviously studied the quarterbacks at length and decided that Jones had the strength of his arms and the mental constitution to be the best of the four at the top of this repechage. "Being the quarterback of the New York Giants is a mental burden," he said. "If you can not handle the mental aspect, you can not do it, that's one of the things we loved about Daniel.
Part of Gettleman includes the visceral reaction to the pickaxe. He told me that if he could not handle the fight, he would go back to high school football training. (At a significant wage cut.)
But part of it is sad for what the business has become.
"At the end of the day, I trust what I do and who I am," he said. "I'm part of organizations that have very good quarters – Jim Kelly, John Elway, Kerry Collins, Eli Manning, Cam Newton. I led a lovely life with the quarters of the teams for which I worked. I know what the good looks like. The other thing is that resumes matter. From time to time, I wish that the people who take the photos take a minute to look at my CV. I was part of the teams that participated in seven Super Bowls. I had a hand in some of them. But today, there is no patience. And there is no place for a civil discourse in our society, which I find sad. "
I would have done it differently, I think. I would have taken Allen at six o'clock and found a way to get back against Jones, though I was worried about missing him at age 17. For me, the risk of acquiring a hickory (essential element that the Giants do not have now) would have been worth it. But the point about Jones, and putting on the carpet for a quarterback that you like, is something that every CEO needs to do at some point. I do not think Gettleman was stupid to have chosen Jones, because quartering is one of the most inaccurate things a GM needs to do. Lawrence is a solid defensive tackle but probably stitched. Deandre Baker, the third first-rounder, may well be a starter on the first day at a position where the Giants were in dire need.
Nobody could tell Gettleman to dissuade him from thinking that the Giants had improved much better this weekend, even if the sixth choice was not played for a year or two. Football requires patience to judge whether the players are good, especially at the quarterback. But the Giants have not won a playoff game for seven years. Eli Manning is a full-fledged guy, but the 37-year-old quarterbacks do not often withstand seven-year droughts. Il est temps de tourner la page. Les fans veulent du changement maintenant. Avec les Giants, ça ne se passe pas aussi vite.
"Dans trois ans", a-t-il dit, "nous découvrirons à quel point je suis fou."
L’ancien et le nouveau, conçus pour être des quarts de franchise à 15 ans d’écart:
ENGLEWOOD, Colorado – Ce que vous devez savoir sur les Broncos de Denver:
S'ils n'échangeaient pas le 10ème choix général à Pittsburgh jeudi, ils emmenaient Devin Bush (le joueur que Pittsburgh avait échangé), pas à Noah Fant (l'extrémité serrée que les Broncos avaient rédigée après l'échange).
À la fin du premier tour, le directeur général John Elway n’avait pas l’intention de se montrer agressif pour aller chercher Drew Lock, parce que Denver est épris de l’ex-Raven Joe Flacco, âgé de 34 ans. Je le savais, car j'ai demandé à Elway 45 minutes après le tour. «Notre réconfort avec Joe nous a permis de renvoyer un quarterback», m'a dit Elway. «Ce qui a pris cette décision, c’est que Joe s’accorde vraiment bien avec ce que nous voulons faire de manière offensive, et il avait fière allure à notre minicamp la semaine dernière. Il a vraiment organisé une exposition de lancer la semaine dernière au camp. Je pense vraiment que nous avons un gars qui arrive à son apogée. "
Denver avait les Giants et les Falcons au téléphone lors de la transaction avec Pittsburgh. Elway a fait une offre compétitive aux Giants, mais pas aussi bonne chez Pittsburgh… et les Steelers, au fait, ont défié Elway quand Denver a poussé pour un premier tour en 2020.
Si vous avez vu mon brouillon, vous vous souviendrez peut-être que Denver était revenu au premier tour à 31 avec les Rams, afin que les Broncos puissent prendre un Lock en chute libre vers la fin du tour. La chute des Lock m'a surpris et a surpris beaucoup de gens de la ligue. Mais vous devez être logique à propos des quarts dans le brouillon. C’est facile de dire que Drew Lock est un choix de premier tour et qu’il était, depuis de nombreuses années, l’un des premiers choix du premier tour. Mais il doit y avoir une équipe qui le veut suffisamment pour pouvoir utiliser un choix de première ronde sur lui aussi. Alors que je quittais Denver vers minuit et que je me préparais à prendre l'avion pour Oakland à l'aube vendredi, j'ai éliminé Lock pour Denver, même si je savais qu'il était le numéro quatre du tableau ici. Les Broncos étaient mariés à Flacco, et s’il échouait, ils essayeraient de se frayer un chemin vers le sommet du premier tour riche en QB en avril prochain.
