Grateful for What You can Rely On

25 Wednesday Nov 2020

Tags

Alex Smith, Andrew Whitworth, Andy Reid, Antonio Brown, Arizona Cardinals, Brandon Allen, Carlos Dunlap, Carlos Hyde, Cincinnati Bengals, Covid-19, Derek Carr, Jared Goff, Joe Burrow, Kansas City Chiefs, Kyler Murray, LA Rams, Las Vegas Raiders, NFC East, NFL, Patrick Mahomes, Pittsburgh Steelers, Podcast, Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tom Brady, Travis Kelce, Washington Football Team

It feels like 2020 as a year has emphasised how important it is to be able to rely on different parts of our lives, and I’m sure that those working in the NFL feel no different, so as we approach the US holiday of Thanksgiving it feels more important than ever to think about the things we are grateful for in our lives.

I have been enjoying recording a podcast again, even if we have been a little more sporadic than we would have liked coming into the season, but thankfully the missed weeks were not for any serious reasons. I have had enough of those through the year and as odd as it still is to be missing part of the team I am used to have working on this site, it has been so good to speak to my friend Dan nearly every week, both on the pod and around recording. The dynasty league is also getting to the business end of the season, and the teams’ records are closing nicely to keep things competitive to the end. I’m grateful for a relatively smooth-running league given it is my first season as a commissioner and the disruption that Covid-19 threatened early in the season.

What I Saw

The first of the week eleven games saw the Seattle Seahawks tweak some of their game plan as they hosted the Arizona Cardinals in a divisional game, that the Seahawks ultimately won 28-12. Part of the Seahawks plan was to re-balance the offence with the return of running back Carlos Hyde from injury allowing Russell Wilson to make a more reasonable twenty-eight pass attempts as opposed to the fifty he had when these teams faced each other earlier in the season. The Seahawks’ defence also seemed to have a better plan for containing the Cardinals and Kyler Murray, with the Cardinals quarterback only rushing for fifteen yards in this game. I’m not sure that the addition of Carlos Dunlap was the entire answer, but with three QB hits and two sacks it certainly helped, although I suspect it will always be odd for me to watch the long time Bengal play in a number forty-three jersey after his decade in orange and black wearing ninety-six. The NFC West continues to be fearsomely competitive, and I think the Seahawks could well be mounting another run on the play-offs. I’m not panicking about the Cardinals as their destiny is still in their hands, but playing the Rams twice will be the very opposite of facing the NFC East teams still on their schedule.

Moving on to Sunday and the early game I watched was the heart-breaking loss of the Cincinnati Bengals to the Washington Football Team. It was horrible to watch for obvious injury related reasons, but the first half was frustrating as the Bengals generated plenty of yardage but could not score points and so only took a 9-7 lead into half time. It was painfully obvious just how many offensive line problems Joe Burrow was covering up by getting the ball out as the Bengals just couldn’t move the ball without him. My resolve to watch every snap is going to be tested over the next six games as I’m really not sure what there is to be taken from these games, and I am not at all convinced by this coaching staff. As for the Football Team, they did what they needed to win in the second half, and it is still a source of joy to see Alex Smith back on the field. I really don’t want to call who will emerge from the NFC East to host a play-off game, but you cannot count anyone out of it now all four teams have three wins, so it seems there could be many twists and turns to come.

The last Sunday game I watched was the Las Vegas Raiders hosting the Kansas City Chiefs, who went into the game coming of their bye, a situation that Andy Reid’s teams were 18-3 in before Sunday and now stand at 19-3. It was a back and forth game with the Raiders all the way through, but Patrick Mahomes is just behind the tax man and death for inevitability, and led the Chiefs to their final touchdown score with a pass to Travis Kelce to put the game away 35-31 with twenty-seconds on the clock. This drive followed on from Derek Carr giving the Raiders the lead a little over a minute earlier with his own touchdown drive that ended with a pass to a tight-end. The Raiders are a serious team this season, whose defence has risen to the lofty heights of a twenty-fourth ranking by DVOA, and whilst it still looks like the Cheifs and the Steelers are the best of the AFC if not the NFL, I am sure no one would look forward to facing the Raiders with the way they are playing at the moment.

The final game I saw was the Monday night contest between the LA Rams visiting the Tampa Bay Buccaneer, which was another back an forth game that saw both teams trade score, but the Bucs only took the lead once and were eventually defeated 27-24. This game did not go how I was expecting, and as much as Tom Brady struggled again and threw a couple of bad interceptions, it was the fact that the Buccaneers could not disrupt Jared Goff and the Rams offence even with veteran left tackle Andrew Whitworth missing through injury. A couple of weeks ago it felt like the Buccaneers were shaping into one of the best teams in the NFL, but they seem to have fallen back in the last few weeks. This dip does seem to coincide with the signing of Antonio Brown but it might not be that, and those of us outside the franchise can’t truly know. I am still inclined to think this is the growing pains of a team still assimilating a lot of new players without a proper off-season programme, but they are running out of weeks to get everyone on the same page ahead of the play-offs. There should still be time, but I do not feel as confident that they will pull this off as I did only a couple of weeks ago. The Rams meanwhile continue to compete and whilst there are going to be questions regarding Jared Goff in the big game until he repeatedly proves people wrong, he still does enough to win more often than not and has already played in one Super Bowl for Rams. I am not sure he can live up to his contract, but I think the criticism of him often goes too far the other way and I expect the Rams to be there or there abouts come the sharp end of the season.

What I Heard

There has been a lot of talk about the Joe Burrow injury, with lots of people pointing out how often he had been hit this season and everyone agreeing what a blow it was. As a fan the tweet is still pretty heart breaking, even with the positive attitude:

Thanks for all the love. Can’t get rid of me that easy. See ya next year✊
— Joey Burrow (@JoeyB) November 22, 2020

I’ve heard positive things from medical commentators that he should come back as good next season, and I just hope the Bengals have an improved situation for him to work with.

Still, hearing Alex Smith on Peter King’s podcast was an even greater comeback and as much as the loss was painful, there’s not another quarterback I’d rather lose to than Smith after all he went through to get back on the field.

It’s a timely reminder of the lengths these highly talented athletes go through to have a career and the risks they are taking even before you take Covid-19 into account.

What I Think

The fates appear to have been listening to Dan and mine’s conversation on Tuesday regarding Covid-19 and the NFL’s commitment to getting the season done as demonstrated by its upping of all teams to the intensive protocol. We mentioned the Raiders issues last week that still saw them play the Chiefs this Sunday, and mentioned that the Ravens were already operating virtually after some positive tests.

In a move that I think Dan is taking as a deliberate pre-empting of the podcast release tomorrow, the Baltimore Ravens game against the Steelers in Pittsburgh has been put back to Sunday. In the context of how the protocols are running it makes perfect sense as this gives the Ravens enough days that they can get five clear days of tests for those close contacts to the positive tests, and as long they don’t get an escalating situation that we’ve not seen since the Titans outbreak earlier in the season, then it seems likely the game will take place on Sunday.

I really wasn’t sure when the season started whether that the NFL was going to get to the end of the season, and I certainly expected them to have to run late, but in fairness the league and franchises (including all players and staff) are currently on schedule with no lost of games yet, and there are contingencies if the worsening situation should affect teams and the schedule more dramatically. The real world test of all of this is continuing to escalate, but on then league’s own terms it is a case of so far so good.

What I Know

If the trues wisdom is knowing that you know nothing, then the 2020 season has been a very apt demonstration of it.

I feel like you can trust perhaps two and a half teams to win regularly at the moment, and then there is a large number of teams that win or lose games when you are least expecting it. Let’s not even start on the mess that is the NFC East where all four teams have a riotous three wins and a shot at the play-offs.

There’s always a large element of randomness in the short NFL season, but that has never been clearer than in this Covid affected season with its absence of proper off-season, expanded practice squads, more relaxed IR rules, and varying Covid-19 protocols. All that said, whoever does eventually win the Super Bowl, if and when it has been played, will have truly earned a championship.

What I Hope

This week I hope to be proved wrong, and that the Bengals give us something to enjoy. I’ll take Bandon Allen starting and helping this team develop in Burrow’s absence.

Of course I will be hoping for a full and swift recovery for Burrow as well, but I can’t write that every in post from now until next season so let’s just take it as read.

Get well Joe.

As for the rest of you, look at the things you are grateful and tell the people responsible thank you. I think we could all stand to hear that at the moment.

