Tuesday Morning Quarterback: NFC Preview and Lessons from Super Bowl 51

Three of the last five Super Bowls have come down to a team simply needing to run straight ahead to nearly certain victory, and instead going pass-wacky and losing. It’s not just football coaches, but leaders and nations that often fail to take simple, obvious steps. Hillary Clinton never campaigned in Michigan or Wisconsin—what was she thinking? (Don’t answer that!) Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as a running mate over Rob Portman, though Republicans must carry Ohio to reach the White House. (Ryan didn’t even carry his home town.) The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers rather than remain neutral, and went out of existence as a result. (The Ottoman choice was to be left alone, or get cute and cease to exist.) There are countless similar examples.

Football fascinates us in part because it offers live-action test cases of decision-making under pressure. The many failed decisions in big-deal football contests are metaphors for what Barbara Tuchman called the “march of folly” that is seen in larger, more important events.

Now, to those three Super Bowls:

• In 2013, trailing 34-29, the Santa Clara 49ers—then, the San Francisco 49ers—had second-and-goal on the Baltimore 5 at the two minute warning. To that juncture they’d gained 182 yards rushing, pushing back an aging Baltimore front seven that was 20th versus the run on the season. Three straight power rushes and not only was the lead likely, the clock would move toward double-naughts and gold confetti. Instead it was incompletion, incompletion, incompletion—and the Ravens standing in a shower of purple confetti.

• In 2015, trailing 28-24, the Seahawks had second-and-goal on the New England 1 with 26 seconds remaining, holding a time out. To that juncture Seattle had rushed for 162 yards, and had the league’s top-ranked running attack that season. Two rushes straight ahead and victory was nearly assured. Instead: pass, interception.

• In 2017, leading 28-20, Atlanta had 2nd-and-11 on the New England 23 with 3:56 remaining. If the Falcons had run straight ahead twice for no gain—if Matt Ryan kneels!—seconds would tick away, then Atlanta’s Pro Bowl placekicker likely would have hit the ideal-conditions turf-surface indoor field goal, and the Patriots’ goose would have been cooked. Instead the call was not just a pass but a slow-developing pass. Ryan ran backward, away from field goal range, and was sacked. Perhaps you heard about the rest.

By the double-whistle, New England had recovered from a 3-28 deficit to win what was among the most exciting athletic events ever staged. If you didn’t enjoy that game, then you don’t like sports.

It was 3rd-and-3 when Dwight Clark hauled in “The Catch” to win the 1982 NFC Championship. Coaches have failed to recreate its magic since. Photo Credit: Walter Loose, Jr.

Lesson number one. Three of the last five Super Bowls were decided when a team that could simply have run straight ahead instead went pass-wacky. This shows that in contemporary football, rushing the ball is seen as just muscular brutes colliding, while passing success is seen as proving the coaches are geniuses. Coaches order passes when an old-fashioned fullback dive would do the trick because winning a game with a passing play will cause the coach to be lauded, the way Bill Walsh (your columnist’s favorite coach) was lauded when a goal line passing play beat the heavily favored Cowboys in the 1982 NFC title contest.

In December 2015, TMQ warned in detail in the New York Times that coaches order self-defeating passes even if simple runs would win the game. Slightly more than a year later, this cost the Falcons the Super Bowl. Maybe Atlanta coaches should have subscribed to the New York Times.

Lesson number two. Don’t blame the Falcons defense. That’s what the sportsyak world did—how could you blow a 28-3 lead? Head coach Dan Quinn scapegoated defensive coordinator Richard Smith, firing him after the game. Strange that Quinn did not fire the guy who made the Falcons’ defensive decisions in the Super Bowl. Oh wait, that was Quinn, who’d taken over defensive playcalling from Smith heading into Christmas. What a surprise Quinn did not fire himself!

Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan is the one who should have borne the blame. There was nothing wrong with the Atlanta defensive fronts. Falcon defenders were simply outplayed in the second half, while the luck changed: In the first half the ball bounced Atlanta’s way, in the second half it bounced New England’s way. Shanahan was the one who made the knucklehead tactical decisions.

One of Tuesday Morning Quarterback’s immutable laws is: Defense starts comebacks, offense stops them. The Super Bowl comeback began when the New England defense shut Atlanta out after the 28-3 lead was reached in the third quarter, the Patriots allowing just three first downs from that juncture. The Atlanta offense, first-ranked in the league entering the Super Bowl, could have stopped the Flying Elvii comeback, but did not.

Once it was 28-9 late in the third quarter, Atlanta ball in New England territory following a recovered onside kick, all Atlanta needed was a field goal to make the margin impossible to overcome. Merely keeping the clock moving would have placed the cherry atop the sundae. From the juncture of the 28-9 lead, Kyle Shanahan called 12 passes and five rushes. The result was two sacks, a turnover on a called pass, and incompletions that stopped the clock. Shanahan should have been the one fired. Wait, he couldn’t be fired, because during the runup to the Super Bowl he had negotiated with the 49ers to become their next coach. Then by the strangest and most amazing coincidence, his head didn’t seem in the game at the Super Bowl.

Lesson number three. Tom Brady is 5-2 in the Super Bowl , a certain first-ballot Hall of Fame entrant, and in the conversation for best football player ever. But had Seattle and Atlanta simply run the ball up the middle when doing so was totally obvious, Brady would be 3-4 in the Super Bowl and spoken about as if he were LeBron James: really good, but often stopped with the title on the line. The plays that differentiate Brady between best-ever and mild-disappointment happened when Brady wasn’t even on the field! Greek playwrights would understand.

Now, the Tuesday Morning Quarterback NFC preview.

Arizona. The Cactus Wrens opened 2016 by missing a field goal to win in the closing seconds—against New England, which would begin and conclude its season with last-second victories against NFC clubs.

