My dog is 8 years young, not 56. If everyone is so frickin’ confident in their math with dog years, a twice-baked human construct made to sort-of-kind-of-maybe help us remember when man’s best friend will die, then I have more made-up numbers for you to live with. Let’s all make sure to tell dog owners that their 8-year-old babies are actually 56-year-old boomers. Why? Because fairy-tale math helps us remember that dogs are going to die WAY faster than us.
OK … well, the internet moves way faster now, so fast that it’s hard to remember what happened even a week ago. People forget that recency bias isn’t only about focusing on stuff that just happened; it’s also about forgetting everything that happened in the centuries before today or yesterday or this week. Don’t tell the internet that, though. We’re now writing about how Matthew Stafford is technically the Jeff Fisher of quarterbacks because of his career record (122-122-1), only months after asking whether he’s one of the best passers of all time and a first-ballot Hall of Famer. The good news is that we’ll be able to forget about all of this in a week, or what I’m now calling an internet year.
We celebrated Copper’s eighth birthday in August, a little over seven internet years ago, surprising him with all bird toys just for his bird day. But Copper had never chased birds. Not a duck, a chicken, nothing. Never. Copper was terrified of seagulls, the beach, the wind, bags, cars, coffee tables, loud noises, most noises, anything sudden, anything he didn’t understand. Copper doesn’t squeak the toys in his squeaker because he’s scared of the squeak. Yes, that’s true. But he does love to (carefully) play with toys and other dogs, cats, squirrels, mice, raccoons, opossums, skunks, coyotes, deer, me all around the house, and anything else that is hurriedly, furrily scurrying in the dirt. My gut read was that—maybe fairly, for a few too many internet years—he admitted defeat to anything with wings. Anything that could fly like the birds.
That was until Saturday, when Copper changed his mind and mine by nearly hopping our back fence to get as close as he could to a murder of soaring crows. Now, my gut read is that a young dog is learning new tricks despite what everyone says because he has a good coach (his mom, of course). It was probably nothing. Just another day closer to death in the dog days of football season. But, to me, it was seven dog days that felt like forever because it reminded me that sometimes you just need to rethink your time, space, and situation and remember that your best coach will never be the bench. That’s a long-winded story for today’s readers, I imagine, but if you’re a Meter Reader, you know the drill.
TOM reminders: The scale goes from 1 to 11 (the higher the number, the more I’m trying to breathe the take into reality), because 11 is bigger than 10. If you need more than that, read some of my previous Take-O-Meters. If you’re already a Meter Reader, welcome back to the show and don’t forget to be a Meter Writer (emailer): takeometer@spotify.com.
“Look at this [email address]. Every time I do it makes me laugh.” Email me your pleasantries, your opinions of Bo Nix, Dan Quinn, Jesse Minter, Kenneth Walker III, Roger Goodell, Robin Williams, Robert De Niro, Hugh Jackman, Kratos, or quite literally anything else that’s human (or godly like Kratos). Words, pictures, videos, audios, all of it.
OK, enough is enough! To the show, you’re finally welcomed.
Bo Nix isn’t playing good or bad. We’re just making everything up.
Nix said, a little over one internet year ago, “Playing good and playing bad, you know, it’s a narrative. I think it’s honestly something we kind of make up. I don’t think, you know, necessarily, I’m playing any different than what I’m normally playing.” That was before the Denver Broncos upset the Seattle Seahawks at Mile High exactly one internet year (week) ago today. (Can you believe it?!) Even though Nix improved to 18-3 in his last 21 starts, former 17-year NFL journeyman quarterback turned Amazon Prime Video broadcaster Ryan Fitzpatrick decided to say something with his chest and make some good TV for a change.
Fitzpatrick said something people didn’t expect, so everyone reacted. But he didn’t say anything he didn’t believe, clearly, and he didn’t say anything that nerds grinding all the angles of the all-22 haven’t been saying for internet centuries. ESPN’s Ben Solak spent over seven minutes (or hours in internet time) breaking down clear-cut examples of what had been frustrating Fitzpatrick a day before Nix said we’re just making everything up. The data, impervious to man-made emotion and narratives, reveals that Nix is one of the most conservative, passive passers in the league.
