FMIA Week 9: Football Morning in Germany with Mahomes and the Chiefs

The heartbreak of being a Cowboys fan. Are you kidding me with the way that ended at the Linc?

Nineteen seconds. That’s what it took Dallas to go 80 yards to the doorstep of their biggest win in a long, long time. And poof—it was gone.

Dolphins, 6-3. I don’t mean to harp on the negative here, but you’ve got to beat a better team than the Chargers—by two—for the football world to think you’ll be playing deep into January.

Josh Dobbs, as a kid, wanted to be an NFL quarterback or an astronaut. Did you know that? I think he chose correctly.

Keaton Mitchell, rookie, undrafted, East Carolina. Ravens signed him. He led every back in the NFL with 138 rushing yards in week nine.

Baltimore is going to be a handful for all the teams we love in the AFC—and there are plenty.

C.J. Stroud is giving some very bad publicity to the S2 Test, the cognition/process tests that trashed Stroud for a poor pre-draft score. All he did Sunday was throw for the most yards a rookie quarterback’s ever put up in the 104-year history of the league.

Tyson Bagent: Reality bites. Four turnovers in four quarters, as he committed in the loss to New Orleans, might win some games in Shepherdstown, but not in the NFL.

Note to Antonio Pierce: They’re all as easy as that win Sunday against the Hasbrouck Heights varsity.

International football. Dublin deserves a game. Australia too. But the focus now is on Spain, Brazil and perhaps Paris, very soon.

Jim Schwartz, on a given day, can make Clayton Tune look like Tommy Tune. That given day was Sunday. The Browns held an awful Arizona team to 58 yards.

Jordan Love gets a reprieve, but I’m not sure much got proven at Lambeau Field in a duel with the immortal Brett Rypien.

Intervention. I’m suggesting one for Mark Davis, even after that fun rout in Vegas Sunday.

Kenny Moore, have a day. Ever think you’d have two pick-sixes in two hours?

The New York Football Giants. It’s possible that some edition of this glorious franchise has been worse, but sitting here in Frankfurt after midnight Europe time, I can’t think of one. And why oh why did my German hotel show one game—Giants-Raiders—in the late window, and not even a highlight of Cowboys-Eagles?

I bet Tommy DeVito thought being an NFL quarterback was a job to aspire to, until the last eight days.

Buffalo, 5-4. Where exactly is the needed winning streak coming from, with Denver, the Jets, at Philadelphia, at Kansas City, Dallas looming?

New England, 2-7. What’s left to say?

Festive Saturday night in central Frankfurt, which is divided by the River Main. The Chiefs procured a 250-foot luxury three-deck yacht, wrapped it in red and christened it “ChampionShip,” as a beacon for the tons of KC fans in town for the game—or local fans who wanted to see and touch NFL things, like the franchise’s Super Bowl trophies. The franchise has invested a reported $3 million to build a German market.

On the ship Saturday night, owner Clark Hunt and commissioner Roger Goodell mingled with fans and corporate types. “We don’t want to wait another eight years to play overseas,” club president Mark Donovan told me on the ship. In an ideal world, KC would be a road team so it wouldn’t have to give up a home game, but no foe would want to give up a home game with Patrick Mahomes on the field, so the team might have to come over again in a year when it has nine home games. Donovan said the franchise looks at international games as a long-term play. “On a P and L basis, this doesn’t make sense in the short-term,” he said. “When we look at what we’re doing today, the true benefits will be 30 years down the road.”

But it helps to win, of course, and Kansas City is an immensely popular team here right now. The team arrived Friday morning after an overnight flight from Kansas City and had a light late afternoon practice that was mobbed by German and European media at the German national soccer team’s training facility near Deutsche Bank Park. At the post-practice news conference, 31 video cameras and about 125 reporters showed up—beating the crowd that came to see Tom Brady and the Bucs in Munich 51 weeks earlier. The highlight came when a female reporter asked Travis Kelce about the status of his current relationship with Taylor Swift, and whether he was in love with her.

Now there’s something I never thought I’d be writing in this column.

“The latest status is I got to see her last week,” Kelce said, trying to make the topic disappear.

“Are you in love?” the reporter said.

“I’m gonna keep my personal relationship personal,” he said, courteously.

Friday night, coach Andy Reid went to dinner with his wife Tammy in the city. He told his security guy he didn’t need an escort. But the security guy went. When they walked into the restaurant, Reid looked around. All red. “All our fans,” he said. “Amazing.”

During the week, the city was awash in red, and Kansas City fans outnumbered Miami maybe 80-20. On gameday, when the PA announcer said, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome head coach Mike McDaniel and the Miami Dolphins,” the reaction was cacophonous.

“Boooooooooooo!”

And at the end of the U.S. National Anthem, as is the Arrowhead custom, the singer was drowned out when she sang, “The land of the free, and the home … of the …

“CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEFFFFS!”

“Electric the whole game,” said KC’s Edwards. “Felt like a playoff game. Whole Germany is crazy.”

“It felt like we picked up Arrowhead and dropped it over here in Frankfurt,” receiver Justin Watson said. That is precisely what Clark Hunt and Mark Donovan want to build here.

Watson was part of an explosive first drive, seeming to finish it with a diving TD catch just 2:52 in. When it was ruled a trap on replay review, Mahomes took five extra seconds to score for real, on an 11-yard throw to a darting rookie, Rashee Rice, up the left seam. Mahomes led a 95-yard drive to a score in the second quarter, and KC was getting in gear now.

Now for the crazy play. Forty-seven seconds left in the half, and Tua Tagovailoa threw a swing pass to get Tyreek Hill open in space to the left. A lovely looking play, except no one blocked the cornerback, McDuffie. It was a strange tackle—McDuffie had his arms around Hill’s legs near the knees and still found a way to punch the ball out of Hill’s grasp at the KC 38-yard line. “When I made the hit, tried my best to strip it out,” McDuffie said. Edwards picked it up at the 37 and made it upfield four yards as Hill aggressively tackled him, turning him around in the process. Before going down, Edwards shovel-passed it to safety Bryan Cook, the 2022 second-rounder from Cincinnati. And he was off for a 59-yard TD down the right sideline.

