A day after learning that he lost the open quarterback competition that lasted through the summer and that Brian Hoyer would be named the Texans' starting quarterback, reserve passer Ryan Mallett said he was "angry" and "disappointed" in the decision.
"I wanted this job more than anything," Mallett said, via the Houston Chronicle.
That anger was something that head coach Bill O'Brien, who always said the competition between them was very close, actually appreciated.
"You don't want a guy jumping around doing back springs when he gets named the backup," he said.
The guy doing those back springs today technically has more NFL experience than his backup. Hoyer went 10-6 with the Browns over two seasons' intermittent work before signing with Houston in March, after Mallett agreed to return himself after a stint with the club last season.
While the contest was a close one, O'Brien said Mallett was less consistent than his rival.
"Obviously, I'm disappointed," Mallett said. "I don't agree with it. I'll do what I have to do to better the team."
Right now, that means sitting on the bench holding a clipboard while Hoyer goes under center. But he also remembers that the Texans used all of four quarterbacks last season because of injury, so he's not done holding out hope entirely.
"It's not a setback," he said. "I'm still part of a really good football team."
Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith made some personal history this past week when he threw his first touchdown pass to a designated wide receiver for the first time since January 2014.
He liked the feeling.
The addition of receiver Jeremy Maclin to the roster this offseason, to whom Smith threw that pass against the Seahawks, can be what the Chiefs were looking for all this time.
The presence of Albert Wilson and De'Anthony Thomas, Smith also feels, can help open up the passing game, a unit that was better than only three other teams last season.
"I think two things: For one, the deep ball for sure is something that gets a lot of attention," Smith said, via ESPN. "It's a matter of time and striking when it's right and being able to take advantage of those opportunities that are few and far between -- and when you get them, you've got to be able to hit them. That's kind of the nature of it."
Smith said the veteran versatility Maclin brings to the offense is his best trait.
"I think as far as Jeremy goes, I think he's the type of receiver that excels in all the areas," he said. "I think that's his biggest strength is just watching from afar. I don't think you can kind of pigeon-hole him as just a speed guy or over-the-top guy. His game is way more complex than that, and he can do a lot of different things."
Maclin led the Eagles last season in receptions, yards gained, and touchdowns after returning from sitting the 2013 season with an ACL torn in that summer's practice. Philadelphia would let him walk back to his native Missouri, though, when Andy Reid, his former coach with the Eagles, waved $55 million in front of him to come hither.
Their brief showing has been inspiring, but the key now, as it is for most teams, is to translate preseason theory into regular season practice. Having good ideas and plans are one thing, but doing them and doing them consistently is another.
Redskins defensive coordinator Joe Barry has already made his mark on the team during his stint with the club this spring and summer. He's a man bursting with energy, who gets right into players' faces before and after plays and doesn't merely stand on the sidelines and give discreet teaching points here and there.
Now we know why he acts that way: he's a one-man coffee plantation.
"I really can't function before I have a cup of coffee," he said. "My alarm goes off and regardless what time I get up, the first thing I do is walk over the have a cup of coffee."
More like ten cups of coffee, the first coming within sixty seconds of his being conscious, which he says he balances out with around the same amount of water and plenty of sleep.
"You really drink 10 cups of coffee a day?" Barry says his friends ask him after a report by Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post revealed as much. "I'm like, yeah. I'm taking between the time I wake up and noon. That's a long time. They're like, 'That's still insane.'"
There are those who say caffeine is a relatively harmless stimulant; the United States Government is not one of those.
"Too much caffeine can make you restless, anxious, and irritable," according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. "It may also keep you from sleeping well and cause headaches, abnormal heart rhythms, or other problems. If you stop using caffeine, you could get withdrawal symptoms."
By "other symptoms," they mean high blood pressure, dependence and addiction, an increase in stroke, and dementia.
The American Psychiatric Association also recognizes four distinct disorders relating to anxiety and sleep problems.
Yada, yada, says Joe Barry.
"Caffeine is not bad for you," he said. "It gets a bad rap, but as long as you're drinking water with it. . . But I don't get headaches from it. I probably lie a little bit when I go to the doctor. I probably say, yeah, I have three cups a day. But as long as you hydrate with it, coffee's not that bad for you."
We'll see.
Mark Ingram took pride in being listed on his high school roster as an "athlete" rather than merely a tailback, and would like to expand his role to include that tag once again.
He sought to prove it with his performance in Saturday's preseason game against the Patriots.
