San Francisco’s displeasure with the circumstances in Las Vegas relates to a more general grievance that players have been voicing for years.
On the field, the NFL mistreated the wrong team.
The San Francisco 49ers are a club dedicated to maintaining grass in their stadium, and head coach Kyle Shanahan has particular preferences when it comes to the fields he uses for his squad. And the players—led by one of the biggest stars in the league, Nick Bosa—have been vocal about the issue. This is especially true after their game at MetLife Stadium in 2020, when a new, sloppy artificial surface caused a number of injuries, including Bosa’s own season-ending injury.
Here’s some background: For the Super Bowl teams, the NFL reserves on-site practice spaces years in advance. The NFC club was sent to UNLV’s stadium in Las Vegas, while the AFC team was assigned to the lavish new home of the Raiders. The Rebels use outdoor synthetic turf grounds for their drills. That’s a true dead giveaway in the turf vs. grass debate, and the NFL decided to install sod there because no club does it on a regular basis.
The issue?
According to CBS’s Jonathan Jones, the sod was just placed over the turf when it was first set down just a week ago, giving it a loose, spongy texture. Mike Silver of the San Francisco Chronicle provided additional information about it, refuting the notion that the field performed as a practice field would typically.
While it’s not simple to get the playing surfaces quite right, the NFL hasn’t demonstrated in any manner that this is their main concern.
Money is the driving force behind the decision made by clubs like the Tennessee Titans and Carolina Panthers to play on turf despite playing in southern temperatures, while fewer teams are making the extra effort to play on grass. To maximize revenue from the escalating costs of these venues, NFL owners aim to fill their stadiums with as many non-football activities as possible. This in turn increases the cost and difficulty of maintaining a sustainable grass surface.
Owners have thrown in the towel and laid down turf rather than cutting back on the number of events held in their stadiums or spending the additional funds to install the proper grass surface. They’ll declare they have no evidence that grass is safer. But regardless of whether their games are played on turf, all 32 clubs will only be able to practice outside on grass. And some will gladly install grass grounds to meet the demands of foreign soccer teams (the World Cup will be held there in two years).
If they were just honest and said it was all about the money right now, I would appreciate that more. They have the right to make these judgments since they are businesses.
A few weeks after Brendan Daly was let go from Leslie Frazier’s Minnesota Vikings staff, there was an unexpected call. Josh McDaniels and Chad O’Shea, the New England assistants, were on the other line at six in the morning on the Monday following the Patriots’ defeat to the Broncos in the 2014 AFC championship game.
Brendan Daly knew McDaniels from a year spent together in St. Louis, and he was close to O’Shea from their time together in Minnesota. The two wanted to know if he would be attending the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama. (Daly had previously scheduled a Bears interview.) Bill Belichick called him at 11 p.m., approximately 17 hours later, to ask if they might meet the next day. He spent two hours conversing with the Patriots coaching staff while seated in the stands that Tuesday. He had a flight to Boston that night. He got the job soon after.
Brendan Daly had no idea what was about to happen.
With a chance to win his sixth Lombardi Trophy against the 49ers on Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs linebackers coach has experienced an incredible eight Super Bowls in the ten years that have passed. Brendan Daly also had flawless timing. With New England, he went to four Super Bowls and won three trophies in five years. In 2019, he joined the Chiefs, who were making their first Super Bowl participation in fifty years.
In a quiet moment on Monday, Daly said to me, “I would’ve told you there’s no way in hell that’s going to happen.” Not too long before that, I had experienced two unsuccessful seasons in St. Louis: a 1-15 and a 2-14. I had just walked into it after being fired from Minnesota. Extremely lucky to have been given the chance. You could never have imagined what has transpired.
In fact, in eight NFL seasons, Daly had only made two trips to the postseason—one each during his two tenure in Minnesota and the other during his time with the Rams. When he moved to Foxborough in January 2014, he had not yet achieved his first postseason victory.
Daly’s sixteen-year-old kid is old enough to recall the previous two hard years and to have witnessed his father’s dismissal. However, Brendan Daly notes that for his 12- and 14-year-old kids, the reality is just getting this far almost year. Daly’s teams were playing for conference titles even in the two seasons he missed out on the Super Bowl (2015 with the Patriots, ’21 with the Chiefs).
