Tag Archives: Chicago Bears

AAF: Bears’ Offence Scheme

07 Sunday Oct 2018

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For this week’s amateur adventures in film I decided that rather than take a look at an individual player I would take a look at the Chicago Bears’ offence and specifically how Matt Nagy and his staff and schemed up the open receivers that allowed Mitch Trubisky to throw for six touchdowns.

Now I am cheating a little as I heard Greg Cosell talk about this a little in the week and so I know that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play  a relatively straight forward zone defence where they tend to only rush four and when watching the tape it quickly became apparent how much the Buccaneers were playing with a single high safety. This was what most of the big passing plays took advantage of but I shall get to that in a minute.

The Bears used a few different personnel groupings, but it wasn’t easy to keep track of them as the all twenty-two film was shot from a surprisingly low angle to what I’m used to as so identifying numbers etc were not always easy to see but they were not afraid of using heavy sets with three tight-ends on the field as well as the frequent eleven personnel in shotgun formation. They also came out multiple times with two running back with Jordan Howard in the backfield and Tarik Cohen lined up in the slot. What was also obvious was the way they frequently lined up with lopsided receiver sets and then used these groupings of receivers to attack multiple levels of the defence and this is how they kept springing long plays. Multiple times they would force the high safety to play one or two players attacking deep that allowed a player to run a combination or under route to catch the ball in space and pick up a lot of yardage or score. I thoroughly enjoyed watching how the routes of the receivers interacted, particularly as there were often several other players kept in to protect the quarterback. It’s not every week that my long suffering partner here’s me muttering about how clever a coach is

The other thing I noticed, which I believe is happening more across the NFL these days, is that apart from your classic play-action or the quarterback initially looking one way before turning to where the play is designed to go, I the use of multiple fakes and consistently using them on the majority of plays. This was also present in the read-option run plays where Trubisky would run even if he’d handed off the ball, but in the passing game the Bears would say start with a standard play action fake handoff, then fake a receiver screen throw before turning to actually throw the ball to the other side of the field. There is so much more deception going on and this puts the single safety in a real bind, which the Bears were able to take advantage of as they kept asking the difficult question of the Buccaneers’ high safety who did not have an easy adjustment to make to solve the issues that were being caused.

So did Trubisky look like a quarterback capable of throwing six touchdowns? Well the flippant answer is yes because he did. However, it was not all simple throws to open receivers. He also threw balls with timing and made some difficult throws even if there were also misses and he is far from the finished product. Yet Trubisky did throw six touchdowns against the league’s worst defence by DVOA and was able to execute the plan that Matt Nagy laid out and that is all you can ask of a quarterback. There will be more difficult tests for both Nagy and Trubisky, but this is a hopeful sign that the Bears could really compete this year and with the various options available to the offence they have the chance to do so given the way their defence is playing.

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Quarterbacks and Injuries

03 Wednesday Oct 2018

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Here we are, preparing for week five after which all the teams will have played four games and I can try to run through the entire league in a panic at the quarter pole post, but we are already beginning to get a bit more of a feel for how the league is shaping up.

Of the young quarterbacks that seem to be the story of the league so far this year, Patrick Mahomes traveled to Denver Monday night and struggled comparatively for him so far this year but still found a way to get the win for the  Kansas City Chiefs against the Broncos, whilst Mitch Trubisky threw for six touchdowns as the Bears thumped the Tamps Bay Buccaneers. I have only seen the highlights of the Bears game and yes there were a lot of wide open people catching the ball, but I thought Trubisky looked good in terms of his footwork and whilst you can’t expect this every week it is a promising sign that Matt Nagy can find a way to keep his team competitive in the division with Trubisky as his quarterback.

Speaking of the NFC North, the Green Bay Packers pitched a shutout against the Buffalo Bills who reverted to type and were bad in this game. This leaves them one game behind the Bears but one ahead of the Minnesota Vikings who could not keep up with the LA Rams on Thursday night but then no team has this season. With quarterbacks on the mind I should also mention that one of the reasons the Rams look so good is that Jared Goff is absolutely thriving in Sean McVay’s office and threw some absolutely amazing balls to beat the Vikings coverage. The Detroit Lions lost a close game to the Dallas Cowboys who managed to find some offence this week, which is not how the Lions and Matt Patricia will have wanted to follow up their impressive win against the Patriots.

I hesitate to do this, and it is perhaps lucky that Dan is on holiday this week as the Miami Dolphins got demolished in New England. There is a reason why everyone was hesitant to write off the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, and this was it. They ran for one hundred and seventy-five yards and got themselves back to 2-2 before Julian Edelman comes back next week. Things could well still go wrong but it would surprise no one if come December the Patriots are once again top of their division.

The other perennial contender that is struggling at the start of this season were not so lucky as the Pittsburgh Steelers failed to win their second division game as they lost at home to the Baltimore Ravens to go 1-2-1. We have seen dips of form before with the Steelers, but with the Le’Veon Bell situation rumbling on and a defence that is not the kind we usually associate with this franchise there could be real problems. They face the Atlanta Falcons next week in a game that will very much be decided by who can score the most points as the Falcons are struggling to stop anybody on defence. In week four this benefited the Cincinnati Bengals who squeezed out a 37-36 win game despite losing Tyler Eifert to a season ending injury for the third straight year. This was heart breaking as Eifert had finally had a healthy offseason and it was a horrible ankle break, but at least it wasn’t connected to his previous back/ankle injuries. Eifert has so much talent and it’s really sad he’s so seldom been able to make the most of it or get to that lucrative multi-year second contract given what he has produced when he has been on the field.

