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Week 9 Preview: Jordan Love Headlines Replacements Week
1. You simply can not claim to be a critical thinker and also frequently use empty buzz phrases like “woke mob” and “cancel culture.” We all have the freedom to make our own choices, but those choices come with consequences. And those consequences can include criticism from others, especially when the choice seems to be largely based on patently incorrect information. Also, it’s never a good idea to quote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” out of context.
Anyway, that’s apropos of nothing in particular. I have it stitched on a throw pillow and just figured I’d share.
2. We know he’s impressive from a traits standpoint, and the (limited) preseason film we have on him suggests Jordan Love is perfectly comfortable with what’s asked of him in Matt LaFleur’s offense. The question is: What happens when the Chiefs force Love to play off schedule on Sunday?
Steve Spagnuolo’s defense doesn’t do many things well at the moment, but they are capable of throwing disguises that make quarterbacks think twice after the snap. The magic of Aaron Rodgers in LaFleur’s system is that he can thrive when forced to improvise—for the whole of the Mike McCarthy years, the Packers offense was built around Rodgers’s ability to adjust post-snap, an ability sharpened by the thousands of snaps he's taken and defensive looks he's seen over the years. Tape study aside, Love has never seen more than some preseason shell defenses. Green Bay will surely look to ride run game and defense on Sunday (K.C. has held up well against the run the past two weeks, by the way), but in all likelihood the Packers will need a few plays from Love that he likely isn’t ready to deliver.
3. Whether you know it or not, you wish your favorite team’s general manager was Les Snead. First, Les is a heck of a strong first name—you won’t find many bad Les’s out there. And second, he turned two picks in the second half of the first round and one third-rounder (they would become K’Lavon Chaisson, Travis Etienne and Jordan Smith) into the best cornerback in football; he turned three more picks, also likely to fall outside the top half of the first round, into an MVP-caliber quarterback; and now he’s turned two Day 2 picks into Von Miller.
This is not a screed against the value of draft picks. But it is a reminder that, as nice as it is to have young players on those restricted-earning rookie-wage-scale contracts, even first-round picks are a 50/50 proposition to hit. Most general managers around the league would acknowledge that, yet few are willing to turn that draft capital into a star veteran, because a win-now approach means your moves have to result in wins. Now.
The path to job security for roster-builders has increasingly become hoarding draft picks. That’s because of the aforementioned absurdity of the rookie wage scale and the multitude of cheapskate owners who’d rather not pay market value for labor in order to be competitive. It’s also because many fans have embraced a bizarre sort of draft-pick fetishism. And perhaps more than anything, it’s because it allows a GM who might be in over his head to argue that the draft picks, and the players selected with them, need time to develop, and therefore the GM should hold his job until some unspecified time in the future even though most struggling young players usually just turn into struggling not-as-young players.
Snead’s coaching staff gives him margin for error—developing is just as important as drafting, and the Rams develop their young players as well as any staff in the league, allowing them to load up on Day 3 picks and find contributors to fill out the roster around their superstars. The Rams haven’t picked in Round 1 since 2016 and aren’t scheduled to do so again until '24. But there’s virtually no chance the players the Rams would have selected with those draft picks would have equaled the value of Jalen Ramsey, Matthew Stafford and Von Miller. Snead is doing what every GM in the NFL is supposed to be doing: Turning draft capital into star players at premium positions.
4. I have to think that being a Texans fan is a lot like going to see the animated feature film Rock Dog, then a few years later going to see Rock Dog 2: Rock Around the Park. The original Rock Dog had all kinds of star power: Luke Wilson, J.K. Simmons, Mae Whitman who is just wonderful, Eddie Izzard—Sam Elliott for god sakes! Then the sequel comes out, and none of those people are in it,* and the plot is something about a very large sheep stealing a magical guitar… I’m not really sure and no one even bothered to make a Wikipedia page for it so I can’t even pretend I know what I’m talking about. And that title. It’s a play on “Rock Around the Clock”? That doesn’t land at all. One is dealing with time, the other a location. [exasperated sigh]
Similarly, two years ago the Texans were in the midst of a second-straight division-title season, they had a young franchise quarterback in place, the best receiver in football, an NFL legend leading the defense… now, the sequel is out. A journeyman backup and a too-green third-round rookie as the quarterback options, no one on the defensive side of the ball you’d really identify as a building block, and now not much to show for the first year of the rebuild.
