Daily Slop – 9 Jun 24: Brian Baldinger raves about Jeremy Chinn; predicts “100+ tackles filling up the ‘stat sheet’”

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

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Riggo’s Rag

3 winners (and 1 loser) from Washington Commanders 2024 OTAs

There were winners and one big loser.

Washington penned Zach Ertz to a one-year deal. His previous connection to Kingsbury from their time together with the Arizona Cardinals was a big tipping point behind the decision. While the move was largely well-received, many wondered if the three-time Pro Bowler had anything left in the tank.

It’s only early in the process, but Ertz is alleviating these concerns.

The player looked sharp in the passing game according to those in attendance at Washington’s organized team activities. Ertz was sharp out of his routes and provided quarterback Jayden Daniels with a sound security blanket in the short-to-intermediate area of the field. He’s also adopted the mentorship role with Sinnott, which is another integral part of his contribution in 2024.

Fans will get a broader perspective of what Ertz is capable of when things get more intense as the summer unfolds. His previous credentials speak for themselves. However, he missed the second half of 2023 after departing the Cardinals, so it could still go either way.

For now, things are looking up.

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Commanders Wire

Chris Simms: Previewing NFC East, but down on the Commanders

Chris Simms hardly said a word about the Washington Commanders.

This week on his “Chris Simms Unbuttoned” podcast, Sims gave a brief look ahead to the NFC East for this season.

In doing so, it was quite noticeable that he barely mentioned the Commanders. When co-host Ahmed Fareed mentioned the Draft Kings over/under win totals were the Giants and Commanders at 6.5 and that the Commanders were predicted ahead of the Giants (+800 to +1200), Simms replied, “I’m a little surprised by that. I mean, what do the Commanders got that they are plus 400 better than the Giants? That’s a little shocking to me.”

And that is it, Simms did not mention the Commanders again, choosing to discuss briefly, the other three division rivals.

The preview was brief, and what was unmistakable is that Simms sees the Eagles first and the Commanders as last. And he sees the Cowboys and Giants fighting it out for second place.

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ESPN

Who will play left tackle for Commanders?

As of now, the choices are veteran swing tackle Cornelius Lucas, third-round pick Brandon Coleman or Trent Scott, who has started 22 times over six NFL seasons.

The team will get a better feel for what each can do during training camp, once the players are in pads. Until then, the plan is to rotate them with the starting group.

“It’s still a little early to say how confident we are in anything,” offensive line coach Bobby Johnson said. “I’m pleased with the progress they’ve made. At this point, I don’t see any red flags that give me pause. But once again, it’s still early.”

“It becomes an eraser of sorts where whether it’s because we identified it wrong or we missed a block or the quarterback took too long with the ball,” quarterbacks coach Tavita Pritchard said. “When you have a guy that can get you out of trouble, it makes all the difference in the world. That’s a big part of how we think about attacking people.”

The Commanders hope, too, that Biadasz’s addition provides a big boost. He started the past three seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and will help Daniels with making protection calls.

It’s also possible that, in August, another tackle becomes available who also can compete for the job — at a time when Washington will have a better idea of what its line might look like and when, or if, Coleman might ascend to a starter. For now, this is the group they have.

“We’ve got a long time,” Quinn said. “[We’re] in the beginning of it.”

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Front Office Sports

Report: Jeffrey Lurie Exploring Sale of Eagles Minority Stake

According to Bloomberg, team owner Jeffrey Lurie is interested in selling a minority stake in the franchise.

Lurie bought the Eagles in 1994 for $185 million, then a record, and is using BDT & MSD Partners to solicit potential investors. A sale would be based on a $7.5 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg, which comes from a multiple of 11 times the annual revenue. (The Cowboys, at $9 billion according to Forbes, hold the top spot for NFL team valuation, and the world record for a team sale was Josh Harris’s December purchase of the Commanders for $6.1 billion.)

No controlling stake in the team is available, and there is a chance a deal doesn’t get made.

Lurie is worth roughly $5.4 billion, and his interest in selling a minority stake comes at a time when both the Dolphins and Bills are looking into similar investments while team valuations climb.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer

Nick Sirianni is in a tough spot. He needs his quarterback firmly on his side.

The exact wording of the question: What have you noticed about Nick being open-minded to change up the offense like he has? What does that say about him?

The exact wording of the answer: “Um, I mean, that’s a great question,” Hurts said haltingly. “I don’t know that I know the answer to it.”

Undeterred, albeit slightly confused, the reporter followed up. Well, what have you seen from him as far as doing that?

Hurts answered slowly, as if searching for the words to say. “Um, I think he’s been great in the messages he’s delivering to the team,” the quarterback said. “Trying to be very intentional in what he’s saying. Yeah.” And that was that.

The last official practice before training camp and your starting quarterback is still speaking in the lukewarmest of tones about his head coach? After five months of offseason and a week of minicamp and a series of dramatic changes to the coaching staff and scheme? After a tumultuous end to the 2023 season that included a critical ESPN report citing sources close to Hurts and Hurts’ own reluctance to publicly go to bat for his coach?

I have since reconsidered. I don’t know whether Hurts’ comments — or lack thereof — are a warning sign. I don’t know whether they even rise to the level of curiosity. What I do know is that they were a missed opportunity, one that Hurts would be wise to use to his team’s advantage next time.

