Tag Archives: Dez Bryant

2020 Week Nine Picks

08 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So after a convincing win for the Packers on Thursday our focus moves to the Sunday slate of games and the injury/Covid-19 lists with several recognizable names getting activated, be it Dez Bryant getting elevated to the active roster for the Ravens, Christian McCaffery making the Panthers’ fifty-three man roster from IR or Matthew Stafford coming off the reserve/Covid-19 list having been in contact with someone who tested positive but has continued to test negative. It’s hard to keep track of everything, but this can and will have an effect on our picks so let’s take a look and do our best to sort through things as they stand.

Early Games:

For me there are two games that really jump out of the early slate are the Seattle Seahawks visiting the Buffalo Bills and the Baltimore Ravens at the Indianapolis Colts.

The Bills maintained a two game lead on the Dolphins with a close fought win over the Patriots last week, but whilst they are still the favourites to win the AFC East, the Bills have not looked as they did in their opening four games. The defence that was top ten last year has slipped to twenty-third by DVOA whilst opposing defences look to have found coverages that have cooled Josh Allen’s hot start. The Seahawks defence is only ranked a couple of places higher by DVOA, but Russell Wilson is playing elite level quarterback and has led the Seahawks’ offence to third in the league by DVOA with the shackles finally off as Wilson throws them to big wins instead of relying on the run. The Bills are still a good team, but I don’t see them quite in the same league as the Seahawks and while I think this will be a good watch, I think the Seahawks are likely to prevail.

The Ravens are coming off a tough loss to the Steelers in a game they could have won if it were not for the pair of interceptions that Lamar Jackson threw, but as this was the Ravens second loss against a tope tier 2020 team there are plenty of questions now being asked about how good the Ravens are against the best franchises. In large part this is because the offense has not looked right this season, and whilst Jackson is still playing well, it feels like the Ravens offense has not been able to adjust to how teams are playing them this year and that there needs to be a more consistent third aspect to the passing game beyond Marquise Brown and Mark Andrews. They travel to face a Colts team who have quietly got to a 5-2 record with a firth overall ranking by DVOA. Their loss to the Jaguars in week one does not look great, but apart from their loss to the Browns, the Colts have been competitive in every game and are coming off a convincing win against the Lions in Detroit last week. This is probably their toughest test of the season so far and if their top five defence and special teams can keep them in the game then I will be interested to see if Phillip Rivers can do enough with an offence that hasn’t quite found its feet to run out winners.

The other game that catches my eye out of the early schedule is the Chicago Bears taking on the Tennessee Titans. The Bears have scrapped their way to 5-3 on the back of the sixth ranked defence by DVOA and just enough production from a limited offence. The Titans have dropped two games in a. row to the AFC North with the loss to the Bengals last week being a serious upset. The line for this game sees the Titans bigger favourites than I think they should be, and I think this has the potential to be a close game given the Bears’ defence could be able to restrict the Titans offense whilst the Titans’ defence is struggling. I’m not sure it will be the most spectacular game but it will be a tense game with a lot at stake for both teams as they try to stay in the race for their respective divisions.

Other things of interest from the early games:

  • The Falcons have gone 2-1 since Raheem Morris has taken over as acting head coach and a healthy Julio Jones is also a big help, but I’m not sure what to make of them and they welcome a Broncos team fresh off a comeback win against the Chargers. The Broncos are 3-1 in their last four games, with the only loss to the frightening Chiefs but this game could reveal a lot about how these teams are going to look over the second half of the season
  • The Minnesota Vikings got a monster game from running back Dalvin Cook last week as he returned from injury and helped the Vikings get the upset win against the Packers. The Detriot Lions have failed to convince all season and I wonder how competitive they can make this game although getting Matthew Stafford back from the Covid-19 list should help.
  • The Carolina Panthers have dropped back to 3-5 having lost three then won three to start their season, but star running back Christian McCaffery is making his way back from injury and the Panthers are still ahead of where many thought they could be coming into the season. However, the loss to the Falcons last week will be disappointing and I wonder how competitive they can truly be against the Kansas City Chiefs who clearly wanted to make a statement against the Jets last week and look poised to be one of the teams to beat this season.
  • Just as I said that the Giants seemed to be coming together under first year head coach Joe Judge and were building something, there was the news about veteran receiver Golden Tate’s benching and he won’t be travelling with the team this week. The Washington Football Team have not convinced, even if they did beat the Cowboys last week and having already lost close to the Giants this season so I think this could well be another close game.
  • The Houston Texans are a team in flux and did not move JJ Watt or Will Fuller before the trade deadline, but they are still in purgatory and it hard to see that changing soon. They should have enough to beat a Jaguars team who flattered to deceive at the start of the season, but are as bad as many suspected coming into the season and who are turning to a different sixth round quarterback in rookie Jake Luton to evaluate what they have their whilst Gardner Minshew gets the chance to heal the strained ligament and multiple fractures in his right thumb.

