The situation with Brock Purdy’s arm, as it’s been reported, is as follows (attribution in parentheses, assist to Pro Football Rumors):
- He tore his UCL. Complete tear (NFL.com).
- The hope is he’ll have a “repair procedure” rather than a “reconstructive operation,” which is either the same as Tommy John, similar, or in a squares & rectangles relationship with Tommy John where one’s definition includes the other’s (NFL.com).
- If the UCL can be repaired rather than reconstructed, “the standard timeline for return is 6 months” (NFL.com).
- If the UCL needs to be reconstructed, it won’t necessitate the full year’s absence we’re used to in baseball, but “it could still sideline him for around seven to nine months” (The Athletic).
- Tommy John is “incredibly rare for NFL quarterbacks” (The Athletic), which I interpret to mean that there’s a broad range of outcomes possible here, owing to the uncertainty that comes from a small historic sample size.
- Purdy is seeking alternate opinions (Washington Post).
The situation with Purdy’s contract, as I can figure it out, is as follows:
- Purdy’s signing bonus was $77,008 and his salary this year was $705,000 (Spotrac). As he made the active roster out of training camp and was on the active roster all year, he was paid or is owed all of this, unless I’m really misunderstanding something.
- Per Spotrac, there isn’t anything guaranteed on the contract beyond the signing bonus, so—if I understand correctly, and that’s a big “if”—the Niners would owe him nothing beyond what hasn’t been paid on his signing bonus were they to cut him. I do not know if or how this would be different if he were to be cut due to injury, but from what I’m reading, it sounds like there are specific agreements in NFL contracts that vary from player to player on this scenario.
The situation with the 49ers quarterback room, as I understand it, is as follows:
- Trey Lance is expected to be fully recovered from his ankle injury by training camp.
- Jimmy Garoppolo is a free agent.
- Rumors have started about the 49ers pursuing Tom Brady, and therefore presumably other free agents, but there’s no hard indication in any direction.
Overall, then, for those of us who care about Brock Purdy (the Iowa State fans in the room), we seem to have the following summary:
- Purdy could be back by training camp, but it’s dicey and it’s a rare enough situation to carry a lot of uncertainty.
- Purdy has made about $800,000 as a pro, plus endorsements and however much money he made when he was the fourth-most popular college athlete on Cameo.
- The 49ers have space to hold onto Purdy, but it’s not necessarily his job if he comes back healthy even if the 49ers don’t pick anybody up, and if they do pick someone up, he might be explicitly competing for a backup job or Trey Lance might have to be traded (#TradeLance).
It’s a situation with uncertainty all over the place. Feeling some ownership of Purdy, as Iowa State’s best quarterback ever, there’s the desire to make sure he’s comfortable for life, and while $800,000 won’t necessarily last a lifetime, he’s probably set for a prosperous rest of his days from his football career so far. Beyond that, then, we (or at least I’m inclined to) start wanting what’s best for his football career. Is that being available, even if not 100%? Is it getting a year to study under Brady as a second-stringer with Lance out of the picture? It’s so hard to know, but one thing seems rather likely:
It would be bad if Brock Purdy didn’t fix this injury as much as it can possibly be fixed.
It’s a bad injury, and it’s an uncertain injury, and I at least don’t know whether reconstruction is a safer or a more dangerous route compared to repairing the ligament. But I hope that Purdy’s decision and the 49ers’ guidance is to get him fully physically capable before he’s back in a live NFL game. At his best, and in a great situation, Purdy’s shown he can be a competent starting NFL quarterback. That’s a wild thing to have accomplished, but it’s also a big thing to forfeit if he or San Francisco tries to rush this recovery.
Get our guy healthy.
Whatever it takes.
Good God, Cyclones
Credit to Texas Tech. They flipped a switch, and they flipped it dramatically enough to make one wonder whether it’s been there before and they haven’t flipped it? But enough on that mystery for the moment. Let’s talk about what the hell happened to Iowa State.
ISU was probably always flying a little close to the sun. They lost one of their core to injury and promptly became a top ten team in the country, and that was always suspicious. They entered that Baylor game ranked 50th in KenPom, and to rise as high as 9th was a testament to their improvement, but it also brought questions. Questions that have now been answered. A team which lost by 19 in Iowa City should not roll through the Big 12, and Iowa State is no longer rolling through the Big 12.
The problem with this mean reversion angle is that the first 28 minutes of the game happened. Iowa State was crushing a mediocre but potential-filled Texas Tech team for the second time in three weeks, and they were doing it in Lubbock. The offense was unflappable, Caleb Grill was lethal, the defense was a meat grinder. Then, the wheels came all the way—and we mean all the way—off. By the end, the team looked too exhausted and defeated to comprehend what a good look would entail as the clock ticked down. They just threw the ball at the hoop a handful of times and hustled to the bus.
