VITO'S VIEWS

After the Rams said Matthew Stafford, who was having back problems, was cleared to start and the Browns and Saints named Joe Flacco as their starters, the 32 teams all had their starters to open the season. Now we will find out how many to start all 17 games. The 33rd quarterback is likely Kirk Cousins, who still may get a chance to start if a teams winds up deciding to trade for him.

Here is a division-by-division rundown on the quarterbacks:

AFC EAST

Buffalo, Josh Allen; Miami, Tua Tavogailoa; New England, Drake Maye; New York Jets, Justin Fields.

Overview: Allen is easily the best quarterback in the division and should lead the Bills to another division title.

AFC NORTH

Baltimore, Lamar Jackson; Cincinnati, Joe Burrow; Pittsburgh, Aaron Rodgers; Cleveland, Joe Flacco.

Overview: Jackson is trying to make the Super Bowl for the first time while Burrow is trying for the second time. Rodgers and Flacco are stopgaps until the teams find their quarterbacks of the future.

AFC SOUTH

Houston, C.J. Stroud; Jacksonville, Trevor Lawrence; Tennessee, Cam Ward; Indianapolis, Daniel Jones.

Overview: Stroud is the best best in the division, while the Jaguars hope Lawrence can start living up to his potential with new coaching. Ward is a rookie, while Jones got the job because Anthony Richardson has been so disappointing. This is Jones second chance after being a bust with the Giants, but he is probably a stopgap.

 AFC WEST

Kansas City, Patrick Mahomes; San Diego, Justin Herbert; Denver, Bo Nix; Las Vegas, Geno Smith.

Overview: Mahomes is trying to bounce back from last year’s Super Bowl loss after failing to get a three-peat and will try to join the select group with four rings. Herbert just wants to prove he can get there. They meet Friday night in Brazil. (The NFL should never take a matchup this good out of the U.S.)  Nix will try to get Denver a wild card spot. Smith followed Pete Carroll to the Raiders, who aren’t a contender.

NFC EAST

Philadelphia, Jalen Hurts; Washington, Jayden Daniels; Dallas, Dak Prescott; New York Giants, Russell Wilson.

Overview: Hurts is trying to join the select group of quarterbacks who have repeated. Daniels is a star in waiting, while Prescott needs to bounce back from an injury filled year. Wilson is just a stopgap.

NFC NORTH

Detroit, Jared Goff; Green Bay, Jordan Love; Minnesota, J.J McCarthy; Chicago, Caleb Williams.

Overview: Goff and Love are the two best quarterbacks in the division and McCarthy will start after being injured his rookie season. Williams has a new coach in Ben Johnson, who hopes to help him reach his potential.

NFC SOUTH

Tampa Bay, Baker Mayfield; Atlanta, Michael Penix; Carolina, Bryce Young; New Orleans, Spencer Rattler.

Overview: Mayfield is the best quarterback in the division.  Penix replaced Kirk Cousins in Atlanta. Young has yet to live up to his billing as the top pick but improved last year after being benched. Rattler is a stopgap.

NFC WEST

LA Rams, Matthew Stafford; San Francisco, Brock Purdy; Seattle, Sam Darnold; Arizona, Kyler  Murray.

Overview: Stafford has had a back problem, and it remains to be seen how effective he is. Purdy hopes to lead the 49ers to  a rebound season. Darnold joins the Seahawks after turning his career around in Minnesota. Murray is still trying to be more consistent.   

In retrospect, it seems inevitable and a no-brainer that network TV executives would pair Pat Summerall and John Madden in the broadcast booth for NFL football games.

They were a natural pairing with Summerall’s low-key style giving Madden the time and opportunity to entertain fans with his bombastic style.

But as the new book Madden & Summerall: How they  Revolutionized NFL Broadcasting by author  Rich Podolsky points out,  a lot of things had to fall in place for them to ever share the booth.

It is often forgotten that Summerall was at the top of the profession before he was teamed with Madden. He was fortunate enough to join the Giants late in his career and made a lot of connections in New York, then started in radio and worked his way up to become part of the No. 1 CBS broadcasting team with Tom Brookshier.

They might have spent their careers together except for one problem: This was the Mad Men era in New York, and Summerall and Brooksheier loved to drink and stay out all night. In one bizarre escapade, they unhitched a horse from a hansom cab and tried to walk him up the steps to the Plaza Hotel. Summerall pointed out they had a reservation. The horse didn’t.

After  nearly seven years together, the TV executives decided it was time to split up Summerall and Brookshier after they got negative reviews for their broadcast of Super Bowl XIV. The two leading candidates to pair with Summerall were Vin Scully and Madden, who got started in broadcasting  almost by accident as he was looking for something to do after retiring as the Raiders coach. Madden had a lot to learn and did only six games in 1980. His bigger splash instead was doing a Lite Beer commercial.

Scully, if course, was the legendary Dodgers baseball announcer, but even though Madden was inexperienced, Summerall was the better choice to pair with Madden  because he gave Madden the time between plays to become the Madden we all know. Scully was a storyteller himself, so he wouldn’t have meshed as well with Madden.

