NFL News and Notes 2024 Season
- Thread starter E5 Yaz
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Per Yahoo sports, his injury is now described as being much more severe than earlier reported. He has a torn ACL, MCL and LCL and damage to the meniscus. More importantly he sustained a dislocated knee which is a much more severe injury than the dislocate kneecap initially reported. Injury Update
Looks like he will not be back at all in 2025, but I was going to ask our resident medical community if he is at risk of not playing again. So awful…
Not sure how that makes sense. If it's now a good pick, that means it was a good pick from the start. Not like anything that has happened since was unforeseeable.
My take is it was always smart: you never pass on a potential franchise QB just because you have a 36 year old under contract, unless that 36 year old is Tom Brady. Many of the supposed experts were wrong that the QB 1st round class was 3 deep; Penix and Nix and I assume McCarthy -- though he can''t prove it -- were also all worthy 1st half of 1st round picks. And all the supposed experts were wrong in their hyperventilating critiques of the Penix pick. The "worst pick of the draft" awards given by said experts (pretty much uniformly, if memory serves) to Atlanta don't make much sense now, do they? Granted it's been just one game, but I go down that path based on thinking going into that draft that Penix was top 10 worthy if not top 5. It still puzzles me all the bile that pick generated. If there was a mistake, it was the Cousins signing. Even after signing him though, no way you pass on a guy who can be a franchise QB, as Atlanta (correctly I believe, though time will tell) pegged him.
I wonder if Bleacher Report has commented on its take or Yahoo on theirs:
Dallas Turner who is the guy that I saw most often tipped to be the smart pick for Atlanta has done very little, which would have made it even worse for the Falcons if they'd gone by expert consensus.
The point remains: why guarantee a QB at least $100M, only to immediately draft his cheap successor? It guarantees you're paying a ton at that position, rather than spending elsewhere. This season, the combined cap hit for Cousins and Penix is $34M. 2025, it's either $45M or they cut Cousins and accelerate his hit to make it $70M total. And if they do that, they go over the cap, as they're only under by $7M next year, so an already average team would have to look to cut well-paod talent. Had they not paid Cousins, and instead gone with a scrap heap guy like the Pats did, Penix has a clear path and they have money to spend on upgrades to support him. It's just poor planning.
Sure but the mistake was the Cousins contract not taking Penix. Cousins play has proven that guaranteeing that much money was a poor decision.
I think you have to assume that the FO thinks 2 things....the 100M QB wont suck so badly he has to be benched; and 2: the 100M QB is old and will eventually need to be replaced. The Packers and Love would be an example of that.
Whatever the merits of "how good they really are," the Falcons are tied for the division. "Scrap heap guy" leads them to not leading the division. I can totally understand why Blank doesn't choose that path.
Penix was destined to sit the whole season though until Cousins completely fell off a cliff the last 5 weeks (1 TD, 9 INTs). They could have tried Sam Darnold instead:
Cousins's stats through 9 games: 17 TDs, 7 INTs, ~2400 yards, $25M in cap space (3 years/100M guaranteed)
Sam Darnold's stats through 9 games: 17 TDs, 10 INTs, ~2100 yards, $10M in cap space (1 year/10M guaranteed)
I do see your point, especially in the NFC South, but you'd think that they'd have learned their lesson about overpaying older QBs after Matt Ryan.
Though in hindsight this is correct, nobody thought in June that Darnold was capable of anything other than a 4-13 season that would have involved more INTs than TDs.
Darnold's emergence this year has been absolutely remarkable.
Per-season averages:
2018-2023: 59.7%, 2,011 yds, 6.7 y/a, 11 td, 9 int, 78.3 rating
2024: 67.2%, 3,776 yds, 8.2 y/a, 32 td, 11 int, 105.4 rating
He very honestly ought to be right there in the MVP discussion. He won't (and shouldn't) win it, but he should be on the short list of contenders.
Burrow, Lamar, Allen, Darnold, Goff, Barkley, Henry, Chase
That's basically the list. I think it comes down to Lamar and Allen, but Darnold ought to get some votes. Which is something none of us thought would ever be possible.
Per-season averages:
2018-2023: 59.7%, 2,011 yds, 6.7 y/a, 11 td, 9 int, 78.3 rating
2024: 67.2%, 3,776 yds, 8.2 y/a, 32 td, 11 int, 105.4 rating
He very honestly ought to be right there in the MVP discussion. He won't (and shouldn't) win it, but he should be on the short list of contenders.
Burrow, Lamar, Allen, Darnold, Goff, Barkley, Henry, Chase
That's basically the list. I think it comes down to Lamar and Allen, but Darnold ought to get some votes. Which is something none of us thought would ever be possible.
I think there were some signs beforehand though. I've watched most of his games over the years and post-Jets Darnold has clearly been a better QB than Jets-Darnold. The first year at Carolina wasn't great, though in a terrible situation. But in 2022 he was actually pretty good - a stinker in one game hurt his stats and because he only played 6 games for a bad team he went under the radar a little, but he looked like a real QB. Then with the 49ers he mainly just had bits and pieces opportunities.