There’s a video doing numbers on X that clowns Nix’s average depth of target, which is a nerdy-sounding stat that is easier to understand when you watch the video and see that Nix would have to throw the ball five times at his current ADOT to reach home plate. This stat packs most of the meat and potatoes for why everyone’s frustrated with Nix. He’s hesitant to throw downfield, specifically over the middle or into tight windows. Look at his NGS passing chart from last week, and then look at all of his passing charts from this season all together:
Nix just doesn’t throw the ball downfield consistently or successfully, which was a common critique of him when he was coming out of Oregon in 2024 with a very low ADOT for a first-round quarterback. This tiger’s not changing his stripes, because he’s not a tiger and he’s not changing anything. Like he said, he isn’t playing any differently from how he normally plays. Recency bias tells us Nix isn’t playing well. He ranks dead last this season in dropback success rate and fourth to last in the same stat since entering the league (2024) among QBs with 800-plus dropbacks. Maybe we can just hide behind recency bias since Nix is 18-3 in his last 21 starts, and perhaps nothing else matters. Just QB wins and losses. If so, I just want to apologize for making all of this up and wasting your time on ancient history.
Also, one more thing: Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes ranks third to last in ADOT this year, throwing just 1.8 feet farther than Nix on average, and Mahomes has a lower ADOT than Nix since 2024. But that’s just one stupid number that doesn’t fit this narrative because one stupid number never lies, but it also can’t tell a story. The story with Nix is he’s winning games despite anti-aggressive, overly hesitant quarterback play, which can last only so long, while Mahomes is still one of the best QBs to ever play the game while throwing the ball in the same range as Nix over a large sample size. The differences are in the details, which you can get only from watching the games. Not listening to common narratives, good or bad.
A great teacher is the bench.
Disappointed Soul, ca 1891, by Ferdinand Hodler
I’m not mad. I’m disappointed. Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said a little over two internet years ago, “A great teacher is the bench,” when his team led the league in fumbles, drops, and penalties after Week 4. Now going into Week 7, no team has more penalties (57), only the stumbling, bumbling Los Angeles Chargers have more fumbles, and Green Bay has eight more drops than any other team in football. Hell, LaFleur’s Packers have the fourth-most drops, are tied for the fifth-most fumbles, and are tied for the ninth-most penalties committed by any team over the past five years (2022-26). So, if a great teacher is the bench, maybe the Packers just have a bad bench. Darn. Imagine if this team had another teacher or, better yet, a different bench. One like the famous bench that legendary college basketball coach Bobby Knight talked about.
“The greatest motivator of all is your ass on the bench,” Knight said here and a bunch of other times, I’m sure. “There is no better motivator. Ass meets bench, bench retains ass, ass transmits signal to brain, brain transmits signal to body, body gets ass off bench and plays better.”
Man, if it were only that simple. My read on LaFleur and Knight—two coaches who have accomplished what 99.9 percent of the world can only dream of—is that they’re wrong. Wrong and lazy. Lazy because turns of phrase only make for good quotes, and wrong because the best, greatest teacher on every team needs to be the coach, not the bench. Those metaphors are wrong and lazy, and I’m wrong too sometimes (although no one has called me lazy). Maybe I’m wrong now, calling out coaches with different résumés than mine. So I’ll keep this brief and use only recent examples of how the bench, like coaches and humans even, can be right and wrong. Here are some good and bad uses of the bench from just the past couple of internet years (weeks):
1. The NFLPA is asking the league for a “full investigation” into why the Philadelphia Eagles didn’t rest QB Jalen Hurts on the bench (or just anywhere other than the field) after diagnosing him with blood clots in his calf the night before a Sunday game in London in Week 5. Hurts’s medical situation has drawn more attention than typical stories about a football player’s health, because blood clots aren’t too common and the timeline is a bit confusing, though such situations are definitely a known issue in the NFL; for example, the Carolina Panthers benched (rested) offensive tackle Taylor Moton for the first four games of the year because of blood clots. My guess is that the Panthers benched Moton to help him recover, not to teach or motivate him. Why Hurts played with a blood clot diagnosis and the messed-up sleep schedule that comes with an international flight and potentially scary health news is harder to estimate, hence the NFLPA’s request for an investigation. We know the league wants more international games, so that’s why the Eagles were in London. We know head coach Nick Sirianni wanted to leave Friday instead of earlier in the week because he said it was best for the team. We know Hurts wanted to play in the game. But why the hell was this human being with a developing blood clot diagnosis allowed to play in a simulated war game of only tough men in armor? I’ve asked the bench I’m sitting on now, and I’m not getting an answer.
