MAC DAVIS: FROM IN THE GHETTO TO NORTH DALLAS FORTY

Maybe the most surprising thing about North Dallas Forty, which is still the best football movie ever made, is that Mac Davis was so perfect playing Seth Maxwell, the glamorous quarterback of the North Dallas Bulls. Davis was a singer/songwriter from Nashville, whose only acting experience had been doing sketches on his own variety show (which also featured Gabe ‘Kotter’ Kaplan and Loretta ‘MASH’ Swit) a few years earlier. But he fitted the role of an easy-going good ol’ boy with a fierce will to win—a part patterned on Dandy Don Meredith, who reportedly was offered the role himself, just as the Bulls were the Dallas Cowboys and coach BA Strothers was at least in part Tom Landry (Strothers was played by GD Spradlin, who made a career playing inflexible authoritarian figures; two years earlier he had played a basketball coach somewhere between John Wooden and Bobby Knight in One On One, a good movie spoiled by casting Robby Benson as the basketball star; you’ll remember him as Senator Geary in The Godfather).

The recognisable figures in North Dallas 40 made sense because the novel upon which the film was based was written by Pete Gent, a wide-out cum tight end for the Cowboys. The book is darker than the film, which is simpler in its battle against authority—the Gent character is called Phil Elliott, played by Nick Nolte, who loves the game but dislikes the regimented bullshit around it (boy did that ring a familiar bell with me) and it’s the relationship with Seth which is the cornerstone of the film: Davis is his best friend, but he gets along with everybody, and he is also canny enough to realise his value to the team and he will not let anyone get in the way of that. Kind of like Cap Rooney in Any Given Sunday, there’s a youngster waiting in the wings; though in this case it is a Born-Again Christian QB who fits the God America and Cheerleaders in Hot Pants image of “America’s Team”.

Davis was from Lubbock, Texas, so he knew his football, and he knew how the hometown hero thing would play. It’s a winning performance that should have led to a better career, but he had to wait four years for his next movie, which was the execrable Sting 2, and his later roles were in TV vehicles. Part of the problem was that easy-going aura, which made him excellent as a variety and game show host, but which in ND40 hinted at some depth—I always thought he would be perfect for roles as likeable-on-the-surface villains, but whosever lack of vision couldn’t see that probably did him a disservice.

But acting was really a sidelight. Davis is best known for writing a number of songs which became hits for Elvis Presley, the most famous of which is “In The Ghetto”. He looked a bit like Tony Joe White, who was in many ways the last and best of the ‘next Elvis’ contenders, but he was a cleaner version, which is why he had that variety show in the mid-Seventies. As a performer, he was a bit too pop-country, but as a song-writer he reminded me of Tom T Hall or Hoyt Axton, or at least he did once I heard “In The Ghetto”. This is an unusual song for country music at the time, and really in general, because it tells a story that’s specifically out of the country universe, and it is unapologetic in its empathy, in its implicit blame, and in its sense, perhaps a little to resigned, to the cycle of pain and violence that the ghetto creates and perpetuates. Davis wrote a number of other excellent ballads, and he sang them well, but I haven’t heard any which match the sadness of “In The Ghetto”, and in many ways I like his own, more folky version, at least as much as Elvis’ more powerful, orchestrated take.

Take a listen. And take a look at North Dallas Forty. In many ways Any Given Sunday is just a jazzed up version of that original, but most of the same themes are there. It was directed by Ted Kotcheff, a Canadian who had made The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz but who basically fell into journeyman work after this, and though he, Gent and producer Frank Yablans are credited with the screenplay, Nancy Dowd, who wrote Slapshot, contributed uncredited script-doctoring which I think is pretty visible. Like her film, this one is about more than football. And watch Steve Forrest as the owner, Charles Durning as the assistant coach, and most of all Bo Swenson and ex-Raider John Matuszak as the linemen O.W. and Joe Bob. Matuszak has the greatest line in any football movie, screamed at Durning when, after a loss, the assistant coach is berating them for not studying ‘tendencies’ closely enough. “Every time I call it a business, you call it a game! And every time I call it a game, you call it a business!”

But let’s leave the last words to Seth Maxwell, as played by Mac Davis, trying to instruct Phil Elliott: “You had better learn how to play the game, and I don't mean just the game of football.” 

NOTE: I wrote this for my football Patreon page: Friday Morning Tight End. If you like it, you'll get a lot more subscribing there: www.patreon.com/mikecarlsonfmte 

THE AFL& THE FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME: MY PATREON FMTE COLUMN

For those of you interested in American football, yesterday I did a post for my Friday Morning Tight End football site at Patreon (you can link to it here), discussing the bias the ProFootball Hall of Fame appears to have shown against players from the NFL's rival league from 1960-69, the American Football League. The piece was prompted by an exercise going on at Sports Illustrated, to try to pick the most worthy AFL players who have not yet been included, and I wind up by picking my top ten. When SI pick their top ten we will compare.

I have unlocked the post for this weekend, so you can read it without subscribing, but next week I will begin writing a weekly preview of the upcoming season, going division by division, and breaking down the off-season changes for each team. So the time to subcribe is now!

That's Mike Stratton about to break Keith Lincoln's ribs. I talk about it in the piece!

PETE RETZLAFF, TIMMY BROWN & THE 1960 CHAMPIONSHIP EAGLES

I've written a double-tribute to two Philadelphia Eagle greats who died in April, along with a look back at the Eagles' 1960 NFL championship season. And Timothy Brown's post-football acting career (you have seen Black Gunn, haven't you?). It's over at my Patreon column: https://www.patreon.com/posts/37414714

DON SHULA: BEYOND THE LEGACY OF UNDEFEATED

I have done a long essay about Don Shula, the NFL coach with the most wins in history, and coach of the only undefeated Super Bowl champions, who has died at 90. It's at my football site, Friday Morning Tight End, to which you can link here. It's a subscription site, but the subs are damn cheap.

TALES FROM ISOLATION ROW

Because I have been working in the past couple of months to generate traffic on two other platforms, my American football content on my Patreon site, Friday Morning Tight End, and other writing on Medium, sometimes via the Arc Digital platform, I have neglected Irresistible Targets. This should not surprise you, since I have at least twice seriously considered simply abandoning this project, which I was hoping would attract a much larger regular readership than it has.

But the lockdown has left me with more time to use, and I thought it might be time to begin working my way through books and television series and films I have read and watched, made notes about and organised ideas, but not written because, frankly, there was no money in it. So for the immediate future, at least, I'm proposing to write as many brief pieces as I can, and publish them here under the rubric of reviews or tales from Isolation Row. We'll start with a rather excellent Maigret from February....

JOW BURROW, THE DRAFT, THE PRIMARIES & NINE INCH HANDS

I wrote this last week before the NFL combine started, and Joe Burrow came to terms with his tiny Trump-like hands and the possibly of being drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals. I published it at Medium, where I tend to do long form, and at my subscription football column, Friday Morning Tight End, at Patreon. You can visit either of those sites to investigate and ideally subscribe....

 

JOE BURROW, THE DRAFT, THE PRIMARIES & NINE INCH HANDS

 

The NFL Draft is a lot like an election, albeit with a limited voter base, especially if you think of quarterbacks as the top-of-the-ticket presidential candidates. Those quarterbacks spend four months building up their resumes and turning themselves into stars. Then, after the Super Bowl, the tables get turned. Only those who've crossed a certain threshold in the polls get to enter the Combine, not even if, like Michael Bloomberg, you were to offer $60 billion as collateral.  The Combine is the equivalent of the campaign 'debates'.

Like presidential 'debaters', the players at the combine will face examination and grilling from Gms,coaches and scouts who, like a gaggle of Beltway Chuck Todds, mostly follow the same mainstream script they've followed at every combine. The script is designed to somehow squeeze square-peg quarterbacks with individual characteristics, who have succeeded within systems often unique and sometimes antithetical to the mainstream paradigm for NFL offenses, into the round holes of the classic NFL dropback passer, possessed of size to see over the pass rush, arm-strength to throw over a cross bar from the knees at 60 yards, leap over tall buildings in a single bound and with hands big enough to squeeze hogs by the neck until dead. One of those may be an exaggeration. Having been built up through the college season as potential saviours to the worst NFL teams, having been allocated top spaces in the draftnik's premature orgasms of early mock drafts, they now turn into chopped liver. And no one gets picked apart harder than the so-called recently-proclaimed front-runner.

That, of course, is LSU's Joe Burrow, and if the combine were like the Democratic primary, the other QBs would form a circle and test their arm strength by playing dodgeball with Burrow, like Bernie Sanders' long lost grandson, in the middle. Burrow, like Sanders,  made his front-runner status even more interesting by suggesting a little bit of socialist revolution. The guy who at season's end was a slam-dunk to be chosen first overall by the Cincinnati Bengals expressed the belief that he still held some 'leverage' over the process.