The other big injury from the weekend was to Earl Thomas who had been playing well for the Seattle Seahawks despite hardly practicing in protest at the Seahawks refusal to trade him after not giving him a new contract. The middle digit he offered to the bench was a sign of the frustration a player must feel when what he feared materialises, but a broken leg is at least an injury that shouldn’t affect him next season. That may not be that much comfort to a safety going into his thirties though, particularly given the lack of activity in signing veteran free agent safeties this off-season and this is exactly why Le’Veon Bell is holding out as he fears a similar injury when running backs are treated with even more scepticism as they approach thirty.

I think I will end this week’s round up though with a team who may not be playing pretty football week to week, but have got themselves a winning record despite multiple injuries. In week one the teams with new head coaches went 0-7 but rookie head coach Mike Vrabel and his staff have now won three straight games despite Marcus Mariota sustaining a nerve injury in week one that has led to numbness in the fourth and fifth fingers of his throwing hand as well as grip issues, and his backup Blaine Gabbert being lost to a concussion in the opening quarter of their week three game against the Jaguars. The Titans may only be ranked twenty-sixth on offence by DVOA and fifteenth by defence, but they are top ten in special teams and are finding a way in win games. It also helped that Mariota looked better in this week’s overtime win against the Philadelphia Eagles where Mariota played with a modified glove on his throwing hand where the first and second fingers had been cut off so he could feel the ball but the glove could help his week fingers/hand. I’m sure this is not what offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur was not expecting to have to deal with this when he joined the staff, but the Titans have remained competitive in the AFC South and will be looking to build on this solid start. This is a pretty impressive achievement for Mike Vrabel who does not have that much coaching experience compared to a lot of coaches yet alone experience running a team. Let’s see how sustainable this is.

Take a Breath Before You Panic

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

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18-09-12 Lions

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The week one games are in the book and so after this first flurry of games the natural next step is to react and thanks to a combination of modern media and the small number of games ever result is either a triumph or a disaster. So before we continue, remember to take a breath and not to read too much into the result for you team in their first game, unless you need to panic and given that all seven new head coaches lost this week perhaps you might.

Having seen both teams in the pre-season I wasn’t convinced by either the Bills or the Lions but both were on the wrong side of score lines over forty points. I can see how the Bills got themselves into the mess they are in, and they think they have their quarterback of the future so Josh Allen but given the moves they made to get him the young quarterback needs to work out. Poor Nathan Peterman didn’t stand much chance behind the Bills’ reworked offensive line . I’m not going to pretend that I’m a good enough judge of talent to say whether he does or doesn’t belong in the NFL, but he’s had two disastrous starts for the Bills now, and it throws the decision to trade away AJ McCarron into sharp relief as Allen is now starting next week despite not being ready four days ago. The Lions meanwhile managed to lose at home to a rookie quarterback in his first start on the road and this only furthers reinforces the poor impression I got from them in pre-season. It is going to take a number of wins to wipe the memory of that start from the fans who were in attendance.

The reason that they and the other teams who lost in week one might need to panic is that while roughly half of the teams that go 2-0 make the playoffs, only around ten percent of teams who start 0-2 make the playoffs. Now for some being competitive and winning some games (I’m looking at you Browns) would be an improvement in line with expectations as there are plenty of teams who see a return to competitiveness as a marked improvement. The Saints were not expected to lose to the Buccaneers, but if Ryan Fitzpatrick keeps playing like he did in the first game perhaps Jameis Winston won’t walk straight back into the starting role. The defence for the Saints no showed in the home opener against a divisional opponent, which is a real worry for a team that plays decidedly better in their dome so they will be looking to bounce back against the Browns on Sunday.

Now the Cleveland Browns reached peak Browns by avoiding losing their opening game in a tie and failing to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers despite generating six turnovers – plus Myles Garrett looked like a monster. It feels like there’s a lot more talent on this year’s roster but I think everyone is doubting whether the coaching staff can pull it together in Cleveland and stuff like this really doesn’t help.

Another team that will be ruing a missed opportunity is the Chicago Bears who had the Packers on the ropes in the first in Green Bay before Aaron Rodgers pulled off another miracle, firstly by getting back on the field having been carted off and then by leading a comeback from 20-0 down in the third quarter. The Bears will draw a little comfort from the fact that we all know Rodgers is, to quote Robert May, ‘…a f#*@ing dragon!’ but they got conservative in the second half on offence whilst the defence failed to cope when the Packers adjusted and got the ball out of Rodgers’ hands quickly. This was not helped by the lack of pre-season showing up for Khalil Mack who looked unstoppable early in the game but was on a rep count and couldn’t help late. The question for fans of the Bears is does the promise displayed develop as new head coach Matt Nagy gets used to calling plays for the entire game and how to maximise the offence, but that is a question we will only find out the answer to in the coming weeks.

It’s too early to draw too much from the Kansas City Chiefs win over the LA Chargers but they looked very promising on offence. Patrick Mahomes has a ridiculous arm and didn’t throw an interception although the play calling and skills players had a lot to do with the points scored and the LA Chargers would have been a lot closer if players would stop dropping passes from Philip Rivers. The Chargers are still finding ways to lose games and the number of fans at their ‘home’ games is still a worry, the new stadium that the Rams are building and that the Chargers will be sharing once its open could be very empty and dominated by away fans if the situation remains the same.

