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Competition Thursday: 2022 Week Six

13 Thursday Oct 2022

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I am absolutely not taking things for granted, but we’re well over a quarter of the way through the season, we’re starting to get team byes and I’ve got a double digit lead in the picks competition. There’s still a long way to go but I can’t think of a much better way to start, even if can’t salve the Bengals’ stumbling start to the competition that matters.

On to week six!

Gee:Week 5:  10 – 6Overall:  43 – 37
Dan:Week 5:  5 – 11Overall:  32 – 48

Washington @ Bears (-0.5)

I am looking forward to watching these teams again and seeing the changes in both of them. However, picking it is a different matter entirely, particularly when the line truly is giving us nothing to work with. I’m not sure what Dan’s rationale is, but mine is that the Bears are at home on a short week and haven’t had their head coach throwing their quarterback under the bus, but that isn’t exactly convincing.

I guess in a week where the Chiefs are playing the Bills I shouldn’t complain about this matchup too much.

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

Survivor Competition

Dan made the mistake of trusting the AFC South last week and so got his second elimination of the season with the Texans beating the Jaguars. Meanwhile two weeks of comparatively safe picks has seen me at least drag myself back into contention and whist it might come back to bite me later in the season, I’m going to continue that trend with the Buccaneers taking on the struggling steelers, while Dan has opted for the Vikings visiting his Dolphins.

Current Score

Gee: 2
Dan: 2

Week 6 Selection:

Gee:    Buccaneers @ Steelers
Dan:    Vikings @ Dolphins

Bold Prediction of the Week

I hate this process and so tend to pull my bold prediction out the ether when Dan asks me, which this week left me picking the Jets to beat the Packers, which in the cold light of day is certainly bold, and possibly foolish but I don’t think impossible.

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2022 Week Four Picks

02 Sunday Oct 2022

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It’s been a weird few days for one reason or another. I’ve found the Tua situation hanging over my response to the Bengals win as with the failures that enabled him to be on the field Thursday night and the potential second concussion really made me feel complicit. This sits in contrast to my reaction to an excellent podcast interview with Willie Anderson and Andrew Whitworth ahead of the same Bengals’ game as they are the good and bad side of this sport I love.

I’m away this weekend so I’m going to drop my picks now, will fill Dan’s in at a later point, and will see if I can find time to unpick my feelings in more detail with a specific post.

Early Games:

I’ve seen plenty of Saints and Viking fans in London this week ahead of the first UK game this season.

Vikings @ Saints (+2.5)

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

And the rest:

Browns @ Falcons (+1.5)

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

Washington @ Cowboys (-3.5)

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

Seahawks @ Lions (-5.5)

Gee’s Pick:     Seahawks
Dan’s Pick:     Seahawks

Titans @ Colts (-3.5)

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

Bears @ Giants (-3.5)

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

Jaguars @ Eagles (-6.5)

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

Jets @ Steelers (-3.5)

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

Bills @ Ravens (+3.5)

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

Chargers @ Texans (+5.5)

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

Late Games:

Cardinals @ Panthers (-1.5)

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

Patriots @ Packers (-10.5)

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

Broncos @ Raiders (-2.5)

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

Sunday Night Football:

Chiefs @ Buccaneers (+2.5)

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

Monday Night Football

Rams @ 49ers (-2.5)

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

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

The Wait is Over, Now What Does the Future Bring?

22 Saturday Jan 2022

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Germaine Pratt!

And the wait was over.

I was sat on my couch at home, agonising over the closing of the game and driving my partner, who doesn’t like the NFL at the best of times, round the bend with my nervous energy and occasional outbursts at the telly.

And finally, in the last minute of the fourth quarter with the Raiders on the Bengals’ nine-yard line and looking for all the world like they could take the game into overtime when linebacker Germaine Pratt got in front of the Raiders’ receiver to grab the ball and make the interception so the Bengals could kneel out the game.

What I felt was relief.

I was so happy. I didn’t see the last Bengals playoff win in 1991. I’m pretty certain there was no way for me to see that game in the UK except for the highlights, but what I did see was the sequence of losses that plagued the Marvin Lewis era. A period where despite multiple seasons with strong rosters and the turn around of the Bengals from league laughing stock to genuine competitor, the Bengals just could not get over the hump.

The 2015 team is the season that still haunts me with how good the offence was and Andy Dalton’s thumb injury that did for us in the post season.

These are not those Bengals though. They had to work hard to beat a team who had played a full over-time period the week before, but they held together and in Joe Burrow’s own words, set the standard.

I don’t know if they will win tonight against the Tennessee Titans, a team I have a huge amount of respect for, particular with what head coach Mike Vrabel has done in his time in charge.

However, what I do know is that for the first time, and I mean the first time given I remember the loss to the 49ers in the second of the Bengals Super Bowl losses but I was nine and knew nothing of what was to come, I am excited about tonight’s playoff game. The thirty year wait is over and while a new one begins and could very well extend into next season, I don’t expect anything like what has just ended.

I was only looking for some genuine progress this year and I got so much more so it is time to sit back and see if Joe Burrow with one of the most exciting collection of skill players in the league can pull of another win, without the weight of the history of the last thirty years hanging around them.

And whilst those players will have had a very different experience to that history, they have changed the relationship of the fans to the team.

And so, we’re on to Tennessee.

Success is a Fragile Thing but its Absence Sitcks

27 Wednesday Oct 2021

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It has been a mixed week for the TWF team with the Bengals getting a statement win on the road against the Ravens to get people talking about them, whilst the Dolphins managed a déjà vu field goal loss against the Falcons against a back drop of trade rumours that I think will worry Dan until we are past the trade deadline next week.

What I Saw

For me there’s only one place to start with the Sunday games that I watched this week and that is in Baltimore. The game started as a tight contest that the Bengals edged out 13-10 at half time, but the Bengals’ offence broke out in the second half as the defence clamped down after an early third quarter touchdown for the Ravens to turn a 17-13 deficit into a 41-17 statement win. Ja’Mar Chase had a two-hundred yard receiving day and the rookie receiver now has the most receiving yards through seven career games of any player in NFL history. The defence is what was winning game initially, but now it feels like both sides of the ball are coming together. The Ravens have no need to panic at 5-2 as there is plenty of season left to go and they have too much experience to fall apart after a bad game, but for now the Bengals deserve to be taken seriously,  although that also involves dealing with expectations so let’s see what happens next week at the Jets.

