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The Playoff Fallen

20 Saturday Jan 2018

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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.

We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know

28 Thursday Sep 2017

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The weekend saw a number of statements and responses to Donald Trump’s rhetoric about disrespecting the flag across the weekend’s NFL games, and several tight finishes. I will pick up the actual football in a minute, but I feel I have to take a moment to broaden a little on what I wrote at the weekend given what happened before kick offs of the week three games.

The kneeling of Colin Kaepernick, and the other players was to protest social injustice and police brutality. This has been reframed as protesting the flag and anthem by those that object to these actions, and by Trump himself. The response from the NFL over the weekend sought to project unity against the criticism of Trump and to say we stand with these players using their first amendment rights, even if they don’t agree with the action themselves.

This does not look to be a problem that is going away any time soon as the actions of the players and owners still upset people, and we shall have to see how things proceed. However, I do think it is important to keep stating the players are not protesting the flag or the anthem, they are making a statement on society.

And so on to the football, which saw multiple close game and signs that teams are finding their way a bit on offence. It was also a topsy-turvy weekend that saw several unexpected results including the Pittsburgh Steelers losing to the Chicago Bears and the Miami Dolphins losing to the New York Jets. The Baltimore Ravens travelled to London and were totally outplayed by the Jacksonville Jaguars, losing 44-7.

What does this tell us? The honest answer is that we don’t know what we don’t know – i.e. we only have a small sample size and until we get well into October we should treat our general feelings about a team with a pinch of salt. The Cincinnati Bengals have a better defence than their 0-3 record might indicate, but they have a huge amount of work to do if they want to finish with a respectable record, yet alone think about playoffs, which must surely be out of reach. There are plenty more teams like this and I am excited to take a closer look now that coaching tape has hit the European Gamepass site.

Schedule allowing I shall be taking a look at the coaching tape of the Tennessee Titans’ offence taking on the Seattle Seahawks’ defence to see how the managed to be effective against the scary Seahawks’ front seven.

And so onto tonights game, but before that here are the results of our picks last week.

Gee:      Week 3   7-9                       Overall   25-23
Dan:      Week 3   5-11                     Overall   20-28

Bears @ Packers (-7.5)

This is an interesting line given that the Green Bay Packers needed overtime to get a win against the winless Bengals on Sunday, and the Chicago Bears just beat the Steelers at home. The Bears are on the road, and I would expect the Packers to find a way to win. However, given their continued injury problems I can’t quite bring myself to back the Packers to win by eight. I may well suffer from the stupidity of picking against Aaron Rodgers at home for a second week in a row, but that’s what I’m going to do.

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

Week 7: Bears at Packers

23 Sunday Oct 2016

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Green Bay Packers 26
Chicago Bears 10

This was another strange Thursday night game which didn’t quite take off, and was further hampered by the injury to Brian Hoyer in the second quarter, which allowed the Packers to grind out the win despite their problems at running back.

The Packers offence managed to rack up over one hundred yards of running in this game despite their two leading rushers being receivers Ty Montgomery and Randall Cobb, but nothing was quite fluent for most of the game. Yet again there were sections of the game where no receivers were getting open, and the Bears were able to pressure Aaron Rodgers as he was unable to find someone to pass to. That said, thanks to a game flow where the Bears offence offered very little, the defence wore down and the Packers finished with very credible numbers. For all of his drops last season, Davante Adams looked like a different player as he caught thirteen of sixteen for one hundred and thirty-two yards and two touchdowns. Equally Randall Cobb finished with ninety-five yards receiving to go with his twenty-one yards of rushing, but Ty Montgomery should get special mention for gaining sixty yards on nine carries as well as sixty-six yards receiving as he lined up all over the formation. In the end Aaron Rodgers’ numbers looked much like their usual self as he throw for over three hundred yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. However, the Packers had to work hard for these and it could be an interesting few weeks for Green Bay.

For the first half of the game and into the third quarter the Bears defence kept Green Bay out of the end zone, and were causing them all kinds of problems with their coverage holding up and they were able to get pressure on Aaron Rodgers. Their first round draft pick Leonard Floyd caught the eye with two sacks and three quarterback hits, as well as scoring the Bears’ only touchdown of the game when he sacked Rodgers causing a fumble and was able to recover the ball in the end zone. However, with their offence offering very little after Brian Hoyer went out injured the Bears defence wore down and having given up the odd pass interference call in the first half, receivers started to get open and then penalties started to crop up. There was one pretty dubious pass interference call, but De’Vante Buasby’s name started to crop up in bad ways down the stretch as things got desperate for the Bears.