2. Buffalo Bills running back James Cook and New York Giants RB Cam Skattebo are tied for the league lead in fumbles by backs this season, with four apiece. Skattebo had a fumble in OT that turned a Giants win into a befuddling tie that we can’t get into again (yet), and he got zero carries the following week. Giants head coach John Harbaugh said after their Week 6 loss to the Saints that he “didn’t bench” Skattebo despite never giving him the ball. In Weeks 1 through 5, Skattebo averaged 42 snaps and 18 touches per game as the team’s lead back. No other Giants RB had more than 50 snaps played in Weeks 1-5. Then, in the Giants’ Week 6 loss to the Saints, Skattebo played six snaps and didn’t touch the ball once. But don’t write on the internet that he was benched, because he wasn’t, and that wasn’t just any answer we got from Harbaugh, either. Apparently, it was a part of “the best answer you can ever get on that in 1,000 years,” and no coach in the world could have given us a better answer. Although running back Najee Harris, I’d argue, had a better answer before Harbaugh cut him from the team this week. Harris said he was struggling to “get into a rhythm” with snaps going all around the running back room and that he felt there was “nothing” he could do in a situation he’d never been through before. Harbaugh couldn’t even let the bench teach him a lesson after that transparency, I guess, and decided that firing Harris was the best next step. Another better answer, I think, comes from Bills first-year head coach Joe Brady, when he didn’t say anything memorable at all after Cook fumbled twice on Monday Night Football in a near loss to the Rams in Week 5. Cook has four more fumbles than any other RB in the league since 2025 and was coming off a two-fumble performance in prime time. Cook had 25 touches, over 150 yards, and a touchdown in a win over the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 6; Skattebo had zero touches in a game in which he wasn’t benched. Which approach makes sense to you?
3. Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty has been battling lower-body injuries since August and hasn’t sat the bench for a full game all year because he, like Hurts and others, is tough and wants to play. And first-year Raiders coach Klint Kubiak, like Sirianni, must be confused. Jeanty looked the best he’s looked all season on 12 touches in the first half against the Bills in Week 6, but he had only two touches in the second half of a game that was within one score late. Jeanty has grimaced in pain before jogging off the field in every Raiders game I’ve watched this season, and I’ve been a die-hard for One Nation for decades. It’s not a good enough answer to say that Jeanty is playing because he’s tough. Adults in the room need to explain to him and Kubiak, maybe using the bench, that rest is important.
4. Some other quick-hitting examples of teams not understanding the bench at all, let alone learning from it: The Turf Show Times wants the Los Angeles Rams to bench quarterback Matthew Stafford for Ty Simpson. The Tennessee Titans signed cornerback Alontae Taylor to a three-year, $60 million contract, and he’s recently been just a healthy inactive who's learning on the bench. New Orleans Saints head coach Kellen Moore benched his starters prematurely in a game when they were up by only 24 points, just to put them back in when the Giants made it close down the stretch. (I wonder how motivated and learned his starters were after getting some of the great bench’s tutelage in the middle of a game.) Raiders no. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza is fully suited up, helmet and all so that he can hear the plays, on the bench, and Las Vegas seems like it’s on the right track for the first time since its first run-in with Jon Gruden a long time ago. New York Jets head coach Aaron Glenn didn’t even know whether his team was getting the ball at the start of the second half of its Week 6 loss. Can he learn that on the bench? No, because he’s the head coach of the Jets until he’s fired. Just like all other bad head coaches. They can’t be benched. Huh. Maybe that’s why they’re never motivated to learn.
We’re using the bench all wrong. It’s a tired, out-of-touch metaphor that we’re just lazily sitting on like fat cats with nine lives. Rich house cats slip off the bench gracefully and into other coaching jobs pretty easily in today’s NFL. They’re not motivated by the risk of being benched, and they can’t learn anything from a timeout because most of them don’t understand those, either. It’s a thankless, timeless cycle helping us forget that the best coaches in the NFL are the best teachers and motivators. Those coaches don’t need to hide behind the bench when they’re wrong.
