Tim’s 2019 NFL Awards: Offensive Rookie of the Year

Welcome to the second annual NFL awards on this blog. Here’s to many more. We have a strong list of candidates for this year’s prizes after what has been a contentious, drama-filled and, at times, quizzical regular season. These nominees demonstrated the best their sport had to offer. We begin this year’s ceremony with the newcomers, the members who have burst onto the season as innovators and prodigies of the sport.

And the nominees are…

Terry McLaurin, WR, Washington Redskins

58 receptions for 919 yards, 15.8 ypr, 7 TDs

The Ohio State product was one of the year’s first breakout candidates. In his first five career games, McLaurin registered 23 receptions for 408 yards and 5 TDs. His numbers began to regress once quarterbacks started going in and out of the starting rotation in Washington but we’d seen a glimpse of what McLaurin was capable of in a rebuilding scenario. Imagine what he can do when the Redskins build a team around him.

Josh Jacobs, RB, Oakland Raiders

242 carries for 1,150 yards, 4.8 ypc, 7 TDs, 20 receptions for 166, 8.3 ypr, 1,316 yards from scrimmage

I always come clean when I’m wrong.

I did not like Jacobs’ tape out of Alabama. He didn’t have elite burst or eye-raising quickness nor did he possess overbearing strength. Jacobs was good at a lot of things but he didn’t seem particularly great at any one thing. I also found his limited reps in Tuscaloosa concerning.

This was one of the worst misses of my life. Jacobs started off with a bang, amassing 100 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns in the opener, the first player to do so since the great LaDainian Tomlinson in 2001. All Jacobs did through 2019 was force 69 missed tackles, the most by a rookie according to Pro Football Focus and become the focal point of a bruising Raiders rushing attack, amassing over 1,100 yards in 13 games. Had it not been for injuries, Jacobs might have battled for the rushing title. For the first time since Carr’s career year (earned my MVP vote that campaign), the Raiders looked like a legitimate football team and the drafting of a running back few had a strong first-round grade on made all the difference.

Kyler Murray, QB, Arizona Cardinals

349/542 for 3,722 yards, 64.4%, 6.9 ypa, 20 TDs, 12 INTs, 55.8 QBR, 93 carries for 544 yards, 5.8 ypc, 4 TDs

Kyler Murray came into a firesale situation. No one expected the Cardinals to be good this year and they weren’t but Kyler was. He had growing pains but a few times each Sunday, you’d see a play that demonstrated the talent valuation of a first-round pick.

Murray was a versatile athlete throughout the season, doing a young Russell Wilson impression much of the year as he did his best to squeak away from a constantly crumbling backfield. Kliff Kingsbury’s first year in Arizona was raw and certainly had some questionable decisions, including one of the league’s worst red-zone offenses and a ppg average of 22.6 (16th) but the Air Raid scheme itself has a storied track record of success. Even if Kliff turns out not to be the guy, Kyler certainly is.

A.J. Brown, WR, Tennessee Titans

52 receptions for 1,051 yards, 20.2 ypr, 8 TDs

Half of the gym rat duo from Ole Miss was one of 26 receivers to cap 1,000 yards this season. Brown also tied for eighth in 20+ yard receptions with 15 and finished sixth among receivers in yards after the catch (463).

It’s been quite a while since there was a dominant receiver in Nashville. The Titans have had one of the worst receiving corps in football over the last two decades. There are multiple years during this span none of their WRs finished top-50 (4!) The last WR to net 1000 for TEN was Kendall Wright in 2013 (also Nate Washington in 2011) but to find a Titans receiver who finished top-ten in yardage, you have to turn the clocks all the way back to 2004. Derrick Mason finished 15th with 1,168 yards that season but it was Drew Bennett (there’s a forgotten name) who finished in the top-ten, totaling 1,247. The quarterback that year? A duo of Steve McNair and Billy Volek.)

The Titans, finally, might have found their guy. Now, about that quarterback…

Gardner Minshew, QB, Jacksonville Jaguars

285/470 for 3,271 yards, 60.6%, 7.0 ypa, 21 TDs, 6 INTs, 42.6 QBR, 67 carries for 344, 5.1 ypc, 12 fumbles

Speaking of the Air Raid, Gardner Minshew played quarterback at Washington State where Air Raid figurehead Mike Leach called home. Minshew, under Leach’s guidance, took the program to a 10-2 regular season mark, tying a school record.

At the beginning of the season, QB Nick Foles goes down with a broken collarbone in his first start after signing a contract to be the franchise quarterback and sixth-round selection Minshew is thrust into the spotlight.

To say Minshew handled the pressure well would be an understatement.

