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Divisional Picks & Wildcard Wrap-up!

09 Wednesday Jan 2019

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We head to the Divisional games this week which is always an exciting time as those with Wildcard byes get back into the mix. Quicker roundup from me this week, as I’m a) late, and b) short on time!

So picks-wise, I was 1-3, which I’m not happy with, although the one I did get was pretty convincing (despite a late charge from the Ravens!). That being said, there were a couple of pretty close ones. The Bears will feel really disappointed about the end of their game, and subsequently their season, which finished with a kick that rebounded off not just one, but two posts – a kick which would have seen them go on to face the Rams this weekend.

Go back and have a look at the Bears mascot’s reaction to the missed kick if you haven’t already!

I heard an interesting fact over the weekend: Since 2013, no team who has played in Wildcard week has made it to the Super Bowl. Especially interesting as between 2002 and 2012, there were 9 wildcard week teams who made it to the big game.

And so with that, it’s onto my divisional picks, and we’ll start with Saturday evening’s AFC clash between the Colts (6) and Chiefs (1). Indianapolis are looking good and were absolutely dominant against the Texans last weekend. That being said, the Chiefs are 1st seed for a reason and they’ve been equally impressive. Believe it or not though, as good as the Kansas Offence has been this year (ranked 1st in the league), their defence ranks at 31st! I think they’re going to struggle this year, and I’m going to make a big call for the Indianapolis Colts to take this week’s game and head to the Conference championships.

Early Sunday morning will see the Rams (2) back in action as they host the Cowboys (4) in what I think will be the game of the weekend, and one I might even try to stay up and watch live. This genuinely could go either way, for me. Form means a lot when it comes to this stage of the year, and while the Cowboys are definitely the form team of the tie, the Rams were patchy towards the back end of the year after a fantastic start. As much as it pains me to say it (see my bet update below!!) but I think the Dallas Cowboys will be moving on.

Onto Sunday evening, and we’ve got the Chargers (5) travelling to Foxborough to face the Patriots (2). I like the Chargers a lot, and I think they definitely could have what it takes to take the game. I’m hesitant to do this as I feel I’m doing the typical ‘English’ thing and backing the underdogs in every game so far, but I am going to go with the LA Chargers for the win.

That stops here though I’m afraid. The Saints (1) face the Eagles (6) in the final game of the weekend, which I think is going to be the end of Nick Foles’ playoff run. The Saints have looked great all year, and I think they’re pretty much a shoe in here to get into the Conference game, so I’m picking the New Orleans Saints.

If my picks are all correct (and lets be honest, they won’t be!), that’ll give us Colts/Chargers and Cowboys/Saints Conference games, which would be pretty good… although at this stage, there’s no bad sounding games.

Finally, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for – my bet update:

I should really be cashing out as I don’t think they’re going to win this weekend, but for your entertainment, dear reader, I’ll keep it there. By the way, you owe me a fiver.

Who are your picks this week? Do you think I’m wrong in picking the lower ranked team in 3 of the 4 games this weekend? Drop me a line on Twitter and lets have a chat!

Until next time…

@TWFDan

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2018 Saturday Picks 2: The Revenge

22 Saturday Dec 2018

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It was a terrible week to go ice cold with my picks, which as I mentioned in this week’s blog post gives Dan’s Dad a five point lead with two week’s left. I just hope I can turn things round and make the score respectable if not prevent the blog going purple and gold, which takes us to our second round of Saturday picks.

Gee:    Week 15   5-11            Overall   113-111
Dan:    Week 15   9-7              Overall   109-115

Washington @ Titans (-10.5)

This is a huge line considering that the Tennessee Titans only have one more win than Washington and yes the team from the nation’s capital are much more injured and down to their fourth quarterback of the season, but having beaten the Jaguars last week it feels like they will keep this game more competitive than eleven points. I’m slightly nervous as the Titans have been a team I have struggled to pick all season and they shut out the Giants last week, but my spreadsheet agrees with my gut feeling and so I’m going to back Washington.

Gee’s Pick:       Washington
Dan’s Pick:       Titans

Ravens @ Chargers (-4.5)

I’m really looking forward to this game and I hope to able to watch it at some point on Sunday. The LA Chargers are right up there with any team in the league, but they don’t exactly have a huge home field advantage and this week they welcome a Baltimore Ravens team who have been competitive for a number of weeks now and who are still in the hunt for the playoffs. It might be that the Chargers run out winners, but I’m not hugely confident in that and I like the Ravens to keep it closer than five thanks to their tough defence and ability to run the ball.

