The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

tuesday, november 12 , 2019. the washington post eZ M2 D5

professional football

ASSOCIATED PRESS

former Detroit Lions wide re-

ceiver and michigan State star

Charles rogers died at age 38. A

woman who identified herself as

Cathy rogers, his mother, con-

firmed the death monday to the

Associated Press. other details

were not immediately known.

m arshall Thomas, rogers’s

basketball coach at Saginaw

High in michigan, told

mLive.com that rogers died

monday of liver failure and also

had cancer.

At michigan State, rogers was

an all-American wide receiver

who had 135 receptions for 2,821

yards in two seasons. He was

college football’s top wide receiv-

er in 2002 and the second pick in

the 2003 NfL draft.

He scored twice in his profes-

sional debut but suffered a bro-

ken collarbone that ended his

rookie season and suffered the

same injury the next season.

rogers failed a drug test in

2005 and was cut entering the

next season. He had 36 career

receptions for 440 yards and four

touchdowns in 15 games.

“ We are deeply saddened to

learn of the passing of Charles

rogers,” t he Lions said in a state-

ment. “from Saginaw to East

Lansing to Detroit, Charles’s con-

nection to the state of michigan

and its football community was

felt by many during the course of

his life. We extend our heartfelt

sympathies and condolences to

his friends a nd family during this

difficult time.”

rogers is michigan State’s all-

time leader in touchdown catch-

es with 27 and ranks third in

school history in receiving yards

and eighth in catches, all in just

two seasons.

l eAGLes: Philadelphia

signed two-time Pro Bowl right

guard Brandon Brooks to a four-

year contract extension. The deal

is reportedly worth $56.2 million

and makes Brooks the highest-

paid guard in the NfL.

Brooks made a remarkable re-

turn to the starting lineup in

Week 1 after tearing his Achilles’

tendon in January.

l JeTs: Chris Herndon’s t ough

second season with New York

took another frustrating turn.

The tight end will be sidelined

indefinitely with a broken rib

suffered Sunday in the Jets’ 34-27

win over the New York Giants.

The injury came in Herndon’s

season debut, during which he

caught one pass for seven yards.

“ It’s o ne of those first or second

[upper] ribs,” Coach Adam Gase

said. “That’s in a place where it

could be an extended period of

time. If something happened, it

could hurt him worse than what

he already is.”

It’s the latest blow in what has

been a lost season for Herndon.

He was suspended for the first

four games after violating the

NfL’s s ubstance abuse policy and

then was sidelined four more

with a hamstring injury.

The Jets lost another starter in

right guard Brian Winters, who

dislocated a shoulder and is

probably done for the season.

l brOwns: Coach freddie

Kitchens said w ide receiver Anto-

nio Callaway’s benching was a

one-game punishment.

Callaway didn’t play in Sun-

day’s 19-16 victory over the Buffa-

lo Bills after being a surprising

healthy scratch despite quarter-

back Baker mayfield saying the

wideout had been included in the

game plan.

Kitchens did not divulge his

reasons for sitting Callaway, who

was suspended four games by the

NfL earlier t his s eason for violat-

ing the league’s drug policy.

on a conference call monday,

Kitchens said he wasn’t confi-

dent the 22-year-old Callaway

would respond to the discipline.

“ I don’t know if he got the

message or not,” Kitchens said.

“But I’m not wavering.”

l brOnCOs: Denver will

bring rookie quarterback Drew

Lock back to practice Tuesday to

see whether he will be able to

play this season.

The second-round draft pick

out of missouri went on injured

reserve to start the season after

spraining his right thumb in an

Aug. 19 preseason game against

San francisco.

His return will start a 21-day

clock in which the Broncos must

decide whether to put him on the

active roster or send him back to

Ir, ending his season and delay-

ing his NfL debut until 2020.

NFL NOTeS

Former

Detroit

WR Rogers

dies at 38

Whatever happens, it looks as

though Los Angeles has a season

and a half to chase a title under

ideal roster conditions. Can

Gurley, who has just 428 rushing

yards this season as the rams try

to manage him carefully, turn

back the clock during this

period? or can the rams find

another way to take pressure off

Goff, who can’t handle full

franchise QB responsibilities

despite the $110 million

guaranteed in his new contract?

You can make the case that in

four of the rams’ biggest moves

in recent years, they made

shortsighted and unfortunate

decisions. The trade and signing

of wide receiver Brandin Cooks is

getting harder to justify with

Cooks injured. A Gurley

extension was inevitable, but the

rams didn’t protect themselves

enough against injury risk. Goff

may always be considered

overpaid. And while ramsey may

be the best cornerback in

football, he will cost the rams

two first-round picks, a fourth-

round pick and a big-money

extension. Even when right, it’s

sometimes hard to come back

from such a heavy investment.

for now, the rams must do

everything possible to recover

and thrive for the rest of this

season. Like it or not, they’re not

the same rising, unburdened

team they used to be. And they’re

not going to beat the NfL system

without an epic battle. In this

game, time melts away, and

extraordinary evaporates quickly.

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For more by Jerry Brewer, visit

washingtonpost.com/brewer.

what most successful NfL

franchises do to sustain success.

