EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Former Carolina Panthers executive Dave Gettleman was the second candidate to interview for the vacant New York Giants general manager job.
Gettleman has ties to the Giants, where he spent 15 years in their personnel department before joining the Panthers as general manager.
He becomes the second candidate to officially interview for the position, which was left vacant when the Giants fired Jerry Reese and coach Ben McAdoo two weeks ago.
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Current Giants vice president of player evaluation Marc Ross also interviewed for the job earlier this week.
The Giants (2-12) will interview ESPN analyst Louis Riddick for the job Thursday, according to ESPN and multiple reports. Interim general manager Kevin Abrams also is expected to talk with the team about the position in the coming days.
Gettleman, 66, met Wednesday with co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch and former general manager Ernie Accorsi, who is serving as a consultant in the search. Gettleman worked under Accorsi and the two are known to have a close relationship.
Accorsi also was a consultant in the Panthers’ general manager search in 2013.
Gettleman is considered a favorite to land the GM job, according to a source within the Giants organization.
The longtime NFL executive does have a track record of success. With Gettleman serving as general manager, the Panthers went 40-23-1 from 2013 to 2016 — winning three consecutive NFC South titles and reaching the Super Bowl in 2015 after finishing with an NFL-best 15-1 record.
Gettleman was surprisingly fired earlier this year by the Panthers, partly for his hard-line approach in contract negotiations.
The Giants have tough decisions on the horizon after a woeful season that saw just about everything go wrong. Quarterback Eli Manning was benched during the season and his future has been a topic of conversation. Star wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. is also in search of a new contract and coming off a broken ankle.
There likely wasn’t a need for any introductions when Gettleman met with the Giants’ brass Wednesday.
Gettleman originally joined the Giants in 1998, when Accorsi was in his first year as general manager. He worked in pro personnel and was promoted to pro personnel director the following year. He stayed in that position for 12 seasons before serving as senior pro personnel analyst in his final season with the team in 2012.
Gettleman began his career in 1986 with the Buffalo Bills. He has also worked for the Broncos and Giants, and he has been a part of seven Super Bowl teams, including three winners.
The usual suspects — Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Antonio Brown and Von Miller, to name a few — are in. But there were a few surprises on the 2018 Pro Bowl rosters — 88 of the NFL’s best players from the 2017 season — that were released Tuesday night. NFL Nation reporters have compiled Pro Bowl summaries for all 32 teams.
The Pro Bowl will be played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida, on Jan. 28. It will be televised live at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN, ESPN Deportes and WatchESPN, and it will be simulcast on ABC.
Click the links after each team below (listed in alphabetical order) to view the full posts:
Patrick Peterson, one of four Cardinals players picked this season, has made the Pro Bowl in each of his seven seasons in the NFL. Another notable selection: Rookie Budda Baker made the team as a special-teamer. Read more.
Julio Jones and Alex Mack made the roster, but second-year linebacker Deion Jones did not. The reigning NFC Defensive Player of the Week is sixth in the league with 118 total tackles Read more.
The Ravens had three players named to the roster, all of whom are leaders for a defense that has produced three shutouts. It marks the Ravens’ 12th straight season with at least three Pro Bowl selections. Read more.
The 2018 Pro Bowl selections have been revealed, and the Saints are sending two running backs (Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara) to the game. The Steelers led all teams with eight selections, while the Eagles and New Orleans each had six.
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A strong candidate to earn NFL defensive rookie of the year honors, Tre’Davious White did not make the Pro Bowl. His four interceptions are tied for fourth in the NFL among cornerbacks. Read more.
The Panthers had one player named to the Pro Bowl — Luke Kuechly. He’s still a tackling machine. For the fifth time in six seasons he leads the team in tackles with 107. Read more.
No Bears made the Pro Bowl, including Jordan Howard, who ranks fourth in the NFL in rushing with 1,069 yards. Read more.
Geno Atkins and A.J. Green are in. Though this hasn’t been Green’s best season, he is sitting at 980 yards and eight touchdowns and has a chance for the sixth 1,000-yard season of his career. Read more.
With Joe Thomas injured, the winless Browns had no players selected to the Pro Bowl, but they do have two alternates — and one will certainly play in the game. Read more.
The Cowboys had four players selected to the Pro Bowl, including three offensive linemen, but their punter was snubbed. Read more.
Three-time Pro Bowl pick Chris Harris Jr. should have added a fourth to his resume, as he is still one of the league’s most unique players because of his ability to line up either in the slot or on the outside. Read more.
By making the Pro Bowl combined with having more than five interceptions, Darius Slay picked up another $550,000 in base salary for 2018. Read more.
The Packers didn’t have a single player named to the Pro Bowl. It was the first time since 2005, when the Packers were 4-12, that they didn’t have anyone picked. Read more.