The other of the early games I watched was the Kansas City Chiefs getting beaten soundly 27-3 by the Tennessee Titans. The thing I didn’t mention on the podcast this week is that it is really hard to get to four Super Bowls in a row, which is what the Chiefs are trying to do this season. It is even harder if you have not nailed your draft picks or all-in moves in free agency. The key players are there, but right now Patrick Mahomes is pushing and turning over the ball in a way he never used to. They need to find some way to exploit more space underneath or to challenge the two high safety looks that they are now seeing regularly as now the offensive production is slipping and the defence shows no sign of improvement. The Titans don’t exactly have a fearsome defence but had more than enough in this one and it was Ryan Tannehill throwing the ball that was as effective as anything on offence for the Titans, although seeing Derick Henry throw a touchdown pass was undeniably fun.

Finally, on Sunday night the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers took on each other and a bomb cyclone in a contest that was understandably heavy on the run game, particularly as at some poins throwing the ball looked like a quarterback’s nightmare brought to life. It’s not that often that you see two running backs from opposing teams run for matching one-hundred and seven yards and a touchdown from eighteen carries, but that’s what the 49ers Elijah Mitchell and Jonathan Taylor managed. The up and down nature of Jimmy Garoppolo season continued as he returned from injury but still hasn’t exactly convinced, while Carson Wentz still tries to do too much and has a nasty habit of in trying to make an impossible play simply giving the ball back to the opposition. The Colts have won three of their last four games after an 0-3 start so their matchup with the 5-2 Titans next week is a pretty huge contest but at least they seem to be finding themselves. As for the 49ers, you are beginning to hear enough questions about the job Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch are doing in building this team that there could be questions to face if things don’t start to improve. As good as a play caller as Shanahan is, his career record is 31-39 with only one winning season, though he did take his team to a Super Bow, but if anything it is play of both Garoppolo and Trey Lance that could be seen as the biggest questions for this franchise.

What I Heard

I exist in a state of quantum flux when it comes to discussion of the Deshaun Watson trade rumours, both amazed that any team would consider trading for a player with that litany of complaints and police charges against them and yet simultaneously not at all surprised because patriarchy and football.

One of the teams I didn’t mention on the podcast that has also been floated as a Watson desitination was the Washington Football Team, which I have to think Ron Rivera would oppose given the recent investigations into the Football Team for their toxic work environment, particularly for women. That said, while the NFL through Roger Goodell are stating that they have handled the situation well (there is no report to publish, although they are apparently cooperating with a request from the House Committee on Oversight and Reform for all documents and communications about the investigation into the workplace culture in Washington) you wonder whether Dan Snyder might make the trade, even if he is not running things at the moment..

What I Think

The Detroit Lions may be 0-7, but there are five teams below them in the DVOA rankings and frankly they threw the kitchen sink at the LA Rams on Sunday, made them work and so far this season have only been beaten badly by one team. I don’t think this looks like a winless team, they are still fighting for their coach, and they can perhaps look at the first year of Brian Flores in Miami where the Dolphins also lost their first seven games but closed out the season 5-4. The unfortunate thing for the Dolphins is that after going 10-6 last season, they have not kicked on this season, but to me that hints at how fragile a thing success can be in the NFL.

As a Bengals fan I was hoping for progress coming into the season and prepared for disappointment. I certainly was not expecting a 5-2 start that includes win in Pittsburgh and Baltimore and whilst I’m certainly not expecting the end to one of our two playoff droughts, I can at least dream of it. The Dolphins were unlucky not to get into the playoffs last season with ten wins, but while there are several teams with as bad or longer droughts for appearances, the Bengals, Lions and Dolphins make up the top three longest playoff win drought. The injury to Andy Dalton in 2015 still haunts me as the team who could have been something, particularly as the Bengals haven’t had a winning season since and are without a playoff win in thirty seasons despite Dalton leading the Bengals to the playoffs for five straight seasons from 2011-2015. The Lions’ last winning season was in 2017 and after the spectacular failure of the Matt Patricia tenure the reboot is going to take time and with their one playoff win back in 1991 (a whole season more recent than the Bengals) their drought looks set to  continue for a while. Going into the season the Dolphins would have looked best out of these three teams to end their own playoff win drought, and at twenty seasons they have some time before they catch the Lions and Bengals but this year does not seem destined for them to get that win.

The season is more random for teams than many like to admit, but these long streaks demonstrate that for some teams there are definite patterns, even if they felt more competitive to you as a fan at the time. The Marvin Lewis period transformed the Bengals from and national laughing stock to a credible franchise that included several incredibly talented teams threatening to break the playoff drought but they never quite could. There’s no guarantee that Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase can do better than Andy Dalton and AJ Green, or for that matter Carson Palmer and his talented offence so yes I’m cautious, but I am definitely enjoying the game right now.

What I Hope

I have two hopes this week. I really hope that the Bengals are focussed and beat the Jets to maintain their run as there is a lot of season left and they really can’t afford to drop winnable games. I also hope that the Dolphins give Dan something to be happy about come Monday.

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

The Season Starts to Take Shape

22 Wednesday Sep 2021

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After last week’s hubris I won’t be making any claims about schedules so let’s get looking at week two, which had losses for both TWF teams but some cracking contests so let’s see how things are shaping up in the early season.

What I Saw

I’ll start with the Bengals loss against the Bears that finished 20-17 despite a fourth quarter comeback from the Bengals, which had to contend with a hat trick of interceptions for Joe Burrow including a pick-six and another INT that setup one of the Bears’ two fourth quarter field goals. The really frustrating thing is that the Bengals defence looked pretty solid, despite giving up a touchdown to Andy Dalton in the first quarter they held the Bears to field goals the rest of the way. If the Bengals’ defence might be taking some kind of shape (and it really should given the dollars they have invested in it), the familiar story of offensive line problems seems to still be there, as well as a lot of empty formations that doesn’t exactly do a lot to stop Burrow taking hits, although the running game didn’t help give them much balance either.

As for the Bears, you can certainly see the potential of rookie quarterback Justin Fields and at this point you wonder whether Dalton will get the starting job back once he’s recovered from the bone bruise in his knee. The Bears’ defence sneaks into the top ten by DVOA and looked solid against the Bengals, even if the o-line troubles probably helped but I think we’re going to need a couple more weeks to truly get a feel for where the Bears are and there narrative is going to be about the quaterbacks for a while yet.

