Normally postseason and offseason mode for me is cutting these cents in half, but this week has been chock full of important NFL developments. That means one more week of ten.

I want to thank those who read these religiously. You know who you are, and more importantly I know who (many of) you are. Readership is continually growing and I know those who have been with it/me for years are a big part of spreading the word. I appreciate it, and RealGM does too.

For those who are newer to it, welcome! I write this with the design that you don’t need to read it all in one sitting. Take in a couple of cents here, a couple there. Maybe read three while on the treadmill, two others while taking care of business on the porcelain throne.

$.01--There is an old saying that you should get the worst out of the way first, then everything else will seem that much more enjoyable. Apparently the NFL heeded this advice by kicking off the 2015 postseason with perhaps the worst playoff game this century.

Kansas City smoked Houston 30-0 in a game that was quite literally over from the opening kickoff:

 

From there, the Chiefs basically just sat back and watched Texans QB Brian Hoyer put on one of the most glaring displays of ineptitude ever seen from a “regular” starter in a playoff game. Hoyer was spectacularly bad, a smoothie of chicken liver, kale, sawdust and spoiled spray cheese. He turned the ball over four times in the first half, including an empty-hand throw that the Chiefs greedily recovered. The oft-concussed Hoyer finished 15-of-34, 136 yards and four INTs.

Boos rained down at NRG Field by the middle of the first quarter. Fans were begging for backup Brandon Weeden before halftime. Kansas City fans couldn’t believe their good fortune in drawing such an easy foe.

For their part, the Chiefs really didn’t look all that impressive. Their own offense wasn’t great, but effective enough to eat clock and keep the chains moving as the game situation warranted. They suffered a potentially devastating loss when top wideout Jeremy Maclin left with a knee injury. 

$.02--The second game on Saturday was an AFC North tilt, the third Pittsburgh/Cincinnati meeting of the season. Pittsburgh ultimately prevailed 18-16, but the path to the victory was one of the most damning indictments on the progressively declining NFL product.

The first eight drives of the game resulted in punts, and it was more about inept offense than great defense. The two subsequent drives saw the teams exchange turnovers. The only worthwhile action was of the extracurricular variety, notably an exchange between Bengals safety Reggie Nelson and Steelers assistant coach Mike Munchak, who was penalized for pulling Nelson’s hair after a play on the Steelers sideline. There were several flags and far more warnings as the officials desperately tried to keep control of the downward spiral of a game.

A lousy personal foul call on Bengals safety Shawn Williams really escalated things. Williams made a clean hit, leading with his shoulder directly into the chest of a Steelers receiver. There was incidental contact with the bottom of the facemask. This is important.

Pittsburgh kicked a couple of field goals, then benefitted from another ridiculous officiating decision in rewarding Martavis Bryant’s fantastic effort in the corner of the end zone with a touchdown on a play where he quite clearly did not control the ball in the process of going to the ground to complete the catch. Any person who has ever watched Calvin Johnson play, or Dez Bryant in last year’s playoff loss, can tell you that was not a catch.

Then came the ultimate shafting courtesy of the men in black and white. Recall the Williams penalty earlier as subtext here. Steelers LB Ryan Shazier launched himself and struck Bengals RB Gio Bernard with the crown of his helmet into Bernard’s helmet and facemask, knocking the ball out. It also knocked Bernard out. In college football this is an immediate ejection. It’s as obvious of a personal foul penalty as you will ever see. Whether Bernard was considered a defenseless receiver or not, the rule clearly states that exactly what Shazier did is indeed a penalty. Here is Rule 12, Section 2, Article 8:

Instead of a personal foul, and an instant ejection at every level of football except the hypocritical one already reeling from Concussion, the Steelers got the ball. Phil Simms on the CBS call, who had already said a coach was “going to get a head job” and couldn’t think of a word to encapsulate “not very good”, vigorously defended the non-call with help from Mike Carey, the gold standard of incorrect analysis.