DeAndre Hopkins and Jadeveon Clowney were both picked to be Pro Bowlers for the second time in their careers. Clowney might be due for a big pay day in the offseason. Read more.
You have to go back 20 years to find the last time that the Colts did not have a player selected for the Pro Bowl. That will be the case if one of their players isn’t chosen as an alternate. Read more.
The Jaguars’ four Pro Bowlers are the team’s most since 1999. And Yannick Ngakoue, who has forced six fumbles this season, could make it too. Read more.
Alex Smith, the NFL’s top-rated passer, is having his best season, but he did not make the Pro Bowl roster. The Chiefs did have three players selected, however. Read more.
The Chargers had four players named to the Pro Bowl, but Melvin Ingram, who has 10 sacks this season, was only selected as a first alternate. Read more.
The Rams had five players named to the Pro Bowl, their highest total since 2003. Todd Gurley, who struggled mightily in 2016, made his second team, while Aaron Donald, who held out all summer, made his fourth. Read more.
Ndamukong Suh is having his best season in Miami, but he did not make the Pro Bowl. Despite constant double teams, Suh leads the Dolphins in tackles for loss, forced fumbles and is second in sacks. Read more.
Adam Thielen, who has 83 catches for 1,191 yards, made his first Pro Bowl, while three more Vikings made the roster. Read more.
The Patriots had four players make the Pro Bowl. You know about Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski, but how about Matthew Slater and James Develin? Read more.
The Saints had a whopping six players named to the Pro Bowl, including the history-making running back duo of Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara, who became the first running backs to make the Pro Bowl from the same team in at least 42 years. Read more.
The Giants had one player named to the Pro Bowl — safety Landon Collins. He isn’t having the same season he did in 2016 (in part because of ankle injuries) but is still the Giants’ leading tackler. Read more.
The Jets had no players selected to the Pro Bowl for the second consecutive year. (Leonard Williams made it as an injury replacement last season.) But Demario Davis felt he deserved a spot. Read more.
Reigning Defensive Player of the Year Khalil Mack was named to his third Pro Bowl, and the Raiders had three more players picked. Read more.
The Eagles had six players named to the Pro Bowl, including the injured Carson Wentz. Jason Kelce, however, did not make the team. Read more.
The Steelers had an NFL-high eight players named to the Pro Bowl, including first-timers Alejandro Villanueva and Chris Boswell. Read more.
As one of the 49ers’ prized free-agent acquisitions, Kyle Juszczyk arrived with big expectations for his role in the offense, and he was named to his second Pro Bowl on Tuesday night. Read more.
Russell Wilson, Earl Thomas, Bobby Wagoner and Jimmy Graham all made the Pro Bowl for at least the fourth time. Read more.
Gerald McCoy, who made his sixth Pro Bowl team, has five sacks in 13 games for the season, sixth-most among defensive tackles in the league and fourth in the NFC. Read more.
Kevin Byard exploded onto the scene in his first season as a full-team starter, grabbing six interceptions, tied for second-most in the NFL, but he did not make the Pro Bowl. Read more.
Ryan Kerrigan and Trent Williams were named as starters in the NFC, while Brandon Scherff is a reserve. Josh Norman once again did not make the team. Read more.
In the early-morning hours of Feb. 18, 2002, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers sent two first-round draft picks, two second-round picks and $8 million to the Oakland Raiders — for a head coach. Eleven months and eight days later, Jon Gruden led his Bucs team against those same Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, and he delivered Tampa’s first and only Vince Lombardi Trophy with a 48-21 victory.
Bucs co-chairman Bryan Glazer called it “a trade that shook the NFL,” and it is still the biggest deal to acquire a coach in NFL history. It was a steep price to pay for Gruden, who will be inducted into the Buccaneers’ Ring of Honor during Monday night’s game, but as one of his former players said, “One Super Bowl is worth 20 years of mediocrity.”
Here’s a look back at how the trade that made Gruden feel pressure went down, the historic “Chucky Bowl” and the aftermath for a franchise that hasn’t come close to the top of the NFL mountain since.
The Bucs went 9-7 in 2001 and reached the playoffs for the fourth time in six seasons, but they couldn’t get to the Super Bowl. And that cost Tony Dungy his job as head coach. Coming off the field on Jan. 12, 2002, after a 31-9 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, players sensed it would be Dungy’s last game as their coach.
Bucs linebacker Derrick Brooks: “Yes, I did [think something was going to happen]. It had been rumored for a while that if we didn’t get to certain stages that that was going to happen. But until it actually happened, we were business as usual.”
Bucs fullback Mike Alstott: “It was hard. It’s hard, still. The guy that brought us all in, the guy that [we] were winning with, the guy [we] had success with, went to the playoffs with [is gone]. The thing is, the NFL is ‘not for long.’ … There is nobody untouchable in the NFL. … Us players felt guilty. We felt really, really guilty about it, not getting it done for him.”