The other of the early Sunday games I watched was the 49ers taking on the Eagles in Philadelphia. The 49ers stayed out east having visited the Lions in week one and ran out 17-11 winners, but it was an odd contest for them. On defence they mostly controlled the Eagles offence, given up a lot of running yardage but not a lot passing (the Eagles did in fact out gain the 49ers in yards) and only conceded the one touchdown late in the game. However, it was more the 49ers offence that was really puzzling as their commitment to the run was there as always but was not efficient although they did eventually get one hundred yards. However, the passing game struggled early, with Jimmy Garoppolo missing throws early although he settled down over the course of the game, but whilst his completion percentage was good by the end of the game, his twenty-two completions only yielded one hundred and eighty-nine yards. It’s early in a long season and the 49ers are once again dealing with some injuries but whilst I expect them to be competitive, I’m just not sure how good they can be even if they are unbeaten so far.

The Eagles looked to be what I thought they were coming into the game, strong line play on both sides of the ball will keep them in games and I’m looking forward to seeing how they do in prime time against the Cowboys this coming Monday. The questions are again around the offence and like so many teams the Eagles are trying to work out what they have a quarterback. Certainly, second year quarterback Jalen Hurts is a threat on the ground, and all the usual run options plays were present, but he managed the odd combination of a completion percentage in the low fifties, but his twelve competitions yielded one more yards than the Garoppolo’s and the Eagles were a couple of near misses from having some very big plays. The Eagles have plenty of room to develop, and a 1-1 start is a solid beginning, but we’ll know a little bit more about them after week three.

The final game I saw was the Sunday night game that I’m sure enthralled many as the Baltimore Ravens hosted the Kansas City Chiefs and the home fans saw Lamar Jackson convert a fourth down to seal his first win against the Chiefs 36-35. It was a great game to watch as it features two quarterbacks capable of making you question how they did what you just saw, even if it is in different ways. Jackson is not a top level passer, but makes up for it with his legs, racking up another hundred yards on the ground and a pair of touchdowns to make up for the two interceptions he threw. The Ravens defence were focussed on Tyreek Hill, limiting the Chief’s number one receiver to three receptions for fourteen yards, but Patrick Mahomes was more than happy to distribute the ball to his other receivers with eight different players catching passes and Travis Kelce finishing the game with one hundred yards and a touchdown. To be fair, the Ravens had their own one-hundred-yard receiver in Marquise Brown but their shortfall in passing yardage was more than made up by the two hundred and fifty-one total rushing yards. There are still concerns about the Raven’s offence on obvious passing downs, but their offence is built differently and did enough to beat the Chiefs.

There might in fact be cracks showing in this iteration of the Chiefs, they are still terrifying on offence, but the defence is currently ranked thirty-first by DVOA and as good as their offence is, they need to get some stops or turnovers to make them less reliant on Mahomes and the offence. It’s still early in the season so I’m not pushing the panic button yet, but it’s definitely something worth keeping an eye on because to sustainably win, and challenge for the Super Bowl you need a defence that is good enough and through two games that hasn’t looked to be the case for the Chiefs.

For the Raven this win is particularly impressive given the injuries that they are already dealing with, but they are another team where it might be worth keeping an eye on their defensive ranking, but at least they have the history of competence on that side of the ball. The big question is whether they can be good enough on offence in high leverage moments as the days where you could win with stellar defence and competent offence have been replaced by the inverse, but it would be great to see a team win big with a different formula.

What I Heard

It’s been an interesting week for NFL media, a lot of the early coverage is either hot takes, or knowing over-reaction, which makes sense as it generates content whilst we work out how good the various teams are. The NFL is such a fluid league that even with a relatively sure quantity like the Chiefs, there are questions about them and already we have one or two teams slated to be bad play better than expected, even if actual wins are as low as expected. It’s such a short season with so much variance that we should be very careful to read too much into two games.

What I Think

I mentioned this whilst recording the podcast last night, but both West Divisions are looking impressive this year.

In the AFC the Raiders and Broncos are unbeaten, and the Chargers and Chiefs are lurking below them at 1-1 and whilst I’m sure this picture will become clearer in the coming weeks, it’s certainly somewhere between a good to promising start for all four teams and I’m intrigued at how the Broncos and Raiders build on their early success.

Meanwhile, in the NFC West there are three unbeaten teams in the Rams, 49ers, Cardinals with the Seahawks sitting right behind them on 1-1. This has been a tough division for several years, and while I have my concerns about the 49ers right now, the early returns on the addition of Matthew Stafford to the Rams has been impressive, whilst Kyler Murray looks more like himself with the Cardinals this season and their defence is currently ranked sixth by DVOA and I am looking forward to seeing Chandler Jones who had five sacks in the Cardinals’ opening game. When you talk about the Seahawks, you’re expecting tough defence and an offence focussed on running the ball, which was the formula that they tried to revert to during the second half of last season. However, once again their offence ranks higher by DVOA than their defence and whilst I expect them to compete for the playoffs as they always do, I am intrigued to see the new offence and how it evolves over the season.

What I Know

The Bengals have an interesting game coming up against the Steelers, which as much as fans of the Bengals sports-hate the Steelers, it can’t be a true rivalry until the Bengals win a lot more games. There are enough injuries floating round the Steelers for there to be flutters of hope in my fan heart, but I know that it’s unlikely the Bengals will win. Still, strange things can happen so we shall just have to see.

What I Hope

Right now, my hope is that one of the Dolphins or the Bengals will put an offensive line together that enable their young quarterbacks to maximise their potential but I’m not sure we’ll see that any time soon.

The Disappointed Eighteen – AFC Edition

07 Thursday Jan 2021

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It is always a strange time of year for NFL fans as the excitement regarding the play-offs is tempered by whether you team is directly involved and how you feel about the state of the franchise you support. There is also the rolling coverage of the teams changing GMs and coaching staff, which is getting a head start this year as the NFL has changed rules allowing teams to start interviews earlier under certain conditions.

Still the countdown of disappointed teams has well and truly begun where the number will eventually reach thirty-one, but for now let’s have a look at the disappointed eighteen who didn’t make the play-offs.

In an effort to make life easier for myself I will split these run downs by conference and so we start with the AFC and I’ll work in ascending number of wins and descending draft order.

I am taking my cap numbers for next season from spotrac.com and the ranking/numbers were right at time of posting with an assumed team salary cap of $175 million.

Jacksonville Jaguars (1-15)

The Jaguars set a franchise record for losing this season with their solitary win in the opening week being the lowest total ever. They were already committed to making changes having fired GM Dave Caldwell when they fell to 1-10 for the season and head coach Doug Marrone followed once the regular season was completed. The good news for whoever takes control of this franchise is that they both have the number one pick in the draft and are projected to have the most cap space available in 2021. There is no shortage of things that need addressing given the only phase of the game the Jaguars were near average in was special teams, but with their choice of quarterbacks in the draft and money to make sensible signings the Jaguars could make a swift return to contention. The Jaguars were nothing if not patient with Caldwell so this could well be one of the most promising teams to join for both GM and head coaches this off-season, but all the fans will care about is someone finally establishing a franchise identity and building a team who can win regularly as the Jags have had one winning season in the last thirteen and only three of those seasons did they avoid a double-digit amount of games. There is a lot of work left to do in Jacksonville if they want to get back to the play-offs.