The Bears offence finished with anaemic numbers, only going for sixty-nine yards rushing as they struggled against the Packers defence that has looked good against the run for most of the season. They really were not able to sustain anything, and even more so once Brian Hoyer went down with a broken arm in the second quarter. But it should be noted that Hoyer was only four of eleven for forty-nine yards when he went down, whilst Matt Barkley went for six of fifteen but also managed to throw two interceptions. The second was particularly bad as he tried to throw the ball away as he was being sacked and basically just threw it up in the air for the Packers to intercept. With Hoyer out things could be rough for the offence for a while, unless Jay Cutler comes back from his thumb injury playing much better than he had been before he went down. Certainly Barkley didn’t seem to offer much, but it’s hard to read too much into either running back’s game from this performance alone.

The Packers defence did what they had to in this one, stuffing the run and covering receivers enough to prevent the Bears from moving the ball, but when facing a unit that seemed to be struggling so much it is hard to tell too much from it. They were on the field for nineteen minutes less than the Bears and only gave up a field goal in the second quarter, but it was a team effort rather than any particular player standing out, at least that’s how it looked  from the standard TV coverage.

Overall, the Bears offence gave one of the worst performances I’ve seen this season, and caused their defence to wear down after starting off strongly. The Packers did what they needed to do, but I am curious to see how they will play going forward, but it feels like they will be somewhere around ten wins again.

The End of Streaks

29 Thursday Sep 2016

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It was a strange week three that saw many a game going differently to how people expected, and saw both Dan and I get murdered on our picks.

I wrote before making my picks last week that I expected more teams to get their first loss or win than continue their streaks, but it seems I picked all of the wrong ones and even in the games where I made the right choice, those choices were hardly convincing.

  • One of the unbeaten Texans and Patriots had to lose their first game, but whilst I acknowledged that Bill Belichick could win this game, I was not expecting the Patriots to manage a 27-0 win over the Texans.
  • The Cardinals went to Buffalo and lost, giving them a losing record and granting the Bills their first win of the season and resulting in the usual Rex Ryan bravado about facing the Patriots this week.
  • The Broncos went to 3-0 with an impressive win in Cincinnati where the Bengals defence stacked the box and dared Trevor Siemian to win the game with his arm, which he promptly did.
  • Even when I picked the Dolphins to beat the winless Browns in Miami and get their first win of the season, they needed overtime to do it and were nowhere near the ten point lead I needed for my pick to come through.
  • I expected the Viking to keep the game close against the Panthers, but instead ran out with a victory to remain unbeaten despite their injury troubles.
  • I didn’t see Washington beating a Giants team that were off to a great start, and yet they managed it whilst Odell Beckham grabbed headlines with another emotional outburst. This time the talented receiver lost a fight to a field goal net on the Giant’s side-line.
  • The Ravens went down to Jacksonville to face a desperate Jaguars team who were not desperate enough to avoid going 0-3, whilst the Ravens have the quietest unbeaten record in the league.
  • The Colts were one of only three games featuring a 2-0 or 0-2 record that I picked correctly, when they managed to get a win over the visiting Chargers who now have a perfect record of played three, lost three starters for the season to injury.
  • The Eagles put pay to the Steelers unbeaten record and kept their own, making the hype surrounding Carson Wentz even greater. I am so impressed with the Eagles coaching staff and the turnaround they have made so far, I’m really looking forward to seeing how this team develop over the rest of the season.
  • The Bears continued to lose, giving me my only other totally correct pick of week two where I got it right and the game went how I expected.
  • Finally, I was tempted into picking the Falcons because of an extra half point the Saints were giving up, but it turns out that the Falcons didn’t need these points as they ran out easy winners in a game of a lot of points.

Now, the wonderful thing about the NFL is that it is doing a sterling job of giving us talking points and excitement over the weekends, but boy is it making predicting what is going to happen difficult.

