Month: January 2018

Four months ago, if I’d told you Todd Bowles was safe in New York and Jack Del Rio was out in Oakland, you’d have thought I was nuts. Same thing if, four weeks ago, I’d told you Dirk Koetter was safe in Tampa Bay and Jim Caldwell was out in Detroit. We try to forecast these things, and in doing so, we apply the input we get from people inside the game who are plugged into these situations. But the truth is even those people often don’t know what the owners are going to do when it’s all said and done. Sometimes, owners change their minds, and the thing everybody was sure would happen … doesn’t.

Heck, look at Cleveland, where one of the most famously impatient owners in the league said he’s sticking with a coach who didn’t win a game all year and won only one the year before. Job security for 1-31 Hue Jackson is the ultimate symbol of the mercurial nature of coaching decisions made at an ownership level. Jimmy Haslam has jettisoned coaches with significantly better records than Jackson’s.

Sometimes, you can see these things coming. We all expected the Bears and Colts to make changes, and they are. But more often than not, we don’t know exactly what a team owner is thinking until he or she makes a move. And sometimes, even if we do know what the billionaires in Nike NFL Jerseys Supply charge of the decisions are thinking, they change their minds at the last second.

While Roethlisberger probably will play far better than that, the biggest challenge for Jacksonville could be stopping Le’Veon Bell in the running game. The Jaguars ranked first stopping the pass, but 21st against the run.

“I feel great, especially not playing these last two weeks, not going to (training) camp earlier in the year,” Bell says. “I can’t complain. I like where I am. This is the freshest I’ve ever been going into the playoffs so we’ll see how it goes.”

Jacksonville needs far better passing from Blake Bortles. He gained more Wholesale NFL Jerseys yards running than throwing vs. Buffalo in the wild-card round.

Connor McDavid in the playoffs? Whatever, that’s so 2017. In 2018, all the cool kids are excited about Taylor Hall and the high-flying Devils making the playoffs. Get up to speed with the latest trends in the NHL now that the calendar has flipped.

Part of Kopitar’s jump in production is puck luck. At 20.9 percent, his even-strength shooting percentage is higher than any season of his career, and nearly triple last season’s mark. That’s bound to come down. But L.A.’s franchise forward is also getting better opportunities. According to the analytics site Natural Stat Trick, he had 136 scoring chances in 2016-17, but is on pace for 168 this season. That would be the second-best rate of his career.

Brown has 29 total points and 25 at even-strength in 39 games following four straight seasons with under 40 points. Last season, Sutter broke up Kopitar and Brown, playing them together for fewer than 400 minutes. They have already cleared that mark this season. And when they are deployed at the same time, Kopitar and Brown have outscored opponents 30-17 and have an outstanding 54.2 Corsi for percentage.

Brown is back to playing nearly 20 minutes per game after three seasons of spending fewer than 17 minutes on ice.

“I’m sure just as any competitor would, when you go and have a bad outing or a difficult, tough outing against a team, you want that revenge,” Jacksonville quarterback Blake Bortles said. “You want to go prove that it was a fluke or whatever it might be. I’m sure that’s probably what he’s thinking.”

Not that Roethlisberger would admit it even if he is. Never one to go into great detail about how he goes about his job, Roethlisberger insists he’s focused simply on playing well. The fact it’s against the Jaguars is coincidental. There is no looking ahead to a potential shot at New England in the AFC title game, or a third Super Bowl that would provide an exclamation point on a potential Hall of Fame career.

“I am not worried about what’s going on up there (with the Patriots),” Roethlisberger said. “All I can think about and worry about is this defense that we are playing.”

A defense that will likely need to find a way to replicate its October dominance MLB Jerseys Usa to extend its season. The Steelers have been forced to revisit the loss this week, one Baseball Jerseys that put their journey from that moment to this one in perspective.

Their previous meeting was Mitchell Trubisky’s first start, a 20-17 Bears win; his play has gotten measurably better, while his team’s record (4-7) really has not. On NFL Jerseys Cheap Saturday night against the Packers, Case Keenum threw for a season-low 139 yards … and it didn’t matter, because the defense threw a shutout.

The Steelers will lay it all out in hopes that they can pass the Patriots for the No. 1 seed in the AFC, as the schedule-flexing kept that race in the early-afternoon window. It won’t be much on their minds to avoid being the team that keeps the Browns from the second 0-16 team in NFL history; it’s not as if it will taint the franchise’s rep, especially if they end up winning the Super Bowl. Beating the Texans as handily as they did in their first game without Antonio Brown has to boost their confidence.

