Early Season Frustrations

21 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in Picks Competition, Thursday Night Football

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It is not just that the Bengals have got off to an 0-2 start that has me frustrated at the start of the season, although it doesn’t help.

In Europe we are bedding a brand new NFL Gamepass site, and whilst there are some good points like the quality of the streams now that they are being hosted over here, and being able to download games to your tablet or phone for watching at a later date, there are plenty of teething issues. A quick search will find you talk of this video is not available in your region, which appears to be some kind of connection/cache issue.

More frustrating are the tools that we have so far lost, that we were used to in the old system. The video player is more basic, and we are no longer able to navigate via play by play bookmarks. Even more difficult for someone like myself, is that the coaching tape is not available yet and all I’ve heard so far is that it will be added soon. Given that this is one of my favourite things about having Gamepass, not to mention that it is putting on hold my regular tape break downs here on the blog, it is really frustrating not to have it already.

So if the presentation is getting there, but missing key things I am used to, how have the games been? Here we get to a meaty discussion that seems to have been the theme for a lot of the NFL coverage that I consume. The quality of play at the moment is a point of contention, and it seems to break to down into a couple of areas.

The first is that under the current collective bargain agreement (or CBA), practice time and specifically the amount of hitting that can be done has been reduced. Now this is for player safety and is a hard thing to argue about, but coaches have been talking about it limiting their ability to develop players. You could write a book on how to coach a team and split reps at practice, so I’m not going to delve heavily into this, but there are two areas that I think is worth highlighting.

Unusually for me, these are both on offence, and might help why according to some commentators the league’s defences have had the upper hand in the early season.

There are some positions where due to the amount of communication involved, there is no real substitute for live reps, even if you are trying to make use of new training advances like the remote controlled mobile tackling dummies. One of them is the offensive line and there seem to be fewer good ones in the NFL at the moment.

This is being highlighted at the moment with a different approach to training camp, with many teams seemingly focused on getting into the season healthy as much as preparation and so offences may improve through the season but are not looking sharp right now. Some teams actually embrace this timetable for peaking their performance with Pete Carroll explicitly stating that the Seahawks focus is to peak in November and December, whilst Bill Belichick has talked about not even having his roster settled until October.

I’m wary of focussing on the Seahawks too much when discussing offensive line play, as it is an area of the roster that they have consistently not invested in heavily be it draft picks, or free-agents. However, whilst teams have different approaches, a consistent theme I have heard apart from how hard it is to develop players is the quality of player entering the league.

In terms of athleticism, there has been massive improvement in terms of the size and speed of players, particularly in terms of how quickly larger players now move. However, the college game, and for the purposes of this particular blog, specifically the offences run by the majority of college games is not developing players for the NFL.

Now in fairness this is not their job. A college head coach is paid to win football games, and so they should do that in the best way they can. But with the popularity of spread offences, there are highly touted, physically gifted offensive line players, who have never taken up a three-point stance or used an aggressive pass set. Now the NFL teams have to scout and work with what they have available, and there are still good linemen out there. However, I keep hearing discussions about a developmental league, and it would seem a very good idea. Not only would it help young players develop, but it might solve the other area of the offence I want to focus on, namely, the quarterback.

Now the reason I want to mention quarterback is not just Andy Dalton’s struggles over the first two games, but the way we cover them and the simple fact that there are nowhere near enough of them to go around.

Given the talent pool that is the continental United States, it might be considered surprising that with only thirty-two spots to fill, that not every team can have a quality starter. However, it is a very complex position to play, requiring a particular set of skills. There is some variation of course, but a quarterback needs to be able to read what is happening on defence, co-ordinate the response, and have the physical tools to get the ball to where it needs to go. It might help if they are athletically gifted as a running quarterback does help open up other ways to attack a defence, but it is not essential.

Generally, the media put too much of the credit on a quarterback’s shoulders when a team wins, and blames them too heavily when a team loses, but given the amount of control a quarterback has over an offence this is seen as part of playing the position.

The problem we have is not only supply and demand, but again goes back to college and practise. Along with the spread system, college quarterbacks increasingly don’t have to call their own plays as signs are used from the side-line. They may rarely take snaps under centre, and this all has to change dramatically upon entering the NFL.

You only have to look at the slow development of a player like Jared Goff, who is having to learn the fundamentals of his trade whilst already a pro, and a combination of media and owners mean that a lot of pressure comes to bear when a high draft pick doesn’t get on the field quickly. This is particularly the case if a team is bad, as they will often be the team drafting a quarterback early. The issue is that whilst a quarterback will only develop so much without reps, the plan to let them take their lumps early is all very well unless the team around them isn’t good enough to succeed. In fact it can actually harm a player if you can’t protect a quarterback and he gets hit too much causing injury or develops bad habits.

And remember, we’ve already discussed that good offensive lines are not exactly getting easier to build.

So we have the current situation with not enough quality quarterbacks to go round, and a number of them (even quality players) under pressure as they can’t be protected.

So you get NFL defences on top. These things do go in cycle, but a combination of issues developing talent and the readiness of that talent could cause a real issue in terms of quality of play. We can’t go back to endless hitting and two a day training camps as we know that is detrimental to player health. I just hope that new ways to develop talent are found, and that if it does, there will be coaching tape for me to marvel at.

And so on to the week three picks.

