NFL Postseason Megathread: Playoffs in the Post-Orton Era

[MadBurgerMaker]

In his appeal Suh said his feet were so frozen he couldn't tell the difference between standing on the flat ground and standing on someone's leg.

  They should have doubled the suspension just for the horseshit excuse.

[alfred russel]

Rodgers has been dealing with a lower leg injury for 2 weeks.  That was more than being an asshole.

We seem to have a different understanding of what an asshole is.

Guys, I'm off to join the taliban. I can't continue to support a country where a significant portion of the country believes standing on a leg warrants a playoff game suspension. It turns out Osama bin Laden was right and America doesn't deserve to to exist. Allah Akbar!

[CountDeMoney]

In his appeal Suh said his feet were so frozen he couldn't tell the difference between standing on the flat ground and standing on someone's leg.

He's a Detroit Lion;  they're a dome team.  Been a long time since Nebraska.  And besides, isn't he Samoan?  The cold probably disoriented him.  It's cold in Lambeau this time of year, you know.

[derspiess]

And besides, isn't he Samoan? 

No, and I think you owe Samoans an apology for that.

[CountDeMoney]

No, and I think you owe Samoans an apology for that.

Not since they cheated the Strongbow brothers out of their title I don't. 

[CountDeMoney]

LOL, what the hell.

Ravens head of security charged with sex offense

The head of security for the Baltimore Ravens was charged Tuesday night with committing a sex offense, according to court records and a law enforcement source.

Police obtained a summons for Darren I. Sanders, the team's senior director of security and a former Baltimore police homicide detective, on a charge of fourth-degree sex offense stemming from allegations lodged Dec. 14, according to online court records and a law enforcement source with knowledge of the case.

Details of the case were not immediately available. A fourth-degree sex offense is punishable by a maximum of a year in jail or a fine of $1,000, or both.

Reached late Tuesday, Sanders' attorney, Andrew Alperstein, said the claims were "totally fabricated, made up."

"It does a disservice to real victims when people make things up like this," Alperstein said. "People like [Sanders] are susceptible to made-up allegations. It puts you in a vulnerable position."

Alperstein added, "He's had nothing but an exemplary career, both with the police department and the Ravens. He wouldn't get to the position he's in if he didn't."

In a statement on behalf of the Ravens, team spokesman Kevin Byrne said, "We are aware of the situation and have been investigating thoroughly."

Sanders has been affiliated with the team for more than a decade. In 2004, he was traveling with owner Steve Bisciotti to a University of Maryland basketball game in North Carolina and accidentally discharged his weapon inside the auditorium. He was charged by police there.

Because he was charged Tuesday in Maryland through a summons, Sanders was not arrested but was assigned a Feb. 9 court date.

The charges are the latest trouble for the Ravens.

Sanders has previously been on the investigating side of incidents. He figured prominently in the controversy surrounding whether the team had obtained or attempted to obtain footage of the assault involving Ray Rice and his then-fiancee, Janay Palmer. Sanders said he had asked Atlantic City, N.J., police and the Revel Casino for a copy of surveillance video of the assault, but an official instead described the video to him.

He also said Rice told him that he had slapped Palmer, but denied punching her. Video later showed Rice punching Palmer, whom he has since married. Rice was cut from the team and was entered into a pre-trial program after pleading not guilty in an Atlantic City court.

That tumultuous offseason included the arrests of four other Ravens players.

[derspiess]

Bengals security guy is creepy.  Knows everything about everyone and blends into the background.  Well, I guess that his job but it's still creepy.

[Admiral Yi]

Just creepy, or super creepy?

[derspiess]

Just creepy.

[MadBurgerMaker]

He's a Detroit Lion;  they're a dome team.  Been a long time since Nebraska.  And besides, isn't he Samoan?  The cold probably disoriented him.  It's cold in Lambeau this time of year, you know.

