IS THE NFL ENJOYABLE RIGHT NOW? WITH ALEX KIRSHNER
With now three months of the NFL season completed, I emailed Alex Kirshner of Slate, and broke down some of the storylines with him.
Like every time Sunday rolls around, I investigate my compelling relationship with the NFL, a league that I have been watching since I was a child. Ever since my father took me to the 2001 AFC Championship game — the game where I got my first terrible whiff of New England Patriots magic — I have been a Steelers fan. It’s been a mostly fruitful relationship: I got to watch Antonio Brown be the most dominant receiver of his generation; I’ve cheered prodigious defenders like T.J. Watt, Troy Polamalu, and James Harrison. I have not seen a losing season since I was ten years old. Mike Tomlin has always kept us competitive. Visions of players laying on the ground from shiveringly violent hits might enter my consciousness, and the quarterback play is now so mediocre in a system that is obviously designed for it, but when Sunday’s rolls around, I can’t help but put my feet up, grab a light beer, and watch some American Football. I enjoy going to Blondies, my favorite sport bar on the Upper West Side, to watch the Steelers play, because although the fanbase makes me insane, Football is the most communal sport there is. You see people every Sunday and that’s it; you casually talk with them about their lives, watch the game, give out high-fives and hugs, and then you go on with your life. Football is our entertainment, the closest thing we get to going to the movies without having to actually go to the movies.
Is the league in good shape? It is not, although this year is more competitive than recent years. I genuinely do not know who will win the championship this season. The Kansas City Chiefs’s Patrick Mahomes is the greatest quarterback of all-time, but he has not been as elite as usual this season for the Chiefs. At times, he has looked shockingly human. (Rarely do I say things like this, but I almost want to blame his wife, Brittany Mahomes, who seems to be a horrible person). Where Mahomes is now mortal, The Bills’s Josh Allen has become like Tony Stark. Lamar Jackson is saddled with a head coach who should be let go after this season, but he’s been fantastic as well. Those two, Allen and Jackson, will be competing for the Most Valuable Player award.
And then there’s the Jets, the most lowly team on earth. Every Jet fan that exercised caution about this team this year has proven to be so correct that they ought to become the leader of the free world; any Jet fan that was semi-excited for Aaron Rodgers’s comeback is now devastating, both because of Rodgers’s inconsistency and the organization’s dysfunction.
So, to discuss all of this, I emailed Alex Kirshner of Slate and the Split Zone Duo Podcast. We got to riffing about the Detroit Lions, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and much more.
Jayson: Alex, the NFL season has been full of unexpected twists — perhaps like Russell Wilson getting decent again, disappointing quarterback play like Daniel Jones being released and Aaron Rodgers being so bad that RFK is probably calling him to sleep every night, squeaky contenders that inspire no devotion from casuals, and juggernaut teams. For me, the Lions are probably the most fun team in the game. Even though they barely beat Caleb Williams and the Bears during Thanksgiving, it was clear that you were watching the best team in the league. While I have my doubts about Jared Goff, I can’t really see another NFC team knocking them off. What about you? What’s your favorite storyline so far, and can anyone beat the Lions?
Alex: The Lions do look to me like the best team in football, but being “the best team in football” only gets you so far. While I think the Lions are the clear NFC favorites, they’re not going to be a lot better than 50/50 to beat the Eagles in a hypothetical championship game, nor will they be much better than 50/50 to beat the Bills or Chiefs if that should be the Super Bowl matchup. I just think it’s worth reminding people that even in a dream season where everything is going to plan, it doesn’t take some kind of “choke” for a team not to win it all.
Jayson: That’s totally fair — remember, we all thought that the Chiefs looked terrible last season. They did at times, but because Mahomes and Kelce were able to turn on the acceleration button, they were able to beat some good teams on the road to make it and win the Super Bowl. The Lions are doing this while playing some old school football. The concepts are obviously progressive, but the “ground and pound” mentality feels anachronistic. Dan Campbell also does it with a “brotherly love” that is foreign in the epoch of Donald Trump being president. There’s a racial harmony, and a love for one another that the Lions play with. You see other players like Nick Bosa doing Trump dances. Meanwhile, Campbell is hugging his players and telling everyone that he loves them. (To be fair: A Lions player, Malcolm Rodriguez, also did a Trump dance). Is this something you are also seeing from the Lions? A possible switch from the Chiefs’s blandness?
