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I don’t know if Liam Coen can overcome this opening press conference moment
Holy shit. As a UMass guy myself, there’s nobody rooting harder for Liam Coen than me.
Usually when a UMass guy gets a look in the NFL, that means it’s someone like Mike Tannebaum or Chris Grier ruining an AFC East team via bad drafting/personnel moves.
Liam felt different. Just 10 years ago Coen was the pass game coordinator and quarterbacks coach at his alma mater, coaching in front of the 250 people that showed up to McGuirk on those cold fall afternoons.
After Mark Whipple refused to let Coen call plays (in hindsight one of the dumbest things to happen at that University, and we’re talking about the school that kicked kids out for not wearing masks OUTDOORS during COVID) he left to go to Maine, then the Rams, then Kentucky, then back to the Rams, to Tampa, where he helped Baker and company make the playoffs this fall.
When the Bucs got word Coen might go to Jacksonville, they made him an offer that would pay him as the highest paid coordinator in the league. After just one season! That, and how mad the Bucs organization seems after him leaving, tells you all you need to know about the quality of mind Coen possesses.
I was feeling good about his chances in Jacksonville… until this came out. My god is this bad. Press conferences, especially new coach press conferences, are typically some of the most useless exercises around. Wait, you want to build a tough, smart and fast team? I was actually hoping we were going to build the slow, wimpy and stupid team!
While dumb, they can give you moments like this that offer something into the personality of the guy calling the shots. Joe Judge talked about how he was going to bring the city of New York’s mentality to the football team. Wouldn’t you know it he was run out of town two years later for being a hardo.
This is just an all time bad clip for Coen. Zero charisma. Zero personality. Zero laugh after. It sounds like he’s in a hostage video with Shad and Tony Khan pointing a gun at him telling him to do the stupid “Duval” thing.
Here’s to hoping my fellow Minuteman can figure it out. After this clip, it looks like it’ll be another in a long list of bad hires for Jacksonville.
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Dear Chiefs fans – Welcome to the dark side
Chiefs fans, I’m here to give you some advice.
You are now public enemy number one. You went from the lovable underdog who was going to dethrone a dynasty to the dynasty everyone is trying to dethrone.
With that comes the haters and losers who will take anything they can get to downplay your accomplishments because they simply can’t wrap their mind around a winning culture and winning players.
Here’s some facts: the Chiefs went 15-1 during the regular season when they played their starters, handled the Texans in the Divisional Round and beat Josh Allen to make it to their third straight Super Bowl. Nobody has even made it to three straight before!
In their last 17 one score games the Chiefs are 17-0.
But… but.. the refs! It’s rigged! The NFL just wants the Chiefs to win! That’s why Buffalo didn’t win! Waaaah!
I don’t even like the Chiefs. I’m not rooting for them. In fact, I’m rooting against them because I selfishly don’t want to see the Patriots Dynasty get upstaged.
I can however respect greatness. And I see jealousy from a mile away.
After all, it was the same tune with the Patriots. It was something new every week. Spygate. Deflategate. The refs are protecting Brady. The Jesse James drop (that, by the rules, was a drop), Myles Jack (probably wasn’t) down. It goes on and on and on.
That’s just what happens when you win. Others can’t process it and have to find any excuse to not just give credit where credit is due.
Maybe, just maybe, when you get all these “calls” that go your way in big moments, you’re doing something right to constantly be in those big moments. It’s almost like when you win as much as the Chiefs do you get more attention and games in the spotlight, thus making every opponent or referee mistake that much more public and heightened.
And I’m not some referee apologist here. The refs screw plenty up and for the most part, just need to stay out of the way in the big games and only call the obvious ones.
But to say last night was on the refs? The Bills were 1-for-5 on tush push plays with a 250 pound quarterback! That’s not to mention the elite running back behind him.
Nantz and Romo were even calling the Bills out for only sneaking to the left! Hey dip shit McDermott, if those guys know it was coming, where do you think they got it from? After the third time it failed, don’t you think they’d try to change things up? Like maybe instead of taking a step to the left before plunging forward just plunge forward when it’s fourth and two inches?
Even if he picked up the first down, it wasn’t by much. The way this play is being talked about is like he cleared it by four yards. He picked it up by maybe half a yard, at most. I’m honestly not even sure with the camera angles if he got the line to gain anyway.
But just say he did and the Bills go down and score. What next? You’re leading by one with 13:01 to go in the fourth and have the ball at the Chiefs 41.
Even if you score, did anyone think Mahomes wasn’t scoring the next two possessions? The Bills defense made one play in the red zone (the Jordan Phillips sack that forced the field goal) but other than that, the Buffalo defense provided no resistance in the fourth. KC got whatever it wanted, including two first downs on four plays when it was trying to run clock.
That’s not even going into McDermott chasing points by going for two in the SECOND QUARTER or the Bills and Josh Allen getting the ball back with 3:33 to play down three and turning it after the Spags blitz call in the condensed formation that the Bills didn’t see coming.
Some franchises are cursed. Some are just losers. The Buffalo Bills happen to be both.
Did the refs miss some calls? Do the Chiefs get some bounces? Sure. But if you want to beat the champs, you better come in and throw a hard power punch. Buffalo never did that and that’s why they’re 0-4 against Mahomes in the postseason.
(PS Go Eagles)
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Alternate Draft History: New England Patriots
As a draft nerd myself, I have to admit I was secretly excited for the Patriot rebuild post Brady/Belichick.
After years of bad drafting in the 2010s, I thought a reinvigorated Bill would rebuild the roster in the way he did when he first took the New England job, bringing in 20-plus free agents while nailing draft picks to get the team back into contention.
Now, as the playoffs begin and the Pats are now six years removed from their last playoff win, I feel like a fucking moron for looking forward to a rebuild. Sitting home and watching other teams compete in the playoffs while your team is out blows.
So here’s an idea: What if the Patriots didn’t have a dog shit roster? What would the team look like if they didn’t take guards from Chattanooga in the first round? What if they didn’t believe in the likes of N’Keal Harry, Tyquan Thornton and Ja’Lynn Polk (woof) to support a young quarterback?