This was seen as a shot across the bows of the notoriously tightly run SS Bengal, whose quarterdeck includes owner Mike Brown, executive VP Katie Brown Blackburn, VP Player Personnel Paul Brown and VP Troy Blackburn. They are a family business, so ever dollar is personal, and anyone who remembers when Carson Palmer tried to get out of Cincinnati will member how Paul Brown showed the flexibility of a candy cane until he got what he wanted from the Raiders from Palmer. Coincidentally, Joe Burrow's personal QB coach for the combine is Carson Palmer's brother Jordan.
Last week I went on ESPN UK's Nat Coombs Show (@thencshow) and discussed Burrow's leverage with former NFL GM Mike Tannenbaum. Mike pointed out right away that things are different now, with the rookie salary cap and the fact the drafting team keeps the player's rights for the length of his (unsigned) rookie contract: which for a first-rounder is five years. If I were an agent I'd be looking to frighten the socialist monopoly of the NFL with an anti-trust suit, but that's just me.
It was a non-quarterback, Bo Jackson, who actually sat out 1986 and played baseball rather than disappear into Tampa Bay. But Bo was a major league player; the two more relevant uses of leverage were from quarterbacks who forced trades. John Elway in 1983 also threatened to play baseball, but his time in the Yankees' farm system had already showed he had about as much chance of being a major league regular as, say, Tim Tebow. Elway's  coming out of Stanford's west-coast offense, did not want to play for the Colts and Frank Kush, a fiery coach whose success in college had been based on fierce defense and a somewhat paleolithic view of the forward pass. The Colts caved in and traded him to Denver for the fourth pick overall (tackle Chris Hinton), veteran QB Mark Herrmann and Denver's first rounder in 1984 (Ron Solt, who became a journeyman at guard).
You hear various stories about who engineered Eli Manning's refusal to go to San Diego with the first pick overall. His father Archie, or his agent Tom Condon, are usually blamed, with the reason being either a Kush-like aversion to Chargers' coach Marty Schottenheimer (who had messed up his Doug Flutie/Drew Brees duo) or a recognition that San Diego was a media deadzone. In any event, Chargers' GM AJ Smith had an advantage: the 2004 draft featured three quarterbacks all worthy going in the draft's top 10 (indeed, had he not landed Manning, Giants' GM Ernie Accorsi was supposed favouring Ben Rothliesberger (henceforth Ben) over Philip Rivers. Smith liked Rivers, so after he took Manning, the Giants took Rivers with the fourth pick. When they flipped choices, the Chargers also got a third round pick in 04 (kicker Nate Kaeding), a first in 2005 (Shawn Merriman) and an 05 fifth, which eventually became starting tackle Roman Oben. Two Super Bowl wins apart, you'd call it win/win.

As the combine opens there are two questions. The first is whether the Bengals can convince Burrow to play for them. This is not up to Mike Brown as much as it is up to coach Zac Taylor, who's a young supposed offensive guru whose job it will be to persuade Burrow that he can blossom and star in his offense, and that the team will build around him. Burrow, of course, is from Ohio: but Athens is only 40-50 miles closer to Cincinnati that it is to Cleveland or Pittsburgh (it's 75 miles from Columbus, though, where Burrow went to Ohio State.

The second, more telling question, is whether Burrow will remain the consensus top pick. After all, that undefeated national championship is now a long time in the past. And, on the first day of the combine Burrow was measured with NINE INCH HANDS!!! Not the name of a heavy metal band, nine inch hands might as well be puppy paws in NFL scouting. According to ESPN, in the past decade only three NFL starters have ever been measured with hands that small: Ryan Tannehill, Jared Goff and Chad Henne. Interestingly, Zac Taylor's hands measured nine inches at the 2007 Combine.
A passer with small hands, the theory goes, can't control the ball as well in bad conditions, is more likely to lose it on sack contact, and has questions about his overall maturity and mannish construction. By the way, Iron Mike's span (the measurement from thumb to pinkie) is a full 10 inches, though that in itself wasn't enough to get me to the combine. Also by the way, Patrick Mahomes' mitts measured out at 9 ¼ inches when he went through the combine.

It's funny when measurements begin to trump tape. I remember sitting with scouts watching an NFL Europe scrimmage. Barcelona's QB was Robert Daugherty, at 5-10 Boston University's answer to Doug Flutie. When Daugherty had a pass batted down at the line of scrimmage, the scouts started nodding and saying to each other 'that''s what happens when you're too short'. On the next possession Scotland's QB, Matt Blundin, a 6-6 guy from Virginia who was a second-round draft pick of the Chiefs, had a pass batted down. 'That's what happens when you're 6-6', I announced loudly. It got one or two smiles.
But now everyone will be considering Burrow's arm—strength, rated only average based on his college season. But why couldn't be beat out JT Barrett or Dwayne Haskins at Ohio State. What about his 2018 season? Is he a one-year wonder? And in 2019 he played on a powerhouse team with great offensive weapons. Did they make him look better than he was?

Funnily enough, the one thing that gave Burrow some leverage was being the unquestioned first choice. If that status drops at the combine, things get interesting, because as I said to Mike Tannenbaum, I see this year's draft class as something like 2004's, with Justin Herbert of Oregon and Tua Tagovailoa (henceforth 'Tua') of Alabama as the Rivers and Ben of the group.

Herbert is a big but mobile pocket passer who like Rivers played on a team which wasn't that good around him. He can look deliberate, and his decision-making was questioned, but that's what being over-manned can do to you. His arm will measure out strong, and his taking the decision to play at the Senior Bowl and showcase himself paid off: he was clearly the game's MVP and his leadership skills stood out. Tua, of course, is coming off a dislocated hip injury, and other problems with ankles, which raises some red-flags, but his is a rare talent in terms of mobility and arm strength. He was generally considered the number one prospect before his injury, and no one was downgrading him because his Bama teams were powerhouses. As a footnote, it wouldn't surprise me to see Jordan Love from Utah State move into this group with a top Combine; like Ben he comes from a second tier programme, but like Ben he has a rare combination of arm strength and pocket mobility; though he is less likely to step in quickly with the team that takes him.

So if Herbert or Tua step in front of Burrow in some team's expectations it could be a bonus for teams sitting with top five picks. If the Bengals decide a plan B would be fine with them, and other teams still covet Burrow, they could then feel free to do business.

At the very least you'd expect the swap of first round picks to cost the swapping team a another first, a second (those might be futures) and something else: and the Bengals are a team that needs a lot of something elses.

And here's where the Combine, and the post-combine draft process resembles a presidential race. Almost everybody lies. If the Bengals talk up other prospects, they may be trying to get the price up for Burrow. If they talk Burrow up, they may be trying to get the price up for Burrow. Or they may want Burrow, before during and after the Draft. Agents will float rumours, which the Hot Takz mouth clowns will be quick to spread round the twitosphere. In the end, Joe or No Joe, this soap opera will have exactly as long to run as the Bengals decide, and if Burrow does nothing to lessen his stock apart from NINE INCH HANDS, they would do well to play the game from now until April 23, two full months of reality TV. Just like a presidential race.

THANKSGIVING AT IRON MIKE'S FOUNDRY

I wrote this for my weekly Patreon column, Friday Morning Tight End, as a freebie special, so I decided I should offer it here to those of you whom I have disappointed by not posting more in the past few months. The column picks all the games every week, I'm running at about 2/3 correct, and subscriptions are $3 a month. Try it at patreon.com/mikecarlsonfmte 

Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday, just as fall may be my favourite season. In the US it is the biggest travel weekend of the year, and with the traditional turkey, like Christmas without the attendant trauma of gift-giving. In Britain, Christmas is the biggest travel time, even though it seems to torture most people (Scrooge is after all, British) and being British they took the day they dislike and extended it by another day, then closed all public transport and annually locate highway works where no one is working along most of the major roads. But Thanksgiving also beats Christmas because it's the greatest football holiday, and football permeates not only the day but the whole weekend.

Oddly enough, I never played in a Thanksgiving game. Most non-professional colleges don't have them, because their students (including the football team) head home, but nowadays, of course money talks, and this year it's also a late Thanksgiving, which means that although the Egg Bowl, between Mississippi and Mississippi State will be played on Thursday, the rest of the weekend will also feature such match-ups as The Clean Old-Fashioned Hate, between Georgia and Georgia Tech; Vanderbilt vs Tennessee; Clemson vs South Carolina (Palmetto Bowl); Ohio State vs Michigan; the Iron Bowl between Alabama and Auburn and two of the West Coast's biggies: Oregon vs Oregon State (The Civil War) and Washington vs Washington State (The Apple Bowl).

Of course the extending of the college season through conference playoffs has been a factor here too, not least because conferences realigned to add enough teams to justify a playoff. So the Texas-Texas A&M match which was once a staple of the November calendar is now gone because they play in different conferences.

Thanksgiving morning was usually the time for the great high school rivalries. My dad played for West Haven against New Haven's Hillhouse High in a game in 1943 that drew over 20,000 to the Yale Bowl; Hillhouse had the legendary Levi Jackson, one of the best players to by-pass the NFL, on their team. But I played as an academic scholarship boy at a prep school, whose team was mostly local post-grads doing a 'prep' year before college (our most famous was Yale's Albie Booth; now it's Shady McCoy) but whose student body was about half boarders, who like college students went home for the holiday.

West Haven wasn't playing Hillhouse any longer when I was a kid; New Haven's Commercial High had been rebranded Wilbur Cross and they now played Hillhouse, so West Haven had no natural rivalry, and my dad wasn't interested. He also didn't care about the traditional Milford-Stratford game: teams from towns on opposite sides of the Housatonic River. That one disappeared as both towns added a second school; when Milford added a third, Milford High itself disappeared. There is a more famous cross-river rivalry, however, the State Line Game between Easton (Pennsylvania) against Phillipsburg (New Jersey), towns on opposite sides of the Delaware River, and each a power within their own state.

So we would play touch football in the yard, or down by the right of way to the beach, at least until the year we were up at my uncle's in Chelmsford, Mass and our game attracted a group of neighbours. The game sort of broke up after my brother's complaint about my coverage degenerated into a fist-fight: Myles Garrett eat your heart out.

Connecticut, where I grew up, boasts the oldest high school rivalry: New London High against Norwich Free Academy, now called, somewhat tackily,Ye Olde Ball Game. It started in 1875, but hasn't been played continuously. The oldest one that has been played continuously is between Boston Latin and English High (which for some reason isn't called Boston English) which has been played every year since 1887. Most of the rest of the oldest rivalries are between the posh New England prep (ie private) schools, and probably featured people who went on to run America: Andover/Exeter; Milton/Noble & Greenough; Groton/St Mark's. You also get anomalies: in Connecticut Derby/Shelton and Ansonia/Naugatuck are both big games in the Housatonic Valley that draw Thanksgiving crowds, but the Ansonia/Derby game earlier in the season is actually bigger.