Broncos @ Falcons (-3.5)

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

Seahawks @ Bills (+2.5)

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

Bears @ Titans (-5.5)

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

Lions @ Vikings (-3.5)

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

Ravens @ Colts (+2.5)

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

Panthers @ Chiefs (-10.5)

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

Giants @ Washington (-3.5)

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

Texans @ Jaguars (+6.5)

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

Late Games:

The most interesting game of the late starts for me is the Miami Dolphins fresh off their win against the Rams taking on the Arizona Cardinals. The Dolphins won last week thanks to great defence and special teams so Tua Tagovailoa’s modest NFL debut was not a huge contributing factor. The  Cardinals should prove to be a tougher test and I will be interested to see how Tagovailoa does in his second game and how things shake out for the Cardinals who are ranked two places lower by overall DVOA but are solid in all three phases of the game.

Thoughts on the other games:

  • The Raiders have amassed yet more fines related to Covid-19 protocol failures and have not entirely convinced despite having wins against the Saints, Chiefs, and Browns this season. They might have enough to beat the Chargers, but I am curious if their defensive frailties could get exploited by Chargers’ rookie quarterback sensation Justin Herbert
  • The Cowboys have a new starting quarterback but have problems on both sides of the ball and are unlikely to do much against the only remaining unbeaten team in the NFL unless the Steelers have a let-down game after their always tough matchup against the Ravens last week.

Raiders @ Chargers (-1.5)

Gee’s Pick:     Raiders
Dan’s Pick:     Raiders

Steelers @ Cowboys (+10.5)

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

Dolphins @ Cardinals (-4.5)

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

Sunday Night Football:

Saints @ Buccaneers (-4.5)

The Sunday night game is the matchup of the week as it sees a divisional matchup between the 6-2 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the 5-2 New Orleans Saints. All the talk coming into the season for the Buccaneers was the signing of Tom Brady, but it is the defence that has truly impressed given it is the best in the league by DVOA and has led the Bucs to the top of the DVOA standings by 9.1%. This defence will taking on a Saints team who are ranked seventh overall by DVOA despite missing their leading receiver Michael Thomas for nearly the who season through one injury or another. There is so much debate surrounding Drew Brees’ arm, but his accuracy in the short to intermediate area of the field is still supreme and Alvin Kamara has been leading the way from the backfield in keeping the Saints offence in the top ten. The Saints might not be as complete a team as we thought coming in to the season, but they are still winning at an impressive rate and I think this rematch has a chance to be more impressive than their season opener. This is not a game to miss.

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

Monday Night Football

Patriots @ Jets (+7.5)

The week nine slate of games closes with a bit of a whimper as the New England Patriots take on the New York Jets in a contest that can only muster two wins between both teams. The Jets are having a putrid season, made more difficult by Sam Darnold re-aggravating the AC joint sprain in his throwing shoulder so we see a return to the starting line-up for Joe Flacco that is likely to scupper my bold prediction of the Jets’ offence scoring more points than the Cowboy, but doesn’t completely rule it out. The Patriots meanwhile should win this game, but they really need to find something to hang their hat on for the rest of the season. We still don’t know if Cam Newton is hurt or feeling the effects of recovering from Covid-19, but he has not looked good since he returned and the Patriots look as bad as they have done since Bill Belichick became head coach in 2000. They should win this game, but the Pats are not as competitive as I was expecting even given their tough circumstances so what interest there is in this game will be how they look against a divisional rival who have simply been woeful this season.

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

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.å

The Highs and Lows of Hard Knocks and the Cleveland Browns

26 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by in Hard Knocks, Pre-Season

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

18-08-26 Hard Knocks Crew

Image Credit: ESPN.com

Episode three of Hard Knocks had some highs on the non-football front but was also a demonstration of some of the limitations of the format. When it is good, the programme gives us an insight into the working of an NFL team but it has now been going long enough that you can spot some of the plotting beats and we’re beginning to get to the point where the sword of Damocles hanging over the players further down the roster begins to interfere with the enjoyment of the show. Fourth string quarterback BROgan Roback is a camp arm and doesn’t get into the game against the Bills and we watch in real time as Nate Orchard loses contain twice on the pass rush and the effect this could have on his family. Even last week’s fringe breakout player Devon Cajuste features with his long catch (accompanied by fan cheers of Juice) and the later pass inference that Todd Haley was as unsure about but we’ll look at it on film.

