SLADE'S GRADES - WEEK 5

Hiya kids!  Welcome back, we had another pivotal week of action full of exciting outcomes and season altering injuries.  Before we commence I am happy to announce to all of you that we have a very special guest sitting in on class this week.  Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor to welcome the Vice President of the United States Mr. Mike Pence to the classroom.  Mr. Pence, we are grateful to have you join us today, is there anything we can offer you to ma….  Oh, ummmmmmm ok, annnnnd he’s already gone.  Never mind then. 

Well, we may as well just get down to business and start passing out the passes and fails for week 5

*Grading scale:
Pass = A plus – C minus
Fail = D plus – F minus
(C’s gets degrees but D’s don’t)

Week 5 Passes:

 © bobtanney.com 

The Hard Luck Charges Finally Win One: C-

The Charges have finally brought a win home to LA after 5 weeks of play.  All it took was running into a team even more hard up than themselves, the still winless New York Giants.  After losing 4 close games to start the season they finally came out on the right side of a one score nail biter in week 5. 

After finishing the first quarter down 9 - 0 on the road in MetLife Stadium, the Bolts pulled up their socks and started out their scoring the same way they’d finish it, by Philip Rivers hitting Melvin Gordon on a short pass in the flat for a touchdown.  The last one came with just under 3 minutes left to play in the fourth quarter and was enough to secure a 27-22 victory for the Chargers.  Although one win against a bad and depleted Giants team isn’t an excuse for LA City Hall to plan a parade route for the Chargers, it does stop the hemorrhaging.  This was exactly the type of game that the Chargers have become infamous for finding a way to lose, so the fact that they were able to close this one out for the victory is a big sigh of relief for their whole organization.  With back to back rivalry games against the Raiders and Broncos coming up next for the Chargers they’ll need all the confidence they can find, and this was finally a step in the right direction.  Who knows, maybe this is a sign that their luck is finally starting to change for the better. 

AP to AZ:  B-

With an NBA like move the Saints have dealt Adrian Peterson to the Arizona Cardinals for a late round pick in a rare in-season trade featuring a household name.  You’ve got to like this move for a number of reasons; let’s face it, the Peterson/Saints marriage was doomed from the get go and everyone knew it.  It was like your friend announcing that they are going to marry someone they have absolutely nothing in common with.  You want to shake them and yell “don’t do it! It’s not going to work!”  but you don’t because you respect your friend and you want to be positive about it, I mean, who knows maybe really good oil can mix with really smart water.  But fast forward 5 weeks into the marriage and it’s obvious you should have trusted your gut and denounced this sham of a union from jump.  The good news for Peterson is now he has a chance to be the feature back instead of having to share the load with a crowded backfield in an offense not even suited to his playstyle.  The good news for the Saints is they get an extra draft pick next year and jettisoned a growing distraction.  It was no secret that Peterson wasn’t happy with his paltry workload and Sean Payton wasn’t about to completely flip the script and become a power I offence just to appease Peterson.  Will Peterson rush for over 1000 yards and carry the Cardinals to the Super Bowl?  No, likely not.  But he will certainly get more carries than he did in New Orleans and until David Johnson returns from the IR it’s no secret that the Cardinals could use help in the running game.  From the fans perspective we can only hope that this may signal a new trend of big names being dealt prior to the trade deadline.  For years we’ve read articles titled “Top Trades We’d like to See Before the Trade Deadline” and then, nothing.  No notable names traded in season.  Why not ship a mistaken free agent signing out of a floundering situation a quarter of the way through the season?  Or why not send an aging future hall of fame left tackle from your winless squad to a contender for a high round pick? (Looking at you Cleveland).  We understand that in football, the ultimate team game, it doesn’t make sense to try and jerry-rig a roster together mid-season.  The nuances of an NFL playbook can take months to learn.  But sending the odd 30-something stud to a better situation for a draft pick or two is as Sean Payton says, ‘common sense’. 

Aaron Rodgers Goes 75 in 63:  A+

On Sunday at home against the Packers Dak Prescott found himself in an unusual predicament.  About to cap off a would-be game winning drive on a perfectly executed read option he dove into the end zone with 1:03 left in the game.  High-fives, daps and chest-bumps all around, until full comprehension of the situation sinks in and you realize that 63 seconds is life time still left on the clock for Aaron Rodgers to at least drive his team into field goal range.  As much as it goes against every instinct a player has, Prescott would have been better served to fall down at the one yard line instead of taking the go-ahead TD.  That way the Cowboys could have ran more time off the clock before scoring the winning TD.  This of course is all theory and hindsight from a Monday morning QB so take it for what it’s worth, but as it unfolded in real time it was plain to see that even on the road, driving into the blinding sunshine and with his top WR on the sideline, 63 seconds was simply too much time to leave Aaron Rodgers with.  He sliced through the Cowboys defense with ease and hit Davante “Didn’t I watch you die last week?” Adams for the game winning TD with 11 seconds to spare.  It was a masterful drive by Rodgers and more fuel for the argument of him being the best in the game right now.  Whether you have him as your #1 or #2 QB in the league (depending on your affinity for Tom Brady) one thing is for sure, you cannot leave any time on the clock if you lead by less than 7 and Aaron Rodgers is on the opposing sideline. 

