The Fog, the Flag and the Football

Before Sunday’s hazy Super Bowl rematch, or any of the other NFL action of the day, commissioner Roger Goodell met with Seahawks WR Doug Baldwin to talk politics, causes and protests

And then there was the fog. Did you see it on Sunday night? I wondered how Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth saw the field in the New England-Atlanta game, but I think we all witnessed enough to know the Patriots are still the Patriots and the Falcons … well, they’re somewhere in the great middle of the league right now, the same way Carolina was last year after suffering a crushing Super Bowl loss. Atlanta’s not very good. But hey, neither is the vast majority of the league.

Nothing happened to lift the fog over the pennant races Sunday, except that we found out Brett Hundley is going to have a very tough time keeping the Packers in the hunt, Arizona’s out of it, Denver’s offense is awful and the Colts are playing like they want to get their coach fired.

And one other thing before we get to the weirdo Falcons, and to the revival of the Dolphins, and to the end of football’s Ripken streak, to craptastic football in London, to a career-altering game for Derek Carr and other stories. First, to a meeting at a Jersey City, N.J., hotel that, in light of current American and football events, you should know about.

Doug Baldwin had nine catches for 92 yards and a touchdown in the Seahawks’ 24-7 win over the Giants on Sunday :: Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

In 14 games played Thursday and Sunday, 11 uniformed players either sat or kneeled during the national anthem as a measure of protest over the U.S. criminal-justice system, community-police relations, and the plight of minorities in this country. Eight of those 11 active players were Seahawks. That makes commissioner Roger Goodell’s road trip Saturday afternoon to see Seattle wide receiver Doug Baldwin all the more interesting. Baldwin sent a lengthy proposal to the league 10 days ago with some of his ideas for league-player partnerships around criminal-justice and police reform, and he and Goodell co-signed a letter to Congress last week, urging legislators to reduce minimum sentencing for nonviolent drug criminals. That was fairly stunning, to see the league get involved in a political cause like that.

Goodell wanted to meet and discuss issues with Baldwin. So Saturday afternoon in Jersey City, they sat down for about 70 minutes. Baldwin—African-American, the son of a cop in Pensacola, Fla.—is an undrafted free agent from Stanford who made his career in the NFL by some quickness but more by will. Goodell—white, the son of a former U.S. senator from New York in the Watergate era—started at the bottom in football, as a PR intern with the Jets, and worked his way up the ladder to the top job in the sport. They had that in common … the fact that they worked their way up in the country’s biggest professional game. 

Packers Are In It Deep, Zeke Rolls, Steelers Are Dominant

“For me,” Baldwin said Sunday night, “the conversation with the commissioner was to find out about the genuineness of the league. I know Roger has a good heart. I believe he has the best of intentions. We didn’t really talk about anything but ourselves—where each other was coming from. This was a conversation for each of us to learn about what was important to the other. It was two men trying to get to know each other better.

“This was the first time I’ve gotten a chance to sit down and talk to him. I’m optimistic that we’re on the same page—wanting to do the right thing for the right reasons in society. I think we’re going to be able to do things to bring awareness to things we care so deeply about. I think he does care about the issues the players care about.”

I asked if they discussed the anthem, and trying to get 100 percent of the uniformed players (not the 99.2 percent who stood this weekend) to stand.

“He didn’t say anything [about the anthem],” Baldwin said. “But obviously, in any business, you’ve got to be sure you’re paying the bills.”

The league’s strategy, clearly, is to get the players to believe that the owners and Goodell are sincere about helping players spread their message—through PSAs, in-game promotions and the kind of off-field strategems like cancer awareness—in a kind of equal partnership the owners and players haven’t had. That’s going to take time. The league, now, runs the cancer and military promotions. The players want a say, and Goodell seems intent on acceding to their wishes.

Goodell is smart to not press the anthem issue now, particularly with so few players demonstrating. We’ll see if it works, particularly with so many diverse wishes by so many players. Baldwin’s teammate Michael Bennett, who sits for the anthem, wants Colin Kaepernick to be given a chance to win an NFL roster spot. Baldwin’s ideas, and the ideas of other player leaders like Malcolm Jenkins, are not based on one person. The NFL never thought when Kaepernick began his protests last year that they would come to dominate so many football conversations—and some political ones, at the presidential level. But this is where they are, and though advertisers are likely getting impatient and fan fallout is growing, the NFL won’t be rushing this.

Now for some football, starting with that Fog Bowl.

Andy Benoit and Gary Gramling wrap up the Sunday action each Monday morning on “The MMQB: 10 Things Podcast.” Subscribe on iTunes.

Dan Quinn: Be worried; be very worried

Last year, every time I heard somebody with the Falcons—head coach Dan Quinn, quarterback Matt Ryan, others—say, “We’re aggressive, and we’re not going to change our style,” I used to wonder why. In the Super Bowl, when the Falcons should clearly have been in the business of bleeding the clock in the last 20 minutes, they kept being aggressive. After the game they talked about how they’d played that way all year, and they weren’t going to change on the biggest stage. How’d that turn out?