The Oakland Raiders failed to win and I will be keeping an eye on them, but the signs are not good for this season and the questions about the Mack trade will only get louder if he builds on the promise he showed in the Bears’ opener. Meanwhile Jerry Jones avoided the media after the Dallas Cowboys opening loss to the Carolina Panthers and without a quick improvement on offence.

Now a lot of teams are in a position to turn around their single loss and I certainly wouldn’t panic if I was a fan of say the Steelers (although the display by Ben Roethlisberger was concerning), but there will be fans all over the league who will be that extra bit nervous during the upcoming games and to them I say this, there is a long season up ahead and 0-2 doesn’t necessarily mean your team won’t make the playoff but if your team loses a second game, well at that point you can definitely panic!

NFC Preview

05 Wednesday Sep 2018

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18-09-05 NFC-2

So having set myself this ridiculous task, it’s time to try to finish my whistle-stop previews in time for the start of the season so on to the NFC!

NFC North

The Minnesota Vikings won the division at a canter last season and whilst they might not have it all their own way this year now the Packers have Aaron Rodgers back and healthy, they are one of the fancied teams in the NFC. Having let three quarterbacks walk at the start of free agency they signed Kirk Cousins and expect to match offensive production with their fearsome defence. The offensive line is the one obvious weakness but in Mike Zimmer they have one of the best coaches in the league and I think they will be there or there about come December.

The Green Bay Packers had a down season last year thanks to Aaron Rodgers’s broken collar bone, but they will be hoping for a return to the playoffs now he’s back and healthy. A new GM saw the Packers dip into free agency more aggressively this offseason and after nine years they let go of Dom Capers and brought in Mike Pettine as a new defensive coordinator. It hard not to see the Packers in contention come the end of year as long as Rodgers stays healthy and if things gel for them they could be one of the better teams in the league.

The Detroit Lions went nine and seven but failed to make the playoffs and decided to go for a new head coach. They brought in Matt Patricia from the Patriots and a lot of the focus this year will be on just how good a coach the Belichick pupil is. Having left a team with the thirtieth ranked defence by DVOA last season , Patricia takes over a Lions team that ranked nineteenth so we shall have to see, but I like the continuity of Jim Bob Cooter staying in charge of offence and continuing his successful work with Matthew Stafford. I can’t take too much from pre-season as I didn’t see any of the starters, but they were not impressive against the Browns and they could be a candidate for a team who struggles. We’ll just have to see how things work out and a lot depends on how successfully Patricia blends what he learnt in New England with his own beliefs now he’s the man who is ultimately responsible.

I was feeling things were on the up for the Chicago Bears even before they swung the trade for Khalil Mack. I’ve seen their offence improve over the course of the pre-season and whilst I’m not necessarily convinced by Mitchell Trubisky, with the skills players the Bears brought in through free-agency and new head coach Matt Nagy’s offensive scheme the Bears almost can’t help but improve on offence. The defence was pretty good before the addition of Mack and rookie linebacker Roquan Smith so I can see why there is a buzz around this team. How many wins this will actually yield this year I don’t know, but I like the aggressive approach the Bears took having realised how short a window an NFL franchises gets to exploit having a quarterback on a rookie contract. Whilst I didn’t like how they manoeuvred to get Trubisky in the draft, I like how they surrounded him with talent this offseason. Now let’s see just how big a dividend the team gets.

NFC East

The Philadelphia Eagles come into the season with one of the strongest rosters on paper, but there are a fare few injuries floating round apart from the Carson Wentz making his way back from the ACL and LCL tears. More worrying is that the Super Bowl winning Nick Foles and the first team offence have not scored a touchdown in pre-season. I think they are still favourites for the season and after the Super Bowl win Doug Pederson had all the affirmation he needs to stick to his plans but there may be a difficult few weeks ahead.

The Dallas Cowboys have lost a lot of franchise cornerstones over the last couple of seasons and big questions remain over who Dak Prescott will be throwing the ball to so a lot rests on how well Ezekiel Elliot can run the ball. That won’t be helped by the injuries to an offensive line that has been the cornerstone of the Cowboys’ offence in recent years. Meanwhile the defence has been more impacted by whether Sean Lee plays or not than any other unit has been by a single player that is not a quarterback. I’m not ready to declare them non-competitive just yet as there is potential for them to have a good year but it would not surprise me if they do in fact struggle, particularly as Jason Garrett doesn’t fill with a lot of confidence as head coach if this team starts to have difficulties.

Washington failed to make the playoffs last season and after several seasons of franchise tagging Kirk Cousins they traded for Alex Smith and then promptly gave him an extension. I am not convinced by the roster moves over recent years and I have a feeling that Jay Gruden will likely have his team win another 7-9 games like they have the last three seasons. There have been positive noised about Smith’s performance in the pre-season and when healthy Jordan Reed has been one of the most effective tight ends in the league in the passing game but I don’t know if the changes that have been made indicate a big improvement.

The New York Giants were a car crash last season with Ben McAdoo losing the locker room, the offence failing to function minus Odell Beckham and the defence slipping to a rank of eighteenth by DVOA having been second in 2016. This year’s Giants have a new GM and head coach who doubled down on Eli Manning despite his flagging form in recent years. They brought in Nate Solder from New England to solidify their offensive line at left tackle and drafted Saquon Barkley second in the draft without trading down and ignoring the various quarterbacks they could have had. There are genuine arguments about taking even as transcendent a talent as Barkley is thought to be over a quarterback given their respective values to a team and career length, but it seems they could have also struck a deal to move down but this what they have to play with now. The worry is how much does Manning still have in the tank but the coaching situation has to better than last year and so whilst I expect an improvement, I don’t know quite how much of a step up the Giants will make. I just hope they don’t regret not grabbing a quarterback when they had the second pick in the draft, who know when they’ll next pick that high again and they certainly will be hoping it isn’t for a while.

