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Random Shots From Week 13

Joe Bryant's Random Shots From Week 13
By Joe Bryant, December 8, 2020

Random Shots From Week 13
Photo: USA Today Sports

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Hi Folks,

We do a ton of insightful, thoughtful, and serious features here at Footballguys with smart people thinking deeply for you.

This is not one of those features.

This is Random Shots and it's a few pages of me downloading my goofy and dysfunctional mental hard drive that gets stuffed with way too many random items from too many hours watching, reading about, and listening to football every weekend and throughout the week. It's the only way I manage. Here's hoping it has some value for you.

We'll see. Now let's get to it.

J

In case you're keeping track at home, Rams head coach Sean McVay is now 34-0 after leading the game at halftime. Dang.

Hat tip to Kyle Brandt.

I know some people love to celebrate when the Cowboys lose. It's weird to me they're in so many people's heads, but whatever. This just isn't a good team right now. And they clearly have a lot of work to do. Troy Aikman with an honest assessment Tuesday night.

I guess I just don't get celebrating losses that much.

Same with the people going wild over the Steelers loss. I mean, I get rivals cheering but I saw it more across the board.

Mike Tomlin seemed to have a realistic take on things.

This team wasn't going 16-0. Injuries are piling up and they've got a brutal stretch ahead of them still with Buffalo, Indianapolis and a hot Cleveland team still to play. They're still a very good team with a legit shot to make a ton of noise in the postseason. Stay tuned.

With that said, whoever's running the Washington social media feed deserves a raise.

A lot is different in 2020. But people still like to watch the NFL.

For context, the NBA Finals, in Prime Time, averaged a little over 6.4 million viewers.

Alex Smith described his bloody leg injury from Sunday. "I could visually see the blood pumping out, so it was a good one. It was lucky to have it happen just before halftime. I've never had one gush like that."

This was his "good leg".

I love this team and Smith and Ron Rivera are my two favorite NFL stories this year. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't secretly hoping they missed the playoffs just so this season could wrap for them.

It's week 14 and that means the start of the Playoffs for tons of you. Retweet this tweet or email me at bryant@footballguys.com with the thing(s) or player(s) that helped you get this far.

Two lessons from the Patriots - Chargers game.

1. Special Teams Matter. A Lot.

2. When it's Bill Belichick against a rookie quarterback, take Belichick. You can talk yourself into "But Joe, this quarterback is different."

News for you. He's probably not.

With Seattle trailing by 5 and 1:11 left in the fourth quarter, I thought Russell Wilson would do Russell Wilson things.

And that's why they play the games.

If Doug Pederson's seat is warm, General Manager Howie Roseman's seat should be on fire.

Y'all just keep on acting like the announcer jinx isn't real...

Some painful truth here.

What happened to Baker Mayfield? First, he's racing downfield to stay in the play.

Then this...

Then he wraps with a Dwight Schrute quote.

God Bless The Office.

The Washington at Pittsburgh game kept its regional classification.

Translation: A whole bunch of people got to see Judge Judy instead of the game.

Not great, Bob.

Kansas City has an embarrassment of riches. They can score a TD and not even count it and still win.

This was ruled an incompletion and Kansas City did not challenge.

Election-week star Steve Kornacki found his way onto Sunday Night Football.

And he crushed it.

Well done, Sir.

There is playing the game hard and aggressively.

And then there's intentionally trying to hurt someone. And that sucks.

Here's Bengals defensive back Shawn Williams intentionally stepping on the ankle of Miami's Solomon Kindley.

Glitch in the Matrix. My 12-year-old namesake in Europe is really good with Legos.

From the NPR article:

"Twelve-year-old Joe Bryant may not be able enjoy a live German soccer match during the pandemic, but he's managed to capture the magic of their stadiums through the fine art form of Lego."

Hat Tip to Dave Lundy.

Two ways to do it.

A couple of weeks ago, Chad Johnson posted a workout video and tagged DK Metcalf joking they were "twins".

Metcalf responded with a bush league, "More like my lil brotha".

On the other hand, Chad Johnson is also a fan of Terry McLaurin. He posted this after watching McLaurin go off against Dallas.