And then I turned the game off. The NFL forced me away thanks to a brutal combination of truly awful, one-sided officiating and the obnoxiously egregious announcing by Simms. I couldn’t take it anymore. I hope you did the same. Send a message to the NFL that you will not tolerate this sort of inconsistent, hypocritical BS from the part-time officials hastily cobbled together from regular crews throughout the season. Let them know you will not watch any more broadcasts with Simms, an inane fountain of foolish boobery, on the call.

Apparently Ben Roethlisberger got hurt shortly thereafter. I wouldn’t know, the NFL drove me away from the game with such an awful product. I went to bed, blood still boiling from the ineptitude of the NFL’s supposed best officials and the network’s top color man. At its root, this is supposed to be an entertainment product. When I’m not entertained, I find something else. Get this corrupt house in order, Mr. Goodell, or else a lot more are going to find more entertaining uses for their hard-earned dollars.

Because I’m a true professional, unlike the officials on this game or Simms on the call, I did go back to see the remainder unfurl. Vontaze Burfict deserves a multi-game suspension for his atrocious, unnecessary hit on Antonio Brown. Pacman Jones should be cut for his actions in setting up Pittsburgh’s game-winning field goal. Steelers assistant coach Joey Porter, who should have been penalized for being on the field, should also be suspended for goading Jones into the penalty, a tradeoff I’m sure Steelers fans will happily accept.

Bengals fans were completely classless in throwing things at Big Ben as he was carted off. Roethlisberger returned to play the hero role, likely so doped up on pain meds that he doesn’t even remember it. The officials should all be suspended for losing control of the game and their gross incompetence in knowledge of the rulebook.

You saw everything that is wrong with the NFL in this game. And if the Steelers have to play next week without both Roethlisberger and Brown, a very real possibility, the outcome was fairly pointless.

$.03--Seattle versus Minnesota can be summed up in one cliché that is already beaten to death and I’m writing this within 10 minutes of the conclusion of Seattle’s 10-9 win.

Laces out!

Seriously, enough already. By the time you’re reading this I’m sure it will have been made into countless memes, many replete with the crying Michael Jordan too. Stop it!

Of course the shoe does fit. Blair Walsh missed a 27-yard field goal that would have won it for the Vikings, thanks in part to holder Jeff Locke not rotating the ball so the laces were out. Walsh kicked the laces and hooked the ball wide left. To his credit the kicker owned it, dutifully answering every last question in the locker room and accepting the blame.

The rest of the game was dominated by Mother Nature. Game time temp was minus-3 and the wind chill was much lower. Folks in the stadium recorded videos of beer being poured from shoulder level and freezing before it hit the ground.

Neither team had any offense working all afternoon. There were just 27 first downs and 254 combined yards of net passing. Both teams earned more first downs via penalty than on the ground. It only took one big play to swing the outcome, and Russell Wilson and Tyler Lockett made it for Seattle.

 

The Seahawks scored the game’s only TD two plays later. And then clung to victory by the skin of their teeth thanks to a special teams error. The manner of victory matters not; survive and advance is all that counts. The rest of the NFC was definitely hoping to see the two-time defending champs knocked out here.

Now please stop with the Ace Ventura references!

$.04--The road team romps continued into the final game of the weekend, as Green Bay upended Washington 35-18. This was a statement game from the Packers, letting the rest of the NFC know they’re back and ready for business.

It didn’t start out well for the visitors from Wisconsin, as they fell behind 11-0 thanks to a safety and a leaky early defense. It looked like Kirk Cousins and the home team were going to like this game very much.

Then it happened. The halo over Aaron Rodgers, a previously omnipresent feature that has been scarily absent the last few weeks, finally came back. I can’t pinpoint an exact moment where the change happened, but it definitely did.

By halftime, the Packers had rattled off 17 straight points. Even Davante Adams, heretofore one of the biggest disappointments on the season, came up big with a TD reception where he was uncovered in the back corner of the end zone.

Green Bay’s defense fed off the offense, and vice versa. The special teams helped too, notably an outstanding punt from Tim Mashtay which pinned the Skins deep when they might have still had a ghost of a chance. Washington mounted a scoring drive to keep it close in the third, but they didn’t have the ammo to win this fire fight.