Nearing Christmas 2015, Arizona seemed the NFL’s hot ticket, with a 13-2 record and great stats on both sides of the ball. Then it was aye caramba, a run of 2-5. That season, Arizona averaged a league-leading 420 offensive yards gained through its first 15 games; then, in its final regular season contest and two postseason outings, the Cardinals averaged 296 yards, below the league-worst 297 yards averaged by the Rams. The Cardinals turned the ball over 24 times in the regular season, or 1.5 turnovers per game, then in the 2016 postseason committed nine turnovers, or 4.5 per game. Carson Palmer staged a meltdown in the 2016 NFC title contest versus Carolina, throwing four interceptions and dropping two fumbles. At one juncture in the game, Arizona committed turnovers on four consecutive possessions. Last season the Cactus Wrens seemed shell-shocked from the collapse, finishing 7-9. The lore of bad predictions is long and storied. Among them is the summer 2016 Sports Illustrated prediction that Arizona would win the Super Bowl. Instead, the Cardinals did not reach the playoffs.

Is the problem Carson Palmer? In his career Palmer is a regular season winner, but 1-3 in the postseason. Is the problem that after the Cubbies overcame the Curse of the Billy Goat to win the World Series, Chicago sports negativity is now transferred to Arizona? This franchise began as the Chicago Cardinals. The Cardinals last title was in 1947: They rival the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth for longest streak since winning everything.

Headed west to start a new life. And maybe inflict sports misery.

Atlanta. From the moment at which Atlanta led by 25 points till the moment New England tied the Super Bowl, the Falcons took just six minutes off clock. Rather than slow the pace with leisurely huddles followed by runs, Kyle Shanahan kept Atlanta in the hurry-up. Atlanta was snapping with 15 seconds remaining on the play clock—saving time for New England’s comeback! As the Patriots crept closer, the Falcons staged possessions of just 2:15, 1:20, and 2:26. There were 60 seconds remaining in regulation when the Flying Elvii tied the score. Atlanta could have drilled those 60 seconds off the clock by slowing the pace of its offense, while switching from the pass to the run. Shanahan did not change tactics, and Dan Quinn did not instruct him to. Neither man was held accountable, while the defensive coordinator was scapegoated and fired.

Leading 28-12 with 8:31 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Falcons faced 3rd-and-1. Not only did Shanahan call a pass, he called a deep-drop pass that required Matt Ryan to sprint backward—and with the defense expecting run, it wasn’t a play fake, just a regular dropback from a three-wide passing set. In this situation, the Patriots would have had a fullback on the field, to ensure Tom Brady remained upright. Atlanta’s fullback was on the sideline watching as Ryan was decked and lost a fumble. A moment later the lead was down to 28-20. Yours truly is not exaggerating when I say that if Ryan had simply knelt on this play, a Super Bowl win would have been all but assured: The clock would have kept ticking while the punt cost New England field position rather than Brady taking possession with a stopped clock on the Atlanta 25.

On the next Atlanta series, Ryan hit a spectacular pass to Julio Jones. Atlanta had 1st-and-10 on the NFL 22 with 4:40 remaining. Three dives straight ahead for no gain, followed by a field goal, and Atlanta leads by 11 points just before the two minute warning, a margin and clock situation nearly impossible to overcome. Quinn should have instructed Shanahan: rushing plays only. Meanwhile right tackle Ryan Schraeder had hobbled off injured. In trots Tom Compton, a career backup who had never started for the Falcons. With an inexperienced blocker into the game cold, don’t create the circumstances for loss of yardage! Instead Ryan sprints backward and is sacked. Soon it’s 3rd-and-23 and the Falcons are called for offensive holding, stopping the clock. Atlanta ends up punting from the New England 45, not only having marched backward, but taken less than a minute off the clock after reaching the New England 22.

TMQ thought New England’s Trey Flowers, not cover-model Brady, should have been the Super Bowl MVP. Flowers recorded 2.5 sacks and drew the holding penalty at 3:50 of the fourth quarter that was the contest’s key clock stoppage. Flowers also drew an earlier second-half offensive hold, which also stopped the clock, and which turned a 3rd-and-1 into 3rd-and-11. When a front seven guy draws offensive holding, it has the same field position impact as a sack, though it doesn’t appear in fantasy stats or boost contract offers.

Among the many amazing numbers of this remarkable contest was that New England snapped the ball 93 times and made 37 first downs, while Atlanta snapped 46 times and made 17 first downs. Because the Patriots led only once, on the final play, to some it felt Atlanta “deserved” to win. But it ain’t over till it’s over—late scoring plays by the trailing team count just as much as early scoring plays by the team that takes an initial lead. By the end, New England had dominated the game statistically.

Will the Falcons get their grove back and perform well in 2017? A collapse would not come as a shock. They start the season with a new TMQ cognomon: the Atlanta Epic Fails.

Carolina. Cam Newton began last season with a chip on his shoulder because of officiating, and with reason. Though bad officiating had been a storyline of the 2015 season, when the Broncos and Panthers met in the Super Bowl, zebra blunders were, strangely, overlooked. Both Denver touchdowns in the game came on plays that involved significant no-calls benefitting Denver. In the first quarter, Von Miller hit Newton in the head, causing the Newton fumble the Broncos recovered for a touchdown. In the fourth quarter, Denver should have been called for batting during the down that resulted in a Broncos fumble recovery at the Carolina 4 yard line, positioning Denver for another six. (Batting is an obscure penalty but is in the rulebook—and Denver did exactly what the batting rule is intended to prevent: slapped a loose ball toward the opponent’s goal line.) Had flags flown as they should have, rather than Denver recording a touchdown in the first instance, the Panthers would have had a first down; instead of first-and-goal Denver on the Carolina 4 in the second instance, it would’ve been down over.

Newton’s chip-on-the-shoulder seemed to throw him off, but he had a point: NFL officials let defenders hit his head in ways they would never let defenders hit Aaron Rodgers or Eli Manning. Is this disparity racial, as Newton implied? TMQ thinks the key is that to officials, Newton looks like a fullback. Quarterbacks receive special protection only when in a passer stance. When Rodgers and Manning become runners, they clearly are headed toward the sideline, and plans to slide if confronted. Newton puts his shoulder down and runs like Marion Motley. This aspect of his game seems to carry over to how zebras officiate the downs on which Newton does not become a runner. And no matter how big and strong any player is, getting hammered hurts. In his first two playoff games that followed the 2015 season, Newton was hit only three times, and performed very well. In the Super Bowl the Broncos hit him 12 times; he lost two fumbles and threw 23 incompletions.

