FMIA Wild Card: Decibels in Detroit, Doubt in Dallas, Harmony in Houston

Boldface names/items for Wild Card Weekend:

Take that, S2 Test. “I’m too blessed to stress,” C.J. Stroud told me.

Yo-Yo Ma makes his FMIA debut.

Love Stroud’s confidence. “I just never expect not to play well.”

Great job, Bobby Slowik.

Jim Harbaugh, I know a great realtor in Manhattan Beach. Your kind of town.

Mahomes to Rice, and I don’t mean Jerry.

Miami detested people picking at the team for playing poorly against good teams. Well, the Dolphins did stink against quality foes in 2023. They were 1-6 against playoff teams, outscored by 18 points a game.

Tua fell off the face of the earth too. He went from MVP candidate as December dawned to six TDs and five picks in his last six games.

South Floridians? Comments? Bueller? Bueller?

Players who say the cold’s nothing: I don’t believe you for a millisecond. And Miami’s performance helps prove that.

No way Jerry Jones slept Sunday night. Mike McCarthy probably didn’t either. How do you explain laying a dinosaur egg against a team with nearly zero playoff experience and being behind 27-0 before the first Tall Boy is drained?

Jordan Love in his last nine games: 7-2 … 21 TDs, 1 interception.

Best performance in a losing effort: Puka Nacua, wide receiver, Rams. Masterful, tough as nails, incredible hands, physical, one man cannot bring him down.

The 177^th pick in the 2023 NFL Draft finished with nine catches for 181 yards. What a night.

The Peacock game out-rated last year’s Saturday night Wild Card game by 6 percent, which really surprised me. Either I underestimated the power of Mahomes, of Taylor Swift, or of Americans’ love of football.

Last time Robert Kraft hired a coach, he was interested in one coach, Bill Belichick, and one coach only. Sound familiar?

Mike Vrabel and Seattle make sense.

Antonio Pierce and Vegas make even more sense.

Mr. Holland’s Opus. I wrote a little long on a linebackers coach for the 49ers named Johnny Holland. He’s got an incurable cancer. I think you’ll like the words and the video in here.

Words to live by, via Holland: “People don’t like to talk about it, but we’re all gonna die. You don’t have a letter with an expiration date on your life. Fulfilling your purpose while you’re here is more important than trying to figure out how long you’re gonna live.”

Henry Hasselbeck, you rule. Good luck at UCLA, and be sure to send us some reports on Chip Kelly.

Happy for Matt Hasselbeck. Getting laid off at ESPN, which happened last June, “was such a blessing in disguise.” Read why.

Aaron Rodgers has angered Charles Barkley.

Football Quiz! There were only 14 games this season when an edge rusher played every snap in the game. One person played 10 of those. Who was that person?

Jay Glazer, take a victory lap.

Katie Strang, you take one too.

Jerry Jones will not like The Adieu Haiku this week. And I just know he bookmarks the column every week, just to read his favorite piece of poetry.

Now back to Detroit.

Three years ago this week, when playing and winning a playoff game at Ford Field seemed a thousand miles away, Dan Campbell was introduced as the coach of the moribund Detroit Lions. (When, by the way, in any of our lifetimes have we not been able to use “moribund” as an adjective for the Detroit Lions?) Campbell, wearing a dark suit, Lions blue shirt and tie, with short brown hair slicked back, looked about eight years younger than he looks now; coaching the Lions can age a man.

This is how Dan Campbell introduced himself to his fans in his opening press conference:

“This team is gonna be built on, we’re gonna kick you in the teeth. When you punch us back, we’re gonna smile at you and when you knock us down, we’re gonna get up, and on our way up, we’re gonna bite a kneecap off. We’re gonna stand up. It’s gonna take two more shots to knock us down. On the way up again, we’re gonna take your other kneecap. And we’re gonna get up, and then it’s gonna take three shots to get us down. And we’re gonna take another hunk out of you. Before long, we’re gonna be the last one standing. That’s gonna be the mentality here.”

That was Campbell’s trademark for a while. The Lions were the Detroit Kneecap Biters, and it played well locally. I wondered, with the benefit of time, whether Campbell still thought it was the right message to begin his tenure here.

“I don’t regret anything I said,” he said. “I said it because I was compelled to say it. I believed it. I believe in what we are. I know it’s a little bit off the wall and it’s a little whatever. But I believed it. This area represents something special and something different. For where this team’s been over the last 30 years and beyond, really, it was time to change. You can’t do this in Dallas. It’s been done in Dallas. Can’t do this in Pittsburgh. They’ve won, and won a lot. It’d been so long here. I just thought, We can do it here, though, and make it special, and we will do it.”

Then the Lions started 4-19-1 in their first year-and-a-half. Same ol’ Lions. Well, no. That’s not what Campbell thought. “I’ll tell you what I thought,” he said. “‘Our time’s coming.’ And ‘everybody can have their last laugh.’ I can’t tell you the number of times, sitting in that locker room, looking at those guys, they’re all taped up, they’re iced up, they’re beat up. We just lost another tough game.

“I remember saying to the guys, ‘One day we’ll be f---ing laughing at everybody else. Our time is coming. We got an opportunity here.’”

Campbell had a superb young GM, Brad Holmes, who came from the Rams and knew the value of mid-round and lower draft picks, and the Lions started hitting on them. Before any of that, though, they traded Matthew Stafford to the Rams for Jared Goff and draft picks. Goff’s confidence was battered after feeling abandoned by the Rams, and it took a while for Campbell and his coordinator beginning in 2022, Ben Johnson, to put him back together again. But by Sunday night, the reconstruction of Goff paid major dividends.

This is a game Goff should have been nervous for. The guy who took his job and won the Super Bowl he couldn’t win for the Rams, Matthew Stafford, was coming back to Detroit. Everyone here seems to like Stafford, who left here in the classiest way he could, but that didn’t matter Sunday night. When Stafford came out for pre-game warmups with his mates, this was the reaction:

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

This was the reaction a bit later for Detroit’s current QB1:

“JA-RED GOFF! JA-RED GOFF! JA-RED GOFF!”

Like: Stafford, one day, when you’re gray, we’ll honor you right here in this stadium. But not now. Not today. Today, you’re a bum, the enemy, and we’ll make your life a living hell for four quarters.

But Goff clearly was not nervous. Ben Johnson didn’t have to program some confidence throws into his gameplan early. Goff’s second throw, a 24-yard zip job to Josh Reynolds, told us everything we needed to know about this day. Reynolds ran a deep incut from the left, and when Goff released it, four Rams were buzzing around the middle of the field. On the replay, it’s easy to think, No! No! Don’t risk that! The window for Goff was the size of a hummingbird. But the line drive was perfect, and the big gain set up the Lions’ first TD. And that is precisely how Goff played all night. He threw it around, pressure-free, like this was a May minicamp practice.

Goff was 20 of 23 through three quarters, with touch passers and zingers like the Reynolds throw. Stafford played great too, and very nearly got the Rams in position to win it late with a field goal. But in the end, the Rams lost because they settled for field goals from the Detroit 6-, 9- and 11-yard lines instead of winning in the Red Zone. In any case, Detroit’s going to be a hard out in the playoffs if Goff replicates this show.