People think the Bears-Lions was the start of Thanksgiving pro football, but actually there were four games in 1920, a couple featuring NFL teams against non-league teams, including the Elyria (Ohio) Athletics, who played a scoreless draw with the NFL's Columbus Panhandles. The Bears (then called the Decatur Staleys) played the Chicago Tigers. Fixed rivalries came and went: the Packers and Lions was the big one when I was a kid, at least until Vince Lombardi refused to continue playing on Thanksgiving after a 13-13 draw in Detroit (in which Nick Pietrosante, who played his high school ball at Ansonia High scored the Lions' only TD. “Four days is not enough time to get ready for a game” Lombardi told commissioner Pete Rozelle.Pete didn't dare cross Vince. A few decades later, the NFL forces teams to play on Thursdays every week.

Three games is overkill, but this is America and we give thanks that more is always better and money (especially more money) always talks. But we really should allow some time for people to enjoy their dinner without the TV drawing them away—it used to do that even when there was only one, or two games (the AFL's made it two, then in 1966 the NFL moved against the AFL by adding the second, with the Cowboys as regular hosts) to distract you. The prime time game is fine, I guess. It's a shame the oddities of the NFL schedule make it hard to make Dallas-Houston, for example, or the Giants-Jets a permanent Thanksgiving Day game; you'd think their computers could deal with that. I'd love to see Chicago-Detroit be regular, and maybe Green Bay-Minnesota too (you could play the late one in whichever dome team was at home).

So enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner, even if you're here in Britain and it's not a holiday. I used to enjoy hosting the triple header at the Number One Sports Bar into the wee hours of the morning, just to be left with the real hardcore who were flipping a metaphorical bird, not a turkey, at their jobs. Whether you do celebrate or not, whether you watch the games or not, stop for a moment and just think about what you have to be thankful for. It's worth a special day to remind you.

FOOTBALL IS UPON US: MUCH MORE MIKE

The NFL season is rapidly approaching, and I've done a couple of deep previews of it. The first. which I wrote at the beginning of August, has just been published in The American magazine here in the UK. You can read it in print or online; go to this link for details. It picks all the divisions and also previews the four games in London this fall.

Then this week I did another, more detailed, preview for Betfair: grouping teams by Elite, Contenders, Dark Horses, Pretenders, and Forget It. Where did your team get slotted? Check it out at Betfair here. There will also be a Betfair video podcast up next week just before the season starts.

And of course if you're really hard-core and want complete run-downs you can go to my patreon site right here and read my off-season run downs of each team. They're done division by division, with looks at the full roster. There will be a feature or two next week before I start picking every game of the season with my Friday Morning Tight End column--67% right last year.

NFL DRAFT: THE CARDINAL CONUNDRUM, or HOW TO MAKE TWO GO INTO PICK ONE

You've been sitting on the first pick in the 2019 draft since the last day of the 2018 season, and with the pick due in the next 24 (or whatever it is as you read this) hours, you haven't figured out what you are going to with it. Or maybe you have.
The Arizona Cardinals appear to me to be hanging on until the last moment, as if waiting for something to come along that will be the classic Offer You Can't Refuse. This could be a viable, indeed successful, strategy. It could also be a classic case of slow-playing a hand and watching everyone fold rather than get sandbagged. Who Blinks First? But be aware I am dusting off my old Channel Five nickname of Crads (half Card, half Crap) for Arizona, just in case.
The point of interest is, of course Kyler Murray, who has been the beneficiary of the classic draft pattern of first building up players based on tape, then down-grading them/going beserk over their Combine measurements/times, then finally spending the last pre-draft month trying to tear them apart once again.Can you remember back to when Dwayne Haskins was the consensus number one and Murray was too small? Before Donald Jones somehow boosted himself by throwing passes in shorts to guys who weren't covered while no one rushed him?
I detailed much of this in my column yesterday, included the way the Cardinals number one pick last year, Josh Rosen, played a season behind a balsa-wood line, with a modest group of receivers and a scheme that thought David Johnson was John Henry Johnson (I changed the reference just to give you something new). That was a big part in getting rookie coach Steve Wilks fired (but not GM Steve Keim, who hired Wilks and made the draft pick and built the team around that pick. Go figure).  Keim then hired Kliff Kingsbury, a noted QB whisperer for probably not much reason. But think about Kingsbury for a moment, and you may realise why his vision might not be as much about whispering in Rosen's ear, as much as rolling out an NFL version of his offense behind Murray.
Kingsbury played QB at Texas Tech in Mike Leach's Air Raid offense, and was good. He was a sixth-round pick by the Pats but spent the Super Bowl 2003 season on IR.  He signed with four other NFL teams, and threw two passes for the J-E-S-T Jets in 2005. The Jets also sent him to NFL Europe, where he sort of split time at QB for Cologne with Shane Boyd. My memory was simply that he lack zip on his throws. He couldn't get any playing time in Canada, with either Montreal or Winnipeg, so he retired and went into coaching.
He was a QB coach at Houston under Kevin Sumlin (Case Keenum). Offensive coordinator under Sumlin at Texas A&M (Johnny Manziel). Head coach (2013-2018) at his alma mater, where his first QB was walk-on freshman Baker Mayfield. When he got hurt, freshman Davis Webb took over. Mayfield transferred to Oklahoma (hello, Heisman) and when he left his replacement was a pro baseball player called Tyler Murray. Hold that thought.
In 2014 Webb gave way to Patrick Mahomes (Vincent Testaverde was their third-stringer)
and after the season transferred to Cal.  Mahomes then had two big seasons before leaving for the NFL, but Tech's overall record in those four years was 23-26. He went 6-7 in 2017 with Nic Shimonek at QB, and 5-7 last year, at which point he was fired. He was hired in December as offensive coordinator at USC, then resigned when NFL teams came calling and was hired by Arizona in January.
Perhaps the Big 12 is tougher to win in than the NFL, but somehow I don't think so. But
looking at that history two things stand out: 1: His most successful QBs were not big pocket passers, although Mahomes could be described as a pocket passer.  Kyler Murray is not a big pocket passer. Josh Rosen pretty much is. And 2: he had Mayfield and went to Webb and had Webb and went to Mahomes. Who does he think he is, Jon Gruden? Keep that thought in mind two.
Finally, one more point about Murray. The best comparison I can think of with Rusell Wilson is that they both played pro baseball while playing college QB. Although Wilson isn't really 5-11; at the Combine he was 5-10 5/8, just enough to round up. But Wilson had four years as a college starter, and I did a few of his Wisconsin games when I did Big 10 for Eurosport. They were a powerful team where NC State wasn't, and he wasn't running for his life. They were a run-first team (Montee Ball and James White, 20 carries for Melvin Gordon) and Wilson was phenomenally efficient (72% completions, 10.3 ypa, 33 TD 4 INT) playing in the pocket.
Yes, small players have some problems with finding passing lanes and seeing over rushers, much worse in the NFL than in college, especially in spread-style college offenses.
Doug Flutie was 5-9, but I think he might be better today than he was in the NFL of the 80s playing for Mike Ditka. Sonny Jurgensen, the evolutionary Philip Rivers, was only 5-11.
Drew Brees (6-0), Michael Vick (6-0) Mayfield (6-1)...need I go on. What's an inch or two between friends?
But Murray will have to adjust like Mayfield did, at least once Freddie Kitchens took over coordinating in Cleveland. Of course, Kingsbury will supposedly design an offense to make things easy for him (do you think Jon Gruden will?)
So Arizona remains on the clock and these are their options.
1. Hold on to the pick and draft Murray. This makes Josh Rosen expendable, unless you've been paying attention and figure Kingsbury will keep both guys until Rosen transfers out to Oklahoma. The problem with the draft poker game, is they have to then figure out how they can maximize Rosen's trade value (which involves waiting) unless it turns out Murray can't beat him out. If he can, Rosen becomes double-damaged goods, and odds are a team craving Rosen won't want to shove him in right away unless they have to—they'd rather groom him and let him decompress after the 2018 debacle. But this scenario means you've spent two straight top picks on QBs, which is like losing two wives to 'accidents'. One is a tragedy.Two looks suspicious. OR
1a. Hold on to the pick and draft the best player out there. In my mind, that would be Quinnen Williams, but D line, especially interior, is not a major need. Their biggest needs can likely be filled lower down the draft, though they might take an edge rusher (with everyone thinking Joey Bosa's going 2 to the Niners, they ought to make some Bosa noises. But they would really be better served by trading down. Since neither the Niners nor Jets are going to take a QB, and there are plenty of edge rushers out there, they may not have any leverage UNLESS they announce don't want Murray. That will start everyone thinking. Can Oakland stay put and still get Murray if Gruden wants him?
So what do they about trading down? Can they do a Bosa feint and swap with the Niners? That probably wouldn't yield as much as they'd like, and the most likely scenario is
2. Trade the pick for someone looking to go up to one for Murray.  Your most likely suspects here would be the Raiders, holding picks 4, 24, 27 and 35. Does Gruden really want Murray? He could bring him along behind David Carr, and Murray on his rookie deal will be cap friendly for a couple of years after that. And he might be able to net a 2 for Carr down the road. It's hard to see the Giants needing Murray, and at 6 they might be able to pick up whoever they do want in the draft, or they could hope Haskins or Jones (if either is the guy, falls to 17). But here's another plan:
3. Trade Rosen now and draft Murray. By now I mean before the pick; not necessarily waiting until they're on the clock and hoping Keim turns into Kevin Kostner. Would the Giants give up 17 for Rosen? Would the Skins give up 15? Or 15 and 46 for Rosen and 65? If Kingsbury likes Murray that much, a one for Rosen would save lots of faces and get them a valuable pick at a need.
4. Draft Murray and trade him: This is really the same scenario as pick 2, except now they know you mean business. Think the Chargers drafting Eli Manning, whose father had told them he wouldn't play in San Diego, then trading him to the Giants for Philip Rivers and a 3rd (PK Nate Kaeding) along with a next year 1st (OLB Shawn Merriman) and 5th (traded to Tampa for OT Roman Oben). That was a pretty good haul for the Chargers, although Kaeding may have been cursed. Maybe Rivers too.
By now my brain is over-heating, and I half expect the Redskins to draft Sonny Jurgensen and the Jest to trade Adam Gase to Arizona. I feel grateful that by Sunday morning this will all be over...