The typical model is to draft and

retain your best, supplement

with role players in free agency

and pursue the big fish only on

rare occasions and only for a guy

who can put you over the top.

The rams’ model is more like

this: Draft and retain,

supplement in free agency, and

go as hard as possible in the trade

market to find stars with high

resale potential. If the rams can

execute their system perfectly,

they have more movable assets,

which means they can correct

themselves more quickly than

most teams. All of their

cornerback swapping at the trade

deadline is a prime example.

But there are a few problems

with going big so frequently.

These monster contracts

guarantee that, at some point,

Los Angeles will have a laughably

extreme separation of talent on

the roster. You go wrong in NfL

roster building when you have

too many mid-level contracts,

and you go wrong when you have

a handful of superstar salaries

mixed with dozens of cheap,

rookie contracts. The latter

creates a troubling imbalance:

too great or too green, and very

little else.

The rams can massage their

situation for another year, most

likely. But the test will be the

2021 season. It looks as though

they’ll be in salary cap hell by

then and forced to let go of good

young talent because of the high-

priced luxury assets. or Snead

will have to make some

incredible trades and draft picks

to retool without rebuilding.

back in the game, can’t dominate

as he once did, and that changes

everything for both mcVay’s

offensive system and Goff ’s

ability to manage the game. or it

can be as complicated as

understanding that this is the

NfL, and no matter how

aggressive the plan, it’s difficult

to stay on the cutting edge of a

league that keeps pulling every

team toward the middle.

After a 3-0 start this season,

the rams lost three straight

games. It led them to overhaul

their secondary by trading for

ramsey in mid-october. They

also traded away their starting

cornerbacks, marcus Peters and

Aqib Ta lib, in separate deals to

reinvent themselves and create

more salary cap flexibility to re-

sign ramsey, who is now likely to

be another ram who resets the

market at his position.

for some, the ramsey trade

felt like the typical go-for-it move

that General manager Les Snead

likes to make. others saw it as

more of a desperate act and

theorized the rams were getting

too caught up in trying to make

big splashes to compete for

attention in L.A. Actually, I think

the approach is more creative

than that. The rams aren’t

merely obsessed with collecting

talent; usually, they only go all-in

on superstars at premium

positions. I call this approach

luxury asset accumulation. The

thought is that, even if you can’t

keep all of these high-priced

pieces for a long time, their value

will stay high enough to give the

rams good options for moving

on down the road.

This is slightly different from

leveraged their high draft picks,

created a dynamic style of play

under mcVay and left no

opportunity unexplored as

they’ve built a star-studded

roster. They’re fearless and

always upping the ante, whether

that means trading three draft

picks for cornerback Jalen

ramsey or signing three of their

homegrown talents — running

back To dd Gurley II, defensive

tackle Aaron Donald and

quarterback Jared Goff — to

record-setting deals.

But if it seemed just months

ago that Los Angeles had a wide-

open championship window and

an enviable situation with a

$5 billion stadium set to open

next year, the first half of 2019

has offered a brutal reality check.

At 5-4, the rams have been

unable to avoid the dreaded

Super Bowl hangover after

losing, 13-3, to New England in

the title game.

They’re still a good and

dangerous team, and if they can

get healthy they could slip into

the playoffs as a wild card. But

Goff is struggling, Gurley has a

quad problem to manage on top

of his history of knee problems,

and the offensive line just isn’t

the same. The rams’ defense

hasn’t been able to carry them,

either. And although mcVay

remains one of the brightest

young minds in the sport, he isn’t

being called a genius — a title he

never really wanted — as liberally

anymore.

What’s wrong with the rams?

It can be as simple as realizing

that Gurley, once the baddest

brewer from d1

Jerry Brewer

Even the progressive Rams are succumbing to parity

don Wright/associated Press

The rams went all-in to give their key players record-setting contracts, but quarterback Jared Goff has not performed like a star this year.

BY JOSH DUBOW

SANTA CLARA, CALif. — Jason
myers kicked a 42-yard field goal
after Chase mcLaughlin missed a
kick earlier in overtime, and the
Seattle Seahawks gave the San
francisco 49ers their first loss of
the season with a 27-24 victory
monday night.
myers gave Seattle (8-2) its
second straight overtime win af-
ter russell Wilson got the Sea-
hawks into position with an
1 8-yard scramble on third and
three. following a San francisco
timeout, myers delivered a week
after missing two field goals and
an extra point, putting Seattle
right in the thick of the NfC West
race with San francisco (8-1).
The Seahawks blew a chance to
win on the opening possession of
overtime when Wilson was inter-
cepted by Dre Greenlaw at the
4-yard line. It was Wilson’s sec-
ond interception of the season
and just the second red-zone in-
terception in overtime in the past
25 years, according to STATS.
Greenlaw returned it 47 yards
to the Seattle 49, and the 49ers
moved the ball 20 yards before
mcLaughlin missed badly to the
left on a 47-yard attempt.
mcLaughlin had made his first
three field goals, including a
4 7-yarder to force overtime, after
being signed earlier in the week
when robbie Gould went down
with a quadriceps injury.
The teams then traded punts.
The Seahawks took over at their
36 with 1:25 remaining and drove
for the winning kick.
After the defenses dominated
much of the game with each team
scoring a defensive touchdown
and generating three takeaways
apiece, the quarterbacks traded
late drives for field goals that set
the stage for overtime.
Wilson drove the Seahawks 47
yards before Chris Carson was
stuffed on third and one, leading
to a 46-yard field goal by myers
with 1:45 to play.
Jimmy Garoppolo and the
49ers took over from there and
used short passes to move the ball
to the 29, where mcLaughlin
kicked a 47-yard field goal with a
second left to tie it at 24.
Seattle capitalized on a pair of
turnovers in the third quarter to
take a 21-10 lead. Garoppolo
threw a pass that deflected off
Kendrick Bourne’s hands to
Quandre Diggs, who returned it
44 yards to the 16. Wilson scram-
bled to the 3 and then lofted a
touchdown pass to Jacob Hollis-
ter to put Seattle up 14-10.
on San francisco’s next drive,
Jadeveon Clowney knocked the
ball out of Garoppolo’s hands for
a fumble. Carson ran it in four
plays later to make it an 11-point
game.
— Associated Press