Gee:      Week 2   9-7                       Overall   18-14
Dan:      Week 2   8-8                       Overall   15-17

Rams @ 49ers (+2.5)

I think Dan thought I was little crazy when I said I was looking forward to this game, but I genuinely am. The LA Rams beat the Colts by a large margin in week one, yet travel to San Francisco with a 1-1 record and Aaron Donald back in the fold to face an 0-2 49ers team. I am interested in looking at how both teams are developing under rookie head coaches as they come back from poor performances in recent years. However, the Rams have shown more this season, and with a surprising eighteen place difference in their ranking by overall DVOA and going into what has been a poorly attended Levi’s stadium, I am trusting the team with a win to get another despite the record of home teams in the Thursday night game. I could regret this.

Gee’s Pick:          Rams
Dan’s Pick:          Rams

Week 2 Picks

17 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in Picks Competition

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Bills @ Panthers (-7.5)

The Buffalo Bills got off to a winning start thanks to facing the lowly Jets in week one, but face a much sterner test as they travel to face the Carolina Panthers. The Panthers defence played really well in their opening game, allowing Cam Newton to be rusty as he works his way back from his offseason shoulder surgery. I think the Bills are going to struggle in this game, but the question is whether the Panthers can win by eight. I think they can, but I’m not prepared to pick it quite yet.

Gee’s Pick:          Bills
Dan’s Pick:          Bills

Bears @ Buccaneers (-6.5)

There are alternative universes where the Chicago Bears won their first game, but in this world they couldn’t quite pull things together and as well as losing the game they lost receiver Kevin White for the season again. The first round draft pick just can’t stay healthy and the Bears will need to rethink how they build their receiving group for next season. This week however, they travel to face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Bucs opening game of the season following last week’s postponement. The Buccaneers looked like a young promising team in Hard Knocks, and I expect them to win. This is another game where I could see the home team covering a big spread, but I’m not quite brave enough to pick it just yet.

Gee’s Pick:          Bears
Dan’s Pick:          Buccaneers

Browns @ Ravens (-7.5)

The Baltimore Ravens defence was good, even if the Bengals leant them a hand in pitching a shut out last week by being not very good on offence. They will need to open up the offence more, but it appears the Ravens’ formula for this season is to play good defence and special teams whilst running the ball. The Cleveland Browns however, put up a very creditable performance against the Steelers last week, and I expect them to keep themselves within eight points of the Ravens.

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

Titans @ Jaguars (+1.5)

This is a really tricky game for me to pick as the Jacksonville Jaguars got their season off to a winning start in beating the Houston Texans on the road. The defence got ten sacks, and their offence bludgeoned the Texans with the running game. Not making Blake Bortles throw to win the game improves their chances of winning, but how successful across an entire season they can be with this formula is hard to tell. They welcome a Tennessee Titans team who lost their home opener to the Raiders and who didn’t look like themselves. The new receivers the Titans procured for Marcus Mariota in the offseason seemed to alter the way the Titans ran their offence, whilst the defence couldn’t slow down the Raiders enough to keep them in the game. I’m not totally sure where to go in this one, but the Titans are going to be desperate to get back on track and at this point I still think they are the better team.

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

Cardinals @ Colts (+8.5)

The Arizona Cardinals did not get off to a good start, with Carson Palmer throwing bad interceptions and David Johnson lost for most of the season to a wrist injury. The only good news is that they are facing an Indianapolis Colts team who look like they could be the worst team in the league until Andrew Luck comes back from injury. I could regret this, but I’m backing the infrastructure of the Cardinals to see them through, but I’m nervous about the number of points I’m giving away.

Gee’s Pick:          Cardinals
Dan’s Pick:          Cardinals

Eagles @ Chiefs (-4.5)

This should be a good game as both teams are coming of good wins on the road. The Philadelphia Eagles got a divisional win in Washington, with Carson Wentz continuing his progress in his second year and a defence that looks pretty good. However, this week they travel to face the Kansas City Chiefs who have one of the better home field advantages in the league, and who have had ten days to prepare having beaten the Patriots in the season opener. The Chiefs offence looks to have gained a new dimension with Alex Smith pushing the ball down field, and with all the speed at their disposal I fancy them to come out victorious in this one. The loss of Eric Berry does give me pause, but I think the Chiefs are going to be very strong this year.

Gee’s Pick:          Chiefs
Dan’s Pick:          Chiefs

Vikings @ Steelers (-6.5)

This should be a cracking game, but is one of the few lines that I think is just wrong. The Pittsburgh Steelers got their win in week one, but are still working their way into form on offence with Le’Veon Bell having held out all pre-season. I’m not adjusting my expectations for the Steelers, but this week they welcome a Vikings team who looked very good in week one. The new stadium in Minnesota does appear to be incredibly noisy, but even without this advantage their defence looks formidable and a retooled offence line has bred life into their offence. I’m not saying the Vikings will definitely win, but I expect this game to be much more competitive that this line suggests.

Gee’s Pick:          Vikings
Dan’s Pick:          Vikings

Patriots @ Saints (+5.5)

The New Orleans Saints need a defence, or at least a secondary that could limit the amount of points that quarterback Drew Brees has to match on offence. However, the signs were in week one that this problem has not been solved, and this week they welcome a wounded Patriots team. The Patriots may have lost their home opener, and there are definite questions about their offence with all the new receiving options, and a defence that struggled to contain the Chiefs speed. However, you would back Bill Belichick and his staff to find a way. This line does make me pause, but in the end I don’t have that much faith in the Saints to keep this one close.

Gee’s Pick:          Patriots
Dan’s Pick:          Patriots

Jets @ Raiders (-14.5)

The New York Jets did not look good in week one, and travel out to Oakland to face a Raiders team who looked very good. I was surprised how strong the Raiders’ defence looked against the Titans, and the addition of Marshawn Lynch to the Raiders added yet more balance to their offence. This is a huge line to cover, but I do actually think the Raiders are a team that can cover it against these Jets.