Gee’s Pick:       Ravens
Dan’s Pick:       Ravens

I’ll leave you with a reminder of this week’s trivia question.

‘In Week 3 the Browns beat the Jets 20 – 17, but how many days, and against whom, prior to Sept 20 is it since they had last won? As it’s Christmas I’ll allow you 25 days either way but give 3 points for an exact hit.’

AAF: Donald and Suh

16 Sunday Sep 2018

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In my first amateur adventures in film of the new season I decided to take a look at the LA Rams defence and how they would use their new pairing of defensive tackles Ndamukong Suh and Aaron Donald.

The quick answer to this is flexibly and often not at tackles. I don’t want to read too much into this game as it was the first one of the season, Aaron Donald basically missed all of the pre-season, and who am I to question Wade Philips but I am a little concerned. Generally I think the best coaches mould their system to make best use of the players available but with these two high profile tackles things felt a little forced. In what looked to be their base 3-4 defence ,Suh was playing the nose tackle whilst Donald played end. There were also several times during the first half where in passing situations where they would line up with four linemen and have Suh playing as an end. This seemed to shift in the second half to having both Suh and Donald play tackle but with wide gap between them as they lined up over the offensive guards outside shoulders.

The sum of all this was that Donald flashed the quickness and power that has made him one of the most effective defensive players in the game, but I’m not sure they made Derek Carr uncomfortable enough up the middle. For a lot of this game Carr was able to get the ball out before the pass rush got there and he was often able to step up in the pocket. That said, Carr didn’t exactly play well and the Rams were able to generate three interceptions if only sacking Carr once.

I can’t help but wonder what more of a rotation where Sun and Donald both get to rush from the interior and both in passing downs might truly terrify offences. I would want to maximise the talent the Rams have at defensive line by getting both Donald and Suh closer to the quarterback and pushing the pocket more. I’d want to be more aggressive and not have them read and react but we shouldn’t read too much into the first game. This is one to watch as it develops through the season and I certainly wouldn’t bet against Wade Philips turning the volatile talent he has at his disposal into a fearsome unit. So let’s see how these two players learn to work best together, but right now I find it more of a watching brief than an inspiring start.

Transitioning into the New Season

09 Sunday Sep 2018

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18-09-09 Wentz and Foles

Image Credit: sportingnews.com

So I thought I would take this last Sunday without coaching tape to talk about I would write a little about the last Hard Knocks episode and the first game of the season.

I mentioned last week that the timing of the last episode is always slightly off as the cuts, which are the big feature of the last show are problematic to watch as your intruding on very difficult time for the players involved and the tension is often already gone as the cuts are big news so you often already know who has and hasn’t made it. This is even more so here in the UK with our delayed showing so we couldn’t watch episode five until the day of the start of the season.

This week’s episode got to the game more quickly as the ending is focussed around the cuts, but it was interesting to see Rogan Broback go into the game, start tight and then settle in before throwing a sharp touchdown price. However, this year none of the bubble players that have been featured this season made the team with even Carl Nassib getting cut a day later after the Browns were down to fifty-three to faclilitate a roster move and unusually, he was the only player who got picked up by the time the episode was aired or as far as I can tell now. It has to be hard for Nate Orchard who had a pick six interception in the final game to not make the roster or get picked up. We saw Devon Cajuste working on his blocking and keep trying, but whilst he’s apparently had interest from teams, none of them have sought to pick up the converted tight end yet but he could get a look as injuries start to pile up as could Orchard.

We then moved from bottom of the roster moves to the excitement of the new season that didn’t quite take off on Thursday night as the Atlanta Falcons travelled to Philadelphia to face the Super Bowl champion Eagles. If there is a real worry for the NFL office from this game it was the number of penalties in this game and whilst it wasn’t full of leading with the head penalties there were twenty-six flags for a total of two hundred and thirty-six yards.

For the Falcons the frustration was that they moved the ball well and Julio Jones looked really good but they were flat bad in the red zone and how Jones is off the field as often as he seems to be close the goal line I do not know. At least make your opponent cover the most dangerous skills player you have! I was also a little worried by some of Matt Ryan’s throws and he did not live up to the contract he just signed. It’s absolutely not time to panic, if your home record is good you only have to win a few games on the road to get to the playoffs but the Falcons were right there and couldn’t win the game.