In case you don't subscribe to my Friday Morning Tight End column at Patreon.com, here's a piece I posted (free to public view) last night. You could also check out an analysis from the previous day, of how quarterbacks disrupt the draft...

You've been sitting on the first pick in the 2019 draft since the last day of the 2018 season, and with the pick due in the next 24 (or whatever it is as you read this) hours, you haven't figured out what you are going to with it. Or maybe you have. Maybe you're the Arizona Cardinals.

The Arizona Cardinals appear to me to be hanging on until the last moment, as if waiting for something to come along that will be the classic Offer You Can't Refuse. This could be a viable, indeed successful, strategy. It could also be a classic case of slow-playing a hand and watching everyone fold rather than get sandbagged. Who Blinks First? But be aware I am dusting off my old Channel Five nickname of Crads (half Card, half Crap) for Arizona, just in case.

The point of interest is, of course Kyler Murray, who has been the beneficiary of the classic draft pattern of first building up players based on tape, then down-grading them/going beserk over their Combine measurements/times, then finally spending the last pre-draft month trying to tear them apart once again.Can you remember back to when Dwayne Haskins was the consensus number one and Murray was too small? Before Donald Jones somehow boosted himself by throwing passes in shorts to guys who weren't covered while no one rushed him?

I detailed much of this in my column yesterday, included the way the Cardinals number one pick last year, Josh Rosen, played a season behind a balsa-wood line, with a modest group of receivers and a scheme that thought David Johnson was John Henry Johnson (I changed the reference just to give you something new). That was a big part in getting rookie coach Steve Wilks fired (but not GM Steve Keim, who hired Wilks and made the draft pick and built the team around that pick. Go figure).  Keim then hired Kliff Kingsbury, a noted QB whisperer for probably not much reason. But think about Kingsbury for a moment, and you may realise why his vision might not be as much about whispering in Rosen's ear, as much as rolling out an NFL version of his offense behind Murray.

Kingsbury played QB at Texas Tech in Mike Leach's Air Raid offense, and was good. He was a sixth-round pick by the Pats but spent the Super Bowl 2003 season on IR.  He signed with four other NFL teams, and threw two passes for the J-E-S-T Jets in 2005. The Jets also sent him to NFL Europe, where he sort of split time at QB for Cologne with Shane Boyd. My memory was simply that he lack zip on his throws. He couldn't get any playing time in Canada, with either Montreal or Winnipeg, so he retired and went into coaching.

He was a QB coach at Houston under Kevin Sumlin (Case Keenum). Offensive coordinator under Sumlin at Texas A&M (Johnny Manziel). Head coach (2013-2018) at his alma mater, where his first QB was walk-on freshman Baker Mayfield. When he got hurt, freshman Davis Webb took over. Mayfield transferred to Oklahoma (hello, Heisman) and when he left his replacement was a pro baseball player called Tyler Murray. Hold that thought.

In 2014 Webb gave way to Patrick Mahomes (Vincent Testaverde was their third-stringer) and after the season transferred to Cal.  Mahomes then had two big seasons before leaving for the NFL, but Tech's overall record in those four years was 23-26. He went 6-7 in 2017 with Nic Shimonek at QB, and 5-7 last year, at which point he was fired. He was hired in December as offensive coordinator at USC, then resigned when NFL teams came calling and was hired by Arizona in January.

Perhaps the Big 12 is tougher to win in than the NFL, but somehow I don't think so. But looking at that history two things stand out: 1: His most successful QBs were not big pocket passers, although Mahomes could be described as a pocket passer.  Kyler Murray is not a big pocket passer. Josh Rosen pretty much is. And 2: he had Mayfield and went to Webb and had Webb and went to Mahomes. Who does he think he is, Jon Gruden? Keep that thought in mind two.

Finally, one more point about Murray. The best comparison I can think of with Rusell Wilson is that they both played pro baseball while playing college QB. Although Wilson isn't really 5-11; at the Combine he was 5-10 5/8, just enough to round up. But Wilson had four years as a college starter, and I did a few of his Wisconsin games when I did Big 10 for Eurosport. They were a powerful team where NC State wasn't, and he wasn't running for his life. They were a run-first team (Montee Ball ran for nearly 2,000 yards at 6.3 per carry, backed up by James White, and with 20 carries for Melvin Gordon) and Wilson was phenomenally efficient (72% completions, 10.3 ypa, 33 TD 4 INT) playing in the pocket.

Yes, small players have some problems with finding passing lanes and seeing over rushers, much worse in the NFL than in college, especially in spread-style college offenses. Doug Flutie was 5-9, but I think he might be better today than he was in the NFL of the 80s playing for Mike Ditka. Sonny Jurgensen, the evolutionary Philip Rivers, was only 5-11. Drew Brees (6-0), Michael Vick (6-0) Mayfield (6-1)...need I go on. What's an inch or two between friends?

But Murray will have to adjust like Mayfield did, at least once Freddie Kitchens took over coordinating in Cleveland. Of course, Kingsbury will supposedly design an offense to make things easy for him (do you think Jon Gruden will?)

So Arizona remains on the clock and these are their options:

1. Hold on to the pick and draft Murray. This makes Josh Rosen expendable, unless you've been paying attention and figure Kingsbury will keep both guys until Rosen transfers out to Oklahoma. The problem with the draft poker game, is they have to then figure out how they can maximize Rosen's trade value (which involves waiting) unless it turns out Murray can't beat him out. If he can, Rosen becomes double-damaged goods, and odds are a team craving Rosen won't want to shove him in right away unless they have to—they'd rather groom him and let him decompress after the 2018 debacle. But this scenario means you've spent two straight top picks on QBs, which is like losing two wives to 'accidents'. One is a tragedy.Two looks suspicious. OR

1a. Hold on to the pick and draft the best player out there. In my mind, that would be Quinnen Williams, but D line, especially interior, is not a major need. Their biggest needs can likely be filled lower down the draft, though they might take an edge rusher (with everyone thinking Joey Bosa's going 2 to the Niners, they ought to make some Bosa noises. But they would really be better served by trading down. Since neither the Niners nor Jets are going to take a QB, and there are plenty of edge rushers out there, they may not have any leverage UNLESS they announce they don't want Murray. That will start everyone thinking. Can Oakland stay put and still get Murray if Gruden wants him?

So what do they about trading down? Can they do a Bosa feint and swap with the Niners? That probably wouldn't yield as much as they'd like, and the most likely scenario is:

2. Trade the pick for someone looking to go up to one for Murray.  Your most likely suspects here would be the Raiders, holding picks 4, 24, 27 and 35. Does Gruden really want Murray? He could bring him along behind David Carr, and Murray on his rookie deal will be cap friendly for a couple of years after that. And he might be able to net a 2 for Carr down the road. It's hard to see the Giants needing Murray, and at 6 they might be able to pick up whoever they do want in the draft, or they could hope Haskins or Jones (if either is the guy, falls to 17). But here's another plan:

3. Trade Rosen now and draft Murray. By now I mean before the pick; not necessarily waiting until they're on the clock and hoping Keim turns into Kevin Kostner. Would the Giants give up 17 for Rosen? Would the Skins give up 15? Or 15 and 46 for Rosen and 65? If Kingsbury likes Murray that much, a one for Rosen would save lots of faces and get them a valuable pick at a need. If they wait until after they draft Murray, most of their leverage is lost, at least until some team loses a QB to injury in August or September. OR:

4. Draft Murray and trade him: This is really the same scenario as pick 2, except now they know you mean business. Think the Chargers drafting Eli Manning, whose father had told them he wouldn't play in San Diego, then trading him to the Giants for Philip Rivers and a 3rd (PK Nate Kaeding) along with a next year 1st (OLB Shawn Merriman) and 5th (traded to Tampa for OT Roman Oben). That was a pretty good haul for the Chargers, although Kaeding may have been cursed. Maybe Rivers too.

By now my brain is over-heating, and I half expect the Redskins to draft Sonny Jurgensen and the Jest to trade Adam Gase to Arizona. I feel grateful that by Sunday morning this will all be over...

