Some interceptions mean more
Amid a Monday Night Football blowout, the guy who almost died on the field made one of the plays of the game
Can’t say I expected to get a little emotional while watching Monday Night Football.
Was it tears of joy related to the Buffalo Bills jumping out to a 34-3 lead over the Jacksonville Jaguars? It was not. My Bills fandom is calloused. Years of heartbreak have conditioned me to be very wary about the Bills. I very much enjoy watching Josh Allen give someone a good pantsing, but I’m not about to think about what it might mean this season. It’s Week 3. It’s a great start. That’s it.
No, it was when Damar Hamlin picked off a Trevor Lawrence pass for his first-ever interception that I found it get a little dusty. (Picked off doesn’t quite feel like the right phrase here. Hamlin was standing there, and a Lawrence throw that sailed over the head of its intended receiver landed right in the Bills safety’s arms. It was like he politely accepted the gift.)
It was on Monday Night Football that Hamlin almost died about 15 months ago. His heart stopped after a relatively innocent-looking collision in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals, and the images of players on both teams in an absolute panic, and the sound of announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman being distraught at what they had seen, are one of those things you don’t forget. One moment you are sitting there watching a football game, the next you are contemplating the frailties of life.
So while Hamlin became a remarkable story in that the quick-thinking medical teams saved his life on the field that night, and he recovered and ended up taking the millions of dollars he received in donations and creating a charitable foundation that among other things supports children from low-income families, the resumption of his football career was always slightly awkward. The safety aspect was reasonably assured, but he had only been a bit player on the Buffalo defence before the incident. Even last season, as he worked his way back to full health and a spot on the roster, he was inactive most weeks.
But this year he is playing a real role, in part because injuries have thinned out the Bills secondary. And there he was, as Buffalo had already seized control of the MNF game with an early flurry of touchdowns, receiving Lawrence’s gift. He skipped down the sideline with the ball and you could hear the Highmark Stadium crowd, already kind of delirious at the manner of the Bills beatdown of the Jags, raise an octave when they realized that it was Hamlin, the guy best known for almost dying, who had made the big play.
His teammates were thrilled. Everyone hugged him. Josh Allen, the unofficial team spokesman who had fought through tears on that night when the game was cancelled because of what had happened to his teammate, wrapped Hamlin in an embrace. It was touching.
I don’t know if Hamlin will go on to have a major role on the Bills this season, or if his time will fade as the season rolls on, guys get healthy, and other players are given a chance. But he’ll always have that moment, when a packed stadium got to cheer him for something other than just surviving.
I’m glad he had it.
The NFL after three weeks: parity run amok
The National Football League gets an incredible amount of coverage relative to other North American leagues. It gets analyzed and over-analyzed so much in the weeks preceding Labour Day that it is impossible not to feel like there are some universal truths by the times the games finally begin.
And then it all goes to shit. The Cincinnati Bengals, presumptive AFC contenders, immediately lost to the New England Patriots, a team so aggressively weak this season that they don’t want their rookie quarterback to take the field lest he be ruined by the experience. The Dallas Cowboys got rocked by the New Orleans Saints and Derek Carr. The Baltimore Ravens lost to the Las Vegas Raiders and Gardiner Minshew. The Kansas City Chiefs lo — no, scratch that, the Chiefs keep winning. But they haven’t looked great doing it.
Here are three things that jump out after Week 3:
We paid how much for this?
At any point in time, NFL contracts are not a dollars-to-production representation of the best players, but more a reflection of who happened to hit free agency when. Still, the number of quarterbacks who recently signed massive deals and have started the season poorly is striking.
Dak Prescott signed with the Cowboys for $60-million per year, making him the highest-paid player in the league, and has gone 1-2 with blowout losses to the Saints and Ravens. The Dallas defence is the major culprit, but Prescott’s QBR, a catch-all statistical rating on a scale of 100, is 45.5, good for 22nd in the NFL.
Trevor Lawrence of the Jags signed for $55-million per year and has been even worse, a QBR of 43.1 and an 0-3 record.
Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa signed for $53-million per year and was unfortunately knocked out with yet another concussion in Week 2, but even before that had been awful: A QBR of 33.8, 27th in the NFL.
Finding an elite quarterback is like trying to strike oil, so when a team gets an above-average one they pretty much hope he can be their guy and then after a few years they have no choice but to pay him like an elite quarterback. Which is how you end with Trevor Lawrence getting paid more per year than Patrick Mahomes ($45M) and Josh Allen ($43M), both of whom signed their contracts a few years ago.
The good news for Lawrence is that his backup is Mac Jones, who came off the bench against the Bills and immediately gave up a sack-fumble. Good times.
He kicked it how far?
It is wild how far kickers can boot it accurately these days. I explored the issue in my latest for theScore. It includes charts! Also I reminisce sadly about Scott Norwood.
Maybe coaches matter
Two former USC quarterbacks have started every game for their teams thus far. One was drafted third overall in 2018, was mostly bad and eventually cut by that team, and is now on his fourth franchise, where he was signed to back up a rookie. One was drafted first overall last spring to a team that surrounded him with offensive weapons.
The first one, Sam Darnold, is 3-0 in Minnesota and would be the MVP of the young season expect for the existence of Josh Allen. The second one, Caleb Williams, is 1-2 with a QBR of 26.8 in Chicago.
You know how NFL observers often say that so much of a quarterback’s success is dependent on situation and environment? There you go.