De retour à mon hôtel, un directeur général de la ligue m'a branché le téléphone: Ne présumez pas qu’ils ont abandonné Lock. Flacco est ce qu'il est.
Bien sûr, tard dans la nuit, Elway et son homme de confiance, Matt Russell, ont étudié davantage le tableau. Quand ils sont arrivés le lendemain matin, ils ont sérieusement réfléchi à l’embauche des deux meilleurs joueurs restants: Dalton Risner de Kansas State et Lock. Risner était leur choix à 41 ans. Elway travaillait sur les Bengals à 42 ans et finissait par trouver un accord pour passer de 51 à 42 en échange de choix de quatrième et de sixième round.
Elway ne voulait vraiment pas s’occuper de ces choix. Il ne voulait vraiment pas recruter un quarterback ici, car il voulait faire confiance à Flacco. Mais Elway est un quart. Il sait que si vous n’avez pas votre gars à long terme, vous le cherchez toujours. Lock était son numéro un quart dans ce repêchage. S'il pouvait obtenir Lock avec le 42ème choix, il devait le faire. Il devait juste le faire.
Etre à Denver, puis s'assurer qu'Elway avait terminé sa carrière de quarterback en 2019, puis être loin du fuseau horaire et voir ce quarterback du Temple de la renommée disparaître après un quarterback le lendemain… jeu émotionnel, et le projet est une affaire émotionnelle. Qui peut reprocher au grand Elway d'essayer de trouver le prochain Elway avec le 42ème choix dans le repêchage?
Oakland: heure de Mayock
ALAMDEDA, Californie. – Les gros titres des Raiders de la semaine dernière sont tous liés à Mayock. Les scouts bannis du bâtiment. Mayockian… Clelin Ferrell sur-brouillon au quatrième rang. Mayockian… Patience (je vais expliquer). Mayockian… Le maquillage aussi important que le talent, un trait de repérage de l'arbre Belichick. Mayockian.
Nous sommes maintenant vendredi matin, le lendemain de la transformation de Ferrell-Josh Jacobs-Johnathan Abram, et je suis dans le même fauteuil dans le bureau de Mayock dans lequel Gruden se trouvait 24 heures plus tôt, alors que seuls deux d'entre eux avaient élaboré le plan exact de leurs trois choix premier tour:
• au numéro quatre, essayez de négocier pour de la valeur, mais qu’ils soient à quatre ou aussi bas qu’ils voudraient prendre le risque de se rendre à Miami, assurez-vous de vous procurer l’ailier défensif Clemson, Clelin Ferrell.
• au numéro 24, faites confiance au conseil et au projet de recherche. Sachez que Josh Jacobs était très probablement présent et résistez à la tentation d'utiliser des capitaux brouillons pour échanger.
• Au numéro 27, be patient again and let Abram, the hard-hitting Mississippi State safety, fall to us. If he doesn’t, there will be options we like.
The phone never rang at four. Mayock and Gruden wished it had, but they never got a call. So they stayed there and picked a solid guy who won’t be the edge-rusher Josh Allen or Brian Burns will be; Gruden and defensive coordinator Paul Guenther will take his leadership and practice habits and edge-setting and hope he can be an eight to 12-sack guy. No guarantee though. Ferrell at 13, with an extra first-rounder from 2020, would have been the dream; Ferrell at four, with no extra compensation, was acceptable.
Mayock had a chance to go to 16, Carolina’s slot, and ensure getting Jacobs. Nan. He thought Jacobs would last, and he didn’t want to sacrifice a good pick. A few minutes later, Mayock went to the draft board in the draft room on the second floor of the Raiders’ facility. He wrote down seven names in red marker. He said they’d have at least two left by the time they got to pick 24.
There were not two left then. There were four. And the two Gruden and Mayock wanted above all were Jacobs and Abram.
Interesting thing happened when the emotion of drafting Jacobs died down. Now it was pick 25. Baltimore on the clock. Ravens GM Eric DeCosta surely would have dropped down two spots for a fifth-round pick, knowing it was highly likely he’d get the same guy at 27 he could get at 25. Mayock wondered if they should make the trade. Gruden pushed. Mayock said he thought Abram would be there at 27; let’s sit. Mayock ignored the ringing phone, saw Marquise Brown and Montez Sweat go at 25 and 26, and then Gruden the Golden Retriever was back.