Still it is still early, and even though I will be writing my quarter poll summary in a couple of weeks, there are very few teams that should be truly despondent. However, whilst the Cleveland Browns were never likely to be looking for anything other than progress, and to their credit they are playing tough for the Hue Jackson in his first year, the Bears, Saints, and Jaguars are all in trouble. Only three teams have made the playoffs after starting 0-3 since 1990 when the playoff format was expanded to its current format. The Bears were expected to be rebuilding this year even if the injuries have made things worse than I was expecting, but the Jaguars were hoping to make the next step and push for the playoffs whilst the Saints have a Super Bowl winning quarterback who they have failed to surround with enough talent to push as far as they would expect.

The Jaguars are a particular disappointment as they head over to London to host the Colts this week, and already people are wondering if the London game is going to cost another head coach his job. Despite the warm feelings that everyone who has ever dealt with Gus Bradley seems to have, it is hard to see the Jaguars owner putting up with these results for much longer, and the Jaguars will need to turn things round quickly if Bradley is to keep his job past the end of the season.

And continuing the theme of disappointment, the big news of the last twenty-four hours is that JJ Watt has been placed on injured reserve as he having more problems with his back, and could possibly be gone for the season. I’ll write a little more about this over the weekend as I was already going through the coaching tape of Watt vs the Patriots, but hopefully he can make it all the way back as he is one of my favourite players to watch, but back injuries are hard ones to return from and people who’ve had such problems often say that they never felt the same.

The week five games look to offer plenty of excitement and intrigue, but already the attrition has really started to affect some teams, and it is an all too prescient reminder of how tough a game American Football is. I never want to see a player injured, but I will confess that part of me is curious to see what the Patriots would do if they were forced to play Julian Edelman as their quarterback.

Still, it is time to start looking at this week’s games, starting with tonight’s game that pits Dan’s Dolphins on the road against my beloved Bengals.

Our records are nothing to shout home about, particularly after our disastrous previous week, but I did manage to maintain my three point lead:

Gee:      Week 3   5-11                     Overall   21-27
Dan:       Week 3   5-11                     Overall   18-30

Dolphins @ Bengals (-6.5)

The Bengals lost their first home game of the season, in what has been a tricky open to the season, but if they can get back to 2-2 they can still hope to make a push for the playoffs. It appears that Tyler Eifert is not going to make it back for the game, but Vontaze Burfict comes off suspension and is likely to help the Bengals defence straight away. I think the Browns are going to give teams a tough game at the moment so I’m not reading too much into last week’s result for the Dolphins, but an overtime game before a short week road game is not the best prep, and I’m hopeful that the Bengals can win and hopefully find some rhythm on offence. For one game only I’m borrowing from Dan and picking blindly based on my fandom.

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

AAF: Carson Wentz

25 Sunday Sep 2016

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So I thought I would take a closer look at Carson Wentz this week given that he has led the Eagles to a 2-0 stretch.

I’ve heard several people I respect break down what has been working for Wentz, but I will try to base this only on what I was able to see on tape for myself, but I suspect it will sound similar.

In a 29-14 road victory over the Chicago Bears, Wentz’s number did not look spectacular as he threw for a mere one hundred and ninety yards on twenty-one completion from thirty-four attempts with one touchdown and no interceptions, but there was much more going on than these numbers might suggest.

For starters, at the beginning of the game, in his first regular season road game, Wentz started his opening drive with a series of empty backfield passing plays. He completed the majority of them with quick throws that allowed him to quickly select a receiver and make the pass. However, it has to be said that he was clearly in complete control of the offence, certainly appearing to make adjustments and looking like a quarterback who has been playing in the NFL for years.

It has to be said that it did not look like he was not being asked to go through complex progressions, seemingly work with fairly straight forward reads and a fair amount of play action passes, but this looked to be a feature of good coaching. It is in fact to head coach Doug Pederson and offensive coordinator Frank Reich’s credit that they have schemed so well for their young quarterback. He was not being asked to do much more than three or five step drop passes, or work from shotgun, but he was in clear command of what he was being asked to do.

I can’t say that his arm amazed you with the throws he made, but to be honest all the talk of cannons for arms seems to be overdone when evaluating quarterbacks and despite one hopping a couple of passes under pressure, there were no problems for Wentz in delivery catchable balls. In fact there were at least two drops I noted, one of which really should have been a touchdown to Jordan Mathews as the pass was dropped in nicely as he ran into the end zone. My only real concerns were that Wentz took a couple of unnecessary hits on scrambles, which I’m sure his coaches will want him to protect himself from, and that the offence was not terribly efficient in the red zone, only getting three field goals in the first half.