As for the Eagles, the defence is still based on a fearsome pass rush and looked good but the clamour for Carson Wentz to get back into the game will only rise after this performance by Nick Foles. However, the team got the win and I’d forgotten what an effect having Darren Sproles has on the offence. They showed flashes and perhaps Foles will always win games where he has a catch but the Eagles will be looking to improve next week.

The important thing in week one never mind the opening game is not to over react but let’s hope there are few less flags flying in the rest of the games as we get going with the rest of the week one.

Learning From Your Mistakes

19 Sunday Aug 2018

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18-08-19 Baker Mayfield

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You learn by your mistakes and pre-season is one of those odd times for me as I’m trying to focus in on games to follow a team through the pre-season process but without coaching tape you miss a lot for certain positions. Still the benefit of following the Hard Knocks team is that you get another’s perspective on the game to what you saw in the following week’s episode and so on to the Cleveland Browns.

I’m still not sure about the Antonio Calloway saga as you never quite how much is created by the editing as yes he looked like a player carrying a secret in practice and then he gets pulled into a meeting with Hue Jackson and John Dorsey when the news of his police citation breaks. However, it didn’t look like he covered everything the police found in his car, and he was driving with a suspended licence. The coaches approach appears to be make him earn his place back on the team, so after an apology to the team he is made to play every down on offence. There was a clip of Todd Haley challenging Jarvis Landry to take Calloway under his wing as they needed him and it was what Larry Fitzgerald would do. I can’t help feeling that if Calloway was that important, and he did make a huge play for a touchdown, that the front office and coaches would be making a plan themselves to help the young rookie draft pick as a second troubled receiver is not what this franchise really needs.

In other bits from Hard Knocks that I made notes of whilst watching the game but failed to write up in covering last week’s Browns game was the two touchdowns for tight David Njoku who made a nice couple of catches. Also making a couple of good catches was Rashard Higgins. However, I couldn’t know that they were going to focus in on journeyman tight end Devon Cajuste and it was one of those end of game parts that wouldn’t grab you unless you knew the back story and you can’t help but pull for the guy and his family. It is always nice to see the human side of players and following on from our drumming linebacker from week one this week we had Njoku’s meditation and Myles Garrett professing that before he was a man who loved to hit people he was a boy who loved to write.

So onto this week’s game and the Browns hosted the Buffalo Bills in a game they lost but can take things from. The Browns started out the game well with the defence stopping the Bills from moving the ball and establishing the run, which they had struggled with last week. In fact both Carlos Hyde and Nick Chubb had multiple good runs and frankly they offence as a whole should have scored more than seven points in the first quarter. The balance of the Browns quarterback room looks really good with Tyrod Taylor being an excellent role model for Baker Mayfield to learn from in terms of how to be a pro but Mayfield continues to impress. For me it is his active feet as much as anything that impresses me as he has good pocket movement and whilst he can scramble it’s the shifting in the pocket and making the throw that makes it look like the Browns might finally have a franchise quarterback if Mayfield develops and the fact that they don’t have to throw him in will help with this development. This is particularly true as the Bills seemed to get a lot of pressure in this game and as the game went on the Browns found it harder to move the ball. In fact once Drew Stanton came into the game in the fourth quarter they basically failed to move the ball despite only being two points behind thanks to a missed extra point.

One of the things that is still troubling for the Browns is the penalties and mistakes the team is making. They had three offensive pass interference penalties in this game with the third by Cajuste wiping out a touchdown, which offsets the nice catch and run he had earlier in the drive that went for twenty-six yards. The defence was not immune either with mistakes in coverage costing them a touchdown when Nick O’Leary was wide open for the second time in the same drive. There were good moments on defence such as when linebacker Mychal Kendricks caught the eye penetrating through the offence line and making a tackle for a loss on a run play or safety Derrick Kindred blitzing from the edge for a sack and they were generally stout, but they will have to watch the line between aggressive and over aggressive if they want to win tight games.

I’m wary of the Hard Knocks effect that makes you think a team is better than it is through familiarisation and rooting for people you know better, but there was a real mixture of good and bad in this game. Still, next week’s third game is the dress rehearsal of pre-season and so is the game that we can take the most from. You can’t really know until the regular season gets going how a team will fare but whilst there are still plenty of questions surrounding the Browns and how the coaching staff is working, I can’t help feel they will be a tougher game this season but all the long suffering Browns want are wins.