NFC South

The NFC south was one of the most competitive division s in the NFL last season with three teams finishing with double digit wins and making the playoffs.

The New Orleans Saints had a franchise changing draft bringing in enough defensive talent to shoot their ranking up into the top ten by DVOA whilst Alvin Kamara generated 1901 yards of offence. There were whispers that Drew Brees’s arm was not quite the same but he’s still as good as any quarterback in the league and threw for four thousand yards for the twelfth straight time! Yes he’s thirty-nine, but there don’t seem to have been any serious signs of decline yet and the Saints have just traded for Teddy Bridgewater who looked excellent throwing the ball for the Jets in pre-season. I’m not sure I would have invested the amount of draft capital the Saints did to pick such a raw pass rush talent in the first round as they did in this year’s draft but I suspect they will be there or there abouts at the end of the season.

The Carolina Panthers’ experiment with changing the way Cam Newton plays failed early in the season but he now has a new offensive coordinator in Norv Turner and I will be very interested to see how this works out. They do have multiple injuries at offensive tackle so it may be a work in progress but for his occasionally maddening accuracy issues, Newton is an effective quarterback in the style that he plays. If the defence continues to be in the top ten by DVOA then I would feel confident in saying that the Panthers will contend. My only concern is that for the last six years the Panthers have alternated double digit win seasons with seven win seasons, although one of them did net a playoff appearance. I certainly don’t believe this constitutes a pattern that is going to suddenly manifest itself in a seven win season but I do worry about their Panthers consistency from year to year. As ever we shall just have to see what the season holds.

The Atlanta Falcons were coming off a difficult Super Bowl loss last season and losing their offensive coordinator to the San Francisco 49ers. They were still a good team but the offence didn’t quite flow under Steve Sarkiesian but the defence continued to shape up under head coach Dan Quinn’s direction and they made it to the playoffs once more. Having adjusted Julio Jones’s contract and extended Matt Ryan’s contract the Falcons look set to challenge once again this season and may feel they weren’t far away last season in the playoffs.

The other team in the NFC South very much feel like the other team. Head coach Dirk Koetter was promoted because of his relationship with Jameis Winston who so desperately wants to be a leader but hasn’t quite managed that or to develop his play. Winston starts the season on suspension after groping an Uber driver and this franchise feels like it is disarray and it would not exactly surprise me if this team struggles all season. We shall have to see how the season plays out and it wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong, but come the end of the year I suspect it could be all change for the Buccaneers.

NFC West

Last season’s surprise package in the NFC were the LA Rams who were transformed by young head coach Sean McVay who overhauled the offence to reignite Todd Gurley and rescue Jared Goff from the category of draft bust whilst leaving Wade Phillip alone to run the defence. Not content with making it to the playoffs last season they added Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib, Sam Shields, and Ndamukong Suh to the defence. It’s clear they have faith in Wade Phillips to control that combustible mix of personalities but there is no doubting these players talent and if both sides of the ball live up to expectations they will be one of the more formidable teams in the league. I’m not sure if it is possible to live up to some of the hype but the Rams would be my pick as favourite for this division.

The Seattle Seahawks had a tough time last year as injuries hobbled the legion of boom and it has been all change for the franchise in the offseason. Not a lot is expected of them, particularly with Earl Thomas holding out but I’m ready to give up on Pete Carroll just yet. The offensive line might finally have solidified a little according to those watching closely and Rashaad Penny, the Seahawks’ rookie running back, has been turning heads in pre-season. As has Australian rookie punter Michael Dickson who managed to kick two fifty yard plus punts out of bounds within the five yard line in one game. I’m not prepared to guarantee anything other than a competitive team, but I think they could surprise a few people this season.

The Arizona Cardinals seem a strange prospect for me without Bruce Arians never mind having to find a new starting quarterback. We know that Sam Bradford is unlikely to make it through the season without getting injured and that receiving legend Larry Fitzgerald deservers a better team, but David Johnson is returning from a wrist injury and so he should get back to something like his previous form. However, with a new coaching staff and so much turmoil it feels like whilst this team in transition might rally round and surprise people, it could also really struggle and something says to me that struggle is the more likely option. I always want to see teams and players do well so I hope to be proved wrong.

Finally, in this two day scramble of writing madness we come to the only team with a quarterback who has an undefeated starting record in the NFL. It is a small sample size so whilst I’m certain that Jimmy Garoppolo’s steak won’t continue throughout this season, the hope that he and first year head coach Kyle Shanahan gave last year will continue to come to fruition this year. However, they have already lost running back Jerick McKinnon to an ACL injury and it’s worth remembering the place that the 49ers started from when John Lynch came in to be Shanahan’s GM last year. I expect the 49ers to be competitive even if they can’t replicate the five game winning streak from the end of last year’s season but the fans from San Francisco may have to wait until next season to return to the playoffs given the size of the rebuild job that had to be taken on. I wouldn’t necessarily put any money on that though…

AFC Preview

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

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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.

