Sports Media Monitor is keeping track of how the various NFL experts fare in predicting games.
Ray Lewis? Not so much. He was the worst at 1-5. Hey dude, Rob Riggle, at 2-2, beat you.
The best? Steve Marucci at 13-3.
Category Archives: NFL
King, Simmons take important stand by not using offensive nickname for Dan Snyder’s team
My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University focuses on Peter King and Bill Simmons trying to make a difference.
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Peter King writes about 2.5 million words for his weekly MMQB column, so there’s a chance due to eyes glazing over that I missed an earlier mention. However, since the Washington football team didn’t play (Sunday), his only reference was in a prediction for (Monday’s) game.
“Washington 31, Philadelphia 23. Robert Griffin III and Mike Vick set a land-speed record for number of plays (2,349) in a 60-minute game. I don’t trust the Eagles defense.”
Note that King used the nickname for the Philadelphia NFL team, but not for Washington. And he won’t.
Friday afternoon, King declared on his site that he won’t be using “Redskins” anymore.
“I’ve decided to stop using the Washington team nickname. It’s a name you won’t see me use anymore. The simple reason is that for the last two or three years, I’ve been uneasy when I sat down to write about the team and had to use the nickname. In some stories I’ve tried to use it sparingly. But this year, I decided to stop entirely because it offends too many people, and I don’t want to add to the offensiveness. Some people, and some Native American organizations—such as the highly respected American Indian Movement—think the nickname is a slur. Obviously, the team feels it isn’t a slur, and there are several prominent Native American leaders who agree. But I can do my job without using it, and I will.”
King isn’t alone here. Awful Announcing noticed that another high-profile figure, Bill Simmons, referred to the team as the “Washington D.C.’s” in a recent post.
King and Simmons are two heavy hitters. They have a combined 3.3 million followers on Twitter. So when they decide to take a stand, it gets people’s attention.
Indeed, the controversy over the “Redskins” nickname is getting more intense. It should go without saying that it is incredibly derogatory. Various Native American groups have called for it to be eliminated. I believe if a group of people says they are offended by the use of a nickname, it should be changed.
Washington owner Daniel Snyder could make it easy on everyone and change the nickname, as have many college and high school teams have done when it comes to their former Native American labels. Snyder, though, remains steadfast that “Redskins” will stay, adding to his legacy as one of the NFL’s all-time worst owners.
It continues to present a dilemma for news organizations covering the Redskins. The Washington Post never would refer to a Native American congressman “as the redskin representative from Arizona.” Yet it writes about the Redskins daily in its sports section.
ESPN ombudsman Robert Lipsyte addressed the issue in his latest column.
Lipsyte writes:
So what if ESPN refused to use the R-word?
That quixotic thought has been bubbling for a while in ESPN’s 150-person Stats & Information Group, where vice presidents Edmundo Macedo and Noel Nash collected information on the history of the team and opposition toward the name and then distributed it to network news managers. It was the start of a campaign to have ESPN stop using the name. Macedo told me that he thought the chances of actually succeeding were currently slim and none, but that it was worth the effort to get people thinking about it.
“Think about the name,” he wrote to me in an email. “Think about the stereotypical connotations around color. We would not accept anything similar as a team nickname if it were associated with any other ethnicity or any other race.
“Over the years, the more I thought about it, the less comfortable I became using it. I’m not sure other Americans have stopped to hear the voices of Native Americans. I can only imagine how painful it must be to hear or see that word over and over, referenced so casually every day.”
Lipsyte, though, didn’t go as far as to say ESPN should stop using the nickname, even though he clearly leans that way. He brings up a good point that news organizations shouldn’t make news. Consciously not using the nickname falls under that category.
Lipsyte also points to ESPN’s business relationship with the NFL, which has Snyder as one of its owners.
“I have retired the routine use of the phrase “conflict of interest” when it comes to ESPN – it’s simply inadequate to the nuances of the, um, conflicts of interest,” Lipsyte writes.
Lipsyte seems to settle for a compromise offered by ESPN.com editor Patrick Stiegman.
“To simply ignore the nickname in our coverage seems like nothing more than grandstanding,” Stiegman said. “We can use the name of the team, but our best service to fans is to report the hell out of the story, draw attention to the issue and cover all aspects of the controversy.”
Again, it is hard to argue with that line of thinking. Reporters shouldn’t become the story.
Yet in this case, the nickname is so offensive, it warrants people to start taking a stand. It has to begin somewhere.
