Month: August 2025

Back in 1993, the Cowboys started out 0-2 while Emmitt Smith was holding out.

After the second loss, owner Jerry Jones caved and gave him what he wanted to get him back, and the Cowboys went on to win the Super Bowl.

Jones’ style as a tough negotiator hasn’t changed over the years. He often plays hardball with his star players, then winds up paying them more than he would have if he had signed them earlier. Dak Prescott was the latest example last year.

Now Jones is doing the same thing with Micah Parsons. As an elite pass rusher, it is no secret that Parsons wll get a deal over $40 million a year. But Jones has not only not gotten him signed but he tried to bypass the agent and talk directly to Parsons, then tried to turn it into a negotiating session and then said they had a deal.

Now Parsons is demanding a trade and things are at a stalemate. Parsons showed up to camp to avoid a fine, but said he has a bad back and can’t practice. Jalen Ramsey did the same thing with the same agent to get out of Jacksonville.

If history is any indication, Jones will eventually cave and get him signed, but he never seems to learn his lesson. Which helps explain why the Cowboys havent been in the Super Bowl since 1995.

Jones, though, follows his golden rule. He has the gold and rules even if his style isn’t the best for getting to the Super Bowl.

Some teams like the exposure of being featured on Hard Knocks.

The Bills are not one of them. 

They are appearing on the 25th edition of the famed HBO series but are not happy about it and haven’t promoted their appearance on the show at all. General manager Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott have long said they feel the show is a distraction and could lead to bad PR.

It didn’t help that last year Giants general manager Joe Schoen didn’t come across well when he talked about Saquan Barkley testing the market even though owner Wellington Mara wanted to keep him. We all know how all that turned out as Barkley signed with the Eagles and won a Super Bowl ring.

But if the first show was any indication, the Bills have nothing to worry about.

There is a good storyline about this season for the Bills. They are under pressure to finally get to the Super Bowl after failing to make it despite winning the division the last five years. They are favored in the preseason odds in every game. Not that anybody expects them to go undefeated, but it is kind of a Super Bowl-or-bust season. The show mentioned the heartbreak of the Bills repeatedly losing to the Chiefs in the playoffs, and of their four trips to the Super Bowl in the 1990s without winning one.

But the show didn’t dwell on the pressure they face this year or that Josh Allen needs a Super Bowl ring to be part of his legacy, although they did spend a lot of time stressing what Allen means to the Bills.

And they had the usual personal moments like Dion Dawkins taking his kids drifting.

The Bills may wind up thinking it was a positive experience. And always interesting to see what happens behind the scenes. 

Of course, they don’t mention that no team has won the Super Bowl in the year they appeared on Hard Knocks.

Maybe the Bills can break that streak.

The first pick in the draft usually gets the most attention on draft day.

Not this year.

Commissioner Roger Goodell had barely announced that Cam Ward was the first pick by the Tennessee Titans when the Jacksonville Jaguars stole the show by trading up to pick Travis Hunter with the second pick to play both wide receiver and defensive back.

But Ward is used to being overshadowed. Coming out of high school, the only team to offer him a scholarship was the University of Incarnate Word, a private Catholic school in San Antonio. He played in the Wing-T in high school and threw an average of only 12 passes a game in his senior year, so the bigger schools didn’t take a flyer on him.

Ward passed for 47 touchdowns and 4,648 yards in his second season, then transferred to Washington State where his Incarnate Word coach, Eric Morris, had been hired as the offensive coordinator.

After two years, Ward had graduated and announced for the NFL draft in 2024, but scouts didn’t rank him as a first rounder even though he passed for more than 3,000 yards both years at Washington State, so he decided to go to Miami for his final season of eligibility.

He jumped up the charts when he led Miami to a 10-2 record and was named the Davey O’Brien and Manning award winner as the top quarterback in college football and was fourth in Heisman Trophy balloting. 

Although the Titans decided to make him the top pick and declined offers to trade the pick, he wasn’t hyped the way Trevor Lawrence was as the top pick, although Lawrence has yet to live up to that hype.

Now Ward gets another chance to show he has been underrated. He figured to be the Titans starter but once Will Levis was lost for the season, there was no doubt he would start.

Ward has a big challenge because the Titans were the NFL’s worst team last year .

In an interview with The Athletic, Ward admitted he has something to prove.

“I don’t think I am being welcomed with open arms,” he said. “I was the first pick. I am blessed to be that. But at the end of the day, there’s a target on my back. There’s a target on everyone’s back in the league, but I’m trying to prove myself to my teammates.”

He may not have a target on his  back, but he will be in the spotlight.

And the Titans aren’t putting too much pressure on him. General manager Mike Borgoni said, “He is a rookie. Just like all these other guys, he is going to make mistakes and learn from it, but you want to see growth.”

If his past history is any indication, he will do more than show growth.

And he comes from an athletic family   

His father, Calvin, played football and his mother, Patrice, coached high school basketball for nearly 25 years. His younger maternal cousin, Kyron Drones, is a quarterback at Virginia Tech and he has several older cousins who played in the NFL including Quentin Jammer and Quandre Diggs.

The next step for Ward is try to show that the Titans made the right move in making  him the top pick. 

Give Anthony Richardson credit.

He admitted it was his fault when he suffered a pinky injury when Baltimore’s David Ojabo got a free rush on Richardson and knocked the Colts quarterback out of the first preseason game.

It wasn’t the offensive line’s fault.

As Colts coach Shane Steichen said, “That is a five-man protection right there, and that’s the hot side right there. That’s what happened.”

Richardson was responsible for recognizing the unblocked defender and getting the ball out quickly.

Richardson agreed it was his fault after the game for not properly diagnosing the play.

“I just have to be ready to get the ball out,” Richardson said. 

He was fortunate it wasn’t a major injury, but it still wasn’t a good look for a third-year quarterback dogged by injuries who has yet to prove he can stay healthy. And who has to do a better job of reading defenses. That is why the Colts signed free agent Daniel Jones, but it is uncertain if Jones is the answer after he flopped  with the Giants. He wasn’t particularly impressive when he came in after Richardson was injured. 

So the Colts’ quarterback situation remains in a state of flux with the start of the regular season just weeks away.

If Richardson and/or Jones isn’t effective, it’s going to be a long season for the Colts — and they will be looking for another quarterback next season.