Tag Archives: Drew Lock

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.

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2020 Week Eight Picks

01 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition

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It was a rough start to the week eight picks competition for me, but I was going on the information I had available and I think I would make the same pick again. Clearly I need to be careful about what to make of the Falcons going forward but I can’t over adjust as I have been slowly whiltling down Dan’s lead. Let’s see if I can get any closer to Dan this week as I go through the games that leap out to me across the rest of week eight.

Early Games:

For the second week in the highlight of the early Sunday games feature the Pittsburgh Steelers who after holding on for the win against the Titans now travel to Baltimore to take on the Ravens. We get to see this matchup at least twice a year, and it is particularly tasty this season as the Steelers take their unbeaten record to a rested 5-1 Ravens team. The only loss the Ravens have was against the Chiefs, but despite their bye there are questions about their offence as it is not running as smoothly as last season and their blitz heavy defensive scheme is not an ideal matchup against Ben Roethlisberger who is getting the ball out as fast as any quarterback in the league. I can see either team winning this one, but with the consensus number being higher and the extra half point the Ravens are laying over a field goal I’m going to take the Steelers.

The other game that grabs my attention is as much about the importance of the result as the play of both teams. The New England Patriots travel to face the Bills on a three-game losing streak and are struggling on both sides of the ball. Cam Newton has not looked right since he came off the Covid list and the Patriots have just put their most productive receiver Julian Edleman on IR. As strange as it feels to pick against Bill Bellichick (even under these circumstance) and particularly as the Bills have been struggling in recent weeks as defenses adjust to Josh Allen’s hot start to the season, the numbers indicate the -3.5 line should be higher and so with a little reluctance I am backing the Bills in a game they need to win to maintain their hold on the AFC East and to keep themselves ahead of the lurking Dolphins

The Dolphins are my other game from the early set to watch, both because I am curious to see how the LA Rams do with yet another trip across the country (their fourth in eight weeks) but mainly because this game sees rookie quarterback Tua Tagovailoa make his first start. Even only residing on the periphery of Dolphins fandom through my friendship with Dan, I can feel the excitement over Tua time and I just hope that everything goes well for him. That said, with he Rams travelling to Miami I am also grabbing the points so I will have my own selfish reasons for hoping the Dolphins play well, even it is the hope is that they can keep the game closer than four points.

  • The Titans will be looking to bounce back from their loss to the Steelers while the Bengals have been dealing with some malcontents in the lockeroom. The numbers all show that the Titans are the team to pick, which feels odd as the Bengals have been in all their games bar the Ravens and given how the Titans’ defense is playing and recent performances by the Bengals I am going to back them to stay within six.
  • The Raiders and Browns are right next to each other by overall DVOA, and this could be a close game, but the numbers are telling me to take the Raiders so that’s where I’m going. However, it is interesting to me that the Browns as the twenty-second ranked team by DVOA have a 5-2 record while the Raiders at twenty-third are 3-3.
  • The Detroit Lions come off a win that to an extent they lucked into with the Falcons haplessly scoring a touchdown to give the Lions the ball back, but Matt Stafford still had to drive down the field and score the Lions’ own game sealing touchdown. However, the Colts are coming off a bye and this has the potential to turn into one of the more interesting games of the week, but with the Lions consistently underwhelming under Matt Patricia they didn’t quite make the cut for a highlight game.
  • A big divisional game like the Vikings taking on the Packers should be a highlight of any week, but with the Vikings making moves for the long term and the Packers bouncing back after their tough loss to the Buccaneers it feels like this game is only going one way. That is a little dangerous as anything can happen in the NFL, particularly with divisional games, but it is hard to see any other result than a big win for the Packers in this season’s iteration of these two teams.
  • Somehow the consensus line for the Jets’ visit to the Chiefs is even higher than the -19.5 points we are picking on, but I do have a slight hesitation as the Jets did cover for me last week against the Bills. However, there is a world of difference between playing a divisional rival at home and travelling to take on the Chiefs, even if the legendarily noisy Chiefs’ crowd won’t be there. I did think about picking the Jets but I just can’t do it with the Chiefs ranked best in the league on offence by DVOA.

Patriots @ Bills (-3.5)

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

Titans @ Bengals (+5.5)

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

Raiders @ Browns (-2.5)

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

Colts @ Lions (+2.5)

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

Vikings @ Packers (-6.5)

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

Jets @ Chiefs (-19.5)

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

Rams @ Dolphins (+3.5)

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

Steelers @ Ravens (-3.5)

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

Late Games:

There are two great matchups in the late games and one intriguing matchup so let’s start with what I think will be the most competitive.

