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How the Ravens’ Gutsy 4th-Down Call Paid OffAlanis ThamesReporting on the N.F.L. ��Nick Wass/Associated PressAccording to N.F.L. Next Gen Stats, the Ravens’ chance of winning jumped to 82 percent if they went for it on fourth down, versus 58 percent if they punted. Jackson kept the ball and converted, securing his first win over Kansas City. More
The league’s competition committee said that acts of baiting had gotten out of hand.The N.F.L. announced on Tuesday that as part of its stated commitment to “protecting players from unnecessary risk, while keeping the game fair, competitive and exciting,” it would implement new rules and emphasize others for the betterment of the game.Chief among its priorities for the coming season: disciplining players for hits targeting an opponent’s head, a Covid-19-related relaxing of rules around how long injured players are ineligible and making sure that players do not tease each other too much.Making it a point of emphasis, the league told officials to strictly enforce taunting rules, which include automatic ejection of players who accrue two taunting penalties in a game. The player may also be fined or suspended, or both, depending on the severity of his transgression.“The N.F.L. Players Association, coaches and competition committee have all made a strong statement regarding respect among everyone on the field,” the league said on Tuesday in its annual rule changes and points of emphasis video. “We saw an increase in actions that clearly are not within the spirit and intent of this rule and not representative of the respect to opponents and others on the field.”The renewed effort to enforce taunting rules will target “baiting or taunting acts or words” and “abusive, threatening or insulting language or gestures” toward players, coaches and game officials, as defined by the N.F.L.’s unsportsmanlike conduct rules.Taunting between Bears receiver Javon Wims and Saints cornerback Chauncey Gardner-Johnson led to a skirmish between the teams last season.Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressBut the broad and subjective definition of taunting could mean a crackdown on some of the game’s most spontaneous and entertaining displays of personality, which could include gestures that have become trademarks for some players.In one of the most memorable moments of the last Super Bowl, Tampa Bay safety Antoine Winfield Jr. thrust a peace sign into the face of Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill, mocking Hill’s usual touchdown celebration. Winfield was flagged for taunting and fined $7,815 for the gesture, a fraction of the maximum, $15,450, that can be levied against a player by the league, depending on the severity of his action.Hill was not penalized for having flashed the peace sign at Winfield on the way to the end zone in a Week 12 game, the play that prompted his Super Bowl revenge.Some notable instances of taunting last season, however, spilled beyond a play or two. The Ravens were flagged for taunting in their wild-card playoff win against the Titans after members of the defense celebrated a fourth-quarter interception by stamping on the Titans’ logo. Baltimore cornerback Marcus Peters, who pulled in the interception, was fined $15,000.Peters and the Ravens were retaliating for an incident before a game in Week 11 in which Malcolm Butler and other Titans players gathered on the Ravens’ logo, sparking a confrontation with Baltimore players and Coach John Harbaugh. Tennessee was not penalized for taunting.In Week 8, Bears receiver Javon Wims was ejected from a game, and later suspended, for punching Saints defensive back Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, leading to a midfield scuffle between the teams that was broken up by officials. Wims said Gardner-Johnson had provoked the fight by spitting on him and ripping out his mouthpiece. No one was flagged for taunting.Tennessee Titans cornerback Malcolm Butler yelled at Baltimore Ravens Coach John Harbaugh before a game in November.Nick Wass/Associated PressTaunting calls result in a 15-yard penalty for the offending team, though flags for gestures like stare-downs or first-down celebrations have dwindled alongside the N.F.L.’s scaling back of rules against excessively celebrating touchdowns, which began in 2017. The league issued 10 penalties for taunting last season and eight in 2019, down from an average of 24 flags each season from 2013 to 2018.This spring, the competition committee sent to all 32 teams its report recommending that the officiating department pay more attention to taunting, reportedly because coaches on the committee felt enforcement had become lax.“Any flagrant acts or remarks that deride, mock, bait or embarrass an opponent are considered taunting,” the report said.Under the league’s new plan, that means no spiking or spinning the ball, pointing the ball or a finger, verbal taunting, or standing or stepping over an opponent for too long or in a way that provokes them. Gestures that simulate handcuffs would be considered taunting, as outlined in the report.In the video announcement of the change, released on Tuesday, the N.F.L. used as an example a clip of Colts receiver Parris Campbell flexing in Myles Jack’s face after taking a hit from the Jaguars linebacker in a game last season, for which Campbell was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. It also included Browns receiver Jarvis Landry spiking the ball near a Texans defender after a first down in a 2020 game. Landry was called for taunting. More