The episode starts with a training camp ‘fight’, which is just one of those things we know happens at training camp and the interesting thing for me was that it was linebacker Christian Kirksey who was peacemaker talking to Jarvis Landry about how he can’t react or break a hand and that he’ll talk to corner Terrane Mitchell. It was pretty amusing to see the, ‘gang of orange’ quarterbacks gathered round Landry and offering to handle the situation for him.

However, for the football nerd it can be frustrating watching obviously sanitised of football content front office and coaching footage. I understand that they can’t give away a competitive advantage but it was painfully obvious that Hue Jackson and Dez Bryant were aware of being on camera in their sit down meeting. I’m was surprised that John Dorsey didn’t know that the player he was bringing in that day was the answer to the pop quiz question his intern had set. We also got treated to offensive line coach Bob Wylie complaining about stretching and comparing 1940s calisthenics to modern training techniques, which is not the kind of attitude I’d want in my coaches but the glimpse into the offensive line drill that had the linemen using a low structure that was clearly helping the linemen keep their pad level down from the snap was genuinely interesting. I was less interested in the random zoology break down of nature’s offensive linemen that was part of the same segment but between Hard Knocks and All Or Nothing it appears that for all the money spent in the NFL, they have the same problems with quality of presentations as sometimes beset the corporate world.

The things that would worry me more seriously as a Browns fan is that I’m not sure how sustainable across a long season Gregg Williams’ fire and brimstone routine is and frankly, I’d like a bit more instruction on what he wants as well as demonstrations of displeasure. We perhaps should be careful of judging this as we don’t know what has been left on the cutting room floor of NFL films, but the fact that his players were touching the quarterback in training and Carl Nassib (he off the impossible financial returns) was openly mocking the offensive coordinator does make you wonder a little about the discipline.

The good news is that Thursday night’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles continued to show that the Browns could well be better this year as they ran out 5-0 winners. In particular, the defence caused the Eagles problems with the pass rush all night and Myles Garrett looked every inch the first round pass rusher as he got a pair of sacks including one for a safety and caused disruption in the backfield. The offence did enough to win the game but the fourth and goal failure that led to the aforementioned safety was a worry as was Tyrod Taylor having to leave the game with a hand injury, but he was able to come back in later in the game. The quietly effective part of the offensive over the last two games in terms of Hard Knocks coverage to how they look in actual games are the running back duo of Carlos Hyde and rookie Nick Chubb who have been moving the ball effectively and helping balance the team. You get the feeling that tight end David Njoku could cause a lot of teams problems with his athleticism and receiver Rashard Higgins had another catch that caught the eye. The swirl at receiver will be one to watch next week now that Josh Gordon has been cleared to practise and play but it appears Dez Bryant was offended by the contract he was offered, but Dez may need to adjust his expectations if he wants to get back on the field as there does not seem to be a lot of other suitors out there at the moment.

As the season nears the cuts are coming and having had the dress rehearsal game next week’s will be all about the battle to make the roster. That’s when the unmanufactured drama will really take hold.

Sunday Divisional Games

15 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in Playoffs

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Green Bay Packers @ Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboy lost Tony Romo in pre-season to a fractured vertebrae, and rookie quarterback Dak Prescott stepped into the void and looked comfortable from the get go. Operating behind what is widely regarded as the best offensive line in the league he and fellow rookie Ezekiel Elliott helped the Cowboys get the number one seed behind their stellar play. As the season went on Prescott was able to increase his grasp of the offence and with a combination of the way Elliott ran the ball and Dez Bryant, Jason Witten, and Cole Beasley as receiving options, the Cowboys are formidable opponents for the Packers in this game. However, whilst the offence stands every chance of moving the ball on the Packers, the defence has been more of an issue. They do not have the pass rush of the similarly constructed Falcons, but do rank better by overall defensive DVOA. However, they face a really tough matchup in the Packers offence

The Packers come into this game as one of the hottest teams in the NFL having turned a 4-6 record into a 10-6 division win and running out easy winners against the Giants last week. The defence has been battling injuries in the secondary for most of the season, and although they were ranked number one against the run at one point, are another unit in the playoffs that ranks a fair bit worse than their offence. The offence lost Jordy Nelson early last week who will not make this game due to his fractured ribs, but Aaron Rodgers has found his rhythm with his receiving group during this win streak and so will remain dangerous in the passing game. Rodgers has an uncanny ability to move and keep a play alive and is back to throwing receivers open and looking is looking like the best quarterback in the league.

