Sports

[gardenman]

The Andy Dalton experiment at QB is coming to a crashing end. Three interceptions in the first half is not ideal.

[gardenman]

Kudos to the Cards for knocking off the Saints and helping the Eagles' first-round pick move higher. The Saints' schedule doesn't get a lot better for them with games against the Raiders, Ravens, Steelers, Rams, Niners, Bucs, Falcons, Browns, Eagles, and Panthers. Likely/possible wins in that stretch are the Falcons (and that's kind of iffy) and the Panthers. A 4-13 season looks pretty possible for the Saints which would be great for the Eagles.

The Niners have decided, "Draft? We don't need no stinking draft!" After already trading away their first-round pick in 2023, they bundled their second, third, and fourth-round picks in 2023 and their fifth-round pick in 2024, to get Christian McCaffrey. Sure. Players? Who needs players? 

They have a Christian McCaffrey-lite guy in Deebo Samuel, so they don't have to rebuild their offense around McCaffrey. And if he goes down with an injury (as he's prone to doing) they don't have to throw away half the playbook because they can slide Deebo into his role.

I think the Niners vastly overpaid for him, but hey, you do what you do. The Rams and Niners were reportedly in a bidding war for McCaffrey with the Panthers just wandering from one to the other and getting offered more and more.

The Panthers will be in quick rebuild mode given the draft haul they've been getting. They should have a top-five (likely first overall) pick in the 2023 draft. Then adding in the Niners draft bonanza, they should come out of the draft with five to seven new starters, all on rookie deals. It's good for them.

The Niners are in "win now" mode. This is the kind of a trade the head coach loves this year, but next year and the year after, he'll storm into the GM's office and demand, "Where the heck are some good young players? How do you expect me to win without players?" And the GM will point to a picture of Christian McCaffrey. "Oh. Yeah. I forgot about him."

It's a bold move. It's a high-risk, potentially high-reward move. Short-term gain, long-term pain. Building a roster going forward from 2022 is going to be a real challenge for their GM. They have to find a way to pay Nick Bosa. They're in year two of Trey Lance's cheap rookie deal without getting anything from him. If they go far with Jimmy G this year, do they just let him wander off for next to nothing after the season, or try to resign him? And he'll want big money. 

They'll be a fun team to watch in the off-season. The roster reconstruction process they'll need to go through is going to count on a lot of luck with late-round and undrafted kids. As a rule, when you count on luck, it doesn't come.

[teganslaw]

I wonder if SF will utilize McCaffrey this Sunday. He might need time to learn the playbook before being fully inserted into the game. This could eventually impact Deebo Samuel's production a little, depending if McCaffrey is used as pass catcher as well as rb.

Kansas City isn't great at stopping the run, so it matters how much playing time McCaffrey gets Sunday. 

[gardenman]

The Giants are heading for an interesting offseason. Saquon Barkley and Daniel Jones are both free agents in 2023. Do they try to resign them? Do they let them wander off? Neither will come cheap. Barkley will want around $15 million and Jones more like $35-$45 million. They'll have the cap space ($54+ million) to get both signed if they choose to. They can only tag one of them, so both guys and their agents should use that as leverage. If they tag Jones, they risk losing Barkley. If they tag Barkley, they risk losing Jones. 

They have 24 (or so) free agents in 2023 also they have to find money for, or find a way to replace. Their GM is like, "Whoo-hoo! We've got $54 million to spend!" Then he realizes he needs to sign their two most expensive guys, patch up more holes, and they'll be drafting much later than they'd assumed. "Oh."  Joy in the NFL tends to be short-lived.

[sunshine45]

i cannot believe that the saints even got to 31 points last night.

i have a good friend who is a die hard saints fan (it is also one of "my teams") and he said that they need to get rid of the coach.

[Spurt]

@sunshine45 @gardenman @teganslaw 

I think that was a LOT to give up for an injury plagued player, they are saying if he passes his physical dont be surprised if he's in the starting lineup......As the late great George Allen once said---THE FUTURE IS NOW for these 49ers.....if they fail to win the Super Bowl ---OUCH!!! 2023 and 2204 will result in a big THUD  ....Jimmy will become a FA and if I was Jimmy G after this season Id get out of SF!!!! The 49ers will have 26 FAs next season and a lot of missing draft picks!

As far as the Saint's coach Allen was their DC...and Pete Carmichael went from QB coach to OC......It takes time to settle in with coaching changes, at least the Saints are scoring points and Dalton is just a backup QB JMHO. It was those TURNOVERS that killed them last night.. There was also some sloppy tackling too....

