VITO'S VIEWS

It was just a coincidence that team president Mark Lamping conducted the Jacksonville Jaguars’ annual “State of the Franchise” news conference last Thursday on the same day the NFL announced the 2018 schedule.

Many Jaguars fans were upset that the team only got two primetime appearances despite reaching the AFC title game last year. They got a Sunday night home game against Pittsburgh on Nov. 18 and a Thursday night game at Tennessee on Dec. 6.

Two AFC South rivals (Houston and Tennessee) got three primetime appearances, and 10 teams got five primetime spots, including the two Super Bowl teams, Philadelphia and New England, while Minnesota, the loser of the NFC title game, got four.

Lamping’s presentation showed the NFL’s decision probably wasn’t a surprise as he talked about the challenges a small-market team faces.

He didn’t address the schedule because it hadn’t been released, but here’s a look at some of the factors that probably influenced the NFL.

Continue reading “NFL doesn’t consider Jaguars ready for primetime just yet, and that makes a lot of sense”

The Dez Bryant divorce from the Dallas Cowboys was messier than it should have been.

In reality, it was just bidness, as they say in Dallas. He had a big contract ($12.5 million base salaries the next two years and a $16.5 million cap number this year), and not only had his production dropped off, but Bryant had tended to wear out his welcome by being a distraction with things like his sideline outbursts. The Cowboys didn’t want him at any price, even if he had agreed to a paycut.

Still, the way it was handled on both sides left a lot to be desired.

First, owner Jerry Jones was not exactly candid when he said at the scouting combine that he wanted Bryant on the team.

Meanwhile, they waited a month to cut him after the league year started, and that cut down on his options now that many teams have spent big money. But Bryant and his agents didn’t think to get a roster bonus payable at the start of the league year, which probably would have forced the Cowboys to cut him a month ago.

Continue reading “Dez’s Dallas exit was understandable but needlessly messy”

As the depositions continue in Colin Kaepernick’s collusion case against the NFL, it’s impossible to predict whether his lawyers will uncover a smoking gun to prove collusion.

But it’s obvious Kaepernick is the victim of one thing – NFL Groupthink.

The NFL is not a bastion of original thinkers who go against the grain. They tend to play it safe and reach the same conclusions, whether they obviously collude or not.

Exhibit A is Tom Brady. No GM in league thought he was worth a flyer in the first five rounds of the 2000 draft. Bobby Beathard was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and he didn’t draft Brady even though his coach in San Diego at the time, Mike Riley, lobbied him to take Brady. And Beathard was more of an out-of-the-box thinker than most NFL executives.

The best exhibit this year is UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen. He won’t fall out of the first round because he has too much raw talent, although nobody can predict how good a college quarterback will be in the NFL.

Continue reading “Rosen is a great test of the NFL’s dreaded Groupthink”

Tom Coughlin is like a poker player who pushes all his chips on the table in hopes of drawing an inside straight.

The decision by Coughlin, who is now running the Jacksonville Jaguars organization, to trade a conditional seventh-round pick to Cleveland for backup quarterback Cody Kessler is another example that he is all in on the running game and thinks he can win with Blake Bortles at quarterback.

Kessler makes sense as a backup because he’ll cost the Jaguars less than a $1 million in salary in his third year, and Bortles is so durable that Kessler is not likely to see much action.

But it also means the Jaguars don’t figure to draft a quarterback in the first three rounds or address the problem of finding a quarterback for the future in Coughlin’s first two years.

Kessler certainly isn’t a long-term answer. He was drafted in the third round two years ago, but his stock has dropped since then. No team was willing to offer the Browns an unconditional seventh, much less a sixth, for Kessler.

Continue reading “Coughlin rolling the dice by doubling down on the Jaguars’ run game”

The NFL’s new catch rule may create more problems than it solves and didn’t address the league’s bigger problem in officiating — director of officials Al Riveron overturning calls that should have stood in his first year on the job.

The new rule is a reaction to the going-to-the-ground rule overturning the Calvin Johnson catch in 2010, the Dez Bryant catch in 2014 and the Jesse James catch last year.

There’s no more going-to-the-ground stipulation in the new rule.

But even Riveron said the rule change might lead to more fumbles, which means more replay and more controversy.

Rich McKay, a member of the competition committee, said he will trade 10 fumbles for five memorable catches.

Continue reading “NFL’s new catch rule is a start, but Riveron himself remains a big problem”

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”

Blake Bortles is a natural leader who has a team-first attitude.

He proved that last Saturday when he signed an extension with the Jacksonville Jaguars that is so team-friendly that you wonder why he agreed to it.

It is a good deal for Bortles only if he doesn’t have a good year.

The three-year, $54 million deal that could go up to $66.5 million with incentives has $26.5 million in guarantees. The fifth-year option would have cost the Jaguars $19 million. So for $7.5 million, the Jaguars now have him under contract for three years at an average of $18 million a year.

And it lowered his cap number this year to $10 million.

Continue reading “Bortles’ willingness to sign a bad deal (for him) is a head-scratcher”