“McDuffie’s relentless,” Andy Reid said of his 2022 first-round corner. “Quick, strong, tough. I mean tough. A lot like our defense. Lots of very young guys, tough and fast. Last year, our secondary was kind of watching and hesitant. We strengthened our linebackers a bit this year. Now the young guys have kind of taken over on defense.”

The Dolphins could easily have climbed back to 14-7 by halftime right there, with the first possession of the second half theirs. Instead it was 21-0 at the half. And Miami punted on its first drive of the second half.

It was setting up for a KC rout, but Mahomes got nothing done in a flat second half. Miami got two TDs in the last five minutes of the third quarter, and Miami had a good chance to tie it in the final 70 seconds. With a third-and-10 at the KC 31-yard line and 67 seconds left, Tua Tagovailoa threw a deep ball 10 yards short to an open Cedrick Wilson down the left side. Tagovailoa blamed himself for a miscommunication, and that may be true; in any case, the ball looked awful, way short and way left in a crucial situation.

On fourth down, Tagovailoa was in shotgun. The snap from center Connor Williams was just off to the right, but certainly not uncatchable. It went right through Tagovailoa’s hands. Terrible pass on third down. Brain fart on fourth down. Not exactly how the pilot of the best offense wants to end a vital game that might—might—determine AFC home-field. “I’ve got to catch that ball,” Tua said. “Can’t end a game like that against a really good team.” Miami’s 0-3 against said good teams this year.

When the game was over, Reid and offensive coordinator Matt Nagy were alone in Reid’s office for 17 minutes. Clearly, nine points last week in Denver and 14 offensive points this week is not good enough. We got used to seeing Kansas City’s offense score 23 points in a half; now it’s a streak of four halves with 23 total. Here’s what I saw Sunday: narrow separation with receivers and a good Miami secondary. That’s got to change—either by an increased usage of motion by quick guys like Rashee Rice and Kadarius Toney, or maybe by expanding the use of big-time sparkplug Isaiah Pacheco, who runs very, very angry. I kept thinking Sunday: I wonder what would result if Pacheco was split out more, maybe even to run the kind of orbit motion Tyreek Hill has made so dangerous in Miami.

As KC heads into its bye (Philly comes to Arrowhead two Mondays from today), Reid seemed pensive when I met him in his office for a few minutes post-game.

“I do have faith in our guys, yeah,” Reid said. “We’re a little bit like the defense was last year in that we’re young in some spots. But we’re getting better. [Rashee Rice] is getting better every week and so we just gotta keep coming. If they’re gonna double Kelce, these other guys have to step up. [Justin] Watson, who’s not a rookie, he’s getting better in the offense. Skyy Moore made plays today. We know what we can be.”

Time’s of the essence. Kansas City’s 7-2, atop the AFC with Baltimore; the 6-2 Jags are a bye week behind. It was a good weekend for the franchise in Frankfurt. Now the business shifts back to all football down the stretch. Mahomes’ receivers must rise closer to his level. They’ve got to find a way to separate, starting against James Bradberry and Darius Slay two weeks from tonight. Luckily for the team, there’s a top-five to seven defense in place to help, finally.

The last 11 months of an itinerant quarterback:

Dec. 20, 2022. Dobbs, on the Detroit practice squad, got a call from agent Mike McCartney. Tennessee had an injury to quarterback Ryan Tannehill and interim GM Ryan Cowden needed a QB to pair with rookie Malik Willis. Cowden watched enough tape to know he wanted Dobbs, who jumped at the chance. Tennessee signed him off the Detroit practice squad.

Dec. 29, 2022. After eight days in the Titans’ building, Dobbs started the last two regular-season games against Dallas and Jacksonville, losing both.

March 23, 2023. In free agency, Dobbs signed with Cleveland, picking the Browns over Tennessee.

Aug. 24, 2023. The Browns traded Dobbs to Arizona, where the new regime of Jonathan Gannon did not feel great about Colt McCoy and David Blough holding the fort till Kyler Murray returned from a torn ACL.

Sept. 10, 2023. Seventeen days after arriving with the Cardinals, Dobbs started at Washington. In week three, he won the first game of his starting career. He retained the starting job until the morning of …

Oct. 30, 2023. Gannon said at his post-game press conference Sunday Dobbs would remain the starter. But he had a change of heart. He called in Dobbs and said he was making a change, but Dobbs would remain with the team through the trade deadline. Good, thought Dobbs; my furniture just got here from Cleveland, and I’ve just moved into a new home.

Oct. 31, 2023. “Better have one bag packed, just in case,” McCartney told Dobbs early in the day. Good thing. The Cards traded Dobbs to QB-desperate Minnesota after the injury to Kirk Cousins. Dobbs made a 5 p.m. nonstop flight to Minneapolis, leaving his furniture, again, behind.

Nov. 1, 2023. Wednesday. First day of the work week. Dobbs reported, took a physical, started getting a crash course with the offense, and got ready to back up rookie Jaren Hall, set to make his first start in Atlanta over the weekend. This would be a week for studying, for learning a new offense, for helping Hall get through his first big NFL test.

Nov. 5, 2023. Strange day all around. Dobbs was back in his hometown of Atlanta, just down the street from his days as an Alpharetta High quarterback. “I looked over and saw the guys on the chain gang,” he said later. “They used to officiate my high school games.” Eleven plays into the game, Hall got concussed. “They told me don’t get hurt, because I’m the only quarterback,” Dobbs said. His first series ended in a safety, the second in a lost strip-sack. He hadn’t taken one snap with the first unit, and was so ill-equipped to play anything more than emergency duty that he practiced the cadence and snap with center Garrett Bradbury between series. In the final two minutes, he led the Vikings 75 yards to the winning touchdown, throwing the decisive TD pass to Brandon Powell with 22 seconds left. Vikes 31, Falcons 28. In the locker room after the game, head coach Kevin O’Connell gave Dobbs a game ball. His new teammates, some of whom he hadn’t met yet, lifted him on their shoulders in celebration.

