The 5 o’clock club is published Wednesday to Saturday during the season, and aims to provide a forum for reader-driven discussion at a time of day when there isn’t much NFL news being published. Feel free to introduce topics that interest you in the comments below.
It started with D.J. Swearinger complaining repeatedly about other players joking around in practice. He said it a few times following a few losses — enough so that it became a theme. Journalists grabbed ahold of it as if Swearinger was criticizing coaching rather than players, and it began to grow legs as a theme and a story line to be pursued.