The San Francisco 49ers have remained competitive in a fearsome NFC West division despite their extensive injury list and having beaten the Patriots convincingly in week seven must now travel to take on the Seattle Seahawks. It is a testament to the coaching job that Kyle Shanahan and his staff have done that the 49ers are ranked eighth overall by DVOA (one place higher than the Seahawks) despite their injury list and are around top ten in all three phases of the game. The Seahawks meanwhile are relying on their offence with Russell Wilson playing as well as he ever has but the defense, and in particular the Seahawks pass defense is struggling and this makes for an intriguing matchup. This is definitely one of the games to watch this week, but I don’t have a strong hunch for it and I am making a play based on getting an extra half point.

The Chicago Bears get a real test this week as they put their 5-2 record and top ten defense to the test against a 4-2 Saints who are still a good team despite them not living up to the expectations we had coming into the season. The Bears really don’t convince on offence and the consensus line being the Bears getting four I am going to pick the Saints, but I think this could be a sneaky interesting game, particularly when the Saints have the ball.

The other late game sees the LA Chargers visit the 2-4 Denver Broncos with rookie quarterback Justin Herbert coming of his first career win and the Broncos have been beaten heavily by the Chiefs in week seven. The Broncos were hoping they had found their quarterback of the future in Drew Lock but injuries have muddied the water on how good he can be. The Chargers only need a field goal to cover this line and with the consensus number being on the other side of three points I will back the Chargers, but I could see the Broncos springing a surprise.

Chargers @ Broncos (+2.5)

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

Saints @ Bears (+2.5)

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

49ers @ Seahawks (-3.5)

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

Sunday Night Football:

Cowboys @ Eagles (-6.5)

The Sunday night game must have looked so good for the schedule makers before the season, but with the Cowboys season in disarray already this feels like a very one-sided affair. The Cowboy are starting their third different quarterback in seventh round rookie Ben DiNucci who is going to have an incredibly tough time given how injured the Cowboy’s offensive line is and straight bad their defense is. The Eagles only have a 2-4-1 record compared to the Cowboys’ 2-5 record but feel like they are in a very different place even if they have their own long list of injuries. The line would give me pause except that the consensus line I am seeing sees the Eagles giving eleven points to the Cowboys so under a touchdown seems a comparative bargain. In another world I might still take the points, but with the Cowboys shipping out or cutting underperforming members of their defense and starting a seventh round rookie quarterback I simply can’t pick them.

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

Monday Night Football

Buccaneers @ Giants (+10.5)

The last game of the week is another one-sided contest that sees the surging Tampa Bay Buccaneers visiting the struggling New York Giants. There have been some encouraging moments for the Giants in their last three games but these have all come across fellow NFC East team. Taking on the Buccaneers is a very different prospect and even though this is a big line, I am seeing a higher consensus so whilst I am slightly nervous about this play, I am going to back the Buccaneers and their fearsome defense as Tom Brady continues to find his way with the Bucs offence.

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

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

2020 Week One Picks

13 Sunday Sep 2020

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition

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Well, I didn’t exactly start the picks competition how I wanted to on Thursday, but I don’t feel bad about the process of my pick and I think it is going to take some time to dial in given the absence of pre-season games to work from. We also don’t know how the absence of crowds will affect home field advantage so I might play some hunches a little more at the start of the year, but it is a long season.

I am going to try to break up this picks column in a new way this season to take some of the leg work out of the post and so hopefully get into coaching tape more regularly, assuming that life settles down. The blog still feels weird without trivia because of why I have had to move things round and I think that sense of loss is going to be there for a while, but it will also be nice to get back into something like our normal in-season routine.

At this stage, with no pre-season almost every game is intriguing because we have even less idea of how teams really are so let’s get down to some picks.

Early Games:

My favourite of the early contests to watch is probably the Packers at the Vikings as that is a big divisional game and I want to see how the Vikings re-tooled defence looks and if there is any progression in the Packers offence. The consensus number for this game has the Vikings at -2.5 that might lead you to take the Packers, but I have also seen a projection higher than the -3.5 the Vikings are laying and with them  at home I’m leaning to the Vikings, who have taken on an increased importance to me this season.