Five teams, 45 weeks.

“I told [McCartney], this should be a book, or a movie,” Dobbs said an hour after the most unlikely win of this NFL season. “But who’d believe it?”

What I’ve picked up on the state of the NFL game outside the United States:

Carolina on deck in Munich. Germany will host one game next year, and it figures to be the Panthers—the only one of the four original NFL teams to declare Germany as a global-rights country that hasn’t been scheduled for a game here—giving up one of six non-division games in Charlotte. Dallas and Kansas City are on the Panthers’ home slate but seem unlikely to play here next year; Carolina wouldn’t want to give up a Cowboys or KC home game. That’d leave the Giants, Chargers, or the NFC West or AFC North foes who finish in a like place to Carolina in the ’23 standings. I went to a Panthers-sponsored cornhole tournament with Steve Smith in the house on Saturday, and the fans there believe they’re the chosen team for Munich next fall.

Five international games next year, and rising. Three in London (two at Tottenham, the Jags at Wembley), one in Munich, and one either in Brazil or Spain—to be determined within the next two months. NFL VP/international Peter O’Reilly told me Saturday that “2025 could be where we might go beyond” the current structure of five outside the U.S. The change has come because the NFL no longer has to twist arms to find teams willing to play a home game outside the country, and it’s a rule now that every team has to play one home game every eight years internationally. “Now,” O’Reilly said, “it is very much teams raising their hands. There’s a reason that the Chiefs and the Patriots are the two designated teams these next two weeks, and that’s based on they have rights here. They raised their hands and said, ‘We want to be over there in Germany.’” (O’Reilly appears on The Peter King Podcast this week. It drops Tuesday by 6 p.m.)

Gut feeling about the future. Spain and Brazil in the next two years, Paris in 2025 or beyond, and Dublin at some point soon. The Steelers would like to play a designated home game there at some point soon and would likely have nine home games in 2025 and 2027. Significant rumors here about Spain being the game site for 2024, likely with the Bears as home team. But stadia in Brazil—after the World Cup and the Olympics in the country in the past seven years—are a bit better, and that could be a factor as well.

Australia? Yes. Lots of interest there—the Rams and Eagles have global-market rights to Australia and New Zealand. Because of the arduous road there (it’s a 15-hour flight from L.A.), a mid-season game would be challenging. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the NFL play a week-one game in Australia at mid-day on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday, perhaps moving the Super Bowl champ to the Sunday night opener. As far as timing, a September game played at noon on Friday would air live in the U.S. at 9 p.m. ET Thursday. Different, but doable.

The Kansas City interest. Clark Hunt took over as the franchise owner in 2006, after the death of his father and team founder Lamar Hunt. Clark Hunt relayed a 49-year-old story to me Saturday night about Germany, and his father’s love of international sport. “In 1974,” Hunt said, “I was 9 years old and we attended the World Cup here in Germany. The first game I saw at the World Cup was in the stadium we’ll play in tomorrow. My dad would be really excited that we’re playing here in Frankfurt this weekend.”

This is not a defense of Josh McDaniels. On the day he and GM Dave Ziegler were fired, the Raiders were 30^th in the NFL in scoring, 31^st in total yards and, with the returning rushing champ in Josh Jacobs, dead last in rushing. Ian Rapoport reported Sunday that players and coaches ripped McDaniels at a recent team meeting, with the coach present. McDaniels and Ziegler made a series of decisions that were not panning out—and that’s putting it mildly. (No one’s talking about the decisions that left the offensive line in tatters. Jimmy Garoppolo is going to be lousy if he isn’t protected well, and those desperate off-the-mark throws to Davante Adams last Monday in Detroit were reflections of a leaky line more than a bad quarterback.)

When I woke up Wednesday morning and saw the 1:09 a.m. ET news that McDaniels and Ziegler got fired, my first thought, after “Holy crap,” was the Albert Einstein quote: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” There will be coaches who will want this job. GMs too. This is the NFL, and these are the storied Raiders. Owner Mark Davis will convince Lou Anarumo or Brian Johnson or some other Joe Hot Coordinator that this job is a jewel, or maybe he’ll fall in love with Raider-loving Antonio Pierce over the next two months and give him the full-time gig.

But re: Einstein, this should be a time of internal reflection by what’s become a circus of a franchise. Blame over the state of the Raiders falls on McDaniels and Ziegler, of course. But it’s certainly shared in this case. Mark Davis has been in charge of the Raiders since his father died in 2011. Pierce is Mark Davis’ eighth head coach. The previous seven have lasted 16, 36, 12, 49, 53, 13 and 25 games. How about installing seven coaches in one of the most high-profile coaching jobs on planet earth … and not one of them lasts even halfway into a fourth season? How about firing the latest coach 1.5 years into a six-year contract, with an estimated $50 million left to pay McDaniels? Shouldn’t the owner take some responsibility for that? Shouldn’t the owner take a lot of responsibility for that?

In the 11 full seasons (2012-’22) Mark Davis has run the franchise, the Raiders have averaged 6.45 wins a season, with zero playoff wins. Three team presidents in the last three years. The chief operating officer, Mike Newquist, was fired Friday. When does it end?

I covered the first round of the Raiders’ draft last April. In the draft room, I asked Davis what he thought of Ziegler and McDaniels entering year two of their regime. He said, “When we hired them, everybody thought we were trying to re-create the Patriots. That wasn’t it. I was trying to find two great football men. Now, this is their chance to build something. They’re young, they love football, and I’m thrilled with them.”

Six months later, both are gone. Isn’t it time for an intervention in Las Vegas?

A recurring element in the column this year: a video memory of one of my favorite memories of 40 years covering pro football.