Let’s take a look. When I see people go through redrafts, it usually leads to X team drafting every good player available and it’s just a dumb and nonsensical exercise. If the league knew how good AJ Brown was going to be, don’t you think he would have gone a tad higher than 51st?
Instead, I’ll give a more realistic look at it by taking the first five picks the Patriots made in each draft over the last five years and changing the pick to next player drafted at that position. It’s not a perfect exercise, but a good way to showcase just how bad Bill and company have been at picking players.
2024 Draft
Original Pick: QB Drake Maye (No. 3)
New Pick: Michael Penix (No. 8)
A rare win here for the Patriots. Maye was the obvious and correct pick. It’s impossible to say how either players’ careers will turn out, but so far Maye looks like he has the makings of a superstar while Penix was a 55 year old rookie who was inconsistent in the few starts he made.
Original Pick: WR Ja’Lynn Polk (No. 37)
New Pick: Adonai Mitchell (No. 52)
This one doesn’t even showcase how dumb Eliot Wolf and crew are. As we know, the Patriots traded out of the 34th pick to get two picks. How can you pass on the opportunity to get Polk (12 catches, 87 yards) AND Javon Baker (one catch, 12 yards) when you could have one single player like McConkey (82 catches, 1,149 yards, seven touchdowns).
But since we’re just going off of where the pick was made, the alternate to Polk would be Mitchell. While he didn’t do much (23 catches, 312 yards) I might have been able to do as much as Polk did this year and would still feel better having Mitchell’s upside moving forward.
Quick side note: Picks made after Polk include the likes T’Vondre Sweat, Braden Fiske, Cooper DeJean, Kamari Lassiter and Edgerrin Cooper, proving that every team should just draft good players regardless of position rather than reaching to fill needs during the draft.
Original Pick: OT Caeden Wallace (No. 68)
New Pick: Kiran Amegadjie (No. 75)
Another pick that just doesn’t have a good vibe to it. The Patriots seemed to change their mind on whether Wallace was a left tackle or a right tackle and he might just… suck. He was terrible at left tackle week three against the Jets, got hurt and made a few cameo appearances the last few weeks of the season, though unable to beat out Lane Johnson — whoops, Demontrey Jacobs — for the start at right tackle.
Amenadjie wasn’t much better. He couldn’t get on the field for the only line in the league that might have been worse than New England’s. Quick draft advice: don’t draft players from the nerd schools like Yale in the first three rounds.
Two picks after Amenadjie was Delmar Glaze, who started every game at right tackle for the Raiders from week three on.
Original Pick: OG Layden Robinson (No. 103)
New Pick: Mason McCormick (No. 119)
For all the hype of Robinson in the preseason, he wasn’t very good his first year in the NFL. Maybe he turns into a good player, but it wasn’t pretty at times as a rookie.
Like Glaze, McCormick started every game from week three on for Pittsburgh.
Original Pick: Javon Baker (No. 110)
New Pick: Tez Walker (No. 113)
As mentioned above, Baker was a complete zero his first year in Foxboro. Walker wasn’t any better in Baltimore, finishing the season with one catch for 21 yards. AKA who the fuck knows with either.
2023 Draft
Original Pick: CB Christian Gonzalez (No. 17)
New Pick: Deonte Banks (No. 24)
Bill’s last draft in New England was his best in about 10 years, and while that doesn’t say much, it was the kind of draft that should have kickstarted a reboot.
The 6-2, 200 pound corner with 4.3 speed and effortless fluidity inexplicably fell to 17, going one pick after Emmanuel Forbes, who was cut by corner-needy Washington in his second season.
Banks, who went to the Giants a few picks later, hasn’t been much better and sounds to be on the outs in New York. Multiple teammates questioned his effort this season and he was benched multiple times. Add this to the list of draft wins for Bill.
Original Pick: Edge Keion White (No. 46)
New Pick: Tuli Tuipuloto (No. 54)
I was expecting this to be another win for Bill, but it’s not as clear cut as you’d think. In fact, by the numbers Tuipulotu has the edge.
Through two season, White has six sacks, 10 tackles for loss and 21 quarterback hits. Tuipulotu has 13 sacks, 19 tackles for loss and 29 quarterback hits. I still believe in Keion and his upside long term but Tuiulotu so far has shown to be the better player.
Original Pick: LB Marte Mapu (No. 76)
New Pick: Daiyan Henley (No. 85)
While Patriots fans seem aware of all the gaffs the team has made through the years in the draft, this one feels under appreciated.
Another one of Bill’s “we’re smarter than you and we’re going to show you why” picks, Mapu, out of Sac State, has barely seen the field for New England. When he did play, I would get a notification that said he was questionable to return with a neck injury. Then he would return? I don’t know how one can be constantly questionable with a bad neck but who knows.
When Mapu does play, he sucks. Despite it being rammed down our throats how smart he is, he doesn’t seem to be in the right position at all when he’s out there.
So what about Henley? The Chargers took the Washington St. linebacker nine picks after Mapu and after recording just 16 tackles as a rookie, he exploded for 147 tackles his second year. I wonder if the Patriots — who couldn’t get anyone on the ground — could use a tackle machine in the middle of the defense?
Common theme while writing this: the Chargers seem to just draft better than the Patriots. Funny how one team was in the playoffs while the other is gearing up for a second straight top five pick.
Original Pick: C Jake Andrews (No. 107)
New Pick: Olu Oluwatimi (No. 154)
Andrews has been hurt each of his first two seasons and looks like a zero for the Pats. Oluwatimi was the next center off the board, all the way in the fifth round to Seattle. After just one start as a rookie, he made seven starts this past season.
Original Pick: K Chad Ryland (No. 112)
New Pick: Anders Carlson (No. 207)
Carlson led the NFL in missed kicks as a rookie with Green Bay, was cut in training camp and bounced around between San Fran and the Jets.
Ryland was horrendous as a rookie, was cut and played with the Cardinals this year. Unlike Green Bay, who took a flier on a sixth round kicker, the Pats used legit draft capital to draft a stiff who can’t put it between the uprights.