Fire Dan Quinn yesterday.
That’s me. In the cowboy hat ripping high heat off the back end of a white dart as good as any behind the Robert De Niro in Goodfellas. I’m usually scared as a mouse, but Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn has radicalized me to nip this cig in the butt. Quinn had one magical, unsustainable run in 2024 converting on almost 90 percent of fourth downs with a phenom rookie quarterback whom everyone underestimates and an OC who’s now buried safely under the Sean McVay tree in Los Angeles. Nothing Quinn has done since, and very little he’d done before, should give Washington any reason to do anything but dump Quinn before he wastes any more of Jayden Daniels’s prime.
Don’t forget that over 500 internet years (weeks) ago, Quinn famously head coached the Atlanta Falcons to a Super Bowl loss after leading 28-3 with over 23 minutes (hours in internet and NFL terms) to go in the game. He also didn’t have his team prepared at all for a last-minute situation in OT two weeks ago, a game they ended up tying because none of the players, including Daniels, knew what the hell was going on. Then, just one internet year later, Quinn and his players looked like they had no clue what down it even was in the middle of a goddamn NFL game. Mike Tomlin, future Hall of Fame coach, new NBC Sports TV personality, and Minecraft auteur, said that we’ll never know what actually happened with that Week 5 tie-bacle, and that’s a good example of why Tomlin is one of the best coaches the game has ever seen despite sitting on his ass at home (on his bench) wasting hours playing a kiddie video game the whole way through.
Tomlin has never been afraid to work his butt off and tell the truth. It’s why some of his answers, not Harbaugh’s, are the best quotes we’ve heard from coaches in over 1,000 years. Before Tomlin stepped away and Pittsburgh moved onto a familiar Yinzer (Mike McCarthy), Tomlin coached 19 consecutive seasons without a losing record. Nineteen. Never lost more than he won. Some could say Tomlin’s career is kind of like Nix in his last 21 starts. Others could say Tomlin never got over the hump (after, of course, winning a Super Bowl in 2009). Maybe he’s right about the Week 5 tie, and we’ll never know. But what I know is that Quinn has routinely let down his players by mismanaging games, and enough is enough. We can’t say anything like that for other defensive head coaches still getting their bearings, such as new Baltimore Ravens head coach Jesse Minter, because it’s way too early.
Jesse Minter is Todd Bowles, but we can’t say that yet.
Laughing Jester, 1540s
Above these words is a painting from the 1540s called Laughing Jester. Who made it? That’s unknown. Why is it still around? IDK. Maybe he’s got something up his sleeve.
Before you stop laughing, Minter is a good coach! Baltimore is 1-1 with Lamar Jackson out, and Minter’s only other loss was a fluky fourth-quarter comeback orchestrated by the legend that is New Orleans Saints QB Tyler Shough. The Ravens have beaten the Colts, Cowboys, Titans, and Falcons; they’re 4-2 in Minter’s first six games as head coach. That’s good, right? The defense is middle-of-the-pack in pretty much all the important metrics (success rate, EPA, etc.). That’s not not good, but it’s not bad, right? Sorry to steal from Nix here, but I think calling Minter a good coach six internet years into his head coaching career is a fine narrative we’re all happily making up before things get much scarier after Halloween. But what if Minter is only good?
Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles, before recency bias and short internet years, was a good head coach. He’s called elite defenses and will always be revered for his defensive mind. He’s also hired good OCs before, including Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales and Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen. But Bowles got only one year each with those offensive minds and has missed on a bunch of other OC hires dating back to his first stint as a head coach with the New York Jets (2015-18). Which isn’t all his fault, and he can’t be motivated or taught by anyone or any bench to make it right. The sad reality is that only elite defensive play callers (Mike Macdonald), elite offensive play callers (Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, Ben Johnson), and/or elite game and people managers (Dan Campbell) can be great head coaches. And Bowles, today, is just a good defensive play caller, arguably the worst type of head coach you can have in the NFL.
So maybe Minter is a good defensive play caller and a good head coach right now. But if Minter is just good a year from now when his seemingly brilliant and creative OC Declan Doyle is a head coach outside Baltimore, what will the narrative be then? It’s probably too early to tell.