[CountDeMoney]

"For who? For what?"
--Ricky Watters, Philadelphia Eagles, September 3rd, 1995

Washington Redskins are the victims of top-down organizational dysfunction
By Sally Jenkins Columnist December 31, 2014
Washington Post

An NFL player's chief commodity and source of earnings is his body, and he has only so many bone-breaking efforts contained in it. Would you invest your savings in a company run by Dan Snyder and Bruce Allen? No, you wouldn't. Of course not. So why would the players? This is what is wrong with Washington's football club, why there are so many losses and whiffed tackles. It's very basic and purely transactional. There is a gnawing doubt inside the club whether the effort is worth it.

A lot of thought and literature has been devoted to how to transform a losing culture into a winning one. Management experts define culture as the shared psychology in a working environment, which sets habits and defines an organization's identity. "The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture," says Edgar Schein, former MIT professor of management and author of the standard textbook "Organizational Culture and Leadership." The trouble with the leaders in Washington, Snyder and Allen, is that one is an amateur and the other is a phony. The culture they've created is not just a losing one but a laughingstock. This is why the team can seem so hapless, unprofessional and slapstick, why they snatch comedy from the jaws of defeat.

There already has been one firing in Jim Haslett, and there may be more, but it's a sure sign of amateurism to believe that all you have to do to change a culture is make some heads roll. "Just changing a coach isn't going to do it," says author-consultant Jon Katzenbach, a senior global adviser at the management firm Strategy&. To really make a change, you have to expose the "discrepancies" between the stated values of an organization and its actual behavior, Schein teaches. Think about how many discrepancies there are between what people say within the franchise and what they actually do.

In fact, when is the last time you heard a coherent expression of a company value from anybody at the Ashburn headquarters, much less saw it carried out?

There is lip service to tradition and loyalty — there have been seven coaching changes in 15 years. Which explains Jay Gruden's demeanor, that odd combination of bite and fatalism. Players are pursued, seduced, petted, berated, betrayed, swept away and brushed aside. It's no mystery why there are continual miscues, penalties and missed assignments; their competitive instincts are at war with an is-this-really-worth-it sense of self-preservation.

If you had to sum up Snyder's organizational philosophy, it would be this: Stability is for wimps. Year after year, he commits one dictatorial error after the next, piling self-deceit on self-deceit as he tells fans success is close. His style is a cross between a cat caught in a yarn and a moth banging at a windowpane.

As for Allen, he is such a public relations puppet you can practically see the jerking motion when he moves. At a dodging, evasive news conference Wednesday, Allen made one thing clear: The team's problems have nothing to do with him. "We're winning off the field," he said. Not a breath of doubt ruffled a lock of his sprayed hair as he said it.

This is the culture of Washington's football team, and it comes straight from the top: self-satisfaction for doing absolutely nothing of merit.

Allen is right about one thing. Washington is indeed "winning off the field" — if the metric of success is fiscally gouging fans while offering a perfectly horrible on-the-field product. Over the course of an execrable 4-12 season, the game-day experience at FedEx Field was the fourth-most expensive in the NFL, according to the annual Team Marketing Report. Parking prices were second highest ($57.50) in the entire NFL. A team hat cost $30 — 10 bucks more than a Dallas Cowboys hat. The average price for a premium seat was $375.32, which was $116 more than a premium seat for the Baltimore Ravens and $158 more than for the Philadelphia Eagles.

As fullback Darrel Young was cleaning out his locker for the offseason this week, he asked rhetorically, "Are we trying to be football players, or are we trying to make money?" Nobody summed up the club's paycheck culture better than that.

There is only one way things can change in Washington. (Unless fans decide to break Snyder, force him to sell by staying away until the team's debt service is more than its operating income.) Snyder would have to listen, really listen, to his staffers and his players. Not to his pets and his stars and top jersey sellers, either, but to those who he has often disregarded and disrespected, the rank and file who show up for work every day and manage to do a professional job in an unprofessional environment. He would have to ask them, "What are the three or four behaviors you consistently see in this club that need to change?"

According to Katzenbach, in every organization there are critical informal leaders further down the chain who, if they're properly empowered and energized, can help create a turnaround. They may not have the most exalted titles or salaries, either. They are "people respected not for their position but for who they are and the kind of interactions they have with their peers," Katzenbach says.