Advice for the people running the Patriots in the future: stop spending draft capital on special teams players!! It never works. Literally any actual football player would be better than a shitty kicker.
On the flip side, Ryland’s terrible kicking did help the Pats land Drake Maye. So in that way, I guess not all bad.
2022 Draft
Original Pick: G Cole Strange (No. 29)
New Pick: Cam Jurgens (No. 51)
I watched the 2022 draft at home with my dad. Having to work the next day the old man wasn’t pleased when the Pats traded out of 21 to move down to pick 29, delaying his beauty rest.
So as you can imagine, an already grumpy man was more than displeased when Roger Goodell notified him that he stayed up late just to watch the Patriots select a guard from Tennessee Chattanooga. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m going to be bed,” he muttered in a mix of anger and disbelief as soon as the pick was read.
I wasn’t in a much better frame of mind. Depressed, I laid in my childhood room watching grainy Youtube videos with 967 total views of Strange blocking against Little Children of the Poor University until 2 a.m. And even against the future accountants and salesmen, he didn’t look like a dominant player. It was doomed from the start.
Now, to be fair to New England the picks after Strange weren’t all great. George Karlaftis is the obvious miss but Dax Hill, Lewis Cine, Logan Hall, Christian Watson and Roger McCreary aren’t exactly All-Pros. The move should have been to stay at 21 and take the player the Chiefs moved up for, Trent McDuffie.
I sort of cheated with this pick using Jurgens, a center, but he was the next IOL off the board nearly one round later. If Jurgens was the pick at 29, my dad would have had the same reaction.
If Jurgens was the pick at 29, despite my dad being angry, the Patriots would have had a tough, talented interior player on their hands. After starting street free agent Ben Brown throughout the 2024 season, Jurgens would have been a good player on the roster and is a guy who would go much higher than 51 in a redraft.
The Patriots could have also had their pick at 29 and still got Jurgens in the second round but instead…
Original Pick: WR Tyquan Thornton (No. 50)
New Pick: George Pickens (No. 52)
They took another stiff receiver! As it turns out, having 4.2 speed doesn’t help you much if you can’t catch the ball or run routes.
Pickens certainly has his share of problems, and while the talent is obvious, it’s pretty clear why a player of his stature fell all the way to 52. It should also be noted that Bill Belichick never exactly built a team of choir boys during his time with the Pats.
Now a practice squad player on the Chiefs, Thornton has accumulated 39 catches for 395 yards in his career. For all his issues, Pickens has 174 catches for 2,841 yards and 12 scores in that span. You take Pickens and live with the bullshit any day of the week in this scenario.
Original Pick: CB Marcus Jones (No. 85)
New Pick: Coby Bryant (No. 109)
I really like Marcus Jones… when’s he’s on the field. He’s a dynamic athlete in the slot, isn’t afraid to lay the wood despite his size and is one of the best punt returners in the league.
The only knock on him is he can’t stay healthy, which shouldn’t be a shock. He missed time in college and his 5-8, 175 pound frame has limited him to 31 of a possible 51 games in his NFL career. As much as I’d like the Pats to use him more on offense, I’m not sure his body could hold up with the extra workload.
Bryant has made 19 starts with Seattle, taking on a larger role this past season.
Original Pick: CB Jack Jones (121)
New Pick: Joshua Williams (No. 135)
About Bill not being afraid to take guys with questionable character… enter Jack Jones.
Here’s a quick refresher: Jones was a 5 star recruit out of high school, went to USC, became a starter his sophomore year but was then kicked off the team for “academic struggles.” (In case you can’t understand, 5 star starters don’t exactly get kicked out of schools like USC for not going to class, so whatever happened must have been pretty bad.)
After a Juco year, where he was arrested for burglary at a Panda Express, Jones went to Arizona State, where he balled out for two years.
Bill took a chance on him in the fourth round and it was the right call. Jones can play! He’s a ballhawk who, while taking too many chances, has shown a rare ability to make game changing plays.
Despite his arrest for bringing guns to Logan, Bill stuck by him. That was until he stopped trying during games and Bill shipped him away. I would have tried to make it work, but with his history, who the hell knows how bad it was behind the scenes.
Williams has been a part time player in KC each of the last three years.
Original Pick: RB Pierre Strong (No. 127)
New Pick: Hassan Haskins (No. 131)
Bill gave up on Strong after one season, trading him to Cleveland for a tackle no longer on the roster.
Strong hasn’t exactly done much, sitting at 499 yards through three season. Haskins, now with the Chargers, is also a nothing, so no real miss here.
2021 Draft
Original Pick: QB Mac Jones (No. 15)
New Pick: Kyle Trask (No. 64)
Do I even need to get into this one? Mac — who is the clear leader in the clubhouse for my least favorite Patriot players of my lifetime — never should have been drafted in the first round. Hell, he shouldn’t have been drafted in the third. He does not have one distinguishable trait to get drafted high. He has a noodle arm, he’s as tough as a modern day male liberal and he looks like he’s running in quicksand trying to escape pressure.
At least he was smart and makes good decisions! Except for all the times he made stupid throws and stupid decisions with the ball.
After Lawrence, none of the quarterbacks should have been drafted before day three. Take your pick- Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Justin Fields, Trask, Kellen Mond and Davis Mills are all — at best — backup quarterbacks in the league.
Original Pick: DT Christian Barmore (No. 38)
New Pick: Levi Onwuzurike (No. 41)
One of the better modern picks by Belichick, Barmore broke out in 2023 to the tune of 8.5 sacks.
I thought Barmore was going take another step forward and become an All-Pro this year but blood clots unfortunately limited his season to just a few games. Here’s to hoping he’s healthy and able to get back on a football field.
Onwuzurike — a smaller interior pass rusher — hasn’t lived up to the billing in Detroit with only 3.5 sacks in his career. Thankfully for the Lions, third round DT Alim McNeill is a monster in the middle.
