The Grind Cuts Both Ways

As unlikable as the whole lot of them can be (Rivers is a douchebag, Vincent Jackson has the most juxtaposed off-field demons on any WR in the league, and GM A.J. Smith is becoming the posterboy for shortsighted bullies in upper management), what this Chargers team is doing is as much an example of one of the tenets of this blog as anything else: Talent, around which a system is patiently tailored to maximize strengths and dampen weaknesses, will and should always win out in the end. Hell, this is what Norv Turner has been doing for his entire tenure with the team, and is probably why they brought him in to replace the elder disciplinarian Schotty in the first place. In week 5, there might not have been a team you’d rather face than the Chargers, who were a dissonant mass of individual talents whose stats couldn’t hide a total lack of focus in those areas of the game where focus matters most (special teams matter, people). Now, in week 13, there might not be a scarier matchup in the league. At his best, Rivers is a fusion of Drew Brees’s methodical distributor and Jay Cutler’s moody prodigy, and with Jackson returning (never forget: the NFLPA left him out to dry), he now has the elite WR on the outside that he has lacked all year, one that stands on his own talents and need not be created by the system or the QB (Malcom Floyd on any other team is Malcom Jenkins). Indeed, Jackson’s return will likely lead to a new wrinkle in an offensive game plan that is consistently adapting to new data. It grows with its players; what a remarkable concept. Throw in a defense that proved on Sunday that it is ready and willing to coach its unheralded talents (Shaun Phillips was always better than Merriman, and who the hell is Kevin Burnett) up to the habits of any opponent, and the result is a team that seamlessly blends its own strengths with schemes designed to frustrate opponents.

That it’s not particularly pretty when looked at too closely is, perhaps, the result of any product so reliant on high notes for its identity. The Chargers, left to their base identity, are out of place in a league whose history is built on tightly run, closely managed ships. Jackson doesn’t even like this team, and he’s going to be an integral part of their playoff run. This is what leads to the ugliness that was the early part of this season, when the team was finding a way to bring it’s mixture of injuries, suspensions, and harshly edged personalities and talents together. What we’re seeing now, however, flies in the face of the “clean locker room” mentality that Bill Parcells preached into dogma even as he relied on LT’s insanity to build his legend. Rather than expelling discord, Norv Turner has faithfully stuck by his collection of talents and attempted to create a plan of attack in which they can coexist, knowing that if they do so long enough, they will thrive. It’s why he’s crucified by the mainstream media, who love a good old morality play, but it’s also why he may be the real evil genius of the league.

Don't Just Get By

I feel the same way about Vince Young walking out on Jeff Fisher’s post game conference as I did about Michael Vick shooting the double bird salute to a booing Atlanta crowd after a close loss at home: Good for him. At some point, you don’t owe people any more respect than they give you, and both young men certainly earned more than they had received from their respective targets at the time things fell apart. Hell, in the case of Fisher, I’m not sure the man has earned a level of objective respect for his accomplishments, considering that he hasn’t won anything significant in a decade, watched his team flame out in their best season, and singlehandedly prevented his team from reaching the playoffs last year. At what point do we say that a coach's job is to maximize the achievement of his young talents while protecting them from the pitfalls of great expectations in the NFL?

Contrast that with what Fisher has done to Young: He fed into the growth of Young's legend when it benefited him to do so, failed to construct a roster to protect Young as a passer, sacrificed Young's development at the altar of pragmatism, and finally hitched Young's future to an unrealistic requirement that he live up to a lightning in a bottle past, essentially demanding that Young become a solid starting quarterback in order to earn the right to develop into a solid starting quarterback. I like to think that Young leaving that locker room was a moment of clarity, one that ought to be commended in a young man who is so recently removed from being dangerously handicapped in his self-understanding: Fisher was never going to respect Young, let alone embrace him as the inextricable part of Fisher's future that he is. Why stay in that room, pleading for a resolution that had been dangled in front of him all year but would never arrive? We hesitate to put ourselves in the shoes of athletic phenomenons paid more than we can imagine, but I refuse to believe we can't all sympathize with the suffocating relationship Young was in, or nod our heads at the decision to break free and come up for air.