“Can I call? When can I call?”
Funny story about Abram. At the Senior Bowl, Gruden and the Raiders were coaching the North Team. Abram was on the South, but he was not playing because of a shoulder bruise. Abram’s a football junkie and he hung around the North practice, watching Gruden and his staff coach.
“Who the hell are you?” Gruden said the first day.
“Johnathan Abram, Mississippi State.”
“Number 38! Mississippi State! I am your biggest fan!” Gruden said.
Abram was at Gruden’s practice every day the rest of the week, just watching.
On Friday night, Gruden said: “I wanted the safety. I wanted this safety. Physical, tough, smart, loves football. I didn’t want just a safety. I think it’s hard to teach tackling now. They don’t practice it. You gotta find some guys that are really eager and interested in making tackles. This guy’s a throwback Raider safety. He reminds me of Jack Tatum and George Atkinson and Charles Woodson and some of the guys we’ve had walk through here. The middle of our defense, we need to strengthen that. Man, was I happy to get him.”
When Ferrell, Jacobs and Abram came into the facility Friday afternoon, it was easy to see why Gruden and Mayock zeroed in on them. Ferrell got emotional talking about being a leader on a storied franchise. Jacobs said he wanted to to play special teams, just so he could be on the field more. Abram sounded like a guy who’d taken an overnight class in Silver And Black 101.
“This place … what a rich history, what a culture, what an honor to be part of this franchise,” Abram said. “But the Silver and Black’s in need of a rebirth. Lotta great things can happen here. Antonio Brown’s here. We got a franchise quarterback. We got Vegas around the corner. It’s an amazing time in the history of this place. And we get to write the new history.”
Now a day-two postscript. Raiders were due to pick third in the second round, 35th overall. When the day started, two of the Mayock’s seven red-markered players were still on the board. Great, Mayock and Gruden thought; we’ll probably get one of them at 35.
Both red guys were there at 35. Mayock gambled, trading from 35 to 38 with Jacksonville and netting a fourth-rounder.
Both red guys, still there at 38. Mayock gambled, trading from 38 to 40 with Buffalo, netting a fifth-rounder.
At 40, they were still there. No more gambling. Mayock drafted the third of the red-markered guys, Clemson cornerback Trayvon Mullen.
What I found interesting, sitting with Mayock for 45 minutes as he digested his first night, was how much this GM job seemed like his calling. He did football games on TV, he dissected the draft on TV, and no one knows if he’ll be great at this or just okay; it’ll take years to know. But what I saw was a guy who had patience, which is the calling of good GMs. They’ve got to be willing to lose a guy they want to get the max value on a pick. Mayock showed that several times in this draft.
“I’m gonna give you a great quote that Ozzie Newsome said to me at the Senior Bowl,” Mayock said. “I’ve known Ozzie forever. He congratulated me on the job. I said, ‘Do you have any advice?’ He said, ‘Mike, having an opinion is a hell of a lot easier than having to make a decision.’ I thought that was so well said back then. And then I really felt the weight of it last night.”
Now for the Mayock-scout relationship, and the infamous Ian Rapoport tweet about sending the scouts home.
Mayock: “I came in at an atypical time for a GM, in January, and we had a four-month run that might’ve been the most important in the history of the Oakland Raiders as far as a draft and free agency. We’ve been to one playoff game in 16 years. They’ve been doing things a certain way around here and it hasn’t worked. They bring me in in January and I inherit a group of scouts for four months. I was 100 percent transparent with them the first week I got here. I told every single scout that they might not like the fact that a media guy’s their boss, which they probably didn’t. I told them I knew I had to earn their respect, and I would. But they also had to earn my respect and they had four months to do it because all their contracts were up. I made the decision three weeks ago that when the scouts’ work was done in this building, I was gonna send most of them home. I told them, and 45 minutes later it was on Twitter. So the decision to send them home, in hindsight, was the right one.
“I’ve known for years there have been leaks out of this building. Al Davis had a phobia about it when he was in his prime. He was really good about keeping it from happening. My deal, the bottom line for me, is you’ve got to trust the guys you work with. To me, if you’re a good teammate, what goes on in this building stays in this building.”
Gruden needed Mayock. Gruden’s match with the GM he inherited when he re-took the coach job 16 months ago, Reggie McKenzie, a good football man, was an arranged marriage. Gruden wanted a grinder.
“Mayock’s like Abram,” Gruden said. “He just wants it.”
