Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! 2021 is going to be great for new coaches
Plus, Week 15 picks and holiday desserts
Correction: We have a little bit of business to attend to right off the top today. No journalist likes to have to go back and add the dreaded “oh hey, something got fucked up in our story” note to the bottom of a piece they’ve already published. But I messed up Wednesday’s edition of the newsletter. It went out with the subject line “How do we turn the Browns into a Super Bowl contender?” That was an oversight on my part because it should have read, “How do we take the Browns to the Super Bowl?” Please accept my sincerest apologies. —RVB
2021 will be a great year (for guys who want to be head coaches)
For 16 of the 17 weeks of the NFL season, Mondays are for primetime football. The one exception? Week 17, which wraps up on Sunday and gives way to Black Monday.
That’s the day franchises looking to escape from underwhelming head coaches make their move. More coaches are fired on the Monday after the regular season than any other day on the calendar. 2021 could be a bloodbath.
We’ve already seen veteran coaches Bill O’Brien, Dan Quinn, and Matt Patricia served their walking papers. Several more play callers will join them in a crowded market for assistant work this offseason. We know Adam Gase will almost certainly end his reign of torment over the tri-state area come January. Other coaches who’ve been unable to escape a vortex of losses and bad decisions will follow.
There’s a chance nearly a third of the league’s teams will officially begin their head coaching searches at the same time an expanded postseason welcomes more than 40 percent of the field to the playoffs. This sets the stage for one of the bloodiest Black Mondays in recent memory. And while this is awful news for hot-seated head coaches, rising assistants across the NFL and a certain number of NCAA sideline generals could have more opportunities in 2021 than ever before.
Let’s take a look at these vacancies, ranging from the ones we know will be open to the ones that may or may not throw a “help wanted” sign in the window of their team headquarters this winter. That last category is filled with guys who have absolutely demonstrated they *could* be fired at a moment’s notice, but may not be shown the door due to various outside factors. Either way, let’s break down whether or not the top candidates in a robust market of rising stars should even want these positions.
Jobs that are already open
Atlanta Falcons (Former coach: Dan Quinn)
Estimated 2021 cap space: $-25.2 million
Pros: You’ll inherit an offense led by former MVP Matt Ryan and headed by one of the top 10 wideouts of all time (Julio Jones) and a touchdown-machine WR1b who thrives with or without him in the lineup (Calvin Ridley). Pretty much every starter on that side of the ball is a former first-round pick, which isn’t necessarily helpful but does suggest the raw talent there is capable of outplaying an occasionally wretched defense. Your home stadium looks cool and sells $5 beers and $1.50 hot dogs.
Cons: Ryan is 35 years old. Jones is 31. Todd Gurley is, spiritually, 43. The defense hasn’t ranked higher than 20th in yards allowed since 2017. Every first-round pick spent to address that unit becomes a tacit admission of failure (Keanu Neal, Takk McKinley, A.J. Terrell). Your salary cap is a mess and everyone set to make $10m+ this year is uncuttable. You can’t ever take a 28-3 lead in a football game.
Detroit Lions (Patricia)
Estimated cap space: $1.3m
Pros: Win one playoff game and you’ll have job security for a decade. Matthew Stafford, eternally underrated everywhere but his bank account, has been a significantly better quarterback under a competent offensive mind once Patricia was fired (323 passing yards per game and a 105.5 passer rating in that stretch). Your offensive line is led by a guy so tough he fractured his damn throat and didn’t miss a snap.
Cons: Stafford may be nearing the end of his run in Detroit — the team can move on from him after 2021 and eat just $9.5m in dead cap space — so you may be overseeing a quarterback transition from a team not bad enough for a top-five pick nor good enough for more than a Wild Card Round appearance. Kenny Golladay will be a free agent this spring and will likely be out of your price range. The defense is a tangled mess of former Patriots who failed to congeal under Patricia. Whomever your top running back is will look good for three weeks before mysteriously succumbing to some weird malady that limits his yards per carry to 3.3. The job might not even be open because Lions players really seem to like interim head coach Darrell Bevell!
Houston Texans (O’Brien)
Estimated cap space: $-12.8m
Pros: Deshaun Watson and Laremy Tunsil are locked into long-term deals, giving the Texans one of the league’s top QB-LT combinations. Watson is so damn good he could make you look brilliant by accident, which is a testament to just how thoroughly O’Brien butchered this team (DEANDRE HOPKINS FOR DAVID JOHNSON AND A SECOND-ROUNDER ARE YOU KIDDING ME?). Houston is 4-5 under Romeo Crennel (career head coaching record before this: 28-55) so it won’t be too difficult to coax this team to at least a decent finish.
