What we've learned from one week of training camp
Détente in Green Bay, the Saints are screwed, and Ben Roethlisberger is in the best shape of his life for the 18th straight season!
Even during an exhilarating if exhausting week of sports, the NFL still found a way to stay in the headlines. The first week of training camp brought us Aaron Rodgers’ (temporary?) reconciliation with the Packers, another (minor) injury for Dak Prescott, news that Michael Thomas will miss the start of the season, and an immunodeficient Ron Rivera trying to convince his team to get vaccinated.
Phew, it’s not even August yet!
So yeah, now that training camp is in full swing, there’s quite a bit to talk about. That’s why we’re following up last week’s conversation with a new discussion about what we’ve learned so far — and what we think could still happen.
Which team has to be feeling the best after the first week of training camp?
Sarah Hardy: The 49ers seemed positively upbeat this week. They’re healthier than they’ve been in almost a year (Nick Bosa, Dee Ford, and Jalen Hurd are all back on the field, even if they’re still not ready for team drills). Jimmy Garoppolo is still QB1 (for now) and is extra motivated. He’s also letting the swears fly in front of the cameras, like a cheery version of Roy Kent:
The rookies Trey — Lance and Sermon — have both looked good, and there’s no outward awkwardness between Lance and Garoppolo. In fact, it’s the opposite. Brandon Aiyuk has drawn rave reviews after a promising rookie season, and fellow 2020 draftmate Javon Kinlaw is a breakout candidate.
If they can avoid major injuries, then the 49ers are Super Bowl contenders, and they know it:
But again, it’s only the first week of training camp.
Christian D’Andrea: The Packers? They went from having so much uncertainty some sports books wouldn’t post a win total for their 2021 to having Aaron Rodgers back, at least for one more season, and Davante Adams suddenly receptive to a (prohibitively expensive, but probably worthwhile) contract extension. I’m not sure this won’t be the latest Green Bay team to die on the vine in the postseason, but it’ll still be light years ahead of where it would have been with Jordan Love in the lineup.
(I think Love can eventually be pretty good, but it’s gonna take some heavy duty coaching to get there.)
Ryan Van Bibber: To me, the most important thing to pay attention to in training camp is who’s healthy and who’s not. Seeing Joe Burrow ready to go on Day 1 of camp is about the best news the Bengals have had a long, long time. He was apparently throwing well too. Now, we’ll have to wait and see just how close he actually is to 100 percent--I tend to think it takes players a full season to get back to the point where they can completely trust their body again after an injury like that--but this is pretty much the most Cincy could ask for right now. With Burrow back in the fold they can maybe live up to very modest expectations this season.
On the flip side, which team is probably feeling the worst?
SH: The Saints are not off to an auspicious start to the post-Drew Brees era:
Sean Payton is pissed at either Michael Thomas, Thomas’ doctors, or both for the timing of his WR1’s surgery — and it’s not like the Saints’ receiving corps is deep, which will make life more difficult for whoever wins the starting QB job.
There’s concern on the other side of the ball, too. Despite fielding a top-10 defense in each of the last four years, the Saints lost contributors like Janoris Jenkins, Trey Hendrickson, Malcom Brown, Sheldon Rankins, Kwon Alexander, and Alex Anzalone this offseason. They’ll need their rookies to step up, and maybe they will. But it also feels like this team’s Super Bowl window has already closed.
CD: The Dolphins should be riding high after last year’s 10-win campaign, but Xavien Howard’s trade request could drive a wedge through the defensive secondary that’s supposed to be head coach Brian Flores’ strength. There’s good news because second-year QB Tua Tagovailoa is doing things like this:
But Tua also lobbed a pair of interceptions to open camp that suggest his progress will be incremental rather than a massive leap in year two. The reason he threw that touchdown pass to Albert Wilson and not one of his fancy new targets? Well, Will Fuller is throwing the Dolphins head first into the Will Fuller experience by *already* injuring himself and Jaylen Waddle, ehhhhh:.
Tagovailoa could be throwing to roughly the same underwhelming corps he was as a rookie to start the year. There’s no Ryan Fitzpatrick to fill in should he stumble, and 2020’s easy schedule will give way to a more challenging 2021. The Dolphins should still be in the playoff race this fall, but expecting a significant improvement could be a fool’s errand.
