The Ringer: All Posts by Lindsay Jones2024-02-12T04:00:48-05:00https://www.theringer.com/authors/lindsay-jones/rss2024-02-12T04:00:48-05:002024-02-12T04:00:48-05:00Did the 49ers’ Decision to Receive in Overtime Cost Them the Super Bowl?
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<p>San Francisco chose to take the ball first in overtime. But with the new postseason rules, would the team have been better off giving it to Patrick Mahomes first instead?</p> <p id="YLZ1kw">Patrick Mahomes and Fred Warner met at the NFL shield at the 50-yard line of Allegiant Stadium for the overtime coin toss of Super Bowl LVIII knowing exactly what they were each supposed to elect if their team won the toss. The two captains had very different instructions from their respective head coaches—the Niners wanted their offense to have the ball first; the Chiefs wanted to kick and play defense to begin overtime. </p>
<p id="HSB8W9">Both coaches got their wish; Warner’s call of “tails” was correct—Brock Purdy and the 49ers got the ball first. You saw what happened next: The Chiefs defense held Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers to a field goal. Mahomes then led Kansas City on a 13-play, 75-yard drive and threw the game-winning touchdown to Mecole Hardman. Chiefs win, 25-22. </p>
<p id="q25z7p">The result of that overtime period raises a question: Did Shanahan’s decision to receive cost the 49ers the Super Bowl?</p>
<p id="NuLMVt">“Ours ended up being the right one, but that easily could have gone the other way. But that’s what we felt was the right thing to do,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said after the game. “I’m never going to question Kyle, because he’s brilliant, but that was something we chose and, through our studies, we thought was important.”</p>
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<p id="wTyjxM">It’s with hindsight that we can say Shanahan and the 49ers may have been better served to start overtime on defense. But it’s probably not so simple, and there was no precedent for Shanahan or Reid to work from. Sunday’s Super Bowl marked the first overtime postseason game since the NFL enacted new overtime rules in 2022 that ensure each team has a possession in playoff games. It is, in essence, a rule inspired by Mahomes, a change that was debated and then approved after Mahomes’s Chiefs won a divisional-round playoff game two years ago against Buffalo without the chance for Bills quarterback Josh Allen to touch the ball. (Mahomes’s Chiefs lost an AFC championship game in similar fashion in the 2018 playoffs, when Tom Brady’s Patriots won the toss and scored a touchdown.)</p>
<p id="ox7hXW">So what was Shanahan thinking here? He wasn’t considering the first possession, or even the second. He was thinking ahead to when the game would truly become sudden death—in the case that both teams scored a field goal, or a touchdown, or were held scoreless on that first possession, he wanted the 49ers in control of the ball next.</p>
<p id="r1UIUX">“None of us have a ton of experience with it, but we went through all the analytics and talked to those guys, and we just decided we wanted the ball third,” Shanahan said.</p>
<p id="Zf73dK">The problem was that he was planning for a future that he couldn’t guarantee would exist—quite a gamble considering Mahomes was on the opposing sideline. Mahomes had already led the Chiefs back from a 10-point deficit in this Super Bowl, along with leading two game-tying drives. The fact that the 49ers defense looked exhausted after being on the field for 11 plays on the Chiefs’ final drive of regulation didn’t factor into his decision to receive, Shanahan said.</p>
<p id="qnXHTq">Had the 49ers’ opening drive of overtime ended with a touchdown and not a field goal, Shanahan’s call might have looked like a brilliant move. But it backfired—and nearly backfired almost immediately. The Chiefs stopped San Francisco on first down, and a false start on second down put the 49ers behind the sticks. Purdy’s second-down throw went for just 2 yards, and his third-down pass fell incomplete, but a defensive holding call on Kansas City slot corner Trent McDuffie gave the 49ers a fresh set of downs. Had Kansas City forced a three-and-out there, the Chiefs very well could have quickly moved into position for a game-winning field goal. </p>
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<p id="rKEEw1"><br>Instead, San Francisco was able to meander down the field but was not able to find the end zone. After a 49ers field goal, Mahomes and the offense took over knowing they could extend overtime with a kick of their own—Harrison Butker had already made four field goals in the game, including a 57-yarder—or win the game with a touchdown. The Chiefs benefited from knowing exactly what they needed, prompting the team to go for it on a fourth-and-1 from their own 34 in what would have been a difficult decision had the Chiefs possessed the ball first (Mahomes converted with a nifty 8-yard scramble on a run-pass option). The Chiefs would convert two third downs to keep the drive moving, and Hardman’s touchdown ended it.</p>
<p id="CvEiS7">The Chiefs’ overtime plan worked out exactly how they had hoped—and it wasn’t by accident. Kansas City safety Justin Reid told <em>The Ringer</em> that the Chiefs had first discussed the new overtime rules as far back as training camp. Defensive lineman Chris Jones told me players were prepared for what to expect if the Super Bowl went to overtime.</p>
<p id="Z5BInB">“We talked through this for two weeks,” Jones said. “How we was going to give the ball to the opponent; if they scored, we was going for two at the end of the game. We rehearsed it.”</p>
<p id="Z6atFt">The 49ers did not do the same. Multiple San Francisco players said after the game that they were not aware that the overtime rules are different in the playoffs than they are in the regular season, and strategy discussions over how to handle the overtime period did not occur as a team. Defensive lineman Arik Armstead said he learned the details of the postseason rule when it was shown on the Allegiant Stadium jumbotron during a TV timeout after regulation. Fullback Kyle Juszczyk said he assumed the 49ers asked to receive when they won the toss because that’s what you do in the regular season, when a touchdown wins the game. “I guess that’s not the case. I don’t really know the strategy,” Juszczyk said. </p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="NjbRbj">Perhaps it only matters that Shanahan knew the strategy, one he came to with his assistant coaches and his analytics staffers. But given Shanahan’s history of heartbreaking postseason losses—this is his second Super Bowl loss as the 49ers head coach, and he was the Falcons offensive coordinator when Atlanta lost to the Patriots, also in overtime—it’s hard not to scrutinize such a critical decision. There will be plenty of moments Shanahan will replay in the weeks ahead, including Christian McCaffrey’s fumble just outside the red zone in the first quarter and the muffed punt that ricocheted off a 49er’s foot and led to the Chiefs’ first touchdown. But he might think about Warner’s walk to midfield and that coin flip forever. </p>
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https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2024/2/12/24070402/san-francisco-49ers-receive-kick-overtime-decision-kyle-shanahan-super-bowlLindsay Jones2024-02-02T00:15:56-05:002024-02-02T00:15:56-05:00Three Takeaways from the 2024 NFL Head Coaching Carousel
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<p>Jim Harbaugh, Raheem Morris, and Dan Quinn are in as NFL head coaches. Bill Belichick, Mike Vrabel, and Ben Johnson are not. What did the 2024 hiring cycle teach us? And what could it mean going forward?</p> <p id="X7l59Z">With the Washington Commanders’ decision Thursday to hire Dan “We swear he was our first choice” Quinn, the NFL’s weirdest game of head-coaching musical chairs is finally over. Somehow, it ends without several of the most high-profile and qualified candidates getting a seat. Despite their impressive résumés, Bill Belichick and Mike Vrabel were passed over and seemingly barely considered. Meanwhile, Ben Johnson pulled himself out of contention for the Washington job, choosing instead to remain as Jared Goff’s play caller in Detroit. </p>
<p id="16G3M9">The eight jobs went to three coaches with offensive backgrounds and five coaches who specialize in defense. Three of the hires have at least one full season of prior NFL head-coaching experience; two of the five who don’t are former NFL linebackers. The coaches hired in this cycle range in age from 36 to 60; three are Black coaches and one is of Hispanic descent. One coach is a Harbaugh brother; none is a direct branch off either the Kyle Shanahan or Sean McVay offensive coaching tree. </p>
<p id="RsxlGm">Looking at the coaching class of 2024 as a whole—and especially at the coaches who got left out—provides an interesting window into what matters most to NFL team owners right now. It also tells us a lot about what to expect in the months to come. Here are the three biggest takeaways now that this year’s coaching carousel has stopped spinning.</p>
<h3 id="Da0T7B">The Power Dynamic Between Owners and Coaches Has Shifted</h3>
<p id="4b6Tuq">On February 11, Shanahan and Andy Reid will face off in Super Bowl LVIII. Yet just over a week before then, the era of the all-powerful head coach that produced them may have ended—at least, that’s how it seems when taking stock of the NFL’s new hires.</p>
<p id="kahI47">Let’s start with the lack of leaguewide interest in Belichick. While he was never expected to be the top candidate on every team owner’s wish list in this cycle (he didn’t seem like an option to inherit a complete rebuild), it is nonetheless genuinely shocking that he only formally interviewed for one job, with Atlanta. (He also reportedly <a href="https://twitter.com/DMRussini/status/1753109075959931385?s=20">had a conversation</a> with the Commanders.) But that may say less about Belichick’s age, tactics, or capabilities than the way he likes to run a team, as hiring him would have meant ceding him control over just about everything, from staffing decisions to roster building to media strategy. In his final press conference as the Patriots coach on January 8, Belichick vaguely indicated that he would consider giving up control over personnel decisions in order to stay in New England, but only if that was “collectively” agreed upon. It was lip service; his divorce from the Pats was finalized within days, and there was no indication that he wanted to simply stick to coaching in Atlanta. </p>
<p id="wOtLdy">The circumstances with Vrabel are different, but similar. He didn’t lose his job in Tennessee because of on-field performance (even if the Titans did have a disappointing 2023 season); he was forced out because he lost a power struggle with ownership and the front office, something that surely came up in his interviews with the Falcons, Panthers, and Chargers. That has a lot in common with what happened to Pete Carroll in Seattle: After having final say over the Seahawks’ 53-man roster for more than a decade, he was pushed out last month and into a nebulous front office role. Carroll didn’t interview for any coaching jobs in the weeks since. </p>
<p id="BTBkj4">Belichick, Vrabel, and Carroll each would have brought a history of winning to a new organization, but each probably would have wanted to do it in his own way. Apparently that didn’t fly. This cycle is perhaps best viewed as a referendum on where the league stands in regard to head coaches who need control and those who can tolerate input from the owner and front office. In nearly every case, the owners filling vacancies voted <em>against</em> coaches who prefer absolute power. </p>
<p id="tletpo">Owners overwhelmingly chose to disperse power between the head coach and general manager, as most of the new hires were either paired with an existing GM (like new Tennessee head coach Brian Callahan with Ran Carthon) or were hired after a new GM, who was then part of the interview process (as was with Quinn in Washington, who was hired weeks after Adam Peters). Even the exception, Jim Harbaugh with the Chargers, isn’t as much of an exception as he seems: While Harbaugh was hired before new general manager Joe Hortiz, Hortiz spent the last 16 years working in Baltimore with Harbaugh’s brother, John.</p>
<p id="zvuU6n">The idea behind this kind of leadership structure is that it builds in checks and balances between coaches and personnel folks, and theoretically encourages those departments to work hand-in-hand. For an owner like the Falcons’ Arthur Blank, who hired well-liked and deeply respected former Atlanta assistant Raheem Morris over Belichick, it isn’t necessarily a sign that Blank wants to keep power all to himself. It does, however, signal that he didn’t want the coach to dictate the entire franchise. </p>
<p id="5OxMom">Setting a goal of building a collaborative atmosphere between coaching and personnel is admirable—and it can work: just look at how it’s excelled for Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes in Detroit. But given the staggering accomplishments of some of the coaches available in this cycle, it’s worth asking if hiring the guy who might be most popular in the building might come at the cost of winning. We’ll find out soon enough. </p>
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<br>Being an Offensive Coaching Wunderkind Isn’t a Direct Pipeline to a Top Job Anymore</h3>
<p id="3HSncU">If the NFL head-coach hiring cycle was still operating as it has over the past five years, Bobby Slowik would surely have gotten a job this year. Slowik, the 36-year-old first-year offensive coordinator in Houston, checked every box that owners have coveted in the post-McVay NFL.</p>
<p id="Cq9CjM"><em>Did he coach under Shanahan or McVay?</em> Check. <em>Has he helped develop a young quarterback to find unmistakable success?</em> Check. <em>Is he a play caller whose offensive scheme will stick even if his top assistants one day get poached by other franchises? </em>Check.<em> </em>Even though Slowik called plays for just one season, you could argue that he was at least as qualified for a head-coaching job as Kliff Kingsbury was when he went to Arizona, or Zac Taylor was when he landed in Cincinnati. Slowik did interview for multiple jobs in this cycle, including those with Tennessee and Atlanta, but returned to Houston with a new, reportedly more lucrative contract to stay on DeMeco Ryans’s staff and keep working with C.J. Stroud. </p>
<p id="xaTDIS">And what about Johnson? He pulled out of the Carolina head-coaching search in 2023 after just one season as a play caller, and then did the same thing earlier this week after he was linked to Washington. The Commanders seemingly tried to spin this falling-out as a sign that the team was not as all in on Johnson as it initially appeared, and there were media leaks that perhaps Johnson wanted too much money or wasn’t particularly impressive in his interview. But even if one or both of those things are true, it wouldn’t have stopped a team like Washington from doing everything it could to hire the league’s hottest young play caller in recent cycles.</p>
<p id="nu96J1">The three newly hired head coaches with offensive backgrounds in 2024 are Harbaugh, Callahan, and Carolina’s Dave Canales. None really fit the <em>next Shanahan or McVay</em> blueprint. Callahan, 39, is the son of longtime NFL coach Bill Callahan, and is technically a branch of the McVay tree, having worked under Taylor in Cincinnati. But he got his start in Denver, where he learned under multiple play callers, from Josh McDaniels to Adam Gase to Gary Kubiak. Canales, 42, worked in Seattle under Shane Waldron, a McVay disciple, but was with the Seahawks before Waldron’s arrival there. And Harbaugh is, well, Harbaugh. </p>
<p id="EXY8Dl">If there is a move from this cycle that most closely matches the thinking that fueled recent hiring cycles, it’s Seattle’s appointment of the 36-year-old Mike Macdonald, who spent the last two seasons as Baltimore’s defensive coordinator. Yet even here, the logic is flipped. Macdonald was at his best when game planning <em>against</em> the Shanahan and McVay offenses. </p>
<p id="SG0FEv">So what explains this ostensible shift? First, defense was en vogue. Three of the new hires were defensive coordinators in 2023 (Macdonald, Quinn, and Morris), while two others, the Patriots’ Jerod Mayo and the Raiders’ Antonio Pierce, coached linebackers. (Pierce also served as interim head coach for nine games.) But it’s more than just that teams prioritized expertise on the other side of the ball. It seems like NFL owners this cycle weren’t looking for the next Shanahan or McVay; they were looking for the next Dan Campbell or DeMeco Ryans. </p>
<p id="x5nuVU">Campbell never coached under Bill Parcells, but he should count as part of that tree, as he played tight end for Parcells in Dallas before coaching under Tony Sparano and Sean Payton. The best way to describe Campbell is that he’s a culture coach; he’s all vibes and no breaks, aggressive in games (sometimes to a fault!), and deeply in sync with his locker room. Ryans was a longtime NFL middle linebacker who gained respect as a defensive coach both for his play-calling prowess and his leadership in San Francisco while working under Shanahan. The Texans executed the NFL’s biggest turnaround in 2023 not because of Ryans’s defense (which finished the regular season 16th in DVOA), but because of his impact on the entire organizational culture. </p>
<p id="eLqe20">It’s too soon to know whether the move away from the Shanahan and McVay blueprint will pay off, but it has resulted in a more diverse class of coaches than the NFL has seen in a while. </p>
<h3 id="TKftjr">The 2025 Coaching Cycle Is Already Underway</h3>
<p id="ZF2TLH">There were far more qualified candidates than there were jobs this year. That not only made for a chaotic couple of weeks; it also figures to loom large heading into next season. </p>
<p id="j4lSZ6">Remember how much speculation there was about Sean Payton’s coaching future when he sat out the 2022 season and worked for Fox? Now imagine that with Belichick, Vrabel, and Carroll each potentially looking to get back onto the sidelines in 2025. Let the sweepstakes begin!</p>
<p id="Y1lOb9">I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that half the owners in the league could consider upgrading to one of those candidates should their teams underperform next season. Jerry Jones and Howie Roseman won’t be comparing Mike McCarthy and Nick Sirianni to some hypothetical coaches who could be available next January. They’ll be comparing them directly to known quantities who have won tons of games and Super Bowls.</p>
<p id="AhH8Wu">There were clearly issues with Belichick and Vrabel that caused both to be left out of the recently completed hiring cycle. While those warts won’t totally go away in 11 months, a lot could shift. Maybe Belichick will be less inclined to hire, say, Matt Patricia. And maybe a stint working in TV could remind everyone how much he knows and how much he has to offer. </p>
<p id="v6bUjo">Johnson and Slowik certainly will be popular candidates next year too, as will Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero and Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. Plus, the rumor mill is starting to resurface some big names: Kingsbury is back in the NFL as Pierce’s new offensive coordinator in Las Vegas, a job he got over former Eagles and 49ers head coach Chip Kelly, who is reportedly eager to get back into the NFL. </p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="AUXHSV">The 2024 NFL coaching carousel was the most surprising—and in some ways, revealing—in recent memory. The way everything unfolded could lead to an even more seismic shake-up in 2025.</p>
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https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2024/2/2/24058896/nfl-coaching-carousel-takeaways-bill-belichick-jim-harbaugh-mike-vrabel-ben-johnsonLindsay Jones2023-12-28T12:36:59-05:002023-12-28T12:36:59-05:00The Broncos’ Russell Wilson Era Was a Disaster. What Comes Next for Both Team and QB?
