Wild Wednesday - Humping our Way to Week 5

I really don't have to have a daily theme, I guess. But I may as well stick to it while I've got it. For now, anyway. Let's call today Wild Wednesday. How about this is the day where I just let my thoughts on the NFL roam for a few thousand words?

Whaddaya say?

Should I start with the Dolphins stuff because I figure many of you are Dolphins fans? Or do I bury the Dolphins stuff so you'll read to the end? Hmmm...

Is Stephen Ross Really Going to try for Aaron Rodgers?

I want to know because if he is, I'm out. I'm out!

If Stephen Ross thinks he's going to chase a goddamned 38 year-old Aaron Rodgers instead of just letting his talent evaluators and coaches evaluate and coach the talent they want and have— I just can't take it. I'm not rooting for the Jets South. If Stephen Ross is a Woody Johnson, I can't take it. Woody Johnson has owned the team since 2000. They've sucked ass since. And everybody in the world knows who's actually selecting their first round draft picks and high-priced free agents.

There's nothing to root for if this is Ross's play.

It doesn't work until the fan-owner steps back and lets the football people do their things. Look at Cleveland. As soon as reports were that their owner, Jimmy Haslam, was consistently hands-off during the teambuilding process, the Browns took off like a fuckin rocket. Look at them now. Sashi had to get sacrificed, but he's still around. Getting the right coach in Kevin Stefanski didn't hurt.

So what has Ross really done wrong? If I'm going to bust his balls, right? Who's to say he's not reading this and that he doesn't care what I think? Probability is. But whatever. Maybe this blows up and goes viral cus I'm calling a billionaire out as an asshole for ruining the fun of potentially millions of people by interfering with the Dolphins being any good.

That'd be pretty cool.

We'll know in five to ten – maybe as many as fifteen years – who really picked Tua. If Ross picked him, we'll know sooner than later. Because Flores and Grier are going to be fired sooner than later. We remember when Stephen Jones had to talk Jerry out of drafting Manziel, right?

Man, I really look like I've walked myself into a corner with this one. Am I about to compare Tua to Manziel? No. Sort of. Tua's small. And he looks small. I know he technically isn't, but he plays small. See – if you want to point to Russel Wilson for the size or Kyler Murray, Russ doesn't play small and who can catch Kyler? What does Tua do? Get hurt.

He got hurt in college. Did he finish a season? My understanding is he didn't. And now I'm trying to remind myself that he's only got like eight games under his belt, and he's got the ribs.

So let me shift to something else I've been thinking about, and we can see how the two meet later in this wacky Wednesday piece.

What the Hell do I know about All-Time Greatness?

There are a couple of questions I would like to answer by the time I'm ready to move on with this blog. One of them, the original conceit of the original incarnation, was what makes a great quarterback. I'm still not sure I can articulate it, though I think I can recognize it. But that's why I'm still writing, right? The two I've been thinking about most recently, maybe I can touch on one or both of them here.

How many All-Time Greats weren't obviously great the moment we first saw them step on the field?

-and-

What is the difference in an All-Time Great and a stat compiler?

It seems to me that wins and losses, especially early, don't define an all-time great. (ATG for short) Aikman and Manning and Favre and Elway and... had terrible first two seasons. Marino had the best second season of some thirty five years of NFL seasons. Only matched recently, and only after those same asterisks beside the names of Tom Brady and Drew Brees and Peyton Manning: The Different Eras asterisk.

(Which, I've been thinking about the Different Eras thing, and I have some thoughts.)

Dave Dameshek has been honking this horn for as long as he's known the name, but modern football fans wouldn't be able to stomach the Terry Bradshaw Steelers. His career completion percentage was closer to 50 than it was to 70. Chad Pennington blew everybody's mind when he broke Marino's completion percentage record. And now it's kind of unthinkable to go fewer than 75% completions.

It genuinely is a different era.

But all those dudes, one thing nobody was saying about them was that the adversity was going to break them.

We point to certain guys. Sorry, David Carr, you're the one I immediately think of. Dudes who we say, “Oh, they were destroyed by their offensive lines. They couldn't develop because they got killed.” And maybe that's the case. For some dudes.

But Aikman got killed his entire career. All the quarterbacks before Brady's knee did. I never knew a Marino whose legs weren't held together with duct tape and prayers. That's how you defended against the pass before this Era of rules: you punished thrower and catcher of the football for making the attempt. The defenseless receiver hits we get so upset about now were routine back in the day. Guys like Brady, (typically rookies and inexperienced players) who like to throw over the middle, didn't have finish games with the receivers who came in.

So that suggests to me that even bad offensive line play can be overcome by the ATGs. You can do so much from the quarterback position to help your line – your whole offense. The ATGs just understand the game better. They study harder. No. That's wrong. Because they don't study harder – they take more from what they study. They are more skilled – meaning they practice more often and have memorized more facets of the game.

