Tag Archives: Roger Goodell

Existing in a World of Flux

19 Thursday Oct 2017

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It was another week of unpredictable results that saw the New York Giants win their first game of the season on the road and the injury of another of the NFL’s marketable stars with Aaron Rodgers going down with a broken collar bone.

There has been some contention that it was a late hit on Rodgers by Vikinings linebacker Anthony Barr and that he drove Rodgers into the ground. To me it looks like he took a step and made a form tackle. It is a big blow to the Packers and the league to lose a player of Rodger’s standing, but in this instance I think it was a football play.

The continuing narrative surrounding the league is a worry about marketing and viewing figures as well as playing standards. Yes we are seeing a generation of quarterbacks who we are very familiar with come towards the end of their career or retire, but with players like Carson Wentz, Dak Prescott and emerging rookie Deshaun Watson I would not give up on the young group of quarterbacks just yet. And that’s ignoring the future years of Russell Wilson and the aforementioned Aaron Rodgers who should have some very good seasons ahead of them.

I am also not so worried about viewing figures given that no one seems to be able to take into account for more fractured way people watch television and sport. The American ratings don’t take into account those watching digitally, so a decline should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The participation levels in youth football however, must be monitored, but given all that we are learning about head injuries it would be a good thing to delay the playing of tackle football until children are big enough. The big change will be when a test for CTE that can be performed on players whilst they are still alive is available, and this is when the seismic changes could take place.

The NFL is heading into a period of flux, and yes I do think the NBA can challenge them with their marketable stars who are not hidden behind a helmet. However, the intricacies and skill of football are still as interesting as ever.

There are things that are affecting the quality of play in the collective bargaining agreement. Maybe coaches do need more practice time, but the days of two a days and endless hitting are behind us. It will require innovation and insight, something that has repeatedly occurred in the league but usually though the vision of a single coach or owner and then picked up across the league.

There will be much to discuss when the next CBA is drawn up, but it would help if the process was less adversarial. I really don’t think it is good for the sport that the relationship between the players union and the league is so fractious. However, it is interesting that at the league meeting this week that despite the comments on the anthem in Roger Goodell’s memo, the focus in the meeting was on what the league could do to further the players who are protesting agenda. This strikes me as a more productive route than demanding players stand for the anthem, although I’m sure as the discussions progresses that they will circle back to tackle that topic.

Still, it useful to remember that even for a sport as conservative as American Football, the world is a place of constant flux and for the league to survive it will have to find a way of existing in that flux.

Not so very different to the rest of us.

Gee:      Week 6   7-7                       Overall   53-39
Dan:      Week 6   7-7                       Overall   42-50

Chiefs @ Raiders (+2.5)

The Oakland Raiders’ offence has just not come together this season, and whilst I like the signing of NaVorro Bowman to bolster the Raiders’ linebacker group, I’m not sure it is enough to help them hang with Kansas City Chiefs’ offence. The Raiders will be desperate for a win to rescue their season but even as a home underdog I can’t pick them in tonight’s game, although it would not exactly surprise me if they were to win.

Gee’s Pick:          Chiefs
Dan’s Pick:          Chiefs

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A Strange Season

12 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by in Picks Competition

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It feels like a strange season so far for the NFL.

Some of that is the usual unpredictability of team performance, and so whilst it is a surprise to see the New York Jets with a 3-2 record given what almost everyone but the most ardent of Jets fans were expecting for the season, but it is also not unusual for it to happen in the NFL.

It is unusual is for the league to be having a feud with the executive branch of the US government, but when you have Vice President Mike Pence staging his own walk out protest in response to the kneeling of some San Francisco 49ers’ players for the national anthem then you know this is not something that is going quieten down soon. In fact, Roger Goodell has sent out a memo and is hoping to come up with a solution that will persuade all players to stand for the anthem in return for certain commitments to address the issues players are concerned with.

I suspect much of this is to do with the league’s bottom line and the response of a large section of fans, but I don’t entirely disagree when Goodell writes, ‘The controversy over the Anthem is a barrier to having honest conversations and making real progress on the underlying issues.”

A protest doesn’t’ gain traction if it is comfortable, but there is now that a conversation is being started it needs to be focussed on the issues at hand and the point of the protest was never about the flag. It’s just hard not to see this as the league backing its African American players until the their money was threatened.

It does at least look like the NFLPA will be involved in next week’s meetings, but at this stage it just feels like no one knows what is going to happen.

I know the feeling. I am hoping to get back to something like a routine in a couple of weeks as I work on finishing the edits on my second book that is coming out next year, but whilst the coaching tape still escapes me, at least my picks are holding up so far.

Gee:      Week 5   10-4                     Overall   46-32
Dan:       Week 5   5-9                       Overall   35-43

Eagles @ Panthers (-2.5)

This looks like it could be a really good Thursday night game as long as the short week doesn’t hurt the travelling team as it so often does, but the Philadelphia Eagles have had a strong start to the season with their running game being surprisingly effective. They travel to face a Carolina Panthers team whose defence carried them for the first couple of weeks, but now it looks like Cam Newton is hitting his stride after an offseason spent recovering from surgery and a slow start to the season.

