Jacksonville Jaguars release Leonard Fournette

The Jacksonville Jaguars decided to move on from the running back in a bit of a surprise.

With training camps winding down and the start of the 2020 NFL season fast approaching, teams are looking to pare down to their final 53-man rosters. That will mean perhaps some surprise cuts in the next few days.

The Jacksonville Jaguars kicked things off with a bit of a shocker to start the week:

This move comes as a bit of a surprise, given that Fournette is coming off a career-high season. Last year he rushed for 1,152 yards and three touchdowns, averaging 4.3 yards per attempt, also a career-high. With the Jaguars moving on from almost their entire 2017 defensive lineup, which put them within a half of the Super Bowl, and looking at second-year quarterback Gardner Minshew as their starter in 2020, you might think that Fournette would be a critical component of their plans.

Instead, the running back is looking for a new home.

According to Ian Rapoport from the NFL Network, this move is part of coach Doug Marrone’s effort to improve the roster:

Time will tell if this has the desired impact.

 

 

Report: Baltimore Ravens to move on from Earl Thomas

Earl Thomas’ time in Baltimore seems to be coming to an end. What is next for the safety and what are some potential landing spots?

Yesterday the Baltimore Ravens sent safety Earl Thomas home from training camp, following an altercation with fellow defensive back Chuck Clark. That led to questions about how the organization was going to handle the talented safety and rumors that the team might look to move on from him under the “conduct detrimental to the team” clause in his contract.

According to reports today, the situation might be coming to a head sooner rather than later, as ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports:

It remains to be seen how exactly his time in Baltimore will come to a close. As Schefter reports, the team might try and trade him. Although, if they cannot find a suitor for him – which might be possible given the current situation – the organization could simply release him outright.

Whenever a player of Thomas’ caliber becomes available, or at least potentially available, it becomes common to contemplate some potential landing spots. Schefter mentions the Dallas Cowboys as one possible team. The Cowboys lost safety Jeff Heath this offseason, as well as cornerback Byron Jones, and while they added Ha Ha Clinton-Dix in free agency that position group is a bit thing in Dallas.

Whenever a veteran player is available, people instantly think of Bill Belichick. The veteran head coach has taken on players like this before, and with the trade of Duron Harmon and the decision by Patrick Chung to opt-out of the 2020 season due to concerns over COVID-19, the New England Patriots do have a need at safety. They added Adrian Phillips this offseason, and rookie Kyle Dugger has impressed at camp, but given how often the Patriots use three safety packages Thomas could be appealing to Belichick. They do have Devin McCourty in place, and their skill-sets overlap as both are best in free safety mold, but one can be sure Belichick would find a role for Thomas if he were inclined to acquire the safety.

Another team to watch is the Miami Dolphins. After trading Minkah Fitzpatrick the organization is looking to Bobby McCain and Eric Rowe as their safeties heading into 2020. Rowe is a converted cornerback who made the move to safety after the team added Jones and drafted Noah Igbinoghene this spring. McCain spent most of his time at free safety in 2019, but has also played in the corner as well as down in the box during his time in the NFL.

Finally, there is the Washington Football Team. Sure, it has been a tumultuous offseason in the nation’s capital, but Washington is looking at a safety pairing of Landon Collins and Sean Davis for the year ahead, with minimal depth behind them. Davis was used at both corner and safety during his time in Pittsburgh, and the team could potentially slid him back to cornerback if they acquire Thomas.

 

NFL teams pausing activity due to COVID-19 tests

Several NFL teams hit the pause button on football activity Sunday after positive COVID-19 tests.

Professional sports leagues continue to balance the return to action during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the NFL is no exception. Recently, the testing numbers seemed to indicate that training camps were working to keep players healthy, but that may have hit a snag over the weekend.