Original Pick: EDGE Ronnie Perkins (No. 96)
New Pick: Baron Browning (No. 105)
Perkins was never healthy/never showed anything in New England and is likely out of the league after spending part of this past season on the Cardinals practice squad.
Browning showed promise in Denver but was traded to Arizona for just a sixth round pick at the deadline. He had two sacks in eight games in the Desert.
Original Pick: RB Rhamondre Stevenson (No. 120)
New Pick: Chuba Hubbard (No. 126)
I was expecting this to be a big win for the Pats, but turns out the guy picked after Rhamondre isn’t bad at all, and looks like he’s coming into this own.
Just look at the numbers for both.
Stevenson: 606 yards, five touchdowns; 1,040 yards, five touchdowns; 619 yards, four touchdowns; 801 yards, seven touchdowns.
Hubbard: 612 yards, five touchdowns; 466 yards, two touchdowns; 902 yards, five touchdowns, 1,195 yards, 10 touchdowns.
On their careers, Hubbard has 121 catches for 749 yards whereas Rhamondre has 154 catches for 950 yards.
Honestly, I’d rather have Hubbard next year.
Original Pick: LB Cam McGrone (No. 177)
New Pick: Nick Niemann (No. 185)
I was high on McGrone and loved the pick at the time. An injury disrupted his final season in the Maze and Blue and dropped him to the fifth round. Turns out, even after redshirting his first year in New England, he was never able to get back to top form from the injury.
Niemann is still with the Chargers but mainly just a special teams player.
2020 Draft
Original Pick: S Kyle Dugger (No. 37)
New Pick: Grant Delpit (No. 44)
The Patriots held the 23rd pick in the 2020 draft but traded down with the Chargers, picking up a second and a third round pick. Remember, gaining extra draft capital is only good when you actually draft good players with the extra picks.
This one was a good move, however. After Justin Jefferson was picked 22nd (brutal), Belichick made the move down and grabbed Dugger, who I can best describe as a solid pick. He’s a guy who still struggles in coverage — and was plain awful playing through an injury this past season — but he can still bring the boom in the run game/screen game. He’s a classic case of a guy born too late, as his play style is tailor made for the vicious 80’s and 90’s style of football.
Xavier McKinney, an All-Pro safety with Green Bay this season, went one pick before. Like Dugger, Delpit did get a second contract with the Browns, but for both Cleveland and New England, the real miss is Antoine Winfield, who went one pick after Delpit.
Original Pick: Edge Josh Uche (No. 60)
New Pick: Julian Okwara (No. 67)
This will be the year Uche will break out! No, for sure it’ll be this year!
Few people were able to build a reputation by beating up a bunch of shitty backup tackles on primetime like Uche did in 2022.
During his 11.5 sack “breakout” season, three came against an awful Colts team, two came in a primetime game against Buffalo (his best game as a pro) and three came on a Monday night game against Arizona, where New England faced Colt McCoy and backup tackles.
Outside of those three games, Uche — a designated pass rusher who offers nothing in the run game — has a total 12.5 sacks in the other 61 games he appeared in.
Shockingly, Matt Patricia wasn’t any better at drafting. Okwara never received a second contract in Detroit and spent last season in Arizona.
Original Pick: Edge Anfernee Jennings (No. 87)
New Pick: Jonathan Greenard (No. 90)
I do like Jennings as a football player. The Pats were right to give him a second contract, as he is a physical presence on the edge in the run game. The problem is he gives nothing as a pass rusher. He is what he is.
Greenard has turned into a force on the edge. Drafted by Nick Caserio in Houston (imagine if Bill had just turned the draft keys to Caserio here?), Greenard had an eight sack season in 2021 and a 12.5 sack season in 2023.
He turned that into a four years, 76 million dollar deal with Minnesota in the offseason and has made the Vikings happy on the investment, coming up with nine sacks in Brian Flores’ aggressive defense.
Original Pick: TE Devin Asiasi (No. 91)
New Pick: Josiah Deguara (No. 94)
Bill was so horned up to recreate Gronk-Hernandez that he took Asiasi and the player next up on the list with late third round picks.
Both were disasters. Asiasi, the big bodies “Gronk” type, lasted three years in the league and tallied 11 catches for 44 yards.
Deguara is still kicking around the league.
Original Pick: TE Dalton Keene
New Pick: Adam Trautman
And part two. Keene was supposed to play the Hernandez role, but instead of killing someone, he simply opted to be a shitty, useless player on the football field.
He somehow did less than Asiasi, as he finished his career with three catches for 16 yards.
Trautman isn’t any good either, but he’s at least still in the league after five years.
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So after all that, here’s what this alternate version of the Patriots would look like heading into next season:
QB: Michael Penix, Kyle Trask
RB: Chuba Hubbard, Hassan Haskins
WR: George Pickens, AD Mitchell, Tez Walker
TE: Adam Trautman, Josiah Deguara
LT: TBD (insane they haven’t used a high pick on a true LT since 2019!!!!!!)
LG: Mason McCormick
C: Cam Jurgens
RG: Olu Oluwatimi
RT: Karin Amegadjie
DE: Tuli Tuipulotu
DT: Levi Onwuzurike
DE: Julian Okwara
OLB: Baron Browning
LB: Daiyan Henley
LB: Nick Niemann
OLB: Jonathan Greenard
CB: Deonte Banks
S: Grant Delpit
Would this team be better? Low bar with a team that is 8-26 the last two seasons.
S: ?
CB: Josh Williams
CB Cobe Bryant
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Fixing the NBA: Show the player introductions
Hello to all two fans of Wicked Smart Sports. Maybe this will be the year I actually blog and try to get this thing going.
What could bring me out of retirement? Waking up and seeing the Panthers/Oilers Game Seven on Monday outdrew every NBA finals game since 2019 with 16.3 million viewers.
Yes, you read that right. The sport the maple syrup loving commies up north created had one game do better than every NBA finals game over the last four years. Four! That includes the 2020 Mickey Mouse title that featured LeBron, the 2022 finals better the Celtics and Warriors, last years snoozer that featured the best player in the world and this years finals.