All of this is why I think Bud Adams gets it. Yes, Fisher has done a commendable job turning grunts and foot soldiers into a winning football team. That is why Adams keeps him around; he’s the kind of coach who will rarely helm a dead fish of a squad. Adams’s refusal to jettison Young, however, speaks to an understanding that for all of the good things he does to keep the team afloat, Fisher shouldn’t get to KEEP this team treading water, where he can deflect criticism with the refrain of making lemons out of lemonade. Young (in addition to Chris Johnson, who plays a position that is much easier to transition to the NFL, and Kenny Britt, with whom Fisher has also had major problems) represents the potential for greatness, which benefits everybody but Fisher, and which Adams has wisely chosen to force Fisher to either embrace, or flee.

As foreign as that seems to NFL coaching society, shouldn’t the debacles of the Singletary and new-Parcells eras show us that talent isn’t beaten out of an unwilling pupil by an infallible tyrant, but highlighted by an understanding coach creating an environment in which his player can succeed? If Fisher does decide that he won’t be told how to do his job, one that he has proven capable of doing over the years, I’ll ask for the same thing I’m asking for Vince Young: Understand that a man has a right to refuse to be bullied.

The Ones That Matter - Week 11

From here on out, we're picking the games that you should be watching every week, and we're telling you why.

Raiders at Steelers (1:00 PM, Sunday)

If you didn’t see this coming, then you’re probably not a believer, and you’ve stumbled onto this blog by accident en route to some former quarterback telling you that the Steelers will win because they’ll “circle the wagons” and “play Steeler football”, but allow me just one thought before you click on by: If the Raiders are actually coming together, and not simply riding a fluky streak of wins, this team has the talent to add a legitimate dark horse to the playoffs as opposed to an obligatory AFC West entrant. The Chiefs simply don’t have the defense or the second receiver to hang with more heavily armed opponents, and nobody should root for the undisciplined Chargers after what they’ve pulled with Vincent Jackson this year (Just wait until he’s in a Pats uniform and tearing up the league, along with the team’s seven (SEVEN) picks in the first four rounds of the upcoming draft. Thanks for that, AJ Smith.). The Raiders, on the other hand, look like a scary opponent that you don’t mind getting behind. Jason Campbell (or Bruce Gradkowski) both have a palatable skill set under center, particularly when Campbell is getting rid of the ball more quickly and spreading it around to his wide receivers, any of whom can go off for monster days in any given week. Run DMC is what the Bills were hoping CJ Spiller could be this year, performing capably between the tackles and putting the fear of God into defenses once he’s in open space. Zach Miller has been toiling in obscurity for a minute now, but it merits mentioning again: The dude is the next Antonio Gates. On the defensive side of the ball, Nnamdi is having another Nnamdi year (there might not be an elite player who excites fans less...a large part of his style), and the front line has notched 27 sacks on the year, with DE Richard Seymour playing like a man possessed and rookie DE Lamarr Houston getting involved for 2 of his own.

The point is that this is a team that can actually play a lot of different kinds of football, depending on what the situation calls for, while still having the firepower to impose their will on the game. Considering how beaten up the Steelers are looking at this point, and how they were made an example of by the Pats last week, isn’t it worth considering that we’d all rather live in a world with more teams like the Raiders, brimming with unanswered questions and undeniable potential, than the Steelers, who at this point are more of a monument to what was rather than any sort of promise as to what could be?

Browns at Jaguars (1:00 PM, Sunday)

If Eric Mangini wants to be taken seriously, he needs his team to win this game. Hell, we all need his team to win this game, if only because I’d hate to see Jack Del Rio rewarded for stripping this team of any identity to the point where they win because you have no clue who they are. At this point, the Jaguars win games by dragging them into an unlikable mess of chaos, not because they rely on Garrard’s unique blend of brute force and precision or MJD’s otherworldly ability to disappear between defenders. Certainly, Mike Thomas has been a pleasant surprise (though short WRs have a way of disappearing after a little while, as Mike Sims-Walker taught us), and TE Marcedes Lewis has been a revelation (7 TD on the year, finally using his massive frame in conjunction with his known receiving talent). All of these things, however, are reduced to clanging instruments without harmony under Del Rio. Mangini, with less talent (remember this: no Browns WR would be a top 2 WR on ANY other NFL team) and more adversity (I’ll always weep for you, Seneca Wallace) is crafting a symphony, focused around certain outstanding set pieces (The Avalanche Peyton Hillis on offense and CB Eric Wright on defense), but nevertheless relying on the cooperation of sound and sheet music. Put simply, only one of these head coaches deserves to helm a team next season, and it isn’t the one with the better record right now.