2020 Week Eleven Picks

22 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Picks Competition

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Tags

Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Whitworth, Antonio Brown, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Covid-19, Dalvin Cook, Drew Brees, Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts, Jameis Winston, Jared Goff, Kansas City Chiefs, LA Rams, Lamar Jackson, Las Vegas Raiders, Matt LaFleur, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, NFL, Patrick Mahomes, Philip Rivers, Sean McVay, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Taysom Hill, Teddy Bridgewater, Tennessee Titans

After a pretty disastrous week ten for picks it is kind of appropriate that I got week eleven off to a losing start, but I suppose I had better start from the beginning.

The last week was pretty rubbish for me given that I was ill for a lot of it, but let’s hope that’s the last week of the season that my routine is affected by illness. I fell another four games back from Dan and so whilst I managed to keep his lead down to single digits, it really does feel like he is destined to take over from his dad as picks champion, which somehow feels appropriate. He has even scored more points than my value tracking numbers, although because there isn’t always a line advantage his winning percentage is over ten points lower, but I am no where near 50-50 this season so I am clearly going to have to re-work things in the off-season.

However, having watched the Seahawks stomp over the pair of us backing the Cardinals on Thursday night, it’s time to swing through the survivor competition and get into the rest of the week eleven slate of games.

Gee:	Week 10: 4 – 10	Overall: 69 – 79
Dan:	Week 10: 8 – 6	Overall: 78 – 70

Survivor Competition

Through ten weeks Dan and I are a pretty respectable eight and seven points respectively. Dan’s confidence paid off last week as he took the Vikings over the Bears whilst my play against the Texans with the Browns worked out for me. Although the Jets are back in play this week, neither Dan or I are trusting enough of the Chargers to risk them as our pick and so while Dan is demonstrating confidence in the Patriots recent run of wins by backing them over the Texans, I am working my way up the list of losing teams and settling on the Vikings going against the Cowboys. I am a little concerned that Jerry’s team are coming off a bye and are getting Andy Dalton back from his concussion/Covid-19 nightmare, but there are fifteen places between them in the overall DVOA rankings and I like how the Vikings have been playing in recent weeks.

Current Score

Gee: 7
Dan: 8

Week 11 Selection:

Gee: Vikings
Dan: Patriots

Early Games:

I can find reasons to pretty much watch any NFL game, but it does feel like this week the exciting contests are a little thinner on the ground and somewhat weighted to the later part of the slate and Monday.

The first of the early games to really catch the eye is the Tennessee Titans travelling to face the Baltimore Ravens, but that is as much because of what it will tell us about the teams than conviction in the inherent quality of the contest. The Titans are a perfectly respectable 6-3, but the concern will be that they have slipped to that record after a 5-0 start and have lost three of their last four games. The defence is not good and the kicking game has been a real Achilles’ heel and whilst the big names have been performing on offence, losses to the Colts and the Steelers will be concerning as they came at home whilst having already lost to the Bengals on the road, the Ravens will prove a stern test. The Ravens are a matching 6-3, but whilst they have another top ten defense and are second in the league in special teams by DVOA, the offence is ranked in the twenties and is definitely struggling after they set the league alight last season. The interesting commentary I have heard over this is that for all the questions about Lamar Jackson throwing the ball this season, he is near the top of the league when throwing on first down, the problem with their run heavy attack is that the Ravens just don’t do this a lot. If the Ravens can figure out their pass-run balance on first down, and they are known as one of the more analytically minded teams, then they could truly terrify, but as I have said all season, they won’t really scare opponents until they can demonstrate the ability to come back from a big deficit. I think they are unlikely to face that problem in this game though, and think they are likely to win a physical game although that line does look generous to me.

The other game I am interested in is the New Orleans Saints hosting the resurgent Atlanta Falcons. The Saints have looked a lot better in the last couple of weeks, but they are obviously going to be a different team whilst Drew Brees recovers from his collapsed lung and broken ribs. The Saints demonstrated they could win consistently without Brees for multiple weeks last year, but Teddy Bridgewater is now starting for the Panthers and it is interesting that at the time of writing the starter is rumoured to by Taysom Hill and not Jameis Winston. Regardless the Saints will be without Brees for at least three weeks as he’s been placed on IR and they start this run against a rested Falcons team who have won three of their last four games. If the Falcons continue to win at this rate it could make how to proceed in the off-season a tricky question, but this is their first real test since their mini turnaround given that it consisted of beating a Vikings team without Dalvin Cook, then facing the Lions, Panthers and Broncos. I think I like the Saints to win out given their experience and defense, but I am not exactly sure about it and the line seems high to me.

From the rest:

The Bengals are a two-win football team for a reason, and after a really great win against the Titans they were battered by the Steelers last week. This is a very winnable game, but the experience of Alex Smith worries me, even if it is amazing to see him come back from the injuries he had to start in the league once more. If the Bengals don’t win this one though, you will likely find my querying the directions of the franchise under Zac Taylor in next week’s podcast.
The Eagles still stand atop the NFC East despite their loss against the Giants last week, but they were meant to come back stronger from the bye not lose another game and this is a tough match up as they travel to Cleveland to face a Browns team with twice as many wins. The Eagles are going to have to really improve to compete in this one and if they don’t soon then a very winnable division is going to slip through their fingers. It is a sign of how far the Browns have progressed this season that there’s not a lot to say this week and we are not focused on Odell Beckham’s injury.
The story breaking about last season’s Lions having a party at the end of the season because they would be free of Matt Patricia is not a ringing endorsement of him as a head coach, and having just finished a biography about Bill Belichick for all his testy relationship with the media, his players like and respect him and he wins, something Patricia with a 13-27 record has failed to consistently do. Having beat Washington by three points last week the struggling Panthers provide another opportunity to pad the win column, but it still feels like the Lions are a franchise marking time until off-season changes.
With two consecutive wins the Patriots have dragged themselves back into contention and are only a win away from get back to even wins and losses, which they really should get this week against a Texans team who can’t really compete now that Deshaun Watson no longer has DeAndre Hopkins to throw to. The slow rebuild the Texans are going to need over the coming seasons will stand testament to how GM Bill O’Brien let down head coach Bill O’Brien.
The Pittsburgh Steelers unbeaten streak was never in doubt against the Bengals last week, and I doubt they will struggle to beat the Jaguars in Jacksonville, but it will be worth keeping an eye on this game just in case the Steelers have one eye on their week twelve Thanksgiving meeting with the Ravens.

Falcons @ Saints (-4.5)

Gee’s Pick: Falcons
Dan’s Pick: Saints

Bengals @ Washington (-1.5)

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

Eagles @ Browns (-3.5)

Gee’s Pick: Browns
Dan’s Pick: Browns

Lions @ Panthers (-1.5)

Gee’s Pick: Panthers
Dan’s Pick: Panthers

Titans @ Ravens (-6.5)

Gee’s Pick: Titans
Dan’s Pick: Titans

Patriots @ Texans (+2.5)

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

Steelers @ Jaguars (+9.5)

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

Late Games:

I think there is a singular stand out game in the late slot, which is the Green Bay Packers taking their 7-2 record to Indianapolis and a Colts team who have won consistently but haven’t quite convinced yet. This should be a really interesting contest when the Packers have the ball as it will see Aaron Rodgers running Matt LaFleur’s offence against a Colts defense who are currently ranked top five by DVOA, but it will likely be determined by how well a fading Philip Rivers can operate a Colts offence that hasn’t quite found its feet this season against a Packers defense that has so far done enough to win games thanks to their offence being second only to the Chiefs by DVOA. I am really looking forward to this one.

From the rest:

It is a testament of how things are coming together for the Dolphins that this looks like a straightforward game for them given that the Broncos are struggling to do anything consistently and Drew Lock has failed to prove himself the answer at quarterback despite the promise he had shown coming into the season.
The team without a win meets the team who seem to specialise in close losses, and something has to give. It is not exactly a surprise that the LA Chargers are favourites, but the Jets could be more competitive than this line suggests coming off a bye
The Cowboys will be hoping that the return of Andy Dalton gives them a boost as they also come off the bye, but the Vikings have looked a different team since getting Dalvin Cook back and will have an eye on a run to the play-offs in the final seven games of the season. However, with games on the road against the Buccaneers and Saints to come, they can’t afford any slip ups, including dropping a game against the struggling Cowboys.

