Tag Archives: Ezekiel Elliott

Maybe I Do Like Fantasy Football?

23 Wednesday Sep 2020

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It feels like on the field the news has been about injuries as we start to get a handle on how teams are shaping up after the shortened pre-season, whereas the news from the side lines are the head coaches who have been fined for violating the face-covering protocols and it was certainly odd to see Pete Carroll operating without a covering Sunday night. You would expect a coach to lead by example, and I am not surprised that having already released a sternly worded memo after week one, that fines are following.

What I Saw

Week two started with the Cleveland Browns getting the better of the battle for Ohio, but once again Joe Burrow was able to get the Bengals into contention by the end of the game that they ultimately lost 35-30. I have been impressed by the Bengals’ rookie quarterback who after only two games I am predicting is a franchise quarterback. If the Bengals can build an offensive line either through development in-season or through off-season acquisitions either by draft or free-agency then I think Burrow and this offence could be specials. Burrow gets the ball out, has not been overwhelmed by starting in the NFL despite a curtailed pre-season, and if he had a bit more support from the defence the Bengals might have won one of the opening pair of games they lost. Having watched this game, I went back to look at the Browns’ loss to the Ravens and whilst I still would say there are valid concerns about Baker Mayfield in his third year, the design of Kevin Stefanski’s offence should help him, particularly with its focus on running the ball, play action and QB bootlegs. There is a lot of talent on the Browns’ roster but it will be a concern that the Bengals made this a close game. Then again, given how the Chargers competed against the Chiefs this week and how good the Ravens look full stop, I think both the Browns and the Bengals are already showing progression from last season, even if the records don’t really show it yet.

I watched two of the early Sunday games this week. In my first, the LA Rams followed up on my podcast bold prediction (I’m really not sure I’m happy about Dan making me do this) and beat the Philadelphia Eagles comfortably 37-19. The Eagles still have not quite put things together in either the offensive or defensive phase of the game, but they do have the chance to get right this week against the Bengals. However, the Eagles’ usually strong pass rush was not able to bother Jared Goff, and while he may not be in the upper echelon of quarterbacks, if you give Goff time to run Sean McVay’s system then the Ram’s offence looks really good. The influx of youth at running back has got the Rams looking more like they did in the first two seasons under McVay, and with half a dozen players catching the ball there looks to be support for Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods. The defence isn’t particularly inspiring despite having two all-star talents in Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsay, and currently ranks fourteenth in the league by DVOA, but it doesn’t have to be that good for the Rams to win and as they adjust to new coordinator Brandon Staley they may well improve. I have my concerns about the Eagles, but this is a team trying to bed in new players and dealing with injuries so whilst the playoffs are not beyond the realms of possibility yet, they will need to start finding some form soon. Still, the Bengals could be just the team they need to face…

The other early game I watched was the thoroughly entertaining contest that saw the Jacksonville Jaguars taking on the Tennessee Titans, but ultimately losing 33-30. In truth, the Titans were the better team who now seem to play good enough defence and offence to always be competitive and this has been the case ever since Ryan Tannehill established himself as their starting quarterback last season. For the first few seasons that I was writing this blog, it felt like the Titans didn’t really have an identity or the players to catch your attention, but Mike Vrabel and some good drafting has changed all of that. A defensive ranking of seventeenth by DVOA and a top ten offence is a similar formula to the Rams and looks to be enough to compete in the AFC South dvision and perhaps have more success in the play-offs, although the Titans do look a step down from the truly elite teams. However, they did have to work for this game and part of that is because the Jaguars are looking pretty good for a team that a lot of people thought were in for a rebuilding year. However, rookie running back James Robinson looked dynamic running for one hundred yards and catching a a couple of balls out the backfield as Gardner Minshew continues to outplay his sixth round draft status. The young talent, when combined with the off-season hiring of Jay Gruden as offensive coordinator looks like it is going to be too good for the Jaguars to have the high draft pick some were suggesting was the goal for the season. Yes the Jaguars are playing a lot of young players, but it looks like they might have something and perhaps the absence of Tom Coughlin and his frequent fines is helping the talent flourish in Jacksonville. I’m not one for big predictions (despite Dan’s best efforts) but there might be some hope for Jaguars yet.

The Sunday night game was a humdinger of a battle between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots that the Seahawks held on to win 35-30 when their defence stuffed Cam Newton on a final chance to score a winning touchdown. It was looking ominous for the Seahawks as Newton lined up once again behind a jumbo formation in a shotgun position and received the snap. Newton had already delivered two rushing touchdowns and looked set to win the game, but the Seattle defence swarmed to stuff him short of the goal line. However, the exciting thing for the Patriots in this game was not that Newton looked good running the ball, but that he threw the ball as well as he has done for a long time. The power was there and the Patriots are beginning to look like a new iteration of their usual perennially successful franchise. Something similar could be said for the Seahawks, whose defence may be languishing as twenty-fourth by DVOA but are second in offence thanks to Russel Wilson playing outstandingly well. The drafting of DK Metcalf last year to pair with Tyler Lockett has given Russell a fearsome pair of receivers to throw to despite Doug Baldwin’s retirement. The Seahawks are one of three unbeaten teams in the NFC West, which is shaping up as the strongest division in the league, with last year’s Super Bowl runners up currently bottom of the divison with a 1-1 record thanks to a slew of injuries. This was a game that lived up to its Sunday night billing and I have a feeling both teams will be featured plenty of more times before the season is through.

What I Heard

It has been a busy week, but the thing that leaps to my mind is that a lot of people who power rank teams are vaulting the Ravens over the Chiefs into first in the league, and I can absolutely see why. If you win two games by over sixteen points to start your season and are top five by DVOA in all three phases of the game then you have not just got a good team, but a potentially great one. It is too early to say anything definitive, particularly based on DVOA given that we have an even smaller sample size to work from in week than usual due to the lack of pre-season games, but I am curious to see how things develop in the coming weeks. Particularly as we are being treated to the Chiefs visiting the Ravens on Monday night.

What I Think

It was frustrating not being able to get a coaching film post up last week. Some of that was work being busy, but there was also some kind of issues with getting coaching film at all last week as I heard several of the podcasters I listen to complaining about it, and the US usually get it a day earlier that we do. If I was really together, I should look at using a VPN to sign up for the US version of Gamepass again as the interface for the EU version is no where near as good as what we used to have. We don’t even get a list of plays to browse by when working with coaching film. It’s pretty frustrating that we are now multiple years into having an EU version of Gamepass and we’re still missing basic functions we used to have when signed up in the US. It’s also noticeable that the Twitter account for the EU NFL Gamepass service has disappeared, almost as if it was highlighting more problems than it was solving.

What I Know

I have avoided playing fantasy football for years after previous disappointments. I still believe in the importance of watching whole games, looking at coaching film, but I am enjoying our new dynasty league and not just because so far I’m winning games. It helps that we know everyone by name and I do like the dynasty format as it enables you to switch track if your teams accumulates too many injuries and with IR and the Taxi squad it feels like you are more in control of your own destiny. You’ll still need luck to win a championship, and it can still all go wrong even if you have made the right moves but that this way you still have options..

Let’s see if that’s how I feel when the losses start racking up.

What I Hope

I have seen that we already have coach’s film available as I was able to check the Seahawks defensive stand on the last play of the game on Sunday. I’m looking at some play diagramming options so there may well be some graphics in the future if I can get that to work. I’m just hoping I get to watch more than 3/8ths of a game this week so I can get an actual post up, but I will always have the memories of what happened to poor Ezekiel Elliot when the protection scheme meant he had to try to block Aaron Donald.