The other contests that catch the eye in this time slot are the Seahawks taking on the Falcons in Atlanta as the Falcons will be looking to pick up from their strong end to last season and the Seahawks are always competitive under Pete Carroll. I think everyone will be curious to see how Cam Newton looks as the Patriots host the Dolphins, but given this is a divisional game and the Pats lost more players to Covid-19 sit outs than any other team I think this one will be closer than seven. I could be wrong, but I have a lot of Brian Flores even though this is based on only one season as a head coach.

Finally, the Ravens are heavy favourites hosting the Browns, but with Kevin Stefanski taking over the Browns I think the offence could take a big step forward depending on how pre-season has gone. Certainly Baker Mayfield needs to regain some confidence as a starting QB in his third season, but with some improvement and a healthy Odell Beckham as well as Myles Garrett returning to the defence I like the Browns to keep this game closer than nine points. However, I do think the Ravens are going to be strong contenders this season as they look to not just get back to the play-offs, but win and go deep to better reflect their regular season form.

Other things of interest:

  • How Philip Rivers looks for the Colts and what state the Jaguars are in on the field. They will certainly be watching closely to see if Gardner Minshew is a franchise quarterback.
  • Can Josh Allen take a step forward for the Bills and what effect the addition of Stefon Digs will have on Allen’s passing. I really don’t know what to expect from the Jets, although they are another franchise trying to confirm what they have in their quarterback.
  • How will the Lions look with Matthew Stafford back from injury and will the Lions look more likely to be competitive division. I also wonder how Mitchell Trubisky will look and version of the Bears from the last two seasons will show up.
  • How will the reformed Panthers look as they host a Raiders side looking to get a winning season in Jon Gruden’s third season. More importantly for, can their defence improve on it’s thirty-first ranking by DVOA of the last two season.
  • What will the Washington Football Team look on the field after such a turbulent off-season as they host an Eagles side who will be hoping that they can’t be as injured as last season and that quarterback Carson Wentz not only plays a full season for a second year in a row but has the receivers to let them take the next step.

Seahawks @ Falcons (+1.5)

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

Jets @ Bills (-6.5)

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

Bears @ Lions (-1.5)

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

Browns @ Ravens (-8.5)

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

Packers @ Vikings (-3.5)

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

Colts @ Jaguars (+7.5)

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

Raiders @ Panthers (+1.5)

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

Dolphins @ Patriots (-6.5)

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

Eagles @ Washington (+6.5)

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

Late Games:

There are three intriguing games in the late slot, but the pick of them has to be the Buccaneers travelling to the Saints where the Bucs will be hoping that with Tom Brady the offence will be productive and the defence pays to a similar level as they did last season. I think that Brady will help the Bucs take a step forward, but there have been signs of slippage and as good as his skills players look, the Saints have been all in for three seasons already and have one of the deepest rosters in the league. I could be very wrong, and this will definitely be one of the games I watch this week, but like the Saints’ continuity to win out in this one.

Of course, I am excited to see Josh Burrow to take the field, but I am realistic about what I can expect from the Bengals this season and so I’m looking for progress not the play-offs. The Chargers have already lost a huge impact player from their defence in Derwin James and getting this number of points at home I am leaning to the Bengals keeping the game to within four, if not winning the game if everything breaks right for them.

Finally, a divisional game between the Cardinals and 49ers is interesting with DeAndre Hopkins taking the field with Kyler Murray and we shall have to see if in his second year with the Cardinals whether head coach Kliff Kingsbury can lead them to a better record of 5-11. The 49ers will prove a tough test as they should be competitive again this season and I wonder how the offence will look given their injuries at receivers, which is why I have picked the Cardinals to keep the game closer than eight, but I could easily see me getting this one wrong.

Chargers @ Bengals (+3.5)

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

Buccaneers @ Saints (-3.5)

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

Cardinals @ 49ers (-7.5)

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

Sunday Night Football:

This could be a spectacular game as the LA Rams open their new stadium to a Cowboys team under their new coach Mike McCarthy. I think this has the potential to be an explosive game, and certainly all eyes will be on if Sean McVay can keep the Rams competitive after the overhaul of their roster and the change in defensive coordinator. I am really curious about how the Cowboys will look under McCarthy, and expect them to do well this season, but I’m getting an extra half point for the Rams at home than the consensus line and I’ve seen a projection of an even closer score so I’m going to grab the points.

Cowboys @ Rams (+2.5)

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

Monday Night Football:

Week one finishes with a pair of Monday night football games, but I am not sure how competitive they will be.

