I stay up late to watch the late afternoon games in Portugal Sunday night, then have an 8:30 am padel match on Monday morning, so I’m often a little sluggish while writing up the main Observations. Throw in that I’m giving up coffee and nicotine for the month of November (as a sleep experiment), and I was especially so yesterday, which explains in part why I forgot to mention the Josh Jacobs news that broke Friday.
The police department released more allegations about Jacobs from other women, all of which were from a few years ago, and none of which resulted in a formal charge or civil proceeding. The allegations were along the lines of what he actually pled no contest to — misdemeanor battery and destruction of property — so it’s plausible he had exhibited similar behavior before. When they surfaced, the usual suspects renewed calls for Jacobs to be cut, and the online mob predictably wanted another scalp.
But plausibility is not proof, and Jacobs’ lawyers addressed each allegation the following day in a letter denying and contradicting the new claims. Who to believe? It actually doesn’t matter.
The allegations to which Jacobs pled no contest were not litigated in court, but he at least agreed to be bound by the consequences stemming from them, so we can assume something happened, and he was willing to accept legal responsibility for it. The new allegations never even made it that far, no one brought a case, the claims were neither repeated under oath nor exposed to cross examination. In other words, they are unsubstantiated, which does not mean they are false, but does mean that you — and the bloodthirsty virtue-signaling mob that would destroy Jacobs’ career and forget about it 15 minutes later — do not know.
Fortunately, it appears the Packers (for now) are not caving — I’m almost certain had this happened a few years ago they would have — and Jacobs will still be the team’s lead back, unless they trade for someone better at football, though I still think Jacobs has something left in the tank.
Incidentally, after being on Twitter for like 17 years and posting a lot over that span, I had my most viral tweet ever on this topic, a joke reply to Zack Waxman’s troll tweet about Jacobs:
Imagine posting your earnest and pertinent observations about the world for that long only to have your half-joking sports account with 467 followers destroy your meager all-time record…
But on to last night’s game.
. . .
I wanted the Seahawks to win because I have some NFC West futures that look pretty shaky now. The team has two problems, the biggest of which is Sam Darnold. He looks like Daniel Jones back there, holding the ball forever, with zero awareness of the rusher bearing down on him. I had to question my Barkley over Darnold stance from 2018 for a second last year after Darnold won the Super Bowl, but now I’m positive it was all the defense and JSN. The other problem is they have no one other than JSN, but that might actually be due to the first problem.
The Bears moved the ball better all game because they got something out of the running game and had a lot more third-and-shorts rather than longs.
In contrast to Darnold, Caleb Williams escaped when he had to and got rid of the ball when he couldn’t escape. Only one sack in Seattle is impressive, and he didn’t turn it over.
Before Williams got hurt, he was targeting all the scrubs on the team, and Colston Loveland, Luther Burden and Rome Odunze seemed like massive busts. Since he’s been back, it’s been the opposite with 24 of his 34 attempts going to the big three.
D’Andre Swift’s line (27-69-3, 3-2-10-0) isn’t pretty, but that volume, especially around the goal line, and those three TDs are.
JSN (11-6-118-1) had his usual day — he’s now on pace for 189-136-2,093-19.
The Seahawks didn’t run effectively, but the split was 10 carries for Jadarian Price (off IR), six for Zach Charbonnet (off IR), one for George Holani and zero for last week’s workhorse Emmanuel Wilson.
I watched the edited version, so I couldn’t really tell, but I heard the broadcast going on about the impact of trade acquisition Jeffery Simmons (six tackles, one sack.) Whether it was him or not, the Bears defense looked a lot better than I would have expected.