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<p>Denver is benching its $242 million quarterback. The decision is a tipping-point moment for a franchise that bet big on a blockbuster trade and lost—and it raises major questions for the future.</p> <p id="vHg6t6">Russell Wilson was one of the final players to leave the Broncos’ indoor practice facility Wednesday afternoon, making a long walk of shame to the locker room on what was surely one of the worst days of his professional life. He not only had to pass a gaggle of reporters before he could go inside, but he also had to pass head coach Sean Payton, who was explaining his decision to bench Denver’s $242.6 million quarterback.</p>
<p id="W3Oh8o">“You say it’s a collective problem,” a reporter said to Payton, just as Wilson passed within earshot, “but it looks like Russ is taking the brunt of the blame.”</p>
<p id="LZccRC">Payton paused before responding.</p>
<p id="V00QaJ">“I get that,” Payton said. “And yet, I can’t replace the entire offensive line. I can’t bring in five new receivers. And if it continues over a period of time, then there’s going to be another guy here talking to you as well. These are difficult decisions, and obviously there’s more attention when it’s a quarterback that’s under contract.”</p>
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<p id="qLVttv">The Russell Wilson era in Denver effectively ended on Wednesday, when the Broncos announced that Jarrett Stidham will start their Week 17 game against the Chargers. Wilson, Payton said, will be active as the backup. Throughout Payton’s 13-minute news conference, he justified the decision as being made for football reasons, and said he hoped that the quarterback swap would ignite the offense in the season’s final two weeks and keep Denver’s meager playoff hopes alive. But it certainly felt like a divorce between an underperforming former star and a controlling head coach that’s been brewing for quite some time. Benching Wilson now is a tipping point for a franchise that bet its future on this quarterback and lost, and it raises big questions about what comes next—for both Wilson and the team.</p>
<p id="13afva">It’s impossible to look at this move solely in a Football Reasons vacuum because, as Payton himself said, Wilson is a quarterback who is under contract. Unsaid, but certainly understood, are the particulars: Wilson is an <em>extremely expensive</em> 35-year-old who is under contract through 2028. There’s no way to make sense of this move without accounting for the financials, with his $37 million salary for 2025 becoming fully guaranteed five days into the new league year that begins in March. Would the Broncos, a team desperate for financial flexibility, want to risk something happening to Wilson in the final two weeks of a disappointing season that would lock them into his contract for two more years? The truism holds in football as in any type of business: Follow the money.</p>
<p id="e3r6sR">“I understand all the speculation and everything that surrounds a move like that, but I can tell you, look, we’re desperately trying to win,” Payton said. “Sure, in our game there are economics and all those other things, but the no. 1 push behind this, and it’s a decision I’m making, is to get a spark offensively.”</p>
<p id="KwfCEv">Payton would not rule out the possibility that Wilson will play again in Denver—how awkward would it be if he had to replace an injured Stidham in the Broncos’ home finale on Sunday?—but this was clearly the point of no return for the relationship between coach and QB. <a href="https://x.com/DMRussini/status/1740167305580167556?s=20"><em>The Athletic</em> reported</a> Wednesday that the franchise approached Wilson’s representatives in late October and told them that Wilson would be benched if the quarterback “did not defer the trigger date” for the $37 million injury guarantee for 2025. The key context here is that this request—which Wilson and his camp rebuffed, reportedly with help from the NFL Players Association—came when the Broncos were in the middle of their longest winning streak since the Peyton Manning era. Wilson has seemingly known for months that the Broncos were planning to move on in 2024. While he has yet to speak with reporters following Wednesday’s move, he wrote on social media that he’s “looking forward to what’s next.”</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">God’s got me. <br>Looking forward to what’s next.</p>— Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) <a href="https://twitter.com/DangeRussWilson/status/1740223465708470604?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 28, 2023</a>
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<p id="vGrdmC">What an inglorious end to Wilson’s tenure as the Broncos starter, one that began with such optimism less than two years ago after he arrived via a blockbuster trade with the Seahawks. Wilson showed up in Denver ready to save the Broncos from their post-Peyton quarterback purgatory and bolster his own Hall of Fame résumé. In his introductory press conference in March 2022, he talked about winning Super Bowls—yes, multiple—and playing for the Broncos for at least a decade. Instead, he’s played 30 games for the team and won 11 of them; he’s collected $124 million in salary and bonuses, thrown 42 touchdown passes, and committed 26 turnovers. The Broncos are no closer to being an AFC contender today than they were when he got here. It feels like they might even be further away. </p>
<p id="tOVsSM">The Broncos’ trade to bring in Wilson—in which Denver sent Seattle two first-round picks, two second-rounders, a fifth-rounder, and three players (quarterback Drew Lock, tight end Noah Fant, and defensive tackle Shelby Harris) in exchange for Wilson and a fourth-round pick—will now go down as one of the worst deals in NFL history. That’s not just because of the draft capital involved and how quickly and successfully the Seahawks moved on at quarterback with Geno Smith. It’s also because of the money. The deal looks exponentially worse since, within six months of the trade and before Wilson took his first regular-season snap for the team, the Broncos signed him to a contract extension worth $242.6 million over five years, just over half of which was fully guaranteed upon signing. It’s also notable that the Broncos gave Wilson significant injury protections in the deal, which, as mentioned above, they reportedly asked Wilson to waive. </p>
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<p id="4IVdIx"><br>(The only thing preventing this trade and contract from being considered the worst deal in recent NFL history is that the Browns gave up even more draft capital for and gave more guaranteed money to Deshaun Watson in the same 2022 offseason. At least Wilson has a reputation as an exemplary citizen off the field and a reliably healthy, if recently mediocre, player on it; <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2023/10/25/23931248/deshaun-watson-cleveland-browns-rotator-cuff-shoulder-injury">neither of those things apply to Watson</a>.)</p>
<p id="7D8cop">Of course, it is with the benefit of hindsight that we can declare the Wilson trade a disaster. At the time, the move made a certain sense. The Broncos had been wandering in the quarterback wilderness ever since Manning retired after the 2015 season, cycling through below-average veterans like Case Keenum and Joe Flacco (before his 2023 Browns career renaissance), and draft busts like Paxton Lynch and Lock. They were routinely getting pantsed by their AFC West rivals; they had become boring and, worse, irrelevant. And the Wilson trade happened at a time when teams like the Broncos viewed all-in quarterback moves as a direct path to the Super Bowl, thanks to the way Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford transformed the Buccaneers and Rams, respectively, into champions the two seasons prior. It’s why multiple teams got into a bidding war to trade for Watson, and why the Commanders traded three picks, including a second-rounder, to acquire <em>Carson Wentz. </em>The Broncos, foolishly, believed they had a playoff-caliber roster and just needed a proven quarterback to launch into contention.</p>
<p id="LLDYfb">Would the Broncos have preferred to trade for Aaron Rodgers that March? Almost certainly: It is also with the benefit of hindsight that we can connect the dots between the organization’s hiring of Nathaniel Hackett, a noted friend of Rodgers, as head coach earlier in 2022 and its failed pursuit of the then-Green Bay quarterback. But Wilson seemed like an excellent Plan B, even though he was 33 and coming off a rocky 2021 season in which he had missed playing time because of injury for the first time in his career. Wilson wanted a fresh start away from Seattle, and the opportunity to prove that he could run a more expansive offense; ironically, he wanted to play like Drew Brees, Payton’s star pupil.</p>
<p id="15F8px">We know what came next: “Broncos country, let’s ride” was memed into oblivion; Wilson lost to Seattle in his Denver debut and was dunked on by seemingly the entire Legion of Boom–era Seahawks; the Broncos’ offense was laughably, depressingly bad; and after the Broncos were blown out by the Baker Mayfield–led Rams on Christmas, Hackett was fired before the calendar turned to 2023. The Broncos were no longer boring, but they had become a joke.</p>
<p id="AOdAY2">In some ways, it’s remarkable that after all of that, Wilson rebounded in 2023 to become a competent, if uninspiring, quarterback. He ranks seventh among qualified quarterbacks in passer rating and his 26 passing touchdowns are tied for the sixth most in the league. He certainly had some highs, none bigger than when he threw three touchdowns and rushed for 30 yards in Denver’s first win over the Chiefs in eight years. But he also ranks 21st in expected points added per dropback, has taken 45 sacks (the fourth most among starters), and is just 20th in average yards per attempt (6.9, the lowest mark of his career). </p>
<p id="ztICHi">Payton’s offensive philosophy this season has been whatever the opposite of letting Russ cook is: handoffs and short screen passes behind the line of scrimmage, with just enough deep shots to keep things interesting. Wilson’s 2023 passing heat map illustrates how rarely he’s attempted passes in the intermediate middle of the field, and how heavily Payton has called for high-percentage, short-yardage throws:</p>
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<p id="4yty8x">In many ways, Wilson has been playing like an older, less-athletic version of the quarterback he was in Seattle. That’s not the player the Broncos thought they were getting when they traded for him and gave him the massive extension. Worse for Wilson, that has never been the type of quarterback who fits Payton’s preferred style of offense, one built on precise, rhythm-based, high-volume passing. </p>
<p id="eNjhGj">So now Payton will turn his offense over to Stidham, who the Broncos signed to a $10 million contract in the offseason. Stidham started two games for the Raiders last season, and while he largely spoke in platitudes on Wednesday afternoon, he said one thing that was telling. “I don’t think I need to overthink it,” Stidham said. “Just do what I’m coached to do.”</p>
<p id="cV4TbY">In the coming months, the Broncos will likely start over at quarterback, and they’ll likely pay a lot to do so. The Broncos would take on $85 million in dead money that would count against the salary cap over the next two years if they were to release Wilson with a post-June 1 designation; it’s possible they could look to trade him, which would alleviate some of the cash issues associated with future years of his contract, but even in that scenario they would still have a massive cap hit because of the signing bonuses already paid to Wilson. That amount of unprecedented dead money, a year after going on a free-agent spending spree in 2023, leaves Denver with little financial flexibility to spend on a veteran quarterback in 2024. And the Broncos are poised to pick in the middle of the draft’s first round, well out of the range for Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, or one of the other top prospects in the class. Payton and the Broncos might be free of their Wilson burden soon, but there are no simple solutions for how to solve their QB conundrum.</p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="eM2Hr9">As for Wilson, he’s played well enough this year that a few teams could view him as a viable starter going into next fall, perhaps as a bridge quarterback to a future franchise passer. His Denver era was a failure for many reasons, some of his own creation, some beyond his control. His head was down as he made that walk across the Broncos practice field Wednesday afternoon, the afternoon sun dipping behind him, as he headed toward his new and uncertain reality. He didn’t look at Payton; he didn’t need to. There’s no turning back now.</p>
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https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2023/12/28/24017677/russell-wilson-benched-denver-broncos-sean-payton-jarrett-stidhamLindsay Jones2023-11-10T06:20:00-05:002023-11-10T06:20:00-05:00Aaron Rodgers Was Supposed to Define the Jets’ Season. Instead, the Decision Not to Replace Him Has.
