Thirty-two teams, 32 thoughts on the opening week of the league year.1. Chicago. The Bears traded ownership of the draft to Carolina, then owned the first week of free agency.After a conversation with Bears GM Ryan Poles the other night, it sounds like the trade was almost THE TRADE. Poles told me he had significant [more]
Jalen Ramsey to the Dolphins made too much sense, for both Miami and the Rams. It happened Sunday afternoon. We should have seen it coming for weeks.The trade—Ramsey to Miami for a mid-third-round pick, 77th overall, and an invisible tight end from the 2021 third round, Hunter Long—seems light for the Rams. And it is, [more]
INDIANAPOLIS—Saturday morning, Scouting Combine week, Chicago GM Ryan Poles’ hotel room, 19 stories above downtown Indy, scouts’ clicker in his hands, watching the 2022 Lions on tape. This is college scouting season, but Poles works these days with an eye on looming free-agency, and on the competition too.It’s early in his GM career for Poles, [more]
You learn a lot talking to smart people. Daniel Jeremiah’s a smart guy, and I learned a lot from our conversation Saturday evening. Namely: There is one position of great intrigue entering the Scouting Combine this week in Indianapolis, one position that is an absolute mystery with the draft kicking off two months from today.Quarterback. [more]
Cleaning out the Super Bowl 57 notebook, starting with the incredulity, even a week later, of how Kansas City won—and Andy Reid’s “Beautiful Mind Board:”Three years ago, I rode to work one morning with Andy Reid before the Kansas City-San Francisco Super Bowl. We ended up in his office suite, and I got a look [more]
GLENDALE, Ariz.—For 47 minutes Sunday night in Super Bowl LVII, Kansas City never led. Their quarterback re-sprained his right ankle just before halftime, and the Eagles led by 10 as Rihanna sung to the world, and though the momentum began to change in the third quarter, everything was a chore for the men of Andy [more]
HADDONFIELD, N.J.—The appointment was for 6 a.m. Saturday, and at 5:57, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni rolled his vehicle out of the driveway here in suburban Eagleville. I got in.It’s Super Bowl week, and I feel like the biggest story America doesn’t know is, Who is Nick Sirianni? I don’t know him well either. In my [more]
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — How is he doing this? High-ankle sprains are six-week injuries, or something like that. And Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes looked fairly fine through 36 minutes Sunday in the AFC Championship Game—not running with abandon, but when he had to, Mahomes could get out of harm’s way and do Mahomes things.Nine [more]
SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Could it be? Is it possible that the best four teams in the 2022 NFL season will play the Super Bowl semifinals in Kansas City and Philadelphia on Sunday (“The Andy Reid Invitational”), for the right to advance to Super Bowl 57?One by one in the NFL’s Elite Eight, the pretenders vanished. The [more]
“It is what it is,” Joe Burrow said as the clock struck midnight, not long after Cincinnati edged (is there a better word for an agonizingly close game than “edged”?) Baltimore to set up a divisional playoff date Sunday that just might get a good television rating: Cincinnati at Buffalo.Emphasis on at Buffalo.Good for Burrow. [more]
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.—You want the truth about the coin flip that set in motion the script so unlikely that Spielberg would have found it far-fetched? If the Bills had won the toss, Sean McDermott instructed his captains to defer.The Bills would have kicked off.“I’m glad they lost this one,” McDermott told me.I should say so. [more]
Peter King dives deep into all the Week 17 action across the NFL as the playoff picture begins to take focus in the AFC and NFC. [more]
“Fifty years. I just can’t believe it. And I’m still around to enjoy it.”–Franco Harris, on Tuesday afternoon, hours before his shocking death, to Steelers defensive star Cam Heyward on Heyward’s “Not Just Football” podcast. The Steelers got nothing done offensively all game. Two field goals against the impenetrable Raiders in the first 59 minutes—that’s [more]
Chandler Jones, from his home Sunday night, knew the end of the Raiders’ 30-24 win over the Patriots was stunning and strange, but he didn’t know it was historic.So he asked me: “You’ve been covering the game for a long time—how do you see it?”I’m not positive, I said. But I think it’s the most [more]
The Eagles are the best team in football with a month left in the regular season. My top five, with four bye-less weeks and 64 regular-season games to play: Philadelphia, 12-1. First team to clinch a playoff berth with the 48-22 rout of the formerly impressive Giants in Jersey Sunday. Philly has a two-game lead [more]