Let me preface by saying the NBA hasn’t had a game since 2016 and, naturally, with that much on the line, the casuals will tune in.
Still, it shows just how far Adam Silver’s NBA has fallen. The least watched game of the 2017 finals did 18.7 million. The 19 finals had four games that would be the most watched post COVID.
What’s led to this? What’s led to the falloff of a league I once, and still do, love?
I could write a book on the subject. It starts with Adam Silver being the worst commissioner in sports. Since he’s taken over the league has gone so far downhill, giving all the power to the player which has significantly damaged the product.
But I’m not here to complain. That’s not me. I’ll offer solutions that go beyond getting rid of the moron, weak, alien running the league.
Let’s start with a simple one: bring back pregame player introductions!
How cool is this? I mean it’s not quite on the level of a Stephen A/Josh Hart debate but I’d say this is a pretty sweet way to sell a game.
How hard is this to do? It’s literally part of every game!! Earth to ESPN: your studio show sucks. It doesn’t sell the game at all. You losers would rather show Stephen A’s intro to the arena than the pregame intros.
It’s sad. These dorks don’t even realize they’re the reason the ratings are in the tank. There’s no presentation. The game doesn’t feel big. It’s just a First Take debate followed by the opening tip.
Mute the mics and give the fans at home a feel of the atmosphere in the arena. I promise, it will help sell your sport.
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Wicked Smart Recap: Will Bears regret trading first overall pick?
Bears GM Ryan Poles was deemed a genius after he agreed to trade the No. 1 overall pick to the Panthers in exchange for picks No. 9 and 61 in the 2023 draft, a 2024 first round pick, a second round pick in 2025 and DJ Moore, who had racked up three 1,000 yard seasons in his five-year career.
In theory, it was a smart move. Chicago believed it already had its franchise quarterback in Justin Fields, so gaining a plethora of draft assets — most notable the 2024 first from Carolina that looks destined to be a top 10 pick — as well as a proven weapon on the outside for your young quarterback made all the sense in the world.
The problem? The Bears don’t have a franchise quarterback.
It’s time we all admit that Fields might just not be very good. He completed 58.9 percent of his passes as a rookie. That number improved to just 60.4 percent in year two while he threw for just 2,242 yards with a 17-11 TD-INT ratio. He did, however, run for 1,143 yards.
The numbers don’t tell the whole story. Fields is erratic, makes bad decisions with the football and will tuck and run before going through all his reads. His team also doesn’t win very many games when he’s under center.
If you’re a Bears fan, here’s your positive spin on the trade: if Fields sucks, and the Panthers suck, which seems all but destined at this point, you’re looking at two high picks in the 2024 draft, one that seems rich on quarterback talent. There’ll be a chance to dip back in the draft for the 1,000,000,000 time for a signal caller. Maybe this time they’ll get it right. Maybe they’ll draft this years version of Mitch Trubisky.
Worst case scenario? One of the 2023 quarterbacks the Bears could have taken ends up being a player. The guy I’d be most nervous about? Anthony Richardson.
I would have taken Richardson No. 1 last year. Bryce Young’s size scared me off. CJ Stroud’s play outside the Georgia game worried me. Richardson wasn’t good at Florida, playing with little to no talent around him, but had the size, athleticism and arm strength that would make anyone salivate over the potential.
Through five quarters — Richardson was knocked out with a concussion on Sunday — Richardson looks like the player Bears fans think they have in Fields. He hasn’t made boneheaded decisions, his size and athleticism stand out on an NFL level and he doesn’t look overwhelmed sitting in the pocket.
Fields, now in his third season, looks far worse than Richardson so far this season. It looks like another misevaluation for the Bears organization at the most crucial spot, and one that will require yet another reset this offseason.
Here are some other observations from the weekend:
The Jets need to move off of Zach Wilson
Even I somewhat feel for Jets fans. I can’t imagine the high after seeing Rodgers run onto Metlife’s Field carrying the American flag on 9/11 before Monday’s opener. I’d imagine that was the most joy Jets fans have felt in their entire existence on earth.
That high lasted all of four plays before Jets fans were brought back to earth. It was cruel. From Super Bowl aspirations to another season of Zach Wilson, the quarterback who was jettisoned and mocked after Rodgers was brought on board.
It can’t last. Wilson was terrible against Dallas on Sunday and based on his track record against Belichick, Sunday won’t be any better. You think Jets fans are disappointed? Imagine how the locker room feels. That will only get worse as the weeks go on, and Joe Douglas has to make a move to get the players back on board. Is there anyone out there who can do that? Maybe not, but you can’t just let Wilson go out there and run around like a chicken with its head cut off for 15 more weeks.
I don’t think Sean Payton puts up with Russell Wilson too much longer
How the mighty have fallen.
Russell Wilson has aged like milk. His arm is gone, his fake confidence is gone, his legs are gone. The Broncos are left with an old, short, immobile quarterback that they’re paying 50 million dollars a year to. If Wilson worked for the Walton’s other business, he’d be relegated to Walmart greeter duty.
I don’t imagine Sean Payton will put up with this much longer. He signed Jarrett Stidham this offseason and the former Patriot seems poised to start sooner rather than later.
The Miami offense is for real
Maybe it was just seeing it against my Pats, but Miami’s offense seemed to have an answer for anything the Pats threw at them.
The speed is real. Between Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, defenses are forced on their heels all game. New England tried countering it by playing its corners and safeties — sometimes three safeties at once — playing 10-plus yards off the ball.
As you’d imagine, that opens things up for the short game and the run game, which the Dolphins took advantage of all night. As soon as the Pats countered and went with a press man look Tua hit Waddle for a 30-yard gain over the top.
Pick your poison. Miami will welcome the shell coverage as it protects against its weak offensive line and allows Tua to get the ball out quick and not take hits. New England’s pass rush, one of the best in the league, was neutralized by this.
Take away the run and heat up Tua? Goodluck finding multiple corners who can run with Hill and Waddle. Just ask Brandon Staley about that. The Dolphins started strong last year and cooled off down the stretch. Can Mike McDaniel come up with counters in his second year once coordinators find a way to slow down the speed? We will see.