COLIN KAEPERNICK & THE NFL: THE BUSINESS AND THE GAME

Last week when Colin Kaepernick's collusion suit against the NFL was settled, I wrote about what the settlement meant, and the issues behind it. If you don't subscribe to my Friday Morning Tight End column at Patreon.com, you can now find the column at Arc Digital, here. A quick summary: the settlement has very little to do with knees, and lots to do with owners; note that I wrote it before Robert Kraft took his chauffeur-driven Bentley down to the Orchids Of Asia....

https://arcdigital.media/colin-kaepernick-the-business-and-the-game-37be3626619?sk=03f72df243354388786af77d496c1587

NFL BLACK MONDAY & THE TERRIBLE 20: MY PATREON ROUND UP

Alongside picking the Wild Card weekend last week on my Patreon site, I also wrote the following essay recapping the seasons of each of the 20 teams that failed to qualify for the playoffs, and getting a headstart on the coaching carousel. Later today I will be posting a very long column at Patreon, analysing the coaching changes so far, addressing the question of racism, predicting who might get the two jobs still open, and of course giving a run down and making my picks of all four Divisional Round games. If you'd like to get current, you can subscribe at patreon.com/mikecarlsonfmte and get more background essays as well as picks of the season's final three games, including the Super Bowl. So here's last Friday's first post:


Black Monday is when the guillotine blade falls for coaches, and one-quarter (ie, eight) of the NFL's jobs seem to change each year. The main point being, not improvement, but blame. If you want improvement, you might make a move like the Browns did in midseason: a risk, but one that worked (and note they identified the offensive coordinator as part of the problem and fired him too) or maybe like the Packers did, which didn't improve anything but signalled something. I don't know what. Aaron Rodgers didn't look any more unhappy. It occurs to me that many of the same things being said about Ben Rothliesberger in Pittsburgh might well be said about AR.

But Black Monday really ought to be rebranded as Blame Monday. When I look at the six head coaches fired Monday, I don't see any whose performance screams 'this is not fair', except perhaps Steve Wilks in Arizona, who probably deserved another year with Byron Leftwich in the hope Steve Keim could put some talent around Josh Rosen. And that is the nub of the problem, because when I look at those six teams I see six who could have and should have fired their GMs before even considering what to do about the coaches. Only one, Miami, actually did, letting Mike Tannenbaum go and promoting Chris Grier, son of ex-New England personnel guy Bobby, but the problem in Miami is that owner Steve Ross is the interfering type, and wants a GM who can be influenced. Which is why Miami is what they are (as with all these points, see below).

If you can give me a reason why Keim, Jason Licht or Mike McCagnan should still be making decisions for a football team, please do. Obviously John Elway is safe in Denver for Elway reasons, and Mike or Paul Brown is safe in Cincinnati for Brown reasons, but unless those three guys were actually ceding personnel decisions to their fired coaches, which we all know they weren't, why are they still getting to choose another coach. Or hire consultants, as Licht did, to choose one.

I would add two more GMs to that list, Bruce Allen in Washington and Dave Caldwell in Jacksonville (or is it Tom Coughlin? Or is that the problem). Allen's locked to the Dan, but Jacksonville's problems are endemic, and 2017's season now looks like an outlier (and after all, was only 10-6 plus a 2 game playoff run). But let's start our rundown of non-playoff teams with the team that reminds me of Graig Nettles famous quote about the Bronx Zoo Yankees: 'when I was a kid I wanted to either play baseball or join the circus. With the Yankees I got to do both'.

Pittsburgh (9-6-1): Professor Tomlin's Fun Bunch strikes again! The Steelers by all rights should be in the playoffs—many people, including myself, had them as pre-season Super Bowl contenders, but the Killer Bs were struck by whatever it is that's decimating the bee population around the world. For all that James Connor gained the yardage LeVeon Bell might have, he wore down as the season progressed (think Jalen Samuels might have got just a few carries earlier in the year, Mike?) and of course Antonio Brown's hissy fit when he couldn't wear JuJu's MVP tutu kept him out of the season's last game. Which turned out to be academic but had the Browns won in Baltimore we would have enjoyed the soap opera around whether AB would play in the Card round. Which I think he would have: he's a prima donna but he's OUR prima donna being the Professor's thinking. Here's the thing though: Tomlin's approach means he has not backed himself into any corners with AB: Pittsburgh can't afford to release or even trade him ($21m plus cap hits for two years) so they need to take a Boston Red Sox/Manny Ramirez approach: “that's just AB being AB” because the bed is made and AB is fully tucked in.

Tennessee (9-7): Crossroads for rookie coach Mike Vrabel, who could go the Jeff Fisher/Mike Mularkey/Ken Whisenhunt perpetual near .500 contender route, or perhaps build on the team's success this year. They were better defensively than I expected: Romeo Crennel did a nice job with a talented bunch, but offensively they will have decisions to make re Marcus Mariota, and it was odd how few big plays they got from Dion Lewis, which shows yet again the way the Pats scheme to get the best out of their parts, and why they are almost always willing to let them go.

Minnesota (8-7-1): Changing offensive coordinators was a short-term fix, but the emphasis on the run didn't help the pass game get better; in fact it seemed as if the ways DiFillippo schemed Thielen and Diggs open disappeared quickly, and the Vikes became easier to defend. Mike Zimmer's D hit a wall late in the season as well: if you can deal with his rush packages, you can beat them too easily. Their loss at home to Chicago was disappointing, more for the way their offense ground to a halt than anything else. Was Kirk Cousins THAT much better than Case Keenum? In some ways, yes, but they are going to need to rethink their offense in the off-season. It's worth noting here that the six highest-paid QBs in the NFL were Aaron Rodgers ($33.5m), Matt Ryan ($30m) Kirk Cousins ($28m) Jimmy G ($27.5m) Matt Stafford ($27m) and Derek Carr ($25). None of them are playing any more this year. This tells you two things. One: a starter playing well during his rookie QB salary capped contract is the most valuable commodity in the NFL and two: Cousins needed to throw for more than 131 yards last week.

Cleveland (7-8-1): FIRED (MID-SEASON) HUE JACKSON If every firing were so straight-forward, every team would do it every year they were losing. It's hard to say whether interim coach and defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was the reason for the turnaround, because the defense played well all season, but the offense, minus Hue and Todd Haley, blossomed under Freddie Kitchens, with Nick Chubb and Baker Mayfield both blossoming. This creates a dilemma for the Browns: Williams' track record as a head coach is disappointing, while Kitchens has never been a head at any level. A lot of people will want to take over here, because the talent level is so good, and I think bringing in any offensive-minded coach (eg: Mike McCarthy) over Kitchens would be a mistake. I doubt Williams would stay on as DC if they hire a more neutral type (Jim Caldwell is being considered) but on paper at least, if Williams stayed, that would be the best idea—though in reality chemistry is a fragile science.

Landover DC Beltway Bandits (7-9): Jay Gruden did a pretty good job considering Josh Johnson is no Colin Kaepernick. The Skins seemed to be the most injured team in the league, yet their offense held together, and their defense played hard despite a questionable secondary, and of course the late-season release of DJ Swearinger—though you don't hear anyone complaining about a culture of indiscipline under Gruden minor. As I said above, it's Bruce Allen who ought to carry the can for the depth-free Skins, although he gets some points for a defensive line built in the past couple of drafts. I tried to understand the Alex Smith signing, but was he really any more effective than Josh Johnson Off The Street, and will they try to keep Johnson away from the San Diego Fleet next month? Or will they let him go and do the Right Thing and sign Colin Kaepernick?

Atlanta (7-9): The blame fell on the assistants, which is the other way out I didn't discuss at the start. I expected Steve Sarkisian to be fired; despite the idea that Calvin Ridley had helped solve their red zone problems early in the year, they were never as consistent as they ought to be, and Tevin Coleman was not able to be the every down back he had to be with Devonta Freeman's injuries. Marquand Manuel getting the chop was more of a surprise, as he goes back to Seattle days with Dan Quinn, and frankly, their D played no better or worse than in past years, which, considering the injuries was a positive. Sometimes it's not the quantity of but the quality: losing Deion Jones and Keanu Neal early was a blow Atlanta never seemed to recover from, though Damonte Kazee, drafted as a slot corner, proved effective as a strong safety.

Miami (7-9): FIRED: ADAM GASE Who do you choose, Tannehill or Tannenbaum? Or neither. You could try to argue that when Tannehill was healthy, Gase's teams were competitive, and with Brock Osweiler they weren't, and you can also argue Tannenbaum had a penchant for  older over-paid stars who couldn't be coached into a couple more years of excellence because Bill Parcells or Rex Ryan wasn't coaching them. Which is why it seems Rex Ryan even though Tannenbaum is gone. And Rex got to the playoffs with Mark Butt Fumble. Remember it was Rex's father who said “"QBs are overpaid, overrated, pompous bastards and must be punished." What did Ryan Tannehill ever do to him?

Carolina (7-9): What looked like a Norvgasmic offense at the start of year floundered on Cam Newton's injured shoulder and the seemingly perennial problem of finding receivers.  Devin Funchess again under-achieved, though DJ Moore is a keeper for next year, though next year Greg Olson is not going to be back. They have decisions to make with injured/aging defensive stars like Thomas Davis, Julius Peppers, Luke Keuchley and Dontari Poe, as well as center Ryan Kalil for years their best and sometimes only decent O lineman. GM Marty Hurney's second draft should be a challenge. Christian McCaffrey had a hell of a year though, considering he was the only weapon teams needed to account for the second half of the year.

Green Bay (6-9-1): FIRED (MID-SEASON) MIKE MC CARTHY: Joe Philbin sure made a big difference. I think they need to let Aaron Rodgers decide whose offense he wants to play in, which would appear to be Josh McDaniels', but I kinda doubt JMcD is going anywhere, unless Bill Belichick tells him he has no plans to retire anytime soon, or Tom Brady says he does. The Packers, small-market as they are, and again being lumbered with the pre-Reggie White tag of not being a place urban free agents want to go, ought still to be a welcoming destination for a coach, especially with Rodgers in place. If Rodgers wants a QB innovator they could look at Kliff Kingsbury (who's barely older than AR), or maybe Baylor's Matt Ruhle, though being a great recruiter for a second-tier program, as Ruhle was at Temple as well, may be too close a match. He also isn't an offensive guru, being a defensive coach and an O line coach for a year under Tom Coughlin. Maybe Rodgers will consider Adam Gase, whose rep as a 'QB Whisperer' is based around a year of 'coaching' a good season out of Peyton Manning. Gase is like the Bill O'Brien of the other 44 states.

