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| Monday, October 12, 2020 |
| I was going to start things off here by telling you guys how I spent my weekend, but there's way too much NFL news to unpack for me to even thinking about telling you about my weekend, which was actually pretty nice, thanks for asking. |
| The Cowboys don't have their starting quarterback, the Falcons don't have a coach, the 49ers don't have a pulse and the NFL decided to set its schedule on fire so it could make a new one. I have no idea if the Cowboys are going to be good without Dak Prescott or if the Falcons can win without Dan Quinn or if the 49ers will ever be good again, but we're going to talk about all those things in today's newsletter. |
| Before we get to the news though, here's your daily reminder that if you like the newsletter, you should share it with everyone you know. All you need to do is click here and send them the link. |
| Alright, let's get to the meat of the Monday newsletter. |
| 1. Today's Show: Dak Prescott injury ramifications |
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| It's Monday, which can only mean one thing: I stayed up until 2 a.m. last night recording a podcast with Will Brinson and Ryan Wilson that touched on everything you need to know about Week 5. There were a lot of crazy things that happened in the NFL on Sunday -- a coach got fired, Derek Carr actually looked like a competent quarterback and the 49ers lost again -- but the lead topic for our 90-minute super show was the injury to Dak Prescott. |
| The Cowboys quarterback is out for the season after suffering a compound fracture and dislocation of his right ankle during the team's 37-34 win over the Giants. The injury was so ugly that none of us watched a replay of it. During the podcast, we covered a variety of topics about what this might mean for the Cowboys going forward. As things currently stand, Prescott's recovery timeline is expected to be four to six months (according to ESPN.com ). If that's the case, Prescott won't be fully healthy until somewhere between February and April. If his injury lingers until the end of that timeline, the Cowboys could have a big decision to make about Dak's future in Dallas. Remember, he's on a one-year deal, which means the Cowboys could go into negotiations this offseason without knowing whether he's healthy. |
| We also talked about the Cowboys' chances of making the playoffs with Andy Dalton. As the president of the Andy Dalton fan club, I think you guys know what my answer is (In case you didn't know, I'm the resident Bengals homer at CBSSports.com and will always have a soft spot in my heart for the Carrot Top Cannon). |
| Also, don't worry, we talked about things besides the Cowboys on this podcast. As a matter of fact, we talked about every game that was played on Sunday and you're definitely going to want to give it a listen by clicking here. |
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2. Falcons fire Dan Quinn
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| Guys, I'm starting to feel like I'm bad luck for NFL coaches. I've now been running this newsletter for two weeks and in that span, two of them have already been fired. First, it was Bill O'Brien in Houston, and now, Dan Quinn is out in Atlanta. |
| When a coach gets fired, the Pick Six Superfriends get together for an emergency podcast and that's exactly what we did on Sunday night. During the short 20-minute podcast, we talked about why the firing of Quinn made sense. Basically, it kind of felt like the team had checked out on him. Interim coach Raheem Morris will now be hoping that the team checks back in this week for their next game. |
| One of the topics we covered was who should replace Quinn now that he's out and we came up with a few suggestions. |
| Josh McDaniels (Patriots offensive coordinator): If a coach gets fired, there's a 100% chance that McDaniels' name is going to be on the list of candidates who might replace him, so he's on this list. He was interviewed for the Falcons job in 2015 before they decided to hire Quinn and it won't be surprising if he gets interviewed again. Eric Bieniemy (Chiefs offensive coordinator): It's almost a guarantee that Bieniemy is going to get a head coaching job this offseason, so it's just a matter of where. Right now, the Texans and Falcons are the only open jobs, which means there are going to be at least two teams duking it out for his services. Teryl Austin (Steelers senior defensive assistant): Austin might not be a name you were expecting to see here, but apparently the Falcons like him. CBS Sports NFL Jason La Canfora reported on Sunday that Falcons owner Arthur Blank was "very impressed" with Austin when he interviewed him in 2015. Basically, don't be surprised if Austin gets interviewed this time around. Lincoln Riley (Oklahoma coach): If the Falcons decide to go the college route to make their hire, there are plenty of options. Besides Riley, they could also do their best to try and convince Dabo Swinney to leave Clemson. |
| Now that the Falcons have fired Quinn, they'll be hoping to get the same kind of spark the Texans got when they fired O'Brien last week. CBS Sport NFL Insider Jonathan Jones wrote a piece on Sunday about how much better the Texans looked without BOB in charge and you can check that out by clicking here. |
| To hear the rest of the "Dan Quinn just got fired emergency podcast," be sure to click here. |
| 3. Monday Night Football: Prepping you for Chargers-Saints |
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| The NFL gave us a giant tease this week. First, it looked like we were going to get two Monday games for the second week in a row with New England and Denver scheduled to play at 5 p.m. ET, but then someone in the Patriots organization tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday, which caused that game to be postponed to Week 6. The end result here is that we're only getting one Monday game this week and that game is Chargers at Saints. |