New York Jets (2-14)

The byword for incompetence for much of the NFL 2020 season, the Jets are such bad losers than in the race for the number one draft pick they came second. Having fired defensive coordinator Gregg Williams (who we should remember was pushed onto their head coach as a condition of him being appointed) in December when an all-out blitz cost them a win against the Raiders, it surprised literally no one who follows the NFL that Adam Gase was fired shortly after the Jets lost against the Patriots to finish a painful season. There was really no-one left for Gase to blame, particularly as within six months of him being hired as head coach, he had forced out GM Mike Maccagnan who hired him only to be fired 18 months later by Maccagnan’s successor Joe Douglas. In his two years with the Jets Gase failed to spark the offence or improve young quarterback Sam Darnold who might still have a career in the NFL but looks like he will be moving to a new franchise for his fourth season given that the Jets are still well placed to take a quarterback high in the draft. The Jets stand behind only the Jaguars for cap space in 2012 and so could also be well placed for recovery, but much like the Jaguars, with little recent history of success on the field the Jets need to build a new culture and get the front office working in lock step with whoever the new coach is to turn things around.

Houston Texans (4-12)

The Texans only managed four wins this season despite having a franchise quarterback in Deshaun Watson who threw for 4823 yards and thirty-three touchdowns to seven interceptions, all having lost his favourite receiver DeAndre Hopkins in a bad trade with the Arizona Cardinals. The decisions made by Bill O’Brien as the GM used up future resources to manage the franchise and having amassed so much power, when the season started with four consecutive losses there was no one else to blame and O’Brien was fired. To be fair, it was a tough open to the season with visits to the Chiefs and Steelers sandwiching their game against the Ravens, but when they lost to a then 0-3 Vikings team the decision was made to fire O’Brien. In recent weeks we have had pretty strong statements of discontent from both JJ Watt and Watson, but having been blocked from talking to Patriots’ director of personnel Nick Caserio in 2019, the Texans have an agreement in place to hire him as their new GM. He will join the extensive search committee to find a new head coach as they seek to turn round a team that was plain bad on defence, but with several picks traded away by O’Brien including this year’s third overall pick to the Dolphins this likely not a quick fix. Apart from the draft capital, the Texans are projected to be twenty-sixth in the league for cap space in 2021 with them twenty million dollars over the projected cap so there is going to be at least a year of pain as they work their way back from that. If they hope to compete with the Colts and Titans any time soon they will need to lay a solid foundation this off-season but it will not be easy.

Cincinnati Bengals (4-11-1)

Zac Taylor’s doubling of the Bengals win total in his second season, including his first road win, was apparently enough to secure him a third season as head coach but I have to think that another failure to develop the offence to a rank higher than late twenties by DVOA won’t be enough to a fourth. The failure on offence is partly down to the loss of rookie quarterback Joe Burrow to injury, but he was covering up a multitude of sins on the offensive line, which eventually led to him being hit enough that he was lost for the season. This rests on the should of Taylor and his coaching staff and the one top ten phase of the game the Bengals had this season was special teams, and Taylor inherited Darrin Simmons from Marvin Lewis’ staff having been a fixture in Cincinnati since 2003. Certainly the defence really wasn’t much better than the offence despite defensive end Carl Lawson and safety Jessie Bates being right up there with any other players at their position. To be fair, the reports from the locker room have been supportive and there are other young players who look promising, but we are relying on development in areas in the third year that don’t seem to have progress in the first two. The Bengals have a conservative draft and develop programme historically, although they splashed some cash last off-season but saw most of those acquisitions injured. There are no problems with cap space, the Bengals have the sixth most free in 2021 and usually draft well, but I find it hard to see the next big step forward with things remaining the same. I hope to be proved wrong and this could be a more traditional re-build, but Marvin Lewis turned round a franchise in his time, even if he couldn’t get a play-off win, but the Bengals seem to have returned to their poor pre-Lewis ways since his leaving and with five losing seasons since the often-mentioned (if only by me) 2015 team that looked so promising, the Bengals feel like a franchise who have lost their way. I really hope they find it next year, but I have to be honest, I have my doubts…

Denver Broncos (5-11)

I feel like the Denver Broncos slipped under my radar a little this season. They managed to win five games with an offence that ranked thirtieth out of thirty-two teams by DVOA with quarterback Drew Lock missing three of their games but not exactly convincing in the other thirteen. However, whilst it was always going to be tough for them on defence when they lost veteran pass rusher Von Miller for the season before it had even started, a ranking of thirteenth by DVOA is at least respectable. The worry must be that the Broncos have not been to the play-offs since they won Super Bowl fifty and GM John Elway, despite being a Broncos legend, has not been able to find a franchise quarterback to follow Peyton Manning. Elway does seem to be recognising problems and is planning to step away from the day to day running of the franchise with the plan of hiring a GM with full autonomy over player personnel. The Broncos are at least projected to have space under next season’s cap and Lock has only finished his second season so they don’t have any big contract decisions to make this year on that front, but I’m not sure they have their franchise quarterback either and from the quotes that head coach Vic Fangio made about Lock’s potential as a franchise QB and the work Lock still has to do, it would not be a surprise to see someone brought in to challenge or mentor Lock in the QB room next season. I am not sure I am expecting massive changes this off-season, but a new direction seems like a good idea given five seasons of losing and head coach Vic Fangio is likely to need to find success going into his third season if he wants keep his job. Patience is not a virtue often utilised in the NFL, and whilst things can turn around more quickly in the modern NFL, for the Broncos a lot will rest on what they do at GM and how well that hire meshes with Fangio.

Los Angeles Chargers (7-9)

The LA Chargers finished an almost surprising 7-9 thanks to a strong four-win finish, but that was not enough to save head coach Anthony Lynn’s job. The last two seasons of his four years with the franchise yielded two losing seasons and in his lsat Lynn managed the transition from one franchise quarterback to another, but it was the manner of the losing that would have worried those in charge. I don’t think I have heard such positive views of a head coach as a man, something last year’s Hard Knocks series only served to highlight, coupled with such heavy criticism of in game management and general approach to offence. Lynn’s job with the Chargers was never easy as this is the first season where the Chargers had their own stadium in LA (all be it them renting from the Rams) and Lynn managed the transition to Los Angeles well, but with Justin Herbert looking like the rookie of the year having been thrown into the starting line-up in week two after Tyrod Taylor suffered a collapsed lung after a nerve block procedure went wrong the decision was made to change course. With Herbert looking like a franchise quarterback already, plenty of other talent spread around the rest of the roster, and over $20 million in cap space next season the Chargers should bounce back strongly even if they do share a division with the Chiefs. However, they will need to get their next coaching hire right (spotting a pattern here?) to pull this off. The Chargers of recent years have had a reputation for often losing close games so it might not take that much to turn things round, but we shall just have to see how they choose to go about it.

