By Brandon Simmons
NFL Outbreak – What measures could the NFL take?
Last week, COVID-19 tackled a couple of teams throwing a wrench in their season. It started with the Tennessee Titans having a small outbreak of 16 members of their franchise: 8 personnel and 8 players. It forced their Week 3 opponent, the Minnesota Vikings, to shut down their facilities during the week and it also led to the Titans’ matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers being rescheduled October 25th. New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton recently tested positive for COVID-19 as well as Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Jordan Ta’Amu, and it prompted the game between the Patriots and Chiefs to be moved from Sunday to Monday.
The league seems to have gotten a handle on things for right now, but what will happen if this goes down again? The Titans were still recording positive tests up until Sunday morning, which almost put their Tennessee’s Week 5 game against the Buffalo Bills in jeopardy of being postponed. Leading up to Week 4, their previous opponent, the Minnesota Vikings, had to shut down their facilities during the week to take precaution, while their next opponent, the Pittsburgh Steelers had to miss a game and take an unexpected bye week, even though the Steelers had nobody on their tea test positive for the virus. All of these things occurred with just one team experiencing COVID-19 outbreak; but imagine if this pops up on more than one teams? They can only reschedule so many games within the season before they outright cancel the matchups.
It’s obvious the NFL was confident that they did everything they could to get a season off the ground but now they are back to the drawing board. They cut the preseason short and have been publicly shaming coaches into wearing masks on the sideline. They can drop fines for any automatic violations of the COVID rules they put in place but there’s no guarantee that would be enough. Also, the players will have to take this a little more seriously. They will have to monitor their interactions in their daily lives away from the facility, making sure they are following proper precautions to protect themselves and their family.
Bill O’Brien Gets Fired
Four games into the 2020 season and a coach has already been fired. Houston Texans parted ways with head coach Bill O’Brien after the team went 0-4 but also due to a series of unfortunate events stamped by O’Brien’s direction. For Texans fans, it was a long time coming in the quest for taking the next step to a championship level.
With O’Brien everything was good until it wasn’t. The former Penn State head coach was hired by the Texans in the wake of their 2 win 2013 season, but only 2 years removed from their last division title and last playoff win. In his first season, he went 9-7 then followed it up the next year with the same record, but this time with a division title and playoff appearance, which be the first of four during his 7 year stint. Expectations began to grow in 2017, when the Texans drafted quarterback Deshaun Watson. Now the team had a franchise QB but the results did not seem to get any better. O’Brien continued to lead his teams to embarrassing playoff losses in 2017(30-0 at home to the Kansas City Chiefs), 2019 (24-7 loss at home to the Indianapolis Colts) and 2020 (52-24 to the Kansas City Chiefs, in which they blew a 24 point lead).
Things did not stop there on the coaching side; it was O’Brien’s duties as a general manager that turned the fire up on his hot seat. Critics questioned if he gave up too much in trades, including sending 2 first round picks to the Miami Dolphins in exchange for left tackle Laremy Tunsil and wide receiver Kenny Stills. His biggest indictment against him, was trading away DeAndre Hopkins from the Texans to the Arizona Cardinals for running back David Johnson, a 2nd round and 4th round pick. The move prompted the team to sign wide receivers Brandin Cooks and Randall Cobb. However, these new pieces did not translate into success for the offense this year. At 0-4, the Texans offense struggled to get points on the board, as well as generate any type of rushing attack. In addition to that,
Bill O’ Brien was both the victim and the criminal in this situation. He was a victim of an ownership that mismanaged the power given to him. Sure, he had only one losing record in his tenure coming into this season, and he might have won some games despite the quarterbacks he had the first few seasons, but his playoff losses alone should have kept him out of the front office. Even outside of the playoffs, there were games the team lost, and it costed them higher seeding within the postseason. Owner Cal McNir should have shot that idea down quickly. But he didn’t, and when the opportunity to be in the front office presented itself to O’Brien, he took full advantage, both good and bad. It’s crazy to tell somebody not to take an opportunity that could be better for their career, but sometimes, people need to have the awareness of not being able to do it all. O’Brien was officially named the GM in the Spring, and it obviously affected his focus on this team. In his last game, he announced he would taking over playcalling, which is ironically one of the things fans wished he would put aside as a head coach. He still took the GM position anyway and jeopardized the future of the team with his decisions. It’s surprising that somebody who was named the GM months earlier got the axe so quickly into the season, but he built this mess through low quality trades and signing mediocre talent. It’s ok to trade away Hopkins if you’re not going to pay him, but the return must be greater for his level of talent. Couple those GM errors with his deficiencies as a head coach who could not prepare his teams for big games or the unwillingness to adjust within games.
As stated earlier, O’Brien’s career with the Texans is going to be marked by it being good until it wasn’t. He had his good moments with the team, especially in the regular season; but he could not enhance those moments into playoff wins. His biggest failure as a head coach will be not getting this team prepared for the tough games. This was a team that was too talented to be bounced out of the postseason in the fashion that they were. Even this season, people expected a rough start to the year seeing the Texans would face the Ravens, Chiefs and Steelers; but they have largely looked uncompetitive in each of these matchups. The Texans and their fans will party tonight that O’Brien is gone, but they will be left cleaning up the mess from the party and the damage that has left behind on this franchise in recent years.
Shoutouts/Shutouts
Shout out to the Cleveland Browns and their “reversal” of fortunes. Sunday, against the Dallas Cowboys, the Browns ran 2 big reverse plays to notch some big scores. The first play came in the 1st quarter when Browns wide receiver Jarvis Landry ran a reverse and hauled a pass to his teammate, wide receiver Odell Beckham, Jr. The 2nd reverse came in the 4th quarter when OBJ ran a reverse which turned into a 50 yard touchdown that put the game away. The Browns currently sit at 3-1, winning 3 straight after a 0-1 start.
Shut out to the games being affected by COVID. As mentioned earlier, players need to become more careful with how they’re moving in their daily lives and stay safe for the sake of their family and their profession. Teams are slowly letting fans back in the stadium but that could be derailed if players are bringing in more positive tests. Stay safe and wear a mask.
This weekend brings a couple of surprise marquee matchups. The Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers will kick off the Thursday Night Football matchup. It is being heraled as the first matchup between Bears QB Nick Foles and Buccaneers QB Tom Brady since they played against each other in the Super Bowl LII, when they were members of the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots, respectively. The Titans will be coming off of their quarantine bye week to face the Buffalo Bills. Two undefeated teams with similar styles will be going at it, possibly staking claim on some playoff ground early in the year. But until then…I’ll holla.
by 