Friday was a hectic day in the NFL. Lots of news flyers, passed like paper airplanes in a classroom of Jr. High Schools when no teacher is present. What’s the big news that occurred?
The Aaron Rodgers four-year contract and the huge news for the NFL, The Adams Trade to the Raiders
I first wanted to address something that had previously occurred. Aaron Rodgers signed a four-year contract with the Packers. If I was asked to evaluate Rodgers leaving Green Bay, and I was, I said no, Rodgers will remain in Wisconsin. Put that one in the book. it’s done. Let me move on to the Adams Trade.
The Raiders Acquire Davante Adams–Packers Free Agent
Sheil Kapadia, writing for The Athletic, gave both teams a “C” grade for the trade. I do not agree with this assessment. The way I see it, the Raiders legitimately moved up the scale to compete head-to-head with the Chiefs for the AFC West, and thus the trade is “Bad News for the Chiefs”. I think that adding Davante Adams makes the Raiders at least capable of mounting a challenge for winning the West. What hurts worse is that he set the market for Wide Receivers and the Chiefs are in negotiations with our “Foundation WR”, Tyreek Hill. The Adams deal is going to cost the Chiefs additional bucks.
What it Means for the Raiders
Is this single move enough to put Derek Carr & Co. over the top? Fill in the Blank: ____ yes ____no. My take is it is not clear to me that Carr is the QB everybody believes is a Top Tier QB. At the same time, the Chargers and Broncos have made significant moves to improve their chances at the same time. Meanwhile, the 6-time in-a-row AFC Champs, the Kansas City Chiefs have been relatively quiet in the “Free Agent Sweepstakes,” and rightly so. It all revolves around a plan and that plan has got to be executed nearly perfectly for the Kansas City Chiefs not to lose ground. Bottom line? Carr is reunited with his friend and the top target Carr had in college. For the Raiders, that is going to be a powerful pairing.
What it Means for the Packers
Since the Packers are a team I follow closely(my younger son Ian is a complete Cheesehead), the trade was inevitable apparently. Adams rejoins his collegiate QB, Carr and the reunion promises to be, well, at least promising. In the NFC, I follow the Pack. I have done so since the first meeting in 1967’s NFL Championship game, soon to become the “Super Bowl”, a term coined by our own Larmar Hunt. The ultimate trophy though was named for the HC that won that initial playoff: The Vince Lombardi. The AFC Championship trophy was named the Lamar Hunt Trophy. That is a travesty in my view. Still, I love to follow NFL Football and the things just got tougher in the AFC and especially the AFC West.
As For Pack Fans, the Packers now have 5 picks in the top 100, gaining a first and second-round selection in addition to their own draft picks. The Pack also has pick 92 so a great haul for the Green Bay Packers. The view from 10,000 feet should be, the Pack has the QB to win the Lombardi–if the GM can put the right pieces around their Quarterback. With 5 top picks, they can make it happen. Arron Rodgers has a 4-year stint on paper. It is up to GM xxx to resolve how to retain veterans or not and to add pieces to their puzzle via other signings but especially the draft. Up in the air for xxx is who to put around him to receive passes from Rodgers. Obviously, Devante Adams has departed but that leads to questions about other receivers who are free agents, namely Allen Lazard(UFA) and Marquez Valdez-Scantling. Last year, Randall Cobb returned to the fold but with the problem of solving free Agent WRs, there is a lot of work to do.
The Packers brought back veteran Randall Cobb last year, but aren’t certain to bring back any of their other proven wideouts.
Allen Lazard is an unrestricted free agent who received a second-round tender this week. Marquez Valdes-Scantling, the team’s top deep threat, is an unrestricted free agent.
Deshaun Watson and the Cleveland Browns
Get used to it. Watson now will play for the Browns.
Later on yesterday, the Houston Texans traded their troubled QB to the Cleveland Browns. This was a huge move in which the Browns surpassed offers from Carolina, the Falcons, and the Saints to obtain Watson, his renegotiated contract, and $230M over five years as well as giving up 3 first-round draft choices–and More. Baker Mayfield’s Tweet on Thursday is now seen in the appropriate light: He realized he had fallen from favor at Cleveland–and the trade makes it come true. He will be traded, himself.
