Tag Archives: Aaron Rodgers

What is a Routine Anyway?

22 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Pre-Season

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It should not be a surprise to me that none of my NFL blogs have lined up on time over the course of the pre-season. I have been exceptionally busy and unlike those paid by the NFL, a team, or a media company to cover the NFL, I must fit this blog round everything else, but enough whinging – football is coming.

What I Saw

I started off the week two pre-seasons games watching the Cincinnati Bengals travel to Washington in a game that seemed to have all the penalties. Certainly, the second look at Andy Dalton didn’t do much to build up hope for the season as he struggled with third and longs caused by repeated offensive line penalties. Things did settle down as the game went on but it was the defence and special teams that got the Bengals a 23-13 win that was helped by Alex Erickson taking a punt return back for a touchdown. The protection from the offensive line still looked good when they weren’t committing holds and the number of holding penalties are apparently up across the league but that won’t matter if it the refs are calling the game like that at the start of the season. This was something that Zac Taylor mentioned in his weekly press conference so hopefully it is tidied up a bit against the Giants this week. The good news is that there seems to be a real competition at receiver behind the injured AJ Green and John Ross but we really won’t know anything until the teams are putting in full game plans. There are already whispers amongst some fans that rookie quarterback Ryan Finley is looking good enough to start, but don’t expect Dalton to be going anywhere unless the season nose dives completely.

Whilst we’re talking Bengals we had the horrible news this week that former running back Cedric Beson died in a motorcycle accident. There’s a nice piece by Geoff Hobson on the Bengal site and it is that reminder that life is short so grab what you can when you can.

Moving back to football, I next watched Hard Knocks and the next Raiders game against the Arizona Cardinals. It is slightly awkward seeing Hard Knocks three days later as whilst watching their coverage of the game against the Rams I’m seeing some of what I though in the previous week’s game confirmed, other things come up and now I’m writing up their game against Cardinals.

I did get an interesting message from Dan this week:

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Dan went on to comment that it was something about his leadership style that was rubbing him the wrong way and that if he had tried it on Dan that it would have the opposite effect on him. It amused me as I was having similar thoughts. There are many ways to lead any group effort, and I think one of the most important facets is to stay true to yourself. Nothing will hold up buy in more for a group than for you trying to lead in a manner that is not natural to you. The thing that I wondered was all Gruden was doing was encouraging the backup quarterbacks to be more like him. I can see that the players need to take control of the huddle, but they must do it in their own authentic way. Neither Derek Carr, Mike Glennon or Nathan Peterman can be Jon Gruden in the huddle, but if they are properly prepared then they should be able to lead that offence as long as they are in command of what is going on. To me it is about setting a standard and holding everyone accountable with real consequences. We all handle stress differently and I wonder how coaching and management might change as the nature of the players continue to change. The days of screaming disciplinarians may not be over, but I think we’re heading that way. I’m reminded of a conversation I had on Twitter the other day when discussing leadership in space missions (pretty on brand for me I know):

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Back to the team and the headlines have all been about Antonio Brown, and it has become abundantly clear why the Steelers have traded away a player who when playing was arguably the best receiver in football. The Raiders’ GM Mike Mayock issued a statement that whilst they appreciate the issues, they are at the stage of the season where they need him to be all in. The latest is that Brown has filed a second grievance about notice regarding an old helmet but he has practised in a certified helmet. More on Hard Knocks tomorrow and in the coming week I am sure.

The final game I watched was the Green Bay Packers take on the Ravens in Baltimore and perhaps unsurprisingly lose given that the Ravens coach John Harbaugh is one of the coaches that focuses on winning in the pre-season whilst the Packers did not play Aaron Rodgers due to him having a bad back. I’m still getting used to watching the Packers, and I will confess to being a little frustrated at not seeing Rodgers so here’s hoping he gets a good run out in game three against the Raiders in.

What I did find interesting was that for all the talk of the fullback I swear I didn’t see one used until the second half. Now I’m not grinding coaching tape at this point so I will confess I’m watching rather than recording every single play so I could have missed it, but it is so hard to know how this team is going to do in the regular season. Particularly as Rodgers has been strongly stated that the best work he’s been getting is in practice, including going against another team’s defence. I think the thing to take away when people complain about pre-season is that it really matters to the people fighting for a roster spot, but perhaps these games really are for your football obsessed fan.

What I Heard

I wanted to highlight something I heard on Ross Tucker’s podcast with Greg Cosell last week that I thought was particularly interesting. He was talking about preparing quarterbacks in the pre-season and was saying that he’d been told you shouldn’t worry about turnovers in the pre-season as now is the time to work out if you can make a throw or not. Much better to try and make the play now and find out it won’t work than fail in the regular season. Cosell also suggested that for mobile quarterbacks the pre-season was the perfect time for them to work on their pocket presence and mechanics as the scrambling improvisational plays will come anyway during the season.

What I Think

I understand why many people might think it would be a bad idea as you wouldn’t want him near your brand, but I still can’t help but think the Antonio Brown situation is an opportunity for someone in the helmet business to get him fitted with one of theirs. After all, if Brown complains about it, given all that’s gone on this season do we really think you as the helmet maker would get blamed and maybe you could be someone to engage with him in a way where he could hear a positive no i.e. polite and firm so as not to pander, but a healthy this is the situation and here’s how we can deal with it type of interaction that he possibly hasn’t had for a while.

What I Know

I need to figure out why Dan and his dad have signed up for the picks competition but I can’t see them in the group, but it will be happening and so keep an eye out as we would be more than happy to have you in the competition this year. If you join before the start of the season then perhaps you can come out top and the blog will be in your NFL team’s colours next season.

What I Hope

I am going on holiday next week, and I am hoping to watch and post relatively normally, whilst having a relaxed fabulous time. Once back I’ll be preparing for the new season, which really feels quite surreal to think about even though I’ve been in preseason mode for weeks.

Delayed Again

15 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in Hard Knocks, Pre-Season

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Somehow it has been a week already and despite having watched all that I intended to in time, I had one of those days at work yesterday that meant there was no chance of getting a blog out on schedule, but there’s just time to read up ahead of the start of the pre-season week two games.

What I Saw

The first game I watched last week was the Houston Texans visiting the Green Bay Packers. In a move that is becoming increasingly common neither team actually played their starting quarterback but while the Texans gave Joe Web the entire game the Packers played three different quarterbacks as the Packers held off a late surge by the Texans to win 28-26. We all know that pre-season results don’t really matter, what is important is staying healthy and putting players in the positions the coaches want so they can evaluate them. However, there is an increasing narrative that coaches actually get more out of the combined practices that are becoming increasingly common across the league, although don’t tell Aaron Rodgers that. Rodgers made news by offering up some criticism of a kicking drill, but I’m not sure how much to make of this given that player safety is a genuine concern and everything Rodgers says seems to be dissected to death by the media these days. I’m not sure anyone outside of the team has enough information on how the relationship between Roders and his new head coach Matt LaFleur is, in fact I shall be following the Packers news more closely over the next few weeks as with so many starters resting it was hard for me to identify names and performances that jumped out of this game so let’s quietly move on to the next thing I watched.

Hard Knocks is a staple of the NFL pre-season and a lot of it hit familiar beats, although I don’t think we’ve seen the undrafted player grinding to make the team get cut in the first episode before. We didn’t get much detail of Antonio Brown’s foot injuries, and we seem to be predating his concerns over his helmet but we met plenty of characters and as ever a huge part of the flavour of the show is set by the head coach. I wasn’t that fussed by Gruden’s whole ‘eveyone has dreams but I want to give people nightmares’ speech, but that’s just me. I did warm to him across the episode then and I am interested to see Derek Carr get some playing time and how the series develops. This week we’ll get to see their join practices with the LA Rams and their game that the Raiders won 14-3.

