Ten Thoughts on the NFL

1) Let’s get the dumb-ass roll call out of the way early.

Seattle Seahawks’ back-up quarterback Trevone Boykin, was arrested after a car he was in crashed. Kudos to him for not being the driver, but he got in the can with another drunk driver, so that makes him a dumb-ass. If I can afford to call Uber, Lyft or a taxi, then a guy about to make a half a million dollars in 2017, can probably afford to do so too.

Former college teammates, and current NFL players, Deiondre’ Hall and Makinton Dorleant of the Bears and Packers respectively, were both arrested for being drunk and acting like a couple of dumb-asses.

Fair or not, celebrities are held to a higher standard. I’m sure Hall and Dorleant were about .01% of all the jackasses that got drunk and arrested over the weekend, but theses two being in the news can reflect negatively on their high profile employers.

They should know better.

2) Are you ready for the Las Vegas Raiders?

The Raiders needed 24 of 32 votes at the owner’s meetings to move on from Oakland, and they nearly had unanimous approve. The final tally was 31-1, with the lone agaist vote coming from the Miami Dolphins.

The Raiders will play the 2020 season in their new Las Vegas stadium, but the 2019 season may find them playing at UNLV. The next two years may be a bit uncomfortable, as the Raiders will continue playing their home games in Oakland.

2a) Yes. Please let this happen.

3) I wonder if Oakland Raiders’ fans will continue to root for the Raiders?

San Francisco 49ers’ general manager, John Lynch, told disgruntled Raider fans that they could “jump on our train” and cheer for the ‘Niners.

I think I would follow my favorite team to wherever they ended up, but since I’ve never had to experience a relocation like that, I can’t say it with 100% certainty.

Would your fandom follow your favorite team if they moved?

4) Thursday Night Football is an awful idea for things other than the "garish uniforms," but the Washington Redskins have proposed a rule change allowing teams to opt out of participating in the Color Rush portion of TNF.

Now if a franchise would propose that only teams coming off their bye week are permitted to play on Thursdays, I’d be good with that.

5) Michigan’s Jabrill Peppers has seen his stock drop of late, as teams try and figure out if he’s a linebacker, a safety, a hybrid of the two, or a returner, but the NFL Network’s Mike Mayock has no qualms about naming him his #1 safety.

"I love the kid. I think he's a top-10 pick," Mayock said Friday on NFL Network from UM's pro day workout. "I might be in the minority, but he's a football player and a dynamic returner."

Sometimes scouts overthink what to do with a prospect, whereas a good coach will always find a place for good football players.

6) I recently stumbled across this article by Ethan Young of Inside the Pylon, Introducing SEMTEX, a new way to look at college production, that rates college quarterbacks. SEMTEX stands for, Situationally Enhanced Metric Testing for Efficiency and eXplosion, and when you go over all the data, it really makes you think.

They rank college QBs in three tiers, gold, silver and bronze, and their findings are worth noting.

But remember: 96.1 percent of starter-level quarterbacks since 1983 have been Gold or Silver passers. Every Super Bowl-winning starting QB drafted since 1983 has been a Gold passer. There has never been an All-Pro Bronze QB in the SEMTEX era.

What does this mean when it comes to evaluating the 2017 quarterback draft class?

According to their recent article, Which QBs in the 2017 NFL Draft are most likely to succeed?, only North Carolina’s Mitchell Trubisky, Miami’s Brad Kaaya and Virginia Tech’s Jerod Evans, meets the gold standard. There are five players in the silver, with the top guy in the bronze being Clemson’s Deshaun Watson.

Now this isn’t the be-all-end-all metric to determine success (just look at those other gold QBs that never found any NFL success), but that blockquoted stat is very interesting when it comes to the bronze ranked players.

7) Things could always change, but for now it looks like the Denver Broncos are out of the Tony Romo sweepstakes.

8) ESPN’s NFC North beat reporters each chimed in on the most improved teams so far in their division. The reporters that cover Minnesota and Detroit each picked the Lions, the Bears’ beat guy picked the Packers and Green Bay’s went with the Vikings.

None of the four even bothered to mention Chicago’s free agency. :(

9) NFL power rankings are silly enough during the regular season, but during the off-season, they are especially silly. We’re still a long way away from a practice, let along the first game, so why put out a power ranking?

I know the answer to that question, it’s because of the people. People love to discuss why their favorite team is being disrespected with a low ranking, or why their highly ranked favorite team is the best, or why power rankings are stupid.

ESPN has the New England Patriots atop their latest rankings, with the Cleveland Browns at the bottom. Generally speaking, these are the two teams that many NFL analysts believed “won” free agency.

In case you were wondering, the Chicago Bears are holding steady at 29.

The Jay Cutler era is officially over. After going 34-22 as a starter the first four years, Cutler went 17-29 the past four. Mike Glennon, Cutler's replacement, hasn't started a game since 2014.

9a) And speaking of Cutler...

I’d guess that Cutler will be in play if a playoff contender loses their quarterback during the season.

10) Chicago Bears’ running back, Jordan Howard, was named to Elliot Harrison’s All-Under-25 team. The annual NFL.com list says this about Howard, who was the #2 RB behind Ezekiel Elliott of the Dallas Cowboys.

The debate here is between Howard and Todd Gurley. Went with Howard, despite the fact that Gurley might be more gifted in terms of physical measurables. As fantastic as Gurley was during his rookie year, Howard was better. He ran for more yards, caught more passes and averaged more yards per carry than Gurley. Howard was an every-down, productive back -- in an offense that struggled through the air.

I get that Gurley had a more impressive resume coming into the league, but there should be no debate which has been the better pro.