What is Iowa State, then? They’re a strong defensive team which fouls a whole lot—their liberality with a few dumb fouls in the first half came back to bite them. They’re a scrappy offensive team with weapons but no security blanket, especially when attacked with pressure. Their ceiling is high. It might be its highest since Monte Morris was around, or perhaps even since the days of Marcus Fizer. But, and this is sad and new, the Big 12 championship is probably unattainable. Not because of the path—Iowa State’s only a game back of Texas and most likely tied with Kansas, TCU, and K-State—but because the consistency isn’t there. It turns out this *is* still the team which was smoked by Iowa. It turns out the problems with Mizzou’s pressure weren’t only the product of team energy lowered by Caleb Grill’s absence. This team is just beatable. It’s more Kansas State than Kansas. It can get hot—and hopefully it’ll get hot again—but don’t bank on that lasting for enough weeks to make a Final Four. We’re probably dealing with an Elite Eight ceiling, and that could require some breaks.
This is such a good place to be as a program, especially two years after going 2-22. It’s such a good place relative to where we expected this team to be (which was: the bubble). But the bottom’s been torn open. The loss to Oklahoma State made sense. Losing to Texas Tech could have made sense. But blowing a 23-point lead in fewer than thirteen minutes? That’s not something a team can do without having some serious vulnerabilities, and the Big 12’s too good a league to let those kinds of vulnerabilities slide.
Goals, then? From here? Win home games. Finish in the league’s top three. Win the Big 12 Tournament. Make the Elite Eight. Continue to show recruits, potential incoming transfers, and potential outgoing transfers that Ames is a place that will do things for its college basketball players. The foundation has been reinforced, and while this class can’t win the Big 12, it can build upon the foundation it has treated to such new strength. Just please: Figure out what to do when defenders come for the ball.
Texas Is the Big 12 Favorite
This is wild, and it might be a testament to Tyrese Hunter’s presence in the locker room (even if his presence on the court has been a bit hamstrung), but Texas is just as good as Kansas and Texas has a one-game lead on Kansas at the very least. Tonight’s is a big game in Lawrence, but Monday’s—when Texas comes to town—is bigger.
The Football Schedules Are Out
We will get to things that are not Iowa State-centric in a moment, but the Big 12 released its schedule, and Iowa State filled in a few details. It looks like this:
- September 2nd: UNI (H)
- September 9th: Iowa (H)
- September 16th: Ohio (A)
- September 23rd: Oklahoma State (H)
- September 30th: Oklahoma (A)
- October 7th: TCU (H) – Jack Trice Legacy Game
- October 14th: Cincinnati (A)
- October 21st: Idle
- October 28th: Baylor (A)
- November 4th: Kansas (H) – Homecoming
- November 11th: BYU (A)
- November 18th: Texas (H)
- November 25th: Kansas State (A)
It’s tough. The Big 12 offers few easy games, and of the easier ones which might be (Kansas, Houston, and UCF all finished in a clump from 69th to 71st in the final Movelor rankings), Iowa State only drew Kansas. Avoiding Texas Tech is nice, but there are only three games on the schedule you can say Iowa State should definitely win, and none of those are against teams Iowa State can take lightly.
Getting back to a bowl, then, will be a challenge, and unless TCU and Kansas State both really backslide or Texas erupts into a dumpster fire (all possible, none probable), getting to the Big 12 Championship would require a borderline miracle. You can talk yourself into every game on the schedule, but the Cyclones are probably currently only favorites in four of the twelve. It’s tough.
Elsewhere in college football scheduling, the ACC released its as well, meaning the whole Power Five has now released. For main characters:
- Alabama’s toughest stretch comes across eight weeks in the middle of the season where they host Mississippi, visit Mississippi State, visit Texas A&M, host Arkansas, host Tennessee, take a week off, host LSU, and visit Kentucky. That’s a gauntlet, and it doesn’t include games elsewhere on the slate against Texas and Auburn.
- Georgia has what could turn into a cakewalk. They don’t play Alabama or LSU and their nonconference opponents are laughers. They do play at Tennessee the weekend before Thanksgiving, but that’s the only game that jumps off the page.
- LSU and Florida State rematch in Orlando on Labor Day Sunday, but the Tigers draw Mizzou and Florida from the SEC East, making for as friendly a slate as they could probably hope.
- Tennessee has to go to Alabama and host Georgia, but they don’t have a stretch as rigorous as that of the Tide.
- Ohio State plays at Notre Dame to end September, but it’s after three straight manageable games and it’s before a week off (which is then followed by a visit from Maryland and a trip to Purdue). They host Penn State and visit Wisconsin on back-to-back weeks, and they do host Minnesota the weekend before they go to Ann Arbor, but it’s not a bad setup for the Buckeyes.