Speaking of Staley, how does he have a job?
This one will be short and sweet. Brandon Staley is the guy who everyone in the media was fawning over when he talked about caring more about concussions than other coaches. He says all the right cliches and treats the dorks in the media nice so they say nice things about him.
I have to wonder how many of the dorks in media who acted like there was a correlation between giving friendly, cliche riddled press conferences and being a good head coach stand now? It’s funny- when Staley was first doing it he was Twitter’s golden boy. Now, they mock him endlessly.
It’s almost like the guy was a phony from the start. And, per usual, social media and the people who cover football ate it up. You can’t be a successful leader without being honest. Go back and watch the press conferences he was praised for and tell me if that’s someone you honestly believe. I feel like I’m the only one on the planet that saw through it.
What he couldn’t hide was the fact that his defenses have been atrocious during his tenure. He’s supposed to be a defensive genius! If he was anywhere besides the Chargers, he’d have been fired years ago.
Good job, Spanos family. You’re about to waste another year of Justin Herbert’s prime.
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Years of failed offensive personnel moves keeping Patriots from reaching ceiling
Back in 2019 the Patriots used a first round pick on N’Keal Harry.
It was the first wide receiver Bill Belichick and the Patriots used a first round pick on and he was supposed to be their 6-foot-4, 230 pound weapon that would keep defensive coordinators up at night.
That pick failed. Miserably. There’s a common misconception that Belichick simply neglects the offense and its personnel. That isn’t true. He simply sucks at evaluating skill position talent, and after years of failure in providing proper weapons in a league that is dominated by the passing game, the Patriots offense looks like it’s stuck in another century.
Just look at the last five years. In 2019 the Patriots used a first round pick on Harry and third round picks on Damien Harris and Yodny Cajuste. In 2020 Belichick selected Devin Asiasi and Dalton Keene in the third round. The 2021 draft yielded Mac Jones and Rhamondre Stevenson. The 2022 draft produced Cole Strange, Tyquan Thornton and Pierre Strong.
How’d that work out? Harry is out of the league, Harris signed for what is the equivalent of the vet minimum with Buffalo while Cajuste wasn’t good enough to cut it on either the Patriots or Jets’ offensive lines, two of the worst units in the league.
How about Asiasi and Keene, the next coming of Gronk and Hernandez? Asiasi has hauled in a remarkable four catches in his NFL career to Keene’s three.
The jury is still out on Mac, and Rhamondre is clearly a hit. Strange returned to action last night and looked as rusty as an old nail you find on the side of the road. That wouldn’t be concerning if he played well last year, but he wasn’t good then, so what makes you think he’ll be better this time around?
Thornton is quickly approaching bust status and his void in the offense has been apparent the last few weeks while Strong has already been traded.
Well, if the draft has been good the free agent signings and trades must be better. Right?
The trade for Mohammad Sanu, one in which the Patriots gave up a second round pick, is one of the worst Belichick has ever made. Bill later gave Nelson Agholar and Jonnu Smith big money and traded a third round pick for DeVante Parker. This past offseason his big signing was no-knees Juju while fixing the offensive line by signing Calvin Anderson and Riley Reiff.
How do you properly evaluate Mac when Bill and the Patriots have done everything possible to stunt his development? When the 2021 draft happened and the quarterbacks were drafted to the Jaguars, Jets, 49ers, Bears and Patriots, did anyone think the Patriots would be one of the worst landing spots?
All those personnel whiffs — as well as the lost Patricia-Judge year — are why the Patriots are where they are. It’s why they fell a drive short against Philly in the opener and it’s why they lost to Miami last night. The offensive line — which had four of its five starters against the Dolphins — can’t run block or pass block. The weapons can’t make anyone miss after the tackle, which is kind of important when none of them can get behind the defense for explosive plays.
The only guy who actually has some juice — Demario Douglas — was benched after trying to make a play.
Last night was a great example of what could have been with the Patriots. Everyone knows Tua has his limitations. He was verging on bust status under Brian Flores.
Then what happened? Miami fired Flores — a defensive head coach — and hired that dork Mike McDaniel who, like him or hate him, can clearly scheme up an offense.
What else? They traded up to draft Jaylen Waddle and flipped a first round pick for Tyreek Hill. They shelled out big money for Terron Armstead. They got him a running game. They gave Tua every possible resource to be a successful NFL quarterback.
The Patriots simply haven’t done that, and it’s why they’re 0-2 and staring another lost season in the face.
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Brad Stevens and the Celtics finally came to their senses and dealt Marcus Smart
If winning championships is the actual goal of the Celtics, trading Marcus Smart was inevitable.
That’s not to say Smart isn’t a championship level player — in theory, he does all the little things that are needed to raise banners like play defense, make the hustle play, etc.
HOWEVER what the rest of the country, and apparently the Boston media who covers the Celtics, doesn’t seem to understand is that Smart had become a detriment to the Celtics success.
It’s not hard to see why. It’s simple actually. Smart was the sixth pick in the 2014 draft and was the first major piece to the Boston rebuild following the Pierce/KG trade. In theory, if the pick worked out, Smart was going to be a key pillar for the next generation of great Celtic teams.
And he was a pillar. The problem was he wasn’t the type of pillar that could hold on its own.
Two years after Smart was selected the real reinforcements started coming in. Jaylen Brown was selected third overall and instantly became the focal point of the C’s rebuild. The year after that the Celts used the third pick of Jayson Tatum and later signed Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, pushing Smart and all other Celtic rotation players down the pecking order.
Once Kyrie and Hayward were out of there, Smart bolted up that order and basically intruded his way into a “Big Three” with Tatum, Brown and himself. The problem? Smart carried himself like he was a main part of that trio, rather than an expendable piece.
Smart wants the ball in his hand at the end of the game and believes he should have the ball. He took two(!) potential game-winners in game four of the Philly series. He shouldn’t have even been on the floor!