Last week, Tony Kornheiser, who wrote the word “Redskins” a zillion times during his long career with the Washington Post, noted on Pardon the Interruption that it likely will take the biggest entities to eliminate the offensive nickname.
“I don’t think writers and bloggers and websites can make this happen,” he said, “I do think television networks can make this happen. … To pick two: If ESPN and Fox said ‘We’re not going to use Redskins anymore’ and the NFL tacitly went along with that and didn’t say anything, that would put pressure on CBS and NBC. I think it has to come from the larger institutions.”
I disagree. I think writers and bloggers and websites can effect this change. Especially when the writers and bloggers are as big as King and Simmons.
They carry a ton of influence in this business. Perhaps, it will spark a writer or an editor to think, “You know what? Peter King is right. We’re not going to use Redskins anymore.”
King and Simmons obviously feel enough is enough. Expect others to follow their lead.
Reviews for Ray Lewis: ‘Already better than two-thirds of the ex-NFL-players drawing paychecks as TV analysts’
I was out Sunday at Soldier Field. Eating unhealthy food at 10 a.m. behind a tailgate is not a bad way to start the new season.
So I will leave it to others to weigh in on the ESPN debut of Ray Lewis on Countdown.
David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun was impressed:
Overall, Lewis’ greatest contribution to ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown” was the genuine sense of energy, enthusiasm and even joy that he brought to the conversation.
Last year, I thought the show felt flat and, frankly, kind of old. But not today. It was jacked up and juiced from beginning to end with energy, information and insights.
Lewis added to those insights with his keen understanding of the game.
For example, in talking about the pounding that the Ravens took Thursday night from the Denver Broncos, he said, ” “Baltimore will be fine. They’re that type of team, alright. Our pedigree has always been that.
“One stumble in the road ain’t never stopped nothing… In the first half the other night, they played checkers. You see? The second half, you was supposed to play chess.”
At first I thought, “OK, there’s the inscrutable Ray Lewis talking checkers and chess. What the hell does he mean by that, and how many hundreds of thousands of viewers did he just leave scratching their heads?”
But as he went on to explain how Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning reads defenses and how he would move Ravens players out of position to try and confuse Manning with disguised alignments, I thought, “That’s exactly what was going on in the second half: Manning started playing chess with the Ravens, and Baltimore had no one to play against him.”
That’s an astonishing insight. I think someone might have coached Lewis and told him he has to translates those kinds of insights into language that even the least football savvy viewer can understand.
Richard Deitsch at SI.com:
Clearly, Lewis is not a game-changing television hire at this point but he was more than adequate on opening morning. He’s got a charismatic manner and had moments where you drew closer to the screen to hear what he had to say. He was particularly interesting when explaining how to stop the read-option and the importance of New Orleans coach Sean Payton. “When that guy walks back in, that’s the brain of that operation,” Lewis said. “He is to New Orleans what Bill Belichick is to the Patriots. Without that, without him, you saw last year they had a great imbalance of what leadership looked like.”
However, both Deitsch and Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News note Lewis has to make a big change. Writes Raissman:
When referring to the Ravens on ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown,” Ray Lewisused a lot of “we,” “our” and “us.”
Awful!
Whoever produces the show should have told him he is in the media now, not a player anymore. Then again, maybe those responsible for such duties are scared to mess with Mr. L.
All bow to the awesome power of Scott Hanson; Welcome back NFL RedZone
And so it begins. Welcome, back Scott. For the next 17 weeks, you will have us under your spell.
Keith Olbermann mocks early-season predictions in NFL
A little perspective from Keith Olbermann about getting too excited about what occurs during these early-season games in the NFL. As only he can.
Still, we’ll still be gushing over the Arizona Cardinals if they get off to another good start.
A good read: Before NFL was ‘NFL’; ‘Less structure than intramural weekend on frat row’
My old Chicago Tribune colleague, Richard Rothschild, has an interesting NFL history piece at SI.com. On the first Sunday of the new season, he looks back to a time when the league was an afterthought in the days of leather helmets.
Rothschild writes:
Imagine an NFL with less structure than an intramural weekend on fraternity row, a league devoid of divisions, whose membership shifted from year to year and whose teams played a different number of games.
That was the NFL during its first 13 seasons.
As with today’s English Premier League in soccer, there was only one division with the regular season deciding the league champion.
There were no playoffs. If fans wanted postseason football there was always college football’s Rose Bowl, which since New Year’s Day 1902 had matched a top team from the West Coast against a challenger from east of the Rockies.