I don’t want to over-Deutschland you in this column, but my best memory of 2022 is the first international game I witnessed—Tampa Bay 21, Seattle 16, in Munich. More than the game, it was the experience of seeing a historic German plaza with tons of fans in Seattle jerseys chanting “Sea-HAWKS! Sea-HAWKS!”

My memory from a year ago, recorded in Frankfurt this weekend:

Offensive players of the week

C.J. Stroud, quarterback, Houston. In setting the NFL rookie record for passing yards in a game (470, with five TDs and 30 of 42 passing to beat the Bucs), Stroud confirmed he’s the gem of the rookie class of NFL quarterbacks. The key: a last-minute six-play, 75-yard drive against a good defense, capping it with a 15-yared pass to Tank Dell with six minutes left to beat Tampa 39-37.

Josh Dobbs, quarterback, Minnesota. Employed by his fifth team in the past 11 months, Dobbs had the kind of day kids dream of. Itinerant kids, anyway. Entering the game for concussed first-time starter Jaren Hall, Dobbs completed 20 of 30 passes for 158 yards, with two touchdowns and no picks, and his 75-yard drive in the final two minutes at Atlanta—his hometown—culminated in the winning touchdown pass to slot receiver Brandon Powell with 22 seconds left. Vikes 31, Falcons 28.

Defensive players of the week

Kenny Moore II, cornerback, Indianapolis. Cornerbacks can’t have a better day than Moore had in Charlotte Sunday. Late in the second quarter, his 49-yard interception return for a touchdown against Bryce Young gave the Colts a 17-point lead heading into halftime. In the fourth quarter, his 66-yard pick-six against Young gave the Colts a 17-point lead to ice their fourth win of the year. Valdosta State, be proud of your native son.

Trent McDuffie, cornerback, Kansas City. What? Giving DPOW to a guy who gave up a big touchdown pass to Miami in a surprising defensive duel? Yes. Absolutely. On a day with two transcendent offenses on the field in Germany, the greatest and biggest game-changing play was made by a cornerback. With KC up 14-0 late in the second quarter, Miami was driving to cut the lead in half by halftime. Tyreek Hill took a swing pass at the KC 35-. McDuffie stopped him in his tracks by encircling his legs, and before Hill could go down, McDuffie chopped the ball from his hands. Safety Mike Edwards recovered, and with the crowd in a tizzy, Hill got a grip on Edwards to make a tackle. Before Edwards went down, he lateraled to fellow safety Bryan Cook at the KC 41-yard line and Cook ran 59 yards for the score. McDuffie’s play turned a possible 14-7 halftime game into 21-zip. For the day, McDuffie added a game-high 10 tackles and gave Hill a handful all day.

Demario Davis, linebacker, New Orleans. One of the most underappreciated players of this era had 10 tackles and strip-sacked Tyson Bagent on the Bears’ last drive to save a 24-17 win for the Saints, who continue to hang on in the NFC South playoff chase at 5-4.

Special teams players of the week

Dare Ogunbowale, running back/kicker, Houston. For the first time in 19 years, an NFL player who is not a kicker made a field goal in a game. After Houston kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn suffered a quad injury in the first half against Tampa, Ogunbowale took over kicking duties and booted a 29-yard field goal in a 39-37 win for the Texans. Also notable: His kickoff with seconds to go, after the Texans took the 39-37 lead, made it to the end zone and handed the Bucs a very long field with six seconds to go. “Dare is our player of the game,” Houston coach DeMeco Ryans said.

Nick Folk, kicker, Tennessee. Folk turned 39 Sunday, a day off after the Titans lost to Pittsburgh 20-16 despite 36-, 26- and 48-yard field goals by Folk Thursday night. Folk continued an incredible run of kicking. Since the 2020 season with New England, Folk, in his age-36, -37, -38 and -39 seasons, has made 113 of 123 field goals, good for 91.9 percent in his golden kicking years. That includes an NFL-record 72 consecutive field goals inside 40 yards.

Coaches of the Week

Steve Spagnuolo, defensive coordinator, Kansas City. Poetic justice for Spagnuolo Sunday in Frankfurt. Exactly 25 years ago, at age 38, he was the defensive coordinator for the Frankfurt Galaxy in NFL Europe and helped the Galaxy to a division title. On Sunday, as KC’s defensive coordinator, he choreographed a defense that totally frustrated the best offense in football. Miami’s six first-half possessions: punt, punt, punt, punts, Tyreek Hill lost fumble-turned-TD, punt. For good measure, another punt on the first drive of the second half. Masterclass by the veteran coach.

Mike Tomlin, head coach, Pittsburgh. Well-worn stat in the wake of the Steelers’ 20-16 win over the Titans: The Steelers are somehow 5-3 after being outgained in all eight of their games this year. They’ve been outscored by 30 points. Sometimes you can’t put your finger on exactly why a team that appears bound for mediocrity finds ways to win. I’ve always thought Tomlin’s will has a lot to do with Pittsburgh never going back to ground zero. He says things that sound like cliches sometimes, like, “The standard is the standard.” But it doesn’t matter if you and I buy it. His players do, and that’s all that matters.

I.

--Minnesota receiver Jordan Addison, after Dobbs, on his fifth day with the Vikings after a trade from Arizona, quarterbacked the Vikings to a 31-28 win over Atlanta. Addison was targeted six times by Dobbs, caught four passes, and gained 52 yards.

That’s one of the great stories of this year.

II.

--The crowd in Las Vegas, as owner Mark Davis walked onto the Allegiant Stadium turf before the game, five days after Davis fired the unpopular coach, Josh McDaniels.

III.

--CBS game analyst Matt Ryan, the former Falcons QB, after being “sacked” in a friendly way by New Orleans pass-rusher Cam Jordan before the Saints-Bears game.

IV.

--Miami coach Mike McDaniel, after the final two awful offensive snaps doomed Miami in the 21-14 loss to Kansas City.

V.

--Kansas City coach Andy Reid, international diplomat.

VI.