It goes without saying that quarterbacks selected in the first round, particularly its first half, are going to tenuous situations. You aren't picking first in the draft because you were a great team the year before – very often.

Colin Cowherd has this theory that ATGs get that way because they didn't have to overcome chaos. He's wrong. Of course he's wrong. Everyone has to overcome chaos. Tom, for as charmed as his career has been, has had to overcome roster turnover, injuries mid-season; he has kids and a family, friends, his wife and her career— And he's never had two quality receivers at a time. Don't give me Moss and Welker. Welker was done by the Moss years.

Everyone goes through chaos. It's the ATGs who contend with and overcome the chaos the best. They do so at such a rate or to such a degree that we think they have none.

Billy B didn't hug Tommy and make a spectacle of himself on Sunday Night Football because Billy B is not here for your amusement. The world outside the standards he has set for himself is chaos. You conquer chaos by establishing order – an order within yourself, and order upon the world immediately around you. Kind of like that “grant me the patience” prayer: You worry about what you can control.

It's admirable.

It's also Machiavellian and looks, from the outside in, like you're the world's biggest asshole.

The ATGs get it. They are going to be ATGs whether they play in Detroit (Sanders, Johnson) or Dallas. That's why the NFL's draft system is beautiful: If you identify an ATG with your first overall pick, you shouldn't pick first again until at least after they've retired.

It's kind of how you know. ATGs don't have losing seasons. An ATG should count for .500 at the very least. They all have, in their time. And I know I'm being hyperbolic and that goalpost will move depending on the name and the circumstance – but I feel pretty confident in pointing out that Megatron seems to be the exception to the rule, with the winless season. But then they add Stafford, and suddenly this is a team that should be winning. Because two ATGs equal about eight wins.

We always kind of want to sit on announcing a guy's all-time greatness.

Justin Herbert makes me feel things when I watch him. Things I feel when I watch the Greats. Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning— Look, I want to tell you a Peyton Manning Story.

In week 2 of 2009, Dolphins fans were riding high of the surprising division win the year previous. We were all thinking the Wildcat combination of Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams was going to pummel teams into submission and cover up for the obvious flaws in Chad Pennington's passing game and the young Chad Henne. Miami played that game exactly like you'd want them to. Minus a missed field goal, some mental errors. You can't ask for better than 45:07 time of possession to choke a team to death. You talk today about how you have to slow the game down against the Chiefs, keep their offense off the field? Yeah, they used to say that about Manning, too.

Miami gave him fewer than 15 minutes of total time of possession. 14:53. Here, watch it for yourself.

I watched that game in a state of awe. I was new to watching the NFL every weekend – it was just my second season. I was 22. And everything I'd ever heard about football was that you run the ball, control the clock, give your opponent no time to put drives together and score.

And Miami's defense wasn't bad. If you watched the game, you saw: Miami got some stops. Manning was just that Great. He was hitting guys in stride and checking to runs and generally getting dudes in position to succeed. And succeed they did.

That's what Greatness is.

When I watch the Dolphins, I don't see any great players jump off the screen.

Matt Judon literally jumped off the screen on Monday Night. He wrecked everything the Buccs were trying to do offensively. Trevon Diggs and Jamal Adams and Jaelen Ramsey are all ruining opponents' gameplans. ...Where is Xavien Howard this season? Carson Wentz targeted him and won. He was out of position a bunch this weekend. What is that?

Is that Xavien? Or is that Byron Jones being down? A linebacker out of position? The coaching? Or is it Xavien?

Because sometimes it's okay to blame the players.

In fact, most times it's okay to blame the players.

I kind of talked about this the other day, but when we see players check out of plays into good plays, now we're talking about greatness. Joe Burrow checking to that tight end screen keeps jumping into my mind. The question of why didn't the coach have them in the right play to beat that look doesn't matter when you have the quarterback who can identify the play they need to be running.

Have I seen a Dolphins player just take over a game in a while? I don't know.

But I'm actually thinking about this positively. What I have seen from Jaylen Waddle has my hopes up. Last weekend every time he had the ball in space he looked like the fastest guy on the field and the best football player. Moving on from Jakeem Grant – who probably only had the punt return gig because of his experience and sure hands in the first place – made sense after yet another muffed punt. If you're going to have a question mark at the punt returner position, it may as well be the rookie who might have some Greatness in him.

As far as the other Jaelan, Phillips – I've seen some stats saying that he's among the most disruptive edge rushers in the League this season, but I have doubts about the relevance of those stats on the outcomes of the games. Pressures matter. If you listened to Aaron Rodgers yesterday, you know what a pressure is. Hurrying and hitting the quarterback are key factors in creating turnovers. But sacks kill drives.

