Bill Belichick fell short of the necessary votes to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2026, but he may have another chance in 2027.
The Hall of Fame announced the five coaches who have advanced to the next round of consideration in the current selection process. One of those coaches will be selected for consideration by the full selection committee ahead of the Super Bowl.
Belichick is joined by Tom Coughlin, Mike Holmgren, Dan Reeves, and Mike Shanahan. All five coaches also advanced to this point in the selection process last year. This is the fourth time that Holmgren has advanced to this point.
Don Coryell was the last coach selected for the Hall of Fame. He was part of the Class of 2023.
Seattle’s QB1 for Week 9 is in flux.
Quarterback Sam Darnold will not play in Sunday’s game against the Cardinals after suffering a quad injury late in Monday’s loss to the Bears, Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald announced in his Wednesday press conference.
“It’ll be week-to-week for Sam,” Macdonald said. “He’s not going to go on IR.”
Macdonald noted the club intends to start Drew Lock on Sunday, but he’s also working through an injury.
“The plan is for Drew to start. Jalen [Milroe] will be ready to back up,” Macdonald said. “Drew’s still working back from his elbow, so we’ll work through that process this week. So we’ll be getting both guys ready to play. Have full confidence in those guys and we have a plan in place and we’ll go execute.”
Lock finished the Week 1 win over the Patriots and started Week 2 when the Seahawks beat the Cardinals in Arizona. He’s completed 35-of-48 passes this year for 422 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions.
“He’s able to throw. How much, we’re working through that right now. That’s the best way to put it,” Macdonald said of Lock’s elbow injury. “He’s going to throw the ball throughout the week, but we’re just going to manage it. He’s not going to take 8,000 throws.”
Lock and Milroe are set to split reps at least early in the practice week.
“I think we just have to take it day-by-day at this point,” Macdonald said.
While Macdonald characterized Darnold as week-to-week with the quad injury, the quarterback is also dealing with another issue.
“In terms of Sam, this guy, he’s tough as nails,” Macdonald said. “I think the second play of the game, I just asked if I could share this, but he cracked his rib on the second play of the game. So, playing the whole game without even making a name of it, and playing his tail off, and competing, it’s worth noting how tough this guy is. He’ll be back sooner than later, I’m sure.”
Darnold has completed 60.2 percent of his passes this season for 1,478 yards with 10 touchdowns and nine interceptions so far this season.
Seattle’s first injury report of the week will be out later on Wednesday.
After Monday night’s loss to the Bears, Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said that his team was beaten in all three phases of the game and he revisited that line of thinking on Tuesday.
During an appearance on Seattle Sports 710, Macdonald said that there’s an “itch to say” what needs to change about the team as they work to move forward from both the loss and the 4-4 start to their Super Bowl title defense. Macdonald then pivoted to suggesting “a deep breath” and a recentering of the things that propelled the Seahawks to success in the past rather than reaching for things to tweak across the board.
“If we’re going to go out, we want to go out in our way and our style, and that wasn’t us, or the best version of us at least,” Macdonald said, via the team’s website. “So that’s why I think it’s so tough. We have to focus on recapturing us and making sure that we’re us when we turn the tape on. There were too many times throughout that game where that wasn’t us in terms of just our style of ball. That’s where we need to get better.”
A home game against the Cardinals will be this week’s opportunity to double down on the kind of recentering that Macdonald is talking about and getting that in place in time for the Seahawks to finish strong appears to be the path Macdonald is charting in Seattle.
Let Russ coach.
Former NFL quarterback Russell Wilson, who’s in his first year as a member of The NFL Today on CBS, is exploring a possible Saturday gig.
Via Adam Schefter of ESPN, Wilson interviewed on Tuesday for the head-coaching vacancy at NC State.
Wilson spent four years at NC State, from 2007 through 2010, before transferring to Wisconsin after the Wolfpack opted to go with Mike Glennon for 2011.
The 10-time Pro Bowler has no coaching experience. The reported favorite for the job, former NFL and NC State quarterback Philip Rivers, has high-school coaching experience only.
If nothing else, the interview puts Wilson on the radar screen for other coaching jobs, at the college and pro level. His potential aspirations to coach were not, before now, widely known.
When the schedule is released every May, plenty of standalone games that look good at the time morph into something not quite as appetizing as the season unfolds. Some standalone games get better with time.
This year, there’s a trio of massive games lurking on Christmas Day.
At 1:00 p.m. ET, it’s the Packers at the Bears. At 4:30 p.m. ET, it’s the Bills at the Broncos. At 8:15 p.m., it’s the Rams at the Seahawks.
With the Bears emerging as a threat to win the NFC North and the No. 1 seed in the conference, the rematch with their biggest rivals (who beat them 31-7 in Week 5) becomes must-see TV. Bills at Broncos, a rematch of a postseason overtime classic that got Buffalo coach Sean McDermott fired, should have direct implications on two division races and the chase for the lone bye in the AFC.
The nightcap shapes up to be not a battle for the NFC West title and/or the top seed but a potential elimination game, given that both Seattle and L.A. are currently 4-4.
Regardless, all three games should be significant. Impactful. Consequential.
And they’ll more than make up for the Christmas Eve game, which has the 2-5 Texans at the 2-6 Eagles.