--One of the great “did not practice” designations in NFL history, from the Buffalo Bills practice report filed with the league on Wednesday about cornerback Rasul Douglas. Each team has to tell the league on the days prior to a game whether each active player practiced, and if not, why. Douglas was acquired in trade from Green Bay on Tuesday, arrived in Buffalo on Wednesday, and the rest is practice report history.

I.

Now that the trade deadline has passed and there can be no more dealing until after the season, we have clarity on where draft choices sit for the April 25-27, 2024 draft in Detroit. The Cardinals and Bears set up as the power players in the draft. Notable in the first three rounds, the prime time of the draft, days one and two:

Arizona leads with six picks, including Houston’s one plus threes from Tennessee and Houston. As of this morning, that would have the Cards, approximately, drafting overall at 1, 16, 33, 65, 72 and 80. That’s a lot of potential fixes for a needy team, however the draft order shakes out in finality.

Chicago, with Carolina’s one from the Bryce Young trade last year, is apace to have picks 2 and 3 overall.

Washington, after the Montez Sweat and Chase Young trades, has its own picks in the first three rounds plus Chicago’s for Sweat—37^th overall, as of today—and the last pick in the third round, projected to be 100^th, from San Francisco for Young.

Green Bay has five picks in the first three rounds, with added ones from the Jets in round two (Aaron Rodgers trade) and Buffalo in the third (Rasul Douglas trade).

New England hasn’t had a top five pick since 1994 (Willie McGinest, fourth overall). Highest pick in the Belichick drafting era (2000-’23): Richard Seymour, sixth overall, 2001. New England’s average first overall pick under Belichick is 29.3. Of course there’s the matter of whether Belichick is even making that pick next April.

II.

C.J. Stroud is on pace throw to for 4,823 yards in his rookie season.

Peyton Manning started 16 games and threw for 3,739 yards as a rookie.

I.

When I started covering the NFL in 1984, the greatest rivalry in the game—although it was declining a bit after the mania of the seventies—was Raiders-Steelers. Madden, Noll, Bradshaw, Stabler, Mean Joe, Tatum, Immaculate Reception, Franco’s Italian Army, etc.

The Steelers have won 396 games (22 in the playoffs) and two Super Bowls in those 40 seasons. Raiders: 291 (six in the playoffs), and zero Super Bowls.

In the 40 years I’ve covered the game, the Steelers have had three coaches; the Raiders, 19.

I’m thinking there might a correlation between the Steelers winning 105 more games than the Raiders … and the Steelers averaging 13.3 seasons per coach in those 40 years, and the Raiders averaging 2.1 seasons per coach.

II.

Number 18 on the list of top 50 prospects for the 2024 NFL Draft by respected draft analyst Dane Brugler is Alabama cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry.

Kool-Aid’s real first name is Ga’Quincy. But Kool-Aid’s name on the Alabama roster is not listed as Ga’Quincy McKinstry; it is Kool-Aid McKinstry. His grandmother nicknamed him Kool-Aid at a very young age because she thought his smile reminded her of the Kool-Aid Man. In 2021, Kool-Aid signed an NIL deal with Kool-Aid after his freshman year at Alabama. “The Kool-Aid Man means a lot to me,” said Kool-Aid.

You realize, of course, that I did the Kool-Aid McKinstry factoid this week because it meant that I could use “Kool-Aid” 12 times in one short item in the column.

Snapshots of the travel to Frankfurt:

• Donna Kelce on my plane from Atlanta to Frankfurt. Lots of kerfuffle over it. Selfies galore. One excited woman said to her friend after taking one: “That’s gonna be Taylor Swift’s mother-in-law!”
  

  

• Saturday night dinner in the sort of old town, cobblestone Frankfurt, with producer/videographer Kristen Coleman (one of the all-time gems, efficient and so talented) and ESPN buddy Jeff Darlington. Of course I had some great Wiener Schnitzel here, but the best food we had was this Saturday meal at Cucina Della Grazie. Arrabiata tomato soup, drizzled with olive oil, to die for.
  
• Smoking is allowed in German stadia, apparently. Cigarette and cigar smoke wafted up to the press area throughout the game. What is this, 1973? Also, you could buy a gin and tonic, a Jack Daniels and Coke, or two different kinds of draft beers in the press area, which was out in the stands. Tough to type during the game. Just 53 degrees at kickoff, dropping to 50 by halftime. Football weather. I didn’t mind, other than the smoke.
  

  

• Different vibe in Frankfurt in 2023 than Munich in 2022. You walked everywhere in Munich, and there was a ton of history in Munch. You drove everywhere in Frankfurt, and I’m sure there was history, but I didn’t feel it. Stadiums were similar, with huge noise in both.
  

  

• “Country Roads” by John Denver … a deafening revelation last year in Munich during a Tampa-Seattle TV timeout in the second half. Same situation this year, just not as karaoke-like.
  
• The crowd: 65-15-20 … 65 percent Kansas City, 15 percent Miami, 20 percent other fans just rooting for a good game in Packers/Patriots/Rams/Giants jerseys. Good crowd. These people are nuts for the NFL.
  

  

• Journey of the Week: KC fan Peter Varnum, originally from Lake Quivira, Kans., now living in Geneva, got up at 4 a.m. Sunday at his home in Switzerland. He took trains from Geneva to Lausanne to Olten, Switzerland to Brugg, Switzerland, to Basel, Switzerland to Frankfurt. Train and game ticket cost Varnum about $1,000. “When the NFL put the tickets on sale, I got into the queue for them. I got a message, ‘You are in the line, there are 551,000 people in front of you.’ I knew the NFL would have some kind of package for the game, so I bought that.” He had to be back at work as a global-health consultant in Geneva Monday, so he was scheduled to be on the train from Frankfurt back home early this morning. His travel story, with an assist from Kristen Coleman:

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com.

I asked last week in the column if Eagles center Jason Kelce was the most beloved athlete in Philadelphia. Lots of responses, and a slight edge to Kelce over Bryce Harper.