Minshew would start with a 9/1 TD/INT split and end the year with a 21/6 ratio. The Jaguars developed an air attack for the first time since I don’t even know.

(Blake Bortles actually threw for over 4400 yards and 35 TDs in 2015, albeit 18 INTs. Before that? It’s been a while. You have to wade through the Chad Henne and Blaine Gabbert years to 2008 when David Garrard threw for 3,620 yards but he also only threw 15 TDs to 13 INTs. The year before that though, in 2007? 18/3.)

Minshew Mania took over the sports world for a few weeks. Minshew’s play did take a noticeable dip in the second half of the season (He lost 12 (!) fumbles) but between Minshew and receivers D.J. Chark, Chris Conley and Dede Westbrook, the Jaguars looked like an offense no longer playing with a handicap.

And the Oscar goes to…

Josh Jacobs, RB, Oakland Raiders

A few years ago, Josh Jacobs, his siblings and father were homeless. Now look where is he. In addition to a year that deserves recognition, Jacobs’ journey deserves applause as well.

I still have questions regarding his long speed and ability to accelerate but Jacobs displayed deceptive quickness and rock-like strength this year. He is by far the team’s most valuable player going forward. Where the Jacobs’ train goes, the now Las Vegas Raiders go.

Previous winners:

2018: Saquon Barkley, RB, New York Giants

Movie Review: Cats

“A cat is not a dog.”

Cool.

I hate musicals, just to be clear.

My biggest qualm with the medium is the execution of many of the products. While I by no means consider myself even an amateur explorer in the factory of musical escapades (far from it), the few I’ve subjected myself to have generally been taxing experiences. Even Les Miserables, my personal favorite, has subsections which rattle the frontal lobe. Grease is still mostly watchable but my list of positive things to say regarding the niche of theater ends there.

Musicals often mistake their purpose. Theater’s purpose, as it is in all arts, is to emote, often through story-telling and character expression. Let me be clear: art can express itself in any way it wishes. I’m not here to attack the virtues of creative expression. I applaud all sincere and genuine efforts by artists and how someone decides to tell a story is not what should be criticized, only the level of proficiency in which they use such an avenue.

I find musicals lacking because they often fail to do this. Many run absent a true star character and a multitude seem to bypass the concept of a plot altogether.

Or maybe I’m just not jellicle enough.

Cats, you see, considers itself quite jellicle and if you don’t like it, well, maybe you’re just not embracing the jellicle nature of a jellicle film featuring jellicle cats of all jellicle shapes and jellicle sizes.

Hope you like the word “jellicle” because Cats is going to be saying it a lot and if you expect Cats to define the word then you clearly aren’t in the jellicle club.

After a box office bomb of an opening weekend, reeling in a paltry $6.5 million, Universal had to re-release the jellicle gem, sending out a further edited copy after being unanimously bashed for poor visual effects. Tom Hooper was certainly a capable director, furnishing films such as Academy Award winners The King’s Speech, the previously mentioned Les Miserables and The Danish Girl. Unsure where his attention to detail disappeared to because Cats is rife with jellicle discord and a lack of focus.

Also want to give Universal some serious jellicle kudos for releasing Cats during the same week as Rise of Skywalker. Bold strategy, Cotton.

So after the film was nuked by virtually every critic in the jellicle kingdom, I traversed to a local jellicle theater to see this jellicle jewel.

It is, as advertised, painful. As I bemoaned and groaned through the jellicle picture, a loyal defender of the jellicle production who had the fortune of joining me and my compatriots to that particular showing stood up and declared, “If we were going to be a bunch of assholes, why don’t we just leave?” to which I responded, “Wow, man, that’s not very jellicle of you.” and he proceeded to shut the hell up the rest of the way through a jellicle journey.

Jellicle from beginning to end, Cats displays true wizardries of incompetence early on, with computer graphic imaging that’s, well, let’s say jellicle. I don’t know what it means either, man. Just seems to be the thing to say here.

Hideous from head to toe, we must listen to these herds sing about being a cat and how lovely it is while at the same time looking forward to showcasing their talents in a competition to see who gets to die. Yes, really.

Rather than commit suicide, these jellicle cats must go to a jellicle ball and demonstrate jellicle skills before being chosen as the jellicle cat and flying into the jellicle sky in a jellicle balloon until it inevitably breaks and they fall to their jellicle deaths to begin a jellicle new life.

While Andrew Lloyd Webber is a well-respected individual and has penned many masterful manuscripts, Cats is effortlessly awful. The original musical made nearly $4 billion worldwide and it’s quite a jellicle mystery how something this terrible made that jellicle a sum. Few jellicle songs hit, with lyrics approaching insanity with the amount of repetition they’re utilizing. Let’s take a look at the opener, shall we?