Buccaneers at 49ers (Sunday, 4:05 PM)

I’m rooting for the 49ers, because I think this Bucs team still has time to grow (one more solid draft, particularly for the defense, and they leap from explosive wild card to genuinely high-functioning machine), because the Falcons and Saints are going to prevent the Bucs from achieving in the postseason anyway, and because FREE TROY SMITH! FREE TROY SMITH! FREE TROY SMITH!

Giants at Eagles (Sunday, 8:20 PM)

The amount of athleticism that will be at war in that Eagles offensive backfield is going to be incredible. This is basically the football version of one of those Star Wars spacecraft battles.

Broncos at Chargers (Monday, 8:30 PM)

You think Josh McDaniels used up all his “F*** YOU” anger against KC? This Chargers team has yet to pull together a victory that impresses (the Texans victory was a fluke against a mediocre opponent, the Titans didn’t have any pass attack, the Cardinals are a mess, and the Jaguars hadn’t gone into full blown black hole mode). Meanwhile, the Broncos play southpaw offense, and are coming off of the kind of post bye week win that makes me think McDaniels has figured out how to use his underrated ground weapons (yes, that’s right, Knowshon Moreno and Tim Tebow are underrated). When the dust settles, this feels like the kind of game the Chargers have been losing all season, close contests that depend on a team executing consistently to win.

Undone Origami

Here’s the thing: We all knew exactly what Michael Vick was capable of doing. The man didn’t get three Pro Bowls and playoff wins because he sells jerseys. To say that we are only just now seeing what we believed Michael Vick could be is a lie for that very reason. What we’re seeing now is something even more remarkable; Vick is becoming the sort of singular engine of effective offense that only Brady and Manning have been up until now. Watching him operate on Monday night was a revival of the dream of a quarterback becoming something more dynamic. It’s not a rejection of the classic way the position is played, as there will always be a place for pocket passers like Brady and Manning, but it certainly provided an alternative path to success, one built on a gripping combination of athleticism and cleverness. The way Vick uses his speed to hold defenders in place, allowing his weapons to find space and exploit mismatches, is just as effective as any well timed pocket play or pinpoint accurate pass; it is, then, a different way to play a game that has long been perceived as immutable (as untrue as that perception may be).

There is, perhaps, a second beauty to be found here, as well, one that extends beyond the breathtaking game that Vick is playing. Certainly, he gives hope that coaches can, and therefore will attempt to win by leveraging unique gifts as weapons in and of themselves rather than as tools fitting a system, but he also gives a voice back to creative game planning and risk taking in the NFL. If a team can win by playing THIS kind of different, who’s to say that another team can’t also create their own way? Coaches desperate for success, rather than retreating to old standards, could now push into undiscovered territory of schemes and systems, unearthing new tactics in the process. It all allows for the possibility of completely unique identities for teams, each one distinctly built to succeed based on the unique combination of individuals and abilities involved. Yes, I’m rooting for one player, but if you can’t see Vick is bigger than that, you’re missing the future unfolding before us.

Inversions of Measurables

Few things this season have made me as happy as watching Peyton Hillis become a star. This is made all the more remarkable by the nature of the Browns, a team devoted to defeating opponents as a team focused on a collective identity, scheme, and goal. Still, to credit the Browns’ success solely to the efforts of the coaching staff (who are the architects of the turnaround we’ve seen over the last year) or the collective vision of the locker room (an element of team success about which this team has single-handedly changed my mind) would be a disservice to just how unique Hillis has shown himself to be this year. Hidden at Arkansas behind Felix Jones and Darren McFadden, speedier backs more suited to college offensive schemes, Hillis has used the heightened level of competition in the NFL to establish an identity for himself as an offensive force. Whereas college is a more speed-centric game, the increased speed (and, indeed, general athleticism) of fellow NFL players actually serves to bring out the unique elements of Hilis’s game. In a league filled with shooter runningbacks, Hillis’s style is something of an aged scotch, smoothing brute force with complex moves and unexpected ability to create an identity of attack that is satisfying even as it lacks the jarring nature of similarly remarkable players.