According to Tom Pelissero, several teams decided to alter or cancel football activities on Sunday “after irregularities in results from Saturday’s COVID-19 test results.” The league released a statement as well:

According to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, the Cleveland Browns had “double-digit positive COVID-19 tests from Saturday:”

That led to the Browns being one of the teams to pause football activities.

The Chicago Bears also found that nine members of the organization tested positive, although according to the organization these are being considered false positives after retests:

Hopefully this is just a testing issue, and not a sign of infectious spread.

Report: Baltimore Ravens safety Earl Thomas sent home from training camp after altercation

With the team sending the safety home from camp, it remains to be seen how they handle Earl Thomas going forward.

The Baltimore Ravens made a bit of news late in the week, with the team sending safety Earl Thomas home from training camp after an altercation with fellow safety Chuck Clark.

Tom Pelissero was first with the news:

Pelissero updated his reporting with this from the organization:

Thomas took to social media to explain the situation, stating that a busted coverage led to the incident:

Thomas remains one of the top safeties in the NFL, but this has been a rocky off-season for the Baltimore safety. Thomas was involved in an altercation with his wife back in the spring, when she pointed a loaded weapon at the safety:

According to a police affidavit, Nina Thomas tracked down her husband at a short-term rental home in Austin in the early morning hours of April 13 and found him and his brother, Seth, in bed with two women.

The affidavit says Nina Thomas admitted to pointing the pistol at Earl Thomas’ head “with the intent to scare him.” She had taken the magazine out of the gun and disengaged the safety, but police noted “she was unaware the gun had a round in the chamber.”

Nina Thomas struck Earl Thomas repeatedly with her free hand before her husband eventually wrestled the 9 mm Beretta from her grasp, the affidavit said. At that point, he told the woman with whom he was romantically linked to call the police.

This incident, coupled with the recent altercation with his teammate and the organization sending Thomas home from training camp, has led to speculation that the team might be considering moving on from the safety. According to Pro Football Talk, the team could cut Thomas for “conduct detrimental to the team” and recoup his fully guaranteed $10 million salary for the 2020 season:

Thomas has a fully-guaranteed salary of $10 million in 2020. But this doesn’t mean he’s untouchable. PFT has obtained a copy of his contract, and it’s clear that the guarantee for 2020 evaporates if he’s suspended by the Ravens for conduct detrimental to the team.

It’s hardly a foolproof plan; Thomas would fight any such suspension, and the Ravens would have to show that they’ve taken all proper steps to lay the foundation for the suspension, consistent with past practices and other relevant circumstances that would allow the move to be upheld in arbitration. Lose, and the Ravens would owe him the $10 million. Win, and they save both cash and cap space in that amount.

Even if they can avoid the guarantee, cutting Thomas would result in a $5 million cap charge in 2020 and another $10 million in 2021. However, if the suspension sticks, the Ravens would balance out the 2021 cap hit with a $10 million credit.

It remains to be seen how the organization is going to handle this situation, but Baltimore added Iowa safety Geno Stone in the draft, and Stone has looked solid so far in camp. Stone has the skill-set to potentially be an option as a safety down in the box, with the Ravens moving Clark to the free safety spot, should they move on from Thomas.

On Bill Belichick, platoons and answers to football questions

Bill Belichick gave an answer to a question about a potential quarterback platoon and everyone is running wild. Perhaps without reason.

There is an old expression when it comes to asking New England Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichick: Ask a football question, get a football answer.

For example, back in 2018 the Patriots were becoming more of a 21 offensive personnel team down the stretch. Rookie running back Sony Michel was running behind fullback James Devlin in this package, with two wide receivers, a tight end and the two running backs on the field. Belichick was asked about the fullback position becoming more of a blocking option, and the head coach gave a history lesson in response:

I’d say in the 70’s with college football really, I-formation. [John] McKay and people like that and then certainly by the 80’s you had one runner, so the one-back teams with Coach [Joe] Gibbs and [Don] Coryell and people like that, Mike Martz and so forth. Those guys all went to one-runner and the blocker was the blocker, so that became instead of the fullback, sometimes the tight end.