I've been happy to see Christian Wilkins's name atop some of these lists for D-linemen. I was just thinking last night that he was billed as another Aaron Donald. Actually... I might be too hard on him. I don't get to watch enough of the games, and his name doesn't get called on the radio, but come to think of it, his name jumps out of the highlights. He was all over Carr and Wentz. Sorry, Christian. I said I hadn't seen any flashes.

I still believe in you.

It is starting to feel like the same ol same ol. Just give me a sign that the season's not over. Please?

Looking around the League and stopping at the AFC West Quarterbacks

Holy shit, what a division for quarterbacks.

Justin Herbert's giving me major Marino vibes. Mahomes. Bridgewater and whatever the Hell is going on with Lock. And the guy I want to talk a little bit about: Derek Carr.

Derek, Derek, Derek.

You should have won that game on Monday, Derek. You've been talking all this shit all season about how you're your own man and the author of your destiny and you don't care what Gruden or anybody else thinks of you or the way your offense plays ball, Derek. And then you go and crumple in the fourth quarter. Derek. This really was not the game for you to lose, man. Divisions can have momentum within them. You made some noise last year by beating the Chiefs, then people started looking at you and remembering that season before you broke the leg. And then you lost to the Dolphins.

This feels like that loss, Derek.

I have to get out of this A LETTER TO DEREK CARR format or I'm going to lose my mind. Also, I have got to get Britney out of my head. Give me a second. (NO REGRETS)

I went in to Monday night's game conceptually wanting to watch Derek Carr to decide whether I would consider trading for him. Everybody knows that Gruden's favorite quarterback is the next one (God, I hate how often they say that in broadcasts. Fuckin Booger, man.) I left it certain that I do not.

He was playing so well. And then he really wasn't anymore. This game turned into the Hunter Renfrow Show, and frankly, it wasn't that good. Sure, there were some moments to Ruggs and Waller, but there were not nearly enough moxxy moments from Carr. You can't go the entire first half without moving the ball.

And you cannot get that rattled by the pass rush.

I'm back to talking to you, Derek, if you're listening. I've apparently lost my mind, thinking about you so much. You can't crumple under the pass rush, man. Don't you know who your brother is and how he got laughed out of the League?

Ack. I wanted to believe. But some guys – Carr, Cousins, Tannehill, Dalton, Garoppolo – when you see them take the field after one of the Greats, you can just see it. Oh, okay. This guy might be one of the Very Goods, but he is not among the ATGs. Like, I don't think Wilson is one of the ATGs. He loses too many games where he has sub-200 yards throwing. In this era.

Baker still misses too many killing shots. If he hit that throw to OBJ to close out the Vikings game this weekend, I give him a pass and put him on the Greats list. Maybe not of All-Time because he's not freaky, but I'd put him in the conversation with Brees. The size wasn't intentional.

What Happened to talking about what I got wrong?

Nothing specifically, I guess. I've been waiting for something big n juicy.

You know, I don't even track whether I got the picks right. I assume I get most of them wrong. And all of the scores. I'll have to get better at that.

These teams are, overall, starting to take identifiable shape. So, as the season goes along, I'm realizing, there's just going to be less to be wrong about each week. So I'll have to set aside a post just for combing through what idiot stuff I've said through the week. That could be fun. Give me an excuse to practice reading my own material.

I really thought Tannehill was going to find a way to beat the Jets without any receivers. And it has nothing to do with Derrick Henry. I just really thought he could do it.

I maintain that Tannehill is the most underrated quarterback in the League. But I have also come around to appreciating that he's a bigger bodied Alex Smith. He will still not peak for another three or four years because of his limited playing time in college. But I wonder if we haven't seen the best Tannehill has to offer. Not on the season – on his career.

Can he really compete with Mahomes for the AFC crown? That feels like Peyton competing with Brady – and that feels like it went Tom's way a hell of a lot more often than it did Manning's. And then he's got the Ravens' Lamar Jackson being a way better version of his game.

He's Alex Smith: Good enough to get you to the Divisional Round, even the Championship if the talent is around him – but not good enough to win it if he falls behind in the fourth.

And that's okay. It has come to my attention that only one team's quarterbacks get a ring every year. There are going to be dudes who don't get one. And you can be underrated without ever getting a ring.

That feels like every football thought I've been gnawing on this week! And this mothersucker was long enough for the both of us. I'll have a preview of the Thursday Night game up either later tonight or as early as I can tomorrow. And that might be all until the recap on Friday and the Game Rankings on Saturday.

Cool. Starting to slip into a rhythm.

I'll talk at you guys tomorrow. Thanks for listening.