Tag Archives: Jared Goff

Quarterbacks: The Injured and The Young

18 Wednesday Sep 2019

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One of the things that makes the NFL such a spectacle week to week is that each team only plays sixteen games so every one matters and a teams prospects can change really quickly as several teams saw this weekend. Even a team with the roster depth of the Philadelphia Eagles can get undermined if too many injuries cluster around the same position, but I’ll cover that when I write up their game in the section, so let’s get started.

What I Saw

The week two Thursday night game saw the Tampa Bay Buccaneers break my Thursday night line picking rule and win on the road against a Carolina Panthers team who have now fallen to 0-2. It was not a great spectacle that even started off looking strange as thanks to the weather the broadcasters only had two camera angles available and further lightening problems saw the game paused until it cleared. Neither team really shone, but for the Buccaneers Jameis Winston played without throwing an interception and didn’t get the Buccaneers into trouble while Cam Newton continued to look nothing like himself. It’s hard to evaluate from the outside what is going on with his shoulder and foot problems, but he is not effective at the moment and as good as Christian MaCaffrey has looked, he cannot carry the team when they are struggling in the red zone and Cam is missing so many consecutive passes. A trip to Arizona might help get the Panthers get back to winning ways, but they have not made things easy for themselves.

The final important part of this game to mention was that it was my first safety of the season – now this is actually the third of the year and I need to cover them properly at some point – but yes I am still tracking them! In this one the Bucs were pinned back to the three yard line by the Panthers punt team, and on second and eleven Luke Kuechly burst through the line to tackle Peyton Barber in the end zone and prevent him from getting the whole ball back across the goal line.

It was a slightly light week of watching for me thanks to work and things going on at the weekend so I only got through half of the coaching tape from the week one game between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants but it was enough for me to be impressed. The Cowboys might have started off slowly, but their offence is transformed with the kind of pre-snap motion you see all over the league as well as plays where running backs split out, line up as receivers and run routes, which the Patriots used very effectively last season. The added benefit of this offensive transformation is the way Dak Prescott is playing. There were two throws that impressed me with their precision and timing, but Prescott has also amassed six hundred and seventy-four yards with seven touchdowns and only one interception in his opening two games. Right now the Cowboys look like one of the better teams in the NFL and if they can stay healthy then this could be a very good year indeed for them indeed.

I have watched two games from Sunday and I will start with the painful one from my perspective, as the San Francisco 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals very convincingly 41-17. The 49ers managed this whilst not so much looking spectacular on offence as benefitting from some truly awful tackling from the Bengals defence who looked so good in week one. The pass rush still looks good dangerous and it could just be a blip, but in a home opener it was a pretty dispiriting performance. The Bengals’ offence didn’t do much better barring a couple of flash plays. There are receivers in the passing game with John Ross looking good for a second week in a row and Tyler Boyd leading the team in receiving yards, but two one-hundred-yard receivers could not produce consistently enough for the Bengals to keep them in the game. More injuries hampered the offensive line and for a second week in a row the run game never got started. More worryingly the Bengals’ next game sees them travel to an unbeaten Buffalo Bill’s team who might not finish as the class of the AFC at the end of the season but look setup to be a difficult team for anyone to face. I have a nasty feeling I’ll be writing about an 0-3 team next week.

The final game I saw was the Atlanta Hawks hosting and beating the Philadelphia Eagles in a highly entertaining 24-20 contest. The Eagles really struggled with injuries in this game losing multiple offensive players early and Carson Wentz missed a series with a rib injury. It was an entertaining game but at times there was sloppy quarterback play for both teams and five interceptions were thrown between Wentz and Matt Ryan. That said the Falcons did flash on offence several times and sealed the game with a beautiful fourth and three play that saw the left tackle Jake Matthews get down field and block a poor DB to spring Julio Jones for fifty-four yards and the winning touchdown.

What I Heard

There has been much discussion of quarterbacks with two of the elite tier going down injured and the announcement finally coming that Eli Manning will be benched for Daniel Jones. Unusually, Sam Darnold did not even make the start of the week two game having been ruled out with mononucleosis, but has been cleared to return to the facility and is aiming for a week five return. What state the team will be in by then is anyone’s guess as poor Trevor Siemian was lost for the season to an ankle early in the game. The former Denver Broncos quarterback has played well when healthy but was not able to stay that way in Denver and on a one year deal this is pretty much the worse case for him.