He kept it going when he left a restaurant tip of $963 to represent the 963 yards McLaurin had posted at the time and called it the "Terry McLaurin edition"

McLaurin was asked about it on Good Morning Football:

"I think, first of all, that's a really nice gesture, especially with these tough times we're going through," McLaurin said. "For him to go out of his way to give above and beyond is really cool to see."

I wonder if Metcalf will notice?

Music Note of the Week is a throwback. Peggy Lee's "Fever" is one of those timeless songs that sound as rad today as it did in 1958.

And if you wonder where else you've heard her voice, it might be on the Disney movie soundtrack for The Lady and the Tramp. That's range.

I was reminded of the song this week as it's also in the excellent Netflix show, The Queen's Gambit. I'm just about halfway through but it's fantastic so far.

Brigham Young vs Coastal Carolina gave us this...

Long live the Mountaineer Shot.

Looks like Adam Thielen used his time off to work on his Griddy.

Those fun arm angles don't always work out...

Peanut Tillman would be proud.

Live look in on Trevor Lawrence watching the Jets game.

Bill Belichick turning the cashier at the Bass Pro Shops into a valuable NFL Player is the most Belichickian thing I've seen this week. But wait till next week.

Aaron Rodgers is pretty good at Football.

Those pesky Giants.

Wrapping with this one. Carson Wentz has been benched in favor of Jalen Hurts.

It's always painful for a team when their quarterback struggles. For the Eagles, it's especially troublesome as Wentz hasn't been just bad. He's been bad and he's very expensive.

When moving on from Wentz is suggested, I see lots of smart people object. The common thing is something along these lines, "To those saying "Well, the Eagles will just trade Wentz and take on $34M of dead money; and they don't have to pay him!" Please. They are not going to allocate 20% of their Cap to someone who's not there."

It's the classic "Sunk Cost" discussion.

Seth Godin is easily the business writer that's had the most effect on my career. We joke about him being the "Footballguys Godfather" because I quote him so often. He's got a nice little blurb here on the "The Truth About Sunk Costs".

From Godin:

"It's one of the most profound and difficult lessons every MBA is taught: Ignore sunk costs. Money and effort you spent yesterday should have nothing to do with decisions you make tomorrow, because each decision is a new one.

Simple example: You've paid a $10,000 deposit on a machine that makes widgets at a cost of a dollar each. And you've waited a year to get off the waiting list. Just before it's delivered, a new machine comes on the market, one that's able to make widgets for just a nickel each. The new machine will pay for itself in just a few weeks… but if you switch to the new machine, you lose every penny of the deposit you put down. What should you do?

It's pretty clear that defending the money you already spent is going to cost you a fortune. Ignore the deposit, make a new decision.

Which makes perfect sense until it gets personal. And the work we do, the art we make, it's personal.

You produce a movie. The final scene is your favorite, the hardest to write, the one that you sweated to create and film. But in all the screenings you've done, the audience hates this scene, and when you show the movie without the scene in place, the buzz is fabulous.

Now, you're not just walking away from a deposit or some training–you're walking away from your best work, from your dreams, from you.

Part of what it means to be a creative artist is to dive willingly into work that might not work. And the other part, the part that's just as important, is to openly admit when you've gone the wrong direction, and eagerly walk away, even (especially) when it's personal.

Yes, we have to have faith in our ability. Faith lets us do our best work. But successful artists sally forth knowing that abandoning our darlings is part of the deal."

I think he's spot on.

And I see people hung up on their own sunk costs all the time. It makes sense I guess on some sort of gut emotional level. But I think it's mostly a failure or hesitancy to admit a mistake. For me, I think the answer is a continual forward-looking view. The past is done. Admit mistakes freely, quickly, and eagerly. Then make the best decisions you can going forward as you make the most of what you can with what you have.

Rock on.

Thanks to Footballguys Keith Overton, Clayton Gray, David Dodds, and Dave Lundy for the help on this one. If you've got a Random Shot of your own, send me an e-mail at bryant@footballguys.com.

Thanks for playing along and I hope you make the most of whatever you're doing in your life. Love your neighbor and stick together.

Peace and Grace to you.

J

Photos provided by USA TODAY Sports
Tags Fun Timeless Joe Burrow Tyreek Hill Jalen Hurts Baker Mayfield Terry McLaurin DK Metcalf Bilal Nichols Gunner Olszewski Aaron Rodgers Adam Thielen Justin Tucker Carson Wentz Shawn Williams Russell Wilson

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