It was really in the 60’s with the Jim Browns and Jim Taylor and really all of them. [Rocky] Bleier and [Franco] Harris were probably the last kind of – actually Harris carried the ball more than probably Bleier did and they weren’t really an I-formation team. I’d say it kind of transitioned from there, and then when guys like [O.J.] Simpson and guys like that came into the league, the guys they put in front of them – with Simpson they put two guards in front of him. [Paul] Seymour was the tight end, [Jim] Braxton was the fullback and they were both offensive lineman, basically, and so you knew who was getting the ball rather than having another ball-carrier back there.

They just had another, I would say, basically, an offensive lineman. But whether he carries the ball or doesn’t carry the ball, the blocking angles from the backfield are different than they are from the line of scrimmage, and the ability to build a four-man surface or a three-man surface after the snap is different than being in a four-man surface and then trying to get to a three-man surface or being in a three-man surface and trying to get to a four-man surface by running the guy all the way across the ball. There’s different blocking angles. It’s just a fundamental difference.

A football history lesson in response to a football question.

Something similar played out back in 2014 when the Patriots opened that season by using reserve offensive lineman Cameron Fleming in spots as an extra blocker up front. Belichick’s answer ended up, as you might expect, with a discussion of the Annapolis T-Birds.

Seriously.

In eighth grade I played for the T-Birds in Annapolis. I think it was 110-pound football and so we were the T-Birds and so our coach played college football at Clemson so we ran the single-wing. That was our offense.

Whatever year that would have been, call it ’62, somewhere in there, ’63, whatever it was. So, for a whole year I got to experience what a single-wing offense was. It was pretty interesting, just being a lineman, which that was the game really, was the blocking play, the blocking patterns and the calls. That’s kind of all he knew, was to run the single-wing. So we ran the single-wing. Really looking back on it, it was a great experience I never would have gotten otherwise just because…hardly anybody was running it.

All those single-wing teams in the ‘50s had to make a decision when they went to the T-formation what they were going to do with the tailback, which when all those guys came into the NFL, was the decision the NFL had to make with them. Paul Hornung, you put him at running back. Johnny Unitas, you put him at quarterback; Bill Wade, you put him at quarterback. You had single-wing tailbacks that ended up becoming halfbacks in the NFL or they became quarterbacks in the NFL because that was their combination job in the single-wing offense.

That was the whole single-wing offense was the balanced single-wing, then the overloaded single-wing then the box shift back to the weakside. It was all overload blocking angles trying to create. I don’t think the plays were checked back then. You were just trying to show power over here, now you’ve got power over there and show power over here and run counter back the other way and all that.

That’s really what football was in ‘30s and the ‘40s. That was a huge part of the game. It’s interesting to see how all that, how they tried to handle those different things, both offensively and what they tried to create and defensively what the answers were to them.

However, there is a corollary to this idea. That is, when you ask Belichick a question more about personnel, usage or even a specific player, you’ll likely get more of a “non-answer” in response. We all remember the infamous “we’re on to Cincinnati” press conference from later in that 2014 season:

What kicked that off was the first question, about a 37-year old Tom Brady.

Speaking of Brady, when asked about his veteran quarterback heading into New England’s playoff game last year, and how it could be their last game together, what was Belichick’s response?

“I’m focused on Tennessee.”

Fast forward to today. One of the more interesting ideas bandied about among Patriots fans in the wake of Tom Brady’s departure to Tampa Bay is the idea that New England could run a two-quarterback platoon consisting of Jarrett Stidham and Cam Newton. So minds exploded and hearts began racing when Belichick on Wednesday gave this answer to a question about whether a potential quarterback platoon would benefit the offense:

It might. I always say I’ll do what I think is best for the team, what gives us the best chance to win. Whatever that is, I would definitely consider it — run unbalanced line, double unbalanced line, 23 personnel. Whatever it is, if it helps us win, I would consider anything.

