BRONCOS PLAY IT SAFE WITH COACH KUBIAK’S MIGRAINE
Gary Kubiak, head coach of the defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos, won’t be with the team this week. He was hospitalized overnight Sunday with a complex migraine.
“Gary is headed home from the hospital right now, so that is good news,” Broncos GM John Elway said Monday. “Last night, obviously, he went to the hospital and experienced what they’ve diagnosed as a complex migraine. I’m not a doctor, so that is about as far as I’m going to go into that.
“But they thought prognosis for him was very, very good. He’s going to have this week off … We’re just excited that Gary is OK and that the prognosis looks great.”
Sunday, the Broncos lost their first game since December 2015, a 23-16 decision to the visiting Atlanta Falcons. Kubiak and his offensive coaches toiled all last week in preparing rookie quarterback Paxton Lynch for his first start after Trevor Siemian injured his left shoulder the week before.
By mid-evening Sunday, Kubiak was taken to hospital as a precaution with what the team called “flu-like symptoms.”
Elway said special teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis will serve as interim head coach Thursday at San Diego.
Three years ago, Kubiak had a health scare mid-game when he was coaching the Houston Texans. It turned out to be a ministroke. Elway said only Kubiak should comment on whether his complex migraine might be related. Cowboy up: The Dallas Cowboys are steamrolling behind rookie quarterback Dak Prescott. Now that Tony Romo appears close to returning, what should they do?
Back Dak or go to Romo? Reports say the 36-year-old Romo was to have had an MRI Monday. The Cowboys expected the test to confirm his compression fracture of a vertebrae is healed.
Prescott still has not thrown an interception over the course of 155 attempts — an NFL record for a rookie passer. Prescott has led Dallas to a 4-1 record, good for first in the NFC East.
Owner/GM Jerry Jones reportedly has told people this is Romo’s team. But he didn’t say that publicly Sunday night.
“Well, I will tell you this is a wonderful position, if you’re in my shoes, to be in,” Jones said after Sunday’s 28-14 defeat of Cincinnati, the fourth straight win for Dallas after a narrow Week 1 loss to the New York Giants. “I didn’t dream that I might see the best first half of football, for me, that I’ve seen around here in years and years and years.”
A couple of longtime Cowboys watchers with a great sense of Jones’ mindset told me Monday head coach Jason Garrett doesn’t really run that locker-room. Jones does.
My advice: Stick with the kid. Stat of the week: How good was Andy Dalton’s trio of top-end wide receivers in Cincinnati a year ago? Stats through Week 5 this year are showing us.
The NFL’s top two receivers so far, in terms of yards gained, were Bengals teammates a year ago: Marvin Jones (with 519 yards), who bolted to Detroit as a free agent, and A.J. Green (with 518), who remains in Cincinnati.
What’s more, the third member of Cincinnati’s prolific 2015 trio, Mohamed Sanu, signed as a free agent in Atlanta. He has caught 93 yards worth of third-down passes so far, which ties him for 17th in the league and exceeds the third-down output of either Jones or Green. Hero: Nickell Robey-Coleman, CB, Bills. On his return to Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where he played in college for the University of Southern California, the fourth-year Bills nickelback picked off Rams QB Case Keenum and returned it for a TD to break a 16-16 tie in the third quarter, then picked off Keenum late to seal a 30-19 win. ProFootballFocus.com rated Robey-Coleman as “near perfect” in coverage all day. Stock up: Washington Redskins. After starting 0-2, they’ve gutted out three consecutive victories, two on the road, to rise out of the NFC East basement. “It’s good to know we have a gritty team when games are close,” linebacker Will Compton said. Stock down: New York Giants offence. After a 2-0 start, Eli Manning and the Giants can’t move the ball. It’s like the pre-season all over again, when the firstteam unit was embarrassingly bad. They’ve scored more than 20 points only once and that was in a 29-27 loss to Washington. Something’s not clicking. QB update: San Francisco coach Chip Kelly told a radio station Monday “every option” is on the table to stop a four-game slide, including benching QB Blaine Gabbert for Colin Kaepernick. The Niners play Sunday at Buffalo.