On Jason Kelce. From Brian Curtis: “I can’t say empirically whether Kelce is or isn’t, but I can tell you why he is beloved, and it’s from your column last week. You wrote about the Eagles’ QB sneak play:

“Nobody wants to defend that play, quite frankly,” Kelce said, “and for us, it’s not a play that you’re super fired up to run because of how exhausting it is. You’re definitely like, ‘Man, this is gonna – ‘ “

Pause. He was going to say, “Man, this is gonna hurt.” But Jason Kelce’s a football player, a physical one who plays in the Physical Football Capital of the World. And so his voice switched.

“All right! Let’s do it! Here we go!”

Many of us go to jobs we don’t want to do. In those words, Jason Kelce just spoke for all of us. For all of us who drag ourselves out of bed in the morning, who dig deep when the motivation isn’t there because you know there’s a family depending on your paycheck, who get up from their chair to play with their kid even though every muscle in their body is screaming no after a long day at work … You put in the work, you make the sacrifice, because that’s what you do; that’s what being an adult is about.”

Brilliant, Brian. A great piece of correspondence right there, with an important lesson.

Kelce II. From Stephen Seeling of Philadelphia: “Philly favorite is Jason Kelce … by a margin the length of Broad Street. Not just because of his unforgettable Mummer-bedecked speech, not because of his Hall of Fame-level play, not because of way he chugs beer with Travis at Phillies games or that he is so ‘gritty,’ but because during the season, on his Monday day off, he will attend a fundraiser for a local organization supporting motivated low-income students from some of Philly’s toughest neighborhoods who aspire to college. That’s why we love him.”

Wonderful. Thanks, Stephen.

On the Belichick tree. From Russ Curcuru, of Kalamazoo, Mich.: “After seeing it happen to the Lions and now the Raiders, it seems like the quickest way to ruin a playoff team is to hire a Patriots assistant as head coach and someone from their front office as GM. They’ll come in, alienate the players, draft poorly, lose a bunch of games and leave a mess to clean up. Do you think the league has caught on to the fact that Patriot way may only work if you have a Tom Brady at quarterback?”
I get it, Russ. Belichick’s staffers have almost universally failed. It used to be that being a Belichick disciple helped; now, in the case of highly regarded defensive assistant Jerod Mayo, I wonder if it will actually be a detriment.

On kickers. From Jack McCarthy, of Chester, N.J.: “Love your work. But you know better than to ever say ‘never, ever, ever’ in the NFL even in referring to drafting kickers. You never know what’s going to happen.”

But I think we do know, Jack, based on decades of history. I am going to subjectively pick the 10 best kickers of all time. We may disagree on some, but at least it’d be close. My 10 would be Adam Vinatieri, Justin Tucker, Morten Andersen, Jan Stenerud, Gary Anderson, Nick Lowery, Matt Prater, Robbie Gould, Jim Bakken (two-time all-decade kicker) and Lou Groza (Hall of Fame kicker/tackle). Those are 10 of the best kickers ever and would certainly be in the discussion for the best handful of all time if you include impact in their era, longevity, accuracy and distance, respecting all eras of football. Where each were picked, or not, in NFL Drafts: undrafted, undrafted, fourth-round pick, undrafted, seventh-round pick, undrafted, undrafted, undrafted, seventh-round pick, undrafted. That tells me you can find great kickers without drafting them, or by picking them quite low—and by the evidence I presented last week, it tells me that picking kickers high in drafts in modern history is almost always a mistake.

On the officiating free-pass of the Hail Mary. From Matt Gorman: “Kudos to your stand on referees looking the other way on blatant pass interference during end of game plays. Absolutely maddening.”

Twelve emails on this topic, Matt; 11-1 in favor of the refs officiating this play the way they officiate all others in the game.

1. I think the way the Cowboys lost Sunday is going to leave a mark. Down five, 46 seconds left at arch-rival Philadelphia. Four plays and three big penalties on the Eagles bring Dallas to the Philly six-yard line with 26 seconds left. Eighty yards! To the verge of victory against the best team in the game! Dallas win probability with 46 seconds left: 3.7 percent, per Next Gen Stats. Dallas win probability, with 27 seconds left at the Eagles’ six with no timeouts left: 48.6 percent. A coin flip, basically. Then false start, sack, incomplete, delay of game, pass short of the end zone, end of game. Yikes.

2. I think kudos go to the Eagles, to be sure. But to be great, you’ve got to make great plays in big moments. The Cowboys just don’t do that.

3. I think this is absurd. Patrick Ricard fined $21,694 for playing football. Seriously: Who is making these idiotic rulings on the fines for normal football plays?

4. I think it’s a shame about Daniel Jones’ torn ACL, both for him and for the future of the Giants. This was the golden year for Jones to prove to Brian Daboll in the coach’s second year that the Giants didn’t have to worry about the quarterback position. Now they do. Much of this is the team’s fault because Jones never had a chance behind a terrible offensive line from the start this year. But now, GM Joe Schoen has to do his homework on quarterbacks because he isn’t sure about Jones. I’m sure Schoen didn’t love the fact that he was photographed scouting the Washington-USC game Saturday in Los Angeles because clearly two of the best quarterback prospects, Caleb Williams and Michael Penix Jr., are on those teams. So now the Giants likely will have a significant decision to make after what’s going to be an awful season. The future of a lot of players, coaches and executives might be at stake on the Giants decision at quarterback.

5. I think real life interceded on my trip to Frankfurt. I met an Israeli football commentator, from Haifa, Israel, covering the game on his first trip outside the country since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on the country. “I cry every day,” said Ori Shterenbach, who is also involved in the organization of football on all levels in Israel and is the commissioner of the eight-team high school football league in the country. He told me three players and one coach on the national football team were killed in the attack. “Two of the players were at the [concert] that was attacked,” Shterenbach said. “They ran for shelter into a building, but the attackers threw grenades and killed some people, then went into the building and shot the others. One player played dead for 10 hours. That’s how he survived and told the story.” Shterenbach got emotional talking about it. “We need football at a time like this,” he said. “We love sports, and people need to get their minds off what’s happening in our world for a while right now.”