Making Sense of the Chaos

02 Sunday Sep 2018

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18-09-01 Khalil Mack

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The final weekend before the regular season is one of the biggest of the NFL calendar with all thirty-two teams cutting their rosters to 53 on Saturday. On Sunday they can place players on injured reserve with the possibility of bringing players back later in the season and shuffle the bottom of their roster as they seek to address weaknesses from a player pool of over a thousand that have just been cut from all teams. Meanwhile at the top of rosters since I last wrote we’ve seen new contracts for Aaron Rodgers and Aaron Donald whilst the currently of Oakland Raiders traded away Khalil Mack, one of the best young defensive players in the league to the Chicago Bears. That’s as good a player that has been traded away as I can remember and the Raiders also traded to get AJ McCarron from the Buffalo Bills despite his underwhelming pre-season and shoulder injury. Frankly, things seem a little odd for the silver and black right now.

Meanwhile, things took a strange turn for the Cleveland Browns, especially for those of us in the UK who saw Michael Kendricks on Hard Knocks giving the scouting info on the Philadelphia Eagles offence ahead of their game with them, only to then find out that Kendicks had been released by the Browns after he was charged for insider trading. It appears that the Browns were aware of the situation that occurred back in 2014 but they had been told that Kendricks had cooperated with investigators as a victim and the change in information prompted them to release the Super Bowl winner.

Getting back to Hard Knocks episode four we had the rookie show and the clip of Kendricks breaking down his former team but it was a more restrained episode this week. A game that finished 5-0 will be part of it, but we did get a more detailed look into Tyrod Taylor’s exit from the game with a dislocated finger, the x-ray, and then him getting taped up and heading back into the game. The cameras didn’t follow Taylor into the medical tent or x-ray room but we heard the pain and saw him catch a ball in the locker room before he declared himself fine and headed off to get back into the game. There was an interview with Josh Gordon before the game and we saw him passing out gloves to a pair of children screaming for him, but with him not cleared to participate the nearest we got to Gordon playing football was him going through the new playbook and saying he knew the plays. Given that Todd Haley has been installing a new offence this offseason that was a little curious.

We know that for a lot of young NFL players are helped by the veterans, but it was interesting to see Devon Cajuste working extensively with a fellow tight end on his blocking, but much like when we saw Antonio Calloway watching film with Jarvis Landy, you wonder where the position coaches are as surely they should be making sure the players are working on the techniques the coaching staff wants the players to be using.

The final episode of Hard Knocks will focus on the Brown’s game against the Detroit Lions and the cuts of the fringe players that has already happened as I write this but several of them could have been picked up for practice squad or other teams by the time the episode airs. This is one of the most awkward parts of Hard Knocks being shown a couple of days later in the UK as if you don’t want spoilers you have to be careful about the NFL media you consume but the fifth and final episode really suffers as it airs on the same day the season starts, four days after cuts weekend and a week since the last games of the pre-season.

In their game against the Lions Devon Cajuste caught a twenty-four yard catch at the start of the game and Nate Orchard intercepted the ball and ran it back for a touchdown. Fans of the Browns will already know if this was enough for them to make the team or not, but I’ll let you find out for yourself or keep the suspense until the last episode. It was interesting to see Brogan Roback get some extended play time but early on whilst his demonstrated the strength of arm, he kept trying to force long passes and more than once he looked distinctively frantic. He did eventually settle down and showed some touch on a couple of completions before firing in a touchdown pass to Blake Jackson.

Overall the Browns ran away with this game but both sides of the ball fell away as the game progressed and we slipped further down the roster. There is a lot of positivity floating round the Browns at the moment but they were again beset by penalties and you have to wonder how much this is going to hurt them in the season. We’ve seen Hue Jackson bemoaning the penalties throughout the series but things are not changing and you can’t turn this round simply by telling players something they already should know. This is about discipline and what the coaches demand and what they encourage through tolerating on the practice field, a team plays like how they practice, and this is something that could very easily cost them games this season.

There is one episode of Hard Knocks left and the Browns will already be preparing for their opening game but we will soon see if Hue Jackson has turned things round or this will be his last season as head coach of the Browns.

2018 Pre-Season – Week 3

29 Wednesday Aug 2018

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18-08-29 Matt Nagy

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The accepted general schedule of an NFL pre-season has week three as the dress rehearsal for the starters, which is what I confidently stated last week so it’s nice to be completely tripped up by the second game I watched of the week three slate.

The Chicago Bears hosted the Kansas City Chiefs and Mat Nagy had already called Chiefs head coach to warn him that the Bears would be sitting their starters earlier in the week so whilst I got to see plenty of the Chiefs’ new starter Patrick Mahomes, the Bears’ Mitch Trubisky did not start much to my surprise as I had not seen the news before I sat down to watch the game. The two shining stars for the Bears offence for me was Chase Daniel who looked the best I had seen him all pre-season and seventh round receiver Javon Wims, who caught four balls for one hundered and fourteen yards and a touchdown. There is further good news in that the offence generally looked good in this game and the Bears ran out 27-20 winners to take their pre-season record to 2-2. Wins are not the focus while the teams prepare for the regular season but after losing their first two pre-season games the Bears will appreciate wining two on the bounce and they will have got extended looks at players further down the roster with the approach of Nagy.

