This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.
Good morning, Winners! I woke up today grateful that I am not a New York Giants fan. I hope you did, too. If not, apologies!
Things are looking rough for the G-Men right now. The Giants might legitimately be the worst team in New York City and the Jets also play there. To be fair to you, Giants fans, they’re both probably equally awful so far this season. The Jets and Giants have both somehow managed to not run an offensive play this season while holding a lead, according to ESPN, which is a wild stat.
But at least the Jets have an excuse — Aaron Rodgers is lost for the season with a torn Achilles. What’s the Giants’ excuse? That the team paid the wrong guy $160 million? Because I’m pretty sure Zach Wilson is having a better season than Daniel Jones at this point.
Ah, yes. There it is right there. It’s Jones. He stinks right now. He’s the problem.
Danny Dimes has tossed two touchdowns to six interceptions so far this season, which is awful. He’s ranked 33rd in the NFL in passer rating which, by all means, isn’t the best stat in the world but a good quarterback shouldn’t be ranked that low. Especially not one earning $160 million.
When a team pays you that much, it’s your job to steer the ship. Not toss out backbreaking interceptions like this one. I mean, dog. What was he seeing there? Couldn’t have been the field. The dude has his coach out here tossing tablets.
Daboll is done pic.twitter.com/9e6EXXN5u1
— Alex Wilson (@AlexWilsonESM) October 3, 2023
Look, I know Jones’ situation isn’t perfect. Our Cory Woodruff wrote an excellent column after Monday night’s game on the sticky situation New York finds itself in.
“Daboll and company are going to have to take a long, hard look in the mirror after this Monday’s loss to the Seattle Seahawks and see what is wrong with this franchise. Getting Barkley and Thomas back will be good steps in the right direction, but that can’t help a defense that’s giving up an average of 30.5 points a game this season. That can’t fully solve whatever is wrong with Jones and the rest of this porous offensive line right now.”
That’s all totally fair. The Giants have major injuries right now. The situation just isn’t the greatest.
But Daniel Jones is a franchise quarterback. It’s his job to solve those problems. If he can’t? The Giants need to move on and find another option.
Caleb Williams might be on the way to New York.
Revenge SZN on the way?
NBA Media Day wasn’t too spectacular on Monday. Jimmy Butler stole the show with his new hairdo, which was great. But there weren’t too many laugh-out-loud moments coming from across the league.
There were plenty of good quotes, though. One of my favorites belongs to Anthony Davis, who is still very upset about the Nuggets talking trash to the Lakers after sweeping LA in the Western Conference Finals.
So Anthony Davis definitely appears to be among the Lakers with a chip on their shoulder about the Nuggets' celebration. This was in response to a question about how their season ended on @SpectrumSN pic.twitter.com/Z3z4QiNWoC
— Harrison Faigen (@hmfaigen) October 2, 2023
“But it was just a lot of, like, the talking and ‘The Lakers’ dad,’ three was just so much of that going on it was like ‘all right, we get it, y’all won.’ But me and [LeBron James] had some conversations like ‘we can’t wait.’,”
Sounds like a rivalry brewing to me. I’m absolutely here for this.
Davis is right. The Nuggets did talk a lot of trash about the Lakers after their Western Conference Finals matchup. Mike Malone even picked at LA during the Nuggets’ championship parade.
Was it a bit weird? Sure. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely. The NBA needs more of this. Enough of the same old platitudes and faux-respect. We know y’all don’t all like each other. Please, act like it. That makes things so much more entertaining.
Salute to the Nuggets for disrespecting the Lakers. Salute to the Lakers for feeling disrespected. Please, bring all of that energy to your games this season, fellas.
The Chiefs’ struggle to find a rhythm
Christian D’Andrea dove deep into Kansas City’s struggles. The passing attack just hasn’t been the same. Teams have focused on taking away Travis Kelce and forcing Mahomes to hit less reliable targets.
That’s thrown the offense a bit of schedule, D’Andrea writes.
Last year, the Chiefs’ 53.6 percent success rate on dropbacks ranked first in the league, nearly two full points higher than the second-place Buffalo Bills. This year, their 48.9 percent mark ranks eighth, with players like Moore and Toney each clocking in at under 50 percent when targeted. Mahomes remains a wizard on third down, but continually having to pull off third-and-long isn’t a sustainable strategy.
It doesn’t help that Toney and Rice each rank in the top-six when it comes to drops early in the season (three apiece), negating the fact that that pairing leads the team in average yards of separation per route run (4.1 for Toney, 3.5 for Rice, per Next Gen Stats). The athleticism and the playcalling is in place, but the execution is not.
As a result, defenses can invest all their skill points in limiting Kelce and force Mahomes to run down his wish list before throwing to a player with whom he’s got a limited rapport. Per analytics wizard Arjun Menon, he’s got a bottom-10 rate of throwing to his first read, which has generally been Kelce.”
Stack that on top of a shaky offensive line and you’ve got a far less consistent offense than normal.
We should all believe in Patrick Mahomes’ ability to problem solve, but the Chiefs are going to have to help him out with this one. It might be time to hit the trade market for another wideout.
Quick hits: The best of the ManningCast … Shoutout to the Mean Girls … and more
— Charles Curtis has us covered with the five best moments from the Manning Cast this week. This one was great. Daniel Jones made it hilarious.
— Here’s Charles again celebrating Mean Girls Day. Happy October 3rd, folks!
— Prince Grimes has you covered on Super Bowl odds entering week 5 of the NFL season. Bengals fans, it’s OK if you don’t click this one.
—Bryan Kalbrosky ranked the NBA’s 10 best trios. I cannot wait for Bucks vs. Celtics.
— Here’s Robert Zeglinski and Christian D’Andrea with your Week 5 NFL Power Rankings.
— Angel Hernandez is Major League Baseball’s worst umpire in 2023. Shocker. Andrew Joseph has more.
That’s all, folks! Happy Tuesday!