New England Patriots (7-9)

The Patriots’ season sputtered before it even began as they went into their pre-season with the most Covid-19 opt-outs in the league and when combined with the departure of Tom Brady after twenty seasons with the Pats in the off-season, you could see how they might struggle and struggle they did. The late signing of Cam Newton was a canny move that was a gamble for both parties that didn’t work out for player or team, and whilst the Patriots’ staff were effusive in their praise of Newton’s leadership and effort, he was not able to turn that into success throwing the ball. Yes he was still an effective running quarterback and there are limitations in the Patriots skill positions, but the truth is he simply could not complete enough passes for the team to truly compete. We had the strange situation where Bill Belichick, the ultimate no nonsense pragmatist, has been making excuses about this season was the payoff for the investment they put into maximising their chances with Brady. There are some facts that back up this position, the Pats go into next season with nearly $60 million in cap space but their record in drafts over recent years has not been stellar (which makes the hiring away of Nick Caserio to the Texans interesting) but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Belichick and the staff get it right with more room to manoeuvre. However, they will need to find a solution at quarterback and it seems like that answer is not currently on the roster and their path to getting one is unlikely through the fifteenth pick in the draft. I am not prepared to bet against one of the most successful head coaches in NFL history for long, and while I don’t know whether next season will see a turnaround, you wouldn’t bet against Belichick managing it before too long.

Las Vegas Raiders (8-8)

The Raiders first season in Las Vegas was rolling towards the play-offs through the first ten weeks of the season, but the last seven weeks only added two more wins to their week ten 6-3 record that fell to 8-8 by the end of the 2020 campaign. I wrote before the season about my concerns regarding the defence and their performance was still problematic and cost Paul Guenther his job as coordinator during the season. There was a marginal improvement to a ranking of twenty-eighth by DVOA but that was not enough for the Raiders to finally achieve a winning record in Jon Gruden’s third season as head coach. When a head coach gets a ten-year contract then they have a certain amount of job security, but there surely has to be some very pointed questions in private this off-season and a lot of pressure on Gruden and GM Mike Mayock to get the coaching hires on the defensive side of the ball right. I don’t know when owner Mark Davis’ patience might run out, but for Gruden to get the Raiders where they want to be he has to be able to serve the whole team going forward and not just the offence. However, the Raiders are currently $17 million over the 2021 salary cap so the roster management could be distinctly tricky this off-season and I have to wonder if Gruden can get this to team to where he wants to next year.

Miami Dolphins (10-6)

Fans of the Dolphins are probably as disappointed as any fanbase this week given that their team won ten games in the first year of the new expanded play-off format and still didn’t make get in. Their wait to make the play-offs has now extended to five seasons, but once the initial sting wears off there is still a lot to be hopeful about. Brian Flores impressed in his first season, managing five wins with a roster that was in the middle of a massive overhaul and in 2020 he followed that up by doubling the number of wins and mounting a serious push for the play-offs. The way that push ended in Buffalo is definitely a concern, but under the circumstances with the Bills playing well and Tua Tagovailoa unable to keep up with the Bills’ high flying offence with Ryan Fitzpatrick unavailable to play his QB reliever role due to Covid-19 it is at least partly understandable. There are concerns about Tagovailoa’s ability to push the ball down field, but we are only nine games into his career and he had to deal with shortened pre-season where he was still recovering from the hip injury that ended his college career so there is still plenty of potential to grow. For the first time in years it feels like the Dolphins’ front office and coach are working in lock step, the Dolphins go into next season with $25 million in cap space and as I mentioned earlier, have the Texans’ third overall pick in the draft. If they are that worried about Tagovailoa they could easily pick a quarterback, and I certainly think they were keen to get a good look at him this season, but if they have faith in their previous decision they should have their choice of the best players at the top of the draft. Thanks to injury they were having a lot of problems with their skills position late in the season but with an upgrade there and a new offensive coordinator the Dolphins look set to challenge in the AFC East for years to come. I can’t say if they will win a game in the post-season next year or even make the play-offs, but I absolutely expect them to compete for it and I think they are more likely to make the play-offs than not. That’s probably as much as any fan of these nine teams can hope for.

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

Waving Goodbye to 2020

31 Thursday Dec 2020

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There are plenty of people ready to wave 2020 goodbye, but things are not going to be changing any time soon even as vaccines start to be distributed. We are already looking at the spread of a new more transferable variant of Covid-19 across the UK and we are essentially in another lockdown.

As for the NFL, I was not sure we were going to get here, but here we are – looking at a week seventeen schedule starting on time despite there being plenty of positive tests and several outbreaks across the season. With the expanded play-off format there will be eighteen teams finishing their season on Sunday, but there will still be only one winner come February. The disappointment will be delayed for at least a week for the two additional teams who benefit from the new format, but even then with five teams on ten wins in the AFC and only space for four of them in the play-offs there will be a very good team watching from outside who are desperately disappointed.

However, before we get there I ought to run through week sixteen as we pay full attention to the 2020 regular season before it is finished.

What I Saw

The first game of week sixteen was the Christmas Day showdown between the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints that was a very one-sided affair that finished 52-33 thanks in large part to the Saints’ Alvin Kamara rushing for six touchdowns and one hundred and fifty-five yards. It was a performance that won a lot of fantasy leagues, but it was strange to see a Mike Zimmer team have a such a big problem on defence. Drew Brees threw for over three hundred yards but threw two interceptions and whilst the Saints are heading to the play-offs they will need Brees to get somewhere near his best for them to go deep. It would help if Michael Thomas can get off injured reserve but with the NFC path to the Super Bowl going through the frozen tundra of Green Bay and Aaron Rodgers you wonder if the Saints can get back to the big game. As for the Vikings, this is only the second losing season of Mike Zimmer’s seven years with the franchise and with a full off-season to develop their young defence they can improve next season, but they have to be disappointed at losing three games straight having worked their way back to 6-6 from the 1-5 start.