The head coach of the Bears argued the decision was about workload and keeping players healthy for the start of the season and reading Nagy’s comments he seems to have thought it through and he’s not the only coach who’s thinking like that as the Rams starters have apparently barely played this pre-season either. The quote that caught my eye was that ‘… if we win that game against Green Bay, trust me, it wasn’t because we didn’t play 25 [snaps today]. And if we lose it, it’s the same thing. I promise you that.’ I find it interesting as whilst I believe that he thinks this is true, the press are going to ask questions if they do lose. The one thing from this that I think should cheer them is that their new head coach is doing things his way and I always think that’s a positive as you’ll find out more quickly if they are on the right track or not. I’m not sure if the Bears’ defence is going to live up to last year’s ranking of fourteenth by DVOA but I do think their offence will be better than twenty-eighth as long as they’re not overwhelmed by injury

As for the Chiefs, whilst Mahomes will not be as efficient as Alex Smith he will make plays with his remarkable arm and I suspect they are in for a very entertaining season. I have a lot of respect for Andy Reid who seems to be a consistently underrated coach even if the criticism of his clock management is warranted. The defence has been overhauled with several pass rushers moving on as well as cornerback Marcus Peters being traded so I’m curious to see if they can step up from their ranking of thirtieth by DVOA. But with Reid’s offence it won’t take much of an improvement to make the Chiefs pretty scary in the AFC, it just depends how ready Mahomes is after sitting for nearly all of his rookie year.

My final game of week three saw the Cincinnati Bengals travel to the Buffalo Bills and Andy Dalton likely be the first opposition quarterback to get a standing ovation from a crowd for his part in the winning play against the Baltimore Ravens last season that saw the Bills finally break their playoff drought.

Unfortunately for the Bills, Dalton looked sharp in what likely will be his final extended run of minutes in the pre-season and started as he meant to go on with a touchdown pass to John Ross of fifty-seven yards as the second year receiver sprinted past the Bills’ defence and then shuffled into the end zone. The Bengals have a lot of players showing flashes in the skill positions and even Tyler Eifort was out there as he tries to make another come back from injury. I still have concerns over the offensive line and the rushing attack has not convinced me yet but I feel like the Bengals have a lot of potential on offence for the coming season.

As for the defence, if the pass rush last year was good it may well be even better this year and Josh Allen spent a lot of time running away from marauding defensive lineman or getting sacked. In fact the Bengals’ defence finished with six sacks and ten quarterback hits. The Bengals also just signed Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap to contract extensions of four and three years respectively. They may not have got the turnovers that have been the focus of the offseason, but it feels like the defence is shaping up nicely and I kept spotting new signing middle-linebacker Preston Brown around the ball in the first half. My concern would be the run defence, which has never been the same since they let Domata Peko walk in free agency two years ago but I think having a more settled rotation might help. Needless to say I shall be watching closely over the coming weeks.

Whilst Josh Allen spent a lot of his game escaping pressure and trying not to turn the ball over, the infamous Nathan Peterman moved the team well and as threw for two hundred yard and a touchdown. There was talk on the commentary that there were some around the Bill who thought Peterman was moving the ball better in practice than injured starter AJ McCarron. After the disastrous five interception half Peterman had last season when he was made starter over Tyrod Taylor (a decision I still find somewhat inexplicable) it is good to see him moving the ball with the offence and given the problems the Bills are having with their offensive line, I do wonder if he might be an early starter to buy Josh Allen some more time to acclimatise to the NFL. Whoever starts, as the Bills continue to overhaul their team it looks like they might be taking a step back this year as they consolidate after Sean McDermott’s first season as head coach. I’m hesitant to write them off completely just because apart from his handling of Tyrod Taylor I was impressed with the job McDermott did in his first season, but after this offseason I think there are too many questions around their roster and in particular the offensive line.

So that’s it, one pre-season game left where the players at the bottom of the depth chart will be fighting to make a roster and then next week we will be looking forward to the start of another NFL season.

I am very much looking forward to it.

Only two more weeks until coaching tape.

2018 Pre-Season – Week 2

22 Wednesday Aug 2018

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Having concentrated on the Cleveland Browns and Hard Knocks over the weekend it’s now time to focus in on the week two pre-season games for the teams I’m following.

Firstly we have the Cincinnati Bengals who travelled on the road to face the Dallas Cowboys and got their second win of the pre-season running out 20-10 winners but I am not getting over excited yet. What won the game for the Bengals was their depth as for a lot of the game they were losing and they didn’t score any points in the first half.

The big question for this team is still the revamped offensive line and the reason that is important is that Andy Dalton’s strength is his quick decision making and ability distributing the ball but he is not able to play like that under pressure and so far the offence hasn’t sparkled. The big pre-season test is coming this week in the third game, but the truth is that as well as a revamped line the offence has a new playbook and calling system so it may well take some time for things to truly bed in. We will know more once the regular season has been under way for a couple of weeks, but Dalton cannot miss the throws he did in this game and hope to succeed. That said, there are flashes from the young receivers and again Jeff Driskel led the quarterbacks in yardage although he did throw an interception, whilst Matt Barkley got himself a touchdown.

The Bengals’ defence also has a new approach as they have a new co-ordinator this year and the big news post the week two game is the surprise release of George Iloka. There has been a lot of talk about the focus being on turnovers this season, and the Bengals clearly have been looking at this position all off-season as they had free agents come in before they picked Jessie Bates III in the second round of the draft, but I don’t think anyone was expecting the Bengals to cut their starting safety.

It really looks like the Bengals are placing a premium on speed at the moment but the strength of the Bengals’ defence looks to be pass rush and they were able to get pressure throughout the game and finished with five sacks and seriously exposed some of the backup Cowboys’ offensive linemen. It’s good to see rookie Sam Hubbard getting a strip sack and Carl Lawson also got a sack picking up from his strong rookie season last year while Jordan Willis (another of last season’s rookies) managed a pair of sacks so the depth of rusher really seems to be there without mentioned Geno Atkins or Carlos Dunlap.

