If you didn’t like the Chiefs at Rams game, then you don’t like football.
Most sports events are not memorable—this one will be talked about for decades. Not only was it the first NFL game in which both teams scored at least 50 points and the first in which a team scored 50 points and didn’t win. (Great factoid: In NFL annals, teams with at least 50 points are, as of Monday night, 217-1.) Not only were the 14 touchdowns and 1,001 offensive yards exactly what the NFL’s offense-favoring rules changes intended to produce. This game was so exciting that Angelinos got excited!
The first Monday night game from the historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in more than three decades created an electric atmosphere in a city that is famously calm, cool, and collected at sporting events.
By the fourth quarter, the Coliseum was rocking in a way it never has, especially considering its 1920s stone-based architecture. As double-naughts showed on the scoreboard, which had been spinning all night, and fireworks launched, JB Long, the Rams play-by-play guy on KSPN 710, cried, “This was a night Los Angeles will never forget!” That wasn’t exaggeration.
Both teams used all-out offensive tactics—multiple sets and constant shifts, five-man patterns with no extra blockers—in pursuit of points. The result was three defensive touchdowns as both quarterbacks were exposed to pass rushers who knew there would be no extra blockers and that they didn’t have to worry about the run. (Adjusting for sacks and scrambles, LA/A and Kansas City coaches radioed in 105 passes versus 39 rushes.) By the third quarter, both offensive lines looked exhausted, with blockers including Rodger Safford of the Rams and Eric Fisher of the Chiefs visibly dogging it.
Young phenom Patrick Mahomes threw for 473 yards, and his receivers were guilty of four “clean” drops: well-thrown pass that clanged to the ground. Imagine if they’d all been caught!
In the end, the LA/A defense surrendered 51 points yet won the game, with two interceptions late to add to a pick-six and two strip-sacks earlier.
While the ball was flying over heads on the way to speed merchants downfield, your columnist found himself fascinated watching Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald. Some touts consider Donald the best player in the NFL. Monday’s game strengthened that case.
In the first half, inexplicably, Kansas City had guard Cameron Erving single-blocking Donald. Often, Kansas City center Casey Wiegmann didn’t help on Donald—or for that matter do anything—but merely stood watching as Donald blew past Erving, creating both the strip-sacks and flushing Mahomes from the pocket. On the Los Angeles interception return for a touchdown, Donald got by Erving so quickly he practically beat the snap to Mahomes, forcing the quarterback into an ill-advised throw.
Kansas City’s offense is oriented toward getting its speed merchants to the edge so that they can turn upfield, and pretty obviously, this generates a lot of yards. Often the Rams defense responded with an alignment called double-wide-nines, where there’s no lineman across from the center or guards, because the defensive front is set wide. Kansas City never responded by running straight ahead.
It’s hard to believe that a team can gain 546 yards, score 51 points, and yet make a lot of mistakes on offense, but the Chiefs accomplished this: five turnovers, two defensive touchdowns allowed, the middle never exploited. That Kansas City scored 51 points despite making a lot of offensive mistakes will lend to the mythic qualities of the game.
By the late third quarter, Kansas City had finally changed its protection scheme and was double-teaming Donald. The result was Rams linebacker Samson Ekuban, who had a star-maker night, not getting enough attention from blockers. On the penultimate LA/A interception, tight end Travis Kelce, not a strong blocker, was man-on against Ekuban, who basically threw Kelce aside and forced Mahomes into an inaccurate throw.
On the final interception, with 25 seconds remaining, Kansas City ran a rare (for the Chiefs) “max protect,” keeping seven back to pass-block. Even wide receiver Robert Woods was pass-blocking. Donald was doubled—and shed both men to get into Mahomes’s face yet again, forcing an off-target pass. Patrick Mahomes had six touchdown passes and yet made bad throws! That’s mythic.
