Kit Talks (At Length) About Football

Professional Football in America is a special game, a unique game. Played nowhere else on earth, it is a rare game. The men who play it make it so.

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Oakland Raiders

Last Year: A year full of promise disintegrated into the fourteenth non-winning season in the last fifteen and Jack Del Rio was sent packing. Disappointing as it was, it didn’t feel like a “rip it up and start again” season.

The Coach: “WELL MIKE THE MAN OF THE HOUR IS OL’ CHUCKY HIMSELF JON GRUDEN, WHO WAS LAST A COACH IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND HAS BEEN EARNING QUITE A LIVING MAKING A MEME OF HIMSELF ON MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL WITH HIS ENTHUSIASM OVER EVERY LIVING QUARTERBACK AND HIS TENDENCY TO BESTOW NICKNAMES THAT AREN’T MUCH OF AN IMPROVEMENT OVER THE ACTUAL NAME, AND NOW HE’S BACK BABY, WITH AN UNHEARD OF 10 YEAR 100 MILLION DOLLAR CONTRACT, OL GRUDEN’S BACK AND READY TO PUT TOGETHER A TEAM OF GRINDERS TO MAKE ALL THE OTHER TEAMS LOOK LIKE REGULAR SANDWICHES, MIKE”

The Quarterback: Derek Carr took a long dip in his perception and ceiling with a year that saw him almost exactly at league average and with the highest INT rate of his career, but considering the offseason leg injury he did pretty well, much better than some other quarterbacks have done in similar circumstances.It’s perfectly likely that 2018 was a gatherstep before a true breakthrough this year, but the stability needed to make that happen WENT UP IN SMOKE, MIKE.

What’s New:  I was prepared to hail Khalil Mack as the lone bright spot on a spotty defense, but then news broke and GUESS WHAT MIKE, NO MORE BRIGHT SPOTS, WE’RE THE RAIDERS ANYWHERE WE’RE ALL ABOUT WEARING BLACK SO WHO NEEDS A BRIGHT SPOT. WE TRADED A PLAYER IN HIS PRIME AT THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT POSITION BECAUSED HELL I’M LOCKED IN NO MATTER WHAT SO LET’S HAVE SOME FUN, I GOT THESE SPECIAL DICE, THEY’RE LIKE THOSE SEX DICE BUT THEY’RE FOOTBALL DICE, ONEOF THE DICES HAS GOT VERBS AND THE OTHER POSITIONS, ROLL THEM IT SAYS TRADE FOR RECEIVER, ROLL EM AGAIN IT SAYS CUT RECEIVER, AND YOU JUST DO WHAT THE DICE SAY, IT’S THE MOST FUN I’VE EVER HAD MIKE, AND THAT’S HOW WE BOTH HAD AND LOST MARTAVIS BRYANT BEFORE THE SEASON EVEN STARTED.

This Year: This is going to be the most fun a disaster has been since Airplane. Sister, may I borrow your guitar? 4-12

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Los Angeles Chargers

Last Year: A miserable 0-4 jump out the blocks meant that whenever the Chargers hit stride would be too late, but it’s worth mentioning that they did eventually hit stride, finishing 9-7. The tiebreakers didn’t break how they would have liked but they would have been a more interesting team in the playoffs than the Bills were.

The Coach: Anthony Lynn is still a cypher, still someone you can read whatever hopes you want into. Meaningful tendencies have not been established. Feuds or pet projects are not yet evident. Anthony Lynn in year two is still whatever you want him to be. 

The Quarterback: Father to a village Phillip Rivers. Rivers has been cursed by history to be better than Eli Manning and yet have much less to show for it, in careers that started at the same draft and have continued since. Rivers has been on better teams, had better seasons with better teammates, and never even been to the Super Bowl. These stupid accidents of history happen all the time in games with 53 man rosters with an oblong ball that bounces in an unpredictable fashion. I say Phillip Rivers is a Hall of Famer, and I say Eli Manning is not, and I am the sports pope and my word is fiat.