Gruden’s final game as Raiders head coach came during the infamous Tuck Rule Game loss to the Patriots in an AFC divisional playoff game on Jan. 19, 2002. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Raiders wide receiver Tim Brown: “Right after the game in New England, he made a comment in the locker room that basically said … ‘You guys should have won.’ And I went up to him after he had finished, and I asked him what did ‘you guys’ mean? ‘Coach, you are a part of us.’ And he just sort of walked away from me.”
Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson: “I can’t say that I remember any rumblings about it. … Nobody thought he was going anywhere. He had come in and the mission was to get that franchise turned around and that had happened. … Nobody thought he was going anywhere. We just thought he was having issues with negotiations like everybody else does and they’d get it worked out and we’d have our coach.”
Meanwhile in Tampa, the Bucs were struggling to find a replacement for Dungy. Bill Parcells opted to stay retired. They interviewed Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis, LSU head coach Nick Saban, Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey and San Diego Chargers offensive coordinator Norv Turner. Tampa Bay general manager Rich McKay wanted Lewis, but the Glazers believed they had their defense set already with coordinator Monte Kiffin and they wanted an offense-minded head coach.
Brooks: “Up until that point, everybody was kind of scrambling, doing their own thing. But at the end of the day, we were not accomplishing anything because we didn’t have a head coach. So for a month, I worked out, I did this, I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing, wrong thing in terms of what the head coach wanted, because we didn’t have one.”
Alstott: “We were in limbo. We were really in limbo for a long time not knowing what to expect and hearing different names, and all of a sudden, here comes Jon Gruden out of nowhere, overnight.”
Raiders owner Al Davis initially demanded two first-round draft picks, two second-round picks and future Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive tackle Warren Sapp, who had been NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1999, in exchange for Gruden. The Bucs went looking elsewhere. After talks with San Francisco 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci went nowhere, the focus turned back to Gruden. Bucs vice president Joel Glazer called Davis at his home around 10 p.m. on Feb. 17, 2002. The two talked for about 30 minutes, and the Bucs reiterated their interest in Gruden.
Jon Gruden: “I had a phone in my house and when that phone rang, there was only one person — Al Davis. And he’d call at times when you’d expect Al Davis to call — usually when I was sleeping. So when the phone rang that night, I knew who it was. We had just lost to, I think the Patriots, in the playoffs. I was still bitter about the game. I know he was still upset about the game. I figured we were gonna talk about that.”
The Bucs signed the 38-year-old Gruden to a five-year deal and introduced him as head coach on Feb. 20, 2002. Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images
Brown: “I think [Gruden] knew something was coming. I think he had given the Raiders until Thanksgiving to get something done or he was going to leave, so I think everybody knew what was going to happen except the players. … The players weren’t aware of anything of that nature.”
Gruden: “There were trade rumors going on at that time. [Al] asked me if I’d wanted to talk to the Glazers. And my contract was coming up. To make a long story short, I said, ‘Yeah, I’d like to talk to the Glazers.’ That didn’t make him very happy.”
Bucs co-chairman Bryan Glazer: “Jon was a winner. Coming from Oakland, Jon had huge success on the offensive side of the ball. We had an unbelievable defense, and all we were missing was that side of the football. Getting a chance to get a young coach in his prime was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and so we did what we needed to do to make it happen.”
Cindy Gruden, Jon’s wife: “We did get the call around 1 in the morning, and we were disoriented. So the news comes through, and we can’t get a hold of our agent, Bob [Lamonte], because it’s nighttime. Nobody does business — I don’t know — the Glazers do things sometimes in the middle of the night. So it came through, and we talked to Al Davis and the Glazers, and everybody was like, ‘Are we doing this?’ ‘Yes, we are. It’s done.'”
Gruden: “Shortly after that, we agreed on a contract. I guess the trade had already been agreed upon between the Raiders and the Bucs. It all happened fast. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night.”
Cindy Gruden: “It was like, ‘What just happened?’ And then it’s all these emotions because California’s your home, the Raiders are your team and you love those people. You’d been through a lot with them football-wise, at least from a wife’s perspective. We live and die with our husbands as well. So you have all these emotions of leaving the place that you love, but going into a place that you also love. So it was an insane mix of emotions.”
Gruden’s family lived in the Tampa Bay area. His father, Jim, was the Bucs’ running backs coach from 1982-83 and was a regional scout and director of player personnel. His brother, Jay Gruden, went to Tampa’s Chamberlain High School and was the quarterback; he later became head coach of the Arena Football League’s Orlando Predators.
Gruden: “It was like a storybook opportunity for me to go home. … I grew up with [former Bucs tight end] Jimmie Giles. I was a ball boy for the Bucs. [Former Bucs quarterback] Doug Williams, I idolized Doug.”
Glazer: “It was euphoria. It was so exciting to know that Jon was coming to Tampa.”
