VITO'S VIEWS

The most significant thing about the opening weekend is that there is an opening weekend.

The NFL and the players did a great job of limiting the number of Covid cases while they were in the NFL bubble.

Now things get more challenging as teams start to travel and players are out and about now that camp is over.

—It’s not surprising the NFL ratings for the Chiefs-Texans game were down 12 percent from last year’s opener between the Bears and Packers. It was still the highest-rated sporting event since the Super Bowl and highest show since the Academy Awards. There were several factors involved in the drop, but the big questions now are whether ratings will recover during the season.

—The most depressing part of the Chiefs-Texans game was the fans booing the Unity Moment. It shows this country is far from unified on the issue of social justice.

—Dak Prescott has to be saluted for going public with his depression problems, despite Skip Bayless’ inane comments that illustrate why many victims are reluctant to go public with depression issues. Meanwhile, Prescott faces a tough first three weeks facing the Rams, Falcons and Seahawks before the Cowboys play the Browns in Week 4.

—The most interesting thing about this weekend is that the Pats will play their first game with Tom Brady on the roster since 2008 and Brady will play his first NFL game not in a Patriots uniform. Brady will duel Drew Brees while Cam Newton replaces Brady and meets Ryan Fitzpatrick of the Dolphins.

—The Steelers figure to beat the Giants to give them a 17-2 mark on Monday Night Football under Mike Tomlin. By contrast, Tomlin is 8-7 in the playoffs, which is the same mark Sean Payton has.

The Jaguars’ version of Where’s Waldo is Where’s Shad?

The Jaguars owner is a billionaire with business interests across the globe, but he is in danger of becoming another William Clay Ford, the late Lions’ owner who also happened to be in the car business and had a reputation for hiring incompetent executives.

Khan rarely gives interviews, but you have to wonder what he thinks of the way the men he entrusted his football team are running it.

The departure of Yannick Ngakoue for a second- and conditional fifth- round pick to the Vikings is another example that the Jaguars can’t keep their core together and too many of their best players want to leave.

And that was followed the next day by the cutting of Leonard Fournette, who was drafted with the fourth pick in the 2017 draft when Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson were on the board. Cutting him was another reminder of that blunder.

There was speculation the move meant the Jaguars were tanking. The real reason is that they were getting rid of another mistake. They are probably better off without Fournette, but if they decided he no longer fit in their plans, why didn’t they address the running back position in the offseason?

Jaguars mistakes are like subway trains — there’s always another one coming down the tracks soon.

Since Khan took control of the season in 2012, they’ve had one winning season.

He has picked two men to run his team. Dave Caldwell, who had never been a general manager, Tom Coughlin, who had a reputation for being a good coach but mismanaged the cap when he was in charge of the franchise as the team’s first coach.

Caldwell started out with four losing seasons and whiffed on his biggest decision – the drafting of Blake Bortles. So, Khan brought back Coughlin, who had instant success with the 2017 playoff team. He also kept Caldwell in the front office.

But then it all fell apart after the 2017 and Coughlin was fired late in the 2019 season when the NFL singled him out for leading the league in grievances filed by the players.

Instead of cleaning house, Khan put Caldwell back in charge and they had another losing season last year. And still Khan kept Caldwell and coach Doug Marrone for another season.

The Ngakoue situation is another example of Caldwell’s mismanagement. When Ngakoue made it obvious he no longer wanted to play for the Jaguars, Caldwell could have traded him before last April’s draft to get immediate picks for him.

Instead, he franchised him and his $17.8 million tag salary counted against their cap.

He could have stuck to his guns and refused to give him up unless he got a first-round pick. Instead, he caved two weeks before the season started and traded him. The trade should have been made before the draft. And he would have had the money allotted to Ngakoue to spend in other areas.

Now it is too late to make much difference this year.

Ngakoue was one of the six Pro Bowlers on the 2017 team’s defense, and they are now all gone.

One of the departed, A.J. Bouye, gave an interview on Sirius XM outlining the dysfunction of the organization.

Everybody in football knows the Jaguars need a clean sweep of the front office. There’s no point in detailing all their failures. The record speaks for itself.