The Raiders defence did a really good job of containing the Rams offense without any spectacular plays but looked really solid and is something to watch going forward to see how much it holds up. There is competition between Mike Glennon and Nathan Peterman for who will backup Derrek Carr and it was one of those tough ones where Glennon often looked good but threw two interceptions where as Peterman got a touchdown pass and a fifty-six yard run whilst throwing no interceptions but his average pass yard was 5.5 and this is a player who has looked good in pre-season before and thrown five interceptions when he has started. An area that looked obviously strong was the Raiders receivers, who even without Antonio Brown had three receivers with plays longer that fifteen yards and Carr will be hoping that he has even better chemistry when he gets to play. It’s hard to say too much about the Rams given they were resting starters all over the team as Sean McVay really doesn’t put much stock in pre-season and they went pretty well last year. Still, I’m sure fans of the Rams would like to see a little more production on offence this season.

So finally we have the Cincinnati Bengals traveling to the Kansas City Chiefs and getting beaten badly. Both teams actually played their starting quarterbacks in the first quarter and they moved the ball effectively. However, the Chiefs offence continued to roll, helped no doubt by two botched special teams returns that set them up with great field position. Special teams is one of those areas of football that often gets overlooked and yet is particularly relevant at this time of year as any player fighting for a spot on the roster is going to get a boost if they can contribute on special teams. Because I have been following the offseason reporting I was able to spot  rookie free agent Stanley Morgan Jr catch several balls in the last quarter and I wonder if he’ll get a chance earlier in the game this week. In fact whilst there were one or two concerning drops, there were a number of sold receivers looking to take advantage of the playing time currently vacated by AJ Green. It also has to be said that Morgan Jr might have benefited from playing with rookie quarterback Ryan Finley who looked to outplay incumbent backup Jeff Driskel who has been running some routes as a receiver and been in special teams meetings having approached the staff about adding extra value. I don’t know if the Bengals are eyeing up a similar role to the Saint’s Taysom Hill but Driskel is an impressive athlete. For the most part the Bengals offensive lines held up well despite mixing and matching lineups and a couple of holding penalties. The worrying part is the defence, and we know that the Chiefs are a stern test but they missed some tackles and apart from second year defensive end Andrew Brown no one particularly caught my eye other than the Chiefs’ rookie receiver Mecole Hardman who looked really dangerous and the pairing of him and Tyreek Hill are going to cause serious problems this season if Hardman can contribute to the level he looked capable of this week.

As an additional Brit-centric plug, if you have somehow missed Christian Wade’s touchdown run for the Buffalo Bills then take a look at this play as it’s impressive. He still has a lot of work ahead of him to impress a team enough to give him a roster spot but that’s a memory he will always have.

What I Heard

We still have the ongoing training camp chatter of players on the bubble, stock rising and falling as if this isn’t also people chasing difficult dreams that a good third will fail to achieve or maintain.

The discussion of Ezekiel Elliott’s contract has given way to speculation that the Cowboy’s quarterback Dak Prescott has turned down a $30 million a year contract as he seeks a $40 million year one. There are many ways to create a roster and it is interesting to look into this but it always seems a bit odd to speculate so heavily over contract numbers.

What is interesting is things like the Packers having to find a third fullback in a hurry due to both players they currently have carrying injuries and there are not that many fullbacks ready to just step up to the roster so it will be interesting to see how Tommy Bohanon plays having been signed on Monday and went straight into take reps with the first team offence.

What I Think

I understand why there are questions about the pre-season and there are times where there is objectively bad play. I find it interesting that coaches feel they getting better work in the controlled environment of joint practices, but I do like following the pre-season and going blogging about it for the sixth year in a row I do wonder what form it will take in the coming years.

What I Know

Given how busy the next couple of months look this will not the last time I have to modify my blog schedule but I will do my best to stay on top of it and the picks will still go up ahead of the games as I really would like to get the blog back in Bengals colours, and I know Dan thinks the Dolphins’ version of the logos look particularly fine, but then he might be biased.

What I Hope

That the Bengals defence looks better this week and that I start to get a better feel for the Packers roster as they look to implement the new names and system.

Now I’m off to try to catch up with all the things I’m behind on!

Fell at the First Hurdle

10 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs

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Here we are in the second week of January with four playoff games complete, eight teams left, and six games to the Super Bowl. Today I’ll be taking a look at the playoff teams who fell at the first hurdle and will run through the coaching news as I have it, although it will be worth you checking the usual places as events are picking up pace as teams start to hire.

Houston Texans

The Texans made it to the playoffs but fell to their surging division rivals in the Indianapolis Colts. The Texans had a slow start to the season, and there was talk of Bill O’Brien’s job being in danger if they lost again and fell to 0-4. Instead they got an overtime win against the Colts, and then ripped off a further eight wins. The problem they have though, is whilst the front seven of their defence is strong, and they have one of the best receivers in the game as well as a dynamic young quarterback, there are holes in the rest of the team. This might not be surprising given they had to trade away picks to get their quarterback in Deshaun Watson, but they need to balance up the skill players surrounding DeAndre Hopkins or get them healthier and they need to improve the secondary of their defence. They have the sixth most cap space looking forward to 2019 so they have some room to manoeuvre, particularly with a young quarterback on a rookie deal, but they also have several picks in this year’s draft that have been traded away. More worrying is that whilst O’Brien keeps making the Texans competitive in the division, they have not quite convinced and the Colts look like they are shaping up to be a fearsome team in 2019. Experience teaches us that the Texans will likely compete for the division title again next season, and it was definitely great to see JJ Watt playing a high level again and who know what he might be able to achieve with a full off-season without a major injury to rehab. The Texans have gone to the playoffs four times in the last eight years, and twice under O’Brien, but in his five years as head coach they have only won one playoff game and that just makes me wonder if the owner will start to think about a change if the Texans can’t get a step further next season.

Seattle Seahawks

This is going to be curious one to write up as in a lot of ways the Seahawks defied the expectations coming into the season by finishing 10-6 and making the playoffs despite their young roster. The defence was overhauled and they committed to running the ball as their identity and that was good enough to make the playoffs, but my worry is that they will be too stubborn surrounding the offensive game plan. The repeated run on first and second down in their Wildcard loss to the Cowboys was not effective thanks to the Cowboys fifth rated rush defence. We have moved well pst establishing the run as a offensive philosophy and I very much believe that what you need is a credible threat to do either so that play action is effective. In Russell Wilson the Seahawks have one of the most effective quarterbacks in the game, and if they say ran play action on fifty percent of their first downs and threw in some mid-range passing they could be really effective without abandoning the run. I just don’t know if it is going to happen or not and it makes no sense to extend Russell Wilson as they will need to do shortly, and pay him the premium he is going to deservedly ask for if they don’t make the most of him. That doesn’t mean they should start running an Andy Reid style offence, but to my mind the offence needs tweaking. They have plenty of cap space and frequently draft well, but I just don’t if they are going to change spots now and I wonder if that will hobble them from getting back to the Super Bowl.