Former Cleveland Browns fullback Marion Motley, who lowered his shoulder and the boom on defenders decades before Cam Newton was even in diapers. Credit: NFL Films

Carolina’s 6-10 record in 2016 knocked the team off the radar. Did the departure of Josh Norman cripple the Cats, as some contended? Sans Norman, Carolina dropped from sixth in defense in 2015 to 21st in 2016. But the Washington franchise, where Norman now tapes his ankles, was 28th in defense in 2016, so maybe Norman was not that important to either team. When the Panthers released Norman in winter 2016, they seemed to calculate that the third-round draft selection they expected from the NFL’s recondite free agency compensation process exceeded Norman’s trade value. Carolina General Manager Dave Gettleman, the one who gave Norman cab fare to the airport, was fired this summer, perhaps because league insiders feel that even if Norman is overrated, he could have drawn a nicer price than Gettleman surrendered him for.

Missing from the Carolina offense has been the third-down tailback who can catch swing passes, or split in five-wide formations. A pass-catching tailback is essential to the New England offense, as James White showed in the Super Bowl. The Panthers used the draft’s eighth selection on Stanford tailback Christian McCaffrey, a player the Packers, Patriots, and other sophisticated teams coveted. (Bill Belichick traded his first-round choice when he concluded there was no way McCaffrey would still be around at selection number 32.) Did the Panthers seriously employ the eighth-overall pick on a situation-substitution guy? Carolina may find of McCaffrey that they “can’t keep him off the field,” as the saying goes. Louis Riddick noted on ESPN’s draft coverage that McCaffrey had to run well for scouts, to overcome the notion that white players cannot be really fast. McCaffrey is really fast. At the combine he posted a 6.57 in the three cone drill, which is a great number, if absurdly hyper-specific.

Chicago. In the NFL and NBA drafts, the Bears and Bulls combined to surrender the third overall football choice, the 17th overall basketball choice, various “second day” draft selections, and All-Star Jimmy Butler for Mitch Trubisky, a couple of guys who never play, and a Finnish dude named Lauri. The deals had patrons of Chicago sports bars crying in their Goose Island Green Line Ale.

As to the Bulls’ transaction, your guess is as good as mine. The Bears’ move was puzzling to the team’s faithful. Since the draft began with Santa Clara choosing second and Chicago selecting third, and the 49ers not planning to pick Trubisky (else they would not have traded), Chicago’s move-up for the second choice made sense only if Santa Clara had an offer to swap the pick to someone else. If there was no such offer, the Bears were fleeced.

Should Trubisky become a star, no one will give a fig about the draft choices the Bears expended. Can he become a star? The more college starts a quarterback has, the better his NFL odds. Trubisky made just 13 college starts, which included a loss to Duke—not to Duke basketball, to Duke’s 4-8 football squad.

The previous time the NFL draft featured a third-for-second flip-flop in order to choose a quarterback was in 1998, when San Diego, slated to pick third, flopped with Arizona, slated to pick second. To do that the Chargers surrendered a first-round choice, a second-round choice, and a Pro Bowl player—substantially more than the mid-round picks and no player Chicago surrendered to Santa Clara. After the 1998 flip-flop, the Chargers chose Ryan Leaf. Let’s hope this does not jinx Trubisky—or that his luck with injuries will not be as bad as was Leaf’s. (Those who mock Leaf as a bust skip the injury aspect.) From Chicago’s standpoint, the move-up was much cheaper than the similar 1998 move-up.

The sportsyak world was perplexed that the Bears would make a huge move for a quarterback hard upon signing Mike Glennon to what was announced as a $45 million contract. The “$45 million contract” is really a one-year rent-to-own deal—the Bears can waive Glennon after the 2017 season without owing him anything. If the Bears keep Glennon, causing the $45 million to become guaranteed, that will be a bad sign about Trubisky.

At the close of the 2016 season, head coach John Fox declared the Bears are “closer than people think.” Which could be true, considering what people think.

The Football Gods Chortled. Packers at Bears tied with a few ticks remaining in regulation last December, John Fox declined a 10-second runoff against Green Bay, hoping to force overtime. Instead Aaron Rodgers hit a 60-yard pass on the extra down and Green Bay kicked the winning field goal as time expired.

City of Tampa. Long a plodding team, the Buccaneers may have the league’s best receiver corps this season with Mike Evans, DeSean Jackson, and rookie tight end O.J. Howard. Because the tight end position in the pros is very different from the position in college, high-drafted tight ends often take several seasons to catch on. If Howard is merely okay as a rookie, the Bucs could become difficult to defend.

Plus you’ve got to love a team that starts a guy from Hobart. At the Division III school, Ali Marpet faced off against the likes of Brockport and Endicott College. This year his opponents will be the Patriots, Packers, and Giants. Whatever.

Former City of Tampa head coach Greg Schiano, now an assistant at Ohio State, did Florida no favors by saying this year’s Buckeyes front seven will be better than the defensive front of the Buccaneers, who finished 22nd last season versus the run, and received little in the way of offseason reinforcements: mainly defensive lineman Chris Baker signed from Washington, which last season could not stop the run either. TMQ wonders what Schiano is doing at Ohio State in the first place. At Tampa, Schiano coached his defense to attempt to injure opponents during kneel-downs, then compounded the sin by lying about it—scan for his name here. Schiano exhibits low character. Doesn’t Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer claim to extol character?

Dallas. Star tailback Ezekiel Elliott is suspended for the first six games of the season, and the mutual recriminations have become difficult to follow. Elliott was accused of domestic violence, but never criminally charged. Whether this means he was falsely accused, or that he got special treatment as a football star, is unknown and possibly unknowable. Since there has been no finding by any judge or jury, sportsyak commentary whether for or against Elliott comes from people who have no way of knowing what’s what. TMQ sure has no way. While this process sorts itself out, TMQ recommends two recent, deeply disturbing looks into the manner in which many people are treated by prosecutors. In the New York Times Magazine, Emily Bazelon detailed the case of a woman who served nine years in prison after prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence. In The Atlantic, Emily Yoffe shows the legal system increasingly all but compels the accused to accept plea bargains, regardless of guilt.