Kenneth Walker III is the NFL’s MVP.
That’s right. We’ve got back-to-back 6.66s in good ole TOMmy boy this week. Don’t forget, the devil is in the details. And before you start typing some tired historical quarterback retort to this take in between drooling on your keyboard, let’s rewind the clock a few thousand internet years. I worked at Pro Football Focus for five years (2017-22). One of the things PFF preached was that running backs didn’t matter. Well, guess what, PFF_Nerds, they do now.
And it’s not your fault, PFF. Just like it still isn’t Justin Herbert’s. PFF was ahead of the market on running back value, and now non-nerds have (as usual) overcorrected.
Very early into free agency last offseason, the Chiefs signed Kenneth Walker III to a monster running back contract worth almost $15 million per year. Wide receivers Romeo Doubs, Rashid Shaheed, and Wandale Robinson all signed free agent deals for more, and Shaheed got that money from the Seattle Seahawks! Kansas City, unlike the Seahawks, apparently, recognized Walker as the Super Bowl MVP he was and built the entire offense around him. Before the season started, quarterback Patrick Mahomes said that they’d just hand the ball off to K9 if they ever got into trouble, and apparently Mahomes wasn’t kidding. Walker has the most ever yards for any running back in their first six games with a team, and now he’s on a list with only Jim Brown and O.J. Simpson for the most rush yards, yards per rush, and rush touchdowns in the first six games of a season. Walker has completely revolutionized the Chiefs offense. You know, the one that broke the league a few years ago when Andy Reid was on the cutting edge of offensive design and Mahomes changed quarterback evaluation forever. This season, K-Walk has flipped the script immediately. Not just because he’s one of the best backs in the league, but because the league is evolving to a place where running backs can matter again.
PFF’s numbers go back to 2006. The NFL has never run more two-plus–tight end sets or more single-receiver personnel groups—heavier people on the field—in 21 years of PFF data. Teams are getting under center more, too. The Cowboys (30 percent), Panthers (38 percent), and Bengals (26 percent) are the only top-12 offenses in EPA per drive that aren’t under center more than 40 percent of the time, and the Bills (55 percent), Lions (51 percent), and 49ers (55 percent)—the only three teams above 50 percent through Week 6—lead the league in EPA per drive. We haven’t been under center this much since 2017, and we haven’t seen the league’s three best offenses go over 50 percent since … 2012, when this stupid, invaluable running back named Adrian Peterson won MVP.
So why is Mahomes third in MVP odds and Walker tied for 15th, according to the betting market? It’s probably something along the lines of that “quarterbacks always win MVP” bit you were thinking about typing before you got here. Save it. I’ve read it before, and I want to start a new chapter where it’s OK to say out loud that Walker, not Mahomes, is the reason the Chiefs are undefeated, and that a running back having this kind of season needs to be recognized beyond the participation trophy that is Offensive Player of the Year.
Josh Allen is a bigger, faster, better Brett Favre.
If we’re all good with this, I can quietly move it to an 11.0 offline and move on. But, rewinding the internet years again, I tweeted in 2017 that Allen reminded me of Favre because they both have big arms that get them into trouble. But Allen has developed into so much more than Favre. Allen is the best QB in the league, an absurd hybrid of all of Favre’s qualities supercharged for the better.
What cemented the comp for me was Allen’s ridiculous flip into the end zone on third-and-8 this past Sunday against the Raiders.
Because I vividly remember Favre doing something similar in the 1900s, a flip to Bubba Franks. And, after searching “favre flip bubba” on X, I found that CBS broadcaster J.J. Watt also made this connection live during the game. Allen is doing Favre cosplay better than Favre could ever imagine, and I doubt it’s just Watt and me taking notice.
The Rams got caught going all in and got busted.