When it was over, someone caught Holmes, the GM, in the elevator going down to the locker letting out a series of primal screams: “YEAHHHHHH!!!! YEAHHHHHH!!!!!” Campbell, surprisingly, was the measured one afterward.

“What’s it feel like, right now, to know you built this—you and Brad?” I asked.

“Believe me,” Campbell said, “it feels good. But I think until this season gets over, I don’t know that I’ll entirely grasp all of what we’ve been able to do. As a coach, it’s the next one in front of you. We just won our first playoff game and now we got another one coming up back here at Ford Field. We gotta get ready for Tampa or Philly.

“But a day like this, this is what we’ve worked for. This was always the vision for what we could do here. I knew this was a sleeping giant. And we gave ‘em something today.”

HOUSTON—The Texans are going to be a problem in the divisional round. A big problem. They put up 31 offensive points on the game’s best defense Saturday, the coordinator consistently found ways to get his receivers waaaay clear of Cleveland’s noted DBs, C.J. Stroud is playing quarterback like Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello, the line held the almighty Myles Garrett to zero sacks and two pressures, and did I tell you the Texans have C.J. Stroud on their team?

If the Bills win this afternoon in the tundra of western New York, it’s Texans at Ravens this weekend. A Pittsburgh win would send Houston to Kansas City. Stroud at Lamar Jackson or Stroud at Patrick Mahomes—winner advancing to the AFC title game—would be a show I’d pay to see. That’d be no walkover for either of the AFC’s top seeds, not the way Stroud is playing. Check him out over his last three games, since returning from a concussion:

Accuracy: 75.9 percent (the record for a full season is 74.4).

TD-to-Interception: 6-0.

Passer rating: 130.3 (which is insane).

Yards per attempt: 9.5 (a virtual first down every time he throws).

Remember the storylines when he was drafted? The S2 test storylines, when Stroud scored low on the exam purported to measure how players process information under real-time pressure? That Stroud was a poor “processor?” On Saturday, in the biggest game of his pro career, eight of his passes came against Cleveland pressure. He completed seven, for 118 yards, per Next Gen Stats … and he did it while getting rid of the ball in 2.64 seconds, his second-fastest average time to throw in a game this year.

Let me extrapolate. Stroud’s a superb processor; he proved that against a great defensive coordinator, Cleveland’s Jim Schwartz, knowing exactly when to cut his losses and check down (not often) and when to turn it loose downfield. He’s playing faster and more efficient against pressure, and he’s in harmony with his play-caller, offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik. Truly, anyone who watched Stroud put up 348 yards, four TDs and 41 points against Georgia’s stifling defense in his last pre-NFL game and thought he’d have trouble making quick decisions as a pro is certifiable. But that narrative hasn’t worn on him.

I met Stroud in a stadium tunnel before he went to see his family post-game. This was a happy man, even when I brought up the pre-draft questioning of his smarts.

“I’m too blessed to stress,” he said with a smile, a big silver “7” chain around his neck. “I mean, it’s just extra motivation. I don’t play this game to prove people wrong. I play this game for the audience of one, God. And then to prove the people who love me and believe in me right. You know? I feel like I’ve done that this year. I just want to keep that going. I don’t really focus on the negativity.”

In Houston’s stunning 45-14 rout, Stroud was so dominant against the league’s best defense that the Texans were able to call off the dogs early in the fourth quarter; he got yanked with 10 minutes left. By halftime Houston led 24-14, and Stroud had already thrown for more yards (236) and touchdowns (three) than Cleveland had allowed in any half all season. His play under pressure was a season-best, per the seven-of-eight Next Gen metrics. And playing so fast. You have to remind yourself the guy’s six years younger than Patrick Mahomes and he’s already in his league in how sees the field and makes decisions.

“I just never expect not to play well,” Stroud said.

He said that so matter-of-factly. The words on paper seem slightly cocky. But the words were spoken with a humble conviction that his mates have seen since draft day.

Then he backs it up on the field, as he did on the Texans’ first scoring drive Saturday. On third-and-six at the Cleveland 41-yard line, four receivers in the formation, he took a shotgun snap and quick-looked right for tight end Dalton Schultz; covered. He turned to wideout John Metchie III running down the middle; covered. With linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah late-blitzing and coming in unblocked from his left, Stroud spied Nico Collins at the last second getting a step on corner Greg Newsome on a go route down the left seam. Stroud knew he was going to take a shot. And he did. A millisecond after releasing a high arcing ball, a perfect spiral, 43 yards in the air toward Collins, Stroud got hit in the torso and twisted around by Owusu-Koramoah. Gain of 38. Newsome’s shoulders slumped. On Saturday, that was the first of many big-time throws by Stroud.

Veteran backup Case Keenum, one of Stroud’s first-year mentors, told me post-game: “I think the combination of vision, his ability to move within the pocket and remain an elite passer, how he still can get really good velocity on some of these throws, and do it under pressure, you just don’t see that in a rookie. But you see it with C.J. every game. We’ve seen it since day one. I can tell you—we didn’t put in any rookie gameplans this year. There weren’t any games we’re like, ‘Hey let’s give this young guy some confidence.’ From week one, it’s been serious NFL football that he’s playing. And there’s something about him when the lights come on in big spots. He’s elite.”

Slowik came from San Francisco, where he was Kyle Shanahan’s passing game coordinator last season. As Shanahan does, he prides himself in giving his quarterback solutions on every pass call. When the year started, Slowik would show his players clips from pass plays of the 49ers. “But now,” Keenum said, “it’s more and more Texans plays. He showed a bunch from our last drive at Indianapolis last week. That’s a confidence-builder right there.”

When it was over, past met present. This was sort of The Deshaun Watson’s Not Here Bowl, with his old team being led by Stroud and his new team being led by the ancient Joe Flacco with Watson out for the season with a shoulder injury. Watson, in fact, was here, and after the game, in a Browns knit cap, sought out Stroud for a hug and a four-second greeting. What must Watson have been thinking, listening to this crowd shower his successor with love, knowing that could have been him with this rebuilt team if he hadn’t gotten himself exiled to Cleveland? Whatever Watson thought, this city’s moved on. It’s Stroudtown now.

This turnaround in Houston—from 7-26-1 over the previous two years to 11-7 in the rookie years of Stroud and coach DeMeco Ryans—is a classic example of a quarterback meaning so much to a football franchise. From the moment he stepped into the huddle in training camp, exuding confidence, Stroud, just 22, won over his teammates. “I wish you guys could be in the huddle and just be around him,” tight end Brevin Jordan told reporters after the game. Named a captain before he ever played a regular-season game, Stroud’s attitude won over players, almost all of whom are older than he is. “I don’t think leadership has an age,” he told me earlier this season. “It’s something that’s in you. I didn’t come in demanding respect. I came in wanting to earn it.”

There’s a guy who gets it. At 22.