He responds, “They’re asking, Wait a minute, when do we go to the Super Bowl?” “In terms of that chance, their life has been absurd in actuality. It’s enjoyable. To be honest, I approach each one as though it were the first—and possibly the last. I recall my experiences from the age of one to fifteen. Many individuals labour their entire careers without ever having the chance to accomplish this. I don’t consider that a given, for sure.
If you’re wondering,Brendan Daly confirms that having all that experience does have a benefit since it helps you manage the hype surrounding the game, know how to build up your players over the course of two weeks, and handle all the logistics. and realizing that, despite someone consistently showing up, this is more than just a game.
• Atop Allegiant Stadium are big banners with Patrick Mahomes and Brock Purdy on them, which is making this Super Bowl what people make every Super Bowl about: the quarterbacks.
However, I managed to obtain some analytical data on the two sides, which suggests that the outcome of this game may really depend on the players’ passing of the ball rather than their throwing.
We can begin with the defence Brendan Daly assists in coaching. The 49ers boasted the most explosive rush game in the NFL, the second-most productive, and the finest outside run game in the league in 2023. On the other hand, when teams ran out of eleven players (three receivers and one back), the Chiefs were dead last and ranked 27th against the run. Therefore, San Francisco may have slowed down the game’s pace by coming out with three receivers and having Deebo Samuel remove a defender from the box.
Conversely, the 49ers are giving up a startling 7.7 yards per on outside runs and 5.8 yards per carry in the playoffs. Like the Chiefs, the 49ers were thirty-first in terms of stopping the run with eleven men on the field. The interesting thing about this is that the Chiefs added more tight ends toward the conclusion of the regular season to try to boost the run game, and it worked—they averaged 5.1 yards per carry in the postseason.
In any case, it’s intriguing that these two teams struggle in comparable ways when it comes to stopping the run.
• One more crucial game observation gleaned from my conversations with scouts from other teams: it will be intriguing to observe if the Chiefs start to open things up once more. Recently, they’ve been able to withdraw into a more disciplined passing team that prioritizes accuracy over brute force. However, the 49ers frequently play with a single-high safety, so the Chiefs could want to return to using bombs instead of zone coverage.
Why The Miami Dolphins made a wise choice in appointing seasoned defensive coordinator Joe Barry to support newly appointed coordinator Anthony Weaver. Despite his setbacks during his three stints as a play-caller, Barry should be an even more valuable asset to Weaver during the coordinator’s initial attempt.
• The New York Giants’ hire of Shane Bowen puts an end to a dramatic month-long debate over the team’s defensive coordinator. Furthermore, it makes sense since it strains the relationship between Mike Vrabel and Brian Daboll. Perhaps Vrabel’s most dependable lieutenant was Bowen, with whom he collaborated throughout his time at Ohio State under Urban Meyer, was hired by Bill O’Brien as a staff member, and eventually rose to the position of defensive coordinator in Tennessee. Bowen’s analytical and imaginative mind ought to mesh well with that team.
• The Eagles will play as the host team in São Paulo, Brazil, on September 6, 2024, the night after the opening, marking the NFL’s first trip to South America. Apart from the apparent move into uncharted territory, which I adore, this is the second time in a row that the NFL has set foot on the high school football field on Fridays. For many states, that will be the first night for the preps.
• Local critics criticized the Patriots for hiring Ben McAdoo, blaming it on former Green Bay Packers executive Eliot Wolf, who has subsequently risen to a senior position within New England’s football organization. But McAdoo’s connections to that front office don’t stop there. Pat Stewart, the senior personnel director for the Patriots, was a colleague in McAdoo’s previous coaching position as the Panthers offensive coordinator in 2022. There, McAdoo led the offence through three offensive changes as the team changed quarterbacks, survived the firing of his boss, and assisted Steve Wilks in creating one of the top run games in the NFL for the latter part of the season.
McAdoo is capable of evaluating and coaching all offensive positions. He’s an excellent addition for Jerod Mayo, having worked with OC Alex Van Pelt.
• Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes is quite entitled to dismiss his achievements in the face of detractors. He hasn’t shied away from making choices that he was certain would not go down well. What was the outcome? All five of Detroit’s representatives in the Pro Bowl were draft selections of Holmes; his first four picks in April, Jack Campbell, Sam LaPorta, Brian Branch, and Ahmyr Gibbs, collectively played 2,954 snaps this season and appear to be key future building pieces. What a waste of post-draft tales about taking a linebacker so high or a back off the ball.