This is not a game I want to predict, the Cowboys can likely dominate the time of possession with the run game and protect their defence, which has been the game plan for most of the season, but Rodgers does not need a lot of opportunities to produce points. This could very well be game of the week, and I for one am heartily looking forward to it.

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Kansas City Chiefs

The Chiefs have been quietly racking up the regular season wins for a season and a half now, and welcome the Steelers to the loudest outdoor stadium in the league.

A lot of jokes have been made about Andy Reid’s clock management over the years, but he is an incredibly good coach whose football teams have won a lot of games. His quarterback has the reputation of a game manager, but Alex Smith gets the job done and is capable of spreading the ball around as required as well as moving the ball with his feet. The Chiefs’ leading receiver this year was Travis Kelce, who will be going up against a defence ranked thirteenth in the league against tight ends by DVOA. However, the emergence of Tyreek Hill as a big player receiver as well as special teams returner has added another dimension to the Chiefs, but he is not the only speed option they have on offence. The Chiefs’ defence has been good rather than outstanding, and has missed Justin Houston to injury for much of the year, although Houston has flashed when he did get on the field and the Chiefs will hope that he plays on Sunday.

The Steelers got an easy win against the Dolphins last week as Antonio Brown stole the game in the first quarter. They will expect that Le’Veon Bell will be able to rack up the runs against a rush defence that ranked twenty-sixth in the league against the run by DVOA, and that could be enough to win them the game with the way Bell has been playing this season. He has needed to be this good as Ben Roethlisberger has struggled at times, and the quarterback left the stadium in a walking boot last week but will be playing this week. The Steelers’ defence played very well against the Dolphins, with the seemingly ageless James Harrison making his presence felt along with the other Steelers linebackers. This is not the same style of defence as in recent years, and they started the year struggling a little, but finished the year just outside the top ten by DVOA and have been very solid in their new cover 2 look.

This is another game that is hard to predict as both teams have been competitive all year, but if feels like the Chiefs have been more consistent all year and are home so I would give them the edge, but this feels like a second toss up game.

AAF: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Ezekiel?

23 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by in Amateur Adventures in Film

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

I wanted to take a look at the Cowboys running game against the Packers defence, who were giving up less than two yards a carry against the run coming into this game, as this looked to be the match-up of the week and so it proved.

In a game where your defence gave up one hundred and ninety-one yard games, it might seem strange to say that for large parts of the game the run defence held up well, but to my eyes for good chunks of the game the Packers did well against the run. The Packers’ front seven were not pushed off their run fits and there were no huge holes for Ezekiel Elliott to run through. However, they were clearly unable to contain Elliott who finished the game with one hundred and fifty-seven yards on the ground.

The big chunk plays that Elliott did manage to pick up were when he ran off the end of the line to attack the periphery of the defence where he was able to run the ball consistently. That’s not to say however that he did not have success up the middle, as Elliott only requires a small crease to get a good pick up as he hits the hole so hard. Even when there were no holes up the middle, the Cowboys offensive line is good enough for them to get positive yardage by pushing their men back. The other thing that struck me about Elliott though is that he is a running back who rides contact effectively as well as being able to make defenders miss, which means that it is hard for defenders to get a hit on him and even when they do he doesn’t go down easily. This when coupled with his speed and acceleration makes him a fearsome runner which allowed him to generate these kinds of numbers against a defence that wasn’t playing badly.

His longest run was a twenty-nine yard play in the fourth quarter where coming out of a double tight-end formation with one either side of the formation and there was no player over left tackle Tyron Smith. With Packers’ linebacker Blake Martinez bursting through between guard and centre but unable to disrupt the hand off, Smith was able to seal off safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and Elliott had enough space to run up the middle for the huge gain. This was really the only time that the defence was miscalled, and whilst the Cowboys line did occasionally open up some nice holes, most of the time it was Elliott’s ability to run the ball as much as anything that did the damage.

So how do you solve a problem like Ezekiel? Well since he has developed some patience after the first couple of games, he has consistently run for over one hundred and thirty yards a game so the answer appears to be at the moment that you don’t. In this game you do wonder why he was in during the last series given the Cowboys were two touchdowns ahead, but numbers aside, Elliott has got off to an excellent start behind a no doubt very good offensive line. The big problem for the Cowboys last year was their inability to win without Tony Romo, but with both Romo and Dez Bryant out again this year, the new foundation of Elliott combined with rookie quarterback Dak Prescott has the Cowboys at 5-1 and whilst we shouldn’t get carried away yet, the signs are hopeful in Dallas. I would not be too worried about the defence for the Packers as they still looked good against the run for large parts of this game, and I doubt they will be the last to get gouged by Ezekiel Elliot.