All in all though, Carson Wentz looks like he could turn himself into a very good NFL quarterback, and it really is very impressive to see him in such control of the offence so early in his career. The big tests are yet to come, starting this evening against the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he certainly has done pretty much as well as you could have asked of a rookie quarterback thrown into the starting line-up straight away.

Rams, Broncos, Bengals and Pre-Season Reps

21 Sunday Aug 2016

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It’s not only the players who need preseason reps, and in week 2 I am already fighting to catch up thanks to a very busy week at work. Still, I have managed to get all of week 1 watched and caught up with episode two of Hard Knocks as well as the Bengals second game.

The Rams got off to a rocky start in LA, given that on the opening kick-off they gave up a one hundred and one yard touchdown return, which the fans must have been hoping was not a predictor or things to come. In fact, the Rams had a slow first half with them going into half time 24-7 down.

The thing that would be worrying me if I was a Rams fan, was that the defence was not looking that solid despite arguably being the stronger half of the team, with the young Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott looking very good, and you would imagine some Cowboys fans will be already feeling a little better about their backup quarterback situation going into the season after the disasters of last year.

It was also a frustrating evening for Jared Goff who started off looking like a rookie, threw a couple of incomplete passes and got sacked to give him the sore shoulder which cost him some snaps. It is too early to take anything significant from his performance, but as a first round pick the attention is going to be focussed on him all through the preseason, and will continue if the Rams don’t win or if Case Keenum starts to struggle.

If the defence didn’t set the world alight, neither did the offence, and whilst there was some flash from Tavon Austin, and Goff finally threw a couple of pass to Tyler Higbee to demonstrate that a tight end is often a young quarterback’s best option, they will need to improve.

However, in the second half the Rams did manage to drag themselves back into the game and ultimately won it, and whilst preseasons records don’t matter, for a team trying to get back to a winning record this season, this could be an important habit to get into. If there is an area of strength for the Rams on offence it looks to be running backs, with several players looking good in Gurley’s absence and late on receiver Nelson Spruce made a number of catches to push his case to make the team.

I am very much looking forward to seeing the next game and how things progress with this team and watching the games alongside Hard Knocks.

After asking for suggestions, and taking into account the story lines following their Super Bowl win, Dan and I settled on the Denver Broncos as the third team for this year’s preseason, and in their opening game they got off to a good start with a shutout win over the Chicago Bears.

The strength of the Broncos team was defence last year, and they looked good again despite a number of players moving away, as they gave the Bears protection issues all game, racking up a number of sacks to go along with their shut out.

However, the big question for the Broncos after Peyton Manning’s retirement and Brock Ossweiler’s move to the Houston Texans is who is going to play quarterback for them this season. They opened the game with Mark Sanchez, who looked good initially but just as I was beginning to think they might be okay Sanchez threw into coverage and was intercepted. This pretty much seems to sum up Sanchez’s career. Next up they had Trevor Sjemian who looked okay as he ran the team and definitely demonstrated some promise. However, even Paxton Lynch was able to demonstrate some solid play for a rookie, and my big worry for this team would be that if they have a pair of quarterbacks fighting it out for a starting spot for too long, then they might not end up with a true starter going into the season.

Still, with a blocked punt giving them a touchdown, and a safety, the Broncos found multiple ways to score and whilst you can never truly to tell from preseason, it looks like the Broncos are set to make a strong defence of their title.

Finally, I can move into the second week of the preseason, with the Bengals running out to a solid win in Detroit against the Lions.

The offence seemed to move the ball well for the Bengals, although another tackle has picked up an injury which is not a great sign. However, the Bengals depth seems to be holding for the moment and neither Cedric Ogbuehi nor Jake Fisher’s injuries are long term. The more positive news is despite the losses of Jones and Sanu in the offseason, plus free-agent signing Brandon LaFell fighting a hand injury and not catching a ball yet, the Bengals’ receivers are still showing up well. I am particularly impressed with rookie Tyler Boyd who caught another touchdown this week and seems to have settled into the top of the rotation with surprising ease whilst Brandon Tate caught passes with the first team again.

The defence gave up yards to the Lions, but were able to restrict them to field goals until the fourth quarter. The early signs to me is that Golden Tate and Marvin Jones are going to be good pairing for Matthew Stafford, and the offence looked to protect him pretty well against  the Bengal’s pass rush. However, the Bengals defence got enough pressure to win the game and it does seem that they will be competitive again this year.