Let’s all slow down, everyone.

Of course Belichick is going to give an answer like this, because it is both 100% true while being almost unresponsive to the question. This is a man who traded Richard Seymour, Jimmy Graoppolo and just let Brady walk out the door, and is always thinking of ways to “help the team win.” A man who saw his offense with Brady become that 21 offensive personnel package back in 2018, or use a reserve lineman as a tight end in 2014.

But at the same time, this is almost a generic response to the question. Many are running with the idea that since Belichick did not outright dismiss the idea, that it is almost a certainty. Perhaps there is evidence to support that position, because back in May Belichick was asked about his current crop of quarterbacks, and this was his response:

That’s where we are. You never know what’s going to happen down the road. We feel like we have four good players there. We added Brian (Lewerke) and J’Mar (Smith) to (Brian) Hoyer and (Jarrett) Stidham. Like to work with all of those guys and see how it goes.

See! He did not dismiss the idea of adding a quarterback. Then they did, with Newton!

Precedent.

In reality, this was another of Belichick’s patented non-answers. This past season the offense struggled at times, including in a loss to the Houston Texans where they could not put drives together until the closing minutes. Belichick was asked about the offensive struggles. Here was his response:

We all got to do a better job. We gave up 28 points. That’s not — we’re not making any plays in the kicking game. We’ve got to perform better — coach better, play better.

He talked about the defense and the kicking game.

He was also asked a pointed question after that loss about his quarterback’s play. The response? “In the first half it wasn’t good enough in any phase of the game.”

So before everyone starts diagramming ideas on how to use both Stidham and Newton at once, stop. First off, you’d be late to the game, as the white erase board in my office already has all of the potential combinations on it, as I’ve given it more thought than I care to admit. But secondly, this was a non-answer. Belichick would probably wear a speedo on the sideline if he thought it would make the team better. He’d consider anything to make the team better.

Doesn’t mean we are going to see it.

Besides, in that answer he mentioned that they’d run 23 personnel if he thought it would help the team.

They’ve used that package four times over the past two seasons. Four plays. Yet a quick Google search does not turn up any columns about how the Patriots are moving to a 23 personnel offense…

Don’t get out in front of your skis, everyone.

Building the vocabulary for NFL quarterbacks in new places in 2020

With many NFL quarterbacks either changing teams or playing for new coaches, they’ll need to learn a new language. During a pandemic.

There are a few different movies that, if I am flipping channels and I happen to find on television, that provide “put the remote down” moments. “A Few Good Men” is one, and thankfully TNT and TBS seem to have that on an alternating loop.

Another one is “Days of Thunder.” Debuting in 1990, this film dives into the world of stock car racing. The main character Cole Trickle, portrayed by Tom Cruise, is an open wheel driver who lost his sponsorship, and is looking to move into NASCAR. Thanks to an impressive test session he gets himself a ride.

However, his introduction to stock car racing is anything but pleasant. He struggles to finish most races, and clashes with his crew chief Harry Hogge, played by Robert Duvall. There is a great scene where Trickle pulls into pit road during a caution lap, and Hogge tells him to go back out on the track when the pit stop is over and hit the pace car. When Trickle asks why, Hogge replies “Because you’ve hit every other goddamned thing out there, I want you to be perfect.”

There’s also this moment, when Trickle wants to make a pit stop in another race, but Hogge tells him that the crew is busy:

But this is a football website, not a NASCAR website, so we need to transition from stock cars to huddles. There is a moment in the movie that is playing out, in a sense, in training camps from Foxborough to New York, Tampa Bay to Indianapolis.

After the above montage, with Trickle struggling to acclimate to life in NASCAR, the downtrodden driver is at a bar after another disappointing finish. Hogge, in an attempt to bridge the gap between the two men, asks Trickle to tell him how they need to set up the car to make it easier for Trickle to drive. “Is she running loose or tight? A turn here, take some wedge out, we’ll win some races.”