What’s New: San Diego was actually a strong well rounded team last year; they found themselves undone by the dumbest and least essential part of the game, kicking. Their first two losses swung upon misses by kicker Younghoe Koo, who was cut after week two, and after that injuries and continued ineffectual play meant that four different players lined up to try field goals for the Chargers, and made them at a clip of two-thirds of the time, rock bottom in the league with a gaps of about 6%. Just two good kicks swing them from 9-7 and home in January to 11-5 and a division champion. Hopefully Caleb Sturgis is the answer to football’s lamest question.

This Year: The Chargers have it in them to challenge in an unstable division. Bad luck has dogged this franchise since birth, but as the IRA said to Margaret Thatcher, we only have to be lucky once. 11-5

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Kansas City Chiefs

Last Year: A hot start slid backward into a just alright season, and then in a microcosm of that they lost a playoff game they should have won to the Titans.

The Coach: Andy Reid is the best coach in the league Tuesday through Saturday. He’s stayed ahead of the curve on offensive creativity for close to two decades. He’s had half a decade of success with his second team, which is frankly rare for head coaches with a second stop on their work history. But something odd just seems to happen on Sundays and Mondays; bad challenges inscrutable timeouts, ten minute two-minute drills. Clock management is the one thing every fan thinks they can do, since they do it in Madden all the time, so it takes on disproportionate importance in their eyes. And Reid remains a great coach with a borderline HOF resume even with this flaw, but gosh it’s such a baffling flaw. How does that happen, that someone is so great at the hard and invisible things and so bad at the easy public things?

The Quarterback: Alex Smith is gone in a trade, and second-year player Pat Mahomes is ready. Mahomes is a fantastic prospect with a great arm that everybody was high on, but this transition was a sudden one. Alex Smith was traded to Washington with no fanfare, and no one is exactly attached to Alex Smith as a franchise cornerstone, but we were just caught by surprise is all. Mahomes has gotten a little press for throwing interceptions in practice, but Reid has been supportive, saying he wants a quarterback that takes risks. Sounds like he was sicker of Alex Smith than we could have guessed from the outside.

What’s New: The biggest problem with the Chiefs was a defense that could bail itself out occasionally but too often found its back to be wall-adjacent. Corner Kendall Fuller comes over from Washington in the Smith trade and will fit in as an aggressive slot corner. They’re also counting on Eric Berry to be back from an Achilles injury, which, gotta be easier than cancer, right? 

This Year: The Chiefs took a big risk in their quarterback switch and defensive reshuffle, but they chose a good year for it, with their rivals in complete disarray. 10-6

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Denver Broncos

Last Year: The end came suddenly for the No-Fly-Zone, as a putrid offense meant that a slide from first to only tenth was enough to consign the Broncos to the basement of the AFC West.

The Coach: Vance Joseph. There’s a lot of folks who have been hoping for sports to have a reckoning of the Me Too sort, and they’ve been scrutinizing players, looking for the breakthrough case. But the thing that makes predation of that sort easy and terrifying is the added element of power. For that reason, we should instead look at the record of coaches. Specifically, the record of Vance Joseph, who left his position as a positional coach at the University of Colorado under a cloud of scandal both general and specific. The program was alleged to be using sex and sex workers and recruitment visit enticements, and Vance Joseph was alleged to have harassed several young student athletic trainers. It hasn’t affected his career trajectory by even a degree of arc. It’s an unfortunate sausage-making aspect of social progress that the right victim and the right villain have to be picked for progress to start, but a bad coach who might be fired anyway is likely the right villain.

The Quarterback: GM John Elway considers himself the most qualified person to determine who is most John Elway-like, but the empirical evidence is not bearing him out. First-round pick Paxton Lynch was cut. Rickety journeyman Case Keenum is due to turn back into a pumpkin any minute now. And Chad “Swag” Kelly, seventh round shot in the dark, has gotten just enough positive preseason momentum to get the opportunity to do something monumentally dumb in a game that counts. You, who probably don’t watch Ole Miss games because you don’t have an addiction, are about to find out what I and many others know. If Chad Kelly was any dumber they’d have to water him twice a day.

