In case you've ever wondered what Bill Belichick writes in that little notebook...
Jay Cutler. New Haircut. Same Expression.
And you know what Cutler thinks of my opinion?
ESPN's Trent Dilfer brought up an interesting point Sunday morning. Three of the young quarterbacks excelling this season are coached by guys who were backup QBs to great starting QBs. Dilfer's theory is the lessons these coaches learned backing up the Hall of Fame QBs is playing out in them being able to coach up these young guys. Makes sense to me.
I kind of love it that Romeo Crennel and Vince Wilfork are almost the same size.
College Football Note. Oh those wacky LSU Folks...
LSU is reportedly scrambling to identify a long-term replacement for Les Miles after finding out that the program’s #1 choice, Eric Taylor, is a fictional person from a television show.
Athletic director Joe Alleva fired Miles after Saturday’s loss to Auburn because he was confident he could lure the dynamic East Dillion Lions coach from rural Texas to Louisiana for the bright lights of the SEC. But according to sources, soon after terminating Miles, Alleva was unable to get Taylor on the phone and then ultimately discovered the coach was a character played by Kyle Chandler, a 51-year old actor from Buffalo. Panicked, Alleva then hired Ed Orgeron as LSU’s interim head coach.
“Joe thought ‘Friday Night Lights’ was a documentary,” said a prominent LSU booster. We all did. It was very realistic and gritty. We wanted Eric and Tammy Taylor here and thought we were going to have a home run hire. Instead, we have Ed Orgeron. I’m worried we made a big mistake.”
That's pretty funny.
Pros do the little things. The boxscore will show a nice run by David Johnson. What I saw was a great block by Larry Fitzgerald on the defensive back crashing in that could have blown up the play.
Here's something I don't understand. Before Sunday's game, writers in the Boston Globe were talking up the "dangers" of "risking" Julian Edelman as the backup QB. ESPN's Chris Berman said the same thing Sunday morning.
Are they asking Edelman to possibly play quarterback? Or bust the wedge on the kickoff coverage team?
Minnesota lost Teddy Bridgewater and Adrian Peterson and they're 4-0. Just like we all expected...
Washington WR DeSean Jackson wore cleats in warmups Sunday to bring attention to the important issue of violence in our country and how it relates to the Police and Citizens.
Jackson issued this statement regarding the cleats.
“Today is the start of my attempts to be part of a solution and start dialogue about the senseless killings of both citizens and police. I have chosen to wear these cleats in pregame today to use my platform as a pro athlete to add to this discussion. This isn’t meant to be any kind of protest against the good men and women in law enforcement in this country. I just want to express my concern in a peaceful and productive way about issues that are currently impacting our country.”
Statement from the Washington Redskins:
“We stand in support of both DeSean and the law enforcement community. We have great respect for law enforcement and the sacrifices they make each and every day to protect and serve our communities. We continue to have open dialogue with our players about issues that are important to them and support their efforts to bring awareness to those issues when done in a responsible manner.”
Well done.
Who knew that former Bills offensive coordinator Greg Roman was the problem with their defense?
From the broadcast Sunday: "The Browns have scored on four consecutive possessions.". Don't get that a lot.
Things quickly returned to the normal "Factory of Sadness" state for Cleveland when the officials incorrectly awarded a fumble to Washington.
The call was bad enough to make ESPN's C'mon Man Monday night.
And NFL Investigative Journalist Casey Matheny posted this diagram with the official pointing to the ground while Duke Johnson held the ball.
Bad calls happen. It's part of the game. Usually the officials and the league acknowledge the error and move on.
But this one is weird as the league seems to be going to great lengths to defend the incorrect call. The conspiracy theorists would point to the fact it was line judge Sarah Thomas who missed the call. Thomas is the only female game official in the league and is in her second year. I love that the league has women officials. But the fact they're going out of the way it seems to defend a blown call here seems odd. Thomas I think would be the first to say she doesn't want or need any special protection. She just wants to be "an official". By all accounts I've seen, she seems to have been doing just that. John Harbaugh called her a "good ref". Up till now, I don't recall her name mentioned very often. Which is what you want. Officials and long snappers are doing a good job when you don't hear about them.
TheBigLead.com has plenty of pictures and backup for their story on how the league is "bizarrely" defending the call. Bottom line: My message to the league is this: Let her do her job. And if she makes a mistake, don't add to the pressure already on her by putting up some weird protection thing.
Saints running back John Kuhn scored three touchdowns Sunday. Yes Mark Ingram owners, Sean Payton really does hate you.
Note for Rob Gronkowski Owners: I know you're nervous and feeling like Richard Nixon here.
Tom has a message for you.
I'm with Marcus Peters. It was pretty ugly out there.
Pittsburgh's Antonio Brown rocked these sweet Arnold Palmer tributes Sunday night.
When quarterbacks have nightmares, they see James Harrison...
In case you overslept and missed the Colts and Jaguars in London, here's the recap.
Ryan Fitzpatrick's 10 interceptions are more than CHI, KC, BUF, SD, OAK, GB, DAL, MIN, NE and PHI have thrown. Combined.
The key to winning football games is running the ball effectively. Right? Don't tell that to Cleveland fans...
Fun College Football note - Michigan threw out the "Centipede Formation" against Wisconsin..
OK, off-topic but..
Wrapping with a good "Life As Sports" thing. Colorado’s DJ LeMahieu won the NL batting title on Sunday. He did this by protecting his batting average by sitting out the last two games, and four out of the last five games. He was battling Washington's Daniel Murphy who had not been playing the last couple of weeks.
“It was unique in that the other guy he was battling with wasn’t playing,” Rockies manager Walt Weiss said. “If they’re both playing and going at it, that’s one thing. I didn’t want him to lose it that way.”
So basically, LeMahieu played it safe and didn't risk playing and possibly lowering his batting average.
That's lame. And don't even get me started on Colorado players winning batting titles. But sitting out to not risk lowering the batting average is lame.
But to be fair, it's not uncommon. Jose Reyes did something similar in 2011. In fact, the article headline reads, "Rockies pull an extreme Jose Reyes to get infielder batting title". But just because something's happened before doesn't make it any less lame.
You know what's not lame? History lesson time. Heading into the last day, a double header, of the 1941 season, 23 year old Ted Williams' batting average was .39955. He could have sat out the meaningless last two games of the last day and his average would have rounded to the hallowed .400 mark.
From the sabr.org article: "In his autobiography, My Turn At Bat, Williams recalls Joe Cronin telling him, 'You don’t have to be put in if you don’t want to. You’re officially .400.' Ted reports his reaction: 'Well, God, that hit me like a ***damn lightning bolt! What do you mean I don’t have to play today?'"
But you probably know the story. Williams put his .400 mark at risk and played. Both games. And went 6 for 8 finishing the year at .406.
That's badass.
How that applies to you and me is simple. I feel pretty safe in saying we're not going to hit .400 in the majors. But we all get to walk to the plate every day and take some swings. Take yours.
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