Thoughts on a newsy NFL week:

Jim Harbaugh to the Chargers makes too much sense. He needs a quarterback and the authority to build the team the way he wants. Of the seven jobs open, which has those two traits the way the Chargers do? No other place does. I heard Sunday that the two sides have mutual interest. The Chargers have never paid gigantic money to coaches, but Dean Spanos likely would view this as a smart investment. Let’s see if it progresses this week.

The impact of the Cowboy implosion. I mentioned the Mike McCarthy speculation, and for now, that’s all it is. But we’ve all known the meaning of what Fox put on the screen late in the game—Dallas, with 36 wins over the past three regular seasons, is the only NFL team with that many wins in a three-season span to not to have made a championship game appearance in any of those seasons. I can’t believe Jerry Jones, with a star (fading though he is) like Bill Belichick on the free market, wouldn’t go hard after him to try to salvage this era of Cowboys history. But the other byproduct of this game is that Dan Quinn’s stock fell precipitously with the divebombing performance of his D. Six touchdowns allowed in the first seven Green Bay possessions, and a defense that looked totally non-competitive in the biggest game of the year. That’s not going to help Quinn in Seattle. Nor will the Dallas defense in the final seven games of the year: 25 points and 353 yards allowed per game.

The Peacock game. Roger Goodell was intent on giving NBC’s Peacock streaming service a good game for its $110-million investment in it, and though the Dolphins didn’t cooperate in the 26-7 loss to Kansas City, Peacock got the full Patrick Mahomes/Taylor Swift/minus-30 windchill experience. NBC released its numbers for the game late Sunday night, saying the average audience in streaming and over-the-air (in Kansas City and Miami markets) was 23 million. That eclipses last year’s Saturday night Wild Card game, Chargers-Jags, by 6 percent, per NBC. That Saturday primetime game last year drew 20.8 million viewers. Since the record for a streaming event in the U.S. is about 15 million for the Dallas-Seattle Amazon game in November, this game became the biggest live-streamed event in the young history of live-streamed events.

Robert Kraft handled the Jerod Mayo hiring the same way he handled the Bill Belichick hiring. In 2000, against the advice of owners and league officials, Kraft hired a talented coach who was also a sourpuss. He considered others, but never seriously. This time, he signed Mayo to an heir-to-the-throne contract over a year ago and followed through by sticking with Mayo with some strong candidates—Mike Vrabel most notably—on the market. Since being a first-round pick of the Patriots in 2008, Mayo has never stepped foot in another organization as a player or coach. I see why Kraft goes with his gut, but it’s pretty risky to trust the green Mayo with this giant job.

Kraft has never had a GM, which is no reason to not have one now. Seems the Patriots are on the way to promoting an internal candidate or going outside the franchise for VP of Player Personnel. No reason to have a GM, the in-house theory goes; the franchise has been to 10 Super Bowls in Kraft’s three decades without one. I get that. But Kraft’s three coaches (Parcells, Carroll, Belichick) were all veteran NFL hands when hired. Mayo needs a strong personnel rudder. I don’t see why a strong GM isn’t the solution here.

Give Antonio Pierce the job already. Mark Davis, it seems to me, wants to keep his 5-4 interim coach on a string while he explores Jim Harbaugh and maybe Belichick, and while he looks for a GM. It’s a mistake, unless for some reason Harbaugh would take the Raider job over better ones, because the owner would be alienating his players worse than he did when he bypassed Rich Bisaccia for Josh McDaniels. Pierce has the Raider love, and he appeals to the locker room. The delay doesn’t seem smart to me.

The Atlanta Belichicks? The only way I’d do that if I were Belichick is if the Falcons had a rock-solid plan in place for a new quarterback. Either a commitment to chase Kirk Cousins—a free-agent in March, and the Vikings may not pony up the (wild guess) two years and $90 million it’d take to keep him—or to find one in the first round. And the only way I’d do this if I’m the Falcons is if Belichick consents to not having power over the draft.

On Pete Carroll. The right coach at the right time for Seattle won 147 games in 14 seasons, won one Super Bowl and had a very ugly Super Bowl loss in his other trip to the big game. But I see why the ‘Hawks did this. Seattle, with the 16^th pick in the draft, has to think about starting over with a quarterback in a strong-QB draft in round one, and doing that with a coach who will be 73 next season isn’t a smart way to go. Carroll’s tireless and the youngest 72-year-old man, by far, I know. But his locker room has heard the same message for a long time and responded by going 26-26 over the past three years. That plus Carroll’s history with the defense; he knew he had to fix the run defense after Seattle allowed 138.4 yards a game in 2022. The response: allowing 150.2 this year. Yikes. Still, Carroll made this franchise one of the league’s bright lights, consistently competitive, and he delivered a crushing Super Bowl victory. Kudos to him for a great run.

On Mike Vrabel. Don’t know where he goes, but if I were him, I’d want to partner with Seattle and GM John Schneider. Excellent organization, smart GM. All Vrabel would have to do is coach a team with pretty good talent, knowing that Schneider has the money and experience to build a Super Bowl team—if they get the quarterback right.

On Nick Sirianni. No inside information here, other than to know the people involved, and if I’m Sirianni, I’m thinking I’ve got to win tonight at Tampa Bay to show owner Jeffrey Lurie and GM Howie Roseman that I deserve the chance to re-shape the coaching staff. He’ll have to erase the defensive staff, at least, and do surgery on the offensive staff. Maybe Sirianni proposes to the bosses that he call the offensive plays next year. Either way, the 1-5 plummet job down the stretch, with some effortless stretches of terrible losses, puts Sirianni’s future in question.

On Nick Saban. Two points: One of Saban’s favorite points to his players was, “Don’t look at the scoreboard.” I actually love that. His point was that if you get distracted by the score, and thinking about how far behind or ahead you are, it’s going to distract from the only thing that matters—putting everything you have into the next play … On Jan. 1, 1995, Belichick was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, and Saban was his defensive coordinator. Saban would be Michigan State’s head coach after the season. But now he had to prepare his defense to play Drew Bledsoe and the Patriots, coached by Bill Parcells. Carl Banks, a veteran coach-on-the-field type, started at outside linebacker for the Browns that day in a 20-13 Cleveland win. “What I’ll always remember about Nick and Bill,” Banks said the other day, “was how collaborative they were. When I looked at the film of the Patriots, it was clear that as soon as Bledsoe’s back foot hits, he had the ball out every time. We had to disrupt that.” Disrupting Bledsoe’s rhythm was part of the gameplan, and he completed just 21 of 50 throws. In that game, Louis Riddick had an interception for the Browns.

My story for NBC’s playoff coverage on an NFL assistant coach fighting cancer while coaching one of the best position groups in the sport:

Now some words on Johnny Holland.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—It’s hard to imagine feeling lucky while processing the news that you’ve got an incurable disease. But if you know Mr. Sunshine, Johnny Holland, maybe it’s not so hard.

