Then the wind may have only played a factor on one kick, or none, tonight. shrug The NWS says that winds had been pretty light (under 6mph) at the airport reporting station all evening, though that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t windier downtown.
@Maserschmidt asked if the stadium was tough to kick in due to winds, and the cite I found indicates “yes, generally, it can be, in the south end zone.”
FWIW, both kickers have been reasonably solid this year: the Ravens’ Tyler Loop had been perfect on field goals inside of 50 yards until tonight, and the Steelers’ Chris Boswell hadn’t missed an XP before tonight (though he had missed three field goals inside of 50 yards this season).
Kicking can be weird, and I say that as someone who’s been a student of the kicking game for almost 50 years.
Just noticed that the Jets leading receiver on the season was Garrett Wilson with 395 yards. That’s a pretty remarkable stat in the modern era of the NFL.
Fuck Pittsburgh and Double fuck Baltimore but fuck if their games aren’t bangers 80% of the time. The hardest-hitting rivalry in football, they beat the fuck out of each other and give it all every game.
Browns fire Kevin Stefanski. I’m not sure how I feel about it. He doesn’t scheme very well but his players fight for him. I hope they have someone better in mind and aren’t just firing him with no backup plan. I’m usually pretty critical of coaches and quick to get rid of them (when they deserve it) but we could do worse than Stefanski
Edit: The Browns winnng 8 games over the last 2 years is mostly down to Watson. It makes you wonder if Stefanski was an enthusiastic Watson supporter (in which case he made his bed) or if he was stuck with him (in which case judging him on the last 2 seasons is a little unfair)
They had a strange, bad passing offense this year.
The Jets, as a team, passed for only 2385 yards, which was last in the league, and more than 400 yards worse than the #31 team (Cleveland). They started three different quarterbacks, none of whom were particular good, and ended the season with Brady Cook, who was awful.
TE Mason Taylor was their leader in receptions (44), while Wilson led in receiving yards. They had seven different WRs with at least 10 catches.
One would hope. But then again, it’s Jimmy Haslam, and all his early talk about being like the Steelers in team building went out the window pretty quickly
It’s sad that I have no idea who their QBs were, who their HC was. I knew nothing about them. They fell off the radar. They are the only team in the NFL that at this point, I know absolutely nothing about.
They are probably the least interesting team in the NFL from my perspective. Awful, but not even bad enough to be interesting (which belongs to the Giants and Raiders).
Speaking of passing, Matthew Stafford led the league in passing with 4,707 yards. Jared Goff was second with 4,564, and Dak Prescott was third with 4,552.
This continues an amazing (to me, anyway) stat: a Cowboy quarterback has never led the league in passing yards.
Speaking of things that a team’s quarterback has never done…
The Bears still have never had a quarterback throw for 4000 yards in a season; I believe that they are the only NFL team which hasn’t. Yesterday, Caleb Williams threw for 212 yards, giving him 3,942 on the season, and pushing him past Erik Kramer (in 1995) for most yards passing by a Bears QB in a season, but falling 58 yards short of that 4000 milestone.
In the statement regarding Carroll’s dismissal, Mark Davis indicated that minority owner Tom Brady will have a significant role in football operations going forward, as well as working with GM John Spytek in hiring a new coach.
Whoever they hire will be their sixth head coach since Jon Gruden resigned in mid-season in 2021.
You probably knew their HC at one point – Aaron Glenn, formerly the DC for the Lions and a hot prospect for coaching positions before going to the Jets. He got a lot of press early in the season and then kind of dropped out of the conversation.
I think that everyone was disappointed and surprised by their mediocrity this season, after their 15-win 2024.
Losing both coordinators to head coaching jobs (including Aaron Glenn, just mentioned) didn’t help, but one thing that I’ve noticed this year is that the league seems to be catching up to Dan Campbell. When he first became the Lions’ HC, part of his formula for success was bold, non-conventional coaching decisions, including frequently going for it on fourth down – and his style seems to have rapidly become orthodoxy in the league.
I actually haven’t heard of him before, I only knew about Ben Johnson because his name has come up so many times. Probably because he went to a team that actually succeeded. Although that’s not really true; I knew who he was even before he left the Lions. Johnson’s name has been in the news a lot for years. I don’t remember ever hearing Glenn’s name before, and if so it was in passing. Johnson is the one I keep hearing about as being a coaching genius.
I think this shows who was actually in charge this year.