Archive for the ‘NFL’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Firings watch.

Sunday, December 18th, 2022

Not exactly a firing, but relevant:

NFL officials have informed the owners of the league’s 32 franchises that teams have spent $800 million on fired coaches and front-office executives over the past five years, league sources told ESPN.
The message, delivered this past week at the owners meetings in Dallas, was sent by the league as a reminder that as some franchises mull significant changes at the end of the season, hundreds of millions of dollars have been squandered recently by teams that may need to act less hastily.
NFL officials went so far as to compose spreadsheets specific to each team about the employees they fired and the costs incurred by the team, according to sources. The league wanted each team to see the exact cost for instability and the employees that they paid for services no longer rendered.

…

The Giants are paying three different head coaches, and their respective coaching staffs, this year alone: Pat Shurmur, who was fired in 2020 just two years into a five-year deal; Joe Judge, who was fired this past January after also lasting only two years into a five-year contract; and first-year coach Brian Daboll, who had led New York to a 7-5-1 record entering Sunday night’s showdown with the Commanders.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Crash of the Titans.

Tuesday, December 6th, 2022

Jon Robinson out as general manager of the Tennessee Titans.

The Titans went 66-43 under Robinson, reaching the AFC Championship during the 2019 season and securing the No. 1 seed in the playoffs in 2021. But despite postseason berths in four of Robinson’s six full seasons, including the past three, a confluence of failed selections at the top the NFL Draft, the untimely trade of star receiver A.J. Brown and some uncharacteristic performances this season put Robinson’s tenure in the cross-hairs.

Interestingly, the Titans are 7-5 and at the top of their division…

…but haven’t looked particularly dominant. They have lost three of their past five games, including a 35-10 loss at NFL-leading Philadelphia on Sunday that saw Brown torch his former team for 119 yards and two touchdowns.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Monday, December 5th, 2022

Former first round draft pick and Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield waived by the Carolina Panthers.

The Browns picked him first in the 2018 draft, and traded him in July to the Panthers for a fifth-round draft pick (“…that could have become a fourth had Mayfield, the first pick of the 2018 draft, played 70% of the snaps.”)

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022

This is a weird one.

Sean Kugler out as offensive line coach/running game coordinator of the Arizona Cardinals..

Why fire Kugler? Well, they are 4-7…but apparently that’s not why.

Answer: there was some sort of unspecified “incident” while the Cardinals were in Mexico City for Monday Night Football. More from ESPN, although the article seems speculative.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Norts spews.

Monday, November 7th, 2022

I feel like I am obligated to say something about the Houston Astros winning the World Series.

With that out of the way, I wanted to mention my Theory of Compensatory Suckage.

The Astros won the World Series. The Houston Texans are 1-6-1 so far this season, which gives them the worst record in the NFL at the moment. The Houston Rockets are currently 1-9, which is the worst record in basketball at the moment. Seems like everything balances out.

In other news: Frank Reich out as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts.

40-34-1 over roughly four and a half seasons.

… the coach’s tenure in Indianapolis began to go wrong when Reich “stuck his neck out” for the team to bring in Carson Wentz in 2021, a decision that ultimately led to a potential playoff team’s collapse in the final two games, and the collapse of a 2022 team that many national experts picked to win the AFC South ultimately ended Reich’s tenure, nine games into his fifth season.

The triggering event seems to have been the Colts losing 26-3 to New England on Sunday, and putting up 121 yards of offense in the process.

Posted in Bagatelle, Firings, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: November 3, 2022.

Thursday, November 3rd, 2022

George Booth, New Yorker cartoonist.

But the hands-down readers’ favorite was Mr. Booth’s mad-as-a-hatter bull terrier, who whirled in circles until dizzy, scratched himself a lot and posed glowering on a lawn beside a sign warning: “Beware! Skittish Dog.” He adorned New Yorker T-shirts and became the magazine’s unofficial mascot, nearly as notable as the top-hat-wearing Eustace Tilley, who appears on the cover once a year. As Lee Lorenz, The New Yorker’s art editor, once put it, “If you can’t recognize a Booth cartoon, you need the magazine in Braille.”

…

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, The New Yorker said it would not run cartoons that week. But Mr. Booth submitted one anyway, showing Mrs. Ritterhouse, a recurring character modeled after his mother, with head down and hands folded in prayer. Her cat covered its face with its paws. It was the only cartoon The New Yorker ran that week.

(Hattip: Lawrence.)

Erica Hoy, Australian actress. IMDB. She was 26, and died in a car crash.

Ray Guy, punter. He was a first round draft choice for the Raiders in 1973:

It was the first time a punter had ever been picked in the first round, and it’s only happened one other time since — Steve Little, in 1978 by the Cardinals, and he was also a kicker.
Guy played with the Raiders, who moved to Los Angeles in 1982, through the end of his career in 1986. He made the Pro Bowl seven times and was a first-team All-Pro in six different seasons. He played a role in three Super Bowl championships.

Posted in NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: October 20, 2022.

Thursday, October 20th, 2022

Charley Trippi, football player.