6. I think, for those who say Pittsburgh’s 5-3 record is fool’s gold and they’ll drop out of the race any day now, I bring you the next six games on their schedule: Packers at home, at Browns, at Bengals, Arizona home, New England home, at Indy. I feel an 8-6 team making a stretch run.

7. I think J.J. Watt hit it on the head the other day, watching Steelers-Titans: “Do not go shotgun from the 1-yard line. Ever!!” I do not understand a team having the ball three feet from the goal line and choosing to take the snap at the five- or six-yard line. Help me with that, please.

8. I think this must be Lincoln Riley’s welcome to the Big Ten moment: USC, in the span of 29 days starting next September, plays at Michigan, at Minnesota and at Maryland. I don’t care what the financials say. A California team playing in the Big Ten is a dumb idea.

9. I think there’s a very good chance that it’s been years—like, 10 or 15—that the NFL has had so many quarterbacks the general public hasn’t heard of start games. Clayton Tune (Arizona rookie fifth-rounder, at Cleveland), Jaren Hall (Minnesota rookie fifth-rounder, at Atlanta), Aidan O’Connell (Las Vegas rookie fourth-rounder, versus the Giants), and I’m not even including Tyson Bagent (undrafted Chicago rookie, at New Orleans) because of his recent run of fame. Tune, O’Connell, Hall and Bagent joined relative newbies and/or unknowns like Will Levis, Kenny Pickett, Taylor Heinicke, Jordan Love, Sam Howell, C.J. Stroud and Bryce Young. Nine of the league’s 14 games this weekend featured an unknown or young and unproven passer.

10. I think these are my other thoughts of the week:

a. RIP, Bobby Knight, dead of complications from Alzheimer’s Disease at 83.

b. We’re just getting to the point when sports fans who are 40 and younger probably won’t get the full meaning of Bobby Knight to our sports scene, and in our society. Think about it: Those of us who were magnetized by “A Season on the Brink,” John Feinstein’s book about a season, 1985-’86, with the Knight-coached Indiana basketball team, saw Knight at the peak of his acerbic, angry, explosive, brilliant, bullying and unchanging self. That was almost four decades ago, so it’s understandable that many will note the death of Knight and wonder how possibly could the basketball coach at Indiana be one of the five most dominant people in sports for 15, 20 years. He just was.

c. I remember my one session with Knight. I covered college basketball before football in the early eighties at the Cincinnati Enquirer, and before a weeknight game in Bloomington, I spent an hour with him. He had something on his mind, and at that time, the Enquirer was a big regional paper with some influence. He was concerned with the rising cheating in recruiting, and he spent a good half-hour railing against it. I expected a volatile Knight. I got Knight the educator. I don’t think he raised his voice once in the time I sat in with him. He deserved criticism, and lots of it, but there was good to Knight too.

d. Story of the Week: John Feinstein, in The Washington Post, on the man he knew so well after “A Season on the Brink.” Wrote Feinstein:

I can’t possibly overstate how important Knight was in my life. The access he gave me for “A Season on the Brink” allowed my first book, about Indiana’s 1985-1986 season, to become a No 1. bestseller, which has allowed me to pick and choose book topics for the past 38 years. Not once did Knight back away from the access, even during some difficult moments for his team. Although he didn’t speak to me for eight years after the book’s publication — upset, of all things, with seeing profanity in the book — he eventually decided to “forgive” me, and we had a distant though cordial relationship for the rest of his life.

e. Feinstein relates a story of how a player, Calbert Cheaney, once committed to play at Evansville, which was coached by a former Knights player, Jim Crews, who played for Knight and coached on his staff for eight years. Knight told his staff to call Cheaney to see if he’d want to come to Indiana instead. Cheaney did, and Crews called Knight to lash out at him. As Feinstein related:

Knight responded by telling Crews he would be nothing in basketball if not for him. Crews finally said, “You know something, Coach: The saddest part of your life is that you treat your enemies better than you treat your friends.”

f. I’m so sure the James Harden experience is going to go well in L.A.

g. Not.

h. Deion Story of the Week: Jim Trotter of The Athletic on football life at Jackson State post-Deion Sanders.

i. Trotter writes about all sides of the Sanders aftermath. Some good, some bad, some petty. Some feeling of abandonment, but mostly, an overriding feeling that we had a great tradition before Sanders got here, and we’ll have a great one for years in the future.

j. Writes Trotter:

The Athletic attended JSU’s homecoming week to take the temperature of various segments of the fan base. The takeaway can best be described in two words: It’s complicated.

The first thing that needs to be acknowledged is that the Jackson State community does not sit around talking about Sanders. They moved on the moment he left town — not because they feel some kind of way, but because that’s what they do.

The program, in their eyes, is bigger than one man. Always has been, always will be. Take a stroll through the athletic center that Sanders helped design, and there are no pictures of him hanging prominently.

It’s almost as if he were never there — striking considering he seemed to be everywhere during his three seasons. If he wasn’t doing radio shows or podcasts, he was being featured on social media or sitting down with national TV crews. The power of his personality was so great that it attracted “Good Morning America,” “College GameDay,” and “60 Minutes.”

k. A prominent JSU professor, Dr. D’Andra Orey, had the best quote of the story to Trotter, and he’s not alone feeling this way: “My only gripe is he never said thank you when he left.”

l. Sober October Story of the Week: (You mean October’s over?) Rachel Fairbank of National Geographic on something I believe one or two of my readers might value—“When you go sober for even a month, your body will change. Here’s how.”

m. Wrote Fairbank:

After giving up alcohol, changes will start to take effect within weeks. This includes in the liver, which can start to reverse the damage done in most of the four stages of alcohol-related liver disease—which starts with the accumulation of fat, then progresses to chronic inflammation, which leads to scarring, and ultimately results in cirrhosis. For all but the very final stage, the liver can heal.