Baltimore Ravens

The Ravens got back to the playoffs after three years of missing out, and discovered the future of their offence in rookie quarterback Lamar Jackson. They can’t keep giving him carries at a record setting pace despite him only playing half a season, but he can throw the ball and the fact that he was able to get a couple of touchdowns in the fourth quarter of their Wildcard loss to the Chargers should reassure that he won’t be solved by a clever defence. The front office won’t be the same with Ozzie Newsome stepping down, but it feels like with the infrastructure in Baltimore they will be back and competitive next season. It certainly seems like John Harbaugh will stay as long as he gets the contract extension with the terms he wants. Unlike many defences, the Ravens always seem to be around the top five in the league and so you would imagine that the Ravens can focus on getting Jackson tools for the passing game, although you can never have too many pass rushers or corners. The Ravens are a little below league average for cap space in 2019 as currently constructed, but you would expect them to be there or there about next season and with a good draft they could be really scary.

Chicago Bears

The Bears loss in the Double Doink game was heart breaking, although the field goal miss has been amended to a block as a defender did get a touch. Either way, the worry for the Bears is that they had the number one defence in the league and couldn’t get the game won against the Eagles. They are twenty-third in the league in salary cap and there are players whose contract has expired. As defence is generally considered to be less consistent year to year (unless you’re the Ravens it seems), any step back from the defence would have to be countered by an improvement in the offence. Although Matt Nagy has improved the team, and there has been lots of focus on the way he called the offence, it only finished twentieth in the league by DVOA. I definitely thought that Mitchell Trubisky looked better this season, but he really needs to improve next year and there’s no way of knowing if it will happen. They also look like they will be without defensive coordinator Vic Fangio who is being looked at as a head coach candidate for the Broncos, who was the mastermind behind the Bears defence, and whilst they have a lot of talent, a new coordinator is not guaranteed to get the same result with the new roster next season. I do think the Bears can remain competitive, but there are enough factors to make Bears’ fans wary that it was a one season wonder. Hopefully a good pre-season and start to the 2019 season will put those fears to rest.

Coaching Hires

And so we move to the coaching carousel, where we have started to get some hires.

First up were the Green Bay Packers, who had a head start thank to their firing of Mike McCarthy mid-season. They are hoping to capitalise on the rise of Sean McVay by hiring his former assistant Matt LeFleur after one year of running the offence in Tennessee. It’s hard to assess how good a job LeFleur did with the Titans given the nerve injury Marcus Mariota battled through for large parts of the season, but at age thirty-nine with limited experience it is a risk. He’ll have been hired with a mandate to innovate and to get the best out of Aaron Rodgers, but as ever with young coaches it will all depend on how he builds his staff. I don’t think it is a coincidence that both McVay and Matt Nagy had first year success as a head coach and had very experienced defensive coordinators to lean on.

There will be no such concerns about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ new head coach, as they have hired Bruce Arians, who is one of my favourite coaches. I hope the year rest has helped his health as that is honestly my biggest worry, but he was attracted to the Bucs by his relationship with GM Jason Light and if anyone can turn around that franchise given some time it is Arians. I’m not totally abandoning my previous comments on the Bucs from last week as there is a lot to do, but I have about as much faith in Arians turning it around as anyone.

The Cleveland Browns have hired their temporary offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens as their new head coach, following the recent trend of teaming up an offensive mind with a young quarterback and we shall have to see how this works. Certainly the rapor with Baker Mayfield seems positive, but these hires haven’t always worke so we shall have to see.

The Arizona Cardinals have hired Kliff Kingsbury from college, and the honest answer is I don’t know enough about college football to judge this hire. It is deliberately an offensive coach to develop Josh Rosen and I’ve sean a video clipe of Sean McVaty praising him but only time will tell on that one.

Finally, at least of the ones I’ve seen confirmed, the New York Jets have hired Adam Gase to be another offensive minded head coach paired to a young quarterback, and Sam Darnold will have to hope to replicate the success of Peyton Manning than Ryan Tannehill.

There are other hires in the works as well as coordinators hired or staying so keep your eyes out and we’ll do a deeper dive when things calm down and we don’t have more important things like games to watch.

The Disappointed Twenty: NFC Edition

03 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts

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Following on from yesterday’s post it is time to say farewell to the NFC half of the disappointed twenty.

Washington

I almost don’t where to being with this team. They had a 6-3 record going into week eleven but no team can survive two quarterbacks breaking their legs and they also lost both starting guards in two separate games as injuries wreaked havoc over their roster and 2018 campaign. However, this is a franchise that has also just fired a huge number of their front office staff whilst the coaching staff have never quite convinced. Meanwhile, fans are attending games in ever fewer numbers and the glory days on the field are now over a generation away. I’m really not sure what to expect this offseason, a team that claims Reuben Foster on waivers three days after a domestic violence arrest are capable of pretty much anything but it’s possible they could compete in NFC East next year yet I could equally see it all going wrong and I certainly have very little confidence in them for the upcoming off-season.

New York Giants

The Giants got themselves a possibly all-time great a running back in this year’s draft, but that didn’t exactly result in a huge turnaround for the team, which is why the pick was questioned back in April. There is still talk of Eli Manning coming back for another year, but whilst he’s a lot better than I would be, he doesn’t look like the player who was part of two Super Bowl wins. Until they truly face up to, and resolve, the quarterback situation for the future then I think there is a pretty severe limitation to what this franchise can achieve. They also have other areas of the roster to address and are not exactly flushed with cap-space either but at least GM Dave Gettleman has built a Super Bowl contender before. There were questions about his iteration of the Panthers, but they built around Cam Newton and right now I think the Giants need a quarterback they can build round before they can improve by much. The Giants’ fans will live in interesting times this off-season.

Minnesota Vikings

The Vikings went into the season’s final week needing a win to make it to the playoffs and so they can hope to compete next year, but the window might be closing for a talented team that were hoping that the addition of Kirk Cousins as their quarterback would put them over the top. This very much did not happen, but there were other issues as the offence sputtered this season. The defence may have only slipped a couple of places in DVOA by the end of the year, but you don’t expect a Mike Zimmer defence to ship twenty-seven points to a woeful Bills offence and there were other slip ups. I love Zimmer as a coach, but he has not been able to find an offensive co-ordinator or quarterback to work with long term and this is something the Vikings need to get right this offseason. Cousins isn’t going anywhere with his guaranteed contract and the Vikings have the least amount of cap space available going into next year of the teams who aren’t actually over the cap at the moment i.e. thirtieth in the league. The problem with that is the Vikings’ offensive line is still letting its skill players down and so I have to wonder whether the Vikings will be able to pull something together next season or if they are going to have similar problems again. They are not going to turn into a bad team overnight but I’m not sure how they get the answers they need on offence, which would be a concern if you a fan or attached to the team but I wouldn’t rule them out of improving either. It’s just not as easy to see as for certain other teams and they need to hire the right offensive coordinator and stick by them.

Green Bay Packers

The Packers fired one of the longest tenured coaches in the league this season, having hired a new GM in the offseason and so now we get even more change. On the face of it the Packers job is appealing given the tradition of the Packers and the presence of Aaron Rodgers. However enough people have speculated about Rodgers to make me wonder if there is something about the way he has been handled by the franchise and the stories of his attitude. More concerning is the fact that he is thirty-five, the expectations that come with this job will be huge yet the Packers are in the bottom half of the league for available cap space next season and Green Bay is not exactly a free-agency destination. This is the first season where a healthy enough Aaron Rodgers hasn’t got you into the playoffs, and with the right hires and roster moves I’m sure the Packers can be back in contention next season, but I’m not sure if it is the slam dunk that some might have you believe.

