Monthly Archives: July 2018

2018 Season Expectations: Miami Dolphins

31 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by in Dan's Thoughts

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We’re just over a month away from the season getting underway and like any good fan of the NFL, it’s around this time I start forming some early expectation of my team – namely the Miami Dolphins.

Image credit: sportingnews.com

It’s a strange time to be a Dol-fan. In the space of 18 months we’ve gone from thinking we could make our first SuperBowl in over 25 years to just hoping we don’t embarrass ourselves too much in the coming season. And that’s not a strange feeling to be honest – any follower of the Dolphins will tell you that it’s a hell of a rollercoaster ride… albeit one that never quite hits the heights you’d like it to.

Roster-wise, it’s certainly a mixed bag. This was made all the more obvious when we launched our new uniforms a couple of months ago, only to really struggle to roll out any ‘big names’ to help the team to sell it. Ryan Tannehill is back after a year and a bit out (it seems a long long time since 2016 Week 13 when we last saw him!). I think this is the third time I’ve personally declared this as his last chance to shine and show he has what it takes. Believe it or not, he’s now 30, and entering his 6th season (7th if you count last season which he sat out), so this really is time to show us what he can do.

Image credit: sportsinjurypredictor.com (irony unintended!)

He’s lost his main tool in Jarvis Landry this off season, replaced with Danny Amendola, who is someone who has always impressed me. He has a real knack of performing in big games and brings some winning experience to a roster which so badly lacks it.

Speaking of Landry, I’m really looking forward to seeing how he’s settling in in Cleveland on this year’s hard knocks (which starts next week by the way, if you have NFL Gamepass). If you believe even half of what is being written in the media, to say he was not a happy-chappy in Miami would be an understatement. And I can understand it if I’m honest. He was never really given a chance to provide his QB with a long ball target while with us. Looking at the stats, almost 45% of his catches last year were within 3 yards of the Line of Scrimmage, with nearly a further 20% being either at or behind the line. It’s no wonder he was frustrated, knowing what he was capable of when he went down field.

Image credit: Cleveland.com

Defensively, we’re much the same as last year… which doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

Whatever happens, we’re less than 2 weeks away from the first pre-season game, and less than 40 days until the season kicks off properly. Whoever you’re supporting, I’d be really interested to hear how you’re feeling at this stage, and on a selfish note, how you think the Dolphins will do this year – drop me a line on Twitter and let me know.

Strap yourselves in. It’s going to be a bumpy ride…!

@TWFDan

As One Door Closes…

25 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by in Dan's Thoughts, Podcasts

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So, I’ve been thinking for a while about how to do this and I’m going to get straight to the point (but stick with me – it’s not all bad news!).

Firstly, it’s with real sadness that Gee and I would like to announce that the Wrong Football Podcast won’t be returning on a regular basis for the 2018 season. I know that will come as a surprise for both of our regular listeners (sorry, that’s an in joke) but while we’ve loved producing the pod and the opportunity for Gee and I to get together (well, virtually at least) and chew the fat offered up to us by the NFL on a weekly basis, regular life and ‘the day job’ getting in the way meant that it was becoming harder and harder for us to stick to a schedule and put together the quality content that we wanted to deliver.

Personally, I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve done with the pod. When we think that we were both absolute novices when we started, I’d like to think that we got pretty good at it by the end and were giving listeners some real good insight, analysis and opinion on the game we love. Not to mention that it allowed us to speak with some real passionate NFL fans at Wembley and interview a Superbowl Champion (Shaun Gayle) and NFL journeyman (Nick Ferguson), which absolutely blew us away and we can’t thank Nick, Shaun or NFL UK enough for allowing us the chance to do that.

While I’m thanking people, I should probably thank our long suffering other halves. Jenny and Rachael have put up with a lot to give us time to put the pod together each week, so thank you both.

The aim of every podcaster is to make it sound easy – almost effortless. The reality is something a little different. Putting together the pod has always been much more than just the hour long recording session each week. There’s games to watch, news to study, analysis to be done, scripts to write – not to mention the editing process which can take about two or three times as long as the recording itself. No matter how much you love the sport, and nattering with your friends about it, this grind takes its toll after almost 3 years, and fitting it around the rest of life’s ‘goings on’ becomes more difficult, which has ultimately lead to us taking this decision at this stage.

And while it’s ‘adios’ to a regular podcast, I wouldn’t say by any means that it’s over. We’ll still put together some specials (although we’ve not quite decided on what format they’ll take yet) so keep those subscriptions active wherever you procure your podcasts to make sure you don’t miss any of these. And of course The Wrong Football blog itself is going nowhere! If anything it’ll ramp up as alongside Gee’s regular posts he has kindly agreed to let me vent my footballing spleen as a guest blogger throughout the season. This is something I’m really looking forward to and I hope I can put together something half as entertaining as Gee’s insights! Oh, and my Dad is intent on continuing to challenge us on our footballing knowledge with his now famous ‘extra point’ so we’ll find some way to incorporate that too!!