Dolphins @ Broncos (+3.5)

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

Jets @ Chargers (-8.5)

Gee’s Pick: Jets
Dan’s Pick: Chargers

Cowboys @ Vikings (-7.5)

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

Packers @ Colts (-2.5)

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

Sunday Night Football:

Chiefs @ Raiders (+6.5)

This tasty looking Sunday night game feature a divisional matchup where the Chiefs will be looking to revenge their single loss of the season to the Las Vegas Raiders, which is the only game where Patrick Mahomes has thrown an interception. The Raiders continue to struggle with Covid-19 protocols as one of the most heavily fined teams in the league had over half of their defensive starters put on the Covid-19 list this week due to close contact to a person with a positive test. As of Saturday there had been no further positive tests so if that holds they should get them all back for this game, but they have not been in the facility whilst the Chiefs are coming off a bye and Andy Reid has an 18-3 record after the bye so I have a feeling I know which way this contest will go. The Raiders will be hoping to confound this record but have not exactly had the ideal preparation to do so.

Gee’s Pick: Chiefs
Dan’s Pick: Chiefs

Monday Night Football

Rams @ Buccaneers (-3.5)

This should be a really good game as the LA Rams have been compeititve in pretty much every game this season and have a top ten offence and defence. The issue could be that Jared Goff is a quarterback who tends to either look really good or confused, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with their best defence by DVOA absolutely have the capacity to take Goff out of his game. The additional problem for the Rams is losing Andrew Whitworth at left tackle to a knee injury against the Seahawks last wee as even at 39 Whitworth was playing great football and he will be a big miss. The Bucs have only three losses this season, two against a Saints team that seem to have their number and to a Bears team that the Bucs should have beaten on a Thursday night if it was not for the number of penalties they gave away. The unsurprising bad news stories that follow the unstable Antonio Brown hit this week, demonstrating the dangers of signing him but for now the Bucs are coming off a big win against the Panthers and will be looking to prove their status against the Rams and Chiefs ahead of their week thirteen bye. I would not like to bet against the Bucs winning this week, but the line did give me pause picking the game, but as much as I rate Sean McVay as an offensive mind, the known issues with Goff against good defences would already worry me before he lost his left tackle.

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

DVOA is Football Outsiders statistic for measure a team’s success on every play versus the league average and you can read more about it and other football topics at https://footballoutsiders.com.

Who Needs a Schedule Anyway?

15 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Tags

Andrew Whitworth, Andy Dalton, Atlanta Falcons, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Christian McCaffrey, Cincinnati Bengals, Covid-19, Dak Prescott, Dan Quinn, Jamel Dean, Jim Turner, Joe Burrow, Kansas City Chiefs, Ke'Shawn Vaughn, Matt Rhule, Minnesota Vikings, NFL, Nick Foles, Russell Wilson, Sean McVay, Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans, Thomas Dimitroff, Tom Brady, TWF NFL Dynasty League, Zac Taylor

Well ,week five finished with an unexpected result that I called wrong in the picks competition, which is becoming a worrying trend, but at least the Titans are back playing games and the NFL looks like it can keep to its scheduling plan for now. Meanwhile, the Bills after facing two scenarios about who they were playing have to move on quickly as they face the Chiefs on Monday night.

That said, I feel all over the place with the site at the moment, and having spent a chunk of time yesterday dealing with how our dynasty league would managed the waiver wire this week given that we were still locked in week five, I delayed this post by a day as there is no competition Thursday this week as we have no Thursday night game.

So let’s take a look at what happened in week five.

What I Saw

The week five Thursday night game was a ragged affair that I still found entertaining thanks to the two good defences on display, but it was frustrating to get my pick wrong as my assessment of the Buccaneers ability was fairly spot on but it was their indiscipline on offence that cost the Bucs this game. The Bucs actually went up by ten points in the first quarter of the game as the Bears struggled to move the ball consistently but kept themselves in touch thanks to their defence. The Bucs finished this game with three-hundred and thirty-nine yards of offence, ninety-six yards more than the Bears were able to generate but the Bucs also were flagged eleven times for a loss of one hundred and nine yards. This was forty-three more yards in penalties than the Bears and the combination of penalties and the Bears defence meant that after the first quarter the Bucs were only able to kick field goals for the rest of the game. That said, despite being streaky, Nick Foles managed to complete more passes that Tom Brady, even with Bucs corner Jamel Dean seeming to wage a one-person battle on the Bears’ passing attack at the end of the game. The Bears were able to do enough on offence against a Bucs defence that was regularly getting pressure to eek out a one point lead at the end of the game, but with how tight the game was the key play might have been when Bucs’ running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn caught a short pass and fumbled the ball setting up the Bears offence with a short field and that led to their second and last touchdown of the game in a crucial burst of point scoring in the second quarter. This is a game that I feel the Bucs really could have and probably should have won, but they need to clean up the penalties if they are to reach their potential. Meanwhile, if the Bears can keep getting enough production from Nick Foles on offence then their defence is good enough that they will keep winning games even if they likely won’t maintain their current twelve win pace or compete with the best teams in the NFL.

I don’t want to spend too much time on the Bengals this week as they were very poor, but the problem remains the offensive line and I’m now getting really worried about Joe Burrow operating behind it. In fact, I have a wider concern, Zac Taylor is a young head coach, hired due to his relationship with Sean McVay and the Bengals stressed how much they committed to his plan with rearrangements of both the practice facilities and offices, as well as hiring Taylor the largest staff they have ever had, but the offensive line is a good representation of my wider worry. Taylor’s choice of Jim Turner as o-line coach didn’t sit well with me from the start. Turner not only tolerated the bullying in his position group whilst at the Dolphins, but the investigation into the resulting scandal implicated him in taking part. Not content with this, when he returned to Texas A&M he was involved in another scandal involving inappropriate jokes at a football clinic for women. It’s one thing for a person to make a mistake and learn from it, but I have no patience for bullies or people who clearly have no interest in reforming their ways. The o-line has been a problem since Andrew Whitworth was let go, and the lead in to last season was undeniably tough with injuries and retirements, but it doesn’t feel like anything is changing or that players are developing and if the head coach can’t see this then I have to wonder about their judgement. It is appears I lied about spending too much time on the Bengals, but moving on to the Ravens – the blip against the Chiefs aside the Ravens are clearly a very good football team who will meet far stiffer challenges over the rest of the season and likely emerge victorious from most of them.

The other early game Sunday game I watched this week was the Carolina Panthers winning their third straight game, beating the still winless Atlanta Falcons. It was not a spectacle of a game, but the seventeen points the Panthers scored in the second quarter was enough for them to comfortably beat a Falcons team who have continued to struggle and that ultimately led to both GM Thomas Dimitroff and head coach Dan Quinn being fired. The Falcons have been trending this way for a while, but it had to be a difficult decision as a lot of the basis for the team that went to the Super Bowl is still there, but they have just not been able to recapture that form. Meanwhile, the Panthers have quietly got themselves to 3-2 despite losing Christian McCaffery to injury in week two, but could very well still be in contention by the time he returns from IR and that is a lot more than I was expecting of them coming into the season. The rest of this year will be strange for the Falcons as both players and coaches will be trying to prove they belong in the league, but it is going to be a long time before the Falcons as an organisation can do anything directly in terms of replacing their GM and head coach. That said, if the head start in the background checks the Falcons get by making the decision now leads to a similar result as what the Panthers have got so far with their new head coach having made an early change themselves last season then they will be very happy.

The final game I got to watch in week five was the closely fought contest that the Minnesota Vikings narrowly lost 27-26 to the Seattle Seahawks. The Vikings scored thirteen unanswered points to build a halftime lead, but came roaring back in the third quarter with three touchdowns and were taken to the wire by the Vikings. The big talking point coming out of this game was the Vikings decision to go for it on fourth down on the Seahawks’ six yard line with two minutes on the clock rather than kick a field goal. There may well be a statistical argument for doing what they did, both in terms of if they made the first down and in turning the ball over with under two minutes left on the clock on the opponents six yard line, and I would usually totally support the decision if that was the case. However, there are a handful of quarterbacks that you feel could execute a ninety-four yard drive in that time and Russell Wilson would be very much near the top of that list, particularly with the form he is in this season. The Seahawks did precisely that, scored the winning touchdown but failed on the following two-point conversion. The same conversion they would have needed to take the game to overtime if the Vikings had just kicked the field goal and taken an eight point lead. It is easy to be wise in hindsight, and I would normally support the maths, but this is one of the few times where I would countenance taking the safe option.

What I Heard

I am going to have to start taking better notes as I have heard lots of interesting things and couldn’t immediately bring a lot of it to mind. However, one thing that did stick is that whilst looking for what coaching tape to watch, I decided to look at the Football Outsiders DVOA stats for offensive line and have a look at the best team. Well, according to the site the team with the best adjusted line yards were the Cleveland Browns (closely followed by Dan’s Dolphins [the real NFL franchise, not his dynasty team]) and this was not wholly a surprise. Unlike the Bengals, who many people have commented on as being poor (although not in adjusted line yards where they rank a lofty twenty-six despite conceding the most sacks in the season so far), I have heard several people talking about how good the Browns’ offensive line is, and how impressive this was given they had a new coaching staff that had to install their offence during a Covid- shortened pre-season. A lot of credit has brrn given to their o-line coach Bill Callahan, and whilst I don’t know enough to evaluate him or the praise, it does make sense and I am looking forward to getting a head start on the coaching film this week with no Thursday night game.