Detroit Lions

The coaching tree of Bill Belichick has not exactly prospered when they have left New England and Matt Partricia had a difficult first season. The offence was hobbled by injury at the skill positions, but long term offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter paid the price and Patricia will now get to hire his own coach to run the offence. However, it would not surprise me if there was very little room for Patricia to manoeuvre going forward as he was hired to take the team on and they went backwards from their 9-7 record of the 2017 season. If Patricia can step away from some of the Belichick inspired behaviours and find his own way then the team could rebound next season, but I would not exactly be surprised if the Lions have another difficult year and then Patricia should be very concerned about his job given how cut throat the world of NFL coaching has got in recent years.

Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons had a difficult season, with injuries up the spine of their defence wrecking their hopes early in the season and they actually battled back pretty well to finish 7-9. It was always going to be a hard job to follow Kyle Shanahan as offensive coordinator, but the offence has never quite been the same since he left and Steve Sarkisian has paid the price this off-season after two years of not quite putting it together. That said they still finished with a top ten offence by DVOA and Matt Ryan is thirty-three so whilst the Falcons window to get a championship has not closed, they need to get the new co-ordinator hire right if they are to make this a blip rather than the start of a downward trend. They also can’t have a defence that ranks thirty-first in the league by DVOA, but getting players back from injury and a good draft should solve that, but they really need their offence to fly again if you’ll forgive me the pun. I couldn’t help myself. Sorry…

Carolina Panthers

This was one of the stranger falls from grace as the Panthers were 6-2 after week nine but then lost seven straight games before closing out with a win against a resting Saints team in week seventeen. Until his shoulder started to bother him the unlikely pairing of Cam Newton and sixty-six year old offensive co-ordinator Norv Turner was paying dividends in their first season together, ably assisted by Christian McCaffrey who totalled nearly two thousand yards of offence this season and might have hit it if Cam Newton had not been sat for the last couple of games. More worrying for this team is that the defence slipped from seventh in the league by DVOA to twenty-second. I’m not entirely sure what the off-season holds given that the Panthers have a new owner with a background in finance and analytics whilst the coaching staff have an avowedly old school feel and the team ranks twenty-eighth in terms of cap space for next season. I think a lot of this will be immaterial if Cam Newton can’t get his shoulder healthy and manage it so he’s healthy for all of next season. I know I like to say we’ll have to wait and see a lot, but with the Panthers I think that is especially true for the next fourteen months or so.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Buccaneers got off to an entertaining start whilst Jameis Winston was suspended, but then things fell apart and head coach Dirk Koetter was let go after a 5-11 season. I’m more surprised that GM Jason Licht is staying and that the Bucs have committed to Winston for next season, but now whoever the new head coach is, he will have to buy into a roster that has threatened but never quite lived up to expectations and make it work. The Bucs are actually twenty-ninth in the league for cap space next year and with a new coach but no questioning of a regime who have failed to have a winning season then I’m not sure I can buy into a turnaround until I can actually see it. For context, the Buccaneers haven’t had a winning season since 2010 or back to back winning seasons since the 1999/2000 seasons. I take no pleasure in this, but I can’t look at this record and the previous four years of Jameis Winston and say yes, the Bucs are going to be fighting for the playoffs next season. As ever, I would be delighted to be proved wrong but I think there is more turbulence to come for this franchise unless they knock this coaching hire out the park.

San Francisco

The 49ers got their first bad piece of injury news in pre-season when running back Jerrick McKinnon, who came across from the Vikings in the off-season, was lost to IR with a knee injury and then quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was lost for the season before the 49ers even made it through a quarter of the season. In fairness the season never really got going and that will be a worry, as will the performance of a defence that couldn’t get out of the twenties by DVOA and a team who were thirtieth in the league overall. You can’t really judge the direction of this franchise by this season but I would imagine that both head coach Kyle Shanahan and GM John Lynch will be feeling a sense of urgency going into this offseason. I don’t think it is time to panic, but they could do with a good offseason and a definitive improvement to solidify their project in San Francisco or they might not get to complete it. The 49ers are at least in the top ten for cap space next season so they have room to manoeuvre and I wouldn’t necessarily bet against Lynch and Shanahan pulling it off but we’ll know a lot more by about week five of next season.

Arizona Cardinals

The first thing I want to say about the Cardinals disaster of a season is given the state of the roster, that GM Steve Keim had a five-week suspension from the team after pleading guilty to an extreme DUI charge in the summer, and that the Cardinals’ defence was top ten at points this season, it feels a little unfair to fire head coach Steve Wilks after one year. The offence had a rookie quarterback for lots of the season and a bad offensive line and there is a lot of work to do with this team. I will be interested to see who they go with for next season and how much room Keim will be given to manoeuvre, although he seemed to work very well with Bruce Arians so has some track record with the franchise. It could take more than one offseason to turn things round again though and clearly this is a franchise who now expect a certain level of success but I wonder if they will be able to achieve the results they expect if they don’t show some patience. There are certainly a number of coaches around the league who have demonstrated that in the right situation it is possible to turn things round quickly, but I’m not convinced that any coach doesn’t deserve more than a year unless there are serious problems in the locker room or behind the scenes and I’m not aware of anything like that in Arizona. This is a situation I’m going to watch closely but I wouldn’t like to predict right now what I think will happen next season.

AAF: David Bakhtiari

16 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by in Amateur Adventures in Film

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So this week’s amateur adventures in film is a little delayed, but that might be appropriate if you bear with me. I was at a slight loss to what I was going to write about when I remembered listening to The Ringer’s Robert Mays waxing lyrical about the play of left tackle David Bakhtiari early in the season and sure enough I took a look at his game against the Atlanta Falcons from week fourteen.

Now the interesting things for me is that looking at offensive linemen is to an extent always an exercise in trying to decipher the undecipherable. There are a lot of nuances that are hard to judge on film if you are not an expert, even if you try to watch for changes in set and how they approach each play. The real thing to look at is how the player does in pass protection and run blocking but even then you don’t know the protection scheme or what was meant to happen on a particular play.

Now watching Bakhtiari the major thing that struck me was his balance and how in control he looked. It reminded me of another AAF post I did on Joe Thomas where I was struck by a similar thought. With good pass protection, particularly by a tackle there is a balance and control about a player. Now it has to be said that doesn’t mean that Bakhtiari didn’t give up ground when bull rushed, but he basically always stayed in front of the pass rusher and was able to direct them away from his quarterback. There was one snap where the Falcons defender was able to break contact and come across Bakhtiari and eventually get a sack but part of the ability of Aaron Rodgers has to make life hard for his offensive line as often he will move out of the pocket so the linemen can’t always be sure of the point they are blocking too. However, Bakhtiari never looked troubled by this and often Rodgers would get rid of the ball before Bakhtiari has even engaged the Falcons defender he was facing. Partly this was a function of quick passes, but the other major comment I would have about Bakhtiari is that he seems to be incredibly patient when blocking and seems very happy to wait before getting his hands on the pass rusher but yet he doesn’t miss. You might have thought that this approach would lead to trouble but the defender never seems to be able to put a move on Bakhtiari despite not being engaged, Bakhtiari just waits until he feels the need before laying a hand on the defender. In fact one of my favourite plays was when Bakhtiari waited until his defender was half way through a spin move and simply engaged the defender’s back and stoned him dead facing the wrong way!