Derrick White is the best guard on the Celtics. In order to restore order in the locker room and establish the true pecking order of the team, Smart had to go. He would never allow himself to be held in any other light than a star in Boston. He isn’t that player.
This is a move that will help the Celtics in the long run. Tatum and Brown must now assert themselves as the leaders of the team. Everything goes through them. If Brown can’t get on board that it’s Tatum’s team at the end of the day, he can go too.
Tatum is the key to Boston winning its 18th banner. Everything the organization does from this point on needs to be about bringing the best out of him. Taking Smart out of the equation and forcing Tatum to be the unquestioned face of the franchise is exactly what the C’s needed to do.
Side note: if one more member of the Boston media writes some sappy post about Smart and acting like he died I am going to lose my mind. He’s in Memphis! He isn’t dead. I don’t know how it ended up that every dorky dweeb covers the NBA but here we are.
Another note: the thing that keeps getting thrown around about Smart is that he was the heart and sole of the team. I don’t know about you but I didn’t see much heart on that Celtics team. Their identity was being a bunch of front-runners who quit and gave up when the going got tough. They didn’t know how to win. Yet somehow replacing the guy who’s the heart of the culture is a bad thing? Give me a break.
The Celts are in win-now mode for as long as Tatum is around. Ripping the Smart bandaid off was a necessary step to try to accomplish the goal of winning a championship.
I’ve long been a defender of Smart’s game. I think he could have been one of the best point guards in the league with his pure passing ability. The issue is he’s never grown into that player, instead thinking of himself as someone who should be taking 15-20 shots a game. It’s delusional and it’s gotten to the point where you had to move on.
Good on Brad Stevens for seeing what he had to do and having the stones to do the difficult, but necessary, thing.
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Malcolm Brogdon should be the first of many moves for the Celtics this offseason
There’s a simple thing I believe in that stretches across sports: you never want to have too many locker room lawyers on your team.
What is a locker room lawyer? It’s someone who gets the players riled up at the powers that be, whether that be the coaches, management or the league itself. They’re the tattletales. The ‘wait, we aren’t allowed to practice for this long, this is unfair’ types. Another word might be losers.
The Boston Celtics had Jaylen Brown, Grant Williams and Malcolm Brogdon on its roster last year. All three are National Basketball Players Association Vice Presidents. How on earth did anyone in the Celtics organization think this was going to be a good idea?
It seems the C’s have realized this, with Malcolm Brogdon apparently the first to go. According to Shams, he’s off to the Clippers in a three-way trade that sends Kristaps Porzingis to the Commonwealth. Good! The Celts needed more size, Porzingis is coming off a season where he averaged 23 points, eight rebounds and shot .385 from three on a wretched Wizards team.
It shouldn’t stop there. Williams — who might go down as the least-likable Celtic of my lifetime — should be the next one out the door. Get him off this team. He thinks he’s an important player, as evident by him thinking he was going to get 20 million in free agency this year. He’s nothing more than a ninth man on a good team.
Did anyone miss him when he rode the pine this postseason? Was the reason the Celtics didn’t make the finals again because of Williams? Probably according to him, but to the rest of us with brains, we know that isn’t true. He’s expendable. He’s just another guy. The way he carries himself like he’s an All-NBA player and as if he’s made it because he’s part of the tattletale club in the NBPA is laughable. He should spend his years wasting away jacking up wild, offline three’s in Detroit.
As for Brown, I wouldn’t be scared to trade him too. If he actually gets the full max contract — which is highly doubt — it will be the worst contract in the league. Imagine giving 50-60 million dollars a year to a guy who can only dribble with one hand, is easy taken advantage of by good teams in the postseason and falls apart during a game seven of the Eastern Conference finals when the real best player on your team gets injured? I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that and it amazes me how many Celtics fans want to hold onto him at all costs.
I’d be looking at young assets for Brown, who still should fetch you something on the market. My ideal spot would be Portland, but not for the guy you’re thinking. No, I’m not giving Brown up for Damien Lillard. I’ll pass on a 33-year-old short guard who’s also on an inflated contract.
Give me the third pick and Anfernee Simons and you have a deal. Simons is 24 years old and averaged 21 a game last year and you can use that third pick on either Scoot or Brandon Miller. If it’s Scoot you then move off Marcus Smart for a wing. If it’s Miller you have a guard core of Smart, Simons and White, wings in Miller and Tatum and size with Porzingis, Al Horford and the Timelord.
That’s a championship team. That’s not a team that will max out in the Eastern Conference finals. That’s a team that can compete with Denver and the rest of the league to take home title 18 and put a shake up on a team that has underachieved for nearly my entire lifetime.
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Patriots hit low point with blowout loss to Buffalo
Josh Uche strip sacked Josh Allen with 1:11 left in the first half, with Matt Judon recovering to set New England — who had two timeouts in its pocket — up at its own 42.
Trailing 17-7, and with a defense that showed little signs of slowing Allen down, going down and trying to score a touchdown would have been a priority for any functioning offense.
Sadly, the Matt Patricia led Patriots don’t have that. After a 14-yard run by Rhamondre Stevenson, Mac Jones zipped a sideline pass to Jacobi Meyers that picked up nine yards, setting up second-and-one at the Bills 35 and 45 seconds showing on the clock.
Did New England use the short yardage chance to take a shot to the end zone? What about a play action pass? Nope, those things would have made sense. Instead, the Pats handed the ball off to Stevenson, who shockingly was hit in the backfield and gained no yards. 11 seconds then ran off the clock before Bill Belichick decided to use one of the two timeouts.
How do you follow up a stupid play? With an even dumber one. New England ran a quarterback sneak out of the timeout that got the first down, but instead of calling two plays in the huddle knowing you were going to sneak it, the Pats decided to call their second timeout with 32 seconds left.
If any team in the league did this, Patriots fans would be laughing at them.
“How stupid,” Donny in Marlboro would be yelling from his couch.
“This wouldn’t happen with Bill,” 35 different dudes from Quincy would laud.