What I Think

Despite the situation with the Titans, the NFL has as yet not lost a game from their schedule and they will be hoping the problems in Tennessee were an outlier and not a foreshadowing of what is to come. The NFL are continuing to adjust their protocols and re-enforce existing ones with talk of restricting the roles of those who are found to have been close contacts of players who have tested positive. I am still pretty impressed that the season has run as well as it has so far, but we are now heading into autumn with the weather becoming more favourable for the virus so soon we shall know if this start was the positive beginning of getting the season finished, or the warning signs that things are about to get a lot tougher.

What I Know

I know the Bengals o-line is bad, that the Panthers are better than I thought they were and that I am looking forward to seeing what Andy Dalton can do with the Dallas offence this week. It may not seem like much, but with everything going on at the moment I’m clinging to the small things and hoping the rest falls into place. I just hope the NFL have planned more carefully than that!

What I Hope

There is only one possible thin I can hope after the week five games, and that is both that Dak Prescott make a full and speedy recovery from his horrible injury sustained on Sunday and that it is a long time until we see anything similar.

A Cynic’s Reaction to the Draft

02 Thursday May 2019

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Off-Season

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Tags

Alexander Mattison, Andre Dillard, Andrew Whitworth, Andy Dalton, Baltimore Ravens, Cedric Ogbuehi, Cincinnati Bengals, Dan's Dad, Daniel Jones, Denver Broncos, Devin Bush, Drew Lock, Dwayne Haskins, Garett Bradbury, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Irv Smith Jr, Jake Fisher, John Elway, Jonah Williams, Josh Rosen, Miami Dolphins, Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants, NFL, NFL Draft, Ozzie Newsome, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Rick Spielman, Ryan Finley, Ryan Shazier, Saquon Barkley, Tytus Howard, Washington

I don’t think that you can know how good a team’s draft was until at least three years after the players were picked, and even then the process can be logical and the players don’t work out for injury or various other reasons. Not to mention that as someone who listens to draft podcasts but doesn’t actually watch college games I don’t have strong opinions on individual players.

I would suggest one of the reasons the Bengals have failed to make the playoffs the last three years is that the first four pick from the 2015 draft are not on the roster right now. You are never going to have every pick working out, but the combination of missing on the two offensive tackles selected in the first and second rounds in 2015 and letting Andrew Whitworth go undermined the offence because Andy Dalton is a quarterback who needs a clean pocket to operate and neither of Cedric Ogbuehi or Jake Fisher played well enough at tackle. I don’t generally believe that there are simple solutions to complex questions, but this is pretty clearly the start of the Bengals’ problems on offence. At least two of the last three seasons were also derailed by cluster injuries and that can happen to any team, but getting the depth of roster right is part of being a winning franchise and there are plenty of teams who are competitive nearly every year.

So, whilst I don’t think we can know which teams have drafted well last week, I can take a look at the moves I liked and what I have questions about.

I will start with the three franchises supported by the TWF team, although not my Bengals for once.

I am increasingly impressed by the Miami Dolphins’ approach this offseason and they sealed this by not reaching for a quarterback in the first round and then acquiring Josh Rosen for only a 2019 second round pick and a fifth round selection next year. This gives the Dolphins a top ten quarterback prospect for minimal draft capital, they only have to pay him $6 million dollars for the rest of his contract, and they have the fifth year team option for a first round draft pick. This gives them outstanding value and even if Rosen doesn’t work out they can draft a quarterback next season in a draft that is supposedly a better one for quarterbacks. The simple fact is that there is a clearly identifiable plan in in Miami, and they are sticking to it. That doesn’t mean it will definitely succeed, but they stand more chance of winning big by resetting and rebuilding than they did on the constant treadmill of not quite being good enough that has been the approach for the last few seasons.

As for the Bengals 2019 draft, the pick of tackle Jonah Williams seems very logical given our roster and quarterback. A lot of draft experts liked the player and enough said he was the best tackle in the draft so I’m pretty happy he will start somewhere along the line this year. There were comments about the Steelers trading up to the tenth pick to grab Devin Bush and hurting us in the process, but the Bengals did pick a linebacker in the third round and that would be the kind of move that I would usually associate with the Bengals given their approach to value and where they typically invest their draft capital. The Bengals have generally been really good at drafting for a number of years (the 2015 draft obviously being an exception) and whilst this never resulted in playoff success there were rarely criticisms of the talent ofnthe roster. The 2015 season is still the one that feels like it got away where Andy Dalton was playing as well as any quarterback in the league before he broke his thumb. I’ll be really interested to see they go under the new regime. I also like the trade up to grab quarterback Ryan Finley in the fourth round as whilst I don’t think there is a pressing need to replace Dalton right now and wasn’t expecting the Bengals to aggressively go after one, Finley has time to develop behind Dalton. The new regime looks to be building competition across their entire roster and this includes the quarterbacks’ room. I think it is a good idea to keep a flow of young quarterbacks into the room as you never know who you might found and these can often be traded away towards the end of their contract if they are not challenging your starters. Just look at how many quarterbacks developed behind Tom Brady that the Patriots have later traded away for picks and who have also helped them win games.

The Minnesota Vikings’ offseason has not created a lot of news in the corners of the NFL media I follow, and nor has their draft despite them selecting twelve players. I am not at all surprised that with their first four picks they addressed concerns on offence by picking a centre, guard, tight-end and running back. I will late Dan’s dad take it from here as he’s been following the Vikings’ offseason more closely than I have:

‘While I accept the excitement that the bringing in of new faces has for the fans I will admit to never totally understanding the process. I know that last year’s position determines where a team sits in the pecking order for the draft but allowing teams to trade up and down almost makes a mockery of the event. I’m sure some of you understand it better than I but to me it’s like explaining cricket to a French exchange student, or an American for that matter.

What I do understand are numbers and the comments of the GMs explaining their strategy. For example I understand that there was a record of 40 draft day trades across the league this year and the Vikings GM Rick Spielman was involved in 6 over the 2 days.

What did strike me though from looking at the names the Vikes went for is that firstly there were no marquee names, often there is hype around one or more names which cause a stir in their selections. Secondly the balance of positions throughout the team suggests a considered approach looking for general strengthening rather than a quick fix. Indeed ‘quick’ isn’t really the aim, it takes time to bring new blood into any team especially in the NFL when everyone has and works to very specific roles.

This year then, for me the big ticket item is Boise State running back Alexander Mattison. Only a 3rd round pick but Spielman’s patience was rewarded, managing to land N.C. State centre Garrett Bradbury in round one and Alabama tight-end Irv Smith Jr in second were on the list and fortune left them both available in what can become a lottery.

Trying to absorb all the changes it does seem clear that the selections have, as should always be the case, been ones which will ‘fit’ alongside what is already there. To me that is a huge positive. In a season long grind you don’t need ‘show ponies’ when well drilled and safe hands are what’s needed. Mike Zimmer is a builder of teams and scouting will have found the best targets. That said getting them from your wish list and through the draft takes luck and I think this year luck has been on the Vikings side.

Time will tell but for now it’s encouraging!’

I think that’s a pretty full summary but did want to pick up on a thing Dan’s Dad mentioned about augmenting your roster with the draft. Although I think that a team should look to build through the draft rather than relying on free-agency, I do think it is important to go into the draft with no glaring needs on your roster. You can have priorities but where I think teams get into trouble is reaching for a player that solves a problem rather than picking the best player available. It can be dangerous to go after a star free agent but you can still augment your roster carefully so come the draft you get what your players is available and sure, if you have comparably rated players and one is a weaker position you would take that player but it is dangerous to reach, and it looks like the Houston Texans did just that after the Eagles traded up above them to take Andre Dillard. Now, the tackle the Texans took could work out and I really hop Tytus Howard does work for them as I generally want teams to be successful but it does feel like the Texans just went down their list of tackles rather than their overall list.

If balancing your roster and picking best player available is my key concept going into the draft, then I would generally prefer a team to trade down rather than up, although this gets more flexible the deeper into the draft you go. I think the only player you should really move up for in the first round is a franchise quarterback unless there is a player deep in the first round that you think is worth coming back up for to get the fifth year option. That said, I didn’t mind the Pittsburgh Steelers’ moving up to ten to take linebacker Devin Bush as their defence has just not been the same since Ryan Shazier suffered his horrible injury and this should give them a real boost. I also understand why the New Orleans Saints have been so aggressive in trading picks to get the right players as they are trying to maximise their chances of getting Drew Brees another ring before he retires and they have to carry out a longer term reset.

