dave mcbride

He is 59-19 there if you exclude the ridiculous covid season. The other thing is that Michigan is one of the very best academic institutions in the world (e.g., https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/ranking ), and while the Michigan football program mostly gets around this problem, they can’t get around it entirely. It is recognized by most people as an academically challenging school, which it is (although there are easy majors there too, and the football players are steered toward them). They are basically in the same boat as Notre Dame, Cal, Northwestern, UVA, and UCLA (Stanford and Duke are at a different level with regard to admissions). They can’t take just anyone, and the school does have an academic image to maintain. It makes a difference, especially at the margins.

Reporter Elizabeth Spiers, who worked for Jared Kushner at the NY Observer long before Trump became a political figure, reported that in a meeting with a close associate of Trump to try and figure out why he acted the way he did, the latter said, "Here's what you need to know about Donald: he lies to people about the weather just to stay in practice." If a better deal had come along -- and it would have, no doubt -- all of his past behavior and practices indicate that he'd have moved the Bills at the proverbial drop of a hat. Obviously and thankfully we'll never find out. I'm not talking about politics here; I'm talking about his long career as a businessman in which he lied constantly about pretty much everything.

Yeah, that's my view. Interesting that he says this, though. Also, two things can be true at once - JBJ is full of it and that Trump funded a smear campaign. Trump would have moved them too, of course. Good thing we have the Pegulas.

Good stuff, and it's pretty eye-popping (albeit basically what I intuited from watching what's going on in college ball).

The thing, though, is that this is a bad draft for QBs, Pitt drafts late, and their quarterbacks are terrible. Pitt may look for better, and they should, but meanwhile they need to win next season. Don't think Tomlin isn't aware of the fact that he's never had a losing season. If Mason Rudolph is his QB, he'll probably have one.

That's possible. I just don't know if they're done with Wentz yet. If they cut him, though, they save $13 million on the cap although he'll still account for $15 million in dead money. That said, if they cut him now, they get massive savings in cap dollars in 2023 and 2024. https://overthecap.com/player/carson-wentz/4715/

I think he's better than backup level -- he's more like a qb who falls between 17 and 27 in terms of his play to date. The Bears did win with him, and his numbers in 2018 and 2020 were pretty decent. The Bears were 25-13 in games he started between 2018 and 2020. You could do a lot worse.

It sucks, actually, which is why a lottery of the worst seven teams in the first round (with no weighting) is the obvious path forward. I can't see it not happening after this.

He was a grad assistant at PSU and an LB coach at W & M. He has never recruited anyone, and that's over 50 percent of a college coach's job.

Respectfully, I don't see it. Daboll is all in on Jones, who is a poor man's Allen. Daboll was hired to fix Jones, whom Giants management fully believes in. Not saying they are right, but the tools are definitely there. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, is a good team that just happens to not have a credible quarterback.

I don't see it. He can start in this league, and he presumably wants to be paid like a starter.

I truly don't see the Giants. They are committed to Jones. Houston's QB may well be the second best QB from last year's draft after Lawrence. Mills was the number one recruit in the country coming out of HS, after all. Maybe Indy, but Pitt makes a little more sense to me. I don't like Wentz, but he's a legit NFL starter. Pittsburgh doesn't have a starter at present. Nothing even close, actually. Rudolph is bad. Could be. Seems like a chaotic situation down there now, however.

I truly believe the Giants are committed to Jones for this season. Every report I've read is that Giants management across the board loves Jones and think his talent has been wasted. Assuming Trubisky is a competitor, he's going to where he will be the starter. Pittsburgh is the most stable organization in the league and hasn't had a losing season in forever. The receivers are good. The RB is good. The defense is generally good (albeit with some holes). It makes the most sense to me.

I strongly believe he'll be moving on, and I've thought about the best position for him to land. He is not a franchise QB like Allen, but he's legitimately decent, has won in this league, and has all of the tools. If I'm Pittsburgh, which has no credible QB, I'm targeting him hard. In my view, his best career trajectory comp is Tannehill. Tannehill is not elite, but he's good and can help get to 11 wins and maybe a SB if the stars align. Pittsburgh has most of the other pieces outside of QB. Pittsburgh would be legit playoff contender with him. They are not a playoff contender with their current stable of quarterbacks.

The NYT stat is a small sample size, but yeah, in recent years Caldwell (9-7), Lovie Smith (10-6), and Flores (9-8) were all fired after winning seasons. I think the only white coach to be fired was Mularkey (9-7), but there may be more that I'm not remembering.

The obvious solution is a draft lottery for, say, the worst 6-7 teams. And I wouldn't do it like the NHL, where the worst team has an advantage. Moreover, you could make so that only round 1 has a lottery, with rounds 2-7 following the current order of worst to best. Seems like a solution to me. Ross isn't the first to do this; the Browns apparently did it too.

You could well be right about JBJ. I am just putting it out there because he did say this. Trump did fund Caputo, though. Not sure how much effect it had.

@PromoTheRobot,did you read the Bon Jovi interview where he said he never, ever planned on moving the Bills from Buffalo, and that the smear campaign against him was engineered and funded by Trump (which it actually was)? https://touchdownwire.usatoday.com/2020/10/24/why-jon-bon-jovi-erased-buffalo-and-the-bills-from-his-life/ and https://www.gq.com/story/donald-trump-shady-scheme-to-buy-nfl-buffalo-bills

I am glad you brought this up. I was going to. Cosell spoke at length about the problems with the Bills offense about 9-10 games in, and he made an excellent point. He said that running the ball consistently with your running backs isn’t just about gaining rushing yardage, but also about getting d-linemen moving sideways in anticipation. That, he said, is what opens up play action and takes the pressure off of your QB. If you’re clearly de-emphasizing a conventional running game, d-linemen don’t have to worry much about moving laterally to effectively defend rushing plays. Instead, they can just get after the QB. You gotta know that McDermott knows this, and I can only imagine that there were some intense arguments, especially in that phase where the Bills were basically running a spread offense (one that was utterly exposed vs Jax, vs Indy, and vs TB in the first half of that game). To be sure, Daboll adapted and the Bills offense became much more multiple down the stretch. But there may well be some lingering resentment on both of their parts (e.g., McDermott may blame him for the Jax loss, which was a terribly called game on offense). I certainly don’t know for sure if that’s the root of the problem, but it could be.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/01/10/absentee-ownership-directly-contributes-to-weird-outcomes-like-the-firing-of-brian-flores/ What is your point? He took over a truly terrible team, and those were the facts on the ground that he dealt with. Please clarify, with specifics and a demonstration of knowledge of the 2019 Dolphins roster.

Barbs, I respect you as a poster, but you can do better than this.

Maybe he was concerned with the players on the team he was coaching and all of the assistants he hired and asked to move their families to Miami. Life is complicated.

The miami roster in 2019 was without question the worst in the league with regard to talent. Pretending otherwise is just bias. The fact that he went 5-11 with a 1-15 team (talent-wise) and was competitive the entire second half of the season was good coaching, and everyone in the NFL knew it. Re: your line above, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Saying he had a .500 record is so divorced from context. The expectation in 2019 was that Miami would be 1-15 AT BEST. Him going 5-11 there and being consistently competitive there over the second half of the season with that roster was remarkable. There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Remember that.

Not really. Flores also has an obligation to his players and his coaching staff. If he quits, his staff gets canned too. It's not that simple.