The Giants under new head coach Joe Judge are at the beginning of a big rebuild project and whilst I am curious to see how they look, I am looking for progress rather than a spectacular turn around. The Steelers had the third ranked defence by DVOA last season and a fit again Ben Roethlisberger has been getting good reviews in camp. It was an impressive feat for the Steelers to go 8-8 with the combination of Devlin Hodges and Mason Rudolph at quarterback and I expect the Steelers to be truly competitive this season with Roethlisberger back behind center.

The contest between the Broncos and Titans looks less enticing with Von Miller likely out for the season with his ankle injury. The Broncos’ franchise player is a big loss for the defence, and I can’t help but think that the Broncos will be happy if they can establish Drew Lock as their franchine quarterback. This line looks to have been set before the Miller injury news as the consensus has the Broncos getting three points. I worry about the home field advantage that the Broncos will retain as their stadium is at high altitude and this is particularly likely to be a problem with the lack of pre-season games to help with conditioning. However, the Titans have always be competitive under Mike Vrabel and I like getting points when I think the Titans are the better team and only have to win by a field goal to cover. I might regret this, but then that is my usual refrain making picks.

Steelers @ Giants (+3.5)

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

Titans @ Broncos (-2.5)

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

Well, that’s it for week one. I have no idea how these picks will go, but I’m excited to see more football and I’m already eyeing up what I’m going to be watching on coaching tape next week.

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.

AFC and NFC West Preview

09 Wednesday Sep 2020

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AFC West

Kansas City Chiefs

How much is there to really say about the Chiefs? They won the Super Bowl last season, kept the core of their team intact including offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy and look set to have another strong season. They extended Patrick Mahomes so they have him for ten years, extended disrupted defensive tackle Chris Jones and drafted a new running back for the offence. Said offence should stay one of the most fearsome in the league and may even be stronger given that Mahomes missed two games with injury last season. The defence will be back under Steve Spagnuolo for a second year and having improved their ranking from twenty-seventh by DVOA in the 2018 season to fourteenth in 2019, all they need to do is maintain a ranking somewhere around there to keep the team winning. You can never guarantee anything in the NFL, particularly this season but the Chiefs feel like one of the safest bets to be making a noise in the play-offs. Given how fun it is to watch an Andy Reid schemed offence, yet alone one helmed by a quarterback of the talents of Mahomes, I am sure everyone is planning to watch the Chiefs a lot this season. I certainly am.

Denver Broncos

The Broncos have not made the play-offs since they won the Super Bowl and have had a losing record  in each of the last three seasons, but there is some hope for the 2020 Broncos as there’s a possibility that John Elway has found a franchise quarterback. It was always going to challenge to follow Peyton Manning, even if he was limited in his passing ability during the final Super Bowl winning year. However, after a number of false starts the Broncos made second round draft pick Drew Lock the starter for the last five games of the 2019 season where he went 4-1. Now judging a quarterback solely on wins is a massive oversimplification so we should be wary of drawing too much from such a small sample of games, but it has at least given the Broncos a plan for the season. In his second year as head coach, Vic Fangio will be looking to get the defence to improve after it was ranked thirteenth by DVOA last season and losing a corner of the ability of Chris Harris will hurt but as defence tends to be more volatile from season to season than offence, a lot could rest on the Broncos being able to maintain a similar standard of defence and the offence improving. This is particularly the case with Bradley Chubb still making his way back from injury and All-Pro pass rusher Von Miller dislocating an ankle tendon and facing the real possibility of being out for the season. These previews have been giving me a series of things that I want to follow this season, and I think I need to take a look at Lock to see how he plays pretty soon. I’m not sure that the Broncos can compete for the playoffs, although with the expanded format it is possible, but it might not take too much to catapult the Broncos up there so definitely a team to keep an eye on.

Las Vegas Raiders

The Raiders get to open the Death Star, or Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas as it’s properly called behind closed doors, and there is still much to uncover about this team. Last season’s 7-9 record was an improvement for Jon Gruden but he has yet to have a winning season since re-joining the Raiders in 2018 and will be looking to get back to winning ways this year. There are still questions about Gruden’s commitment to his starting quarterback Derek Carr, but the offence really wasn’t the problem last season. A ranking inside the top ten by DVOA on offence will not satisfy Gruden, but it was a defence that was ranked thirty-first and special teams that ranked twenty-fifth that sank last season’s team. Ex-Bengals defensive coordinator Paul Guenther had good success in Cincinnati when he took over their Defence from Mike Zimmer, but last season the Raiders’ signing of Vontaze Burfict backfired, and the loss of big hitting rookie safety Johnathan Abram didn’t help. I don’t know if Guenther will be able to improve a defence that has ranked thirty-first by DVOA for two seasons in a row, but if he can’t that will only increase the pressure for Gruden to improve the offence. There seems to be a rotating cast of receivers, although last year’s rookie running back Josh Jacobs impressed until his shoulder injury hampered his ability to get on the field late in the season. This is another team where there is a lot up in the air and with the shortened off-season I don’t know what to expect, but I think the season likely rests on getting the defence to at least be respectable.