The NFL started with 14 teams in 1920. It reached a high of 22 in 1926, following Red Grange’s popular barnstorming tour in late ’25 and early ’26, but dropped to 12 teams in ’27 and had sunk to eight in ’32, as the tsunami of the Great Depression drowned U.S. businesses and made leisure time scarce for most Americans.
Winning didn’t guarantee survival. Four of the NFL’s early champions, the Akron Pros (1920), the Canton/Cleveland Bulldogs (’22-24), the Frankford Yellow Jackets (’26) and the Providence Steam Rollers (’28), were all gone by ’32.
Then there was the schedule. In 1929 the champion Packers played 13 games, the runner-up New York Giants played 15 and third-place Frankford played 19. The cellar-dwelling Dayton Triangles took the field only six times.
An extra game gave the Chicago Cardinals (11-2-1) the 1925 NFL title over the Pottsville (Pa.) Maroons (10-2), who had had their schedule suspended after they played a non-sanctioned exhibition game in Philadelphia.
Empty seats in title games:
The 1936 NFL Championship Game between the Boston Redskins and the Packers had to be moved from Boston to New York due to the lack of interest in the Redskins’ hometown. The ‘Skins had drawn poorly all season and nearly everyone in Boston knew that Marshall was planning to move the team. Boston Herald columnist Bob Dunbar wrote: “[A]ll the Boston football followers lose by the transfer of the Redskins-Packers championship game is the right to stay away.”
Green Bay beat the Redskins 21-6 before a crowd of nearly 30,000 fans at the Polo Grounds, far more than would have shown up in Boston. Four days later, Marshall announced the team was indeed moving to Washington. NFL football would not return to Boston until the Patriots joined the league with the 1970 NFL-AFL merger.
And Rothschild makes a point of remembering the significance of the NFL title games prior to the Super Bowl era:
When ESPN rated the top 20 coaches in NFL history, the list was heavily weighted toward coaches from the Super Bowl era. Weeb Ewbank, who won those NFL two titles with the 1958-59 Colts and then led the New York Jets to a stunning Super Bowl III win over Baltimore, was omitted. Yet Marv Levy and Bud Grant, Super Bowl-era coaches who never won pro football’s ultimate game, were selected.
Paul Brown, usually regarded as one of the top two or three coaches in NFL history, couldn’t crack the top five.
How often have TV networks displayed graphics highlighting an achievement by an NFL team or individual, with a qualifying line at the bottom saying “since the 1970 merger”?
Was there no pro football before 1970? Did NFL used to stand for the National Federation of Lacrosse?
Football historians can debate which season created the most lasting impact on the NFL. Perhaps it was 1946, when the league integrated, established a permanent base on the West Coast and shattered attendance records. What about 1950, when the NFL absorbed the powerhouse Browns and the up-and-coming 49ers from the All-America Football Conference?
The 1958 season featured the overtime title game between the Colts and Giants that helped ignite pro football’s mass appeal. In 1960 Pete Rozelle began his landmark tenure as NFL commissioner, the upstart American Football League opened play and the Lombardi Packers appeared in their first championship game.
The 1966 season culminated with the first Super Bowl, leading to the full NFL-AFL merger in ’70. In 1978 the NFL expanded to 16 games and liberalized its passing rules, opening up offenses that had become too stagnant.
But there’s a strong case to be argued for the 1933 season. Those historic reforms that created the postseason and liberated the passing game continue to resonate in the NFL, 80 years later.
King decides not to use ‘Washington team nickname’; Will let others decide for themselves
Peter King has decided to make a statement. He writes at MMQB:
I’ve decided to stop using the Washington team nickname. It’s a name you won’t see me use anymore. The simple reason is that for the last two or three years, I’ve been uneasy when I sat down to write about the team and had to use the nickname. In some stories I’ve tried to use it sparingly. But this year, I decided to stop entirely because it offends too many people, and I don’t want to add to the offensiveness. Some people, and some Native American organizations—such as the highly respected American Indian Movement—think the nickname is a slur. Obviously, the team feels it isn’t a slur, and there are several prominent Native American leaders who agree. But I can do my job without using it, and I will. My 2,400-word story on Washington offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan and his unique approach to the read-option Thursday proved you can write about the team (insightfully, I hope) and not make a big deal about not using the nickname.
I have no idea if this is the right thing to do for the public, or the politically correct thing to do, and I’m not going to sit here and try to preach about it and tell you if you like the name you’re wrong or if you hate the name you’re wrong. I can just tell you how I feel: I’ve been increasingly bothered by using the word, and I don’t want to be a part of using a name that a cross-section of our society feels is insulting.