The Cleveland Browns did what they should have done and won 23-3 but they are still sloppy. You also have to wonder about the game management when a running back comes out of the medical tent after a concussion check and gets thrown back into the game despite it being the fourth quarter with the game well and truly in hand.

What I Think

Whilst picking games on Sunday I mentioned that there would be more 1-1 teams than 2-0 or 0-2 teams, which is my way of reminding myself that we can’t take too much as set in stone from one game for each team. Unfortunately, I promptly forgot that as I actually made my selections and that partially accounts for me having such a poor week, but it also feels like that the ratio of records is different than in previous years. What I ought to do is go look at the numbers, but it’s my birthday tomorrow so things are a little all over the place and I don’t have time today, but I might well have a look at some point.

What I can tell you is that there are nine teams that have gone 2-0 to keep an unbeaten record and matching nine who have lost both of their games. Thanks to the Detroit Lions’ tie with the Arizona Cardinals we have a team with a 1-0-1 record and a corresponding 0-1-1 record while twelve teams have gone 1-1.

The teams that are really in trouble are those like Washington who have lost two divisional games already and the Pittsburgh Steelers who have lost both games and their starting quarterback. The New Orleans Saints have also lost a starting quarterback and will need Teddy Bridgwater to play well if they hope to keep themselves in contention until Drew Brees can return form surgery on his torn thumb ligament. There are some teams that may well right themselves from a solitary loss but I’m finding it hard to see turn arounds for the 0-2 teams which is a worry. The Steelers have tried to strengthen this year’s team despite Roethlisberger being done for the season with his elbow injury by trading next year’s first round pick for Dolphins safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, which is a brave move and if any team can turn it round it might be the Steelers but the defence needs to come together as well as the offence.

What I Know

This is going to be one of those ones that is going to haunt me for a while, as I know that Lamar Jackson is really good and he is going to torture my Bengals for a long time. He is rapidly becoming one of my favourites of the young quarterbacks and we are beginning to amass quite a list: Patrick Mahomes (who somehow is possibly playing better this year), Jackson, Jarred Goff who has been to a Super Bowl, Josh Allen has got the Bills to 2-0 whilst Kyler Murray has already show flashes in a couple of games. I may not be too keen on the way Baker Mayfield conducts himself at times but he was good enough to give the Browns hope whilst Sam Darnold has shown flashes and people were excited by Daniel Jones in pre-season despite him being picked too high. Still, I haven’t had to work hard to find this quarterbacks, and whilst I’m certainly not wish the end of the careers of the likes of Brees, Brady (the Patriots were scary good again on both offence and defence), or Roethlisberger – the quarterbacks that follow them are suddenly looking a lot better than it was only a couple of years ago despite the retirement of Andrew Luck and the stalling of careers like Derek Carr. I’ll finish by saying that Dak Prescott has looked really good through two games so one to keep an eye on as he approaches getting his second contact.

What I Hope

I want the Dolphins to do something in week three that brings Dan joy and the Bengals surprise us all with a win up in Buffalo. Failing that, I hope the Ravens @ Chiefs lives up to the expectations I have them because I think this has the potential to be the best game we’ve seen yet.

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The Super Bowl Aftermath

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

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This is not quite the final post of the 2018 season for me as I have at least one coaching tape post that I am going to write on the Super Bowl, and frankly I’m tempted to do both sides of the ball for both teams but I’ll get to that in a bit.

So what can I tell you about the Super Bowl that you don’t already know or saw for yourself? I was intrigued by the game and I really am looking forward to digging into the coaching tape, but no one can claim it was a spectacle. For a season so dominated by high powered offences, the Super Bowl was a demonstration that not only can defences still compete, but they can still win championships.

I joked on Sunday that my dream of a game without touchdowns decided by a safety was still in play after the first quarter, but whilst we got a field goal in the second quarter, we didn’t see a touchdown until the fourth quarter and the game finished 13-3 to the Patriots.