The way the Cowboys exited so meekly from playoff contention last week could play into how they come out in a meaningless game against a rival with nothing for which to play. The Eagles do need to get much sharper than they looked against the Raiders, so there might not be as much resting of starters as expected, especially with a bye coming.

Coming back from hip injuries is tough. Think about it — we always Wholesale NFL Jerseys China worry about knees, ankles, and feet with NBA player injuries and those are important. But the hips are where all of those things start — bad hips mean you’re toast.

That’s why it’s incredible that Isaiah Thomas was able to get back to basketball without having surgery. In his debut for the Cavaliers, Thomas dropped 17 points and three assists in 19 minutes and looked like he’d been playing on this team for years.

But that’s just a testament to how good a player he is. There’s not much of an adjustment needed for Thomas, who has the NBA’s most translatable skill: Getting buckets.

I’m not saying there won’t be any bumps in the road or Thomas may not take steps back — he could. But if Tuesday was any indication, he’ll fit in just fine with LeBron James and company. And that should scare the hell out of the rest of the East.

Winston would proceed to throw for 334 yards against New England’s defense only for Tampa Bay to lose 19-14 on the game’s final play when rookie tight end O.J. Howard made the wrong decision on what proved an incomplete option route at the Patriots’ goal line.

Tampa Bay’s season went downhill from there with four more losses and Winston getting sidelined by a shoulder injury. While the Bucs haven’t won since his return in Week 13, Winston has the NFL’s highest passer rating (114.5) and third-best completion percentage (72) in December.

If the relationship between Koetter and Winston “is not in a good place” as reported earlier this month by NFL Network, the latter sure has a funny way of showing it.

“I rolled in the parking lot at 5:30 this morning, pitch dark, and guess whose truck was already in the player’s parking lot. Jameis Winston,” Koetter told co-host A.J. Hawk Cheap MLB Jerseys and Wholesale NFL Jerseys Supply me Wednesday on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “It’s the players’ day off on Tuesday and I roll in nice and early. Guess who’s already there. Jameis Winston.

“The guy is a grinder. He’s constantly studying tape. He’s meeting with the coaches. We’ve had guys in and out of the lineup and he’s meeting with the new guys. He’s trying to get everyone on the same page.”

The general belief is there are four contenders for the Super Bowl in the NFC, two in the AFC.

Both AFC South representatives are significant underdogs, the Titans at New England on Saturday night, the Jaguars at Pittsburgh on Sunday. For weeks, it’s been presumed Steelers vs. Patriots will decide who goes to the Super Bowl from the conference.

The Titans and Jaguars want to have their say.

“They’re the champs and these are the types of teams you’ve got to beat if you want to be the champs,” says Tennessee coach Mike Mularkey, who is 0-5 against the Patriots. “You’ve got to beat these teams at their place.”

At the beginning of his first training camp with the Bears, Mitchell Trubisky, the first quarterback taken in the 2017 NFL draft, couldn’t Hockey Jerseys even handle snaps under center. Anyone who had followed Trubisky’s journey to that moment last July couldn’t have been surprised.

Nor should any of them be surprised that, as 2018 dawns, Trubisky is the cornerstone of the franchise’s future, and he has earned the chance to prove why the Bears banked so much on him. Nothing special at the start, worth watching to see where he goes from there, and then arriving — it was a microcosm of his football life.

I think he’s progressed quite a bit in a short time, Bears broadcaster and former Bears quarterback Jim Miller told Sporting News as Trubisky’s rookie season drew to a close.

Miller remembered Trubisky’s struggles as two fumbled snaps in his first four plays. Other onlookers at Olivet Nazarene University recalled it as the first two snaps that day, and others as three out of the first four, and as three of the first six. It just kept happening, though.

You have to remember, though, he took something like two snaps under Cheap NFL Jerseys center his whole time at North Carolina, Miller added.

Tired of Alabama and Clemson yet? Because these epic playoff matchups could be just the beginning.

We have all witnessed Parts I, II and III, a trilogy that has grown a new rivalry between programs that have more College Football Playoff appearances, and more consecutive 10-win seasons, than anyone else in the country.

Good question, Alabama running back Damien Harris said.

I’m not a genie, so I don’t know, Alabama defensive end Da’Shawn Hand said.

None of us know. But the fun is in imagining the possibility, especially given the way the first three games played out. There are three main reasons to believe these games could become an annual event.

First: coaches. Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney have established themselves as elite head coaches. Only four active head coaches have won national championships: Saban leads the way with five, while Swinney has one.

Though much has been written about their different personalities, there is no question the key to the success at both programs starts with the way they have approached their jobs. There are different ways to win, and Saban and Swinney provide the perfect case study.