LA Chargers

The Chargers are something of an enigma. They have a talented roster but have struggled on the offensive line and have been bitten by the injury bug often. They may have an advantage compared to the rest of the league when playing in empty stadiums as unlike last season where their home games often had more away fans than their own, at least they can control the environment in the shiny new SoFi Stadium. I like Anthony Lynn as a coach and there is a lot of intriguing talent on the roster, but they paired a twelfth ranked offence by DVOA with the twenty-fifth ranked defence and were dead last special teams. Even with Philip Rivers moving to Indianapolis there is hope for the offence and the Chargers have just extended the contracts of pass rushing duo Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram, but the injury bug has already bit with last season’s rookie sensation First-Team All-Pro safety Derwin James on IR with a torn meniscus. The Chargers won or were within a touchdown in fourteen of their sixteen games last season, so they were close to a much better record, but in a tough division where they have to face the Chiefs twice and travel to face Denver in high-altitude I don’t know if they can expect a huge turn around. I think it is possible, but they would need to be healthy for once and have some bounces go their way. It feels like the Chargers are due a run of luck, but with Tyrod Taylor as starting quarterback it is hard to predict that they will do much more that be competitive this season unless Taylor improves on his previous record.

NFC West

San Francisco 49ers

Last season the 49ers finally delivered on the promise they have flashed through the rebuild masterminded by head coach Kyle Shanahan and GM John Lynch. A fearsome defence ranked second only to the Patriots by DVOA was paired with a top ten offence that Shanahan schemed to enough success for them all the way to the Super Bowl and they should be in contention again this year. However, they did trade defensive linemen DeForest Buckner away to allow them the cap flexibility to retain other players and they are already having problems at receiver with multiple players injured before the team have taken a competitive snap against another team. Shanahan is such a good coach that unless the number of injuries gets too big they 49ers should be able to compete, but the NFC West looks like a fearsome division so there could be a surprise or two in store.

Seattle Seahawks

The Seahawks come into the 2020 season on the back of eight consecutive winning seasons, despite having to overhaul the vaunted Leigion of Boom defence in the last couple of seasons. In Russell Wilson they have one of the best quarterbacks in the league and last year’s rookie receiver DK Metcalf flashed alongside Tyler Lockett whilst Chris Carson was again the running back required to fit the run focussed offensive game plan that Pete Carroll wants to run. I do wonder how much home advantage the Seahawks will lose by not being able to play in front of their famously loud home crowd, but it is hard to see them do anything other than compete as that is Carroll’s mantra and even at the start of his time in Seattle, Carroll’s two losing seasons were still 7-9. That said, the usually strong defence was only ranked twenty-first by DVOA and whilst you have to go back to 2016 to find them ranked inside the top ten, their offence has not been that explosive so we shall have to see how this team does without the help of the home crowd.

LA Rams

The Rams failed to make the play-offs for the first time in Sean McVay’s three years with the franchise, and there was plenty of talk that teams had worked out the McVay’s offence. That said, the Rams still went 9-7, and later in the season the Rams started to use more 12 personnel as McVay adjusted to the adjustments opposing defences had made to his scheme. The Rams were also not helped by the dip in play from Todd Gurley that led to him being cut in the off-season and this was one of a number of adjustments the Rams had to make to the roster to get themselves under the salary cap. They also fired defensive coordinator Wade Philips, which is one of bigger decisions McVay has made in his tenure and could be an interesting one to monitor as  the defence was ranked top ten by DVOA last season and Philips is very experienced coach, but the only big names left on the defence are Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey. Now Donald is arguably the most important non-quarterback in the league and a bona fide pass rush nightmare, but Donald plus a lockdown corner in Ramsey does not a defence make and with a number of defensive starters gone from last season it is not hard to see a slip on that side of the ball this year. I wouldn’t count the Rams out, but there are enough questions that you can’t simply put them in the play-offs. With the expanded wildcard slots I wouldn’t rule out them being there or there abouts, but this could be a big season for McVay’s long term prospects in LA.