The next game I saw was the Boxing Day game between the Miami Dolphins and the Las Vegas Raiders. The lead story coming out of this game was the remarkable fourth quarter pass made by Ryan Fitzpatrick where he connected with Mack Hollins on a thirty-four-yard pass left whilst Arden Key had hold of Fitzpatrick’s facemask and was dragging him round by it as Fitz threw the pass. This pass when combined with the resulting fifteen-yard penalty was enough for the Dolphins to get a game winning field goal despite only have nineteen seconds left on the clock when Fitzpatrick and the Dolphins’ offence took the field. However, the concern would be that once again Tua Tagovailoa was pulled out of the game and whilst the rookie quarterback completed seventeen of his twenty-two passes, he is still is not stretching the field vertically with this offence. This blend of quarterbacks can only work in the short term and if I was Dan I would be happy with bringing back Fitzpatrick next season in a mentor/reliever role but there is not unreasonable conjecture that one of the reasons the Dolphins are playing Tagovailoa whilst chasing the play-offs is that they have what looks to be the third draft pick next year and perhaps they are evaluating their options. We shall have to see, but there is all to play for as they take on the Bills next week. Meanwhile, the Raiders continue to be let down by their defence and Jon Gruden’s ability to have long term success with the Raiders is going to rest on if he as head coach can make the right hire at defensive coordinator and enable that hire to have success on the other side of the ball. If he cannot master that responsibility, it doesn’t matter how good Gruden’s side of the ball is, if he does not serve the whole team then they can never take that next step and start competing for Super Bowls. To do that Gruden has to first get the Raiders into the play-offs, something he will have failed to do in his first three years with the franchise.

The next game was an unexpected win for the Cincinnati Bengals who followed up their Monday night win against the Steelers with their first road win for Zac Taylor as they beat the Houston Texans 37-31. I’m still not convinced by the direction the team are heading in, particularly when the opposition defence is ranked thirtieth by DVOA but Brandon Allen had a career day throwing for over three hundred and fifty yards with a long of forty-two and there were some nice longer throws to mix in with the numerous screen passes that seemed to be particularly effective. It’s a win that cheers Dan as the Dolphins have the Texans 2021 first round draft pick, but my concern is that this late rally won’t convert into big improvement next season and after five losing seasons and with a talented young quarterback I am running out of patience with the current regime, but that won’t affect Mike Brown’s decision so we shall see what happens. The Texans meanwhile have a franchise quarterback and a lot of questions to answer in the off-season so we can’t speculate too much until they have a new GM and head coach, but there is a lot of work to do with the roster and not a lot of draft picks so I wonder how quickly things can be turned around, but I have thought that before and been wrong.

The final game I watched in full was the Sunday night prime time game between the Tennessee Titans who started slowly in a snowy Lambeau field and lost heavily 14-40 against a now 12-3 Green Bay Packers team. I thought this could be a competitive game but I could also see paths for both teams to win big, but failed to take into account the weather and while the Titans were still finding their feet the Packers had built a nineteen point lead that they never looked like surrendering. The Titans are not a bad team, but the weaknesses in their defence exposes them to results like this, even before they start spotting teams points, and I do wonder should they make the play-offs if they can repeat their run from last year or if they will be found out fairly quickly. Meanwhile, the Packers defence held up in this game but I still don’t entirely trust them, but with the offence running as well as it is at the moment (and they are currently ranked first by DVOA over the Chiefs) and with home field advantage so the Packers are setup to make a deep run into the play-offs and perhaps even make the Super Bowl.

What I Heard

We are in that awkward period between Christmas and New Years where everything is out of synch and this is particularly the case for me in following the NFL so as I caught up with podcasts and reading, I have spent a lot of time kicking myself over missing the context of performances and other details during Tuesday night’s podcast recording. For instance, we somehow missed the Brown’s hot tub fiasco meaning that they could not play a lot of their receivers against the Jets on Sunday. If the Browns miss the play-offs with that as part of the equation then that is on them and not the league, but I feel for their fans as to get ten wins and not make the play-offs, even with an expanded format is going to be pretty hard to take. Particularly when the NFC are going to have a team with a losing record hosting a play-off game in the Wildcard round.

What I Think

In some ways you can take the fact that we are approaching the last week of the regular season as a success, but what we don’t know from the outside is the cost of getting there. I have heard plenty from coaches who feel like they have made a success of zoom meetings and avoiding close contacts. How they didn’t want the current Covid-19 situation being used as an excuse for a drop in quality of their team’s football.

However, this is a big ask not only for all who are involved directly with the franchises, but all those other families and support networks connected to them. I can’t help but read something like this on the NFL’s own site regarding the effects on players’ significant others and wonder what is going on for all the staff who may not have the same union support.

What I Know

As we head into tier 4 restrictions in Dan and mine’s patch of the UK (and for most of the rest of the country to be fair), I can’t but help wonder how this first quarter of 2021 is going to go as we are a long way from done with Covid-19 yet.

It has been a strange NFL season that has been both familiar and yet uncanny, and whilst I’ve been grateful for the distraction, I’m still not wholly sure it was a good idea to play through a pandemic. Of course, I’m hypocritical enough to be watching so I am not being too judgemental, but it has been a strange year nevertheless.

What I Hope

As the end of the year approaches I hope that this time next year things will be much different, that we will at least have things under control even if things never quite go back to the way they were.

In the meantime, I have one last Bengals game to watch and the play-offs to look forward to as the NFL doesn’t stop for anything, apparently not even Covid-19.

2020 Week Sixteen Picks

27 Sunday Dec 2020

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Somehow my modest two correct picks over the Christmas games has seen me pick up another point on Dan, but let’s see if I can get any more and make Dan sweat a little going into the final week.

Early Games:

There are a few games from the early slate that have play-off repercussions but there is only one that looks like a real contest and that is the Pittsburgh Steelers hosting the Indianapolis Colts. However, even then the line could be deceiving as the Steelers have lost three straight having won their first eleven games wity the offence seeming to have been solved in recent weeks whilst the injuries at linebacker have started to really hurt the defense. The Bengals’ offence did not actually do a lot against the Steelers defense last week, but the Colts offence ranks seventeen places better by DVOA and their defense ranks nineteen places better so having seen the Steelers lose by ten to a then two win Bengals team I give the edge to the Colts this week.