The NFC East champs hit the offseason after a successful campaign, but also a dichotomy. While they won their division and definitely played well at times, they saw just how far they still have to go to be a real player in the top-heavy NFC. Kirk Cousins, who inexplicably took two sacks on fourth downs, is an impending free agent. He proved he’s good enough to remain the starter, but he is not Aaron Rodgers. He’s more Ryan Fitzpatrick. How much is that worth to Washington?

I expect the franchise tag, which will tether him to the team for one more year at about $20M. They don’t have a great deal of cap room to add much else, but they also cannot afford to lose Cousins. They must decide on Robert Griffin’s fate, too. I expect him to wind up in either Cleveland or Houston, with a real chance to win the starting job in either locale.

The Packers now get a shot to avenge the brutal beatdown Arizona put on them last month. I wouldn’t give them much fo a chance if not for the smile and swagger back in Rodgers through the latter part of this game. He was dealing and he knew it, and that guy can beat anyone. 

$.05--Miami was the first of the coaching vacancies to fill, as the Dolphins hired former Bears Offensive Coordinator Adam Gase to fill the role. Miami played out the season after ending the Joe Philbin trainwreck at least a year too late with monotone interim coach Dan Campbell.

Gase makes sense for Miami on a couple of levels. Quarterback Ryan Tannehill and defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh are the two most important players on the roster. Gase is noted as a QB guru from working with Peyton Manning in Denver and Jay Cutler this past year in Chicago, though prior to that his most notable accomplishment was coaxing an 18 TD/20 INT season from Jon Kitna in Detroit.

Everyone, including Gase, knows he will be judged largely on what happens with Tannehill, a young signal caller at a bit of a crossroads. A first-round pick in 2011, Tannehill has stagnated in his progress. The new head coach cut back on Cutler’s bad decisions, though his completion percentage, TD percentage and yards per attempt all dropped. I suspect the Dolphins will take that tradeoff with their QB if it produces more touchdowns and wins.

Gase’s connection with Suh is a little different. They share an agent in Jimmy Sexton, who negotiated a deal last offseason to make Suh the highest-paid defensive player in history. He played pretty well in his first year in Miami but did not make the dynamic impact many wanted. Gase has an “in” to keep his enigmatic star in line.

The Dolphins have been a disaster lately, with all sorts of petty scandals and underwhelming results in front of disappointing crowds. In giving a 37-year-old rookie head coach final say over personnel matters as well, reviled owner Steven Ross has opened himself to even more criticism. Gase had better hope it works--quickly--or else the dysfunction will continue. They’ve got a chance if Tannehill takes another step and they surround him with more talent, but it won’t be easy rising from the bottom of the AFC East. 

$.06--I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the Los Angeles situation. League owners are meeting this week in Houston to discuss the potential for one, two or even three different teams to move to LA.

The Rams, Raiders and Chargers have all formally applied to move to Los Angeles. Of course, two of those franchises have already called the City of Angels home once upon a time. There are two competing stadium plans competing for approval here as well.

The Raiders and Chargers have joined forces to try and get an outdoor stadium built in Carson, which is about 15 miles from downtown LA. The Rams have presented an option for a domed facility in Inglewood, very near the LAX airport and also closer to downtown.

St. Louis owner Stan Kroenke has done his best to napalm any bridge between his franchise and its current home. However, the State of Missouri recently countered with an extravagant new proposal to keep the team in St. Louis. Kroenke poo-pooed this as too little, too late (much more on the little than late) and the public financing aspect is a very tough sell given the tense political climate in that area.

The Chargers seem the most likely to move. Their stadium is hopelessly antiquated, their ability to get a new one in San Diego even more hopeless. Unlike Kroenke or Raiders owner Mark Davis, Chargers owner Dean Spanos is well-liked around the league and his efforts to try and keep the team from moving are generally regarded as the most honest. That means something to old-guard owners, right or wrong.