Except it does. All too often now. Two incompletions and a four-yard pass to Hunter Henry later and Nick Folk was lining up for a 48-yard field goal and because nothing went right for the Patriots on Thursday, the normally reliable kicker doinked it off the crossbar.
On a drive where Belicick decided to play like a wuss, not trusting his quarterback to score a touchdown, they couldn’t even convert a field goal.
It’s embarrassing and downright malpractice what has happened with the Patriots offense this year. After no second half adjustments, and showing no real threat to get even close to the end zone, New England walked away with a 24-10 loss to the Bills in a game that somehow felt worse than the 47-17 throbbing Buffalo put on the Pats in the playoffs last year.
This was supposed to be the game New England showed how much progress it made since that playoff loss. All the players in the second year in the system were supposed to make a jump. The defense was supposed to be faster. The scheme was supposed to be better.
12 games in and everything has regressed. While all the talk is about how bad Patricia was and how mundane the offense is, the Bills did whatever they wanted to the Patriots defense. 24 points doesn’t show just how dominant Buffalo was.
Josh Allen did whatever he wanted. Stefon Diggs showed why he’s one of the best wide receivers in the league.
The Bills got Stefon Diggs for a first round pick and are paying him 24 million a year. He had seven catches for 92 yards and a touchdown, and had the Patriots been able to score any points and make it a game, those numbers would have been even more inflated. New England had no answer for him. If the game was on the line, I would have been running to whatever gambling site I could find to take Buffalo.
How about the big investments the Patriots made on offense? Hunter Henry — making nine million dollars this year and holding the highest cap hit of 15 million dollars on the team — had two catches for 13 yards.
Nelson Agholar, the second highest cap hit on New England of just south of 15 million dollars, recorded two catches for 17 yards. Jonnu Smith, another big investment in 2021, had two catches for six yards. What about Kendrick Bourne, who looked like a promising player last year? Well, he came up big with one catch for 15 yards, putting his season-total at 19 catches for 226 yards.
The only player outside of Stevenson (who is the only guy worth watching on this team) who did anything for the offense on Thursday was the cornerback they drafted in the third round.
The coaching is bad. The personnel sucks. The offensive line can’t pass block or run block and your quarterback can’t make plays once things break down. Other than that, everything is great!
The Patriots aren’t an offseason away from being competitive. That would have been the case if they took some strides forward. They have six wins this season against teams led under center by Mitch Trubisky, Jared Goff, Jacoby Brissett, Sam Ehlinger and Zach Wilson twice. In those six games, they’ve held those stiffs to 8.6 points-per-game.
In their six games against the Dolphins, the Ravens, the Packers, the Bears, the Vikings and the Bills (AKA the teams that have actual competent offenses) they’ve given up an average of 29 points-per-game. Belichick can still scheme up against the stiffs, but the Pats simply don’t have the talent to hang with the big guns.
Firing Patricia is a must, but just bringing in a real offensive coordinator won’t be able to make up the gap in talent this offense severely lacks. It’s no easy to find a No. 1 receiver and two starting tackles in one offseason while also needing to add high end corner talent, more pass rush, a true run stopper in the middle and more speed at linebacker. That’s a multi-year fix.
They also need to figure out if Mac Jones is the guy, and I don’t know how you can do that with everything that’s surrounding him this year. Personally, I don’t think he will ever be elite. But, how can you judge him when they can’t run the ball, can’t block in front of him and can’t get open? What quarterback can succeed in that situation?
There’s a million reasons the Patriots are stuck in purgatory, sitting at 6-6 and looking like a lock to be picking between 11-18, with no shot of beating the big dogs in the league but not shitty enough to be in contention for the real difference makers atop the draft.
A lot needs to change before New England is back to the team I grew up watching, and it’s depressing to watch.
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Can we stop pretending like Odell Beckham is a superstar?
Have you heard? Every team in the NFL is willing to sell their sole to get Odell Beckham.
Yes, every single team wants him. In the year of 2022. At 30 years old. Coming off a torn ACL.
Whatever PR firm is running things for Odell deserves a raise. You usually have to go to TMZ to see washed up superstars getting this much attention. Every day there’s a new tweet from Schefter or Rapport saying how interested the Cowboys are in him. Jerruh gets asked about it every day in Arlington and adds more coals to the fire, as if he’d be the difference between Dallas winning the Super Bowl and suffering an early playoff exit for the 65th year in a row.
“Odell Beckham Jr.’s free-agent tour kicks off Thursday with a visit to the New York Giants, continues on Friday in Buffalo with the Bills, and then goes to Dallas on Monday with the Cowboys,” Adam Schefter tweeted on Wednesday.
Since posting a 1,000 yard season in 2019 with the Browns, Odell’s numbers look like this: 23 catches, 319 yards and three touchdowns in seven games in 2020. In six games in Cleveland in 2021, Beckham had 17 catches for 232 yards and didn’t find the end zone. In eight games with the Rams, he had 27 catches for 305 yards and five touchdowns, and came to life down the stretch in the playoffs, but tore his ACL in the Super Bowl. It’s the second time he tore his ACL since 2020. His last good year was before COVID, which feels like a lifetime ago.
Does that sound like a player who is treating his free agency like he’s a coveted five-star recruit?
It’s not normal for guys to come back from two ACL tears. They just don’t have the same burst and explosion. Why would Beckham be any different?
How many snaps will Beckham be able to give whatever team signs him? Will he be anything more than a fourth or fifth option after CeeDee Lamb, Michael Gallup, Dalton Schultz and Tony Pollard in Dallas? How about Buffalo? Will Josh Allen be looking Beckham’s way much with Stefon Diggs, Gabe Davis and Isaiah McKenzie? Will Beckham even be able to cut and get open against NFL defenses?
I just don’t see the appeal. I did last year, when I thought Beckham would have helped a team like New England who desperately needed someone who could get open consistently. That was before the ACL tear.
If this was anyone else, nobody would care. The Odell name still holds value to fans, but when he eventually signs somewhere, I’m sure the contract will tell it all – that he’s washed up and someone who fans will be excited about but won’t be able to add any real value on the field to whatever team adds his services.
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