Seahawks

hand 49ers

first defeat

in overtime

SEAHAWKS 27,

49ERS 24 (OT)

run through Guice, and he

backed up that assertion by

m aking Peterson inactive for the

season opener. Peterson took

over the s tarting job after Guice’s

injury.

Callahan said Peterson will be

active this week but did not offer

any details on how the t wo w ould

share the ball.

“We haven’t exactly sat down

and divided the reps up,” Callah-

an said. “[running backs coach

randy Jordan] does a good job

managing the backs and rolling

the backs by series or by plays or

by featured concepts, for that

matter. So there are a lot of

dynamics involved here.... It

could be protection-oriented,

run-oriented, inside, outside.

There’s a lot of factors.”

With little else to be optimistic

about, redskins fans will at least

get to see the team’s young

skill-position players getting ma-

jor playing time together, with

Haskins and Guice joining rook-

ie wide receiver Te rry mcLaurin

on the field against the Jets.

“The consistency factor is

huge when you’re a young play-

er,” Callahan said. “It’s just the

growth development, the experi-

ences that they’re learning from,

the ability to take it from the

classroom to the grass more

effectively and efficiently, with-

out repetitive errors.”

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extra time and learn on his own,”

Quinn said. “It helps to have a

full week of preparation where

you’re the starter. I know you’re

supposed to be ready for whatev-

er situation, but it does some-

thing mentally, especially when

you have somebody telling you

you’re the guy, and you can see

that in him.

“He’s always had an arm,”

Quinn continued. “Always stands

tall in the pocket a nd is c onfident

in himself. other than that, it’s

getting in the pro system and

feeling comfortable calling the

plays, going through the progres-

sions, making the check at the

line and just studying a little

extra. Week by week, he’s done

that.”

This will be the second much-

anticipated return for Guice this

season. The 2018 second-round

pick out o f LSU missed his r ookie

season after tearing his ACL in

the first preseason game, and the

excitement built again for his

2019 debut.

Guice then tore his meniscus

in the season-opening loss at the

Philadelphia Eagles, had surgery

and has been on injured reserve

since. The team activated him

last week.

The next question centers on

how Guice and Adrian Peterson

will be paired. former coach Jay

Gruden said before the season

that Washington’s offense would

the starter, the redskins will get

a chance to see what they have in

the rookie.

Wide receiver Trey Quinn said

he has seen consistent progress

from Haskins.

“Sky’s the limit right now for

him; it’s j ust up to him to t ake the

rep practice-wise and game-wise

so we can see growth in his play.”

Callahan had previously been

adamant that his focus was on

winning games and not the fu-

ture, which is why he kept start-

ing Keenum.

Now, w ith Haskins installed a s

decision to start Haskins, the
15th selection in April’s draft,
was made last week, but he
didn’t want to announce i t before
speaking to the veteran quarter-
backs.
Callahan w as h esitant t o name
a starter before the team took its
bye this past week, and he insist-
ed there was a need to evaluate
the quarterbacks during the
break. Haskins produced an av-
erage performance in his start
against Buffalo, throwing for 144
yards with no touchdowns or
interceptions as the team em-
ployed a conservative game plan.
He was sacked four times during
the loss.
The coaches are looking for
consistent progress from
Haskins, Callahan said, adding
that they would expand the play-
book for him in his second start.
He praised Haskins’s decisive-
ness and ability to go t hrough his
progressions against the Bills,
and he added that his arm
strength is more valuable this
time of year, when weather be-
comes a larger factor.
“A lso, he needs experience,”
Callahan said. “Let’s face it. Let’s
give Dwayne an opportunity.
We’re at a juncture where we
don’t want to be record-wise, so
this is a good opportunity for
him to take advantage of every

redskins from d1

Redskins’ Haskins, Guice are in line to play together for first time

John Mcdonnell/the Washington Post

dwayne Haskins, who is set to start sunday against the Jets, threw

for 14 4 yards and was sacked four times in a nov. 3 loss at the bills.