Week 5 is in the books, which means it’s time for a brand spanking new Four Verts column. This time, starting off with a coach that has no chance of being a part of the NFL again, but he has taken social media by storm this week.
As everyone knows by now, Jets head coach Robert Saleh was the first coach this season to bite the dust and end up back on the market. The Jets’ 23-17 loss against the Vikings in London was apparently too much for team owner Woody Johnson to bear, causing him to make a change ahead of next week’s Monday Night Football matchup against the division rival Buffalo Bills.
Despite having one of the best defenses in the NFL once again, the defensive-minded head coach was sent packing. It’s understandable that Johnson would want a bit more from a team that’s supposed to be fighting for Super Bowl contention this year, but it’s hard to see how this move actually changes anything in the near future.
The offensive infrastructure is the biggest problem with this team and that infrastructure is still in place. Todd Downing may be taking over the play-calling duties, which could help, but it’s unlikely that the offense will actually look that much better for the rest of this season. The offensive line has struggled, the Jets can’t run the ball and they just flat-out aren’t that creative on offense to the point where it’s difficult to see how they could turn this around just because Saleh got fired. The defense wasn’t the problem at all, and now they’ve left themselves somewhat exposed on that side of the ball due to Saleh’s exit.
Aaron Rodgers has to play better and absolutely can’t repeat his performance last week where he threw three interceptions against a tough Vikings defense — they don’t appear to have the horses or ingenuity to overcome a spree of turnovers like that. The problems are the problems. Even if firing Saleh made Johnson feel good for a brief moment, the offense will surely make his stomach upset again soon.
Saleh deserves blame for capitulating to Rodgers to this degree and allowing the offense to reach this state, and his record alone as the Jets’ coach warranted firing at some point, but they’re too entrenched in the muck on offense for this move to get the team headed in the right direction. Maybe the firing of Saleh will invigorate the Jets’ performance for a few weeks, but until they can fully press the reset button on offense, they’ll just be stuck here. Nate Hackett nor Todd Downing are the solution they’re looking for — firing Saleh didn’t change any of that.
Jon Gruden has broken the internet
It’s always fascinating to see how famous people who have fallen out of public favor try to squirm their way back into the limelight. Former Raiders and Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden is the latest case study on that phenomena and he has apparently chosen content creation as his way back into whatever he wants to do surrounding football.
As many may remember, Gruden lost his job with the Raiders due to emails surfacing where he said some truly vile things about minorities and LGBTQ people, causing a lawsuit to be filed on his behalf against the NFL. For whatever reason, his attempt to get his social standing back has resulted in some truly ridiculous videos hitting social media where he’s just reading box scores with a whole lot of extra flair.
Gruden appears to have started a TikTok where he’s covering the NFL from somewhat of a coach’s perspective while also trying to show the world just how much he loves football. However, the one that has really caught fire and taken social media by storm doesn’t really have any analysis at all. It features Gruden sitting outside in the dark in front of a laptop, just reciting box scores of quarterbacks who had some truly efficient performances from Week 4 of the NFL — these performances make him feel “nicey,” which is really just a reference to his son, who goes by the moniker of HEXED in his DJ career.
HEXED has a song called “Nicey,” which is where the “HOO!” and “got me feeling nicey” ad-libs in the Gruden video are cut from. Gruden must be too cheap to pay for his own music, so he’s using his son’s music from a few years ago to really add the emphasis on a bit that is, at its core, just reading stats off the internet.
Now, if all of this wasn’t weird enough, he apparently has no clue how to fill the dead space in between reading a box score and the beat drop on the “Nicey” song in the background. He often fills that space by making the weirdest faces known to mankind and giving crazy eyes to the camera in front of him. Why? Who knows, but it has resulted in screenshots of Gruden’s intense face just plastered all over the internet — and again, all he is doing is reading box scores.
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It’s important to note that this is weird as all hell on purpose so that Gruden can try to get some positive press as he tries to do whatever it is he’s going to try to do. No amount of HEXED songs or tape breakdown or reading box scores in the thick of the night will get him another NFL head coaching job or back into the broadcast booth. He is ultimately being weird just for the sake of being weird, which is a choice he’s allowed to make in the infinite free time he has due to his transgressions.