Taking a Knee

24 Sunday Sep 2017

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I was planning to write about the news that the brain of Aaron Hernandez showed he had CTE at age twenty-seven, and when the time is right I will cover concussions again, but things have been somewhat overtaken by events in the United States and in particular the comment by Donald Trump at a rally on Friday night.

The patriotism of your average American often looks strange, at least to my eyes, not having grown up pledging allegiance to a flag, or having the national anthem played before every sports game. There are cultural and historical reasons for these differences and I don’t have time to go through them all here.

However, the argument surrounding players kneeling to protest social injustice escalated when Donald Trump called for players to be fired if they knelt for the anthem, and that people should leave games if one player knelt. Sadly, Trump knows what he is doing, and is playing to his supporters, whilst disregarding a powerful part of America’s history.

The players that knelt are exercising their constitutional right to peaceful protest, and yes for some this is troublesome because of the importance of the flag and anthem. Yet no one can deny that this has sparked conversation in a country that appears to be increasingly divided. The use of peaceful protest is what drove the civil rights movement in the sixties, and it is saddening to see Trump denounce these actions in a way designed to increase division.

There are those that will decry the entry of politics into their sport, and will complain that they come to football to escape the world. To an extent I understand why you might say this, but given the reaction and what is happening in America these conversations are too important not to have and if anything, I can see more players kneeling this weekend in reaction to the President’s comments.

It is all too often that the players of a sport have their humanity overlooked, with us focusing on their actions on the field, and their failures off it. However, NFL players have a long history of charitable work, and you only have to look at the actions of JJ Watt in reaction to the flooding in Houston to see what a powerful force that can be.

Sadly Colin Kaepernick is already paying the price for being the spark last season, and whilst I don’t believe there is official collusion by the owners to shut him out of the league, the idea that Kaepernick is not worthy of a roster spot in the league is simply not true. The movement he started though has continued, with engagement on the issues by many players running alongside continuing protests.

The eyes were already going to be on the NFL this weekend, but it will be more than football that occupies our minds, and frankly under the circumstances, that is at it should be.

The Tao of The Wrong Football

06 Sunday Aug 2017

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Training camps have started and with the Hall of Fame game out of the way, preseason football starts in earnest in the coming week.

Dan and I have been podcasting roughly every other week for a while now, and this blog has been bubbling under since April , but if I don’t get it written soon then it won’t happen so embracing Andrew Brandt’s maxim that deadlines spur action, let’s talk a little bit about our plans for the upcoming season.

The idea for this blog post was hatched over a pub table as we started to make plans for the new season, and it is slightly scary that this was already nearly four months ago. I’m now heading into my fourth season of blogging about the NFL and I have always tried to find ways to improve as a writer and make the blog better. Dan was involved from the start through our pick competition and after a season and a half came to me with the idea of us doing a podcast, which I was very happy to do as long as it was his baby and so Dan became a podcast producer.

I like to take time off during the offseason to refresh, and so whilst still following the draft and free agency, I lay off the writing although if I can I’ll read some books about coaching/American Football. One of the books that left a lasting impression on me was Pete Carroll’s Win Forever – as it crystallised one of the things that I had come to believe about successful sports teams. I do not believe there is only one way to run an NFL franchise that can bring you success, but I do think it is important that there is a coherent approach, and it is surprising how often it feels like there isn’t one guiding a team. In his book Carroll lays out how he came to believe it is vitally important for a coach to set down his coaching philosophy so you can explain it and enact it, and he takes you through his and invites you to come up with one of your own.

I could never get mine down below the twenty-five word target, which given some of my posts on here and the fact that I write novels, perhaps should not be a surprise. But it did set me thinking.

So, whilst talking about our plans for the new season, how to balance the work involved with our day jobs and other hobbies, I thought we should try to flesh out the guiding philosophy of the site.

In the about page of the site, that was pretty much written when the site was setup back in 2014, I set out the goals as follows:

“This site shall be a place of reasoned arguments, opinions, and factual writing unless things go very wrong for the Bengals. There will be traditional film study and analytics, as both have things to offer the football fan, and it gives me the opportunity to be wholly wrong in more than one area.”

This has not changed in three seasons and whilst is still a reasonable place to start, the way that I write on this site as I’ve tried to improve what I do and make it more manageable with the rest of my life has definitely evolved.