Their offense is ranked middle of the pack at 16, but consider their QB---backup traveler Andy Dalton....

 Per NFL.com defense rankings in the NFL 2022 2023 not too shabby--

• Buffalo Bills. ...
• Green Bay Packers. ...
• Los Angeles Chargers. ...
• Los Angeles Rams. ...
• New Orleans Saints. ...
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers. ...
• Denver Broncos. ...
• Cleveland Browns.

I think they just need some more pieces on their roster, they are better than their record....They are in better shape than my Washington team

[gardenman]

@sunshine45 

Yeah, Dennis Allen was a "safe" hire. He was on the staff, knew the players, had been successful as their DC. He was taking over a generally successful team. Instead of just keeping things on cruise control, he opted to change everything. And change isn't always for the better.

You have a QB who's thrown three interceptions in the first half and your message to him is, "Keep doing what you're doing." Uh, really? Maybe, just maybe telling him not to throw three interceptions might be smarter.

There were some pretty obvious swings and misses in the coaching hires in 2022. Dennis Allen is a big old swing and a miss. The Saints weren't alone in that. The Raiders were dumb enough to finally give Josh McDaniels another head coaching gig and are learning why no one else had done so. Nathaniel Hackett of the Broncos will be lucky to survive the first year. Lovie Smith is Lovie Smith. The Texans just hired him because he was there.

Daboll of the Giants and McConnell of the Vikings seem like home-run coaching hires. There are a lot of guys in the middle, and we'll see how they turn out in a year or so.

Teams tend not to wait too long once they realize they screwed up to move on from coaches these days. I would expect a few of the first-year guys not to see a year two. And that's not horrible for them as they tend to have guaranteed contracts, so they'll still get well paid for the next few years as they sit back and do nothing.

Kliff Kingsbury is on the edge of a Kliff with his job despite his contract extension. Getting into a shouting match with your QB on the sidelines of a nationally televised game and having a last-place 3-4 record in the NFC West isn't ideal for him. He's kind of a Jekyll and Hyde QB whisperer in that he makes the kids playing for him play well, but they all end up hating him and wanting him dead. 

[gardenman]

The Eagles had Jason Kelce wired for sound on Sunday and as the Eagles came to the line in their short-yardage formation, Jason shouted to the Cowboys, "You know what's coming!" They did and they still couldn't stop it. 

The Eagles have a new piledriver formation they're using on short-yardage plays where it looks a lot like the "safe" formation teams use running out the clock with a running back on either side of Hurts as he's under center and another player being him. Hurts takes the snap and the whole pile just surges forward with guys around Hurts just grabbing him and shoving him forward. It's been a hundred percent effective so far.

I'm betting the Eagles have some sort of wrinkle they'll throw in there at some point. The Cowboys tried lining up to match it, and if more teams move more players to the center of the field, expect to see Hurts drop back and toss a pass down the field at some point from that formation.  

[Spurt]

@gardenman 

Thats an interesting "dynamic" going on in Arizona....The egos of Kliff Kingsbury and also Kyle Murray are clashing with one another.....I think Murray is a bit immature--first we hear he isnt studying like he should be (and they were even going to put it in his contract, but backed off---but thats not a good sign).....And it appears that Kingsbury may know how to deal with college kids, but not grown men...The little emotional spurt on the sidelines is just the tip of the iceberg......Its just something waiting to explode!!! 

JMHO but McDaniels, Hackett and Lovie the 3 WORST hirings....

[gardenman]

Lovie Smith was never going to be a great hire. He is who he is. A player-friendly, good guy, who won't embarrass the team by doing something stupid. He's an okay DC. He was just the easiest guy for the Texans to hire, so they hired him. If you hooked them up to a lie detector and forced them to talk, they'd admit they didn't expect much from Lovie. He is who he is.

And that's not bad. He's not going to alienate players or the front office. He's just a good guy. But he's not a great head coach. You can win games with a good guy as a head coach if he's got great coordinators and good players. That's more the Texans' issue.

Lovie is more of the father figure type of head coach. He's not a master strategist scheming away 24/7. His players love him. His GM loves him. The owner loves him. Everyone loves Lovie. But if you're expecting a head coach who will revolutionize the game, Lovie isn't it. But give him the right staff and players and he'll win games for you. 

The guys like Kingsbury, McDaniels, and Hackett are expected to revolutionize the game. They're the mad scientist types. Or in their cases the bad scientist types. You don't expect that from Lovie.