Gee’s Pick:          Raiders
Dan’s Pick:          Jets

Dolphins @ Chargers (-3.5)

This is a more difficult game to pick as the Miami Dolphins are the other team who had a game postponed last week, as well as starting a quarterback who up until a few weeks ago was going to be a commentator this season. However, I have a lot of faith in Adam Gase and they are travelling to an LA Chargers team who very much looked like the Chargers last week. For large parts of the game they were outplayed by the Broncos, then they managed to turn things round with two quick touchdowns, but just missed out at the end of the game with a blocked field goal. The extra half point makes me join Dan in picking the Dolphins, but I don’t feel like I have a confident opinion on this game.

Gee’s Pick:          Dolphins
Dan’s Pick:          Dolphins

Cowboys @ Broncos (+1.5)

The Dallas Cowboys have got to keep Ezekiel Elliott for now, but Tom Brady eventually had to server his ban and I think Elliott will too. However for now, the Cowboys offence rolls on and once again their defensive co-ordinator Rod Marinelli seems to have created a defence that is greater than the sum of its parts. This week however, they travel to a Broncos team who I thought looked pretty good in week one, particularly with the improvements to their offence. I might be tempted by the Broncos getting points at home, except that they didn’t look that good against the run to me, and with the Cowboys coming to town you know there’s going to be a healthy dose of run coming their way.

Gee’s Pick:          Cowboys
Dan’s Pick:          Cowboys

Washington @ Rams (-2.5)

The LA Rams did what they were supposed to do against the Colts last week and got rookie head coach Sean McVay his first win, but his old team Washington should pose a sterner test. However, an offseason of change and disarray does not seem to have produced a Washington team ready to thrive early in the season, and they look like they are missing, McVay’s talents at offensive co-ordinator. This might be a trap pick, but I think I’m going with the Rams in this one.

Gee’s Pick:          Rams
Dan’s Pick:          Rams

49ers @ Seahawks (-12.5)

The San Francisco 49ers struggled against the Panthers last week and it is hard to see them doing anything else travelling to the Seattle Seahawks this week. It will take time for Kyle Shanahan’s scheme to bed in, whilst Seattle were competitive against the Packers in week one. The problem for the Seahawks is as ever their offensive line, and it is only these issues that will stop me from picking the Seahawks to cover this line. I am very confident the Seahawks will win, but I expect a low scoring affair.

Gee’s Pick:          49ers
Dan’s Pick:          49ers

Packers @ Falcons (-2.5)

The Atlanta Falcons got their win against the Bears last week, but they were far from their performances of last year. The Falcons are opening a new stadium this week, but are welcoming a Green Bay Packers team whose defence might have made a step up from last year, and still have Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson on offence. It did take a little time for the Packers to find their feet against a Seahawks’ defence that looks as good as ever, but facing such a defence should stand them in good stead against the Falcons. I am going with the Packers in this one, but it is more of a lean than a definitive pick.

Gee’s Pick:          Packers
Dan’s Pick:          Packers

Lions @ Giants (-4.5)

The New York Giants struggled last week, and we still don’t know when star receiver Odell Beckham will return. More worryingly, Eli Manning did not look at his best and really hasn’t for a while now, which at thirty-six is perhaps not surprising but might be a warning sign for this season. The Detroit Lions meanwhile started the season with a win against the misfiring Cardinals and whilst I’m not sure how far their defence will take them, I like them getting this number of points.

Gee’s Pick:          Lions
Dan’s Pick:          Lions

The Time of Overreaction

14 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in Picks Competition, Thursday Night Football

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Week one is in the books and so it is time for the annual period of overreaction in the NFL to the first set of games, but whilst there are some things that can be taken away from these games, there’s still plenty that falls into the we’ll see pile.

I’m not going to go through every team just yet, but here are some of the things I took away from the games I watched or results that jumped out at me.

We knew the New York Jets were going to be bad, but they were at least designed that way. The Indianapolis Colts appear to be even worse, we don’t know when Andrew Luck will return, and it is going to be a long season for them. The San Francisco 49ers gave rookie head coach Kyle Shanahan and his GM John Lynch a demonstration of just how big a rebuilding job they took on.

The Cincinnati Bengals were one of serval teams who failed miserably to disprove the concerns people had about them going into the season, but were the only team with no points this week that actually played. The Baltimore Ravens look good on defence, are well coached, and will cause problems for many this season and go a very useful divisional win in Cincinnati. I wasn’t expecting anything particularly different in terms of performance against the Bengals, but it was painful to watch the Bengals fail to rise to the occasion. There were points where the Bengals moved the ball, and I can see Andy Dalton bouncing back from the horrible performance as he has done it before – I just wish they didn’t happen in the first place. A short week against the Texans’ pass rush is not how I would have liked to rediscover the offence, but at least the game is at Paul Brown Stadium.

I had thought the Kansas City Chiefs looked good in pre-season, and I thought they would run the New England Patriots close, but they went better than that with a very good win in the opening game of the season. The loss of safety Eric Berry to an Achilles injury is a big blow to the Chiefs defence, but that offence looks like it is going to function well this season. It is too early to panic if you’re a Patriots fan, and the infrastructure is well set to get over this initial setback, but they will be watched as carefully as ever over the next few weeks for signs of decline, particularly in Tom Brady.

The Oakland Raiders are another team who looked very good in week one, easily taking care of the Tennessee Titans on the road, with their defence looking stouter than I thought it would coming into the season, and it looks like they will be continuing their good form of last season and pushing for the playoffs if they can stay healthy.