I’m not speaking for my staff at The MMQB, or at Sports Illustrated. I haven’t ordered anyone who works at our new website to not use the name; it will be up to each person to decide. We had some discussions as a staff about the nickname in August, and I said in those discussions I didn’t want our site to use it. But I felt after some thought that it’s not my place to order people who I work with to do something they may not be comfortable doing. So I decided to make my own decision, then allow the other writers and editors on the site to do what they want. Also, we won’t be changing quotes to eliminate the name in stories, or editing it out of pieces from outside contributors who choose to use it. It will also appear in web tools that categorize stories for searches.
King should be in for an interesting reception when he attends a Washington game this year.
Star rookie: Randy Moss has chance to be big as an analyst for Fox
As Jon Gruden would say, “I like this Randy Moss.”
Or as Jimmy Johnson did say, “Whenever he’s on, he’s tough to turn off.”
While he might not be able to match the football equivalent of scoring 17 touchdowns in his NFL debut for Minnesota in 1998, Moss looks to be the early favorite for rookie of the year on the NFL analyst front. He currently is working for Fox Sports 1 on Fox Football Daily and Fox Football Kickoff.
However, don’t be surprised if Moss eventually finds himself at the big boys table on Fox NFL Sunday, sooner than later. He has some Charles Barkley in him. The combination of being candid and unpredictable will carry him a long way on TV.
On a Fox conference call Wednesday, Moss questioned his old teammates, Colin Kaepernick and Vernon Davis’ ability to mesh on the field.
“From my time there last year, it didn’t seem Kaepernick and Vernon Davis had a rapport. They haven’t shown that yet,” Moss said.
That prompted this response from Davis: “His job is to critique our offense and say whatever he feels is right. But my opinion is totally different from what he’s saying. We’re on a different level, for sure.”
Stirring it up is what analysts are supposed to do. It is why Fox Sports executive producer John Entz called Moss, “a game changer.”
“He was someone we hadn’t thought of until late in the audition process,” Entz said. “It wasn’t something he was actively looking to do. He came in and liked it better than he realized. We immediately thought of (him) as a game changer.”
During the call, I asked Moss how he liked his new job.
“It’s definitely eye-opening to be in this environment as opposed to a locker room,” Moss said. “I’m a work in progress. (The other analysts) were once rookies too. Each and every day, I learn something.”
Later, Moss was asked to describe his style.
“I haven’t had time to really think about a style,” Moss said. “You can hear in my voice I’m excited to have something different in my life. I don’t know about too many things, but I do know about football.”
Just as it did for him as a player, football also can take Moss a long way as an analyst.
My Chicago Tribune column: Analysts mixed about Bears in 2013; Aikman ‘skeptical’ about Cutler
In my latest Chicago Tribune column, I talked to the various NFL analysts about the Bears’ prospects in 2013. The consensus: They like Marc Trestman, but aren’t sure about Jay Cutler.
You also can access the column via my Twitter feed.
From the column:
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The national appeal of the Bears always ranks high with the networks. CBS is making the most of its two Bears games this season, and it will send its No. 1 crew of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms to Soldier Field for Sunday’s season opener against the Bengals.
However, the network’s various NFL analysts are mixed on the Bears’ outlook for 2013, with a few of them decidedly down.
CBS’ Boomer Esiason says the Bears will be “a second-rung team in the NFC.”
NBC’s Rodney Harrison, a Chicago-area native, was blunt about his hometown team.
“I would almost have to say at this point I wouldn’t fear the Bears,” Harrison said. “Just too much inconsistent play at the quarterback position.”
Indeed, the analysts all contend Jay Cutler will be the focal point. As he goes, so go the Bears.
Esiason called Cutler “one of the most frustrating players in the NFL.” He even wrestled with whether he’s a top-15 quarterback.
Bill Cowher, the former Steelers coach, contends the time has come for Cutler to dramatically step up his game.
“When the head coach or the quarterback goes into the last year of his contract, it’s a storyline,” Cowher said. “It was last year with Joe Flacco. We know how that unfolded. We have all seen Jay Cutler at times and his mannerisms, and you just wonder if they don’t get off to a good start how much that will play into it. This is very much a career-defining year for him. How he handles the questions and his performance week-in and week-out will be something to watch.”
Fox Sports’ Troy Aikman says he’s “skeptical” about Cutler despite a change in coaches. The Hall of Fame quarterback rattled off the list of offensive coordinators who have come and gone during Cutler’s years with the Bears.
“Every year, you wonder, ‘Is this guy going to be the guy?’ ” Aikman said. “Until I see it, I’m going to be skeptical. Jay has not played well in big games, especially against the Packers. That has to change if they are going to contend.”
