KRYK SLANTS
League gathers in Mobile to scout talent for draft ... Mahomes driving Gruden to quit? ... Not everyone is in favour of reviewing calls ... Jones vague about coaching decisions
MOBILE, Ala. — The first of two unofficial conventions of NFL coaches, GMs and talent scouts kicked off Tuesday with the start of Senior Bowl week.
Hundreds of league personnel annually convene here for the last of a handful of post-season U.S. college all-star games. Few hang around until the game itself on Saturday. Rather, they’re here to watch midweek drills and practices up close, and also begin the process of interviewing as many of the 116 players on hand as possible — before scrambling to fill every flight out of here by Thursday night.
The annual scouting combine in Indianapolis is the other major gathering of these NFL types, which this year goes from Feb. 27 to March 4.
Some newsy nuggets came out of official news conferences with the head coaches of the Senior Bowl’s North and South teams — Jon
Gruden of the Oakland Raiders (North) and Kyle Shanahan of the San Francisco 49ers (South) — as well as from ad-hoc scrums with other NFL team principals at Ladd-Peebles Stadium, site of Tuesday’s practices.
Here’s the best of what we were able to gather on Tuesday.
MIGHT AS WELL QUIT?
Gruden was asked about the phenomenal second-year QB starter with the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes, who likely will win the league MVP award after throwing for 50 touchdowns and 5,097 yards against only 12 interceptions — and doing much of it all in dazzling fashion.
“When Mahomes shows up, the only thought that pops into your mind is resignation, really,” Gruden said as reporters burst out laughing. “You know? I can’t get over how he performed. Bad weather, good weather, adversity — as a first-year starter I can’t get over it. I think it’s one of the great accomplishments I’ve ever seen. I was just kidding about resignation.”
Whereas the Chiefs won the AFC West with a 12-4 record and finished a whisker away from reaching the Super Bowl, Gruden’s Raiders finished tied with the second-worst record in the league at 4-12.
“We’ve got to match up better,” Gruden said in comparing his team to Mahomes’ Chiefs. “We’ve got to improve our coverage. We’ve got to improve our underneath coverage. We’ve got to deal with (tight end Travis) Kelce and (speedy wideout) Tyreek
Hill; we’ve got to deal with a lot of problems that they present, other than Mahomes.
“We’ve got a long way to go to get there.”
PASS-INTERFERENCE REVIEWS?
Everybody who cares about the NFL is still talking about Sunday’s NFC championship refereeing disaster, when an obvious defensive pass interference against the Los Angeles Rams wasn’t called, probably preventing the New Orleans Saints from running off most of the clock and scoring a possible winning touchdown starting with a first-and-goal at the six, with under 1:45 left.
Should the league do what the CFL does and allow coaches to challenge PI? Some answers Tuesday ...
Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys owner/GM: “I don’t necessarily want to have a view on that at this particular time ... I usually go along (with the competition committee). Stephen’s on it (his son). I served for eight years on the competition committee, and I usually goes along with the recommendation of the competition committee.”
Gruden: “I don’t know. I talked to (Saints head coach)
Sean Payton yesterday. It’s a disappointing way to lose a game. But I don’t know what the ramifications of that are going to be. We all saw it, we all know there will be some action taken, I’m sure.”
Shanahan: “I’d like to see when things are obvious, and everyone else in the world knows, to do whatever it takes to get it right.”
Gruden was asked what he and Payton talked about. Gruden, of course, was head coach of the Oakland Raiders when they lost heart- breakingly at New England in the AFC playoffs on the infamous “tuck rule” replay overturn that negated Oakland’s victory-clinching recovery of a Tom Brady fumble and permitted the Patriots to go on and win with a field goal.
“I’m not going to get into what Sean and I talked about,” Gruden said. “Sean and I worked together a long time ago. I was involved in a playoff game that ended in quite ‘dramatic fashion,’ and so has he now. So he and I will have a hot dog and a couple of glasses of Coke here and talk about things in the future, I’m sure.”
Do you ever get over such a loss, Gruden was asked.
“No. You don’t ever get over that,” he said. “That was the last time that (Saints) team will ever be together. They’ll never be the same. Those guys worked as long and as hard as they could, and it’ll sting forever.”
COWBOYS COACHES
Jones was asked, in the wake of offensive coordinator Scott Linehan’s firing last week, if head coach Jason Garrett’s already substantial involvement in the offence might yet increase now.
“It could be more or less. Either way,” Jones said. “I’m comfortable with Jason Garrett, but his involvement could be more or less.”
Asked whether some assistants might have job title changes, such as last season’s highly praised defensive-staff addition Kris Richard, Jones said he was not prepared now to discuss “anything about any contracts” pertaining to any coaches, including Garrett.
Jones did say that the team right now isn’t looking at hiring any outside person to replace Linehan as offensive coordinator.
“I like the guys we’ve got in-house,” he said.