I don’t want to get too quarterback centric, but although he is still making young player mistakes, Carson Wentz is looking every bit the franchise quarterback at the beginning of his career, with several plays where he held off multiple pass rushers before making a successful pass. I wanted to be sold on the Eagles as a whole and their performance in Washington certainly started the process.

Continuing on the quarterback theme, there’s only so much you can tell about the LA Rams from them beating Colts, but they scored forty-six points and Jared Goff showed that he might have a future in the NFL. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but the Rams did what they needed to in week one and we will just have to see how things progress for Goff under rookie Head Coach Sean McVay.

So we start to look at the week 2 games, with the Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers finally playing first games of the season after last week’s postponement, and a number of teams looking to pick up from shaky starts. There’s has been a lot of questions about what the pre-season is for and how it might change, but it seems a number of teams still need to get themselves into form as their offseason hasn’t prepared them to hit the ground running. It is a long season, and nobody needs to peak in September, but divisional home losses are bad things to rack up, and several teams started with them in week one.

Last Week’s Record:

Gee:        Week 1   9-7                           Overall   -9-7
Dan:        Week 1   7-9                           Overall   7-9

Texans @ Bengals (-4.5)

So tonight’s game pits two teams with disappointing first games against each other, and the Bengals could be in a real hole if they start 0-2 with two home losses. The problem is that there has to be a reaction by the Houston Texans to how they played last week, and their area of strength on defence matches up painfully against where the Bengals have all their questions on offence. Adam Jones’ return to the Bengals’ secondary may add a spark to the defence, but on a short week in a bad match up, with a rebuilt offensive line that has answered none of the questions asked of it, l will confess to a lack of confidence in my team. I’m not saying the Bengals can’t find the right formula as plenty of teams looked short or reps in week one, but with their history in prime time games I can’t back the Bengals to win by five points when they scored zero in their opening home game. I would love to be proved wrong!

Gee’s Pick:            Texans
Dan’s Pick:            Bengals

Week 1 Picks

10 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by in Picks Competition

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

With one game done, it is now time for Dan and I to pick the rest of the week 1 games as the season really gets going tonight.

Falcons @ Bears (+7.5)

We saw last season that the Super Bowl hang over for the losing side can be very real, but I am not expecting the Atlanta Falcons to fall off in the way the Carolina Panthers did last year. Their defence continues to improve, but the loss of Kyle Shanahan as offensive co-ordinator will have an effect although there is plenty of talent on that side of the ball.

The Chicago Bears had a curious offseason, trading up one slot to pick a quarterback having just handed out a big contract to free agent Mike Glennon. They can’t be as injured on defence as last season, but whilst I doubt they will win, I’m not prepared to back the Falcons to cover this line on the road with all that’s happened to them, and so it’s time for my first nervous pick of the year.

Gee’s Pick:            Bears
Dan’s Pick:            Falcons

Jets @ Bills (-6.5)

The New York Jets are definitely going through a process of rebuilding, as are the Buffalo Bills, but whilst the Bills have been trading away players as they try to build a new team culture the Jets look to have virtually torn their roster down to the ground to rebuild it. I’m don’t feel extremely confident about this, but I’m backing the Bills to cover this at home against a Jets team who are going to struggle all year.

Gee’s Pick:            Bills
Dan’s Pick:            Bills

Ravens @ Bengals (-2.5)

I would be very worried about the Baltimore Ravens’ offence if I were a fan of that team. We have not seen Joe Flacco in the pre-season thanks to a back injury, their much vaunted offensive line has been in flux and they are starting out on the road, although their defence should be strong again this year. The Cincinnati Bengals have their own questions on at offence tackle, but I like the young talent and depth on defence, and I fancy them to get off to a winning start at home with Andy Dalton having plenty of options on offence.

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

Steelers @ Browns (+9.5)

Many have argued that the Pittsburgh Steelers could be the class of the AFC, with the return of dynamic receiver Martavis Bryant to an already scary offence, combined with an improving defence which head coach Mike Tomlin is shaping in his own image, I would not disagree. However, I also like the direction the Cleveland Browns are heading in, and whilst I do not expect them to be pushing for the playoffs, the Browns will cause teams problems this year and I expect them to do better than last season. That said, with first round draft pick Myles Garrett picking up a high ankle sprain on Wednesday, there could well be a feeling of not again surfacing in Cleveland. Still, this is a very high line for a road team and I’m going to back the Browns to cover, I just wish their new pass rusher was starting. I may regret this…

Gee’s Pick:            Browns
Dan’s Pick:            Steelers

Cardinals @ Lions (-2.5)

The Arizona Cardinals travel to Detroit with commentators talking about it being another last chance season for Carson Palmer, Larry Fitzgerald, and possibly Bruce Arians. Still, I have a lot of faith in the coaching staff of the Cardinals, and the presented reason for Palmer’s improvement in the second half of last season being due to them restricting his number of throws in practice does at least make sense given he is thirty-seven. They face a Lions team that have just signed quarterback Matthew Stafford to a huge contract off the back of several strong years under offensive co-ordinator Jim Bob Cooter, but the defence worries me and I think the Lions could have a tough year as a result. After all, for Stafford to have all those fourth quarter comebacks last year, the Lions had to go into the fourth quarter losing in the first place.

Gee’s Pick:            Cardinals
Dan’s Pick:            Cardinals

Raiders @ Titans (+0.5)

This should be a great game between two developing teams. The Oakland Raiders looked set for a strong showing in the playoffs before Derek Carr broke his leg, but everyone is expecting them to be good again this year. I’m not sure how much running back Marshawn Lynch has left in the tank as he comes out of retirement, but if Lynch cam manage the kind of runs that made him famous for Seattle then that could help open up the field for Carr, but questions remain about the Raiders defence.

