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As much as it might seem at first glance, the NFL and NFLPA have no interest in boiling teams locally for the playoffs. It comes after the outbreak in Cleveland that left the Browns without their head coach for the franchise’s most important game in decades.
JC Tretter, the Browns center and NFLPA chairman, said on a call earlier this week that the bubble didn’t make sense to the players because the virus would spread more easily if all the players were together. This ties in with what Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, has been saying for months.
“The voluntary bubble still has the same dependence on personal responsibility that our protocols currently have. You still rely on everyone to make the right decisions outside of the facility,” Tretter said Tuesday. “A voluntary bubble really means that I will make sure I am at the hotel when I sleep at night. But when you leave the establishment, you are [hoping] guys don’t interact with people outside. I don’t think the bubble was ever an option that would have worked.
“I think if you follow the tests (Tuesday), if you play out the bubble scenario where we bubble up after our Sunday game, those five guys who tested positive today would have turned positive inside the bubble. And one of the reasons we shut down the facility to make sure we’re not all together. I would say if we were to bubble up with everything we know now and get everyone under one roof, we now have five people who are turning positive inside the bubble and I think that makes us more vulnerable to negative outcomes than separating ourselves, living far from each other and keeping as much distance as possible. “
In truth, I understood why the players didn’t want to go live in hotels in November and December. For all “the NBA did it!” talking, no one mentions how it was not during the holidays. But I was in the camp that players and coaches should say goodbye to their families for five weeks and move to the nearby Marriott until they are eliminated or win the Super Bowl.
This idea only works if there was a period of isolation built in, however. It’s too late now, but for individual bubbles to ever be an option, it would have required a one-week isolation period between week 17 and the generic weekend that would have identified and isolated all cases that occurred in the end of the regular season.
That would have pushed the Super Bowl back a week and also reduced the No. 1 seed’s advantage of getting the first-round time off (and made them wait two weeks to play.)
Players are free to move into hotels today if they wish. But I agree that if the whole team wants to bubble, they’ll have to go through a quarantine period that the weather just doesn’t allow at this point.
It is essential that the actors remain vigilant throughout these last weeks. From 27 Dec. As of Jan 2, the NFL saw 34 players testing positive for COVID-19. It’s the highest player rating in a week throughout the season, and the total of 70 players and staff who tested positive this week was the second highest for the year.
I asked NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith if the protocols in place – jointly agreed upon by the NFL and NFLPA – are working and if they should be adjusted over the course of this past month.
“Nothing can be measured against perfection,” Smith said. “We tweaked and changed our protocols throughout the season. We didn’t go into this with a one-size-fits-all model. We knew we were going to have to be malleable and somewhat flexible on what to do in what concerns protocols.
“We all heard a few weeks ago of an infectious strain identified in the UK and some reports that it is in the US Again, I am not saying this to sound the alarm. , but I’m just raising this as a fact of how often it changes the paradigm and how quickly and intelligently we have to respond to it. I think the protocols have worked really well all year, but I’m very proud of our ability to change, modify, adapt and evolve as we move forward. “
Dolphins taking another QB?
Maybe we are all bored. Maybe that’s what our industry is. But talking about Miami potentially taking a quarterback at No.3 in the April Draft was absolutely staggering to me, and I’m glad GM Chris Grier did all he could on Tuesday to take down. this madness.
I’ll put aside if it would be fair to Tua Tagovailoa for a while. I won’t even discuss whether Justin Fields or Zach Wilson or whoever is ultimately better than Tagovailoa, because I don’t even have to go.
If the Dolphins take a quarterback at No.3, it will be a colossal failure for Grier and head coach Brian Flores. They spent 2019 doing an almost perfect tank job. They spent all available waking hours evaluating the best quarterbacks in the draft. Last April, they chose Tagovailoa or Justin Herbert, and they made their choice.
They then practiced patience at the camp. They risked the goodbye locker room turmoil when they replaced Ryan Fitzpatrick with the rookie. They lived and died with the shift changes throughout the season.
If you’ve spent an entire year wasting just to position yourself in the best possible way to find your franchise quarterback, then spend an entire year building around the QB play, just to draft another one and start over, then your two seasons have been a failure. And you would admit this failure.