Khan either doesn’t understand he needs to start over or doesn’t know how to find a good executive.

Meanwhile, the spotlight is now on Khan. The team figures to have another losing season this year. Caldwell will have the excuse of the lack of an offseason because of Covid 19 and lobby for another year.

Does Khan give it to him or start over? And if he starts over, will he avoid striking out on hiring a third executive to run the team in less than a decade?

The buck stops at his desk. He’s got to figure out how to run a successful team or the losing will continue.

Where does Minshew Mania go from here?

That’s the question for the Jaguars as they prepare for the upcoming season, assuming there is a season.

Gardner Minshew became one of the most popular players in the history of the franchise in his rookie season as he won over the fans with his charisma, swashbuckling style and even his mustache.

The Jaguars were convinced to trade Nick Foles a year after signing him to expensive deal and install Minshew as the starter going into his second season.

But the question remains whether Minshew is good enough to take the next step or whether he will struggle as defenses have more time to hone in on him.

The challenges he faces were outlined in an in-depth study of his rookie season by Gus Logue on SI.com. His conclusions are that what you think you see in Minshew isn’t what you get.

He won the fans over with his ability to scramble and make plays. But when he scrambles, he ranks 24^th in EPA per scramble and his throws were accurate 26.7% of the time compared to a league average of 42.5%. And he fumbled 13 times lost, fourth highest in the league. He was too quick to check down and his checkdown passes also weren’t that productive, although it didn’t help that Leonard Fournette wasn’t good in yards after the catch.

What Minshew is good at is hitting his first target on first downs. His PFF average in those situations was 57.1 percent, which was above league average.

Surprisingly enough, for a quarterback who doesn’t have a strong arm, he was effective throwing deep, but he didn’t do it often enough. Maybe he doesn’t have enough confidence in his arm.

And he was 6-6 in his 12 starts and the team ranked 26^th in scoring an 31^st in first half points.

Can Minshew, with the help of new offensive coordinator Jay Gruden, improve his game this year since the Jaguars have given him more weapons this year, especially at tight end?

That is the question that will be answered this year.

Minshew said the team is going to “focus on what we can do and not what we can’t do.”

If Minshew and team can’t do it well enough this year, the Jaguars may be looking to find a new quarterback next year. If he does well, Minshew mania will continue.

Either way it is going to make for an interesting season. If there is a season, of course.

NFL teams recently showed once again recently that they often don’t tend to get the quarterback position.

When Cam Newton hit the market, the Browns were the only team to even show an interest until the Patriots scooped him up for a bargain basement price of $500,000 guaranteed on a minimum base salary of just over $1 million that maxes out at $7.5 million if he hits all the incentives.

It was described as a gamble for the Patriots but there is no gamble. If he doesn’t beat out Jarrett Stidham for the starting job, they can cut him and he will only cost a half million, which is rookie salary money.

They spent the offseason acting as if they were committed to Stidham but that may have been a smokescreen.

So now that the Patriots have Newton, what were the rest of the teams thinking?

Granted, he could be a gamble. He is coming off a Lisfranc injury, which is devastating for a running quarterback, and he couldn’t work out for teams because of the league shutdown. And his shoulder problems are troubling.

And he wanted a place where he could start. He didn’t want to take a backup job the way Jameis Winston did for $1.1 million in New Orleans, where he could replace Drew Brees next year. Winston lost bargaining power because he was an interception machine last year even though he led the league in passing yardage and is the first quarterback to do that and not to start the following year.

Newton’s problem was that he was hurt the last two years. If he’s healthy, the Patriots will be a contender again despite Brady’s departure.

And look at what some of the teams that passed on Newton did.

Chicago traded for Nick Foles and guaranteed him $21 million over three years. Newton would have wanted more from the Bears than he got from the Patriots but he isn’t any more risky than Foles, who had a broken clavicle last year and nobody knows how he will recover from that.

Or look at the Los Angeles Chargers. They drafted Justin Herbert as their quarterback of the future. But will he be ready this year without an offseason? Tyrod Taylor is their alternative. Would Newton have been a better choice for a year?