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<p>It’s been two months since Rodgers went down with a torn Achilles. So why have the Jets chosen to keep starting Zach Wilson instead of finding another quarterback? We have theories—and plenty of questions.</p> <p id="FNHkTz">At the midpoint of the 2023 NFL season, the New York Jets rank among the bottom three in nearly every important offensive category: They’re 31st in yards per game, 32nd in offensive touchdowns, 31st in offensive points per game, 31st in offensive expected points added, 30th in passing yards per game, and dead last in total first downs. They’ve put forth a truly miserable offensive performance, and it’s made even worse by the fact that this was entirely predictable. When Aaron Rodgers went down with a torn Achilles tendon just four plays into his Jets debut in early September, the team’s brain trust was left with a choice: bring in an outside replacement to fill the Rodgers-sized hole at quarterback, or run back the experiment that fizzled in 2022. They chose the latter, entrusting Zach Wilson to maximize the potential of an otherwise playoff-ready roster.</p>
<p id="EPiBTd">It’d be one thing if the Jets just needed some time to regroup after losing Rodgers in such sudden and dramatic fashion. But in the eight weeks since he got hurt, they have done nothing to improve their quarterback situation beyond signing Trevor Siemian to the practice squad and hoping that Wilson magically transforms into a better option than he was in the first two years of his career. That gambit has failed: Outside of a decent showing in the second half of a loss to the Chiefs last month, Wilson has consistently played like one of the NFL’s worst quarterbacks. He can’t handle pressure, as he’s being sacked on 10.5 percent of his passing attempts; he ranks last among qualified passers in both completion percentage and yards per attempt. Head coach Robert Saleh is probably right that Wilson’s performance in the Jets’ 27-6 loss to the Chargers in Week 9 wasn’t the quarterback’s worst game, but that’s not an endorsement after an outing in which Wilson lost two fumbles, was sacked eight times, and failed to lead a touchdown drive. Wilson is currently 31st in <em>The Ringer</em>’s <a href="https://nflrankings.theringer.com/qb-rankings">Quarterback Rankings</a>, ahead of only Tyson Bagent, Gardner Minshew, and Aidan O’Connell; he’s <em>behind </em>Joshua Dobbs, whom the Jets could have acquired at the trade deadline, and Desmond Ridder, who was recently benched.</p>
<p id="To8mZb">It certainly seems like organizational malpractice that Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas have let things get to this point. The Jets have the league’s sixth-ranked defense by DVOA, with a dominant pass rush and an elite cornerback in Sauce Gardner. They have a budding superstar receiver in Garrett Wilson and one of the league’s best big-play running backs in Breece Hall. The offensive line can be a liability, yes, but Wilson’s poor decision-making and tendency to hold on to the ball too long often put that group in tough situations. The Jets are merely <em>competent</em> quarterback play away from being an AFC contender—just like they were a season ago. It’s exactly the reason they so aggressively pursued Rodgers in the first place. </p>
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<p id="AjgGud">But now that the trade deadline has passed, there can be no more <em>what-ifs</em> for the Jets. The only quarterback possibly coming to save them is Rodgers—and that’s only if the near-40-year-old can recover from his Achilles injury in unprecedented time. And the carrot of Rodgers’s return is only worth dangling if Wilson can keep the Jets afloat long enough to make the playoffs, and there is little evidence that he is capable of doing so.</p>
<p id="otuTvp">One of the NFL’s most pressing questions over the first half of this season was what the Jets would do to salvage their playoff dreams after Rodgers went down. Now that we know the answer, a different question has emerged: Why<em> </em>did the Jets choose to do nothing, giving their fans the worst case of déjà vu? Let’s run through the most likely scenarios that could explain what seems like a totally baffling decision. </p>
<h4 id="y3e0g5">Scenario 1: The Jets still believe in Zach Wilson.</h4>
<p id="uQJ6Ka">This is the case the Jets made in the immediate aftermath of Rodgers’s injury. “Everything about him is just so much different than a year ago,” Saleh told reporters on September 12. “It’s happening faster than I think anyone expected, obviously, under the circumstances. But he’s somebody that’s made a drastic improvement from a year ago.”</p>
<p id="jTX3jQ">It’s also the case they’ve continued to make in the months since, no matter how much evidence has accumulated to the contrary.</p>
<p id="O9Uc0Z">The thinking, at least initially, seems apparent. At his core, Wilson is still the toolsy, athletic quarterback with the big arm who won over Douglas and Saleh during the 2021 predraft process. Perhaps he had simply lost confidence after two bad seasons in which he completed barely 55 percent of his passes and threw 18 interceptions and 15 touchdowns. Perhaps he benefited from an offseason and training camp in Rodgers’s shadow, and perhaps his problems were fixable. </p>
<p id="oXoXQS">And from a coaching perspective, Saleh <em>had</em> to pump Wilson up when he was reinserted into the starting lineup in September. Remember, Wilson was benched last year and had to <a href="https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/35094179/benched-qb-zach-wilson-apologizes-jets-postgame-comments">apologize to teammates</a> for his lack of personal accountability for his poor play, while Jets players <a href="https://jetswire.usatoday.com/lists/new-york-jets-aaron-rodgers-trade-reactions/">celebrated Rodgers’s arrival</a> as if he were the franchise savior. Saleh’s projection of confidence in Wilson may have been intended in part to assuage the panic of Jets fans, but it was also likely meant to speak to concerns from his own players, who had been so eager to move on to Rodgers and leave Wilson behind.</p>
<p id="s63mEY">It is easy to understand why the Jets’ first response to Rodgers’s injury was to give Wilson a second chance. The problem is that any internal belief that Wilson might have improved this offseason quickly proved to be unfounded. And each week that’s passed has only reinforced that the franchise’s bet on Wilson’s continued development is a sunk cost.</p>
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<p id="6KxC5o"><br>The Jets miraculously won their Week 1 matchup against the Bills after Rodgers left in the first quarter, but they lost their next three games. In the Jets’ losses in Weeks 2 through 4, Wilson ranked 31st among qualified passers in completion percentage (56.9 percent, just slightly above where he was in 2021-22) and 30th in EPA per dropback. He threw three touchdowns and three picks and was, as my <em>Ringer</em> colleague Benjamin Solak <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2023/9/18/23878217/nfl-week-2-hot-read-zach-wilson-new-york-jets-daniel-jones-new-york-giants">pointed out in Week 2</a>, exactly the same player he’d always been: not a guy who seems capable of getting the Jets to the playoffs. If this scenario explains the Jets’ initial thinking, it feels unlikely that it’s driven their decision-making more recently.</p>
<h4 id="kK3Djn">Scenario 2: Other available quarterbacks didn’t represent enough of an upgrade over Wilson.</h4>
<p id="NRGpun">Finding a quarterback to replace Wilson after the season started was always going to be difficult, and the list of potentially attainable quarterbacks who represented a clear upgrade over Wilson probably started and ended with Kirk Cousins because of his expiring contract and the Vikings’ slow start to the year. But the Jets getting Cousins would’ve required trading away significant draft capital, just months after the franchise swapped 2023 first-round picks with Green Bay and traded a 2024 second-rounder to land Rodgers. Of course, it also would have required the Vikings and Cousins, who has a no-trade clause, being open to a deal. </p>
<p id="xFFTcS">Beyond Cousins, the list of available passers back in September was bleak or, at best, complicated. Could New York’s brain trust have called Arizona to see whether Kyler Murray was available? Sure, but he is expensive, and is only this week poised to return from the torn ACL he suffered late last season. What about Matt Ryan? He wasn’t exactly awesome in 2022 with the Colts, and he seems happy in his cushy CBS job. Carson Wentz? Like Wilson, he’s a failed no. 2 overall pick who throws a lot of interceptions. Signing Wentz would have been doing something, but it would have been a hard sell to the fan base and the locker room that he was any better than Wilson. (Wentz is now finally employed, having signed with the Rams this week.) </p>
<p id="DUOGDW">But as Wilson continued to struggle, even while the Jets won a few games in October, the calculus seems like it shifted. Quarterbacks who probably weren’t available in September may have been on the market in October. What about Jimmy Garoppolo? The Raiders were spiraling, and he was benched days after the trade deadline. Jacoby Brissett? Washington was a seller at the deadline, and, simply comparing their 2022 seasons, he appears to be a clear upgrade over Wilson. </p>
<p id="GstUVz">Then there is Joshua Dobbs, the one quarterback who was actually traded at the deadline last week. All it cost the Vikings to acquire him from Arizona was a 2024 late-round pick swap (a sixth for a seventh, a classic <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2023/10/30/23937946/nfl-trade-deadline-2023-late-round-pick-swap">Ick Swap</a>). Jets fans may have felt ill last week watching Wilson fail, drive after drive, on <em>Monday Night Football</em> just a day after Dobbs led the Vikings to a comeback win over the Falcons, despite having never taken a practice snap with the starting offense. </p>
<aside id="r5oxDf"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Everyone But Robert Saleh Can See Zach Wilson Isn’t the Guy for the Jets. Maybe NFL Hinge Could Help. ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2023/9/28/23891446/zach-wilson-new-york-jets-robert-saleh-nfl-hinge-dating-app"},{"title":"The New York Jets Cannot Be Serious With Zach Wilson ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2023/9/18/23878217/nfl-week-2-hot-read-zach-wilson-new-york-jets-daniel-jones-new-york-giants"}]}'></div></aside><p id="bSKAHh">Yet there is no indication that the Jets attempted to make any move at quarterback in the weeks or days leading up to the deadline. Did they even know that Dobbs, who consistently demonstrated competency as Arizona’s starter, was available for the NFL equivalent of a nickel? (<a href="https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38815744/jets-tried-trade-davante-adams-deadline-sources-say">Per ESPN</a>, the Jets <em>did</em> call the Raiders about the possibility of trading for receiver Davante Adams, but were rebuffed. So we know they were at least making calls, just not the right ones.)</p>
<p id="aqgowA">Now, with Wentz officially in Los Angeles, the list of available quarterbacks who might actually be better than Wilson is even slimmer. The Jets would be looking at the prospect of signing a free agent like Joe Flacco (who started nine games for the franchise from 2020-22 and is surely waiting by the phone) or Colt McCoy. At this point, the question isn’t who else can they sign, but when will Siemian, still on the practice squad, or backup Tim Boyle, one of many friends of Rodgers on the roster, get a shot? As with the first scenario on this list, this one seems like it could’ve informed the Jets’ initial approach to stick by Wilson, but the logic doesn’t seem to hold as well in the period directly heading into the trade deadline.</p>
<h4 id="FHnVTP">Scenario 3: Once Rodgers went down, the Jets started playing for 2024.</h4>
<p id="GvGFlF">It would be understandable if privately, in a moment of existential dread and rage about why the football gods so clearly hate the Jets, the people in charge of the franchise, from owner Woody Johnson on down, briefly had the instinct to punt on the 2023 season after losing Rodgers. After all, trading for Rodgers and building the offense in his image—with his buddies at offensive coordinator, receiver, and backup quarterback—was their move to go all in for this season, and their Super Bowl dreams were shattered in an instant. Is it possible they looked at their quarterback depth chart without Rodgers, surveyed the landscape of the AFC, and wondered why life was so unfair? That they said <em>fuck it</em> and resolved to get as high a draft pick as possible for 2024 and look forward to restarting the playoff hype machine next August? Maybe. </p>
<p id="Oh0go7">But accepting this scenario necessitates making a few assumptions that give me pause. One, it takes for granted that both Saleh and Douglas have job security heading into 2024; while neither could be blamed for Rodgers’s injury, both are responsible for the decision to draft Wilson in the first place, and they’ve failed to make the playoffs in their respective tenures. Job security doesn’t seem like a sure thing. Two, this scenario assumes that the Jets have maintained unwavering confidence in a 40-year-old quarterback recovering from a serious injury. And three, it relies on the Jets brass believing that a young and talented roster would lose enough games to land a top pick.</p>
<p id="oOi6Hm">To that last point: The 2022 season proved that the Jets were a good team with excellent young players. Even given the worst-case scenario at quarterback, this team isn’t <em>bad.</em> Or at least not bad enough to be in contention for a premium draft pick week after week.</p>
<p id="bn26Q9">Sure enough, after a rough 1-3 start that included a blowout loss to the Cowboys, the Jets started winning, largely in spite of Wilson. If there had been any private whispers in mid-September about focusing on the 2024 draft and Rodgers’s return next fall, the paradigm shifted when New York hit its Week 7 bye at 3-3. There would be no tanking, but with Wilson, there would probably be no playoffs, either. </p>
<p id="ljitm1">While Wilson has been undeniably awful, the Jets remain aggressively average. They are 20th in team DVOA and 17th in <em>The Ringer</em>’s <a href="https://nflrankings.theringer.com/power-rankings">Power Rankings</a>. Despite their offensive ineptitude, they rank 21st in point differential. If the draft happened tomorrow, they would have the 16th pick—three picks after where they were set to pick this spring before swapping first-rounders with Green Bay. </p>
<p id="vNYYlA">This team might actually be better than the one Wilson played with last year. That makes it hard to believe that the Jets brass would have seriously considered a scenario in which they wouldn’t try to be competitive this year, with or without Rodgers. </p>
<h4 id="pAzyy5">Scenario 4: The Jets’ inaction is about Aaron Rodgers.</h4>
<p id="X3mGBL">That brings us back to the man himself. Rodgers, from his weekly appearances on <em>The</em> <em>Pat McAfee Show</em> to the way he’s now wearing a headset on the sideline during games, remains the main character of this Jets season, despite having taken just four snaps. Circumstance aside, this is what the franchise wanted when it shaped its 2023 identity around Rodgers. He followed offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett to New York, and his longtime Green Bay teammates Randall Cobb and Allen Lazard signed with the Jets in free agency. </p>