"Who are the informal leaders on the team right now?" Katzenbach asks. "Who do members of the team respect? You look for people who generate that respect, even without a hierarchical position. There have to be some of those informal leaders inside the team, and I'd be trying to figure out who they are. And to get some help from them in converting this sense of give-up."

For too long, no one has trusted the basic set up of the organization. So many flatterers and yes men survive while the truth tellers get offed or ignored, and every three or four years everyone gets fired and the club starts from scratch again. Step one for Snyder is to identify some real leaders, not just enablers. And to convince them he's not out to waste their best efforts and earning years.

[Tonitrus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh8PWFRhcu0

[sbr]

After some sort of power struggle in the front office Chip Kelly is now in complete control of all player personnel decisions in Philly.

Can anyone else think of such a meteoric rise by anyone?  In 2006 Kelly was Offensive Coordinator at University of New Hampshire and today he has almost complete control of an NFL franchise.

Kelly takes bigger role, Roseman promoted

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Before winning his first playoff game, Chip Kelly won a power struggle.

Kelly got control of the Philadelphia Eagles' player personnel department on Friday after Howie Roseman was promoted from general manager to executive vice president of football operations.

The shake-up ends speculation about Kelly's future in Philadelphia following a turbulent week that included the dismissal of vice president of player personnel Tom Gamble on Wednesday.

''It's most important that we find players that match what our coaches are seeking,'' owner Jeffrey Lurie said in a statement. ''This is part of an all-encompassing vision that takes you from the scouting process all the way to on-field performance. Howie, Chip and (president) Don (Smolenski) are all united in their desire to win. Together, we decided this approach was the best course of action for the Philadelphia Eagles.''

Kelly has led the Eagles to consecutive 10-6 seasons. He already had final say on the 53-man roster. Now he'll hire a new personnel executive who will answer directly to him.

''I am very confident about where we are headed as a team and as an organization,'' Kelly said. ''I look forward to continue working with Jeffrey and Howie as well as the personnel department. This is not a one-man operation. It will truly take a team effort to acquire and develop the best football players and then put the best team on the field each week. It will take all of us working together.''

The 39-year-old Roseman had been the youngest GM in the NFL and held the position for five seasons. He began his career with the Eagles as an unpaid intern in 2000.

''My No. 1 goal is to help bring a championship to this city and that will never change,'' Roseman said. ''I believe this will solidify the trust we have all placed in Coach Kelly.''

The Eagles won the NFC East in 2013, a year after finishing 4-12 under Andy Reid. They lost a playoff game at home to New Orleans. This year, they became only the third team since 1990 to miss the playoffs after a 9-3 start.

Lurie said after the season finale last Sunday that Roseman would return as GM. That was before Gamble was let go and reports of a rift between Roseman and Kelly began circulating.

''After carefully listening and reflecting on the lengthy discussions that I had with our senior team, I changed my mind (about Roseman staying as GM),'' Lurie said. ''I have a very good relationship with Chip that continues to grow stronger and stronger. When we spoke, he was thoughtful, thorough and professional. There were no demands, no threats; quite the contrary, he was passionate, engaged and articulated a dynamic and clear vision on how this fully integrated approach will work. We look forward to seeing it come to life over time.''

When Kelly left Oregon to join the Eagles two years ago, he made it clear he wasn't interested in total control.

''I've heard questions that I want control over this, control over that,'' Kelly said on Jan. 17, 2013. ''That has never been an issue, never is an issue for me. I'm a football coach. I'm not a general manager. I'm not a salary-cap guy. I coach football. I need people who can go out there and say, 'Hey this is what you want. These are the people.' And it's going to be a collaboration. We're all going to be on the same page. I've got no delusions of saying that I want all these different titles. I just want to coach football.''

[Alcibiades]

In his appeal Suh said his feet were so frozen he couldn't tell the difference between standing on the flat ground and standing on someone's leg.

He's a Detroit Lion;  they're a dome team.  Been a long time since Nebraska.  And besides, isn't he Samoan?  The cold probably disoriented him.  It's cold in Lambeau this time of year, you know.

He's from Portland 

[jimmy olsen]

Eh...that's too much on the plate for almost anyone. Doesn't bode well for the Eagles I think.