Alex: I do like how Campbell gets down. It's not exactly like the way that Andy Reid manages the Chiefs, but it's pretty similar. He's this big football guy-lookin’ guy but his management of his team doesn't come across as authoritarian. I thought the way he talked about Jameson Williams’ apology for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty the other day was a good illustration. Campbell’s got a code, but he talks to his players like adults and would fight you for them. Athletes respond to that. A bunch of these guys are 22 or 25 or 27 and didn't come up getting screamed at every day.
Jayson: Speaking of a coach who teaches in a non-traditional way, Mike Tomlin has the Steelers at 9-3. So, I am a Steeler fan and I am quite surprised by this. I assumed that they would be 9-8 again this season, or worse: 9-7-1, because a Mike Tomlin team would totally end a game in a tie. While that could still happen — they have a tough schedule to end the season, starting with the Eagles on December 15 — Tomlin has them cooking. Russell Wilson looks solid, a startling change from last season with Sean Payton’s Denver Broncos, when he looked lost, and Payton actively did not want to coach him. Tomlin saw something people didn’t. It is hard for me to think that Pittsburgh is for real, they have one elite weapon, if you can say that, and he’s someone who can’t seem to act completely normal. Still, what do you think of these Steelers, Alex?
Alex: As your fellow Steelers fan (lifelong!), I am also having more fun this year than I expected. Wilson morphing back into a productive NFL quarterback says a lot about the importance of fit at that position.
The arm talent has always been there. Everyone likes to talk about the "moon ball," but he's playing for a head coach who doesn’t seem to despise him. He's behind an offensive line that the Steelers have invested a lot into making solid. And while George Pickens is a flammable personality and not necessarily an elite receiver at this point in his career, he is just about as good as anyone in the world at tracking a deep ball, so his strengths map nicely onto Wilson's. It's been fun to watch, and it's not a surprise that Tomlin has managed his quarterback situation as well as he has. The man is a manager of people and does it as well as anyone in the history of the league.
Jayson: While he is a manager of people, I sometimes wonder if that phrase takes away from his ability to recognize talent. The Steelers have long been Wide Receiver University, and Pickens has proven to be another strong pick in that area. It is debatable whether Tomlin is a great coach, but he is a good one. Is he elite? Despite the lack of Super Bowls and clock mishaps?
Alex: His shortcomings are significant. It's telling that he has no coaching tree and that his management of timeouts and challenges are still this bad in his 18th season. But if Mike Tomlin isn't elite, then no coach in this century not named Belichick or Reid is elite. He is an all-timer.
Jayson: There’s a guy who is an all-time quarterback, but in New York, who has been struggling. Now I will not shed any tears from this fact, as some annoying behavior has swept through his body. Aaron Rodgers, who is strange by strange’s standards, now has the Jets at 3-9. Everything the skeptics thought would happen happened: the Jets’s lack of elite talent hurt him, he lacks mobility, the chaos around the organization has made his vintage machinery of the offense seem like a power lost like Space Jam. Aaron Rodgers is officially washed. What have you seen from him, Alex?
Alex: I’ve seen a guy whose hold on NFL front offices is dangerously weak. Rodgers had deteriorated quite a bit even when the Jets traded for him before 2023, but the fact that he missed last season with injury was perversely an asset to his standing entering this year. It was not difficult for the Jets to tell themselves that Rodgers might still have something resembling elite play left in the tank. And with that calculation, it was reasonable for them to swing the Davante Adams trade and orient their coaching staff around Rodgers. I guess it is possible that some other team tries the same thing after the Jets move on from Rodgers, whether that’s in the next two months or the next two years. But it won’t happen more than one more time, and I am confident that Rodgers will not be someone whose football makes headlines for a lot longer. That may be a minor victory, and I hope you’re ready to see him appointed to, like, run the FDA.
Jayson: A sad aspect about all of this is that it is typical for the Jets to take this chance on an aging star, have him get hurt, and then have him be bad the next season. Then, the coach is fired. Saleh was no Joe Gibbs, or even Mike Tomlin, but he was decent and was a solid motivator. He wore the Lebanon flag on his left sleeve on his hoodie the week before he was let go by the Jets, an interestingly complicated nugget in all of this. This is not the reason why he was fired — it was more to do with the Jets not being good — but the optics remain bad for the Johnson family. Maybe Trump being in office means that Woody will go back to working for his administration as an Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Alex, any prediction for the rest of the season?
Alex: I predict the NFL will continue to be fun and the people who own NFL teams will continue to get taxpayers to build them stadiums. Oh, and someone’s gonna get the Chiefs in January.