Kenny Pickett tells AlbertBreer about his growth as a rookie quarterback and whether he was ready for his big moment against the Raiders
“Absolutely,” says Pickett, who came to the Steelers with the perspective of a guy who just spent five years playing college football at Pitt, which shares a practice facility with the local NFL team. “Obviously, the passing, we wanted to dedicate the game to him and get the win. So that was kinda like the main focus throughout the week, just find a way to win, get it done for Franco and his family. A special night for the city as well.
The first step, though, is showing you’re capable of doing the job. On Saturday night, when it mattered most, Pickett looked like he was capable.Same story here—proud franchise, talented core of star players, rough start … and everyone’s pride tested. Rodgers, to be sure, had his moments. The rookie receivers the Packers were looking for progress from—Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs —were first and third in catches and yards. Rodgers also made big throws down the stretch from a 22-yard deep out to Doubs to a 13-yard drag to Robert Tonyan, to lead a deliberate drive that put the pressure on Tagovailoa, making the lead six and giving him only 1:56 to work with when he got the ball back trailing 26–20.
The play the Dolphins would run on second-and-7 with 1:34 left was one coordinator Joe Barry had warned his defense to be ready for in a two-minute situation. It was also a concept that, because LaFleur and Miami coach Mike McDaniel came up together and run very similar schemes, the Packers had seenBarry also gave them another heads-up to look for it just before the play.
“We always thought we had a chance,” Douglas says. “I know the media and everybody else thought that way. But we never thought that way. We always knew we had a chance, and I just think it clicked at the right time. I don’t know what it was, but we just had more fun, did a lot more competing together at practice and stuff like that. And it’s just worked out.”McDermott and the Bills spent the night in Chicago after securing their third consecutive AFC East title.
But as the game neared Saturday, the aforementioned window started closing on the Bills. The Buffalo airport would close, too. So Rowe, VP of administration Kevin Meganck and director of team administration Matt Worswick huddled; looped in equipment director Jeffrey Mazurek ; and started looking at alternatives. The nearby Niagara and Rochester airports were options, as were bigger airports in Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
“I have a 7-year-old at home and a 12- and 14-year-old,” McDermott said, as we talked Saturday night, “and we gotta kinda work through how we want that to unfold starting tonight and tomorrow morning when I won’t be there.”Is there a benefit to all this? Well, after last month and this month, if the Bills win a championship, there’ll be some good stuff for the book.
What are you going to do with it? How is it going to be different? How are we going to innovate? How would you distribute it?What are you going to do to make this thing great, and how does it work?Which is to say YouTube’s vision for Sunday Ticket helped it win Sunday Ticket.But I know that’s probably not what all of you are most worried about. So here are a few things for you from my conversation on this with Rolapp.
• Being in business with Google, to be sure, did matter to the NFL. “It was a big deal,” Rolapp says. “I think if you look at, now that this is the final puzzle piece in our major media rights, where we’re ending up with all of our partners that we’ve had—NBC, CBS, Fox, ESPN—we’ve strengthened them because we’ve given them more things to make them successful around streaming and other things.
That’s before you get to the bizarre scenes from the sideline, where backup QB Brett Rypien took up for Wilson and got into it with the Broncos’ linemen, eventually pushing and shoving a little with Dalton Risner. And Randy Gregory also went looking for trouble on the field postgame, and eventually found it with Rams lineman Oday Aboushi. Also notable, Wilson actually did take accountability for it postgame, something he hasn’t always done.
So whatever the next move is, and I think everything is on the table, my guess is it’ll be done to try to get Wilson back to what he was in Seattle a few years back. Maybe it’s sticking with the status quo and giving Wilson continuity. Maybe it’s letting Paton bring in, say, the Cowboys’ Dan Quinn with another Dallas assistant, Brian Schottenheimer, to run the offense . Maybe it’s blowing it up and building around a new big-name coach to work with Wilson .
The second thing to watch would be the status of Jerod Mayo, who shares defensive coordinator duties with Steve Belichick . Mayo could win a head coaching job somewhere in January. He also could leave to go call a defense—I think geography would play into if he does , with a manageable commute to and from New England a potentially big factor for family reasons.
"Yeah, well, how great is that?" Reid said in the postgame news conference after the Chiefs beat the Seahawks 24–10 on Sunday. “The accolades that he receives, he deserves all of them. And then the guys around him working with that and making it happen. It’s a tribute to Pat and the energy that he’s brought to the group, and then the guys rallying around him, obviously.”
“I looked over at Greg and I could just see he had a great look in his eye,” said O’Connell postgame, using a line I’ve heard him use a few times when talking about Joseph this year. “He absolutely hammered that kick. So much credit goes to him, all the preparation he does when no one’s watching for moments like that. Really proud of Greg. And our whole team, you could feel it in the locker room, just how proud everyone was of him.
• The division title would be his second with the Bucs. He won 17 of those in New England. Tampa Bay had won three division titles in 44 seasons before Brady arrived. The Patriots have won only four division titles in the 44 seasons that Brady wasn’t their starter. • I know the Eagles didn’t win with him Sunday, but what a good, logical trade it was for Howie Roseman to go get Gardner Minshew two summers ago. He gave up the 197th pick in last year’s draft for him, and got him for two years at $3.39 million. Just an absolute steal.• So weird that the Rams-Broncos game was so important to the Lions and Seahawks, thanks to the Matthew Stafford and Russell Wilson trades. With the Broncos’ loss, Seattle’s 2023 pick stayed at No. 3.
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