So I took the notes I had used to try to craft a philosophy having read Carroll’s book and started to adapt them to the blog. I also asked Dan to make a list of his personal characteristics, which turned out to be not too dissimilar to mine:

Gee: competitive, obsessive, patient, engineer, drummer, writer, goal orientated, scientific approach

Dan: driven, competitive, persevering, improvement oriented, fanatical, organised.

It probably makes sense given our shared interests in football and music, our time spent together in bands, and the similarities in the above lists that during our time working together on the podcast there has been hard work, but never been any conflict. There has been plenty of constructive criticism, but nothing coming close to an argument.

Using the above lists I fleshed out the other notes I had been taking and having worked it through with Dan, I will now lay them out for you.

“In an infinite universe, all things are possible, but anything worth doing is too complex to guarantee success so all you can do is commit to the best possible process to optimise your outcome.”

It is not quite Bill Walsh’s book title, The Score Takes Care of Itself, but I love physics and I wanted to stress the universalness of the guiding philosophy.

Dan put in his list of characteristics improvement orientated, and I very much believe in practice and the idea that you improve through multiple incremental steps. This is something you will often hear mentioned by sports teams with a technical focus such as British cycling, but for me it is also born out of being an engineer and trying to take a scientific approach to things.

As an IT engineer, when you have a strange new problem to solve, you don’t just dive in and start randomly changing things. You have to do your research and then work through the problem systematically, changing one thing at a time so you can eliminate possibilities and identify the true source of the problem. I think this approach to diagnostics and problem solving can pretty much be applied to anything.

I also think it is important to focus on what you can control, i.e. the content and how you produce it. So we will focus on continuing to assess and improve what we do so the site does not stand still but keeps moving forward.

So if this is the guiding philosophy, how do we do this and what are we actually aiming for?

The aims are fairly straightforward:

  1. To entertain and inform
  2. We will not be afraid to be wrong or tackle big issues, but we will not lecture
  3. Endeavour to tell the whole story and embrace nuance.

Mostly these speak for themselves, but I will expand a little as these aims are born out of something I wanted to embrace about blogging. I have never set out to chase traffic, this site was setup to help me get better at writing by giving me a structured outlet to practice, but this also meant I was free to write how I wanted. You will probably have heard me talk about the hot take culture on the podcast, but in case you have not I dislike it intensely. There is nothing wrong with taking a position, in fact there is no point in endlessly hedging and saying nothing, but this should be a position you genuinely believe in rather than an a point made to artificially create an argument between two people or generate traffic. Life is infinitely complex, and this can be reflected in sport, and so should in my opinion be reflected in thoughtful commentary, which can still be fun!

It also doesn’t hurt to demonstrate that it is possible to disagree respectfully and to engage in thoughtful discussion rather than dismiss out of hand any point you disagree with. A cursory look round the internet might show how seldom this idea is observed these days.

Given these aims, what are the rules that we put in place to ensure this happens? Well in truth, given the way we work that comes down to two things:

  1. Produce the best content you can
  2. Own your role and trust in each other

Rule one works because we are both trying to improve what we do with a guiding philosophy born out of an existing approach rather than trying to apply an external idea we’ve borrowed and trying to make fit. Stated on its own, rule one is meaningless, but within the context of what I have laid out it is all that is required. Essentially it is a reminder.

Rule two was born out of necessity, but is also grounded in something I’ve come to believe through over twenty years of playing in bands. When Dan came to me about the podcast, I had to be practical as I was already watching games and writing a blog whilst leading a busy life and not wanting to be disowned by my partner. I wanted to try it, but I made sure to let Dan know that it had to be his project. He writes the notes and plans the pod, edits our separate recordings into a coherent conversation and sorts out distribution. We collaborate on news stories in terms of discussing stories, but he basically runs the show and does a great job.

The best bands I have been in have been based around everyone having an equal say, and using the best idea no matter whose it was. This only works if you take care of what you are meant to, and trust the others to do the same.

Circling back to football, it is also how a team has to operate as on every play, elven people are working together to carry out a set sequence of actions, which works best if everybody focuses on their own role and trust the others to do the same i.e. teamwork. The rule should speak for itself, but it is good to have the reminder.

So there you have it, the Tao of The Wrong Football.

It is not easy to be a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals right now

07 Sunday May 2017

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It is not easy to be a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals right now.

I woke up Saturday morning, a second draft day with two picks having taken place overnight, what players had been added to the roster? Then I read the story and my heart sank.