Cons: Locking Watson and Tunsil into said deals destroyed Houston’s cap space to the point J.J. Watt may be an unavoidable release in 2021. The defense, chock full of stars like Watt, Whitney Mercilus, and Benardrick McKinney, currently ranks 31st in yards allowed and 32nd in turnovers created. Horrible pass blocking remains the franchise’s proudest tradition, with no end in sight (Watson is on pace for 48 sacks this season). Getting help through the 2021 draft is gonna be tough because O’Brien traded away the team’s first- and second-round picks (AND ALSO HOPKINS I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’LL TRY TO GET PAST IT ARHGHGHGH).
Jobs that will likely be open
New York Jets (Gase)
Estimated cap space: $81.9m
Pros: You’ll likely have Trevor Lawrence at quarterback. Mekhi Becton looks like a franchise cornerstone at left tackle. C.J. Mosley will be back in 2021. After Adam Gase, any coaching decision beyond vomiting down your own windbreaker will look brilliant.
Cons: The Jets, man. Lawrence is going to have to be pretty damn explosive to escape the gravity of the franchise’s horrible quarterback development. Your newly overhauled offensive line, bar Becton, mostly sucks. Your defense mostly sucks. Everything mostly sucks.
Los Angeles Chargers (Anthony Lynn)
Estimated cap space: $33.5m
Pros: Justin Herbert has performed above expectations in Year 1 and has possibly the most promising deep ball of any rookie or sophomore quarterback. Austin Ekeler is a near-perfect three-down back and, in the midst of a four-year, $24.5 million contract, an inexpensive one. Joey Bosa remains a furious murder machine and, if healthy, Derwin James and Casey Hayward are tremendous pass deterrents over the middle. A season without fans has only further conditioned Chargers players to the lack of local support they face in LA.
Cons:
Jacksonville Jaguars (Doug Marrone)
Estimated cap space: $84.8m
Pros: James Robinson is the best rookie tailback in the league, and he’ll be dirt cheap for years and years to come as a former undrafted free agent. D.J. Chark and Collin Johnson look like a high-upside 1-2 at wideout for whichever young quarterback gets drafted at No. 2 (or, god willing with an unlikely Jets win this December, No. 1). Gardner Minshew is a high-value backup who can win games if the young prospect ahead of him fails to pan out. Trading away 90 percent of their defensive stars has provided the team with a war chest of future picks.
Cons: Here are all the quarterbacks the Jags have drafted in the third round or earlier in franchise history:
Fate is not on your side with the Untitled 2021 Jacksonville Quarterback Project. The defense is a hollowed-out shell of itself. The Jags depth chart is roughly two good inside linebackers, the other Josh Allen, some project defensive backs, and a bunch of mannequins rescued from a shuttered Sears. Every day will bring constant The Good Place references.
Jobs that *might* be open
Dallas Cowboys (Mike McCarthy)
Estimated cap space: $33.4m
Pros: Assuming the team re-signs Dak Prescott, you’ll have a top-five young quarterback and an array of weapons including Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, and CeeDee Lamb. Leighton Vander Esch can’t possibly play this poorly two years in a row. Your owner is a lunatic willing to spend or withhold massive amounts of cash on a whim in order to do what he thinks is right for the roster.
Cons: Your owner is a lunatic willing to spend or withhold massive amounts of cash on a whim in order to do what he thinks is right for the roster. That salary cap space disappears if Prescott is re-signed, leaving the club in salary cap hell for the foreseeable future. Ezekiel Elliott, who has one more touchdown (7) than fumbles (6), is stuck collecting eight-figure paydays through at least 2022. He may be the latest albatross dropped onto a pile of steaming “don’t pay for running backs” takes. The defense has the structural integrity of a bowl of clam chowder.
Philadelphia Eagles (Doug Pederson)
Estimated cap space: $-64.2m
Pros: Fixing the offensive line might be as simple as getting everyone healthy again. Jalen Hurts might be a thing (but probably not). Miles Sanders is a straight-up home run hitter. Six wins might make you a division champion.