The Saints' first play from scrimmage was a check-down to Ingram for an 11 yard gain, and the second a 29 yard pass play out of the backfield and down the sideline.
That's something he'd like to do more of this season.
"I know I'm a three-down back," Ingram said. "I could do first down, second down, third down, run the ball, catch the ball, pass protect. I take pride in being an every down back, being a back that doesn't have to come off the field, being a back that can do everything that's asked of him within the scheme of the offense."
Ingram did precisely that last season as the Saints' backfield took some lumps on the injury front. But he's not asking for more playing time, per se, just to do more while he's in there.
"I think this year is the first opportunity that I've actually had the chance to be able to go do those things," he said of his potential versatility, via ESPN. "I'm working on it, continuing to get better at it."
His progress in the passing game to this point, Ingram feels, has earned him some trust with quarterback Drew Brees.
"I don't think he was like, 'Oh there's Mark, I'm going somewhere else.' But I think he's more confident in me in that area," he said. "I've been working with him all OTAs and for five years now. And he's seen the improvement that I've made in just running my routes, things like that. So when he sees me out there in a passing situation, I think he's more aware that I'm there now."
Terrell Suggs was called for roughing the passer when he tackled Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford during Saturday's exhibition game in Philadelphia.
He was called for roughing the passer on that play, though the NFL's head of officiating publicly declared that the call was incorrect on Monday morning before a national television audience.
It being a zone-read play, he said, the quarterback is presumed a potential rusher, so is not due the special protection a passer otherwise would be. It's a line of reasoning Eagles coach Chip Kelly didn't care for, saying the play call was a regular shotgun handoff with no option.
Not so fast, says Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins.
"If I take myself out of an Eagles uniform, I'd probably do the same thing [that Suggs did]," he said.
Not that he would go for a man's knees or make any other dirty play, but that he would attack the quarterback running an offense with a reputation for the zone-read, as is Kelly's.
"It is a zone-read run," Jenkins insisted, against his head coach's declaration. "Well of course, according to the head coach. I'm just saying, as a defender, if I was gameplanning for the Eagles, I probably wouldn't go low for the quarterback, but that's where there's a little bit of discretion from a player's standpoint of where you hit somebody.
"But if somebody's running a zone-read [usually] and I want to scare them out of it, I'm gonna hit the quarterback."
All points which Sam Bradford himself might agree with, but he and left tackle Jason Peters both insisted that night and the day after that the intent of the play, going for Bradford's knees, was dirty.
Kelly said his team doesn't run the zone-read option offense as much as is thought, and any perception that they do may be the driving force behind calls made and calls interpreted in the future. He also noted that it could be a problem this season if referees are assuming that any handoff in the shotgun formation is thought to be a zone-read play when it need not be.
That, he fears, could result in more hits on his fragile quarterback that officials think are legal when they aren't.
After the NFL vindicated Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs in his below-the-belt tackle of Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford the other day, his head coach decided to defend him publicly.
Suggs appeared to go for Bradford's surgically-repaired knee in Saturday's exhibition game in Philadelphia and was called for roughing the passer on the play, but Dean Blandino, the NFL's Head of Officiating said on Monday that the call was incorrect.
Bradford, he said, should not be given special protection on what was presumed a zone-read play, where the passer can be presumed a potential rusher.
Which inspired Ravens head coach John Harbaugh to correct what he felt were improper comments made about his player that night.
"When you start popping off about somebody's character, you cross the line," Harbaugh said. "That's not really something that we would respect. But most of their guys over there understood the play and understood [Suggs] was playing hard and trying to get stops."
Bradford and Eagles left tackle Jason Peters had taken the opportunity after the game to malign the intent behind Suggs' hit, the latter saying he thought Suggs was a "dirty" player and that he was "pretty sure" he went for Bradford's knees on purpose.
While the roughing call was technically incorrect, as Bradford was not in a "passing posture" during the play, an unnecessary roughness penalty seemed to be in order.
After the Redskins lost tight ends Niles Paul and Logan Paulsen following the first week of the exhibition season, general manager Scot McCloughan found himself another project to set himself on.
The club brought in Derek Carrier from the 49ers in exchange for a fifth-round pick in the 2017 Draft, and after only two days of living in Virginia, was promoted to the No. 2 spot on the roster after starter Jordan Reed.
Redskins head coach Jay Gruden thought the Niners could share some of the wealth at the position they had this summer.
"Well, they were loaded at tight end in San Fran," he said. "We watched him on tape and he's very good."
In 11 games last season, Carrier played 194 snaps behind starters Vernon Davis and Vance MacDonald, collecting nine receptions on 105 yards, adding three tackles on special teams.