Rich Gannon told Brad Johnson that Gruden would have him more prepared than any coach he played for, and the Bucs quarterback soon found that out for himself. Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Cindy Gruden: “Our youngest [son Jayson] was 2, and I had four days to find a house and schools out here and then I had to fly back, because I didn’t really have a sitter. It was hard to get my parents to do it. It was just insane. But we managed.”
Bucs quarterback Brad Johnson: “At the time, I just knew I was gonna have to learn a lot of football. That was my only thinking, and, ‘What were his facial expressions gonna be like?'”
When news of the trade hit, it sent shock waves through the Raiders, who had gone 22-10 over Gruden’s final two seasons in Oakland.
Raiders QBs coach/offensive coordinator Bill Callahan: “That was just a crazy time in all of our lives. That was just shocking. I was just totally just blown away that he was traded in the middle of the night. That was a first one for me [and] a first for a lot of people. I was happy for him. A special guy.”
Brown: “I tried to get ahold of him right away, and obviously I couldn’t, because he was already on his way to Tampa; and next time I saw him, he was on TV being introduced as the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.”
As news of Gruden’s hiring spread through Tampa, Jeffrey Neil Fox, owner of the old Buccaneer Heaven, a memorabilia store just a few miles north of Raymond James Stadium, had to prepare for the Gruden frenzy, including the coach’s “alter ego.” Gruden’s facial expressions, combined with his blonde hair, freckles and boyish appearance earned him the nickname “Chucky” after a character in the 1998 horror flick “Child’s Play.”
Fox: “We got on the internet and bought up every single Chucky doll there was. Initially, I got 100, but I ended up ordering, I think, 2,000 of them. We made them go back to press. We made the toy manufacturer make them up again. We had a little bit of a monopoly on this. … My showroom looked like a murder scene [with so many people]. … That Chucky thing went crazy.”
Johnson: “I called [Raiders quarterback] Rich Gannon when that went down, and he said, ‘Brad, you’re gonna love playing for him. He’s gonna have you more prepared than anybody you’ve ever had before. He’s gonna teach you a lot of football. And he’s gonna give you a chance to win at a higher level.’ And Rich was right about everything.”
Gruden: “It didn’t put any pressure on me. Warren Sapp told me, ‘If you don’t deliver a Super Bowl, we will kill you.'”
Fox: “Remember the ‘Got Milk?’ ads? We ended up selling $100,000 worth of ‘Got Chucky?’ T-shirts. We got the Chucky bobbleheads, a 3-foot bobblehead of Gruden.”
Gruden’s energetic style made a quick impression on his new players, and he brought in a lot of new faces.
Brooks: “The way he came off, you felt this genuine energy. That was the first impression of mine, and, ‘This guy is energetic. We’re gonna have to match it.’ I think if I had to use one word, it’s the ‘energy’ that Coach Gruden brought into the building every single day. Especially those first couple of days, it was high-pace, high everything — doing everything with much greater speed. It was energy.”
Johnson: “Jon brought in a lot of free agents [25 total] and kind of raised the expectations of the defense and also gave us a better chance on offense to succeed.”
Bucs left tackle Roman Oben: “I got cut by the Browns before signing with the Bucs. He revamped the offense with guys who had chips on their shoulders and knew how to push our buttons to get the most out of us — [wide receiver] Joe Jurevicius, [running back] Michael Pittman, [wide receiver] Keenan McCardell, [offensive guard] Jerry Jenkins.”
Bucs wide receiver Keenan McCardell: “He recruited the mess out of me to come to Tampa. I felt like a college kid again in recruiting. … I was deciding to go between Tampa and Kansas City. And he said, ‘Your wife doesn’t want to go to cold-ass Kansas City. She wants to stay in nice, sunny Florida. So I want you to drive your butt right down I-75 and come on to Tampa and we’re gonna win a Super Bowl. … Just tell her I’ll buy her some diamonds after we win the Super Bowl.’ I mean, he was thinking about that then. And I was like, ‘I’m gonna hold you to that if I come to Tampa.'”
McCardell: “I went to Kansas City [on a free-agent visit] and came back. And [Gruden] said, ‘Well, I’m not gonna meet you at the airport. I got some people waiting for you.’ He had the whole defense and offense waiting on me at the restaurant. That was pretty cool by him. He put the big guns out there to recruit me to come there. That was a nice one for me.”
Gruden didn’t touch the defense that Dungy and Kiffin had installed, but he challenged that defense to take it to another level.
Brooks: “He challenged us [the defense] to score nine touchdowns, something we’ve never been challenged with before. I don’t know where he got that number from, but [safety] Dwight Smith’s [second pick-six] in the Super Bowl was our ninth touchdown. He said, ‘You guys are so great, so intimidating — everyone in the world is scared of you, so just score touchdowns.’ He said, ‘Be dominant, be global. Impress me.'”