On a lighter note, the Cowboys have a new slogan for 2017. Steelers fans think opponents are afraid of towels. Maybe opponents will be afraid of the Boys’ slogan.

Since defeating the Steelers in the 1996 Super Bowl, the Cowboys are on a 3-9 stretch in the postseason, including 0-5 in the divisional round. Last year, did the Cowboys have the kind of Authentic season that positions them for better things in 2017? Only three of the Boys’ 13 victories came versus teams that made the playoffs.

Coached by a Princeton grad, the Boys continue to exhibit low football IQ. Dez Bryant said that last season in a 17-15 victory over Minnesota, the Cowboys recorded a long touchdown on a stop-and-go move because they knew Vikings’ safety Harrison Smith likes to jump short routes. Now the Cowboys can’t use this ploy should Dallas and Minnesota meet in the playoffs. The info was not a leak to ESPN— rather, it was posted on the Cowboys’ website.

Detroit. TMQ tracks Authentic Games, a concept to be introduced as the season progresses. The Lions of 2016 were inauthentic, finishing 0-6 against teams that reached the postseason. Detroit made the playoffs—though had the NFL’s new 10-minute regular-season overtime rule been in effect, if all else equal, City of Tampa would have gotten the final invitation card, rather than the Lions.

Marvin Lewis of Cincinnati, Mike Zimmer of Minnesota (see below), and Jim Caldwell of Detroit are the NFL’s fraidy-cat head coaches, favoring the “safe” over the bold. The Lions have not won a title since the Eisenhower presidency; Detroit is on a 0-9 postseason steak; and yet in last season’s wild-card contest at Seattle, down by 13 points midway through the fourth quarter, facing the NFL’s hardest team to defeat on the road, Caldwell had the Lions punt from midfield. Who cares if it was 4th-and-10? (Who cares if it was fourth-and-99?) The situation was win-or-go-home, and Caldwell was content to go home.

Lions head coach Jim Caldwell has been in a staring contest since “My Guy” topped the Billboard charts.

In recent campaigns the Lions, who perform indoors, have been pass-wacky—last season, throwing on 60 percent of snaps. Throwing works in Detroit’s climate-controlled dome. When the Lions go outside after the weather turns, it’s another story. Last season the Lions opened 9-4 and closed 0-4, with outdoor cold-weather losses at Jersey/A and Seattle, in which Detroit rushed for just 105 yards combined.

The 2014 NFL draft saw picks two and 44 used on SEC star left tackles Greg Robinson and Cyrus Kouandjio. Both were major busts, for the Rams and Bills, respectively, and both are now on the Detroit depth chart, hoping to sustain their careers. Both played almost entirely three-point-stance in college; both will be almost entirely two-point for the Lions. The distinction is more important than it may sound.

Hidden Plays of Super Bowl LI. Hidden plays are ones that never make highlight reels, but stop or sustain drives.

In the Patriots’ improbable comeback, hidden plays began before the kickoff. Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan went upstairs to a skybox, where he was physically isolated during the fourth quarter disaster. New England’s coordinators were on the sideline, where they always are. From a skybox coaches get a clear view of the safeties, who can be hard to see from the sideline; but on the sideline, coaches can talk to players as they come off the field. Players often have a better sense of what’s working and what isn’t than coaches in a skybox—that’s why Bill Belichick keeps his coordinators on the sideline. (This is another of the many instances in which the rest of the league should simply observe Belichick and copy him.) Had Shanahan been on the sideline in the fourth quarter, players would have come up to him and said: Man, just let us run the ball. Sealed in a skybox, Shanahan got no feedback.

During last preseason, Belichick, who normally holds cards close to his vest, mused that the new touchback rule—a kickoff downed in the end zone comes out to the 25—would cause teams to become lazy about receiving kickoffs, because they’d be happy with drive starts at the 25. Pooch kicks aimed at the opponent’s five yard line could catch teams off-guard, Belichick said. Through the second half comeback, New England onside kicked once; all other kickoffs were pooches aimed at the Atlanta five, and the Falcons were unprepared. The result was Atlanta second-half drive starts at the 10, 11, 19, and 27—a huge win for New England in field-position terms. The drive start at the 11 came after the Flying Elvii tied the game with 52 seconds in regulation. Had the Falcons gotten a decent return, they had a good shot at a field goal to win as time expired. Instead they were stuck on their 11,unprepared for a tactic the opponent’s coach openly discussed!

Another hidden play occurred in the first half. Atlanta scored to take a 13-0 lead; New England was penalized before the PAT kick. The Falcons could have elected to line up for a deuce and enforce the penalty from there, with the ball advanced to New England’s 1. Atlanta had the league’s best offense in 2016, and as Jimmy Johnson used to say, “If you’re afraid to try for one single yard then you don’t belong in the Super Bowl.” Dan Quinn chose to take the penalty on the PAT kick spot, essentially throwing away a yellow flag—and a chance for an additional point. Don’t you think Atlanta would have liked one additional point when the Flying Elvii tied game in final minute of regulation? A failed deuce in this situation still would have left Atlanta up 13-0; a successful deuce, for a 15-0 lead, might have demoralized even the hard-as-nails Patriots.

A hidden play of the Super Bowl occurred two months before the contest was played. During December, the Chiefs visited Atlanta in what some felt was a Super Bowl preview. Scoring to go ahead 28-27 late in the fourth quarter, Atlanta went for two: The call was pass, intercepted by the Chiefs’ Eric Berry, returned the length of the field for a defensive deuce that gave Kansas City a 29-28 victory. Sportsyak obsessed about whether Atlanta should have settled for the singleton PAT. Belichick and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, who study film as do no others, surely noted from this moment that when all football logic says run, Kyle Shanahan called a pass. In the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, when all football logic said Atlanta should run, New England was in a pass defense.

The worst hidden play of the Super Bowl was by Atlanta owner Arthur Blank. Early in the fourth quarter he came down to the Falcons sideline and began wandering around, waving to the cameras, shaking hands as if the Lombardi Trophy was already won. New England owner Robert Kraft remained in his box until the double-whistle sounded; had Kraft come down to the sideline, Belichick would have thrown him off. Blank on the Atlanta sideline acting like the game was over—while distracting players and coaches—was as if he’d begged the football gods to smite him. And yea, verily, it came to pass that he was smote.

