Category: NFL News

En route to winning the AFC South, C.J. Stroud was one of nine quarterbacks to eclipse 4,000 yards passing, did so with the third-best yards-per-attempt average a 8.2 and tossed 23 interceptions to just five picks. Quite easily, he just completed one of the finest rookie quarterback seasons we’ve ever seen. 

Where does his rookie season rank among the best recent rookie quarterback campaigns? 

We’ll go back to 2010 for stylistic similarity as to how the quarterback position is now played. And I’ve only ranked the top 8 full rookie quarterback seasons for a reason. They’re really the only ones worth ranking. Let’s dive in. (NOTE: This is an update from November, and I had to change Robert Griffin III and Baker Mayfield. Had those wrong to begin with.) 

Murray won the Rookie of the Year in 2019 but his first year in the NFL doesn’t quite stack up to the rest of those on this list. His big-time throw rate of 4.0% was very respectable, as was his 2.7% turnover-worthy play rate. His yards-per-attempt average of 6.9, not so much. While good for the vast majority of rookies, it’s just not amazing here, and his aDOT was just 7.6 in Kliff Kingsbury’s Air Raid offense that also featured a plethora of screens and quick underneath throws. Murray did run for 544 yards at a 5.8 yards-per-carry clip and looked like Mario on most of those scampers. 

Not that it was Prescott’s fault, but he landed in the coziest environment of any quarterback on this list. In 2016, the Cowboys had an elite offensive line and a dynamic rookie power back in Ezekiel Elliott. Out wide, Prescott had in-his-prime Dez Bryant, in-his-prime Cole Beasley, and Jason Witten at his disposal. Prescott didn’t just ride the coattails of his teammates. He orchestrated the offense calmly for the entire duration of his rookie campaign with 11 of his 16 games featuring a quarterback rating over 100. 

In young Kyle Shanahan’s…

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10 reasons for 2023 Eagles’ epic collapse originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

How?

We’ll be asking ourselves that for years.

How did a 10-1 team coming off a Super Bowl season and steamrolling its way to another No. 1 seed suddenly became the worst team in football?

How did the Eagles not just begin losing but losing in spectacular fashion, blowing three double-digit leads over the last six weeks of the regular season, losing to two of the NFL’s cellar dwellers, getting shredded by backup quarterbacks.

How was nobody in the organization – the Super Bowl coach, the all-pro veteran leaders, the inspirational quarterback – able to turn it around?

As always with difficult questions, there’s more than one answer.

We came up with 10 contributing factors and we probably could have come up with 100.

Nick had no answers: His first two years here, every time his team faced adversity, Nick Sirianni’s message got through. Whether he spoke about connecting, core values, accountability or plants growing underground, he always had the right story to tell, the right allegory to share, the right video to show. And keeping 53 guys pointed in the same direction is just as important as the right play call or the right personnel change. Maybe his players heard the same stories or the same messages so many times the message stopped getting through. But it’s clear that all the motivational techniques that worked so well in 2021 and 2022 and even the first few months of 2023 have stopped working. Whether Sirianni can regain that touch remains to be seen, but if he can’t get through to his team this week, it’s fair to wonder about his future here.

The wrong coordinators: Brian Johnson and Sean Desai were just the wrong hires and the deeper into the season the Eagles got, the more their shortcomings became apparent and the more opposing teams were able to take advantage. Shane Steichen is a play-calling genius and Jonathan Gannon – like him or not – is a shrewd…

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The NFL playoffs are finally upon us. After a wild 18 weeks, the NFL regular-season is finally in the books and it’s now time for the postseason 

Although there will be some familiar faces in the playoffs this year — like the 49ers, Chiefs and Cowboys — there will also be some new blood. As a matter of fact, of the four teams in NFL history that have never been to a Super Bowl, three of them — Houston, Cleveland and Detroit — are in the playoffs this year. Unfortunately for the Browns and Texans, they’ll be facing each other, which means one of those teams will be going home after the first round. 

As for Detroit, the Lions will be hosting their first playoff game in 30 years and in a twist, they’ll be facing someone they’re very familiar with: Matthew Stafford. With Jared Goff starting for the Lions, the game between Los Angeles and Detroit will mark the first time in playoff history where both starting quarterbacks are facing their former team. That game will be going down on Sunday at 8:15 p.m. ET on NBC. 

As for the rest of the 2024 NFL playoff schedule, you can see that below.

Super Wild Card Weekend

Saturday, Jan. 13

(5) Browns at (4) Texans, 4:30 p.m. ET (NBC). For just the second time in 20 years, the Browns are in the playoffs. These two teams met back in Week 16, but you probably shouldn’t take too much away from that 36-22 win by Cleveland because C.J. Stroud didn’t play. The Texans superstar rookie will be on the field this week and he’ll be facing one of his biggest tests of the season in the Browns defense. (6) Dolphins at (3) Chiefs, 8:15 p.m. ET (Peacock). Tyreek Hill is going to get a second chance at beating his former team, and this time, he gets to do it in Kansas City. These two teams did meet back in Week 9 in a game that Kansas City won 21-14, but that game was played in Germany. The temperature in Kansas City is expected to be below 12 degrees on Saturday…

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Former Raiders linebacker Jack Squirek died Friday after a battle with an illness, the team announced. He was 64.