For the Rams’ part, the home team flirted with two fatal errors. LA/A punted on 4th-and-1 with 6:44 remaining, against a team that would average 7.9 yards per offensive play. Had the Chiefs prevailed, that punt would now be the talk of the sports world. Then leading 54-51 and getting the ball back with 1:18 remaining, the Rams took only 28 seconds off the clock on a possession that inexplicably included a clock-stopping incompletion. Had Kansas City won, this too would be the subject of dissection.
Perhaps Los Angeles ultimately won because it had the best punter. Johnny Hekker averaged 55.5 yards per punt. On the 4th-and-1, he boomed a nice directional punt that Kansas City speedster Tyreek Hill could not attempt to return. Then with 1:04 remaining, Hekker delivered a 68-yard punt that forced Hill back into the end zone, plus made him run sideways, wasting valuable seconds. The sight of Hekker celebrating on the sidelines after his fabulous punt; you don’t often see punters wildly celebrate a punt!
In this shootout, the decisive score was Jared Goff to little-known tight end Gerald Everett for 40 yards, just inside the two-minute warning. On the play, Everett lined up far wide for the first time on the night. The Chiefs’ defense was confused, and a linebacker went over to cover Everett. Call time out! Call time out! Andy Reid kept his timeouts in his pocket, and Goff saw the mismatch and audibled to a “go.”
This week’s film room will not be kind to Orlando Scandrick of Kansas City. Three snaps before the Everett touchdown, Scandrick dropped an interception (taking Kansas City to five “clean” drops in the game). To show the game’s all-in spirit, on the next snap the Rams called exactly the same play Scandrick nearly intercepted and completed it for a first down.
Events like the Chiefs-Rams classic remind us why we like sports, and it was fine to see this happened in California, where news has been bad lately.
Final factoid: In Week 11, two NFL teams—the Chiefs and the Buccaneers—gained at least 500 yards, and lost. Tuesday Morning Quarterback’s 500 Club is starting to get crowded. But this is exactly the result the league’s rules changes were intended to create. Purists may prefer defensive struggles, but offense sells tickets.
In solstice news, during Pittsburgh’s comeback at Jacksonville, twice in the fourth quarter tailback James Conner dropped well-thrown passes. One would have converted a fourth down, another would have been a touchdown. This wasn’t just butterfingers. Both times Conner was looking into a setting sun.
As the winter solstice approaches, declining light becomes a factor at some stadia. TIAA Bank Field, where the Jaguars play, has four slanted openings that create a Stonehenge effect. Both of Connor’s drops came along the part of the field that had just begun to experience a Stonehenge effect: both drops happened a little before 4 p.m. ET on a day when the local sunset was 5:29 p.m.
Pro, college, and even high school teams may scout a field the day before an afternoon game to be played around the solstice time of year, in order to chart the sun angles. You’d best believe Bill Belichick has someone do this! Yet Steelers offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner seemed not to know he was calling plays that sent Conner into the Stonehenge effect. As the solstice draws closer, note that well-run football teams know where the dazzle will be at what point on the clock.
Stats of the Week #1. Andrew Luck, who has not been sacked for five consecutive games, is 11-0 versus the Tennessee Titans.
Stats of the Week #2. Los Angeles is a combined 17-4 while New York City is a combined 6-14. For NFL purposes, New York City is located in New Jersey.
Stats of the Week #3. Stretching back to last season’s playoffs, in consecutive games versus Jacksonville, the Steelers fell behind by a combined 0-40 then came back by a combined 62-21.
Stats of the Week #4. Under John Harbaugh, Baltimore is 31-13 in November, including 19-4 at home.
Stats of the Week #5. In his first start at quarterback for the Ravens, Lamar Jackson carried the ball more times (27) than quarterback Joe Flacco had in all games combined this season (19).
Stats of the Week #6. Eight consecutive Green Bay-Seahawks matchups have been won by the home team.
Stats of the Week #7. Since kickoff of last season’s AFC title game, Jacksonville is 3-8.