"He's a converted wide receiver and a basketball player," Gruden added. "He's put on some weight. He looks like he competes in the running game, which is excellent, and he's obviously very athletic."
With Paul and Paulsen lost for the season, the Redskins find themselves in a deficit in the pass and rush blocking demands of the end position. Jordan Reed, a talented receiver, is still lacking as a blocker. Carrier believes he can add to that needed skill right away.
"Being a former receiver and playing receiver when I first got in the NFL, I think that's a strong suit of mine," Carrier told Tarik El-Bashir of CSN Washington. "But I'm not overlooking blocking at all, and protection, because that's just as important, if not more important, and that's something I take pride in."
The sudden lack of depth will likely plunge Carrier into a prominent role when Washington takes their act to Baltimore on Aug. 29 for their third exhibition game. Head coach Jay Gruden's only regret is that he didn't find him sooner.
"I think he's a good, young prospect to work with. I wish we would have had him a little earlier, but we'll get him going. We still have a couple of weeks left to get him going and see if he'll be ready for Miami," Gruden said in reference to the Redskins' regular season opener.
"We're excited about the prospect of him coming in and competing right away."
At this point, neither he nor the Redskins have much of a choice.
We can put to rest those rumors that abounded in the offseason about the Eagles trading away linebacker Mychal Kendricks.
Philadelphia offered and Kendricks accepted an agreement on a four-year extension to keep one of the team's best defensive players on the roster through the 2019 regular season.
Head coach Chip Kelly did his best to deny those rumors about a potential Kendricks trade this winter and spring, reiterating all along the value he thought the linebacker brought to his system, and on Monday the team confirmed those feeling in dollars.
The deal is worth $29 million all told, according to FOX Sports, with $16 million guaranteed.
He was, after all, one of the few players Kelly inherited when he joined the team who still have a job.
Kendricks tallied 264 tackles, three interceptions, and five forced fumbles during his three year professional career, all with the Eagles. Last season he collected 108 tackles in 12 games, the second most on the team after safety Malcolm Jenkins.
With the signing, the Eagles gained a prominent standing at the inside linebacking position. The team acquired Kiko Alonso this offseason in a trade with Buffalo, and retain veteran DeMeco Ryans alonside Kendricks to key one of the elite front sevens in the NFL.
There's a special kind of enthusiasm that comes with playing for your hometown team. Even if his chances of making the final roster are nearly nonexistent, wide receiver Rasheed Bailey is doing his best to make the Eagles notice him.
"My attitude from Day 1 was not to expect anything," the Roxborough High (Pa.) product said. "You've got to come in here and you've got to work hard every single day to be what you want to be."
The deficit between what he wants to be and what he'll likely end up as may have gotten smaller after a solid performance in training camp and the Eagles' two preseason games.
It's safe to say he's learned something.
"The OTAs definitely helped me," Bailey said. "Being around Jordan Matthews, I can't stress his name enough. I've spent a lot of time with him just learning. Learning the play signals and just learning and learning and learning."
He snagged an 18 yard reception from Tim Tebow in his first contest, playing entirely from the slot position, and his after-the-catch yardage is something that will endear him to Chip Kelly's way of thinking.
"I thought coming in here that it may be a little bit too big for him just because, [he was] coming from Delaware Valley, he's kind of handled everything really well," Kelly said. "First game in the Linc or first two games in the Linc, I thought he's shown up in both games. He works extremely hard at it, has a great work ethic. We knew that. But then what you don't know when you have players like that is, is the game going to be too big for him? But he has the skillset to play, and I think he's shown us that."
Kelly will probably keep six receivers on the 53-man roster (Matthews, Nelson Agholor, Josh Huff, Riley Cooper, Miles Austin, and Seyi Ajirotutu). The most likely destination, then, for Bailey is the practice squad, a place from which he'll seek to gain experience in the place he says the game is played the most: the head.
"In this league, the game is 90 percent mental," he said. "The way you play this game, you have to be smart. Being in the room with Miles Austin, that guy is smart. And if I can learn from him and other older players how they about things, it's going to be a beautiful thing."
The Packers didn't just lose the game to the Steelers on Sunday afternoon. They also lost one of their most important players for the entire 2015 regular season.
Wide receiver Jordy Nelson was injured in Green Bay's second preseason game against Pittsburgh and will sit the rest of the year with a reported ACL tear, according to Rotoworld.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reported the original diagnosis by team doctors before what the team calls "a significant right knee injury" was confirmed by the results of an MRI taken afterwards.
