NFL Open Thread: Thank You For Not Coaching Edition

A couple of notes on peonage ball before we get to the real thing. First, this story about how Brian Kelly “is exploring options to possibly leave the Fighting Irish program” is an absolute classic EPSN beat-sweetener. Yes, it will be entirely his decision should he decide to leave a program that is surely thrilled with his performance. And second, the OSU/Michigan game yesterday was excellent, and the while the officiating was terrible it was no worse than, say, the Steelers/Bengals playoff game last year. But the NCAA overtime system is an utter abomination. And I particularly can’t stand the “but TIES!” justification for abominations like the NCAA football OT and the NHL shootout. Yes, ties. Ties in regular season are better than arbitrarily designating a winner by suddenly switching to radically different rules. It’s a shame that a game couldn’t have been finished with proper OT that would conclude with a tie if nobody could score after a period without getting the ball automatically spotted in field goal range.

Anyway, are you ready for some EXOTIC SMASHMOUTH:

Mike Mularkey made some mystifying mistakes in the Titans’ 24-17 loss to the Colts. But his fake punt early in the third quarter was so daffy that he must have found it in an old file cabinet labeled “DO NOT OPEN” in Jeff Fisher’s handwriting.

After Brett Kern motioned out of punt formation to telegraph the play, rookie safety Kevin Byard took the snap and handed off Wildcat-style to backup cornerback Antwon Blake, who was easily stuffed. When it’s 4th-and-2 and your team has a great offensive line, two great running backs and a mobile quarterback, it may not be the best idea to put matters in the hands of two backup defensive backs, Coach.

The coaching “talent” in the AFC South is really something, isn’t it? The other obvious source for Mularkey’s trick play is Chuck Pagano’s archive of failed high school trick plays from the Eisenhower administration, and Pagano is probably the best coach in the division. Not only is Gus Bradley’s NFL head coaching career over this December — well, I guess there’s always a chance the Titans or 49ers will like his track record — before this year his defenses in Jacksonville were so bad I’m not sure I would even have been interested in him as a defensive coordinator unless he could bring Pete Carroll with him. And QUARTERBACK GURU Bill O’Brien, currently presiding over the NFL’s worst passing offense with an expensive, handpicked acquisition at QB, punted on 4th-and-5 with 3 minutes left and 1 timeout against the Raiders, predictably never getting the ball back. And, ladies and gentlemen, this is how you get zero good teams out of a division with two franchise QBs.

And to follow up, I was amazed to see some people defending Minnesota’s extremely dumb decision to trade a 1st rounder for Sam Bradford. The thing is that Bradford has actually been better than could have been reasonably expected — he’s remained healthy and Turner and Shurmur gave him conservative enough plays to finally play like the poor man’s Alex Smith — and the Vikings still have a lousy offense, and now they don’t have a first rounder they could have used to plug one of their many holes on offense. Just an awful trade.