RVB: The vaccination fiasco doesn’t bode well for lots of teams, but the fact that the team is still having a hard time getting its players jabbed despite head coach Ron Rivera being immunocompromised is not a great sign for team culture on a franchise where culture’s at a naturally toxic baseline.
Jemel Hill’s report in The Atlantichad a really damning anecdote where defensive end Montez Sweat STILL wanted more information about the vaccine RIGHT AFTER talking to an immunologist who helped create the Moderna vaccine.
I know this take isn’t the usual training camp breakdown, but my god, this is enough of a problem for the NFL, and the Whole Damn Country … talk about losing the locker room. This feels like a disaster waiting to happen, and Washington probably won’t be the only team experiencing this kind of thing, but because it’s Washington it will naturally metastasize into something far worse.
With Aaron Rodgers back in the fold, the Packers are in “Super Bowl or bust” mode. Let’s make an early prediction: Do they win it all this year or not?
SH: The Packers were a win away from making the Super Bowl each of the last two seasons. Aaron Rodgers is appeased for now, and even got the Packers to rescue favorite Randall Cobb from the Texans’ prison. They know if they don’t win a championship, then this season will be seen as a failure.
And yet, my instinct is no. While there are legitimate reasons for that (the Packers’ OL has some question marks, the offense probably won’t be able to replicate 2020’s success in the red zone, and the pass rush needs to bounce back), my gut says it’s because they’re trying just a liiiitle too hard to replicate The Last Dance.
And sorry, Packers, but you’re not the ‘96-97 Bulls.
CD: It’s all going to come down to the passing defense that allowed Tom Brady to torch them for one half in the NFC title game before snapping back to form. Kevin King was beaten like a redheaded stepchild’s rented mule with a Super Bowl on the line, and yet was still retained on a one-year, $5 million deal this offseason. Green Bay did address this weakness by drafting speedy Georgia corner Eric Stokes in the first round, but he may not be the kind of plug-and-play savior the Packer secondary needs across from Jaire Alexander.
The Pack was mostly middling on defense last season (15th vs. the pass and 18th vs. the run, per Football Outsiders), so they badly needed Rodgers to have a “fuck you” season to post the NFC’s top record. If that group doesn’t improve in 2021, Green Bay will need a 38-year-old to have a similarly historic season. Given everything that happened this offseason, that very well could happen.
But I have the sinking feeling the Packers are destined for another disappointing playoff exit before they can get Rodgers to another Super Bowl.
RVB: They’re definitely in the conversation, but barring injuries somewhere else, namely Tampa Bay, I would not pick the Packers to win it all. They’ve overperformed slightly the last two years, winning 13 games when they’re Pythagorean win rate was just north of 11 wins. Of course, teams tend to overperform when they have a QB like Rodgers.
The internal politics could be a problem here too. The GM and the coaching staff aren’t planning on going anywhere after 2021, while Rodgers is most likely gone. I think you’re going to get male egos tripping over each other to prove who knows how to win football games or manage a roster better than the other. What happens when the QB and the coach disagree on a call? Rodgers is good, but let’s be real, he’s not Peyton Manning who saw the game better as well as any coach this side of Bill Walsh. I just think a QB with one foot out the door and an administrative staff doing everything they can to hang onto their jobs in an industry where coaches and GMs get fired with such frequency is a bad mix.
Four players have asked for a trade this offseason — N’Keal Harry, Xavien Howard, Chandler Jones, and the extremely awkward situation with Deshaun Watson. Which of those, if any, do you think will get traded?
SH: I think one or two of them will be dealt. I could easily see Harry being one of them; Bill Belichick doesn’t have much patience for players who don’t want to be there, especially if they’re not productive (and like most of Belichick’s receiver draft picks, Harry has not been). Maybe he can pull off another trade with the Saints, who could use reinforcements at the position while Harry could get a chance to start over far away from Belichick.
Watson doesn’t want to play for the Texans anymore, and they want him gone too. Despite the numerous lawsuits and potential legal issues he faces, I’m cynical enough to believe a team will trade for him, whether he plays this season or not. (If I had to guess, I think he’d go on the commissioner’s exempt list this year, though there are some complications with that too.)