NFL Tankapalooza 2019: Who Wants the Prize?

16 Wednesday Oct 2019

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We are already a third of the way through the regular season and each conference has only one unbeaten team left, but the league’s two winless teams reside in the AFC as the Bengals join the Miami Dolphins in NFL Tankapalooza 2019. The difference is that the Dolphins were built with this in mind whilst the Bengals were planning to compete before the roster fell apart, but more of that later. For now, let’s make a start on rounding up NFL week six.

What I Saw

The Thursday night game was a bit of an odd one in week six as the unbeaten New England Patriots neat the New York Giants 34-14 but their offence still does not look in sync. In fact the opening score of the game was caused by the Giants’ punter hitting his own player and the Pats recovering and scoring a touchdown, but that said the Patriots’ offence ranks top ten by DVOA through week six and have we not learnt by now not to question Tom Brady? Even if there is no way he should be performing as well as he is this far past thirty-five, yet alone forty. When you pair this institutional success with the number one ranked defence you can see why people are already talking up another Super Bowl appearance for the Pats. There is still a long way to go though. This can also be said for the Giants who on top of starting a rookie quarterback, had a number of skills players injured and were never really going to compete in this one. It will take time to improve the roster and you can still make an argument that Daniel Jones would have been there at pick seventeen, but the Giants would argue that if Jones is a franchise quarterback there is no price too high to pay. It is too early to tell and somehow they are only one game back in the NFC East and whilst I’m really not expecting them to make a playoff push, they will be looking to play spoiler in the division and develop their young talent.

The first game I watched from Sunday was the second London game that saw the Tampa Bay Buccaneers become the second team to host at the new Tottenham Stadium as they lost 37-26 to the Carolina Panthers. The big takeaway from this game was that bad Jameis Winston turned up and gave away the ball seven times. He threw five interceptions, lost two fumbles and had a further two recovered by the team. You know it is going to be a bad day when your first pass is intercepted, and Winston managed to begin a second quarter drive with an interception as well as fumbling two plays in a row in another to make sure the opposition got the ball. It doesn’t matter if you throw for four hundred yards if your touchdown to interception ratios is 1:5 and it feels like we have the answer about one of the can’t miss quarterbacks of the 2015 NFL Draft (spoiler alert, the other features later). The steady play saw the Panthers win out eventually as Kyle Allan continues to keep the team in the race as Cam Newton focuses on getting truly healthy. There is already some talk of there being a controversy when Newton is healthy given the Panthers have done nothing but win since Allen got the start. The other things that struck me about the Panthers in this game was the depth of their defensive line as having put Kawann Short on the injury list they still had Gerald McCoy and Dontari Poe to play in the middle. It might be lazy to suggest that McCoy might have had a point to prove against his old team, but two and half sacks with four quarterback hits is a good day and the team finished with seven sacks.

Having seen that the New York Jets had won the first game of the season and with them being one of the few teams I haven’t seen yet I made a point of watching them heap further problems onto the Dallas Cowboys. It was an impressive turn around for Gang Green with Sam Darnold having his first three hundred yard passing day that included several beautifully placed balls and a ninety-two yard touchdown pass. The Jets are not suddenly a playoff team but it just highlights what a difference a starting quarterback can make and we now have eleven games to more fairly judge where they are as a team. The Cowboys however, will be very worried by a result that doesn’t doom their push for the playoffs but certainly doesn’t help. There seems to be less motion pre-snap to my eyes and Ezekiel Elliott is struggling to get going in the run game. This won’t be helped by injuries to both starting tackles, nor receiver Amari Cooper leaving the game early in the first quarter so you can perhaps expect some regression from the offence, but the defence is relatively healthy and currently ranked twenty-fifth by DVOA. I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of faith in Jason Garrett to turn things around but to do so the Cowboys need to get back to the formula that was working in the first three games,. Whether they can depends on health and coaching, but one to watch in the coming weeks.

The final game I watched this week is the latest loss for the Cincinnati Bengals who started the game with a kick-off return touchdown that sadly represented 41% of the Bengals total points as they lost 23-17 on the road to the Baltimore Ravens. I’m not sure how much this tells us about the Ravens given how the Bengals’ offensive spluttered and how Lamar Jackson is the perfect running quarterback to exploit the issues the Bengals have at the edge of their defence. This season is a lost cause for the Bengals and there are some worrying injuries to the Ravens secondary, which could be a problem for a defence that uncharacteristically languishes in the twenties by DVOA but the Ravens have a two game lead in the AFC North so remain the team to beat in the division.

I have a little addition for this week courtesy of Fran Duffy, an Eagles media employee who does several really good podcasts and watches a lot of film – there was really good breakdown of quarters coverage during this week’s Eagle Eye in the Sky Podcast and a breakdown of the play on this video.

What I Heard

I’ve already mentioned the big news of the weekend in terms of the Jets, but at the other end of the quarterback performance spectrum Jared Goff threw for only seventy-eight yards in the Rams loss to the 49ers. The Rams have reacted to the problems they are having on defence by trading away two first round picks to the Jaguars for Jalen Ramsey, who should certainly help their secondary. However, the problem with that is the combination of offensive line play and the injury restriction of Todd Gurley is hampering their offensive. This is compounded by the contracts they have given both Gurley and Goff when neither of them are carrying the offence right now. I understand going for it when you have a quarterback on a rookie deal but with the likes of Aarond Donald, Gurley and Goff all having big contracts this could become a real problem, particularly as Gurley’s knee is not going to improve massively given that he is suffering from an arthritic condition. The Rams could really miss those draft picks in the coming seasons.

The other quarterback I should mention is the other 2015 quarterback that will always be paired with Jameis Winston, namely Marcus Mariota who was pulled for Ryan Tannehill on Sunday and who has lost his starting position for this week’s games. This is a timely reminder that high drafted quarterbacks don’t always work out and a quarterback needs a lot of infrastructure around them to succeed. I think you can rebuild a team through a roster reset, but I don’t know it is a sure thing and whilst I like accumulating draft talent through getting more picks – if I was a Dolphins fan I would be worried about the talent that has left and whether one of those high draft picks is definitely going to be a franchise quarterback.

The other big topic of conversation has been the standard of officiating with the end of the Monday night game coming in for particular condemnation, but there was also a flurry of flags towards the end of the Jets and Cowboys. It’s too easy to rip the refs, particularly as football is very complex game to referee and the speed of the game has only got faster but there have been some pretty bad non-calls or ticky-tacky pass interference decisions. That said, it’s not the small calls that really annoy but the egregious ones and it seems pretty clear from the success rate of coach challenges that only those kind of pass interference calls are going to get overturned so can we get a memo to all head coaches to stop throwing the challenge flag unless someone actually got mugged and it was missed.

What I Think

I was glad that Mason Rudolph was able to go straight back to practice and the Bengals have announced today Cordy Glenn has been cleared to practice. These are grown men who are making their own decisions, but as someone who’s had his own issues with head injuries, I really hope they are listening to their doctors and are being duly careful. It seems to be the repeated sub-concussive blows rather than the big hits that cause a lot of the problems, but Glenn has been out for a couple of months now and as a linemen he is exposed to a lot of those sub-concussive blows. The Bengals could really do with a healthy Glenn, but the world could do with a healthy Glenn a lot more.

What I Know

I have really struggled to get to coaching tape this year, and even my re-arranged plan didn’t survive my work week and I have another series of interruptions coming this week. I’m not giving up on getting something done, but hopefully things will calm down in a couple of weeks, but that said I will be down in London to watch the Bengals in week eighth and suddenly we’ll be halfway through the season. Man is it slipping by quickly this year.

