We’re about three weeks into free agency, and yet Adrian Peterson hasn’t garnered so much as a whiff from any NFL team.
It’s hard to believe we’re talking about the same guy who rushed for 2,000 just a few years ago. A couple of years ago he would have been the most sought-after superstar on the market, but now…crickets.
Peterson is certainly the biggest name left on the market. But does he have anything left in the tank?
John: Adrian Peterson is one of the best running backs I’ve ever watched play, and he’ll surely have a spot in Canton someday. So, as a Vikings fan, I felt lucky to be able to watch his unique combination of speed and power every Sunday.
But every star eventually fades, and the question now is whether AP has enough tread on the tires for a late-career encore with a different team. Honestly, it’s really hard to say at this point. After all, we’ve only seen him play 20 games in the last 3 years. And when we last watched him play, early in the 2016 season (disregard those few December carries), he was running behind one of the sorriest excuses for an offensive line I’ve ever seen.
Still, it’s hard to get excited about Adrian Peterson when he hasn’t really looked like Adrian Peterson since mid-2015. I certainly wouldn’t put it past him to rebound with another strong year or two in the right system, but I wouldn’t bet on it either (especially if the price is $8 million as some reports have indicated).(more…)
For the third time in just over a year, an NFL team is on the move.
On Monday, NFL owners gave the Oakland Raiders the green light to relocate to Las Vegas, joining the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers as recent transplants. The Raiders are expected to start playing in Sin City as soon as 2018, with a new stadium opening a couple of years after that.
The Raiders have been in Oakland, Los Angeles and back to Oakland. Will Vegas finally be home, sweet home?
John: Well, if the message wasn’t clear before, it sure as heck is now: cities better be prepared to pony up or shut up. Bow down and kiss the NFL’s ring (shield?) or lose your team.
Public officials have pledged almost $1 billion in public funding to lure the Raiders to Vegas. It’s an absurd amount of money, no question. But let’s set aside the politics and economics of this deal and instead explore the future of the Raiders and the league following this move.
The main question is: Can the NFL survive — and thrive — in Vegas? I certainly wouldn’t bet on it (sorry).
The first issue is the lack of a local fan base. Las Vegas will be one of the league’s smallest media markets. There are 2 million local residents, and many of them are transplants from other parts of the country. That means they probably already root for the Steelers or Cowboys or Vikings. So where does that leave the Raiders?
Now, I’m sure many fans from around the country will travel to Vegas to see their local teams play there — especially during the dead of winter. That makes for a fun weekend getaway for those fans, but the end result is that the stadium could end up being a home away from home for each week’s road team. That doesn’t seem like a recipe for long-term success, does it?(more…)
Just a year after being 15-1 and going to the Super Bowl, Carolina struggled to a 6-10 record in 2016. Several things fell apart, including Cam Newton, who struggled through an injury- and inconsistency-riddled follow-up to his MVP season.
Can the Panthers get things back in order and make another deep postseason run? Or was the year as runner-up the outlier? Brian Beversluis, a staff writer with Cat Scratch Reader, joins us with some thoughts.
Zoneblitz: The Panthers followed up a Super Bowl season with a 6-10. How would you assess what went wrong in 2016?
Beversluis: Injuries were obviously a big deal. Losing Michael Oher to a concussion all year was a major issue that threw the offensive line into shambles. In 2015, Oher stabilized the line and left only right tackle Mike Remmers as a weak link. In 2016, Remmers had to play left tackle, something he’s definitely not cut out for long term. Remmers has value as a swing guy (why he got paid in Minnesota) but he has no business there at LT all the time. Then their back up RT Daryl Williams got hurt too, forcing Pro Bowl right guard Trai Turner to play RT. They also eventually lost Ryan Kalil and his back up at center. Obviously for an offense that likes to take shots down field, that’s a problem. It caused Cam to take a lot of hits and allowed teams to load the box.
On defense, losing Josh Norman and having to field two rookie corners and unproven commodities at nickel threw the secondary into disarray, and the front seven struggled to get pass rush early on due to teams taking advantage of that.
Zoneblitz: Cam Newton wasn’t terrible in 2016, but despite the return of Kelvin Benjamin, he didn’t come close to matching his magical 2015. What happened there? (more…)
Welcome to the first ever (formal) Rampant Speculation, where we go full-on Mike Florio style, and speculate on something that we have absolutely no idea about whatsoever, purely based on what we think might be logical—despite the obvious fact that little in the NFL seems logical, to “layfolk” like us.
So what has us speculating that 2017 could, in fact, be Tom Brady’s last season playing in the NFL? After all, he seems to be still playing at a high level, having just led his team to the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history, becoming just the second player in NFL history (after Charles Haley) to win five Super Bowls—the first quarterback, the first to do so all with one team—and the first to win four Super Bowl MVPs (rightfully or not). Statistically, he had another incredible season, with a 28:2 TD to Int ratio (best all time), completed a career second best 67.4% of his passes, and finished the season 11-1.
Well, to start, there’s the lede in Florio’s own story—his wife, Giselle, has told him he should walk out on top—and Zolak agrees that if he wins a sixth Super Bowl, he might just do that. The addition of Brandin Cooks & Stephen Gillmore to the Patriots roster would seem to make them the early odds on favorite to do just that—it will be hard to pick against them, no matter what other teams do.
