Each week the NFL landscape changes. Here are a few things worth noting before we roll on from Week Five to Week Six.
Without Cam Newton, the Panthers aren’t even a .500 team
It doesn’t matter if another man (maybe Sam Bradford or Dak Prescott at this point) gets handed the NFL Most Valuable Player Trophy at the end of the season. No one is more valuable to his team than Cam Newton. Without him the only conversation the Carolina Panthers would be involved in is if they’ll land the No. 1 pick in the draft.
Cam Newton Spotted On A Scooter In Charlotte https://t.co/s881fRW5DH … pic.twitter.com/2suvRohNXz
— Terez Owens (@TerezOwens) October 12, 2016
That’s not to say the Panthers don’t have talent. They have plenty, but the drop off from Newton to Derek Anderson, who is probably the best back-up quarterback in the league and arguably better than four or five starters in the league right now, is cavernous. Anderson didn’t play well against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was flummoxed by basic defensive concepts and when the game was on the line he served up the ball on a platter with a loaded baked potato and a side salad.
It’s just what non-elite quarterbacks do in those situations. You’ve seen Case Keenum do it with the Rams. You’ve seen Ryan Fitzpatrick do it with the Jets. Carolina is sitting at 1-4 and by all accounts should be out of the mix, but this was the best team in football in 2015 and they should only be better, at least on offense, this season. Newton needed the week off to get his brain back together and maybe he needs another. I wouldn’t take any chances if I was the Panthers. Better to go 1-5 and have Cam later than 2-4 and lose him for another stretch.
Bad teams are scrambling to fix rosters they should have fixed in the offseason
Nothing shows how poorly you spent your offseason preparation than having to cut a starter four or five games into the season. All 32 teams pick from the same draft class and have equal access to every unrestricted free agent on the market. There is no excuse to have a guy penciled in as a starter after training camp and four preseason games, only to decide a quarter of the way through the season that he’s a bum and cut him. How hard is this to figure out?
The perfect example is cornerback Coty Sensabaugh. I give Jeff Fisher a lot of shit here and he deserves every single molecule of it and Sensabaugh is just another body to pile on the pyre. Fisher signed Sensabaugh to a three-year, $15 million contract back on March 14 right at the beginning of free agency. That means he was a target. He was a guy Fisher looked at and thought, “Hey, he’s our guy. He’ll lock down that corner spot.”
Sensabaugh got $4.5 million guaranteed and that’s just in his pocket now as the Rams cut him Saturday before their game against the Buffalo Bills.
https://twitter.com/billbarnwell/status/784860597145960448
That’s bad, but what the Miami Dolphins did Tuesday was even worse. The Dolphins cut three offensive linemen, including two guys who started in Week Five. Left tackle Billy Turner and left guard Dallas Thomas were both on the field at the first snap of Miami’s game against the Tennessee Titans Sunday. The Dolphins had all season to evaluate their depth, kept these guys on the roster, but after one shitty start they kicked them both to the curb.
Got the first snaps in OT a few weeks ago. Now cut. Dolphins decisions have been … erratic. https://t.co/1AZAahDIV5
— Gregg Rosenthal (@greggrosenthal) October 11, 2016
And, yes, they sucked. But Adam Gase and his staff should have figured that out back in July, for God’s sake. This wasn’t a move to open up a roster spot and add depth. It was a deletion of shitty players on the roster.
Talent evaluation is a huge part of being an NFL executive and coach and the Dolphins and Rams have failed at that, in these instances at least, hard.
If the NFL playoffs started today…
In the AFC it looks like the Oakland Raiders would have home field advantage, with the Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots and Houston Texans rounding out the division winners. The early leaders for the Wild Card spots are the Denver Broncos and the Baltimore Ravens.
In the NFC, the Minnesota Vikings would have home field, with the Atlanta Falcons, Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks all earning home games. The Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles are your Wild Card teams.
This, of course, doesn’t mean a whole lot with 11-12 games to go for each team, but it’ll be interesting to see how much a fast start helps propel a team to the end of the season.