Bucs safety Dwight Smith: “That was in practice, dominating and celebrating and all that. And he was like, ‘You think you’re all so tough? You think you’re all so tough? Score nine touchdowns then!’ I want to say that was in training camp. We were out there celebrating and having a ball and all this, and he gets up there and he’s so competitive, he goes, ‘You guys think you’re so tough? Then score nine touchdowns!'”
The Bucs improved from eighth in scoring defense in 2001 to first, allowing just 12.3 points per game. The defense led the Bucs to an NFC South title with a 12-4 record.
Bucs running back Michael Pittman: “No matter what, we’d leave the facility and his car was there. And at 5 o’clock in the morning, his car’s already there. It was like, we really didn’t know what time he left and what time he got in. Coach Gruden lived and breathed football — that’s all he did. … Everybody on the team respected him and the way he worked.”
Alstott: “Coach Gruden was an expert — he was a master of X’s and O’s. He really was — and breaking down defenses and being a great presenter. His presentation to the weekly game plans that he had each and every Wednesday was really magical. He could take video and put it in your playbook and show you what he wanted done between video and the different concepts that he wanted to teach us. That happened each and every week and every day. It was pretty impressive.”
The Bucs, who had lost to the Eagles in the playoffs two years in a row, won the 2002 NFC Championship Game with a 27-10 victory over Philadelphia. They were headed to the Super Bowl, and in a strange twist of fate, they would face the Raiders.
Gruden: “I kinda knew the Raiders were a heck of a team. I mean, we were pretty good. But I remember in the playoffs, we had made the playoffs, we had the bye week — I was really happy we beat the 49ers — and I see the Raiders advance. I’ll never forget when the Raiders beat the Titans [in the AFC Championship Game]. … It was chilling. That was a weird feeling. It was a strange day at the office, for sure.”
Raiders CEO Amy Trask: “My immediate, instantaneous thought was that this would be a problem, as Jon knew our personnel inside out. He knew strengths, weaknesses, propensities, etc. I knew it increased the challenges considerably.”
After Gruden played the role of Gannon in practice, the Bucs faced the real guy in San Diego on Jan. 26, 2003. The game brought a wide range of emotions for Gruden. It did for the Raiders as well, in what was dubbed the “Chucky Bowl.”
Gruden: “You don’t want to know [the feeling]. You don’t want to be there. It was my old team we were playing against.”
Cindy Gruden: “I have to tell ya — at the Super Bowl, the Buccaneer wives drove in on their buses and the Raiders wives drove in on their buses, and I just had to stop [myself] from tearing up, because it was all the people I loved on that side too. It was a very weird mix of emotions.”
Brown: “It was very hard seeing him across the field, no doubt about it. We had such an incredible relationship with him. He was the guy that I would just go talk to about stuff that didn’t have anything to do with football; so from that standpoint, it was tough to all of a sudden be in a situation where you didn’t have that in your head coach anymore. You didn’t have that guy that you could talk to, and he’s down there with another team having tons of success. It was tough, no doubt about it, to see him on the other side.”
Gruden: “Eh, bring it on. If we’re gonna put all the chips on the table, let’s put every chip we got. Let’s not screw around here. If we’re gonna beat somebody, we might as well beat the old team.”
Johnson threw for 215 yards and two touchdowns, both to McCardell. Simeon Rice had two of the Bucs’ five sacks. Brooks returned an interception for a touchdown and Smith had two pick-sixes. Safety Dexter Jackson also had two interceptions and won Super Bowl MVP in the Bucs’ 48-21 victory. At 39, Gruden became the youngest coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl.
Callahan: “It was just kind of weird that the whole thing occurred in terms of him being with the Bucs, me with the Raiders and we met in the Super Bowl. It wasn’t unlikely, though. They had all the things in place and Jon just put it all together and brought that team together and created a championship. Unfortunately, we were on the other side of it. But to his credit, they were the better team that day.”
Brown: ”After the game was over with, you couldn’t help but be happy for him, because when you worked as hard as he’d worked in his career, you deserve to win a championship. We wanted to win it, but we didn’t. I’m not going to sit around and pooh-pooh on his victory. I made sure right after the game that I got right over to him and congratulated him before they kicked us off the field.”
Glazer: “Every team has only one goal each year and that’s to win the Super Bowl. Jon Gruden is the reason I am wearing this [Super Bowl] ring. It’s also the reason that my father could stand alongside him holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy, delivering on his promise to make the Buccaneers winners on and off the field.”
The Bucs struggled over the following two seasons. They missed out on the draft picks that they had traded to Oakland. Players in their core group aged. The Bucs were one of seven teams in NFL history to miss out on the playoffs two years in a row after winning the Super Bowl, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. They did make it back to the playoffs in 2005 and in 2007, but lost in the first round both times. After the Super Bowl, the Raiders did not reach the playoffs again until 2016.
