Category: NFL

Browns Hire Todd Haley as Offensive Coordinator

The Browns made some more news last night, as many insiders began to report that Todd Haley would be named Offensive Coordinator for the Cleveland Browns.  Previously, the Browns had interviewed Ben McAdoo and Mike Mularkey.  Neither name really moves the needle.  This hiring comes just over a week after Haley was fired from the same position with the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Haley spent the previous six seasons with Steelers as Offensive Coordinator.  Before Pittsburgh, Haley spent two and a half seasons as head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, and a year under Ken Wisenhunt as the Arizona Cardinals offensive coordinator.

Image result for Todd Haley Kurt Warner

More recently, Haley has been the Offensive Coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers.  He is the brains behind the Bell, Brown, Ben, and Bryant.  He was fired this season after the Steelers lost 45-42 at home to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC Divisional Round.  His team scored 42 fucking points on the 5th ranked defense in terms of points allowed.  In the regular season the Steelers finished third in total yards per game on offense with, 377.9.  In his first full season the Steelers finished 20th in yards per game, and the remaining years they would not finish below 10th in the league in offense.  In the the end, the long-lasting feud between Haley and Roethlisberger was  too much to overcome.

Haley’s most impressive work doesn’t come from Pittsburgh as many believe.  His time with Matt Cassel in Kansas City to me is his finest work.  Haley turned Matt fucking Cassel into a Pro-Bowl Quarterback, and he managed to lead them into the Playoffs.   In 2010 Haley and Cassel finished at 10-6, which was good enough to win the AFC West.  Cassel was named a Pro-Bowl Alternate, as he finished 2010 with 27 touchdowns and 7 interceptions.   Anyone who can make a JAG like Matt Cassel look like a Pro-Bowler can play (coach) for my team any day of the week.

 

I am certainly optimistic about this hiring, because Haley has a track record of offensive success. He has worked with Tony Romo, Kurt Warner, Ben Roethlisberger, and Matt Cassel  most recently.  All of them had success.  Hell, even Kurt Warner still holds a close place in his heart for Todd:

At the end of the day this is just a hire.  Just a nice name on paper to droll over for a few months, and then call for his firing.  One positive that can come from this move is Dorsey continues to get his ducks in a row.  He’s got his two Front Office Executives, and now an Offensive Coordinator.    Hopefully a new head coach is not too far off, and he has a plan that will be fully executed.

#Pray4TheSeniorBowl

Patriots Announce What Color They Will Be Wearing in Super Bowl LII

The moment everyone’s been waiting for…the jersey reveal (not really though). The Patriots took to twitter to announce the news.

No surprise here — the Patriots seem to play their best in the white jerseys so better to not ruin tradition. Little surprising because they are the home team in the game but this goes to show someone in the front office is a little superstitious.

The Patriots are favored by 5 points over the Eagles.

The Patriots Complete the Comeback En Route to Their 10th Super Bowl

The Jaguars carried a 20-10 lead into the fourth quarter and had a chance to stop the Patriots on a key 3rd and 18 backed up in their own territory.

Let’s rewind real quick.

CBS hit us with a fantastic opener with almost countered the fact that we had to listen to Tony Romo all day

The Patriots opened up with a quick FG on a productive drive to make it look like they weren’t going to have any issues with the Jaguars defense. The Jacksonville offense, however, had other plans.

We saw Marcedes Lewis catch his only pass of the day on an easy, wide-open TD.

And then we saw a Fournette TD to put the Gillette Stadium on edge.

14-3 is not the greatest look against one of the best defenses in the league. The Patriots however did manage to drive down the field and get a TD before half (as they always do well) to go into the locker room at 14-10.  The bad news however, was that they lost Gronk to a brutal hit by Church.

 

It was a lackluster third quarter which saw the Jaguars take a 20-10 lead after two Lambo FGs.

The Patriots looked to be in trouble after a double-pass play from Amendola to Dion Lewis resulted in a fumble caused & recovered by Myles Jack. The Patriots got the ball back and were faced with 3rd and 18 and as all NFL fans know, this went exactly how you thought it would.

 

https://twitter.com/barstooltweetss/status/955207074409074689

 

Amendola then capped the drive with a touchdown.

https://twitter.com/CaseyBake16/status/955206671667691521

The Patriots then got the ball back and well .. you know how this one goes as well.

The Jags did put up a small drive to end the game but ultimately could not get the pass to Dede Westbrook as Stephon Gilmore (who has barely made a play all year) made the deflection of his career. The Patriots got the ball back and Dion Lewis finishes the job on third down.

https://twitter.com/CaseyBake16/status/955215346855763969

Hats off to the Jags — Belichick is never that happy so this game was clearly in danger of being lost. However, in the end it just wasn’t enough to stop the Patriots for going for #6. The Jags will be back but it’s still the Patriots’ time.

 

P.S. Get that trophy the hell away from Bill if it’s not the Lombardi.

 

Titans Hire Mike Vrabel as Head Coach

It only took the Tenessee Titans a few days for them to name Mike Vrabel as their new head coach.

It was rumored that The Titans would possibly look at Patriots Offensive Coordinator Josh McDaniels, but it seems like he’s destined for Indianapolis. Hearing that news, the Titans jumped at the opportunity to hire Vrabel who had been with the Texans the past two seasons.