I liked the Colts moving down to acquire more players as their rebuild continues to progress and I get the feeling they could be really competitive next year. I’ve not been a fan of Washington approach to the offseason in recent years but they have to be pretty happy that quarterback Dwayne Haskins fell to them at fifteen. It looks like the Baltimore Ravens didn’t miss a beat in their first post Ozzie Newsome draft and I suspect the AFC North is going to very competitive this season.

The Denver Broncos did well to move down and pick up and extra second round pick yet still get quarterback Drew Lock in the second round. The worry will be that apart from Peyton Manning so far John Elway has failed to find a franchise player at the position he himself was so good at. There’s time for Lock to develop behind Joe Flacco who the Broncos traded for in the off-season, but Elway really needs one of them to work out soon or questions really might be asked by ownership about if Elway can get them another Super Bowl.

However, if there is one team where ownership should be asking questions it is the New York Giants given that a year after refusing to listen to offers and picking Saquon Barkley with the second pick they ignored the order of most draft grading and picked Duke quarterback Daniel Jones. If he works out and plays better than Sam Darnold then David Gettleman can prove his doubters wrong to a degree, but Jones would likely would have been available at pick seventeen, which they got for trading away Odell Beckham and who did they get with the seventeenth pick? A run stuffing defensive tackle to replace the one they traded away during last season which hardly seems to be a good return for one of the most dynamic receivers in the game. As I say Gettleman could prove his doubters wrong but I don’t like the way he’s gone about this and the aim isn’t to pick a quarterback that does better than the one he had last season, it’s to win a Super Bowl and that feels a long way away for the Giants as currently constructed.

Still, the only way to tell for sure is to wait three years and see how things pan out so lets sit back and wait out what is the quietest bit of the NFL year, but it’s the beginning of May so before you know it we’ll be starting training camps and gearing up for the one hundredth NFL season.

The Super Bowl Aftermath

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Andrew Whitworth, Bill Belichick, Brian Flores, Cincinnati Bengals, CJ Anderson, Jared Goff, Josh McDaniels, Julian Edelman, Kansas City Chiefs, LA Rams, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, NFL, Patrick Mahomes, Rob Gronkowski, Sean McVay, Stephon Gilmore, Super Bowl, Todd Gurley, Tom Brady, Wade Philips, Zac Taylor

This is not quite the final post of the 2018 season for me as I have at least one coaching tape post that I am going to write on the Super Bowl, and frankly I’m tempted to do both sides of the ball for both teams but I’ll get to that in a bit.

So what can I tell you about the Super Bowl that you don’t already know or saw for yourself? I was intrigued by the game and I really am looking forward to digging into the coaching tape, but no one can claim it was a spectacle. For a season so dominated by high powered offences, the Super Bowl was a demonstration that not only can defences still compete, but they can still win championships.

I joked on Sunday that my dream of a game without touchdowns decided by a safety was still in play after the first quarter, but whilst we got a field goal in the second quarter, we didn’t see a touchdown until the fourth quarter and the game finished 13-3 to the Patriots.

Whilst all the headlines have understandably gone to Belichick and Brady as they won a sixth Super Bowl, it is worth pointing out that Brady had his own problems thanks to the Rams’ defensive coordinator Wade Philips and it was only due to an unpractised switch by Josh McDaniels in the fourth quarter that the Patriots scored any touchdowns. This is the first match-up I am going to look at in the coaching tape so I can see what was happening but Tom Brady started the with an interception on his first pass and the Patriots struggled to move the ball effectively all game. The obvious stand out offensive player of the game was Julian Edelman, which explains why he was declared MVP but as important as his contribution was to the Patriots win, in a game that was so dominated by two sets of defences, perhaps a defensive player should have won that award. After all, Stephon Gilmore finished the game with five tackles, forced a fumble and picked off Jared Goff, which led to the Patriots effectively sealing the game with a second field goal.

To just put this into context, Bill Belichick and new Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores managed to limit the second best offence in the league by DVOA to a field goal. The surprising thing about this was given the innovation that Sean McVay and the Rams have shown all season, they didn’t find an offensive adjustment or try anything on special teams. I felt sure going into this game that McVay would have something up his sleeve, and I need to watch on tape to be sure of what happened but it didn’t feel like the Rams moved away from 11 personnel and that was something I had seen them do in the playoffs. I don’t know if we’ll ever know precisely what was going on with Todd Gurley, but with ten carries and a couple of pass targets he was not a big part of the game. In fact the Rams only gave CJ Anderson seven carries and for a team that builds its offence off running the ball and play-action, they were too often in a third and long situation. The Patriots managed to do what I thought they might, make Jared Goff drop back and beat them with his arm and he was not up to the task. Goff has already spoken up and shouldered the blame, whilst Sean McVay admitted he had been out-coached and veteran left tackle Andrew Whitworth reminded us we are going to die so whilst this loss is going to hurt for a while, I suspect that the Rams will learn and be competitive next season. There are a lot of free agents on their roster so we’ll have to see how they chose to go about assembling a new roster the off-season, but McVay will need to develop an adjustment to what happened in the Super Bowl as defensive coordinators around the league will be studying the coaching tape of it in the off-season.

As for the Patriots, would anyone be surprised if Bill Belichick was already working on next season. I think it is likely that we’ll see Rob Gronkowski retire given the toll his career has taken on his body and apparently he has been dealing with a bulging disk in his back this season, but Tom Brady is still planning to carry on. As I keep saying, I will believe the Patriots are done when they finally stop winning. They are the masters of doing just enough through the season and peaking for the playoffs so let’s see how they shape up, but given the premium they place on depth of roster I would expect their off-season to be quiet and who can argue with their success. How resilient do you have to be as a franchise to go to so many Super Bowls in a period where the league is designed for parity? As much as you may be fed up of watching them win, we are living through history and we should not take such excellence for granted. That said, a playoff tested Patrick Mahomes won’t be spotting the Patriots a fourteen-point lead at halftime next season so things could well be very different next times the Chiefs play the Patriots.

As I mentioned briefly, Patriots defensive coordinator Brian Flores has been formally announced as their new head coach. The Bengals have also announced that Rams quarterback coach Zac Taylor will be their tenth head coach. We won’t know how either of their tenures will go for a couple of seasons, but we are already into the season of hope as many teams announced via twitter pretty much the moment the Super Bowl was done.

I am going to take a look at the coaching tape of the Super Bowl, focusing on the Patriots offence versus the Rams’ defence this week for a post I hope to get up on Sunday, and I may well look at the job the Patriots defence did on the Rams the week after, but then I will focus on other things for a little while. I’ll write some posts round the major off-season events as well as occasional football posts but I won’t be posting more than once or twice a month until preseason starts.

In the meantime, thank you for reading all season and good luck with the long off-season, but between free-agency and the draft, there’s plenty of news to follow and soon it will be time for training camps.

There’s just one final thing I have to share today, but I’ll let Dan’s Dad, winner of this season’s pick competition and trivia master extraordinaire have the final say on the 2018 season

‘Well, there we go. Another season closes with a record breaking Superbowl in the bag but as we prepare for the quieter months to come we have to put a lid on the 2018 Trivia competition.

You will remember that this final game became a simple shoot out as Dan and Gee were on exactly the same scores so, literally, all to play for.

Question 1 wanted the player making the longest kick off return and it was Dan who took the early lead correctly identifying Jakeem Grant’s 102 yard return ending in a fine TD.

Question 2 asked the same for the longest pass of the year. Well, like the English cricketers the scorers were not troubled here. Patrick Mahomes was a logical choice but Big Ben Rothlisburger who threw a 97 yarder run in for another TD.

Third was a simple NFC/AFC question on which had won the most Superbowls. Well the score, before today, was 27 – 25 in favour of the NFC so Gee draws level.

Well done both on stotting that with 2 points at stake it was likely that there would be 2 QB’s who played in and won 4 Superbowls with no defeats. Well, I’ve dropped a few names into the mix recently so Gee’s choice of Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana against Dan’s Elway/Montana combo sees Gee gaining 2 to Dan’s 1.

Finally I asked about how many franchises have won a Superbowl. The answer is 20 so again, no points I’m afraid.

Therefore by just 1 point, for the record 22 to 21, this year’s champion in Gee. Congratulations to both for some interesting and impressive answers. I have the benefit of Google but this pair have only gone to it after they have made their responses so Kudos there!