I’ve watched the promotional videos for both new stadium projects, and I prefer the Carson plan. When I’ve talked about this to folks closer to the situation, they have uniformly told me the Inglewood plan is more realistic. I guess we’ll find out this week, but plan on at least one NFL team playing somewhere in Los Angeles as soon as next year. 

$.07--The Pro Football Hall of Fame released its list of 2016 finalists…

The 15 modern-era finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2016 are as follows (presented in alphabetical order): Morten Andersen, Steve Atwater, Don Coryell, Terrell Davis, Tony Dungy, Alan Faneca, Brett Favre, Kevin Greene, Marvin Harrison, Joe Jacoby, Edgerrin James, John Lynch, Terrell Owens, Orlando Pace and Kurt Warner.

(Thanks to NFL.com for the concise list)

I am not a voter, but here are the five (the maximum number allowed per year) I would induct and the order in which I would fight for them.  

  • Brett Favre is an obvious one, and he absolutely deserves to get in on his first ballot. Aside from his prodigious talent and numerous records, he’s as famous of a football player as any in the last 20 years. It’s the Hall of FAME, after all… 
  • Orlando Pace is arguably the best of the golden era of offensive tackles. He was the cornerstone of the Greatest Show on Turf. Had Pro Football Focus been around in his heyday, his scores would have bested everyone and that’s playing in an era with HOFers Willie Roaf, Walter Jones and Jonathan Ogden. I’ll admit to a personal bias in favor of Pace, whom I competed against in Academic Challenge when he was a 6’4”, 270-pound freshman at Sandusky High School while I was a 6’4”, 170-pound senior at nearby Vermilion. 
  • Kurt Warner should be a lock. He took the Rams to two Super Bowls, winning one. He then took the Cardinals to a Super Bowl. For my money he was a better passer than Dan Marino, and more successful to boot. He did have a couple of clunker years and only started 16 games three times, legit knocks that will probably keep him out. I’d still vote him in.
  • Morten Andersen was the best kicker in NFL history not named Jason Hanson. He was ahead of his time with the long field goal accuracy. Special teams are underrepresented, this is another step in rectification.
  • Kevin Greene has 160 sacks. That’s a huge number, the third-most in NFL history. Eight different times he finished in the top 7 in sacks, a higher figure and in fewer overall seasons than either Chris Doleman or Richard Dent. Both of them are in already, and Greene certainly brought more flamboyance than either guy too.

I don’t think either Harrison or TO should get in this year, but if I had to put one wideout in it would be Harrison. 

$.08--NFL Awards

I am a proud member of the Pro Football Writers of America, and as such I get to vote on the awards. Here is how my ballot, which I submitted Friday, looked:

  • MVP - Cam Newton
  • Offensive Player of Year - Antonio Brown
  • Defensive Player of Year - Aaron Donald
  • Offensive Rookie - Todd Gurley
  • Defensive Rookie - Marcus Peters
  • Comeback Player - Navorro Bowman
  • Most Improved - Gary Barnidge
  • Coach of Year - Ron Rivera
  • Executive of Year - Scot McGlouhan
  • Assistant Coach of Year - Hue Jackson

I picked Cam over Carson Palmer, with Russell Wilson a distant third in the MVP race. Note they are all NFC quarterbacks.

Aaron Donald was the easiest choice, as the Rams defensive tackle was handily the most impactful defender all year long. I do not allow the MVP to win any other awards (I’m stupid like that) so Antonio Brown earned the OPOY for being the key to the best offense in the league and the most impactful receiver.

Navorro Bowman led the league in tackles and tried his best to keep a dilapidated 49ers defense together around him in his return from a serious knee injury. That wins out for me over Eric Berry, who admittedly has a more heroic story, and Bengals TE Tyler Eifert. This was the toughest category.

Executive of the Year Scot McGlouhan is the biggest reason why Washington won the NFC East. He deserves some sort of comeback award, too.

We also voted for the AFC and NFC all-conference teams. There were three teams with no representatives, the Titans and Jaguars in the AFC and the Cowboys in the NFC.