This is a good move — Vrabel played with the Patriots for the better part of a decade and was able to win multiple Super Bowls. He is a fiery guy who will take control of the organization almost immediately.

 

16 Years Ago Today, Tom Brady Won His First Playoff Game

Snow Bowl. Tuck Rule Game. January 19, 2002. Whatever you want to call it, it was the debut of the greatest quarterback of all time in the playoffs.

The game, of course, was not very high scoring with the Patriots winning on a Vinatieri field goal 16-13 in overtime.

Nobody hated the Patriots back then but this was the game where we learned of the tuck rule where Raiders fans will take to their graves that Brady got away with a fumble.

Image result for tuck rule game

The rest is history — the Patriots went on to upset the Rams in the Super Bowl and start a near 20 year dynasty while the Raiders went on to lose the Super Bowl the following year and fade into irrelevancy.

Revisiting the Minneapolis Miracle

It’s been about 5 days now since what may go down as the best NFL playoff finish ever. The Minnesota Vikings, led by long-time backup Case Keenum, were able to shock the Saints after a back-and-forth 2 minutes which both teams kicked go-ahead FGs. If that wasn’t enough to believe, take a look at the win probability chart:

And well the rest is history…

Even Case Keenum can’t believe what Case Keenum did. I wanted to let this sit for awhile to not give it the early reaction of being the best finish ever. Obviously the Music City Miracle was the first thing to come to mind.  It’s still an early reaction but this is a no-brainer for me. This is the best finish ever. How could you not like this — unless you’re a Saints fan of course.

Odin.Thor. Keenum. All Vikings legends.

The tackle attempt by Marcus Williams was of course an awful approach but he’s 20 years old and made a key interception in the game — the kid will bounce back. This season has been a great storyline for the Vikings and Case Keenum, who may not even be on the team next year with Bridgewater & Bradford both coming back. The Vikings of course are not able to ride homefield advantage all the way to the Super Bowl as the Eagles won their game.

 

PS — Reaction videos will never get old

https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/952738293438910464

Jaguars Shock the Steelers

 

We heard all week about how the Steelers were going to beat the Patriots — from the Steelers themselves. Mike Mitchell had a fantastic quote:

Le’Veon Bell followed it up with a nice Saturday night tweet (which has not since been deleted so good for him standing him ground):

And then this happened:

jaxpit

The 2017-18 season where a team can score 10 points in a home playoff game against Buffalo and follow it up with 45 points at Heinz Field to knock off the Steelers. AND it’s the Jaguars that did it. Crazy.

The Jaguars raced out to a 21 point lead and looked to easily run away with it as Leonard Fournette passed Le’Veon Bell for rushing TDs at Heinz Field this year (crazy stat). However, the Steelers kept fighting back but could never get ahead again. Bortles didn’t play fantastic but he did just enough to keep his team in front of Pittsburgh and never allowed them to take the lead. Pittsburgh had some incredible TDs and Big Ben still threw 5 TDs on the elite Jaguars’ defense but it was not enough.

The Jaguars move on and everyone’s preseason prediction of the formerly 3-13 Jaguars against the Patriots comes true. The Jaguars certainly deserve some respect but run into the immovable object that is the Patriots next week for a chance to play in Minneapolis.

1/13 Divisional Playoffs Roundup: Patriots Destroy Titans

The Titans scored first and actually gave their fans a glimmer of hope that they’d be competitive and then the Patriots showed up. I’ll give credit where credit is due though — Corey Davis’ first TD of his young career was the first score of this game and was what we were hoping he’d be all here.

After that, well…it was all Patriots per usual. The Pats rode Brady’s 53 pass attempts en route to 35 straight points and an easy road win. James White added two TDs and the Pats allowed a garbage time TD to make the score 35-14, which honestly was not even that close.

Business as usual for the Pats as they’ll host the Jaguars next week at Gillette for a 7th straight appearance in the conference championship.

But at least we got to see Gronk and Amendola’s friendship go to the next level?

Fun stat of the night? Brady is 6-2 in the postseason when throwing 50+ times. In the Super Bowl era, all other QBs combined are 3-28.

1/13 Divisional Playoffs Round-Up: Falcons @ Eagles

The best weekend of football (arguably) has come to a close and what a weekend it was. We’re going to start with the two Saturday games, which were not as close to as exciting as Sunday but still solid.

Image result for nick foles matt ryan

#1 Philadelphia Eagles 15 – #6 Atlanta Falcons 10

What do you know? The Falcons did it again and blew a winnable playoff game. I’m not going to point fingers and say I predicted it — but well, you know. Everyone was on the Falcons, which is why this is exactly the kind of game that they lose.

This game was very lackluster — as evidenced by the low score-line. The number 1 seed did successfully pull off the upset over the number 6 seed, who woulda thought? What had people buzzing on twitter most was NBC’s bird graphic:

 

Home Birds are now 10-0 against away birds — what a time to be alive. We saw them show Carson Wentz approximately 25 times and the Falcons ran the worst play on 4th down.

 

Not quite sure why you roll out Matt Ryan here and essentially only give him Julio as a target — who fell down.  Regardless, Julio did have a chance to catch it here but I have to chalk up the game to some bad coaching. The Falcons have already given a vote of confidence to their failure of an OC, Steve Sarkisian so expect more of the same next year. Nick Foles did just enough to get the Eagles the win and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

 

P.S. Lane Johnson wearing a dog mask is nightmare material.