Summerall and Madden became the best broadcasting duo in TV history, and when Fox got the NFC rights when CBS declined to match their offer, they quickly signed Madden and Summerall to give them credibility since they had never done NFL games. Thought Madden and Summerall were not buddies like Summerall was with Brookshier, their chemistry in the booth couldn’t have been better.

But there were some bumps along the road. Although Madden didn’t drink, Summerall continued to drink until his friends staged an intervention. He agreed to go to Betty Ford, stayed for 33 days and stayed sober for the rest of his life, although the drinking had taken a toll and he finally needed a liver transplant.

Eventually Summerall started making mistakes, and Fox executives decided it was time for him to retire and called a press conference. But Summerall couldn’t give it up and said at the press conference he wasn’t retiring (although he eventually did so). Fox wanted to pair Madden with Joe Buck but he decided to do Monday Night Football with Al Michaels instead.

The liver transplant gave Summerall nine more years, but after a fall, he broke his hip and had a hip replacement. The hip replacement went well, but he collapsed preparing for his second rehab and had an embolism and died of a blood clot at age 82. Naturally, his widow asked Madden to give the eulogy.

Madden wound up working 13 years with CBS, eight with Fox, four with ESPN and two with NBC before retiring. He eventually made the Hall of Fame as a coach and gave his famous speech about the busts talking to each other at night after the HOF closed each evening.

But Madden wasn’t the retiring type, and his wife suggested the league give him a role, so he was made special assistant to the commissioner and a member of the safety committee.

Madden wound up having a triple bypass and became less mobile as his football injuries caught up with him. He still seemed healthy but died in a car while being driven to a routine doctor’s appointment. They had a small private service, but the eulogies poured in and even Scully said Madden and Summerall had the perfect partnership.

Madden and Summerall now belong to the ages and will be remembered as long as NFL games are broadcast. They set a standard that is not like to be matched. Credit Podolsky for writing a book that will help future generations understand what they meant to pro football. And they can always watch the games they broadcast on videotape. 

—The opening weekend of the season will feature five national games — four in prime time. Three of the five are on network TV. Don’t be surprised if there is a lot of sloppy play because teams don’t practice as much as they did back in the day. The league ended things like two-a-days in training camp to make the game safer which means it takes teams two or three game to get in top shape. Upsets are common in the oddsmakers dont have a good handle on the teams yet. And the odds on 11 of the games are about a field goal. And eight are division games.

–Not a great week for the survivor pools. Denver is a popular choice as a 7.5-point choice over the Titans, the worst team in the league last year, but who knows how rookie Cam Ward will play in his debut. The Cardinals are a 6.5-point choice over the Saints, but the Cardinals tend to be inconsistent. The Eagles are 7.5-point choices over the Cowboys and the Commanders are a 6.5-point pick over the Giants, but both are division games.The Bengals are a 5.5-point pick over the Browns, but the Bengals often start slowly and lost their opener last year when they were heavily favored,   

–The weekend starts with the usual Thursday night with the defending champions at home. But the Eagles will host the Cowboys. Granted, the Eagles and Cowboys are divisional rivals, and the Cowboys tend to be a popular team, but owner Jerry Jones just traded their best player, Micah Parsons, and the Eagles could dominate this game.

   –The game of the weekend is the Sunday night matchup between Buffalo and Baltimore. The Bills are a slight favorite and are favored in every game this year. But Baltimore is confident think they have their best team since they  got Lamar Jackson. Both Jackson and Josh Allen are looking to make the Super Bowl for the first time this year and it is a critical matchup for both teams.

  –Kansas City and San Diego play in a rare Friday night game because technically the high school football season doesn’t start for another week, although many high schools now start before Labor Day and will be playing this Friday. As part of their deal to get an antitrust exemption, the NFL agreed not to play on Friday nights during the high school season. This is a critical division game for both teams and quarterbacks. The Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes want to rebound after their Super Bowl loss while Justin erbert wants to prove he can take the Chargers to the Super Bowl. The game is on YouTubeTV but will be free. The Lions-Packers game is another  important division game and will be the Sunday doubleheader game. The Monday night game is also a division game with Minnesota at Chicago, but neither is considered a Super Bowl contender.

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. 

As teams begin or the 2025 season, here are five key teams to watch:

–Can the Eagles repeat to follow in the footsteps of the Chiefs, who repeated in 2023?

–Can  the Chiefs become the second team since the 1972 Dolphins to lose the Super Bowl one year and win it the next? They can also join the Packers, Steelers and 49ers as fourth team in modern era to win four Super Bowls in a decade.

–The Bills are favored to win every game, which they won’t do. But can they finally bring a Lombardi Trophy to Buffalo?

–The Lions had another disappointing exit in the playoffs, going 15-2 and losing to the Commanders. Can they finally make it to the Super Bowl for the first time this year?

–Lamar Jackson is all world in the regular season but not so much in the playoffs. Can he finally play as well in the playoffs as he does in the regular season?      

It is not unheard of for a coach who has had success to have a falling out with an owner.