Gruden: “You don’t realize the compensation until the draft comes around. You miss the first- and second-round draft choices and you really wish in hindsight that we didn’t have to give up anything.”
Alstott: “Every year’s a different story in the coaching world. You don’t know what you’re gonna get. You don’t know what you’re gonna have, unfortunately, with injuries. … Every team is different. That’s why when you have a special thing, you never want to let it go.”
Former Indianapolis Colts general manager, ESPN analyst Bill Polian: “I think the combination of what you’re giving up versus the quality of the coach — in the free-agency/salary-cap era, it’s much harder to replace players than it is coaches. If you lose a couple 1s and a couple 2s and maybe even a 3, it’s harder to replace those picks because of the salary cap. So the only way to deal with the salary cap is to play a cadre of young players, and the only way to do that is through the draft. So the circumstances now with the collective bargaining agreement, free agency and the salary cap are different than they were prior, so I think people are far less willing to part with high draft choices.”
Smith: “This is what people don’t understand: One Super Bowl is worth 20 years of mediocrity.”
Glazer: “It was a big risk, a big gamble with everything that we gave up. But at the end of the day, I’ve got this [points to a Super Bowl ring] and he’s got this. We all have this and those that were a part of those memories that come with that.”
Gruden: “It really made me work harder. It really gave me the incentive to do the very best that I could for Mr. Glazer and his family that made that trade, because it was a lot to live up to. Perhaps I never will live up to it, but I’m not dead yet.”
Under the NFL’s definition of a catch, the league was right to take away what looked to be a game-winning Jesse James touchdown catch at the end of Sunday night’s Patriots-Steelers game. There are still unanswered questions — notably, if the call was as easy as the explanations of Alberto Riveron and Tony Corrente have suggested, why it took what felt like 10 minutes to overturn the call — but everyone on the league side of things seems to agree that the review was processed properly and led to the correct call.
A dramatic ending to the Steelers-Patriots matchup turned controversial after officials overruled what appeared to be a go-ahead touchdown catch by the Steelers tight end Jesse James — a decision derided by James and several of his teammates.
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Here’s the problem, though: just about everyone who has watched a football game before also thinks James caught that football. Watch the replay. The Patriots defenders who surround James after the play aren’t arguing it’s incomplete. Bill Belichick, who would have been pictured frantically gesturing on camera in the case he thought it was a drop, isn’t depicted. Jim Nantz says “there’s no doubt it’s going to hold up,” as he and Tony Romo spend two minutes watching replays before it even occurs to them that the ball spun slightly as James hit the ground.
The rule was interpreted correctly, but the rule is bad. There are plenty of problems with the NFL right now, but many of them are either intractable or downright unfixable. The catch rule is not one of them. The NFL has to fix it, and that might require a totally radical sort of solution. Let’s make arguments for three very different types of changes to the much-hated catch rule.
Option 1: The evolution
While the NFL’s catch rules certainly aren’t perfect, they’ve evolved the way they have for a reason. Tangible in-game examples (like the Bert Emanuel rule) have driven practical changes to the laws over time. They’re never going to fix the problem and make everyone happy all the time, but no rule on paper is ever going to address every possible in-game catch situation. As a result, the league needs to be proactive about monitoring how the rule is impacting games and be comfortable making changes every year or two accordingly.
With that in mind, the league’s catch rule isn’t really all that bad over the first 99.9 yards of the field. Most of the complaints we’ve seen over the past few years, starting most memorably with the Dez Bryant catch, revolve around touchdowns and would-be touchdowns. Those plays are always going to stand out in the mind because of their importance, but they’re also where the current rules seem to fall apart.
The Calvin Johnson rule, so-called for taking a touchdown away from one of the league’s star wide receivers in Week 1 of the 2010 season, simply doesn’t work. It leaves too much up for interpretation and offers little clarity into what receivers actually need to do to ensure a touchdown. James’s catch fell short because he failed to, as Corrente described, “survive the ground.” The ball moved slightly as James hit the ground, but independent of the rulebook, it’s clear that James caught the ball, only for it to budge slightly as he leaned forward to try to push ahead of the plane.
Tight end Jesse James finished with two catches for 7 yards, and his go-ahead touchdown in the final minute was called off. AP Photo/Don Wright
To improve matters, let’s get rid of the surviving the ground rule and stop taking away touchdown catches for balls that narrowly drop slightly after a player’s established contact. Runners can score touchdowns just by flashing the ball over the plane of the goal line, but receivers currently need to complete their catch to the ground to become runners and qualify for touchdowns. Under our rule change, a player becomes a runner as soon as he catches it and gets two feet (or one knee or elbow or cheek, as Damiere Byrd exhibited Sunday) inbounds.