Squirek’s interception return for a touchdown in Super Bowl XVIII remains one of the iconic plays in NFL history. He intercepted a Joe Theismann screen pass intended for Joe Washington and returned it 12 yards for a touchdown to give the Raiders a 21-3 lead in what turned into a 38-9 win.

Squirek’s run to the end zone made the cover of Sports Illustrated, one of the most memorable covers in the magazine’s illustrious history.

The Raiders made Squirek a second-round pick out of Illinois in 1982, and he played 53 games with the team before finishing his career with one season in Miami.

He played 55 games, with eight starts, in his career and made only one interception in the regular season.

“The thoughts and deepest condolences of the Raider Nation are with the Squirek family at this time,” the Raiders said in a statement.

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The 2023 season will be over on Monday for 18 of the NFL’s 32 teams, and the New England Patriots will be one of those teams for the third time in four seasons without future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady. 

The Patriots are the worst scoring offense in the league this season (14.6 points per game), and sitting with a 4-12 record, the most losses of Bill Belichick’s head-coaching career, there is a chance New England is going to “mutually part ways” — essentially fire — their six-time Super Bowl champion head coach. 

Per The Athletic, the Patriots have a meeting set for next week between owner Robert Kraft, team president Jonathan Kraft and Belichick to determine Belichick’s future with the team going forward. He reportedly wants to continue coaching, but Dianna Russini reports some who work for the team are “expecting changes” and beginning to network elsewhere. She also wrote that the Washington Commanders, who are expected to fire head coach Ron Rivera, and the Las Vegas Raiders hope to meet with Belichick should he be available.

Both the amount of losses (12) and points per game (14.6) are the Patriots’ worst since the 1992 season, when they went 2-14. The following season, New England fired head coach Dick MacPherson and hired Bill Parcells.

Earlier this season, New England became the first team to lose three consecutive games with 10 or fewer points allowed since the 1938 Chicago Cardinals did so nearly 100 years ago. The team has been shut out twice this season. During the Brady era, the Patriots were shut out twice in 20 seasons, including the postseason. 

Given that Belichick won an NFL-record six Super Bowls for New England, he has had some leeway in the post-Brady era, but outside of a 10-7 year in 2021, New England has had a losing record in three of the four years Brady has been gone. Between the lack of on-field success and the poor roster construction that…

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Saints running back Alvin Kamara is questionable to play against the Falcons on Sunday, and coach Dennis Allen calls him a game-time decision.

“He’s one of those guys that is so valuable to our team that we’re going to go all the way up to game time to see where he’s at,” Allen said, via Katherine Terrell of ESPN. “He’s made improvement throughout the week and we’ll just wait until game time to make a decision on that.”

Kamara sprained an ankle against the Bucs on Sunday and missed the entire week of practice.

He has 180 carries for 694 yards, which would be a career low if he doesn’t play Sunday, and 75 catches for 466 yards with six total touchdowns in 13 games.

If Kamara can’t play, Jamaal Williams and rookie Kendre Miller will see more snaps. Miller, who hasn’t played since Nov. 5 because of an ankle injury, missed Friday’s practice with an illness.

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Super Bowl LVIII is coming up, but exactly when is it played? If you’ve been wondering when the big game is, you’ve come to the right place.

This year’s NFL championship game, concluding the 2023 season, will be played on Sunday, February 11, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. ET. The action will take place at the home of the Las Vegas Raiders, Allegiant Stadium, located on the Las Vegas strip in Paradise, Nevada.

The game will be broadcast on CBS and there will be an alternative broadcast on Nickelodeon. Football fans can also stream the game on Paramount+. Usher will be performing in the halftime show this year.

Who will be playing in the championship game is still not known, but we will be one step closer to knowing this weekend, when the playoff picture is finalized and all 14 spots have been claimed.

The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in last year’s Super Bowl. Both teams have qualified for the playoffs this year as well. 

How to watch the 2024 Super Bowl

Date: Sunday, Feb. 11Time: 6:30 p.m. ETLocation: Allegiant Stadium (Paradise, Nevada)TV: CBS, Nickelodeon | Stream: CBS broadcast on Paramount+

Note: This marks the first time in NFL history that the Super Bowl will be broadcast in two different formats, with CBS carrying the traditional broadcast of the game and Nickelodeon airing an exclusive kids- and family-friendly telecast. The CBS broadcast will be available to stream via Paramount+.

Paramount+ can be streamed on a number of supported devices, including iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, Fire TVs, PlayStation 4s and 5s, Roku TVs, Xbox’s and Google TVs.

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Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield said on Wednesday that he’ll do anything he can in order to play through injured ribs this week and that bid seems to be going well.

Mayfield was listed as limited in practice on Thursday and reporters at the open portion of the session said that Mayfield was throwing with his teammates. The Bucs only held a walkthrough on Wednesday and said Mayfield would not have participated in a practice.

Friday will bring a final practice and any injury designation, but Mayfield’s presence on the field Thursday would seem to be a good sign for his chances of facing the Panthers in his first game back in Carolina since being released late last season.

The Bucs win the NFC South with a win on Sunday and every player on the active roster took part in practice. Tight end Ko Kieft (shoulder) and left tackle Tristan Wirfs (shoulder) joined Mayfield in going from being listed as out to listed as limited. Wide receiver Trey Palmer (hip) was the only other limited participant.

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