Atlanta Falcons owner and apparent bad omen Arthur Blank shakes hands with linebacker LaRoy Reynolds prior to Super Bowl 51. Photo Credit: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Green Bay. Packers loyalists fulminate against head coach Mike McCarthy, who is viewed with disenchantment despite a Super Bowl ring and nine postseason appearances in 11 seasons. But he has Aaron Rodgers! He has Lambeau Field, the greatest weapon in sports! We should win the Super Bowl every year! That’s the Green Bay faithful’s view. There are numerous Power Five college programs—Alabama, Ohio State, LSU, Florida State, Oklahoma, Miami, Texas, USC—where fans think anything else than a championship is a gigantic letdown. The Packers are the NFL equivalent.

McCarthy must be doing something right: His 10 playoff victories are tied for third among active coaches. But more than once, McCarthy’s faintheartedness has held the Pack back. Green Bay’s loss of a 19-7 second-half lead versus Seattle in the 2015 NFC title contest was the NFL’s biggest collapse till New England met Atlanta. In the 2015 NFC title, four times the Packers faced 4th-and-1 and four times McCarthy sent out a kicking unit. Had he gone for it even once, Green Bay all but certainly would have advanced to the Super Bowl. Green Bay returned to the NFC title game last January, and McCarthy’s preference for “safe” tactics came along on the team plane. With Atlanta leading 31-0 in the second half, when Green Bay finally scored, McCarthy did not go for two, though points at that juncture were vital, and he did not order an onside kick. Maybe this was because everybody knows it’s impossible to overcome a big Atlanta second-half lead.

The Packers under Rodgers have had consistent offensive line instability, and this year is no different. T. J. Lang was lost to free agency, and Bryan Bulaga was hurt in the preseason. When Karl Malone and John Stockton retired from the Utah Jazz, team management lamented that it should have tried harder to surround them with quality teammates; when Rodgers retires, Green Bay management may lament not trying harder to protect him with top-notch linemen.

Should the Packers reach the playoffs that follow this season, taverns and barbershops in central Wisconsin will dread the word “overtime”—Green Bay is on a 0-4 streak in postseason overtime games.

There are more than 200 college football contests each weekend in autumn in our great nation. Every year a few cause one to say, “Man, I wish I’d been at that game.” Among them was the September 2016 day, in Provo, Utah, that ended BYU 55, Toledo 53, the hosts kicking the winning field goal as time expired. Logan Woodside of Toledo threw for 505 yards and five touchdowns—and the wonderfully named Rockets lost, placing Woodside into TMQ’s coveted 500 Club. Jamaal Williams of BYU ran for 286 yards, with a 9.5 yard-per-carry average. Keep your eye on Williams now that he’s at Green Bay.

By This Standard, the Tuesday Morning Quarterback Era Rivals the Hapsburg Empire. When Sean Spicer resigned, Fox News ran a chyron declaring THE SPICER ERA. Six months becomes an era! A week later, Reince Priebus resigned: CBS Radio reported “the end of the Priebus era.” That era lasted a full week longer than the Spicer Era. Another week later Anthony Scaramucci resigned, and the Washington Post headlined, “An Oral History of the Scaramucci Era.” An “era” that lasted 11 days gets a “history!” Regrettably, not compiled by monks.

Graham Allison’s terrific new book Destined for War quips that USA should stand for the “United States of Amnesia” since American voters and writers possess so little sense of perspective on the recent past, to say nothing of history.

Jersey/A. Odell Beckham, Jr., spent considerable offseason time complaining about NFL stars not being paid like NBA stars. Though the NFL has higher revenues than the NBA, it also has 53-man rosters versus the 13-man rosters in pro basketball, so the long division suggests that . . . oh, never mind. For his part, Beckham honked last season’s playoffs, considering his party life more important than preparing for Green Bay. Here is actual footage of Odell Beckham Jr., before the Giants’ postseason trip to the Packers. Here are a few of his drops.

Football is a team game, and the entire G-Men team performed poorly at Green Bay. As did the coaching staff. Coach Ben McAdoo twice ordered punts in Packers territory. TMQ not only contends football teams shouldn’t punt so much—also, that going for it and failing can be better than punting, as this sends the message that the coach is challenging his players to win. From the juncture at which the Pack went for it on 4th-and-1 in its own territory and failed, Green Bay outscored the visitors 24-7. From the point at which Jersey/A punted on 4th-and-1 from the Green Bay 41—ye gods, don’t get me started.

The Giants’ passing defense improved tremendously in 2016: just 15 touchdown passes allowed, a top-shelf stat, as opposed to 31 allowed the season before. This was a factor in Jersey/A’s improvement against the team’s rivals from the Lone Star State: The Giants are on a 3-0 streak versus Dallas, a big change from the 0-5 streak that came before.

Super Bowl teams aren’t the only ones that toss nutty passes when simply running straight ahead is advised. During the 2015 season, not once, not twice, but thrice the Giants lost games by putting the ball in the air near the opponent’s goal line in endgame situations when a rush all but certainly would have meant victory. Beginning last season, Jersey/A fielded a six-person “game management” committee to prevent botched endings. A football team needs six guys to decide to run up the middle in clock-killer situations? Maybe Atlanta’s problem was no game management committee!

Who Do You Call in L.A. to Get Ventura Boulevard Closed? Often there is a Song of the Summer: the tune that was pounding out of boom boxes at the beach, or squelching from speaker towers at the waterside watering hole where bartenders hustled to produce trays of frozen blueberry-almond daiquiris. Hearing that tune brings to mind the lazy hazy crazy days of a particular summer.

Memorable past Songs of the Summer include Beyoncé /Jay-Z’s “Crazy in Love” in 2003, Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” in 2008, “Blurred Lines” in 2013. Last summer’s song was “One Dance” by Drake. The ultimate August tune is the Beach Boys’ 1964 All Summer Long.

TMQ’s nominee for Song of the Summer 2017 is “Want You Back,” from Haim. This number has just the right dash of frothy upbeat, plus it’s fun that an indie girl-pop group had sufficient clout to get Ventura Boulevard shut down for shooting the music video.