This rule isn’t perfect, but it’s an improvement. We don’t have to go back to the “football move” conundrum with this change. He doesn’t have to turn upfield or hold onto the football until his teammates have started their synchronized celebration. If the receiver bobbles the ball on the way to the ground and never actually makes a firm catch, that’s an incomplete pass. Otherwise, if he catches the ball on his feet (or back) and establishes himself inbounds, it’s a catch.
To go along with it, let’s fix the actual worst rule in football, when a fumble through the pylon becomes a turnover and a touchback for the other team. Nobody likes this rule outside of the one game every three or four seasons in which it benefits their team. The problem is that the solution of simply giving the ball back to the offense on the one-yard line basically gives offensive players a free opportunity to reach for the pylon with no repercussions, given that a swatted ball near the pylon is almost always going to go out of bounds.
Fortunately, Twitter fixed that for us. I asked about possible solutions to this problem back in October and certified genius @chiefdog10 solved our crisis with what he called the “self-touchback.” I like “reverse touchback,” but the idea’s his. When the ball is fumbled out of bounds through the pylon, don’t turn the ball over. Just push it back to the 20-yard line. I’ll add that the down should count, so the reverse touchback basically costs you 19-plus yards of field position but otherwise lets you keep the football. You’re punished for fumbling, but it’s not the eight-point swing (including the missing touchdown and the possession given to the other team) which comes with the current rule.
These changes don’t solve the catch rule problem, but they eliminate the most frustrating and confusing plays we complain about on Sundays. James’s catch would have been ruled a completion and then a momentary fumble as he hit the ground and stretched forward, which he would have then recovered. The Steelers wouldn’t have been awarded a touchdown, but they would have been able to get back on the ball at the one-inch line.
Option 2: The de-evolution
The league’s catch rule is too complicated, and all the changes we’ve made have turned it into something like an overfit model. We’re asking a lot of refs on a weekly basis as they deal with an increasingly speedy game. The current replay system makes it so that referees often rule a big play a turnover or a touchdown on the field, which creates an automatic review but one inherently likely to lead to those decisions being upheld, given that ties go to the call on the field. The widespread unpopularity and confusion surrounding the catch rule means we have to start over.
So, let’s go with what Larry Fitzgerald suggested should be the new rule two years ago. If a receiver catches the ball and gets two feet, a knee, an elbow, or a cheek on the ground, it’s a catch. If he stays upright and the ball is stripped out of his hands or he bobbles it, the ball becomes a live fumble.
Doesn’t that feel refreshingly simple and comprehensible? We still need to come up with a clear definition of “catch,” but let’s try to keep that to the shortest possible definition. Maybe it becomes a catch at the moment when the receiver grabs the ball in his hands without bobbling it. Perhaps you put a timeframe on it, like the receiver cradles the ball for a half-second or a full second.
This will unquestionably increase fumbles, which will be fodder for the tiresome and flimsy arguments about how football has always been great and is now suddenly worse. That’s fine. The league’s turnover rate has been dropping steadily for decades. Fumbles are fun plays. Everyone loves to point. Players will also adapt and begin to protect the football earlier through the catch process. It will also mean more catches, but how often do you hear people complaining that something was ruled a catch when it shouldn’t have been? We’re living in a Golden Age of receivers. Let’s reward Antonio Brown and Julio Jones for being amazing.
Ben Roethlisberger had 281 passing yards with two touchdowns and an interception. Photo by Philip G. Pavely/USA TODAY Sports
So, if you know whether something’s a catch or not from watching a play in context, let’s use our eyes to decide. And since this is my idea, we’re not turning things over to a head referee to watch on video. Let me introduce you to The Committee.
Whenever there’s an NFL game going on, a committee of 50 ex-NFL players will assemble in New York (or California or some other central location). The committee will consist of 25 former receivers and 25 defensive backs. You can change the numbers however you want — maybe it’s 10 at each position or 32 players and each team can nominate a wide receiver or a defensive back in alternating years — but the idea is the same.
These players have one job: whenever there is a question about a catch which is challenged via the coach’s flag or any of the automatic review situations, they get 60 seconds to watch replays of the catch and then vote “Yes” or “No.” They will be provided with whatever catch rules the NFL wants to suggest, but at the end of the day, they have one principle which overrides that concept: if they think it’s a catch, our voting panel should vote “Yes.” If not, they should vote otherwise.
And yes, before you ask: this should be treated like an episode of Who Wants to be A Millionaire. We should see the votes update in real-time on the screen, although the individual votes should be kept anonymous to the public. There should be a bunch of cameras in the room. Shine a light on each player as we get to the final few and the vote’s at 24-24 so we can watch Wes Welker and Jabari Greer agonize over their decision. Imagine the crowd roaring as they see the vote count rising in their favor on the jumbotron. This could be great television.
Players should be allowed to remain on the committee for up to 10 years, but we want to eventually find a consensus on what isn’t a catch. As a result, while the votes should remain anonymous to the public, the league should keep track of the individual votes and prevent the five players who differed from the majority most frequently from joining the committee in the future. (This would be bad if the consensus was wrong, but the consensus should be pretty in line with popular opinion with a large enough sample.
