Nick Saban’s highest graded Alabama players according to PFF

PFF grades the best players of the Nick Saban era at Alabama

I never truly thought the day would come, but the [autotag]Nick Saban[/autotag] era at Alabama has officially come to a close. Saban made the stunning decision to step away from the sport last Wednesday afternoon in a move that sent shock waves across the college football landscape. In turn, the Tide landed former Washington head coach [autotag]Kalen DeBoer[/autotag] to fill the legends shoes. The hire is an absolute home run for Greg Byrne and the athletic department, but it doesn’t take away from the heartbreak of Saban stepping away.

Aside from being the greatest coach the sport has ever seen, it’s the man he has been for the University and the people of Tuscaloosa that has made him so beloved. The decision to step away was never going to be an easy one, but after 17 years he had given the program everything he could and was ready for the next chapter of his life, retirement.

Prior to Saban’s arrival in Tuscaloosa the University had never claimed a Heisman Trophy, then during his tenure they claimed four. The Tide had 12 national championships when he arrived, and he leaves the school with 18 now. He went 9-1 in SEC Championship games and had more first-round NFL draft picks (44) than losses at Alabama (27). Accolades and records that truly don’t even make sense.

As great as Saban was, a large part of his success must also be attributed to some incredible players. PFF College ranked the highest graded Alabama players under Saban, and DL Quinnen Williams was the highest ranked player with a grade of 96.0. Interestingly enough, Bryce Young was the only Heisman winner to make the list.

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Patrick Mahomes says Chiefs are on the cusp of dynasty status

Patrick Mahomes told reporters on Tuesday that the #Chiefs are one ring away from having a claim to “dynasty” status.

The Kansas City Chiefs have evolved into the NFL’s most feared juggernaut, and Patrick Mahomes has been fielding questions about the sky-high expectations placed on the team after training camp practices in St. Joseph.

When he was asked if Kansas City is reaching the superlative “dynasty” status following Tuesday’s workouts, Mahomes wasn’t so sure. He told reporters that another championship would prove to be the deciding factor in any determination to that end.

“I think we’re the [at] beginning of one,” Mahomes explained. “I think, in dynasties, I always say you’ve got to win three. Our job is to do whatever we can to win as many as we can and not have any regrets when we step off the field. I think if we keep the mentality that we have, then we can look back at the end of our careers and then we can decide if we’re a dynasty or not.”

While Mahomes certainly met the media’s questions with his same humble demeanor, Chiefs fans across the country aren’t so shy to acknowledge the historic pace at which Kansas City has stacked up wins with their MVP quarterback under center.

For his part, though, Mahomes’ insistence that a third ring will make the difference should be music to the ears of the Chiefs faithful who hope that the team can achieve another Super Bowl victory next February to cement the team’s claim to call themselves a dynasty.

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Top 5 landing spots for Julio Jones

The five best places for free agent wide receiver Julio Jones to land for the 2023 NFL season!

If you ask many of the Alabama faithful, they will tell you that Julio Jones was the beginning of the dynasty. Coming out of high school, he was a five-star recruit and the No. 1 wide receiver in the 2008 class, and he was the first marquee signing of Nick Saban’s tenure.

Jones was the first true freshman wide receiver to ever start a season opener for the Crimson Tide and went on to be named the SEC Freshman of the Year. The following year, Alabama went on to win its first national championship under Nick Saban.

Jones left Tuscaloosa having started all 40 of his collegiate games and accumulated 179 receptions for 2,653 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns.

Jones has been just as dominant in the NFL with seven Pro Bowl appearances as well as being the NFL’s receiving yards leader in two different seasons. Jones is arguably a top-ten receiver in NFL history and was as good as anyone in the game from 2011 to 2020.

Jones spent the prime of his career, including a Super Bowl appearance, with the Atlanta Falcons before bouncing around to the Tennessee Titans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

At the age of 34, Jones probably only has a year or two left in the league, especially coming off of back-to-back seasons where he missed time due to injury, but in the right situation, I believe that Jones can still be a valuable contributor to a winning team. He probably isn’t a guy who can be relied on for 17 games a year with 11 catches a week, but he can be a veteran presence and a guy who can be spurts of himself in big moments.

I believe these are the five best landing spots for Julio Jones:

PFF ranks the Top-10 skill players under the age of 25

Alabam’s young offensive talent showing out across the NFL

When Nick Saban started winning national titles at Alabama, the team was known for its defensive intensity and complete domination of opponents. Guys like Julio Jones and Mark Ingram paved the way for offensive talent in Tuscaloosa, but in the early years of the dynasty they weren’t the recipe, they were the cherry on top.

