Some Thoughts On NFL 2014

The NFL's 2014 season has wrapped up and there's a lot to say about it.   Some thoughts as the playoffs count down -


The Return Of Parcellsball - To a striking extent what jumped out at me was how many teams took the ball out of their quarterbacks' hand and put it in the hands of the running game and the defense.   The most obvious examples were the Cowboys - whose defense was ostensibly awful in 2013 - and the Broncos.   A few years ago it seemed everyone was saying the league was all-passing all the time - it's not that way anymore; indeed what has come to the fore is that increased passing has opened up run games, to where Detroit's 2013 win over the Cowboys where Matthew Stafford threw for 488 yards yet the Lions still busted out over 140 (strikingly unnoticed) rushing yards may become the archtypal NFL game going forward.


There Was A Lot Of Scoring But Curiously Uncompetitive Games - 2014 didn't seem to have that much in the way of the kind of super-competitive games that would get the NFL Films Game Of The Week treatment.  Denver's 39-36 comeback over Miami, Miami's 37-35 win over the Vikings, and San Diego's amazing coemback win over the 49ers were perhaps the best games of the season.   The previous two years saw a sizeable number of such games - 2012 saw the amazing 41-34 Giants-Bucs shootout, Tennessee's 44-41 overtime heart attack game over the Lions and the Titans' 35-34 thriller over the Bills, the 38-31 Bengals win over the Redskins, the controversial 31-30 Ravens win over the Patriots, and numerous other amazing games.   2013 also saw a slew of genuinely great games - New England's comeback wins over New Orleans, Denver, and Houston, plus the astonishing finish against Cleveland, Houston's shocker over San Diego, the mind-blowing 51-48 Broncos win over the Cowboys, the Jets upset of the Falcons, the Green Bay-Minnesota tie, the Cardinals' 37-34 escape at Tennessee, the 41-38 San Diego win at Kansas City, and the history-making 45-44 Colts playoff win over Kansas City, to name several. 


Mind-blowingly Poor Coaching In Several Quarters - The excuses made for Rex Ryan have come fast and furious with the potential of his firing from the NY Jets, and the excuses really are not to be taken seriously.   The reality is that Ryan is not that good a coach - his preparation is chronically inadequate, attention to detail is slipshod, and his reputation as a players coach has meant what it has always meant - he doesn't instill adequate discipline in players.   His inability to develop quarterbacks first showed with Mark Sanchez and continued with Geno Smith and Michael Vick.  

That the Jets defeated the Miami Dolphins at the end of the season also bodes poorly for Dolphins coach Joe Philbin, who once again saw a capable team falter down the stretch.   One has to now wonder if Philbin really is in over his head as an NFL coach.

The collapse of the Falcons after 2012 has raised the spectre that Mike Smith will be replaced by Rex Ryan - that Smith has worn out his act in Atlanta seems clear enough.   We also got a poor first impression out of new Bucs coach Lovie Smith, who may have Jameis Winston as his starting quarterback in 2015.

But the worst of the lot is clearly Ken Whisenhunt, who took over a Tennessee Titans team that under Mike Munchak fought to the end of almost every game - this is what made 2013's frustration all the worse; it was a team of legitimate 12-4 caliber - and made that team into the worst in the league, a team that basically quit on the season.   The issue of quarterback was one Whisenhunt could never make better; whether he plays ever again is still a question but clearly Jake Locker showed more than what Charlie Whitehurst has, and while Zach Mettenberger showed some talent the rawness was also obvious and he never showed evidence of being able to stop bleeding, notably in the loss to the Steelers.


Burning Out And The Failure Of The Read-Option - That is the term that comes right to mind regarding the 49ers as Jim Harbaugh was subject to year-long controversy and quarterback Colin Kaepernick regressed quite graphically as the season went on, displaying no ability to process quarterbacking information and often panicking instead of facing adversity on the field head-on.   That Harbaugh was supposedly to be traded to the Browns was bizarre enough to open everyone's eyes and a sign there really was something wrong there.  

It should also be clear that read-option offenses cannot work in the NFL.   That the college game seems grossly inadequate at properly training quarterbacks is an issue the game needs to address.


The Decline Of Peyton Manning And The Collapse Of The AFC West - Once again arm strength showed noticeable deterioration as the season went on and the Broncos showed a struggle to put games away early and often, notably in nearly blowing it against Kansas City in Week Two.   That the Broncos grabbed a bye week after being humiliated by the Bengals came because of the collapse of the AFC West, which failed to produce a single win over the Broncos.  

San Diego's regression was all the more gnawing as Philip Rivers failed to pull one out of the hat, this after dominating Peyton Manning for a lengthy portion of his career.

Kansas City regressed from 11-5 to 9-7; though they had more wins over quality opponents (four) than in 2013 (just one) overall the Chiefs got worse instead of better, and the Alex Smith experiment has to end.


Contrary To Myth, Officiating Was Not A Serious Problem - Entering the season there was concern that the NFL would over-officiate games after showing signs of such in the preseason, notably the Eagles-Patriots game.   As the season got going, though, penalties did not show any sign of interfering with games; indeed what was striking was that penalties against offense seemed more frequent than normal and certainly was enough to dispel the myth that the league will not let teams play defense.


The Pipe Dream That Won't Go Away - Yes, the idea that Los Angeles should or will get an NFL team continued.   That the league will try to ram it down everyone's throats is obvious; that no one is biting is also obvious, with targeted teams refusing to leave their present homes (and NO sign their host cities will or even should ever let them leave), and no evidence there is any fanbase for a team in that city, one of the worst in the country between nitwit politicians and a population of transients, degenerates (see all the street gangers with Oakland Raiders gear), and indifference.  