Whilst all the headlines have understandably gone to Belichick and Brady as they won a sixth Super Bowl, it is worth pointing out that Brady had his own problems thanks to the Rams’ defensive coordinator Wade Philips and it was only due to an unpractised switch by Josh McDaniels in the fourth quarter that the Patriots scored any touchdowns. This is the first match-up I am going to look at in the coaching tape so I can see what was happening but Tom Brady started the with an interception on his first pass and the Patriots struggled to move the ball effectively all game. The obvious stand out offensive player of the game was Julian Edelman, which explains why he was declared MVP but as important as his contribution was to the Patriots win, in a game that was so dominated by two sets of defences, perhaps a defensive player should have won that award. After all, Stephon Gilmore finished the  game with five tackles, forced a fumble and picked off Jared Goff, which led to the Patriots effectively sealing the game with a second field goal.

To just put this into context, Bill Belichick and new Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores managed to limit the second best offence in the league by DVOA to a field goal. The surprising thing about this was given the innovation that Sean McVay and the Rams have shown all season, they didn’t find an offensive adjustment or try anything on special teams. I felt sure going into this game that McVay would have something up his sleeve, and I need to watch on tape to be sure of what happened but it didn’t feel like the Rams moved away from 11 personnel and that was something I had seen them do in the playoffs. I don’t know if we’ll ever know precisely what was going on with Todd Gurley, but with ten carries and a couple of pass targets he was not a big part of the game. In fact the Rams only gave CJ Anderson seven carries and for a team that builds its offence off running the ball and play-action, they were too often in a third and long situation. The Patriots managed to do what I thought they might, make Jared Goff drop back and beat them with his arm and he was not up to the task. Goff has already spoken up and shouldered the blame, whilst Sean McVay admitted he had been out-coached and veteran left tackle Andrew Whitworth reminded us we are going to die so whilst this loss is going to hurt for a while, I suspect that the Rams will learn and be competitive next season. There are a lot of free agents on their roster so we’ll have to see how they chose to go about assembling a new roster the off-season, but McVay will need to develop an adjustment to what happened in the Super Bowl as defensive coordinators around the league will be studying the coaching tape of it in the off-season.

As for the Patriots, would anyone be surprised if Bill Belichick was already working on next season. I think it is likely that we’ll see Rob Gronkowski retire given the toll his career has taken on his body and apparently he has been dealing with a bulging disk in his back this season, but Tom Brady is still planning to carry on. As I keep saying, I will believe the Patriots are done when they finally stop winning. They are the masters of doing just enough through the season and peaking for the playoffs so let’s see how they shape up, but given the premium they place on depth of roster I would expect their off-season to be quiet and who can argue with their success. How resilient do you have to be as a franchise to go to so many Super Bowls in a period where the league is designed for parity? As much as you may be fed up of watching them win, we are living through history and we should not take such excellence for granted. That said, a playoff tested Patrick Mahomes won’t be spotting the Patriots a fourteen-point lead at halftime next season so things could well be very different next times the Chiefs play the Patriots.

As I mentioned briefly, Patriots defensive coordinator Brian Flores has been formally announced as their new head coach. The Bengals have also announced that Rams quarterback coach Zac Taylor will be their tenth head coach. We won’t know how either of their tenures will go for a couple of seasons, but we are already into the season of hope as many teams announced via twitter pretty much the moment the Super Bowl was done.

I am going to take a look at the coaching tape of the Super Bowl, focusing on the Patriots offence versus the Rams’ defence this week for a post I hope to get up on Sunday, and I may well look at the job the Patriots defence did on the Rams the week after, but then I will focus on other things for a little while. I’ll write some posts round the major off-season events as well as occasional football posts but I won’t be posting more than once or twice a month until preseason starts.

In the meantime, thank you for reading all season and good luck with the long off-season, but between free-agency and the draft, there’s plenty of news to follow and soon it will be time for training camps.

There’s just one final thing I have to share today, but I’ll let Dan’s Dad, winner of this season’s pick competition and trivia master extraordinaire have the final say on the 2018 season

‘Well, there we go. Another season closes with a record breaking Superbowl in the bag but as we prepare for the quieter months to come we have to put a lid on the 2018 Trivia competition.

You will remember that this final game became a simple shoot out as Dan and Gee were on exactly the same scores so, literally, all to play for.

Question 1 wanted the player making the longest kick off return and it was Dan who took the early lead correctly identifying Jakeem Grant’s 102 yard return ending in a fine TD.

