Yes, it’s back! I am happy to rejoin RealGM after a couple of years away. I will be resuming what I did here from 2004 through early 2023: NFL and NFL draft coverage, the weekly Football Meteorology forecast (which will begin in the postseason) and this particular piece, the $.10 on the world of football. Due to preexisting travel commitments, this week and next week will be just $.05, but it’s very nice to be writing about the NFL and college football as a whole again after being more team-focused for the last couple of seasons. 

And boy, what a time to come back! Between off-field college football drama and the NFL playoff races taking a more defined shape, it’s been quite a week…

$.01: Sunday of Week 15 might very well be long-remembered for two devastating injuries to marquee franchises. 

Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes and Green Bay Packers EDGE Micah Parsons each suffered ACL injuries in their teams’ losses on Sunday. 

Mahomes is the NFL’s biggest and most recognizable star. It’s impossible to not know Mahomes even if you’ve never seen a football game in your life. The three-time Super Bowl champion, two-time MVP and engaging State Farm pitchman is the face of the NFL for a lot of folks for his prodigious passing, incredible escapability and relentlessly positive force of nature personality. 

Losing Mahomes would have ended the Chiefs hopes for getting back to an eighth straight AFC Championship game, but those hopes were already dashed when the Chargers beat the Chiefs in Sunday’s game. That dropped Kansas City to 6-8 and mathematically eliminated the Chiefs from the postseason for the first time in over a decade. The down year for the perennial powerhouse could now have major longer-term implications with Mahomes’ unfortunate injury. 

For Green Bay, losing Parsons to an apparent ACL is a huge blow to a team that still very much harbors serious Super Bowl visions. The Packers entered Week 15 in first place in the NFC North at 9-3-1, with Parsons the shining star of a very good defense. 

Green Bay gave up two first-round picks and a good DT in Kenny Clark to acquire Parsons from the Dallas Cowboys just before the season. The dynamic pass rusher quickly proved worthy of the high trade cost. He transformed a pretty good Packers defense into a great one, with his ability to generate pressure from all over the formation creating nightmares for opposing offenses. 

The Packers’ loss to the Denver Broncos (the current No. 1 seed in the AFC) dropped Green Bay from 2nd to 7th in the NFC. Losing Parsons, as well as potential injury losses to WR Christian Watson and others. As my longtime colleague Zach Kruse of Packers Wire put it:

 

 

A mid-December torn ACL generally projects to having the player open the ensuing season on the PUP list and out until at least mid-October. Detroit’s Alim McNeill tore his ACL on December 15th last year and was activated, ahead of schedule by a couple of weeks, for Week 7 this year. That’s a pretty standard timeline, one that puts a dent into the Packers plans for next year as well. 

$.02: The AFC East guard was about to change back to the way it used to be for so long, but the current guards refused to abandon their post. Just when the New England Patriots were getting fitted to take back their once-dynastic crown, Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills reminded everyone who is still king of the division. 

This game started out like a coronation of the Patriots, who won the division every year but one between 2003 and 2019. Up 21-0 at the two-minute warning of the first half, the Patriots were seizing back the crown from the Bills, who have won the AFC East every year since. 

Buffalo’s next five drives all ended in touchdowns. New England did manage to tack on 10 more points, but a costly interception and two stalled drives prevented the Patriots from keeping pace. One final gasp of a drive resulted in a quick 4-and-out, and just like that, the division title is much more open than it appeared 32 minutes of football earlier. 

The Patriots still hold a one-game lead with their 11-3 record to Buffalo’s 10-4, but the message has been sent. New England hadn’t beaten another team that currently sports a winning record since the first meeting between these two rivals back in Week 5. They’ve feasted on a last-place schedule. When finally challenged by a good team, the youthful Patriots showed they still aren’t quite there. Doesn’t mean they can’t get there this year, but this might serve as a reality check that first-year head coach Mike Vrabel can use to refocus his team. 

For Buffalo, it was a reminder that the inconsistent Bills can still be great. Other than a blowout win over Pittsburgh in Week 13, the banged-up Bills haven’t looked like a consistent AFC contender in two months. Allen put on his MVP cape with three TD passes but also a tremendous amount of poise and clutch play. His wanton usuper, Drake Maye, couldn’t match Allen in this one. 

Both teams are virtually guaranteed of making the postseason. It could very well play out that the Bills and Patriots meet in the Wild Card round, a rubber match that would be a very welcome watch for everyone. 

$.03: I haven’t done a formal NFL power poll yet this year, but after Week 15, it would be disingenuous for me to have any team other than the Los Angeles Rams at No. 1. Denver might have a better record, but style points matter in power polls and the Rams win with decisive flair on both offense and defense. 

Sunday was a good example. Hosting the inconsistent Lions, the Rams trailed at the half 24-17 after kicking a last-second field goal. That was Detroit’s best half of football in weeks, and the Rams withstood the onslaught. After halftime, they looked like a team very capable of beating anyone, anywhere. 

They did it with offense, efficiently tacking on two TDs and a field goal in the first three possessions out of halftime. Matthew Stafford carved up his old team, completing 8 passes for almost 150 yards and keeping the ball moving all over the field. Blake Corum and Kyren Williams found nice running lanes, too. 