Stats of the Week #8. Two of the top four defensive teams by yards allowed—Buffalo and Jacksonville—have losing records. They meet on Sunday.
Stats of the Week #9. The Buccaneers have the league’s number-one offense for yards gained, yet are 3-7.
Stats of the Week #10. From the point TMQ predicted they would reach the Super Bowl to the point TMQ retracted the prediction, the Texans were 4-15. Since TMQ flip-flopped and said they would not reach the Super Bowl, the Texans are 7-0.
Sweet, and Bittersweet, Plays of the Week. Trailing 16-13, the Steelers reached 2nd-and-goal on the Jax 2 with 22 seconds remaining, holding a time out. “Just run the ball, you’ve got a time out,” CBS color man Tony Romo said. Steelers coaches radioed in a pass that was intercepted, but a penalty against the home team advanced the spot to the Jacksonville 1, from which Pittsburgh threw again, with another penalty against Jax. Now there are eight seconds till double-naughts, but Pittsburgh still can stop the clock. “They should run the ball,” Romo said. The Steelers ran for a touchdown and Pittsburgh victory.
Scoring to pull within 20-19 in the final minute at Detroit, Carolina faced the choice of kick to tie or a deuce to lead. “They should go for two and the win,” Fox color man Ronde Barber said. Detroit was so sure the Panthers would pass that the Lions dropped seven into coverage, leaving the center of Detroit’s alignment overmatched versus the Carolina offensive line. Run! Run! But it was an incompletion, and Detroit prevails. Going for two was the right move for Carolina—it’s just that the playcall was weak.
Since this column often blasts network football booth crews, let’s note Romo of CBS and Barber of Fox both advised the kinds of tactical decisions that statistics support.
Sour Play of the Week. Leading Denver 22-20, LA/B faced 3rd-and-7 at midfield just inside the two-minute warning, with the Broncos out of time outs. The Chargers’ defense was playing well. Just run the ball and keep the clock moving. Instead, incompletion and the clock stops. Denver took over after a punt, and with 20 seconds remaining, completed a long pass into field goal position for a victory.
Had the Chargers simply rushed up the middle for no gain on 3rd-and-7, rather than stopping the clock, Denver would have run out of time with the ball on its side of the field. Sour for the team in powder blue.
Sweet ‘n’ Sour Play. Seattle led 27-24 with 4:20 remaining; Green Bay had lost six consecutive games on the road; the Packers were down to one time out; the Packers entered the contest with the league’s fourth-ranked offense. At 4:20, Green Bay faced 4th-and-2.
That cannot seriously be the punting unit trotting on! Who cares if it the spot is in Green Bay territory?! Sports analytics say go for it! Experience says go for it! Can’t Green Bay head coach Mike McCarthy remember just four years ago, when the Packers were also at Seattle, when he sent a kicking team out on every 4th-and-short and the result was a playoff loss?
Boom goes the punt … and Green Bay never touched the ball again. As Howard Dean would say, Yeeeeeeearrrrgggghhhhhhhhh. Sweet for the Seahawks, whose postseason hopes are revived; sour for the Packers.
In decision-tree terms, McCarthy’s choice was a likelihood of converting the 4th-and-2, retaining possession and giving his team a good chance to win; or punting, creating perhaps a 50/50 chance that his his defense gets a three-and-out, giving the Packers the ball back with the clock nearly drained and about the same distance from the Seattle goal line as on the 4th-and-2, at this juncture with a very low chance of success.
One of TMQ’s immutable laws is that when the opponent is relieved to see your kicker trotting out, that means you should be going for it. After the game, Seattle head coach Pete Carroll said of Green Bay’s decision to punt, “I was relieved.”
Brexit Is the New Comet Kohoutek. The Brexit vote was two and a half years ago and the whole mess is still not settled.