CD: I think Howard gets extended — the Dolphins have an estimated $60m in salary cap space for 2022, so there’s plenty of room to make him the game’s highest-paid corner. The Cardinals can’t afford to trade Jones with Kliff Kingsbury approaching a coaching hot seat and general manager Steve Keim (zero winning seasons since 2015), feeling toasty as well.
Deshaun Watson is too toxic for anyone to touch right now, which is why first-year head coach David Culley has him taking reps at safety. You’d have to be either incredibly stupid or galaxy-brained smart to swing that deal, which means we can expect Jon Gruden to ship Derek Carr and three first-round picks to Houston at some point in this damned timeline. Harry will get traded along with a sixth-rounder for a fourth-round pick and no one will give a shit.
RVB: I think someone will grab Harry for a sixth-round pick that Bill Belichick will use as a throw-in in a trade for a future All Pro linebacker he’ll draft in the third round.
I wish someone would trade for tight end David Njoku of the Browns. He showed so much potential his rookie year, but the Browns decided to sign Austin Hooper and draft Harrison Bryant. Here's a good player at a position where it’s hard to find reliable producers, and stuck as the third man on a depth chart for a team that doesn’t even use their tight ends that much.
Three quarterbacks from the 2018 draft class are due for an extension. Who gets one first: Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, or Baker Mayfield?
SH: I think it’ll be Allen. Jackson isn’t really sweating his extension (he’s also got other things to worry about currently, like his second case of Covid). The Browns don’t just have Mayfield to negotiate with right now. They have to work on extensions for Denzel Ward and Nick Chubb too. Plus, they might want to see how Mayfield performs this season before committing to him for the long term.
The Bills are all-in on Allen, who has his team in the Super Bowl hunt and has played his way to a new payday. I don’t think they’ll wait much longer to give him that second contract, particularly because it’ll serve as a distraction to Cole Beasley’s idiocy.
CD: Josh Allen is coming off the best season, so let’s go with him. The Ravens might want to see Jackson prove 2020 was an outlier and that he can get back to MVP-caliber form with some actual targets around him rather than a bunch of generic Madden create-a-players. The Browns have to love Mayfield’s growth, but he doesn’t have the track record or overall success of either of his peers.
However, the Browns are currently only slated to have a shade under $8 million in spending room next season and the Bills have under a million dollars of wiggle room. The Ravens have more than $25 million in cap space, so that could clear the runway for Jackson to ink his massive-money contract before anyone else in his class.
RVB: I’m kind of surprised Allen hasn’t gotten on already. That was the rumor floating around early in the offseason. Then again, maybe waiting a year just to make sure 2020 was the real deal, isn’t the worst move for the Bills.
What’s the most training camp thing — quote, highlight, photo, whatever — you’ve seen so far?
SH: Like clockwork:
To be fair, Zach Wilson, who signed his contract later that day, was not one of those quarterbacks. Still, I can’t help but think of this exchange from the Ted Lasso Season 2 premiere:
CD: Kelvin Benjamin was asked to lose weight in order to stick with the Giants. Instead, he *gained* weight (all muscle, bro!) and blamed his subsequent day one release on head coach Joe Judge’s personal vendetta against him, a 30-year-old player who’d been out of the league since 2018. He also told NJ.com:
“I have a perspective on Joe Judge. He’s not a coach that can ever win a Super Bowl because he sits there and cusses all day. You can tell he’s one-sided about everything. He’s a know-it-all. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. We all can learn from each other. We’re all humans at the end of the day. The true colors will come out.”
Every single Giants Super Bowl win has been the result of a one-sided, know-it-all, heavy-cussing head coach absolutely excoriating his players until they win a title out of spite. It’s like Kel’s never heard of Bill Parcells or Tom Coughlin. And it’s absolutely wonderful.
RVB: I don’t want to alarm you, but Ben Roethlisberger has been eating healthier and is now in the best shape of his life … for the eighteenth straight season. And to think this time last year he was not only in great shape, but had thrown more and understood the playbook more.
Oh wait, I just read that he also knows the playbook even better this year because his daughter helped him learn the new offense. Better go ahead and schedule the Super Bowl parade in Pittsburgh.