Also, Tua’s future, the state of Gruden’s Raiders, homefield advantage in 2020, NFC East ‘favorites,’ and more.
1a. In what might end up a must-win game, the Rams will turn their offense over to John Wolford. He doesn’t have anywhere near the arm talent, accuracy or processing speed of Jared Goff. What he does bring is an ability—a preference, actually—to get late into the down and make plays out of structure. It presents unpredictability for an opposing defense, but it causes similar confusion for his teammates and, more importantly, his play-caller. Play calls—especially in an offense as highly schemed as the Rams’—are built off previous play-calls. That goes out the window if the plays aren’t run as designed.
But considering Goff’s struggles behind a weakened offensive line during the second half of the season, how much worse off are they in a one-game sample size? There was a feeling that the Andrew Whitworth injury might loom large, as Goff played poorly in the first half of 2019 when the front five was constantly shuffled in a desperate search for answers. In six games without his left tackle this year, Goff’s yards-per-attempt has fallen from 7.62 to 6.52; the Rams have gone more conservative and Goff himself has played more cautiously.
It came to a head last week when the Rams’ O-line was overwhelmed by a pedestrian Seahawks pass rush. Goff’s dislocated thumb stole the headlines, but his performance was an all-out meltdown.
For instance, I’ve watched this interception two dozen times and still don’t know what to say about it. For whom is this pass intended? Or is it a throwaway? Did the “bone” colored uniforms scramble his brain? It’s the most confused I’ve felt after watching film since I saw Un Chien Andalous.
This is not a quarterback controversy brewing—Goff is L.A.’s quarterback through 2021 at least, probably longer. But with their defense, if Wolford makes a couple plays and avoid disastrous mistakes, the Rams can pull the upset over Arizona and punch their ticket for the postseason. And, once they’re in the tournament, when Whitworth and possibly Goff could be back, anything can happen.
1b. I was going to start this column with a more in-depth look at the Cardinals’ disappointing offense, but Mike Renner over at PFF stole my thoughts in what was surely some kind of Inception-like invasion of my subconscious. Read Mike’s thing now, then come back here—I’ll occupy myself by watching this delightful scene from Adventure Time, featuring BMO.
All set? Good. In short, while Kliff Kingsbury is devastatingly handsome, and “Air Raid” remains an indisputably cool name, this is not a forward-thinking offense in Arizona. This is an offense that was carried by Kyler Murray’s out-of-structure scrambling in the first half of the season, but that type of sporadic playmaking is not something you can build around.
Though, when it comes to their pass designs, there are also limitations with the quarterback. As a sub-6-foot quarterback* who does not have Drew Brees’s otherworldly mastery of the pocket or Russell Wilson’s field-mapping-among-the-chaos wizardry, Murray is going to have limited vision when throwing to the intermediate and deep-intermediate levels. Over the past two seasons, he ranks 33rd in completion percentage on throws that travel 11-20 yards in the air—51.1% according to Stats Inc., very uncomfortably nestled between Gardner Minshew and Mason Rudolph—despite having an elite contested-catch weapon at that level this season in DeAndre Hopkins. The Cardinals might necessarily be limited to a mixture of quick-game and deep shots while they pray for Kyler magic in the form of long scrambles, but they can certainly get more creative with what they do within those limitations.
*—Yes, I know, I know, I must love Brock Osweiler.
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2. What’s happening to the Browns right now is too much to bear, even when you grade it on a curve considering it’s Cleveland sports. It’s a team that rightfully earned its way into the postseason and was wrongfully forced to play short-handed in what should have been a clinching win against the Jets—no team should be made to play after losing an entire position group 48 hours before kickoff.
But the NFL continues to take an unnecessarily punitive stance regarding COVID protocols, as if the Browns’ issues were not the result of a couple isolated positive tests that could have come from ordinary behavior, combined with contact tracing. Instead, they’re being treated as if a group of players decided to pass around a straw they got from that coughing lady down at the bus station after they realized the glue on their post-practice Capri Sun pouches had come undone causing the accompanying straws to fall into oblivion.
The Browns (finally) catch a break in that Ben Roethlisberger will sit out the regular-season finale in Cleveland on Sunday—no matter how underwhelming his play has been in the second half of 2020, Ben is far more capable than Mason Rudolph (not to mention, the move suggests that the Steelers are willing to rest other starters for the bulk of this one).
But let’s take a moment to undermine that sense of security by turning back the clock: In the 2004 regular-season finale, the 14-1 Steelers were in Buffalo to face a Bills team that had clinched their first winning season in five years despite an 0-4 start; but were still one win away from claiming a postseason spot. The Steelers rested Roethlisberger and numerous starters in that game, but the Tommy Maddox-led squad—thanks mostly to Willie Parker’s first career 100-yard game and reserve linebacker James Harrison’s scoop-and-score TD—pulled off a 29-24 upset as 10-point underdogs. Mike Mularkey, a Coach of the Year candidate in his first season as a head coach, was fired after going 5-11 the next year, and it would be another decade until the Bills posted a winning record.
Anyway, this next song request is dedicated to the entirety of Northeast Ohio.
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3. You can look at Tua Tagovailoa’s rookie year through rose-colored glasses, point to the lack of an offseason and the lack of healthy receivers. But it’s difficult to overlook the fact that a veteran journeyman has far outperformed him this season—to say nothing of the more physically gifted quarterback the Dolphins passed on in April. On Sunday, Tua will get a shot to play the Dolphins into the postseason, and because of Ryan Fitzpatrick’s positive COVID test he won’t be looking over his shoulder while he does it.