Can it last? The book on Gruden is that he falls out of love with people—he loves them, then he loves someone else, and there are rocky times. But he hasn’t worked with many like Mayock. When Gruden sees Mayock, he sees the personnel version of himself. The plus in this relationship, as this weekend showed, is that the GM won’t just bend to the Gruden when Gruden wants something badly. In each of the big decisions in this first draft—waiting for Jacobs, waiting for Abram, trading twice while angling for Trayvon Mullen—the gamble worked. Mayock’s a rookie, but he’s a precocious rookie.
“I’ve known Mike since I was offense coordinator at Philadelphia, I guess that was 1995. I work there, I see Mike. I get the [head-coaching job] here, I see Mike. I go to Tampa, I see Mike. I started broadcasting, I see Mike. I really got to know Mike then. His preparation is no bullsh–. A lot of these guys go on TV and they read the headlines but they don’t do the work. You know what I mean? He’s well respected because of the amount of preparation he does. And he’s a great listener and a great teammate too. I think we both have a strong desire to get this franchise going again. It’s an exciting time really because of the future of the Raiders and where we’re heading, players that we’re bringing in. It’s a pretty cool experience with him.”
It’s going to be a fun franchise to watch. Gruden, Antonio Brown/Tyrell Williams, Josh Jacobs, Derek Carr, Mayock, Vontaze Burfict … Imagine if they’re good—I mean, TV-ratings good, AFC West-challenging good. How fun will that be? It just might happen.
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“Kyler, one more thing: An awesome two-bedroom in Old Town just came on the market. So lemme know if you’re interested. I think I can get you a pretty good deal.”
—Josh Rosen, the former Cardinals quarterback, in a Twitter video bidding farewell to Arizona and addressing the current Cardinals quarterback, Kyler Murray, about real-estate matters.
II
“You’re going to play for the Seahawks, and you’re going to catch footballs from Russell Wilson, so get your ass ready to go big fella. We are fired up for it.”
—Seattle coach Pete Carroll, in his welcoming phone call to wide receiver D.K. Metcalf, the Seahawks’ second-round pick. Metcalf wept throughout the phone call with Carroll. About the only understandable thing Metcalf was heard to say in the call released by the Seahawks was “Why y’all wait this long!”
III
“N’Keal gets to go catch passes from Captain America!”
—Arizona State coach Herm Edwards on N'Keal Harry, his wide receiver who was the last pick of the first round, to New England, via Boston Sports Journal’s Christopher Price.
IV
“I’ve got a chip on my shoulder. The league done messed up.”
—New Washington quarterback Dwayne Haskins, the third quarterback chosen in the draft and the one picked nine spots after Daniel Jones to the Giants, to Jen Lada of ESPN.
V
“If you’re watching these games, you have no life.”
—NBA analyst Charles Barkley on the Sixers-Nets and Raptors-Magic series in the NBA playoffs. Each of the best-of-seven series ended lopsidedly in five games.
VI
“According the Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (whose parents sent him to journalism school for this) Cardinals quarterback Josh Rosen has unfollowed the Cardinals on Instagram.”
—Darin Gantt of Pro Football Talk.
VII
“We did not punt much against the Tennessee Titans! So you probably have no idea who I am!”
—Former Colts punter Pat McAfee, trolling the Tennessee crowd on day two of the draft, before introducing the 89th pick, Stanford linebacker Bobby Okereke, for Indianapolis.
VIII
“Yesterday was a rough day. But the sun came up today, and now I’m a Denver Bronco.”
—Missouri quarterback Drew Lock, bypassed in the first round of the draft and picked on day two, 42nd overall, by the Broncos.
It figures that Marshawn Lynch would sort of retire with zero fanfare, the news leaked by Adam Schefter and confirmed by no one, Lynch’s status just out there in the ether. I’m sure he loves it that way, people guessing about his future. But it’s clear he wants to play nowhere else, he turned 33 last week, he’s been hurt a lot, and the Raiders drafted a young, physical and fast back in the first round last week, Josh Jacobs (Marshawn Version 2007), and it’s clear Jacobs is the future of the Raider running game.
So now, judging Lynch’s career commences. Will he one day enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame?
Let’s examine his case. It’s not open and shut.
• Stats. He is 29th on the all-time rushing list, with 10,379 yards, just behind Eddie George, just ahead of Ottis Anderson. Of the 32 backs in the Hall over the 99-season history of the league, Lynch’s total of 10,379 is less than 15 Hall of Fame backs and more than 17 others. Only two of those with fewer yards have played since 1980 (Terrell Davis, Earl Campbell).
