Offseason and Draft Retrospective

THE FOOTBALL VOLUMES

                                        Every how and every why from the NFL in 2012

                                                            By Andrew Goldstein

                  2012-2013: WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO?

First of all, I would like to thank you, the reader, for purchasing my book. What you’re about to read is the journey through a year in football, from the end of the 2012 NFL Draft to the end of the 2013 Super Bowl. What inspired me to write this book? I don’t know. You see, I get crazy ideas and I love football. I also like to write. I am not athletically gifted in any way shape or form, and any of my classmates who have ever been in a gym class with me can testify to that. I have a little bit of musical talent, having played the piano for about ten years now, but certainly nothing that would be considered extraordinary. My talent (or lack thereof, depending on your opinion about this book) is communication. And the great thing about being a sports fan is that it’s an ongoing discussion; a never ending debate. I’m not writing this book from the perspective of John Clayton, Peter King, or any other NFL Analyst. Those guys are overqualified to write about and discuss football. I’m just a fan. But the second great thing about being a fan is that you don’t have to be qualified. So I’m writing this book as a fellow sports fan. Any section that you read in here could just as easily be a conversation between you and another person who is just as hopelessly addicted to football as I am. If you remember nothing else from this book, remember that the opinions and arguments expressed in here are just that, opinions and arguments. They’re just my take on things. And that’s really the reason I wanted to write this book; to add to the conversation and to share a few things I’ve observed about how things work in the NFL. I love football, but could never dream of playing it. So the best way to get close to the game is to talk and write about it.

Quick Aside: That last paragraph only stated part of the truth. Here’s the actual reason I wrote this book; I was bored in study hall one day and thought, “Hey, why not start writing a book?” So I wrote the intro, thought, “Ah, what the heck”, and ran with it. You have to admit, the first paragraph sounded way better than the truth.

So why football? Why not some other sport? And why would people ever want to read something about last year’s news? Well, I want to answer those questions by telling you how I came to love this game we call football. The year was 2002, the Houston Texans had just joined the league as an expansion team, and I don’t know enough about music to tell you what the number one hit was. I was five and staying at my grandparents house for the weekend and they happened to be watching preseason football. It’s kind of a strange place to fall in love with football, in the preseason, but that’s exactly what happened. The first game I ever watched was on August 15h, Jets vs. Ravens. I watched that game with my grandma and grandpa, two Jet fans. I started to like the Jets and watch every game. By early November I started memorizing their players, the score of their games, the history behind them. And even though there have been some tough moments over the years (a huge understatement, by the way), I never regretted becoming a Jet fan for a second. It’s something that non-sports fans just don’t get; the fact that when you choose a team, it’s your team for life. No matter how bad it gets, you can’t picture yourself with any other team. And if my grandparents weren’t there with me watching that game, I could have become a Giants fan or even worse, a Patriots fan.

OK, now to answer the question of why people would ever want to read a book written by some sixteen year old kid about last year’s season. It’s not just about what happened, it’s about why and what can be taken away from it. Although I’ll admit that there are sections in the book that are heavy on the season-specific stats (try saying “season-specific stats” five times fast. You can’t do it.) I always try to provide some lessons that any football fan might not have thought about before reading this book. Like it said on the back of the book, I’m writing about the world of football and the cast of characters that live in it. The 2012 season is just the backdrop. As for who would buy this thing, you’ll probably like this book if any of the following applies to you.

1. You’re a football fan.

2. You want to be able to look back at moments from this season later in life.

3. You’re interested in who mattered and why they mattered in a given NFL season.

4. You want to read a guy who writes in a (hopefully) interesting and engaging style.

5. You know a football fan and you want to buy this as either a gift or a gag gift.

6. You want to learn something new about the NFL so you can simultaneously grow closer to your favorite team and sound two percent smarter at the next cocktail party you go to.

Whichever number applies to you, I hope that I can provide a humorous and informative insight to every moment, every story, and every important person of the 2012-2013 NFL season. With that said, take a seat on the couch, or pull up the “pretending to work” screensaver if you’re at the office or school, and enjoy a look back at the time period of 2012-2013 in the National Football League.

One quick disclaimer before we begin. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this is a looooooong book. Like a, “pack a lunch, this is going to take all week” type of book. For those of you that purchased it, you hold in your hands approximately a third of what I actually wrote. If you’re viewing the cut content, you’re reading about two thirds of it. Everything before the start of the season is for the purpose of establishing context. Feel free to skip it and get right into the season if you so choose. There’s great content, some observations/theories, a ton of jokes/other bad humor, just everything that you could want from a football book. However, it doesn’t necessarily hold up that well a year plus later (the rest of the book does OK though). So I’d recommend that you read it, but I’ll understand if you skip it. I’ll only be, like, a little bit offended. OK, overly long disclaimer over. The body of the book starts now.

WAIT A SECOND! If you are viewing the cut content, you’ll run across a fair amount of “Time Outs”, which are demarcated blurbs that I inserted in the editing process. They’re observations on sections that I wrote at the time of the season with the benefit of hindsight. Alright, the body of the book starts now. For real this time. No, seriously, I promise.

5/15/12: SORTING OUT THE NFL DRAFT

Commissioner Goodell ambles up to the podium. “With the first pick in the 2012 NFL Draft the Indianapolis Colts select Andrew Luck, Quarterback, Stanford.

And just like that, the 2012 NFL Draft hit the ground running. I had just covered an NFL Play 60 event featuring these rookies for SI KIDS the day before the draft, and now I was watching them be officially drafted by very lucky, or very unlucky, NFL teams. But who got lucky with their pick? Who irreversibly screwed their pick up? Who won this draft?

No matter what questions are asked after any draft, it all comes back to the central question of which teams won. People like to give out draft grades, but that’s asinine. How can you give grades to people who haven’t played in the NFL yet? Instead of grades, I’m just going to mention five things from this draft that jumped out at me. With that in mind, here are some observations on the NFL Draft.

