PFW sees Cardinals losing 11, Minnesota winning Super Bowl
As much as I appreciate online journalism and enjoy participating, it feels good to clutch Pro Football Weekly’s annual Preview. With all due respect to Lindy’s, which is also very good, PFW’s is the best-organized, most thorough and most accurate of the preseason football mags.
I will keep this 176-page volume on my desk throughout the season. If for no other reason – and there are many others – I like to have a numerical roster handy while watching games on television. Increasingly raconteuring announcers neglect to say who made the blocks and tackles, so I need PFW along with a rewind button if I want to understand key elements of the action.
With this yearbook I can track the evolution of every team, beginning with a depth chart extending to the fourth string. Sadly, some of these bottom-feeders you’ve never heard of will be starting as the veterans ahead of them fall to injuries.
With that in mind, I’m disappointed that PFW rushed its 2018 edition onto the shelves before the editors had done their usual careful job of proofreading.
To wit:
Jimmie Ward is shown starting for the 49ers at both cornerback and free safety.
Connor Barwin is in the group of “veteran arrivals” for the Los Angeles Rams, when in fact he’s a departure.
Samson Ekuban is listed as a rookie on the Rams’ roster when in fact he played for them throughout last season. And is his name Ekuban or Ebukan? The magazine spells it both ways.
But hey, everybody makes mistakes, including this blog. The advantage digital has over print is in making corrections.
It’s too late for PFW to self-correct. Too bad for those of us who count on it as the ultimate authority on spellings and ages of NFL players. Such is the unreliability, I hate to admit, of the blogosphere that I inhabit.
Aside from the bountiful outpouring of rosters, schedules and stats, this papered guide evaluates all the NFL starting players and many of the reserves. Coaches’ roles are not overlooked (“Kyle Shanahan’s playbook is very detailed and wordy”).
Granted, some of PFW’s evaluations are puzzling. Deshaun Watson is ranked 30th among quarterbacks. Lower than Blake Bortles, Sam Bradford, Josh McCown, Ryan Tannehill and Mitchell Trubisky. I suspect the Houston Texans’ franchise QB somehow was left off the list and was tacked onto the end as the printing was about to begin. Better last than not at all.
But those quibbles aside, there’s much quality information. Here are a few morsels that hint at the enormity of the feast:
“Harrison Smith is one of the best center fielders in the NFL despite a poor (maybe career worst?) performance in the Eagles loss. . . .
“Opposing defensive coordinators are much better prepared for the Rams’ offensive chicanery that caught so many teams off guard last season. . . .
“No one runs between the tackles better than (Jordan) Howard, and though he doesn’t have elite speed, his 15 rushes of at least 20 yards over two seasons trail only Elliott and McCoy, and his five 40-plus yard runs are second only to Jay Ajayi. . . .
Jared Cook: “at 31, he still hasn’t really arrived. . . .
“Zay Jones, despite a bizarre offseason incident, is expected to return as a starter.”
We’re not told any details of the bizarre incident, but TMZ video showed Zay in the nude fighting his brother in downtown LA and later tweeting he was “thankful to be alive.”
Perhaps that was considered too much information for a family magazine.
As for predictions, here are a few of PFW’s boldest:
Vikings over Patriots in the Super Bowl. “Could be the swan-song season together” for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski. Not that the Vikes are without blemish. The O-line is rated only C+, and star receiver Adam Thielen “puts too many balls on the turf and appeared to wear down late.”
Most Improved Players are quarterbacks Mitchell Trubisky (Chicago) and Marcus Mariota (Tennessee).
Trubisky blossoms under his new coach, Matt Nagy, the Andy Reid protégé with a quicker mind. Mariota, whose creativity was lost on smash-mouth Mike Mularkey, thrives with offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur, who last year was mentored by Sean McVay of the razzle-dazzle Rams, the NFL’s highest-scoring team.
LaFleur left McVay for an opportunity to call the plays. The Titans’ new coach, Mike Vrabel, is a former NFL linebacker who will leave the offense to the play designers.
Seattle reverses 9-7 to 7-9. The loss of “Sherman, Bennett, Avril, Richardson and Graham proves too much to overcome.”
Arizona falls from 8-8 to 5-11 despite an “offensive breakout” from second-year tight end Ricky Seals-Jones.
The predictions are of dubious value because some are already out of date. Consider the LA Chargers, projected to go 12-4 after upgrades in the O-line and seondary.
I doubt Hub Arkush and his staff in Chicago would make that call now with the Chargers losing star tight end Hunter Henry for the season with ACL surgery.
So I mark a red line through Henry on the PFW depth chart and notice Virgil Green, the ex-Bronco, is next man up. This is a good way to track the inevitable attrition of all the teams. We can look back in February at what might have been.