What I Hope

There is talk that AJ Green could be coming back soon and it would be really great to see him play live again and for the Bengals to be at least competitive against the Rams. In the meantime I hope that I can stay competitive in the picks competition as it looks like the only football based season win I’m going to get this year.

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.

Overreaction Week

11 Wednesday Sep 2019

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It’s that time of the season where we have one game of data and we overreact, so let’s see if we can find a nuanced view that sits somewhere between sixteen teams winning the Super Bowl and sixteen looking at the number one pick in next year’s draft.

What I Saw

The season opener that saw the Chicago Bears host the Green Bay Packers was not exactly the explosive opener I’m sure the NFL would have wanted, but it does look as if the Packers are going to have a more balanced team this season. The Packers and their improved looking defence were able to hold the Bears to three points in a 10-3 win. The Packers needed this performance from their defence as the Bears defence looked as fearsome as year but I did also wonder if the lack of game time for their starters might be playing a factor in the Packers offensive output. This did make me wonder about the rest of the weekend’s games given the increased prevalence of teams resting their starters but it turns out there were plenty of teams whose offence hit the ground running. The Bears were not one of them though and there is still a worry about what the ceiling is for Mitch Trubisky. We should be wary of reading too much into one game but we’ll have an idea of just how representative this game was once we have some more to put things into context.

I only managed to watch a little of the last episode of Hard Knocks thanks to various things, so all I saw was the footage of Antonio Brown catching balls in practice before discovering that he was arguing with GM Mike Mayock having posted a fine letter on social media, and then getting cut having had his contract voided. He signed for the Patriots over the weekend and this morning’s headline is that Brown has been accused of rape by a former trainer. I really don’t know what to say other than that this is a deeply troubling accusation, that the courts need to carry out their due process, and at this point does Brown not have to go on the commissioner’s exempt list?

Moving awkwardly back to football I watched three further games this week.

The Cincinnati Bengals did much better than I feared as they ran out 20-21 losers in their trip to face the Seahawks in Seattle. However, the defence played well limiting the Seahawks to two-hundred and sixty-eight yards whilst containing Russell Wilson and sacking him four times. Meanwhile, for all the talk of establishing the run, Zac Taylor ran his offence according to what the Seahawks sent out, and Andy Dalton threw for a career high four-hundred and forty-one yards. The Seahawks showed their experience in winning ugly, but it was a promising start for the Bengals who now need to learn how to win games like this.

The Detroit Lions must still be kicking themselves over the road trip to Arizona as having established a 24-6 lead early in the fourth quarter they froze up as the Cardinals managed to stage a comeback and hold on for a tie in overtime. For most of this game the Lions were in control, but they got too conservative in the fourth quarter on offence and managed to call a time-out on a play that looked to have converted a third down, then ran an awful long shot play that didn’t work, before having the resulting punt blocked. The positive for the Lions is that rookie tight end TJ Hockenson set a rookie record of one hundred and thirty-one receiving yards as well as scoring a touchdown but they’ll need to clean up their game management and have a tough looking slate of games coming up. The Cardinals looked like they could have a long season but even though Kyler Murray looks like a small quarterback, his movement skills are impressive and he managed to avoid taking any big hits. Murray needs to learn to throw the ball away earlier in certain situations, but if he can find and maintain the kind of rhythm he found in the fourth quarter then he could justify the faith the Cardinals showed by taking him first overall.

The final game I saw this week as they New England Patriots sending out a warning to the rest of the league with a 33-3 demolition of the supposed fellow AFC challengers the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Patriots coaching staff seem to absolutely have the number of the Steelers and worryingly for the league, looked sharp on both sides of the ball in their opening game. For a team that have often started slowly in recent years they played well and Tom Brady looked to have the deep ball in his armoury. As for the Steelers, they looked like they weren’t quite there on offence and the coaching staff need to find some way of stopping Brady shredding them, which to be fair is easier said than done. This was a tough way for any team to start the season so it’s not time to hit the panic button yet but the Steelers host the Seahawks in their first home game this week and they’ll want to get their season back on track quickly.

What I Heard

I head an interesting discussion with Warren Sharp on the Pro Football Doc podcast this week, where they discussed how teams seemed to be listening to the people who having looked at the numbers suggest throwing the ball on first down is a more efficient play call. Essentially the suggestion was that a team should call a throw on first down, but switch to a run play if the defence they faced or matchup favoured it, but otherwise passing on first down was more gave better results by trying to get a first down quicker than limiting the distance on third down. This increased uptake of passing first downs might be even more impressive if you remove the outliers like the Minnesota Vikings who only asked Kirk Cousins to throw ten times during the entire game this week.

I would need to see the maths on this to analyse this, but it feels logical to me. Particularly, when advocating that you still run if the situation is advantageous. For all the talk of balance and establishing the run, the Bengals threw a lot of passes against the Seahawks and it could well be that amongst the enlarged staff the Bengal’s new head coach asked for and got, are some more analytics people being listened to. I have thought for a while that it’s not so much that you have to establish the run, as maintain a credible threat so a defence can’t concentrate on stopping one thing. One to keep an eye on.

What I Think

It’s early in the season, so the crucial this is not to overreact. That said, I’m not sure that you can overreact as a Dolphins fan. I was chatting with Dan as the Ravens’ touchdowns kept coming up on Red Zone. The Cleveland Browns proved that an NBA style tank can work, and the coaches and players are absolutely trying to win but this is going to be a long difficult season for the Dolphins.

My suggestion was for Dan to adopt a fun NFC team to watch as he’s not going to stop supporting the Dolphins but for the sake of his sanity he needs something fun to watch on gameday. Here’s how bad it is, after five seasons of always picking the Dolphins to win in the pick’em competition he has announced he’s not doing it this year.

See what you’ve done Chris Grier!

What I Know

The top teams look pretty familiar and expected with the Patriots, Chiefs, Saints, and Rams all running out winners, although no one took that as literally as the Vikings did in week one.

There were plenty of surprises, although I wasn’t that shocked that the Browns struggled, but even I was not expecting them to give away that many penalties. The Titans were competitive last year and with Andrew Luck’s retirement they feel they should be in the mix for the AFC South. I may well have got the Falcons completely wrong, but I think I understand most of where I dropped points in the picks competition, although I clearly didn’t account for the Raiders maintaining their pre-season competitiveness into week one, but let I am not going to make any grand pronouncements until we have four games played.

I took a tenuous point lead in the pick’em competition despite my lack of preparation, but the regular season is marathon not a sprint. I am going to take a look at the Cowboys offence for my first coaching tape of the week as the discussion surrounding how it thrived despite Ezekiel Elliott’s rust interested me. I look forward to seeing how Dak Prescott played.

What I Hope

I am hoping to get through the coaching tape and picks despite being at a music festival this weekend (Hmmmh, I might need to find some extra hours from somewhere) and I hope all those teams who lost this week get a win on the board next week. However, it won’t happen as the season of hope is over – football is here and it is very much a results orientated business.

Still, good luck for the week two teams, I can see a number of teams (and fanbases) who will need it.

A Glance at the AFC

08 Sunday Sep 2019

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I am so far behind where I want to be, and right now I’m looking at a list of NFL lines with horror – I was meant to have spreadsheets and formulas but despite getting the first game of the season right, I’m looking at the rest of games without even a picking pin to help me and that seemed to serve Dan’s Dad so well last year.

So before I have a nervous breakdown about the week one lines I still have time to run through the AFC divisions, which I suppose might help me gather my thoughts.