The Tennessee Titans took a step forward last season, with Dick LeBeau helping to transform the defence (LeBeau will become the oldest person to call an NFL defence this season and was subject of an excellent MMQB podcast that’s worth looking up) and the offence making exotic smashmouth work for their young quarterback. The running game is often a young quarterback’s best friend, and only time will tell if the receivers that were added to the roster in the offseason help open up the offence for Marcus Mariota.

In a game that is a straight choice, I’m going to back the team who made the playoffs last season but I could regret it. This should be a great game.

Gee’s Pick:            Raiders
Dan’s Pick:            Titans

Buccanneers @ Dolphins

Due to hurricane Irma, this game has been postponed to week 11, meaning both teams will play sixteen straight games in what will be a real test for both teams, but that seems kind of insignificant right now.

Eagles @ Washington (-2.5)

There is a lot of buzz about the Philadelphia Eagles, with the overhaul of their receivers giving hope for the continued development of their second year quarterback Carson Wentz. There is also a belief that the defence will be good this year. I can certainly see the reasons for such hope, but I have not seen it in the flesh yet, whereas Washington have been solid for the last couple of season through their own rebuild. The overhaul of their receivers was curious given the team’s success, and we enter another season with questions about Kirk Cousins’ long term future, but he keeps throwing for over four thousand yards a season. I could very easily regret this, but right now I’m backing Washington to win at home

Gee’s Pick:            Washington
Dan’s Pick:            Eagles

Jaguars @ Texans (-4.5)

The Jacksonville Jaguars have a defence that looks like it should be really good, but the offence worries me a lot. It’s all very well committing to the running game, but setting up the pass with the run is really a myth, and what you need is a convincing threat of being able to be either balanced with run/pass, or flexible enough to wrong foot the defence with one of them being predominant. If the Jaguars just try to bludgeon teams with rookie runner Leonard Fournette they will see endless eight man boxes, and I don’t think anyone feels like Blake Bortles currently has the form to take advantage of this. Facing a Houston Texans defence that looks like it could be one of the best in the league, I expect the Jaguars to struggle. There are questions at quarterback again for the Texans, but this team keeps winning their division, and they will be looking to give their city something to rally around after the recent flooding. I think the Texans will win, and although the line does give me pause, it does not stop me picking the Texans.

Gee’s Pick:            Texans
Dan’s Pick:            Texans

Colts @ Rams (+3.5)

We don’t know for how long the Indianapolis Colts will be without Andrew Luck, and right now they don’t see to have much to hang their hats on without him having struggled in preseason. They travel to LA to face a Rams team that even without Aarond Donald should have enough on defence to contain the current Colts offence. The question for Rams fans will be can Jared Goff develop into a starting quarterback under the guidance of an offensive minded head coach, but I fancy the Rams to win this one, and if I’m getting points at home as well then I’m definitely going to take them. Don’t let me down Rams…

Gee’s Pick:            Rams
Dan’s Pick:            Rams

Seahawks @ Packers (-2.5)

This looks to be game of the week, although the Chiefs and Patriots did a fine job of starting the season on Thursday. Still with the Seattle Seahawks defence matching up against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay offence, we have one of best matchups in the league. In recent meetings between these two teams it has tended to be the home team who have won, and whilst in recent years the Packers have got off to sometimes sluggish starts, I fancy them to win this one at Lambeau Field.

Gee’s Pick:            Packers
Dan’s Pick:            Packers

Panthers @ 49ers (+5.5)

The Carolina Panthers are trying to overhaul their offence after their struggles last season and to protect their running quarterback Cam Newton, but despite the addition of Christian McCaffrey as a running back who can catch out of the backfield, Newton has never been the most accurate of short passers and given his should surgery, he has not had a lot of time to work with his new receiving options. I will also be worried about the health of Luke Kuechly all season and so whilst I expect the Panthers to be better this year than last, I’m not sure you can immediately expect them to turn things round in week one. Particularly when they are heading to face a San Francisco 49ers team who are beginning their own transformation under a new GM and head coach. I’m not expecting the 49ers to challenge for the playoffs or anything, but I think they will demonstrate progress and if you are giving me five and a half points at home against a team who I think need to prove themselves again, then I am going to take them.

Gee’s Pick:            49ers
Dan’s Pick:            49ers

Giants @ Cowboys (-4.5)

The Dallas Cowboys have never shied away from controversial players, and we are still not sure what the situation for Ezekiel Elliott will be long term, but he is playing in this game. However, the much vaunted Cowboys offensive line has had a reshuffle and the defence lost a lot of players. I’m not sure that this team are necessarily as locked in to repeat last year’s feats as many seem to think. They welcome a New York Giants team who may have a banged up Odell Beckham, but who have been adding to Eli Manning’s passing options in the offseason, and the defence could be very good again even if they might take a step back after last year’s amazing turnaround. Sill, having beaten the Cowboys twice last season, I’m happy to take the four and a half points and hope for a cover.

Gee’s Pick:            Giants
Dan’s Pick:            Giants

Saints @ Vikings (-3.5)

There are two Monday night games this week, and the first sees the New Orleans Saints travel to face a tough Minnesota Vikings defence. The Saints only need their defence to improve from bottom of the league to respectable for them to be truly competitive given that Drew Brees is still throwing for five thousand yards a year. But this is a tough start to the season for them as the Vikings seem to have already developed a good home advantage in what last year was a new stadium, but the offensive line limited their effectiveness on offence although Sam Bradford still managed a record setting level of accuracy. With a bit more stability this year the Vikings are likely to be very competitive, and I’m backing them in this one at home, although I am looking forward to seeing how the Saints might develop.