• Impact. I’m mostly less of a stat guy for Hall entry and more of an impact guy. Between 2011 and 2014, Lynch was the most impactful running back in the sport. As Seattle was building a physical dominant defense, Lynch was the hammer in a nascent and powerful offense that grew into a two-time NFC champion in ’13 and ’14. His four-year averages: 4.53 yards per rush, 1,339 rushing yards per season, 14.0 touchdowns per season. He was the perfect inside-outside back, strong enough to bowl people over, with moves to make them miss.
• Impact in big games. Averaged 4.85 yards per rush in 11 playoff games. Had games of 131, 132, 140, 109, 157, 102 in the post-season. There is no question defensive coaches game-planned to stop Lynch as much as any back between 2010 and 2015 in the postseason.
• Signature plays. I always think when you judge a player’s performance over his career, you remember a couple plays in your mind’s eye. For Lynch, there is no question he had a few of those, but none more notable than this run, in the first playoff game of his life, in January 2011, pre-Russell Wilson, against the Saints.
In short, I think Lynch has a strong case for the Hall. We’ll see how his career and its impact percolates over the next five years. His off-field stuff, the weirdness and divisiveness, don’t enter Hall consideration—at least it should not, and definitely would not for me. When Lynch’s case comes up in 2024, I think he has a good chance at a bust in Canton.
I
At Ohio State, linebacker Ryan Shazier wore number 10.
At Michigan, linebacker Devin Bush wore number 10.
In the first round of this draft, Bush was pick number 10.
Shazier was an every-down linebacker for the Steelers.
Bush projects to be an every-down linebacker for the Steelers.
II*
Seventh pick of the 2018 NFL Draft: Josh Allen.
Seventh pick of the 2019 NFL Draft: Josh Allen.
*From me and several outlets such as Pro Football Talk, all of whom apparently had the same brilliant idea at nearly the same time.
III
The TV analyst in the booth when Marshawn Lynch made the greatest run of his NFL life, the 67-yard touchdown run/survival test against New Orleans eight years ago:
Mike Mayock.
Delta, New York-LaGuardia to Denver, Wednesday, flight attendant passing through serving drinks. He gets to the row behind me and asks the 40ish guy in the window seat, “Anything to drink?”
“Espresso,” the guy says.
I have been traveling for work since 1980. The first flight I took was on long-forgotten Republic Airlines, from Cincinnati to somewhere in 1980. I sat in one of the back rows, which I recall because the last six rows of the plane were the smoking section. I didn’t smoke, but that day I sure did. Anyway, that tells you how long I have been traveling for business. And I must say I have never heard anything come out of a passenger sound quite as humorous as the fellow behind me saying the word “espresso” on that packed LaGuardia-to-Denver flight.
Gotta love the reaction of the friendly Delta flight attendant.
“I’m sorry sir,” Delta guy said. “We don’t serve espresso. Can I get you coffee?”
No, that would not do. Huffy passenger harrumphed, settled for water.
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Mail call. Send your questions and wordy assaults to [email protected].
Dubious about Gettleman. From Paul M.: “Is Dave Gettleman an old man who is out of touch with today’s NFL? Was he hired because he was a friend of another old guy, Ernie Accorsi, who was an adviser to the two old owners of the team? ‘Hog Mollies’ and a quarterback from Duke who impressed him at the Senior Bowl? Oy Vey. And I’m saying this as an old guy myself!”
You’re not alone, Paul. I find Gettleman’s roster-building method quite old-fashioned, highlighted by last year’s Saquon Barkley-at-two pick in the draft. It’s fine to love Daniel Jones, but I have issues with thinking you need to take him at six instead of opting for the desperately needed pass-rusher, then taking Jones at 17. We’ll never know if Josh Allen at six and Jones at 17 would have happened, but I’d have taken my chances.
Cheesy coverup. From @whichever99 on Twitter: “Can you explain why you and other NFL writers covered up the Green Bay story?”
Assume you mean the story written by Tyler Dunne of Bleacher Report. You and a few others have sent me emails or tweets asking this, so I thought I’d respond. A couple of things at work here: deep contacts inside an organization, and time to do a story. There are stories that are going to be difficult to do unless you’re around the team a lot and develop the kinds of contacts that Dunne developed when he covered the Packers for several years. My bet after talking to Dunne is he interviewed 50-plus people about this story over a three or four-month period. There are not a lot of people in this business who would have the depth of contact list on the Packers plus the time (kudos to Bleacher Report for empowering Dunne and giving him the time) to be able to do an investigative story like this one. I certainly have neither. It doesn’t mean we’re covering it up.