What’s New: The Denver defense was still admirable and high-performing, allowing the third fewest yards in the league, but they were constantly put in bad positions by the offense. Denver opponents had the best average starting field position on their drives last year. It doesn’t matter how good the defense is if the field is short enough. Bradley Chubb was added in the draft and he was the consensus best pass rusher in the pool, and will make a nice bookmark to Von Miller. The secondary is weaker without Aqib Talib, but Bradley Roby and Chris Harris are still formidable enough on their own. The running game is still a mess and rookie Royce Freeman is unlikely to solve anything.

This Year: Nobody wants to be the man to fire John Elway, but two straight years of a bad team with the same set of problems could ensure that this is the year that it becomes necessary. 6-10

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Seattle Seahawks

Last Year: Russell Wilson ran for his life, injuries neutralized the defense, and the fabled Legion of Boom went out not with a bang but with a whimper.

The Coach: Pete Carroll used to be beloved by the hip internet set but the shine is coming off that apple. It started when he traded the outspoken Michael Bennett for a fifth round pick. His refusal to fix chronic problems on the Seahawks is becoming impossible to ignore, and he invited the controversial idiot Jordan Peterson to speak to the team. I don’t know what fashie kermit the frog could possibly have to say to a lot of large, physically fit, young men who don’t need to be told to make their beds, but it’s easy to draw a line back to Pete’s stint as a 9/11 truther and wonder just how enlightened a guy Pete is.

The Quarterback: Mr. Ciara, Russell Wilson, an insistent small town kid from Richmond, Virginia. Russ is in the conversation for the best ever for throwing when on the run, which is fortunate, since a line made up of overpromoted bar bouncers and repurposed tight ends forced him to run for his life quite a bit. Wilson is a borderline Hall of Famer if he retires tomorrow, but no one does anything alone in football. 

What’s New: The Offensive line is being build back up, starting with grabbing guard D.J. Fluker from the Giants, and with firing OL coach and mad scientist Tom Cable. Cable was convinced he could make any player of sufficient size into a blind side left tackle, and was given world enough and time to fail over and over and over. He’s with the Raiders now. Darrell Bevell is also gone as offensive coordinator, replaced by Brian Schottenheimer, a West Coast specializing failson who likes bubble screens so much he tries to order them at bars. Richard Sherman is in San Francisco, Kam Chancellor retired, and Earl Thomas is still holding out. The legion of boom is officially gone. The Seahawks are hoping Donate Johnson and Shaquill Griffin can take up the mantle, but it’s very unlikely that nothing will be lost.

This Year: No stone will be left on top of another. There is nothing left for this Seahawks epoch to do except end. 6-10

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 San Francisco 49ers

Last Year: A miserable start was redeemed by a five game win streak to close the year at 6-10 and create a weird palpable buzz about this season.

The Coach: Kyle Shanahan, Mike’s son, who has a lot of frankly high profile failures in his past that get overlooked due to his last name. Meritocracy even in the most optimistic accounts is more of a goal than a reality, and nothing proves it faster than tracing the sons of coaches and coordinators through firing after firing. That said, Shanahan put together a great offense in Atlanta and seemed to find a groove late in the season.

The Quarterback: Jimmy Garoppolo was acquired in a rare blockbuster midseason trade. His first start was a win and his second pass was a touchdown. The fact he was available at all was a surprise and the product of an unstable environment in New England. San Francisco is certain they lucked into a franchise cornerstone, and immediately locked Garropolo up on a long-term deal. And while five games is too soon to know anything about anything, this is a speculative business, and the wildcatters don’t win often, but just enough to keep trying.

What’s New: An oddity to file under Ronnie Lott on the Jets or Ed Reed on the Texans, Richard Sherman is heading to the bay. After a season cut short by injury Seattle decided to move on, and his greatest rival decided to snap him up. Asking a veteran to come back from two achilles injuries is a large ask, and Sherman’s value might be in instruction and modeling for younger players instead of something a hundred percent on the field. It certainly does add an appeal to the Seahawks games that had been missing since the departure of Jim Harbaugh in 2014.

This Year: Unfortunately the Rams have already eclipsed this turnaround, which takes the division out of play, but the playoffs are a reasonable possibility. 9-7

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Los Angeles Rams

Last Year: The Rams stormed to a division title with an offense that nobody had an answer for but faded in the playoffs somewhat surprisingly.