1. Most Likely to Succeed- I never claimed to be original, so I’m going with quarterback Andrew Luck out of Stanford. The reason why I like Luck so much is not related to his physical skills. Yes, he has the arm strength. The accuracy is undoubtedly there. His running ability is something the defense needs to account for. But the thing that stands out to me the most is his smarts. Mel Kiper and Todd McShay kept describing Luck as a field general, someone that knew Stanford’s playbook inside, outside, and backwards. Colorado Buffaloes coach Jon Embree compares Luck’s ability to process information and call the correct play to Peyton Manning’s. And really, that’s the true mark of a legend: when opposing coaches not only admit your greatness, but actively acknowledge it and lapse into hyperbole describing what it’s like to see you play. Andrew Luck isn’t there yet, and we should certainly hold off on the Manning comparisons until we see him take some significant regular season snaps, but he absolutely has the talent to get there. ESPN Columnist Kevin Gemmell pointed out that not many NFL quarterbacks could do what Luck has done with the playbook. Coordinator Bruce Arians is planning to give Luck free reign with the offensive terminology, saying to Gemmell, "Quarterbacks have to see a picture when they call a play, and you keep it as simple as possible for them. The ones like (Andrew Luck), Peyton (Manning), Ben (Roethlisberger) and those guys, they are like piranhas. They eat information and gobble it up, and then you let them run with it."

To be honest, I probably could have just plugged in that Bruce Ariens quote next to the “Most Likely to succeed” headline and saved myself the trouble of writing this paragraph. I can’t think of a rookie quarterback that inspired this much confidence from a fan base before he was even drafted. The era of Andrew Luck is going to be a special one, and I’m just glad that I have an armchair and a TV so that I can witness it.

2. Most Likely to Bust- This dubious honor goes to Ryan Tannehill, with an honorable mention to Dontari Poe. There was a high degree of uncertainty surrounding Poe, and I saw various mock drafts put him as high as 8 or 9 and as low as 28 (just as a general rule, there’s always high bust potential with a guy when you see mock drafts radically disagreeing about where he should go If you see a disagreement of more than fifteen spots on a first or second round guy, then you should be on high alert). My concern regarding Poe is that he is a workout wonder, a guy who really blew people away with a great NFL combine and not his actual play. The fact that he only had five sacks in his career on a Conference USA team raises some major red flags about how he’s going to generate any kind of pass rush in the NFL. Besides quarterback and running back, defensive tackle is really the riskiest position to draft because you don’t know what you’re getting. So many big men eat up space with their massive frame and don’t have the requisite quickness to be effective. Few positions are more prone to injury risks (Kris Jenkins, Gerald McCoy, Nick Fairley) and guys who burn out quickly (Albert Haynesworth, Dewayne Robertson, maybe Ndamukong Suh). Of every defensive tackle taken in the first round of the draft from 2000 up until now, exactly seven of them (Vince Wilfork, Haloti Ngata, John Henderson, Marcus Stroud, Albert Haynesworth, Richard Seymour, and  maybe Ndamukong Suh) turned out to be real difference makers. For every Wilfork, you’re going to find three or four guys like Tyson Alualu who break down too quickly and are essentially gone from the league before they’re 28. If I’m an NFL GM and I hear the words “uncertainty” and “first round defensive tackle” mentioned in the same sentence, I’m staying far away from that guy. Defensive tackles are a little like running backs in the respect that they both break down quickly, have to do a wide variety of things well (and not being able to do one of these things well is the difference between boom and bust), take contact on every play, and are completely interchangeable except for three to five elite guys. Every year, there’s a different breakout running back/defensive tackle that gets 1200 yards/8 or 9 sacks and then falls off the map the next year. If the Chiefs insisted on taking a defensive tackle, they should have gone with Fletcher Cox. His official scouting report describes him as “having no red flags whatsoever” with regards to off the field issues, and he recorded five sacks just last year (Poe had five for his whole career at Memphis.) in a much tougher environment and against far better offensive lines. Also, SEC defenses are very similar to professional defenses, so Cox would know more of the playbook on his first day than Poe would in weeks or even months. But enough about our honorable mention, let’s get to Ryan Tannehill.

There are enough red flags with Tannehill to wallpaper my house, so let’s start with the most obvious one. He’s spent more time in his college career as a wide receiver than a quarterback. I can’t be the only person among NFL fans who did a double take when Tannehill started climbing up draft boards. Let me put it to you this way; you know the College Pick’Em game on ESPN? I play that every year, even though I’m never very good at picking college football games. It usually takes me until at least halfway through the season to learn which teams to ride and which teams to stay away from. I knew by Week 5 of 2011 to start picking against Texas A&M simply because I didn’t trust Tannehill in big moments. If you have the time, go back and watch the Aggies-Cowboys and Aggies-Razorbacks games (Weeks 3 and 4) just to see if you felt confident in Ryan Tannehill at any crucial juncture in those games. Now picture him having to lead a fourth quarter two minute drill. Are you still excited about Tannehill then? Not so much, right? And don’t forget, NFL defenses are roughly a million times more complicated than anything he saw in the Big 12. There are a lot of subtleties that a quarterback has to incorporate into his game to be successful, such as endlessly disguised blitz schemes and the exact timing of receivers’ slant routes. This might be a bit difficult for someone who has started a meaningful game at quarterback exactly nineteen times in his life. I mean, didn’t it seem a little alarming that everybody who wanted to trade down in the draft was trying to create a market for Tannehill, and nobody wanted to trade up for him? Follow this chain of events with me.

1. Ryan Tannehill is projected as a second round pick and the Dolphins need a quarterback.

2. The Dolphins lose out in the Matt Flynn sweepstakes (A sentence I never thought anyone would write.)

3. The Dolphins lose in the Robert Griffin sweepstakes. Not to worry though, they’ll just throw all of their efforts into getting Peyton Manning.

4. Peyton Manning ends up signing with Denver. Oh well, there’s always Alex Smith....

5. Smith visits the Dolphins, and then decides that he won’t be taking his talents to South Beach. In fact, he says the only reason he visited was to see South Beach for the first time.

6. Out of options, the Dolphins resort to taking a second rate QB in the draft.

7. Ryan Tannehill is suddenly a Top 8 pick.

Am I the only one that thinks this is a little strange? Tannehill’s official scouting report has every red flag you can imagine. Among the warning signs mentioned; lean frame, needs lots of improvement on mechanics and footwork, not much arm strength, no accuracy on deep throws, and an anonymous  pro scout opining, “when the tape comes on, reality sets in.” Besides all that, everything’s peachy. Now I ask you, is this a guy you want starting for your team? Yep, I thought not.