The Media War Against Roger Goodell - The Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson domestic violence controversies saw a gigantic media crusade against Roger Goodell and served to mask the real problem that is the media's grotesque grandstanding on these issues.   Media coverage of Ray Rice was chronically inadequate, merely a regurgitation of anger instead of some actual analysis, which would have noticed that Goodell was actually correct in his initial punishment of Rice.   It remains absurd that seemingly no one in the Mainstream Sports Media ever dissents from the established myth created at the beginning of issues like this.


Finally, A Resurgance In The AFC East - Buffalo finished 9-7 and Miami 8-8, and for the first time since 2000 both teams won against the Patriots.   That it didn't matter is true enough - New England locked up the AFC's top seed and treated its last two games as semi-preseason games with experimentation on line combinations.   It nonetheless served as a legitimate step forward for the division, especially with Buffalo's resurgance after over a decade of irrelevance and a change of ownership a long time needed.  


And thus it is as the 2014 playoffs beckon.

More Goodell More Of The Time

Roger Goodell went before media on Friday with a news conference where he again accepted blame for recent NFL controversies involving Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, etc.   The ensuing presser lacked much detail despite some tough questioning, and of course led to widespread media ripping of Goodell - much ink was spilled on Tedy Bruschi's call for Goodell to be removed as NFL commissioner, while lost in the shuffle was reporter Pam Oliver (one of the best sideline reporters in the business; she famously stood up to loudmouthed receiver Keyshawn Johnson for instance) and her positive assessment of Goodell's presser.

Following the presser came another Outside The Lines story, this one delving into the Baltimore Ravens and their lobbying of the courts and Goodell on Rice's behalf - that ESPN even sees fit to examine team lobbying for Rice makes it out to be sinister, as though a team shouldn't be lobbying for a player when it has legitimate grounds to do so - it is impossible, for instance, to see the New England Patriots not quietly lobbying the courts if some form of exculpatory information ever surfaced regarding Aaron Hernandez.  There is also that the report in effect lets coach John Harbaugh off the hook by portraying him as someone who wanted to cut Rice when the incident took place where team owner Steve Bisciotti and the Ravens front office lobbied for him.   The Ravens deny that Harbaugh wanted to cut Rice and the obvious implausibility of that angle of the Outside The Lines report lends credence to the denial.

Lost in the coverage and the continued round of media grandstanding is that it still does not make a credible case against Goodell's initial handling of the Rice incident.  Where Goodell and the Ravens warrant criticism was in hanging Rice out to dry - this after the media (specifically TMZ) launched a grandstanding/armchair lawyering campaign, trying to reverse the initial two-game suspension without facing that the objective facts of the incident meant it legitimately did not warrant more than a two-game suspension.  

The whole Ray Rice and domestic abuse controversy is not about Rice or even Goodell - it is about media grandstanding and armchair lawyering.   More responsible coverage would have noted that it wasn't an unprovoked attack and that Rice was a first-time offender who did what was required of him by the law enforcement people and the courts, and there would have been some significant dissent from the established narrative that Rice should have been punished more.  

And for all the "moralistic preening and voyeuristic pandering" (as Politico so superbly put it) about the NFL and domestic abuse, the league is far and away cleaner than societies here or abroad, and the umbrage over the league's ostensible lack of a domestic abuse policy ignores that the percentage of accusations that are false is far too high for the league (or anyone else) to ignore.  

Yet for all that, the answer may have been stumbled upon with the new suspension with pay approach used by the Arizona Cardinals, the Carolina Panthers, and the Vikings in their recent issues of certain players arrested on domestic abuse accusations.   This appears to be what teams will follow from here on.

The Mainstream Media (political and sports) warrants its share of criticism over Ray Rice etc.  It's not just "J'Accuse!" to be aimed at Roger Goodell or the Ravens.

The Ray Rice Argument Gets Hit

The AP examined video initially released by TMZ but here augmented with audio of the fight between Ray Rice and his then-fiance that got him a two-game suspension at first but which swelled into a media-led crusade against Roger Goodell. TMZ released video of the fight, and it led to a firestorm and subsequent release of Rice from the Baltimore Ravens and indefinite suspension from the NFL.

The TMZ video led to this firestorm, but AP's additional analysis shows the fight was not a case of unprovoked assault by Rice. Rice certainly deserved suspension for two games from the NFL, but the attack on Goodell for the alleged leniency of the punishment completely ignores that the balance of information did not warrant punishment beyond what Goodell implemented.

This is another example of seeing a video and assuming it is the full story when in fact it is exactly the opposite. The balance of information is that Rice did something wrong, his fiance also did something wrong, and Roger Goodell, examining the incident on all information and on its own merits, issued proper punishment.

The late Peter Braestrup warned about the kind of reaction we're seeing with Ray Rice when he noted that in terms of information, a video usually tells you almost nothing. What people need to do is stop reacting to a video and start examining an issue or incident based on as many facts as are available.

Update: see also this look at how TMZ engaged in fraudulent armchair lawyering.

See also the transcript of Goodell's interview with CBS, for ESPN's Outside The Lines on September 11 tried to claim Goodell was caught in a contradiction when he stated, "when we met with Ray Rice and his representatives, it was ambiguous about what actually happened."  The problem is the full transcript shows the term is not a contradiction.