To which Trickle replies: “I can’t do that. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about…I’d like to help out, but I can’t. I don’t have the vocabulary.”

Hogge’s answer?

“Well… we’re just going to have to figure one out.”

There are some NFL coaches playing the Harry Hogge role as training camps progress.

(Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports)

The most obvious example of this is Tom Brady in Tampa Bay. After two decades in largely the same offense – as we will see in a moment – Brady is now learning a new system. Doing it, mind you, in the midst of a global pandemic that eliminated minicamps and OTAs. Kalyn Kahler, from Bleacher Report, wrote a great piece on Brady learning Bruce Arians’ offensive system. In the piece Kahler draws upon Carson Palmer, who played under Arians with the Arizona Cardinals, to illustrate some of the challenges that Brady faces. In a sense, the vocabulary is one such hurdle:

Early in their time together in Arizona, Palmer said Arians kept calling a specific defensive coverage, “Cover 5.” Palmer had never heard that term before, nor had any of his Cardinals teammates, who were also new to Arians’ coaching. “What the hell is Cover 5?” Palmer remembers everyone thinking at the time. “Does he not know what he’s talking about?”

He and Arians had several back-and-forth arguments about Cover 5, only to realize each time that they were talking about the same thing, a man-to-man type of coverage, but using different words. “That drove me nuts,” Palmer said. “All of his defensive terminology threw me at first. We would get in these knockdown, drag-out arguments and then realize like 35 seconds in the conversation we are both talking about the same thing. … So yeah, that’s gonna be really tough on Tom unless Tom is of that verbiage from New England.”

And with 45 years of coaching experience, Arians is firmly set in his ways. “I realized right away, he was not going to change,” Palmer said.

But beyond what to call a certain coverage, Brady needs to learn a new offensive vocabulary. For two decades the veteran quarterback was running largely the same exact offense. Here is just one of countless examples. This is taken from the 2003 New England Patriots’ playbook, in the section covering two-man route concepts:

13 years later, here is that combination in the 2016 Patriots’ playbook:

Topper, or double slants, is just one example of the continuity in vocabulary that spans Brady’s time in New England. While there have been changes or additions to the playbook during his time with the Patriots, the terminology, even when things are added, stays constant. Take a play that anyone who watched Super Bowl LIII might recognize: Hoss Juke. This is from New England’s 2011 playbook:

Then, from their 2016 playbook:

The consistency in terminology – vocabulary, to continue with the “Days of Thunder” theme – makes adding new plays and schemes easy on Brady. The language has become second nature. When Josh McDaniels comes into the huddle or the meeting room and talks about making changes to Hoss or Topper or tweaking Indigo or Peel, Brady knows exactly what he is talking about, because he has been using those terms himself for decades.

But now, Brady needs to unlearn the vocabulary from his past, and learn a new system. Without the benefits of minicamps and OTAs. For example, one of the two-man route combinations in the Patriots playbooks he is used to is Peel, which is a post/wheel combination:

That led to designs such as this play:

This is the Peel Ice concept from New England’s 2016 playbook. It combines the Peel (post/wheel) on the right with Ice (in/crosser) on the left. This gets to some of how New England’s naming conventions work, with a name for the route combinations built into the playcall. (For those who are curious about “snowmobile,” that is the no-huddle term for this design).

Now with Arians, Brady needs to learn a new name for post/wheel: Wheelie. This is from the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2010 playbook, when Arians was their offensive coordinator:

Now luckily for Brady, there is actually some overlap in the terminology, which will make life easier on him. Another two-man route combination in New England is Indigo, which combines an in with a go route:

Low and behold from Arians’ playbook:

Now, the difference is that in New England, Indigo might be paired with another named concept for the backside of the play, such as Tosser or Peel or any other named convention. Here, Sticks and X In tell the tight end and the backside receiver what to do.