3. Since I’m unbelievably biased (I never promised you an unbiased book, did I?), I can’t let the draft ramblings continue without commenting on the newest Jet, Quinton Coples. I’m going to be blunt here; I absolutely hate this pick. Why would any team even risk something like this? With needs at right tackle, wide receiver, linebacker, and safety, the Jets chose a defensive end with work ethic issues. And nobody can play the “they needed a pass rusher” card with this pick because Melvin Ingram, Dont’a Hightower, Chandler Jones, and Courtney Upshaw were all still on the board when it was the Jets turn to draft. Upshaw and Hightower both played at Alabama, the closest thing you can get to a pro defensive system, and were specifically cut out to play 3-4 defenses. Melvin Ingram was a defensive end, but he could also play inside linebacker and rush the passer effectively. Even Chandler Jones, an under the radar kind of guy, would have filled a need at the OLB position. Instead, the Jets picked someone who can’t play linebacker when needed, not to mention a guy who will absolutely stop working once he has the long-term security that an NFL contract provides. If there’s still a safe bet on the board, I really can’t think of a single reason why anybody would reach for the guy with effort issues.

More importantly, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the Jets leap at talent and ignore everything but that talent. Santonio Holmes can get yards after the catch, so what if he’s a head case? Bart Scott is a tough player, so who’s going to mind him shooting his mouth off when we’re 3-5? That’s just Bart being Bart. Who cares if Kenrick Ellis might have to spend his first season in prison? He’s got a hell of a wingspan.

I could have continued that paragraph with five to ten more examples, but you get the idea. Melvin Ingram, and not Quinton Coples, should have been a Jet. The fact that he isn’t raises even more serious questions about Mike Tannenbaum’s capacity to be a GM.

4. Almost every team that picked between three and sixteen this year wanted to trade their pick down and only a few succeeded. In fact, there were more trades in this year’s first round (9) than any other draft in history except for 2004 (10). It got to the point where the Vikings were taking out full page ads in the New York Times for the third pick. Let’s run down the list of first round trades, shall we?

The Robert Griffin Trade (Redskins get number 2 pick, Rams get number six pick, number 39 pick, 2013 first rounder, and 2014 first rounder)-This is a trade that I feel will work out way better for the Rams than it will for the Redskins. This is tough for me to say, because I really like RG3 (or as my mom keeps calling him, R2D2). He seems like a great guy to have as a teammate and he definitely couldn’t have been more friendly to me when I met him. All that said, I can’t shake this nagging feeling that he isn’t going to make it. Part of what made him so dangerous at Baylor was his ability to take off running at any time, something that is always less effective in the NFL against linebackers who run 4.6 40s instead of 4.8s. Plus, for a quarterback who scrambles a lot, his small build raises questions about how long it will take before he gets injured. As for his passing, it does raise some red flags that he played mostly out of the shotgun in a predominantly spread system against porous Big 12 defenses. I like this trade a lot more for the Rams because they identified that they have too many needs to diagnose with one big pick and acted accordingly to fill those needs with multiple smaller picks. Those picks could also be valuable bargaining chips for trading down even further in the draft (kind of like the Patriots did up until this year), trading up to grab a blue chip prospect in next year’s draft, or making a blockbuster trade for a current star down the road if the opportunity arises. WINNER OF THE ROBERT GRIFFIN TRADE: RAMS (40% CONFIDENCE)

The Kalil Deal (Browns receive the no. 3 pick, the Vikings receive the no. 4 pick, the no. 118 pick, the no. 139 pick, and the no. 211 pick)- Why name this trade after Matt Kalil instead of Trent Richardson? Because Kalil is the better prospect and the Vikings got the better of the trade, that’s why. I had been arguing for weeks that the Vikings should just hold on to the third pick and take Kalil, but they managed to cash in on the sudden Trent Richardson craze and pilfer three other late round picks from the Browns (in addition to the no 4 pick). First of all, I think I’ve been outsmarted by the Vikings management, which might disqualify me from writing this book. Secondly, there’s really no upside to taking a running back in the top ten. Too many things could go wrong, too many different injuries have a more pronounced effect on running backs than other positions (ankle, leg, foot, anything ending in “-CL” etc), and they almost always require a big contract. The Vikings played it safe by taking Kalil, the best left tackle prospect in years, and will be a better franchise for it. WINNER OF THE KALIL DEAL: VIKINGS (95% CONFIDENCE)

The Blackmon-Barron Exchange (Jags get the No. 5 pick, Bucs get the no.7 pick and the no. 101 pick)- I hate to break it to the Tampa Bay fans out there (all seventy of you), but the Bucs made the wrong choice here. I’m not going to say it was a completely unforgivable screw-up (we’re getting to one of those really soon) because Barron is definitely a good player. But Morris Claiborne would have made too much sense here. Ron Cooper, the Bucs secondary coach, was the defensive backs coach at LSU and worked with Morris Claiborne before. With Ronde Barber getting set to retire any day now, not to mention Aqib Talib’s legal troubles, Claiborne would have been the logical pick. This is definitely one of those trades where I’m just left saying “What’s the point?” when I look at the Bucs end of it.  As for the Jags, they made the right pick with Justin Blackmon. He plays much bigger than he is, can get off of cornerback jams, and is a great yards after catch receiver. I just feel sorry that Blackmon’s going to have to waste a few years of his career while Jacksonville lets the Blaine Gabbert experiment run its course.

WINNER OF THE BLACKMON-BARRON EXCHANGE:JAGUARS (60% CONFIDENCE)

The Claiborne Move (the Cowboys get the no. 6 pick, the Rams get the no. 14 pick and the no. 45 pick)- This was the best trade of the draft and a win-win deal for both teams. The Cowboys desperately needed a playmaking corner after finishing 23rd in total pass defense last year and the Rams are fully committed to stockpiling as many picks as possible. I’m not quite sure I agree with the Rams’ selection of Michael Brockers (back to that whole theme of DT’s being risky), but it is definitely a position that they needed to fill. Good trade. WINNER OF THE CLAIBORNE MOVE: BOTH TEAMS (80% CONFIDENCE)

The Bruce Irvin Mistake (Eagles get the no. 12 pick, the Seahawks get the no. 15 pick, the no. 114 pick, and the no. 172 pick)- Keep in mind folks, I’m calling this trade “the mistake” when I have about ten other words that I would like to use, but can’t if I want kids to read this book. I have a lot of questions here; first question, what’s the point? If you’re the Eagles, you know that you’ll get the chance to take either Fletcher Cox or Michael Brockers if both are available by the fifteenth pick. And if they’re not, then you take a linebacker. I really don’t get the purpose of trading up three spots to fill a need that could have easily been filled at the Eagles’ regular spot. Why give up potentially meaningful late round picks? However, that pales in comparison to the actual problem here. Question two, why is Bruce Irvin being taken this early? Yes, I saw his combine numbers. I know that he ran a 4.5 in the forty yard dash. I also saw that he was arrested a few weeks later for destruction of property. Let’s assume for a second that he isn’t a problem character-wise (odds of that: not great) and becomes a productive guy on the Seahawks defense. That still doesn’t answer why the Seahawks chose a guy who probably would have still been on the board when the Seahawks made their second round choice. Needless to say, I was thoroughly confused by this one. Time Out: Not one of my finer moments in this book. Irvin now looks like one of the best young linebackers in the league.

