Football Stuff Today

ESPN has announced Ryan Clark’s replacement on Monday Night Countdown; Jason McCourty will get that assignment along with Scott Van Pelt, Marcus Peters and Jason Kelce.  I have enjoyed McCourty’s work with NFL Network on Good Morning Football; this seems to be a promotion for him in his broadcasting career.  Do not be confused; Jason McCourty is on ESPN and his identical twin brother, Devin McCourty, is on NBC’s Football Night In America.  Get a scorecard to keep all that straight.

Much has been made leading up to the opening of NFL Training Camps about the QB competition in Cleveland.  From a historical perspective, the Browns re-entered the NFL in 1999 and if I have counted correctly, they have started 42 different quarterbacks in the 27 years of this incarnation of the franchise.  The battle for the starting job this year will likely not increase that number because the battle is between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders both of whom have started games for the Browns in previous seasons.  Even the “third guy” hovering around the fringes of that competition, Dillon Gabriel, was a starter for the Browns last year.

The only candidate in Browns’ camp who could be starter #43 would be Taylen Green who was drafted in the 6^th round back in April this year.  He played at Boise St. and Arkansas in his college days.  Green drew attention at the NFL Combine where he broke existing records in the broad jump and the vertical jump; he also was timed at 4.36 seconds in the 40-yard dash which is CB or WR speed.

And speaking of young QBs seeking NFL employment, the Baltimore Ravens released Diego Pavia before they opened their Training Camp.  Remember Pavia led Vanderbilt to football respectability last season and finished second in the Heisman voting to Fernando Mendoza in December.  Mendoza was the overall #1 pick; Pavia went undrafted and signed on with the Ravens at his choosing.  That simply did not work out.

It would seem to me that the NFL is an unlikely employer for Diego Pavia in 2026; whatever “negatives” allowed 32 teams to pass on drafting the Heisman runner-up 7 times each would only seem to be reinforced by the Ravens’ decision to release him before Training Camp began.   So, what options does he have?

• He could emulate Doug Flutie and Warren Moon and go play in the CFL with the idea of generating enough success there to get some interest from other NFL teams.   The current CFL season is almost half over; so, it is not likely that he would get a lot of work this year, but if he signed on now with a team, he might have a chance to be a player/starter there in 2027.
• He could certainly play in the UFL next spring and possibly use his showing there as a résumé builder that could get him an invitation to an NFL Training Camp or to a team in the CFL.

Rejection is not something new to Diego Pavia.  Coming out of high school, he got zero scholarship offers from Division 1 schools and began his college career with 2 years at the New Mexico Military Institute.  From there, he went to New Mexico State for another two seasons – – hardly a perennial powerhouse in collegiate football and then on to two more years at Vandy which is in a Power 4 conference, but it had not been highly competitive there on a consistent basis.  In his two years at Vandy, the Commodores went 17-9.  To put that in perspective, in the five years before Pavia showed up at Vandy, the cumulative team record was 12-45.

Obviously, he can be an effective QB; what he seems to need is a place to showcase his talents on the field against pro level competition.  I am certainly not one of his advisors, but I think the best thing he can do is to sign on now with a CFL team and try to adjust to that game as preparation for a serious campaign for a starting job there in 2027.

Finally, this from Jerry Seinfeld:

“It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………