$.09--College/Draft quickies

I’m in prep mode for my upcoming trips to the Shrine Game and Senior Bowl, so I’ll postpone much here until next week. Still…

--Good news on Jaylon Smith, the Notre Dame linebacker who suffered a gruesome knee injury in the Fiesta Bowl. His surgery repaired his ACL and MCL and found no nerve damage, which means he could make a full recovery. He’s still almost certain to miss all of 2016, but the long-term prognosis is a definite positive.

--North Dakota State quarterback Carson Wentz returned to the field after a broken wrist sidelined him for a couple of months. He led the Bison to their fifth straight FCS title, and flashed the NFL-ready skills that will make him a first-round pick this spring. Wentz is the most NFL-ready of any of the quarterbacks in this class, and I suspect he’ll cement his status as a potential top 10 overall pick in Mobile.

--One of the questions I get asked most frequently is, which position group is the weakest in this draft? The answer is easy: tight end. There are a few intriguing TE prospects in the middle rounds, but I’ll be surprised if any are drafted before the third round. I could see several coming off the board in the third and fourth rounds, however, and guys like Hunter Henry, Austin Hooper, Nick Vannett, Brice Williams and Jordan Leggett could all be better pros than collegians and eventual starters. Just not stars.

--As of now, 78 underclassmen have declared for the draft. The deadline is Jan. 18th, and I expect at least 5 more. At least five of the current declarers are going to wind up undrafted. It will be a rude awakening but at the same time, try not to judge. You don’t know the situation, and those guys need the support more than the guys like Paxton Lynch, Jalen Ramsey and Laremy Tunsil who will populate the top 10 overall. 

$.10--Alabama and Clemson will face off Monday night for the College Football Playoff championship. Here’s a quick forecast from someone who had both these teams in the top 5 all season.

There are two keys to the game in my view. Which quarterback can make plays against the opposing defense, and can Clemson control the early action?

I love Alabama’s defensive front. Their backups on the line are all NFL players. I rate ILB Reggie Ragland a top-5 talent in the upcoming draft. The Bama secondary has vulnerability but plays well as a unit, and CB Cyrus Jones comes off a great game against Michigan State.

That’s where Deshaun Watson comes in. Unlike most QBs Alabama has eaten alive, Watson is adept at making things happen with his legs. He can take off and run but he can also extend plays and create opportunities down the field that way. And this facilitates an offense balance which is very difficult to defend

Watson and RB Wayne Gallman both ran for the exact same average, 5.52 yards per carry. Six different receivers caught between 24 and 44 passes on the year. Artavis Scott caught 89 as the go-to, but Watson clearly has no problem spraying the ball to whoever is open. The diversity of weapons is how Ohio State beat Alabama last year, how LSU has beaten them in the past too.

If the Clemson offensive line can hold up against the likes of Jonathan Allen (1st round), Jarran Reed (1st round) A’Shawn Robinson (1st-2nd round) and company, I think Clemson can find offensive success. Doing so early on will relieve a lot of pressure, and it also puts the burden on Jake Coker and Alabama to beat Clemson’s own talent-laden defense.

Alabama had the No. 1 run defense in the nation. Clemson was 17th, but they were actually better against teams that made bowls than those finishing with losing records. In Jayron Kearse, they have a legit run-stuffing box safety who is ideally suited to slow down Derrick Henry. In Cordrea Tankersley and Mackensie Alexander, they have two island corners who are both going to be starting on Sundays in the near future. That allows the linebackers to focus on Henry, or niftier Kenyan Drake.

Of course Michigan State did this very effectively, and they couldn’t stop Alabama. That’s where the coverage ability of the Clemson CBs comes in. I think they’re the biggest mismatch in the entire contest, and that means zero disrespect to impressive freshman wideout Calvin Ridley.

The experience factor certainly favors Nick Saban and Alabama. That’s why it’s critical for Clemson to start strong. As long as they’re not trailing by more than a field goal at the end of the first 20 minutes, I think the Tigers survive the Tide. I liked how Clemson handled tough blows from very good opponents in Notre Dame and North Carolina, a neutral site game for the ACC Championship that ultimately got them here.

Clemson 24, Alabama 20