They did it with defense. Dominating defense. The Lions are the NFL’s top-scoring team. In three drives to open the second half, Detroit ran nine plays that netted minus-4 yards, thanks to stifling defense and a penalty. Los Angeles completely throttled star RB Jahmyr Gibbs and ruthlessly attacked a fading Lions offensive line in a way that no other team has with any consistency this year. 

They did it with attitude, too--on both sides of the ball. Other than losing Davante Adams to a hamstring injury reaggravation, it was almost a perfect half of football from Sean McVay’s Rams. They made a statement that the NFC is their domain. Well, at least until Thursday night when they visit Seattle to play the Seahawks, who are also 11-3 after Jason Myers hit a 56-yard game-winning field goal less than a game minute after Colts kicker Blake Grupe nailed an amazing 60-yarder to put Indy ahead 16-15. 

The winner of that outstanding Week 16 kickoff will control the NFC’s top seed. San Francisco is 10-4 and still in play despite being in third place in the division, and if the 10-4 Bears win out--a tall task but not implausible--they could factor in as well. The defending champion Eagles sit at 9-5 after waxing what’s left of the Raiders, though Philly hasn’t looked like a playoff juggernaut in weeks. There is still time, of course, and the final three weeks are going to be incredibly dramatic and topsy-turvy in the NFC. 

$.04: The Michigan Wolverines football program has descended into scandalous chaos. Sherrone Moore has been fired after two seasons for inappropriate relations with a subordinate, a female staffer who directly reported to and worked for Moore. And that’s just the top layer of a stinking onion that is rocking Ann Arbor. 

The onion continues to peel, unfortunately. And the more layers that get uncovered, the worse it smells for the University of Michigan. 

Moore was fired on Wednesday after his illicit, and apparently long-running, affair with a staffer blew up. And then it got decidedly more sordid and criminal. As Michigan Public reported:

“Fired University of Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore “barged his way” into the apartment of a woman with whom he had been having an affair and threatened to kill himself after she reported the relationship to the school and he lost his job, prosecutors said Friday.”

Moore has been charged with felony stalking and home invasion after being taken into custody on Friday. The next time everyone saw Moore, he appeared shellshocked in a stark white prison jumpsuit, uncomfortably seated in a small video chat cell to hear his charges. 

The justice system will play out Moore’s fate, and that’s for the news sites. The focus here is on what happens next with the Wolverines football program. Specifically, who will the next coach be and who will be the person, or persons, making that decision?

Current Michigan AD Warde Manuel has already met with the university regents, per reports, to try and explain why the Wolverine athletics have become such a scandalous hotbed under his watch. Michigan currently has an interim president above Manuel, which makes the decision-making process even more complicated. 

All sorts of names have been floated as purely hypothetical candidates for the football position, from Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer to Jon Gruden and pretty much anyone Wolverine fans have ever heard of that might answer the phone. With the transfer portal and recruiting factored in with the timing and the potential instability of upper management, it’s not necessarily the appealing position Michigan might expect it to be. 

$.05: Notre Dame won’t be playing in the College Football Playoff. And because the Fighting Irish were controversially excluded from the 12-team field, Notre Dame has opted not to play in any postseason game. 

Head coach Marcus Freeman and the Irish felt indignant over being bypassed by the CFP selection committee for Miami and Alabama. The Hurricanes opened the season with a 3-point victory at home over Notre Dame, and that game from August proved quite weighty in December. Instead of heading to one of the better non-CFP bowls, Notre Dame and its athletic director stated that they would not accept any bowl invitations. They were taking their ball and staying home. 

The Fighting Irish weren’t the only team to reject bowl invitations, though they’re certainly the most prominent as the flagbearers of spite. Some of the schools are going through coaching changes, like Iowa State and Kansas State. Matt Campbell moved on from Ames to become the new coach at Penn State, and the Cyclones (somewhat) understandably opted to call it a season. 

But then there’s a school like Rutgers declining a bowl invite. I’m old enough to remember when the idea that Rutgers had a bowl-worthy football team was quite a positive accomplishment for the school. If you were born before Woodstock '99, you’re old enough to recall those times, too. Yet Rutgers and head coach Greg Schiano rejected an invitation to the Birmingham Bowl against Georgia Southern. 

That bowl now pits the Eagles of Georgia Southern, who finished 6-6 in the Sun Belt, against Appalachian State. The Mountaineers, also from the Sun Belt, finished 5-7. Yes folks, this is a conference rematch in a neutral-site bowl game. The first meeting was indeed a good game; GSU won 25-23 by converting a fourth down with under a minute to go to seal the win. Alas, marketing a Sun Belt game in mid-December being played in an outdoor stadium in central Alabama is no easy task. I don’t think having Rutgers in the bowl would have made it any more (or less) compelling. 

Rutgers declined because both coordinators are gone and several players have already entered the transfer portal. The NCAA’s calendar dictates that those things happen before bowls, making the exhibition games even less relevant or important than ever. Schiano can’t properly prep for a meaningless game while he’s simultaneously trying to hire replacement coaches and also surf the portal to replace the outgoing transfers and graduates. 

This is where college football is today. For most folks, it continues to trend in the wrong direction. Away from tradition, from playing for the love of the game, for the experience of being a student-athlete. Away from conference allegiances and loyalty to schools, loyalty to coaches, away from coaches’ loyalty to programs and the student-athletes they recruited. Notre Dame and Rutgers are different ends of the same string, one that’s being frayed more each day by a modernity almost no one appears to really want.