Holland, 58, coaches linebackers for the 49ers. “How lucky am I,” he said, “to coach the greatest group of linebackers in the world?” That gives you some idea of how Holland approaches life. And he likes to compete. During one summer practice in 2019, he and some coaches were throwing footballs into a laundry hamper 30 yards away—a contest—when, on a perfectly normal pass, he felt a painful break or tear in his ribcage. Fluky thing, he thought, but painful. Three, four weeks passed. No better. His back started hurting. Then his shoulder. Every task hurt his torso. Holland figured after the team’s first home game, Sept. 22, a Sunday, he’d stop in to see the head team physician, Dr. Tim McAdams, after the game and see about getting an MRI or CAT scan. But if the doc had three or four players in his office when Holland walked by, he’d just wait till the end of the season and address it then.

“That’s the football mentality in me,” Holland said in late November, standing on the practice field where the fateful pass occurred. “You know, I can handle this pain; it’s not that bad. I’m lucky I didn’t wait. I’m lucky the doctor’s office was empty when I walked by.”

Holland was sent for a CAT scan on Tuesday. Spots showed up on the scan, spots making doctors fearful of multiple myeloma, a cancer that attacks bone marrow and bone structure. By Wednesday, Holland was told he had multiple myeloma, which is incurable.

Imagine having some rib and back pain on a Sunday, and on Wednesday a doctor tells you you’ve got an incurable disease that you’ve never heard of.

“Talk about a punch in the gut,” Holland said. “And the doctor tells me, ‘Don’t Google it. You’ll scare yourself.’”

It’s 6:14 on a Thursday morning. Seven hundred coaches around the NFL get in their cars in the pre-dawn darkness to head to work. All except one, on this day. Holland’s got to take six hours away from prep work on the Philadelphia Eagles for his monthly chemo treatment and checkup. Holland and wife Faith backed out of their driveway for the 55-minute drive to the UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco. I was in the back seat.

“You thinking about your treatment right now, or are you thinking about how to defend Jalen Hurts?” I said.

“I’m thinking about Philadelphia,” Holland said. “Tush push. How we’re gonna stop it.”

Later on the drive, Holland turned pensive. “I used to say, ‘Man, I’m just blessed to have this day.’ But now it’s like, okay, for real, I’m blessed to have another day. When they hook me up to the IVs, it reminds you that man, this is serious. Like, you’re getting this treatment to live another day.

“People don’t like to talk about it, but we’re all gonna die. You don’t have a letter with an expiration date on your life. One person knows my expiration date: God.”

Pause. A few seconds of quiet.

“Fulfilling your purpose while you’re here is more important than trying to figure out how long you’re gonna live.”

The striking thing about accompanying Holland to his chemo appointment was the contrast between him and others in the waiting room at UCSF. The difference in demeanor and attitude … Holland radiated optimism, saying hello, how’s your day to everyone. Half the patients—10 of 20, perhaps—were a combination of quite sick-looking and anxious.

The nurse practitioner in charge of his case, Samantha Shenoy, said: “I think what really helps Johnny’s attitude is just that gratitude for the time that he has here, and knowing like, ‘Wow, my time is limited. How do I want to spend it?’ That really helps pull him through because it’s like, ‘Well then, let me live each day and do the things that I love the most.’ And for him, he loves football.”

On each of these monthly chemo infusions, he’s examined by Shenoy and Dr. Thomas Martin, one of the country’s foremost multiple myeloma experts. When Holland got on the bed to take the infusion, his worlds collided, sort of. He could look out the window and see the remnants of Kezar Stadium, which was the 49ers’ home field until 1971 and where San Francisco city high schools play football now.

As the chemo was infused, Holland reflected on the good fortune of being diagnosed early, instead of waiting till the end of the 2019 season. Dr. Martin was blunt when I asked what would have happened had Holland waited five months. “That would have pushed some serious limits,” Dr. Martin said. “He wouldn’t have been making it to the Super Bowl. He would have been either too tired or too ill.”

Away from Holland’s bedside, I asked Dr. Martin about the gravity of Holland’s case. “Myeloma is currently an incurable disease,” he said. “That said, over the last five to 10 years, we’ve made dramatic improvements with our treatments for myeloma. We can actually enhance survival and improve survival three times longer than [the survival rate of] 10 years ago.”

This form of cancer strikes about 36,000 Americans a year. It’s more common in men than women, and about twice as common in African Americans as in Caucasians. Holland is Black. One reason why the Holland case interests the medical community is that doctors like Martin want Black men to understand the symptoms of the disease—easy bone breaks, intense soreness like the kind Holland had in his ribs and back, kidney problems—so they can get diagnosed and seek treatment before the problems are too severe to reverse. The clinical trials at hospitals like UCSF can prolong lives by years.

Holland seems great now—very little pain, able to work out, able most weeks to handle a full workload as the Niners gear up for the playoff push. But, as Dr. Martin said, it’s common for multiple myeloma patients to go through different treatment regimens. It’s likely the efficacy of Holland’s current treatment will wane. “I always have to have one or two on deck so that we know if something happens that this therapy doesn’t look like it’s working, we have the next one ready to go,” Dr. Martin said.

I asked him if he has the next one in mind for Holland. “Oh, absolutely,” he said.

Holland is four-plus years into his myeloma journey. The hope is his doctors will have treatments to keep him alive till there’s a cure found. But with such a vexing disease, there are no guarantees.

Before Holland left the hospital for the hour drive back to his football world, I asked his nurse practitioner how she feels about him going back to his job now and working till 10 or 11 in the evening, making up for the time he lost in the morning.

“When he first told me he was doing that, I was like, ‘You’re joking, right?’” Shenoy said. “It’s mind-blowing to me he’s able to do all that and keep going.”

This is Holland’s 22^nd season as an NFL assistant. He doesn’t fit the mold of a typical coach. Azeez Al-Shaair saw that early, as an undrafted rookie linebacker who came to the Niners in 2019 rehabbing a surgically repaired knee. One day in the spring, Al-Shaair asked Holland if he could drive him to Wal-Mart after practice. Holland did, and Al-Shaair—who’d experienced homelessness in high school and didn’t have much money—bought a bicycle. That was his rookie-season mode of transport as a Niner. The Hollands began hosting Al-Shaair on Saturdays for meals and talk. And one day, when Al-Shaair was experiencing rookie-year frustrations, Holland went to his home and sat with him in his yard, hearing him out and telling the rookie he’d be fine.

“That day, I was just losing it,” said Al-Shaair, now a Tennessee Titan. “I mean, in the National Football League to have a coach drive to your house and sit outside of your house for two-and-a-half hours and talk about all these different things, just pouring his positivity into you … I never saw him just as a coach. I just always saw him like a grandfather-fatherly figure.”

Al-Shaair was asked what Holland has meant to his life. “Male figures in my life, uh, just kind of let me down,” he said. “I think I always like had a little bit of resentment when it came to male figures and truthfully, African American male figures. I mean, he truly is one of the best men that I I’ve ever met.”

