NFL 2021: The Super Bowl thread

Lovie's a bold choice; considering how attentive he was as the Bucs' coach some years back, I'd just figured he'd died on the sideline and nobody had bothered to move him.

Packers are supposedly going to hire Rich Bisaccia as their ST coach.

I feel like ST isn't exactly a coaching role where you can get your guys to perform higher than average. If anything it's setting the floor and don't f*ck up like the.... 2021 Packers ST unit.

Not sure why they didn't address this last year. The brain trust seems to only address the big elephants in the room after they poop all over the place. The previous obvious one was not addressing DC.

Supposedly the Texans are still interested in Josh McCown, just not as head coach.

Could be for offensive coordinator, depending on what happens with Pep Hamilton. He was QB coach last year (and did a good job getting more out of Davis Mills than anyone expected), and before that he was QB coach for Justin Herbert's rookie year on the Chargers.

Houston is expected to offer Hamilton the OC job, but Hamilton also is being pursued by the Jaguars, who have requested an interview. And there's even talk that the 49ers might be interested in him, given his work with Anthony Lynn on the Chargers staff, though no actual movement on that front so far.

If Hamilton stays in Houston, then McCown probably would be in line to take the QB coach spot Pep's vacating.

*Legion* wrote:

Supposedly the Texans are still interested in Josh McCown, just not as head coach.

Could be for offensive coordinator, depending on what happens with Pep Hamilton. He was QB coach last year (and did a good job getting more out of Davis Mills than anyone expected), and before that he was QB coach for Justin Herbert's rookie year on the Chargers.

Houston is expected to offer Hamilton the OC job, but Hamilton also is being pursued by the Jaguars, who have requested an interview. And there's even talk that the 49ers might be interested in him, given his work with Anthony Lynn on the Chargers staff, though no actual movement on that front so far.

If Hamilton stays in Houston, then McCown probably would be in line to take the QB coach spot Pep's vacating.

I could see McCown as OC or QBC/AHC. And then promoted to HC as soon as the heat is off even slightly someone decides Lovie didn't win enough games.

Spoiler:

Or won too many games and was a poor culture fit.

It really does feel like the Texans felt they couldn't pull the trigger on McCown as head coach because no other team was willing to treat him like a candidate.

But I'm done trying to unpack Easterby logic.

Isn't one of the claims that POC are hired to oversee rebuilds/garbage teams? If so, wouldn't this move by Pastor Easterby make sense?

Top_Shelf wrote:

Isn't one of the claims that POC are hired to oversee rebuilds/garbage teams? If so, wouldn't this move by Pastor Easterby make sense?

Bomani Jones makes a point about this on today's Right Time pod. Essentially, for once make the white guy take the rebuilding Ls until you get on track to do a real search.

So it looks like the Texans have hired Lovie Smith to be HC in another full on tank year. I suspect he will last exactly one year which should be just long enough to ditch Deshaun from the books, gather some draft capital, and build the bones of a reasonably good team. Then we will have a white coach in Houston again.

Paleocon wrote:

Then we will have a white coach in Houston again.

Somewhere in HOU:

Once more the [Whites] will rule the [league] and we will have...peace.

Them: "See, there's no problem in hiring diversity in the NFL!"

Them a year from now: "Well, you see, this is why you don't hire for diversity."

*Legion* wrote:

Mere hours after playing in a Pro Bowl that he did not remotely deserve being voted into, Alvin Kamara was arrested for "battery resulting in substantial bodily harm", following an incident at a Las Vegas Strip nightclub. Maybe someone told him his 3.7 yards per carry this season was crap and didn't belong in the Pro Bowl...

Usually these things happen late into the night, but Kamara got the police called on him at 5:50pm, when Vegas had barely gotten dark.

Looks like early reports were a bit off. He was arrested after the game for an incident where he and his crew beat the crap out of a guy trying to get on the elevator with them leaving a casino on Saturday morning. Video shows him punching the dude 8 times and others kicking him unconscious on the ground. Not going to end well for him.

Hope he didn't have any big plans for Kamara...

Pep Hamilton stays in Houston and takes the OC job.

Jaguars hire Mike McCoy as QB coach. McCoy apparently was roommates with Doug Pederson in Green Bay in 1995.

*Legion* wrote:

Hope he didn't have any big plans for Kamara...

Put him in a Watson trade.

Should Alvin Kamara be banned like Ray Rice was?

By all objective measures, his assault was far more brutal and was largely unprovoked.

Paleocon wrote:

Should Alvin Kamara be banned like Ray Rice was?

By all objective measures, his assault was far more brutal and was largely unprovoked.

