I might guess that it’s to make it even more clear to the receiving team that an onside kick is about to be attempted.
OK, I was incorrect. It looks like the ball will be kicked from the 34 yard line, but the other 10 members of the kicking team will be allowed to line up at the 35. Since a kickoff has to travel at least 10 yards from the spot from which it was kicked, before it can be recovered by the kicking team, this positions the members of the kicking team nine yards away from that “recovery” line, rather than 10 (which has always been the distance in the past), apparently in an effort to make the odds of recovering an onside kick a bit better (it was only successful 6% of the time in 2024).
Thanks, that makes sense. I couldn’t figure out why they wanted to make it even worse given the 6% success rate. Still, any advantage has to be marginal at best. Bring on 4th and 15!
Colts owner Jim Irsay passed away in his sleep today. He was 65.
Not to speak ill of the dead, but I doubt a lot of people in Indy are going to miss Irsay. Guy was the archetypal nepobaby and a jackass to boot.
Irsay’s Wikipedia entry, at this moment, reads:
Possibly more relevantly: Irsay had issues with chemical dependency for a number of years. He had been arrested for DUI in 2014, was found to have several bottles of prescription medications in his car, and tested positive for opiods; the incident led to a six-game suspension by the NFL. In late 2023, he was found unresponsive in his home, and hospitalized, where he was treated with Narcan (a drug which is given to those who have overdosed on opiods).
Irsay had inherited the team from his father, Bob Irsay, who had moved the Colts to Indianapolis from Baltimore “in the middle of the night” in 1984. Jim’s daughter Carlie is a co-owner of the team, and took over day-to-day operations in 2014 when her father was suspended; it’s probably a good guess that she’ll be the primary owner of the team now.
The ESPN article on Irsay’s passing notes that, after his 2023 hospitalization, he had what the team then described as a “severe respiratory illness,” and that his public appearances since then had been limited; he had not attended either of the league meetings in the past few months, nor the draft last month.
65 seems young but for everything he put his body through, it was probably more like the body of an 85-year-old.
The Lions’ Pro Bowl center, Frank Ragnow, suddenly announced his retirement today.
In his seven seasons, Ragnow had been named to the Pro Bowl four times, and was second-team All Pro three times. However, he has had a number of injuries, including a fractured throat (!) in 2020, and most notably, recurring toe injuries; in a 2023 interview, he indicated that surgery wouldn’t help his toe, and it had become something that he was just going to have to continue to deal with.
Legendary Vikings defensive end Jim Marshall, who held the NFL record for consecutive games played (282) before it was broken by Brett Favre, died today, at age 87, after a lengthy hospitalization.
Marshall had played for the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1959, then the Browns in 1960, before being traded to the expansion Vikings in 1961, playing in every one of the Viking franchise’s first 270 games, and all four of the team’s Super Bowl appearances. He was a member of the team’s “Purple People Eaters” defensive line, but his singular moment in the NFL was a mistake: in a 1964 game against the 49ers, he recovered a fumble, but ran towards the wrong endzone, resulting in a safety rather than a touchdown.
Wow. I was just reading about him while falling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole started by a link shared in the IMHO thread about early aviation navigation. “Wrong Way” Corrigan led to “Wrong Way” Roy Riegels, who sent Marshall a letter: “Welcome to the club.”
In the “won’t surprise anyone” NFL news of the day…
It’s a one year deal. I have to applaud the Steelers for not committing more than that, at the very least.
That’s interesting. We’ll have to see how far the Steelers will go to sign Rodgers’ preferred free agents. He’s wrecked rosters in the past but Pittsburgh has always seemed more disciplined about stuff like that in the past.
Probably not far at all, I’m guessing. Tomlin is no dummy and signing him for a year shows me that they’re not betting the whole franchise on him like New York did.
Now, if somehow it works out well, we will see next year, but I still don’t see anyone going nuts for a 42-year-old QB (as he will be at that point) with attitude problems.
Yeah, I don’t see Khan or Tomlin doing anything like that. He’s clearly a bridge QB and I can’t see anybody taking more than a 1 year risk (even if it’s in the form of a front loaded 2 year contract) on him.
Agreed. It’s now three months after free agency started, and seven weeks before the Steelers open training camp. While there are some free agent WRs still on the market – Keenan Allen and Amari Cooper come to mind – they don’t have any historical connection with Rodgers. It’s late in the game, relatively speaking, for any sort of real overhaul, even if the Steelers were willing to, in an attempt to make Rodgers happy (hah!).
Of the ex-Packers WRs who followed Rodgers to the Jets in '23 and '24, Davante Adams is now a Ram, Allen Lazard is still a Jet, Malik Taylor is now with the Lions, and Randall Cobb is retired.
Can’t find the post but paraphrased it was:
Aaron Rogers prevented the Steelers from winning the Superbowl before, and is now set to do it again….
Brian
As a Clevelander, it gives me another reason to dislike the Steelers.
And, of course, Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson is injured again.
This time, it’s the right shoulder.
The one he’s already had surgery on.
They’re saying another surgery isn’t necessary, just that he needs rest. But there’s no timetable for him, and the team is noncommittal about whether he’ll be ready for the start of the season.
He hasn’t had a season thus far in which he hasn’t missed multiple games. I know Indianapolis invested a lot of money in this kid, and that I’ve never been a fan of his, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to justify the organization cutting their losses, and moving forward with an eye to a future draft/trade for a QB.
I’m not suggesting that they extend Daniel Jones past this season, or that Riley Leonard (6th round pick out of Notre Dame) is the solution, but it’s becoming painfully obvious that Indy whiffed on this one.
Richardson is definitely turning out to be the archetypal case of why you draft a guy based on what he did in college rather than what you think he might be capable of in the pros. The Colts drafted him thinking they potentially had the next Lamar Jackson; only thing is, Lamar showed what he was capable of in college. Richardson offered glimpses, at best.
Richardson is also an example of teams needing to shy away from guys with limited starting experience in college. Richardson made effectively one season of starts (13 total games) and his statistics in those games were middling at best. Trey Lance is another example from recent years.