Michael Zagaris/Getty Images

When Holland told his players about his diagnosis in 2019, Al-Shaair cried. Others marveled then, and now, about their coach’s optimistic approach. When he announced he had to take a leave for the 2021 season to undergo intensive treatment, the organization, collectively, was emotional. “I have as much love for Johnny as anyone I’ve ever been around,” coach Kyle Shanahan said. His fellow coaches honored him late that season by wearing IGYB T-shirts — “I Got Your Back.” He’s been back full-time since spring 2022.

“If you’ve met Johnny for the first time,” linebacker Fred Warner said, “you’d never know anything was wrong. The life that he brings, the energy he brings day in and day out, it’s unbelievable. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and remind myself that he does have, you know, something serious that he is dealing with. How can you watch that, as one of his players, and think, ‘Man, you know, I’m just not feeling it today. I’m gonna take today off.’ I got the blueprint right there. I got the guy who’s giving his all through the toughest of times. That’s probably one of the greatest blessings that I’ve had in my career, to be able to see that every day.”

I saw it when I asked Holland a bit of a cliché question after practice on this day.

“Ever say, Why me?”

“Naw,” he said. “Why not me? I’m glad it’s me and not someone else I love. God built me for this. I’ve learned in sports the game’s not over till there’s no time left on the clock. One second left, and you’ve got a chance. And now, this is the game of life I’m playing.”

And winning.

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

This week: New England breaks the NFL record for consecutive wins, 2004.

I wrote long on the prospect of him being finished in New England last Monday, and I shan’t do the same this week. But the specter of Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft divorcing on Thursday deserves one final memory of a game from the Patriots dynasty. Of all the New England games I covered in the 24 years of Belichick, I’ll remember three the most: Super Bowl 49 (the Malcolm Butler pick to beat the Seahawks), Super Bowl 51 (the Tom Brady comeback from 28-3) and the 74^th game of the Belichick Era, on Oct. 10, 2004, when New England beat Miami 24-10 to set the NFL record with 19 consecutive victories.

The story of what happened around the team that week left me with the thought that lots of teams say they’re meritocracies. Belichick’s teams screamed it, as my 40-for-40 should show:

Postscript: In the locker room, I saw Belichick—keeper of the world’s largest library of football books at the time—and asked him how this accomplishment felt. This was his answer, contained in the final paragraph of my Sports Illustrated story marking the occasion:

Belichick smiled. “It’s great to be in the history books,” said the man who’s read them all.

Big weekend for Houston. Very big in The Award Section. Because I wrote about C.J. Stroud higher in the column, I wanted to call attention to one of his personal protectors in this section.

Offensive players of the week

Jordan Love, quarterback, Green Bay. In continuing the hottest streak of any quarterback in football, Love shocked the world Sunday by leading the Packers’ destruction of the Cowboys 48-16. His first seven drives of the game: TD, punt, TD, TD, TD, TD, TD. Any questions left about his fitness as the heir to the Favre/Rodgers throne? I didn’t think so.

Jared Goff, quarterback, Detroit. Facing the quarterback he was traded for three years ago, Goff met a moment 32 years in the making for Detroit. He led three straight 75-yard touchdown drives to start the game, helping the Lions to an early 21-10 lead over the Rams. The Lions’ offense slowed in the second half, but Goff remained efficient and took care of the ball, and was rewarded for his 22-of-27, 277-yard performance with “Jared Goff” chants from fans and teammates alike post-game.

Laremy Tunsil, tackle, Houston. The veteran left tackle did his part to keep Stroud clean against the potential Defensive Player of the Year, Myles Garrett, holding Garrett to one pressure and no sacks in 12 one-on-one matchups. Per Next Gen Stats, Tunsil has played Garrett head-to-head five times, and held him to two pressures and zero sacks in 52 one-on-one matchups. He’s the best tackle, strong and quick, who has ever battled against Garrett.

Rashee Rice, wide receiver, Kansas City. A receiver born in Texas, raised in Texas, went to high school in Texas, went to college in Texas … and played in a game with a wind-chill temp of minus-34. And he set the Kansas City rookie record for a playoff game with 130 yards receiving on eight catches. Mahomes has been waiting for one of the guys in his receiver room to emerge as a true threat, and the rookie from SMU did that Saturday night. “We were hoping he was as good as what we saw at SMU,” Andy Reid said after the 26-7 win over Miami. “He’s got Pat’s respect.”

Puka Nacua, wide receiver, L.A. Rams. Sorry I’ve overloaded the offensive players this week, but Nacua played the best game of his young career on the biggest stage. But he’ll need a long rest from it—actually maybe three months—because of the battering he took for four quarters. He caught nine passes from Matthew Stafford on 10 targets—for an NFL rookie record of 181 yards. What a game. What a player.

Defensive players of the week

Jaire Alexander, cornerback, Green Bay. From doghouse to mansion, Alexander made an acrobatic contested pick late in the first quarter at Dallas that led to the Packers’ second touchdown and a 14-point lead early. Alexander ticked off Packers coach Matt LaFleur by sneaking out as a captain for the pre-game coin toss at Carolina on Christmas Eve, and Alexander was suspended for a week (he returned for the season finale). Sunday in Texas, Dallas was backed up at its 13-yard line and Dak Prescott threw to Brandin Cooks in tight coverage at the 19-, and Alexander made a sprawling pick. Three plays later, Aaron Jones fought in from a yard out, and Green Bay had a 14-0 lead.

George Karlaftis, defensive end, Kansas City. Six tackles, 1.5 sacks, three more QB pressures—Karlaftis continues to give defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo an excellent alternative on the outside to Chris Jones’ pressure inside on KC’s front seven. Nick Bolton deserves credit too, playing with the remnants of a dislocated wrist and one free hand, leading KC with 10 tackles.

Derek Barnett, defensive end, Houston. Great acquisition by GM Nick Caserio, claiming Barnett from the Eagles on waivers Nov. 27. Two huge plays from Barnett turned the tide against Cleveland. When Houston scored in the second quarter to go up 17-14, Barnett sacked Joe Flacco on the ensuing third down, forcing a Browns punt. With the Browns trying to rally from a 24-14 deficit midway through the third quarter, Barnett’s heavy pressure on Flacco led to a floater of a pick by corner Steven Nelson, who ran it back 82 yards for the touchdown. At 31-14, that was the ballgame.

Special teams player of the week

Harrison Butker, kicker, Kansas City. Yes, four chip-shot field goals. Those four field goals—from 28, 26, 32 and 21 yards—occurred in ridiculous cold. Butker made all six of his kicks, including two PATs, with footballs that had to have felt like rocks when he kicked them.

Coach of the Week

Bobby Slowik, offensive coordinator, Houston. What a game Slowik, the 36-year-old play-calling wunderkind, designed and orchestrated for the Texans. Slowik’s plan led to 286 yards and three TD passes in the first half against the stingy Browns. And Slowik got his receivers so open. Per Next Gen Stats, eight of C.J. Stroud’s 21 passes were targeted to receivers who had at least five yards of separation from the nearest defender—and this wasn’t any burnt-toast defense Slowik was plotting against. This was the top-ranked Browns D, and Stroud shredded it from the start. “A genius gameplan,” backup Houston QB Case Keenum said. “Bobby did a great job of setting guys to get in space while making sure C.J. was protected against the game-wreckers they have on defense.”