The Coach: Whiz-kid Sean McVay. McVay became the youngest head coach in history last year, and proved superior to almost all the oldheads and greybeards he came across. The difference between the Rams under McVay and the Rams under Jeff Fisher, without a lot of roster turnover, was like a photographic narrative. Considering that he’s this good this young, McVay could be in LA for as long as he wants.

The Quarterback: Jared Goff looked like a monumental mistake after a rookie year in which his mittens were pinned to his jacket under Jeff Fisher’s scheme or scheme-adjacent substance, but he took a hop skip and leap in his second year and became a Pro Bowler. The nabobs around the league might call him a Frankenstein, a puppet controlled by McVay, who took advantage of a loophole in league rules and would talk Goff through presnap reads at the line of scrimmage through his radio. That still leave Goff responsible for the execution. Credit for what happens on the field is always at least 48% in the hands of the player.

What’s New: With a young and cheap offense, the Rams turned their attention toward building the Expendables on defense. Trades and signings brought in Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib, and Ndamukong Suh. These veterans are all talented, and all come with baggage. Peters once threw a referee’s flag into the stands. Talib likes gunplay a little too much and has strong opinions about whether or not certain receivers deserve to wear a chain. Suh has a list of incidents that’s eighty pages single spaced. This might not work, but there’s a strong chance it does, and if it does then the Rams are the prohibitive Super Bowl Favorites.

This Year: Count me among those who think it will work. And besides, Michael Crabtree didn’t deserve that chain at all. 13-3

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Arizona Cardinals

Last Year: An elite defense couldn’t pick up all the slack a wasteful and depleted offense left lying and the Cardinals slid into an anonymous 8-8 season.

The Coach: Bruce Arians retired after having a Cat’s In The Cradle moment with his 40 year old adult son, which is far, far too late to have that kind of moment. You can’t play catch when both of you have knees that are swollen and hurting.Nevertheless, moments of perspective should be treated like party guests; if you came late, I’m glad you came. His replacement is Steve Wilks, of late a defensive assitant in Carolina where he built acceptable secondaries out of substandard parts. There’s no strong read on how he’ll be as a head coach, but he’s clearly no dummy.

The Quarterback: Carson Palmer retired, and in a much too like-for-like move for my taste, the Cardinals replaced Palmer, a former number one overall pick with unfulfilled promise and clear talent but constant injury issues, with Sam Bradford, a former number one overall pick with unfulfilled promise and clear talent but constant injury issues. There’s one crackpot theory out there that human history is only about six to seven hundred years old, stretched out by the misinterpretation of the same early empire rising and falling under different names, and it’s clearly nonsense, but then again, sometimes you can squint and see where they got there.

What’s New: With the defense still in good shape, Arizona drafted toward building an offense. Bradford is the bridge quarterback for Josh Rosen, drafted out of UCLA with the tenth pick, but Rosen is not expected to see action immediately. Christian Kirk was a top-flight receiver out of Texas A&M, though a little short at 5′11. Larry Fitzgerald will be returning for his fifteenth season, and Kirk couldn’t ask for a better mentor. A healthy David Johnson at running back would also make a world of difference.

This Year: This is a year of transition on offense, but the defense will continue to keep everything close. 7-9

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 New York Jets

Last Year: A year that by rights should have been an unholy beatdown was just the regular kind of beatdown.

The Coach: Todd Bowles, who has done more with less than any coach, but when you have as little as New York has, that ends up looking not all that impressive. When you look at 20-28 and no playoffs over three years flatly and starkly, questioning why someone has that job is the natural next step. The tough situations he’s been in matter less over time. As Richard Nixon said, if you’re explaining you’re losing.

The Quarterback: The newest Quarterback of the Future has arrived in New York, and USC’s Sam Darnold was picked third overall and has some great college games on his resume, including a fantastic 2017 Rose Bowl against Penn State. The biggest knock on him is interception rate, but this is something about quarterbacking more people need to understand: scared money don’t make none. A quarterback needs to try to make the big play and they need to not be too down on themselves if it doesn’t work out. Darnold has shown enough in the preseason that planned caretaker/bridge Teddy Bridgewater was flipped to the Saints for a third round pick. Scared money don’t make none.