Question 2 asked the same for the longest pass of the year. Well, like the English cricketers the scorers were not troubled here. Patrick Mahomes was a logical choice but Big Ben Rothlisburger who threw a 97 yarder run in for another TD.

Third was a simple NFC/AFC question on which had won the most Superbowls. Well the score, before today, was 27 – 25 in favour of the NFC so Gee draws level.

Well done both on stotting that with 2 points at stake it was likely that there would be 2 QB’s who played in and won 4 Superbowls with no defeats. Well, I’ve dropped a few names into the mix recently so Gee’s choice of Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana against Dan’s Elway/Montana combo sees Gee gaining 2 to Dan’s 1.

Finally I asked about how many franchises have won a Superbowl. The answer is 20 so again, no points I’m afraid.

Therefore by just 1 point, for the record 22 to 21, this year’s champion in Gee. Congratulations to both for some interesting and impressive answers. I have the benefit of Google but this pair have only gone to it after they have made their responses so Kudos there! 

In closing I had set a tie breaker in case it was needed and, would you believe it, they both went for the same answer so it wouldn’t have got a result after all. I asked about the total Passing yardage for all 32 teams last season. 128,000 wasn’t a bad try but if you are interested it was 121737 – and for the geeks rushing delivered 58643 so now I see why a QB with a good arm is so valuable.

I hope you have enjoyed the quiz – its been an interesting thing to compile but I’ve been pleased by the responses. Enjoy the Off-season.’

Th…Th…That’s All Folks!

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks, you’ll have seen that Sunday brought the 2018 NFL Season to a close with the Superbowl, which saw the New England Patriots emerge victorious over the LA Rams in what turned out to be one of the lowest scoring and most Defensive ‘bowls in recent memory.

Personally, I didn’t think the game was a classic (Sorry Gee!). You may be aware that I’m more of an offensive man than a defensive one, so the fact that the score was just 3-0 at half time meant that we were in severe need of something worth staying-up for… unfortunately, that meant Maroon 5, who produced one of the worst Superbowl half time shows I think I’ve ever seen!

The half time show feels like it’s lost some of it’s magic. It’s a good few years since we’ve had a show which I’ve genuinely looked forward to… It’s not that long since we had a run of shows which included Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Who, The Boss, The Rolling Stones and Prince, so the latest crop really have struggled to offer up anything worth sticking around at half time for. At least it gave me time to go and make some pop-tarts and a hot chocolate… A stark reminder that I’m getting old!

Back to the game though, and one thing which surprised me was the performance of Jarred Goff. He’s looked good all season and has been a real shining star of Sean McVay’s time with the Rams. He looked very shaky all game, and found himself making poorly judged throws, being rushed often, and got sacked 4 times. On the other hand, Tom Brady (the supposed ‘GOAT’) didn’t do much better – he only made 30ish more yards, and his completion percentage wasn’t a huge amount better than Goff’s, but what he did have was Julian Edelman, the eventual game’s MVP, who did a fantastic job at making extra yards after the catch and generally causing the Rams Defence all sorts of problems.

None of my bets came off either… I stood to win £85 had the Rams won the game! On the plus side, the defensiveness of the game gave us a good look at what Brian Flores, Miami’s newly anointed Head Coach, was capable of. If Sunday was a job interview, I’d say he well and truly passed with flying colours, even if he did have the might of Brucey B behind him.

But I think the main thing which came out of the game, and actually probably of the season as a whole is what a brilliant job the NFL (along with Sky and the BBC) are doing at raising the awareness of the game over on this side of the pond. I lost count of the number of people who spoke to me about it over the weekend, and have spoken to me about how they caught some of the game since, and while neither the game or the halftime show were classics, there’s definitely something to be said about the prospects for the league going forward.

This became even more clear to me on Sunday afternoon when I was walking home from the King Power stadium. 2 young lads were behind me who couldn’t have been more than about 11 or 12 years old. They’d just left a football (soccer) game where they’d seen their team unlucky not to get something of a result, and they were talking about how much they were looking forward to the Super Bowl! One was talking about how Tom Brady was going to have a huge game and throw for “like… 500 yards!” And the other was more concerned about how Todd Gurley was going to get “at least 4 touchdowns!”. While neither of them were correct (it would have made for a much better game, I think we can all agree… well, maybe not ‘all’) I was seriously impressed that 2 lads of their age were talking about The Wrong Football the same as you would expect them to be discussing the ‘other’ football!