<p id="ZmJCZu">The Jets didn’t have a Plan B. That much was obvious. And in the weeks since Rodgers got hurt, they haven’t created one. It’s possible this is in part because they don’t have and have never had clarity about his rehab timeline. It’s unheard of for an NFL player to tear his Achilles tendon in a game and return to play in the same season, and yet, just four days after going down in Week 1, Rodgers insinuated to McAfee<em> </em>that he might return this season. “Give me your doubts, give me your prognostications, and then watch what I do,” he said on September 15. </p>
<p id="NiwoCv">In the months since, Rodgers has taken every opportunity to show the world just how fast he’s healing (those dolphins near his Malibu home must be getting busy): how he can walk without crutches, how he can wear regular shoes and throw flat-footed. ESPN’s microphones caught him telling Chargers safety Derwin James to “give [him] a few weeks” when asked after last Monday’s game when he might return. (He since clarified, on McAfee’s show, that he was joking with James and a few weeks was “an unrealistic timeline.”)</p>
<p id="XuIjhu">Still, Rodgers does seem serious about returning at some point. And, even if he were able to make a return to practice in January—should the Jets manage to make the playoffs with Wilson—it would be historic for any NFL player, let alone a 40-year-old quarterback. Former Rams running back Cam Akers ruptured his Achilles in July 2021 and was able to practice by late December and played in the Rams’ run to that season’s Super Bowl. Ravens pass rusher Terrell Suggs returned to play just over five months after an Achilles tear in 2012. Rodgers is looking to beat both of those recovery timelines by about a month, though he’s offered few specifics about his actual rehab process. He’s hopefully being more transparent with Douglas, Saleh, and the Jets’ doctors about his recovery than he is with McAfee’s viewers. </p>
<p id="ugQhh1">Then there’s the other possible wrinkle here. We know how Rodgers has reacted in the past when his team acquires a new quarterback. It’s fair to wonder what Rodgers would’ve done had the Jets aggressively pursued a veteran—from Cousins to Murray to, shoot, maybe even Dobbs—at any point over the past two months. </p>
<p id="FyeP23">In doing nothing to address their glaring quarterback problem, Saleh and Douglas have avoided any awkwardness with their injured star. Rodgers, meanwhile, has been able to shroud his quest to overcome the odds in secrecy. If this all works out how he seems to be planning, he could be a Jets hero. And if it doesn’t work out, well, Wilson being <em>this</em> bad only makes the Jets and their fans long for Rodgers and what could have been even more. </p>
<p id="NlG2ja">None of these four scenarios seem to justify the Jets’ lack of urgency in trying to find a starting quarterback other than Wilson, and they certainly don’t make the end result more satisfying. The other explanation to consider is the simplest: For the Jets, doing nothing to improve their quarterback situation after losing Rodgers was easier than doing something. The decision to stand pat may have been made by inertia.</p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="b4APEG">The rationale may remain a mystery, but the impact is the same. For all the intrigue surrounding the Jets’ options over the past few weeks, it no longer matters whether they were led by faulty logic, misguided faith, or organizational stubbornness. Now they’re stuck, with no one to blame but themselves. </p>
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https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2023/11/10/23954273/zach-wilson-aaron-rodgers-new-york-jets-quarterback-optionsLindsay Jones2023-03-28T08:34:59-04:002023-03-28T08:34:59-04:00In the ‘Bachelor’ Finale, Zach Returned the Show to Its Formulaic, Cruel Origins
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<p>After multiple seasons of upheaval, producers finally found a lead who would do everything they said—including break a woman’s heart on national TV </p> <p id="HvKtH1">The moment Zach Shallcross was picked to be the lead of Season 27 of <em>The Bachelor</em>, we collectively panned the pick: Zach was too bland, too basic, too robotic. How could he possibly deliver good TV? I see now why <em>The Bachelor</em>’s producers wanted him. They needed a Bachelor who would revere The Bachelor Process, from the limo entrances of Night 1 all the way to a proposal in Monday’s finale. They needed a Bachelor who wouldn’t send both of his finalists home before the finale, like Clayton did; flip-flop on his fiancée, like Peter and Arie did; or literally jump a fence to run away from production, like Colton did.</p>
<p id="ztYHK5">No, Zach was here to be <em>The Bachelor</em>’s perfect Bachelor, and in becoming a devout follower of the doctrine of Sean Lowe, Zach became the first Bachelor since Nick Viall in 2017 to simply choose between two women in the finale, propose, and leave “After the Final Rose” with her as a couple.</p>
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<p id="dNbEeE">But as Zach stuck to the<em> Bachelor</em> script, his finale was a reminder that while this show has been sold to us for decades as a story about love, at its core it’s a show about heartbreak and emotional manipulation, with a finale format that is especially cruel. Both of Zach’s finalists, Kaity and Gabi, were required to get dressed up and prepare a speech for Zach without knowing whether they were about to receive validation and a ring or get brutally dumped in front of millions of people. </p>
<p id="CAKGdE">In many ways, this was the least dramatic finale ever. <em>Of course</em> Zach was going to pick Kaity. “Honestly, if it’s not you, it’s not anyone,” Kaity tells him. That outcome was pretty clear to even unspoiled viewers for weeks; even Gabi seemed to know it, and at no point in Monday’s live three-hour finale did host Jesse Palmer even try to tease that there would be a shocking twist. No, Jesse said, it was simply going to be “very, very sad”:</p>
<p id="YLbjQj">“Brace yourself, it’s going to be a rough one.” (And no, he wasn’t talking about yet <em>another</em> interview with Sean Lowe.) </p>
<p id="uTegOR">This entire finale exists in the shadow of last week’s disastrous Fantasy Suite dates, when Zach declared he would not have sex with any of his three girlfriends, only to change his mind in the middle of his date with Gabi. He immediately told production what had happened when cameras were off, hurt Gabi’s feelings when he couldn’t keep their private moment a secret, and hurt Kaity’s feelings by explicitly telling her something she assumed had happened but didn’t want to know. And he hurt Ariel, whom he sent home after the Fantasy Suites, by not telling her anything at all! </p>
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<p id="Wvni3t"><br>As Monday’s finale begins, Kaity has been able to largely put Zach’s Fantasy Suite misstep behind her, but Gabi cannot, and she wants to speak to Zach before agreeing to meet his family and proceeding with their final date. She tells him that she feels like “an accessory to a crime” and asks Zach whether he regrets sleeping with her. He says he doesn’t, and he appeases her by explaining that she “opened his eyes” and made him experience humanlike emotions. “In my heart, it’s like, love,” Zach says. Like, swoon! Somehow, that’s good enough for Gabi, and she opts to stay with Zach instead of listening to her gut and telling him to kick rocks.</p>
<p id="LH1LPY">It turns out Gabi’s intuition has been incredibly strong when it comes to Zach. She correctly read that she was not the front-runner heading into Fantasy Suites and knew what it meant when, during their final date, Zach said he was torn. “If Zach knew how he felt about me, he would say it,” Gabi says as she breaks down in tears. “It’s not me.”</p>
<p id="luauBc">When this is contrasted with Kaity’s breezy final dates, it’s hard to build much suspense. Before the Most Dramatic Finale Ever Era, <em>The Bachelor(ette)</em> would really milk proposal day with ring shopping with Neil Lane (who, for the first time in recorded history, turned down a chance to appear on TV for this finale) and extended getting-ready montages and drawn-out limo rides designed to leave viewers guessing which contestant would exit the first limo. This time we got almost none of it—just a quick shot of Gabi’s neon-yellow gown, which was enough for us to know immediately that she’d be getting dumped the second the van door opened and she stepped her gold stiletto heel into the mud. </p>
<div class="c-float-left"><aside id="wrZVDk"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"The ‘Bachelor’ Recap: Sex and Misery in the Fantasy Suites ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/3/20/23649333/zach-shallcross-the-bachelor-fantasy-suites-recap"},{"title":"The ‘Bachelor’ Recap: Dendrophilia, Delis, and Heartbreak at the Hometowns ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/3/13/23638436/the-bachelor-season-27-hometown-dates-charity-dumped"}]}'></div></aside></div>
<p id="T6N6Ku">“That’s a really muddy spot, you shouldn’t pull in right there,” Gabby tells someone off camera. “When Kaity arrives, don’t do that to her.” It’s a devastatingly self-aware line. Gabi knows what’s coming, and she lets Zach meander through the preamble to his breakup speech before finally cutting him off. “Can you stop?” she says. “I knew it was coming. What I don’t know is why you didn’t tell me when you knew.”</p>
<p id="hXcbp7">Thus is the cruelty of the <em>Bachelor </em>finale: We know Zach had indeed made up his mind before proposal day; he told Jesse as much during “After the Final Rose.” He made up his mind during his “last chance” date with Kaity—a day before his final date with Gabi, and two days before he’d propose. “That was fucking humiliating,” Gabi says as she’s driven away. “I’ve been strung along this entire time, for what?” Here’s what, Gabi: So that <em>The Bachelor</em> could get back on track after so many seasons of disruption.</p>
<p id="whZLXF">But before we can get back to Kaity, Gabi gets to see Zach for the first time since their breakup in Thailand. Jesse tees her up with a simple but pointed question, asking her what the most painful part of Zach revealing their sex secret was. Gabi unloads; she says that before cameras returned the morning after, Zach told her, “This is just between us,” and that she felt blindsided when he used her name in discussing with others why he felt guilty. “I wish you would have just sent me home and saved me all the pain that just went on and on,” Gabi says during “After the Final Rose.” “I thought it was love. I thought it was more than a TV show. I get it, sex sells, but now I’ve become a narrative; it’s really painful.”</p>
<p id="QFLdks">The <em>Bachelor</em> franchise has come a long way since the time when sex was never even discussed—we’d get fireworks in the distance when the Fantasy Suite door shut—but this feels like regression for a franchise that was finally taking baby steps toward sex positivity and, more generally, realistic human interaction. As Ariel smartly—and bitingly—tells Zach during her appearance on the live show at the beginning of the finale, Zach made the entire Fantasy Suite about sex when it didn’t have to be, and he made it about himself when it should have been about each woman and their individual relationships. “You took away my agency and my ability to even have a conversation,” Ariel says. </p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="nd88vw">He gave that power only to Kaity, and luckily for Zach, now she’s his fiancée. And they do seem happy, revealing to Jesse that they’re planning to move in together in Austin this summer—good thing he already helped build her some furniture—and are targeting a wedding in 2025. Whether they get to the altar or not, though, <em>The Bachelor</em> already got what it wanted. </p>
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https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/3/28/23659802/the-bachelor-season-27-finale-zach-dumps-gabi-kaity-engagedLindsay Jones2023-03-20T22:02:00-04:002023-03-20T22:02:00-04:00The ‘Bachelor’ Recap: Sex and Misery in the Fantasy Suites
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<figcaption>ABC/Getty Images/Ringer illustration</figcaption>
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<p>When Zach’s pledge to abstain from sex in the Fantasy Suites backfires, everyone winds up unsatisfied</p> <p id="XzBPtU">Way back in January, when my esteemed colleague Jodi Walker floated the <em>very plausible</em> theory that our chosen Bachelor for Season 27, Zach “football, family, and frozen pizza” Shallcross, is actually an AI bot, she predicted that at some point this season our ZachBot would approach sentience. </p>
<p id="JJtZsG">That moment arrived just in time for Fantasy Suites. The feeling he discovered is “guilt”—and that dial was turned up to 100 while his “empathy” dial was left at zero. The result is one of the most awkward endings to Fantasy Suite Week in recent <em>Bachelor</em> memory. Our BachelorBot did his homework heading into Sex Week, but in his attempt to avoid the mistakes of Bachelors past—notably, his immediate predecessor, Clayton Echard—Zach left everyone, including himself, miserable. You’ll remember that Clayton derailed his season during Fantasy Suites, when he told each of his final three girlfriends he loved them, had sex on the first two overnight dates, and probably would have gone three-for-three had Susie not gotten upset because he’d already had sex with two other women. It was all extremely messy—who can forget the image of Rachel on a staircase?—and Clayton came off looking, at best, like a total idiot and, at worst, like an absolute dick. Clearly Zach took note and plugged the footage into his algorithm. But he missed the biggest lesson from Clayton’s failure: When it comes to what happens in the Fantasy Suite, honesty is <em>never</em> the best policy. </p>
<p id="yxCgi5">How did we get here? Let’s get into it.</p>
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<h3 id="eAQSn3">
<br>Worst Promise: Zach’s Abstinence Pledge</h3>
<p id="E1Qp5G">Zach and his three finalists, Ariel, Gabi, and Kaity, arrive in Thailand for what the ladies assume will be plenty of private sexy time with their communal boyfriend. Zach, however, has other plans. Before kicking off his string of back-to-back-to-back overnight dates, Zach meets with host Jesse Palmer to issue what is, in essence, a purity pledge: He will engage in “no sex of any kind in the Fantasy Suite.” Zach tells Jesse that he found clarity from his conversation the week before with Sean “Born Again Virgin” Lowe, and decided that having sex with any of the women would “muddy the situation” so close to a potential engagement. </p>
<p id="gJr1bx">Instead, he wants his Fantasy Suite time to be spent on deep, private conversations—just like the ones he had with Rachel (yes, the same Rachel from Clayton’s season) on last season of <em>The Bachelorette</em>, when he left their sexless overnight date convinced he didn’t want to be with her and they broke up. </p>
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<p id="V1ERdx">Jesse is skeptical that Zach will be able to keep his pants on when the cameras turn off. “You’re going to be tempted,” Jesse astutely predicts. Zach agrees, admitting that he expects to experience “animalistic desire.” “It’s going to be damn hard,” he says, perhaps with a pun intended. “But I want my partner to be sure of us, and I know I’m not doing that right before an engagement.”</p>