These are just some of the naming conventions that Brady will need to unlearn, and learn, over the coming weeks. He’ll need to do this without minicamps, and OTAs. Those are the periods when offenses install these designs and refine them, and then teams use the rest of training camp and preseason games to refine each play and get the timing down during higher leveraged situations. Instead, they’ll be transported back to their time in college, when the first high leveraged situation you will see is in Week 1.

And you’re hoping that you’ve got everything down right.

But Brady is not alone. There are quarterbacks in new cities, or quarterbacks with new offensive coordinators, that are having to learn new vocabulary before the games begin. Take Daniel Jones, who last year played under Pat Shurmur. Now he has Jason Garrett as his offensive coordinator, and is learning his third system in as many years.

(Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports)

That is three different sets of vocabulary over that period of time, and now Jones has to learn that without the benefit of all the traditional aspects of pre-season that we have seen in the past. Garrett has raved about Jones so far, calling him a “football guy” during a recent press event:

There’s no question he is a football guy. He loves football. He’s always so prepared. He’s always studying his stuff. He always has great questions and wants to get better. My experience has been, when you have that kind of approach and that kind of attitude, if you have some ability, you’re going to keep growing and getting better every day, and he’s certainly done that.

“The thing you just like so much about Daniel is just his approach. He clearly has ability. He’s someone who’s big; he’s strong; he’s athletic; he has a really good arm. He has all the tools you’re looking for. But the thing that really jumps out is the approach that he takes every day. Like I said, he’s a ball guy. He loves ball. He works very hard at it and he’s always trying to refine his skills. He’s always trying to gain more knowledge and find a way to become a better quarterback, individually and for our team. That’s what you get most excited about.

But as with Brady, Jones needs to unlearn terminology from the past, and learn a new set of vocabulary in Garrett’s offense.

However, that might be easier than you think. In something that highlights how some terminology is constant from team to team, look at this quick passing concept from a recent Dallas Cowboy’s playbook:

There, on the left, is Tosser, the double slant concept we started the piece with from New England’s 2003 playbook.

Maybe this will be easier than we thought for these quarterbacks?

WATCH: Alex Smith returns to action

The Washington Football Team returned to practice on Sunday, and so did their quarterback Alex Smith.

Alex Smith and his family recently received some good news, with the Washington Football Team quarterback being cleared to return to football activities in the wake of his horrific leg injury. Elizabeth Smith posted a video of the family celebrating the good news on social media:

The quarterback wasted no time returning to the field, as he participated in practice on Sunday. The organization posted clips of Smith working out with the rest of the team on Sunday afternoon:

It remains unclear how much Smith will play going forward, but as his wife indicated in another social media post, this journey is Alex’s and Alex’s alone:

But just by working back to this point, after suffering an injury that threatened Smith’s leg itself, the accomplishment and hard work of the quarterback should be celebrated. He should be a shoo-in for the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year at this point alone, and if he goes on to play in a regular season game? Write the screenplay now.

Bills CB Tre’Davious White ‘still undecided’ on opting out

Buffalo Bills All-Pro cornerback Tre’Davious White “undecided” on opting-out of 2020.

The Buffalo Bills are still unsure if cornerback Tre’Davious White will suit up in 2020. White and the rest of the NFL’s players have until 4 p.m. on Thursday to decide if they plan to opt out of playing next season due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking on a video call on Wednesday with members of the Western New York media, White said he’s “still undecided” in regard to whether or not he’ll opt out.

“At the end of the day, like, no matter what, my family’s gonna come first. No matter what’s going on. Like how big of a season and what’s going on, I’m always gonna put my kids first,” White said.

So far defensive tackle Star Lotulelei and cornerback EJ Gaines have decided to opt out of playing in terms of Bills players. On Tuesday, seven additional players across the NFL decided to opt out.