We don’t need to rehash anything we don’t already know. Last week, Meter Readers heard my case for why the Rams are still the best team in the NFL, but that’s clearly not true anymore. Not only because head coach Sean McVay is a bad game manager who doesn’t pay enough attention to special teams, or because Myles Garrett hasn’t played a game for them in the States, or because the healthy talent on defense, including all the new expensive defensive backs, is being under-leveraged by a hotshot defensive play caller who’s running cold in 2026. And it’s not because Matthew Stafford has bottomed out. Stafford just isn’t playing well right now, which isn’t all that matters. DC Chris Shula, like McVay, has taken either his foot off the gas pedal or his eye off the ball. Not having Garrett isn’t an excuse for the Rams to rank 19th in defensive EPA and points per drive; they have too much talent in the secondary for that (CBs Jaylen Watson and Trent McDuffie and safeties Quentin Lake, Kamren Kinchens, and Kam Curl). Starting slow (2-4) against a hard schedule has cost McVay and the Rams significantly. Los Angeles got spanked by the now-undefeated 49ers in Australia and then lost three one-score games over the next five weeks. Now, the Rams will almost definitely miss out on the first-round bye some said they’d get after their undefeated season. and they’ll instead play on the road for most of the playoffs (if they can even make it to late January). That is a big reason why they dropped from first to fifth in Super Bowl odds after their two-point loss to the Cardinals. Sleepy Stafford, Shula, and Garrett aren’t without fault, obviously, but McVay should take ownership of almost all the blame pie. This is his show as long as he wants it to be, and the podfather Bill Simmons is right to question McVay’s motivations six weeks into this on-paper superteam’s nightmare. But McVay’s Rams have only two more wins than Jim Harbaugh’s Chargers! Think about that.
The Colts should trade all of their valuable non–Tyler Warren players.
This is a no-brainer for anyone who’s watching Indianapolis Colts games in 2026, whether you’re Seth “Da Flow” Irskens, who’s still crafting pregame hype songs; other similarly loony Colts die-hards; or owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon as she sharks the sideline. Second-year tight end Tyler Warren is only 24 years old and clearly a dynamic asset for the offense. There’s no reason to rush him out of Indy if you’re CIG; Warren’s athletic peak can survive the mass transition they’ll have to go through now that GM Chris Ballard’s watch has finally ended. The best players left in Indy have all got to go to firestart the Colts’ rebuild, so here’s a rapid-fire Mini-Meter ranking of how valuable the team’s remaining assets are.
- OG Quenton Nelson (30 years old, expiring contract): 10.6
- RB Jonathan Taylor (27, affordable contract signed through 2028): 10.0
- DT DeForest Buckner (32, expiring): 9.2
- OT Bernhard Raimann (29, contracted through 2029): 8.4
- Safety Camryn Bynum (28, affordable contract with easy out after 2026): 7.9
- OG Matt Goncalves (25, rookie contract and probably a piece for Indy to keep through the transition with Warren): 7.1
- WR Josh Downs (25, expiring): 7.0
- DT Grover Stewart (34, expiring): 6.7
- CB Charvarius Ward (31, affordable contract with easy out after 2026): 6.3
- CB Sauce Gardner (25, on a four-year, $120 million contract and playing the worst football of his career): 6.0
- QB Daniel Jones (29, recovering from an injury and on a sour contract): 4.0
- WR Alec Pierce (26, recovering from an injury and on a sour contract): 3.6
- QB Anthony Richardson (24, still on his rookie contract, and stuck learning on the bench): 2.2
CIG could recoup a few first-round picks in value if they’re able to move on from a majority of that list. The Colts desperately need to after Ballard set two first-rounders aflame, including the 2027 first-round pick I stupidly forgot about in a previous TOM, with the nasty Sauce trade that pounded the nail in Ballard’s coffin. Ballard didn’t get fired because he couldn’t find players in the draft; he just couldn’t find the right QB or defensive linemen and went bust on too many big swings. CIG and the Colts can make chicken salad out of his chickenshit by punting on their aging talent before the Colts’ (hopeful) future Super Bowl window. And CIG is sharking the sideline because there’s blood in the water, so I expect a feeding (trading) frenzy in Indy at the deadline.
Shane Steichen will replace Mike McDaniel as Justin Herbert’s OC in Los Angeles in 2027.