In the run game Bakhtiari is not exactly running over people, but that is a pretty rare thing in the NFL and all he really needs to do is turn his assigned man and seal the edge. However, Bakhtiari has the athleticism to keep up with the play when the whole line blocks right or left on run plays.

I wish I could write more on the nuances, but what I can say is that David Bakhtiari was left to cover a man on the left side of the defence on his own, pretty much never got beaten, and had the most amazing timing with the way he engages his defender. I want to learn more about line play and Bakhtiari would seem to be a good player to come back to. It would be well worth your time paying attention to Aaron Rodgers blind side the next time you watch the Packers.

The Contenders, the Changes, and the TWFSafties!!

12 Wednesday Dec 2018

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It’s getting to that time of the season where the games take on added significance through context as whilst each game is still one sixteenth of a team’s season, we are now seeing teams fall out the hunt of the playoffs and the consequences are pretty immediate. Gone are the days when teams waited until the Monday following the final game of the season to make their coaching changes and in fact some are even trying to spark a late season run, so with all that in mind let’s take stock of the week fourteen games and what’s been going on around the league. Oh yes, and I have two safeties for you luck people as well!

In the AFC, three of the division leaders lost with the New England Patriots losing in Miami in something that is fast becoming an unwanted tradition for the Patriots. The Pats’ coaching staff might have outsmarted themselves by having Rob Gronkowski on the field to defend an unlikely Hail Mary from Ryan Tannehill (who was nursing an ankle injury as well as only recently coming back from a shoulder injury) but what they came up with was still a fantastically exciting play that will be part of every season roundup.  The best thing to do if you somehow haven’t seen it, or missed Dan writing about it is to have a look at the highlights here. Whilst the Patriots should sail into the playoffs still, they look to be settling into the number two seed which they will have to hope is not too costly if the Chiefs continue their current streak into the playoffs. Meanwhile the Pittsburgh Steelers saw their hopes of taking the Raiders into overtime dashed when their kicker Chris Boswell slipped on his last second field goal attempt and missed for the second time that game. The bigger question is what took them so long to get Ben Roethlisberger back into the game in the second half once his rib injury had been cleared as he was seen stood on the sidelines whilst Josh Dobbs struggled to do much as his replacement. As for AFC South, the Houston Texans had their nine game winning streak ended by an Indianapolis Colts team looking to bounce back from their loss to the Jaguars and hoping to stay in contention for the playoffs.

The Colts are one of five AFC teams with seven wins trying to make said playoffs. The Dolphins are still in the mix, although they could just as easily finish eight and eight but given the injuries they have suffered Adam Gase has pulled off another impressive coaching job to keep them in contention. It feels like whatever happens in Miami they need to find a quarterback who can play effectively who is not as prone to injury as Tannehill. The Ravens remain on seven wins thanks to their narrow loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, but they were at least competitive and it looks like the competition for the AFC North will go down to the wire and perhaps the Bengals will have one last say in events in week seventeen when they face the Steelers. I should point out that Patrick Mahomes threw a no look pass and an impossible across the body throw on fourth and nine that very few other quarterbacks could plausably attempt and likely only Aaron Rodgers could carry off. The Tennessee Titans literally ran out winners in their game against the Jacksonville Jaguars with Derrick Henry amassing two hundred and forty-three yards and an amazing ninety-nine yard touchdown that featured three separate stiff arms as he rumbled the length of the field.

These five teams with seven wins are involved in two interconnected races, for whilst the Ravens and Steelers are duking it out for the AFC North, all look to be competing for one last wildcard spot as with a three game lead and still in with a chance of winning the AFC West – the LA Chargers should make the playoffs having already hit the magical ten win total with three games left. They did enough to beat the Bengals without extending themselves in a game that featured one of my worst picks of the year.

On the NFC side of the league, three out of the four division leaders won with the Dallas Cowboys riding their luck in overtime to beat the Philadelphia Eagles in a game that was marred by more officiating controversies. The Chicago Bears won a defensive game with the LA Rams that featured lots of interceptions and provoked questions about the Rams ability to function in the cold. It’s an easy narrative to grab but we shall have to see if over more games if it is genuinely a thing. However, it’s not often that we have seen Sean McVay struggle and I’m excited to see how this team does in their second trip to the playoffs under this regime. Meanwhile the New Orleans Saints got back to winning ways with a comfortable win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and remain in contention for the number one seed in the NFC.

It seems likely that we know the winner of each division of the NFC and like in the AFC, there is a clear contender for the first wildcard place as with their convincing win over the Minnesota Vikings, the Seattle Seahawks have a two game lead onver any other challenger.

The Vikings are one of four teams with six wins and so need to make a push in these last three games if they are to claim the last wildcard place. As a team with a high profile quarterback free-agent and an offence that hasn’t quite come together it is perhaps not a surprise that the Vikings have let go their offensive coordinator John DeFilippo, but it is a blow to the coordinator who was being quoted as a likely head coaching candidate before the season. There is however, a big difference between being the quarterback coach for a Super Bowl winning team and being the offensive coordinator, yet alone a head coach. I do idly wonder whether DeFilippo might find a quick rehire to lend a hand in Philadelphia given the struggles they have had on offence after the brain drain of the offseason, although the lack of deep threat doesn’t help either. Having lost to the Cowboys it feels like the Eagles won’t win the division, although technically it is still possible, but they have six wins and are one of the three teams that I think have actual shot at making the playoffs. Things are not exactly looking great for the Carolina Panthers as they lost on the road to the Cleveland Browns and there’s talks of issues with Cam Newton’s shoulder. The Panthers have also had changes in coaching staff, this time on the defensive time but having now lost five straight games they are running out of time to turn things round. I suspect it is already too late for six win Washington who at least scored some points when they brought on recently signed quarterback Josh Johnson, but when you lose to the New York Giants this badly it is a sign of a team who needs to rethink their approach.

That pretty much covers all the teams in the playoff race, but I thought I should mention the Green Bay Packers because of the news that’s surrounding them. Having fired Mike McCarthy last week they got back to winning ways against woeful Falcons and now stand at 5-7-1. It will be interesting to see how they try to retool on the fly given the age of Aaron Rodgers, and it was interesting that long-time coach Winston Moss tweeted about, ‘…Find somebody that is going to hold #12 and everybody in this building to a #LombardiStandard!…’ shortly after McCarthy was let go. The team may have bounced back with a win this week but after such a period of stability who can foresee how the offseason will go with the recently hired GM and his search for a new coach?

Finally, or at least the last thing before I finish up with the week fourteen safeties, I have to comment on one the teams whose major effect on the playoffs could well be that win against the Steelers this week. On Monday the Raiders let go of general manager Reggie McKenzie, which possibly wasn’t a surprise given that the Raiders have traded away such draft picks as Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper. The power dynamic for the Raiders obviously shifted when they handed Jon Gruden a ten-year $100 million contract and they will now have to find someone to work closely with Gruden but whoever they hire won’t have the power of a usual GM so only time will tell whether this will ultimately result in a more competitive team. However it works out, it is pretty clear that Gruden is central to the Raiders’ plan and the defining factor in the success of the team is the design and execution of Gruden’s plan by Gruden. There won’t be much room to hide whatever the result.