WINNER OF THE BRUCE IRVIN MISTAKE: EAGLES BY DEFAULT (95% CONFIDENCE)

The Patriot Acts (The Patriots get the no. 21 pick from the Bengals and the number 25 pick from the Broncos. The Bengals receive the no. 27 and the no. 93 picks and the Broncos receive the no. 31 and no. 126 picks)- I’m always a little confused at the Patriots’ draft choices. They keep trading down even when they should be trading up, they make somewhat perplexing moves, and they don’t really seem to make much sense. Then again, it’s probably not a good idea to doubt the football decisions of a front office that won three titles and should have won two more (we should probably stop talking about this before I pull an Amare Stoudemire and punch a fire extinguisher case). This time, they absolutely made the right moves. Chandler Jones could be a huge first round sleeper, and Dont’a Hightower had no business falling this far in the draft. The Bengals ended up taking Kevin Zeitler and the Broncos traded their pick to the Niners, but those moves really don’t matter compared to what the Patriots did. Suddenly, the Pats have a fantastic front seven with four legitimately good tacklers (Jones, Hightower, Jerod Mayo, Vince Wilfork) and a more than decent pass rush. I’m already terrified of Mark Sanchez facing Chandler Jones and Dont’a Hightower (not saying much since I’m terrified of Sanchez facing anybody, but still).

WINNER OF THE PATRIOT ACTS: PATRIOTS (100% CONFIDENCE)

The Upshaw-Smith Trade (Vikings receive the no. 29 pick, Ravens receive the no. 35 pick and the no. 98 pick)- This is definitely one of the most underrated trades of this year’s draft. Before making this pick, the Vikings had some combination of Jamarca Sanford, Mistral Raymond, Eric Frampton, and Andrew Sendejo as their starting safeties. So yeah, I’d say the Vikings needed a safety pretty badly. Maybe he wasn’t the most talented guy available at the start of the draft, but it’s clear that the Vikings could not survive a whole season with SenRayFrampFord manning the safety positions. Meanwhile, the Ravens got the steal of the draft when Courtney Upshaw fell to them at 35. This is a guy who should have gone twenty spots higher, not to mention a guy that I would much rather have on the Jets than Quinton Coples, and he fell right in Baltimore’s lap. How this happened is still a mystery, and it’s absolutely astounding that Seattle had a Grade A head case like Bruce Irvin ranked above a guy like Courtney Upshaw on their board. The VIkings got a good deal, but the Ravens got an even better steal.

WINNER OF THE UPSHAW-SMITH TRADE: RAVENS (70% CONFIDENCE)

The Doug Martin Trade (Bucs get pick no. 31, Broncos get pick no. 36 and pick no. 101)- The Bucs wanted to get a new starting running back because LaGarrette Blount is a moody hothead who can’t pass protect or catch the ball. I get it. But the Bucs finished dead last in both points allowed and rushing yards per game allowed by a comfortable margin in 2011. Courtney Upshaw, Jerel Worthy, and Vinny Curry are all still on the board? If I’m the Bucs, I consider this a gift from the football gods and pick one of them within two minutes. Do they help out their front seven, which is undoubtedly the worst in the league? Noooooooo! That would have made way too much sense! Instead, the Bucs upgrade from “mediocre” to “good” at a position that ranks around number three or four on the Bucs’ need list (behind linebacker, defensive tackle, and defensive end at least). My question again is; what’s the point of trading up if you’re just going to do that? Why not address the more pressing needs first and then try to trade up? I say nobody won this trade because the Broncos shouldn’t have traded out of the first round and the Bucs shouldn’t have picked Doug Martin. I think Martin is a fine prospect, but he just wasn’t the right move for Tampa Bay. Time Out: Yeah, whatever happened to that Doug Martin guy?

WINNER OF THE DOUG MARTIN TRADE: NOBODY…… YET

5. I’m wondering exactly why I found the draft more entertaining than any other year. Maybe it’s because I actually followed the college football season this year and (I can’t believe I’m saying this) watched part of the NFL Combine (I do not recommend it). I felt like there was a high degree of uncertainty in this draft because there was a defined class of six guys that were a cut above the rest (Luck, Griffin, Kalil, Richardson, Blackmon and Claiborne. Yes, I know Richardson was picked before Kalil, but I don’t want future generations to think that Richardson was the better prospect) and nobody else knew who was after that. Drafts where everybody agrees “Player X is going between 15 and 20, Player Y is going between 20 and 23, etc” for every guy are boring and supremely predictable. The most fun drafts are when everybody has completely different opinions. There’s more room for draft day trades, there’s more room for teams to do something stupid, there’s more boom/bust potential, and it’s ultimately a more entertaining draft.

Moreover, it’s how the NFL year truly starts. Every great franchise is built on the top five pick that’s going to turn the team around, the fourth round steal that everyone else overlooked, the big trade that ended up producing a starting QB for the next decade, or some other similar occurrence. It’s even better now that the NFL Rookie Wage Scale has been reformed Time Out: I once wrote an essay about it for English class. No, really, I did. Please give me an estimate on when I’m going to get a life. No longer can one JaMarcus Russell or Blair Thomas submarine a team’s salary cap for three solid years. The days of people who have never played a snap in the NFL getting 5 year, 40 million dollar contracts are long gone and hopefully never coming back. Suddenly, the draft is not a life or death highwire act for the teams holding a top five pick. If a guy busts, the team will only suffer for the shortened length of his rookie deal, which pays about half the money that they would have gotten under the old collective bargaining agreement.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, the draft matters. Any true football fan realizes that the draft matters. And in part thanks to these new rules, the draft was thoroughly enjoyable. And thus a new season of NFL football begins.