So for now, that’s all we’ve got time for on The Wrong Football Podcast. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you again… soon!

I’ll let you insert your own ‘Gee Noise’ here!

@TWFDan

Playing with Overall Records

04 Wednesday Jul 2018

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18-07-04 Playing with Overall Records

We are truly in the quiet part of the NFL year, the organised team activities are done and the players are enjoying their last break before training camp starts and the grind until the end of the year begins.

However, it was a simple message from Dan that sent me on my latest excursion.

“Here’s one for you – going into this season, how many of the 32 teams have all time losing records?’

My immediate answer was that I wasn’t sure as I was hesitant to guess about win distributions and we know some teams have won a lot more games than others but the NFL has also been going a pretty long time now. So having got my book published and whilst beginning to think about this blog again I did the only thing I could under such circumstances – I went to pro-football-reference.com and I used their data to make a spreadsheet.

This simple answer is that there are fourteen teams going into the 2018 season with all-time losing records, including the Cincinnati Bengals, but why simply stop at the simple answer?

The team with the most wins despite their recent record are the Chicago Bears, which makes sense given that they are one of the earliest franchises in the league to be created. The team with the least wins make sense for similar reasons given that the Houston Texans were only created in 2002.

The team with the dubious honour of having most overall losses are the Arizona Cardinals who have racked up ninety-two more losses than the next nearest team the Detroit Lions but they have existed for a decade longer.

This is one of those times where the nature of American franchises really gives us a different experience because although the franchise that became the Arizona Cardinals was founded in 1920, they didn’t actually become the Arizona Cardinals until 1994 and begun life in Chicago and didn’t leave until1960.

The number that really interested me though was the win-loss percentages as this seems a better test of overall record and takes into account the different ages of the various franchises.

Top of this list are the Dallas Cowboys who in their fifty nine seasons have got a winning percentage of 57.3% but the entire top five are familiar names as they are in order the Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, New England Patriot, and especially for Dan fifth are the Miami Dolphins.

It surprised me that the Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t even make the top ten but it should be remembered that before 1972 the Steelers made the playoffs just once in 1947 and it wasn’t until Chuck Noll established them as winning franchise in the 1970s that things turned round for them.

And I thought the Bengals’ run in the 90s was bad!

The Baltimore Raven, who are of course the rebadged Browns franchise who didn’t get to keep the history (the historical records of the US franchise system are weird to us Europeans unused to clubs moving locations) are the only of the four later (i.e. post 1976) expansion teams to crack the top ten in win percentage. The Carolina Panthers are solidly mid-table being ranked eighteenth by win percentage whilst the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Houston Texans are come in twenty-seventh and thirtieth respectively.

For those of you waiting, the Cincinnati Bengals come in a lowly twenty-fifth by win percentage, just one place above the New York Jets who they match for total playoff appearances at fourteen although the Jets’ obvious counter to this is their one Super Bowl win but I’ll come to playoff achievement in a moment.

Before I do however, I’ll roll out the bottom five teams by win percentage, starting with one of two teams in the bottom five in win percentage to have a Super Bowl, namely the New Orleans Saints. Following them we have the Atlanta Falcons, the afore mentioned Houston Texans, the Arizona Cardinals and last in the league by win percentage going into this year are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who manage this feat whilst also having a Super Bowl win!

Now thanks to there being rival leagues we didn’t get the Super Bowl until the 1967 merger and it wasn’t until the third championship game that the name Super Bowl really stuck and was retroactively applied to the previous two championships.

The focus on the Super Bowl is understandable given that this is the format we know today, but I wanted to make a couple of comments about overall championships before I start counting Super Bowls and that is for one very simple reason, I want to start with a team that most people wouldn’t consider.

Never mind the Green Bay Packers’ thirteen championships and the Chicago Bears’ nine, I want to specifically mention the joint third ranked team who despite their recent record have a winning record and eight championships, yes that’s right folks – the hapless now promising Cleveland Browns were formidable before the Super Bowl era. I would like to think that people are aware of Jim Brown, who was a great running back and won a championship with the Browns in 1964 as part of a hall of fame career but the Browns also won four AAFC Championships between 1946 – 1949 and four NFL Championships in 1950, 1954, and 1955 as well as the one with Jim Brown in 1964.

Despite their recent run the New England Patriots are not even in the top five of teams by all championships but if we switch to Super Bowls their five is good enough for third. The leader thanks to their one for the thumb are the Pittsburgh Steelers and yes if you are paying attention that does mean that the only AFC North without any championships are the Cincinnati Bengals.

There are five other teams that have never won any kind of championship and thirteen who have never won a Super Bowl. The only two teams older than the Bengals who have never won a championship are the Atlanta Falcons founded in 1966 and the Minnesota Vikings founded in 1961.

And on that depressing note let us step away from historical records, unless you have any questions about your teams – you know where to find me.