In 1987, then-San Francisco owner Eddie DeBartolo was furious when the 49ers lost a playoff game to Minnesota and failed to make the Super Bowl for the third year in a row. He stripped coach Bill Walsh of his president’s title. In 1988, Walsh won his third title and then quit. It was an ill-advised move that cost Walsh a chance at winning more titles, although he later patched things up and ran the front office. George Seifert won two more rings after he left.

Then in March of 1994, Dallas coach Jimmy Johnson was furious when owner Jerry Jones told reporters at a league meeting that 500 coaches could win with the Cowboys. Instead of brushing it off and saying that was just Jerry being Jerry, Johnson decided to leave and he agreed to a settlement and left. He took a job in Miami, but he lost a chance to threepeat with the Cowboys and went 38-31 in Miami before retiring as a coach. He then had a broadcasting career with Fox.

And now we have the Bob and Bill show which now looks like it is going to last for the forseeable future.

Patriots owner Bob Kraft fired Bill Belichick, who won six Super Bowls with Tom Brady at quarterback but saw the team collapse after Brady left. Meanwhile, Brady won his seventh ring in Tampa Bay to foster the narrative that he was more responsible for the Patriots success than Belichick.

At the press conference announcing his departure, Kraft and Belichick made nice and said it was a mutual decision.

But it didn’t take long for it to become obvious that there was a rift between the two men. The Patriots made a 10-part documentary about their success and did not paint Belichick in a positive light. And Belichick recently published a 304-page book in which he didn’t even mention Kraft’s name, much less give him any credit.

Meanwhile, Belichick wasn’t hired by any NFL team last year. He only had one interview with the Falcons and they passed with speculation that Kraft may have warned them about the perils of hiring him. So he has taken a college job at North Carolina and gone public that he has a girlfriend nearly 50 years younger than him — a relationship that has raised a lot of eyebrows. And Kraft is trying to get the team on track when he fired Jerod Mayo after one losing season and hired former Patriot Mike Vrabel.

But neither Kraft nor Belichick seem ready to move on. Kraft seemed to show that in a recent interview.

“I gave up a No. 1 draft pick for a coach that had only won a little over 40 percent of his games to get him out (of New York),” Kraft said in the “Dudes on Dudes” postcast co-hosted by Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski last month. “I don’t know if there are any Jets fans here. I think getting Bill Belichick to come to the Patriots in 1999 was a big risk, and I got hammered in the Boston area, but he was with us 24 years.”

Belichick could have let that pass. After all, it was a risk for Kraft since Belichick had a losing record in Cleveland and resigned as head coach of the Jets after Bill Parcells retired to the front office.

“As I told Robert multiple times through the years, I took a big risk by taking the New England Patriots head coaching job,” Belichick said. “I already had an opportunity to be the Head Coach of the New York Jets, but the ownership situation was unstable.

“I had been warned by multiple previous Patriots’ coaches, as well as other members of other NFL organizations and the media, that the New England job was going to come with many internal obstacles,” he said. “I made it clear that we would have to change the way the team was managed to regain the previous attained success.”   

It wasn’t that risky for Belichick because he did not have a job and teams probably wouldn’t have been rushing to hire him after the way he refused to take the Jets job and had a losing record in Cleveland.

Anyway, it is obvious from most recent incident that the two men with big egos haven’t patched things up.

And the Bob and Bill show will continue. Will the Patriots win without Belichick? Will Belichick win on the college level at a school noted more for basketball than football? The Patriots are building a statue for Brady. Will they build one for Belichick?

We will see.

Call it a marriage of convenience.

The Steelers was looking for a veteran quarterback who can win now and Aaron Rodger was looking for a team that he thought would be a good fit for him.

So after spending the offseason deciding whether he wants to play, Rodgers agreed to a one year contract with the Steelers at age 41.

It is a gamble for both sides. The Steelers decided not to keep Russell Wilson and Justin Fields and signed Mason Rudolph and Skylar Thompson and drafted Will Howard on the sixth round. But they preferred to go with Rodgers, who kept them dangling the whole off season.

Rodgers has to prove he has something left in the tank. Last year, he threw for 3897 yards while completing 63 per cent of his passes and throwing 28  touchdown passes and 11 picks.

But the Jets finished 5-12 and the Steelers are looking for Rodgers to get them in the playoffs and win at least a playoff game. Rodgers will be 42 in December and Tom Brady is the only quarterback to win a playoff game at that age.

Coach Mike Tomlin, who wanted to bring in Rodgers, has never had a losing season but hasn’t won a playoff game since 2016,  They’ve made the playoffs four of the last five seasons but  have lost their first playoff game each year.

Meanwhile, the Steeler fans, spoiled by watching their team win six Super Bowls, are getting frustrated with many calling for the Steelers to fire Tomlin.

But the Steelers haven’t fired a coach since 1968 and have had just three coaches since 1969 — Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Tomlin. Art Rooney II, the son of Dan Rooney and grandson of team founder Art Rooney Sr., is sticking with Tomlin.

And Tomlin is betting on Rodgers being the answer for at least one year even though the Steelers are in the same division with Baltimore and Cincinnati. Tomlin and the Steelers will find out this year if he made a good bet.