"It Is What It Is."

"There ain't no good guy; there ain't no bad guy. There's only you and me and we just disagree." 

- Dave Mason

No doubt there will be a good deal of analysis and even some finger pointing over the next few weeks regarding what happened between the New York Giants and Saquon Barkley. What we know for certain is that GM Joe Schoen made the last of what was believed to be three contract offers to the all-pro running back, all of which were rejected. As a result, Big Blue will go into the 2023 season not knowing whether Barkley will sign his $10.1 million franchise tag or hold out. As of now, it's anybody's guess.

Already the Monday-morning quarterbacks - pardon the pun - are chirping away. How could the Giants allow this to happen? Why couldn't Schoen just give Barkley what he was asking for? After all, he gave $160 million to Daniel Jones. Certainly Barkley deserved no less consideration given what he has done for this organization.

Let's be clear: the Jones contract was entirely different. The Giants never had any intention of letting their quarterback walk. It was simply a matter of whether they were going to franchise tag him or sign him to a long-term extension. The former meant a $32.4 million cap hit on the books, while the latter, due to the way the contract was written, worked out to a $21.7 million cap hit. For a team still reeling from Dave Gettleman's gross incompetence, Schoen would've been a fool to tag Jones. 

This was a business decision, pure and simple. Schoen knew what he wanted to spend and, more importantly, what he could afford to give up. It's worth noting that even with Barkley on a franchise tag, the Giants only have $4.1 million in available cap space left. As valuable as Barkley is to this offense, Schoen had a fiduciary responsibility to an organization that, cap wise, has been a train wreck for years. How bad a train wreck? This season, they will be carrying $14.7 million in dead cap space, courtesy of Kenny Golladay's contract buyout.

If you're looking for someone to blame here, try Barkley's agent, Kim Miale. She badly overplayed her hand. Either she didn't know what the market for running backs was or she doubted Schoen's resolve. In either event, she cost her client a good deal of money. 

Agents have two basic responsibilities: One should be fairly obvious: get their clients as much money as possible; two, level with their clients in the event they are unsuccessful. Miale clearly failed on number two. Once it was obvious that Schoen wasn't going to blink, she should've told Barkley to sign the contract. She didn't. Or if she did, Barkley didn't listen to her. So instead of a three-year deal with $22 million in guaranteed money, he will now have to settle for $10.1 million on a one-year franchise tag and then hope for a better offer from the Giants next season. 

Fat chance that happening. If anything, it's entirely possible the Giants won't even tender him a franchise tag next summer. The fact that no other team approached Barkley with an offer better than what the Giants had on the table is a pretty good indication that, despite his bonafides, the demand for his services just wasn't there. Josh Jacobs, who had a much better season for the Raiders, also didn't get the deal he was looking for and, like Barkley, has so far refused to sign his franchise tag.

Like it or not, the NFL is a passing league. Running backs are not very high on the pecking order. With the franchise tag expected to go up to $12 million in '24, the Giants might very well elect to low ball Barkley, or perhaps walk away entirely. If that happens, it's on Miale. 

Look, is it fair that one of the most dynamic players in the league is getting treated this way? Of course not. As a fan, I feel bad for the guy. He deserved better than what he got. And I have no doubt that this will reverberate throughout the locker room. It could even cost the Giants a playoff appearance, especially if Barkley decides to sit out the season. 

But the bottom line is this: the NFL, like the NBA and the NHL, has a salary cap. And, yes, I know the league gives their GMs all kinds of room to get creative with respect to player contracts. But come the start of the season, teams still have to be cap compliant. Gettleman was one of the most creative GMs the Giants ever had and look where it got them. At some point you have to be willing to say "enough is enough."

I actually respect the decision Schoen made. It couldn't have been easy for him. But in the end, it was the only decision he could've make.

It's Not "Just" A Game

What happened to Damar Hamlin in Monday night's football game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals has no precedent in NFL history. Not even the brutal hit by Jack Tatum on Darryl Stingley in a 1978 preseason game that left Stingley paralyzed comes close.

An entire nation saw a football player suffer a cardiac arrest after making what looked like a routine tackle. And had it not been for the quick and skilled response of medical professionals in the stadium, he would never have made it to the hospital alive. Even now, this young man remains in critical condition. Assuming he survives, he is in for a very long recovery. Every decent and caring human being, fan of the sport or not, needs to keep him, his family and teammates in their prayers.

But while it was correct for the league to postpone the game Monday night after it was obvious the players and coaches were too distraught to continue, its subsequent decision Tuesday to not resume it this week is a mistake. Let me explain.