Nelson left the game in Pittsburgh not long into the Packers' first offensive series after landing awkwardly on his right leg as he turned upfield with a pass from Aaron Rodgers. He limped off the field under his own power and hovered around the sideline before trainers walked with him to the team's locker room to have a closer look.
They saw what they thought they saw.
While the injury cuts a fair amount out of the Packers' offensive potential this season, the team isn't too much worse for depth at the receiving position. Randall Cobb, the fifth-year man who in 2014 brought down 12 touchdowns on 1,287 yards, remains. So does Davante Adams, Jeff Janis, Myles White, and rookie Ty Montgomery. Running back Eddie Lacy may find himself catching more passes out of the backfield, as well. Lacy caught 42 passes for 427 yards and four scores last season.
"It's difficult to lose a guy like that in a meaningless game," quarterback Aaron Rodgers said after the game.
"We've got a lot of guys right now fighting for spots, and we're still trying to figure out who's going to be the impact players for us on our team," he added. "That could change after this week or that could not. We'll see what happens."
Green Bay also retains tight ends Richard Rodgers and Andrew Quarless, whose receiving totals may rise this year with Nelson's absence. Two of Rodgers' 20 receptions were touchdowns on 225 yards and Quarless added three scores over 323 yards.
Nelson led the Packers with 13 touchdowns on 98 receptions for 1,519 yards last season.
Redskins head coach Jay Gruden raised some eyebrows this week when he said he would have played quarterback Robert Griffin III more than he did on Thursday night.
That is, had he not left the field concussed.
Washington would defeat Detroit 21-17 that night behind reserves Colt McCoy and Kirk Cousins, but the violent nature in which their presumed starter was handled, and the incompetence of the first-team offensive line to protect for him, got all the attention.
Gruden's squad until that point could only muster 10 yards and Griffin was smacked on six of the eight times he dropped back (briefly) for a pass.
"We need the work," he said Thursday night. "We absolutely need the work whether he takes one shot or 10 shots. We have to get our offense going."
But some found themselves questioning whether Gruden, a man who hasn't been shy with his negative opinions of his passer, left him in there to get mauled for personal reasons.
Including an anonymous NFL head coach.
"That Lions front, even without [Ndamukong] Suh, is pretty ferocious," the coach told Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report. "As a coach, you see your guys getting beat, and you see your quarterback especially take that first shot, every coach I know would have taken their quarterback out of the game."
Griffin going out for a fifth series with his injury history is something that stood out to him.
"What is baffling is that I can't think of a single head coach in the NFL who would take an injury-prone quarterback, put him behind a very shaky offensive line, in a preseason game, watch him take those kinds of hits, and leave him in the game. It looks personal to me."
Words that have the same effect on Gruden as a coach as did the injury a physical effect on his quarterback. Griffin was diagnosed with a concussion and shoulder stinger after he was pummelled in an effort to recover his unforced fumble.
Pending a neurologist's approval, Griffin is expected to start on Aug. 29 when the Redskins play their third exhibition game at the Ravens, another stout defensive side with able pass rushers against whom Jay Gruden wants to set his fragile quarterback.
After Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson went down in Sunday's exhibition game in Pittsburgh, the almost universal disposition was that he'll miss the coming season with a torn ACL.
It predictably raised all the old questions about what kind of reform, if any, should come to the NFL preseason.
All questions that Lions safety Glover Quin doesn't think need to be asked. It was God's will, he said that Nelson be injured, so any changes the NFL would make would be meaningless anyway.
"I hated Jordy got hurt, but in my beliefs, and the way I believe, it was -- God meant for Jordy to get hurt," Quin said. "So if he wouldn't have got hurt today, he wouldn't have played in that game, if he wouldn't have practiced anymore, and the next time he walked on the field would have been opening day, I feel like he would have got hurt opening day. So in that sense, now they've got three weeks to makeadjustments and prepare before opening day, as opposed to it happening opening day and now you're in the season and now Jordy gets hurt. It happening in the preseason, you hate that it happened, but that gived them time to make adjustments and try to find something."
Quin's piety is admirable, but his theology is weak. Most philosophical theology and other religious doctrines through the centuries have always placed the freedom of the human will and of nature as primary. Good and evil, and hope and tragedy, only have any validity in relation to our ability to choose between them and learn from them, and if every movement is already a pre-determined fact planned before it is taken, then they would have no meaning.
Such a belief poses God as a dictatorial puppet-master and mankind a worthless species with no inherent reason to do anything. Which would render God making mankind a worthless and pointless project, which would render God worthless and pointless.