Arizona Cardinals

The Cardinals knew they were in for a long rebuild going into last season, but their 5-11 record was not actually that bad considering the 3-13 disaster it followed and there were some promising things to take away. Although Kyler Murray (their second first round quarterback selection in two years) didn’t set the league alight, he showed promise and proved that he could get through a season despite the size that many were worried about. Murray looked to have the Russell Wilson knack of not taking the big hit and although his college now NFL head coach Kliff Kingsbury had to adjust his scheme when it didn’t work when facing NFL defences, he did just that and so they come into the season hoping to build on last year. The addition of DeAndre Hopkins is upgrade to the Cardinals’ receiver group, although the continuing presence of Larry Fitzgerald also reassures but he must retire soon and so Hopkins is a valuable addition for the next couple of years at least. The defence still needs work but I am curious about how this team does so I look forward to monitoring how they progress this season.

The End of the 2019 Regular Season

01 Wednesday Jan 2020

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So here we are at the end of the regular season, but the start of playoffs and a new decade. I’m going to do a recap of the games I watched in week seventeen before I run through the AFC side of the Disappointed Twenty, and will follow up tomorrow with the NFC side.

What I Saw

The first game I watched in week seventeen had no bearing on the playoffs or draft position, but it still made me happy as the Cincinnati Bengals secured only their second win of the season as they beat the Cleveland Browns in a relatively comfortable manner. The Bengals pass rush was able to harass Baker Mayfield all game and got six sacks as well as picking him off three times. I’ll be talking about both of these teams in my roundup so only thing I will add here is that I was surprisingly happy about this win, even if it was ultimately meaningless in the wider scheme of things.

Whilst the Bengals win had no real affect on things, one of the other TWF teams had a definitive effect on the playoffs even thought they will not be playing either. For a bad season in terms of results, there has been much to be cheered about this season for a Miami Dolphins team, who got more wins that you are supposed to whilst rebooting your roster and look to have found a really good head coach who cemented this view with a win against the New England Patriots that cost their divisional foes a bye week and throws them into an eminently losable match-up against the Tennessee Titans next week. The problems that have plagued the Patriots offence resurfaced this week, but in addition Tom Brady threw a horrid pick-six where he sailed a ball between two receivers that Eric Rowe grabbed and took gratefully into the end zone. If that wasn’t bad enough, Stephon Gilmore did not look at all like the shutdown corner he has looked like for most of the season and the Pats’ defence did not look itself. I’m still not going to declare the Patriots done until I’ve seen them eliminated, but I can’t remember a recent time where the Pats looked this vulnerable this late in the season.

There were two divisions up for grabs in week seventeen and the first of them to be won saw the Philadelphia Eagles finish their mission impossible with four straight wins despite the injuries that plagued them all season. Their final victim were the New York Giants who offered up some glimpses of what Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley might be able to achieve between them as the Giants kept the game close into the fourth quarter, helped by an impressive sixty-eight yard touchdown run from Barkley, but whilst Jones managed to outgain the Eagles’ Carson Wentz through the air, he could not match his care with the ball and the Eagles finished strongly to win 34-17.

The final game of the regular season was to decide the AFC West as the Seattle Seahawks hosted the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers had dipped in form thanks to injury but looked to be getting back to some of their mid-season form in recent weeks and got out to a strong start in this one, building a thirteen point lead that should have been more whilst holding the Seahawks scoreless. The Seahawks have injury problems of their own, hence the signing of Marshawn Lynch out of retirement, who provoked a huge response from the Seattle crowd despite not producing that many yards but did get a touchdown. However, Russel Wilson was able to work out the 49ers defence in the second half and mount a comeback that very easily could have produced the win were it not for a combination of refereeing and the return of late game mismanagement. The Seahawks had three downs on the one-yard line to get the winning touchdown, or would have if they had not been called for delay of game and then failed to get in from the five. The result means the Seahawks travel to face the Eagles and could very well face the 49ers again before the end of the playoffs.

The Disappointed Twenty: AFC Edition

So here is my quick run through the AFC teams who missed out on the playoffs.

The New York Jets finished 7-9, despite losing their starting quarterback to mono and so you could say that this was not a bad year. The problem is that I am not convinced by Adam Gase as a head coach these days, but whilst I don’t think he has done anything to lose his job, a lot will be riding on next season.