What’s your Song of the Summer 2017? Tweet it to me @EasterbrookG, and include your name and hometown if you want to be quoted in the column.

Los Angeles Rams. The Browns may be hoarding draft picks the way Scrat hoards acorns. The Rams, by contrast, have been spending like there’s no tomorrow. Since 2013 this wandering franchise has invested a net of three first-round draft choices, four second-round choices, and two third-round selections, plus a starting player (E.J. Gaines), to acquire quarterback Jared Goff and wide receivers Tavon Austin and Sammy Watkins. Yet will Los Angeles have good passing stats? Will all three of these guys ever start the same game? The Rams further used their top two selections of the 2017 draft on receivers, bringing the total recent investment in the ability to “hurl that spheroid down the field” to three number-ones, five number-twos, and three number-threes. Sure the NFL has become a passing league, but who’s going to block? Play defense?

“Just know that I want you back”—lyrics from Haim or Rams fans pleading to the goddess of victory? LA/A hasn’t finished over .500 since 2003.

Perhaps the Rams could not resist spending all the picks that were burning a hole in their pocket following the Robert Griffin III mega-trade. Here is the bottom line of that transaction: Five years later Washington has nothing, while the Rams have Michael Brockers and Alex Ogletree, plus a 2018 sixth-round draft choice.

Between frequent big trades and regular losing seasons, the Rams have dominated football draft coverage, though not in a good way. This franchise has chosen first or second overall in five of last 10 drafts. Those high selections include busts Jason Smith and Greg Robinson, while high picks Sam Bradford, Chris Long, and Tavon Austin were not what the Rams hoped for. In summer 2016, then-coach Jeff Fisher approved a megabucks contract extension for Austin, seeming to want to justify having traded so many picks for him. Austin responded by finishing third on his own team in receiving.

But he was a perfect fit for the Rams management system, considering Fisher himself received a megabucks contract extension in December, then was fired a week later. At least Rams punter Johnny Hekker was proficient—and with an awful offense, the Rams punted an awful 98 times.

LA/A footnote: early in the offseason the team signed wide receiver Robert Woods, who wanted to escape from the shadow of Sammy Watkins at Buffalo. In August, the Rams traded for Watkins, placing Woods back in his shadow. This is a little like when the manager told Wally Pipp, “Sure, you can have the day off, I’ll sub in the guy who never plays, that Lou Gehrig.”

Minnesota. Last season Minnesota opened 5-0: its faithful were whispering the S-word. Then the Hyperboreans stumbled to 3-8 for the remainder of the campaign. Contrast to the Packers and Steelers, which endured losing streaks, then were hitting on all eight cylinders—soon this cliché will be changed to “hitting on all 375 volts”—when it mattered. Often the NFL comes down to who’s playing best after Halloween. Minnesota was not: During a 1-6 stretch, the team was unwatchable.

Why did the Vikings collapse? Minnesotans were tempted to blame late arrival Sam Bradford, who had, after all, been shown the door by two other NFL teams in rapid succession. Increasingly Bradford feels like Drew Bledsoe: impressive, athletic, a first-chosen quarterback who does many things well but practically has the phrase “yeah, but . . .” painted on his helmet. Bradford set a Minnesota record with 71.6 percent completions last season, yet his year is viewed as disappointing.

Absence of a running game was an obvious problem. Minnesota finished last in rushing, its leading rusher gaining 539 yards; Tyrod Taylor, a quarterback, ran for more yards last season. But poor rushing stats need not be a fatal flaw—in 2011 the Giants finished last in rushing, then won the Super Bowl.

There’s something wrong with the vibe of this team. In January 2016, the Vikings lost a playoff game at home—the contest in which 88-year-old Bud Grant walked out to midfield in a short-sleeved shirt, at minus-6 degrees, for the coin toss—when the normally reliable Blair Walsh honked a short field goal attempt as time expired. Afterward head coach Mike Zimmer blamed Walsh for the loss, throwing him under the bus. In the contemporary NFL, “win as a team lose as a team” often means “if we win the coach takes the credit if we lose the players are at fault.” Then midway through the next season, offensive coordinator Norv Turner up and quit.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback doesn’t like the skittish tactics preferred by Zimmer. Last Thanksgiving, with Minnesota leading 13-10 with 5 minutes remaining at Detroit, Zimmer sent out the punt unit on 4th-and-inches from midfield. That’s all the information you need in order to know who won the game. Zimmer, Jim Caldwell, and Marvin Lewis are the NFL’s most timid coaches in terms of tactical decision-making, so perhaps it is no coincidence they are a combined 2-12 in the postseason.

Break-the-Boredom Draft Trade. As the draft was drawing to a close, Washington sent picks 201 and 220 to Minnesota for picks 199 and 230. This transaction is all but certain never to have any impact on either team’s record, but gave the many coaches of the R*dsk*ns and many coaches of the Vikings something to do, which justified their expense accounts for the day.

Philadelphia. The Eagles might have had a compressor stall last season, with a 0-5 streak beginning Thanksgiving week. (Compressor stall, get the aviation reference? To Eagles? Sorry.) But TMQ loves him some Doug Pederson, who had his charges go for it on fourth down a league-leading 27 times. A Cosby-trial-bus-ride away, the Steelers led the league in two-point attempts, with nine deuce tries. Is there something in the Pennsylvania water? Maybe a secret ingredient in Yuengling? If so, I want some for all my generals! (Okay, enough references for one graf.)

Bottles of Pennsylvania thinking juice are pictured.

The Nesharim business office has been busy as the team unloaded players associated with Chip Kelly. Marcus Smith II, Kelly’s first-round draft pick in 2014, was given the heave-ho, and is now trying to restart his career in Seattle—Philadelphia got nothing for him. Philadelphia let Bennie Logan, a Kelly third-round pick who seemed pretty good, go for another serving of nothing. Netting multiple transactions the Eagles traded LeSean McCoy, Jordan Mathews, Eric Rowe, Byron Maxwell, Nick Foles, a first-round draft choice, and four second- or third-round choices for Carson Wentz, Ron Darby, and several “third day” (fourth rounds or lower) picks.