<p id="NagxH4">In the trailer for Fantasy Suites, <em>Bachelor</em> editors skillfully teased that Zach would struggle to remain abstinent. By the time Zach wraps his sit-down with Jesse, he’s basically frothing at the mouth, and it’s clear this wasn’t just another case of the show overpromising and underdelivering the drama. Zach is definitely going to fuck. The only question is who: Ariel, Gabi, or Kaity.</p>
<h3 id="JTSYr4">Best Date: Ariel and the Night Market</h3>
<p id="vfsO3q">Zach and Ariel love to eat. It’s their thing! After Ariel took Zach on a stomach-destroying NYC food tour during her hometown date last episode, he surprises her with an evening excursion to a night market, where they truly go for it. They eat bugs and intestines and a variety of raw seafood—and engage in some vigorous PDA through it all. They kiss after ingesting exploding grubs; they make out with sushi still in their mouths. </p>
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<p id="WJex1F">“When I kiss Ariel, my body gets hot,” Zach says, like a normal human being. “Turn on the AC, please.” These two are so incredibly horny for each other, but Zach attempts to throw some cold water on the date later at their private dinner, when he launches into his prepared spiel: “Sex is off the table,” he says, explaining that he wants to save that intimate moment for after an engagement. Ariel is disappointed, but understanding. She clearly believes him when he says this is the standard he’s setting for the entire week. </p>
<p id="xQ2QMU">Everything about this date seems perfect: Zach and Ariel have an intense physical chemistry, they share plenty of laughs, and are able to have a mature conversation about boundaries! We see them cuddled up in bed in the morning, giggling about their favorite snuggle positions, and Zach later confirms that there was no sex in the Fantasy Suite. That’s one option down, so who will it be? Gabi or Kaity? Or maybe both?!</p>
<h3 id="4ieYSe">Best Recovery: Gabi</h3>
<p id="Mtvkxd">Gabi lands the dreaded second of three overnight dates—and knowing that her date is sandwiched between Ariel and Kaity has sent her into a spiral before she even shows up on the beach to meet Zach. She’s anxious and awkward and worries about how sweaty and smelly she’s going to be, and later, after jumping off a boat with Zach—drink if that <em>Bachelor</em> trope was on your bingo card—she complains about swallowing too much water and describes herself as “crusty,” which is just about the last word you’d want to hear on what’s supposed to be a sexy, romantic date on a private island. The vibes are very, very bad.</p>
<p id="3zOMYZ">Gabi tries to explain to Zach that she’s gotten caught up in her own head and feels insecure about having been chosen for the second overnight date. She equates it with being his second choice, and while he tries to reassure her that that isn’t the case … his face seems to say “You are my second choice.” There seems to be a glitch in his programming that makes it impossible to keep a straight face when a woman starts unloading her emotional baggage. Zach’s “ick face” has become a whole thing on <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@valentinaxoxoxo/video/7205037525369441541?lang=en">Bachelor TikTok</a>—he did it when Christina Mandrell revealed she’s a mom; he did it when Jess was upset about not getting a one-on-one date; and he made it over a video chat when Greer compared his getting COVID during filming to the time she got sick at the end of a sales period. When I saw Zach make this face, I was <em>sure</em> it was over for Gabi: </p>
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<p id="W6gdO8">And yet somehow, Gabi recovers! After a brief conversation with a producer in which Gabi heartbreakingly says she feels “disgusting and ugly,” Zach and Gabi reconcile and head off to the night portion of the date, where Zach repeats nearly the same speech he gave to Ariel about his intentions to keep things chaste once the cameras stop rolling. Like Ariel, Gabi is disappointed—but unlike Ariel, she seems to take it as a challenge. She bluntly tells Zach she can’t imagine getting engaged to someone without having sex first—“I won’t try to seduce you,” she tells Zach, <em>seductively</em>—and she’s much more direct in an in-the-moment interview with a producer. “Zach says he’s not having sex, but I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe he will.”</p>
<p id="EeAC2b">And what do you know, Project Fuck Zach is successful! They totally did it! And while Gabi clearly would have been happy to keep this a secret between the two of them, Zach cannot. He’s immediately racked with guilt: He made a promise to himself, and his girlfriends, and he failed, and now he feels a compulsion to let literally everyone know—from production, to Jesse Palmer, to, eventually, Kaity.</p>
<aside id="TQ3PH5"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"The ‘Bachelor’ Recap: Dendrophilia, Delis, and Heartbreak at the Hometowns ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/3/13/23638436/the-bachelor-season-27-hometown-dates-charity-dumped"},{"title":"The ‘Bachelor’ Recap: The Magic Is the Producer Manipulation","url":"https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/3/6/23628058/the-bachelor-episode-7-zach-shallcross-the-magic-is-the-producer-manipulation"}]}'></div></aside><p id="WQ3Pd6"><em>However</em>, before he can proceed with his final overnight date, he decides he needs to tell Gabi that he plans to tell Kaity the truth. And this—not the moment he and Gabi decided to consummate their relationship—is when Zach’s Fantasy Suite week goes off the rails. Didn’t Zach learn anything from watching the way Gabby Windey and Rachel crumbled when Clayton revealed he had slept with both of them last season? How did he not realize that a desire for transparency would simply make everyone else feel worse? </p>
<h3 id="f0tidD">Worst Date: Kaity and the Kayak</h3>
<p id="FVKh07">Listen, I am a kayaking enthusiast—it’s one of my family’s favorite outdoor activities. But tandem kayaking is in no way a romantic endeavor. You can’t speak to each other, one person has to be in charge of the rhythm and steering and inevitably your partner will paddle left when you want to go right. It’s no wonder a kayaking guide once told me he calls tandem kayaks “divorce boats.” Last week, we saw Zach and Kaity’s relationship survive the building of Ikea furniture; asking them to also survive tandem kayaking is just rude.</p>
<p id="HuL8Ur">Indeed, as they paddle their way through a rain forest, Zach cannot focus. He absolutely cannot wait to unload his burden about how he, uh, <em>unloaded his burden</em>. Finally, they park their divorce boat alongside a tiny bench in shallow water. When Kaity saw that bench, she should have just kept paddling; nothing good has ever once happened on a bench so clearly constructed by production. And sure enough, this is where Zach reveals he had “been intimate this week.” </p>
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<p id="sdEKGd">Surprising no one but Zach, this lands poorly! Kaity immediately recoils. It’s not that she’s surprised to learn he had sex—it’s Fantasy Suites, after all. She just doesn’t understand why he felt he had to share that with her. “Did you think I’d be like, ‘Yay?’” she asks before walking off into the bamboo forest with a producer, explaining that she now feels distant from Zach and unsure how she’s going to be able to proceed with the rest of their date. </p>
<p id="AsauqS">Yet, in an upset more stunning than Fairleigh Dickinson over Purdue, <em>The Bachelor</em>’s Bench of Doom does not lead to a breakup. Kaity is the front-runner for a reason, and after making Zach sweat it out for a few minutes, she does indeed meet him for dinner at their luxury villa. Their conversation picks up where it left in the jungle—talking in circles, with Zach repeating why he felt like he had to share (“Catholic guilt,” he says) and Kaity reiterating he should just keep that shit to himself. Somehow, they come to a resolution—their relationship is worth fighting for, and Kaity decides this sex-with-another-woman thing is something they can get through. </p>
<h3 id="Fyaw5M">Winner: Nathaniel Hawthorne </h3>
<p id="7qT6pV">You’d think by now Zach would have learned his lesson: that Gabi’s frustration at his desire to reveal their secret, and Kaity’s devastation from hearing it, would have told him, “Hey, maybe just let this go.” But no, Zach has yet to disappoint Ariel—who at this point has no idea that Zach had sex with Gabi, and maybe also with Kaity? (We never get a morning-after recap with Zach or Kaity, so we’re in the dark about what happened—or didn’t—once the cameras were turned off.) Zach tells the women at the rose ceremony that putting parameters on how the week would go was a mistake. This is the exact moment when Ariel realizes what this means:</p>
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<p id="q5jQ8E">He offers a rose first to Kaity, and then to Gabi, while Ariel is forced to become the latest <em>Bachelor </em>contestant to ponder whether their life has been dictated by the ordering of overnight dates by reality TV producers. Personally, I can’t help but wonder whether Zach would have chosen Ariel over Gabi had he been able to stick to his no-sex proclamation. (Either way, Ariel will absolutely crush it in Paradise.) </p>
<p id="RcV1Tu">Zach walks Ariel out, leaving Kaity and Gabi alone. Kaity whispers that she knows what happened between Gabi and Zach, and Gabi compares herself to Hester Prynne. Shout-out to a <em>Bachelor</em> contestant who read a book in high school and can reference it properly!</p>
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<p id="o7kO1m">No word on whether Kaity understood what Gabi was saying. </p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="WvrDRt">But Gabi has no reason to be ashamed about having sex in the Fantasy Suite. She’s miserable because she very accurately read the situation from the beginning: Right now she is Zach’s second choice (if not third). She can tell by the way Zach <em>needed</em> to be honest with Kaity; as Nick Viall often says, there are two rules for being the Bachelor: first, you must create compelling TV; second, you must protect your relationship. By saying he would take sex off the table for the entire week and starting with dates with Ariel and Gabi, Zach was setting himself up to protect his relationship with Kaity. He undoubtedly, and probably regretfully, hurt Kaity by revealing that he’d slept with Gabi, but if he weren’t so worried about protecting Kaity’s feelings—and knowing what she’d see when this airs—wouldn’t it have been easier, and far more kind, to just keep it to himself?</p>
https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/3/20/23649333/zach-shallcross-the-bachelor-fantasy-suites-recapLindsay Jones2023-03-13T22:02:00-04:002023-03-13T22:02:00-04:00The ‘Bachelor’ Recap: Dendrophilia, Delis, and Heartbreak at the Hometowns
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<figcaption>ABC/Getty Images/Ringer illustration</figcaption>
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<p>Zach crosses the country visiting the hometowns of his final four girlfriends—and maybe, for the first time, realizes that they have to pick him just as much as he gets to pick them</p> <p id="9tDNES">It’s time for Hometowns, the point in every <em>Bachelor</em> season when shit starts getting real: Families and feelings are involved now. The lead and his final four women have broken free of the<em> Bachelor</em> bubble. Hard questions are coming, typically from overprotective fathers. And, of course, there’s the precedent, built over seasons of seasons of TV, that the lead’s girlfriends will tell him they’ve fallen in love with him. </p>
<p id="RxMRDU">But not this season. We’re an episode away from Fantasy Suites—or, as Zach describes it in the preview for next week, “the sex date”—and the closest we get to the L word in the Hometowns episode is “the idea” of “falling” “in love.” That’s what Charity tells Zach she’s <em>starting</em> to feel, and what Zach tells Kaity’s mom, Anne, he could see happening with her daughter. That’s <a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2019/2/28/18244103/ten-rules-for-surviving-the-bachelor-or-bachelorette">Level 3 on <em>The Bachelor</em>’s declarations of love scale</a>, just below “I’m falling in love with you” but still a pretty long way away from “I love you.”</p>
<p id="XEmTh6">Honestly, though, it’s refreshing to have reached this point in what has been a very formulaic <em>Bachelor</em> season without any unrealistic sweeping declarations of love, and to have made it through an entire Hometowns episode without the Bachelor asking a father for a marriage blessing. Instead, on each of the four hometown dates, from rural Vermont to New York City to southern Georgia to Austin, Texas, it’s like there’s an understanding that there’s a flaw in this show’s very premise—that it’s not simply the Bachelor choosing which lady he’d like to marry, or at least which lady he’d like to be featured in a <em>People</em> magazine photo spread with before they split up six months from now. Finally, everyone seems to be acknowledging the truth: that these women are actually choosing whether they’d like to be with the Bachelor, too. </p>
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<h3 id="KaFcWq">
<br>Least Satisfying Edit: Zach and the Maple Tree</h3>
<p id="KAOfzd">From the moment that Gabi forced Zach to take a shot of maple syrup upon her entrance from the limo back in the season premiere, we could have predicted that maple syrup would feature prominently in her hometown date in Pittsford, Vermont. Indeed, this date is some sort of New England fall fever dream: We see Zach and Gabi clad in flannel, frolicking in crunchy yellow leaves that cover the forest floor, as Gabi promises to give Zach “a full maple experience.” This means tapping a maple tree with a handheld drill and trying to extract raw sap. And this is where it gets, well, weird.</p>
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<p id="HyZlSv">Gabi alleges that tapping a maple tree was one of her favorite childhood activities, but it doesn’t take a ton of effort for producers to turn tapping a maple tree into a metaphor for tapping … something else. Surprising no one, Bachelor editors cue up the soundtrack from a ’70s porno as Zach and Gabi trade innuendos, and then the camera zooms in on a shot of what can only be described as Zach finger banging a tree hole.</p>
<p id="Zpxq4b">“Is it sticky in there?” Gabi asks. </p>
<p id="Qpueex">“It does feel kind of warm,” Zach answers.</p>
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<p id="xjexxO">Ultimately, Zach and Gabi discover that they didn’t drill deep enough, and they fail to finish extracting any syrup. Here’s hoping that isn’t also a metaphor.</p>
<h3 id="nYpClM">Most Gastrointestinal Trauma: Zach and Ariel’s NYC Date</h3>
<p id="5zSlas">Ariel introduces Zach to her parents, brother, and sister-in-law on her hometown date. But before we get there (and we will, in a minute), she tells Zach that she has another family member he needs to meet: New York City. And by New York City, she really means New York cuisine. Their daytime date, which starts in Washington Square Park, is quite the gastrointestinal adventure. First, they visit a pizza parlor for a giant slice of pepperoni pizza (“Oh my God, carbs are so good,” Zach says) and then a traditional Jewish deli for sandwiches—pastrami for Ariel and beef tongue for Zach (“I’m a fan of the tongue,” he says, proving he didn’t leave the sexual innuendos in Vermont)—and gefilte fish. (Sidenote, but when choosing which deli to bring Zach to, why didn’t Ariel pick Katz’s? It’s the <em>When Harry Met Sally </em>deli! Zach could’ve said, “I’ll have what she’s having”!) Finally, Ariel leads Zach into a coffee shop that’s not a coffee shop at all, but the secret door to a speakeasy, where they toast with espresso martinis.</p>