AFC East

The obvious class of the division is the defending Super Bowl Champions who will once again be the team to beat. The New England Patriots may well start slowly again, but I won’t believe they can’t be a contender to repeat when I see it, even if Tom Brady has to stop at some point. The combination of Antonio Brown and Josh Gordon could be combustible off the field, but could be terrifying if Belichick and his staff can channel their talent.

This season the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets will both be hoping to be more competitive in the division as their young quarterbacks go into their second years. I have a bit more faith in the Bills’ coaching staff than Adam Gase but Sam Darnold might well be the better quarterback. I’m curious to see how these teams will develop, but I’m not sure this is the year they compete for the playoffs.

One team who definitely won’t be participating in that race is the Miami Dolphins, who committed to the Fish Tank when they traded away three starters last weekend. They are clearly stacking up picks for the future and trying to replicate the Browns approach to the rebuild. I feel sorry for Josh Rosen who after a tough rookie year has been traded to a team who look like they could be just as bad as the Cardinals were last year.

AFC North

I have to acknowledge my own bias, but the AFC North is one of the most competitive divisions in the NFL. That said the class of the division are sadly not the Bengals but the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens who even during their down years are still competitive. The Steelers look like they could be rejuvenated without dealing with Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell and Devin Bush looks like the piece the Steelers defence has been missing since the Ryan Shazier injury. The Ravens have looked good in pre-season and the defence seems to keep their identity regardless of additions and leavers. The offence will need to develop as you can only sustain so much running with your quarterback, but the comeback late in their wildcard loss did show signs that Lamar Jackson could throw enough for the offence to thrive.

The big offseason narrative of the off-season has been around the Browns, who have been amassing futher talent including Odell Beckham as John Dorsey sets the team up for what many believe will be a serious run for playoff success. My one concern though, is that Freddie Kitchens had not even run an offence until last season and now he’s in charge of the whole team. I’m not saying that they can’t succeed, and they may well challenge for the playoffs but I don’t think it is as a sure thing as a lot of people seem to.

I can’t argue that the Bengals should be taken as seriously being in the mix for the division, particularly given the ongoing injury problems along the offensive line, but I am looking forward to finally seeing what Zac Taylor’s plan is for the team. Although, on the road in Seattle has to be one of the toughest places to make a debut. I’m hopeful the offence can be effective as Andy Dalton has looked good in his limited pre-season snaps and Ryan Finley might be the future at quarterback although pre-season success for a rookie quarterback is no guarantee of success. However, I’m worried about the middle of the defence again and we’ll just have to see how things shake out.

AFC South

This is a division that was already looking very competitive and has been thrown up in the air by the shock retirement of Andrew Luck. The Indianapolis Colts have really improved under GM Chris Ballard and head coach Frank Reich and will still be competitive with Jacoby Brissett running the offence but the expectations for the season obviously feels different now.

The Houston Texans are a hard team to read, but the lack of full-time GM led Bill O’Brien to make some distinctly short term moves over the weekend and I’m not sure they were really in the position to make them even with the division opening up for them. The Texans have plenty of top tier talent but somehow have never quite convinced despite O’Brien having them in contention for the playoffs most seasons.

The Jacksonville Jaguars will be looking to bounce back from a dreadful season last year and part of this has been moving on from quarterback Blake Bortles as they look for Nick Foles to provide consistent play under coordinator John DeFilippo who was part of the Eagles Super Bowl winning staff that turned Foles into that game’s MVP. The defence was top ten last year by Football Outsiders DVOA despite knowing that the offence was going to let them down and will look to be dominant again. Meanwhile running back Leonard Fournette is healthy and will be wanting to demonstrate he’s worthy of the kind of contract handed to Todd Gurley and Ezekiel Elliott in recent years.

The Tennessee Titans were really competitive under Mike Vrabel despite quarterback Marcus Marriota dealing with a nerve issue in his throwing arm. This is Mariota’s fifth year in the league and for different reasons than Jameis Winston (who thanks to draft position he’ll always be compared to) he has never quite broken out. Still, on the evidence of his first season as head coach it might end up being Vrabel who becomes the most convincing player/coach connected to Belichick to lead a team. If they can keep Marriota healthy and the defence plays well, the team has the potential to be competitive. Definitely a team to watch in the early weeks.

AFC West

The obvious team to start with is the Kansas City Chiefs who have rebuilt their defence in the off-season but all the focus will rightly be on Patrick Mahomes who had an otherworldly first season at starter last season. They have just added three more years to Tyreek Hill’s contract despite the horror of his domestic situation and we really should not ignore his worrying history. However, the talent is apparently too valuable to ignore and so he gets to play despite many feeling he would get a huge suspension when the recording of him threatening his partner and discussing their child who has been removed from their care. The Chiefs’ were obviously worried about this as they drafted Mecole Hardman who looked good when I saw him in pre-season. I’m not sure how improved the defence really will be, but the combination of Andy Reid and Mahomes should see the Chiefs in contention for years to come.

The other team that looked to be obviously competitive in this division are the LA Chargers, but it feels like they might have been derailed before the season has even started. I have marvelled for years about Philip Rivers’ ability to run the offence without any protection from his offensive line and the team looked legitimately good for long stretches of last season but they have already got injuries to some key players across the roster including left tackle Russell Okung. They will probably still be a tough team to face but without a real home field advantage and multiple injuries this could be a tough year.

The Denver Broncos are hoping that new head coach Vic Fangio will give them the spark to rebound from the disappointments of the Vance Joseph era but this is a very different team to the one that went to two Super Bowls with Peyton Manning. That said, they still have a terrifying pass rusher in Von Miller and Fangio is an excellent defensive coach, but John Elway has not been successful at finding a francise quarterback outside of the free-agent signing of Manning and the Broncos go into this season hoping that Joe Flacco can turn round his decline of recent years. It might be a big ask but I have a lot more faith in the experienced Fangio to at least have the team more competitive than in recent years.

And so to the final team of the AFC, who were all over the news even before they were the subject of this year’s Hard Knocks. They seemed to be tearing the team down and starting again last season, but it is hard to see how their big free-agent acquisition Antonio Brown could have caused more disruption. After the cryogenic treatment issue that made a mess of his feet and kept him out of the start of training camp and the saga of what helmet he would play in that dominated the news – he got into an altercation with GM Mike Mayock after posting his fine letters on Instagram and was finally cut from the team after the Raiders voided most of the money from his contract. Brown has been picked up the Patriots in a move that surprises nobody and Dan finds deeply suspicious.

What does all this mean to the team? I’m not sure as he’s hardly been with them and I’m not convinced at all by Gruden in this second stint as Head Coach. The defence looked pretty good in pre-season but Derek Carr has just lost his best potential receiver and with so much turmoil on the roster in the last two season I don’t know what to expect and I don’t have a lot of faith. I always want teams to do well as selfishly it provides for better content and makes the league more fun to cover but it feels like in their final year in Oakland the Raiders have the potential to implode spectacularly or rally round together. As ever only time will tell.

The Season Starts Tomorrow, Whether I’m Ready or Not…

04 Wednesday Sep 2019

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The first game of the new season starts tomorrow night and my weekly schedule is in tatters again (I could bore you with IT project discussions, but I doubt you want me to) so I’m going take you through a quick stroll through the NFC divisions ahead of the Green Bay Packers taking on the Chicago Bears Thursday night.

What I Saw

The week four pre-seasons games are always a slightly strange spectacle as for the players it is their last chance to get play on tape, not only to try to make the team they have been training for but to catch on somewhere else.