It’s the dichotomy, really. Hillis is a power back by nature. The closest comparison I can think of is Brandon Jacobs’s 2007 season, in which he decreed his runs as predestination. Hillis’s size allows him to fit this mold nicely. Hillis, however, substitutes a degree of craftiness for Jacobs’s head of steam determination. Certainly, when Hillis is met at the point of attack by a defender, he applies explosive power in the direction of the initial path. The difference is that when that force is met by well positioned defense, Hillis has already begun a sort of second move designed to capitalize on the conflict at the initial contact. A spin, or a redirection of course frequently leaves the most well positioned defender engaged in a battle that no longer exists. That’s the real difference, now that I think about it; trying to defend against Hillis isn’t Armageddon so much as it is guerilla warfare, a massive front consisting of too many battles to adequately measure and confront.

None of this takes Hillis’s receiving skills into account, which is what keeps him from becoming a clone of the young Thomas Jones, a scary one-dimensional attack. Hillis has deceptively good hands, and his size masks an ability to disappear into the flats, building a head of steam that makes him difficult to stop after the catch. In this way, he’s better than his predecessor, Jerome Harrison, who teams recognized almost solely as a passing threat; with Hillis, the need to prepare for him as a power back opens the field in a way that Harrison never could.

The resulting combination makes Hillis one of the most unique offensive weapons in the league, and although offensive game plans have helped to highlight his abilities, he is the engine of that planning by virtue of his versatility, the centerpiece that allows the cohesive whole to function. I’m particularly intrigued as to whether or not his style, power giving rise to agility (as opposed to the reverse), has a future in the league. Certainly, in a league that is chiefly focused on getting faster, it is one of the more unique ways of looking at the concept, focusing on functional speed rather than speed in a vacuum being forced into the game.

Shooting Stars With No Sun and Other Scattered Thoughts

- As I’ve been telling everybody since that debacle in Detroit went down, I will take an ugly, frustrating win over a well executed loss any day. That said: That might have been one of the ugliest wins the Jets have gotten in the Mark Sanchez era. Looking back at it, my frustration stems from the bizarre lack of any clear identity on offense. This might have been more understandable earlier in the year, but at this point the Jets should know how to work with the diversity of weapons at their disposal. Yet instead of cohesion, this team is as schizophrenic as ever. One minute Shonn Greene is sputtering, the next he’s the clear option to bowl over defensive fronts (his 10 carries for 46 yards was what we’ve been looking for all season). Mark Sanchez (22/39, 336 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT) switches week to week from being a daring quarterback who is willing to use his offensive line to patiently let his deep threats get loose, and choosing the dump off option simply because the play hasn’t developed as quickly as he would have hoped. Perhaps most frustrating is Braylon Edwards, who has at once emerged as the elite passing weapon the Jets hoped he’d be and the frustrating gaffe machine that his career indicated he could become. That touchdown pass (on which Sanchez patiently trusted Edwards to break free in single coverage) was everything Edwards can be when he’s on; the fumble was the classic maneuver he always makes to lose the good will his great plays build within the fan base. In the end, what we saw on Sunday was not so different from the Jets team that lost 9-0 at home to the Packers: A loose collection of talents that is capable of putting great moments together, but is unable to consistently impose a pattern of attack on opposing defenses.

- One thing that is clear after the past two weeks: Brian Schottenheimer needs to sit down with his play book and rip every third screen pass or quick slant out. He’s running the wrong routes to the wrong targets, and his scripting early in the game shows no desire to test the defense at multiple points of attack. Unfortunately for him, this offense was built to either expose and destroy weaknesses, or lose in a mess; there is no “eek out quiet victories” option here. He’s as large a part of this lack of clear offensive identity as any player on this team.

- Also: Yes, I’m very happy that Darrelle Revis decided to return. The strait jacket he put on Megatron was a thing of beauty. There is no other corner you would put in single coverage on that guy. I think Megatron is a singularly brilliant wideout, but he looked genuinely frustrated by his inability to impose his will on the smaller Revis. Revis essentially pays receivers into a corner, and has the physicality to beat them in a tight space; the fact that he did this to Calvin Johnson is probably his most impressive performance to date.