What’s New: Trumaine Johnson is the priciest acquisition the Jets made in the offseason. Paying for an average cornerback shows just how far the Jets secondary was from average. Johnson is a big guy who can press receivers at the line and will be a relief to the overmatched Morris Claiborne. Number one receivers had their biggest games on average against the Jets, with a mean of about 82 yards. 

This Year: I’ve been cautious and following conventional wisdom with the majority of my predictions so far, but in the writing of this I am reminded of a helpful maxim: scared money don’t make none. 9-7

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 New England Patriots

Last Year: The hulking, damage-laden, stalking Michael Myers of the league took a pickaxe to the eye in the Super Bowl, but we all know the rhythms of this series, and we are all waiting for them to get back up.

The Coach: This was the year that we finally heard palace intrigue about Bill Bellichick. He was overruled in a personnel matter and traded his backup quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo, to keep his star happy. It is the first decision Bill made to keep someone happy since he dressed up for a Halloween party at the gentle urging of Randy Moss. More former Patriots are coming out, calling Bellichick an “asshole” like Danny Amendola, saying they’d rather have more fun playing somewhere else. There also is the lingering questions about Malcolm Butler’s suspension on the eve of the Super Bowl, questions such as “what the hell?” and “why?” Questions that Bill Bellichick has not answered. Nothing in football ends happily, because if everyone was happy it wouldn’t end.

The Quarterback: Tom Brady insists that he’ll play until he’s 45, and part of that is his weird mysterious health guru Alex Guerrero, who tells Rom Brady to drink enough water to turn deserts into grasslands, and who was briefly banned from team premises last season. That has been overturned, and Brady refuses to answer the pointed questions about his Svengali, hanging up on local radio in the middle of interviews if they press him too much, and one of the greatest careers in NFL History sure is getting fucking weird.

What’s New: The Patriots benefit from being in the same division as Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe, but their team ended up in a lot of shootouts that they barely escaped from, and one key shootout they didn’t. The Patriots were 29th in yards allowed, and are addressing this piecemeal, filling their line with chess pieces like Adrian Clayborn and space fillers like Danny Shelton. It’s hard to see how this coheres into a solid front, and it’s hard to see how former Browns corner Jason McCourty helps a secondary that gave up the third-most yards through the air of any team. The league is finally, finally, finally, catching up with this team.

This Year: They say he never sleeps, Bill Bellichick. He is dancing, dancing. He says he will never die. 11-5

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Miami Dolphins

Last Year: With starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill downed in training camp, the Dolphins collectively gave up and went through the motions for a 6-10 year.

The Coach: Adam Gase had plenty of promise as a young coordinator, but in his second year as a head coach he came across an important test of his mettle, and he failed. Any leader needs to ask themselves, am I doing this because I think it is the right decision, or am I doing this to prove I am the leader? After a rough start where no one seemed to cohese, Gase traded running back Jay Ajayi to the Eagles. He did this, he said, to send a message. Ajayi ended up winning the Super Bowl. The message wasn’t one of “wake up.” The message is, “I am the boss, you are the worker. You will do as I say.” This is never the message a strong man sends. 

The Quarterback: With day rental Jay Cutler sulking back into retirement and reality show stardom, Ryan Tannehill is assured of returning to his starting position. Tannehill was, before the knee injuries, slighly above average and with the athleticism to occasionally impovise something special, but it’s been almost two years since he played a game so nobody knows if he’ll still have his full arsenal. Which, to restate, was a slightly above average arsenal. This isn’t the grand return of Randall Cunningham, or even Richie Cunningham.

What’s New: Immortal Frank Gore liked the idea of spending his last year in his home town, and signed with Miami, joining Kenyan Drake in the backfield. Jarvis Landry, leading receiver, was traded away. He was the only target Jay Cutler trusted, but with Cutler gone the receivers that remain can count on a more equal distribution. The biggest draft pickup was Free safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, who was an absolute steal at 11. His presence alone should help a defense that was average by yardage allowed but bottom quarter of the league by turnovers. Overpriced veteran N’Damukong Suh was traded, and veteran Robert Quinn was overpaid, to make sure there’s still someone everyone can complain about.