Why don’t you watch college football? From Roddy B.: “Heard you say on the Dan Patrick Show that you do not watch college football. Given that you do pro football and the draft, I’m curious why.”
Thanks for the question, Roddy. Basically, it’s a matter of survival for me. I spend about 12 hours most fall Saturdays working on my Monday column—writing and researching and interviewing people. During the season, this column is about 10,000 words long, so it can’t all get written Sunday nights. I exercise Sunday morning, write a little more, and watch nine hours of games and write the rest of it late Sunday and early Monday morning. I used to be able to write with the TV on, but now I find it distracting and bothersome, and I catch only snippets and the biggest games. If the column is that long, and it’s going to be timely, something’s got to be sacrificed. For me, it’s the college football slate on Saturdays. I catch up on the prospects in February, but I have nowhere near the knowledge of them that many of my peers do.
Stop ignoring the Bills (and you’re slipping). From Todd V.: “How can you write about older coaches without talking about Marv Levy? The guy did his best work when he was in his late sixties. While we are on the topic of the Bills, calling the Bills Mafia “insular” is insulting. Bills fans are not ignorant of what is going on elsewhere on the NFL, or uninterested in others outside their sphere. Educate yourself. You are slipping, Peter. Always been a fan, and always looked forward to your Monday columns, no matter what they are called or who published them. However, lately you pretty much ignore Buffalo. Yeah, you’ll throw in an occasional mention, but half the time it is insulting or mocking.”
In the stat I did about older coaches, I used the top 15 in coaching victories as the measuring stick. Levy is 20th. About the lack of attention for the Bills, you’re right; I haven’t covered them much recently. I try to write about the most interesting things every week, and with Buffalo going 24 years without a playoff win and now being the only team in 2019 scheduled to not have a prime-time game, those things impact how much I do about a team. There are no rules about how much I write about one team versus another, Todd. I just try to do what feels like the right thing to write about every week.
1. I think it’s all well and good for the Chiefs to have due process in the Tyreek Hill case (“We’ll make the right decision at the right time,” owner Clark Hunt said Saturday), but if that’s his voice on the KCTV5 audio, there is no alternative to cutting him.
2. I think that’s the single easiest opinion I’ve had in 22 years writing this column. “You need to be terrified of me too, bitch?” Glad to see the authorities in Johnson County, Kans., who said last week they could not charge Hill because of a lack of evidence, are allowed to legally re-open the case against Hill. And this is also one of those cases when the league has to draw a line in the sand. Commissioner Roger Goodell has left open the possibility that NFL teams can punish teams that draft domestic abusers (Hill had a prior incident in college in which he punched his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach) who later become recidivists. Remember: When Hill was drafted, Andy Reid said, “You have to trust me over time here.” And then-GM John Dorsey said: “I would like to ask for you guys [reporters] to just have a little bit of trust in us in this thing.” Which, fast-forwarding to today, leaves me with this question in the wake of Dorsey signing the abusive Kareem Hunt for his new team, the Browns: I wonder what Cleveland owner Jimmy Haslam thinks of his GM’s judgment now?
3. I think it’s time for the NFL to consider for all draftees who enter the league with a domestic incident on their résumés a new standard: Want to play in the NFL? D'accord. But first, you spend six months in a program to educate and treat all symptoms of this violent disease, and if after those six months, the operators of the program say you’re not a threat to women or children in the eyes of the program, you can play football. I don’t know what Tyreek Hill did as far as treatment for these urges that result in him hitting those he lords over, but it obviously was not enough. Take football away from Tyreek Hill for at least six months, or until smart professionals say he’s not a threat to women and children. Then, and only then, will he be able to play football.
4. I think, without Hill, the Chiefs will have to lean on Patrick Mahomes even more, and he has the shoulders to try to carry a heavier burden. Hill, to me, is the most dangerous running back/receiver in football today, capable of wrecking a game any given Sunday. But that doesn’t matter now. He has to go. And one more point: Do many draftees in this crop have more pressure entering training camp than Mecole Hardman?
5. I think there’s so much smart talk on TV on draft weekend, but one thing I really liked and appreciated was NFL Network’s Peter Schrager on the machinations of the Rams, who started with three picks in the top 130, made six trades, and ended up with picks 61, 70, 79, 97, 134, 169 and 251, with the first five picks in particular a stratagem. It’s not the biggest story of the draft. But it’s an inside-football story that’s valuable to know that you probably wouldn’t have heard about otherwise.
6. I think there are bad looks, and then there’s Le’Veon Bell skipping the first days of voluntary workouts with the New York Jets. Resting up after the tough 2018 campaign, I guess.
7. I think, speaking of veterans who should be with their new teams, at least for appearance sake, I bring you Odell Beckham Jr. Cleveland coach Freddie Kitchens had to defend it Saturday. At length. “There is no problem with Odell not being here,” Kitchens said. “I would rather him be here. He is not here. It is voluntary. That is what the word voluntary means. He will be ready to play, and ultimately that is the only thing I want for him.”
8. I think the anti-Rosen rant by Steve Smith on NFL Network was ridiculous, petty and totally devoid of reality. Smith ripped into Rosen for not wanting to compete against Kyler Murray—“Be a man and go against that man one-on-one,” Smith said—and said of Rosen: “When things don’t go your way, you’re going to cry in the corner.” The truth: All Rosen has done this spring is show up to work every day at the Cardinals’ facility, even when the team that drafted him 10th overall last year and then said he was still the quarterback when Kliff Kingsbury was named coach and was clearly preparing to replace him with another quarterback. Rosen didn’t whine, other than to tell SI the situation was “annoying.” There are situations that cry out for NFL analysts to rip players or coaches. This Josh Rosen situation was absolutely not one of them, and Smith—who I like—was out of line for it.
9. I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt for now, but the helicopter-parenting of Dwayne Haskins’ dad and both parents of Kyler Murray is bothersome. They called people in their pasts and told them not to discuss anything about their sons with the media, via Robert Klemko of The MMQB and Sports Illustrated (Murray) and Ryan Dunleavy of NJ.com (Haskins). Read this piece from Dunleavy about a conversation he had with Dwayne Haskins Sr. Wrote Dunleavy: “In 15 years reporting on New Jersey high school sports, including six on mainly high schools, seven on mainly Rutgers athletics and now two on the Giants, I never before experienced a level of mystery and push-back like this.” I wonder what Haskins Sr. has to hide. Not saying his son is about to be covered by Woodward and Bernstein in Washington, but Lord, the Haskins family is in for a rough go (and the Murrays too, from what I’ve seen) if they expect to dictate the coverage of their sons in the press.
10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:
a. Story of the Week: Not just for the subject matter and the emotion and the lesson we all need these days, but for a very good job of writing. Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times on the college story of L.A.-area high school senior Oswaldo Vasquez: “He got into a great college the old-fashioned way. He dreamed big, worked hard.”
b. Oswaldo’s mom got the call of his dream college acceptance a month ago, while at the bus stop on the way to her job as a cashier, and she started crying. When she got to work, she was crying so hard, the security guard felt bad for her and asked what was wrong.
c. “Do you really want to know? My son got into Harvard.”
d. Sensational. More wow, from Eva Vasquez: “And the customers started clapping.”
e. Interview of the Week: The New York Times’ Victor Mather with James Holzhauer, who is re-writing every record in “Jeopardy” annals, and who has the recall and reaction time of John Nash.
f. Are you watching “Jeopardy?” You really should, if just to see what a true intelligentsia demolition is like. Three interesting points: Holzhauer’s strength on the buzzer is 60 percent of the success at the game, he says … His background as a professional gambler is big. “The fact that I win and lose money all the times helps desensitize me, so I can write down $60,000 as the Final Jeopardy wager and not be trembling at the thought of losing that money.” … And this factoid about his success: “I went to Illinois. Most people think I went to Princeton or something. But I was never a diligent student. I have a strategy of reading children’s books to gain knowledge. I’ve found that in an adult reference book, if it’s not a subject I’m interested in, I just can’t get into it. I was thinking, what is the place in the library I can go to to get books tailored to make things interesting for uninterested readers? Boom. The children’s section.”
g. People are so interesting. Thanks, Victor Mather.
h. Football Story of the Week: Lindsay Jones of The Athletic on Salli Clavelle, the only full-time female scout in the NFL.
je. It’s not just a story on Clavelle the scout. It’s a status report of women in scouting, and in NFL positions finally opening to women. Clavelle to Jones: “If I were to have said three years ago, ‘Hey, I want to be a scout for the San Francisco 49ers,’ somebody probably would have laughed at that. But now, it’s not funny. It’s not funny because I’m actually doing it.”
j. Football History Story of the Week: Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle with the story of how unintentionally Montana-to-Clark was born, on the 40th anniversary year of Joe and Dwight becoming Niners. Terrific reporting and story-telling by Branch.