Everyone’s supposed to think Brexit will lead to vast, sweeping changes across the United Kingdom, if not the entire Milky Way. My guess is that unless you often need to cross the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, Brexit won’t have any impact on anyone. The English economy is not going to crash. Tanks will not be rolling through the streets. Whenever Brexit finally occurs—assuming this happens during the historical period of humanity—most people won’t even be able to tell.
In this, Brexit is the new Comet Kohoutek. Heavily promoted by the media as it approached in 1973, Kohoutek was supposed to be the Comet of the Century: noontime light at night, electrical interference across the globe, perhaps ushering in a new-age ascension to a higher plane of existence. Instead you could barely see the damned thing with binoculars.
That’s Brexit. Other historical parallels to highly promoted non-events are Y2K and the 1980s breakup of the old AT&T monopoly, which was supposed to cause the communications system to collapse but instead, in the short run, had no effect. (Though it ultimately gave us Kanye West on your cell phone.)
In England over the summer, your columnist was amazed by the nonstop Brexit nonsense on the BBC, in the newspapers, and from government. The Times of London reported the British army was drawing up contingency plans to put down Brexit riots, whilst the National Health Service was preparing for “crisis mode.” (Wait, isn’t that the normal condition of the National Health Service?)
Brexit is the sort of development much-liked by government elites and media magnates. It creates an endless sense of emergency and dread, keeping the milieu appropriately negative—if you’re not negative, you must not understand the situation!
To this juncture the sole tangible impact of Brexit is, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, bursting of the bubble in the London luxury penthouse market. The horror!
Stop Me Before I Blitz Again. The Packers have been blitzing less under new defensive coordinator Mike Pettine. At Seattle, Pettine shook things up with lots of blitzing. The result was that both of Russell Wilson’s touchdown passes came against a Green Bay big-blitz on 3rd-and-long—the down when big-blitzing is predictable.
Sophomore Night Coming to Collegiate Sports. Men’s college basketball is back in action. It will build up, next March, to sentimental Senior Nights. That’s if there are any seniors to celebrate.
Last March, Duke’s Grayson Allen beat archrival UNC on his Senior Night, a nice sentimental sendoff for a memorable Blue Devil. Allen was Duke men’s basketball’s sole senior. So many guys leave the top basketball programs early that seniors are increasingly rare.
As one-and-done takes over big-deal NCAA hoops, in the future, will colleges even have Senior Nights? Soon college basketball may have Sophomore Night, when everyone gets all teary about the lone guy on the team who actually attended class for a couple of semesters before declaring for the NBA draft.
And then not playing again. Most who leave early, believing they will be high draft choices, instead never take the court in the NBA, while forfeiting their chance for a bachelor’s degree at no tuition cost.
Last spring there were 236 jumping-early guys who jeopardized their full-ride scholarships to compete with graduates and international players for the 60 slots in the NBA draft.
The majority of early-entry basketball players did not get drafted and will never be heard from again in sports terms. Most also won’t earn bachelor’s degrees, which adds $900,000 to a man’s lifetime earnings. Walking in a funny robe to Pomp and Circumstance, without student debt, is the tangible benefit available to the majority of big-college football and men’s basketball athletes. Increasingly they do not receive this benefit because they make the mistake of leaving early.
A recent NCAA rule change makes it possible, at least, for a men’s basketball player who leaves college early, then is not drafted, to return to college. Maybe this new rule will help; there are a lot of asterisks.
In general, surrendering a full-ride scholarship for a few weeks of fantasizing about NBA glory is a terrible life choice. Why doesn’t the basketball establishment work to dissuade college players from making it? Because the basketball establishment is anchored in free labor and doesn’t want to take any action that causes teenagers to realize the system is rigged against them. Enjoy Sophomore Night!
Unhappy Hour in Hell’s Sports Bar. Hell’s Sports Bar has an infinite number of flatscreen TVs, but certain blackout restrictions may apply. For Week 11, the exceptional Kansas City at LA/A pairing—combined record 18-2—was not shown. The only game airing in Hell’s Sports Bar was Arizona versus Oakland, combined record 3-15.