This was no mere game between two AFC rivals. It had playoff implications for no fewer than four teams: the Bills, the Bengals, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens. Going into last weekend, the AFC standings were as follows: 1. Buffalo, 2. Kansas City, 3. Cincinnati, 4. Jacksonville, 5. Los Angeles, 6. Baltimore, 7 New England. Buffalo owns the tiebreaker over K.C. by virtue of a win against them in week six.

Had the Bengals beaten the Bills, they would've leapfrogged past them into the number two seed in the conference. Why is that important? Because the number two seed gets an additional home game in the playoffs. Had the Bills won, they likely would've clinched the number one seed, assuming they beat the Patriots this Sunday.

But here's the problem. Without this game in the standings, the Chiefs are now the number one seed in the conference by a half game, meaning if the Chiefs and Bills both win on Sunday, Buffalo's path to the Super Bowl would, once more, have to go through Arrow Head Stadium where they are 0 for 2 in the postseason.

But wait, it gets worse. The Ravens, who have already beaten the Bengals once this season, could've captured the AFC North with a win over them on Sunday coupled with a Bengals loss on Monday night. Now, thanks to the suits at Park Avenue, the Ravens will have to go on the road as a Wild Card.

You see how one ill-advised decision can have a domino effect?

Why would the league do such a thing knowing the ramifications? Public image, that's why. Let's be honest here for a moment. For years, the NFL has had a reputation for not giving a shit about its players. And to be honest, they haven't. The way they initially handled the concussion issue was a disgrace. 

I have no doubt that ESPN's reporting about the NFL's wanting to resume Monday night's game in five minutes is accurate. It was only after both teams walked off the field and into their respective locker rooms that the league knew it had fucked up. So they went into damage control mode, which is what they seem to excel at. If you want to know why Roger Goodell constantly gets booed at every Draft, this is why. No other professional sports commissioner is more loathe by both fans and players alike than him.

So rather than just admit they made a mistake, they decided to compound the mistake by making another, worse mistake. Mark my words, the very same people who are now self-righteously beating their chests proclaiming that "it's just a game" or "it doesn't matter" will be the first to scream bloody murder when their team loses in the playoffs because they had to play on the road instead of at home. I know fans; I know how they think, because I'm one of them.

The fact is football isn't "just" a game. It hasn't been for a very long time. It's a multi-billion dollar enterprise that is the number one sport in North America and the number two sport in Europe. You think ESPN pried Joe Buck and Troy Aikman away from Fox because they had a few extra million laying around in petty cash? They did it because it was a smart business decision. In fact, ESPN spends pretty much the entire calendar year talking incessantly about football. Even during the World Series, it got more attention.

Call me silly, but I happen to think it's possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. You can sympathize with what Hamlin and his family are going through while at the same time wanting a consequential game to be completed. It shouldn't be either or. That's a false choice, in my opinion. The correct course of action would be for the league to resume the game Thursday night and then push back both teams' subsequent Sunday games to Monday night. That way every team would play a full compliment of 17 games. More importantly, the playoff seeding would be accurate.

Knowing the NFL and its propensity for fucking up a sunset, that isn't likely to happen.

The NFL's Minority Problem

The accusations made by Brian Flores in his class-action lawsuit against the NFL, Miami Dolphins, New York Giants and Denver Broncos have shaken the sports world, and if they are proven true, will have profound repercussions throughout the league.

Here are the allegations that are contained in the lawsuit:

In 2019, the Denver Broncos kept Flores waiting several hours to interview for their head-coaching vacancy, and when team officials finally did show up, they looked disheveled and hung over from the previous night. At the time, Flores was an assistant with the New England Patriots. The job eventually went to Vic Fangio, a white man.

In 2019, while head coach of the Miami Dolphins, owner Stephen Ross approached Flores and offered him $100,000 per game to tank the season so that the team could land the overall number pick in the NFL draft the following year.

In January of this year, the New York Giants invited Flores to interview for their head-coaching vacancy. However, in a text exchange with Patriots coach Bill Belichick, which was intended for then Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, but was mistakenly sent to Flores, Belichick congratulates Daboll for landing the job three whole days before Flores's interview. To say Flores was humiliated would be an understatement.

Look, I realize that these are just allegations; we still have no way of knowing whether they're true. But here's what we do know:

Over the last twenty years, only two NFL head coaches have had consecutive winning seasons for the Miami Dolphins: Dave Wannstedt and Brian Flores. After getting off to a 1-7 start, the Dolphins went 8-1 the rest of the way, finishing 9-8. Yet Flores was let go after only his third season.