Detroit (6-10): I predicted the firing of Jim Bob Cooter a couple of weeks ago, because this year the short-pass game seemed to regress as if Matt Stafford pulled his head back into Cooter's shell. With Carro-On Johnson injured, you'd think they'd try to open things up, but of course trading Golden Tate made the pass game one dimensional, as he was their best short receiver. I suspect Matt Patricia will grab some ex-Pat offensive guy looking to take better advantage of Stafford's arm; I wouldn't be surprised if they draft or sign a slot receiver. The upside, the ceiling of all this, of course, is perpetual Tennessee Titanism. Fun Fact: the Lions went 9-7 under Jim Caldwell in 2017.

Denver (6-10): FIRED: VANCE JOSEPH: John Elway wasn't going to fire himself and no one else was either. He hired Joseph to be what Tom Boswell in a baseball context called a 'Peerless Leader' type: the square-jawed leader of men. Boswell said that archetype often stand firm while chaos swirls around them, doing nothing about it, which kind of describes Joseph's game management, but it's very hard to think that if he had just been a tougher ramrod Denver's season would have been much better. It was Elway who decided Case Keenum was the answer, and though he had an impressive draft (and landed Philip Lindsay undrafted, which I cheered) they seem to build their D as if a Manning were going to be building big leads, or a couple of ace rushers would do the job, when their secondary was a key to Von Miller's success. How Chris Harris comes back from injury is a big question, but the idea they are interviewing defensive guys like Vic Fangio and Chuck Pagano tells you something.

Buffalo (6-10): The Bills were sort of like Carolina lite, except Josh Allen isn't the passer Cam Newton was, and they don't have a Christian McCaffrey, but their receivers are a similar mismash and Brian Daboll may not have jumped onto that bandwagon. Defensively they were tough all year, but the Pats' ability to push them around and run on them was a revelation late. I'm not sure Sean McDermott has a long term plan for getting better, and I'd predict he gets closer to a hot seat next season.

Cincinnati (6-10): FIRED: MARVIN LEWIS The idea that Hue Jackson might be next in line for the job is funny. Lewis went 16 season with the Bengals, ended with a winning record, the most wins in team history, and an 0-7 playoff mark. His teams were stocked with behavioural problems and character issues, but he avoided for the most part the Tomlin-out of control label in large part because everyone knew the Brown family were signing these guys with character issues because they were good value risks. One thing to remember, if you're a GM (or a coach, who should be given a sign-off on such moves) when you draft a guy with issues, you can't be surprised when he has issues, and if you don't know how to control them, you shouldn't be paying him the big bucks. I'm talking about you, Giants, not just the Steelers. Remember when the Pats brought in problem children like Corey Dillon (Bengals) or Rodney Harrison? Or Randy Moss, who had the huge season and then was dropped when the shine wore off? Vance Joseph, the peerless leader of Denver, appeals to the Bengals but I wonder if Eric Bienamy, latest Andy Reid assistant to get in the spotlight, might get a job here: he played in Cincinnati, and he's a strong players-type coach, not an offensive innovator. But the Bengals mediocrity is almost endemic: I trace it back to the Carson Palmer situation, when they were a team trying to compete with the Colts and let their best hope of doing so simply leave.

YOUR (?) Jacksonville Jaguars (5-11): The Jags put the blame on Nathaniel Hackett and fired him during the season. They were 3-8, with seven straight losses, and went 2-3 the rest of the year, with Todd Milanovich calling the plays and Cody Kessler starting at QB. Who thought that was a good idea? In those five games the Jags scored two touchdowns, one a Dede Westbrook punt return and the other a Leonard Fournette one yard run. Putting less than 10 points per game on the board means your defense has to be better than the Bears 85 or Ravens 2000 or Bucs 2002 if you are going to win. Yes Blake Bortles was bad, but who thought Cody Kessler gave them a better chance of winning? Who thought so after one week?

But the moment that may wind up defining the Jags 2018 season was Leonard Fournette, injured, and TJ Yeldon, in uniform, sitting together chatting on the bench for the whole of the their loss to Houston. How much did they have to talk about? Tom Coughlin vented about it afterwards (maybe someone might have broken up the gab fest by, maybe, playing Yeldon?) and in the best traditions of Coughlin and NFL punishment, Yeldon is certainly not coming back. Fournette has had guarantees in his contract voided for 2019, which means he might be on the trading block, as if Carlos Hyde were the Future in Florida. Remember, the Jags led the NFL in rushing in 2017, playing Tom Coughlin run the ball and play D football, so it's a little surprising Tyrone Wheatley, the RB coach and Pat Flaherty the line coach brought in this year to improve pass-blocking in particular, were both fired. Fournette's injury-pagued season certainly had a lot to do with their ills, but an inability to get good QB play had a lot more (and even in that famous Super Bowl win over the Pats in week two Bortles' scrambling and yards after the catch on throws were the key factors).

And the Sacksonville D of 2017 was very good, but its quality was exaggerated in retrospect. Turnover luck was a factor, and big sack totals in a couple of games against teams with bad O lines and/or QBs was another factor. Penalty luck came into it too, as it usually does against teams which play aggressive press-man coverage with corners, and hang-on coverage by linebackers.  Perry Fewell, another ex-Coughlin assistant brought in to work with the DBs, was also fired; as I said above, the Jags' D had nowhere to go but down, and you can look at indiscipline there, as Tony Boselli did every week on Gnat and my's Talksport radio coverage, but really? If discipline is your worry, do you fire the position coaches? The Jags may be the best example in this whole sorry catalgoue of blame dodging: the three men responsible for building the roster, for choosing the players, for setting the tone, for planning the games, the three men at the cutting edge of this 5-11 season have jettisoned almost everyone beneath them. Is this the British army in World War I? Send the soldiers over the top into withering fire, and execute for cowardice the few officers who survive.

New Jersey Giants (5-11): Say, didn't you used to be Odell Beckham? The Giants thought they were a couple of pieces (Saquon Barkley, Nate Solder, Will Hernandez) away from a playoff run. Great as Barkley was, do you wonder if moving on at QB might have been a better move? The G men were competitive in many games, like the meaningless season finale against the Cowboys, though they couldn't close games out. Maybe Beckham makes a difference, and Eli is better with defenses playing the deep threat. Maybe a team with a great running back (with 88 catches, a rookie RB record for whatever that is worth) learns how to protect a lead? Maybe their D springs back to life? Maybe Pat Shurmer puts it all together. The Giants like to believe in maybes.

Tampa Bay (5-11): FIRED DIRK KOETTER: Koetter is another guy whose firing is hard to argue against, as he's had his chances, and he fired his former mentor Mike Smith as DC, not that it made a difference. But GM Jason Licht is the guy who traded up in the 2016 draft to take a kicker (!) Roberto Aguayo (!) who was out of the league quicker than Ryan  Leaf (while Kevin Byard, Yannick Ngakoue, James Bradberry et al were still on the board. Licht announced he was hiring a headhunter company to help in the search for a new head coach; are you kidding me? Koetter ought to be in demand as an OC somewhere, or maybe an HC back in college; I wonder if Todd Monken helped himself with the early season success with Fitzy; after that bubble burst Jameis Winston had arguably his best year.

Santa Clara 49ers (4-12): Monken was Nick Mullens' coach for a couple of years at Southern Mississippi, which is interesting to me, though irrelevant to the Niners, who could be good with Jimmy G back next year (no knock no Knick Mullens, who will be valuable as a really low-cost backup but might also bring a decent draft pick if they deal him now while his stock is high). The Niners have pieces to build around, the core of a good defensive front, and can improve their roster. Arrow is probably pointing up for them.

Raiders Formerly Known As Oakland (4-12): John Gruden's strategy this season seemed to be to make the team look worse than the one he took over was, in order to make what he hopes will be his improvements look even better. With Reggie McKenzie squeezed out, hiring Mike Mayock as GM isn't as silly a move as it seems: Gruden will be making the decisions and what he needs is a scout, and of the media guys Mayock is one of the best. Of course note I said of the media guys. They have cap room, they have draft picks, they have Jordy Nelson resigned for another year, and they don't have a place to play. Do you really think London would flock to eight games from this outfit? On the plus side, they could use Walter Raleigh as a Raider mascot.

Newark Airport Jets (4-12): FIRED TODD BOWLES Bowles had four years to succeed with the Jest, but how GM Mike McCagnan keeps his job is beyond me. I said before the season that hiring Jeremy Bates as offensive coordinator wasn't the best thing, and despite promising play from Sam Darnold, their offense was never consistent. Not that their defense, Bowles erstwhile speciality was either. But this situation might be a perfect one for Adam Gase to walk into, though I am not convinced he instantly creates a top offense here.  I do like the idea of AFC East coaches rotating around, as they always seem to (even Belichick came to NE from the Jest) to provide familiar fodder for the Pats inevitable stroll to the division title.

Arizona (3-13): FIRED STEVE WILKS: This is harsh after one season, with an injury-ridden club who have allowed themselves to be bled of talent, especially on defense, and who thought that Sam Bradford was the answer. Firing Mike McCoy and letting Byron Leftwich take over as OC was a bold move that had a good immediate effect, and it might have been worth giving Wilks another season to let that play out with Josh Rosen. GM Steve Keim has restocked the defense to a decent level, though not what it might have been, and he ignored a number of needs. Rosen may pan out, Christian Kirk was a good pick, and you might question some of the play-calling. But the lack of talent probably isn't Wilks' fault, and he shouldn't have been the one to pay the price. Rosen may want to apply for hazardous duty pay if he thinks Keim is going to build an offense around him.