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Even though the Packers remain the favorites in the NFC North, NBC’s Cris Collinsworth thinks the Lions can be a dangerous team.
“When you start with that kind of front seven and especially that front four (on defense), you can control a lot of games,” Collinsworth said. “I think Reggie Bush adds an element to that team. If you can take a little pressure off of Calvin Johnson, it’s just a team with the chance.”
Fox Sports’ Jimmy Johnson still thinks it’s the Packers and everyone else in the North.
“None of those three teams will challenge Green Bay if they stay healthy,” Johnson said.
CBS’ McManus on glut of NFL on TV: ‘I don’t think we’ve hit saturation level yet’
My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center site at Indiana University is on the endless feast that the networks will be serving NFL fans this season.
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When Fox Sports swooped in with the NFL in 1994, it dared to be revolutionary by launching a 60-minute pregame show. Previously, the versions aired by CBS and NBC were 30 minutes.
An hour? Such lunacy. Who would want to watch a pregame show almost as long as the first half of a game?
The answer: Everyone.
Less than 20 years later, an hour of an NFL pregame show almost counts as clearing your throat. This year, the various networks are pushing the notion of too much football on Sundays and beyond to the extreme.
Besides the regular Sunday pregame coverage on Fox Sports, CBS, NBC, ESPN and the NFL Network, there’s two new major offerings this year: “That Other Pregame Show,” a four-hour extravaganza on CBS Sports Network and “Fox NFL Kickoff” on the new Fox Sports 1 network.
This is all in addition to the myriad of shows that provide constant talk about all-things-NFL during the week. And that’s not including the NFL’s 24/7 own network. There’s so much out there, Richard Deitsch of MMBQ needed 3,500 words for his preview of NFL studio shows.
Is there any chance of breaking the saturation point? Or does the concept of infinite not apply to TV and the NFL?
“It’s a logical question when you ask when is too much enough?” said CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus. “The answer is, I don’t think we’ve reached the saturation level yet.”
ESPN’s Mike Tirico tried to put it in perspective.
“I would assume at this point if we added up all the hours of pregame programming with so many people doing daily shows, it might equal the hours of actual football played during the week in the NFL,” Tirico said.
Actually, there’s probably more. There’s a simple reason for this endless smorgasbord of NFL: The audience is there.
NBC’s Sunday Night Football was the highest-rated prime-time show on TV last year; ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” does the highest ratings on cable; and nothing comes close to the Super Bowl. It’s the football version of “Field of Dreams.” Show the NFL and they will watch.
“I don’t see people complaining that there’s too much NFL product on now,” said NBC Sunday Night producer Fred Gaudelli. “At some point, ratings will get involved and how much you can sell things for will be the determining factor. But with five 24-hour sports networks, I mean how can you not have room for an NFL show or two or three? So I think at some point, we hit the threshold. Where that is I have no idea.”
McManus is counting on viewers finding CBS Sports Network’s new pregame show. Initially, the network was thinking three hours.
“Our feeling was that if you could start at 10 (a.m. Eastern), you also could start it at 9 (a.m.),” McManus said.
Sure, what’s another hour or four? McManus said the network got the idea to do a regular-season show after airing special coverage on CBS Sports Network during last year’s Super Bowl.
“The Other Pregame Show,” which can be conveniently shortened to “TOPS,” will be hosted by Adam Schien and feature Amy Trask, the former Oakland Raiders CEO who will become the first woman NFL analyst on a pregame show. After talking to Trask a couple of times, she has a chance to become a breakout star in her new TV gig.
“The lesson we learned from the Super Bowl is that if you’re creative enough and have some good panelists, you can put on some compelling programming,” McManus said.
Then again, you probably could stick a football with an NFL logo on the screen and it still would do a decent rating. Tirico has his theory on the insatiable demand beyond the fantasy football and betting elements.
“I think football fits the lifestyle of the fan because if you have five or six hours a week to devote to it, which is the equivalent of two Major League Baseball games, those six hours can have you as a pseudo‑expert on your team,” Tirico said. “You watch them play for three hours, watch a couple hours of pregame, listen to some talk during the week, get online and read whatever you need to get your fantasy team ready. So when people want to access the information, it’s available to them and in a variety of methods of delivery, with personalities and approaches on all those pregame shows. ”
It all starts Thursday with an appetizer of Baltimore-Denver to launch the season on NBC. Then the complete feast gets rolled out on Sunday morning for Week 1.
Dive in America. The networks can’t wait to serve you football, live and in HD.