- Do we consider Peyton Hillis a singular talent based on this year? Blessed with the sheer size combined with solid speed, Hillis is showing shades of 2007 Brandon Jacobs, except Hillis is a deceptively dangerous receiver out of the backfield (30 catches for 229 yards and 1 TD). Considering that opponents go into each week knowing that the most dangerous weapon the Browns have is Hillis (really, excluding TE Ben Watson, the only option), doesn’t this put Hillis in that rare category of backs who are “unstoppable” such as Peterson or Chris Johnson? It’s like watching a smart bomb at work, the way he finds seams and applies force at the running lane.

- Michael Vick is doing everything that we hoped he’d do in the NFL when he was first drafted. It’s the perfect cross section of athletics and quarterback skill. What defense is stopping what the Eagles did on Sunday? Try to zone them out, and these receivers are too fast to keep from breaking the zones. Go man to man, and Vick or McCoy will ruin your day. It’s worth pointing out that, on Sunday, he outplayed Peyton Manning, and he did so by playing his own style, which looked something like the next evolutionary step of what Manning has made the gold standard in the NFL, adding breathtaking individual talent to an intense study of the established tactics and tools of the trade. Like I said, this is what we hoped for years ago.

- It’s worth pointing out amidst all the “Wade Philips ruined what Bill Parcells built!” talk that Bill Parcells is leaving behind his second franchise to have not won a playoff game on his watch. How is Dan LeBatard the only one taking him to task for this?

- Finally: Philip Rivers FTW. You compare him to Peyton, Brady, or nobody, after what he’s done this year (and yes, they are 4-5...we need to start acknowledging amazing individual performances in the midst of front office and general team chaos or failure. It’s why I invented the hall of NFL Street Legends).

A Sharp Intake of Air

I guess we could minimize this by talking about Randy Moss: Underachiever (who doesn’t exist), or Randy Moss: Team Destroyer (who only existed questionably 5-6 years ago), but why do that when we’re staring down the barrel of what could be one of the most explosive offenses to ever play the game? I’m mad as hell that Kenny Britt might be out for an extended period, because this offense was ready to go Earth Wind & Fire in a way no offense has since…well, since the 2007 Browns almost conned us into thinking that Cleveland was back. Moss give the Titans the one thing that they have never had: A legitimate deep threat who commands attention and preparation. Throw in Nate Washington as the Donte Stallworth type (yes, that man’s career is now a synonym for “guy you can’t really ignore, but you can pretty much ignore”), and this pass game already looks funky. If Britt returns at full strength (the right word for how his game is measured), teams will have to decide between Moss leaving their corners in his wake, or Britt manhandling corners that want no part of a 6’3” 215 pound bull of a receiver, because emptying out the box is not an option.

Yes, people are saying that it’s Chris Johnson who benefits most from this deal, and honestly it’s hard not to agree. Johnson remains one of maybe two (if AP is having a good day) backs who you have to watch when he touches the ball, because something remarkable can always happen. He reverses direction on a dime, and hits full speed in time bested only by the likes of Steve Smith. Furthermore, he’s not soft; he’s gotten a rep as a small back, but he plays tougher than his speed would lead you to believe. Now, he gets to use all of those natural gifts against defenses that are worrying about what the pass attack can do to them if they let them out over the top. The result, if we’re all really, really lucky, is going to be Chris Johnson getting out of the defensive front and into a whole lot of open space to hit top speed. This isn’t even a case of a player’s talents being freed; Johnson has more than proven that he’s an elite talent, and has put up results to indicate as much. That’s what makes this fascinating, though, as the implication is that this could allow him to play at a level we haven’t even seen yet.