I’m all for coming out of a mistake too soon rather than too late, but drafting another quarterback at No.3 when Tagovailoa didn’t get a full offseason schedule (and didn’t was not healthy enough for the entire program you had.) is a sign that you screwed up.
If the Dolphins had the ability to draft Trevor Lawrence, then I’d entertain this conversation a little more. But it is not the case here. So we don’t need to go into that further.
Titans win helpless
The Tennessee Titans are in the playoffs (and organize a game!) Despite their defense. Usually you can tell a lot about a team based on their third defense and possession time. But the Titans have turned that around this season.
Tennessee ended the 2020 season by allowing the conversion of 51.9% of opposing third downs. It’s the highest rating for a team in a full season in post-merger history, surpassing the 51.7% mark set by the 1975 New York Jets. The Titans also allowed a conversion rate. 42.6% on third and seven yards or more this season. The league average was 26.4%.
Finally, the Titans had the worst possession differential of any playoff team. They finished with an average of 3 minutes and 5 seconds of negative possession gap. That’s the biggest negative differential for a team in the playoffs since the 9-7 Bills in 2017.
In last week’s win over the Texans, the Titans’ 10 best games surrendered to Houston totaled 276 yards. And now they face the Baltimore Ravens for the third time in 365 days, hoping to go 3-0 against the Ravens despite an 836-yard surrender in those previous two games.
“Obviously, not all games are reading or option-type games. But when they are, you’re going to have to be strong and there are going to be responsibilities that everyone is going to have to take on.” , Titans head coach Mike Vrabel said this week. “Because if they don’t, that’s when they take advantage of your missed mission and the quarterback takes it out, or the running back has it.” You can’t get out of the gaps. Everyone is responsible for something. But then you have to be good on the pitch. readings that are not intended to be read or option type.
“They move the ball across the pitch or it’s regular sets of spreads and so that’s the challenge, that not all games are a read. We’re going to go back and try to identify the games that we need. improve. since last time and try to be better this time. “
Super Wild Card weekend choice
I finished the regular season 173-82-1 after a 12-4 week. I’m going to take a 67.8% win percentage in a very strange NFL season. There are 13 games left to play. Let’s start.
Colts to bills
Saturday, 1:05 p.m. ET, CBS
I wrote on Sunday that I don’t think anyone is stopping the Bills from playing the Chiefs in the AFC title game. They’re at Hail Murray away from a 10-game winning streak. Let’s give Buffalo a second home playoff game next week.
The choice: Invoices
Rams at Seahawks
Saturday, 4:40 p.m. ET, Fox
With all the uncertainty swirling around the quarterback position for the Rams, how can I possibly against Russell Wilson? As usual, the Seahawks don’t look like beaters in the world, but they still won six of their last seven games. I also love the way this defense plays out.
The choice: Seahawks
Buccaneers at the football team
Saturday, 8:15 p.m. ET, NBC
What Washington has been able to do this season has been incredible. And I don’t care that they won their 16th game with Philly lying down. Like Ron Rivera said, you play what the other team puts out there. It probably won’t be a rash as Washington’s defense matches well with what the Bucs do well, and the game is being played in prime time, but I still have Tom Brady, 43, on his 42nd start in playoffs.
The choice: Buccaneers
Ravens at Titans
Sunday, 1:05 p.m. ET, ABC
See the Titans note above? At some point, luck must run out. You can’t be that bad defensively and expect to keep beating good teams. I’m going to play the odds here and bet Lamar Jackson gets his first playoff win just days after his 24th birthday.
The choice: Ravens
Bear at Saints
Sunday, 4:40 p.m. ET, CBS
I don’t really see a way for the Bears to beat the Saints here. And that means with or without Alvin Kamara. The only thing New Orleans need to do, however, is play more disciplined football on defense. Their 57 defensive penalties are tied for the top of the league, and no team this season had a greater margin with their opponents in terms of penalties and yardage than New Orleans.
The choice: The Saints
Browns at Steelers
Sunday, 8:15 p.m. ET, NBC
If the Browns had Kevin Stefanski on the sidelines, I would bring Cleveland here. I don’t think Pittsburgh will go far in the playoffs with its inability to lead football. But Stefanski is in the running for Coach of the Year for a reason, and switching players ahead of the biggest game in the last two decades for this franchise is a huge deal. The dominance of Pittsburgh continues.
The choice: Steelers
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