Points from the rest:

  • I’m a little torn as to what to do with the Kansas City Chiefs game as whilst they have a 13-1 record, you have to go back to week eight against the Jets to find an opponent they have beat by double digits. The Atlanta Falcons have not exactly been good value recently after the minor recovery under Raheem Morris stalled, but they haven’t been beat heavily since playing the Saints in week eleven so I’m going to nervously back them to keep within eleven.
  • The Chicago Bears are in a slightly strange position of having had a mini recovery after re-inserting Mitchell Trubisky into the starting line-up but need to catch the Cardinals to get into the play-offs and likely have too many wins to draft a quarterback in the off-season. They should have enough to beat a bad Jaguars team who are currently in position to pick first in next year’s draft, but I don’t know about doing it by eight points.
  • The Bengals got a third win on Monday, but they are not a good team and whilst neither are the Texans, they should win this game although I don’t know if they can do it by ten points.
  • The New York Jets managed to avoid going winless but might have cost themselves the number one pick in next year’s draft in the process. This week they welcome a Cleveland Browns team who are making a late push to win the AFC North as the Steelers continue to slide and if things break right, the Browns could find themselves in a winner takes all divisional game in week seventeen. I don’t know if the Steelers will continue to lose, but I do expect the Browns to have eleven wins going into that final game in Pittsburgh.
  • I may have been a bit bullish on the Giants, who definitely need a lot of work on offence, but I do wonder if their defense can limit Lamar Jackson and a Ravens offence that has looked good in the last three weeks. I don’t expect the Giants to win, but keeping the deficit within twelve seems possible. That said, the Ravens have posted scores of 34, 47 and 40 in the last three weeks.

Falcons @ Chiefs (-10.5)

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

Bears @ Jaguars (+7.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Jaguars
Dan’s Pick:      Jaguars

Bengals @ Texans (-9.5)

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

Browns @ Jets (+9.5)

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

Colts @ Steelers (-2.5)

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

Giants @ Ravens (-11.5)

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

Late Games:

The late slate of games looks to be a lot more competitive, but the best quality matchup must be the LA Rams trying to put their loss to the Jets behind them as they travel to take on the Seattle Seahawks. This season the Rams look as well balanced as they ever have under Sean McVay, but the questions that surround Jared Goff and his ability to cope with pressure remain, making it impossible to entirely trust the Rams even if McVay has coached them to four straight winning seasons and should return to the play-offs for a third time in January. However, while the Seahawks have a game lead in the division, the Rams have a 5-2 record against them since McVay took over the Rams and as good as Russell Wilson and the Seahawks offence has been with DK Metcalf establishing himself as one of the most promising young receivers in the league, their defense still only ranks twentieth by DVOA. Given that the Seahawks have been perhaps as affected as any team in the league by the absence of their fans in a stadium designed to enhance crowd noise, I like the Rams getting the points in this one. It should be a cracking game.

Points on the Rest:

  • The LA Chargers have had some extra rest after beating the Raiders on Thursday night in week fifteen, but the only teams they have beaten by more than a field goal this season are the Jets and Jaguars. My concern in picking this game is the Broncos offence being thirty-second in the league by DVOA, but with injuries to young quaterback Drew Lock amongst others disrupting their season, I think this might be near the worst of possible outcomes for the Broncos and so I like them to cover this one.
  • The problem that Washington have right now is that with Alex Smith fighting a calf injury they have had to turn to Dwayne Haskins at quarterback and might well have to turn to him again this week despite him being fined and stripped of his captaincy for violating Covid-19 protocols when he was photographed in a club without a mask. The Panthers might not be a good team yet, and Washington’s defensive line is definitely impressive, but I can’t lay these kind of points with this level of uncertainty at quarterback.
  • The Dallas Cowboys have won two straight including scoring forty-one points against the 49ers but come into this game as underdogs thanks to a reversal in fortune for the Philadelphia Eagles after inserting rookie quarterback Jalen Hurts into their starting lineup. That said, the Eagles lost to the Cardinals last week and it is hard to know what will happen when two NFC East teams face each other. Still, the Eagles are laying a point and a half less here than I’m seeing as the consensus on line so I guess I have to take the Eagles in this one.

Broncos @ Chargers (-3.5)

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

Panthers @ Washington (-2.5)

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

Eagles @ Cowboys (+1.5)

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

Rams @ Seahawks (-1.5)

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

Sunday Night Football:

Titans @ Packers (-3.5)

This is the game of the week for me as it sees two teams with double digit wins face off in a matchup that has the potential to get lopsided for both teams but could be a great contest. The weakness for the Tennessee Titans is their pass rush and facing Aaron Rodgers and the second ranked offence by DVOA this has could go horribly wrong. That said, the Packers rush defense is ranked twenty-first in rush defense by DVOA, which is surprisingly high and I could absolutely see Derek Henry dominating this game for the Titans. There may be eleven percentage points between these two teams by overall DVOA, but I think this could be a great game and the Packers defensive frailties make me just nervous enough about laying three and a half points to back the Titans. It will be ominous for the NFC if the Packers win convincingly in this one.

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

Monday Night Football

Bills @ Patriots (+6.5)

Week sixteen finishes with the newly crowned AFC East Buffalo Bills getting a chance to sweep the New England Patriots and improve their chances of securing the second seed in the AFC. The New England Patriots have struggled thanks to the problems on offence and the number of Covid-19 opt outs across the team. There are going to be plenty of questions about the offence during the off-season and the Patriots will need an answer at quarterback, but there’s still part of me that worries about what Bill Belichick could scheme up to cover this line. However, the Bills have looked really good in recent weeks and if they are to deliver on the promise of the season in the play-offs then this is the kind of game they should win.

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

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

2020 Week Fifteen Picks

20 Sunday Dec 2020

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I would love to think that I am getting into Dan’s head having gone three out of three so far in week fifteen and picked up two points on him already, but despite his text this morning I am keenly aware that this still only cut his lead to under double digits and there are plenty of opportunities to fall further back.

Still, it is nice to be perfect so far so let’s take a look at the rest of the week fifteen games.

Early Games:

There are a couple of games that leap out of the early slate and once again one of the teams involved is the Miami Dolphins. They are hosting the New England Patriots, and this is a fixture that the Pats have had difficulties with for a number of years even when they were still running up double digit wins and making the AFC East their own. The East looks to be going to the Bills this season, but the Dolphins are very much in the hunt for a wildcard slot and I think this divisional game should be the next step in them doing just that, but I also think it should be a tense competitive game.

The Seattle Seahawks have an interesting test this week as they travel across the country to face the Washington Football Team who currently stand atop the NFC East and still have a shot at a winning record. I somehow doubt the Football Team are going to win out, particularly with the Seahawks coming to town this week, but watching the Washington defensive line trying to limit Russell Wilson should be fun and I think Washington could well cover even if I think the Seahawks are more likely to win.