Not quite what he intended, most likely, but it certainly is what his comments imply.
Glover Quin needs to read some St. Thomas Aquinas.
NFL head of officiating Dean Blandino said on Monday morning that Terrell Suggs' hit on Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford two days ago was in fact legal because it came on a zone-read play.
On such calls, the passer is treated as a potential rusher.
Referee Jerome Boger called Suggs for roughing the passer after the Ravens linebacker appeared to target Bradford's twice surgically-repaired left knee during his tackle, a call Blandino says should not have been made.
Eagles head coach Chip Kelly, however, isn't buying what Blandino is selling. He still stands by the original call, saying the called play wasn't for a zone read.
"No, it was just a handoff," he said. "So not every shotgun run is a zone read play. We didn't run any zone reads. We had this conversation last year. We don't run as much zone read as everyone thinks we do. We're blocking the back side. He's not reading anything, he was just handing the ball off."
While Kelly and Bradford may think the play was illegal, the NFL Playbook would disagree.
Roughing the passer as a penalty only applies to "a player who is in a passing posture." Bradford was not, as he was bent forward in what was at the moment of the collision a rush attempt by Darren Sproles. Had Bradford regained his posture before Suggs hit him, the call would have been correct.
Kelly would prefer the league protect quarterbacks who hand off to running backs in the shotgun formation, likely because that constitutes much of his own offensive scheme.
"I think it would be troubling for the league if every quarterback in the shotgun can get hit," he said on Monday.
That may be true, but his view on the hit his quarterback took on Saturday is not. At best, the play was dirty, but it was not illegal.
The Bears will be without starting defensive tackle Jeremiah Ratliff the first three games of the coming season after he NFL concluded he violated their substance abuse policy.
Ratliff pled guilty to a DWI in Texas two years ago after he was arrested for crashing his pickup truck with a blood alcohol content of .16, twice the legal limit. He was put on one year's probation after pleading guilty to that charge.
Chicago signed him to a two-year contract the following year, a move they wouldn't altogether regret.
The four-time Pro Bowl selection started eleven games for the Bears (5-11) last season, collecting 21 tackles and 6.5 sacks and, playing at the nose position, is expected to be the centerpiece of Vic Fangio's new defensive scheme in 2015.
The Bears may sorely miss Ratliff during those three games he'll be away. They'll tangle with the Packers, Cardinals, and Seahawks to open their campaign, facing high-quality rushers like Eddie Lacy and Marshawn Lynch in two of those contests.
The Rams did, in fact, take the field on Sunday night, though they've yet to show anything for it as Tennessee leads St. Louis 20-0 after the first half.
Nick Foles, the Rams' banner addition this offseason courtesy of Chip Kelly, helped the Titans get their first points, flinging an errant ball for Tavon Austin, which instead found defensive back Perrish Cox, who went the other way for 24 yards and a touchdown.
St. Louis (0-1) posted the fifth-worst offensive eleven in the NFL last season and Tennessee the fourth-worst. They're both hoping their new quarterbacks can reverse that course.
While the Rams have little to show from this effort, the Titans are more optimistic.
Marcus Mariota engineered three drives for Tennessee (0-1), looking every bit the man he wasn't in his debut in Atlanta one week ago. He went 5-of-8 for 59 yards, and should've had a touchdown, if not for Dexter McCluster dropping a wide open pass play that slipped off his mitts in the end zone.
A good deal of help can come in the form of Bishop Sankey, the Titans' rusher who on the night carried for 45 yards on six attempts, gaining on plays of 18 and 19 yards over a confused strong-side defense that looked twice too often at what Mariota might do.
A strong run game is what the Titans hope can settle their rookie to find his way in the pocket after a strong showing in training camp this summer.
Mariota also found Craig Stevens on a 35 yard gain on the sole scoring drive of his night, a 27 yard kick from Ryan Succop, before Zach Mettenberger and the relief men came into pitch. To great effect, as it happened.
Mettenberger flung a 3rd-and-3 ball for Hakeem Nicks, who slithered through a pair of tackles on a 40 yard advance five yards into the red zone. David Cobb took a well-designed draw play through the middle of the line nine yards to the 3 and Chase Coffman snagged the deciding catch to put the Titans ahead by 17.
A day after learning that he lost the open quarterback competition that lasted through the summer and that Brian Hoyer would be named the Texans' starting quarterback, reserve passer Ryan Mallett said he was "angry" and "disappointed" in the decision.