Secondly, while Brady did play incredibly in 2016, there were moments during the Super Bowl—the first extended action of Brady’s that I saw this year—that he looked a little…Peyton Manning-esque. As in 2015 Peyton Manning. As in medium to deep passes looking a bit wobbly, and looking a bit more human as the Falcons pummeled him. One thing that could hurt Brady’s chance for ring number six in 2017—if teams decide that the path to finally toppling the Pats is by physically abusing Brady, no matter the cost. Some teams might be ready to do that, just out of spite.
The final reason for thinking that Brady could be done after 2017—the reason I actually started thinking that there’s a better than zero percent chance—the Patriots appear to be set on not moving Jimmy Garoppolo. After all of the success that Bill Belichick has had in seemingly being clairvoyant in moving players right before they started to decline, or maximizing return on guys who clearly wouldn’t have a role—he suddenly is keeping his young backup quarterback, who after starting the season with a bang in 2016 for the suspended Brady, could easily bring back a high first round pick from a team like the Browns? Garappolo will be a free agent after the 2017 season, at which point you know that a quarterback needy team will back up the armored truck to his house—and you have to assume that Garappolo wants the chance to start.
Not trading Garappolo while at peak value—especially when they stand to get minimal return in 2018 (some sort of compensatory pick)—is an incredibly un-Belichick like move—and one that could have roots in Belichick knowing something that no one else does. If Belichick knows already that 2017 could be Brady’s final season—and has had that conversation with Garappolo in some form—it could be the Patriots themselves that back up the armored truck to his door. After all, it would be ideal to replace Brady with someone who has been in the exact same system for four years, and has shown (albeit in limited experience) that he can perform at a similarly high level? Sure, keeping something like this secret would seemingly be a difficult task—but Belichick and the Patriots seem to be experts at keeping things in house.
And if you’re Garappolo—wouldn’t you relish the chance to start the next phase of your career—as a starting NFL quarterback—running the best franchise in the league, potentially continuing the dynasty run for another 8-10 years?
That should be a scary thought to other NFL Executives—and one that has probably crossed more than just my mind.
The 2016 season was not kind to the Chargers, nor its fans. On the field, San Diego failed to finish games, resulting in a 5-11 record that included nine losses by one score. Off the field, the team, the league and the city were unable to come to an agreement on stadium issues.
So, the team’s long-rumored move to Los Angeles has commenced.
Will a new home and a new head coach help turn this team’s fortunes around? Or does Anthony Lynn’s team have more problems that need to be fixed to expect a one year turnaround?
Richard Wade, managing editor of Bolts from the Blue, shared his thoughts on those and other issues facing the soon-to-be Los Angeles Chargers.
Zoneblitz: We’ll focus primarily on the field, but the 800-pound gorilla in the room is the team’s move. What are your thoughts on the transition to Los Angeles?
Wade: As a native San Diegan and lifelong Chargers fan the transition to Los Angeles has been awful to experience. A big part of the enjoyment of sports is the shared experience with family, friends, and community. With the team packing up and leaving, that shared experience has been taken apart. Also, the manner in which the Spanos family has handled the move has been embarrassing to watch, so there is really very little to feel good about when it comes to supporting this franchise in 2017.
Zoneblitz: The Chargers were, in my opinion, one of the league’s more confusing teams in 2016. It went 5-11 but lost nine of those games by one score. How would you assess this team and what went wrong?
Wade: The Chargers’ inability to close out games can mostly be traced back to two things: terrible coaching and inadequate depth. Head coach Mike McCoy was one of the worst I have ever seen at managing the clock and understanding game situations. He directly cost the team multiple games. Also, the roster that general manager Tom Telesco put together had some very capable starters at most positions, but the depth was poor to nonexistent and that showed up in the second half of games early on and was even more exposed as injuries started to pile up. (more…)
Expectations were high in New York, following a 10-6 2015 season. But pretty much right out of the gate, the 2016 season ended up being as bad as the previous season was good.
Injuries, age, poor QB play and suspensions, among other problems, decimated the Jets, dooming them to a 5-11 season.
Do Todd Bowles and his team have what they need to turn things around? What happens at the QB position? Can the Jets show that 2016 was the outlier instead of 2015?
Joe Caporoso, owner of Turn on the Jets, joined us to share his thoughts.
Zoneblitz: The 2016 season was as bad as 2015 was promising – what went wrong?
Caporoso: The quarterback play was the worst in the NFL and that started a domino effect of incompetence throughout the team. Todd Bowles regressed as a coach, young players like Calvin Pryor and Lorenzo Mauldin took a step back, the team’s red zone efficiency plummeted and they stopped being able to force turnovers. Throw in a few key injuries (Eric Decker, Nick Mangold) and you have the perfect recipe for 5-11.
Zoneblitz: Was retaining Todd Bowles the right move?
Caporoso: I think so. This team can’t keep flipping everything over every 2 years. At this time last year Bowles was coming off a solid 10-6 rookie year, one year after being the AP Assistant Coach of the Year, it is hard to think he has transformed into Rich Kotite and can’t coach anymore. He must improve his game management and ability to make quicker decisions on ineffective players but I am not surprised he got a third year. (more…)
Add in that he’s on record saying that he would like to play 10 more years (as recently as the 
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