In closing I had set a tie breaker in case it was needed and, would you believe it, they both went for the same answer so it wouldn’t have got a result after all. I asked about the total Passing yardage for all 32 teams last season. 128,000 wasn’t a bad try but if you are interested it was 121737 – and for the geeks rushing delivered 58643 so now I see why a QB with a good arm is so valuable.

I hope you have enjoyed the quiz – its been an interesting thing to compile but I’ve been pleased by the responses. Enjoy the Off-season.’

AFC Preview

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

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Aaron Donald, Adam Gase, AFC, AJ McCarron, Alex Smith, Andrew Luck, Andrew Whitworth, Andy Dalton, Andy Reid, Baker Mayfield, Baltimore Ravens, Ben Roethlisberger, Bill Belichick, Blake Bortles, Case Keenum, Chad Kelly, Chicago Bears, Chris Ballard, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Denver Broncos, Derek Carr, Deshaun Watson, Frank Reich, Houston Texans, Hue Jackson, Indianapolis Colts, Isaiah Wynn, Jacksonville Jaguars, Jarvis Landry, Jay Gruden, JJ Watt, Joe Flacco, Joey Bosa, John Elway, Jon Gruden, Josh Allen, Justin Tucker, Kansas City Chiefs, Khalil Mack, LA Chargers, LA Rams, Lamar Jackson, Marcus Mariota, Marqise Lee, Marvin Lewis, Matt LaFleur, Melvin Ingram, Miami Dolphins, Mike Mularkey, Mike Vraebel, Nate Solder, Nathan Peterman, New England Patriots, New York Jets, NFL, Oakland Raiders, Patrick Mahomes, Paxton Lynch, Philip Rivers, Pittsburgh Steelers, Ryan Shazier, Ryan Tannehill, Sam Darnold, Sean McDermott, Teddy Bridgewater, Tennessee Titans, Todd Bowles, Tom Brady, Tyrod Taylor, Vance Joseph, Washington

18-09-04 AFC

With the new season only days away I thought I would take you through a whistle-stop tour of the league starting with an AFC preview and I’ll give the NFC teams their own post before the Philadelphia Eagle and Atlanta Falcons get things under way on Thursday.

I don’t particularly like making predictions as there are too many variables and injury luck is can be such a huge part of team success so I’ll be breaking the divisions up into favourites, competitive, and likely to struggle as I work my way round the division compass so without further ado let’s make a start on the .

AFC North

Much as it is painful for a Bengals fan to say it, the favourite to take the AFC North division is still the Pittsburgh Steelers. They may have questions at linebacker thanks to Ryan Shazier’s injury, but the defence still finished top ten last year by DVOA in and the options in their offence are still terrifying. Time is ticking for Ben Roethlisberger but as long as he doesn’t suffer a dramatic fall off then this is going to be one of the teams of the conference who should have their eyes on the Super Bowl.

The AFC North is always a tough division, and even when the Browns are struggling they are often a tough out, but not so much under Hue Jackson. However, with a defence that has looked good in pre-season and the additions of Jarvis Landy and Tyrod Taylor as well as new offensive co-ordinator Toddy Haley it at least feels like the infrastructure for success is more solid. In a position to let rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield develop and not rush him I think the Browns will be more competitive than last season, but whether their ill-discipline (they got penalised a lot in pre-season) will allow them to win games I don’t know. I think we’ll know a lot more about this team by the end of the first four games.

The Baltimore Ravens are another team who are perennially competitive but had to do it with defence and special teams last year. With a kicker like Justin Tucker you can mask a lot of deficiencies in offence but the thing the Ravens coaches might be most happy about having drafted Lamar Jackson this year is the fire it seems to have lit under long time quarterback Joe Flacco. He may also have been helped by better receiving options and being healthy in the offseason for the first time in two years but if the Ravens’ Super Bowl winning play caller can lead the offensive to a better ranking than twenty-first by DVOA the Ravens will be right in contention for the playoffs again.

I’ve written a fair amount about the Cincinnati Bengals this pre-season and it is telling that neither of the offensive tackles two years that they drafted to prepare for a transition of talent have worked out whilst Andrew Whitworth looked great for the LA Rams last year. With new playbooks on both sides of the ball there have been a lot of changes to coaching and the roster. Whilst the Bengals have another young team there seemed to be a lot to like and if the O-line gels, then Andy Dalton should have a much easier time finding his myriad of skill players. I’m not pencilling them into the playoffs, but I’m not ruling it out and I wasn’t sure that would be the case when it was announced the Marvin Lewis was coming back.

AFC East

Is this the year that the New England Patriots falter? For the first time Tom Brady was not ever present through the off-season, their first round offensive lineman Isaiah Wynn ruptured his Achillies after they let starting left tackle Nate Solder leave in free-agency, and this was a team that went to the Super Bowl with a defence ranked thirty-first in the league by DVOA so they can ill afford an offensive wobble. I think we’re all at the point where we’ll believe Tom Brady is done when he has signed his retirement papers, but what will help them is that none of the rest of the division are exactly standing up as challengers at the moment and so the Patriots look to be favourites still. This could finally change though.

The Buffalo Bills made the playoffs for the first time in eighteen attempts last seasons, but they responded to this by cutting the quarterback that got them there, not signing the linebacker that led the league in tackles and trading their left tackle to the Bengals in the draft manoeuvres required to get their quarterback of the future. Have traded away AJ McCarron they have opted to go with rookie Josh Allen and Nathan Peterman as their QBs, but whilst Peterman has looked good in pre-season and Allen has flashed, the Bengals defensive line had a field day against Buffalo’s o-line and it could be a very long season for whoever starts. I was impressed with everything Sean McDermott did last season bar benching Tyrod Taylor but I don’t think this season’s roster is better than last years and I have a nasty feeling they will struggle for a lot of the season.

If you trade away your best offensive and defensive players for chemistry reasons, you had better have an awful lot of talent coming in and I’m not sure that Miami Dolphins do. I thought they had a good draft and I would say Adam Gase is a good coach but I’m not at all sure of the roster construction and this feels like the latest in a long series of make or break seasons for Ryan Tannehill. I believe that Gase can keep the locker room together and make them competitive but it would not surprise me if they fall into a difficult season. Nothing would make me happier than to be proved wrong, if only to cheer Dan through the season.

Finally we have the New York Jets, and I though Todd Bowles did an excellent job of coaching with a lack of talent on the roster last season and not sure many other coaches would have got as many wins. The most ready of the rookie quarterbacks fell into their laps in the draft and Sam Darnold looked good enough in pre-season that the Jets traded Teddy Bridgewater to the New Orleans Saints. I think it will take another or season or two to turn things round and I don’t know if Bowles will get the chance to complete the job, but I can see the Jets equalling their record of last season. There will be ups and downs with a rookie quarterback but the real question for this season is have the Jets finally got a franchise QB. Everything else after that can wait.

AFC South

The Jacksonville Jaguars continued to build their defence, stuck with Blake Bortles and their big free agent signing was a offensive guard. I thought that Bortles might have learnt a thing or two in last season’s playoff run but with the exodus at receiver and the injury to Marqise Lee this team will be as reliant as ever on their defence and the run game. The good news is that the defence will be no less scary and they should rightly be considered the favourites for this division.

The Houston Texans may have only won four games last season, but they revealed they could have a bright future as long as the young quarterback Deshaun Watson can recover his blistering form from last season before his knee injury. With the defence hoping a number of players stay healthy, including JJ Watt this could be really good team even if the offensive line looks to be a big problem. There are a lot of ifs there so whilst the Texans will start out competitively, how long they will remain so is the big question.

The Tennessee Titans ground their way into the playoffs with a run first offence and a defence that ranked twenty-first in the league by DVOA. This was not enough to save Mike Mularkey his job and there rookie head coach Mike Vraebel is hoping that Matt LaFleur can revitalise the offence and fourth year quarterback Marcus Mariota. The coaches with links to Bill Belichick have not necessary flourished as head coaches and Vraebel has limited experience as the man with ultimate responsibility so I am very curious to see how he goes. The honest answer is I’m not sure so this is one of the teams we’ll need to follow closely through the start of the season.

The Indianapolis Colts have struggled mightily with Andrew Luck being out injured but this also laid bare the problems with the rest of the roster and whilst there are signs that things are improving in the second year of Chris Ballard’s rebuild, a lot will depend on Andrew Lucks surgically repaired and extensively rehabbed shoulder. The good news is that he’s back to starting but new head coach Frank Reich will be hoping that he can get enough from his franchise quarterback that the season can be a success, but I have a feeling that being competitive would qualify as just that and would be a good place to start.

