VITO'S VIEWS

The Washington Redskins had a clever season-ticket selling scheme in recent years.

They would sell premium — or “Tailgate Club’’ — seats at premium prices, telling fans that those tickets enabled them to jump the team’s long season-ticket waiting list.

They conveniently ignored the fact there was no waiting list. It had evaporated.

As Deadspin pointed out last June, there hasn’t been a waiting list for years, much less the 200,000 names the Redskins claimed were on it.

The Redskins finally fessed up this year, admitting there is no longer a waiting list.

Continue reading “Fake waiting list just the latest Redskins debacle under the hapless Snyder”

Players to Watch in Week 3 of the NFL season:

Patrick Mahomes and Ryan Fitzpatrick

They  attempt to continue their blazing starts against the San Francisco 49ers and Pittsburgh Steelers. Mahomes has 10 touchdown passes in the first two games and is the youngest quarterback at age 22 to have six in a game. If he gets three more against the 49ers, he’ll be the first quarterback to have 13 in the first three games. Peyton Manning had 12 in the first three in 2013 in Denver. Fitzpatrick can become the first quarterback to throw for at least four touchdowns and 400 yards in a three-game span. If Fitzpatrick does it against the Steelers on Monday night, he’ll certainly start next Sunday against Chicago, although Jameis Winston returns from his suspension next Tuesday.

Drew Brees

Brees has 6,287 career completions and needs 14 more against Atlanta to surpass Brett Favre for most completions in a career. Favre retired with 6,300. He also can become the only quarterback with at least 30 attempts to have a completion percentage of 80 % or higher in three consecutive games. Peyton Manning did it in two consecutive games in 2013.

Andrew Luck

The Indianapolis quarterback needs 424 passing yards to join Dan Marino (74) and Matthew Stafford (71) as the only quarterbacks to throw for 20,000 yards in 75 games or fewer. Luck, who was injured all last season, has a tough task in Philadelphia.

Carson Wentz

Wentz has been cleared to play after suffering a torn ACL last year, and the Eagles are wasting no time in putting him back in the lineup against Indianapolis. But he may be rusty after missing the entire preseason. They might have been better off giving Nick Foles a third start and going with Wentz at halftime if Foles struggled. They obviously want to get Wentz back in the flow even if he’s not 100 percent, which he probably isn’t.

Jared Golf vs. Philip Rivers

In the first game since these two teams moved to Los Angeles last year, Goff, who has a 102.5 quarterback rating, duels Rivers, who has a 119.6 rating, at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The two teams last met in 2014, when the Rams were in St. Louis and the Chargers in San Diego, and the Rams won, 20-17. The Rams are 2-0 and the Chargers are 1-1. It’s not much of a rivalry, though, because the Chargers haven’t been embraced by Los Angeles fans, and even the Rams, despite their history in Los Angeles, haven’t won over the fans in a big way.

The late Bum Phillips once said, “There’s two kind of coaches — them that’s fired and them that’s gonna be fired.’’

Phillips was right. He was fired after the 1980 season by the late Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams after losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion in the playoffs three years in a row.

The Oilers went 1-8, 2-14, 3-13 and 5-11 from 1982 to 1985, and went through five head coaches before Jeff Fisher was hired in1990.

That shows the danger of firing a winning coach even if he doesn’t win the Super Bowl. The next guy may not be better and could very well be worse.

Philadelphia is another good example. Andy Reid was fired after going 130-93-1 in 14 years with the Eagles while making one Super Bowl. He went 4-12 in his final year with the Eagles in 2012.

Continue reading “Bengals’ decision to stick with Lewis paying early dividends”

Five quick takes on Week 2 of the NFL season:

1. Patrick Mahomes is just starting his career in his second season and Ryan Fitzpatrick is nearing the end of his career as a journeyman quarterback. But they have one thing in common: They are the stars of the first two weeks of the season. Mahomes has 10 touchdown passes and no picks in the first games, something that’s never been done before. Fitzpatrick has eight touchdown passes in the first two games, a feat only Mahomes and Drew Bledsoe, who did it in 1997, have matched. Jameis Winston returns from his suspension after the third game, but don’t look for Fitzpatrick to be benched if he keeps up this pace. And he gets a chance to strafe a porous Pittsburgh Steelers defense next Monday night. That is followed by a game against Chicago and a bye, so Fitzpatrick figures to start the first four games. If he’s 4-0, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be benched in Week 6 vs. Atlanta.

Continue reading “A quick look back at the NFL’s Week 2”

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”