The Jaguars are betting on Gardner Minshew and ignored Newton. This is a team that bypassed Patrick Mahones, Deshaun Watson and Lamar Jackson in two consecuctive drafts because they believed in Blake Bortles. That was a great example of a team that doesn’t get it.

So when Newton didn’t get any better offers, Newton took the Patriots’ offer that Richard Sherman called “disgusting” and “ridiculous.”

Newton brushed off the talk about his low salary by saying on Instagram that it’s not about the money. It is about the respect. And Newton has already made $100 million in his career, so signing with the Patriots may have been the best option for him.

Now we find out if Newton is healthy and how good he is coming off his injuries.

If he can still be a top quarterback, he will make big money next year from the Patriots, who can franchise him, or from another team.

But if he is a good quarterback, some of the teams that weren’t willing to take a chance on him will look foolish.

He will become another example of how NFL teams often don’t get it when it comes to signing quarterbacks.

I used to say the verdict of history would vindicate Colin Kaepernick and he would be remembered as a civil-rights icon like Rosa Parks.

I was thinking this would happen 10 or 20 years from now.

I didn’t realize it would take only three years.

It turns out Kaepernick was ahead of his time in kneeling for the national anthem to protest police brutality against blacks.

His critics – including Donald Trump – said he was disrespecting the flag while NFL teams refused to hire him.

When he started kneeling, the majority of Americans thought the killings of blacks by police were isolated incidents. Now the majority doesn’t think that.

What changed is that in the cellphone era, police incidents of violence against blacks were caught on video tape.

And then came the eight minutes and 46 seconds when an officer killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck.

That video changed America and led to protests all over the nation.

And it changed the NFL.

When commissioner Roger Goodell first issued a bland statement, players were outraged and with the help of an NFL employee put together a video expressing their dissatisfaction.

That led to Goodell’s apology in which he said they should have listened to the players about the protests and that the league encourages peaceful protests.

And even before that, Drew Brees and his wife both apologized publicly for not recognizing kneeling was not disrespecting the flag but a protest against police brutality.

Trump, of course, knocked Brees for apologizing and Goodell for his statement, but Goodell knows he has to stand with the players to be on the right side of history.

Unfortunately, Goodell didn’t mention Kaepernick. That was still a bridge too far for him.

It remains to be seen if Kaepernick will get hired. Goodell’s words will seem shallow if he isn’t.

But if the NFL plays the anthem this fall before games – they might skip it since there will probably be no fans in the stands – players will be kneeling.

And Kaepernick, whether he plays or doesn’t play, will be remembered as a man ahead of his time.

As the NFL grapples with its minority hiring problem, one thing is becoming obvious.

The Rooney Rule doesn’t work without Dan Rooney.

Or, as his wife, Patricia, said in a book “A Different Way To Win” about Rooney by one of his sons, Jim, “Maybe they thought when he left, the (Rooney) rule left.”

There are many reasons for the NFL’s woeful record on minority hiring in the front office and coaching ranks in a league where over 70 percent of the players are minorities. Among them are cronyism, nepotism and the lack of minority owners.

But the absence of Rooney, who died in 2017, has been a major factor in the league’s lax record in recent years.

There were six minority coaches in 2005 and eight by 2011. It then took a dip before going back to eight in 2017 and 2018 and now it is down to four.

Jim Rooney’s book goes into much detail on how Rooney not only lobbied to get the Rooney Rule passed in 2003, but kept the issue on the front burner and encouraged his fellow owners to hire minorities.

But he took a step back from league affairs in 2009 to become the U.S. ambassador to Ireland.

And nobody in the league picked up the torch, leading the league’s executive vice president of football operations, Troy Vincent, to say in a recent conference call that the league has a broken system.

Vincent can’t knock his boss, but another problem is that commissioner Roger Goodell hasn’t exactly been a leader in the campaign to promote minority hiring.

And his proposal to give teams that hire minorities improved draft position was a nonstarter.

Although the league did pass some measures to take a step in the right direction. The owners agreed two minority candidates must be interviewed for head coaching jobs and there has to be at least one minority interview for the coordinator jobs. And one minority candidate for the senior football position, usually the GM.