“The liver has an enormous regenerative capacity,” Auburn University researcher Paul Thomes [who studies alcohol-induced organ damage] says. “The first three stages [of liver damage] are reversible during abstinence from alcohol.” Abstaining from alcohol can even have some benefits for those with cirrhosis of the liver by halting the progression of the disease and lengthening a patient’s survival, although it won’t reverse the condition.

In a study that followed 94 moderate-heavy drinkers who gave up alcohol for a month, participants experienced improvements in insulin resistance, blood pressure, and weight, compared to their peers who did not abstain. Some of the other benefits of giving up alcohol include improved sleep, improved mood, including a decrease in depression and anxiety.

o. Just a little public service after a weekend when just maybe too much beer was consumed.

p. Baseballnerdness: I wear the same glasses as Rangers manager Bruce Bochy.

q. Kudos, Rangers, on the first World Series win in club history. Happy for Nathan Eovaldi, who loves baseball the way ardent fans love it. It is baseball karma that the biggest win of his life came in the decisive game of a World Series. Glad to see Marcus Semien come out of a decent playoff slump to get hot when the games were the biggest. Good for Chris Young, the brainy former pitcher, who prioritized player/leaders in building this team—Eovaldi, Semian, Corey Seager.

r. I heard something in game three that I really didn’t like from John Smoltz. Gabby Moreno led off the ninth for Arizona, with the DBacks trailing 3-1. Jose Leclerc pitching for Texas. “A home run does nothing. A walk does EVERYTHING.” Huh? A home run makes it 3-2 and brings the tying run to the plate. A walk puts a runner on first base, keeps it 3-1, and brings the tying run to the plate. What would you rather have as the trailing team: a runner at first, down 3-1, or the bases empty, down 3-2? Help me understand the penalty for being down 3-2 instead of 3-1.

s. I get it—you don’t want to walk the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the ninth with a two-run lead. But sometimes, baseball cliches are nothing but misleading.

t. Obit of the Week: Baseball slugger Frank Howard, a staple player of my youth, died last week at 87. Matt Schudel of The Washington Post with a warm remembrance of the American League home run champ in 1968 and 1970.

u. Howard was 6-7 and 260, a Redwood among men. He played baseball and basketball at Ohio State—his 32 rebounds in a game is still an Ohio State record. A genial, gentle giant, and so much fun to watch, because he might hit the ball a mile. Last home run in Washington Senators history in 1971, and then the franchise moved to Arlington, Texas. He then hit the first home run in Texas Rangers history in 1972. Wrote Schudel in the obit:

On Sept. 30, 1971, the Senators played their final game. They were leading the Yankees in the ninth inning, 7-5, when unruly fans stormed the field and began to pick up the bases and pieces of turf. The game was forfeited to the Yankees.

In the sixth inning of the game, Mr. Howard slugged a home run — the last ever hit by a Senator.

“That’s what the fans had come to see,” George Minot Jr., wrote in The Post. “They rolled cheer after cheer upon his broad shoulders. He waved his batting helmet to them before disappearing into the dugout. Then he came out and tossed his cap into the crowd. And he came out again to blow kisses.”

“This is utopia,” Mr. Howard said after the game. “This is the greatest thrill of my life. What would top it?”

v. In 1970, when Howard led all A.L. hitters with 44 homers, I saw a day-night doubleheader on a September Saturday, Senators-Red Sox at Fenway Park. I was in eighth grade, and I came with a Bic Clic and a book—“My Turn at Bat,” by Ted Williams, as told to John Underwood. Williams was Washington’s manager. I was determined to get Williams’ autograph. In the first game of the twinbill, against 22-year-old Red Sox southpaw Ken (brother of George) Brett, Howard batted five times. He struck out five times.

w. When Williams brought the lineup card out to home plate before game two, I positioned myself in the aisle behind the Senators’ dugout. As he turned to come back, I hustled down the steps to row one in probably a two-thirds-empty ballpark, to the corner of the dugout, where Williams would walk down into the dugout. I held up “My Turn at Bat” and I said: “Ted! Can you sign?” Williams looked up at me and said, “Slide it over.” I slid the book across the top of the dugout, and followed by tossing the pen to him. He signed and sent it back. Now that was a cool moment. The book is still on the shelf in my office at home. Memories of Frank Howard spurred that memory of Ted Williams.

x. Happy 36^th, Jason Kelce, and 31^st, Odell Beckham Jr. (both Sunday). And thinking of Pat Tillman, who would have been 47 today.

San Francisco at Jacksonville, Sunday, 1 p.m. ET, Fox. Niners, on a three-game losing streak, coming off their bye. Jags, on five-game winning streak, coming off their bye. Big game for Brock Purdy, and for San Francisco’s defensive front. Neither has been playing four-quarter, winning football in the last three weeks. Here’s where my Insane Media Story of the Week comes in. From 49ers beat man Eric Branch, replaying a Q&A from coach Kyle Shanahan’s conference call last Monday:

Q: “Kyle, will you consider making a change at quarterback during the bye week? And if not, why?”

Shanahan: “A change at what?”

Q: “Quarterback.”

Shanahan: “No.”

Q: “Why?”

Shanahan: “Um, because no one just changes their quarterback for no reason.”

Well played, Kyle Shanahan.

Cleveland at Baltimore, Sunday, 1 p.m., Fox. Big game for Deshaun Watson (they all are, really), with the Browns in prime contention traveling to the division leader, and arch-rival, at the season’s midpoint. Watson’s 0-3 in division road games since beginning his Browns’ playing career last December, and he’s coming off his first full games in six weeks because of an ouchy shoulder.

Denver at Buffalo, Monday, 8:15 p.m., ESPN/ABC. Denver comes in after 14 days off, and with a totally revived defense (15.0 points allowed in last three games). Been a hard five weeks for the Bills; losses to the Jags and Pats, excruciatingly narrow wins over the Giants and Bucs—and then the emotional trip to Cincinnati Sunday night, 10 months after the Damar Hamlin incident. Denver’s a total wild card, but I won’t be surprised if this is a one-score game midway through the fourth quarter.

At some point quite soon,
Dallas has to start, you know,
winning the big games.