White mentioned he appreciates what the Bills and league are doing at team facilities, trying to keep players healthy with extra safety measures. But it’s the positive tests for COVID-19 that have him worried. The Bills have had five players end up on the Reserve/ COVID-19 list already, and had to send players home one day last week as a precaution.

“They’ve been doing a great job, but it’s just the aspect of guys still testing positive,” White said. “Do I want to come in here and get my 11 month old sick? Do I want to risk that? At the end of the day, no matter what, my family comes first.”

White tied for the league-lead in interceptions in 2019 with six. The Bills have already flexed White’s fifth-year option on his rookie deal as well for 2021, which would be pushed back to 2022 if he decides to opt out.

 

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Breaking down Russell Wilson’s “Mr. Unlimited” video

Perhaps the Seattle Seahawks quarterback has a future in motivational speaking.

We have done some unconventional film breakdowns here at Touchdown Wire.

The most recent example of this is a piece breaking down every intentional spike play from Andy Dalton in 2019. Spurred to life by a statistic from Doug Farrar that Dalton actually lead the league in intentional spikes last season, we broke down and even ranked all seven of them.

Honestly a proud moment for this author. A moment that encapsulates the question “you went to law school for this?”

We break new ground here today, diving into the film to analyze the Russell Wilson “Mr. Unlimited” video.

Now, chances are unless you spend your days on Twitter, you have no earthly idea what in the world we are talking about.

On Wednesday morning this video from the Seattle Seahawks quarterback surfaced. Or should we say, resurfaced:

At the outset, this is a two-year old video, filmed by the Seahawks passer as a bit of motivational speaking that would make Dave Ramsey blush. The video has the feel and cadence of a late-night paid advertisement for a cornball maker manufactured by the Bluth Company. And yet…the video is strangely soothing, and it does work in a sense.

Take the underlying message: Wilson is promoting the idea of unlimited potential. That there is no barrier to what you can achieve as an individual and having such a mindset, a forward thinking approach of unstoppable potential, is the right way to live life.

That message, in the midst of 2020, is almost needed. In the midst of a global pandemic a throwback message of positivity is heart-warming, and perhaps needed. Maybe that is why this video has been recirculated this day.

Then there is the production value. Sure, it is mostly a wobbly, selfie-style video. But the sudden “call, question and answer” using a speaker framed off the image just works. It harkens to a Sunday in church, with the pastor and the congregation working in unison to preach a message of hope.

It is silly. It is corny. But in a sense, it gets the job done despite unconventional means.

Almost like the quarterback himself on Sunday afternoons.

Darius Leonard puts his 2020 motivation on his cleats

Athletes are great at self-motivation. Indianapolis Colts’ linebacker Darius Leonard just has to look at his cleats to find his.

Athletes, including the great ones, are notorious for their ability to self-motivate. Consider Tom Brady. Arguably the greatest quarterback all time, Brady should have nothing left to prove to anyone. But this past off-season, when Brady formed a film production company, it needed a name. The choice?

199 Productions.

A reference to Brady’s draft spot in the 2000 NFL Draft.

Brady is certainly not alone in this regard. Remember Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame speech? When he talked about those players who made teams back in high school instead of him? A few months ago the nation was captivated by “The Last Dance,” the documentary look at Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls. It was the documentary that launched a thousand memes, or this video montage of every time that Jordan “took it personally:”

Add to the list Indianapolis Colts’ linebacker Darius Leonard, who has these custom-made cleats ready for training camp:

The cleats include references to perceived slights by the Colts’ linebacker, from his surprising selection in the 2018 Draft, the fact that he did not make a Pro Bowl last season, and even his Madden rating.

Add this to the fact that Leonard is antsy to just get inside the practice facility, and it seems like the young linebacker – one of the Top linebackers in the game according to Touchdown Wire – is rearing to go in 2020.