Things are beginning to heat up as cuts loom on the horizon, and I’m hoping for a smoother week so I can really dig in as we get closer and closer to the regular season, but with people playing for jobs, there’s plenty of competitive football for us to watch already.

NFL Week 14 Picks: Running Late with Thursday Night Recap Edition

06 Saturday Dec 2014

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A horrible weekend picking games bled into a rubbish week that saw me drop two games behind Dan and run late with the picks this week as work and domestic issues ate all my time. One of the reasons I love the NFL is its unpredictability, but it can make picking game hell. I am going to keep what I wrote about the Thursday night game before it happened, and then give you a recap before I finish the rest of the week’s games.

Gee:     Week 13   3-13                        Overall   94-98
Dan:     Week 13   6-10                        Overall   96-96

Cowboys @ Bears (+3.5)

The Preview:

Neither of these teams played well in their Thanksgiving games with the Cowboys offence struggling against the Eagles tough defence and Tony Romo looking like he is feeling the affects of his back injury. There is already talk of the Cowboys annual December slump and whether this team could fall to another eight and eight season but I don’t see it happening. As unimpressive as the Cowboys were, they were positively inspiring compared to the Bears, whose offence continues to stutter whilst the defence was indeed the perfect unit for the Lions to get going against. I’m not making the mistake of believing in the Bears again this week.

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

The Recap

This game did nothing but confirm what I was already thinking. I’m not sure why the Bears seemed to abandon the run again for a second week in a row. You could understand them doing it against the Lions as no one has had success rushing against their defence all year, but the Cowboys run defence was ranked twenty-fourth by DVOA coming into this game, but once again it was short passes to Forte and forcing the ball to Martellus Bennet. They managed to get some garbage time points in the fourth quarter, but even as they began to edge towards an unlikely come back, Jay Cutler threw an interception into the end zone and the game was over. This team is in a mess and I worry about how they are going to get themselves out of it, tied as they are to a lot of the personnel on offence that just aren’t doing it this season and a defence that is dreadful.

The Cowboy on the other seem to be intent on killing DeMarco Murray who ran the ball thirty-two times for 179 yards and caught nine passes. The Cowboys offensive line is outstanding, allowing Tony Romo to function despite his injuries, and he definitely looked better than he did on Thanksgiving working on a short week. The worrying thing is that the defence is definitely looking like it is breaking down a bit. There was barely any pass rush and whilst they are very much in the playoff hunt, I can’t see them making much of a dent if they do get there.

Steelers @ Bengals (-3.5)

Oh boy was the end of the Bengals game tense this week. I didn’t know about Dalton’s sickness until Monday, but the defence continues to look better whilst the offence found a way to win in the second half. I think a special mention must go to Mohamed Sanu who is having a great season in place of the injured Marvin Jones, and was the number one receiver whilst AJ Green was injured earlier in the season. He also threw an eleven yard pass in this game to take his NFL career record to five out five completions for 177 yards and two touchdowns.

This week they face the hated Steelers, who are driving me round the bend this season due to their inconsistency. I do not have a handle on them at all, their defence looks fragile and is a surprising twenty-ninth by DVOA, but whilst their offence can be spectacular with Roethlisberger throwing six touchdowns in two consecutive games, Le’Veon Bell looking as good as any running back in the league and already has 1000 yards rushing this season, whilst Antonio Brown is one of the elite receivers in the game, they have also misfired in several games. The fact is that the Steelers have lost against the Buccaneers, Jets, Titans, and last week they welcomed the Saints who had lost three straight at home and lost again.

This could be a complete homer pick, but I’m sticking by my Bengals.

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

Colts @ Browns (+3.5)

The Colts big win against the Semi-Pros of Washington masked an interesting start to the game for Andrew Luck who early on in the game had a fumble and an interception before he had a completion. Luck is so good that he gets forgiven these errors, but he and the Colts will need to tighten their game up against the Browns this week as they are not going to see the repeated blown coverages that they got against the Semi-Pros, who also scored twenty-seven points against a Colts defence that has been up and down this season.

The Browns head back home after a loss at the Bills where the game really got away from them in the second half. It has been a difficult few weeks for Brian Hoyer who has been struggling along with the offence since Alex Mack went down injured. It was bad enough against the Bills that Johnny Manziel finally put in an appearance, but having led the offence up the field on an eighty yard drive that culminated in him scrambling for a touchdown, he also fumbled the ball to give up a score and ultimately he could not get the Browns back into the game. Their coach Mike Pettine has said that Manziel will be taking first team snaps as they look at getting him involved in the game.