And teams can’t deny assistant coaches to be interviewed by other teams even if they are under contract.

They also have to interview minorities or women for all senior positions including club president and executive roles in communications, finance, human resources, legal. football operations, sales, marketing, sponsorship, information technology and security.

But if things are going to improve in a major way, Goodell needs to step up and lobby the owners to hire more minorities. He has to do the work behind the scenes to make it happen. He has said he talks with each owner at least once a month. Minority hiring has to be a big part of those conversations.

The buck stops at Goodell’s desk now to fill Rooney’s role since none of the other owners have stepped up to the plate.

If things don’t start improving, he has to take responsibility for not finding ways to convince teams to hire more minorities.

Granted, he can’t order them to do it but he can find ways to convince them that it is good for the league and the teams to improve their minority hiring.

Goodell needs to pick up Rooney’s torch.

When one player tested positive for Covid 19 in March, the NBA shut down immediately.

That was then. This is now.

The sports leagues are eager to get back to playing, even though they admit some players will test positive.

The NFL is the most vulnerable because it has more players than the other sports.

Dr. Allen Sills, the league’s top medical officer, said in a recent conference call that obviously football and physical distancing are not compatible.

“We fully expect we will have positive cases that arise because this disease is endemic in our society,” he said.

“Our challenge is to identify them as quickly as possible and to prevent spread to other participants,” he added. “Everyone that’s around each other in a football environment is going to share risk.”

Not exactly. The owners won’t be sharing the risk.

And just because the players are young and healthy doesn’t mean they can’t have severe consequences. Just listen to Mara Gay, a member of the New York Times editorial board who wrote about getting the virus.

“The day before I got sick, I ran three miles, walked 10 more, then raced up the stairs to my fifth-floor apartment as always, slinging laundry with me as I went,” she wrote.

Then she got the virus and her life changed.

“The second day I was sick, I woke up to what felt like hot tar burned into my chest. I could not get a deep breath unless I was on all fours. I’m healthy. I’m a runner. I’m 33 years old.”

In the emergency room, she was asked if she smoked or had pre-existing conditions. The answer was no.

The doctor replied, “I wish I could do something for you.”

She said she was one of the lucky ones. She didn’t need a ventilator and survived. But 27 days later, she still had lingering pneumonia.

“I use two inhalers, twice a day. I can’t walk more than a few blocks without stopping.”

Her plea to America was, “Please take this virus seriously.”

The question is whether the sports leagues are taking it seriously enough.

It could be players who are infected will have minor cases. But the virus can cause permanent lung damage, which could have severe consequences for the rest of their careers.

The sports leagues, including the NFL, will try to take a lot of precautions.

But the players and the leagues may ultimately regret opening in the middle of a pandemic.

When Dan Rooney was the U.S. ambassador to Ireland, he had an interesting way of communicating with President Obama.

He sent him postcards.

Instead of bothering the president with phone calls or emails, he would jot down a few thoughts on the front of a postcard and send them to the White House via the president’s aide, Reggie Love. On the back of the postcards, of cards, were lovely pictures of Ireland.

That vignette was one of many about the life of Dan Rooney chronicled by one of his sons, Jim, in a book entitled, “A Different Way to Win: Dan Rooney’s Story from the Super Bowl to the Rooney Rule.”

Rooney is known to most fans as the oldest son of Art Rooney Sr., the founding father of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He started running the team in the late 1960s and under his direction, the Steelers became one of the most successful teams in sports. They have won six Super Bowls and have a national and international following.

But it is Rooney’s approach that makes him a unique figure in the history of the NFL, which has become a multi-billion-dollar empire fixated on ways to increase revenue.

Rooney was not driven to accumulate wealth. He was, as Jim Rooney writes, “never comfortable with the amount of wealth that he personally gained. And even more so, he felt the largest impediment to long-term success was in regard to the willingness of those involved to continue to strive for the highest levels of excellence once wealth was achieved.”

He also lectured his children about not putting on airs, although his wife, Patricia, joked that she wasn’t sure they all got the message.