Gee’s Pick:            Vikings
Dan’s Pick:            Vikings

Chargers @ Broncos (-3.5)

This final game of the week is giving me some trouble to pick, because the Broncos defence has been a little unsettled in the front seven in the last two seasons, and they have just released TJ Ward in the final round of cuts at the end of preseason. They will be hoping to have developed the offensive line enough to help Trevor Siemian and the offensive be more effective as they were very limited last season. With the Chargers moving to LA, there will be a degree of disruption floating round that certainly hurt the Rams last year, but the roster does appear to turning round. The addition of Joey Bosa gave the Chargers defence a real lift when he played, and certainly when I saw the Chargers in preseason I was impressed.

One of these new head coaches will get a win, but I’m finding it hard to predict which one, and with the Broncos needing to win by four to cover this I’m grabbing the points and hoping the Chargers won’t let me down despite traveling to a difficult place to play.

Gee’s Pick:            Chargers
Dan’s Pick:            Broncos

And So It Begins

07 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in Picks Competition

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

And so it Begins.

It is always tricky for me to finish up covering the offseason games on the blog as with them all taking place on the Thursday night, my usual times to watch games don’t quite work out before the season starts and suddenly the info doesn’t seem so relevant. I am sure no one is coming to the blog for game recaps and the final Hard Knocks episode is not even available yet, but now the dust has settled on the cuts and moves, the real interest is how things will shape up in the early season and what if any of my pre-season observations translate into the regular season.

I have taken a couple impressions away with me, but we won’t know if they were worth anything until the season gets going and so on to tonight’s season opener.

Chiefs @ Patriots (-8.5)

The traditional opener of the Super Bowl champions hosting a team on a Thursday night has rarely yielded an upset, but this may not be the case this year.

The New England Patriots had an impressive offseason, strengthening their options on offence, and up to a couple of weeks ago their only question seemed to be their pass rush. Even with the loss of Tom Brady’s favourite receiver Julian Edelman for the season, it is hard not to see the Patriots as the class of the AFC.

The Kansas City Chiefs have a more varied offseason with a mix of moves to build for the future despite still being competitive and possibly on requiring a little to put them over the top. They have stood behind Alex Smith as their starting quarterback despite trading up to pick quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the first round of April’s draft, but the Chiefs are clearly planning to let him sit and develop.

I am expecting the Patriots to start the season with a win, but I was impressed with what I saw of the Chiefs when they played the Bengals in pre-season and Andy Reid is a formidable coach with time to pre-pare and I do not think this game is as big of a walk over as some are predicting, which is why I’m picking the Chiefs to cover.

Gee’s Pick:          Chiefs
Dan’s Pick:          Chiefs

The Wrong Football Podcast – Episode 51

07 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in Podcasts

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

While Dan might be refusing to acknowledge Week One thanks to the postponement of the Dolphins game with Tampa, the NFL 2017 season is about to kick off! This week, we look at some of the chopping and changing which took place around roster cut day, and also make our picks for Week One of the season – will Dan emerge victorious in the ESPN Pigskin Pick’em competition 2 years in a row? There’s only one way to find out! This week, on The Wrong Football Podcast

Source: The Wrong Football Podcast – The Wrong Football Podcast – Episode 51

The Dress Rehearsal

31 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Pre-Season

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The third pre-season game is usually seen as the dress rehearsal for a team, but even then there is no set formula on who plays as the coaches are most interested in preparing for the season whilst minimising the risk to their starters. You can also see rookies and other players stepping up so they can get reps with the starters against other quality players to get a better evaluation. This complicates what we can interpret from the outside, which is why it is important not to put too much stock in what you see in pre-season, but for those involved the football is important despite what some might tell you.

With all of the fourth pre-season games taking place on Thursday night, a logistical challenge is facing the teams as for the first time they are cutting from ninety without a cut down to seventy-five before tonight’s games, although many teams have already started to make some cuts. There is also a challenge for the Hard Knocks crew as they prepare everything for next Tuesday’s episode with a more compressed time frame. Sadly being in the UK I won’t get to see episode four of Hard Knocks before the week four games start tonight, so I’ll have to run through the week three games without the extra insight of the behind the scenes footage of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who played the Cleveland Browns in their third pre-season game.

A number of players were held out or played limited snaps, so Jameis Winston was working without his full complement of options in the offence, and this did show. He floated a pass at a tight end that was intercepted, although he also escaped pressure and made a good pass to Freddie Martino later in the game, but it was rookie receiver Chris Goodwin who finished with most yards of any receiver. I think with a full complement of starters the Buccaneers will have an offence going in the right direction so we shouldn’t take too much from this game, but Winston will need to limit his interceptions. No one wants to lose their starting quarterback, and there are not enough quality starters floating around for teams to have a really good backup, but the Bucs might be concerned with the way Ryan Fitzpatrick has turned the ball over so far and they will be hoping that if he does get called upon in meaningful games that he reproduces some of his form from his 2015 season with the New York Jets and not what he has displayed so far.

As for the defence, they gave up some worrying plays to a Browns team that I think are going to cause some trouble for teams this season. You are always going to miss a player of Gerald McCoy’s ability, but he should be back for the regular season after being held out of this game with an injury, still there were not a lot of players that stood out to me. Part of that is due to not having coaching tape yet. This always makes it hard to truly see what is going on, you just can’t evaluate a secondary without the all twenty-two view, and the end zone view is brilliant for seeing how the front seven line up and play. Still, I did notice that Riley Bullough, a player I have mentioned multiple times this pre-season having been a player highlighted on Hard Knocks, did not get into the game on defence until the last drive on defence, and so whilst I did see him on special teams, he will be desperate to put up good tape tonight to try to catch on to a team, be it the Buccaneers or somebody else who has liked what they have seen.