I’m really not sure how this will affect the Browns, but it doesn’t inspire confidence and although I am worried about the points, I’m backing the Colts to have too much when they come to Cleveland.

Gee’s Pick:      Colts
Dan’s Pick:      Colts

Buccaneers @ Lions (-9.5)

The Lions had a much better game last week on offence, looking more like themselves and their run defence was so good the Bears barely tried any running plays. I’m not sure if this can last, but if they can maintain the production of Calvin Johnson and Golden Tate from this game then they will be a handful for anyone.

There are definite signs of improvement from the Bucs, with Mike Evans seeming able to catch any ball that is thrown near him. That said, they were not good enough to snatch a winnable game away from the Bengals and the twelve men of the field call must be one of the most frustrating penalties of the season for this coaching staff.

Since their bye in week seven the Buccaneers have not been blown out, and their defence has been turning round. I think the Lions will win but I don’t like their offensive line and it appears I’m not learning my lesson about picking road underdogs.

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

Giants @ Titans (+0.5)

This game is a real mystery wrapped in an enigma with a fluctuating quantum state that changes upon observation.

On the one hand we have the Giants who are just falling apart after briefly putting together a promising run of performances earlier in the season, but are now on a seven game losing streak. On the other hand, the Titans have just lost heavily to the Texan, are on their own six game losing streak, and their rookie quarterback is now injured so we’re back to Jake Locker as the possible starter.

I don’t like either team so I’m plumping for the Titans at home but who knows with this one.

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

Rams @ Semi-Pros(+2.5)

Things did not get much better for the Semi-Pros this week with a slight improvement in offensive production undone by repeatedly blow coverage in the secondary. You will seldom see so many wide open receivers on long plays as there were in last week’s game and surely this must cast some questions over the coaching of this team.

The Rams are finishing the season strong, and whilst we shouldn’t over react to their fifty-two point win over the Raiders, their defence pitched a shut out and Tre Mason looked really good as he rushed for 117 yards and two touchdowns on only fourteen carries.

I can only see one result in this one, which maybe dangerous but I’m sticking to my guns.

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

Ravens @ Dolphins (-2.5)

The Dolphins won ugly against the Jets last week, but whilst the performance from Tannehill was not outstanding with no touchdowns and an interception, the worrying trend is the second straight bad performance from the defence that for most of the season has been a strength of the team. They are still ranked top ten in defence by DVOA, but having conceded twenty-two points in a quarter against the Broncos two weeks ago, they conceded 200 rushing yards in the first half against the Jets.

The Ravens are still a lot of people’s pick as the best team in the AFC North but they are now a game and a half behind the Bengals, and their patched together secondary is going to be their Achilles heel for the rest of the season. I would like their offence to be more consistent as it has shown flashes, with Justin Forsett has being one of the free-agent pickups of the season, but has not put it together as regularly as you would like.

I think the Ravens have a slight edge in this one and so I’m backing them to bounce back with a win.

Jets @ Vikings (-5.5)

The Vikings are playing solid defence and so I don’t expect the Jets to be able to run the ball like they did against the Dolphins. This is a problem as it has been the only impressive thing the Jets have done in weeks and they still lost. I think that the Viking could be a really interesting team next year, and this week I’m backing them for a solid home win.

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

Panthers @ Saints (-9.5)

This is a difficult game to pick as the Panthers are struggling this season with problems on both sides of the ball and Cam Newton looking particularly off. However, the Saints have also been pretty bad this season and this is a high line. The Saints were much better against the Steelers than the score showed as their defence was unable to stop them making it a close game towards the end, despite the Saints mostly being in control. Given this, it would make sense to pick the Panthers to cover, but I can’t bring myself to back this road underdog, I don’t have any confidence in their offence so I’m reluctantly hoping the Saints begin to look more like themselves.

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

Teaxns @ Jaguars (+4.5)

The Jaguars got themselves a second win last week against the Giants and continue to compete on defence and keep themselves in game, but their horrid o-line makes it very hard from them to do much on offence.

The Texans played excellently last week with Ryan Fitzpatrick having a career day, and JJ Watt getting two sacks as well as forcing a fumble, recovering it, and then catching an touchdown pass on the resulting offensive play.