I have already mentioned that the Dolphins looked to have found a really good head coach in Brian Flores, and with the influx of picks coming in the next couple of years things could really take off for the Dolphins. They need to find a franchise quarterback, and Dan would very much like them to re-sign Ryan Fitzpatrick as a mentor/capable backup, but if the Dolphins get the picks right they could be peaking as the Patriots enter into a new phase of the franchise.

Given the Pittsburgh Steelers lost their franchise quarterback to injury in week two, their 8-8 record is very creditable, and Mike Tomlin answered those who suggested that the Steelers might need to make a change at head coach. However, now having fixed the defence it is the offence that needs attention now, and given this franchise’s record of finding receivers in recent years you would like to think this is possible.  However, the Steelers are another franchise who will need a new quarterback sooner than later, but we shall have to see if Ben Roethlisberger has another trip to the playoffs in him.

The Cleveland Browns had a horrible year full of dysfunction and disappointment that ended with the firing of both Freddie Kitchens and GM John Dorsey. I wrote that there were warning signs before the season, and having created a roster full of character issues and not been prepared to change his role after a discussion with owner Jimmy Haslam, Dorsey lost his job for it. There is a lot to put right in Cleveland and it feels like they need a coach capable of building a winning culture at the Browns and sorting out Baker Mayfield. Given their track record it’s hard to have faith that Haslam will get this decision right but the fans in Cleveland definitely deserve better.

The results for the Bengals may have been hugely disappointed, but the culture in Cincinnati certainly seemed to hold up through the season and the players were saying good things about Zac Taylor. It looks like Joe Burrow is going to be the Bengals selection with the first overall pick, which is exciting because of both the player he is and the person he seems to be (Heisman Speech). I always hoped that Andy Dalton would get the right team to prove people wrong as under the right circumstances he was a really good quarterback (that 2015 team will forever haunt me because of his injury) and I hope he gets to enjoy success going forward, but I am ready for a new leader and hopefully a better team. It will need to be given the how good the Ravens are likely to be for years to come.

The Indianapolis Colts had their plans for the season thrown into the air with Andrew Luck’s surprise retirement, but further burnished the credentials of head coach Frank Reich by going 7-9 with Jacoby Brissett as quarterback and with some different injury luck could have won more game. I wonder if they will be looking at quarterbacks in the off-season, but given their franchise progress over the last couple of years under GM Chris Ballard I see them being competitive again next season. That said, the other reason they struggled this year was that after a Hall of Fame career, kicker Adam Vinatieri had a bad year before having knee surgery that ended his season. It’s hard to see a forty-seven year old man coming back next season, but you would have said that for a number of seasons before now and it has been an incredibly impressive career that should not tarnished by a difficult season.

The Jacksonville Jaguars had a disappointing year where a sixth-round rookie Gardner Minshew outplayed their prime off-season signing at quarterback. The Jaguars have provided a structural conundrum for a while and really need to establish an identity, but it is interesting that after a second season of missing the playoffs they are keeping GM Dave Caldwell and head coach Doug Marrone in place having fired Tom Coughlin once the players’ union announced that the Jaguars accounted for 25% of all their filed grievances. I’m really not sure what to expect next season as there are a lot of questions surrounding their roster and we shall have to see if they can get everyone pointed in the right direction next season.

The Denver Broncos finished the season with four wins out of five and in Drew Lock may well have finally found a quarterback to follow Peyton Manning. It may have taken some time for Vic Fangio to get things working for the Broncos in his first year, but if they can build on their late season success in the off-season then the Broncos can be back in contention next season.

The last year of the Raiders playing in Oakland saw them improve by three wins from 2018, but Jon Gruden still finished with a losing record and questions will continue to be asked about quarterback Derek Carr. The Raiders lost their first round safety early in the season, but rookie running back Josh Jacobs established himself as franchise back until he was injured and if the Raiders can continue to add talent they can compete for the playoffs in their first season in Las Vegas. There’s still something that is making me hesitate to say they will do this, but if Mike Mayock and Jon Gruden have a second good off-season and don’t have the distractions of Antonio Brown they could easily do so.

It felt like Philip Rivers was saying goodbye after the LA Chargers last game, and the franchise seems to be in flux having failed to build on last year’s success, hampered again by injuries and seeming short on fans in LA. I don’t know what is going to happen to this franchise in the off-season, head coach Anthony Lynn seems safe but the Chargers need a new quarterback and something to bring the fans in. To be honest I’m not sure they are going to make a success of life in LA and whilst I think a possible move to London is a non-story (as their owner colourfuly explained earlier this year), I do think they could rue the day they left San Diego, even if Dean Spanos is unlikely to admit it.