He warned his children, “Don’t make money your god. If you believe money is going to make your life easier and solve your problems, you’re wrong. It’s education. That will determine if you are happy, if you are successful.”

Before the team played in Super Bowl XXX in Phoenix, most of the Steelers contingent attended an NFL party, and he teased them about going to a “rich dudes” party. He and his wife got in their rented Ford and drove to a nearby Denny’s because he said he wanted to do “something normal” the night before the game.

Jim Rooney also writes that his plan was that the Steelers would win championships, but he wanted them “to be great in all things.”

He wanted people who worked for the Steelers to think broadly, to read and learn about things that were uncommon and done well, and then to bring greatness to every effort in their daily lives and work.

He wrote very specifically about what he expected each person within the organization to do. He kept the plans in the credenza behind his desk and would refer to it often.

It included a sense of purpose and he believed that the team should be doing something that was meaningful for football and also for Pittsburgh.

When fans came to the game, he wanted them to feel it was an enriching experience, and when people thought about the Steelers, he wanted them to have a sense that the Steelers were about more than wins and losses.

He also hired the right people. One of them was Joe Gordon, described by Jim Rooney as Dan’s his most important business partner. Most books on the Steelers overlook Gordon’s role in implementing Dan Rooney’s vision and putting his own stamp on the team.

“He became Rooney’s closest collaborator in what we would now call marketing and branding,” Jim Rooney wrote.

Gordon’s role involved much more than just being a PR type. “Gordon was a one-man band, arranging interviews and sponsorship deals, booking player appearances and always keeping an eye on what was being written and said about the team,” Jim Rooney wrote.

He said Gordon and Rooney were a perfect match because they would argue but not compete with each other, and that Dan created an environment where, as with his other executives, he and Gordon could freely share their ideas and hash them out.

But while they saw the value of marketing, they didn’t go overboard.

Dan once sent commissioner Roger Goodell a football jersey resembling a NASCAR driver’s uniform, adorned with sponsorship decals and corporate logos. He was sending a message that they needed to draw a line on marketing.

“Our business is the game, we’re not in this to make all the money in the world,’’ Rooney once told The New York Times. “I think some other teams still do things our way. But on this, we might be the last guy on the mountain.”

As the league tries to find more and more ways to increase revenue, he may well have been the last guy on the mountain.

Rooney even hated to see blue-collar fans who could barely afford it wearing too much Steelers gear because he felt the league was exploiting them.

The league even once had an idea of signs wrapped around the goal posts that read, “Feel the Power.” Rooney ordered them removed. When the league told him they had to stay up, Rooney replied, “We’re not feeling the power.”

He also opposed expanding the season, which will be extended to 17 games in the new CBA and probably eventually to 18 in the next one.

“I would rather not get the money (from expanding the season),” Dan said, “You have a system that works. Why add them?”

He often said when he left a stadium, “Pull down the center pole.”

Jim Rooney writes that Dan always felt the spectacle of NFL games was not better than the circus and that the league should never forget that.

It has already forgotten that.

Although Dan Rooney was noted for having a stable organization – the team has had just three head coaches in a half century – he has made tough decisions like firing his own brother, Art Jr., as head of personnel (a decision I still question) and firing a personnel executive, Tom Donahoe, who was the grandson of the man who presented Art Rooney Sr. at his Hall of Fame induction.

And when he died in 2017, he left the organization in stable hands with his oldest son, Art Rooney II, in charge.

Despite his impact on making the Steelers the team they are today, it could be argued that he had even more important accomplishments in being a close confidant of three commissioners, devising “The Rooney Rule” to improve minority hiring in the NFL and as ambassador to Ireland.

Long before he became ambassador, he worked behind the scenes to bring peace to Ireland in the era known as The Troubles.

President Clinton acknowledged the role he played in building bridges in the decades before the peace process.

Clinton said so much of what took place in the 1990s “would not have been possible without what (Rooney) did for 15 or 20 years before the so-called process started.”

And The Rooney Rule changed not only the NFL but corporations around the world, and a version was adopted in both houses of the U.S. Congress.