For the Cincinnati Bengals, who took on Washington in their third warm up game, it has been a pre-season of questions rather than answers. Still, it was good to see John Ross get on the field, even if he didn’t make a catch, he demonstrated his speed on an end around run, and it will take a couple of weeks to shake of the rust as he makes his way back from a shoulder injury. I was also not expecting to see Andy Dalton over throwing the fastest man in combine history on a deep ball! It was much better to see the first team score a touchdown, and whilst the Bengals’ young tackles still had their problems, the offence functioned and has the potential to come alive if things break right for them during the season and the young players bed in.

The defence will be looking to make do round Shawn Williams injury, and he will be missed at safety, but the pass rush still looks good with defensive end Chris Smith catching the eye in every game and looks to be a potential bargain given the conditional pick the Bengals gave up to the Jacksonville Jaguars to get him. The young linebacker group got even younger with the trade of special teams stalwart Marquis Flowers to the New England Patriots and they will be without Vontaze Burfict for three games after his appeal against suspension was not successful. I can see why Marvin Lewis and the Bengals will be upset given their reasoning about the Kansas City Chiefs player being hit with a shoulder within five yards of the line of scrimmage, the player being in line with the target of a pump fake, and the ball being in Alex Smith’s hands, but Burfict has a history that precedes him and clearly is not being given the benefit of the doubt.

There’s a lot of questions about the Bengals, but at least they look to have made it to the start of the season relatively healthy and I still think they will do better than many have predicted, even if I’m not going to guarantee a playoff berth. I will say, I’m still deeply uncomfortable every time Mixon takes the field and I find it hard to see how I will ever resolve that pick.

Finally, having spoken about the hope I saw for the LA Rams offence on our last podcast, Jared Goff did not play well against the LA Chargers. More worrying for him will be the fact that the offence is designed well and seemed to run better with Sean Mannion as their quarterback. Whether Goff’s struggles can be partly put down to rookie receiver Cooper Kupp being withheld from the game due to a minor groin pull I don’t know, but the Rams third game did not go as well as their second, and it would surprise no one if the Rams had another rocky season. Still, I do see some signs of hope, I’m just unsure whether Goff can, or will be given the time to, become a franchise quarterback. It is also too early to tell how Sean McVay will do as a head coach, but I have a feeling he will turn out well given time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean things will work out for him in LA.

One last thing before the final pre-season games start last night. I stated on our last podcast that if you were going to watch pre-season games, that week three were the ones to watch as that was when the starters would play most. And I stand by that. But for those of us who have the disease as Ross Tucker puts it, these final games will be fascinating as the players we have never heard off, are playing for a chance to catch onto a roster, or practise squad. They just want to make the team and no one should question their efforts, and I intend to honour it by watching all three teams I have been following.

Still, next week the season starts.

2017 Pre-Season: The Starters Emerge

28 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by in Pre-Season

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The starters began to emerge last week as they played more than a handful of snaps in the second pre-season games and we saw this covered in the third Hard Knocks episode.

For the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the stars of Hard Knocks stayed the same, and I continued to be impressed by them. However, we did get another lesson in the harsh realities of the NFL. The undrafted rookie Maruice Fleming was shown arriving early and running extra drills, telling us that he had asked Jameis Winston what time he got up and deciding to do the same. It had not gone unnoticed by the coaching staff either, but sadly he hurt his knee and whilst he gutted out the game, which was a hard thing to watch, he was too injured to carry on and was cut. Fleming will have impressed with his toughness, but he’s now done for training camp and let’s hope the injury is not too bad so he can have another chance.

The other thing that grabbed my attention in episode three is the theme of Winston’s development. In earlier episodes we had seen Jameis talking to his head coach about risk versus reward, and having played well with his offence looking good, he then heaved the ball up in the air as he was sacked and it was picked off in the end zone. You can understand Dirk Koetter’s frustration and the resulting dressing down he gave his quarterback, but Winston already knew his mistake and the important thing for Winston going forward will be if he can temper his risk taking without losing what makes him special.

Still in their second pre-season game the Buccaneers’ defence smothered the struggling Jacksonville Jaguars offence in the first half and then held out for a narrow win. They would want the offence to be running more smoothly, and having had one field goal blocked and another miss, they will be hoping that things settle down for Nick Folk.

Moving away from the Buccaneers, the Cincinnati Bengals hosted the Kansas City Chiefs and I would definitely say I am nervous given that the Bengals lost heavily. It is not time to panic yet, but the offensive failed to score any touchdowns despite moving the ball, and only time will tell if game planning will help with efficiency as Andy Dalton suggested it might. There were also signs that left tackle Cedric Ogbuehi could still struggle, although there were only snaps he had problems rather than constant issues.

The good news on defence is that the pass rush continues to look good, but there were times where the middle of the defence looked soft against both run and pass. There is a lot of youth in the front seven of the defence at the moment, and losing safety Shawn Williams to a dislocated elbow will not help this area either. Still given the problems covering tight ends last season, the Bengals will be hoping things come together soon.

Across the country in LA, fans of the Rams got their first hint of what a difference it will make to have an offensive minded head coach in charge. It is way too early to pronounce on Jared Goff, but the offence definitely looked like it could do something this year. The Rams managed to move the ball as they eked out a win, and although Todd Gurley did not look great, Goff looked to be developing some chemistry with Cooper Kupp and completed passes as players were schemed open.