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyReeling Texans Set to Hire David Culley as Head CoachCulley, who is Black, is one of only two nonwhite N.F.L. head coaches hired in this cycle. His task: leading a Houston franchise that has alienated its star players.David Culley, 65, takes over the Houston Texans, whose 4-12 record last season almost belies the bleakness of its circumstances: limited draft capital, no elite receivers, a forbidding salary-cap situation. Credit…Scott Galvin/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJan. 28, 2021Updated 7:11 p.m. ETAs their tumultuous season bleeds into a tumultuous January, the Houston Texans have reportedly chosen the Baltimore Ravens assistant David Culley to help foster their revival, making him the first — and only — Black head coach hired after the 2020 regular season.Culley, 65, has a long and distinguished N.F.L. résumé, but this will be his first head coaching job at any level, and he joins the organization at a fraught time, as it strategizes how to proceed with disgruntled players, a star quarterback, Deshaun Watson, who is reportedly seeking a trade, and without many draft assets after trades gutted the supply.Culley, the Texans’ first full-time head coach of color since their inception in 2002, is the second head coach from a nonwhite background hired by a team this winter. Romeo Crennel, who is Black, had been interim head coach since October 2020 when the team fired Bill O’Brien, the coach and general manager, after starting the season 0-4. The Jets hired Robert Saleh, believed to be the league’s first Muslim Arab American head coach, earlier this month.The league, which has long been scrutinized for lacking diversity across its coaching positions, updated its interview processes last May, increasing the minimum number of interviews teams were required to conduct with external head coaching candidates from nonwhite backgrounds from one to two. But the guideline, the Rooney Rule, does not require teams to hire coaches of color, and the league will enter the 2021 season with only one more nonwhite coach than it started with last year. Three-quarters of the league’s players are people of color, but the vast majority of top coaches and player personnel executives are white men.“They are trying, but they are struggling,” Nellie Drew, director of the Center for the Advancement of Sport at the University at Buffalo School of Law, said of the N.F.L. in an interview Thursday. “The results to date have not been impressive, especially given the number of people of color who play in the league.”Saleh and Culley join Ron Rivera of the Washington Football Team, Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Brian Flores of the Miami Dolphins as head coaches of color. In 2011, the N.F.L. had, for the first time, eight nonwhite head coaches among its ranks, a peak it reached again in the 2017 season.The Ravens will get two third-round draft picks, one in 2021 and one in 2022, as compensation for losing a nonwhite staff member who became a head coach as part of the N.F.L.’s incentive system that was ratified by league owners in November. The new measure was criticized by some, including African-American coaches and players.“I just have never been in favor of rewarding people for doing the right thing,” Tony Dungy, a former head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts, said in May 2020. “And so I think there’s going to be some unintended consequences.”Culley filled several roles for the Ravens across the last two seasons — assistant head coach, passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach — helping to establish the league’s leading rushing offense in 2020, but one that ranked last in passing. In 2019, Culley helped bolster the Ravens to No. 1 in scoring with an average of 33.2 points per game.Noted for his ability to develop creative schemes that improve players’ weaknesses and complement their strengths, Culley cultivated a reputation as an excellent teacher and communicator across his 27 seasons as an N.F.L. coach, most of which have been spent assisting Andy Reid, first in Philadelphia and then in Kansas City.“David will do a good job,” Reid said after practice Thursday. “He’s a people person. He’ll bring energy to the building.”Ravens Coach John Harbaugh overlapped nine seasons with Culley as assistants in Philadelphia and has said that he tried multiple times to hire him in Baltimore. When Harbaugh finally succeeded in 2019, luring Culley from Buffalo, where he coached the Bills’ quarterbacks, he called it a “coup.”Culley was an athlete growing up in Sparta, Tenn., about 90 miles east of Nashville, where he played football, baseball and basketball at White County High School. He was a quarterback at Vanderbilt and went on to coach at several colleges before entering the N.F.L. in 1994 as the receivers coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.It came as no surprise to Harbaugh that Culley would be picked up this year — by the Texans.“I do believe that David Culley would be a tremendous hire for any team; maybe, especially, the Texans with Deshaun Watson,” Harbaugh said on Jan. 11.But the opportunity to coach Watson may not come, as the quarterback reportedly requested a trade after a series of disagreements with the Texans’ upper management. He reportedly became disgruntled when the team hired a new general manager, Nick Caserio, without his consultation this year and felt the team had been inattentive to social justice causes, including diversifying their hiring practices.Watson had signed a four-year, $156 million contract extension in September 2020 that included about $75 million guaranteed, a $27 million signing bonus and a no-trade clause, meaning that he will have a say in where he ends up next, if the Texans pursue a deal. Culley’s hiring will not have an effect on Watson’s decision, according to ESPN.Culley takes over a team whose 4-12 record last season almost belies the bleakness of its circumstances: limited draft capital, no elite receivers, a forbidding salary-cap situation. After finishing 10-6 in 2019 and winning the A.F.C. South for the fourth time in the previous five seasons, the Texans flopped last season. O’Brien had reportedly argued with players, including the star defensive end J.J. Watt, who later ranted about the team’s “trash” season in a postgame news conference.“We need a whole culture shift,” Watson told reporters in a videoconference after the regular season ended. “We need new energy. We need discipline. We need structure. We need a leader so we can follow that leader as players.”Culley will have to be that person, with or without Watson.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesWho Gets the Vaccine First?Vaccine TrackerFAQAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storysteelers 19, Ravens 14Long Delayed Ravens-Steelers Meeting Is Hardly Must-See TVThe division rivalry was rescheduled three times as Baltimore recorded more than 20 positive coronavirus tests.The Ravens and Steelers played the odd midweek afternoon game in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, after three postponements triggered by more than 20 positive coronavirus test results among Baltimore’s personnel.Credit…Joe Sargent/Getty ImagesBy More