We’re winning… keep spreading the news, and I’ll speak to you all in a few months!

@TWFDan

Super Bowl Sunday

03 Sunday Feb 2019

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs

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Here we are on Super Bowl Sunday, and there’s a game to preview and a number of trivia questions to separate Dan and I in our competition.

‘A bumper crop of questions in the hope that a winner can be found – along with a tie breaker which would only come into play if we are still at loggerheads. So, here goes:

In the 2018 Regular season – who scored the

  1. Long kick return   (For 1 point)
  2. Longest Pass   (1 point)
  3. For Superbowl LIII I want to know which conference has had most wins in the preceding 52? To be clear the NFC includes the NFL and the AFC the AFL.   (1 Point)
  4. Which QBs have Played in 4 Superbowl’s and won all 4   (2 points)
  5. How many franchises, including teams that have relocated to another city, have won the Super Bowl?   (1 point)

And finally, the Hail Mary Tie-breaker……… IF it’s needed.

In the 2018 season what was the Aggregate Total of Passing Yards of all 32 Teams.

Its Game On – Over to you.’

So this is a pretty tough set of questions and I’ll try to work my way through with guess work as I don’t know:

  1. I’m struggling on this one, but I think Alex Erickson of the Bengals had a long one, like over seventy yards, and whilst it wouldn’t surprise me if there was one from the endzone, I can’t think of it.
  2. I’m not exactly sure on this one either, but I feel comfortable in plumping for a guess of Patrick Mahomes as it’s not exactly a stretch for him to have the longest pass of the season.
  3. Okay, so I’m going to go with the maths on this one, and hope that fifty-two is a large enough sample size for the big runs to even themselves out. However, whilst I suspect the numbers are close, I do remember the ridiculous run of NFC winners we had in the mid-eighties into the nineties thanks to the Cowboys and 49ers so I’m guessing NFC.
  4. This one is one that I think I have a solid guess at assuming I’m right in thinking two points equals two names, and whilst there are a few quarterbacks with a great pedigree, I’m going to name Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana as the logical guesses given their team’s successes and hope that Steve Young isn’t going to trip me up!
  5. So I think this is actually going to be surprisingly low given that there have been fifty-two games, but we have had a lot of teams like the Steelers, 49ers, Patriots who have won a lot so even throwing in moved franchise I’m going to guess at something like twenty-five

Bonus question time!

I could actually work this out from data but I’ll employ a little maths and as I know that the Chiefs threw for over five thousand yards, and guessing the lowest is somewhere around say three thousand so the mid-point is say four thousand yards. That would give me total of one-hundred and twenty-eight thousand passing yards for thirty-two teams as a rough guess.

‘Ok, my final trivia answers. With everything neck and neck (we promise it wasn’t planned this way!!):

  1. Long kick return – I feel this is unfair, but I’ll take it! Jakeem Grant of the Dolphins got a 102 yarder against the Titans week one. It was also the longest game of the season. I’ll take the extra point there too…!
  2. Longest Pass – Not sure about this, it really could be anyone. I’ll say Patrick Mahomes.
  3. For Superbowl LIII I want to know which conference has had most wins in the preceding 52? – Hmmm… bit of a toss-up here. I’ll guess at the AFC
  4. Which QBs have Played in 4 Superbowl’s and won all 4 – it’s going to have been a while back, so I’ll go with John Elway and Joe Montana
  5. How many franchises, including teams that have relocated to another city, have won the Super Bowl? This will be quite high, but I know not everyone has… I’ll go with 26

In the 2018 season what was the Aggregate Total of Passing Yards of all 32 Teams. – 128,000 is my guess. To show my working, I’d say the best teams get about 5000, and the worst end up on about 3000, so averaging at 4000 per team, over 32 teams, makes 128k.’

So with the trivia competition out of the way it is time turn our attention to tonight’s game.

New England Patriots vs Los Angeles Rams

I will start by looking at both teams when they have the ball and the I’ll throw in some final comments and there will be nothing left to write before the big game.