Banned? He was suspended for two games. Now, if TMZ gets a hold of the tapes of Kamara's beating, that's a whole different story.

And Kareem Hunt and Tyreek Hill are still NFL players so if I had to bet, I'd say he plays again.

Paleocon wrote:

Should Alvin Kamara be banned like Ray Rice was?

Yes.

Will he? Nope.

Kyler Murray has apparently unfollowed the Cardinals from his social media accounts, and also deleted all photos and references to the Cardinals from them. He has changed his Twitter icon to one of him in his Oklahoma uniform.

Kyler's entering the final year of his contract, though he has a 5th year option that the Cardinals have yet to exercise. They have until May to do so. Kyler making the Pro Bowl makes that option year more expensive, raising it to $28 million. That's still a lot less than Kyler's annual average would be on a new contract.

I'm guessing the Cardinals are considering exercising the 2023 option and having Kyler play out the next two years that way, rather than giving him the contract extension that he's now eligible for. And I'm guessing Kyler is expressing his displeasure at that.

USA Today ranks the head coaching hires, and puts Doug Pederson at #1.

OK, sure, I don't necessarily disagree, but... do a worst GM non-firings list now. Look at that, #1 again!

If you want to geek out on special teams, here's a Twitter thread from a guy who created the XFL rules, including a new kickoff format that's supposed to reduce injuries.

I mention it only bc the NFL floated of making major changes to special teams to reduce injuries, which are rampant.

There's an example of the XFL's kickoffs in the thread above. Here's another.

Funny, I remember when the XFL was trying to cause more injuries than the NFL.

I think any solution to the kickoff problem needs to also come with a solution to the punt play problem, and that there ideally should be some sort of congruence between the two.

Kickoffs let you set the starting position of both sides at whatever yard lines you want, but punts are a lot harder to work with.

I agree that if you only change the kickoff and not the punt you don't even solve half the problem because the punt is the most dangerous play of the two. However, I don't necessarily think there needs to be a congruence between the two. There's no intrinsic reason why they have to be similar. If a change reduces injuries by making those two plays more different from each other, then so be it. I think it's worth it.

That said, maybe they could apply a similar principle by making the coverage team start, say, 25 yards in front of the punter and not get a head start. A typical punt travels 40 to 50 yards so that puts you much closer to the returner. It is definitely more complicated, though. Punters would care much less about hang time in this case so they'd be incented to kick a lower and longer punt and that increases the distance between the returner and the coverage. You can then put the coverage 30 yards in front of the punter instead of 25 but you're creating a bigger incentive to punt instead of going for 4th downs and that sucks. I also think fake punts would be a bigger loss for the game than surprise onside kicks because they happen much more often (I believe so, I don't have stats).

*Legion* wrote:

punts are a lot harder to work with.

Here's an idea: All punts should be fair caught (or not touched). A muffed kick will be considered a knock on (rugby style!) and the kicking team gets the ball back.

If there's no incentive to set up a return, maybe then the receiving team try to block the kick like god and George Halas intended.

Pink Stripes wrote:

There's no intrinsic reason why they have to be similar.

Not strictly speaking, no, but if you're making radical changes to the kicking game, I think it'll be easier to get buy-in if there's some level of consistency.

Like, if you came up with a really outside-the-box creative solution for one, and then you basically eliminated the other play, I think that would meet more resistance.

Enix wrote:

Here's an idea: All punts should be fair caught (or not touched). A muffed kick will be considered a knock on (rugby style!) and the kicking team gets the ball back.

If there's no incentive to set up a return, maybe then the receiving team try to block the kick like god and George Halas intended.

My idea for the punt is basically the exact opposite of yours. I suggest turning punts into free kicks, like the post-safety kickoffs, but with a similar alignment of players as the XFL kickoff.

Have the punter perform the free kick from 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Line the kicking team defenders up 20 yards past the line of scrimmage, and the return team blockers 30 yards past the line of scrimmage. Punts generally go about 45-50 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, so the returner will be fielding the kick about 15-20 yards behind the blockers, pretty much like the XFL kickoff.

I'm for removing all STs. I don't care that we just got a new coach that might be pretty decent.

ST is a variable of randomness I do not need in my life.

I think it means Judge will be offensive coordinator but not in name.

I saw this report that says they might not hire an OC at all this year.

I'm guessing Judge will serve an OC-like role this year, and if he does well enough, he'll get the OC title next year.

*Legion* wrote:

My idea for the punt is basically the exact opposite of yours.

I say we line our proposals up on opposite 20 yard lines and have them run full-tilt (and head-long) into each other and settle this thing once and for all.