Eagles’ faithful went a little overboard when Wentz led the team to a 3-0 start in 2016; that sure did not last. Wentz’s first challenge in 2017 will be to avoid the sophomore slump. This column is rooting for Wentz, who did not start until he was a senior in high school, and never went to a quarterback camp—which the Washington Post’s superb Adam Kilgore shows are mostly either con jobs or actively harmful. The “Rivals Effect”—high school kids, and their parents, obsessed with Rivals star rankings, which have almost nothing to do with later NFL success—is definitely harmful. That’s another TMQ topic to be developed in detail during the season. Another reason to root for Wentz is that Rivals did not rank him at all, and he ended up drafted ahead of hundreds of five- and four-star guys.

Adventures in Officiating. The 2016 Super Bowl between Carolina and Denver may have been decided by botched no-calls; so too, perhaps, for the Atlanta New England Super Bowl. With the Epic Fails leading 28-20 at 3:50 in the fourth quarter, Atlanta was called for holding—as the zebras did not flag an obvious facemasking by New England on the same down. Had the facemask been called, the result would have been offsetting penalties, Atlanta replays the down from the New England 35—which is field goal range indoors on turf. Instead Atlanta punted from the 45. Consecutive NFL seasons have concluded with a major botched call in the Super Bowl. You can’t bring in those full-time officials soon enough for TMQ.

Arguably it’s three consecutive seasons with a major botched call in the Super Bowl. With 20 seconds remaining in Seattle versus New England, the Patriots, leading by four points, needed to snap from their own 1 yard line, which is too close to kneel. The Blue Men Group was called for offside; moving the spot to the New England 6 enabled Tom Brady to kneel to conclude the contest. But New England should have been flagged for simulating the snap to draw Seattle offside. Had a yellow hankie fluttered, Bill Belichick might have been forced to take a deliberate safety then free kick, giving Seattle two snaps in which to try for field goal position and victory. Going into the next season, the NFL quietly made simulating the snap an officiating “point of emphasis”—too late to help Seattle.

New Orleans. In recent campaigns, the Saints have been the Texas Tech of the NFL: high-scoring games with lots of offense and no defense. Last season New Orleans led the league in yards gained, but was 27th in yards allowed. Last season New Orleans posted point totals of 32, 32, and 34 in games the Saints lost; the other guys hung 35, 38, and 45. Regularly scoring more than 30 points yet losing is not great news. Because defense usually trumps offense in football—in the Super Bowl, New England’s number-one defense bested Atlanta’s number-one offense—the Saints’ Texas Tech-style formula generates entertainment but not playoff invitations, with three consecutive sub-.500 seasons.

New Orleans’ defensive statistics are not for the faint of heart. In 2015, the Saints allowed an all-time worst 45 touchdown passes, more than triple the 14 touchdown passes allowed by Seattle that season. This happened with the buffoonish Rob Ryan as defensive coordinator. Saints defensive backs looked dazed much of the time, turning to shout at each other during plays; Ryan had trouble getting signals in, though no trouble locating the network cameras along the sideline. All these problems repeated in 2016 in Buffalo under Ryan. Sans Ryan, New Orleans’ touchdown passes allowed declined to 27, but that was still more than twice as many allowed by Denver. The Saints’ ability to stop the pass must improve or it will be the fourth consecutive entertaining, losing season.

Before the draft, New Orleans traded wide receiver Brandin Cooks to New England for the first-round draft selection used on left tackle Ryan Ramczyk. It was one of the many offseason smooth moves that strengthened the defending champions, Cooks giving the Flying Elvii offense the one thing absent from the roster: deep speed. From the New Orleans standpoint, the snazzy performance of rookie wideout Michael Thomas made the trade feasible, while desire to protect Drew Brees, prolonging his career, made a better offensive line a priority. A Ramczyk factoid: He attended four colleges, including Division III Wisconsin Stevens Point, where he performed in the Spud Bowl, sponsored by local potato farmers.

Super Bowl Harmonic Convergence. The 2017 Super Bowl saw Atlanta lose offensive lineman Ryan Schaefer to a second-half injury, then lose the title. The 2016 Super Bowl saw the Panthers lose offensive linemen Andrew Norwell to a second-half injury, then lose the title. The 2015 Super Bowl saw the Seahawks lose defensive lineman Cliff Abril to a second-half injury, then lose the title. Network announcers don’t care about linemen—but all three injuries did as much harm to the runners-up as anything that happened to any star player.

Santa Clara. Kyle Shanahan coached Kirk Cousins in Washington, and is known to like the Michigan State quarterback. Cousins did not sign a long-term deal this offseason. Maybe that’s yet another bollixed personnel move by the odious Chainsaw Dan Snyder, but Cousins also seemed content to seek 2018 free agency. In turn, the 49ers are hoarding salary cap space for 2018. One need not be Nostradamus to suppose that after the current season concludes, Cousins and Shanahan will be reunited, while Chainsaw Dan once again is left looking like a cartoon character who just realized the bridge over the canyon has disappeared from beneath him.

Santa Clara joined Buffalo and Cleveland as bad teams that banked draft choices till 2018: The 49ers will have five picks in the first three rounds. By the arrival of training camp 2018, 49ers faithful may be celebrating a long-term solution at quarterback plus a draft bonanza. Oh, but 49ers faithful will have to endure the 2017 season to get there, and it’s not going to be pretty. Kyle Shanahan says he will call his own plays for the 49ers. Presumably, he won’t have to worry about frittering away a huge lead.

John Lynch, the new 49ers general manager, starts at the top by taking over the Santa Clara front office despite no experience in sports management. The new boss sure didn’t need long to pick up the self-praise aspect of NFL management. Lynch’s opening move after running his first draft was to sing his own praises to Nick Wagoner; it seems really unlikely that Lynch would have taken Reuben Foster with the third overall choice, then got him anyway with the 31st pick. The Niners would have used the third overall choice on a guy who was kicked out of the Combine? An essential of NFL management self-praise is to say of the draft, “We couldn’t believe he was still there,” a claim that suggests you’re smarter than everyone else. Usually after a few months, you know why he was still there.

Shanahan best not become overconfident—he is the 49ers’ third head coach in as many seasons.