So we had two safeties this week and I got lucky enough to pick both games to watch anyway. The first took place in the Thursday night game and re-affirms the importance of special teams play when the Titans’ Cameron Batson muffed the catch and recovered the ball to be tackled into the end zone. In one play the Jaguars scored two points and got the ball back, they just failed to capitalise on that chance. The second took place early in the third quarter and is the kind of thing that drives an offensive coordinator round the bend as on second and fifteen on their own eight yard line Jared Goff took the snap and drifted back into the end zone where Eddie Goldman just beat Akiem Hicks to the sack and the safety. It’s the kind of play where situational awareness is so important and there is so much for a quarterback to learn so I don’t want to judge Goff too harshly but it makes you appreciate the Tom Brady or Drew Brees who stilllmake mistakes and take sacks but you think would have got rid of the ball in that situation. Still, the important thing is that the quarterback got sacked for points because that is what should happen to the glory hunters every now and again to keep them grounded. Let’s hope for some more next week and for those counting these were the ninth and tenth safeties of the season.

The Good, The Bad and the Downright Ugly!

05 Wednesday Dec 2018

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It’s been an eventful week this week in the NFL. We’ve seen firings, injuries, releases and believe it or not, even some games! So, where do I start…

As per usual, I’ll start with the games – most specifically, the Dolphins game. I’ve decided that I’m not going to tell my doctor that I support Miami. As a man with high blood pressure, I think it would be seriously frowned upon, especially given the way our last few games have finished. That being said, we picked up a win this week, which takes us back to a .500 record at 6-6, but as I mentioned to Gee (while trying to somehow empathise with him in his pit of Black and Orange misery), we really made it difficult for ourselves, especially towards the end.

We started well, getting a first drive touchdown for the second week in a row, which is amazing given that we got none in the previous 20 games! De’vante Parker made an 18 yard grab, which was our longest for the game, and the defence did a really good job of keeping the Bills at bay, especially Shady McCoy, who usually causes Miami all sorts of problems, but was held to just 52 yards on Sunday. This was the first time I’d seen the Bills this year (I hate getting this far into the season without having seen teams, but time hasn’t been as kind as it usually is this year), and I was hugely impressed with Josh Allen at Quarterback. I know he started the season poorly, but he offers something I LOVE in a QB: a rushing option. And boy did they make the most of that! He bagged himself 135 yards on the ground, which was more than double what the whole of the rest of the Dolphins managed.

The Bills will be really kicking themselves. They lost the game by just 4 points, and having missed a PAT kick and a Field Goal try, you’ve got to think that kicker Steven Hauschka can’t be the most popular guy in the locker room this week.

Before I move on to talk about the rest of the week’s events as I saw them, I’ve got to call out Xavien Howard who once again intercepted 2 balls (taking his total for the season up to 7), and defended 17 throws! He’s having a real standout season so far and along with Kiko Alonso and even Minkah Fitzpatrick to a certain extent, they’re doing a good job of keeping games close for a team who aren’t exactly free-scoring. And all of a sudden, people are mentioning us with in the conversation about Wildcards again. With trips to Minnesota and Buffalo sandwiched by the visit of New England (who historically we do well against at home) and Jacksonville in our last 4 games, I think we might actually have a fairly decent chance… with a bit of luck and a prevailing wind.

Injury-wise, I found myself in deep sympathy for Gee this week who I think has well and truly written of the Bengals season after Sunday’s game, which saw AJ Green hit the Injured Reserve list, meaning his season is over. The positive is that he’ll be back next year, but between him and Average Andy (I said I feel sympathy for Gee, but not enough to let a poke like that pass me by!), I think there’ll be a lot of face-saving going on for the Bengals in the remaining 4 games.

The Packers struggled this week, losing a close one to the now 3-9 Arizona Cardinals, and as a result, Mike McCarthy was relieved of his Head Coaching duties, having arrived in Green Bay back in 2006. He’s pretty much the only head coach who Aaron Rogers has played under as a pro, and I think it’ll be interesting to see what they manage for the remainder of the season.

The Rams made it to be the first team to officially qualify for the post-season, with their win on Sunday night over the Lions, which as you’ll imagine, I was delighted about! That’s made my chart look like this:

Picks and Trivia-wise, it was a poor week for me. I committed the cardinal sin of changing one of my picks after I’d submitted them (in changing from the Giants to the Bears) which predictably lost me a point. And then having REALLY wanted to change again on Monday night, I decided not to tempt fate again, and as such, lost another point, so all in all, pretty bad! I think I’m too far behind to come out on top now – I’m thinking of going completely against my instinct this week to see if that gets me more points.

And I don’t think I can really finish this week without talking about the league’s biggest problem by far in SOME of it’s players attitudes towards women. I won’t go too far into it as I have a feeling that Gee will cover this in detail, but we’ve seen Kareem Hunt fired by the Chiefs this week having been caught on camera ‘shoving’ a woman. There’s far too much of this kind of thing going on, what with Ezekiel Elliot last year and a whole string of others who have been punished for this kind of behaviour. It’s worrying, and it’s about time the league and the teams involved stepped up and educated their players against this kind of behaviour. I’m sure every sport has it’s share of this kind of thing, but the NFL seems to be especially affected.

On the positive side, it’s Christmas just around the corner, and we’ll soon be seeing the other side of the league’s players who will no doubt once again be busy delivering food and toys to those less well off – it’s one of the things I’m most proud about when I see that being reported around the festive period.

So with just a few weeks left to go, who do you think will be making the playoffs? Can you seen any surprises sneaking in there? Say hello on Twitter and lets have a chat!

Until next time…

@TWFDan

What Happens Next?

28 Wednesday Nov 2018

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Things managed to get worse for the Bengals this weekend and I will be writing about that, but I thought I would zip round the league first before letting rip to give those who don’t wish to indulge my reaction to the problems besetting the orange and black something to read.

There weren’t as many as in the previous week, but the NFL still managed to have four games separated by a field goal and a couple of upsets.

I’m going to start with a game I didn’t see, but on Monday night the Houston Texans won their eighth straight game to remain two games clear at the top of the AFC South. I suspect they are possibly the division leader I have written about the least this season and I will need to watch them again soon to get a better idea of what the transformation looks like. The obvious thing might be to take a look at their top five defence by DVOA that has JJ Watt and Jadeveon Clowney fit and combining for eighteen and a half sacks, but they are also getting enough out of an offence ranked twenty-first by DVOA to win and with them finding a way to run the ball and win with Deshaun Watson back at quarterback that side of the ball might be the more interesting study. Still, they have definitely established themselves as team worthy of more attention and I hope this paragraph doesn’t jinx them!

The Pittsburgh Steelers had a somewhat less successful weekend, losing on the road to the Denver Broncos. It feels like at least once a season the Steelers lose a game on the road they shouldn’t and as much as I admire what Mike Tomlin achieves in Pittsburgh this could once again lose them a shot of a playoff bye and home advantage later in the playoffs. They have a big game next week against the LA Chargers who got themselves back on track with a big win over the Arizona Cardinals and this meeting of AFC teams looks like it will be one of the highlights of the week thirteen.

With the Rams and Chiefs on their bye week, the New Orleans Saints were the only one of the top tier teams (according to me) in action in week twelve and ran out convincing winners in the evening Thanksgiving game against the Atlanta Falcon who will have to regroup in the offseason having been broken by injury. The New England Patriots got a healthy enough to win over the New York Jets but even though Rob Gronkowski returned to the field, he does not seem to be the same dominant tight end of previous years. Of their five remaining opponents the Patriots only have to face two with winning records and I will be very interested to see how they do hosting the Vikings next week and when they travel to Pittsburgh in week fifteen. I should also mention that the Patriots are yet to play the Dolphins in Miami where the Pats have lost in four out of the last five visits.

