Bill Belichick might be the greatest NFL coach of all time, but even the GOAT can have a really bad week. This was that week.
Bill Belichick is the greatest coach in NFL history. But Jarrett Stidham may be the worst quarterback in NFL history.
Stidham wanders onto the field for each of his increasingly-frequent relief appearances like a neighborhood kid whose hippie parents forbade any form of competition venturing onto the sandlot for the first time, a violin bow tucked under one arm and a Dungeons & Dragons module under the other.
Each throw looks like the first time in his life he ever tried to move his arm that way. He doesn’t appear certain his goal is to throw the ball to a teammate. Stidham couldn’t have a weaker command of the quarterback position if he were raised by a family of friendly sea otters.
Stidham went 6-of-10 for 64 yards and an interception while mopping up the 33-6 New England Patriots Week 7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers. The interception was ugly. His few completions were solely the result of a soft prevent defense. Stidham even tripped over his own feet during one of his first dropbacks: Daniel Jones, but without the initial burst of success.
Stidham now has six interceptions on 27 career pass attempts. Compared to Stidham, Nathan Peterman is a cross between Joe Montana and Hercules.
It takes a coach as brilliant as Belichick to get stuck with a quarterback situation as bad as the one the Patriots now face. Belichick, the legendary rehabilitator of broken down veterans, must have assumed that he could graft rickety Cam Newton onto an offense that was built for the diametrically opposite type of quarterback, saddle him with a receiving corps that would embarrass the Jets and strut away with another AFC East title.
The Patriots’ “adjustments” for Newton consisted of offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels hot-gluing some designed runs onto a Tom Brady game plan and the organization making lots of patronizing public comments about Newton’s professionalism and work ethic to assuage the sort of fans who get their Newton information from websites that Joseph Goebbels would consider a little edgy.
Newton threw three interceptions against the 49ers. Receiver Damiere Byrd fell down on one of them, and Julian Edelman volleyball-set another one high into the air, but Newton deserves a fair share of blame: he’s once again looking like the beat-up jalopy we saw sputtering around in 2018 and early 2019.
But Newton always receives far more than a fair share of blame, and overheated pundits began spewing fringe conspiracy theories about the secret meaning embedded in Newton’s fedora before Sunday’s game was even in the books. Belichick probably presumes he and the Patriots are above and immune to the racial semiotics of a Newton controversy, because they have never had to deal with such matters in the past.
None of this would be happening if Stidham was as excitingly average as Gardner Minshew, or even a won’t-kill-ya placeholder like Nick Mullens or Trevor Siemian.
Stidham is the kind of prospect scouting super-geniuses talk themselves into: he was terrible at Auburn, but he had a bad supporting cast; ergo, he will be magnificent when given a great supporting cast!
Stidham must have been throwing interceptions and setting off alarms throughout 2019 training camps and practices, but instead of drafting a true quarterback-of-the-future when Tom Brady left or splurging for someone like Teddy Bridgewater, Belichick folded his arms and basked in the praise of Patriots apologists. Belichick knows what he is doing. The staff clearly LOVES Stidham. Stidham is the next Brady. Who are we, as mere mortals, to criticize the mighty Belichick?
Then Belichick grabbed Newton at the last minute and listened as his minstrels immediately changed their tune.
The Patriots are now destined to go about 6-10, despite the fact their defense would be good enough to win the AFC East if the offense could muster a few drives. Newton will likely be run out of town by a mob of Facebook fathers-in-law and extras from the filming of Manchester By The Sea.
Stidham will end up as Tua Tagovailoa’s backup for the Miami Dolphins in two years. And this mess will be long forgotten when Belichick is a blemish-free bronze bust in Canton.
Great coaches like Belichick sometimes make terrible decisions like these because they know they will be excused, rationalized or forgotten. That doesn’t change the fact that they are terrible decisions.
Kickers on Ice
Give Kliff Kingsbury credit: he may have iced his own kicker in overtime in Sunday night’s 37-34 Arizona Cardinals victory over the Seattle Seahawks, but at least he copped to the mistake.
“It was pretty bad,” Kingsbury said after the game, per the Cardinals website. “Pretty much a complete debacle. Luckily those guys bailed us out. I got conservative. … About as bad of a coaching job as possible by me.”
The debacle began when Kyler Murray took a sack on first down that pushed the Cardinals back to the Seahawks 18-yard line. Kingsbury, spooked by the loss of yardage, sent Zane Gonzalez onto the field on second down. But the field goal unit took it’s time getting lined up, forcing Kingsbury to burn a timeout with one second left on the play clock.
Kingsbury should have called timeout the moment he decided to attempt the field goal; or (more wisely) run at least one more play to line up the ball. Gonzalez missed the 41-yard attempt but later won the game with a 48-yarder in the final seconds.
Jason Garrett famously iced his own kicker in 2011, calling a timeout as Dan Bailey was setting up for a potential Dallas Cowboys game winner against the Cardinals.
The circumstances were vaguely similar, but with lots of Garrett’s inimitable spin: the Cowboys had already spiked the ball to preserve a timeout (the game clock was still rolling for the Cardinals, which forced Kingsbury to make decisions more hastily), and the play clock was down to six seconds (not one) when Garrett got antsy.