5/23/12: Breaking down the NFL Offseason

Yes, I’m aware this is more than slightly out of order. Yet since it’s my book, I felt like the draft needed to be discussed first. I really don’t know why, maybe it’s because I have exactly zero friends that watch the whole first round and I needed some way to ramble about it. Now that the draft section of the book is over, let’s get to the offseason. Any time the names Peyton Manning, Tim Tebow, Mario Williams, and Vincent Jackson are being thrown around, you know it was a good offseason. The weird part of this whole offseason is that none of the above players were the biggest stories because of Bounty-gate. You’re not going to believe this, but I have more than a few thoughts about how things went down.

The 2012 NFL Offseason was fantastic because nobody ever expected a lot of the stuff that happened. At the beginning of this season, everybody assumed that Peyton Manning would finish his career with the Colts. Tim Tebow would certainly never start a game. Who would ever want Matt Flynn? And the concussion and player violence problems were surely getting better, right? You know how all those stories turned out. But just in case you want to re-live them (and since you’re reading this right now, I’m gonna make the assumption that you do), here they are.   

THE MANNING SAGA

Say what you will about Tim Tebow’s success in Denver, and everybody has said just about everything, but Tebow could have gone 16-0 and it still wouldn’t have been enough for John Elway. The Broncos’ legend wanted someone in his own image to represent his franchise, and he found that in Manning. The Broncos were briefly in the thick of the Suck for Luck campaign early in the 2011 season until Tebow stepped in and led his team from 1-4 to 8-8, good enough for the AFC West Crown (which is kind of like the NFL version of those little league trophies that you get just for participating, but whatever). Elway probably understood that the Broncos would have been set up much better for the long term if they were to stay in the cellar for this season and grab Luck or RG3 in the draft. But since that didn’t happen, Elway resorted to plan B; Sign Peyton Manning and tell Tebow, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

In the weeks leading up to the move, I swear that I saw about ten to twenty different teams being thrown around in the hunt for Manning. Unfortunately for the fans of those teams, only seven or eight really held any interest for Peyton, and even fewer had the cap space to actually pay him. It got to the point where we narrowed it down to three teams. The Denver Broncos, the Arizona Cardinals, and the Miami Dolphins were the only ones left that truly had a chance at Peyton. In the end, the Cardinals and Dolphins couldn’t outwork Denver for him because John Elway was desperate. You know how play by play guys always talk about athletes wanting it more? Elway wanted Manning more and that’s why he pulled the deal off. It sounds like a dumb cop-out explanation that covers up for lack of substance, but that’s all it really was.

I really can’t imagine what it’s like to be a fan of the Indianapolis Colts right now. On the one hand, you’re set up perfectly for the future with Andrew Luck. On the other hand, the era of Peyton Manning didn’t end the way it should have and you kinda feel regret/sadness every time you see him starting for the Broncos (this is all just a guess, I don’t know how Colts fans actually feel about this). Letting Manning go was certainly the smart and obvious thing to do, but it’ll be weird seeing him in a Broncos jersey knowing that he led the Colts for all those years. We’ll leave the last word on Peyton’s Indy legacy to my only Colts fan friend, Keith Bray.

“Peyton leaving was a massive let down for the team and the whole city. Peyton was not only a great quarterback for Indianapolis, he was a legend. As hard as it was to watch him go, I wish him all the best in Denver and I know he will be remembered as a Colt.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Thanks, Keith!

So how effective will he be? According to Michael Vives, the assistant professor of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, “National Football League players undergoing surgery for cervical disc herniations stand a good chance of returning to the same level play and for a longer period of time afterwards compared to players treated nonoperatively.” So we know it’s possible for a player to come back and perform at a high level after a disc herniation. But Manning isn’t an average player. He’s 36 years old, has not seen significant action for about a year (a significantly bigger deal for QBs than everyone else because of the sheer amount of information that a QB has to process), and is being asked to learn a new playbook. If that isn’t enough, he now has to leap headfirst into all this without his old support system of Wayne/Saturday/Garcon/etc. With all that said, he is Peyton Manning, only one of the smartest and most fundamentally sound quarterbacks in the history of the league. I would no longer rank him as an elite quarterback, but I’d still put him in the top ten, maybe around where Matt Schaub is on a scale of “quarterbacks I’d want to have.” (Mark Sanchez ranks just below Matt Moore and just above 68 year old Joe Namath on the aforementioned scale.) Time Out: Really!?!?!? I equated Peyton Manning and Matt Schaub!?!?!? I’m tempted to tell you to stop reading. Of course, this all means that a certain popular QB doesn’t have a team. I’ll give you three seconds to guess who.

(Did you get it yet?)

(How about now?)

(I’m waiting.)

(Ready?)

TEEEBOOOOWWW!!!!!

Unlike Peyton Manning, signing Tim Tebow would have little to no implications on a team’s salary cap. Tebow’s biggest value is star power, not his actual play. He’s one of the most polarizing athletes of our time, and any team that signed him would be guaranteed their fair share of front page headlines. There’s a certain team in the NFL that very much needed a headline grabber. After slowly taking over the “dominant team in the city” status from the Giants the past two years, this squad collapsed in a disappointing 8-8 mess and watched the Giants win a Super Bowl. Suddenly, this team is in trouble and needs something to get its fans excited. Even better, ridiculous ticket prices screw most real fans out of attending this team’s games, so a ton of fans are rich “I went just to say that I went” fans that will show up for a name that they recognize. Yes, even if his reputation wildly precedes his actual play.  Anyone want to guess who would jump at the chance to sign Tebow? That’s right, it’s the Jets! Get ready folks, we’re not even into training camp yet and we already have my second Jets rambling. I think this is gonna be a good book.

I like the Jets’ signing of Tebow. I might be in the small minority of Jets fans who like it, but I really think it was a good move. First of all, the Jets only had to give up a fourth round pick (they got the seventh rounder back by trading Drew Stanton) and a small amount of money. That’s not a lot to sacrifice for a guy that will be extremely useful in Wildcat packages. The new offensive coordinator, Tony Sparano, was the first coach to re-introduce the Wildcat as a significant part of a modern offense. Tebow will go a long way towards re-establishing the Jets as a physical team. Time Out: OK, nobody would blame you if you stopped reading at this point. I liked the Tebow signing AND I said that Peyton Manning and Matt Schaub were equivalent? I don’t know who I am anymore.