The defence continues to look solid, and the hope is that the Rams can show development and find out what they have in their young quarterback. This might not sound like amazing progress, but it is the start of building a team to do more than hover round eight wins. I am curious to see how things unfold for Sean McVay over the coming season and how the Rams develop in the coming years.

I had better get on with watching the week three games as we are rapidly approaching the start of a new season.

Football is coming.

2017 Pre-Season So Far

20 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in Pre-Season

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I like to follow a couple of teams through pre-season alongside my own Bengals and the major storylines. This will include the team being featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks as that gives you a chance to see all of the games that you get the highlights of and gives me an in to a team I don’t know.

So this year I am following the Tampa Bay Buccaneers thanks to them being on Hard Knocks, and the LA Rams who happen to have been last year’s Hard Knocks and Amazon’s All or Nothing team, but mainly I’m watching the Rams this pre-season to see how their new head coach Sean McVay does in turning around their offence. Even if at thirty-one he is making me feel like I’ve done nothing with my life…

I will pick up the week two games next week, but what have I learnt in the first two Hard Knocks episodes and the week one pre-season games?

Well, this years Hard Knocks has mostly been good fun with a strong cast of characters. I’ve been impressed with Jameis Winston who is clearly invested in trying to be a good leader for his team. Not only is he working hard and making his way round the whole team, but the moment that was eye opening to me was when he approached a group of smiling linemen during the Buccaneers game against the Bengals and almost quietly dropped a line about being glad they were enjoying themselves but that Ryan (Ryan Griffin, backup quarterback fighting for a roster spot with newly signed Ryan Fitzpatrick) was injured. It was an effective way of making his point.

Winston is still searching for the right blend of risk taking and protecting the ball, a discussion we saw him having with head coach Dirk Koetter, but only time will tell if he can find it.

Winston is not the only player showing leadership, and it was a surprise to number 49, Riley Bullogh, to be singled out by Koetter in a meeting about displaying leadership, since he was their third string mike linebacker. Most teams don’t carry three mike linebackers if they play a 4-3 defence, but I was impressed not only with the way Bullogh has been portrayed on Hard Knocks, but also with the way he played and he also managed to catch the eye whilst I was watching the game against the Bengals. I think he may well make the team.

Sadly, we’ve already had our first painful cut, and it is always hard to watch someone go through this, but second year kicker Robert Aguayo seems to have struggled ever since being picked in the second round by the Buccaneers last year. He was an incredibly accurate kicker in college, but whether it is the pressure of being such a high round pick for a kicker, or simply the reality of kicking in the NFL, he has not managed to be consistent in the NFL and although he was picked up on waivers by the Chicago Bears, it hard to know if he’ll be able to turn things round. The problem is likely to be that this narrative will follow him around, as will the questions about his career, and you would have to be incredibly tough minded to set this aside when you know it will keep following you. I hope he turns things around, but only time will tell.

I’ll pick up other players as we go forward, the duo of new signing DeSean Jackson and establish receiver Mike Evans have featured heavily and should provide Winston with a nice balance on offence, but the other player who seems to be a genuinely good guy as well as a wrecker of offences, both in practice on game day is Gerald McCoy. Seeing this seven-year veteran carrying others pads around, dressed in a kimono, and testing the waters of what is an acceptable celebration has been a lot of fun. It’s always nice to see a different side of players who you so often only get to see in a helmet and pads.

So as the Buccaneers played and lost to the Bengals, what is there to say about the team from Cincinnati?

Well apart from getting a win, the Bengals offence line seemed to hold up and there were promising signs on offence, although you can only tell so much in pre-season. However, with a running and passing touchdown, third string quarterback Jeff Driskel made a claim that the Bengals should keep three quarterbacks on the roster this season. Given the number of receivers that they might want to keep, this could be difficult as the Bengals have only been keeping two recently, but I suspect Driskel would get snapped up by another team if they tried to stash him on the practice squad.

It is hard to say too much about pass coverage when you only have the TV copy to watch, but on defence the pass rush did catch the eye, particularly Jordan Willis although Carl Lawson looked good as well and I think both players could help add and an extra pass rush element to the defence this season. However, the pass coverage in the middle of the field was soft, and this is definitely something to keep an eye on.

So if the Bengals looked solid, how did the LA Rams go in their first game against the Dallas Cowboys?

Well the major thing that struck me on the offensive side of the ball was ball security. I suspect this will be a point of emphasis in the coming weeks as the ball was put on the ground a lot. Fumbles and drops hampered the team, and although McVay won his first game, there is still a lot of work to do. That said rookie running back Justin Davis caught the eye when he wasn’t fumbling with his burst and ability to make defenders miss, and so if he can secure the ball he could become a useful backup to Todd Gurley. Only time will tell if the o-line will play better through the season, but it was certainly strange to see Andrew Whitworth playing in the blue and white of the Rams. I’ll need to see more of second year quarterback Jared Goff to form any serious opinion, but he hasn’t shone yet and that has to be worrying given what the Rams gave up to select him number one in the 2016 draft.

Still, the Rams traded for Sammy Watkins last week and it will be fun to see if Watkins can stay fit this season, and if he can help the Rams turn round their passing attack.

The defence for the Rams looked good though, they seemed to be picking up the defence of new co-ordinator Wade Philips quickly and this was without Aaron Donald, although I will be interested to see how the disruptive tackle lines up in Philips’ 3-4 defence.

This leaves with one final point to make about the pre-season so far before I start catching up with the week two game, the Rams switch to the blue and white helmets with the white face-masks is definitely a good one as they look great.

Who says you do not learn anything in pre-season!

The Tao of The Wrong Football

06 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

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.