As for the Cowboys, we don’t know how Ezekiel Elliott will play this year but if he plays the full year at something like his best they will be a difficult team to deal with and to me the defence looked good early in this game. They could still be as reliant on Sean Lee as they were last year but fellow linebacker Jaylon Smith looks like he is finally beginning to get back some of the form that made him such a tantalising draft prospect before the horrible knee injury in his last college game. It was a shock to many for Smith to be picked in the second round and he was still hampered last year (wearing a brace to support his foot) but he could be a big addition to the defence this year.

The Chicago Bears travelled to Denver to face the Broncos and they may have conceded the first safety that I have seen this year, but they ran out 23-24 winners to give the Bears their first win in three attempts.

The Bears revolution on offence continues and whilst there is still plenty of work to do I would say they are better than last year. There were several additions in the off-season but the obvious one in their game against the Broncos was tight end Trey Burton, he of the touchdown pass to Nick Foles in the Super Bowl. He lined up in several places round the formation and caught four balls for forty-five yards and a touchdown as well as appearing to be one of Mitch Trubisky’s favourite targets. There were some problems in pass protection, but when you’re the right tackle with no obvious help, pinned behind your own five-yard line, and Von Miller is lurking I think I might have false started too. The problem with pre-season re-surfaces here as you have to really know who is playing for what reasons and with the lack of coaches tape it’s hard to really dig into plays but I do see a step forward for the Bears but they have an incredibly tough division so let’s not get too excited yet.

The Bear’s defence got pressure in the game and came up with three sacks but this is one of the games where multiple lowering the head penalties came up and whilst everyone is adjusting to the new rule (and it is incredibly hard to adjust when the game is played at such a pace) the Bears will have to watch out for this if the officials call the penalty in the same way during the regular season. It doesn’t seem that surprising that rookie Roquan Smith is being eased in slowly after holding out through the start of camp until last week, nor that he didn’t finish practice Tuesday because of a tight hamstring. The Bears will need to get him into football shape before he hits the field and so the fans will have to wait for their first glimpse of the first round pick and it could be the regular season before he makes the field.

As for the Broncos, the offensive line still seems to be a worry but Case Keenum is an improvement on what they had last season at quarterback and it appears that Chad Kelly has overtaken Paxton Lynch on the depth chart. The defence is different, having lost still more players from the Super Bowl winning iteration but it can still be scary and so this could be an improved year for the Broncos but I’m not confident enough to declare that it will be.

Next week is the dress rehearsal games and the most we will see of the starts before the start of the regular season, which feels much closer than it ought to.

I’m sure the coaches feel the same.

2018 Pre-Season – Week 1

15 Wednesday Aug 2018

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IMG_20180815_175351.jpgThis year I am watching three teams through the playoffs, which nicely replicates what I think will be my regular season viewing without the additional game tape as it is not available in pre-season.

However, for the first full week of pre-season this actually only garnered me two full games to watch as the Chicago Bears played the Bengals in Cincinnati. I will start with my usual caveat that it is always dangerous to read too much into pre-season as coaches are not game planning for their opponents and are working on what they think their team needs sharpening rather than going all out to win the game. This resulted in a close game where I hope that the Bears level is on the up rather than the Bengals are slipping back from last season.

From the Bengals side, Andy Dalton looked sharp enough until he threw an interception when John Ross slipped and fell but it’s too early to know if the changes to the offensive line will work and that they won’t miss Brandon LaFell’s solid veteran presence in the receivers room. What I did notice was there was a lot of run plays called on first and second down in this game , which I hope is just the team trying to turn round a disappointing running game that finished 20th in the league last season by DVOA, although the passing game was actually ranked one place worse. They were hampered by the offensive line last year and there’s still a lot of chopping and changing going on there so frankly I won’t believe any improvements until they last through the first quarter of the season.

As usual Geno Atkins looked like a monster in the middle of the defence and I’m hoping the defence improves with the new coordinator Teryl Austin but the Bengals do look a little thin at corner past their top three. There were also some big run plays given up, but hopefully new middle linebacker Preston Brown combined with an improved defensive tackle rotation will shore things up in Vontaze Burfict’s absence (he’s suspended the first four games for a violation of the PED [performance enhancing drugs] policy) when the regular season hits. Certainly Jordan Evans caught my eye a couple of times in Burfict’s absence in this game.

I never claim to be an expert on special teams but the Bengals have been focussing a lot on speed in the last two off-seasons so hopefully that helps as I’m not sure if fans really know what to expect out of the tweaks to the kick off rules.

As for the Chicago Bears, it took a last ditch drive from third string Bengals’ quarterback Jeff Driskel to deny them their first win of the preseason 30-27. The offence certainly looked more like a current day scheme but opening up with a missed long pass by Mitchell Trubisky had to be an unwelcome reminder of last season. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Trubisky to see how he’s taking to the new scheme but he didn’t really catch my eye in this game. To be fair, as a Bengals fan my eye was drawn more to their side of the ball but the Bears did seem to repeatedly break long runs even if they didn’t do it consistently. I was a little confused by several players on the Bears roster who had the same number but were playing on offence and defence. I was impressed by Ryan Nall who apart from being one of two 35s apparently on the roster, managed to maintain an average run of 10 yards over nine carries, greatly helped by getting through the entire Bengals defence and only being stopped by a desperate last ditch tackle from behind. I actually thought that the Bears’ third string quarterback Tyler Bray (who came over from the Kansas City Chiefs this offseason) looked a little better than Chase Daniels but neither of them were wholly convincing, but they are backups.

