2019 NFL

[eagle eye]

The NFL schedule of preseason games has begun. My guilty pleasure team, the Cleveland Browns, made the news this week trading disgruntled RB Duke Johnson to the Texans. All the Browns got in return was fourth round draft pick in the 2020 draft which could, depending on how much Johnson touches the ball for the Texans, could become a 3rd. The Browns played their preseason opener last night against the Washington Redskins and the Browns smoked the ‘Skins 30-10. There were two highlights in the game. 1. Baker Mayfield led his team right down the field on their first drive of the game for a TD. Nice start to the season. 2) This may be THE feel good story of the season. A walk on at a Browns tryout in Florida named Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi, a guy who lied about being a personal friend of Browns Vice President of Player Personnel and former NFL RB Alonzo Highsmith just to get into the Browns workout, ran a 4.38-40 and he impressed Highsmith, who was at the tryout, enough to get an invitation to the Browns official tryouts in Ohio. He continued to impress in the Ohio workout and earned a training camp contract. Prior to the Florida Browns workout Sheehy-Guiseppe spent his last $200 on a gym membership so he could work out to stay in shape chasing his dream of playing in the NFL. Not having any more money Damon slept in the street outside the gym. Sheehy-Guiseppe played college ball at Phoenix College, an NJCCAA school but when he got out he couldn’t even get a tryout at a major college. He graduated Phoenix College in 2016 and he’s been trying to get into a 4-year school ever since. The Browns tryout was his next best try. After earning his way into the Browns training camp a lot of the Browns players took a liking to this kid. Odell Beckham Jr even loaned him a pair of shoes to play in the game last night. Sheehy-Guiseppe finally got a chance in last night’s game. He went back to receive a punt from the Redskins in the 4th quarter with Cleveland leading 24-10. DSG took the punt at his own 14 and ran it 86 yards for a touchdown! To show how much of an impression this kid has made over two weeks of training camp the entire Browns bench came out and mobbed Sheehy-Guiseppe in the endzone. An inspiring story that I’m sure Steven Spielberg is writing a script for as we speak. I hope Sheehy-Guiseppe makes the final 53 and the story will have the fairy tale ending it deserves. Yes Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus.

[eagle eye]

The 2019 NFL season begins tonight with the Packers @ the Bears. The significance of this matchup is pretty simple. This season is the 100th anniversary of the NFL and the Packers and Bears are the oldest franchises in the league. It goes all the way back to Curly Lambeau and George Hallas. If you don’t know who these guys are Google ‘em. Both offer interesting reads as both were huge influences in the growth of professional football.

As far as how you stack up in fantasy you feel Aaron Rodgers is a no-brainer to be your QB1 but who knows what this Packers team will be. In the offseason they fired long time coach Mike McCarthy and hired a man named Matt LaFleur (it would be a better story of his first name was Peter – for the Dodgeball fans out there). LaFleur has been an assistant in the NFL since 2008 when he was an assistant on the Houston Texans staff. He has coached for Washington, Atlanta, the Rams and now his first head coaching position with Green Bay. He worked as the OC with the Rams in 2017 but head coach Sean McVay called the plays. LaFleur also worked with McVay in Washington. Last season he was the OC in Tennessee but new head coach Mike Vrabel allowed LaFleur to call all the offensive plays. Given who LaFleur has coached with I think it’s pretty certain Aaron Rodgers will continue to throw the ball a lot. It remains to be seen if there are any fantasy worth players other than Devonte Adams on the Packers roster but there is no doubt about a plethora of fantasy options with da Bears. I’m not sure if Mitchell Trubisky is your best option in fantasy but I wager he’s not the worst. At WR you have Allen Robinson II who is a WR1 and there are options that include Anthony Miller and Taylor Gabriel. Of course at RB you have Tarik Cohen. The Bears defense is also a good option. We will learn a lot about what the Packers have tonight. The defense no longer has Clay Matthews who is now with the Rams and you wonder how deep this defense is.

The betting line is showing the wise guys favor the Bears by 3.

Some of the sheen of the beginning of football was dampened because high school and college football have already begun but this is the NFL folks. Ring the bell because football is totally under way at long last. It’s been a long dry spell since the 1st Sunday in February but that drought is over. To paraphrase The Who song, “Love, Reign O’er Me” we can chant, “Football, Reign O’er Me!!!”.

[eagle eye]

Antonio Brown’s ego may have cost him his career. He put up a fit over his helmet and the Raiders tolerated it. He missed practices because he burned his feet in a cryo therapy and the Raiders took it. There was talk about fining him for missing practices and he pitched a fit then apologized. The Raiders actually fined Brown and he went postal demanding to be released. It all played out on HBO’s Hard Knocks and the media. The kicker was the fines voided his $30MM+ contract. We know from Hard Knocks Jon Gruden loves Brown as a player but GM Mike Mayock had enough of Brown’s antics. Who will hire this nutcase now?

[eagle eye]

This probably marks the demise of my career as a psychic. I'm going the way of Miss Cleo and many others who did not have the skills to predict the future. As a matter of fact, at the same time I wondered if Antonio Brown's career was in a huge dumpster fire after he got a release from the Oakland Raiders he was agreeing to a one year deal with the New England Patriots. For the first time in his career Tom Brady has a truly lethal set of wide receivers. The Pats now have Julian Edelman, Josh Gordon, Demaryius Thomas and AB. They don't have Gronk any more but, let's face it, he wasn't there most of the time anyway. AB won't be in the lineup today as he wasn't a member of the team as of 4 o'clock yesterday but he will be there next week and thereafter assuming he doesn't piss off the Patriots or vice versa.