As college football started to shift to being a more offensive game, coach Saban and the Tide pivoted with it and started investing more into quarterbacks and skill position players. Blake Sims and Jalen Hurts were the first guys to kind of move Alabama away from relying so heavily on their defense, but Tua Tagovailoa was the guy who totally changed the way Alabama played offense. Granted when you have skill position guys like Jerry Jeudy, Najee Harris or Josh Jacobs you lean into that.

As a result, Alabama has produced some of the best young skill players in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus. In their top 10 players under the age of 25, both [autotag]Jaylen Waddle[/autotag] and [autotag]DeVonta Smith[/autotag] are listed. The Dolphins have Waddle paired with Tyreek Hill and the Eagles have Smith paired with AJ Brown making up the two best receiving duos in the NFL. Smith is a Heisman Trophy winner and knocking on the door as a Super Bowl winner with some calling Waddle’s speed and after-catch abilities generational.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Waddle and Smith.

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Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Sam Murphy on Twitter @SamMurphy02.

Paul Finebaum: ‘College football has caught up to Alabama’

Paul FInebaum thinks college football has caught up to Nick Saban and his Alabama dynasty

Everyone seems to have something to say about the Alabama Crimson Tide and the loss to LSU. From firing Nick Saban to the loss marking the end of the dynasty Alabama fans have seen it all.

While I think it is premature to say any of these things, considering both of the losses came on the road against teams who are currently in the top 10, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Paul Finebaum, New York Times best-selling author and ESPN commentator, made his feelings very clear to the public about Saban and the Tide this week.

Finebaum thinks that with only one national title in the last five seasons maybe Saban is losing his fastball. Finebaum also goes on to say, “I think college football has caught up to Alabama.”

For Paul to speak so bluntly comes as a shock. However, not many people have gotten rich betting against Nick Saban.

With an offseason of adjustments and likely a new coaching staff, Alabama will be back in the national title hunt in 2023.

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Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Sam Murphy on Twitter @SamMurphy02.

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WATCH: FOX CFB expert tells the world that Alabama dynasty is fine despite LSU loss

Don’t give up on the Alabama dynasty quite yet, argues one CFB expert

The college football world has been filled with hot takes since the Crimson Tide were upset by the LSU Tigers Saturday night. While there may be some justified concerns about the Alabama program going forward, the dynasty is not dead.

Many are questioning Nick Saban after suffering two regular season SEC losses in games they were favored, including to their biggest rival the Tennessee Volunteers which snapped a 15-game series winning streak. So naturally, people are asking if things have changed in Tuscaloosa.

FOX college football expert, Joel Klatt, is here to tell people that the Tide will be fine. Klatt has been one of the biggest critics of Alabama in the past, so for him to say Alabama is fine speaks volumes.

In all honesty, both of the games the Tide lost could have gone either way just as easily. Alabama lost on the last play of the game in both games and they were on the road in some insane environments.

Klatt puts it all into perspective by saying, “Alabama is still Alabama. It takes unbelievable venues and great performances from elite teams that have to scratch by a play or a kick here or there in order to beat them. They’re gonna be okay. And this isn’t even a great Alabama team.”

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Larry Lacewell, scouting director during Cowboys dynasty, passes away

Lacewell was the Cowboys’ director of college and pro scouting, but was an icon in his own right in the college coaching ranks. He was 85. | From @ToddBrock24f7

A key figure in the Cowboys’ dynasty days of the mid-1990s has passed away. The death of Larry Lacewell, the team’s longtime director of college and pro scouting, was announced Wednesday.

It’s impossible to tell the full story of the Cowboys without including Lacewell, as he was inextricably tied to three of the biggest names in team history and present for multiple moments that defined the franchise.

When Lacewell joined the Cowboys in 1992 as the director of college scouting, he was already something of an icon in the collegiate coaching ranks. He started as a graduate assistant at Alabama under Paul “Bear” Bryant. Over the next thirty years, he rose through the ranks with stops at Wichita State, Iowa State, and Oklahoma, where he worked on the same coaching staff as Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer.

The Sooners won two national titles during Lacewell’s tenure as assistant head coach. Years later, Lacewell would convince Johnson to take the job as head football coach at the University of Miami.

After serving as the head coach at Arkansas State for 11 successful seasons, Lacewell went on to spend another two at Tennessee as defensive coordinator.

An Arkansas native, Lacewell was also friends with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones when he was hired in 1992. The team won Super Bowl XXVII that same season and then repeated as champs the following year.

A few weeks later, Lacewell was standing next to Jones when the tipsy owner gave the ill-fated toast that triggered the end of Johnson’s time as Cowboys coach.