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<p id="leHa7a">We’ve all tried to do an NYC food tour before … and we’ve all come to the bitter realization that there are limits to what the human body can take. It’s no wonder that by the time they make it to the evening portion of the date—at a Brooklyn winery—Zach looks like he’s about to die. </p>
<h3 id="dpcjsO">Best Worst Date: Errands in Austin</h3>
<p id="lt2OIb">One of the biggest problems with this entire franchise is that it expects the lead to pick a partner while essentially dating in a fantasy world—helicopter rides and hot tubs in the woods and horse-drawn carriages and sleepovers at museums. Even the hometown dates, the only time when we’re supposed to get a sense of what normal life might be like, feel extraordinary. That’s what made Kaity and Zach’s date in their shared hometown of Austin so unusual. There was no pretense that Kaity had to show Zach around—if anything, Zach should have been the tour guide, since Kaity tells us she had lived in Austin for only a few weeks before she left for filming. </p>
<p id="CWbrgy">That’s why her house is basically empty and she needs Zach’s help settling in. What follows is the realest shit I’ve seen in 27 seasons of <em>The Bachelor</em>: After they go grocery shopping at a bougie market, Kaity enlists Zach to carry a mattress and build furniture—FROM IKEA—and somehow, they still want to make out with each other when they finish.</p>
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<p id="2eMoRc">No one in the history of relationships has ever smiled at their partner while attempting to assemble an IKEA bookshelf. I was already pretty convinced before this episode that Zach would pick Kaity at the end of this. Now I’m sure of it. </p>
<h3 id="Ofyjo1">Best Interviewer: Ariel’s Brother, Bobby</h3>
<p id="XF3eOU">Older siblings truly did the emotional heavy lifting this week, and none handled the task better than Ariel’s brother, Bobby, who made it pretty clear that he thinks that both Zach and this entire show are full of shit. “Calling myself a skeptic and saying this is unorthodox is an understatement,” Bobby says as soon as he and Zach sit down for a one-on-one conversation.</p>
<p id="Ea3KDe">He doesn’t let up. Bobby asks Zach whether he knows Ariel’s middle name or her birthday. (Zach doesn’t.) He reminds Zach that Ariel needs to pick him and asks why she should. (Zach is stumped … he mumbles through an answer about having an open heart before finally setting on “I’m a good cook,” which I’m pretty sure we can all agree is a lie.) Finally, Bobby asks Zach how he’ll reconcile the fact that he and Ariel come from very different backgrounds. Her parents escaped religious persecution in the Soviet Union, and Judaism is a core part of Ariel’s life. Zach, meanwhile, has spoken very little about his own faith—and didn’t even include it among his favorite f words on the first night, when he told the women he loved “family, football, and frozen pizza.” (See: I knew the “good cook” thing was a lie.) Ominous music plays as Zach tries to come up with a satisfactory answer, though all he can manage is “Families will make it work. That’s how I see it.”</p>
<aside id="1snmVu"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"The ‘Bachelor’ Recap: The Magic Is the Producer Manipulation ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/3/6/23628058/the-bachelor-episode-7-zach-shallcross-the-magic-is-the-producer-manipulation"},{"title":"The ‘Bachelor’ Recap: Jess Is Too Proud to Beg ","url":"https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/2/27/23617594/the-bachelor-season-27-episode-six-recap-zach-shallcross"}]}'></div></aside><p id="e7y8bT">Families of future contestants on this show can learn a lot from Bobby’s delivery: He was blunt and to the point, and he didn’t let Zach off the hook. Asking the lead whether he even knows one of his girlfriends’ <em>birthdays </em>is so cutting and effective in its simplicity.<em> </em>Zach wasn’t scared away by Bobby, but we’ll have to see whether the questions Bobby raised ultimately become an issue in his relationship with Ariel.</p>
<h3 id="kyozRe">Best Edit: Charity</h3>
<p id="U96fL3">Before Charity and Zach even arrive to meet her family in Columbus, Georgia, we know it’ll be an emotional day. Charity’s family—her parents, two brothers, and sister—along with a bunch of friends, sit around a long table discussing Charity’s past heartbreak. They recall how devastated she was after her last breakup and how hard it was on all of them to see her so heartbroken, and they discuss how difficult it would be to see her go through that experience again. (You’ll recall that last week the magician-slash-mentalist, likely with an assist from a <em>Bachelor</em> producer, got Charity to reveal that her biggest relationship fear is infidelity.)</p>
<p id="RCeCLP">So no one should be surprised that Charity spends basically this entire episode in tears. “I’m really happy,” she tells her girlfriends. “I hope you guys can see that.” (It is unclear whether they can see that.)</p>
<p id="CiqPzj">The family portion of the date reaches its emotional peak in Charity’s one-on-one time with her brother Nehemiah, who breaks down in tears himself when he tells her he wasn’t sure she would be OK after her last breakup. She tries to reassure her brother by explaining that Zach is “emotionally intelligent” and “confident in who he is.” (It is unclear whether he is either of those things.)</p>
<p id="gmLpqp">Later, after some intimate slow dancing at a country bar, Charity tells Zach that “it’s safe to say I’m falling in love.” He responds with a quick kiss and a hug and the five words every girl wants to hear: “Wild, I know, it’s crazy.”</p>
<p id="TBoMqg">We can all see where this is headed, right? Yep, Zach sends Charity home at the rose ceremony. As he walks her out, he tells her that he’s felt sick to his stomach all day and came to his decision only a short time before handing out the roses, and that he “might be making a mistake.” He tells her he’s “grateful to know her” and then delivers the real gut punch: “You deserve all the love, and I couldn’t give it to you.”</p>
<p id="QkG2rJ">Charity repeats those words from the back seat of the limo as she’s driven away. “I don’t know what that freaking means,” she says, wiping a river of tears from her eyes.</p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="GqYox0">But I do: You’re going to be the Bachelorette.</p>
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https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/3/13/23638436/the-bachelor-season-27-hometown-dates-charity-dumpedLindsay Jones2023-01-30T22:02:00-05:002023-01-30T22:02:00-05:00The ‘Bachelor’ Recap: A School for Bad Bitches
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<p>Latto has arrived, and she’s here to teach the women how to embrace their “bad-bitch energy,” which ought to pair well with Zach’s “big robot energy” </p> <p id="U8KEQp">There are two things you must keep in mind in order to make Season 27 of <em>The Bachelor</em> bearable. First, our newest lead, Zach Shallcross, is <a href="https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/1/23/23568473/the-bachelor-season-27-premiere-zach-shallcross">almost certainly an AI bot</a>, who, two episodes into this season, is still working on tweaking its settings in order to mimic human emotions. Second, this is a throwback season of <em>The Bachelor</em>, for better or worse. If not for the high-definition cameras and somewhat diverse group of women cast to be Zach’s co-girlfriends, you’d think this season was taking place in 2003—body glitter and all. </p>
<p id="v9nG04">While most reality dating shows are boldly moving forward in 2023 and testing new formats—MILFs! Catfish! Ultimatums! Builders from Swansea!—<em>The Bachelor</em> is actively in retrograde. There is some comfort in the familiar framing of this season—group dates, a one-on-one, date roses, and an actual rose ceremony to tie up each episode—after a relatively chaotic period for the franchise, but <em>The Bachelor</em> is gambling that a show initially created for Gen X and elder millennials can survive in a Gen-Z world. Part of the fun for a longtime viewer is recognizing all of the old tropes—hey look, there’s another helicopter—but what of the people who haven’t devoted decades of service to <em>Bachelor</em> nation? At some point, the show could just end up feeling tired.</p>
<p id="RNkckw">Here in Episode 2, <em>The Bachelor</em> is going all in to make Zach happen, to try to make us believe that he’s the dynamic, handsome, and charming lead up for carrying an entire season. They’re trying so hard to convince us that he’s sexy—he’s already delivering on the shirtless shower scene Sean Lowe foretold last week, and multiple contestants go out of their way to emphasize that Zach is a <em>man</em>. “He’s confident,” says Charity, the child and family therapist. “That’s what separates a man from a boy.” (If you’re interested in watching women dating boys, may we direct you to <em>MILF Manor</em>?) And what better way to prove Zach is a super-desirable man than to … pair him with rapper Latto to try to teach the women about “bad-bitch energy”? Or to fly him and a girl he just met to his childhood home in Anaheim to look at baby photos? Let’s just get into it.</p>
<h3 id="xpPkff">Winner: Bad-Bitch Energy</h3>
<p id="cENxWS">Many thanks to my lovely <em>Ringer</em> colleague Nora Princiotti for answering my panicked Slack message upon viewing this episode. “Who is Latto,” I asked, “and what do I need to know about her?”</p>
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<p id="w1PzFn">Latto, the first celebrity on Season 27, is a rapper, Nora explained, mostly known for her song “Big Energy,” which went viral on TikTok last year. Here, Latto joined Zach for the first group date of the season to measure and judge the women’s “bad-bitch energy,” which apparently just means being confident inside and out. Latto herself, per her most notable song, is a bad bitch with the sorts of talents that I <a href="https://genius.com/24767624/Latto-big-energy/Hood-bitch-fuck-you-in-a-bonnet-yeah">neither understand nor feel comfortable quoting</a>, and she has a blueprint for becoming one like her. (And this is something Zach apparently wants? Sure, let’s just roll with it.) The method is as follows:</p>
<h3 id="sMtTj4">Lesson 1: “A Bad Bitch Knows How to Dance”</h3>
<p id="f6SsTE">Latto instructs the women to show Zach their best, sexiest, and most confident moves. We get twerking and twirling. We get gyrating and swaying. We get way too many shots of Zach’s awkward underbite as the women shake themselves around him. </p>
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<h3 id="EsgPRQ">Lesson 2: “Bad Bitches Never Get Nervous”</h3>
<p id="8UQfjY">This date is not just silly dancing, as Latto tells the women that they’re not the only ones here for this date. Enter:<em> Bachelor</em> alumna Tahzjuan from Colton Underwood’s season (and perhaps better known for two appearances on <em>Bachelor in Paradise</em>), Victoria F. from Peter Weber’s season (and the most recent season of <em>BiP</em>), and Courtney Robertson, who actually <em>won </em>Ben Flajnik’s season all the way back in 2012. These women were portrayed as villains on their respective seasons—and no one was more iconic in playing the role than Robertson—but now they’re being presented as, to quote Latto, “baddies.” Says contestant Davia, “These girls embody exactly what Latto is trying to pull out of us.” </p>
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<p id="axB3CN"><br>It’s unclear exactly why they’ve been brought in, because while this is framed as some sort of competition, there does not seem to be any judging taking place. The contestants are instructed to “Strut the catwalk” to show off their personalities and confidence in hopes of impressing Zach. We get Cat wearing cat ears and Kylee wearing angel wings and kissing Zach after an <em>aggressively</em> choreographed dance. Genevie wears a crown and (accidentally?) chokes Zach with a ribbon. Brianna makes it rain with a handheld device that shoots out dollar bills and makes all the other girls <em>super </em>jealous. I must repeat: There were no winners; this was basically just a game of sexy(ish) dress-up. </p>
<h3 id="7kzIVM">Lesson 3: “A Bad Bitch Will Grab the Attention of Everyone in the Room” </h3>
<p id="RSNlk6">Finally, Latto orders the women to tell Zach a story about a time in their lives when they were a “real bad bitch.” Zach, the worst user to ever comment on Rap Genius, says this means he’s looking for the women to describe a time they “stood their ground” and said, “No, I’m going to be me.” Do we learn anything substantial about the majority of the women? Of course we do not! We do, however, get to see Brooklyn, the rodeo racer, and Zach take a shot of tequila, and we learn Brianna started a makeup company. The nugget that comes <em>close </em>to being substantial is from Kylee, who described the time she competed in and won a beauty pageant while wearing her natural curly hair after her mother was told Kylee’s hair must be relaxed. </p>
<p id="8gcf4C">And that was pretty much it! At no point were any judgments rendered; at no point did Courtney Robertson explain that the easiest way to win over the Bachelor is to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M6jl8-T9yE">jump into the ocean naked with him</a>; at no point did Victoria give us <a href="https://people.com/tv/bip-greg-grippo-and-victoria-fuller-planning-for-marriage-moving-in-1-month-into-dating/">Greg Grippo gossip</a>. Ultimately, this group date/seminar ended without any winners, unless you count all of us, who know now what it means to have “bad-bitch energy.”</p>
<h3 id="GP9KGC">Loser: Date Crashing</h3>
<p id="Yr6Aqa">This brings us to the fourth lesson: “Sometimes bad bitches cry.”</p>
<p id="rBnz6B">Victoria F. and Courtney disappear as soon as the first part of the group date ends, but Tahzjuan is not done. No, no, no—she came here for screen time (and maybe love, but mostly the screen time).</p>
<p id="JzfmuS">Zach and his girlfriends are going through the motions of a group date after-party—cocktails and kisses in a furniture outlet; you know the drill—when Tahzjuan makes her grand return, interrupting Zach’s one-on-one time with Cat and causing Zach’s brain to short-circuit. </p>
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<p id="ok05wb">“What is this?” he asks, as if it’s not so clearly evident what’s about to happen: Tahzjuan wants to join the season and move into the house with the rest of Zach’s girlfriends.</p>
<p id="BSBLIk">The other women are as confused as Zach, despite this being a <em>Bachelor</em> trope as old as time. Former contestants are constantly showing up on new seasons, begging for another shot at getting cast on <em>Bachelor in Para</em>—I mean … love. Have these women never watched this show before? Do they not remember Nick Viall crashing a group date to land a spot on Kaitlyn Bristowe’s season, or Heather Martin literally driving up to the Greenbriar to beg for a chance with Matt James, or Blake Moynes showing up to Katie Thurston’s season with a boom box claiming she was “the one”? No, Genevie, Tahzjuan didn’t simply have a question; she was here for chaos. Only Katherine truly grasps what’s happening. “She’s trying to move in!” </p>