News of the termination was met with surprise and skepticism by most people covering the league. By all accounts, Flores was considered a good head coach who had done a more than competent job with a team coming out of a rebuild. Given that the Dolphins play in the same division as the Patriots and the Bills, a 9-8 record isn't all that bad.

When the Rooney Rule was instituted in 2003, there were three Black head coaches in the league. With the firing of Flores, there is now only one Black head coach: Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers. After the conclusion of the regular season, nine head-coaching vacancies opened up; four have already been filled. Not a single one by an African American, though technically Flores is still a finalist for the Houston Texans vacancy. Who knows what will happen now that this suit has been filed. 

It is inconceivable with such qualified assistant coaches as Eric Bieniemy in Kansas City that not a single one has been hired as a head coach. Indeed, Bieniemy never even received the courtesy of an interview this off season. The question begs, why?

Initially, I thought John Mara and Steve Tisch were going to hire former Chiefs' Director of Player Personnel Ryan Poles as their next GM, and Poles would then hire Bieniemy as his head coach. It would've been a win-win for a beleaguered organization: two eminently qualified African Americans charged with restoring the Giants to their glory days. What a headline that would've made.

Instead, another headline has dominated the sports pages of the New York metro area.

Just to be clear, Mara and Tisch are well within their rights to hire anyone they feel is best qualified to lead their franchise. Nothing in the Rooney Rule compels a team to hire a minority coach; only to interview them. And to be sure, Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll are considerable improvements over the previous regime of Dave Gettleman and Joe Judge. But the revelation that they went through a pro forma interview simply to check a box is an indictment for an organization that has had more than its fair share of missteps over the last decade.

Regarding the bribery charge, it is certainly no revelation that the way in which the NFL conducts its draft incentivizes teams to deliberately lose games in order to get a better seeding. That is precisely why both the NBA and NHL conduct draft lotteries: to ensure that their teams aren't tempted to tank games for personal gain. Regardless of what the investigation into Ross reveals - and if in fact the allegation against him is proven to be true, he should be permanently banned from the league - it would behoove the NFL to amend its draft procedures to conform with the above-mentioned leagues.

Speaking of things the NFL should amend, it is time to revisit the Rooney Rule. Clearly it isn't working. All it has done is given teams an off ramp when it comes to hiring Black coaches. It is time the league tried a new approach; something along the lines of dangling supplemental draft picks for hiring men of color for assistant coaches and head coaches. The former would get a second round pick; the latter a first rounder. It sure as shit beats what's in place now. 

If the NFL really wanted to fundamentally change how it does business, it could incentivize its owners to sell off parts of their teams to minority owners. Two supplemental first round picks for a 25 percent share; three first rounders for 40 percent. What good is having a seat at the table if you don't own the table?

The bottom line is this: Brian Flores has taken a huge risk here by launching this lawsuit. In all likelihood, he has permanently imperiled any chance he has of ever becoming a head coach in the NFL. The league has a long memory; just ask Colin Kaepernick. I'm sure Flores knew that going in. All the more reason to take him and these allegations seriously.

As for the parties involved in the suit, including my own Giants: They have some 'splainin' to do, that's for sure.

A Mugging in Dallas

I won't mince words. I hate the Cowboys. I've hated them for years, decades in fact. I hate how smug their fans are and I especially resent that they call themselves America's team. Even the Yankees - who it should be noted have considerably more championships - don't have the nerve to refer to themselves as America's team.

That being said, what happened last night was atrocious and an embarrassment. The Detroit Lions got mugged, period. Please spare me all the "it wasn't a clear-cut penalty" and "the Lions still had time to recover and win the game" drivel. Try telling that to the city of Detroit. They have every right to feel like they got screwed. Because they did.

I don't know which I find more offensive, the incompetence of the officiating crew or the litany of irrelevant explanations from apologists who are more concerned with protecting the integrity of the NFL than calling a spade a spade. One such example of this was from Frank Schwab of Yahoo Sports who managed to come up with a whopping five reasons for why the Lions lost, none of which, surprise, had to do with the call. In the interest of common sense, allow me to dispense with all five.

1. The Lions should have gone for it on 4th down. Really, no REALLY! That's your strategy? Eight minutes to go, up by three, at midfield. You want to risk giving the ball back to the opponent with a short field? I'm glad you're not a coach; you'd be fired. Head coach Jim Caldwell made the right call - the ONLY call he could've made. He decided to punt the ball and force Dallas to go the length of the football field. Given that the Cowboys had only scored 17 points up until that call, he had every reason to believe his defense was capable of making a stop. Had he gone for it, he would've been saying he had no faith in his defense. Worse, if he went for it and didn't make it, his head would rightly be on the chomping block. You don't take that kind of gamble that late in a playoff game.