- Michigan has not started scheduling competitive teams in nonconference play, their September headlined by East Carolina. They go to Minneapolis to play the Gophers, and they go to State College to play Penn State, and it’s likelier than not that they’ll lose one of those two games. Maybe Penn State—who hosts West Virginia and draws Illinois, Northwestern, and Iowa out of the Big Ten West—could make some noise.
- The Alabama trip will probably be enough to doom Texas’s playoff dreams, especially with a full Big 12 slate after it. Their November goes K-State (H), TCU (A), Iowa State (A), Texas Tech (H), which I would not want to play.
- TCU’s final six weeks go K-State (H), idle, Texas Tech (H), Texas (A), Baylor (A), Oklahoma (H). That’s a tough run.
- Clemson has to play Notre Dame again, but they get the Irish at home this time. They’ll also play Florida State and UNC at home at different points, while visiting Miami and South Carolina. Depending on the state of Notre Dame/South Carolina and how the ACC also-rans stack up, we could be looking at another 12-0 Clemson team without a noteworthy win, or with only a noteworthy win at home against FSU.
- USC goes to South Bend this year to play Notre Dame, and they also go to Eugene in addition to being visited by Utah, UCLA, and Washington. They get the week off before the Pac-12 Championship, possibly because of their and Stanford’s scheduling arrangement with Notre Dame.
- Utah visits Baylor, which should be tough, and hosts Florida. Those two are to start the season. They also host Oregon and UCLA, and they’ll play at Oregon State, USC, and Washington. By the time they reach their idle week, they’ll have played four teams who’d be in the top half of the Pac-12, not to mention one of the FCS’s strongest programs in Weber State. Utah could well be screwed for making the playoff, but they did much of this to themselves.
Sean Payton, DeMeco Ryans
Jim Harbaugh will yet again not be the coach of the Denver Broncos (Is this the third time Harbaugh’s been “confirmed” to be returning to Michigan?) and that’s because Sean Payton will be the coach of the Denver Broncos. Alongside Frank Reich, whom the Panthers hired, and DeMeco Ryans, who the Texans hired, Payton’s one of three to have landed a head coaching job so far this offseason, with the Cardinals and Colts still searching.
Payton’s probably had a bit of mythos build up his abilities in his years of absence, but he’s certainly been successful, and—probably most importantly—there’s little about his track record that would possess somebody to say he can’t win games. The bounty situation was a scandal that happened, and his judgment can be questioned by the fact he allowed himself to be portrayed by Kevin James in a movie, but that’s it. There was a Mike McCarthy vs. Sean Payton debate a few weeks ago online, and the answer’s more narrowly Payton than I expected when I started listening, but basically Payton is McCarthy minus the well-earned reputation for baffling in-game decisions. Should Broncos fans expect immediate glory? No, absolutely not, but sure, why not? That’s what makes this fun. Maybe trading a first and second rounder (or whatever it ends up being) for Payton’s rights was too much, but we’ll see. As a friend pointed out, they already committed to trying to win now with Russell Wilson. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Hiring Ryans feels like doing the consensus smart thing for the Texans, which is usually the right move to make. I don’t know that there’s a better bet out there than Ryans. The discourse seems to believe that, and I trust it.
The Reich hiring—he was introduced today, I’m not sure when exactly the hire happened—is interesting because Reich was so recently fired in Indy, but the situation in Indianapolis was wacky this year, partially thanks to figures other than Reich, and the Panthers got themselves a coach who has a winning record on his career even if you assign him the results from the Colts’ final eight games, which happened after he was canned. It’s interesting, but it’s not obviously great or bad.
We’ll see what happens in Arizona and Indianapolis. Could be a lot to talk about with those. Indianapolis is at least giving the appearance of doing a search, which was a concern after the haste of the Jeff Saturday interim hire.
**
What’s happening tonight:
College Basketball (the big one)
- 8:00 PM EST: Kansas State @ Kansas (ESPN+)
College Basketball (the good ones)
- 7:00 PM EST: Texas A&M @ Arkansas (ESPN2)
- 7:00 PM EST: Virginia Tech @ Miami (ESPNU)
- 9:00 PM EST: Indiana @ Maryland (ESPN2)
- 9:00 PM EST: West Virginia @ TCU (ESPNU)
- 9:00 PM EST: Northwestern @ Iowa (BTN)
- 11:00 PM EST: San Diego State @ Nevada (CBSSN)
College Basketball (the interesting ones)
- 8:00 PM EST: UConn @ DePaul (FS1)
- 8:30 PM EST: Vanderbilt @ Alabama (SECN)
NBA (the best game, plus the Bulls)
- 7:00 PM EST: Miami @ Cleveland (League Pass)
- 8:00 PM EST: LA Clippers @ Bulls (League Pass)
NHL (the best game)
- 7:00 PM EST: Los Angeles @ Carolina (NHLN)