However, everything that preceded the Tebow signing with regards to the quarterback position was terribly mishandled. At first, the Jets expressed a strong interest in Peyton Manning before realizing two things.

A: They couldn’t pay him half of what he was worth.

B:   Wide receiver Santonio Holmes quit on Sanchez and nearly punched a teammate, the third string quarterback is mouthing off about how terrible the locker room was, and Rex Ryan admitted to losing the pulse of the team. Gee, I can’t imagine why Peyton didn’t show much interest in playing for them to close out his career.

So that’s where the hunt for Peyton fell apart. Don’t worry, we’re getting to the biggest screw up of their offseason very soon. Check out Mark Sanchez’s stat lines for the first three years of his career.

2009: 2,444 yards, 12 TDs, 20 INTs, 53.8% Completion Percentage

2010: 3,291 yards, 17 TDs, 13 INTs, 54.8% Completion Percentage

2011: 3,474 yards, 26 TDs, 18 INTs, 56.7% Completion Percentage

Pretty pedestrian, right? Well, the stats don’t tell the whole story here. Watch tape of him during an average game and you’ll see why it’s frustrating to have him as a quarterback. He can’t throw deep, misses wide open receivers, and forces throws into double coverage all the time. There have been times when he was so bad that most Jets fans would not have been called crazy for wondering if he had a depth-perception problem. The Jets signed this guy to a new five year, fifty million dollar deal. He now has a higher average salary than Aaron Rodgers, Matt Schaub, Tony Romo, and Cam Newton.

Timeout: Re-read that sentence. Then re-read it again. Try to fully appreciate how absurd that is. It’s nigh impossible to do, but try anyways.

Sanchez doesn’t actually make as much money as those other quarterbacks because of things like signing bonuses, incentives, etc. Still, I’m dumbfounded as to why an organization would reward such inconsistent play with an extension like this. It makes absolutely no sense. My guess here is that the hunt for Peyton strained his relationship with the Jets’ front office, so they handed this extension to him as a sign of reassurance. You know, because well run teams are in the practice of treating precious salary cap space like ice cream cones to hand to a disgruntled kid. That isn’t how a front office should operate and the Jets are essentially stuck with Sanchez if he continues down the road he’s been going.

And that’s why they signed Tebow. I think the Jets secretly (or not so secretly) distrust Sanchez, so they brought in a back-up plan. After all, if Sanchez proves that he can’t handle being the starter this season, who was going to take over? Mark Brunell? Please. Now the Jets have a perfect guy to push Sanchez. You know Tebow is going to be the “first guy to show up, last guy to leave” type of player. You know that eventually, Sanchez is going to have a bad game and everybody is going to want Tebow to start. Then, the Jets management is going to give Sanchez one more chance to show that he, and not Tebow, should be the starter. And that’s the biggest reason that Tim Tebow is there, to gauge just how Sanchez will react to that moment.

Time Out: Let me emphasize that I can’t believe that I once wrote the words, “I like the Jets’ signing of Tebow.” I wish I could bring myself to hit the delete key on that entire section, and yet I cannot. The only positive that came out of this section is that you, the reader, know that the rest of this book is written with integrity and nothing was changed after the season. Believe you me, I would change this in a second if I could.

WAIT, MATT FLYNN DID WHAT!?

I hate to say I told you so, but I saw this coming. Even when he was backing up Aaron Rodgers, I knew there was something special about this guy before he almost led the Packers to an upset of the Patriots two years ago. He looked absolutely great in full contact drills at LSU, hit all of his throws, and his football intelligence was just off the charts. He’s looking like the next late round success story, and I’m glad that I can say I called this way back when he.....

OK, I can’t keep lying to you like this. Trust me, if it had been a more believable story, I would have put on my Roger Clemens face and kept writing that paragraph. Anyone who tells you that they knew Matt Flynn was going to get this big is absolutely lying. Heck, any non- LSU/Packers fan who tells you they knew who Matt Flynn was before 2010 is probably lying to you. Statistically, the odds of Flynn becoming a viable starting quarterback based on where he was taken in the draft (early seventh round) are similar to the odds that were against Tom Brady (late sixth round). That’s part of what football is all about, finding the guy that nobody ever gave a chance to, the guy that certainly would never make it because he was too (fill in reason of choice here).

The toughest part of evaluating guys like this is finding out exactly where their ceilings are. Matt Flynn’s career is an interesting one to predict because we really don’t have any idea where his ceiling is right now. Even though they haven’t played an NFL snap, we have a pretty good idea of the best case scenarios for Luck and Griffin as well as their general strengths and weaknesses. At this point, it almost seems like their actual play in the NFL will just fill in the blanks of what we’ve already seen. This is definitely not the case with Matt Flynn. He’s exceeded every scout’s wildest expectations and is only going to get better with more playing time. So we know that any evaluations based on his college career no longer apply and should be thrown into the paper shredder at the earliest possible moment. Now we have to rely on what we see of him in the pros. So far, his professional experience is limited to the two games that he’s started plus bits and pieces of other games. For his professional career, he has nine touchdowns, five interceptions, and a 62.1% completion rating. If that’s not enough, he set the Packers team record for most touchdown passes in a game (6) in his second start. Other than that, nothing really strikes me as unique.

We football fans love hypotheticals. Why do you think fantasy football has gotten so big? Half the time when I talk to my friends about football, one of us says, “Well if this guy hadn’t done that, then they might have won the game” or some variation thereof. Why? Because the best part about hypotheticals is the fact that they can be whatever you want to be. And until the day that we can have a season where every outcome satisfies the large majority of fans (definitely not happening), we will continue to discuss hypotheticals. But one thing that frustrates most NFL talking heads (or writing hands in my case) are the lack of precedents. We don’t like to know what will happen beforehand, but we like to have some kind of baseline. But Matt Flynn comes with no hints attached. We have yet to gain any insight as to how he will hold up over a sixteen game season. We have no indication as to how well he can learn a new offense. And we ultimately have no indication as to whether he was a two-hit wonder or a viable starting quarterback. He’ll at least win the starting job after his *cough, cough* quarterback “competition” with Tarvaris Jackson. After that, I really don’t know. Everything’s in play with this guy.

Time Out: Including not starting a single game because Russell Wilson took the starting job and never let go of it. That, too was in play.

