— Of the 14 teams that made the NFL playoffs, 12 of them start a quarterback who was drafted in the first round; Russell Wilson (3rd round), Jalen Hurts (2nd round) are the exceptions.
— The day after the NFL’s regular season ends is a bad day for coaches who had losing seasons; lot of them get fired.
Jacksonville fired head coach Doug Pederson after he went 22-29 in three years; they kept GM Trent Baalke. Pederson won a Super Bowl coaching the Eagles, but the Jaguars are starting over yet again.
— Seahawks fired offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb after their 10-7 season.
Browns fired OC Ken Dorsey, offensive line coach Andy Dickerson after their 3-14 season. For some reason, head coach Kevin Stefanski keeps his job.
Indianapolis fired DC Gus Bradley, after three years with the Colts. Colts went 8-9 this year, losing 45-33 to the Giants in Week 17. Bradley has been a HC/DC in the NFL since 2009.
— Patriots fired head coach Jerod Mayo after one year, meaning that next year, New England will have its third head coach in three years.
Patriots were 4-13 this year, but rookie QB Drake Maye shows promise. This move was a little surprising and I’m guessing some people at NFL headquarters aren’t going to be very happy about it.
— Aaron Rodgers has now thrown 502 TD passes in his career, to 54 different receivers.
— Green Bay WR Christian Watson tore his ACL Sunday, is done for the year.
— Worst NFL teams against the spread this season:
Titans 2-15 ATS
Browns 4-13
Giants 5-12
49ers 5-12
Falcons 6-10-1
Seahawks 6-10-1
Jets 6-11
— Famous birthdays, January 7th:
Erin Gray, 75
David Caruso, 69
Ron Rivera, 63
Nicolas Cage, 61
Todd Day, 55
Frank Menechino, 53
Jon Lester, 41
Jhoulys Chacín, 37
Dean Kremer, 29
Lamar Jackson, 28
— First five picks in April’s NFL Draft:
1- Titans
2- Browns
3- Giants
4- Patriots
5- Jaguars
— Former NFL exec Andrew Brandt’s take on Kirk Cousins’s future:
He will be released in March by Atlanta, with a post-June 1 designation.
Whoever he plays for next year will pay him $27.5M.
He will make less than $10M guaranteed in 2026 (he made $62M this year).
— Firing a football coach during season doesn’t seem to help; it just creates chaos.
— Patriots rookie Joe Milton started his NFL debut 11-11 passing, coming close to the modern record. Gardner Minshew started out 13-13 in his first NFL game.
Milton went to Tennessee; he was surprisingly sharp; could he be trade bait?
— Milton’s debut reminded me about something I read a long, long time ago; can’t remember who they were talking about, but a young player did really well in his debut and the writer described it as…….
“a triumph of the uncluttered mind……”
— In baseball………
Kansas City Royals re-signed P Michael Lorenzen for one year, $7M; he was 7-6, 3.31 in 24 starts last year, for Rangers/Royals.
— Dodgers traded IF Gavin Lux to Cincinnati, for minor league outfielder Mike Sirota and a competitive balance draft pick.
Lux hit .251 last year with a .703 OPS; he figures to play third base for the Reds.