9/11 AND MY TEAMMATE MOLE

I've written an essay, actually re-writtten it from one which appeared 17 years ago, about my friend  and teammate Blake, whose personal tragedy is never far from my thoughts. When I started editing the Northern Lights poetry pamphlets, and wrote the first one, I dedicated it to him, never dreaming this kind of an essay would ever need to be written. It's up at my Friday Morning Tight End column, an extra that you can read without subscribing. But if you like it.... patreon.com/posts/21366316

BIG NFL NEWS! PREVIEWS! & SIGN UP FOR FRIDAY MORNING TIGHT END

I've been writing a Friday column on the NFL for something like 20 years, and for the past 13 on nfluk.com have picked every game of the season. Now I'm launching that column on its own on Patreon, as both a weekly chat about the NFL and of course a continuation of my pickapalooza. You can link to it here: all will be explained, including how to subscribe. First pick comes up Thursday--first column next Friday. Be a patron!

In the meantime, I did two season previews this month. First, three weeks ago, I wrote for the American magazine. It's a nice thing to subscribe to, hard copy or online, if you are a Yank here, especially a short-term expat. But because they're such nice folks, they've given me a link where you can sample the column, pound the link here. There's a section on London's International Series games too.

Then this week I did a more complete preview for Betfair, for whom I will also be writing a weekly betting column each Friday, with a best bet, value bet, and outside bet. This one's a bit more detailed on each team, slightly different from the American's version, as I changed my mind about some things, and I will change it again, just you watch! Here's the link to that one. So if you like what you read in these previews, get over to Patreon and make the Friday Morning Tight End column happen! Thanks.

NFL LIMBO: MY LOST WEEK 21 FRIDAY MORNING TIGHT END COLUMN

Last Friday morning I wrote my weekly column for nfluk.com; its lede was eerily prophetic, as it indeed disappeared into limbo! It hasn't yet appeared, perhaps because there are no games whose results I can predict (except for the Pro Bowl: I got it wrong, and my score prediction turned out to be a little off too) and it is not, strictly speaking, billed as FMTE any longer. I don't know what happened, but in answer to the queries I received, here it is now, as written, complete with all-pro and all-rookie teams...

FRIDAY MORNING TIGHT END, WEEK 21

Week 21 is NFL Limbo. The slow build-up of Super Bowl hype mixes with the final arguments about year-end awards, the Senior Bowl gets the three-month draftathon underway, and the Pro Bowl this year reverts back to a 'meaningful' NFC vs AFC format. As much as the idea of watching the NFL's best players go against each other appeals, I've written many times before how the game itself has outlived its usefulness, just as the College All-Star game did before it. I suspect it will require a serious injury to a real star to drive the point home, and I do not wish for that. PRO BOWL: PICK NFC 101 AFC 98

Instead let's take a serious look at the All-Pro team. One of the odd things about the Pro Bowl is that each team gets three quarterbacks, although only one can play, but also, for example, three guards, although two play. They get only one special teamer, though of course ten more of those guys surround the kickers. The current voting for all-pros gets weird as well, with two running backs even though no teams use two at once except as a gimmick, and various distinctions between interior linemen, edge rushers, and linebackers which saw Khalil Mack get picked as both a rusher and a linebacker. Sometimes they distinguish between left and right tackles, strong and free safeties, sometimes they don't. And they've added a 'flex' position (David Johnson, who I thought had a very strong case for the MVP) was AP's first team flex and second team running back, go figure. , which might be fine if this were fantasy football. As I pointed out one week in answer to the otherwise excellent Red Zone: the opposite of fantasy football is not 'reality football', it's 'football'!

The quarterback/MVP debate has been a fascinating one. Ryan has had a totally remarkable statistical season; Brady went 11-1 with a team whose offensive weapons don't fall into the all-pro voting; Rodgers engineered a brilliant run without a running back. You could take any of the three and think yourself correct. But boy would you hear arguments.

IRON MIKE'S ALL PROS:

QB: Matt Ryan, Atlanta

RB: LeVeon Bell, Pitts

FB: Kyle Juszczyk, Balt

WR: Julio Jones, Atlanta; Antonio Brown, Pitts; Odell Beckham, NYG

TE: Travis Kelce, KC

T: Joe Thomas, Clev; Andrew Whitworth, Cinn

G: Zach Martin, Dallas; Marshal Yanda, Balt

C: Travis Frederick, Dallas

DE: Khalil Mack, Oakland; Jadeveon Clowney, Houston

DT: Aaron Donald, LA; Fletcher Cox, Phil/Damon Harrison, NYG (tie)

OLB: Vic Beasley, Atlanta; Von Miller, Denver/Sean Lee, Dall (tie)

ILB: Bobby Wagner, Seattle; Luke Kuechley, Carolina

CB: Marcus Peters, KC; Patrick Peterson, Ariz; Richard Sherman, Seattle;

SS: Eric Berry, KC

FS: Devin McCourty, NE

PK: Justin Tucker, Balt (Tucker had a 1.77 score on my 'Cockup' kicker rating; the highest in about 8 years); Adam Vinatieri at 1.45 was next).

P: Jonny Hekker, LA

KR: Tyreek Hill, KC

ST: Matthew Slater, NE/Nate Ebner, NE (tie)

Coach of the Year: Bill Belichick

Coordinator of the Year: Kyle Shanahan

MVP: Ryan

It's also time to tip the helmet to the way Dallas' dynamic duo of rookies, QB Dak Prescott and RB Ezekiel Elliott, led them to the very brink of the NFC championship game. If you go back to April, it was obvious Zeke was a rare talent who was likely to thrive behind Dallas' fine run-blocking line. It was less obvious that Dak was going to QB them to a 13-3 season. I was one of the few commentators high on Dak; I had him pegged top of the second round, ahead of Paxton Lynch, but even I didn't think that translated into playing right away. I did say then that he reminded me of Russell Wilson, and so it turned out.

Dak made one rookie mistake against the Packers, spiking the ball on first down as Dallas was on their game-tying drive. The loss of a down was far more important than the clock; in fact in an ideal world they wouldn't have left any time for Green Bay after scoring. Note Aaron Rodgers' clock management as he took the Packers 42 yards in 35 seconds, even after taking a 10 yard sack. There was a stranger mistake, at the end of the first half, when Cole Beasley fair-caught a punt and the Cowboys didn't take the free-kick which was available. I would have loved to see Dan Bailey with a run-up going for the posts!

It's a shame Zeke's season overshadowed Jordan Howard's which might have been good for rookie of the year in many years; running on a team with a limited passing attack Howard was a bright light for the Bears. So I've picked two running backs and only two wideouts, because no third wideout stood out from a group of about five.

IRON MIKE'S ALL-ROOKIE TEAM (draft round taken in parenthesis):

QB: Dak Prescott, Dallas (4)

RB: Ezekiel Elliott, Dallas (1); Jordan Howard, Chicago (5)

FB: Andy Janovich, Denver (6)

TE: Hunter Henry, San Diego (2)

WR: Michael Thomas, NO (2); Sterling Sheppard, NYG (2)

T: Jack Conklin, Tenn (1); Taylor Decker, Det (1); Ronnie Stanley, Balt (1)

G: Laremy Tunsil, Miami (1) Joe Thuney, NE (3)

C: Cody Whitehair, Chi (2)

DE: Joey Bosa, San Diego (1); DeForest Buckner, SF (1) Kenny Clark, GB (1)

DT: Chris Jones, KC (2); Javon Hargrave, Pitt (3); Michael Pierce, Balt (U)

ILB: Deion Jones, Atlanta (2); Jatavis Brown, San Diego (5)

OLB: Leonard Floyd, Chi (1) Emmanuel Ogbah, Clev (2)

CB: Jalen Ramsey, Jax (1); Eli Apple, NYG (1); Darryl Worley, Caro (3)

S: Keanu Neal, Atlanta (1); Karl Joseph (Oak) (1)

PK: Will Lutz, NO (U) P: Riley Dixon, Den (7) KR: Tyreek Hill, KC (5)

See you next week with the Super Bowl. I'll be down in Houston with El Chappo, Osi, and JBell on BBC1 Sunday, don't miss it!

LAST WEEK: 1-1 PLAYOFFS: 9-1

NFL SWAMI: HOW IRON MIKE FARED PICKING NFL GAMES THIS SEASON

Picking every game every week is an adventure. This was the introduction to my column this week, which wasn't included with, or might I say edited out of, my predictions on the nfluk website.

FRIDAY MORNING TIGHT END, WEEK 18: WILD CARD WEEKEND

I never thought I would say this, but I actually miss the nfl.com 'expert' Pick Em game on which my picks (allowing for my luddite inability to move the sliders properly) appeared for the past four years. I finished second the first year, and first each of the next three, even last season when I (and almost everyone else) had a off year (just 62.5 per cent right). Doing this for a period of years teaches you that margins are small: I improved this year to 66.1 per cent, but that's just eight games better in a 17 week season, or one every other week. This year I also finished with a rush: from week 11 onward I was 82-29, which is a 74 per cent pace. I'd like to say it was because I'd figured things out better after half the season, but who knows, that would sound like Outcome Bias, which I am always criticising.  I am pretty consistent: in 12 seasons picking weekly with Friday Morning Tight End, I've finished between 165 and 176 games right ten times.