| My good buddy Jared Dubin wrote the preview for that game and you can read it by clicking here . If you haven't got a chance to see Justin Herbert play yet this season, then you need to definitely tune in tonight, because if you don't, you probably won't see Herbert again until December (The Chargers are the kind of team that only gets shown to 2% of the country on Sundays and they don't play on primetime again until Week 15). Herbert is on the tail end of a brutal stretch that has seen him face three Super Bowl MVPs in his first four starts (Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees). |
| As for the Saints, they'll be going into this game without Michael Thomas, who was suspended for the game after he punched a teammate in practice. I didn't think I would have to write this, but I'm going to do it anyway: You should not punch your teammates. The Saints will be putting a pretty crazy streak on the line tonight: They've won 13 straight games in the month of October. If the Super Bowl was played in October, they'd have nine Lombardi Trophies. |
| To see who our CBSSports.com NFL experts are picking to win this game, click here. |
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| 4. NFL schedule undergoes some major changes: Winners and Losers |
| I had to throw away the NFL schedule that I have taped to my refrigerator because it's basically useless this week after all the changes the league made on Sunday. I won't list all the changes here, because if I did, we'd be here all day and no one wants to spend all day reading a newsletter (OK, well, I do, but I don't think anyone else does). However, I did put together a list of the biggest winners and losers from the schedule changes, which you can read by clicking here. |
| Winners |
| Bills: The Bills get extra rest for two of the biggest games on their schedule: Tennessee and Kansas City. Chiefs: Every NFL team hates playing on Thursday and the Chiefs no longer have to play on Thursday this year due to the changes (Their Week 6 Thursday game against Buffalo is now on a Monday). |
| Losers |
| Patriots: The Patriots lost their bye week and let's just say players in New England are not very happy about that. Steelers: Due to the schedule changes, the Steelers now have to play THREE straight road games starting in Week 7. |
| For a look at all of the schedule changes, be sure to click here. |
| 5. Week 5 grades: Niners earn 'F' for getting crushed by Dolphins |
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| Every week, I team up with six of my colleagues here at CBSSports.com to hand out grades, and this week, things got ugly for the San Francisco 49ers. We actually paid someone to sit through the entire 49ers game and let's just say, they definitely earned their paycheck. That person was Jordan Dajani, who gave the 49ers a big fat 'F' for their embarrassing performance in their 43-17 loss to Miami. |
| As for me, I handed out an 'A-' to the Houston Texans. Apparently, all that team needed to do for a quick spark was to fire their coach. The Texans looked reinvigorated on both sides of the ball as they beat up on the Jaguars in a 30-14 win. |
| Overall, we handed out two 'F's and five 'A's with grades still to come for the Chargers-Saints game along with the Bills-Titans game. If you want to check out the grades for EVERY SINGLE TEAM that played on Sunday, be sure to click here. |
| 6. Week 6 early odds: Cowboys point spread makes major swing after Dak injury |
| Week 5 isn't even over yet, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about Week 6. Even though we still have two games left in Week 5, the oddsmakers don't like to wait on anyone, which is why they've already released their odds for Week 6. |
| The most interesting nuggets: |
| Cardinals at Cowboys (+3): Dallas plays Arizona on Monday night in Week 6 and that point spread took a six-point swing after Dak Prescott's injury. Before the injury, the Cowboys were a three-point favorite, but now that he's out, the Cardinals are favored by three Washington at Giants (-3.5): In news that you may or may not believe, the 0-5 Giants are actually favored to win this week (over Washington). This marks just the seventh time since 2015 that a winless team has been favored in their fifth game or later. |
| If you want to check out the rest of the early odds for Week 6, you can do that by heading here. |
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| 7. The Kicker! |
| As the special teams guru/only person who likes to talk about special teams on the Pick Six podcast, I decided to give this newsletter a special teams touch. As such, I'll be ending the newsletter each day with the "The Kicker," which will basically just be me picking out a special teams play or player that impressed me, or in this case, a gambling parlay. |
| Today, I'm going to shout out the drunk guy who nailed an "all-punt" parlay. I have no idea if he was actually drunk, but I figure he had to be to create this parlay. The guy bet that the Cardinals, Bengals, Raiders, Rams, Eagles, Panthers and Jaguars would ALL punt on their opening drive and that's EXACTLY what happened. The guy bet five dollars and after his parlay hit at just over 88-to-1 odds, he went home with a nice $446 in profit. The moral of the story here is that punter parlays are now the safest way to make money for retirement. You can see a picture of the parlay ticket by clicking here. |
| Alright, that's all I got for now. See you guys for Taco Tuesday. |
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