A thought on that. Jimmy Johnson once said he treats his players fairly but he doesn't treat them all the same. The inference there was that the stars get a lot more slack than the players at the bottom of the roster. There is no doubt that AB had been his own worst enemy in his brief tenure with the Raiders but GM Mike Mayock showed some ego too. The last straw was the $200 K + fine he levied on Brown that voided nearly $30 MM in guaranteed money. You can't really blame AB for getting pissed. The verbal confrontation that played out over social media between Brown and Mayock must have pushed Mayock over the edge because despite Browns apology to his teammates and coaches and even the front office did nothing to assuage Mayocks anger and he showed some vindictiveness in the process.

My Browns begin the season against Tennessee. We'll see pretty quickly if this team is really as good as they look on paper.

Happy Week 1 everyone.

[eagle eye]

The first week of the NFL held some surprises which is actually par for the course. You don't know what you don't know and in many cases you won't know until games start to count. There are actually two more games in Week 1 and the first one tonight is a surprise in itself. The Texans are beating the Saints 14-3 with 16 seconds left in the half; and the Saints missed a 56 yard field goal so the score at the half is 14-3 IN New Orleans.

Some good surprises (depending upon who you root for) are:
The Titans shock the heck out of projected Super Bowl champ Cleveland Browns putting a smackdown on Cleveland to the tune of a 30 point win. Yikes. What happened to the Browns after an opening 83 yard drive in which the Browns made marching down the field look easy was an undisciplined team constantly did stupid things. I haven't looked at the box score but I'll bet Cleveland had 20 penalties. Even on their opening drive they worked out of a 1st and 25 after a false start and a holding call. The Browns worked behind the chains all afternoon. Some of the penalties were ridiculous. Myles Garrett almost got tossed for throwing a punch but it was open handed and looked like retaliation for a slap from a Titan's player. His teammate, Browns starting left tackle had no excuse for mule kicking a Titan's D-lineman in the side of the head. Between that ejection (which was deserved) and injury the Browns were down to their last 5 O-linemen. The Titans were more physical than the Browns and the Browns defense didn't impress at all. Freddie Kitchens put a very undisciplined team on the field who committed a ton of mistakes, mostly penalties.

Like the Browns-Titans game the Jets-Bills game was between boring and surprising. The Jets actually took a 16-0 lead into the 4th quarter before the Bills came back to win 17-16. Same old Jets. Even when they're winning the find a way to lose.

The surprise in the Ravens game was that Baltimore scored 59 points but this Miami team is really bad. It's hard to tell if the Ravens are that good or the Dolphins are that friggin' bad.

Arizona looked like crap for 3 quarters but they made a really nice comeback and Kyler Murray actually looked like a #1 pick. They forced the Lions to overtime where both scored field goals and nothing more as they tied 27-27 which was a big surprise. The Bengals played the Seahawks really tough losing 21-20 and the Colts vs Chargers went to OT before the LA Chargers finally won. Two overtime games and a tie are surprising by themselves. I wonder what Week 2 will have in store for us? Wait, Week 1 isn't over yet!

[eagle eye]

QB’s continue to be in the news this week. Drew Brees will have surgery on the damaged ligament in his right hand and the 4 in the 4-6 week time frame seems to be gone as it’s being reported he will be out 6 weeks minimum. Because Brees is out there are a lot of people starting to count up the losses the Saints will suffer. Terry Bridgewater is inexperienced but he has NFL game experience and he’s had some big wins when he started for the Minnesota Vikings. Bridgewater’s career took a huge hit when he broke his leg playing for the Vikings but there was a reason he was a first round pick in 2014. Bridgewater is no rookie and he’s had some big games and getting first team reps under Sean Peyton people better not write off the Saints just yet.

Ben Roethlisberger will have surgery on his right elbow, which is NOT Tommy John surgery, this week. Mason Rudolph will be the starter going forward as Big Ben was placed on season ending IR this week. Rudolph was a 2nd round pick in 2018 out of Oklahoma State and he didn’t do a bad job in relieve of Roethlisberger last Sunday. The Steelers did make a roster move yesterday as they traded a 2020 1st round draft pick to acquire the Dolphins best CB Minkah Fitzpatrick. The Steelers are 0-2 so far and have a big hole to climb out of but something tells me their playoff hopes are not dead.

The Giants have benched Eli Manning for the 2nd time in the last two years. After starting the 2019 season 0-2 Giants head coach Pat Shurmur made the pre-season NFL MVP and future Hall of Famer Daniel Jones (according to NY media) the starting QB going forward. I used to think Pat Shermer got a raw deal when he was head coach of the Browns as the Browns front office was a dumpster fire and he got caught in the middle but he helped fuel the fire of the QB controversy that came up this summer because Jones did more than a good job against players who never made an NFL roster. You kind of feel sorry for old pouty face. You’d think he would be treated better by the organization he took to 2 Super Bowl victories. What have you done for me lately, indeed.

The non-QB news this week is the status of Jaguar CB Jalen Ramsey who is reportedly wanting a trade out of Jacksonville after a huge blowup on the sideline during the game with the Texans on Sunday. Ramsey is saying he is looking forward to playing in Thursday night’s game with Tennessee. There was a time when a player who threw a hissy fit on the sideline and disrespected the head coach in the process would be dealt with harshly but, this is a new age we live in. Even Jacksonville has QB news as Gardner Minshew stepped up for an injured Nick Foles who broke his collarbone in Week 1 and he did a nice job against the Texans on Sunday. Minshew had a lot of success at Washington State under head coach Mike Leach finishing 5th in the Heisman Trophy race in 2018.