2. The kicker shanked the punt. What can I say, shit happens. Tell me you knew he was going to do that and I'll buy you a house. 99 times out of a hundred, the punt goes off without a hitch. At the very least, the Cowboys would've gotten the ball at the 20 yard line; at most, the ball would've been downed near the goal line. You count on players to make plays. When they don't, it can prove costly. Shank or no shank, the call reversal is still unacceptable.

3. No one play wins or loses a game. This one's a beaut. First of all that statement depends on when the play occurs. For instance, three years ago the Giants were playing the Packers in the playoffs. Aaron Rogers threw a pass to a receiver who caught the ball and then was stripped of it as he was being tackled. Everyone who saw the play knew it was a fumble, but the call on the field was down by contact. The call even withstood a challenge by Giants' head coach Tom Coughlin. On the very next play Rogers threw a touchdown pass. It was still very early in the game and the Giants had plenty of time to recover from the blown call, which they did. They ended up routing the Packers. Had that call happened later in the game, there's no telling what might've happened. The point is you can't simply make a blanket statement like the above without knowing all the details. If the call is upheld, the Lions have the ball first and 10 at the Cowboy 26 yard line with just over eight minutes to go. They could've scored another touchdown, making it a two-score game for the Cowboys; they could've potentially run out the clock; or, at the very least, taken a good chunk of time off it before giving up the football deep in Cowboys' territory. They were denied that opportunity. End of story.

4. If the Lions had simply beaten the Packers the week before, they would've had a bye and hosted a home game next week. So, I guess it's okay then if the Packers had been the ones robbed. I just don't understand this reasoning. What difference does it make whether the Lions were home or on the road or whether the Packers would've been the team on the road? None of this is relevant. A bad call is a bad call, no matter where you are or which teams are involved.

5. It wasn't a clear-cut penalty. I don't know which universe you're in but that was about as clear a penalty as you're likely to see in the NFL. In fact, Hitchens, the Cowboys' linebacker who committed the foul, actually was holding Lions' tight end Pettigrew's jersey before the actual pass interference was committed. So he could've been called for either foul or maybe even both. It happens all the time. In fact, holding penalties are so common place in the league, a defender can be called for one for just breathing on the receiver. Furthermore, when Cowboys' receiver Dez Bryant ran onto the field with his helmet off, a penalty should've been called just for that. So that's three pretty cut and dried penalties. Don't take my word for it; take the word of Dean Blandino, the NFL head of officiating, who said all three fouls were committed and should've been called.

So there you have it. A horrific call which badly tainted what was up to that point a pretty good game. One team goes home empty handed; the other lives to play another game. And, once more, the NFL is embroiled in an embarrassing controversy that was avoidable. They say the worst errors are the unforced ones. This was one helluva unforced error.


Go Packers!

Who Will Win Super Bowl 48?

Let's get something straight. If I really knew who was going to win the big game in February, I wouldn't be writing this silly blog; I'd be in Vegas planning my next villa in the south of France. But, if recent history is any indication, the winner will most definitely NOT be the number one seed in its conference.

Going back to the 2005 season, only two Super Bowl winners earned a first-round bye. They were the '08 Steelers (#2 seed) and the '09 Saints (#1 seed). The other SB winners were either low-seed division or wildcard teams. The '06 Colts, '11 Giants and '12 Ravens were low-seed winners while the '05 Steelers, '07 Giants and '10 Packers were wildcard winners. That's six out of eight winners that were not even favored to get to the conference championship game, much less the Super Bowl.

What that tells you is that in today's NFL, anything goes. Parody is the key to what drives the sport. It's what makes things so interesting and predictions so hard to make. In fact you could say the only predictable thing about the NFL is its unpredictability.

So, with that in mind, let me go on record as saying who ever wins Super Bowl 48, will NOT be the top seed in its conference. That means no Denver Broncos and Houston Texans (my picks for #1 and #2 seeds respectively in the AFC) or San Francisco 49ers and Atlanta Falcons (#1 and #2 seeds in the NFC).

The likely teams to represent the AFC are: The Indianapolis Colts and Baltimore Ravens (again). In the NFC, I like the Green Bay Packers, Seattle Seahawks and New York Giants.  Since the big game is being played in New York, I'll go with the Giants over Ravens at Met Life Stadium.

Don't bet the ranch.  Remember, I'm a Mets' fan.