When you’ve got the best QB1 on the planet in your corner, ownership is overrated. But the latest NFLPA report, released a few days back, says Broncos CEO Greg Penner is the best boss in the AFC West. Which got the crack staff in the Grading The Week offices thinking: Do they hang banners for HR surveys?
We kid, of course, but if it’s good enough for the players, it’s good enough for us. Minus the occasional car theft, issues with child care and some transitional bumps with the new strength and conditioning staff, the Broncos graded out well in the annual players poll, which is both anonymous and occasionally delightful.
The locker room likes Sean Payton, even if it doesn’t like the size of the locker room itself. It also likes Penner, who last summer completed his first calendar year as Broncos CEO and was the only AFC West owner to garner an “A” from his nameless employees. That’s … something.
Penner’s job review — A
Although how much of a “something” it really is, well — that remains open to a spirited debate.
Because Kansas City management got absolutely crushed by its own ring-laden players in that same survey, citing promises that weren’t kept. The two-time defending world champs scored at a “D” or lower in four of 11 NFLPA categories.
Longtime Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, whose franchise has won three Super Bowls in five years, landed an F-minus, for Pete’s sake! Which tells us he’s secretly “Eight Men Out” Charles Comiskey behind the scenes, and the best team in football is winning big out of spite. Maybe, as we’ve long suspected, because the best team in football has Patrick Mahomes, and as long as you’ve got THAT GUY at quarterback — Elway, PFM, Brady, Montana, etc. — the rest of it doesn’t matter quite as much, does it?
Or maybe Taylor Swift just needs to take the next logical step and buy her boyfriend’s team outright. Get Swifty, Chieftains!
Big Ten and SEC vs. the Big 12, CU, CSU and the rest of the free world — F
College football might not be rigged, but its political process is the very quintessence (makes “chef’s kiss” sound) of dirty pool.
Whenever your local coach or athletic director talks with excited tones about the possibility of College Football Playoff expansion, you need to remember who those expanded slots are really for. And until CU or CSU start playing in either the Big Ten or SEC, they’re not for the Buffs or Rams.
No sooner had the ink dried on a 12-team playoff plan for ’24 and ’25 that would feature five highest-ranked conference champions and seven at-large berths, word leaked out about conference-level discussions of an expanded 14-team field starting in 2026. But the nitty-gritty smelled of nothing more than a cash grab, with the Big Ten and SEC requesting three automatic berths each, or almost half the bracket. And reportedly, those three gimmies were negotiated down from a working proposal of four each. The Big 12, which is adding the Buffs this summer, and ACC would be granted two auto bids each. That would leave three at-larges, most of which could also get eaten up by the SEC or Big Ten, and one guaranteed slot for a “Group of Five” program such as CSU. Because, ya know, ratings.
Ain’t it grand? Only in college football can more seats at the table mean fewer chances for people to actually eat.