The Bengals lost a 13-6 game against the Indianapolis Colts but undrafted rookie quarterback Jake Dolegala played well enough across the last two games to catch on as the third quarterback. Things were more heart breaking for rookie running back Rodney Anderson who tore his ACL having only just got back on the field from tearing his ACL back in college. The Bengals’ cuts were interesting in of themselves as they kept a lot of defensive line players and went light on line-backers, which seemed to be something of a weakness in the pre-season but playing nickel and dime packages will have to work for this move to pay off.

The Oakland Raiders are playing things close enough to their chest on Hard Knocks that we had an extended sequence of Jon Gruden asking for knocks on wood, but it’s hard to know exactly how they’ll play. They could well be better than last season but I’m not expecting them to be challenging for the playoffs. In their final game they lost narrowly to the Seattle Seahawks who seem to have their number for most of the game, but a late surge nearly got the scores tied but the Raiders couldn’t complete the two-point conversion. It looked like Nathan Peterman had played well enough to earn the backup gig (pretty much the only story line they seem to be focussing on in Hard Knocks is his contest with Mike Glennon ) and was on the roster over the weekend as the Raiders signed a fourth quarterback. This move was somewhat strange until the Raiders sent Perterman to IR with an elbow injury.

I have been fairly impressed with the Green Bay Packers defence through pre-season, but we didn’t get to see Aaron Rodgers running the new system in pre-season so all eyes will be on them in the season opener.

What I Heard

I am so far behind in my prep for the season, I’m pretty worried about my picks as I haven’t even setup my spreadsheet yet, but I have at least got an idea of what I think for each team. I’m still catching up weekend moves, but hey Ezekiel Elliott just signed and I’m just going to try to go with the flow so lets take a swing through the NFC.

What I Think

This is going to be slightly quicker than I had originally planned so here’s a lighting run through the NFC, and I will try to somehow get the AFC covered in the coming days as they don’t play until the rest of the league starts on Sunday!

The class of the NFC East looks to be the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys and I would give the edge to the Eagles. They look to have the depth built by a front office that seems to really know what they’re doing. The Cowboys continue to add talent to their defence and are no long beholden to Sean Lee’s health on that side of the ball, but a lot rests on how the new offence functions and how Ezekiel Elliot performs having not been there. I suspect it might take him a couple of weeks to get up to speed.

The New York Giants have a mismatched timeline with aging quarterack Eli Manning fading and Daniel Jones looking good in pre-season, but plenty of rookie quarterbacks have looked good in pre-season and failed to turn that into regular season results. I don’t understand what their approach is and so I think it could be another long season for the Giants. I actually think that Jay Gruden could be a good head coach, and he did well with the Bengals offence but the front office in Washington in such a mess that it’s hard to have faith in them fighting for the playoffs. Their offence will miss Jordan Reed, but after seven concussions I hope he steps away from the game.

Across to the AFC North and It’s harder to separate the top three teams. I have a soft spot for the Minnesota Vikings as Mike Zimmer will have that defence competitive, another new offensive coordinator will be hoping to improve Kirk Cousins play. They will battling a Green Bay Packers team with a new coach and a GM into the second year of his rebuild. I refer you to my previous comments about the Packers, but Rodgers is a dragon so if he’s healthy they have a chance. I think there has to be some regression for the Chicago Bears just because defences can’t maintain that level of turnover production, but they will be there or there abouts in the playoff hunt at the end of the year.

The Detroit Patriots aren’t building their roster like the Pats, they’re paying players like the Lions and so I don’t know if Matt Patricia is going to get the turnaround he’ll be hoping for after a tough first year.

In the NFC South I think it’s another three team division. The Carolina Panthers will have been alarmed by Cam Newton’s foot sprain, but he should be okay but a lot depends on the new normal for his shoulder. The New Orleans Saints could be the class of the division and it’s hard to bet against them, the one worry is that Drew Brees did not have the deep ball at the end of the season and a lot like Tom Brady, we’re waiting for time to catch up with him. The Atlanta Falcons cannot be as injured on defence as they were last season and head coach Dan Quinn is taking responsibility for it. They have invested a lot in the offensive line over the off-season, but we will have to see how things turn around.

I can’t see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quite getting into the playoffs mix, but I am prepared to be surprised because long time readers know I have a huge amount of respect for Bruce Arians and reunited with Todd Bowles as his defensive coordinator they could be a lot better than in recent years.

Finally, the NFC South has a stand out team in the LA Rams who are reconfigured, but I have faith that Sean McVay and Wade Philips will once again have the Rams rolling.

I have a feeling the Seattle Seahawks will be difficult to play all season and have themselves in the mix for a wildcard spot at the end of the season For all the focus on the run game, Pete Carroll knows how to get his teams into the postseason.

I’m not sure what the San Franciscos 49ers are going to do this season as in year three the combination Kyle Shanahan and GM John Lynch will be hoping that they finally compete. If things work out I think this is possible, but there are too many questions for me to predict it.

Finally, the Arizona Cardinals look like they could really struggle to me. It’s not that I’m down on the talent of their rookie quarterback Kyler Murray, but Kliff Kingsbury wasn’t winning in college and with wide splitting offensive lines and an up-tempo offence not protecting the defence, I’m worried that things could go bad quickly. I would love to be proved wrong as we should want more change makers in the often traditional NFL, but I’m not holding my breath.

What I Know

This is probably my most disorganised start to a season since year one of the blog. I know what I intend to get done, but only time will tell if it is possible. There will be coaching tape next week though!

What I Hope

I hope we continue to see concussions going down across the league, that more young quarterbacks make their teams competitive.

Also, can we beat last season’s number of safeties?

Delayed Again

15 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in Hard Knocks, Pre-Season

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Somehow it has been a week already and despite having watched all that I intended to in time, I had one of those days at work yesterday that meant there was no chance of getting a blog out on schedule, but there’s just time to read up ahead of the start of the pre-season week two games.

What I Saw

The first game I watched last week was the Houston Texans visiting the Green Bay Packers. In a move that is becoming increasingly common neither team actually played their starting quarterback but while the Texans gave Joe Web the entire game the Packers played three different quarterbacks as the Packers held off a late surge by the Texans to win 28-26. We all know that pre-season results don’t really matter, what is important is staying healthy and putting players in the positions the coaches want so they can evaluate them. However, there is an increasing narrative that coaches actually get more out of the combined practices that are becoming increasingly common across the league, although don’t tell Aaron Rodgers that. Rodgers made news by offering up some criticism of a kicking drill, but I’m not sure how much to make of this given that player safety is a genuine concern and everything Rodgers says seems to be dissected to death by the media these days. I’m not sure anyone outside of the team has enough information on how the relationship between Roders and his new head coach Matt LaFleur is, in fact I shall be following the Packers news more closely over the next few weeks as with so many starters resting it was hard for me to identify names and performances that jumped out of this game so let’s quietly move on to the next thing I watched.

Hard Knocks is a staple of the NFL pre-season and a lot of it hit familiar beats, although I don’t think we’ve seen the undrafted player grinding to make the team get cut in the first episode before. We didn’t get much detail of Antonio Brown’s foot injuries, and we seem to be predating his concerns over his helmet but we met plenty of characters and as ever a huge part of the flavour of the show is set by the head coach. I wasn’t that fussed by Gruden’s whole ‘eveyone has dreams but I want to give people nightmares’ speech, but that’s just me. I did warm to him across the episode then and I am interested to see Derek Carr get some playing time and how the series develops. This week we’ll get to see their join practices with the LA Rams and their game that the Raiders won 14-3.