This year has clearly been at the upper end of what you might reasonably have hoped for from him, but I don't think it's totally out of the blue. I don't think MVP talk is justified - he ranks 13th in QBR and 8th in adjusted net yards and (to my eyes at least) he's benefitted hugely from having Justin Jefferson to throw to. He has been good - very good at times - but not great for me, in a good situation.
FWIW I would absolutely have taken him over Jacoby at the start of year, though my expectations for Jacoby were not high so that's not saying very much.
Generally speaking I feel like people are too quick to write off players who fail early on in their careers. Particularly those who had the misfortune to start in disfunctional organisations playing for bad teams. Particularly those who were drafted by the Jets. We've seen multiple examples of QBs in recent years looking totally different when they've moved - Tannehill, Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield, Goff and now Darnold all immediately come to mind. Does this mean I'm high on Zach Wilson's future....well no, I'm not going that far, but I do think that there are really good opportunities for teams to pick up capable players who've "busted" early on if they're prepared to keep an open mind.
I'm curious to see the details behind this report. Are they moving more money into 2025 and 2026 by raising his salaries those years and then adding fake years to the end of the deal? I'm also, of course, perplexed as to why the Browns would do anything that locks them into starting this clown next year.
Edit - some more details here - they added a fake year for no additional $ to the end of his deal. I'm a bit surprised the NFLPA is going for this.
Edit - some more details here - they added a fake year for no additional $ to the end of his deal. I'm a bit surprised the NFLPA is going for this.
One more edit - Jiminy Christmas:
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Sorry to bump this for more Deshaun Watson news, but this is almost funny.
https://www.news5cleveland.com/sports/browns/browns-face-reality-on-deshaun-watson-trade-with-qbs-new-injury-setback
Couldn’t have happened to a better guy.
I’m torn on what would be better: seeing him unable to ever play again or watch him Ben Simmons his way through the contract.
At this point, the Watson trade has to have surpassed the Herschel Walker trade as the gold standard of bad trades, right?
At least Walker gave the Vikings something. Hell, at least he actually played. Id take 3 full seasons of league average RB play over this.
At least Walker gave the Vikings something. Hell, at least he actually played. Id take 3 full seasons of league average RB play over this.
It has to be up there. It’s crazy to me that a guy who was a 3 time Pro Bowler by 25, skipped his age 26 season, and then came back healthy for his age 27 season could be so bad. Some kind of drop off could have been expected the first year but he basically turned into worst starting QB in the league. Plenty of guys suffer major injuries and then are fine the following year.
Like, what happened? He didn’t have a single 200 yard passing game this year before getting hurt. Crazy.
I don't think he could get his mental game on track. Honestly reminded me of post-2010 Tiger Woods. The injuries were different but what really killed Tiger was that he lost his mental edge. I think Watson has fallen into the same hole.
Not that high. Granted, the Saints gave up an entire draft (1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th) plus a 1 and 3 the next year to get him. But at least they got 3 good years out of him before trading him to Miami with a 4th for 2 firsts and a 4th. The Browns got nothing out of Watson so far, the Broncos got a terrible year and a meh year out of Wilson. Walker was worse because it was more picks (3 1sts, 3 2nds, 1 3rd, 1 6th and 4 players for Walker, 2 3rds, 1 5th and 1 10th) and he wasn't nearly as productive as Williams.
Be too aggressive during your rehab? It happened to professional rock climber Tommy Caldwell in 2022. He tore in a fall, had surgery, tried to climb 5 weeks later in an orthopedic boot and re-tore it.
Also, divine intervention...
It is a not too common medical term called Karmaitis.
but really it was probably at the repair site. Didn’t let it heal / scar in enough or the tissue was crap in the area or the doc didn’t do a good job. 3 mos out probably wasn’t healed enough as rehab picked up
This seems pretty bad for the Dolphins. Looks like good old Tyreek's time in Miami is coming to a messy end.
If he was out there on the free market would you take him on the Pats?
https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/drew-rosenhaus-implies-dolphins-hid-tyreek-hills-broken-wrist-for-weeks
If he was out there on the free market would you take him on the Pats?
https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/drew-rosenhaus-implies-dolphins-hid-tyreek-hills-broken-wrist-for-weeks
No. Hill is the bright line that I wouldn’t be able to rationalize. If the Patriots signed him, I wouldn’t be able to root for them again unless and until everyone involved in the decision was gone, including the Krafts.
I’m in Cleveland right now and at dinner w my college roommate from the area he said people think the Browns may look very closely to see if there’s any indication Watson reinjured himself doing something that wasn’t team approved to get out of the contract.
The funniest part of this interview was Drew spending 10 minutes about how Tyreek is being unfairly treated, cares so much about his teammates and the dolphins he braved a broken wrist, had a great meeting with the dolphins to clear the air, and then in the end he’s asked if Tyreek wants to be part of the Dolphins going forward and Drew says “uh…I don’t know, I’ll have to speak with my client about it”