“It’s great that we had a really horrible game to force on our patrons,” said Lambasthor, who was recently driven down from the paradise occupied by the football gods and found work as manager of Hell’s Sports Bar. By paying an extra fee, Lambasthor added, patrons may watch Arizona versus Oakland for all eternity. “This feature is coming soon to ESPN3, but Hell’s Sports Bar has it already,” he said. “Here in Hell we’ve always been early adopters.”
Pantheon note: before his fall from grace, Lambasthor was the god of halftime tirades.
New York Times Advocates Rent Control and Health Care Price Limits, But Not Newspaper Cost Control. Rising rents are a genuine problem for many Americans, as is housing supply in some areas—especially California, where wildfires and regulatory policy have combined to exacerbate a housing crunch. On the other hand, the quality of housing stock is rising, too. In the last generation, new homes have gotten bigger, air conditioning has become near-universal, and safety and energy-conservation features of new homes and apartments have improved. So the fact that median rents adjusted for inflation are up 32 percent since 2000 clearly is a problem, but is that fact an outrage, as some in politics and the media contend?
Consider the case of the New York Times. In 2000, its newsstand price was $1, or $1.50 adjusted for inflation. On today’s newsstand, the Times costs $2.50. That’s a real-dollar increase of 67 percent.
Thus the cost of buying a New York Times has risen twice as fast as median rents. Yet while pounding the table about housing expense as a shocking scandal, by the strangest and most amazing coincidence, the Times doesn’t mention its own price.
Last week the Times raised home delivery prices to $1,144 per annum for daily through Sunday. At the turn of the 20th century, every-day home delivery of the Times was $7.50 per year, which adjusts to $200 today. This means the inflated-adjusted cost of making the Times go thunk in your driveway or apartment building lobby has more than quintupled! Yet by the strangest and most amazing coincidence the Times never complains about that.
Just as much of today’s housing stock is better than homes and apartments of the past, today’s Times is better than the newspaper of the past—plus it’s accompanied by a Web-dwelling alternative universe of news, comments, reviews, and Thanksgiving pie recipes. But the New York Times expects everyone to pony up without complaint for its frequent price increases. After all, that’s the market at work! So why shouldn’t market forces apply to housing, as well?
The Times also backs increased public payments for subsidized housing. This can be good idea if done with a formula that rewards work rather than rewarding dependency. But does the Times put its money where its mouth is by giving subscriptions away at housing projects? Wouldn’t struggling low-income Americans benefit by reading the New York Times at the expense of the Times’s feudal-aristocrat ownership family?
Maroon Zone Play of the Week. The Maroon Zone is that portion of the field where it’s too far for a field goal but too close to punt.
Leading the defending champion Eagles 38-7 in the fourth quarter, New Orleans faced 4th-and-6 on the Nesharim’s 37. Drew Brees split Alvin Kamara wide, saw the Philadelphia defense was confused about who should cover him, and sent Kamara deep for a 37-yard touchdown as the Saints hit the 40-point mark for the sixth time in 10 games.
Downside: Because New Orleans showed Kamara split wide in long-yardage, now this will be on the film studied by defensive coordinators—and the Saints had no need to score again. Upside: New Orleans seems to possess an infinite number of plays.
Cold Players = Victory. TMQ once had a running item titled Cold Coach = Victory. The theory was that on a cold day, if one team’s head coach came out swathed in ridiculous K2 survival gear while the other team’s coach wore a varsity sweater and baseball cap, the team with the cold coach would prevail.
Saturday at the field of the University of Minnesota, the players’ corollary was seen. Pregame temperature 22 Fahrenheit, Northwestern’s players warmed up shirtless. The Wildcats went on to win.