Unfortunately, the NFL has not been making as much progress in minority hiring as it did with Rooney being on the scene to prod his fellow owners.

As Patricia Rooney said, “Maybe they thought when he left, the rule left.”

It is another example of how much Rooney’s vision is missed in today’s NFL.

The likes of his leadership may never be seen again in the NFL. 

Jarrett Stidham as good as Bill Belichick apparently thinks he is?

The answer to that question will determine how the rest of Belichick’s career turns out with the New England Patriots.

Stidham had some red flags when he was drafted out of Auburn a year ago. He didn’t play as well in 2018 as he did in 2017.

Once touted as a first-round pick, he slid to the second round in most draft projections a year ago. He was often compared to Derek Car.

But then he fell to the fourth round when Belichick grabbed him. He only threw four passes in his rookie season, completing two for 14 yards with no touchdowns and one pick.

Belichick, though, seems ready to hand him the starting job now that Tom Brady has moved on. He must have liked how Stidham looked in practice last year and in the preseason.

His only real competition is Brian Hoyer, who knows the Patriots system from his previous stints with the team but is the definition of a journeyman. Still, Belichick didn’t sign a veteran free  agent quarterback or draft a quarterback or even a wide receiver.

It could be noted that Belichick gave Brady the job when Drew Bledsoe got hurt even thouogh he went only 1 for 3 for six yards and no touchdowns or picks in his rookie season.

Belichick obviously thinks he can plug Stidham into Josh McDaniels’ system and keep the Patriots winning.

If Stidham can do that, it will add to Belichick’s legacy. If he flops, it will be noted that Belichick has coached seven years in the league – five with Cleveland two with the Patriots— and In those seven years, he made the playoffs only once with Cleveland.

He did go 11-5 with Matt Cassel in 2008 when Brady was hurt but it wasn’t good enough to make the playoffs.

Of course, the Patriots will still be favored to win the AFC East and go to the playoffs, but the real test will be once they get there. Last year, with Brady, they lost at home to Tennessee, their first home playoff game since 2012.

Can they do better without Brady? We’ll see. At least we will if there is a season.   

Are great coaches born or made?

That is a topic that is a focus of the new book by veteran coach Martin Rooney entitled, “Coach to Coach: An Empowering Story on How to be a Great Leader,” from John Wylie & Sons.

Rooney comes down on the side that great coaches are made and presents a lot of interesting advice for coaches and fans interested in what makes a good coach. And on how to be a better human being.

Not too many books on coaching mention that the best thing you can do for your kids is love your wife.

Instead of simply presenting his advice, he does it as a fable with an old coach instructing a young coach, who is having problems on the job and at home on how to become a better coach and person.

The old coach says the Golden Rule in coaching that that a coach has to be more enthusiastic about someone else than himself. And he says they need empathy. And that the best way to become stronger is to lift someone else up.

His Holy Grail of coaching is: Do and say the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, to the right person to get the best results.”

In his first sessions with the young coach, he writes the word enthusiasm with the IASM in capital letters on a blank piece of paper. The IASM is an acronym to stand for I AM SOLD ON MYSELF.

The old coach says he wants the young coach to really soul search about what it is you love to do and why you love to do it.

His second assignment is for the coach to apologize to a player he got into tiff with at practice after a loss.

Another piece of advice to say to players and people. “I’m proud of you.”He also says, “A coach also can’t get too caught up in wins and losses. If victories on the field create defeats for the coach at home, that will be the biggest and most costly loss.”

It is interesting advice, but I don’t know how realistic it is. If coaches don’t win, they don’t have a future. And many successful coaches have not exactly had an Ozzie and Harriett home life. Vince Lombardi is one example.

Rooney certainly has experience as an athlete and a coach. He is a former US bobsledder, Division I track athlete, judo black belt, record-setting powerlifter and two-time Guinness World Record holder, coach and motivational speaker.

His mission is to improve coaching, and it is a worthy one. As he says in the first paragraph of the book, “The world needs better coaches.”

The book provides a lot of good advice. But the question is whether it will make a better coach if the coach doesn’t have a natural aptitude for coaching remains one that is difficult to answer.