This Year: The Dolphins manage to always be in between awful and good, an amorphous middle class designation, and usually in the third year of a coach’s run, that turns to middle class desperation. 7-9

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Buffalo Bills

Last Year: The Bills, primarily behind a great rushing attack, made it to the postseason for the first time since 1999, and the fans gained some notoriety for doing hardcore wrestling stunts in the parking lot. Sidenote, why did the mid-90s follow the lead of ECW and not the superior similar-tiered Smoky Mountain Wrestling? Why are yall putting people through flaming tables instead of just watching the matches like civilized people? I digress.

The Coach: Sean McDermott had a pretty decent first year and will likely be given the benefit of the doubt even if this year gets crosseyed. But count me among the skeptics. If you bench your pro bowl starting quarterback for Nathan “The” Peterman, who then threw five interceptions in one half, I reserve the right to be skeptical about ever single thing you tell me after that. I would not believe you if your tongue was notarized. That one decision was that bad.

The Quarterback: Tyrod Taylor is gone, resented for reasons that are unclear by the fanbase he gave their first playoff birth in the new century, and his replacement, Josh Allen out of Wyoming, is a mess. It’s unclear why or how he was drafted as high as he was. His fans will point to his powerful arm, and the fact that he can throw it 80 yards in the air. There are absolutely no plays a quarterback can or needs to make where the ball needs to travel in the air for 80 yards. Those aren’t receivers in the stands, those are just people. I know the uniforms make it confusing, but just look for the scorch marks from the burning tables outside.

What’s New: The Bills will have to completely rebuild an offensive line that was the most functional single unit on last year’s team. Cordy Glenn was traded, Eric Wood retired, and Richie Incognito retired, un-retired, re-retired, intimated he wanted to run for public office, and then was arrested in Arizona on a guns-related charge. Some people can fit a month into a week. Russell Bodine from Cincinatti is likely a fine replacement for Wood at center, but Dion Dawkins will have to switch sides of the line to fill in for Glenn at left tackle. Everything depends on this going well, and even it does go well, there are still a lot of footballs in the first few rows.

This Year: A major course correction is coming to upstate new york. And someone please make sure that the fans never find out about W*ING or FMW. 5-11

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Washington [REDACTED]

Last Year: Washington sailed in the wide sea of mediocrity, where no tempest can toss you but there’s no land in the scope, and ended in a peaceful and easy 7-9, and none of those irritating January games that just cause strife.

The Coach: Jay Gruden, who looks like a bad imitation of his own brother.He coaches like his brother too, with a tendency to champion the mediocre. THat’s why Kirk Cousins, in his gradual quest from below average to above average, found himself with less and less support as he passed every benchmark. Gruden wants them good enough to execute his vision; if they’re better than good enough, then we have a new type of problem.

The Quarterback: After a long, expensive, and doomed engagement, Kirk Cousins is gone.His replacement, arranged for before the league year even started, is Alex Smith, late of Kansas City, who had a career rennaiscance there spearheaded by coach Andy Reid, who embraced Smith’s athletic ability in a way no one had since college. Jay Gruden is unlikely to take advantage of this in quite the same way. He perhaps is thinking of the other Alex Smith, the one who struggled for a very long time in San Franciscco. That’s the guy he wants, he like, he believes in.

What’s New: A list of the worst free agent decisions could hit 8 or 9 before you left Washington, and perhaps as a result the front office is now gunshy on the market. Smith was acquired in a trade, and the biggest free agent selection was probably outside linebacker Pernell McPhee. The draft produced Alabama nose tackle Da’Ron Payne, who is an exciting talent, but second round pick running back Derrius Guice is already out for the season with a torn ACL. Washington is counting on injured people returning to form, like tight end Jordan Reed, and on underperforming young talent suddenly making the jump, like receiver Josh Doctson. Neither is a high percentage play.

