By Brandon Simmons
Carr and Raiders Split
Derek Carr and the Las Vegas have been embroiled in public split for over a week. It started when Raiders coach Josh McDaniels decided to bench Carr in favor of QB Jarrett Stidham in an effort look at some of the younger players on the roster. However, what ensued was the imminent speculation of Carr’s future with the team. Many fans and analysts took up for Carr, chastising the Raiders for treating their franchise QB inn this manner, but should they be worried.
A lot of people aren’t fond of how Carr is being handled, but who’s to say that he isn’t embracing this. On his 9 seasons, Carr has had 6 head coaches. Still, he has remained a dedicated member of this team, once proclaiming that he would retire before joining another team. However, every player eventually has their own boiling point, and this seemed to be building for a long time. This year, the Raiders brought in a new head coach, but upped the ante by bringing in a top tier wide receiver in Davante Adams, who joined a solid receiving arsenal of wide receiver Hunter Renfrow and tight end Darren Waller. Still, it amounted to another disappointing season of missing the playoffs and another year wasted for Carr.
Derek Carr might not want to have his exit go this way, but he should embrace it and see what the possibilities hold for him in the near future. He’s had a good run with the Raiders, and they’ve tried to make some strides with building a successful team around him, but it just didn’t work out. There are reports circulating that the Raiders are fielding trades for the 31-year-old QB. It’s perfect timing for teams who might strike out on landing a high draft pick for a QB or need someone to help them compete immediately (hence the Indianapolis Colts memes). Carr just might benefit from a fresh start at this point in his career, even if he it is a short term.
Damar Hamlin Injury
Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is on the hearts and mind of the entire sports world. Monday, the 2nd year player suffered cardiac arrest after making a tackle on Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. Hamlin got up for a few seconds then fell right back down and was quickly attended to by the team training staff. As time kept moving, it became evident something more serious was taking place. More players began to become distraught, some even breaking down crying. After a few commercial breaks, it was reported that Hamlin was being administered CPR. He was eventually taken to a nearby hospital and placed in critical condition. As this event going on, people all over the sports world, and beyond, offered their thoughts and prayers for Hamlin’s full recovery.
It’s an unfortunate event that transpired for the young player and the aftermath from this will continue to roll out. Kudos to the coaches for sticking up for the players, and having the game stopped. There have been plenty of game-stopping injuries in the past, but from the looks of these players, this was something much more serious that drew the unexpected emotions out of them. With that said, it will be interesting to see if this game gets rescheduled and how it will be handled. This game had a lot of implications for playoff seeding, particularly then number one spot which comes with homefield advantage and the only bye week in the AFC playoffs. All of that sounds enticing, but at this moment these players could still be gathering their emotions around this situation and the league should gauge that when deciding how to move forward.
NFL on Christmas
Last week, there were mumblings online about whether the NFL should continue putting games on Christmas, competing with the NBA. It may have started when it was discovered that the ratings were heavily favored in the NFL’s direction. According to Sports Pro Media, the NFL generated an average of 23 million domestic viewers of the league’s 3 games, which eclipses the 4.27 million of the NBA’s 5 games. The NBA has long been known for playing a big slate of marquee games, since Christmas will actually fall on days that are not on Sunday. This year, it did fall on Sunday, but the NFL placed a majority of their schedule on Saturday and held games for the Green Bay packers vs. Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos vs. Los Angeles Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Arizona Cardinals. The fact they even pulled off those ratings with those teams is a Christmas miracle in and of itself.
If the NFL wants to consistently compete with the NBA on Christmas, they need two things: market and good flex scheduling. Sports Pro Media pointed out that the Packers-Dolphins game drew the highest-single network audience of all 3 games played that day. Miami is a huge market, but the Packers also have a big fanbase that extends nationally. So those Packer fans who usually can’t see their team because of regional restrictions, are now tuned in; same thing for any Dolphins fans residing outside of South Beach. Also, it might’ve been because it was the only Christmas game with playoff implications for both team. Late in the season, a lot of teams in the league are playing games of that nature. This is not the case with the NBA, whose season is relatively young since it starts in late October. The NFL can flex some of the more important playoff-oriented regular season games to Christmas if they wanted to, which would bring about more of the attention they got from last Christmas. The pushback could come from if Christmas falls on a Tuesday or Wednesday, and the turnaround is a little short for a team’s following game. At that point would an exception be made for pushback. Still, the NFL being played every Christmas can be a gift that keeps on giving for the league.
Shoutouts/Shutouts
Shout out to the players and coaches for arriving at that decision for stopping the game. The main story going around seems to be the head coaches from the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals – Sean McDermott and Zac Taylor, respectively – met and decided their teams should not go through with continuing the game. They obviously saw that the players’ hearts and minds were somewhere other than football.
Shut out to Fox Sports Undisputed’s Skip Bayless. As injury was happening, Bayless tweeted out his “concern” about the game being postponed considering the importance of it to the playoff picture. Bayless was immediately chastised by a bevy of actors, reporters and athletes, both current and former. He should’ve known better than to tweet that out in that moment. Eventually, the league would have had that conversation and he could expressed his feelings about it at that, instead of while many fans and players were processing their emotions.
Final week of the season has arrived and all of the playoff chances are on the line. The Jacksonville Jaguars are hosting the Tennessee Titans for a battle of the AFC South division title. The Philadelphia Eagles will look to wrap up the NFC East when they host the New York Giants; hopefully Philly has a healthy Jalen Hurts at QB. The weekend wraps up with The Green Bay Packers hosting the Detroit Lions on Sunday night. The Pack just needs to win and they’re in while the Lions need a win with a Seattle Seahawks loss. It will be a gritty game between these two division rivals, but until then…I’ll holla.