The match-up of the game for me will the Patriots’ defence going against Rams’ offence so that’s where I will start. The often-cited tactics of Bill Belichick is to take away what you want to do and force you to play left handed. I’m not sure who they will focus on in terms of coverage, but I imagine given how much of the Ram’s offence is based off running the ball and play-action, that the Patriots will want to force Jared Goff to be a drop back passer and dare him to beat them with his arm. Now the Rams almost lucked into a powerful backfield duo when they picked up CJ Anderson late in the season to spell Todd Gurley who was struggling with a knee injury. The Rams are insisting that Gurley is healthy despite him spending most of the Conference Championship game on an exercise bike and one of the big unknowns in this game is how effective Gurley will be. That said, Anderson has rushed for over one-hundred yards in three of the four games he has played for the Rams since getting signed in December.

The story of the Rams’ offence this season has been the use of 11 personnel and the myriad of looks and motions they build of this group of starters who predominantly play the whole game. However, in recent weeks they have been mixing in more 12 personnel with the extra tight-end helping in both the running and passing game. The don’t have a dominant receiver, with both Robert Woods and Brandin Cooks finishing the regular season over twelve-hundred yards and within fifteen yards of each other. The loss of Cooper Kupp to injury did seem to disrupt Jared Goff but Josh Reynolds has done what he can from the slot to replace him.

I am really looking forward to this match-up as it is the meat of the contest between the all time great Bill Belichick and the young genius as Sean McVay has been heralded, and I think it is likely to be the most important for the Rams if they hope to win. I’ll come back to that later, but for now I will just say that I am intrigued to see what McVay and his staff have cooked up in terms of things that run counter to the Rams’ usual offensive tendencies that will be tried in an effort to catch Belichick out.

When the Patriots have the ball things will be just as interesting, and the contest between Josh McDaniels and Tom Brady going against Wade Philips is hardly less intriguing what I’ve just written about. Particularly as Philips has already masterminded a winning defence against Brady and the Patriots on the way to a Super Bowl win with the Broncos. In Aaron Donald the Rams’ have a pass rusher every bit as effective as the Broncos’ Von Miller and they can also line up Ndamukong Suh next to him. The conventional wisdom is to beat Tom Brady you need to be able to get pressure with four pass rushers and with these two supremely talented tackles and Dante Fowler the Rams stand some chance of doing this. The difference between this defence and the one the Philips and the Broncos used to beat the Patriots is the secondary is not as talented and in a game such as against the Saints what the Rams have are explosive moments rather than consistent play. Yes both Suh and Donald has outstanding moments, but the Saints were able to get them on their heels and I have feeling that the recent tactics of the Patriots could well negate the Rams’ defence.

The Patriots, as has often been their want have recently reinvented themselves as running football team using 21 personnel and fullback James Devlin as both a lead blocker and pass catcher. In addition, in the last few weeks Rob Gronkowski has looked really effective as a blocking tight-end who has caught some passes and whilst he’s looked for from his league conquering best, in the last few games he has looked closer to it. The form of Julian Edelman in the playoffs has also been a big boost to the Patriots whilst their running backs committee was able to generate one-hundred and seventy-six yards and four touchdowns against the Chiefs. This may not be the high flying iteration of the Patriots’ offence that has so dominated previous seasons, but they have found a way to control the clock and win games comfortably having earned yet another playoff bye.

The advantage this gives the Patriots is that if they can grind out the game against a defence that was twenty-eight in the league against the run during the regular season then they can dominate time of possession and win a close game.

I am really excited by this year’s Super Bowl, which I think should be tactically fascinating but who do I think is going to win?

This has been a year where your defence only needed to be so good given the power of offence, but I feel like the Patriots have a slight edge in match-ups and I have more faith in Belichick and staff’s ability to maximise their team’s performance in the unusual circumstances of the Super Bow given they have been there nine times in eighteen and this is their third in a row. The Rams absolutely can win this game, and I would love for former Bengals stalwart starting left tackle Andrew Whitworth to get a Super Bowl win but whilst my heart wants Rams for this reason, my head says that in a close game the Patriots will edge out winners with their better balance.

Whatevver happens, I think I will have some great coaching tape to dig into next week.

Anyone got any plans for the weekend?