It was going to be a lost year for the Texans, one that would be measured less in victories and more in the development of young players and collection of future assets. But the season has been a disappointment on that count too. First-year GM Nick Caserio loaded up on veteran free-agents on short-term contracts, surely with the thought of flipping them for draft picks. But at the trade deadline, he was only able to move Mark Ingram (for a 2024 seventh-rounder) and Charles Omenihu, a holdover from the previous regime (for a ’23 sixth-rounder). That means the only pick they’ve added better than a sixth-rounder is CB Bradley Roby, another holdover who drew a ’22 third and sixth from the Saints. And after a number of dubious swaps for bottom-of-the-roster players, some of whom have already been cut, Houston’s draft capital scorebook is as follows:
2022: Gained a third-rounder and two sixth-rounders, lost a fifth-rounder
2023: Gained two sixth-rounders, possibly another sixth-rounder depending on the conditions of the Roby deal, possibly a seventh-rounder if CB John Reid plays three more games in Seattle
2024: Gained a seventh-rounder
Comp picks are still a possibility depending on how the offseason plays out, but (1) It would require restraint in adding free agents to an already barren roster, and (2) It would require other teams signing Houston free agents to significant contracts. And that’s the problem with a teardown of this magnitude. The Texans are so devoid of talent, and the on-field product is such a mess, that it’s nearly impossible for any player to look like a desirable prospective free agent, even if such a player exists in this organization.
*—Disclaimer: Every member of the cast and crew who worked on Rock Dog 2: Rock Around the Park has far surpassed me in professional success. And probably in personal success as well.
5. Odell Beckham Jr. is already independently wealthy, and he’ll theoretically be happier with whichever team he lands with next. And whether an unhappy player orchestrating his release through surrogates rather than speaking for himself is something to be celebrated or frowned upon, there is a wide range of outcomes for Beckham’s next contract.
Beckham was undoubtedly one of the five best receivers in football—legitimately in the conversation for No. 1—as recently as 2018, and he’s still on the right side of 30. On the other hand there’s his lengthy injury history; his subpar 2021 film (the quarterback’s missed opportunities aside); the fact that—for whatever reason—the Browns’ quarterback and their offense were objectively better in the second half of 2020 when Beckham was sidelined; and the fact that Beckham has now had a bad breakup with two organizations.
But the biggest factor working against Beckham is the fact that the NFL is now almost oversaturated with talented young receivers. Due to the offensive trickle-up effect that has fueled the quarterback renaissance, there will be a third straight bumper crop of receivers available in next spring’s draft. And while Beckham—if healthy—is a proven commodity, if presented with the option of paying him eight figures or getting a young receiver on an artificially suppressed rookie contract, most teams will surely choose the latter.
The closest case study we have might be Julio Jones, who didn’t have much of a trade market last offseason. Jones was two-and-a-half years older last offseason than Beckham will be this offseason, but his injury history was not quite as extensive as Beckham’s. More than that, Jones had earned a reputation as a consummate professional, a locker-room gem any team would want to hold up as an example of the kind of player they will reward. Beckham’s reputation is... not that. Which is why the prospect of him playing on a series of one-year deals isn't that farfetched.
6. Taysom Hill was always the Saints’ destiny, whether it was going to be a platoon of an outright promotion to QB1. Considering their defense’s ability to dominate a game, there’s no reason New Orleans shouldn’t have explored extended quarterback snaps for Hill instead of a near-full complement of snaps for Jameis Winston, especially considering their lack of quality receivers. Hill in an 11-man run game has a chance to regulate this offense, and he proved last year that he can provide an occasional deep-passing element (or, at least the threat of one).
7. Ladies and gentlemen . . . R.E.M.!
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