No, this won’t be cheap, and it wouldn’t be a perfect solution. I suspect referees might not take kindly to giving away this element of power. It would also make for great television, and we would have far fewer controversial calls than we do now. We’re never going to fix the catch rule. Let’s at least have some fun with it and think outside of the box for a compelling and possibly entertaining solution instead.
Bucs linebacker Derrick Brooks: “Yes, I did [think something was going to happen]. It had been rumored for a while that if we didn’t get to certain stages that that was going to happen. But until it actually happened, we were business as usual.”
Bucs fullback Mike Alstott: “It was hard. It’s hard, still. The guy that brought us all in, the guy that [we] were winning with, the guy [we] had success with, went to the playoffs with [is gone]. The thing is, the NFL is ‘not for long.’ … There is nobody untouchable in the NFL. … Us players felt guilty. We felt really, really guilty about it, not getting it done for him.”
Raiders wide receiver Tim Brown: “Right after the game in New England, he made a comment in the locker room that basically said … ‘You guys should have won.’ And I went up to him after he had finished, and I asked him what did ‘you guys’ mean? ‘Coach, you are a part of us.’ And he just sort of walked away from me.”
Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson: “I can’t say that I remember any rumblings about it. … Nobody thought he was going anywhere. He had come in and the mission was to get that franchise turned around and that had happened. … Nobody thought he was going anywhere. We just thought he was having issues with negotiations like everybody else does and they’d get it worked out and we’d have our coach.”
Jon Gruden: “I had a phone in my house and when that phone rang, there was only one person — Al Davis. And he’d call at times when you’d expect Al Davis to call — usually when I was sleeping. So when the phone rang that night, I knew who it was. We had just lost to, I think the Patriots, in the playoffs. I was still bitter about the game. I know he was still upset about the game. I figured we were gonna talk about that.”
Bucs co-chairman Bryan Glazer: “Jon was a winner. Coming from Oakland, Jon had huge success on the offensive side of the ball. We had an unbelievable defense, and all we were missing was that side of the football. Getting a chance to get a young coach in his prime was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and so we did what we needed to do to make it happen.”
Bucs quarterback Brad Johnson: “At the time, I just knew I was gonna have to learn a lot of football. That was my only thinking, and, ‘What were his facial expressions gonna be like?'”
Raiders QBs coach/offensive coordinator Bill Callahan: “That was just a crazy time in all of our lives. That was just shocking. I was just totally just blown away that he was traded in the middle of the night. That was a first one for me [and] a first for a lot of people. I was happy for him. A special guy.”
Fox: “We got on the internet and bought up every single Chucky doll there was. Initially, I got 100, but I ended up ordering, I think, 2,000 of them. We made them go back to press. We made the toy manufacturer make them up again. We had a little bit of a monopoly on this. … My showroom looked like a murder scene [with so many people]. … That Chucky thing went crazy.”
Bucs left tackle Roman Oben: “I got cut by the Browns before signing with the Bucs. He revamped the offense with guys who had chips on their shoulders and knew how to push our buttons to get the most out of us — [wide receiver] Joe Jurevicius, [running back] Michael Pittman, [wide receiver] Keenan McCardell, [offensive guard] Jerry Jenkins.”
Bucs wide receiver Keenan McCardell: “He recruited the mess out of me to come to Tampa. I felt like a college kid again in recruiting. … I was deciding to go between Tampa and Kansas City. And he said, ‘Your wife doesn’t want to go to cold-ass Kansas City. She wants to stay in nice, sunny Florida. So I want you to drive your butt right down I-75 and come on to Tampa and we’re gonna win a Super Bowl. … Just tell her I’ll buy her some diamonds after we win the Super Bowl.’ I mean, he was thinking about that then. And I was like, ‘I’m gonna hold you to that if I come to Tampa.'”
Bucs safety Dwight Smith: “That was in practice, dominating and celebrating and all that. And he was like, ‘You think you’re all so tough? You think you’re all so tough? Score nine touchdowns then!’ I want to say that was in training camp. We were out there celebrating and having a ball and all this, and he gets up there and he’s so competitive, he goes, ‘You guys think you’re so tough? Then score nine touchdowns!'”
Bucs running back Michael Pittman: “No matter what, we’d leave the facility and his car was there. And at 5 o’clock in the morning, his car’s already there. It was like, we really didn’t know what time he left and what time he got in. Coach Gruden lived and breathed football — that’s all he did. … Everybody on the team respected him and the way he worked.”
Raiders CEO Amy Trask: “My immediate, instantaneous thought was that this would be a problem, as Jon knew our personnel inside out. He knew strengths, weaknesses, propensities, etc. I knew it increased the challenges considerably.”
Former 