This Year: This team is so doggedly pursuing the exact league average that you’d think they’d get a trophy for it. 8-8.

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Philadelphia Eagles

Last Year: The Eagles won their first ever Super Bowl and possibly struck the death blow to the hated Patriots dynasty, although half of that sentence has been said before.

The Coach: Doug Pederson, second year coach and offensive wunderkind, an Andy Reid protege and longtime collaborator going back 20 years to when he was a backup on the Packers, who’s already surpassed hiss mentor. He did so through audacity, daring, and trickery, the most important thing for a coach to have. The last coach to win a title in his second year was Mike Tomlin, and he started with a lot more in the cupboard than Pederson did. We might be in on the ground floor on something.

The Quarterback: Carson Wentz took a big step forward last year in his second year, but then he took one step too many and had a serious knee injury. He still has not returned to throwing, though he will be the presumptive starter the minute he’s ready. Nick Foles will start the season, after a postseason beyond what anyone judged him capable of after he flamed out of stops at the Chiefs and Rams. The preseason hasn’t looked as rosy, but we are all rational beings who have seen more than one season of football so we know to put as little stock into the preseason as possible.

What’s New: Instead of standing pat, which most champions are perfectly satisfied to do, the Eagles have been particularly aggressive trying to upgrade their team, trading with the Seahawks to acquire superstar pass rusher Michael Bennett. Bennett and tackle Halotis Ngata add depth to what was already the stregnth of a top five defense--the front four. There was some concern about coordinator brain drain, as both Frank Reich and Quarterbacks coach John DeFillippo left to take promotions elsewhere, but wide receivers coach Mike Groh takes over, and was responsible for the rehabilitation of Nelson Aghlahor, one of the worst rookie receivers I’ve seen, into a productive member of a great offense.

This Year: This team fought to get better and benefits from a weak division, but there are three NFC teams roughly on the same level. The regular season will be relatively simple; everyone is counting down to the kaiju battle in the playoffs. 12-4. 

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 New York Giants

Last Year: Oh, what a mess. The Giants lost their best player to injury in late September, their secondary was openly feuding with each other, the coach announced he was benching Eli Manning, changed his mind, then got fired anyway. Their 3-13 record was the worst since 1983′s 3-12-1 campaign.

The Coach: Ben McAdoo, who was briefly the equivalent of Monet’s lilies to the degenerates who play the Dan LeBatard Show’s “Looks Like Game”, didn’t even finish last season. Replacing him is Pat Shurmur, whose last head coaching gig with Cleveland was a failure, but it was within the normal and understood boundaries of failure, not the Brughel wood etching of the last two years of Cleveland. He’ll have to deal with a secondary that was out and out calling each other cancers last year.

The Quarterback: Eli Manning is having his career prolonged and propped up like a bank deemed too big to fail. His decline is a flat and obvious fact and New York doesn’t even really like him all that much, but all the same they’re very protective. It’s a high school dynamic, one not often portrayed, but one I’ve seen; the jocks have all adopted the nerd. He is theirs, he belongs to them, and they can take whatever liberties they like with him, but you can’t. It’s hard to double as the quarterback and the mascot, and that’s what Eli has done.

What’s New: New GM Dave Gettleman has made a lot of odd moves. With a coach that has a proven passing system, Gettleman invested draft resources into the running game by picking Saquon Barkley. Saquon is great, and the rushing attack was non-existent last year, but some people were aghast at taking a running back number two. He also is in no hurry to establish a secession plan for Eli, saying he thinks Eli has at least five more years in him. I don’t know we can say that about the world itself, much less any particular player. New defensive coordinator Paul Bettcher has deployed the usual bromides and cliches about aggressiveness, but he is actually borne out by data. His Cardinals team blitzed a great deal, and will be a polar change from the old Steve Spagnulo defense who preferred to get pressure with four.