“Because Jellicles are/And Jellicles do/Jellicles do and Jellicles would/Jellicles would and Jellicles can/Jellicles can and Jellicles do.”

If you need an explanation for the verse, it’s likely you aren’t in the jellicle mood or maybe you’re simply not jellicle enough to understand because jellicle.

Jellicle.

That phrase will be rammed down your throat a thousand times over this quagmire’s quicksand running time of 110 minutes and if you’re hard of hearing, fear not, for the jellicle verse you might have just missed will likely be repeated in the very next jellicle line because that is what jellicles do and what jellicles do jellicles would and what jellicles would jellicles should and what jellicles should jellicles can and what jellicles can jellicles do.

If you think I’m being a patronizing prick, feel free to believe so but know this jellicle journal is but only as jellicle as the jellicle piece we’re discussing here on this jellicle day.

As audiences weave their way through emotions ranging from apoplectic to lifeless, Cats spends song after song discussing its jellicle contestants for the jellicle ball, including one tremendously poor effort surrounding James Corden’s character, in which this stupendously fat lard of a cat pronounces how much he loves being fat and how excited he is to be reborn so he can become fat all over again.

Yup, really want that guy to win. Seems like a real champion of jellicle cats.

Idris Elba’s Macavity is a magical cat who can teleport (!) for Christ’s sake and he has decided, for whatever reason (if you haven’t noticed already, Cats isn’t very caught up on the whole explaining things aspect of storytelling) that he is going to use this power to transport all of his fellow jellicle competitors onto a barge so he is the only remaining candidate for the one-way ticket to death, a ticket Judi Dench’s Old Deuteronomy (a totally normal and acceptable name for a cat) refuses to give Macavity because he isn’t jellicle enough; he doesn’t know the jellicle way.

With a plot dumb as nails, characters almost universally unlikable (one cat in particular, played by Jennifer Hudson, is ostracized and hated amongst the jellicle cats for some reason, a not-so-subtle nod to racism) and music, the meat and potatoes of a musical, directly and completely responsible for all ear cancer, there simply isn’t anything of substance to find in Cats.

But again, maybe I’m just not jellicle enough.

Once again, if you’re new to my blog, I’ve always ranked movies on a scale of 0-100 (I don’t know why, I just always have). Here’s the grading scale.  

90-100  It’s a great movie and definitely one worth buying. (Batman Begins, The Matrix, L.A. Confidential, Her, Taken)

80-89  It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (Spider-Man: Far From Home, Dumb and Dumber, Pokemon Detective Pikachu, The Matrix Reloaded,Wanted)

70-79   It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too. (Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Matrix Revolutions, Triple Frontier, I am Legend, Ip Man 2)

60-69   It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (2 Fast 2 Furious, Doctor Strange, Johnny Mnemonic, Jason Bourne, Suicide Squad)

50-59   This movie isn’t intolerable but it’s not blowing my mind either. I’m trying really hard to get some sort of enjoyment out of this. (XXX, The Silence, The Fast and the Furious, Brooklyn’s Finest, Death Race)

40-49   This movie is just mediocre. It’s not doing anything other than the bare minimal, so morbidly boring that sometimes I’m actually angry I watched this. (Doom, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Power Rangers, Underworld: Evolution)

30-39   Definitely worse than mediocre, the 30′s ironically define the 1930′s, full of depression, lack of accomplishments, poverty and just so dumb. (High-Rise, Most Likely to Die, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Crow: City of Angels, Centurion)

20-29   What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (XXX: State of the Union, The Snowman, Avalanche Sharks, Catwoman, The Gunman)

0-19      Watching this movie resulted in one or more of the following: seizure, loss of brain cells, falling asleep/unconsciousness, feel you wasted your time/day, accomplished nothing for you, left the movie knowing less about it then you did going into it, constantly asking yourself why you came to see this movie, or near-death experience. In short, staring at a wall was just as entertaining as watching this movie. This movie deserved a sticker or a label that said, “WARNING: EXTREME AMOUNT OF SUCKAGE.” (The Extendables, The Coed and the Zombie Stoner, The Forbidden Dimensions, Cyborg, Outcast)

My score for Cats: 12.

This was the first film I decided to watch of the decade, pressured and punched by a friend and loving brother before I gave in due to a lack of additional shoulder muscle. I can say, with nearly complete confidence (George Clooney’s The American is awfully close) that Cats is the worst piece I’ve ever laid eyes on in a theater. Truly abhorrent, degrading and insulting material. I hope it wins all the Razzies.