Contrast this to Ed Oliver of the University of Houston wearing a full-body down jacket on the sideline at Tulane with a kickoff temperature of 41 degrees. Oliver expects to be a high choice in the 2019 draft; the hissy fit he threw when instructed by his coach to remove the coat may deter many NFL teams. In itself, this was just a stupid argument about a coat. But why would an NFL team want to hand a $25-million bonus to a guy who doesn’t play, then shouts at his coach on the sideline?
The Football Gods Chortled. Last Friday, Patrick Mahomes was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and ESPN the Magazine on the same day. This all but guarantees his Cinderella season will turn back into a pumpkin.
ESPN the Magazine should be marketing as ESPN the Magazine Published on Earth the Planet.
The Football Gods Chortled #2. The defending champion Eagles benched their Super Bowl-winning quarterback, Nick Foles. Said Eagles are now 4-6 and in jeopardy of missing the playoffs.
The Football Gods Chortled #3. Kicking a field goal to win as time expired, the Oakland Raiders celebrated wildly, with Jon Gruden, the league’s highest-paid coach, dancing on the sidelines. The Raiders had just defeated a 2-7 team and advanced their own record to 2-8: “We did it, we’re mathematically alive to finish .500!”
The Football Gods Chortled #4. Versus Tennessee, Indianapolis head coach Frank Reich—offensive coordinator for the Eagles’ Super Bowl victory—called Philly Special, which builds up to the tight end throwing back to the quarterback. Tight end Eric Ebron missed Andrew Luck open in the end zone. Apparently Colts tight ends don’t pass as well as Philadelphia tight ends!
‘Tis Better to Have Rushed and Lost Than Never to Have Rushed At All. Trailing Houston 10-7 in the third quarter, the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons reached 1st-and-goal on the Moo Cows 7. Washington went incompletion, sack, interception returned for a touchdown. Just run the ball! Especially in goal-to-go situations, where a pass defense has so little territory to protect.
Why Donald Trump Is Like an NFL Cornerback. Prima donna wide receivers long have been a bane of the NFL; now it’s prima donna cornerbacks, too. Take Josh Norman, who considers himself the league’s best player—just ask him! Yet earlier in the season Norman stood like a topiary, not even attempting to play defense, as a New Orleans receiver blew past for the long touchdown that got Drew Brees another record.
Going into the Texans and R*dsk*ns contest, Norman boasted, boasted, boasted while denouncing Washington’s season-ticket holders. Once the game began, Norman was badly beaten by DeAndre Hopkins on the touchdown catch that put the Texans ahead two scores. With two minutes remaining and Houston clinging to a 23-21 lead, facing 3rd-and-5, the Washington defense got a stop—but Norman was called for holding. The extra three snaps for the visitors caused the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons to run out of time on their last-ditch drive.
Also claiming to be the league’s best player is Jacksonville cornerback Jalen Ramsey. The most dangerous place in North America is between Ramsey and a media camera. After Jacksonville took a 16-0 lead over the Steelers, Ramsey let Antonio Brown zoom right past him for a 78-yard touchdown catch to begin the Pittsburgh comeback; once Brown broke free, Ramsey only jogged in his direction, though Brown still had 40 yards to go. Then Ramsey gave up a 25-yard completion to Brown to the Jax 2-yard line with 23 ticks remaining, setting up Pittsburgh’s winning touchdown. To top it off, Ramsey wore a balaclava—kickoff temperature, 73 degrees.
In sports you succeed first, then boast. Norman and Ramsey are using the Trump-era approach of boasting first, then not succeeding.
Two Cheers for Le’Veon Bell. Le’Veon Bell did not report by last week’s deadline and will not play in this season. Based on way too much fine print, he will almost certainly be a true free agent next season. Skipping 2018 cost him the $18 million he would have been guaranteed, had he simply wandered into the Steelers locker room at any time before last Wednesday.