30 Wednesday Jan 2019

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So, here we are! It’s that time of year again where all of your mates, even the ones who don’t watch any other games all season, become big NFL fans! We’re down to the final two, with the best of the AFC, namely the New England Patriots, facing off against the NFC’s LA Rams.

It’s an exciting one this year. I genuinely believe that either team could be leaving Atlanta with the Vince Lombardi trophy, and I can’t wait to see how the game goes. Lets take a look at the two teams involved.

A handy guide for Sunday night…

AFC: New England Patriots – 11-5

What can I say about the Patriots that hasn’t already been said? The combination of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick is one of the most successful partnerships in NFL history, having lead their Patriots to 5 Super Bowl championships; 4 of them with Mr Brady winning the Super Bowl MVP! This is the Patriots third representation of the AFC in the big one in row with them beating Falcons and losing to the Eagles in the last 2.

But this year, I believe that they’re a little more beatable than they have in the run up to the last couple of outings. This year, they’ve dropped games against the Jaguars (Week 2), Lions (Week 3), Titans (Week 10), Dolphins (Week 14) and Steelers (Week 15), none of whom made it to the post-season. On top of that, you can’t argue that Tom Brady is getting on a bit. It’s been interesting this week to hear him say that he ‘doesn’t know’ if Sunday’s game will be his last [He did say he had zero intention to retire -Ed.]. Personally, I can’t see it, but at the same time, if he does play again next year, I can’t see him being able to keep up the standard that everyone is used to seeing from him.

His target men have been a little bit unexpected this year. James White (a Running Back) has been targeted the most, and made the most catches this year, and losing someone like Josh Gordon towards the end of the season to suspension won’t have helped. On top of that, if you exclude the 2016 season when he was injured for half of the year, this has been statistically his worst year since 2013 – something which hasn’t helped to silence the noise about him potentially retiring too.

If things don’t go their way on Sunday, we really could be watching the end of their franchise dominance… (much to the delight of the rest of the AFC East!).

NFC: Los Angeles Rams – 13-3

It seems a long time since the Rams entered LA in 2016 with a 4-12 record. Since then, certainly in the last couple of seasons, they’ve been one of the most exciting franchises to watch in the league. This will have been in no small part down to the introduction of current Head Coach Sean McVay, who has breathed new life into the team.

Their route to the Super Bowl, via an overtime victory over the New Orleans Saints, was marred with more than a little controversy – with a missed interference call on a play that also had a helmet to helmet hit at the end of the fourth quarter which may well have lead to a different end result – but for me, you win some and you lose some throughout the year, it just happens to have come at the perfect time for them!

What has surprised me a little is that the Rams frankly loaded defence ranks 19th in the league this year. When you think that their line is stacked with the likes of Aaron Donald (who I think I’m developing a Gee/JJ Watt style man-crush on! [No fair, you are an offence man and I have an ethical polly approach to my love of destuctive interior defensive linemen – Ed.]) and Ndamukong Suh, I really would expect them to be much higher up the list.

On the other side of the ball, Jarred Goff has had a great season in his second year as starting QB. He’s been helped out by Brandon Cooks and Robert Woods who have done well, and you can’t talk about the Rams offence without taking a look at Todd Gurley. He was just slightly under his rushing yard total from last season, but has been extremely important for the team, running in 17 TDs throughout the year.

And their other benefit is their kicking game – as a team, you’ve got to go a long way to find a better pairing than Johnny Hekker and Greg Zuerlein, who have made some monster kicks and punts this year.

My Verdict

This is the most difficult Super Bowl to pick for a good few years. I had a hunch about the Rams back in March, and on balance, I think I’m going to stick with them for the win in the early hours of Monday morning. That being said, if you saw how my picks went this year, they may not be thanking me for that…

One final update on the bet before I sign off – as you’d expect, the cash out value has fluctuated a bit throughout the week and a half since they made it through, but it’s now at its most tempting!

And that’ll be it from me for now. One more post next week, and I’ll be taking a well earned break. As always, I’ve got Monday off work, so Sunday will be America day in our house, where I drink American lager, eat Corn Dogs, and watch the big game… and I can’t wait!

I’ll be tweeting throughout the game, so can’t wait to hear how you’re celebrating the occasion, and what your plans are for Sunday night – tweet me and let me know!