AFC South

The Kansas City Chiefs won the division last year and I have too much faith in Andy Reid to see this team as anything other than competitive and I would place them as favourites to win the division. That is despite trading Alex Smith to Washington to promote Patrick Mahomes as the starter after a season where the young quarterback sat on the bench. Mahomes has the arms to make use of the myriad of skills players the Chiefs can use in their offence that has borrowed liberally from college, whilst their defence was only ranked thirtieth by DVOA last year when they won the division. It wouldn’t take much to improve that ranking and with the potential of their offence the Chiefs could be one of the most fun teams to watch this season.

The other potential favourite in this division could be the LA Chargers but it would require them to get out of their own way and they couldn’t quite manage that last season. The abiding image of Philip Rivers for me these days is a player somehow functioning as an effective quarterback despite minimal protection from his line. The defence was just outside of the top ten with a fearsome pass rush led by Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa and they should be competitive again this season. The problem is that they have a nasty habit of losing close games and their ‘home’ games in LA were frequently more like home games for the opposition thanks to fan turnout. I’d like to think they can improve but I’m not willing to just outright declare it, although I’d be very willing to be proved wrong again.

I’m not entirely sure where to begin with the currently Oakland soon to be Las Vegas Raiders. The big move of the off-season would have been luring Jon Gruden out of the commentary booth nine years after he last coached except they have just traded Khalil Mack, one of the best young defensive players in the league, to the Chicago Bears. The reasoning is that the Mack’s contract demands were just too big, and the Bears wasted no time in signing Mack to a six year deal with $90 million guaranteed days after Aaron Donald signed a contract with $87 million guaranteed. The difference between the three franchises is that the Rams still have a young quarterback on their rookie contract as does the Bears, whilst the Raiders have already signed Derek Carr to a five year extension. The issue is that Gruden has been out of the league for a while, even if he was staying plugged into the NFL through his media gig, and the defence his brother Jay Gruden [I appear to have gone made, too many ex-Bengal coordinators involved as it is in fact Paul Guenther who is the new defensive coordinator – Ed.] takes over was ranked twenty-ninth by DVOA with Khalil Mack. I’m really not sure what to expect out of the Raiders this year, and whilst I can see the salary cap argument to an extent (I don’t study it hard, maybe that’s a task for next off-season) the Mack trade amongst others does nothing to help the Raiders now and I think this club will be in for a very interesting time this year.

Last year’s AFC West strugglers the Denver Broncos will be hoping that the addition of Case Keenum at quarterback will be enough of an upgrade to the offence to give the still competitive if retooled defence a chance of winning games. In the one game I saw them this preseason the offensive line still looked to be a problem but after a good pre-season from Chad Kelly, the Paxton Lynch development plan has finally been shelved. It is way too soon to question a GM who has won a Super Bowl and given his history as franchise quarterback you would think that the job is John Elway’s as long as he wants it. However, whilst he’s made a number of sharp moves in free-agency, his record in the draft is a bit patchier and his choice of Vance Joseph as head coach didn’t exactly yield the early returns that Elway would have hoped for. Still, if either Keenum or Kelly can make the offence competitive then the Broncos will be a team no one will want to face, especially at home and that could be enough for them to be in the playoff race come December.

The Playoff Fallen

20 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by gee4213 in Playoffs

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Alex Smith, Andrew Whitworth, Andy Reid, Atlanta Falcons, Ben Roethlisberger, Blake Bortels, Blake Bortles, Buffalo Bills, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Derrick Henry, Drew Brees, Eric Berry, Greg Olson, Jacksonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs, Kareem Hunt, Kelvin Benjamin, Kyle Shanahan, LA Rams, LeSean McCoy, Marcus Mariota, Marcus Williams, Matt Nagy, Mike Mularkey, Mike Shula, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, NFL, Norv Turner, Patrick Mahomes, Pharoh Cooper, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Rick Dennison, Ryan Shazier, Sean McDermott, Stefon Diggs, Steve Sarkisian, Tennessee Titans, Todd Gurley, Todd Haley, Travis Kelce, Tyrod Taylor

So I need to catch up with the teams who have departed the playoffs so having started this post last week, here’s my now finished run through the playoff fallen starting with the losing wild card teams.

The first team to fall were the Kansas City Chiefs who managed to lose a game to the Tennessee Titans that they were leading 21-3 at half time. The Chiefs have been up and down this season with a significant mid-season lull that gave way to a four game win streak coming into their playoff game against the Titans. However, a number of factors combined for the Chiefs to lose this Wildcard game and demonstrated one of the warts that has affected them all year. The defence of the Chiefs has had problems ever since safety Eric Berry ruptured his Achilies, but their overall ranking of thirtieth by DVOA and dead last against the run showed up in this game when the Chiefs failed to stop the Titans’ second half come back and Derrick Henry finishing the game with one hundred and fifty-six rushing yards. The Chief offence also came to a sputtering stop once Travis Kelce left the game with a concussion meaning the Titans could focus on stopping the speedy Chiefs receivers with two deep safeties. The Chiefs further played into this by only giving Kareem Hunt elven carries in the entire game and running Alex Smith at inopportune moments. The Cheifs’ recent playoff record is also clearly on their usually very loud crowd’s mind as it got quieter the better the Titans did, although I defy any fan to be confident when the opposing quarterback throws a touchdown pass to himself.

This could well be Alex Smith’s final game for the Chiefs given his 1-4 playoff record in the five season that he and head coach Andy Reid have been with the franchise and with Patrick Mahomes waiting in the wings. I don’t believe this loss can really be blamed on Smith and they could stick with him as they develop a still raw Mahomes but patience does seem to be wearing thin for a section of their fans and the narrative seems to be that Smith will leave in the offseason. Their current offensive co-ordinator Matt Nagy has already left to be the new head coach of the Chicago Bears and with Smith’s current playoff record perhaps it is time to change with a new coordinator coming in. The defence will also need an overhaul given the age of a number of players and their reliance on a twenty-nine year old safety who will be recovering from an Achilles injury next season. In recent years the Chiefs have been competitive but their approach last offseason seemed to be split between short term and long term agendas and I am curious to see how they approach this one.

The second team to lose on wild car weekend were the LA Rams whose remarkable turnaround season couldn’t overcome the playoff experience of the Atlanta Falcons whose defence was able to stifle the Rams offence. This was mainly due to excellent tackling against the short routes so although Todd Gurley did get over one hundred yards on the ground, he was not able to dominated in the way he has for much of the season. As frustrating as this loss was, part of the problem were repeated special teams miscues by Pharoh Cooper early in the game, which was not a reflection of his Pro Bowl special teams play through the year. Still, this was a season of marked improvement for the Rams with plenty of young players to grow with their coach and you would expect them to be competitive next season but it has to be hard for Andrew Whitworth to lose another wild card playoff game.

The Buffalo Bills scraped into the playoffs on the back of a final drive fourth down touchdown pass from the Bengals’ Andy Dalton but they couldn’t overcome the Jaguars in their first playoff game in eighteen years. The Bills defence managed to contain the Jaguars offence by committing to stopping the run and daring Blake Bortles to beat them in his first playoff game. This plan could have worked if Tyrod Taylor didn’t have nearly as bad a game as Bortles and LeSean McCoy was fully healthy, but the offence couldn’t do enough and the game was lost 10-3. This was still a turnaround for the Bills and first year head coach Sean McDermott has things to work on but offensive co-ordinator Rick Dennison paid the price and the Bills will be one of several teams looking for a quarterback this offseason. The Bills could continue their improvement, but they will be limited until they get a quarterback and offence in place that everyone in the franchise believes in.

The final wild card game saw the Carolina Panthers lose to the New Orleans Saints for the third time this year. The Panthers have been very solid on defence all year, but their offence has been very up and down. A slow start was not that surprising given that Cam Newton was coming off shoulder surgery in the offseason and the Panthers were trying a new approach, but this never really took and the offence didn’t really start to work until Newton began to run more. This made the play of Newton very important for how the offence went, which is not that unusual for a quarterback but Newton’s size ability to run, whilst being a dangerous weapon, has to make up for his volatility in the passing game. When Newton is on he is as dangerous a quarterback as there is in the league, but with injuries at receiver (the Panthers also traded away Kelvin Benjamin during the season) and Newton’s favourite target tight end Greg Olsen battling with a foot injury that was clearly still affecting him, he was not able to beat the Saints despite playing well. Going into the offseason the Panthers have replaced offensive co-ordinator Mike Shula with Norv Turner so a new offence will be installed in the summer and it will be fascinating to see how these changes work and how Newton takes to although at least he will be able to practise this offseason.