Points from the rest:

  • The Tampa Bay Buccaneers really can’t afford too many more losses even with possession of the sixth wildcard spot as the Cardinals are only a game behind them and with the Vikings and Bears two games back neither are out the hunt yet, although you would fancy the Bucs to hold on. Still, while the Falcons should not prove too difficult an opponent this week, the Bucs have not impressed for a while and hanging on for a wildcard spot was not exactly the aim coming into the season
  • The Chicago Bears finally broke their six-game losing streak against the Texans and looked pretty good doing it. The Minnesota Vikings have improved after a bad start to the season and I do like the Vikings to win at home, but I have a feeling this divisional game will be closer than the line suggests with he Bears actually ranking better by overall DVOA.
  • It’s hard to take too much from the Dallas Cowboys’ win last week as the Bengals are a terrible football team, whilst the 49ers have remained competitive despite numerous injury problems and playing in an NFC West division that has been fearsomely competitive in 2020. I lean towards the 49ers winning this one and the points are not enough for me to pick against them.
  • The Detroit Lions followed up their win over the Bears with a loss to the Packers last week, although it was a reasonable showing. Still, the Tennessee Titans looked very solid against the Jaguars last week and with the league’s thirty-first defense by DVOA and the twenty-sixth ranked rush defense facingthe Titans I don’t expect that the Lions will manage a different result than the Jags.
  • The Indianapolis Colts are a very solid football team, top ten in both defense and special teams by DVOA and have enough good quarterback play through the combination of Philip Rivers’ experience and Jacoby Brissett providing short yardage sneaks and run-options close to the goal line that they should win this game. The Houston Texans are a divisional opponent so the line does worry me, but the Colts are a better team than the Bears so I think the Colts should cover
  • The Jacksonville Jaguars got a bit of a boost from starting Mike Glennon for two games but didn’t get a win and they were beat convincingly by the Titans last week. Meanwhile, the Ravens looked very good last week with Lamar Jackson running the ball effectively and it’s hard to see anything other than a Ravens win, although whether they cover the points is another question.

Buccaneers @ Falcons (+5.5)

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

Bears @ Vikings (-3.5)

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

49ers @ Cowboys (+2.5)

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

Lions @ Titans (-9.5)

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

Texans @ Colts (-7.5)

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

Patriots @ Dolphins (-2.5)

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

Seahawks @ Washington (+5.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Washington
Dan’s Pick:      Seahawks

Jaguars @ Ravens (-13.5)

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

Late Games:

The pick of the late games is clearly the Kansas City Chiefs visiting the New Orleans Saints as this is probably the game of the week. The Saints will welcome the return of Drew Brees after the Taysom Hill experiment ran aground against the Eagles last week. This should be a fascinating contest, but how good Brees can be given his layoff for eleven broken ribs is a reasonable question and there does seem to be something inevitable about opposing quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offence. That said, the Saints defense is second only to the Steelers by DVOA and there are enough questions surrounding the Chiefs defense and performance in recent weeks that they are beatable. It’s just no-one but the Raiders have managed it so far this season.

Points on the Rest:

  • The LA Rams looks to be a better-balanced team this season than the year they went to the Super Bowl and should have no problem beating the New York Jets at home.
  • The Arizona Cardinals got back to winning ways last week, and Kyler Murray looked much more like himself. That said, the Eagles found something in Jalen Hurts and having beaten the Saints last week will be hoping to build on that win. I wonder if the Saints were complacent last week, but this line still seems a bit high to me but we shall see.

Jets @ Rams (-16.5)

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

Eagles @ Cardinals (-6.5)

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

Chiefs @ Saints (+3.5)

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

Sunday Night Football:

Browns @ Giants (+3.5)

The New York Giants lost their first game in five weeks against the Cardinals and the games don’t get any easier this week with the Cleveland Browns coming to town. There is three points between the consensus line and this one so I pretty much have to pick the Browns by default, and I would expect them to win given recent performances. The Giants still have a good defense but they will need their offence to do better if they want to apply pressure to Washington at the top of the NFC East over the final three games.

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

Monday Night Football

Steelers @ Bengals (+12.5)

The Steelers have a particularly good record against the Bengals anyway, but I can’t see any hope for a bad Bengals team who will be starting third string quarterback Ryan Finley who has an 0-3 record as a starter. There are genuine issues with a Steelers’ offence that cannot run the ball or stretch the field and a defence that has a cluster of injuries at linebacker but the Bengals are simply not equipped to exploit this.

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

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

Competition Thursday: 2020 Week Fourteen

10 Thursday Dec 2020

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I had a good week thirteen and so closed the gap to seven in the picks competition, but I need to somehow keep the pressure up on Dan as right now he is in primed to sweep both the Survivor and the Picks competitions, as well as having the best record in the dynasty league. Given how well the Dolphins are doing it seems everything in the NFL world is going well for Dan.

Gee:Week 14:  10 – 5Overall:  93 – 100
Dan:Week 14:  7 – 8Overall:  100 – 93

Patriots @ Rams (-5.5)

This is a tricky game for me as this line is right between two of my numbers so one system suggests picking the Patriots, and the other suggests the Rams should just cover. I’m also trying not to second guess myself as Dan sent me his pick at lunchtime before I had a chance to go through my process. Frustratingly, the only time Sean McVay has faced the Patriots and Bill Belichick is in the Super Bowl, where a really good Pats defence very much got the better of Jared Goff. We have already seen the 49ers best Goff this year so there is a chance that the Pats can do this again, except this is a different defence and it’s hard to trust the Pats this season even if they have won four out of their last five games. In the end, I am going to trust the numbers that are 97-63 over the course of the season and ignore any secondary thoughts so I am going to go for the Pats. I am really looking forward to watching this game tomorrow, but the pick is going to bug me all the way through.

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

Survivor Competition

Another week of consistent scoring saw Dan maintain his one-point lead over me in the survivor competition as his pick of the Chiefs over the Broncos held up as did mine of picking against the Jets with the Raiders, although only just thanks to Gregg Williams calling a cover-zero-blitz with seconds left protecting a lead. This week Dan is going against the Jaguars by selecting the Titans. That is the most promising selection when I look at the schedule, but I’m trying not to follow Dan so there are two options I’m considering, I can’t think that the Bengals will beat the Cowboys but that’s a bit of risky one so I’m going to settle for Saints visiting the Philadelphia Eagles.

Current Score

Gee: 10
Dan: 9

Week 14 Selection:

Gee:     Saints
Dan:    Titans

Bold Prediction of the Week

So I wasn’t sure what Dan would allow as bold this week so I went into the bod recording with three options and finished the segment with two left standing, which are:

  1. The New York Giants will beat the Arizona Cardinals
  2. The Miami Dolphins will cover getting seven and a half points against the Kansas City Chiefs