Seattle. Seth Wickersham says the Seahawks continue to rehash the goal-line disaster in the closing seconds of the 2015 Super Bowl, which Richard Sherman blames on Russell Wilson. Coaches, not Wilson, made the disaster call. Maybe Sherman should blame his Stanford pal Doug Baldwin, whose idiotic mooning of the Patriots bench late in the third quarter not only resulted in a penalty that improved New England field position, but led to Seahawks players—your columnist was near the Seattle sideline that night—shaking hands and celebrating as if the contest was over. It wasn’t over.

Marshawn Lynch, now unretired and with the Raiders, is not likely to have a great year; his fuel gauge seemed low when he left Seattle after the 2015 season. But if he performs well while the Blue Men Group rushing game continues to sputter—the Seahawks were third in rushing in 2015, down to 25th in 2016—this could lead to more testy locker-room politics, since some in Seattle view Lynch as run off by management. Seattle traded Lynch’s rights to Oakland for just shy of nothing: a minor swap of late-round draft choices that will benefit Seattle only if the Raiders have a losing year.

Russell Wilson could’ve notched his fourth win away from Seattle in the playoffs. Instead, he threw a pass his team may not have recovered from yet.

The Seahawks may be reaching the end of the talent cycle, but for this season at least, pity the visiting teams that call at CenutryLink Field, where the Blue Men Group under Wilson are on a 39-7 tear, and a 10-0 streak in the postseason. The latter trails only an 11-0 home postseason streak by New England and the mother of all streaks, 13-0 at home in the playoffs by the Green Bay Packers. Road dates are a different matter: Wilson is 25-20-1 away from home, and Seattle is 2-11 all-time in the postseason on the road (3-13 taking into account the Super Bowl, where no team has ever played on its home field).

Of course football teams are more likely to win at home, but the game- location disparity is more striking with Seattle than most. Wilson wins 85 percent of the time at home, 54 percent of the time away from home. Tom Brady wins 85 percent of the time at home, 69 percent of the time away from home. Ben Roethlisberger wins 75 percent of the time at home, 59 percent of the time away from home. Sure there’s a lot of noise at CenutryLink Field, but there’s something going on in the Seahawks’ home-away disparity other than noise.

Washington. The Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons are paying quarterback Kirk Cousins about $45 million for 2016 and 2017—top dollar—yet don’t have stability at quarterback via a long-term contract. Only Chainsaw Dan Snyder could mismanage a situation so badly. On the upside, the arrival of Donald Trump means Snyder is no longer the worst executive in the nation’s capital.

Enter Bruce Allen, the Person’s president and Snyder’s devoted yes-man. In the 2012 draft, Allen and Snyder put together the mega-trade that sent three first-round draft choices, plus other valuables, to the Rams for Robert Griffin III. That happened on the first day of the 2012 draft. On the third day, after Snyder and Allen departed, Mike Shanahan, then the coach, picked Cousins. Shanahan’s selection of an extra quarterback placed enmity between him and Chainsaw Dan, seeming to say the owner just spent three first-round selections on the wrong guy. Which, it turned out, is what happened.

Now Shanahan and Griffin are long gone, and Allen and Cousins remain. Because Bruce Allen didn’t choose Cousins in the first place, while Cousins’s presence only reminds fans of the fiasco of the RGIII transaction, Allen shows no enthusiasm for a guy who already holds several franchise passing records. Liz Clarke reports the deal Allen offered Cousins had no more guaranteed money than he would have made by playing on the “franchise tag,” then testing free agency—that is, Allen expected Cousins to surrender his bargaining power in return for nothing. Amazingly, the player’s agent did not fall for this. After the current season concludes and Cousins (probably) becomes a free agent, Allen may be happy to see him go, even if that means starting all over again in the quest for a signal-caller.

Last season the Persons had the inside track for a postseason invite, then went 2-4 down the stretch. In the Monday Night Football game just before Christmas, Washington, trailing at the end of the third quarter, reached the Panthers 10: Tight end Jordan Reed threw a punch that got him ejected and forced the R*dsk*ns to settle for a field goal. Leading by 8, Carolina took possession with 3:44 remaining and ripped off a 34-yard run that put the contest on artisanal ice. Though the Panthers had an obvious clock-killer situation, the R*dsk*ns were in a pass defense. Could you image what Bill Belichick would do to a player who threw a punch that cost the team a touchdown during a late comeback? To defensive coaches who had the team in the wrong front on the game’s deciding snap?

Two weeks later the R*dsk*ns hosted the Giants. A win would have put Washington in the postseason; Jersey/A had locked its best seed, and had nothing to play for. The Persons turned in a pitiful, dispirited effort, heading to the couch for January. Cousins looked awful, throwing a late interception in Jersey/A territory when the margin was three points. The pick went to Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, who seems to know Cousins’s “tell.” Rodgers-Cromartie jumped Cousins’s final pass of 2016 and jumped a Cousins throw for a pick-six in the 2013 Washington at Denver game, when he played for the Broncos. Given Washington faces Rodgers-Cromartie twice this season, and Rodgers-Cromartie has switched to safety, where he will have more freedom to read the quarterback and jump routes, let’s hope someone on the R*dsk*ns coaching staff is aware of this.

Reader Animadversion. Last week’s column proposed that removal of statues to Confederate heroes would benefit everyone, including conservative whites. Reader Thon Morse of Austin, Texas, writes, “President Trump said in defense of the statues, ‘They are trying to take away our history… these things have been there for 150 years.’ That is almost universally untrue. The Robert E. Lee statue recently removed at the University of Texas, my alma mater, was erected in 1933. The recently renamed Robert E. Lee Elementary in Austin opened in 1939. Most Confederate statues are not relics of the Civil War, while many Confederate-named places opened long after the war. The statues are not historic, they are specifically political — a message about the extent of the white South’s resistance to black progress and civil-rights proposals. The graves of southern boys who fought to defend their homes should be respected. But the majority of Confederate monuments and place names are literally monuments to racism.”

Next Week. TMQ predicts the 2017 season—and shows why All Predictions Wrong or Your Money Back should be the motto of political pollsters as well as sportsyak. And yes, more items on politics, science, and pop culture are coming; the conference previews are always dense on football since there are 32 teams to cover.