Although he was a football star at a time when many players appeared on both offense and defense, Trippi was especially renowned for doing just about everything but kicking field goals and extra points and snapping the ball.
In his nine years with the Cardinals, he ran for 3,506 yards, threw for 2,547 yards and amassed 1,321 yards in pass receptions — the only player in the Pro Football Hall of Fame to have exceeded 1,000 yards in each category. He played at left halfback and quarterback, punted and returned punts and kickoffs, and finished out his career at defensive back.
Trippi took Georgia to an unbeaten 1946 season when he was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy behind Army’s Glenn Davis. He received the Maxwell Award, which also honors college football’s leading player.

He was a member of both the College Football Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame. Mr. Trippi was 100 when he passed, and at the time was the oldest living member of both.

Roger Welsch, tractor guy.

Okay, that’s a little misleading. He was also a regular on CBS “Sunday Morning”, a professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska, founder of the Liars Hall of Fame:

Politicians, he said, were ineligible for induction. “We have a rule that politicians can’t participate, only amateurs,” he told a reporter in 1988.

and a honorary member of the Pawnee, Omaha, and Oglala tribes. And a tractor guy.

His practical interest in tractors, especially antiques, became a fixation in his writing and speaking, and for years he maintained a popular website full of geeky farm-implement arcana. In 1988, The New York Times wrote that Mr. Welsch “is to tractor restoration, and the Allis-Chalmers in particular, what Thoreau was to the lakeside cabin.”
He wrote more than 40 books about love, tractors, dogs and women, including “Everything I Know About Women I Learned From My Tractor” (2002) and “Busted Tractors and Rusty Knuckles: Norwegian Torque Wrench Techniques and Other Fine Points of Tractor Restoration” (1997) — a book as funny as its title is droll.

Posted in Books, NFL, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Monday, October 17th, 2022

Executive vice president of football operations Jack Easterby out in Houston.

More from Pro Football Network by way of Lawrence.

Not much more to add to this, really: nobody seems unhappy with Easterby’s performance in the role. There’s a lot of “it was just time”.

The Texas are 1-3-1 and had a bye this past week.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

Firings watch.

Monday, October 10th, 2022

Matt Rhule deposed as head coach of the Carolina Panthers, in the first NFL coach firing this season.

Rhule posted an 11-27 record during his tenure in Carolina, winning 10 total games during his first two seasons, before getting off to a miserable 1-4 start this season.

…

As with the offensive coordinator dilemma, Rhule never identified a long-term, efficient quarterback. The team signed journeyman Teddy Bridgewater to lead the offense in 2020, but he was traded to the Denver Broncos following a 5-11 debut season under Rhule.
The Panthers traded three draft picks to the New York Jets for former first-round pick Sam Darnold last offseason. Darnold faltered as the franchise QB in Carolina, as he did in New York, and the Panthers remained on the hook for his salary through this season after picking up his fifth-year option following the trade to acquire him.
This summer, the Panthers tried to upgrade the QB spot by trading for former first overall pick Baker Mayfield. Through five games, Mayfield has struggled mightily, completing just 54.9% of his passes for 962 yards, four touchdowns and four interceptions.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 4, 2022.

Monday, October 3rd, 2022

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:

None.

Didn’t watch any of the games, again: I’ve been feeling kind of puny and spent most of yesterday sleeping. But the Raiders won, and that ends the loser update for 2022.

We’ll see you again in 2023, assuming we’re all still here.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: September 30, 2022.

Friday, September 30th, 2022

Gavin Escobar, former tight end for the Dallas Cowboys. He was 31, and had been working for the Long Beach Fire Department. According to reports, he and Chelsea Walsh died in an apparent rock climbing accident “in San Bernardino National Forest near Tahquitz Rock”.

Posted in NFL, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 3, 2022.

Monday, September 26th, 2022

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:

Las Vegas

Still nothing much to say about the weekend’s games, since I was busy having fun all day yesterday. But I will throw in a quick obit watch: The Pro Bowl.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Memo to Nick Chubb.

Wednesday, September 21st, 2022

Dear Mr. Chubb:

When your team’s defense gives up 13 points in the last two minutes of a game – the first time this has happened in 21 years – the loss is not your fault.

Just saying.

Posted in Bagatelle, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

Your loser update: week 2, 2022.

Tuesday, September 20th, 2022

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:

Cincinnati
Tennessee
Las Vegas
Atlanta
Carolina

Not a whole lot to say this week. I didn’t catch a minute of any of the games.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 1, 2022.

Tuesday, September 13th, 2022

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:

New England
Jets
Cincinnati
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Denver
Las Vegas
Dallas
Detroit
Green Bay
Atlanta
Carolina
San Francisco
Arizona
Rams

I happened to be out at lunch with my mother on Sunday, sitting directly across from a TV playing the Houston-Indianapolis game. When we sat down, it was 20-3 Houston and the Texas seemed to be playing well. When we got up to leave, it was 20-6 and Indy was in scoring position after a Houston fumble.

Houston teams will always disappoint you.

Coverage of Denver’s WTF field goal attempt.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »