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It feels like we’re getting closer to the regular season, but it’s still two and a half weeks away. Still, there is plenty of news to cover in the afternoon column. Let’s go …
Kelly Wilkinson / IndyStar / USA TODAY Network (Wentz); Paul Rutherford / USA TODAY Sports (Newton); Vincent Carchietta / USA TODAY Sports (Lamb)
• The Colts are cautiously optimistic after Carson Wentz returns to training, just three weeks after undergoing foot surgery. First, though, and that’s it – a video of Wentz moving through agility drills like a deer is not an indication that he’s ready to play football, and the way Indy treated Wentz for the rest of training reflected that. He went through a seven-on-seven job. He wasn’t there for the 11-on-11s, and I understand he won’t be for the rest of this week, with the hope that he will participate. to that kind of work early next week. Which, of course, is an attempt by the team to be methodical about it, and also a recognition that foot injuries can be tricky. The good news? For those there, after a few weeks of watching Jacob Eason and Sam Ehlinger fight for the position behind Wentz, what Wentz brought to the table, even in a seven-on-seven, was very apparent. “Big difference,” wrote one. And so at the very least, some of the feelings from the end of July about what Wentz could do for the team are back.
• There is something that doesn’t quite pass the Missing Patriots detection test about a rule everyone has read fairly well by now – that unvaccinated players cannot leave their hometowns and fall out. the pace of testing (a motivator for players to get vaccinated, in fact, was that unvaccinated players won’t be able to leave town during their teams’ weeks off). So either New England got a bad mistake here, letting Cam Newton leave town, or the Patriots simply fail on the sword for him afterwards. If it’s the first, the team sort of owes him one for that. Otherwise? Otherwise, I think the door opens for Mac Jones to progress, and for the second week in a row Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels trusted Jones by denying his rookie status. They knocked him out of empty formations again (he was 2 for 2 for 14 yards on those), and put him in no-huddle in a second-half practice (he went 5 for 5 for 54 yards on point one, and New England ended up scoring). Regardless of Newton’s situation, Jones is clearly moving forward at a good pace. Linked to this, Newton’s absence naturally gives Jones three days of first-team reps, and one of them will come in a joint training with the Giants. So the Patriots essentially get a try here without having to upset the basket of apples, and with practices shutting down to the public and media next week. This allows Jones to shoot. And remember, weird circumstances have elevated rookie quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson and Justin Herbert to starting positions in the past. Provided the Patriots are not to blame for Newton’s situation, it’s not hard to imagine the New England coaches thinking of something similar playing out here.
• While we’re on the Patriots, we have another post on them from this offseason that further contextualizes the changes they’ve made in front offices – and it connects to a Packers executive named Chad Brinker. In this morning Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, veteran batsman Tom Silverstein shared Brinker’s story, how he became vice chairman of the Russ Ball football administration department and how he earned an MBA earlier this year at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management . It all coincided with Brinker’s promotion this summer to a staff administration / football executive role, and Green Bay has indeed received a nudge from outside the building to give Brinker that bump. During the offseason, New England asked to interview Brinker for a job helping to run his salary cap operation, as part of the efforts of new director of player personnel, Dave Ziegler, to rework facets of the game’s service. team staff. The Packers stopped Brinker from interviewing and subsequently promoted him (which is common when teams block coaches or scouts). So it’s clear the Patriots were looking for voices outside the building (Brinker worked with Patriots executive Eliot Wolf in Green Bay), which they haven’t always done. And clearly, the Packers liked Brinker, who was actually a pretty good player at one point to go into training camp with the Jets as an undrafted free agent. So that would be a name to watch out for in the future.
• The loss of five guys to the Cowboys due to COVID-19 protocols again highlights what the next six months could look like – and I reiterate what I mentioned this morning, that there have already been problems with vaccinated and asymptomatic team members having problems testing after a positive test (i.e. they continue to test positive). People in this location are to be away for 10 days, so it’s worth keeping an eye on how long Dallas and DC players Dan Quinn are away. For what it’s worth, Colts coach Frank Reich was sidelined for a week at the start of camp, meaning he ended up testing protocol.
• Another element of the camp that I found fascinating was the detail of the size of the Cardinals linebackers. The team’s last two first-round picks, Isaiah Simmons and Zaven Collins, are 6’4 “, which is gigantic for a linebacker without a ball. And this little thing jumped out at me when I was in camp. from Arizona, and I saw these two guys standing next to Chandler Jones and JJ Watt, two online players used to being the biggest guys in the room. So where does this weirdness come in? A few guys there. -bas told me that Matthew Stafford and Jimmy Garoppolo are both averaging around 6’2 “for a quarterback and Russell Wilson is 5’10”. So if the Cards can get Simmons started afterwards his slow start as a rookie, and as Collins continues to roll as he has been, the Arizona front could present an issue under the radar for that division’s quarterbacks.
• ICYMI, here’s what NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said about the Buffalo Stadium situation, Jim Kelly’s charity golf tournament: “You have to think long term here. This has been going on for decades, and it’s time to build a new stadium where we can make sure the Bills are there and successful for many decades to come. We focus on maintaining invoices [in Buffalo] in a new stadium in public-private partnership. This is what it is and this is what we are focusing on. Basically, it is like saying that Goodell owners Terry and Kim Pegula are willing to pay some, but not all, of the bill for a new stadium. And public funding is not easy to find in New York State. Hopefully, somehow the State and Bills understand this, as the league would be worse off if they lost Buffalo as a market.
• While we’re there, love Austin, Texas, had my bachelor party there. I also think that with the money from this city, a population spread that stretches about an hour’s drive to San Antonio, and the potential for growth, it is a viable market. But if you think, at the end of the day, Jerry Jones would stick around and let another team move into this area, then I have some nice plots of land in Hill Country to sell to you.
• I would like not underestimate the impact Matt Canada has as Ben Roethlisberger’s new offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh, and perhaps even his ability to ease some growing pains the offensive line might have. Canada will quickly get the ball out of Roethlisberger’s hands and use Najee Harris to slow down the pass rush, and I think in general he gets the Steelers out of what had been an underrated problem there – there had a significant drop in ingenuity ranging from Todd Haley as offensive coordinator to Roethlisberger’s old friend Randy Fichtner,
• The Ravens’ 19-game preseason winning record is remarkable and odd, and honestly, I’m not sure what to make of it. But I don’t think it’s unrelated that John Harbaugh pushes his guys hard enough and simulates the playing conditions, in practice. I imagine that makes the 90 guys on the roster, and not just the ones with NFL experience, ready to go when the lights come on. It also reminds me of what Urban Meyer told me the other day when he lost his first pre-season game: “We lost our pre-season game and I keep hearing it. is just a pre-season game. Well, we’ve lost. Our goal as long as they score is to win. (Meyer and the Harbaughs clearly have their differences, but manic competitiveness is not one of them).
• I’ll be at the Jets tomorrow morning, and, man, Robert Saleh was unlucky in his first camp there – a front seven that he and Joe Douglas spent reworking in the offseason has already lost both. The most important veteran plays, to Carl Lawson (for the year) and Jarrad Davis (for two months), they added in the offseason. So New York is going to need Saleh to put the defensive sense that got him the job in the first place to work.
More NFL coverage:
• Dak Prescott’s healing tour
• A preview of the 2022 NFL Quarterbacks Carousel
• Why setting up the NFL’s hottest offense is harder than you think
• Mailbag: Do you really need a mobile quarterback to win in the NFL?
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