k. There has never been a double play quite like this one, I feel confident in reporting.
l. Crazy and borderline hyperbolic to say, but I think Roman Laureano has the best outfield arm I’ve ever seen.
m. I guess I was like everyone else was when I saw that Damian Lillard 37-foot contested (by all-NBA defensive player Paul George) series-winning basket at the buzzer to beat Oklahoma City the other night: filled with awe.
not. I liked his explanation of why he didn’t try to get closer, or try to drive on George to either draw a foul or have an easier try: “I didn’t want to put it in the referee’s hands, where if there was contact and maybe they get away with contact or I end up having to take a tougher shot because there’s contact and they don’t want that to decide the game. When I was standing there, I was like, ‘I’m going to shoot it.’ He [George] was a little bit off of me and I was like, ‘This is enough space for me to just raise up and shoot it for game.’ At the last second, he stepped towards me a little bit and I was, okay, I’m going to pound-dribble, side-step and raise up. I just had to let it fly, shoot the ball high in the air to give it a chance. That’s what I did.”
o. I wasn’t crazy about this sore loser reaction of George, though: “I don’t care what anybody says. That’s a bad shot. But hey, he made it.”
p. Dude, that’s one of the great shots in NBA playoff history. A walkoff, contested, playoff-series-ending, buzzer-beating 37-foot perfecto. Truly, how many shots with those qualifiers have happened in the history of basketball?
q. Teanerdness: I’m all-in on the tea again this week, particularly after something gave me the raspiest voice I’ve had in a while. (Great! Shut up, King!) The choice of the week is Stash lemon ginger. My doctor told me that ginger is excellent for the throat, and to always include honey. And thanks to the readers—Jim B. of Nashville was first—who sent advice to use local honey, and lots of it.
r. Beernerdness: I learned a lot about Odell Brewing (Fort Collins, Colo.) the other day, causing me to seek out its 90 Shilling Ale—rich, darker than most ambers I’ve had, with a malty bite—the other day. They have taprooms in Fort Collins and Denver, and the tip jars there are pooled and go to a monthly cause for good (this month: the Loveland Youth Gardeners) while insuring their employees get paid a living wage. Kudos to Odell for, collectively, having such a good corporate conscience.
s. April 27. Tigers-White Sox snowed out in Chicago.
t. On the 31st day of the baseball season, a snowout.
u. For those keeping score at home—and I am sure that none of you do—here are the results of my mock draft from last Monday’s 32 first-round picks: eight of 32 players picked in the correct slot … nine of 32 players matched with the team that chose them though not all in the exact slot (Jones to Giants at 23, Jacobs to Oakland at 24, Drew Lock to Denver at 42 were in the wrong slot, though all landed with the predicted team) … six players got picked who I did not have in round one … picked the Frank Clark-to-Chiefs trade … correctly picked Seattle (21) and L.A. Rams (31) to trade, though I picked the wrong partners … incorrectly picked a Giants-Texans trade, and whiffed on the Denver-to-Pittsburgh trade for the 10th pick. It’s one of the best years I’ve had picking the mock, and putting it to bed four days before the draft complicates it further. I did pick the right landing spots for the top four quarterbacks, which I am happy to brag about.
v. I was a terrible basketball player growing up in northern Connecticut in the sixties and early seventies, but I used to practice a lot. I used to shoot at a hoop in our yard, practice a straight-up form jump shot. I wanted to shoot just like John Havlicek of the Celtics, who played under control and with incredible consistency. It never quite worked out for me and basketball, but I have great memories of watching Hondo Havlicek and JoJo White as deserving heirs to the Russell-Cousy Celtics. RIP Hondo.
w. Learned a lot about one of the most interesting players in the draft—problematic Central Florida defensive tackle Trysten Hill—from The Doomsday Podcast, the cool Cowboys-centric pod from Ed Werder and Matt Mosley. How about this nugget from their guest, UCF defensive coordinator Randy Shannon: Starts at UCF are earned in practice through good play and hard work—and Hill earned only one start in 2018 season. Should be a wild ride with the Cowboys.
x. Kudos, Scott Studwell, on a distinguished, multifaceted and starry-in-a-blue-collar-way 42-year career with the Vikings as a linebacker (leading tackler in the franchise history), scout and director of college scouting. I’ll have more to say on Studwell next week, plus some words from him.
The Dolphins had a
very good weekend. Highlight:
They pilfered Rosen.
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