THE BOUNTY SCANDAL

I can’t say I was shocked. Surprised? Maybe. Confused? Perhaps. But definitely not shocked. The NFL has cultivated an atmosphere that either glorifies the violence that comes with an average game or ignores it completely. ESPN’s analysts lashed out at the Saints while conveniently forgetting to mention that their own network was running a segment called Jacked Up until a few short years ago.(I love ESPN and will almost always defend it, but this is an Eddy Curry sized double standard.) Emmitt Smith once said, “football is like putting your body through a string of car wrecks”, and the Saints have been paying their players to create the biggest car wrecks possible. I absolutely understand that injuries and violence are a part of the game. The players who sign up for football at every level know the risks they are taking by stepping on the football field. But the game wasn’t always about the violence. Here’s my theory, and this is certainly not indisputable fact, as to how violence went from “part of the game” to “defining the game.”

1. Football starts to become popular and naturally, whenever you have people tackling and headbutting each other, you might have a few injuries.

2. People start to learn proper tackling technique, thus making for more effective tackles. This is the first time tackling is stressed as an important part of football.

3. People notice that big hits cause fumbles and start to focus on them more.

4. All the while, players are getting bigger. Not only that, the extra layers of equipment being introduced (pads, helmet, mouth guards, etc) embolden players and induce them to cause collisions that they never would have thought about causing without the added protection. Nobody would have caused these hits if they could do as much damage to themselves as to the person they’re hitting.

5. Coaches start to advocate the big hit as a way to change momentum in a game.

6. Segments such as Jacked Up and the advent of Youtube causes me-first athletes to go for even more big hits with the hopes of possibly coming across a video of themselves obliterating a defenseless wide receiver.

7. Week 7, 2010. After a particularly violent week, including James Harrison doing everything short of cannibalizing the entire Cleveland Browns team, Roger Goodell puts his foot down. He issues fines to Harrison and numerous other players, including Falcons cornerback Dunta Robinson. He saves the harshest penalty for Harrison, whose wallet suddenly felt 75,000 big ones lighter. Harrison is completely taken aback by the decree that he can no longer launch himself like a cannonball at people’s heads, saying, "You're telling me that everything that they've taught me...for the last 20-plus years, is not the way you're supposed to play the game anymore. If that's the case I can't play by those rules." Mark Schlereth voiced his own opinions on the controversy, correctly hammering the NFL for being a “hypocrite league.” Now the league is stuck between a rock and a hard place because it’s bad for their image to allow these types of hits, but it also helps sell the NFL as a brand (NFL Blitz immediately comes to mind).

8. New studies start to show that these constant collisions (especially for linemen) can cause a variety of mentally debilitating illnesses. The general public started to notice this for the first time after Dave Duerson arranged to have his brain studied by Boston University for neurodegenerative diseases before committing suicide. This story raised awareness of the level of violence in pro football not only because it was so disturbing, but also because it was one of the first high profile cases in which there was scientific evidence linking concussions to football.

9. The concussion scandal in football is missing one thing that would make the public care about it. A face. One person that represents everything wrong with the game or one likable player that was a casualty of everything that’s wrong with the game. This offseason, the scandal found both. The first was Junior Seau, who tragically committed suicide on May 2nd, 2012. The first question that the public asked themselves was Did they study his brain? Eventually, it was revealed that Seau had been suffering from insomnia for years, a common symptom in former football players. The second?

10. Gregg Williams, Saints defensive coordinator and notorious bounty hunter.

And that leads us to BountyGate. Sure, what the Saints did was completely indefensible and wrong. Please don’t think I’m saying that it’s OK, because it certainly isn’t. But I think the bigger problem here is the environment which encouraged the bounty scandal, not the scandal itself. Just because Goodell started to care about violence in the NFL last year doesn’t mean that a multi-decade long culture of needlessly dangerous play will just vanish. There will be more stories like this that will come to light over the next few years as the NFL gets all of the skeletons out of its closet.

I also think that the whole bounty system is stupid. A maximum payout of a few thousand dollars isn’t going to make your players play harder or better, just dirtier. In fact, since the bounty system encourages the big hit, players will be more likely to try and get themselves on Sportscenter than to actually practice good tackling form. If you’re a football player and you’re intentionally trying to injure someone, are you going to launch yourselves at them like a catapult or are you going to get two arms around them and drive through the tackle like you should? Add in Gregg Williams’ nonsensical/semi-maniacal speech before the 49ers game (WE GOTTA KILL FRANK GORE’S HEAD!!!!!), and you have a system that is absolutely doomed for failure.

People will inevitably forget the bounty scandal. The league took action and issued penalties to numerous people for partaking in the system. Linebacker Jonathan Vilma is out for the year, Coach Sean Payton is done for the year, Gregg Williams is suspended indefinitely, a few other defensive players (such as Scott Fujita and Anthony Hargrove) are suspended for various lengths of time, and James Harrison was fined 50,000 dollars. OK, the last one isn’t true. But the rest of them are, and people will forget about it once the punishments are up. Stories like this have an expiration date. Once Aaron Rodgers throws for six touchdowns or somebody gets five sacks, people won’t remember BountyGate. But it will never truly go away, it’ll just reappear in different forms.

OH YEAH, I FORGOT ABOUT THOSE GUYS!

We already covered the three biggest stories of the offseason (BountyGate, Tebow, and Manning) plus one story that I felt didn’t get enough attention (the Matt Flynn signing). But we didn’t even talk about the other big signings and how it will impact the teams that they concern. Can you ever remember an offseason in which the best and second best players to switch teams were complete afterthoughts? When Asomugha signed with the Eagles in 2011, it was the talk of the offseason for a solid month. Considering the fact that Mario Williams is as big of a defensive asset as Asomugha is (at least in my opinion), I feel like this should be a way bigger deal. And nobody even gave a second thought to Vincent Jackson switching teams? The guy had over 1,000 yards and nine touchdowns in 2011! And did anyone notice all the players that aren’t happy with their contracts? Drew Brees, Ray Rice, Matt Forte, Wes Welker, and Darrelle Revis are all looking for new deals. A few of them could be holding out. Does anyone notice the fact that come training camp, all of them (with the exception of Welker) might not be there? I don’t know, this just seems significant to me.