The Bears defence did enough to cause the Bengals problems moving the ball, but apart from Kyle Fuller making the interception on the John Ross slip play I mentioned earlier no one particularly caught my eye. I definitely think this will change next week when I can focus in more on the one side of the ball as the Bears play so I hope to come back with more names next week.

So the other game I watched was the Cleveland Browns travelling to the New York Giants. I do wonder how much of defensive coordinator Gregg Williams’s reaction to Saquon Barkely’s thirty-nine yard carry that opened up the game for the New York Giants Hard Knocks will be able to show, but things were mostly positive for the Browns who ran out 20-10 winners. There was a really good catch made bu Jarvis Landry but possibly most hopeful for the Browns is that whilst Tyrod Taylor looked very solid in his limited outing, rookie Baker Mayfield looked to have active feet in a good way and played well. He only completed eleven of twenty passes but he threw for two hundred yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. How sustainable this is and what Hue Jackson made of the running game I don’t know (but hope to find out) but this was a solid outing on offence.

As for defence, there was that long run and a couple of taunting penalties but it very much looks like the Battle for Ohio games with the Bengals could be competitive this season. If I have an excuse for the first game regarding spotting defensive players, this one proves that the team seemed to be doing the job rather than anyone jumping off the screen, but you miss so much on the TV copy that I definitely might have to pay an early coaching tape trip to the Browns

This post will be going up the day before Hard Knocks airs in the UK so the Americans are ahead of us and there is already a story out there that Hue Jackson punished rookie receiver Antonio Callaway by making him play over fifty snaps in this game after the fact that he was stopped by the police on the 5th of August became known. I’ll leave the details to actual new outlets but it’s a curious way to deal with a player and I’ll know more about how I feel about it once I’ve seen the show, but it definitely feels odd to me.

So on to next week, where we might get to see Bears first round pick Roquan Smith play linebacker now that his holdout has ended, more of the first team starters, and I’m sure more insight on the Cleveland Browns.

Football is Coming!

05 Sunday Aug 2018

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18-08-05 Bengals Training Camp

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Football is coming!

In around a month the NFL season starts and we have already had our first football game of the 2018 pre-season as the NFL celebrates the Hall of Fame weekend.

Training camps are open and we have so many questions and games ahead of us.

There is a wave of new first round quarterbacks joining the league, but more than that we have two hundred and fifty-six drafted rookies and the undrafted free agents all battling for a place in the league. We have veterans trying to hold on for one more year, payers coming back from injuries, players in the best shape of their lives.

Football is coming.

I watch a fair bit of pre-season. There’s a tempo to it as you follow teams and see them both try to get ready for the season and set their rosters.

On Friday I watched my first new game of the 2018 season, which included one of the teams I’ll be following this pre-season.

I will naturally be watching all the Bengals pre-season games, and this year’s Hard Knocks team is the Cleveland Browns. They should be a fascinating watch given Hue Jackson’s struggles over the last two years and the new GM John Dorsey that took charge this offseason.

However, never mind an AFC bias, there’s an AFC North bias right there so my third team to follow this pre-season has to be an NFC franchise. I talked it over with Dan and the Rams/Vikings were both suggested before I settled on the Chicago Bears.

After several years of poor records and a developing defence paired with a struggling offence the Bears made a big switch this offseason. Taking note of the LA Rams 2017 transformation the Bears went out and hired forty-year-old Matt Nagy from Andy Reid’s Kansas City Chiefs’ staff to be their new head coach and set him the task of overhauling their offence. This offseason they set about surrounding second year quarterback Mitch Trubisky with enough options on offence that he can demonstrate whether he is the franchise quarterback they traded up for or not.

This should be a fascinating season for the Bears with Nagy looking to bring the RPO (run-pass option) plays to Chicago as he looks to modernise an offence that has struggled for years. We don’t know yet if he will succeed but it will be a fun watch. Less fun is the hold out of first round draft pick Roquan Smith, the next linebacker that has to try to live up to the history of the Bears at that position. What started as a dispute over the protection of guaranteed money against suspension coming from the NFL’s new helmet policy (which no one is sure how it will be enforced) seems to be more complex and the only thing we know for sure is that Smith is not in training camp and his potential impact in his first season is diminishing by the day. The last big hold out like this that I remember was Joey Bosa, and he proved me very wrong as hit the ground running with the Chargers in his first season as defensive end. Still, there are a lot more nuances for a linebacker to learn and the quicker he gets to camp the quicker he can start learning what it is to be an NFL linebacker.

As for the game, it was a solid affair with the player that really jumped out being the Baltimore Ravens’ rookie quarterback Lamar Jackson. There has been a lot of news coming out of the Ravens’ camp about how good Jo Flacco has looked but that Jackson was already being worked into packages with the first team game. The Ravens may have started off with Robert Griffin under quarterback who looked good after a number of difficult seasons since his electrifying rookie season in 2012. However, it was quickly apparent when Jackson took the field why the Ravens traded back into the first round to pick him. He may well have to work on his accuracy but Jackson’s threw the ball with plenty of zip and he looked fluid and shifty when forced to run. The interception he threw was not great but he threw for a touchdown and I am very curious how he’ll be used this season and how the Ravens will develop him.

Closer to home, as you have may already have read we are not doing a weekly podcast this year for all the reasons that Dan laid out here. However, apart from the usual picks competition and coaching tape analysis, I’ll also be writing a weekly newsletter in season with a summary of what happened over the weekend, what we’ve up to on the blog, and looking forward to the coming week. Sign up at https://tinyletter.com/thewrongfootball

Football is coming!