The Chicago Bears beat the Detroit Lions comfortably despite not being able to start Mitchell Trubisky and that leaves us with the NFC East as the only division that I haven’t discussed the division leaders. With Washington falling to the Cowboys on Thanksgiving and the Eagles scraping a win over the New York Giants on Sunday things remain tight in the east. The Cowboys have managed to get themselves equal to Washington but have the daunting task of hosting the Saints this Thursday night, whilst Washington and Philadelphia have the first of their two games against each other this weekend. Given the injuries to both Washington and Philadelphia most people seem to think the momentum is with the Cowboys right now and it certainly seems like the contest is going to go down to the wire in terms of winning the division. It is also worth noting that whilst the arguments about value are still valid, the Cowboys trade for Amari Cooper does appear to be making a difference and his breakaway touchdowns was pretty much the difference between them and Washington on Thursday.

This is your two game warning before I dig into the mess that is the Bengals right now.

The two games on Sunday I enjoyed watching were the Seattle Seahawks winning out over the Carolina Panthers despite the Panthers gaining well over double the amount of yards on the ground and seemingly moving the ball with more ease. However, costly failures in the red zone and some interesting decisions to go for it on fourth down led the Panthers to their third straight loss. I don’t know if a division game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is the right situation to try to turn things round, but they really need to get a win thus week if they want to stay in the race for a wildcard place.

Finally, whilst looking good for stretches of the Packers’ game against the Minnesota Vikings, it appears that Aaron Rodgers might be mortal after all. I would suggest the problem is more that the offence he has been given doesn’t seem to have evolved under Mike McCarthy in recent years despite the developments round the league, but after a good start that saw the Packers go 14-7 up at the start of the second quarter, they failed to score again until near the end of the fourth quarter and ultimately fell 17-24. At 4-6-1 the playoffs are not completely out of reach but they would have to run the table and hope to get lucky. The big sticking point in the final five games that jumps out on the schedule is their visit to Chicago in week fifteen, especially as the Packers have gone 0-6 on the road.

Okay, so here we go. Final warning.

So the Bengals season is hanging by a thread and only the most optimistic of super fans can even contemplate things turning around. Not only did the Bengals lose the battle of Ohio to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, but they lost Andy Dalton to thumb injury for the rest of the season. Now as it happens Jeff Driskell is pretty good as backup quarterbacks go and it’s not as if the Bengals were competing for the Super Bowl, but there are real problems with this team which stretch further than the injury list. The offence still ranks sixteenth despite the injuries that have hampered this side of the ball but the defence have been woeful all season. The Bengals have already fired one defensive co-ordinator and there are now questions yet again about whether it is time for Marvin Lewis to step aside. Now I do think it is time for this to happen, in fact it might have been time a couple of seasons ago but I understand the reluctance to do so and it does make me nervous. Marvin Lewis took a perennially underachieving team and made them respectable, frequently one of the most talented rosters in the league who went to the playoffs five seasons in a row between 2011-15 but this looks to be the third season that the Bengals miss out and something has to change. However, as much I would like to see an inventive offensive minded coach take over the franchise as that seems to be what is required to win with the current set of rules, replacing Lewis worries me because of the tendency for Mike Brown to hire people he knows and the rumours that Hue Jackson is a potential candidate that surfaced over the weekend.

Yes Hue Jackson, who has a 11-44-1 overall record and who just went 3-36-1 with the Cleveland Browns. Now I’m not necessarily saying he’s a bad coach, he did great things with the Bengals’ offence as a coordinator before he left for Cleveland, but I’ve seen nothing that makes me think that as a head coach he could turn things round. Look at how the Browns have been doing in recent weeks. Not to mention the shots that Baker Mayfield has been taking both on the field and after the game in the press. There is still a lot of talent on this roster, and it might just need a new voice to turn things round or it could need more of a re-build but who knows if the Bengals infrastructure above the head coach can facilitate such efforts. I have no idea what happens next and that’s what makes me nervous. So much of an NFL franchise’s success lies in getting the behind the scenes right to get the right coach with the roster at the right moment, and yes with the right quarterback. It appears that as Bengals fans, we live in interesting times….

Anyway, I shall leave you with a comment from Dan as we were discussing quarterbacks after his misguided shot at the red rifle yesterday.

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The NFL Spectacle

21 Wednesday Nov 2018

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The NFL got what it wanted on Monday night with a spectacular game that lived up to the hype. With a game that ends 51-54 you can understand all the talk being of the Rams win and the offences involved (to be fair there was over a thousand yards), but there are a couple of other things I wanted to mention from this game. Firstly, for all the talk of the yards gained and quarterbacks, perhaps the best player on the field Monday was Aaron Donald got two sack fumbles and caused enough pressure with his teammates that Patrick Mahomes threw three interceptions and fumbled the ball away twice. In fact, if I was the Chiefs I would not be overly worried by this loss as despite five turnovers and one hundred and thirty-five yards of penalties they only lost by a field goal. On a neutral field they will still fancy their chances but both teams could do with learning the lessons of the late game as they each manufactured chunk gains and neither seemed to worry about running out the clock and this could very well have lost either team the game. I’m not advocating for the old fashioned three yards and a cloud of dust runs, but a little manipulation of the clock could have definitely given one team an advantage.

So if Monday was a feast of offence that also featured multiple defensive touchdowns, the rest of the week showed that as much as anything, competitive games is what drives interest in the NFL. In fact the winning margin for eleven out of the thirteen week eleven games was five points or closer.

Other notable achievements included Lamar Jackson carrying the ball twenty-seven (yes 27) times against the Cincinnati Bengals in the Ravens’ 24-21 win. A double blow as the Ravens managed to beat the Bengals but not quite by enough for me to get my pick right. The Ravens only had Jackson throw nineteen times and the number of carries he had cannot be sustainable, but I will be interested to see how they develop the offence for him over the next few weeks. I do wonder how much of this game plan was about attacking the Bengals’ porous run defence and their inexperienced linebackers. The injury situation doesn’t look to be turning round quickly for the Bengals, but they were at least competitive in this game and if they can get AJ Green back they could have some success in a schedule that looks like it might lighten up a little in the coming weeks even if there are still visits to Pittsburgh and the LA Chargers left.

I picked the Colts to win but did not expect them to blow out the Tennessee Titans 38-10 and having heard Robert Mays wax lyrical about their offence and what they have done for Andrew Luck this season I will be taking a look at that for my coaching tape study this week. The other blow out this week was the New Orleans Saints rolling over the Philadelphia Eagles whose injury problems at corner as reached critical in terms of numbers, but the worst injury news is Washington’s who lost Alex Smith who broke both bones in his right leg in thirty-three years to the day since Joe Theismann had the same injury. With the advances in training and medicine it likely won’t be the career ender that it was for Theismann but Washington’s hopes for the season now rest on Colt McCoy. The Houston Texans managed to win out in this game though to maintain their two game lead on the Colts and Titans whilst stretching their win streak to seven.

The Pittsburgh Steelers got their revenge win in Jacksonville against a Jaguars team who have not got the memo about how modern offences should be run. They called a run play forty-one times with Leonard Fournette having twenty-eight carries and not making one hundred yards. Clearly they didn’t want to put the game in Blake Bortles’ hands but they might not of had to if they had selected say Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson who were both available in the 2017 draft when they picked Fournette. This is not a direct comparison of players so much as a comment on taking a running back that early and using them in this old fashioned way. You can still feature a running back, look at Todd Gurley, Alvin Kamara or Kareem Hunt but they need space to work and the days of the workhorse back running up the middle have been well and truly superseded.