Moving on to last week’s games and the first team to fall were the Atlanta Falcons who couldn’t match their performance against the Rams when they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in a tight competitive game. The Falcons were only able to score ten points on the league’s fifth ranked defence by DVOA but whilst the offensive rankings of the Falcons don’t look bad (tenth in passing and sixteenth rushing by DVOA) it does feel like this unit underachieved given the calibre of players available. Yes some regression from last year’s stellar performance was to be expected but it has been a difficult year for Steve Sarkisian in taking over from Kyle Shanahan and whilst he is coming back next season, there will be pressure to improve or the discontent could cause real problems. This could be true for the whole staff given the painful playoff exit and the Super Bowl last year given that both games were winnable. Still, if the offence can be brought round and the defence continues its rise the Falcons could be very formidable next season.

The Tennessee Titans had done well to win their first game against the Chiefs, but there are limits and it was always going to be a tough job to go into Gillette stadium and beat the New England Patriots. To their credit, the Titans kept it competitive for a quarter and took a 7-0 lead before the Patriots shook off the rust from their bye week and ran out easy 35-14 winners. The Titans were pretty average in all three phases of the game this season and actually ranked three places lower by overall DVOA at eighteenth compared to last season. Despite getting a playoff win head coach Mike Mularkey was unable to come to an agreement with the Titans’ front office and so they will be looking for someone new to develop Marcus Mariota. The team definitely improved under Mularkey with a pair of winning seasons but the play of their young quarterback does not look to have progressed as you would hope and I have to think they are looking for a new offensive philosophy and someone who can make one of the most dynamic quarterback in recent college history look like that in the pro game. Given the success that the Chiefs and others have had in incorporating elements from the college game into their offence this does seem achievable, but it all depends on who takes over. Still, at least the Titans have progressed and they are no longer a team devoid of talent and identity, but there are some very big decisions to be made this offseason.

The NFL had great pair of games on Sunday and the opener saw the Pittsburgh Steelers lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars 45-42 and crash out the playoffs at home. The Steelers had got a first round bye with a 13-3 record and finished the regular season ranked inside the top ten in all three phases of the game by DVOA. However, there were two problems that sank them in this game. I am reluctant to talk about motivation and whether the players were looking past the Jaguars to a conference championship game at the Patriots, a matchup that many had expected for a lot of the season, but what I can say is that the Steelers started slow. The Jaguars got out to a 21-0 lead early in the second quarter, and whilst the Steelers were able to get back into the game, they were never able to get closer than seven points until the very last second of the game with a meaningless touchdown that came too late. The Steelers offence did manage to put up forty-two points against one of the best defences in the league but it was not easy and there had to be a lot of impressive catches and fourth down conversions to get them. On the other side of the ball, the Steelers’ defence never looked the same one Ryan Shazier was lost to the spinal contusion he picked up in the Steelers’ brutal game against the Bengals in week thirteen. The talk has mostly been about fourth down conversions and the slow start, but the Steelers defence let a league average offence with Blake Bortles as their quarterback put up forty-five points on them and that has to hurt.

Some changes are already taking place. There appears to have been discord between offensive co-ordinator Todd Haley and Ben Roethlisberger but Haley’s contract has expired and he is not being renewed. It looks like quarterbacks coach Randy Fichtner will replace him and Roethlisberger looks to be a lot more committed to coming back next season than he was last offseason with all his talk of retirement. Still, given that Shazier had to have spine stabilisation surgery and as far as we know hasn’t walked yet, let alone be anywhere near playing football again (if that is even a possibility), the Steelers will need to address the defence again this offseason but it feels like they should be able to take another deep run next season.

If the first game on Sunday saw an upset against a veteran quarterback, the second saw a miraculous play knock out the New Orleans Saints and their future hall of fame quarterback. The Saints finally managed to assemble a defence that could do enough to get Drew Brees into the playoffs again, ably helped by the league’s best rushing attack by DVOA. Two all NFL rookies helped with this turn around and having seen off the Panthers last week, it looked like the Saints were going to beat the second seeded Minnesota Vikings when they found themselves on fourth down with seconds to go, no timeouts, and were one point behind the Saints. However, another one of the Saints’ rookies, safety Marcus Williams who already had an interception in this game made a horrible play as Stefon Diggs caught a ball in front of him. All Williams had to do was stop Diggs from getting out of bounds and hold him up so Diggs could be tackled in bounds, but he came flying past Diggs without touching him allowing Diggs to turn and suddenly there was no one between him and the end zone. The Vikings fans fortunes finally changed as the miraculous play went their way and the Saints promising season came to a shuddering halt.

That play will haunt Williams all offseason, whilst the franchise will be worrying about re-signing Drew Brees who is an unrestricted free agent. However, given the way this year’s team played, and the potential for their rookie players to develop further next year then it is hard not to see Brees back playing for the Saints and them being very competitive next season. After a number of years where they were asking Brees to do too much, they now look setup to compete as long as Brees is willing and able to play like he did this year. We should make the most of being able to watch him whilst we still can.

AAF: The LA Rams Offence and Jared Goff

03 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by gee4213 in Amateur Adventures in Film

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Andrew Whitworth, Cameron Jordan, Jared Goff, LA Rams, New Orleans Saints, PG Williams, Rob Havenstein, Sammy Watkins, Sean McVay, Tevon Austin, Todd Gurley

So this week I got a chance to take a look at the LA Rams offence and the turnaround of Jared Goff as they took on the New Orleans Saints..

So the first think I took away was that Jared Goff looks like a professional quarterback, which given how bad things were last season is not something to be sniffed at. There was interesting footage that came out in the week of the Rams lining up early in the play clock so that Sean McVay could call any audibles before the QB headset could cut out at 15 seconds left on the play clock. I’m sure that in future defences will start switching looks later in the play clock so this will be something to monitor.

However, in this game, it wasn’t so much the play of Goff that stood out as the construction of the offence. The Rams remained committed to the run, even if they did only manage eighty-eight yards from twenty-five carries. However, this was not a slavish insistence on running on first down out of an I formation, in fact most of the time the Rams were in 11 personnel, but was the commitment to the run to establish the basis of their numerous run fakes. They not only used traditional play action, but would motion Tavon Austin across the formation or line him up as the running back with 01 personnel on the ball. Even if these plays did not always succeed, the defence has to account for them and more than once after two run fakes held a safety long enough for a receiver to get behind the play.

Sean McVay also schemed a couple of quick backwards passes to receivers who once tossed the ball for Tevon Austin to run on and on another play, Cooper Kupp threw a horrible forward pass. Still if misdirection ruled the day, they did keep feeding the ball to Todd Gurley in space so that apart from his seventy-four yards on the ground, Gurley picked up fifty-four yards through the air.

The Rams did not have things all their own way. If Goff was unlucky when a ball he threw behind Sammy Watkins bounced off his trailing hand and straight into the arms of a trailing PJ Williams, Goff had no chance of escaping Cameron Jordan when he faked inside right tackle Rob Havenstein and the burst straight past him on the outside to get a quick sack. For Cameron’s first sack I would suggest that Goff shared some of the blame due to holding on the ball whilst Cameron drove Andrew Whitworth up field and then powered inside him to get the sack. There is only so long even the best of tackles can hold up one on one in pass protection.

Still, for the most part the Rams moved the ball well and even whey they didn’t they still didn’t turn the ball over. I am impressed with the turnaround Sean McVay has already produced in LA and will be fascinated to follow the development of Goff as surely after this season’s success McVay and Goff will have a number of years to develop this offence.

2017 Pre-Season So Far

20 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by gee4213 in Pre-Season

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Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Whitworth, Carl Lawson, Cincinnati Bengals, DeSean Jackson, Dirk Koetter, Gerard McCoy, Hard Knocks, Jameis Winston, Jared Goff, Jeff Driskel, Jordan Willis, Justin Davis, LA Rams, Mike Evans, Pre-Season, Riley Bullogh, Robert Aguayo, Sammy Watkins, Sean McVay, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Wade Phillips

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 Bengals Offseason: Hope Turns to Nerves

02 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by gee4213 in Uncategorized

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Andre Smith, Andrew Whitworth, Bill Belichick, Brandon LaFell, Cedric Ogbuehi, Cincinnati Bengals, Dre Kirkpatrick, Geoff Hobson, Kevin Minter, Kevin Zeitler, LA Rams, Marvin Lewis, New England Patriots, New York Giants, NFL, Offseason, Rey Maualuga

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Wrong Football

~ A UK American Football fan writes about the game he loves

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AAF: The LA Rams Offence and Jared Goff

2017 Pre-Season So Far

The Bengals Offseason: Hope Turns to Nerves