The Cleveland Browns fire Hue Jackson midseason … and make the playoffs

Other than fans, I’m not sure anyone has had a worse preseason than Hue Jackson. Sure, he’s won some exhibition games. But Jackson is perilously close to joining the Mount Rushmore of coaches who exposed by the Hard Knocks cameras. Watching Jackson on the HBO show is borderline painful. He’s an odd mix of arrogance, sprinkled with a dash of delusion.

If the Browns start poorly, Jackson will be gone. I’ll give him till a tick after mid-season, this is Cleveland after all. At least we don’t have to rely on media leaks to see the dysfunction this time around. The Browns get a final edit of the Hard Knocks shows. Can you imagine the stuff we’re not seeing?

And if Jackson does go? Cleveland are loaded with young talent on both sides of the ball. A late-season coaching change could spur on the young Browns to finally crash the playoff party. Unfortunately, Jackson will be taking part in job interviews, explaining why his offensive coordinator was making personnel decisions while strapped into a contraption last used by Hannibal Lecter.

John Harbaugh will win coach of the year … by mistake

Here are the two scenarios, the Ravens head coach stumbles to succes:

Option A: Joe Flacco plays to Pro Bowl level. With good quarterback play supplementing a fantastic defense, the Ravens roll into the playoffs as a high AFC seed. Harbaugh gets credit for resisting the Lamar Jackson temptation.

Option B: Flacco bombs. He stinks. Harbaugh switches to Jackson. Jackson transforms the Ravens aesthetically and leads the team to the playoffs. Harbaugh is credited as an innovative visionary.

Either way, Harbaugh wins.

Johnny Manziel takes an NFL regular season snap

Johnny Manziel has struggled north of the border but there are teams who could still take a chance on him. Photograph: Canadian Press/REX/Shutterstock

You may not know this, but things aren’t exactly going great for Johnny Manziel north of the border. Manziel has been traded; he threw four picks in his first start; sustained an injury; now his job is in jeopardy.

Shocking, I know. It’s almost as though the NFL and CFL are as similar to taking a bath is to swimming in the ocean. They both involve water, but that’s about the extent of it. Canadian football uses three-downs, not four. Receivers are allowed a running start. The field is longer and wider. The two leagues don’t even agree on where to position the goalposts. The Canadians even give a point for punting, because of course they do.

And yet I still say: prepare for an NFL team to overlook his CFL struggles and give Manziel a shot at redemption.

Someone will talk themselves into it. When the injury bug hits and the quarterback market is resplendent with the Mark Sanchezes and Chad Hennes of this world, someone will take a gamble on Manziel. It doesn’t even matter how he performs on the field. If Manziel stays out of trouble, an NFL team will convince itself he’s a viable option.

The new helmet rule decides a playoff game

You just know it’s going to happen at this point. Don’t even fight it. Try not to get upset when it happens in a huge, legacy altering moment.

Adam Gase to be the first coach fired

I can talk myself into this Dolphins season going one of two ways:

1) Ryan Tannehill bounces back from his knee injury. He’s back to his best; perhaps he improves. He’s aided by a solid defense. The Dolphins pull off an upset or two and sneak their way into the playoffs.

2) Tannehill struggles to return from knee surgery. The same issues that have plagued the Dolphins defense over the past couple of years continue. Ndamukong Suh and Jarvis Landry prove to be major losses. People start to question Adam Gase’s culture-over-talent decision. Things go from bad to worse as the Jets usurp Miami for the second spot in the AFC East behind rookie phenom Sam Darnold. Gase is gone before Thanksgiving.

Patrick Mahomes to lead the league in interceptions

Patrick Mahomes looks forward to an exciting future. Photograph: Matt Marton/AP

Mahomes is going to be an all-time fun quarterback to watch for neutrals. He will be equal parts exhilarating and frustrating for Chiefs fans. He’s a gunner; he makes atypical throws typically.

He also makes bad decisions. His first year as a starter will have plenty of highs and lows. The Chiefs are banking that he gets the painful plays out of the way early and bottles his magic for a deep postseason run.

Mahomes has the talent to be an upper echelon quarterback for the next decade-plus. But it will take him a while to curb his base instincts; he’s constantly looking to hurl the ball downfield. As we’ve seen in preseason, that’s going to lead to bad decisions.

Leading the league in interceptions in your first season isn’t a career killer. Peyton Manning led the league in turnovers as a rookie. He went on to do OK. That’s unlikely to stop Chiefs fans from worrying when Mahomes hoists another 30-yard throw into double-coverage, though.

The NFLPA decertifies

The NFL’s players union and its members are on a collision course. Players have no trust in the league’s owners or the commissioner, Roger Goodell. They disagree on Goodell’s heavy-handed policing of off-the-field and on-field issues; changes to the rules; their pay; and a whole assortment of issues that the union conceded in the last round of collective bargaining negotiations.

The players also have no leverage. Union-owner negotiations are intrinsically unfair (remember: these people are supposed to be “partners”). Owners have more money. They can out-last players financially, particularly in a sport where wages aren’t guaranteed and careers are so short. It’s just not worth the fight, particularly when the majority of fans side with owners, ignoring the fact most of them are labor. They just want to watch football.

Sometimes the players are able to score minor wins, asking for fewer, less intense practices, rather than more money. There, the owners give ground: it impacts a coach’s job, not the owner’s wallet. That effect is magnified when the fight extends to Congress, which grants pro-sports leagues an antitrust exemption. Negotiations are tough.

Things will come to a head when the union and owners eventually agree on a new anthem policy. There isn’t going to be an outcome that pleases everyone: if they decide to keep teams in the locker room while the anthem plays, the president and his base will tee-off on the league; if they implement a must-stand policy, players will continue to protest racial injustice, whether kneeling during the anthem or otherwise.

The outcome of those negotiations could throw the league into chaos, particularly if players no longer support the decisions of union top-brass or seek an alternative route to the current CBA deal.

The next step: decertify the union. It’s something the former head man at the NFLPA, turned ESPN analyst, Dominique Foxworth, has advocated: a start-from-scratch upheaval of the player-to-owner system. Essentially, the players would no longer be “partners” with owners. They would be a trade association. They could then file antitrust suits against the league, citing the salary cap, franchise tag, and the all-encompassing power of the commissioner’s office.

Owners oust Goodell

It couldn’t happen, could it? Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

If the union decertifies, the league will be in turmoil: what if the players refuse to negotiate with Goodell? What would the owners do? This definitely isn’t going to happen. But it’s a fun thought experiment: who would replace Goodell if he was ever ousted

Predicting an internal hiring is boring. And it doesn’t have quite enough pizzazz for the NFL anyway. How about former president Barack Obama? What else is a not-yet-sixty sports fan to do with all his free time?

My early prediction – that he’d front an ownership group to buy the Chicago Bulls or the White Sox – doesn’t seem to be in play, though he did say in 2015 with GQ, “I have fantasized about being able to put together a team and how much fun that would be.” He’s not going to be the head of the NBA any time soon, either; NBA commissioner Adam Silver is too good. So, NFL head honcho it is.