Baltimore Sports Today

Baltimore Sports News Continuously Updated

Daily Slop – 22 Jun 24 – Terry McLaurin on what’s different: “a tenacity that we possibly missed in the past”

by


A collection of articles, podcasts & tweets from around the web to keep you in touch with the Commanders, the NFC East and the NFL in general

Commanders links

Articles

Commanders.com

Commanders LBs lead NFL in Mike Clay’s offseason projections

The linebacker position has been the Washington Commanders’ most glaring weakness on defense, not just since last season but for the past four years.

It’s still too early to predict how the group will perform in 2024, but at least the national perception has changed since Dan Quinn and Adam Peters took over.

The Commanders heavily bolstered their linebacker corps in the first few months of the new regime, signing veterans Bobby Wagner and Frankie Luvu along with drafting Jordan Magee in the fifth round of the NFL Draft. Those moves got the attention of ESPN’s Mike Clay, who ranked Washington’s linebackers as the league’s best heading into the upcoming season.

The Commanders were the only team to get a perfect grade (4.0) at linebacker from Clay in his position-by-position rankings, beating out the San Francisco 49ers (3.9), Jacksonville Jaguars (3.8) and New York Jets (3.6). As a comparison, Clay ranked the Commanders’ linebackers 29th in the NFL with a 0.6 grade heading into the 2023 season.

Commanders Wire

Older photo shows Commanders QB Jayden Daniels wearing a Marcus Mariota jersey

In April, they became teammates when Washington drafted Daniels — one month after the Commanders signed Mariota to a one-year deal in free agency. While they are officially competing to start at quarterback in 2024, the job belongs to Daniels, with Mariota serving as his backup and mentor.

If Daniels becomes the starting quarterback as expected this season, he will look to Mariota as a sounding board. While they haven’t been teammates long, Daniels has spoken highly of Mariota.

As it turns out, Daniels has been a fan of Mariota for a while. A photo recently surfaced showing Daniels and his mother, with the Washington quarterback wearing a Mariota No. 8 Tennessee Titans jersey. Mariota spent the first five seasons of his NFL career in Tennessee.

Sports Illustrated

Power Rankings: Commanders Not The Texans But Are ‘Close to That Path’

The Commanders were slated as one of the worst teams in the NFL.

Yahoo Sports’ Frank Schwab recently began his offseason NFL power rankings and preview series, which starts with the lowest-ranked team. This year, that team was the Carolina Panthers at No. 32, with the New England Patriots being No. 31 followed by the Denver Broncos at No. 30.

Just ahead of those three teams, ranked No. 29 is the Commanders themselves.

The Commanders did just about everything fans could want out of a rebuilding team — there’s new ownership, a new general manager and even a new coaching staff. Through all of that, the Commanders spent the offseason turning around the roster, too, returning the least amount of production from a season ago.

Plenty of the Commanders’ recent moves replicate those of the Houston Texans — who won three games in 2022 before jumping to ten wins in 2023. They had a breakout No. 2 overall pick which happened to be a quarterback, along with a head coach in his first season with the team.

Any team trying to replicate the Texans’ rapid rebuild are facing a large uphill climb. The Commanders could come close, though, and they could do so in a two-year stretch.

“But the Commanders could be a team that comes close to that path,” Schwab wrote of the Commanders rebuild compared to the Texans. “Why not? Ownership doesn’t seem to be meddling with personnel decisions anymore. The Commanders have a GM who already has respect around the league, a head coach deserving of a second chance and a quarterback who might not be Stroud but could have a massive impact right away. “

Podcasts & videos

Terry McLaurin’s FULL INTERVIEW with Scott Van Pelt | SC with SVP

Scott Van Pelt: “We’re all from somewhere and I’m from here, and there are a whole lot of folks like me that have just been waiting just been waiting to jump back on that bandwagon and see Washington get back to where they’ve been in the past. You make it real easy to root for, man. Congrats on the success and good luck this year!”

NFL & CFL league links

Articles

Pro Football Focus

Captain Checkdown: Examining NFL quarterbacks by their reliance on checkdown passes

• Trevor Lawrence’s approach shifts: The Jags signal-caller produced the league’s highest checkdown rate (11.3%) after the 2021 season, but he has recorded the league’s lowest (3.7%) over the last two campaigns.

• An unfamiliar environment hindered Russell Wilson’s production: In Denver, Wilson’s checkdown rate increased by more than four percentage points compared to his previous two-year sample in Seattle.

Checkdown passes are an invaluable part of the modern passing game.

When utilized correctly, they allow the quarterback to generate a positive play out of a negative situation. Good coverage or unexpected pressure can disrupt a play’s timing and take away the bigger play a passer wants to make, but those checkdowns allow signal-callers to make a positive play rather than throw the ball away or take a sack.

However, sometimes quarterbacks can become too keen to look toward their checkdown, rushing through progressions and failing to allow plays to develop.

With the ever-changing landscape of passers around the league, we will explore which quarterbacks fall onto which side of the scale using a two-year sample (2022 and 2023).


Pro Football Focus

CFL fines four kickers for complaining about chips in footballs

The CFL fined Sergio Castillo, Brett Lauther, Sean Whyte, and Lewis Ward on Friday.

Castillo complained after Winnipeg’s season-opener against Montreal. Castillo missed two of three field goals and an extra point.

“I don’t know where to aim,” Castillo told reporters after the 27-12 loss. “Every time I’m out there, I’m literally praying the Rosary. . . . I don’t know where to aim.”

He also said the chips affect the trajectories of the kicks.

The other three kickers supported Castillo on social media. The amounts of the fines were not disclosed.

The CFL has since amended the rules to allow kickers to opt out of using the balls with chips in them.

Front Office Sports

TV Companies Losing Subscribers As Sports Rights Deals Continue to Rise

Four major TV provider companies reported collective losses of roughly 1.35 million customers during their first fiscal quarters, according to Cord Cutters News. Here’s how many each lost between Jan. 1 and March 31:

  • Comcast: 487,000
  • Spectrum: 405,000
  • Dish TV: 348,000
  • YouTube TV: 150,000

Those lost customers will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in monthly fees no longer being allocated to the pay-TV business.

Sports Still Selling

Despite the shift in viewing habits, live sports continue to generate more revenue than any other programming available. Leagues of all kinds are still seeing regular increases in new media-rights deals. Just look at some recent agreements and the percentage increases of the annual average values:

All a’Twitter