Month: March 2018

Tom Coughlin won two Super Bowl rings with the New York Giants by twice beating New England with a tenacious defense and a quarterback (Eli Manning) who twice piloted game-winning drives late in the fourth quarter.

When Coughlin, fired by the Giants as head coach two years ago, was hired by Jacksonville owner Shad Khan to run the Jaguars last year, he addressed the defense.

He signed three defensive starters in free agency to upgrade his defense into one of the best in the league.

Coughlin, though, did not address the quarterback situation and didn’t bring in one in free agency or the draft to challenge Blake Bortles or even to replace Chad Henne as the backup.

Instead, he decided he needed to bolster the running game to help Bortles and drafted running back Leonard Fournette instead of quarterback DeShaun Watson in the first round and took left tackle Cam Robinson with his second pick.

Continue reading “Doubling down on Bortles was the wrong move in Jacksonville”

When a player negotiates his own deal without an agent, there are always questions whether a team took advantage of his lack of negotiating experience.

So it wasn’t surprising that Richard Sherman was knocked – notably on Pro Football Talk – for negotiating an incentive-laden contract with the San Francisco 49ers.

Even after Sherman told Peter King of The MMQB that the Seattle Seahawks and Detroit Lions said the incentive-laden deal was too rich for them, and the Oakland Raiders said they didn’t have the cap money to compete, PFT called it a “substandard deal, one that any good experienced agent could have improved upon easily and quickly.’’

Since it appears nobody else was willing to offer more, only the 49ers know if Sherman got the best deal they were willing to give or whether he left money on the table. It’s also hard to determine what the market is for a veteran Pro Bowl cornerback coming off a torn ACL.

I think he should have negotiated a one-year deal. Then he would have had more leverage next year if he returns to his Pro Bowl form this year.

Continue reading “Sherman and other young NFL stars are too willing to give up potential leverage”

Time for more popcorn.

The entertaining Roger & Jerry Show is back.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones spent much of last year unsuccessfully trying to convince his fellow owners to delay commissioner Roger Goodell’s contract extension, but Goodell had the majority of the owners on his side.

Jones also was upset with the six-game suspension of Ezekiel Elliott, although his son, Stephen, said the Cowboys were only “observers’’ in that process. Not that Jerry Jones is noted for observing. He likes to be in the middle of the action.

Still, Goodell won on both counts. The NFL won the court fight and Elliott served his suspension and Goodell got his contract extension.

Continue reading “Goodell vs. Jones is bad for the NFL, but always entertaining”

New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski started the guessing game right after the Super Bowl a month ago when he was asked if he was considering retiring.

“I don’t know how you heard about that,’’ he said, which is not exactly a denial.

Gronkowski added he would definitely look at his future in the next couple of weeks and “see where I’m at.’’

Since then he’s only had  three cryptic tweets about his future.

“There are NO limits,’’ was one.

Continue reading “With rings, his health and nothing more to prove, Gronk should retire”