But without the Pick Em game to measure against, I looked around this week to see how I'd compare. Turns out 168 correct would put me atop Pete Prisco & Co at CBS Sportsline (Dave Richard was best with 167) and five games up on ESPN's experts (KC Joyner with 165 was best, but they also gave their guessers this season's two ties as wins). I'd run away with NFL.com's Gameday Morning, won by Kurt Warner with 154. The best I found were Sam Farmer of the LA Times and Elliott Harrison on NFL.com, both with 170 right, so they get the championship. And here's a hint: it won't get much easier in the playoffs, even though it looks like it ought to. There is a very strong pull to pick all four home teams in this Wild Card round, but that means means you'd have two nine win teams favoured against teams that won 12 and 11. Go figure....

TRUMP AND BELICHICK: MY FMTE ANALYSIS

I wrote what follows as the introduction to my Friday Morning Tight End column at nfluk.com, except the column is now actually christened simply picks of the week's upcoming games, and accordingly the intro wasn't a part of it. So I offer it here, wondering what kind of juju the The Donald connection will have on Bill and the Pats...

FRIDAY MORNING TIGHT END WEEK 10:

IT WAS BILL WHAT WON IT? 

The one thing Bill Belichick's letter to Donald Trump proved was that Bill can make a winner out of just about anyone. The bizarre thing about it was that it read as if it had been written (well, dictated) by The Donald himself. I doubt it was intended to be read out at a press conference, as Bill explained it well enough, the two are friends, and it was a friend's congratulations on his campaign, not intended as a public endorsement. With friends like these, a neutral might think. Trump also claimed Tom Brady had voted for him, when Brady at that point hadn't voted at all, and Giselle then said no they wouldn't vote for Trump and told TB to shut up about it! As a model she would probably know a side of Trump that Bill and Brady didn't.

This puts Bill and Rex Ryan on the same team for the first time, and raises an interesting dilemma. Football coaches tend to be very conservative, small c, and so do players. It's an authoritarian sport, everybody is wealthy to an extent, and although most players have natural advantages in terms of size, speed or ability, they also work very hard and feel they have earned what they have, and everyone else should work as hard to do the same. America is a relatively conservative country; its liberals are far less left than in most western countries. But as we saw with the reaction to Rex when he appeared at a Trump rally, Trump's positions on minorities in particular transcend some of the usual definitions. Will there be fallout? There was much talk about that with Rex earlier in the season, but as far as I've seen, nothing really came of it.

In the opening scene of Aaron Sorkin's show The Newsroom, Jeff Daniels talks about how America isn't the greatest country in the world. But it sure used to be, he says (Sorkin might've given Trump his campaign slogan right there). Among the reasons, he says, was that 'we didn't define ourselves by who we voted for'. That might be a good lesson to learn this week..

THE NFL IN MOURNING: MY JULY AMERICAN FOOTBALL COLUMN

While I was vacationing in Sweden and Denmark, my Friday Monthly Tight End column went up at nfluk.com, you can link to it here. It's a little essay about three NFL greats who died in July: Oakland Raiders' quarterback Ken 'Snake' Stabler, Detroit Lions' tight end Charlie Sanders, and Miami Dolphins' defensive coordinator Bill Arnsparger. Three greats who made three very different impacts on the game...

IN MEMORIAM CHUCK BEDNARIK: MY NFLUK COLUMN

In the NFL offseason my NFLUK Friday Morning Tight End column becomes Friday Monthly Tight End, and this month's, which is up at the nfluk.com website (you can link to it here) was dedicated to Chuck Bednarik, who died last Saturday. Here's what I wrote:

REMEMBERING CONCRETE CHARLIE

If you've been reading my columns for any length of time you'll know I'm an apostate American in the sense of not believing more is always better, and I've been critical of many moves the NFL has made in the direction of more. But I have to say honestly that I admire the way in which they have turned the off-season into a non-stop attention-getter. I still would prefer to see the draft come in the next few weeks, but after the most fascinating free-agency period I can remember, and the creation of the 'veterans combine' (which falls way short of the return of a development league, but is a good step, and ought to be called the 'veterans pro day') I appreciate what the league has done to stay in the spotlight since the Super Bowl. If it gets any busier, I'm going to need my weekly column back in the off-season!

Iron Mike is, however, at heart old school, so this month's column won't be about any of the issues and moves that have filled your consciousness for the past few weeks. Instead, it's about Chuck Bednarik, because they didn't come any more old-school than Concrete Charlie.

You probably know he was the last of the full-time both-ways players, at center and linebacker. EJ Holub might have challenged his mark, but Holub, who played for the Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs had nine knee surgeries, and played one or the other, mostly at linebacker until his knees forced the move back to center. In fact he started Super Bowl II at linebacker, and Super Bowl IV at center; no one else has ever done that.

But they couldn't keep Bednarik from playing both ways. In 1960, when the Eagles won the NFL title, he was 35 years old, and exclusively a center until Bob Pellegrini was injured in week five. Bednarik, formerly the middle backer, assumed his spot on the outside, which is where he was when he leveled Frank Gifford at Yankee Stadium. The hit put Gifford out of the game for a year and a half, with concussion symptoms, and was immortalised in John Zimerman's photo of Bednarik celebrating over Gifford's prostrate form. But when you watch the film you realise that Bednarik wasn't celebrating the hit, that the photo has been misinterpreted for half a century.

On film the hit looks like a body slam. I worked with Frank at ABC, and I recall his talking about it only once, in Kitzbuehel, Austria, where we were covering the skiing. He said it looked worse than it was, that it was the impact with the hard infield surface of Yankee Stadium that had done the real damage. He emphasized that the hit was perfectly legal (Giants' fans like to insist it was a clothesline) but came from his blindside. In fact, you see Bednarik do a great job of playing the scrambling quarterback, George Shaw, then chasing down Gifford after the catch.

But what's fascinating is watching Bednarik first go toward the fumbled ball, which the Eagles recovered behind the play. Zimmerman's photo was taken only AFTER Bednarik turned back to Gifford, looking back toward the Eagles' side of the ball, and he was celebrating the fumble recovery that sealed the Eagles' win.

Bednarik's second most-famous tackle came in the NFL championship game that year, when he stopped Jim Taylor on another pass play out of the backfield, Taylor had broken one tackle and slipped another, but Bednarik actually had some help with the stop, at the seven yard line, and with holding Taylor down until time had expired. But his quote remains famous: 'You can get up now, Jim, this game's over'. That game was the only playoff match Vince Lombardi ever lost.

Bednarik made the NFL's all-decade team for the 1950s as a center. He didn't make the 75^th anniversary team, although he probably should've got some recognition for being a two way player. Looking at film, seeing his athleticism down-field and his instincts at the line of scrimmage, I suspect linebacker may have been his better position. But during his career, his only real competition as the NFL's best center was Jim Ringo (Jim Otto in the Sixties AFL has now passed both) or maybe Chicago's Mike Pyle. At middle linebacker you could choose from the Bears' Bill George and Dick Butkus, the Lions' Joe Schmidt, the Packers' Ray Nitschke, or the Giants' Sam Huff.

I wrote Bednarik's obituary for the Daily Telegraph. It was designed for people who didn't know anything about football, but the details of his life are worth repeating. He was the son of Slovak immigrants; his father worked at the hearth (or 'heart', as Bednarik pronounced it) in a steel mill in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Chuck didn't start speaking English until he went to school, and became a football star at Bethlehem's Liberty High. But with World War II raging, he enlisted before graduation (his mother collected his diploma) and at the age of 18 found himself flying as the waist gunner in a B-24 Liberator. He flew 30 missions, and when he came back after the war his plans had changed. He'd intended to get a job at the mill to help his father; now the GI Bill sent him to the University of Pennsylvania, where he became a three-time All-American and finished third in the 1948 Heisman Trophy voting, playing center and linebacker. He was drafted first overall in 1949 by the Eagles, which meant he didn't even have to change stadiums; the Eagles played at Penn's Franklin Field.

The Eagles were the defending NFL champions, having won the famed 'Snow Bowl' 7-0 on Steve Van Buren's touchdown in 1948. That they had the first pick in the draft was the result of the NFL's 'lottery', which was soon discontinued. Bednarik moved right into the starting lineup, and the Eagles won the NFL title again in 1949. Through the Fifties, however, the Eagles were a team in decline. That changed when Buck Shaw arrived to coach in 1958, and in 1960 traded for quarterback Norm Van Brocklin from the Rams.

Bednarik's nickname reflected his hardness, but came because he was, literally, an industrial concrete salesman. He worked not only in the off-season but in season after the day's practice was over. After all, he had five daughters to support, and in those days even an NFL star's salary couldn't do it. And he didn't live large; all his life was spent between Bethlehem and Philly. He paid the price for his career: look at his snapping hand in that photo with another guy he tackled often, Jim Brown.

He retired after the 1962 season, aged 37, still being forced by circumstance to go both ways. Maxie Baughan, who was drafted to be his replacement at linebacker, and was a great one, called Chuck the best he'd ever seen. Bednarik headed the Pennsylvania state athletic commission, overseeing boxing and wrestling, but he also became one of football's most outspoken and entertaining curmudgeons. He complained about overpaid players and a soft game, and laughed out loud when reporters tried to compare Deion Sanders' occasional forays as a wide receiver to his two-way play. 'He couldn't tackle my wife,' Concrete Charlie laughed. He was a popular speaker, and once, at a charity roast of Frank Gifford, he arranged to have the lights shut off as he took the dias. When the lights came back on after a minute, he told the audience 'now you know how Gifford felt when I hit him.'

His family said he was suffering Alzheimers when he died, aged 85, and attributed that to his football career. Jim Brown called him 'a true gladiator'. For me, Chuck Bednarik symbolises better than almost anyone what football was about when I was young, and wanted to play. It was something you did on your way to being a man. Being a man was defined differently in those days, and in some ways that's for the better now, but Chuck Bednarik's passing reminds me that in many ways it's not, and being a man like Chuck was not a bad aspiration.