Joe Mixon is a name notorious to many, and had been one of the major discussion points leading up to the draft. There were other players in the draft with a recent history of violence, including a player selected in the first round who has recently been accused of rape, but with the surveillance video of the Mixon assault having been leaked, the evidence was there for all to see and Mixon was the first name discussed with major off-field issues.

For the record I have not watched the video, much like the Ray Rice video I don’t feel the need to witness one of the worse days the victim will ever have to face. In the particular case of Mixon, after exchanging words with Amelia Molitor, Molitor shoved and then slapped Mixon who responded by punching her in the face. Molitor fell to the floor, her face slamming into a table on the way past, leaving her with four facial fractures, including a broken jaw.

Unlike Ray Rice, who at age twenty-seven was coming towards the end of his running back career when he was suspended for the season, Mixon is a talented running back who is under twenty-one and enters the league ready to play, and so the Bengals decided that with the 48th pick of the draft, that he was worth the risk.

Male violence is sadly all too common, and is a societal problem not just one for NFL players. Overwhelmingly violence towards women and girls is carried out by men, and whilst men can be victims of domestic violence and women can be perpetrators, most violence – whether against women or men is perpetrated by men.

There is an argument for second chances, and for not only punishment but for rehabilitation. Mixon received a one-year deferred sentence and was ordered to undergo counselling along with 100 hours of community service. The assault occurred in 2014, and Mixon was suspended from football for the following year.

I’m not an expert on the sentencing of violent crimes, and not sure there is a definite correlation between circumstances and punishment, nor do I particularly like judges to be forced to give out specific sentences under restricted guidelines. To me the separation of powers that should be a part of well-structured democracy means that judges should have the freedom to interpret the law as best they can. However, I can’t help but feel that a sentence such as the one Mixon received is in part due to his status as a well know promising football player.

Still he has complied with the restrictions and by all accounts is still undergoing counselling and in his first interview as a Bengal has talked about controlling situations he places himself in and controlling his responses.

In the face of this it is worth noting that Mixon had a confrontation with a parking attendant after received a parking citation in 2016 where he ripped up the citations and threw them in the face of the attendant before inching forward with his vehicle to intimidate the office. This was on university property and he was suspended for a game.

On the other hand, he has recently settled a civil case brought by Molitor and they met to express their regrets. That said, Molitor is still dealing with the after affects of the assault, the psychological remaining long after the body has healed, and it is hard to see how the video being so widely distributed can do anything other than pick at the scars left behind. This is the legacy of violence even before social media and mass video made such moments so much harder to escape.

You can see how the Bengals are approaching the pick of Mixon from this article where you will see some familiar information.

We’ve had various NFL draft commentators talk about Mixon’s talent and referencing his off-field issues but not engage about them.

We’ve heard that only four teams were prepared to pick Mixon, although there are plenty of other players with violent incidents in the draft, and many of them were picked. There just wasn’t video evidence.

The NFL’s punishment for Mixon was to ban him from their combine event, which is a glorified prospect sports day in coverage, but for the team is mostly about getting to interview prospects, take accurate measurements, and carry out their own health checks.

I will refrain from my usual detailed criticism of Roger Goodell’s approach to discipline, and simply say that this so called punishment only really means that teams will have to go to a player’s pro day held at the university, and so this is not so much a punishment as a way for the NFL to not have to deal with such a player being at their combine event, by not having him be there. For the record, all thirty-two teams had a scout at Joe Mixon’s college pro day.

The sad fact is that this is not going away, and nor is the dilemma surrounding it. The Kansas City Chiefs faced this exact situation last year when they selected Tyreek Hill last year in the fifth round and he played excellently for them. Mina Kimes wrote an excellent piece entitled The uncomfortable reality of Tyreek Hill’s success and I’d highly encourage you to read it if you are not already familiar with it.

In fact go read it – it covers everything that is difficult about this topic, and then come back here.

Joe Mixon hasn’t even played a down for the Bengals and I know that I don’ want them to have picked him. The hard headed say that if you are going to pick such a player, then you might as well make sure you get the player you want and not worry about where he is picked. You have already made that decision. It’s just hard to apply the usual draft equation in this situation. The discussion of risk vs talent is simply not appropriate and I think I would feel like this if Mixon had been picked up as an undrafted free agent.

We can probably agree that there is no simple solution to this, and that we should keep having these conversations and that we should feel uncomfortable. Hell it should make us angry.