Goats of the Week

Joe Flacco, quarterback, Cleveland. Flacco’s twin pick-sixes 135 seconds apart in the third quarter wrecked the Browns’ season, turning a 24-14 game into 38-14 rout for the Texans with 19 minutes left. The Flacco fling was fun while it lasted, but we might have seen this coming: Flacco turned it over nine times in his five valiant regular-season rescue jobs for the Browns. It was a bit of a storybook six weeks, and it wasn’t all bad for Flacco Saturday in Houston. Houston’s Maliek Collins was spinning Flacco around for what looked to be a certain sack late in the third, but somehow he flung it away for an 11-yard gain.

Dak Prescott, quarterback, Dallas. Another huge game of Prescott coming up small, with two interceptions leading to 14 first-half points for Green Bay. A bad time for a bad game for Prescott.

I.

--Jerry Jones, with his reaction to getting blown out by Green Bay in the Wild Card round Sunday at home.

II.

--Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur, on the play of his first-year starter in Dallas.

III.

--Robert Kraft to a confidant, in a story by Seth Wickersham and Wright Thompson, about Bill Belichick’s low regard for Tom Brady when Brady left the team in 2019.

IV.

--Bill Belichick, opening his media appearance Thursday to announce that he would be leaving the Patriots as coach.

V.

--Houston tight end Brevin Jordan on Californian quarterback C.J. Stroud.

VI.

--Charles Barkley, asked by Gayle King on “CBS Mornings” what he’d have done if Aaron Rodgers implied he was on the Jeffrey Epstein list of people who associated with underage girls—as Rodgers did with Jimmy Kimmel.

I.
Seventeen hours that changed football, with the departures of three coaches born within 213 days of each other during the Truman administration:

Wednesday

2:20 pm: Pete Carroll out in Seattle.
6:27 pm: Nick Saban retires at Alabama.

Thursday

7:03 am: Bill Belichick out in New England.

Pete Carroll: 72 years, 4 months old. Born Sept. 15, 1951, San Francisco.
Nick Saban: 72 years, 2 months old. Born Oct. 31, 1951, Fairmont, W.Va.
Bill Belichick: 71 years, 9 months old. Born April 16, 1952, Nashville.

Jerod Mayo (New England) and Kalen DeBoer (Alabama) were hired within six hours of each other on Friday.

II.
Dolphins, first three games of 2023: 3-0, 130 points scored.
Dolphins, last three games of 2023: 0-3, 40 points scored.

I.
Being an edge-rusher means bursting off the defensive edge on every snap, sometimes trying to beat a tackle around the outside, sometimes trying to overpower the tackle, sometimes stunting and rushing inside, sometimes trying to stop a charging running back. Very few edge rushers can play complete games, because of that energy that’s expended on every play.

Maxx Crosby can. Per Next Gen Stats, in 2023, Crosby played every snap of 10 games.

All other edge rushers in the NFL in 2023 totaled four complete games.

II.
Role Reversal of the Week:

It happened on the press level of NRG Stadium for the Cleveland-Houston playoff game. Ian Eagle, the decorated 53-year-old sportscaster, was in the Westwood One radio booth, doing the game for a national radio audience. Noah Eagle, Ian’s fast-rising 26-year-old son, was in the NBC booth, doing the game for a national TV audience.

I walked three blocks to my car outside Ford Field this morning at 2:17 a.m., leaving the stadium to finish this column back at my airport hotel.

It was minus-1 degree, with a minus-17 wind chill. I thought: How can anyone do anything requiring fast movement or thought for three or four hours in weather like this, as Miami and Kansas City did Saturday night? I can barely walk three blocks in it.

Reach me at peterkingfmia@gmail.com.

Thinks the NFL is callous. From Richard Worley: “Forcing fans to pay for a playoff game … zillionaires that they are, I’m surprised that the NFL would be so calloused to the desires of their audience. When will we have to pay to read ‘Peter King?’”

Never. Wherever I’ve worked, I’ve made sure it stays free. Re: the Peacock game Saturday night, the NFL believes streaming is a huge part of the league’s media future. I understand the outrage of having to pay for a game that has always been on cable or over-the-air TV. But I also can see the future, and the future, in some small or increasing part, is going to be the NFL on streaming services.

Good question. From Tim Oister, of Douglassville, Pa.: “I had a question regarding the end-of-season scheduling and continuing into the playoffs. The league indicated that there would be no Monday night game in Week 18, so that it doesn’t potentially impact the competitive balance in the playoffs. Then when the playoff schedule is released, the Eagles play at the Bucs on a Monday night. How is this any different? This would be a perfect 1 p.m. Saturday game.”

You’re right; that game would be good on Saturday or Sunday. But the NFL has committed to play one game on Monday night on Wild Card weekend. It’s no big deal, really, and in many ways, I’d consider it an advantage for a team that is beat up at the end of the season; instead of playing on day six after the regular season (Saturday) or day seven (Sunday), the players get an extra day of rest. You might say, then, that the winner Monday gets jobbed because of a short week going on the road for the divisional round. Well, playing Saturday means a short week for four teams in the Wild Card round. So what does it matter?

On the college quarterback enrolling for his seventh college season. From Jason Williams, of Washington, N.C.: “I don’t think you should criticize a player for wanting to stay in college for as long as he can. After all, tens of thousands of students in colleges all over America and abroad do the same thing. They do it for many reasons. Some love the college experience. Some earn multiple degrees. Some take longer figuring out what they want to do. I say let the kid stay in college as long as he can; the real world will be waiting for him soon enough.”

Fair enough. I ask: Should there be a limit to how long a person plays college football? Is nine, 10, 11 years okay? Eighteen? With NIL money, what if a decent player can make money staying in college till age 33 rather than getting a job in the real world? What if that decent player stands in the way of four or five 18-year-olds from having the same chance he had at that age? Seems absurd to me, a seventh-year player, at 24 or 25 years old, playing college football.

Well, this is a lovely thing to read—thank you. From Amanda N. Walton-Hawthorne, of Waynesboro, Va.: “The Saban and Belichick news finds me appreciative of greatness I get to witness in my lifetime. Your Monday morning article has been a mainstay of my weekly routine since 2015, when I discovered your work during my college years. Thank you for your hard work and giving us readers little glimpses into your happy life. Football, transit, crosswords, beer, grandparenting, I love it all.”

That makes it all worthwhile, Amanda. What a nice sentiment. Thank you.
Calling Sergeant Mike. From Don McIntyre, of Liverpool, England: “I was given a copy of your Monday Morning Quarterback book for Christmas. I’m working through it, one piece at a time to fully enjoy it, but one chapter has me worried. What happened to Sgt. Mike McGuire? I very much hope he survived active service, is able to enjoy life and that you were able to remain in contact.”

