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Now that’s weird. Normally the combine would be in a week or two. Instead, there is no combine, and we have over a month to go for the free agency. Which leaves us all in this kind of interesting vacuum, waiting for the trade and reductions to come, and the ceiling to be set. This is our backdrop for today’s MAQB …
• I really like what Washington does with its front office – endow staff with a ton of experienced hands. To me, it’s sort of taking advantage of the inefficiency in the way the NFL does business. It has been a fairly open frustration on the staff side that fired GMs don’t get a second chance like fired coaches do. Usually, a licensed coach falls back into a coordinator or assistant head coach role elsewhere and can begin to readjust their career immediately. For some reason, it rarely works that way in screening. And that means there are a lot of quality guys available. In that sense, the Washington personnel department is now run by three guys who were fired as general managers (GM Martin Mayhew, EVP Marty Hurney and director of professional screening Chris Polian), and another who was ousted in as Assistant General Manager (Senior Director of Player Personnel Eric Stokes). And since Stokes and Polian both worked with Hurney in Carolina, and Mayhew has a relationship with Ron Rivera, it’s not a random collection of names either. I like the strategy. Ultimately, if you believe the coaches benefit from the experience the second time around, so should the scouts – and, therefore, Operation WFT now has a parcel of internal institutional knowledge.
• The realization of televised offers can be considered as a formality. What will be interesting is to see what becomes of the Thursday night football package. It’s something the league has been working on with streaming services – Amazon has been streaming TNF games simultaneously for the past few years – as a kind of test to make sure it holds up. It does, and the NFL is believed to be ready to make the leap to sell rights to a streaming partner. But I’ve heard in recent months that Disney is a viable candidate for TNF also, with the idea that he could put MNF on ESPN and TNF on ABC, or vice versa, which would allow the media giant to use the NFL as a subscription hub for ESPN on the one hand, and as event programming on its live network. (It would likely drag Disney into the Super Bowl rotation as well.)
• During my long conversation with Ndamukong Suh, for our MMQB lead over the Tampa defense, he and I discussed his future. It was perfectly clear that, with his contract expiring, he wanted to keep playing and keep playing Tampa. “My goal is to come back and have the opportunity to go and win another championship,” Suh told me. “Me and Tom [Brady] spoke about this opportunity the other day, as well as with Jason Licht. I don’t know if you saw our parade celebration on this catwalk, Coach BA [Bruce Arians] said I’m not going anywhere. And he is generally a man of his word. So I look forward to continuing to play, especially in Tampa. And I honestly believe that I have a lot of elite left, a great talent to play. I’m not ready to hang them up yet. And my wife gave me the deal – that’s first and foremost, I got that permission. He laughed as he put it, but serious in the feeling that his passion for football is still burning, after 11 years in the league, and even now with an assured championship ring. And there are also family considerations. “Besides being able to still have that energy, that fire to go out there, I think the biggest thing that has driven me throughout this season has been knowing that I have twins on the way”, he said. “To be able to bring them into this world as champions, but also me to play a few years, maybe five, who knows? That they see me on the football field and that they experience that at a certain age, they will obviously be very young, come back this year. But just so they can experience and be in this environment [would be great]. In short: Suh could be around a while.
• Another thing Suh was left with that is interesting: the benefits he saw from being Brady’s teammate as a defensive player. “If you look and go back and look at all of his teams, and that’s one of the things that got me excited when he signed with us, those defenses are generally well rested,” says Suh. “Dinking and dunking, making big plays, moving the ball down and scoring points, that gives you opportunities to make one, to rest, but also to come out fresh and rush the passer. And get bags and not really have to play the race. Because most of the time teams play either from behind or neck and neck and they have to find ways to score. And most of the teams in this league want to be successful. So I was enthusiastic about his coming. And obviously his competitive advantage and the knowledge he possesses and brings to the team. I learned a lot from him during the camp which was great. And we got to know each other on a whole different level than I did, still trying to chase him down.
• We knew he’d be around for a while, but I won’t forget the Jaguars’ hiring of Ryan Stamper as director of player evaluation. He was assistant athletic director for player development under Urban Meyer at Ohio State, and played for Meyer in Florida, so he’s deep in inner circles with the new Jacksonville coach. And he’ll be the one to support Meyer’s decision making about who walks into the building (he was the guy people turned to to think about the coaching staff and front office moves in January). That is, in the end, once he gets acclimated to the NFL, I bet he becomes the guy who helps Meyer avoid situations like the one he got into with. strength trainer Chris Doyle. Like I said this morning, I can’t say whether or not Doyle deserves another chance. But it was obvious that Meyer couldn’t be the one to bring him back.
• One thing that was not said in JJ Watt demanding his release: In the climate conscious of the 2021 cap, he is very unlikely to end up winning the $ 17.5 million he was listed for. Houston this year. So by asking for his release, not looking for a business partner, he probably left money on the table. Maybe a lot.
• I found it interesting to hear the Bears’ new defensive coordinator, Sean Desai, say that the unit needs a “tune up” in 2021, not a remake. “We have a good defense,” Desai told reporters. “We have good players. There has been some regression, and we will overcome that. You would have to think of it as a selling point for both coach Matt Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace, given the pressure on both this year.
• Jalen Hurts is a pretty self-aware dude, and he’s been in sticky quarterback situations before. So I guess he didn’t get Philly receivers to meet him in Texas for training (h / t to John Clark of NBC Philly for the initial report on this) without letting the Eagles know. first. And if they signed it, it’s another sign that they’ve passed the point of no return with Carson Wentz.
• The Cardinals hired Kelly Jones as head of human resources on Monday. And while this title sounds a bit funny, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up with other teams soon. The NFL has one in Dasha Smith, and with the racial calculus we’ve been through as a country over the past year, and the workplace diversity issues that have been at the center of the NFL, the need to someone like that of the role is there for most organizations.
• RIP, Vincent Jackson. The former Chargers and Bucs wide receiver was an odd talent but also one of the few football players willing to go to the mat with a team on the commercial side of the game. Jackson missed most of the 2010 season when the team tried to use an ABC mechanism to keep it cheap, starred on the franchise label in 2011, and signed a five-year, $ 55.5 million contract with Tampa in 2012. Jackson was calm with the media, but was known as someone who stood up for his principles. Best for his family and loved ones.
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