Cons: NEGATIVE $64 MILLION IN CAP SPACE. Unless you’re certain you can fix Carson Wentz, you might as well not apply.
Chicago Bears (Matt Nagy)
Estimated cap space: $2.5m
Pros: Allen Robinson has spent the decade proving he can make awful quarterbacks look passable, which is great because Chicago knows nothing but awful quarterbacks. Khalil Mack has rebounded from a down 2019 (but not to his 2018 standard).
Cons: Mitchell Trubisky might play well enough to force his way into a Blake Bortles-esque extension. Nick Foles will take up more than $17m in cap space the next two years to be Schrodinger’s quarterback. Khalil Mack is getting paid $24 million annually to play like something less than Khalil Mack.
Cincinnati Bengals (Zac Taylor)
Estimated cap space: $41.5m
Pros: Escaping Taylor’s mediocrity could allow Joe Burrow and a stacked receiving corps a chance to shine (seriously, look at how terrible Taylor’s resume is). Salary cap space is not now, nor has ever really been, a problem. Management will give you the green light to make stupid decisions like signing Trae Waynes to a three-year, $42 million deal. There’s a Hofbrauhaus across the river in Newport, Kentucky.
Cons: Your tolerance for stupid questions about chili will be tested. You will be measured up to Marvin Lewis by said management and found lacking. It’s the fucking Bengals. — CD
Chargers vs. Raiders, in five words or fewer
Week 15 picks
Week 15 began with the final Thursday Night Football game of the year. Credit where credit is due — the Chargers and Raiders put on a show.
It had everything: Marcus Mariota coming in for an injured Derek Carr and doing his best “Ryan Tannehill in relief” impression (and later, almost giving the game away with a bad throw); the Chargers missing two potential game-winning kicks; the Raiders trying for a 65-yard field goal and botching the snap; Jon Gruden wearing an Oakland Raiders hat; Anthony Lynn going too conservative in the fourth quarter and making questionable decisions; the Raiders racking up costly penalties late in the game; and finally, Justin Herbert scoring the game-winning touchdown in overtime, one play after he almost lost it when he fumbled at the goal line.
Phew. It’s safe to say none of us saw this coming — and not just because we all picked the Raiders to win:
Our guest picker at least has an excuse. Todd Robert Anderson, aka @tonnslingdog, told us his football knowledge is nonexistent and yet, he still agreed to join our panel this week. This was both nice of him and a sign that drinking trash juice with Ben Folds is probably not a great decision:
For those who don’t understand the reference, Anderson played Dr. Vernon Barbara on the FXX show You’re the Worst, which I finally finished earlier this year when the pandemic was still in its infancy. All five seasons are available to stream on Hulu, and I must say, that as difficult as it can be to get a series finale right, You’re The Worst’s swan song was exactly what it should have been. He also guest starred in a couple episodes of the criminally underrated American Vandal, which you should add to your Netflix queue if you’ve never seen it.
Nowadays, Anderson is one of the hosts of My Favorite Shtty Movie and The Film Pigs podcast. He’s a published author as well, so if you know any horror fans and need a last-minute Christmas gift, check out his book, The Headache Man.
All four of us head into Saturday (yup, Saturday games are back) at 0-1, but what if the guy who doesn’t follow football ends up with a better record than the three of us who do? Well, I guess I wouldn’t be surprised. — SH
The “We’re not a laughingstock anymore” game: Browns vs. Giants
Even in a loss on Monday night, one thing was clear: these are not the same old Browns. They showed confidence and resiliency in their entertaining last-second loss to the Ravens, a comeback ruined by Lamar Jackson turning superhero after being temporarily incapacitated by cramps (or diarrhea — you do your business, Lamar).
The Browns get a second chance at a pivotal primetime win on Sunday when they visit the Giants in the Meadowlands. On the other sideline will be a familiar face they’d probably like to forget:
Kitchens was in over his head in his one season as the coach in Cleveland. Baker Mayfield regressed, and the 2019 Browns were nothing but unfilled potential and non-stop drama. The Browns went from Bubba to Brainy in the offseason with their new hire. Kevin Stefanski is an upgrade in about every way over Kitchens — a smart, creative coach who has kept the locker room focused (and not that it matters, but your mom probably has a little crush on him). He’s led the Browns to their first winning season in 13 years and, barring a total collapse in the final three weeks, their first playoff appearance since 2002.