This Year: The much-needed remodeling of the Giants’ house is starting with the bathroom, which is odd since the whole thing burned down. Things will be better but not by enough. 5-11

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Dallas Cowboys

Last Year:  Early promise petered out in a 9-7 campaign, and owner Jerry Jones committed himself to showing his bare ass in every combination of circumstances. Jones confidently stated Ezekiel Elliott would not be suspended, and took Elliot’s eventual actual suspension as a personal insult. He kneeled with his players in a transparent grab for the camera’s eye, and then immediately turned against the idea of players protesting. He tried to sabotage Roger Goodell’s contract extension talks and didn’t let something like not actually being on the committee in charge of negotiations stop him. He was unsuccessful, but it’s plausible that Jones considers headlines a better measure of success than the games itself, so he is likely very happy with last year.

The Coach: Insufferable toady Jason Garrett, a man with twice as many faces as gameplans, who is entrenched as coach for life because he puts the right amount of emphasis in the sir in saying yes sir to everything Jerry Jones says. Garrett’s emasculation is to such a degree that Jerry answers questions about gameplans and starters, not Jason Garrett, the nominal coach. There is, it would seem, no level of disrespect that would make Jason Garrett uncomfortable, a feat that makes him stronger and weaker at the same time. 

The Quarterback: Dak Prescott went through something of a sophomore slump last year. This was predictable, based on his supporting cast degrading, and some of his rookie successes were not sustainable. Dak’s interception rate, for example, jumped up to 2.7%, but he simply wasn’t going to duplicate 2016′s 0.9% clip. Only nine players have had a sub-1 percent rate, and only Tom Brady has done it twice. Prescott may be due for another bounce up, and he may regress further due to things beyond his control. But those declaring him done or overrated are being premature.

What’s New: Dez Bryant is out and made certain to burn every bridge behind him as he left. Jason Witten retired. The plan to replace Dez Bryant was to sign Tavon Austin from the Rams and say publicly that you wanted Austin to get ten to fifteen touches a game, which sounds like a horror movie to anyone who has watched Tavon Austin play. He’s fast but he has no physical presence and couldn’t catch water in the shower. The plan to replace Witten was to beg him to come back until June and then do nothing. The new tight end will either be blocker Geoff Swaim or preseason urban legend Rico Gathers, a former Baylor basketball player who has never played a snap of regular season action.

This Year: Jerry Jones will finally succeed in something and get his own branded cable channel. As for the games, well, which games are those again? 6-10

[kittalksaboutfootball]

2018 Tennessee Titans

Last Year: It’s difficult to classify last year’s Titans season. On the one hand, how can any playoff year be considered bad, but on the other hand, did you watch that team? After a stirring comeback against the Chiefs, the Titans were pounded and kneaded into pretzel dough by the Patriots.

The Coach: Mike Vrabel is here from Houston, where his one year as coordinator was remarkably bad but he can fall back on injury as an excuse. Defense was not nessecarily the problem in Tennessee last year. While not great, they were firmly in the middle of the pack. The problem was an outdated and constipated offense, and while Vrabel has the inborn advantage of every new coach, “not being the old guy,” but it’s not clear what type of guy he is at this point.

The Quarterback: Marcus Mariota, who stands now at the crossroads of an enormous precipice. Mariota has yet to have a season that fully justifies his number two position in the 2015 draft, and last year regressed heavily, throwing only 13 touchdowns. There are plenty of explanations: he was playing in a scheme suited to the exact opposite of him, his weapons are negligible, his coach was a relic from another time. But he’s coming up to the end of his rookie contract. This is the last year that it costs nothing to believe explanations. You can’t trade on potential your whole life.

What’s New: New offensive coordiator Matt Lafluer has a lot of hipster cred behind him, as the quarterbacks’ coach during Matt Ryan’s MVP year and the offensive coordinator for last year’s breakout Los Angeles Rams, but in both cases he was the lieutenant for a much more prominent ideas man. Time will tell how he stands on his own. In the backfield Demarco Murray announced his retirement three years after his body language announced it for him, leaving Derrick Henry and newcomer Dion Lewis. 19% of Henry’s rushing total last year came on two runs. Malcolm Butler is the biggest addition to a leaky and patchy secondary, and still won’t talk about why he was suspended from the Super Bowl.

This Year:  A lot of changes were made in a noisy fashion, but as the echoes die down this looks like more of the same. 6-10