Ultimately, Kingsbury’s blunder wasn’t the worst special teams clock management error of Sunday night’s wild shootout. The Seahawks were trying to milk the clock while leading by three points in the waning moments of regulation when Michael Dickson punted with four seconds remaining on the play clock.
Dickson should have called for the snap with one second left; even a delay-of-game penalty would not have hurt the Seahawks much. Gonzalez kicked the game-tying field goal with two seconds left in regulation, after a completion over the middle of the field and a clock-killing spike that might not have happened if the Cardinals were slightly more pressed for time.
NFL football is a game in which every second matters. Every coach either figures that out, falls by the wayside, or somehow becomes Andy Reid.
The John Oates of Terrible Coaching
Great news: Adam Gase ceded Jets play-calling duties before Sunday’s 18-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills!
Bad news: Gase ceded them to offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains, who has followed Gase around the NFL like one of those little oxpecker birds that lives on the backs of rhinos.
Loggains was Gase’s coordinator for one year in Miami. Before that, he was Gase’s quarterback coach for the Chicago Bears. Loggains started his career by rising through the ranks of Jeff Fisher’s Tennessee Titans, grooming the likes of Vince Young and Jake Locker for their unparalleled NFL success. He also succeeded Gase as the Bears offensive coordinator in 2016-17, the years when John Fox cycled from Jay Cutler to Brian Hoyer to Matt Barkley to Mike Glennon to Mitchell Trubisky.
In other words, Loggains is the perfect play caller if you are a grumpy old defensive coordinator who secretly hates scoring, or if you are Adam Gase and need a trusty lieutenant who makes you look brilliant by comparison. And he has also left a trail of failed quarterback prospects in his wake that almost makes Gase look like Bill Walsh.
The Jets did manage to move the ball a little in the first half and take a 10-6 halftime lead on Sunday. Frank Gore even opened up the first Jets series of the third quarter with a 14-yard run up the middle. The Jets then executed 15 plays for negative-10 yards for the remainder of the game.
Sam Darnold was sacked three times during that span, fumbling once. He also bounced a third-down pass at his receiver’s feet to give up on a play (it was really weird) and awkwardly shot-putted the ball out of bounds at the end of a scramble.
Two positive Jets plays were negated by penalties, a few passes bounced out of receivers’ hands, and Gore and Lamical Perine ran straight up the gut in what appears to be the only rushing play in the Jets playbook. Darnold punctuated the misery with a deflected interception to end the game.
Play calling doesn’t matter nearly as much as game planning, installation and preparation: you can’t call a play that hasn’t already been designed, taught and practiced. Gase and Gase Lite have been collaborating to make the Jets offense terrible since long before they worked for the Jets. It doesn’t matter which one is the lead singer.
Gase should watch his back, though: those cute little oxpecker birds actually suck the blood from the rhinos they perch upon, making them about as harmful as they are helpful. It’s a parasitic relationship. Just like Gase’s relationships with all of his employers.
Beasts of the Least
We’ve figured out what’s wrong with the NFC East: all of their coaches are on salvia. Let’s listen in on their innermost thoughts after they ingest a little dose of the Sage of the Diviners.
Joe Judge, New York Giants: I’m the universe’s leading special teams genius. So let’s punt, punt and punt some more! Oh, it seems my sense of time has been distended and it took me 15 seconds to make that decision. But the Eagles were caught off guard by me suddenly sending the punt unit out and now have 22 players on the field, with no one covering the left gunner.
I should order a quick snap for a penalty and a free first down. Or even give Riley Dixon the go-ahead for one of my brilliant fakes. Dixon is even looking to me for guidance. But I am communing with the ancient Aztec deity Puntzopochtli. who demands a field position sacrifice. So punt away while I dream of the perfect pooch kickoff play that gives the Eagles the ball at the 30 instead of the 32!
Doug Peterson, Philadelphia Eagles: As mastermind of the Philly Special, I am the Pablo Picasso of humongous-brained goal-line play-calling creative geniuses. So after Carson Wentz leads a pair of crisp touchdown drives to take the lead, let’s get Jalen Hurts onto the field in a Stagger Lee formation with only three offensive linemen so he can run a play I doodled onto a whiteboard with my own drool.
Ron Rivera, Washington Football Team: Oh you think you can make fun of me? I won big on Sunday and am one of the most inspirational stories of the 2020 NFL season! So go take soft, lazy potshots at Dan Snyder while I keep giving starting opportunities to Kyle Allen.
Gosh, I can’t get enough sweet, sweet Kyle Allen: he’s part weak-tea Daniel Jones, part Mike Glennon, with a little sprig of Brock Osweiler on the rim of the glass. He may be our quarterback of the future!
Mike McCarthy, Dallas Cowboys: Yes, Minerva, place those cold cucumber slices over my eyes and another heated crystal on the base of my spine. Mmmm, perfect. Screw the offensive install meeting; I’m just going to lie here for another hour and listen to your Six Hours of Wind Chimes Relaxation Playlist.
My problem is that I overwork myself, Minerva. Why can’t my players be professionals and teach themselves the offense? No no no, use the jasmine incense, not the lavender. And remember to say I am grinding film if Jerry calls.