I think this is a relatively straight forward win for the Texans.

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

Bills @ Broncos (-9.5)

The Broncos found another way to win last week, running the ball with CJ Anderson for 168 yards off thirty-two carries. Their defence continues to play well, and whilst they have had their wobbles recently, the Broncos have to be included in any discussion of the best teams in the AFC.

The Bills have had a good couple of weeks, but whilst I am impressed with their defence which is anchored by one of the best defensive lines in the league, I do not trust their offense and I’m waiting for Kyle Orton to come back to Earth.

If this game was in Buffalo I might fancy the Bills for an upset, but at Mile High Stadium not only do I fancy the Broncos to win, but I think they’ll cover too.

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

Chiefs @ Cardinals (-0.5)

The Cardinals have been so good for most of the season, but it looks like they might have finally reached a point where they are too hobbled by injury to win. They have no run game to support Drew Stanton, who is currently no where near good enough to win them games, and even the defence was bad last week against the Falcons. I wouldn’t put it past Bruce Arians to find a way to get them into the playoffs, but right now I can see them slipping out.

The Chiefs are coming off their own two game losing streak, and have not been inspiring. However, I have more faith in Alex Smith than I do Stanton and even though they are the road team, I think that they have more ways of manufacturing points than the Cardinals at the moment.

This is a pick that could haunt me as I really believe in Arians as a coach, but Andy Reid is not exactly awful himself.

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

49ers @ Raiders (+7.5)

One suspects that the Raiders minds were elsewhere in the lead up to last week’s game, resulting them getting smashed 52-0 by the Rams. They were horrible and there doesn’t seem to be much point in going over it in detail, but I would imagine they will be desperate to demonstrate that it was a one off by a team not used to success.

The 49ers are in trouble as their offence is horrible and Kaepernick seems to be going backwards. I think that they are going to miss the playoffs this year, and we will be seeing new coaches whose first order of business is an overhaul of the offensive scheme. I see them winning this game, but I have no confidence that they can generate enough offense to cover this spread on the road.

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

Seahawks @ Eagles (-1.5)

This should be a really good game with the Seahawks defence playing really well over the last couple of weeks having got some players back from injury. However, whilst I think that they could overturn the Cardinals at the top of the NFC West, I think this game will be beyond them.

This is not an easy journey for them, and the Eagles are playing well. I worry about Sanchez facing the Seahawks defence, but he has played in big games before and never with this level of surrounding cast or within such a well coached scheme. I think the Eagles defence has enough to contain the run game of the Seahawks, who really don’t have much of a passing attack and so I see the Eagles eking out a win.

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

Patriots @ Chargers (+3.5)

The Chargers got themselves back into the playoff hunt with a win over the Ravens last week, but I don’t know how sustainable this success is. It appeared that Philip Rivers was feeling a bit healthier and certainly he played well, but given that their defence is ranked twenty-eighth by DVOA he is going to have to be outstanding again.

This defensive problems look to be further compounded as the Patriots are coming into town and if you are twenty-first in the league by DVOA against tight ends, the last player you want to see is Rob Gronkowski. The Patriots were in the game with the Packers until the end, but there were a couple of throws that Brady would like to have back. It is interesting that Bill Belichick flew the team straight from Green Bay to Sand Diego, but I think they have more than enough to take care of business in this game.

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

Falcons @ Packers (-11.5)

It has now been more than two years since Aaron Rodgers has thrown an interception at Lambaugh Field and if he keeps up this level of play for a few more years there is going to be a real argument about who the best quarterback of all time is. Add to this a defence that had been playing really well recently, with Julius Peppers demonstrating he was a really good offseason pickup and Clay Mathews making a difference as he moves between inside linebacker and pass rusher, and you have a recipe for Super Bowl contention.

The Falcons did really well to beat the Cardinals last week, their patched up offensive line held up well enough for Matt Ryan to give Julio Jones a career day. However, I really worry about how their defence is going to hold up against the Rodgers and all the weapons he has at his disposal. I think this is going to be a very long day for a team that really isn’t very good, and is about to get found out.