Of course, a total collapse, including losing to their one-and-done head coach and one of their many former quarterbacks, would be a classic Browns move. But this team doesn’t have to be defined by the franchise’s historic ineptitude and bad-luck misery. A win on Sunday night would only help prove this is, at long last, a new era for the Browns. — SH
The “potential Super Bowl preview … sorta” game: Chiefs vs. Saints
This easily could’ve been a No. 1 seed vs. No. seed matchup, if Drew Brees hadn’t gotten hurt and if Sean Payton could ever quit Taysom Hill. Instead, the Saints dropped to the No. 2 seed in the NFC (for now) after a loss last week, and they will apparently have Brees back this week after the 41-year-old dealt with 11 broken ribs and a punctured lung (but not a fractured throat, thankfully).
These teams could still meet again in February, but it won’t look the same as it does on Sunday when Brees is returning from major injuries and also won’t have Michael Thomas in the lineup. At least watching the Saints’ No. 2 defense take on the Chiefs’ No. 2 offense could look Super Bowl-ish. — SH
To hell with gifts. Give me ice cream!
I’m old enough now to be kind of whatever about getting Christmas gifts. If it’s not, say, a mortgage payment or free health insurance, I really don’t need it. Part of that has a lot to with being a parent, where the joy of gift giving is reflected in sharing things with your kid. And, hey, new socks are nice, but they don’t pay the bills — that’s the thing you think about most if you’re one of the lucky few of us who have been pushed into the quicksand of being lower middle class (a polite way of saying paycheck to paycheck) by the shitty machinations of this terrible year.
But there is one line of XMas giving that I am pretty psyched up for this year, more than usual: stuffing my face with a parade of desserts. If there’s one thing that can quell all-consuming bitterness and contempt it’s chocolate … and cinnamon … and ice cream … and, well, you know.
Here are few things I’m planning, or considering, to eat over the holidays. What sweet treats are you looking forward to? Do you have any dessert traditions this time of year?
Pies
What kind of pies? All kinds. There is no pie that is wrong to eat, so if you want to shove some key lime pie down the ol’ gullet on New Year’s Eve, by all means.
We did the pumpkin pie thing for Thanksgiving, and as much as I like pumpkin pie, it’s not worthy of using one of your precious few pie cards on the same thing in two months.
Right now we’re weighing a chocolate bourbon pecan versus a Meyer lemon shaker pie from a local bakery. We’ll probably go with the lemon pie (really more of a tart) because my son does not like chocolate (seriously, what the hell is wrong with this kid?)
Cookies
There are two kinds of cookies that are holiday must-haves for me, and really, I’m not sure that they’re all that different. Buckeyes and peanut butter blossoms (you know, the ones with a Hersey Kiss on top of a peanut butter cookie).
If you want to combine the cookie and pie experience, this Buckeye Pie recipe that Sarah dropped into our Slack room looks pretty darn good.
If your kids still do the whole Santa thing, then chocolate chip cookies are a must. Those are a year-round goodie for me, and since our son hasn’t done the Santa thing since he was five (yes, he figured it out early and you have to choose when to play the lie card with your kids very carefully), we always find a different sweet for Christmas Eve. And this year it’s going to be …
Milkshakes
MILKSHAKES? MOTHER FUCKER, IT’S SNOWING OUTSIDE!
I know, it’s not really something you would typically associate with the holidays, especially winter holidays. But hear me out. I haven’t had a milkshake all year, and thanks to our country’s failed leadership, the best place in town to get one wasn’t available during the usual milkshake months because of this whole pandemic.
The only question is what kind(s) of milkshake to make???? It’s like a chemistry set in that you can’t just throw a bunch of stuff together because each part looks good on an individual basis. For instance, cookie dough ice cream is great, but it’s not exactly shake material with all the chunks in it.
Picking the right ice cream is the starting point. I like a good vanilla for a base layer. Blue Bell’s Homemade Vanilla is a very solid option. I recently discovered the Coolhaus Best of Both Worlds Vanilla, and that might be my top pick from the dank ass ice cream part of the frozen section. There’s a local ice cream shop here that makes an incredible dulce de leche that’s I’m going to use for shakes this year too. — RVB
nebraska played terible this year in 2020 there recered was 3 and 5 that bad man
Two questions for you CD. I like all of your picks each week, but this one got me wondering...why the Redskins over the Seahawks? Why the Cowboys over the 49ers? Got a season long pool I'm in the running to win... help a brother out.