Also, does anyone notice that this Bills team is starting to look pretty good? You could absolutely win games with Ryan Fitzpatrick as your starter, and Fred Jackson looked unstoppable at some points last year. And while the receiving corps definitely needs work (T.J. Graham isn’t going to cut it as a no. 2 guy), the offensive looks stable for the first time in awhile. If nothing else, they’ve found a replacement for Demetress Bell in Cordy Glenn, the second round OG out of Georgia. The key to this entire Bills offense is whether Glenn can make a successful transition to left tackle, as he is reportedly determined to do. If he can, that makes Ryan Fitzpatrick’s development as a pocket passer a lot easier. But the real upgrades for the Bills came on the defensive side of the football after a fantastic offseason. Adding Mario Williams, only one of the most feared pass rushers in the whole league, is huge. Williams says that the defensive line will have a more “aggressive” personality and will presumably be used in more and more blitz packages. Williams has fifty three sacks in the six seasons he’s played in the league so far, and he’s missed significant time due to injury. Assuming he stays healthy, that’s a pretty scary defense. The Bills have two legitimate pass rushing threats (Williams and Mark Anderson) that each have the potential to record over ten sacks. There’s have no shortage of versatility at the tackle position; they can either plug Kyle Williams in at nose tackle and run a 3-4 defense, or they can put Kyle Williams and Marcell Dareus in at the same time and run a 4-3 defense. If rookie Stephon Gilmore can succeed in his first year as a corner, this is a legitimate Top 10 NFL defensive unit. Could they possibly usurp the AFC East from the Pats? Stay tuned. Time Out: Nope

The other team that made a few moves in free agency is the Tampa Bay Bucs, signing Chargers wideout Vincent Jackson and Saints guard Carl Nicks. I’m not as enthusiastic about these moves. The Bucs still need a defense, and what they’re trotting out this season almost doesn’t qualify as one. Besides Mark Barron, the Bucs aren’t starting a single player that I would classify as above average. Heck, they only have a few that I’d classify as average. Take a look at their starting defense.

Defensive Line: Gerald McCoy, Amobi Okoye, Adrian Clayborn, Da’Quan Bowers

Linebackers: Quincy Black, Mason Foster, Lavonte David

Secondary: Mark Barron, Ronde Barber, Aqib Talib, Who Knows

So out of eleven players, we have two injury risk guys (McCoy and Bowers), one guy that’s a fossil in football years (Barber), one guy in legal troubles (Talib), and one who knows (Who Knows). The rest are unremarkable with the exception of Mark Barron. We’ve already covered the essential stats on the Bucs defense in the NFL Draft section; all you need to know is that putrid doesn’t begin to describe their 2011 defensive numbers. Time Out: They finished first in the league in rush defense and dead last in pass defense. So I was both wrong and right.

With all that said, I see a few bright spots. The offense is young and exciting. I think Josh Freeman is going to take a few big steps forward this year (the third full year as a starter is usually the breakout year if it ever comes). Vincent Jackson is going to continue to be Vincent Jackson, and the rest of the receiving corps (Arrelious Benn, Mike Williams, and Dezmon Briscoe) should be solid (tied for seventh in the league in receptions with 365). However, until the Bucs acquire some help for their front seven, they won’t be going anywhere.

Finally, we have the holdouts (“The Holdouts” sounds like the name of the next blockbuster comedy starring Will Ferrell, but I digress). I mentioned all the names that don’t want to sign short term deals with their respective franchises, and their collective absences could really hurt their respective teams.

For once this offseason, it seems like something will go right for the Saints. Brees and the Saints are only $2 million dollars per year apart as I’m typing this, and Gregg Williams even promised to throw in thirty thousand more if he would chuck a football at Kurt Warner’s head...... whoops, wrong part of the team. Never mind.

However, none of the other holdouts are any closer to getting a deal done. Wes Welker signed a short term deal with the Pats, but the mainstream sports media and Welker’s agent continue to give every indication that the two sides are miles apart. The Patriots are notorious for being tough on contract negotiations and not letting the popularity of a player get in the way of what makes fiscal sense. Veterans such as Ty Law, Deion Branch, and Tedy Bruschi were traded or released because the Pats could not justify their price tags. Add to that the fact that many Pats fans are ripping him (undeservedly, I might add) for the dropped pass in the 2011 Super Bowl (MY HUSBAND CANNOT (@*$&@ THROW AND CATCH AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!!), and you get a situation where the Pats are under no particular strain to sign their most talented receiver. My verdict on the Welker situation? Wait him out.

Then, there’s Ray Rice and Matt Forte. Both of them are star running backs and have been given the franchise tag by their respective teams. Unlike with Welker, Forte and Rice are both signature guys for their teams and it would absolutely cause a fan revolt if they were lowballed on contract negotiations. Rice skipped OTAs and is a threat to hold out of training camp. However, Rice recently expressed a desire to play, saying, “Hopefully I’ll be back out there soon.” So the verdict on Rice, to take a page from the great Deion Sanders, is to pay the man. The same cannot be said of Forte, who is at odds with Bears’ management over his prospective long-term deal. If Lance Briggs’ contract situation in 2007 was any indication, Forte should not expect a long term deal any time soon. Briggs publicly supported Forte in his contract negotiations. He then reminisced about his own contract dispute:

"The toughest part was I wanted a long-term deal and the organization didn't at the time. It was a little personal where I put some time in and I thought I had earned the right to stay here for a long time rather than give you my services for a year, and then potentially be shopped out again. So a lot of guys want that long-term security. They want to know the team wants (them) for a long period of time."

When you get right down to it, the long-term security is what it’s all about. Imagine you’re Matt Forte. You were having a career year before going down with an MCL sprain. You have now witnessed firsthand how fleeting an NFL job can be. You’ve been wanting a new contract for a long while and put up the requisite numbers to get it. But now it’s no longer about the money, it’s about the security. Instead of giving you a new contract, the Bears slap the franchise tag on you, sign a very capable backup running back, and seem more concerned with an aging Brian Urlacher’s contract than yours.

While all of these moves are fiscally defensible, it certainly does not endear them to Matt Forte, who will never forget being left twisting in the wind no matter what he says in public. Unless the Bears sign him to an extension soon, and I mean within the next month, they should just get a big contract year out of him and then cut their losses. If that relationship between franchise and player can still be salvaged, then the Bears should do everything possible to salvage it. If not, then it’s time to part ways with Matt Forte.

And the final verdict on this offseason? A memorable one.