I love Mike McGuire. What a great man. When I left SI in 2018, I tried every way I could figure to be in touch with him and re-engage. And I could not contact him. Some people, I concluded, don’t want to be found. All good—he’s under no obligation to be in touch with me. But … Mike, if you ever want to chat, I’m as close as peterkingfmia@gmail.com. Would love to hear from you, buddy.

1. I think the fact that Puka Nacua was the 20^th wide receiver picked in the ’23 draft and Amon-Ra St. Brown the 17^th picked in ’21 tells me that people who draft need to gather multiple mid-round picks and take chances on trait players—players who might not run fast or might be slight, but might have incredible determination or superior hands, or both.

2. I think I don’t know exactly what it means that the NFL is negotiating to buy a major stake in ESPN (h/t, Andrew Marchand), but I can predict one thing if it happens: It won’t be good for journalism at ESPN.

3. I think there deserves to be a W put in Jay Glazer’s column, reporting on the in-season frostiness between Giants coach Brian Daboll and defensive coordinator Wink Martindale. To review:

• Glazer on Fox Nov. 26: Glazer said before the Patriots-Giants game, “There could be a mutual parting of the ways. When I talk to people inside that organization, they’re saying the tension between these two—you can feel it. It’s just getting worse.”
• Daboll with a non-denial denial postgame on Nov. 26: The biggest argument Wink and I have had is who has the last piece of pizza. Have a lot of respect for Wink.”
• The New York Post report on the story Nov. 27: Quoted a high-ranking team official calling the report “utter bull----.”
• The Post reported on staff changes Jan. 9: Martindale, the paper said, cursed out Daboll when told two of his closest defensive staff members were being fired.
• Martindale was cut loose by the Giants Jan. 10: Martindale and the Giants “have mutually parted ways,” per the team.

Glazer, as it turns out, was so right about this he even got the terminology (the proverbial “mutual parting of the ways”) correct.

4. I think it’s so good to see Aaron Rodgers following his eliminate-the-distractions-around-the-Jets mantra in his daily life. “Flush the bull----,” he said on Monday, and get rid of things “we’re doing individually or collectively that has nothing to do with real winning.” Now there’s a man who walks the walk and talks the talk right there.

5. I think I was surprised the Titans couldn’t make peace with Mike Vrabel, who, by any standard, is a top-10 NFL coach. I think getting rid of him is a mistake, and I’d wonder about their long-term commitment to building a great team. There were some interesting nuggets re: the Mike Vrabel firing by owner Amy Adams Strunk in a Dianna Russini/Joe Rexrode story in The Athletic. Like this one:

Vrabel spent the Titans’ bye week in Foxboro, Mass., as a guest of owner Robert Kraft to be inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame. Vrabel had won three Super Bowls as a player with New England, and in a speech to the crowd before an Oct. 23 Patriots win against the Bills, Vrabel said: “I don’t want you to take this organization for granted. I’ve been a lot of places, this is a special place with great leadership, great fans, great direction, and great coaching. Enjoy it. It’s not like this everywhere.”

The speech raised some eyebrows in Tennessee. When he returned to Nashville, Vrabel was asked by reporters during a press conference if his comments were directed at the Titans organization. He said: “(The Patriots) have won six Super Bowls in 20 years, that’s what I was alluding to. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s just a lot of success. … The amount of success that they had there, the whole message was, just for myself and the former players and everything, just to not take things for granted.”

The whole event did not sit well with Strunk, a team source said.

6. I think I don’t blame the Titans for looking at Vrabel sideways after that. Other than his New England playing years, he played four seasons in Pittsburgh and two in Kansas City, with four years as an assistant in Houston. It’s not like this everywhere. Let’s see: Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Houston, Tennessee. The Steelers win every year, Kansas City’s a well-run organization, Houston’s had issues. And Tennessee. I wouldn’t have been happy if I were Strunk either. Having said that, the Titans deserve some heat here too. Once they traded A.J. Brown instead of paying him—although the team has signed defensive pieces Jeffery Simmons and Harold Landry—Vrabel knew he’d be left with a popgun offense. And with Derrick Henry still capable but on his way out, there’s big-time pressure on GM Ran Carthon to build a strong offense through the draft and free agency, and fast.

7. I think I wonder why Jameis Winston is some sort of conquering hero for changing a call and running a play out of victory formation last week against Atlanta. And I wonder how Jamaal Williams will feel years from now when he looks at the “1” in his rushing touchdown stat line for 2023, knowing it was run against a defense not ready for a normal play. Here, Jamaal. Have a touchdown scored in a very unsportsmanlike way, against a half-trying defense, and do it with a 24-point lead, to run up the score on the other team! Congratulations!

8. I think this was in 2006, or maybe very late in the 2005 season, and I was working on a Seahawks story for Sports Illustrated, and I went to dinner with the Matt Hasselbeck family on a weeknight in Seattle. Wife Sarah, young girls Mallory and Annabelle, and months-old son Henry. Well, imagine my surprise when paging through the web Saturday and seeing one of the Athletes of the Year in the Boston Globe’s fall all-star honors for local athletes:

Interesting backstory here. Henry Hasselbeck wasn’t recruited for football as a junior in high school in Massachusetts. He was recruited for lacrosse, though, and signed with Maryland to play lacrosse. He told the Maryland coach his dream was to play college football. Turns out Chip Kelly lost a quarterback to the transfer portal, flew to Boston to see Henry, and offered him a scholarship. So Henry Hasselbeck will be a UCLA Bruin now. One more cool thing: Matt Hasselbeck was an assistant coach at Henry’s school but pulled in a lot of directions in 2022 when he worked at ESPN. Last June, Matt was caught in the ESPN layoffs, which was dispiriting at first. But then, Matt figured he could be a full-time assistant now, and he worked at Xaverian Brothers High School in Westwood, Mass., coaching his son. Amazingly, his dad, former NFL tight end Don Hasselbeck, coached the tight ends at Xaverian. So the QB, the QB coach and the TE coach were son, father and grandfather—and Xaverian won the state title. “Getting laid off at ESPN was such a blessing in disguise,” Matt Hasselbeck told me. Man, that is the coolest thing.

9. I think the NFL can talk about its DEI efforts, and it does. But for no team to interview supremely qualified GM candidate Dawn Aponte—the league’s chief football administrative officer, the former senior VP of football operations for the Dolphins, the former VP of football administration for the Browns, the former capologist of the Jets—is absurd.

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

a. Story of the Week: Katie Strang of The Athletic, with a terrific look at how ESPN submitted fake names to acquire more than 30 Emmy statuettes for on-air talent from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) going back to at least 2010.

b. Lots of things in the sports world surprise me. This is another level of that. Someone at ESPN actually thought: Let’s give the organization that oversees the Emmys a series of fake names so that each year we can collect more Emmys to give to our people who are not supposed to get Emmys.

c. It’s so ridiculously dishonest and immoral that frankly critical words for the people who did this—not identified in the story—are nowhere near enough.

d. Wrote Strang:

… On-air talent was, until 2023, prohibited by NATAS guidelines from being included in a credit list in that category. Hosts, analysts and reporters on “College GameDay” could win individual awards, such as outstanding host, studio analyst or emerging on-air talent, and they could win for an individual feature. But they were not eligible to take home a trophy for a win by the show. That rule was meant to prevent front-facing talent from winning two awards for the same work (termed “double-dipping” in the NATAS rulebook).