The most discouraging thing about Tagovailoa’s play has been how overly cautious he’s been. There are probably a lot of defensive coaches like Brian Flores who would rather have a quarterback who won’t lose it, but in 2020 the NFL is a league for the aggressors, especially when it comes to passing offenses. His issues were on full display last Saturday night when he had the Dolphins standing in place against a Raiders defense short on talent and playing the same Cover-2 shell all night. Fitzpatrick stepped in and immediately obliterated a defense that was begging for it.
Part of the reason for Tagovailoa’s timid play is his struggle to play from the pocket. He’s an OK athlete with OK arm talent—he doesn’t have the ability to consistently create out of structure. But he’s also learning the hard way that things are a whole lot more claustrophobic, the spaces so much tighter, in the NFL than they are at the college level. That’s especially true when, in college, you had five offensive linemen who were better than every pass rusher they faced.
Above, we mentioned Kyler Murray’s issues seeing throws at the intermediate level; Tagovailoa’s completion percentage on throws that travel 11-20 yards, over a much smaller sample size and with far less talent, is still an unacceptable 47.9%. And, unlike Murray, Tua can’t be expected to make a lot of plays with his legs, and hasn’t brought any kind of big-play element—he’s 3-for-17 on throws beyond 20 yards and has a total of three passes that went for gains of 25-plus.
Overall, it’s easier to reign in an over-aggressive quarterback than to coax aggression out of an overly conservative one—if you won’t test tight windows now, then when? It’s unrealistic that Tua will find that aggressiveness in Buffalo on Sunday, when Miami figures to want to play a defensive slog of a game. Still, if he can make a play or two, it will solidify his standing going into 2021.
Because, yes, it will be interesting to see what the Dolphins do this offseason considering that, at the moment, they hold a top-three pick in a QB-rich draft thanks to the Laremy Tunsil trade. It seems Tua would fit nicely in one of the trendy highly schemed play-action/boot-heavy offenses that would create time and space for him—a full offseason and a tweak to the scheme might be all he needs to hit his ceiling as a quality starter. But on the other hand, the Dolphins are unlikely to have another opportunity to draft a quarterback in the top five again this decade—let alone get that opportunity in a potentially great year for quarterbacks at the top of the draft. Has Tagovailoa done enough to make them feel he’s just as good a longterm bet as Justin Fields/Zach Wilson/Trey Lance? They know him better than anyone, but from the outside it's tough to find a convincing argument that he has.
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4. If you’re staring into the middle distance wondering about how meaningful homefield is in this season unlike any other: Road teams are 119-120-1 coming into Week 17. There are certainly specific teams that are built for/conditioned to late-season games in their building (Packers in Lambeau, Bills in Ralph Wilson, etc.) but it’s pretty clear the lack of fans has evened out homefield advantage this season.
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5. It’s no fun to defend Jon Gruden, but if we’re going to be able to look ourselves in the mirror every morning, we must be honest with ourselves: He’s doing an O.K. job with the Raiders.
We all had a good time with the assumption that old man Gruden was gonna come in and make the team wear leather helmets and heal torn ACLs with leeches and call for the ol’ 23 Skidoo. But the offense has been perfectly modern, and he’s coaxed the best out of Derek Carr.
But as a head coach he is responsible for both sides of the ball, and this Raiders defense is atrocious. They’re bad on the back end, and they don’t have a pass rush to take the heat off the guys who, you know, can’t cover people. And it’s a result of putting character so far ahead of talent in the draft.
I understand why they went with Clelin Ferrell and Johnathan Abram in the first round of the 2019 draft—it was about resetting the culture, and while that’s frustratingly unquantifiable there is some (loose) logic to it. The problem is that, while the culture may be right, it doesn’t matter if they can’t get off the field.
They are likely done addressing the secondary—they’ve spent three top-40 picks (Abram, Trayvon Mullen and Damon Arnette) and signed a major free-agent (Lamarcus Joyner) in the defensive backfield. The time has come to add the pass-rushing presence that they lost when they dealt Khalil Mack before Gruden’s first game. A guy like Ferrell is a complementary player. Maxx Crosby and Maurice Hurst are rotational guys. They can all be a part of this thing, but they’re not headliners.
The nice thing about building the pass-rush is that a single-player can change the face of the entire unit—unlike reactionary position groups like the defensive backfield, where you can add a star but your weak link(s) can still be exploited, so you need everyone back there to be a quality player. The Raiders need to find a difference-making pass-rusher, get some expected progression from the young defensive backs, and then make a playoff run in 2021. It’s within the realm of possibility.
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6. We’ll save the last Football Thing of the 2020 regular season for the least: The NFC East is the worst division I’ve seen in my life—and mind you, I’m 112 years old. The 2020 Eagles and Cowboys are two of the most poorly managed, underachieving teams of the past decade. Washington is almost comedically disinterested as a franchise, not only failing to roster or develop an NFL-caliber quarterback or generating offense in any meaningful way, but not even bothering to give themselves a name. Perhaps, metaphorically, that makes them perfect champions of this division.
But if you’re going to root for someone to come out on top, it’s probably the Giants. The roster-building has been mismanaged, but Patrick Graham’s defense has overachieved all season and Daniel Jones was showing signs of breaking out before ripping up his hamstring. The players and coaches, at least, overachieved this season, which is as close as anyone in this division can get to rightfully feeling a sense of accomplishment.
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7. Ladies and gentlemen . . . Leonard Bernstein and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem Mass!
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