Do you feel nicey after reading all this? No? Neither do I, but I’m going to go watch that video about 1,000 more times and mutter, “I couldn’t even do that in pregame warmups!” because reciting stupid memes off the internet is impossible to avoid in 2024.
Stay nicey, friends. HOO!
Lamar Jackson making a claim for 3rd MVP
Don’t look now, but Lamar Jackson is putting together yet another special season that will have him in MVP consideration again, assuming that the Ravens can keep winning games and strengthen their hold on the AFC North.
Coming off a thrilling 41-38 overtime win in which he threw four touchdowns, Jackson has a chance to do something only six other players — Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Jim Brown, Brett Favre and Johnny Unitas — have done: win a third MVP.
There’s a chance that Jackson may be in store for his best season in the NFL, which would really be saying something. Jackson is currently on pace for his first 4,000-yard passing season through the air and has thrown just one interception to nine touchdown passes up to this point. At his current pace, he’s on track to throw for 4,100 yards, 31 touchdowns and three interceptions while also chipping in another 1,200 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground. That would unequivocally be one of the best seasons ever played by a quarterback in league history, but before getting too far let’s appreciate the tangible things Jackson has already accomplished.
According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Jackson ranks fifth in expected points added per dropback (0.16) while ranking second in turnover-worthy percentage (8%). To make that even more impressive, Jackson is getting sacked on just 3.2% of his dropbacks, which is first in the NFL. A quarterback that runs as much as Jackson does will normally have a higher sack rate just due to the nature of his game, but he’s hardly been sacked at all this season, even as the Ravens have put in a brand new offensive line that has struggled from time to time. He’s playing unbelievable football right now and just has a total mastery of what the Ravens want to do on offense.
Even as the defense has struggled in its transition to life under new defensive coordinator Zach Orr, the Ravens have a chance to win every game they play in because Jackson is playing like one of the best players in the history of the sport right now. It’s pretty wild to look back and see that not a single team tried to trade for him when they had the chance a couple of offseasons ago, because he is just flat-out one of the elite quarterbacks in the game.
There will probably be weeks that knock Jackson off of the breakneck pace that he’s set through the first few games of the season, but he is the reason why the Ravens are able to do much of anything on offense. If the defense is able to round into form, they have a chance to try and get to the Super Bowl yet again — and it’s mainly thanks to Jackson.
Browns defense has fallen off a cliff
A funk has infected the entire Browns team. The futility of Deshaun Watson has been covered at large this season. He’s playing like one of the worst quarterbacks to ever start in the NFL and has turned the Browns’ offense into a caricature of what a professional unit is supposed to look like. That’s not new, and has been going on since he’s been the Browns’ starting quarterback.
What is new is that the Browns shockingly have one of the worst defenses in the league after arguably being the best last year.
According to NFL Next Gen Stats, the Browns rank 15th in expected points allowed per play this season (-0.09). That’s a massive drop from ranking first (-0.25) in that stat throughout the course of last season. To a degree, defensive performance can be difficult to replicate in back-to-back seasons in the NFL, but this is a dropoff that’s pretty hard to explain. They have the same exact defensive coordinator as last year and have returned most of the same cast of players, particularly the players who were necessary for them to rank that high.
Myles Garrett, Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and a talented secondary are still here, but they just aren’t performing up to the same level, and the offense is so terrible that they aren’t able to overcome an increase of points being scored against the Browns.
There’s still a chance that this can turn around if they can get healthy and playing back up to the talent level everyone knows is on the side of the ball, but there is one lesson to learn from this that the analytic-minded folks have been shouting for a while: In a world where most teams aren’t going to be able to replicate elite defensive performances from year to year, it makes sense to make sure that the offense is strong enough to endure those changes in variance that can cause a dip in defensive play.
That can’t really happen as long as the Browns’ offense, which ranks 30th in EPA per play this season, is going to be stuck in the mud. More and more pressure is going to be put on the defense as drives die on offense and they’re put into horrible situations in terms of field position. Unless Watson can get back into pre-Browns form, which is probably just an unreasonable expectation at this point, this is what the Browns’ season is going to be.
Hopefully next year the pendulum of defensive variance swings back in their direction, but for now, there’s nothing but sadness being brewed here. A factory of it, if you will.