<p id="sQF7J8">And with that, the women are off to confront Tahzjuan. “You cannot have my man,” says Kylee, “and I’m not sharing my bunk.” What transpired next was one of the most honest conversations ever shown on this franchise: Tahzjuan couldn’t make a compelling case to the other women that she was actually there with pure intentions to win the heart of our tall, dull Bachelor. But she tells the truth about what was to come. “It’s a competition,” she says. “Unless you guys want a participation trophy, obviously someone has to come out on top. There are going to be losers at the end of the day. You’re not all going to marry Zach. You know that, right? It’s going to get a lot harder from here.” It is pretty weird to hear Tahz say this, considering she was dumped on the first night of her season and most recently self-eliminated from <em>BiP</em>, but she’s not wrong. She must be an avid watcher. </p>
<p id="nYJlGj">But before things get tough for the new girls, they have to get harder for Tahzjuan. Viall and Moynes are date-crashing success stories—they didn’t just get a spot in the house to compete for the lead’s affections; they were the runner-up and winner, respectively, of their seasons. But as it much more typically happens for date crashers, Tahzjuan was swiftly sent home. Producers didn’t actually show Zach sending her home—instead they just gave us a brief cliff-hanger before showing Tahzjuan crying to a producer, who left us with the true lesson of the episode:</p>
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<h3 id="e2Cbis">Winner: Nickelback</h3>
<p id="H92dME">This is the first and only time you’ll see those above two words together. Somehow, Christina Mandrell, the single mom and content creator from Nashville, one of the only contestants in franchise history to get her first and last name in her chyron, and the woman who showed up to Episode 1 in a party bus, doesn’t recoil in horror after Zach confesses to her—and not even sheepishly, I must add—that the first concert he attended was Nickelback. She acts surprised but quickly recovers and tells Zach that she, too, likes Nickelback, and now I have to question if she, too, is a bot who has never heard actual music. </p>
<p id="LrxQiV">Alas, this is a bonding moment between the two on the first one-on-one date of the season—a classic <em>Bachelor</em> combo of a helicopter ride over Los Angeles (with flyovers of the <em>Bachelor</em> mansion and the Hollywood sign, of course) and a surprise introduction to the Bachelor’s family, during which a cousin shows Christina Mandrell photos of a teenage Zach—in short shorts and aviator sunglasses. “I think you’re literally wearing a red flag in this picture,” Christina Mandrell says. (That’s your gut talking, Christina Mandrell. Run!)</p>
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<p id="KFWLZ9">That’s followed by another <em>Bachelor</em> staple: the intimate dinner during which the woman must reveal her deepest secret. In Christina Mandrell’s case, that secret is her 5-year-old daughter, Blakely May. The news that the woman he just introduced to his mother and dozens of family friends is a mother herself has Zach <em>shook</em>. “It’s a lot to take in,” Zach says, admitting that he’s “scared shitless” and unsure about speeding up the time line to fatherhood. He nearly breaks down in an interview with producers. “Sometimes,” he says, “you have to be selfish.”</p>
<p id="poBDKY">But this is just tricky editing: Even a bot Bachelor knows he can’t send the single mom home after the first date. He gives Christina Mandrell the rose and makes her a promise to “figure out this whole thing,” which is not exactly the most flattering way to refer to a human child, but it’s the best this android can manage.</p>
<h3 id="q6tGus">Loser: Tongue</h3>
<p id="UEY145">The second group date is, largely, a snooze. It’s what I’ll consider a front-runner date: filler time for women Zach simply wants to kiss before the perfunctory handing out of the roses. This group includes Jess, she of the night-one body glitter; Greer, who won the first-impression rose last week; Kaity, the Austinite; Charity, the therapist; and Ariel, with her big New York energy. The only drama comes from Brianna, who is agonizing over the fact that she’s the only woman in the group who didn’t receive a rose directly from Zach because she was picked by “America” to receive the fan-favorite award when Zach was introduced as Bachelor on “After the Final Rose,” and Gabi from Vermont, who is all nervous energy and word vomits. In the end, both of them get roses, sapping this installment of any potential tension. (The only notable departure this week is Cat, who stuffed her face with meatballs in Episode 1 and was this week’s winner of the Justin Glaze Award for Facial Expressions. We’ll miss you, Cat. See you in paradise.)</p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="x1n2BZ">Mostly, the second date was all about kissing. Way too much kissing. Earlier in the episode, we hear the women discussing how much tongue they kiss with and how much tongue Zach seems to like. Clearly, the answer is a lot. While I continue to be impressed with Zach’s commitment to seeking consent before his make-out sessions, I’d like to humbly request fewer make outs, or at least fewer close-up shots of Zach’s tongue. If they insist on all the smooching, can they at least bring back 2003’s less-HD cameras?</p>
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https://www.theringer.com/the-bachelor/2023/1/30/23578816/the-bachelor-season-27-episode-2-recapLindsay Jones2022-10-07T10:45:16-04:002022-10-07T10:45:16-04:00The Broncos’ Russell Wilson Adventure Is Going Nowhere
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<p>Denver was promised an exciting ride with a new franchise quarterback. Instead, the Broncos have one of the worst offenses in the NFL and a seemingly grim future.</p> <p id="Y5L9nI">For nearly an hour after Thursday’s abomination of a football game ended, Russell Wilson sat motionless at his locker. He refused to take off his shoulder pads, refused to stand, to shower. A few teammates stopped by on their way to the showers; defensive tackle D.J. Jones patted Wilson on the shoulder pad; offensive tackle Billy Turner pulled Wilson in for a hug. Wilson scrolled through his phone, spoke in hushed tones with his backup, Brett Rypien, and later was joined in a long conversation with his head coach, Nathaniel Hackett, and running back Melvin Gordon.</p>
<p id="vShPYT">That trio, Wilson, Hackett, and Gordon, are the three most embattled members of this disappointing Broncos team: Gordon, for his fumbles; Hackett, for <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/9/21/23364205/denver-broncos-nathaniel-hackett-offense-woes">his bumbling game management</a>; and Wilson for decidedly <em>not</em> being the savior this fan base was hoping for through five games. Wilson threw two brutal interceptions in Thursday’s 12-9 overtime loss to the Colts, and didn’t see an open receiver in the end zone on his final fourth-down pass attempt that ended the game.</p>
<p id="Isj8XS">“We shoulda won it,” Wilson said. “That’s on me.” </p>
<p id="J1zL4g">It was hard to disagree, and Denver’s Thursday night debacle likely has many in Broncos Country wondering whether the franchise made a $245 million mistake. There were boos at Empower Field at Mile High by the third quarter—and not for the first time this season, though it’s only Week 5—and fans streamed to the exits at the end of the regulation, despite the fact that the Broncos had never actually trailed in the game. How quickly “Let’s Ride” turned into “Let’s Bail.”</p>
<div class="c-float-left"><aside id="CJtUCf"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"The Rams Have a Big Problem: Not Enough Talent","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/10/7/23391956/los-angeles-rams-lack-of-talent-super-bowl-hangover"},{"title":"Where Have All the Elite Fantasy Football Running Backs Gone?","url":"https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/10/6/23390475/running-backs-fantasy-football-scoring-down"}]}'></div></aside></div>
<p id="zOzYMq">It’s not that the Broncos have fallen to 2-3, it’s how they got here. Wilson’s been inaccurate (he’s completing 59.4 percent of his passes, almost six percentage points below his average in his decade in Seattle) and uninspiring, and the Broncos’ offense simply can’t score points. They’ve managed just three red zone touchdowns—fewer than every other team, even the Panthers and Bears—and that’s with one more full game completed. Even Indianapolis, whose own offense was dreadful on Thursday night, has scored six red zone touchdowns this season. </p>
<p id="KhsCX6">Denver is more than a quarter through its first season with Wilson, and it’s nearly impossible to identify anything the offense does well. The Broncos are currently 30th in offensive EPA, according to TruMedia, and his mistakes, like his interception on a third down from the Colts’ 13-yard line, with 2:13 remaining in a game the Broncos were leading 9-6, are the mind-boggling type of errors typically made by an inexperienced QB, not a 10-year vet. </p>
<p id="qd9fTD">“I don’t want Russ to feel like this is on him,” Gordon said in a somber postgame locker room late Thursday night. “We all make mistakes, it’s part of the game. This is a roller coaster.”</p>
<p id="NLGTXF">Gordon’s right that this isn’t Wilson’s failure alone. The problem is that in trading for Wilson, the Broncos promised both teammates and fans a thrill ride, a wild adventure after years of mediocrity. So far this ride has been nothing but a busted carousel: no real highs, and not going anywhere. The Broncos paired Wilson with a first-time head coach in Hackett, and have tried to create an offense that would give Wilson some of the control he believed he lacked in Seattle, but what they’ve fielded through five games is an offense without an identity. It’s been at its best when Wilson is able to do Wilson things—move out of the pocket, scramble, throw deep downfield while on the run. They’ve been at their worst when the field is the tightest, when he’s been asked to operate on script in the red zone. </p>
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<p id="LjC6tW"><br>In the defining moment of Thursday’s game, the Broncos needed to pick up 1 yard on fourth down from the Colts’ 5-yard line. They had options: attempt a run and potentially earn a new set of downs from inside the 5, take a shot at the end zone and potentially score a walk-off touchdown, or kick yet another field goal and likely settle for a tie. Wilson’s passing had quickly gotten the team into the red zone in the first place—he completed his first two passes of overtime for 61 yards—and then three consecutive run plays were ineffective. But Wilson already had proved shaky as a red zone passer that night. After two timeouts, one each called by the Colts and the Broncos, they unveiled their play, and it was the most aggressive option. Wilson lined up in shotgun, with a spread formation, and laser focused on receiver Courtland Sutton, who was crossing from left to right near the back of the end zone. Wilson was so keyed on Sutton that he failed to look to his right, where receiver K.J. Hamler was running uncovered. Wilson’s pass fell incomplete, a stadium fell silent, and Wilson’s honeymoon in Denver was over. “I could have walked in,” Hamler told <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesPalmerTV/status/1578236466966077441?s=20&t=olNWOKfIGLBnjtmO7MlTag">NFL Network reporter James Palmer</a> after the game. </p>
<p id="zjUO1h">Not looking for Hamler was Wilson’s mistake. Calling a pass play there was a mistake Wilson and Hackett must share. (Wilson’s former teammate, Richard Sherman, went nuclear on the decision on Amazon Prime’s postgame show. “Run the dang ball,” Sherman yelled—unleashing pent-up frustration from their shared Super Bowl past.) Wilson defended his coach and the play call; it was a “good one,” Wilson said, adding that he was prepared to scramble if necessary there. But he didn’t. Russ didn’t cook, he didn’t create, he didn’t show patience or vision. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">It’s single high man at the 5 yard line, and you don’t even LOOK at the pick route up top, before coming to the back line dig?<br><br>And you throw at the guy that JUST picked you off in the end zone? <a href="https://t.co/XjMMM5yco6">https://t.co/XjMMM5yco6</a></p>— Diante Lee (@DianteLeeFB) <a href="https://twitter.com/DianteLeeFB/status/1578233549441839106?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 7, 2022</a>
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<p id="sqKHrA">“We didn’t want it to end in a tie, we wanted to win the game,” Wilson said. “I think Coach made a good call. I’ve got to find a way to make a play, whatever it takes.”</p>
<p id="bufoGz">Hackett explained after the game that the call was a sign of trust in his quarterback. It was a play Wilson liked, Hackett said, and with the game on the line, he wanted to put the ball in the hands of Wilson. So, the Broncos have now lost two games in the span of five weeks because Hackett didn’t trust Wilson and opted for <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/9/13/23350348/russell-wilson-broncos-seahawks-week-1-seattle-return">an inexplicable 64-yard field goal</a> in Week 1, and because he trusted Wilson too much. Those final moments Thursday night, from Hamler’s reaction to it—not only did he vent to a reporter, but also he was seen slamming his helmet to the grass—and Wilson’s stunned look on the field after the game and his long, pensive pose in the locker room after, are what will linger from this loss as a potentially landmark moment in Wilson’s Denver tenure. </p>
<p id="LePNcm">The rest of what happened Thursday night should be completely erased from our collective football memory, because it was, in so many ways, a hilariously awful game. <em>Thursday Night Football </em>has a long history of producing stinkers of the mid-aughts Titans-Jaguars variety, and yet this one felt like it was the worst <em>Thursday Night Football</em> game of all time. This is the game critics will point to when they decry these short-week games: It was a sloppy slog and both teams lost multiple players to potentially significant injuries. Colts running back Nyheim Hines exited in the first quarter with a concussion, and defensive end Kwity Paye was carted off the field with an ankle injury. Denver’s left tackle Garett Bolles, the team’s longest-tenured offensive player, suffered what appeared to be a significant ankle injury in the fourth quarter, and left the stadium in a cast. </p>