Someday Bell may wish he’d taken that $18 million! But as Tuesday Morning Quarterback pointed out three weeks ago, this was his decision to make. To give up $18 million now in the hopes of more later as a true free agent was his choice—and an example of the self-discipline for delayed gratification that conservatives extol.
Whatever happens to Bell, the league and its union need to eliminate the ridiculously complex “tag” rules that led to Bell’s impasse. NFL draftees are bound to their first clubs for four or five years, depending on some details. After that, all should be true free agents. Head coaches and general managers would never stand for restrictions on their own income-maximizing choices.
Two Cheers for Ben McAdoo. At the end of last season, the Jersey/A Giants showed the door to head coach Ben McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese. Neither have jobs in football this season.
Both have been widely excoriated, including by this column, for their 2017 season decision to bench Eli Manning for one game in order to accomplish … no one knows what McAdoo and Reese were trying to accomplish. Eli wasn’t hurt and was back in the lineup the following week. The guy they started instead, Geno Smith, is no longer with the club. All we can really be sure of is that the benching ended Manning’s wonderful streak of consecutive starts, giving Giants fans one less thing to paint their faces blue about.
So get rid of those bums McAdoo and Reese! But—what if they were right all along?
During the offseason, the G-Persons’ new management team went all-in to revive Eli’s career. The second overall choice of the draft was used on Saquon Barkley, who’s playing well and taking pressure off the Jersey/A quarterback. Huge free agent contracts were granted to left tackle Nate Solder to protect Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. to be his target.
Yet the Giants have been also-rans, all but mathematically eliminated by Thanksgiving, and the blue-face cohort is already in wait-till-next-year mode. Eli has been mediocre statistically. Jersey/A’s two-game winning streak has come at the expense of two cellar-dwellers, the 49ers and Buccaneers. According to the grapevine—if it’s on the Internet, it must be true!—the Giants are extensively scouting Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert, with an eye toward drafting him as Manning’s successor.
Maybe McAdoo and Reese saw this coming and were trying to prepare Jersey/A fans for using the team’s high choice in the 2018 draft on Sam Darnold or Josh Allen, in order to change quarterbacks sooner. Overlooked is that McAdoo and Reese didn’t bench Manning until he had passed his brother Peyton for second place on the all-time consecutive starts list, while having no realistic shot at passing number-one Brett Favre. That was a respectful way to treat a graying star. Maybe McAdoo and Reese were scapegoated for something that needed to happen at Jersey/A, but nobody wanted to be blamed for.
Of course, this does not excuse McAdoo’s late-game goal line playcalling, also excoriated by many (including this column).
Don’t Lend Me a Tenor, Lend Me a Tight End. During the Green Bay at Seattle contest, undrafted reserve Packers tight end Robert Tonyan made his first NFL reception, a 54-yard touchdown from Aaron Rodgers. I’d never heard of Tonyan, so one or two minutes after the catch, I put his name into Wikipedia. The page said, “Is known for his impressive 54-yards per catch average.” This was just moments after the play! Wikipedia has since standardized the page. But did Tonyan add the joke himself from a tablet on the Packers’ sideline?
Tonyan is the Packers’ fourth-string tight end. In recent years, Green Bay has been keeping four tight ends on its roster; NFL teams usually keep three. The current Green Bay depth chart lists more tight ends than offensive tackles.
Who Looks This Stuff Up? “The Saints are the third team in NFL history to score at least 40 points in five of their first nine games.” –Washington Post.
Year of the Geezer Quarterback. Geezer signal callers (at least 35 years of age) Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Phillip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, and Ben Roethlisberger have combined for 107 touchdown passes and 25 interceptions. Two-to-one touchdowns over interceptions is the mark of a good quarterback. This season, geezer quarterbacks are going four-for-one.
Davidson Update. In its last two games, Davidson College has rushed for a combined 1,197 yards.
Next Week. May as well out with it—Santa’s appearance to end the Macys Parade is among my favorite moments of every year.
