Weekend winners
Buffalo Bills football. The Bills overcame a very slow start and punched a tired and beat up Steelers bunch Sunday night. It was Pittsburgh’s third game in 12 days. But it was the Bills that
Jalen Hurts. A football team in dire need of a spark got a flame thrower – and game-changing runner – from Jalen Hurts, who led the Eagles to easily their best game of the season in a 24-21 win over the Saints.
Derrick Henry. Of course Keyshawn Johnson said last week that Henry would need to rush for 2,500 yards and 40 TDs to be an MVP contender. Excellent insight, Key. Still Henry is an absolute warrior who has been amazingly durable considering the miles on Henry’s cleats. OK, the production stat first: Since the start of the 2018 season, the NFL has had four games with a player getting 200-plus rushing yards, and Henry has four of them after Sunday’s wrecking of Jacksonville. Now, let’s consider the durability of this 6-foot-4, 245-pound machine. In high school he had 1,397 carries and 12,124 yards (that’s 252.6 per game over four years). At Alabama, his first season he split time and had 35 carries (for 382 yards, mind you), his career in T-Town was 602 carries for 3,591 yards. Henry again split time in his first two NFL seasons, after Sunday’s shredding o the Jags, Henry has 1,101 career NFL carries and 5,365 yards. The numbers, since he started running the football at Yulee High in Florida as a freshman in 2009: 3,100 carries, 21,080 yards and 247 rushing TDs. There are a lot of things I would rather do than have to tackle Derrick Henry for a living, and a) I am sure I am not alone, and b) Henry knows very few people want to consistently make the business decision of tackling that grown bleepin’ man.
Dolphins’ math. Way to go Brian Flores. Way to go. Finally, we got someone who gets the math breakdown of a two-score deficit late in games. Down nine, Flores had the Dolphins kick a field goal as soon as they got into range and then tried the on-side kick to at least give them a chance. (Side bad-beat note: That field goal was anything but meaningless for a lot of invested folks since the line was Chiefs minus-7, and the final after the kick was K.C. 33, Miami 27.
Every college football coach who has had even an ounce of success or generated more than a cup-full of buzz this season. Because with openings at Vandy, Illinois and now Auburn, there will be enough phone calls through agents over the next 10 days – remember early signing starts Wednesday – will get everyone from Mario Cristobal to Matt Campbell to the dude at Coastal Carolina to everywhere in between a sizable raise.
Bonus pick: Lee Greeson. Yes, the lil’ 5-at-10 was at his academic excellence again. A week after placing in the mid-50s nationally and second in the state in the history bee, Lee finished 26th nationally and first in Tennessee in the all-around academic bee. Well done, and yes, Spy, he does take after his momma. (Thankfully.)
Weekend losers
Dan Bailey. Wow, a historically bad day for the Vikings kicker, who missed an extra point and three field goals in Minnesota’s 26-14 win. It’s the first time since 1961 an NFL kicker tried that many attempts and went 0-for-whatever. The kicker here (see what I did there Spy?) is Bailey was sixth all-time in field goal percentage entering the game at 86.9 percent.
Buffalo Bills fans. Yes, this may seem counterintuitive, but how crazy would the Bills Stadium have been last night, and for a fan base that has been tortured for decades, they deserve that joy in person and enjoying it together. Heck, they live in Buffalo for Pete’s sake.
Matt Ryan. I’ll ask, because I have hinted at this for more than two seasons as Julio Jones has struggled to stay healthy, but is Matt Ryan washed? Discuss.
Florida. That was a painful loss for the Gators, who stumbled Saturday against LSU. Feel free to insert your shoe-throwing joke here, since it extended the LSU drive for the game-winning field goal. In some ways it hurt Texas A&M, too, since it devalued the Aggies’ win over Florida from earlier in the season. Now, barring some real craziness that includes Northwestern beating THE Ohio State in the Big Ten title game, it’s very difficult to see the SEC getting two team in the playoffs without the Gators beating the Tide. Good luck with that.
The soul of college football. Yes, we knew this, but the reminder is still consistently stunning. And this is not about Gus – more on that in a moment – as much as it is the preemptive explanations and rationalizations about the candidates. And maybe I shouldn’t be shocked by this or fight the urge to need a shower after reading it, but we all know that Liberty’s Hugh Freeze assuredly is in play for multiple jobs, and the reports from multiple nations dudes is if Freeze leaves Liberty, a leading candidate to replace him is wait for it Art Briles. Wowser.
Those of us who thought the COVID and the loss of revenue would somehow slow down the silly season. The Malzahn news – more on that in a moment – truly escalates the bidding wars for the high-profile candidates now gets more intense. And more expensive.
Gus bus cancelled
I can’t say I was surprised when my phone went nuts Sunday.
Gus Malzahn was fired as the Auburn coach. It’s a move that will cost the school close to $40 million to buy out the entire staff. (Side note: Here’s hoping that whomever they bring in has an IQ over 45 and realizes that Kevin Steele and Rodney Garner have great value at what they do as DC and defensive line coach and recruiting ace, respectively.)
In some ways, we foreshadowed this last week after Malzahn offered that a four-loss season would be a ‘solid’ finish, and for a lot of Auburn fans who wanted to give Gus the benefit of the doubt, that quote looked more as an admission of accepting mediocrity than a slip of the tongue. In more ways, our weekend trip to Auburn over the past few days made me realize that this was more likely than unlikely considering the tenor of the town and the conversations I had with some folks who have way, Way, WAY better seats at Jordan-Hare than you or I could get.
Malzahn is a very good man. He has a near-historic graduation rate for the program. He has done this with very little NCAA scrutiny, something that even Auburn grads realize is not exactly a pattern through our football program’s complicated history.
He has represented the school with class and dignity and he will forever be loved there for three wins against Nick Saban, including the all-time memory that is the Kick Six.