I’m disappointed that the Bengals picked Joe Mixon. I cannot see a world where I’m actively cheering on the player when I know what he has done. There have already been calls for a boycott of Bengals games in local papers, and to donate money to charity instead, certainly the money I was thinking of spending on a new jersey will go to a charity in the UK. I’m not pulling away from the Bengals as a team, I feel that would be cheating, I’ll watch every snap as usual and I will document what happens. I’ll be evaluating Mixon the player and how he acts. I will be just as conflicted. The joy has gone and may well never come back.

In finishing up I keep coming back to something I read whilst preparing to write this blog post. The Counting Dead Women Campaign is the work of Karen Ingala Smith, and is focussed on the documenting of male violence against women. One final piece of homework for you, read If we’re serious about ending men’s violence against women and girls, we need to listen to feminists, then find one to listen to.

The Bengals Offseason: Hope Turns to Nerves

02 Sunday Apr 2017

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It’s a little earlier than I usually like to delve back into football in the offseason, but with the bulk of free agency over, the hope of the offseason had already turned to worry for this Bengals fan. I thought I’d write a little bit about this rather than trying to cover all the signings and moves that have just taken place, and hopefully reflect some thoughts on the wider situation.

There are many ways to build a roster in the NFL, and the Cincinnati Bengals are very much a team who believe in draft and develop rather than spending wildly in free agency. This is an approach that I very much agree with, but it is worth taking note that the New York Giants spent a lot in free agency last year and significantly improved their defence. I think the trick is to make sure you get the right kind of players at the right kind of price, which sounds pretty trite, but given that there are thirty-two teams competing for the same players (theoretically) then as the saying goes, it only takes one a*#?hole, to drive up the price.

Still, the focus for the Bengals was always going to be resigning their free-agents, and this is where things got interesting for the Bengals and their fans. One of the problems the team had last season was protecting Andy Dalton, particularly as Cedric Ogbuehi seemed to struggle at right tackle. With two offensive line starters up for free agency, this would seem like a resigning priority along with cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick. However, the only player out of these three priority players who did resign with the Bengals was Kirkpatrick. I was not entirely surprised that right guard Kevin Zeitler was signed elsewhere as Bengals.com editor Geoff Hobson had been writing about the philosophy of Bengals being not to invest heavily at the guard position, and with the Cleveland Browns having a huge amount of cap space, they could simply offer much more money than the Bengals were prepared to pay. I was hopeful that stalwart left tackle Andrew Whitworth would play another season, but at thirty-five years old the LA Rams were prepared to give Whitworth a multi-year deal that was too rich for the Bengals to compete with.

And like that, the best two players on the offensive season last season are no longer Bengals and the commentary has not been good about this. I am worried, but there is at least a working plan behind these moves that I am not sure have been explored enough in the media. Although, I could have easily missed the discussion.

No one would want to lose their long term left tackle when there have been few signs of regression in his play, and Kevin Zeitler was one of the best right guards in the league going into a second contract. Nor is the upheaval in the offensive line helpful when this is the position group that most relies on continuity on the team.

However, one of the strengths of the New England Patriots, and something that Bill Belichick is often praised for is the team’s ability to let go players at the right time, and they would rather let a player go too early than a year too late. It is not exactly fair to compare Marivn Lewis to one of the greatest coaches in the game, and nor does Lewis have the control of personnel that Belichick has, but I can at least see the plan the Bengals have in place.

Two years ago the Bengals drafted two tackles in the first two rounds, and this was clearly the start of their succession plan. Last offseason the Bengals did not resign Andre Smith and Ogbuehi was set to start at right tackle after missing most of his rookie season recovering from the knee injury he had when drafted. I don’t think it is controversial to say that this did not go well, and now he will be starting at left tackle in place of one of the best tackles in the league. However, he spent the majority of his time in college playing left tackle, and whilst his struggles with the bull rush will not simply disappear, it seems too often that people think you can just swap linemen between the right and left sides of the line. These days there are more quality pass rushers coming from the left side of the defence, and so your right tackle needs to be able to hold up in pass protection. I’m not sure how different your right and left tackle need to be as this depends greatly on scheme, opponent, and philosophy, but I do worry about the assumption that you can move linemen around and so I’m hoping that Ogbuehi does better in what could be his more natural position.