The Raiders defence did a really good job of containing the Rams offense without any spectacular plays but looked really solid and is something to watch going forward to see how much it holds up. There is competition between Mike Glennon and Nathan Peterman for who will backup Derrek Carr and it was one of those tough ones where Glennon often looked good but threw two interceptions where as Peterman got a touchdown pass and a fifty-six yard run whilst throwing no interceptions but his average pass yard was 5.5 and this is a player who has looked good in pre-season before and thrown five interceptions when he has started. An area that looked obviously strong was the Raiders receivers, who even without Antonio Brown had three receivers with plays longer that fifteen yards and Carr will be hoping that he has even better chemistry when he gets to play. It’s hard to say too much about the Rams given they were resting starters all over the team as Sean McVay really doesn’t put much stock in pre-season and they went pretty well last year. Still, I’m sure fans of the Rams would like to see a little more production on offence this season.

So finally we have the Cincinnati Bengals traveling to the Kansas City Chiefs and getting beaten badly. Both teams actually played their starting quarterbacks in the first quarter and they moved the ball effectively. However, the Chiefs offence continued to roll, helped no doubt by two botched special teams returns that set them up with great field position. Special teams is one of those areas of football that often gets overlooked and yet is particularly relevant at this time of year as any player fighting for a spot on the roster is going to get a boost if they can contribute on special teams. Because I have been following the offseason reporting I was able to spot  rookie free agent Stanley Morgan Jr catch several balls in the last quarter and I wonder if he’ll get a chance earlier in the game this week. In fact whilst there were one or two concerning drops, there were a number of sold receivers looking to take advantage of the playing time currently vacated by AJ Green. It also has to be said that Morgan Jr might have benefited from playing with rookie quarterback Ryan Finley who looked to outplay incumbent backup Jeff Driskel who has been running some routes as a receiver and been in special teams meetings having approached the staff about adding extra value. I don’t know if the Bengals are eyeing up a similar role to the Saint’s Taysom Hill but Driskel is an impressive athlete. For the most part the Bengals offensive lines held up well despite mixing and matching lineups and a couple of holding penalties. The worrying part is the defence, and we know that the Chiefs are a stern test but they missed some tackles and apart from second year defensive end Andrew Brown no one particularly caught my eye other than the Chiefs’ rookie receiver Mecole Hardman who looked really dangerous and the pairing of him and Tyreek Hill are going to cause serious problems this season if Hardman can contribute to the level he looked capable of this week.

As an additional Brit-centric plug, if you have somehow missed Christian Wade’s touchdown run for the Buffalo Bills then take a look at this play as it’s impressive. He still has a lot of work ahead of him to impress a team enough to give him a roster spot but that’s a memory he will always have.

What I Heard

We still have the ongoing training camp chatter of players on the bubble, stock rising and falling as if this isn’t also people chasing difficult dreams that a good third will fail to achieve or maintain.

The discussion of Ezekiel Elliott’s contract has given way to speculation that the Cowboy’s quarterback Dak Prescott has turned down a $30 million a year contract as he seeks a $40 million year one. There are many ways to create a roster and it is interesting to look into this but it always seems a bit odd to speculate so heavily over contract numbers.

What is interesting is things like the Packers having to find a third fullback in a hurry due to both players they currently have carrying injuries and there are not that many fullbacks ready to just step up to the roster so it will be interesting to see how Tommy Bohanon plays having been signed on Monday and went straight into take reps with the first team offence.

What I Think

I understand why there are questions about the pre-season and there are times where there is objectively bad play. I find it interesting that coaches feel they getting better work in the controlled environment of joint practices, but I do like following the pre-season and going blogging about it for the sixth year in a row I do wonder what form it will take in the coming years.

What I Know

Given how busy the next couple of months look this will not the last time I have to modify my blog schedule but I will do my best to stay on top of it and the picks will still go up ahead of the games as I really would like to get the blog back in Bengals colours, and I know Dan thinks the Dolphins’ version of the logos look particularly fine, but then he might be biased.

What I Hope

That the Bengals defence looks better this week and that I start to get a better feel for the Packers roster as they look to implement the new names and system.

Now I’m off to try to catch up with all the things I’m behind on!

Saturday Divisional Games

12 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs

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Now we have all the teams that are left in the competition playing it is time to look at the Saturday games.

Indianapolis Colts (6th) @ Kansas City Chiefs (1st)

The Kansas City Chiefs have been the talk of the NFL all season thanks to their high powered offence and the play of Patrick Mahomes in his first full season. Mahomes threw fifty touchdown and only twelve interceptions as he account for five thousand spectacular yards. We’ve had no look passes, differing arm angles and regular how did he do that plays, which have made Reid’s offensive scheme hum. This has been helped by the glut of talent the Chiefs have at the skills positions, and although there was a wobble after they cut running back Kareem Hunt after video of his assault of a woman in a hotel surfaced (because TMZ are better at investigating these incidents than the NFL are), the Chiefs finished the season with two thirty points games. The worry for the Chiefs is that their offence may match their overall ranking of first by DVOA, and their special teams are ranked second, but their defence is ranked twenty-sixth and so whilst they went 12-4, they have had to win a lot of shoot outs.

There are other problems though. One is that the Chiefs home playoff record has not been good, and whilst they will hope to overturn that this weekend, it would not exactly be a surprise if Mahomes shows some nerves early in the game. They welcome a Colts team who went on the road to beat their divisional rivals last week and come into this game with good form and great offensive and defensive lines. The other problem I want to mention for the Chiefs is that their defence was bottom of the league in rush defence by DVOA, and so whilst the Colts are not especially great at running the ball, they don’t have to be. I don’t have strong feeling on who is going to win this game, but I am really looking forward to seeing it as I think it could be spectacular given the Chiefs offence skill and defensive problems. I could see the Arrowhead crowd getting nervous if the Chiefs don’t get off to a good start and I do think an upset is possible. I’m not going to call it as a home teams in the divisional rounds have been won of the safer bets of the playoffs recently, but it definitely could happen.

Dallas Cowboys (4th) @ LA Rams (2nd)

The LA Rams may have suffered a disappointing Wildcard loss last season in Sean McVay’s first year, but they built on that momentum and hit the ground running this season. The offence was as scary as anyone’s up to their week twelve bye. Injury has hampered them a little since then, and one of the big questions going into this game is just how healthy is Todd Gurley. However, the signing of CJ Anderson helped them right the ship at the end of the season, and if Jared Goff’s form has dipped since the Rams lost Cooper Kupp they have done enough to be seeded second in the NFC. On the other side of the ball, Aaron Donald has had a formidable year as arguably the leagues best defensive player, but things have never quite gelled for all of the free-agents they have brought in and so whilst the offence is second in the league by DVOA, the defence is nineteenth. This is still better than the Chiefs, even if it is a similar formula and they may run into similar problems against the Cowboys as I see the Chiefs having with the Colts.

The Cowboys were the only home team to win in the Wildcard round and take their own formula to face the Rams. This starts with an offence built around Ezekiel Elliott running the ball and increasingly catching the ball out the back field. The addition of Amari Cooper has opened up defences for the Cowboys, but losing Allen Hurns last week to a nasty dislocation/broken fibula will hurt the passing game as will the niggles Cole Beasley and Tavon Austin are dealing with. However, the Rams defence has struggled against the run, only ranking twenty-eighth by DVOA despite the presence of Donald and Ndamukong Suh in the middle of the defensive line. The Cowboys formula of running the ball could definitely work in this game. Meanwhile the Cowboys defence has looked pretty good as well and finished the season ranked fifth in rushing defence by DVOA. If they can limit the Rams effectiveness in running the ball and not over commit to the play fakes of the Rams then they could well sneak this game and you know the Cowboys fans will likely be well represented in the Coliseum this Saturday. I lean to the Rams in this one, but I can make a formula for the Cowboys to win this game.