<p id="Qc6lEJ">The game featured 12 punts (seven by the Colts, five by the Broncos) and seven field goals (and the Broncos also had a field goal attempt blocked). Colts quarterback Matt Ryan was sacked six times, fumbled twice (though the Colts recovered both), and threw two interceptions, to bring his season total to seven in five games (it is worth noting that Carson Wentz threw seven interceptions in all of 2021.) At one point, a Broncos tight end, Andrew Beck, dropped a would-be touchdown pass and in doing so, somehow managed to kick the ball out of the end zone. The game’s referee, Brad Rogers, misidentified Indianapolis as “San Diego”—perhaps speaking for all of us that he was wishing to be anywhere else but in the middle of that game. It was the type of contest that probably has Amazon execs rethinking their reported $1 billion a year investment in exclusive Thursday night broadcast rights, especially with … [<em>checks notes</em>] … Commanders vs. Bears on next week’s calendar. But there will be no refunds, not for Amazon, and not for the Broncos, who have no immediate off-ramp from this horribly offensive offense. Wilson’s contract runs through 2028 and pays him an average of nearly $50 million per season. They’re all in on this ride with Wilson—and we’ll all watch them do it again in prime time in Week 6, on <em>Monday Night Football</em> against the Chargers. </p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="MCuBUo">Eventually, Wilson did climb out of that chair in front of his locker Thursday night, and made the short walk to the interview podium. He was subdued, at first, taking the blame for the loss and saying his two interceptions were inexcusable. As he spoke, though, he came back to life, as if the more he talked the more he could distance himself from the mess he left behind on the field. It was part filibuster, part motivational speech. “I’m looking forward to turning it around,” Wilson said. “When we do, it’s going to be a special story.” But with each passing week and uninspired offensive performance, it’s getting harder to believe in a happy ending.</p>
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https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/10/7/23392625/denver-broncos-russell-wilson-thursday-nightLindsay Jones2022-08-25T06:20:00-04:002022-08-25T06:20:00-04:00How the Rest of the AFC West Went All In to Catch the Chiefs
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<p>AFC West teams went wild this offseason, with blockbuster trades for Russell Wilson and Davante Adams, and a massive contract extension for Derwin James Jr. But will these moves be enough for the Broncos, Raiders, or Chargers to end the Chiefs’ reign atop the NFL’s deepest division?</p> <p id="NSCOhO"><em>NFL teams have spent the past six months reshaping their rosters and now, finally, the 2022 regular season is nearly upon us. But which teams have truly pushed all their pieces to the middle of the table and are ready to make a serious run to Super Bowl LVII? Welcome to </em>The Ringer<em>’s </em><a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/8/23/23318038/welcome-to-all-in-week-nfl-season-preview-rams-draft-picks"><em>All In Week</em></a><em>, where we’ll examine the quarterback moves, team-building philosophies, and gambles that teams have made to compete for a championship and determine what it truly means to be all in.</em></p>
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<p id="UzRajE">There’s new signage on the wall inside the main meeting room at Broncos headquarters. Twenty-one letters. Six words. <em>The Team. The Ball. The West.</em></p>
<p id="fvdg8A">Denver hasn’t been shy about its Super Bowl aspirations since <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/3/9/22968459/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-russell-wilson-trade">trading for Russell Wilson</a> back in March, but including “The West” on its literal vision board is far more telling about the franchise’s immediate goals. Before the Broncos can even dream about Lombardi, they need to contend with Mahomes, Herbert, and Carr to be competitive in the NFL’s toughest division. </p>
<p id="q5I4gZ">“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” said Broncos left tackle Garett Bolles of the AFC West, “but that’s what you look forward to. You want to come out of a division like this and go into the playoffs, because you know you’re battle tested and ready to roll. I can tell you this, one of these teams in the AFC West will probably win the Super Bowl because of the caliber of teams we have here. I’m not saying the rest of the league isn’t great, I’m just saying our division is, from top to bottom, stacked at all positions and all aspects of the game.”</p>
<p id="b3AO1e">The Broncos might be all in on Wilson—indeed, <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/8/22/23315892/all-in-los-angeles-rams-denver-broncos-russell-wilson-matthew-stafford-cleveland-browns">Denver ranks second on <em>The Ringer</em>’s All In-dex</a>—but they’re hardly alone. The AFC West is, by far, the most all in division in the NFL, with the Chargers (seventh) and Raiders (eighth) joining the Broncos in the top 10 of our rankings. The Chiefs rank significantly lower at no. 24, but that’s a function of (a) the security that comes with a six-year reign as division champions; (b) the Tyreek Hill trade, which bolstered their draft chest; and (c) a two-year-old contract for Mahomes that, while massive, looks like a relative bargain now as inflation hits the rest of the quarterback market. (Three quarterbacks have a higher average salary than Mahomes, and eight passers have more money fully guaranteed in their deals.) </p>
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<p id="q0kbaw"><br>The Chiefs are 20-4 in the AFC West since Mahomes took over as the starter in 2018, and are 31-5 since 2016. They’ve defeated the Broncos 13 straight times (Denver’s last win in the series was in Week 2 of the 2015 season, when Peyton Manning was still the quarterback) and have won eight of their past nine games against the Raiders (and outscored the Raiders 89-23 in two games last year). Only the Chargers have proved to be remotely competitive with Kansas City, splitting their season series each of the past two seasons, and yet the Chargers still finished third in the division last year. Mahomes is, without question, King of the West. </p>
<p id="qe6yxd">So the Chargers, Raiders, and Broncos had no choice <em>but</em> to spend this year, highlighted by a combination of big-name trades and big-money extensions. It’s like the division’s GMs decided at the same time they couldn’t allow the Chiefs to build a divisional dynasty in the West the way the Patriots did in the AFC East for most of two decades. The Patriots won 16 of 17 AFC East titles between 2003 and 2019; the only season they did not claim the division title was 2008, when Tom Brady missed most of the season with a torn ACL.</p>
<p id="3SadkN">Sure, New England’s AFC East rivals could argue they <em>tried</em> to compete, but the truth is they just stunk at it. If you’re going to try to take down the best quarterback–head coach duo of all time, you’re going to need better options than Mark Sanchez or Ryan Tannehill or journeyman Ryan Fitzpatrick (who played for all three non-Patriots AFC East teams) or, God forbid, J.P. Losman or E.J. Manuel. Bill Belichick and Brady deserve the bulk of the credit for the Patriots’ sustained success, but the rest of the division’s decade-plus of futility deserves at least an honorable mention.</p>
<p id="IPTc0E">This brings us back to the AFC West. Earlier this year, Broncos GM George Paton told me it felt like he was in an arms race with his division rivals. His team’s trade for Wilson was almost immediately followed by <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/8/5/23292258/brandon-staley-los-angeles-chargers-run-defense-2022-sebastian-joseph-day-khalil-mack">the Chargers’ trade for Khalil Mack</a> and <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/3/18/22984841/davante-adams-trade-raiders-packers">the Raiders’ blockbuster for Davante Adams</a>. And within the first few days of free agency opening in March, the Chargers added the top available cornerback in J.C. Jackson and the Raiders signed veteran pass rusher Chandler Jones. It was a dizzying display of wheeling and dealing, and by the time the Chiefs made the stunning decision to trade away Hill on March 23, the landscape of the division had changed completely. The rest of the AFC West was officially all in to chase down the Chiefs.</p>
<p id="p7M8IT">The Broncos, Chargers, and Raiders are all in, albeit in different ways. The commonality is they’re all doing it to catch—and maybe, if it works out, pass—the Chiefs. Let’s look at the three AFC West challengers, how they went all in, and why.</p>
<h4 id="NjB0rt">Denver Broncos: All the Way In </h4>
<p id="uT5OBq">Denver’s moves were born out of desperation, and a lack of relevance not just in the NFL, but in its own division, since Manning retired after the Broncos won Super Bowl 50. The Broncos have cycled through a rotation of mediocre quarterbacks and head coaches ever since—Nathaniel Hackett is the Broncos’ third head coach since 2017—and kicker Brandon McManus is the only remaining Broncos player who has ever beaten the Chiefs. The Broncos have won just two total division games in the past two years, both against the Chargers. It was time for Paton, who replaced John Elway in 2021, to do something different. The Wilson trade seemingly came out of nowhere; Paton had kept his pursuit of Wilson secret while speculation was rampant that the Broncos would make a hard run at Aaron Rodgers. </p>
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<p id="5BONc2">The cost to acquire Wilson was significant: five draft picks (two first-rounders, two second-rounders, and a fifth), plus three players (tight end Noah Fant, defensive tackle Shelby Harris, and quarterback Drew Lock), but it was a bargain compared to the cost of continued irrelevancy. The Wilson trade pushed the Broncos nearly to the top of the All In-dex (and the Broncos will likely remain near the top in 2023 if they give Wilson a new contract that’s in line with other top QB deals, somewhere in the range of $50 million per year). </p>
<p id="2UHZRK">The Broncos are betting big on their new 33-year-old quarterback and hoping the rest of the roster is good enough that simply adding a proven, high-end starting quarterback will enable them to close the gap with the rest of the division. The risk is that even if Wilson is a significant upgrade from Lock and Teddy Bridgewater, he still might be only the third-best quarterback in the division. Finishing third in a loaded AFC West might still be enough to make the playoffs this season, but Paton didn’t push all of his chips into the middle just to have to face the Bills or the Chiefs in the wild-card round.</p>
<h4 id="to4D7n">Las Vegas Raiders: Big Moves, but Big Questions Remain</h4>
<p id="uRVTXV">The Raiders’ all-in plan involved spending big on Davante Adams to give Derek Carr one of the most intriguing receiving groups in the NFL: a true elite no. 1 in Adams, a dynamic slot receiver in Hunter Renfrow, and tight end Darren Waller, who had back-to-back 1,110-yard receiving seasons in 2019 and 2020 when he was healthy. (Waller had just 55 catches and two touchdowns in 11 games last season.)</p>
<p id="3Ql7ek">The rub here is that while the other three teams in the division seemingly have long-term commitment to their quarterbacks—we’ll boldly assume that the Chargers and Broncos will sign Herbert and Wilson to extensions in the not-too-distant future—the Raiders are only loosely committed to Carr. He signed a three-year extension earlier this year, but the Raiders could cut him in February before his 2023 salary and his 2024 bonus become guaranteed. So, maybe Carr will wow new head coach Josh McDaniels this year and the Raiders offense will take off as Carr and Adams rekindle their collegiate connection. Or maybe McDaniels will decide Carr isn’t his guy and start looking for a different quarterback in the draft, free agency (hey, <a href="https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/34433136/dana-white-helped-broker-deal-tom-brady-play-las-vegas-raiders-2020-jon-gruden-nixed-deal-ufc-president-says">Tom Brady could be available once again</a>!), or via trade. </p>
<p id="f9eQ2M">The addition of Adams <em>should</em> make the Raiders offense more explosive and <em>should</em> help Carr make his case to stick around long term, but the question for the Raiders is whether they have done enough defensively to compete with the AFC West’s elite offenses, particularly the Chiefs’. The Raiders have beaten the Chiefs just once in the Mahomes era (a 40-32 win in 2020), and have given up at least 28 points to Kansas City each time they’ve played since 2018. That includes allowing the Chiefs to score 41 and 48 points in two games last season. The Raiders replaced defensive coordinator Gus Bradley with Patrick Graham, who was most recently defensive coordinator of the Giants and overlapped with McDaniels on Belichick’s staff in New England from 2012 to 2015. Jones, with his 107.5 career sacks, was the big addition this offseason, and paired with Maxx Crosby, who signed a four-year extension earlier this year, the Raiders should have their best pass rush since Khalil Mack was traded away in 2018. But outside of those two pass rushers, the Raiders haven’t spent big on defense, and it shows in the All In-dex, where they rank 21st in spending. </p>
<h4 id="pi124b">Los Angeles Chargers: Spending Big to Help Justin Herbert</h4>
<p id="OKjyZh">The Chargers, meanwhile, are the only team in the division with a starting quarterback still on a rookie contract, which has given GM Tom Telesco freedom to go all in to another degree than his peers. The Chargers haven’t had to give up major draft assets for a quarterback like the Broncos did, or look outside for a receiver, like the Raiders did. Instead, Telesco chose to re-sign former first-round receiver Mike Williams this spring, and now the Chargers have two homegrown receivers (along with Keenan Allen) making an average salary of about $20 million per year. They have used first-round picks on offensive linemen in back-to-back drafts (left tackle Rashawn Slater in 2021 and right guard Zion Johnson in 2022), selections that have allowed them to spend their money elsewhere. And boy, are they.</p>
<p id="Q1OYw6">After signing safety Derwin James Jr. to a new contract last week that will make him the league’s highest-paid safety, the Chargers are now the no. 1 in spending, according to the All In-dex’s accounting. The Chargers are paying at or near the top of the market for James, pass rusher Joey Bosa, and Jackson, and yet it doesn’t feel like irresponsible spending. Even the trade for Mack, which cost just a 2022 second-round pick and a 2023 sixth, seems like decent value for an aging but potentially still elite defender. </p>
<p id="Qx5GfV">The Chargers look like a team that knows what it has in Herbert—an ascending elite talent—and knew they needed a better and more complete team around him. Catching the Chiefs seems like an attainable goal. The Chargers have beaten the Chiefs once in each of the past two seasons, and nearly swept Kansas City last season—losing the second game 34-28 in overtime.</p>
<p class="c-end-para" id="QCcB62">All of these moves around the division have not gone unnoticed in Kansas City. Earlier this month, Chiefs GM <a href="https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/8/8/23296247/patrick-mahomes-kansas-city-chiefs-andy-reid-tyreek-hill">Brett Veach spoke to <em>The Ringer</em>’s Kevin Clark</a> about how the dynamics in the West have changed; other teams have resources to spend in ways the Chiefs did not. (Kansas City has Mahomes, tight end Travis Kelce, and defensive tackle Chris Jones on big deals, and traded Hill away rather than signing him to a massive receiver contract. They replaced him with JuJu Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who cost less than $8 million against the Chiefs’ salary cap this year combined.) Veach acknowledged that the Chiefs “have a target on our back” after reigning for so long. Indeed, the rest of the West is taking aim, and showing us through their trades, spending, and inspirational signage.</p>
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https://www.theringer.com/2022/8/25/23320816/afc-west-broncos-raiders-chargers-chiefs-russell-wilson-patrick-mahomes-justin-herbert-derek-carrLindsay Jones