The problem is that we can’t know until the live games start. The Bengals have resigned Andre Simth, but the talk is that he will be replacing Zeitler at right guard, which is another change in position although at least it will be a right handed stance.

Apart from the resigning of receiver Brandon LaFell and running back Cedric Peerman, the only other big moves the Bengals made was to sign twenty-six year old middle linebacker Kevin Minter from the Arizona Cardinals and released long term starter Rey Maualuga. This looks to be a like a straight replacement, but also signals a shift in philosophy away from the fierce hitting Maualuga who was excellent against the run, but in the modern NFL was nearly limited to a two down player thanks to the spread formations and passing attacks that now dominate the league. I am sorry to see Maualuga to go, but this is a move that makes a lot of sense to me, and whilst not a splashy move, by releasing both the thirty year old Maualuga and the thirty-five year old Kevin Dansby the Bengals have got a lot younger at a position that is increasing having to be able to cover in the open.

It is usually when a team gets outside of their plan that they get into trouble. I’m sure those in the front office would argue that they have execute several important moves, but there has been a lot of talent leave the team in recent years. In fairness, a large percentage were older players, and the Bengals would have liked to keep one of the two receivers they lost last year. The offensive line worries me thought, and will do until they prove themselves on the field no matter how many positive offseason pieces I read on player training. I am not panicking however, and with the draft coming up and the Bengals having elven picks thanks to the formula that grants compensatory picks to a team for lost free agents, I can see how they can build for next season. There is a lot on the line for Marvin Lewis, but if feels like I have been writing that a lot over the last few years, but there can only be so many failures to win a playoff game before something changes. There is no guarantee that would bring success, and Mike Brown is fairly famously loyal and not willing to waste money, either to cut players or fired coaches, but even his patience can only stretch so far.

For now, there’s the nerves and hope of the offseason, so back to other things to keep me distracted. I’ll write again around draft time.

Do I have to watch the Pro Bowl?

29 Sunday Jan 2017

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With only one real game left, and the offseason already under way for most teams, it is a slightly strange time of year. I have deliberately stayed away from looking at the Super Bowl matchup as there is another week to go and so there’s plenty of time to start looking at the two teams facing off for the grand prize of the season.

It feels weird to me, that with the NFL’s focus on being a year round sport they don’t hold the start of the offseason program until after the end of the playoffs. The teams are rushing to fill their coaching staffs having already hired their new head coaches, whilst the best coordinators are likely having to either juggle their prep for the most important games of the season with interviewing when they can, or don’t get a look in. It is generally expected that the San Francisco 49ers are going to hire Kyle Shanahan as their new head coach, and if they do so  he will be the only Super Bowl bound coordinator to get a job, which means the other teams are not picking from the best staffs, which in of itself is odd. It also puts him at a disadvantage when filling his own coaching staff as teams have already been scrambling to make hires, and whilst I’m sure Shanahan would deny it, the situation has to be some kind of distraction whilst preparing for games although certainly the Falcons offence doesn’t look to have missed a beat.

It is only in recent years that I do occasionally watch the Pro Bowl because I’m in the habit of catching up with the games and I am not quite ready to head into the offseason yet. The blog will be quieter over the coming months, but much like football is a year round prospect, so is my writing. I’ll be focussing on publishing a sequel to the book that was published last year and as ever I’ll be self-scouting the blog and looking to see what I can do better next year. I follow the news like everyone else in the offseason, but as I have never found a way into the college game I’m not in a position to write from strength about the draft process and whilst I’ll pick up the preseason as ever, I’ll be taking the time to learn other things. That said, I’ll try to post things around key moments like free agency and the draft, I follow all year even if I don’t always write about them.

As for the NFL, most coaches are already preparing for the draft and the offseason, and it will soon be the season of hope for all fans. However, there is the minor matter of the Super Bowl to be played next week, and whilst we are always looking for the next thing, let’s take our time and savour what remains of the current season. We are offered an intriguing matchup of offence against defence, and what is sometimes called the evil empire up against a Falcons team whose owner is sending all of the team’s employees to Houston for the Super Bowl. This is not unheard of as both the Panthers and the Broncos did this last season, but it is a nice gesture and a not inexpensive one.

Still with all the hype and stories to come, I am looking forward to the game itself, and in particular looking at the coaching tape of the Falcons offence against the Patriots defence. Let’s just hope we get as good a game as we are all hoping for. Roll on Super Bowl LI!

Do I have to watch the Pro Bowl?