Close games have been a feature of this season. We could well have two of them today!

Wildcard Saturday

05 Saturday Jan 2019

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So here we are at the start of the playoffs with a Wildcard Saturday that features two games.

Indianapolis Colts (6th) @ Houston Texans (3rd)

The first game of the playoffs is an AFC South divisional rivalry game that sees the Texans host the Colts.

The Texans took a slightly strange route to the playoffs as they lost their opening three games and there was talk that Bill O’Brien’s job was in danger, but then they went on a nine game winning streak before alternating wins and losses. The strength of this team is their top ten defence, even if their special teams unit does rank higher by DVOA, but this defence features a strong front seven including a healthy JJ Watt and a slightly suspect pass secondary. Meanwhile on offence they have relied on running the ball and Deshaun Watson’s legs to compliment DeAndre Hopkins amazing ability as receiver. Hopkins should be considered amongst the best receivers in the game but does not have a lot of help around him and the Texans’ offensive line is definitely a problem. We’ll take a look at how this might play out shortly, but firstly let’s talk about how the Colts got to this game.

The Colts also had a tricky start to the season that included an overtime loss to the Texans that sparked the Texans’ nine game winning streak. However, slowly all three phases of the team came together in Frank Reich’s first season in charge and that in of itself is something worth talking about. The Colts were ready to officially announce Patriots’ offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels as their new head coach once the Super Bowl was over, only for McDaniels to pull out at the last minute and leave the Colts scrambling to find a new coach and what a coach they found. Frank Reich left the Super Bowl winning Eagles and was able to use the staff that had already been assembled for McDaniels to turn the Colts from a team who went 4-12 last season to a 10-6 team that returned Andrew Luck to health and form. The defence was the first thing to come together, ably led in tackles by rookie linebacker Darius Leonard, they dragged themselves into the tenth best unit in the game by DVOA. Meanwhile, for pretty much the first time in his career Andrew Luck has an offensive line that gives him more than a couple of seconds to get rid of the ball and Marlon Mack has given them enough balance as a runner to make this offence effective. We all knew that TY Hilton was a great receiver but free-agent acquisition tight-end Eric Ebron has also benefitted from his new surroundings, contributing thirteen touchdowns to go with his seven hundred and fifty yards.

This should be an interesting matchup between two teams who obviously know each other well. Earlier in the season Deshaun Watson was over exposing himself running the ball and had to deal with bruised lung and ribs that were serious enough that he was bussed to one road game rather than flown. The defence of the Colts should be able to match up to the Texans’ offence, particularly as they will be able to double Hopkins without too much worry as long as they can contain Watson. Meanwhile if the Colts offensive line can protect Luck as they have recently then the Colts should be able to move the ball effectively on the Texans. The Texans lost their last home gain against the Colts, and whilst I can see it being another close game I actually kind of fancy the road underdog to spring the upset.

Seattle Seahawks (5th) @ Dallas Cowboys (4th)

The Dallas Cowboys are another team who started relatively slowly, going 3-5 before turning things around and only losing one more game this season. The catalyst for this transformation appears to be the trade for Amari Cooper, and whilst his success does not negate the argument that the Cowboys traded away too much to get him, the move certainly helped this team. As did the defence’s transformation from one that was overly reliant on linebacker Sean Lee to one that thrived on the play of rookie linebacker Leighton Vander Esch and Jaylon Smith finally beginning to show some of the college form that excited so many before his horrible knee injury in his final bowl game. The Cowboys are actually only ranked twenty-first in the league by DVOA, although their defence is top ten but their winning formula has been utilising the NFL leading rusher Ezekiel Elliott more effectively whilst Amari Cooper has opened up the passing game enough to make the Cowboys a functional offence if an uninspiring twenty-fourth by DVOA.

This Saturday they host a Seattle Seahawks team that many had written off in pre-season as they overhauled their roster, moving away the last vestiges of the Legion of Boom defence and collecting young talent. However, Pete Carroll has returned to the formula that saw him have so much success and so whilst the defence only ranks fourteenth in the league by DVOA, the offence ranks in the top ten thanks to their run first approach and Russell Wilson efficient play in the passing game. The now thirty-year old quarterback threw thirty-five touchdown and only seven interceptions, relying on his chemistry with Tyler Lockett and Doug Baldwin when available. However, Chris Carson has run for eleven hundred yards in fourteen games and it is the run first approach that has allowed the Seahawks to remain competitive and overcome an 0-2 start to make the playoffs.

This should be a bruising old school game that is going to feature two tough defences and a lot of running the ball. The Seahawks actually rank nine places better than the Cowboys by overall DVOA and given Pete Carroll’s playoff experience, not to mention a Super Bowl win, it is hard not to give them the edge over Jason Garrett’s Cowboys. It might be one for the football purist but I’m certainly looking forward to it.

20 down, 12 to go!

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Dan's Thoughts

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This is my first blog post since Christmas, and my first of 2019, so I hope you had a great festive period. It’s back to reality now though, and the work really begins for the 8 teams left in the running for the Vince Lombardi trophy.

I don’t want to dwell on it too much as I want to spend the majority of this post looking at the ‘Wildcard 8′ but I feel I must mention – the Dolphins were woeful in the last 2 games of the season, and it’s ended up costing Adam Gase his job. To me, it’s not really a surprise if I’m being perfectly honest. He was even more Average than Average Andy in Cincinnati – going into Week 16, his record was 23-23 as Dolphins head coach, and with owner Stephen Ross’ ambitious expectations for his team, that doesn’t really cut it unfortunately. That being said, I can’t see him being out of a job for long as he’s known as being fairly highly regarded amongst a number of teams, especially the Browns, who are also on the look out for a new coach. I wonder how popular that would be with Jarvis Landry…?! The problem the Dolphins have now is who might come in to replace him – news I’ve heard has Rex Ryan going around telling everyone who will listen that he’s getting the job, which is a bit worrying to me (although I’m not 100% sure how reliable the source of the story was!).

Another final point of note on the ‘Fins before I move on is the annual ‘End of Year Ejections’ from this weeks game. This year, it was Kiko Alonso and Robert Quinn who were ejected in the third quarter for Unsportsmanlike Conduct and Unnecessary Roughness. It’s difficult to defend Kiko on this one; it’s not the first hit like this that he’s made this year, and he’s started to get comparisons to Vontaze Burfict for similar hits. It decimated our defence for the game, but even before that point, we’d established a terrible stat of the most yards allowed in a season in franchise history… not a great record to be breaking.

So, on to the Wildcard 8! There’s four games this weekend for the right to go onto play the Chiefs, Patriots, Rams and Saints in the Divisional round. I’ll go through each of the games and make my predictions…

Saturday kicks off with the Colts visiting the Texans. The Colts snuck through on Sunday night and I’m looking forward to seeing how the Houston rushing game develops. This year, the Colts haven’t allowed a single rusher a 100 yard game – especially impressive considering they’ve faced the likes of Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry (twice!). As divisional rivals, they’ve met twice already this year, sharing wins. My pick for this one is the Houston Texans.

Next, we have the Dallas Cowboys hosting the Seattle Seahawks. For me, this is going to be the game of the weekend, and is definitely one I’m looking forward to catching. Both teams finished 10-6, and both are largely here due to a really strong finish, with Dallas winning 7 of their last 8 games, and Seattle winning 6 of their last 7. Dallas are a good team but I just think this might be the end of their road, so I’m picking the Seattle Seahawks.

