VITO'S VIEWS

Building a championship football team starts with getting the right coach and right quarterback.

And if you get a Hall of Fame coach and quarterback, it usually translates into multiple championships – like Paul Brown–Otto Graham, Vince Lombardi–Bart Starr, Chuck Noll–Terry Bradshaw, Bill Walsh–Joe Montana and Bill Belichick–Tom Brady.

If you want to check out the difference the right coach and quarterback can make, just check out the New England Patriots.

They are no longer the best team in the AFC, and certainly not in the NFL. There are three or four NFC teams that are better than the Patriots, including the Philadelphia Eagles, the team that beat them in the Super Bowl.

But they still made it to the Super Bowl last season, because the AFC is in a down cycle and the team that should have beaten them in the AFC title game was overmatched by Belichick and Brady.

Continue reading “Look for Brady and Belichick to have the Jags’ number yet again”

Five players to watch in the second week of the NFL season:

Sam Darnold

New York Jets coach Todd Bowles tried to keep things in perspective after Darnold’s impressive rookie debut at Detroit. Bowles said he would need 100 games to tell if Darnold is going to be a franchise quarterback. Actually, 50 should be enough to tell if he’s for real. Darnold now goes against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, and if he wins again, he’ll probably start off 3-0 because the Jets play Cleveland in their third game before taking on the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Continue reading “Five players under the microscope in NFL Week 2”

Five quick takes on the first week of the NFL season:

1. What else is there left to say about Aaron Rodgers? He’s a competitor and brings back memories of the line about Bobby Layne that he never lost, but sometimes ran out of time. Is there anybody better in a one-score game late in the fourth quarter than Rodgers?

Continue reading “Five thoughts on the NFL’s Week 1”

The NFL started its 99^th season Thursday night with almost a sense of relief.

The games will take the spotlight away from all the off-field problems, including poor leadership, an unpopular commissioner who seemed to be in hiding in the preseason, a concussion crisis, the mishandling of player protests, and declining TV ratings and attendance.

And a new book coming out, “Big Game,” paints an unflattering portrait of the commissioner and the owners, calling the latter “tycoons of enlarged ego, delusion and prostate.’’

And the opener fit the narrative that the NFL has problems. The Philadelphia Eagles-Atlanta Falcons game was delayed by rain and was a dreary affair filled with 28 penalties, although it had an exciting finish with the Falcons failing to score despite having five throws from the red zone.

The ratings continued their decline for the opener, but then all TV ratings are in decline. The bottom line is that the NFL remains America’s most popular sport, and the money keeps rolling in like a gusher.

Continue reading “Five players on the spot in the NFL’s opening weekend”

The Colin Kaepernick saga is becoming a much bigger than a tale about the quarterback fighting a collusion lawsuit against the NFL for keeping him out of the league.

It is becoming a look at how America is changing and becoming more diverse and open-minded.

Kaepernick won a round in his fight with the NFL last week when an arbitrator rejected the league’s bid to throw out the suit, which means there will be a hearing — a trial-like procedure where NFL owners and executives will be required to testify.

But there were actually other developments that show that Kaepernick will be remembered for sacrificing his career for the cause of social justice.

On Friday night, Kaepernick and linebacker Eric Reid, who’s also being banned, attended the U.S, Open match between the Williams sisters.

Continue reading “Kaepernick’s detractors should realize he’s on the right side of history”

The best word to describe Blake Bortles is inconsistent.

Bortles can be both good and bad in the same series, quarter and game.

Yet the Jacksonville Jaguars passer was consistent in one stat in his final two preseason games — quarterback rating.

Bortles had a rating of just 64.4 in both games against the Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons. How rare is it for a QB to have the same shaky rating two games in a row? The Jaguars are looking for him to do better in the regular season. His career rating is 80.8, and he was at 84.7 last year.

Bortles also had three picks in the last two games that dragged his rating down (and make him the only NFL quarterback with three interceptions this month), but it is still the exhibition season.

Continue reading “Jaguars’ Super Bowl hopes looking up but still rest with Bortles”

Doug Pederson belongs to an exclusive Super Bowl club — head coaches who’ve beaten Bill Belichick in the Super Bowl.

There are only two members of the club – Pederson and Tom Coughlin, who did it twice.

Belichick has been a head coach in eight Super Bowls and faced seven different coaches. He won five and lost to Pederson last February (when the Philadelphia Eagles beat his New England Patriots) and to Coughlin twice in a five-year span.

Pederson, though, is showing there is not one formula for being a successful head coach. He has a lot more personality than either Coughlin or Belichick, and he is very candid in his new book, “Fearless, How an Underdog Becomes a Champion” written with veteran writer Dan Pompei.

Pederson raised a few eyebrows by saying in his book he wouldn’t have taken a knee in the final minute of the first half the way Jacksonville’s Doug Marrone did in the AFC title game. It was a bad move by Marrone, but most coaches wouldn’t go public with comments like that.

Continue reading “New book shows that Eagles’ Pederson is a true original”

This is the time of year when most teams see the upcoming season through rose-colored glasses.

It is a time for optimism, not pessimism.

But the Cleveland Browns, coming off a two-year record of 1-31 and an 0-16 debacle last year, have been a bit over the top in the series “Hard Knocks.’’

When Dez Bryant came for a visit (and wasn’t signed), coach Hue Jackson, who has somehow survived this 1-31 start even though the team brought in a new GM in John Dorsey, told Bryant: “Twenty-one days baby, the Pittsburgh Steelers right here at home in front of the Dawg Pound. It will be unbelievable. This will be the greatest turnaround in sports history.’’

Don’t be surprised if it isn’t.

Continue reading “‘Hard Knocks’ shows the Browns are still a clown show”

The NFL careers of Saquon Barkley and Sam Darnold are likely to be linked for a long time.

They were the second and third players picked in the NFL Draft, and both will play in New York – Barkley for the Giants and Darnold for the Jets – where they will be under intense media scrutiny in the nation’s largest media market.

In a win-now mode and hoping to get a few more years out of Eli Manning, the Giants took the running back.

The Jets, who had traded up to get the third pick, then grabbed Darnold to be their quarterback of the future.

Barkley figures to have a more immediate impact. He’ll start the opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars — if he’s healthy. He ran 39 yards on his first carry from scrimmage in the first preseason game against Cleveland, but suffered a mild hamstring strain after making a fingertip catch of a pass in practice on Aug. 13. The Giants say he is day to day.

Continue reading “Giants might come to regret taking Barkley over Darnold”

The Philadelphia Eagles seemed set at the quarterback position this year when they decided to keep Nick Foles.

They brought back Foles a year ago on a two-year deal at $13 million as an insurance policy in case Carson Wentz was injured.

They cashed in that policy when Wentz went down late in the year and Foles led them to a Super Bowl victory.

Suddenly, Foles’ value went up.

But Foles couldn’t go anywhere because he’s under contract this year at $7 million, and the Eagles decided not to trade him.

Continue reading “Eagles facing a lot of intruiging decisions at quarterback”