A team who are very much running such a modern offence are the Chicago Bears, who are getting enough production from a developing Mitchell Trubisky and a defence that ranks first in the league by DVOA and this got them a big divisional win against the Minnesota Vikings this weekend. However, one of the other NFC team of the tier below the Saints and Rams lost whilst going for two at the end of the game as the Carolina Panthers stumbled against the Detroit Lions. This only furthers my confusion at the Lions’ set of impressive teams beaten, but also asks the question of whether the last games the Panthers have lost is a blip or the start of a trend. As usual, only time will tell but with the Seattle Seahawks getting their win on Thursday night over the Green Bay Packers the Seahawks could still have a shot at the playoffs whilst the Packers have probably lost too many games already unless Aaron Rodgers really is a dragon.

The New York Giants recorded their second straight win, this time over the flailing Tampa Bay Buccaneers who look like they need a new plan in the offseason. It is too late for the Giants to pull themselves into the race for the NFC East even with Washinton’s problems at quarterback, and likely the same for the Eagles but with another win the Dallas Cowboys could get themselves back into the conversation, particularly as they host Washington this Thanksgiving. The Cowboys seem to have worked out how to feature Ezekiele Elliott more on offence and with a defence that I’m surprised is only ranked twenty-first by DVOA but has been good enough, they at least stand a chance of winning their remaining division games and getting themselves into the mix.

The LA Chargers run of only losing to really good teams fell to the Denver Broncos this week, which is the kind of divisional games that can cause such results but they hope this won’t be a return to the getting in their own way Chargers that started last season. The Oakland Raiders however, got their second win of the season against the Arizona Cardinals in a reminder that if you like the points, you should really take the points even if the team have been bad.

The teams at the bottom of the league all seem to be taking games off each other whilst the cream of the NFL really seems to be rising and it seems like the season is slipping away for all three of us at The Wrong Football. There’s still time for one of our teams to build their way into a winning record but I would be surprised if they all did and I’m not sure what it will take for the Bengals to win a playoff game. Maybe it really is the time for a fresh start in Cincinnati, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves as there’s plenty of football left to watch this season and a lot of it has been really good. Let’s hope we can keep this momentum.

The Battle of the Big Guns

07 Wednesday Nov 2018

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I had a serene Sunday with the Bengals on a bye, although I have a creeping dread more worthy of the Halloween that just passed about the upcoming game as the New Orleans Saints are visiting Cincinnati and that bodes ill for the rested but injured Bengals team.

Still, before we get to the future outlook of the team there’s the minor matter of this week’s games to contemplate and the interesting results that occurred.

The obvious place to start would be the pretty amazing run of late games that I think entertained everyone. Although watching back later, I saw two games in sequence before circling back to the best game of the week once the UK Gamepass blackout had cleared. The first of these was the LA Chargers going into Seattle and demonstrating the faith I had placed in them was not misplaced with a relatively comfortable win against the Seahawks. It could have been even more comfortable had Caleb Sturgis not missed two extra points and a field goal, which also resulted in a missed two point conversion attempt by the Chargers trying to get back the original missed extra point back. Unsurprisingly the Chargers have moved on from Sturgis and reinstated Michael Badgley who was also on the roster, but that still means they have had seven kickers in the last three years! At this point surely some question are surely being asked about the special teams evaluation process of the front office as the Chargers have also had four people punt for them during this period.

Moving on from the special teams’ conundrum that is the Chargers, we saw this week’s contender for the best game of the season when the New Orleans Saints hosted the LA Rams and ran out 45-35 winners. The Saints built a big lead only to see the Rams close the gap back to 35 all in the fourth quarter before the Saints extended the lead once more for the win. It was an entertaining game, even if someone like me would have liked to see a little more defence, and that could be the Achilies heel of the Rams. It seemed like Marcus Peters was being picked on in the continuing absence of Aqib Talib who is seen as likely to return from IR in week thirteen. However, whilst the Rams defence has some very high profile names on it, including Dante Fowler who joined the team via trade on deadline day, doesn’t look to have quite gelled yet and are currently ranked only sixteenths by DVOA. The ranking against the run of twenty-fourth by DVOA showed up as Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram did the work on the ground whilst Drew Brees threw for four touchdowns and three hundred and forty-six passing yards. The Rams and Jared Goff were not quiet able to match this efficiency in the air whilst Todd Gurley finished with a modest sixty-eight yards on the ground and now the jockeying at the top of the NFC will get really interesting.

Finally, on Sunday night we had the battle of the 12s as the Green Bay Packers visited the New England Patriots but whilst keeping it relatively close for a lot of the game, the Packers were ultimately done for by the Patriots better consistency. The use of Cordarrelle Patterson as a makeshift running back in this game was effective enough that we might see more of it going forward even when Sony Michel comes back from injury whilst Josh Gordon caught five balls from ten targets to go over one hundred yards for the first time as a Patriot. What this game really showed however, is that so much of a quarterback’s success depends on the infrastructure around them and you get the feeling that there could be a coaching change in the works for Green Bay given the moves the newly installed GM is making.

Other notable things around the league include the Kansas City Chiefs beating the Browns convincingly and the Chiefs have one of the best offensive DVOA ratings ever. Conversely the Buffalo Bills have an historically bad offence, with their offensive DVOA of -53.9% putting them in the bottom ten of offences for the last thirty years. The Chicago Bears beat the Bills to stay atop the NFC North and now have two forty point blowout wins this season. The Carolina Panthers continue their quiet challenge for the playoffs with a big win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to take them to 6-2 whilst the Pittsburgh Steelers managed to do the double over the Ravens to stay atop the AFC North. The wheels came off for Washington when they lost both starting offensive guards to injury against the Atlanta Falcons and got beat badly. This could give Washington real problems going forward although they stay a game clear at the top of the NFC East whilst the Falcons have now won three straight and still have an outside shot of pulling themselves back into playoff contention. Speaking of streaks, the Houston Texans have now won six in a row while the Denver Broncos continue to struggle.

Finally, it is my mission to bring you every safety of the season and whilst we did not have any this week, we had three in week eight that I didn’t bring you because I was rushing off to London. That’s a total of eight so far this season and the 28th of October was second Sunday in a row where we had three safeties.

The first I’ll mention is a classic of joined up football where an LA Rams’ punt pins the Green Bay Packers up against their goal line and on their first down of the drive running back Aaron Jones gets met in the hole by Mark Barron and stopped for the safety. The second is combination of comedy of errors and situation awareness as on 3rd & 7 on the eight yard line, the Arizona Cardinals’ Josh Rosen starts in a shotgun formation and drops back to pass into the end zone, and whilst getting tackled tries to throw the ball away and gets called for intentional grounding, giving up the safety anyway. You can’t hold on to the ball in this situation and once again this is what happens to an offence when pinned against its own goal line by a punt. The final safety was again after a punt but this time it was a holding penalty called against Desmond Harrison of the Cleveland Browns in the end zone that results in the safety, and if you seek out the play from the week eight game against the Steelers you will see that it wasn’t exactly a marginal call.

Speaking of which, is it me or have the rule changes settled down over the last few weeks even if the defences to seem to be really struggling to contend. Anyway, I’m off to worry about this weekend’s game, the awful lines we’ve got this week, the trivia question I’m utterly stumped on, and to get on with this week’s newsletter.

Bring on Thursday night football, which looks to be a cracker of a matchup!