I told my editors that this would write itself once the 0-6 Chargers smartly fired OC Mike McDaniel during their Week 7 bye, but the Chargers continue to fail me. Not even the Bolts have enough screws loose to keep McDaniel and Jim Harbaugh together for much longer, though. When Los Angeles eventually smartens up and puts an end to this loud, awkward clash between two unique nerds (McDaniel and Harbaugh), I imagine that Harbaugh will be in the market for a new OC (and potentially a new DC and GM, too). And after a Meter Reader DMed me about a Nick Sirianni–Shane Steichen reunion for CIG’s Colts last week, I’m on to a new reunion for Steichen—between him and Justin Herbert. Don’t forget that Herbert set rookie passing records and won Offensive Rookie of the Year with Steichen at the helm of the Chargers offense in 2020, just over 300 internet years ago. Alas, we must bring Steichen home.
It’s not the refs’ fault we’re all asking what happened to the game we love.
You might have expected to see this stupid screenshot again if you’re a Meter Reader. But even if you’re a Sturgeon, you probably didn’t expect me to Mike Breen double-bang it in Week 7. I have to, though, because—gulps—the referees are not the reason for the record number of penalties we’ve gutted through over the past six internet years. The problem is AI.
Allen Iverson, the only AI that didn’t just copy what everyone else said, was a phenom for the Philadelphia 76ers in his prime, but he didn’t think he needed to practice because he was the team’s franchise player. That’s just wrong. Every great NBA player, if they’re going to be remembered as great, has to practice. Kobe Bryant knew that.
I wish we could ask Bryant how much he learned from and was motivated by the bench in his life. The good news is that we can all infer the answer from his actions in his 2,161 internet years of life. The bad news is that if you Google “ai nicknames” today, you won’t get “The Answer.”
Maybe Google-swapping “AI” (complimentary) for “AI” (derogatory) in that instance doesn’t mean anything because no one cares about Iverson anymore. (He stopped playing in 2010; how could any of us remember then?) But Iverson was wrong to choose the bench or whatever the hell he was sitting on over practice, and Kobe was right to always choose the opposite. The NFL referees are just doing their (very difficult, high-visibility) jobs; it’s the benches and coaches that are not. NFL teams have never practiced less than they do now, and injuries make it difficult to ever have fully healthy practices with all 22 starters on offense and defense, and then all of the different special teams unit combinations, too. Coaches can’t just cut and bench all of their players until they’ve motivated and taught the entire roster out of the league, and players can do only what they’re coached or not coached to do. So we need to break and rewrite the rules:
1. Stop overprotecting the quarterbacks: Kill the emphasis on body weight and hands to the face for roughing-the-passer penalties. We don’t need extra protections for the quarterbacks beyond egregious, late, and unnecessary hits, like the ones we have for all players and the few additional ones we have for specialists (kickers, punters, and long snappers). Part of playing QB is playing tough, and part of playing tough is getting hit.
2. Force players to wear Guardian Caps or change the helmets: The NFL said as recently as this week that “there is absolutely a statistically significant” drop in concussions among players who wear Guardian Caps, per The Athletic’s Jonathan Jones. OK, then! Let’s make 2027 rookies and every class after them wear Guardian Caps. That’s how the NHL slowly brought in face masks, which any hockey mom or dentist can probably appreciate. It’s either that or change the helmets, because these stories about players and concussions shouldn’t be as common as they are if the Guardian Caps do in fact work.
3. Review all automatic first downs: I don’t care that this helps only the defense. We need that sometimes, and we need it now more than ever. The reason people believe refs are throwing bad flags is because there are a bunch of high-definition cameras showing us every angle of every player in every game in real time. The old-timey refs have only two eyes, and most penalties aren’t reviewed and adjusted by the league office, which can watch all the angles in New York. In fact, on Sunday Night Football last week, the league office called down to the field to overturn an incompletion and call it as an interception, just to call in again and reverse the call back. It’s OK. Referees are human, too. But we have too many cameras, dollars, and eyeballs watching the NFL every internet year to be frustrated because people can’t see everything and benches aren’t outcoaching coaches.
4. Commit to more relevant changes that improve the game, not the product: The product is good, man. Wake up to the fact that the NFL has games on pretty much every holiday this year, including a new made-up holiday they’re calling Thanksgiving Eve and the Super Bowl on Valentine’s Day. The NFL wants more games overseas. The NFL wants an 18th game. Why? Because Goodell knows that more games mean more money, and he doesn’t need a bench to teach him that money is green or motivate him to chase more. The bench has nothing to do with this one, sadly. It’s just infectious greed.