He was also the one who gave his old friend Johnson a heads-up the next morning that the axe was about to fall.

Lacewell had pro scouting duties added to his job description in 1994 as he was reunited with Switzer, now the Cowboys’ new coach. It could have been a disaster; as told in Joe Nick Patoski’s book The Dallas Cowboys: The Outrageous History of the Biggest, Loudest, Most Hated, Best Loved Football Team in America, Lacewell had resigned from his post in Norman back in 1978 when he discovered that Switzer- a friend of over 20 years- was having an affair with his wife. (Johnson, coincidentally, had been the best man at Lacewell’s wedding.)

Lacewell and Switzer insisted it was ancient history, though, and that their football bond took precedence. It was Lacewell’s personal recommendation to Jones, in fact, that helped seal Switzer’s hiring in Dallas.

The Cowboys returned to the Super Bowl in January of 1995 and brought home the Lombardi Trophy, but the team had already begun a descent from its juggernaut status. Lacewell remained with the franchise until early 2005, when he stepped down during the Bill Parcells era and moved into a talent consultant role for the team.

But his place in football history is secure- both in Dallas as one of the architects of the Cowboys dynasty and in Jonesboro as the winningest coach in Arkansas State history. He will be remembered as a legend who crossed paths with some of the all-time greats of the sport at both levels. In Tuscaloosa, for example, the road leading to the stadium named for Bear Bryant… is Larry Lacewell Lane.

Larry Lacewell was 85.

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Fantasy football rookie dynasty rankings for the 2022 draft class

It’s Breece Hall and then everyone else. Check out our rookie dynasty rankings for fantasy football.

The 2022 NFL draft is over, which means fantasy football managers will begin preparations for their upcoming drafts.

While there is still a lot of time before the redraft ones take place, those in dynasty leagues are already going through their rookie-only drafts. Doing so now might be a bit early, but it’s a nice little segway into preparing for the regular season. Since this is a dynasty approach, the short-term implications aren’t as much of a concern.

Rookie dynasty rankings are always fun. They are typically are met with reasonable and constructive comments.

We have no idea how these players will pan out, but given that fantasy football is a numbers-driven game, we can use historical data and a bit of subjectivity to give a range of outcomes for a certain player.

That’s what’s most important here. Instead of looking at these rookies (or any player in fantasy football) as if there is a rigid outlook, it’s best to take the approach with a range of outcome in mind.

Anything can happen with these rookies. We know that. But we are—or should be—talking about the highest probability outcome. What is most likely a player going to turn into given what we know about similar players from the past?

That’s why I’ve spent the last few years trying to build a regression model to project an incoming player’s PPR points-per-game over his first three seasons. It’s still very early in the process, and it’s likely to change as time goes on. But I feel I’m finally at a good starting point.

But I wanted you to know how I go through my rankings. It’s mostly historical data that involves draft capital, market share statistics, age-adjusted production and athletic testing. That spits out a number and then I place the players into tiers. Some subjectivity is involved based on landing spot and overall skill sets.

If you have any questions or simply want to bash me for these rankings, hit me up on Twitter (@KevinHickey11).

So without further ado, here are my fantasy football rookie rankings for the 2022 draft class:

Fantasy football impact of the DeVante Parker trade

How does the DeVante Parker trade impact fantasy football?

The NFL hasn’t been shy about making trades this offseason and the most recent deal came in the form of the Miami Dolphins sending wide receiver DeVante Parker to the New England Patriots.

After the Dolphins spent the offseason trading for Tyreek Hill and signing Cedrick Wilson, it was clear Parker was likely on his way out. The Patriots sent a 2023 third-round pick for Parker and a 2022 fifth-round pick.

Here’s how the deal impacts the fantasy football world:

Dynastic team latest college football team to move focus to spring football

Plenty of college football teams and conferences have already punted on the idea of competitive football this fall and moved their focus to the spring of 2021. The Big Ten, Pac-12, MAC and Mountain West all postponed football this fall and now one …

Plenty of college football teams and conferences have already punted on the idea of competitive football this fall and moved their focus to the spring of 2021. The Big Ten, Pac-12, MAC and Mountain West all postponed football this fall and now one of the great dynasties in the college game has officially joined that list.

North Dakota State has dominated the D1 FCS series, winning eight of the last nine championships in the division. Despite some rumors and hopes by fans that they’d find a way to play this fall, those hopes for the Bison are officially done, the team announced Friday.

The Bison has reached out to Nebraska hoping to set up a game this fall but that obviously won’t be happening.

Bison quarterback Trey Lance is viewed by many as a potential first round draft pick next spring.

Many were excited and curious to see how the Bison would fare as they had an early September road game scheduled at Oregon this season.