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

NFL Week 13: Thanksgiving Roundup

29 Saturday Nov 2014

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I had a really great time watching all three Thanksgiving games unfold, smiling as I enjoyed the football and watched all three of my picks go wrong. The games were interesting if one sided in all three contests so let’s take a look at what happened:

Bears @ Lions

The first thing that struck me about this game as I was watching it was that neither team was running the ball effectively. But whilst the Lions persevered with it and eventually had some success having established their passing game, the Bears ran for only eight yards from thirteen attempts and were variously using screens and passes to Forte out of the backfield as an alternative.

The problem with this is that Jay Cutler is not a rhythm passer, and if you are doing this then you are not making the best use of his arm talent. Only one of his two interceptions came at a point that truly affected the game, but the Bears simply did not move the ball well enough throughout this game to compete.

The Bears did move the ball effectively in their opening drive without attempting a single run, and thanks to a Matt Stafford fumble giving them good field position, they finished the first quarter with a fourteen-three lead, but they would only score a third quarter field goal for the rest of the game.

I have written before about the dangers of changing your mind when making picks, I wrote about I thought the Lions offence could get back on track and that I was worried about Jay Cutler’s play against this defence, but I changed my mind listening to other people talk about the game. Verily it played out how I thought and in the end the Lions won very comfortably.

The one thing I will remember with the Lions offence is that their o-line is not very good. The Bears have not been rushing the passer that well this season, but Jared Allen was getting consistent pressure to go with his pair of sacks. Combine this with it being Matthew Stafford’s first year in a new system and you can possibly see why he has struggled. He spread the ball around in this game and the Lions have some very winnable games coming up so we will have to see how they go.

Eagles @ Cowboys

This was a really interesting game. I thought that the Cowboys would win as I had more faith in the Cowboys o-line and Tony Romo than in Mark Sanchez, but I was wrong.

The Eagles defence played very well in this game, and although Tony Romo had a lot of time behind the Cowboys excellent o-line, they could not sustain drives. I put part of this down to the play calling as they were very conservative and having established that they would run on first down predominantly, they could have tried to use play action but didn’t. However, the other problem was that Romo just didn’t play that well, he missed throws and only managed a couple of long passes whilst racking up two interceptions and no touchdowns.

The Eagles on the other hand ran the ball very effectively, and whilst I could still see the things that worry me about Sanchez, he was efficient throwing for two hundred yards and a touchdown. The Cowboys’ defence were able to hold the Eagles to field goals for four drives, but struggled to get stops and the different in the pace of the offence showed up with the Eagles running seventy-five plays to the Cowboys’ fifty-eight despite their only being fifty seconds between their time of procession.

It appears that whilst they Eagles are a step down from the likes of the Packers or Patriots, but they’re also a step above the Cowboys who I am a little worried about. They did not look good in this game and I can see them having problems when they play the Colts and have to visit the Eagles

Seahawks @ 49ers

Sometimes you get a pick wrong and it was beyond your control, and sometime you feel like an idiot. I knew that the 49ers were struggling on offence but they were horrible in this game.

The much vaunted o-line from last year has regressed drastically, and Colin Kaepernick’s play has gone backwards too. This team managed a paltry 164yards of total offence and were unable to get either the run or pass working in this game. I don’t think it is a good idea to just avoid Richard Sherman’s side of the field like the Packers did in the opening game of the season, but you can’t afford to throw the kind of balls Kaepernick did for his pair of interceptions. In fact, he’s probably lucky he was only picked off twice as he looked horrible throwing the ball all game.

However, the San Francisco defence looked as good as their offence looked bad. They were not getting much time off the field thanks to the offence but after a touchdown in the first quarter, they held the Seahawks to field goals for the rest of the game.

The problem for the 49ers is that part of their difficulties on offence is their quarterback, but this is very much not the case for the Seahawks. They are just as reliant on the run game for production, but this is because of the quality of skill players Russell Wilson has to throw to. However, his ability to escape the rush is as good as anyone in the league and he seems to have a great feel for when to run and when to get rid of the ball. I get the feeling that receivers will be a point of emphasis for the Seahawks in the offseason.

Overall, I think that the 49ers will fall short of the playoffs and that there could well be an overhaul of the coaching staff. This would not be a surprise given that Jim Harbaugh is already half out the door thanks to his broken relationship with owernership/management, but something has to be done about the offence as Greg Roman is simply not getting it done with that unit.

The Seahawks look to be coming together at the right time, but there are structural issues with the roster and whilst I don’t think anyone will relish playing them, they are a couple of levels below the monster they were last season.