I had hoped that the Texans would put together something along these lines, but there’s still something tragically wrong with that team (in their fear of Peyton Manning, they’ve neglected the importance of corners to cover his receivers, or an offensive line to protect their own quarterback). These Titans, however, have to become a favorite to win the AFC South, unless you think that the Colts are going to survive all of these injuries unscathed. Personally, I’m excited for what this means for Vince Young, who finally has the sort of talent that can play into his strengths as an improviser when plays break down. Imagine a pass play breaking down, resulting in a standard VY scramble, which is still good to buy a solid 2-3 seconds of time. You’re now faced with two distinct questions. First, what can Chris Johnson do with the sort of space backs tend to get when a pass play falls apart and a scramble ensues? We’ve covered this above, but it merits repeating: Chris Johnson is going to kill defenses that are forced to spread the field. Second, if Young breaks away for an extra 2-3 seconds, who is going to cover Moss for 5+ seconds? Young can hurl the ball, and there may be one or two other receivers (Megatron and, if healthy, Andre Johnson) who can handle a jump ball pass as well as Moss. Can anybody really cover this defense?

That’s the coolest part about this whole experiment. Yes, Moss could go evil and ruin it all, but what’s the harm of that if you’re the Titans? If this works, though, we’re looking at an offense that plays with unprecedented athleticism (and, in most cases, talent) at every level (I’m including VY here for the athleticism, if not the proven talent yet). Plays don’t break down as much as they morph into new plays on the strength of the uniqueness of the players involve. It’s the Venus effect: Beautiful in its design, but potentially more beautiful because things fall apart.

Yeah, I’m kind of excited about this whole thing.

Bristles

I’m not down on coaches, honestly. For all of my railing against rigid system-think and bully coaches who get off on yelling at twentysomethings, I think a good coach means more in the NFL than in any other sports league. The coach is, ideally, the architect of a vision that tailors itself to the strengths of the team, matching the coach’s experience and knowledge with the unique talents of his players. What the coach is not, however, is the star of the drama surrounding his team. Even Bill Belichick had the sense to allow Tom Brady to become the star of the Patriots during the dynasty years, and that team relied on their coach’s system perhaps more than any successful team since then.

All of this brings us to Brad Childress, and the following question: Has any franchise allowed the insecurity of one individual to drag an entire team down like the Vikings have allowed Brad Childress to do over the last several years?

To review: Brad Childress drafted Tarvaris Jackson after trading up to get him, essentially anointing him the project quarterback of the future for his Vikings. Except when things got difficult in the first year, Childress scrapped that plan and moved to more stable, if infinitely less exciting veterans (a side note: The story of Tarvaris Jackson is nowhere near written), only to flip flop between his young prospect and established journeymen as time progressed. Eventually, the whole decision was taken out of his hands when Brett Favre was brought in to become quarterback, and for a season things functioned well, largely because there really wasn’t much for Chilly to do other than draw up plays for Favre to adopt as his own. This year, however, with tensions running high thanks to the absence of last years refreshing ease, Chilly has already fallen back into old habits, throwing his quarterback under the bus to pave the way for a return to “building for the future” with Tarvaris (SOMEONE WITH THAT KIND OF ATHLETICISM IS NOT A PAWN, GUYS). Then the most recent example: Chilly brings Moss to the Vikings, and when Moss gives a press conference in which some could infer that Bill Belichick runs a better program than Brad Childress (WHAAAAAAAA?!?!?), Moss is cut from the team as “not the kind of player we want”. Make no mistake; using that press conference as an example of Moss being bad for the team is like going for a swim and complaining about it being wet. To borrow from Chris Rock: Randy Moss didn’t go crazy; Randy Moss went Randy Moss.

In the end, this wasn’t as much about undermining the team as it was about undermining Brad Childress and the way his world works. The problem is that Childress’s world, in which his authority reigns supreme as he tries to discover how he should govern, has never existed in the NFL. You either earn credibility by winning without known stars in order to leverage that credibility to control them (as Belichick has done with success), or you accept that outrageous personalities may not accept tight management from someone they don’t revere (Rex Ryan is sort of pulling this off, and Gruden did this in Tampa Bay). You don’t get to do both, though, which is what Chilly is trying to pull here. You can’t be unwilling to earn cred while complaining that players who have don’t pay homage. The result here is akin to the Emperor’s New Clothes if people told the emperor he was naked and he responded by having them executed. In trying to impose his own authority on the team, Childress has lost any ability to establish his identity on the team. It’s embarrassing that in the end, after all of the players who have shouldered the blame for Brad Childress’s Vikings failing to achieve at their talent level, the most difficult personality for the Vikings to deal with, and the one that brings his career down, is his own.