A foggy night in Foxborough made an interesting backdrop for a Super Bowl 51 rematch, won again by the Patriots :: Billie Weiss/Getty Images

And how’d it turn out Sunday night? Why did the Falcons go for it on fourth-and-seven late in the first quarter Sunday night at New England? “Dan Quinn has seen enough of those 28-3 signs,” Cris Collinsworth said on NBC. “On the highways, on the rings …” Atlanta converted but didn’t score.

Why did the Falcons go for it on fourth-and-six late in the first half? Atlanta failed to convert here, left the Patriots with a short field, and New England scored a touchdown to take a 17-0 lead just before halftime. Why did the Falcons run a jet sweep on fourth-and-goal from the New England 1 early in the fourth quarter? Taylor Gabriel got knocked back for a five-yard loss. “It’s really just the belief I have in our guys,” Quinn explained after the game. “For me, historically I’ve been known to be aggressive with the opportunities we have.”

Falcons in Need of Changes After Another Disappointing Offensive Performance vs. Patriots

Aggressive, aggressive, aggressive. I bet you a year’s supply of Legal Seafood chowder that the Patriots are in their offices today, watching the film of their easy 23-7 win and saying something like, “How great is it that we forced them to be desperate, and to make all those mistakes?” Bill Belichick lives for teams to change their styles because they’re playing the mighty Patriots. And that’s what the Falcons did Sunday night. Going for it twice in long-yardage situations, knowing you were giving Tom Brady a short field if you fail? If it’s such a brilliant gambit, why don’t Quinn and offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian do that every time when it’s fourth and six or eight near midfield? I want my coaches to be smart more that I want my coaches to be aggressive.

One more thing: Atlanta’s offense is not in a slump; it’s in crisis. The Falcons are scoring 12.5 points per game less than last year. Matt Ryan had a plus-31 TD-to-pick differential in his MVP season last year; it’s plus-one this year. Last season they scored less than 20 in a game once. This team has 17, 17 and 7 in its last three games, respectively. Maybe Quinn should yank play-calling from Sarkisian. I can tell you with certainty what the Falcons should do, regardless who’s calling the plays: Give the most efficient running game in football more than the 22.5 carries per game Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman are getting. That number should be 30, easily.

The season’s slipping away. Quinn better lasso it … and be smart about it.

Joe Thomas: Long Live the Streak

My first reaction after Cleveland tackle Joe Thomas suffered a triceps injury that knocked him out of the game for the first time in 167 NFL games: Is it possible his record streak will never be broken? Could this be a Cal Ripken streak, or maybe even one that’s harder to break? Ripken’s streak of 2,632 consecutive games played was achieved over 17 seasons and likely won’t be broken. But he came out of games. He didn’t play 2,632 complete games. Thomas’ streak was compiled over 11 seasons. He played every play of his first 166 games in the NFL, since being drafted in 2007, and then 38 plays of his 167th game, against Tennessee, before getting injured while blocking for a Duke Johnson running play with 5:35 left in the third quarter. Thomas shoved a linebacker with his left hand, something he must have done 1,000 times in his career. Only this time his arm buckled. Thomas fell to the ground in pain and had to leave the game. Second-year tackle Spencer Drango from Baylor will be the answer to a trivia question forever. He was the first Browns player other than Joe Thomas to play left tackle since 2006.

The Joe Thomas Injury: A Streak Snapped and a New Low in the Factory of Sadness

There’s a high likelihood that Thomas tore the triceps—he was scheduled to have an MRI Monday morning—and if he did, his season’s over. In any case, the streak is over. By my possibly imprecise calculations (I went through Pro Football Focus snap counts Sunday night), an offensive lineman who learned from Thomas for the first four years of his career, Mitchell Schwartz, is slightly more than halfway to Thomas’ consecutive plays streak—assuming the PFF numbers are correct. Schwartz played four years with Cleveland and now is in his second with the Chiefs, and he has played every regular-season play of a five-and-a-half-year career—87 games, 5,891 snaps. If he can play every play for the next five seasons, Schwartz will be in Thomas’ league.

Just 2.0% of all active NFL players played every snap in 2016. Joe Thomas played every Cleveland offensive snap for 10 years and 6 games.

— Peter King (@peter_king) October 23, 2017

Thomas was taking it well Sunday night, one friend said, and not angry or crushed about it. He figures he was fortunate to be on the field for every snap of 167 straight games, something that will be incredibly hard to top. The legacy of Thomas is not just his durability, but his greatness: It’s likely he’ll be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame one day, an amazing achievement considering he’s played on the worst team in football for a decade. That how good, and how well-respected, Joe Thomas has been.

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