QUICK NFL THOUGHTS–WEEK 9

Here are some random thoughts about Week 9 in the NFL…

• The next Lambeau Leap might be a Packers fan jumping off from the top of the stadium as Green Bay’s season continues to spiral into irrelevance with Aaron Rodgers on the sideline.
• Before the season started, most experts believed that one team from New York would contend for a playoff spot while the other would stink.  Those experts were right but none of them thought after nine weeks the Jets would be 4-5 and the Giants 1-7.
• It’s time for the NFL to issue an Amber Alert for Minnesota quarterback Sam Bradford.
• If you were asked before the season started what one NFL team would bungle a trade because they forgot to file the necessary paperwork before the deadline, then everyone would have answered the Cleveland Browns.
• The current state of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their head coach, Dirk Koetter, was perfectly encapsulated after Tampa wide receiver Mike Evans blindsided New Orleans defensive back Marshon Lattimore, sparking a mini-brawl between the two teams in front of the Bucs sideline.  While chaos reigned in front of him, Koetter appeared to have no clue, looking like a man who either was staring into the abyss or would have paid money he didn’t have to get him the hell out of there.
• The Arizona Cardinals are the worst 4-4 team in modern NFL history.  Their four wins are against the Colts in overtime, Tampa Bay and twice against San Francisco.
• Cincinnati’s 23-7 loss to Jacksonville on Sunday should for all intents and purposes put an end to the Marvin Lewis era.  The 2017 Bengals are undisciplined, poorly coached, ill-prepared prior and during the game, passionless and careless.  This team is currently rudderless, floating adrift admits the NFL sea.  It’s time for a new captain before the Bengals sink any further.
• When the venerable CBS news anchor, Walter Cronkite, reported in 1968, that the United States could not win the war in Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson lamented, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost MIddle America.”  A month later, Johnson announced he would not run for re-election.  Fast forward to 2017 and another respected broadcaster, Vin Scully.  He announced recently to a crowd at a symposium that, “I’ll never watch another NFL game” in response to the many players who have kneeled during the national anthem.  If the NFL is smart, they would heed the warning issued by Johnson nearly 50 years earlier.  Because unless the NFL changes their images and they way they conduct their business, if they’ve lost Vin Scully, then they’ve lost Middle America.
• Everybody, it seems, has their opinion on why the ratings for the NFL are precipitately down in the first nine weeks of 2017.  Rarely, though, does anyone mention the main culprit for why fewer people are watching the NFL on Thursday, Sunday or Monday–the quality of the product stinks.