Week 5 Fails:

(Photo: Kevin Jairaj, USA TODAY Sports)

Hurt Locker:  F

The NFL lost arguably its two biggest stars to IR on Sunday with Odell Beckham Jr. and JJ Watt both going down with season ending injuries.  Hell, the Giants had basically their whole WR corps go down against the Chargers with 4 receivers being hurt in action Sunday afternoon, three of them are now lost for the season (Brandon Marshall, Dwayne Harris and the aforementioned Beckham).  Other notable injures include the Lions’ Haloti Ngata, Texans’ Whitney Mercilus, and Chiefs wide out Chris Conley all done for the year after suffering season ending injuries this week.  Those were just the season ending injuries, other notable wounds that could lead to future missed action include The Titans Pro Bowl tackle Taylor Lewan, Bills’ tight end Charles Clay, Giants’ WR Sterling Shepard, Miami’s DeVante Parker, Baltimore’s Terrance West, New York Jets’ RB Bilal Powell and Tampa Bay’s RE Ryan Russell.  (Deep exhale).  It’s been a while since there has been that many notable injures in a single week, especially ones as serious and far reaching as these.  To have JJ Wyatt sent to IR for a second straight season is heartbreaking for not just Texans fans but for NFL fans too.  The same can be said for Odell Beckham, whether you love him or love to hate him, the truth is, games are more exciting with him in the lineup.  It is always upsetting for fans and fantasy football players alike to lose a dominating player this early in the season, to lose this many in one week is damn near catastrophic.  Hopefully the injury bug got all its stinging out in week 5 and more superstars don’t succumb to its wrath anytime soon. 

Dolphins’ Blow-line Coach: F-

Well, by now you’ve probably all seen the video of the (former) Dolphins O-line coach Chris Foerster snorting lines and talking dirty to his stripper girlfriend, if you haven’t, here it is, DJ, please cue up T-Pain’s ‘I’m in Love with a Stripper’ and keep Wyclef’s ‘Perfect Gentleman’ on standby.  Pretty great stuff, isn’t it?  

Can you imagine how intense that O-line meeting was right after he plowed those rails of blow into his nose?  Sorry, ‘what appears to be cocaine’.  That is what all the major news outlets are saying.  I haven’t seen one straight up call it cocaine, and Hell, maybe it isn’t, I’m hardly Pablo Escobar so I could be wrong, maybe it’s not blow, but it damn sure isn’t Tide.  He’s pie eyed while snorting lines of the stuff and talking to the camera about how high him and his stripper friend are going to get next time he sees her and how he wishes he was doing these lines with her.  Everyone knows cocaine is stripper food so it’s only common sense to deduce that the substance he’s inhaling via a rolled up $20 bill through his nasal cavity is blow. Why am I the only one venturing a guess on that? 

The fallout from all this is Coach Foerster resigned (obviously before he was fired), Miami’s O-linemen now know why their coach was talking annoyingly fast while implementing last week’s game plan and the Dolphins hired new O-line coach Dave DeGuglielmo who actually used to coach O-line for the Dolphins from 2009-2011 and never once in that time used a stripper as a ‘cocaine platter’ that anyone is aware of.  What did we learn from all this?  Not much.  Other than people are crazy and it’s not a good idea to film yourself doing copious amounts of blow at work, and it’s an even worse idea to then send said video of you doing copious amounts of blow at work to a stripper and expect her to not leak it to the press.  But really, outside of Chris Foerster, who didn’t know that already? 

Big Ben Winding Down: D-

Ben Roethlisberger had himself an all-time stinker of a game on Sunday when he tossed 5 interceptions to the Jacksonville Jaguars’ defense.  What’s worse is after the game he had a mini temper tantrum in front of the press when asked by reporters if he was doing anything differently under center, he replied "I don't think so, but maybe I am. Maybe I don't have it anymore. I'm not playing well enough."  He obviously didn’t mean that and said as much a few questions later but by then the damage was already done.  You can’t act that way in front of the press as the unequivocal leader of the locker room.  Especially when just a week before you were giving Antonio Brown shit for his unprofessional spazz-out on the sideline during the Ravens game in week 4.  Practice what you preach, Ben.  Be professional on the field, in the locker room and at the pressers.  It’s bad enough he’s been ending the past couple of seasons with the proverbial ‘will he or won’t he?’ retirement talk even though the whole world knew he wouldn’t retire and instead was simply seeking attention the same way an emo 8^th grader threatens to run away from home in a ‘they’ll miss me when I’m gone’ attempt to gain appreciation.  You’re better than that, Ben.  You’re a two-time Super Bowl Champion and a likely future Hall of Famer one day, act like it.  You can’t be waffling on whether or not you want to still play and telling beat reporters that you don’t have it anymore.  Especially when you look at your counterparts around the league and guys like Tom Brady and Drew Brees want to play until we have to drag their bones off the field and tell that to anyone who will listen.  Those are the guys that other players want to fallow into battle every Sunday, not the guy hemming and hawing if his heart is still in it or not.  Indifference and apathy as an NFL QB won’t ever get you to Canton, ask Jay Cutler.