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Front Office Sports

‘Experimental in Nature’: The Rapid, Confounding Rise of Streaming Bundles

treaming started in many ways as an attempted liberation from the confines of traditional cable TV, a move to provide greater choice and control to consumers. But now, the business of streaming looks more and more like that much-derided cable with each passing week.

The resemblance is arguably no more prevalent than when looking at the dizzying array of streaming bundles on the market. Major media companies that otherwise are heated rivals for exclusive programming and viewers are now racing to align with one another in the pursuit of the next great streaming bundle. Among the major tie-ups now on the market:

• A sports-oriented bundle involving ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox, recently named Venu Sports, that is scheduled to debut this fall
• StreamSaver, a new offering from Comcast that combines its own Peacock with Netflix and Apple TV+
• A package that will arrive this summer bundling WBD’s Max with Disney’s Hulu and Disney+
• A Disney-specific bundle, dating to late 2019, combining ESPN+, Disney+, and Hulu
• A discounted package of Max and Netflix for Verizon subscribers
• Hulu, Apple TV+, Netflix, and MLB.TV included in certain T-Mobile subscriptions

By nearly all accounts, the array of often-overlapping offers has resulted in a muddled mess for consumers, and even for executives leading these companies. So if you’re confused, join the crowd. The ongoing search for answers helps explain why there will be three different types of a streaming version of ESPN next year.

Here is everything you need to know about the complex landscape of streaming bundles.

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The Athletic (paywall)

High turnover, low morale: NFL’s officiating problems extend beyond the field

During a pregame meeting in 2022, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin asked the officiating crew a question that had been bugging him.

So, who’s in charge here?

As one crew member recalls, Tomlin asked who in the league office was responsible for answering his questions about officiating decisions and who made the final decisions on replay reviews. “I have no idea,” the official told Tomlin that day. “I can’t tell you who’s the boss or who’s not. It’s been so secretive, and they’re just not very forthcoming.”

Walt Anderson was never intended to run the roughly 140-person officiating department by himself.

When he was hired in 2020, the league divided the top job into three parts, each handled by a senior vice president. Al Riveron, a former referee, had been the sole leader in the prior regime, and it wasn’t going well, so he shifted to focus on replay. Fewell, a longtime NFL defensive coach, handled administration and communication with coaches. Anderson, a former referee, managed training and development. But Riveron left the NFL just before Anderson’s second season in 2021, and Russell Yurk, Riveron’s No. 2, took a leave of absence, so Anderson stepped into the gap.

That’s when coaches like Tomlin started to get confused about who was making the final decisions on replay. And with Fewell handling most of the communication with coaches despite not having an officiating background, clubs had trouble getting coherent explanations on decisions they disagreed with. When Yurk returned for the 2022 season, Anderson remained the primary replay decision-maker in addition to training and evaluating game officials, making him a de facto department head.

Officials are reviewed after each game by a team of graders at the league office. For the last three decades before Anderson took over, they received their final grades by the following Wednesday, which helped them learn and move on from the last game in time for the next one.

But former officials said Anderson started reviewing every game personally with the idea of improving consistency among crews. By last season, Green said officials weren’t getting their final grades until Friday or Saturday. One former official said he remembered receiving a downgrade from Anderson at 1:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

Anderson’s input often didn’t match the initial review other graders had finished by Wednesday, which confused some officials, particularly those without a lot of NFL experience. The changes could also be confusing for the department’s graders and trainers.

“The quality of their training is hampered,” one former official said. “You can do all this work and then it gets overridden by someone at the top. When a trainer says one thing to you on Tuesday and then you’re graded another way later in the week, that is conflicting messages that undermine the whole training.”

Anderson also implemented the biggest change in officiating mechanics — the way officials move on the field, where they stand to get the best view and how they work in concert to cover multiple angles — since Art McNally developed them in the 1970s.

In his first year, Anderson introduced “Move With Purpose,” a new philosophy developed with a neuro-ophthalmologist that instructed officials to remain as stationary as possible during a play. Physical movement decreases visual accuracy, so by standing still, Anderson taught officials they would be better positioned to see a play’s “mesh points,” crucial moments like when a ballcarrier’s knee goes down.

It made sense in theory, but former officials say that in practice, the change made them worse at their roles — and even could be dangerous. Officials agreed that moving during key moments isn’t optimal for seeing clearly, but they say they’ve trained for years to slow themselves down at just the right moment.

“There were a lot of missed calls because people were out of position,” a veteran official said.

Another former official said his grader told him he was in the top three for correct calls at his position, but he kept getting downgraded because he couldn’t reprogram his muscle memory. “Doesn’t it matter that you get it right on the field?” he said he asked his grader. “And he told me, ‘Well, apparently not anymore.’”

“Officiating went backward 25 years because of those mechanics,” one former official said.

Anderson’s mechanics, paired with inexperienced officials, have expedited the need for more replay assistance to save the day. Pereira said he’s noticed officials are much more tentative. “Much of the power is being taken away from the officials on the field,” he said.

In another lifetime, there was consistency in the department. McNally, the godfather of NFL officiating, led the group for 23 years, then Jerry Seeman for 10 years, then Pereira for nine. “When I got the job after Jerry, it was a harder job,” Pereira said. “And when people got the job after me, it was a harder job.”

When the officials met this week, reports [were presented] on rule changes that came from competition committee meetings. The person in attendance said officials were relieved to learn that the department would be reversing the Move With Purpose mechanics.

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All a’Twitter

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