ESPN circumvented the rule by inserting fake names into the credit list it submitted to NATAS for “College GameDay.” The Athletic reviewed the credit lists for the years the show won: 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. In each one of those seven years, names similar to the names of on-air personalities – and with identical initials – were listed all under the title of “associate producers.”

e. The way the scheme worked, Emmys were issued with the names “Dirk Howard” and “Chris Fulton” and many others with names similar to the on-air people, and then someone at ESPN had the nameplates re-engraved with “Desmond Howard” and “Chris Fowler” and others, per Strang. There’s no evidence that any of the on-air talent knew they were getting ill-gotten statuettes. Great reporting by Strang.

f. I Don’t Like the Sound of This Story of the Week: James Doubek of NPR, on researchers finding a massive number of plastic particles in your bottles of water:

Microscopic pieces of plastic are everywhere. Now, they’ve been found in bottled water in concentrations 10 to 100 times more than previously estimated. Researchers from Columbia University and Rutgers University found roughly 240,000 detectable plastic fragments in a typical liter of bottled water

… About 10% of the detected plastic particles were microplastics, and the other 90% were nanoplastics. Microplastics are between 5 millimeters to 1 micrometer; nanoplastics are particles less than 1 micrometer in size. For context, a human hair is about 70 micrometers thick.

A 2018 study found an average of 325 pieces of microplastics in a liter of bottled water.

g. I’ve got a bottle of “Pure Life” bottled water next to me right now. Drink it, or go to the tap in my hotel room in Houston and drink that?

h. Help. Lucky for me, the hotel provided a refillable bottle of water with a cork in it. So I was able to drain that one and fill it up from the tap in my bathroom. (Is that too much information?)

i. Good luck to the Strahan family in the cancer fight of Michael Strahan’s daughter Isabella. She seems plucky and determined, two great qualities in such a battle.

j. Cool TV Story of the Week: Caroline Cummings of WCCO News in Minneapolis on the new City Council in St. Paul, Minn. It’s believed to be the first city council of a large city in America comprised entirely of women. Seven of them, in this case.

k. What’s impressive is the average age of a person in St. Paul is 32.5, per the Associated Press, and every one of these women is under 40.

l. Advice of the week: Nick Saban, asked on his radio show in Alabama by a caller who identified himself as a young basketball player for advice on how to improve, gave a thoughtful answer. (H/T to personal brand-builder Teddy Mitrosilis for bringing it to light.) Said Saban:

“I think for any athlete, it’s the same thing. What’s your goal? What’s your aspiration? What do you want to accomplish? That’s the first thing. Second thing is to define what it takes to do it. What does it entail for you to be the kind of basketball player that you want to be?

“Then you got to make the decision. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to go work every day and do the things you need to do and take 500 shots a day like Kobe Bryant did so that you can be the kind of player that you want to be? And then do you have enough discipline to make yourself do it every day, whether you feel like it or not? You got to choose to get up. You got to choose to study. You got to choose to go make the shots. You got to choose to work out. People that can do that, they can reach their full potential.

“If you choose to make that kind of commitment to it, you can do the same thing, but it’s not going to just come to you. It’s not going to come easy. And you’re going to have to overcome a lot of adversity to be able to persevere and sustain it to get where you want to go.”

m. Might apply to pretty much everything in life.

n. Great line from veteran Newsday scribe Neil Best: “Listening to Aaron Rodgers talk for an hour inspired me to finally sign up for Covid-19 vaccine. Going Thursday afternoon.”

o. Whodunit of the Week: Harriet Ryan of the Los Angeles Times on the life and times and very odd death of a TV journalist made famous by the O.J. Simpson case.

p. Kristin Jeannette-Meyers reported for Court TV and CBS News, and per the Times, was found dead last summer in the L.A. neighborhood of Larchmont Village: “A coroner’s investigator who arrived in June at a dilapidated Spanish villa behind a high hedge and in view of the Hollywood sign noted the decomposed state of her remains and wrote, ‘It is unknown the last time the decedent was known to be alive.’”

q. Ryan reported Jeannette-Meyers hired a caregiver late in life, when it was clear she was exceedingly troubled. Wrote Ryan:

“She was terrified of leaving the house,” said Beatriz Sanchez, a professional caregiver who accepted the job about a year and a half ago. Sometimes she worked her whole shift without laying eyes on the woman, who spent the day in her bedroom in a routine Sanchez described as “pace, sleep, panic.”

“Don’t think you are here for no reason,” the woman told her when they communicated by phone or text. “You help me emotionally.”

The home on a corner lot in a coveted neighborhood was stately with a striking balcony, but it had fallen into disrepair. Trash bags filled the rooms and closets, and the yard looked “worse than the freeway,” Sanchez recalled. The woman’s cats relieved themselves inside, and a broken toilet spilled waste on the first floor.

“I couldn’t be in there without opening the window because I would feel like I would throw up immediately,” Sanchez said.

Still, the woman was “sweet, encouraging and grateful,” with an intelligence that could break through the side effects of her many psychiatric medications … The woman mentioned that she was an attorney who had done some broadcasting. Sanchez Googled her. The face that stared back from the screen was unrecognizable.

r. Sad Reality of the Week: Grace Benninghoff of the Portland Press Herald in Maine, on the trials of a homeless woman in Maine who can’t find a way out of her life.

s. This is not a happy story. It’s a tragic one. But it’s part of the reality of the country, and Good for Benninghoff to shine a light on 35-year-old Desirae Rowe. (Thanks to The Sunday Long Read for pointing me to the story.)

t. Wrote Benninghoff:

Desirae, who is 35, went into foster care at age 12. At 19, she got married to a man she says was abusive and landed her several times in the hospital. When she left him, she ended up on the street for a while – until she got a job with a traveling carnival, setting up and tearing down rides all over Maine and Massachusetts. She was pregnant at 21, but the dad was out of the picture before her daughter turned 1.

She named her daughter Kasen, which according to baby name lists means “pure.”

She tried to keep her and raise her, but it didn’t come easily.

Her second marriage was more stable, but her husband used drugs and died from a fentanyl overdose shortly after they moved to Arizona for a fresh start.

Back in Maine … When her mother could no longer care for Kasen, Desirae took her daughter back for a while. She rented an apartment in Portland for $2,000 a month and worked 80-hour weeks in the kitchen at Andy’s Old Port Pub. She barely had time to see her daughter, so she asked Kasen’s other grandparents to help. But she says they turned out to be abusive, and Kasen ended up in foster care – at about the same age Desirae was when she entered the system.

Desirae’s third husband introduced her to meth three years ago, and she hasn’t been able to kick the habit.

u. Lord. Excellent reporting by Benninghoff. Depressing reporting too.

So Jerry is “floored.”
The more things change in Dallas,
the more they stay same.