Moving on to Sunday, the early game is back to the AFC, where the Chargers and Ravens meet. This one’s quite straightforward to me having watched quite a few Chargers games this season and being really impressed – I genuinely think that Philip Rivers is finally going to get another Postseason run, so I’m going to go with the LA Chargers. That being said, I strongly suggest you go back and check out the Ravens/Browns game from Week 17, where the Ravens clinched their post-season visit – really good game with an exciting ending.

Finally we have the Eagles and the Bears who meet late on Sunday. These two teams are, in their own ways, a bit of a surprise. Not many people would have picked the Bears to win the NFC North, especially so convincingly. They’ve done incredibly well this year though, and have gelled brilliantly as a team. On the other hand, while it shouldn’t be surprising that the Eagles are there (given that they’re the defending champions), they really struggled with consistency this year, and if it wasn’t for a strong end to the season, they might have missed out. A lot of this is going to depend on how Nick Foles recovers this week – he’s got sore Ribs following Sunday’s game with the Redskins. With Carson Wentz out, they may struggle if he isn’t at his best. This is the most difficult to call of the weekend I think, but I’ll go for the Chicago Bears.

Only one final thing remains before I wrap up for the week – a quick look at how my bet is looking for the Rams:

And that’ll be that. This time next week, we’ll be down to just 8 teams, and there’ll be only 7 games (plus a pro-bowl, which listeners of the pod will know we don’t count!) left this season. Buckle up – there’s still a lot of football to be played!

Until next time…

@TWFDan

The NFL’s Problem is a Reflection of Society

05 Wednesday Dec 2018

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I don’t really want to be writing this post, there were comebacks and playoff changing results over the week thirteen games to discuss, another coach fired, and closer to home the picks competition through thirteen weeks has me level with Dan’s dad, but there’s a bigger topic to discuss.

There are always so many things going on around the league and I didn’t quite get to the San Francisco 49ers cutting Reuben Foster after he was charged on a count of domestic violence, and the subsequent claiming of him off waivers by Washington. This wasn’t so much ducking the issue as the timing of news not quite lining up with when I was sitting down to write. However, on Friday TMZ released a video they had obtained of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Kareem Hunt shoving and kicking a woman in an incident that took place in in a hotel back in February. The Chiefs were aware of the incident but cut Hunt straight away as the video, which they had not been able to obtain, proved that Hunt had lied to them. I don’t know if seeing the reaction to Washington’s claiming of Foster, or the fact that there was video was the deciding factor, but no team put a claim in for Hunt so he cleared waivers and is now a free agent.

Both players are now on the commissioner’s exempt list and we are back to discussing the way the league handles discipline and in particular violence against women.

We have moved on slightly from the two game suspension that was handed to Ray Rice after his domestic violence situation, but the parallels with the Hunt situation are all too clear given that once again it was the media finding the video that triggered a response from the NFL. You can make the argument that it is harder for the NFL to approach the relevant parties and obtain the video through official channels than it is for TMZ to get hold of the video but it is hard to feel sympathy for a league that hadn’t even interviewed Hunt about the incident as part of their investigation. I’m also not sure how much credit the Chiefs should get for their quick action as this is not the only incident that is swirling around Hunt and they still have Tyreek Hill on their roster, who assaulted his pregnant partner whilst at college and was suspended but they drafted him anyway.

Even when there is video of an assault that doesn’t seem to always provoke a reaction from a team or the league. The punishment for Joe Mixon, who punched a woman in a coffee shop after an altercation that left her with multiple facial fractures having hit a table as she fell, was to not be invited to the draft combine and the Bengals saw fit to draft him in the second round…

To me eyes we have an interaction of three factors that contribute to the poor way the NFL handles these situations.

The first factor is an extension of something that permeates the league for all players, which is the greater the talent, the greater the tolerance and teams seem incapable of resisting a talent that could give them a competitive edge on the field except if it directly hurts their profitability. There are multiple players currently playing that have such incidents in the past but there is still no roster spot for Colin Kaepernick after his ghastly crime of peaceful protest. It can only be because Washington were worried about missing out that they put in a claim for Reuben Foster. They can talk all they want about having multiple players on their roster who played with him in college and who could help provide an environment for him to turnaround his life. At the end of the day they were willing to pay thousands of dollars a week to a player who cannot play, train or even attend a game at the moment, in the hope that if he can work his way back onto the field his talent will be worth the bad PR. Washington are not the only team who have run this equation and come to such a decision, although few have been quite so ham fisted in the execution or seemingly surprised by the negative reaction to their move.

The second factor is that it seems that even with a new standard released by the league (without consultation with the players I should add) after the Ray Rice incident that saw Ezekiel Elliott miss six games last season, it still feels like the process is far too arbitrary. Some combination of the teams and the league investigate situations and then something might or might not happen, unless a video appears and then something definitely will. Now carrying out your own investigation is not easy and it takes a long time for police investigations and legal proceedings to be fully resolved. Suspension and placement on something like the commission exempt list is not in of itself a bad idea, but the arbitrary way the NFL seems to handle the investigations and subsequent discipline does not inspire confidence. Nor does the lack of openness in the process, which would help people to understand how decisions have been made. Currently it feels like these decisions are currently made in reaction to media scrutiny rather than the nature of the situation themselves.

Finally, the third factor is that we don’t handle these incidents well as a society. If the recent movements to give greater voice to the victims of domestic or sexual violence have shown us anything, it is not only that such violence and sexual predation is wider spread than many were prepared to admit, but that it is still very hard to get such cases successfully prosecuted. Whether it is the rugby rape trial in Ireland, or the Greg Hardy case where he was found guilty initially but late cleared when the girlfriend who had been choked and thrown on a couch covered in assault rifles couldn’t be contacted to be tried again in front of a jury, it is hard to get justice or establish what happened.

If the legal system doesn’t seem to be serving victims and results in a confused situation, is it any wonder that sports leagues, setup to govern a sport are failing to adequately deal with it but that doesn’t mean they get a free pass. The NFL could handle this so much better. There is a world of difference between someone being denied the opportunity to make a living and having the right to play a sport for a lot of money. The NFL is already providing some training and resources to players, but they could both be more active in advocating for change and holding their players to a higher standard.

It is all too easy to slip into characterisation of men who commit assault or acts of domestic violence as men out of control. Yes there can be anger issues, sometimes substance abuse, and if these are a result of work environments then teams and the league have a duty of care to their players but the narrative of monsters is damaging because the problem is most commonly men. Most assaults on women are carried out by men they know, not random monsters or strangers but by someone they know. NFL players are people with specific talents but still people, and this is a problem that is not limited to sports stars, it is a reflection of very real problems that are far too prevalent in society. With the resources available to them sports franchises can do more and if you ask why, how about because they have the power to reach directly into the very culture that needs to change? If we are to stop this problem then men need to talk about it, call each other out on attitudes that need to change, and be willing allies in the changing of society. It’s not a simple thing and requires consistent engagement and discussion, but it’s that rather than paying lip service that will change things. Kareem Hunt has been asking for forgiveness and has acknowledged he has done wrong. He can ask for forgiveness, and maybe one day he can earn it, but it should take more than words to deserve it. It’s not something we can forget, and nor should we. Only his actions going forward can rehabilitate him but given his age and talent I suspect that we have not seen the last of him on a football field. I’m not sure if he can earn that chance in my eyes, and certainly the NFL should make damn sure he tries before they let him anywhere near the field, but I don’t know if they will. I’m not sure that doesn’t speak more eloquently about the scale of the problem than anything I have written in this post but I had to try. We all do.