That’s it for today’s post – check back tomorrow for a round up of the NFC teams as Competition Thursday swings into gear.

I’ve Been Away Too Long

08 Thursday Aug 2019

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I’m a day late thanks to work, but with our first pre-season game in the books, Hard Knocks airing in the States and a full set of games incoming it’s time to get into pre-season mode.

What I Saw

I watched the Hall of Fame game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Denver Broncos with interest rather than being enthralled. I got my first looks at Drew Lock who looked every bit a rookie who needed time to develop both missing throws and holding onto the ball and so giving up sacks. It can be hard for a lot of positions to catch the eye when watching the broadcast version of pre-season games. It tends to be offensive skill players, pass rushers or a flashy linebacker play that gets your attention and for the Broncos this was running back Khalfani Muhammad who picked up fifty yards on seven carries and got a touchdown whilst looking like he had an extra burst of pace. That said, I have seen plenty of running backs catch my eye in pre-season over the years and not have it translate to the regular season. I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on pre-season for predicting the coming year, in fact I don’t tend to place too much stock in predictions full stop but it is still an important time of year for the players involved.

Even at this early stage Matt Schaub struggled to move the ball effectively and it looked for all the world that Kurt Benkert was making a good start to win the backup quarterback job when a toe injury took him out the game and he has now been placed on injured reserve. On such fates entire careers can turn so fingers crossed he at least gets another shot at some point.

I’m currently catching up with last of Amazon’s All or Nothing series that followed the Carolina Panthers, but so far I’ve only seen the first episode where we get introduced to Cam Newton who is pretty peak Cam smoking a cigar in the barber’s chair. We’ve already seen Greg Olson re-injure his foot and it will be interesting to see the rest of the season play out and what we get to see of Cam’s shoulder problems later in the year.

What I Heard

The NFL media had something of a lull post the draft and OTAs but is now in full swing. The Eagles have a daily podcast following training camp and obviously the news starts to churn as we get the endless hopeful updates out of camp and the injuries start to mount.

There’s been quite a lot of talk about the various running back holdouts and whether Ezekiel Elliot is worth the money he’s asking for or not. The prices of a player is going to be set by the market, but the current CBA is not working for running backs, particularly those selected in the first round. If you have a first round running back like Elliott then you can pick up their option for a fifth season, franchise them for two more and by that time the player is likely coming to the end of their career given how hard it is to play the position. For a quarterback the money is so high and the career is so long that you can manipulate your way out of a bad situation eventually, but the running back has so little leverage thanks to the their shorter careers. You can speculate all you want about the fairness of this and putting in an exemption for the running back to take into account the wear on their bodies, but the owners are going to want to be given something to negotiate for that and I can’t see that it will be a priority come the CBA negotiations as what do the players have to give other than playing more games?

What I Think

I’m going to allow myself a little worry here as what I think is that the Bengals have overhauled a lot in the off-season having moved on from Marvin Lewis. I think a lot of fans forget just how bad the team was before Lewis was hired and improved things dramatically. This is all up in the air right now and losing your first round draft pick to injury, a second offensive lineman to a medical retirement, and AJ Green to torn ligaments on a college field the team were playing on as part of the centenary celebrations is not exactly a great start. I was worried already, and whilst I’m not sure that the Bengals are as non-competitive in the division as most seem to think (there is still a lot of talent on the roster) – I’m not at all confident of a good record, in fact I’m gearing up for a tough season of watching. I just hope the rest of games are good.

What I Know

This pre-season I will be watching the Bengals as usual, the Oakland Raiders as they are on Hard Knocks, which could be very interesting given the roster moves and Antonio Brown’s sore feet that was apparently caused by a Cryotherapy mishap, and the Green Bay Packers as I’m intrigued to see how they look under a new coach.

What I Hope

I’m hoping that the Bengals manage to put a season together than can be built upon even if it doesn’t result in wins, that we get good entertaining games, and that more teams play good football. The higher the quality the better for all.

 

And that’s it for my first weekly column of the 2019 season. I’m not going to count how many weeks to go as it will likely give me a certain degree of panic but in no time at all the picks competition will be in full swing, and Dan’s Dad will likely be stumping us again with more NFL trivia.

This is not a drill, football is coming!

A Cynic’s Reaction to the Draft

02 Thursday May 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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