For Watson? It’s a light at the end of the tunnel. It means the same thing to the Cleveland Browns. For the Texans? New GM Nick Caserio has got to be jumping for joy. All that is needed is an interim HC and he has that in Lovie Smith. As for Smith’s tenure in the Bayou City, it’s as questionable as was the tenure of HC Dave Culley. In the near term, the Browns get immediately into a list of contenders–Watson stays in the AFC. The AFC just grew up another notch with a claim to be the more powerful conference at the same time. Will Watson succeed where Mayfield failed? Since I live in the Houston Environs(within 250 miles driving distance), my initial response is, that Casserio just accomplished what needed to get done for the Texans. I doubt it improves things within the current scheme under Smith, whom I see as a “transition” HC. I firmly believe that Smith’s hiring bailed out the NFL, vis-a-vis minority hirings in the Head Coach role, and that either in 2023 or 2024, Caserio will go have the mead coach that he and Jack Easterby had in mind all along. That head coach will have a Patriot Coaching tree descending from HC Bill Belichik as his origin reference point. Maybe it’s just me, but that is what I see happening.
The Chiefs: What Did They Do?
I have remarked often about what the Brett Veach Blueprint for 2022 was going to be. He superceded that plan by signing Free Agent Safety, Justin Reid(Texans). To be truthful, I wished to retain Tyrann Mathieu. The Chiefs did not even tender Tyrann a Contract. Reid, age 25 fits the Steve Spagnuolo defense and makes perfect sense.
One of the pieces that was missing in 2021 was how the offense would stall and seem to become incapable of scoring. and that has been justly attributed to the team not having a true #2 WR. In both games against the Bengals, this was true. In the disjointed offensive effort versus the Titans, it was obvious. That is 3 losses in a row in which Patrick Mahomes could not find a target, he could not move the chains. The Chiefs lost those three games of the five losses, the last being the loss in the AFCG to the Bengals. The second half was a complete disaster. The game should have taken the Chiefs to another Super Bowl. It didn’t.
Don’t get me wrong. The Faux pas wasn’t just this one thing or that. It was a combination of errors.
I do think that coaching put the blinders on and was incapable of stepping back and changing the game plan on the fly. This was true of HC Andy Reid and Offensive Coordinator, Eric Bieniemy. Both coaches deserve a great deal of criticism. The thing that was obvious to me was that the offense did not have the third threat, Hill, Kelce, and the True #2 WR made things so difficult that Mahomes was trying to do things that came back to bite him. The game was hard to watch for the whole second half.
It is my view that the playcalling in the second half was abysmal. Lay that on the shoulders of Eric Bieniemy. Decide that Andy Reid needed to step in and direct the team, nudging them in the right direction to win the game. He didn’t. We can lay some responsibility on the shoulders of QB Patrick Mahomes for the failure to score just before the half. He turned back to Bieniemy, hollered “I’ve got this”. The play which went to Tyreek Hill Failed. That’s on Patrick himself. Score 3, changes the complexity of the 2nd half.
Solution #1 for Brett Veach was to replace Tyrann Mathieu. It turns out Solution #2 was getting a true #2 WR aboard.
Today, Brett Veach signed the right player to fit the mix — JuJu Smith-Schuster. One of the reasons the Chiefs pursued JuJu last year was that his skillset filled in the missing piece of the puzzle. Veach, Reid, Mahomes, and Hill were unable to influence Smith-Schuster’s decision to remain in Pittsburgh. Apparently, JuJu who is coming off an injury season had a change of heart. Brett Veach went back after a player that he believed was the right fit.
I like this Free Agent signing. It is the right move, at the right time, and the amount of money fits financially in a cap space strapped offseason. The signing is definitely what the Chiefs need on offense. He is head and shoulders above Byron Pringle, whom I like, and Demarcus Robinson. I can list what I think will happen in camp. Hill is the #1 WR, JuJu is #2. Hardman is #3. Hill and Hardman give us speed to take the top off. Smith Schuster gives Patrick Mahomes the added threat of, yes, I know some hate the “possession receiver” that fits the bill, followed by possibly Gordon and Powell. I like the WR promise at this point. No, it’s not a home run swing. it is the right swing.
The Chiefs now have their #2 possession WR added to Patrick Mahome’s arsenal. This sets the stage for Brett Veach’s next action in the off-season for 2022. I like this signing both in terms of JuJu’s skill set but also it was not a high-cost, high profile Free Agent Signing. It is a match for how Veach is proceeding from a player acquisition framework but also keeping the Financial picture within the logical means of control without spending the future into oblivion.
Sure, I need to cover what the Broncos have done and also the Chargers. That will have to wait for another time.
Shawn Sorter will cover the next ideation Sunday. I wrote yesterday about the state of the Roster, looking at it from the accomplishments to date as well as getting granular where the holes that existed on the Roster. One such hole just got plugged.
David Bell – ArrowheadOne