This line feels about right, so I’m going to take the home team on a Thursday night, but I don’t feel super confident about it.

Gee’s Pick:          Panthers
Dan’s Pick:          Panthers

Does the NFL Have a Problem?

27 Thursday Oct 2016

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It seems that everyone is writing some variation on what is wrong with the NFL, or questioning whether there are any good teams. The ratings for TV in the States are down, and the quality of the prime time games has been called into question, yet as ever, I think that the situation is more complicated than that.

Certainly there do seem to have been a lot of less than stellar games in the prime time slots, but part of that is due to the lack of flexing games until later in the season, and the very nature of the Thursday games. As it allows me to watch every team, and I get a chance to watch without knowing the score, I watch and write up the Thursday night games and you can frequently see them descend into an easy win for the home team. Playing a game three days early when it takes a week to recover has always caused problems for NFL teams, and it certainly calls into question the NFL’s claim that safety is their prime concern.

However, whilst these games are deliberately chosen to show case every team to the nation, the big prime time Sunday night and Monday night games are meant to be the best of the week’s matchups. The problem with that though, is these fixtures are selected whilst the army of computers that are used to churn out the schedule are working overtime to find the best fit that they can out of the incredibly complex mix of team requirements, TV requirements, the cycle of divisional opponents and various other factors that goes into making the NFL schedule. The difficulty being that when these decisions are being made, nobody knows who the good teams are going to be in the upcoming season. Even a safe looking selection like the New England Patriots visiting the Pittsburgh Steelers can take a turn for the worse when an important player like Ben Roethlisberger picks up and injury that keeps him out of the game.

There has been mention of the NFL having gone up against the presidential debates, but whilst there is a lot of focus on the race, the league have only had games go up directly against two of the three televised debates. So what is going on?

Part of it could well be that the NFL seems to be lacking teams that are definitively good this season. Week seven saw the last undefeated record go, and there are only three teams with a solitary loss. The New England Patriots look as good as anyone now that Tom Brady has come back from his suspension, but their defence seems to lack pass rushing and may be vulnerable to a high powered offence. The Dallas Cowboys have looked good as they have gone 5-1, largely thanks to the performance of two key rookies on offence and a defence that seems to have made a definite step up in play when compared to last season. The only other team to with a solitary loss are the Minnesota Vikings who were the last undefeated team this year, but the injuries to their already suspect offensive line allowed the Philadelphia Eagles to pressure them into a loss. This is a team that has already lost their starting quarterback to a practice injury in the preseason and their leading rusher.

Not team is ever perfect, but it feels like the presence of a major flaw is looming over a lot of teams this season. The Seattle Seahawks are as competitive a team in the league, but their offensive line is not good, and now an injured Russell Wilson is struggling to perform behind it. The Atlanta Falcons have the second ranked offence by DVOA, but their defence is ranked a lowly twenty-sixth and such a disparity makes it hard to look like a super team.

Once again though, there could be more to it. Certainly the games haven’t always been the best spectacle, people want excitement, and when games are being called with so many penalties as they currently are, it is hard to keep people engaged. My only personal frustration is the five yard illegal contact that seems to get called the moment a corner back breathes on a receiver, along with an unnecessarily generous automatic first down. If you are going to call a penalty that often, it shouldn’t just come with a first down, and a bit of hand fighting is hardly the biggest problem in the NFL. In fact I’ll try to approach that right now.

There are so many topics to cover and once again I am running out of time so let’s circle round to the biggy, at the centre of so many questions. The league office, and in particular Roger Goodell. There have been many words dedicated to his performance over the last couple of years. For a very on point summary of his handling of the Josh Brown case look no further than Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post (article here) and the really troubling this is that we have been here before and Goodell has not learnt his lessons. So the NFL are stuck with a commissioner who is happy to fine players for daring to twerk in the end zone, but can’t stick to his own policy on domestic abuse and yet again is blaming local law enforcement. The owners are happy to have him as he acts as firewall for criticism aimed at the league, but with dropping ratings, questions about safety and concussions, plus for possibly the first time there is potentially a serious rival league in the NBA who might be able to mount a genuine attempt at replacing football as America’s number one sport, it might be time for them to realise that the NFL is not too big to fail.

It is a long way from that, but they have to address youth football, get out of their own way when it comes to officiating, and find the right balance between player safety and allowing coaches to coach. To look at whether the rosters are too young, what new training tools like the robotic tackling dummies that we saw in this seasons Hard Knocks can give to the game. Football can be a conservative game, but with the challenges it faces, and to ensure its policy, it has to look to the future and embrace it, and that might just mean a forward looking commissioner that inspires confidence.

Of course, in four weeks’ time these stories could all just disappear, but the problems won’t and that should concern owners, players, and fans alike.

Jaguars @ Titans (-3.5)

My rule for the Thursday night games going forward is to always pick the home team unless there is a compelling number of points, or an amazingly good team on the road against a poor team. By this formula there is nothing about the Jaguars who seem to have gone backwards this season on offence for me to do anything other than pick the Titans.

Gee’s Pick:          Titans
Dan’s Pick:          Titans