Oh, and if you know where I can get hold of some Corn Dogs in the UK, I’m reaching Def-Con-One here!

@TWFDan

Saturday Divisional Games

12 Saturday Jan 2019

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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!

The Contenders, the Changes, and the TWFSafties!!

12 Wednesday Dec 2018

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It’s getting to that time of the season where the games take on added significance through context as whilst each game is still one sixteenth of a team’s season, we are now seeing teams fall out the hunt of the playoffs and the consequences are pretty immediate. Gone are the days when teams waited until the Monday following the final game of the season to make their coaching changes and in fact some are even trying to spark a late season run, so with all that in mind let’s take stock of the week fourteen games and what’s been going on around the league. Oh yes, and I have two safeties for you luck people as well!

In the AFC, three of the division leaders lost with the New England Patriots losing in Miami in something that is fast becoming an unwanted tradition for the Patriots. The Pats’ coaching staff might have outsmarted themselves by having Rob Gronkowski on the field to defend an unlikely Hail Mary from Ryan Tannehill (who was nursing an ankle injury as well as only recently coming back from a shoulder injury) but what they came up with was still a fantastically exciting play that will be part of every season roundup.  The best thing to do if you somehow haven’t seen it, or missed Dan writing about it is to have a look at the highlights here. Whilst the Patriots should sail into the playoffs still, they look to be settling into the number two seed which they will have to hope is not too costly if the Chiefs continue their current streak into the playoffs. Meanwhile the Pittsburgh Steelers saw their hopes of taking the Raiders into overtime dashed when their kicker Chris Boswell slipped on his last second field goal attempt and missed for the second time that game. The bigger question is what took them so long to get Ben Roethlisberger back into the game in the second half once his rib injury had been cleared as he was seen stood on the sidelines whilst Josh Dobbs struggled to do much as his replacement. As for AFC South, the Houston Texans had their nine game winning streak ended by an Indianapolis Colts team looking to bounce back from their loss to the Jaguars and hoping to stay in contention for the playoffs.

The Colts are one of five AFC teams with seven wins trying to make said playoffs. The Dolphins are still in the mix, although they could just as easily finish eight and eight but given the injuries they have suffered Adam Gase has pulled off another impressive coaching job to keep them in contention. It feels like whatever happens in Miami they need to find a quarterback who can play effectively who is not as prone to injury as Tannehill. The Ravens remain on seven wins thanks to their narrow loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, but they were at least competitive and it looks like the competition for the AFC North will go down to the wire and perhaps the Bengals will have one last say in events in week seventeen when they face the Steelers. I should point out that Patrick Mahomes threw a no look pass and an impossible across the body throw on fourth and nine that very few other quarterbacks could plausably attempt and likely only Aaron Rodgers could carry off. The Tennessee Titans literally ran out winners in their game against the Jacksonville Jaguars with Derrick Henry amassing two hundred and forty-three yards and an amazing ninety-nine yard touchdown that featured three separate stiff arms as he rumbled the length of the field.

These five teams with seven wins are involved in two interconnected races, for whilst the Ravens and Steelers are duking it out for the AFC North, all look to be competing for one last wildcard spot as with a three game lead and still in with a chance of winning the AFC West – the LA Chargers should make the playoffs having already hit the magical ten win total with three games left. They did enough to beat the Bengals without extending themselves in a game that featured one of my worst picks of the year.

On the NFC side of the league, three out of the four division leaders won with the Dallas Cowboys riding their luck in overtime to beat the Philadelphia Eagles in a game that was marred by more officiating controversies. The Chicago Bears won a defensive game with the LA Rams that featured lots of interceptions and provoked questions about the Rams ability to function in the cold. It’s an easy narrative to grab but we shall have to see if over more games if it is genuinely a thing. However, it’s not often that we have seen Sean McVay struggle and I’m excited to see how this team does in their second trip to the playoffs under this regime. Meanwhile the New Orleans Saints got back to winning ways with a comfortable win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and remain in contention for the number one seed in the NFC.

It seems likely that we know the winner of each division of the NFC and like in the AFC, there is a clear contender for the first wildcard place as with their convincing win over the Minnesota Vikings, the Seattle Seahawks have a two game lead onver any other challenger.

The Vikings are one of four teams with six wins and so need to make a push in these last three games if they are to claim the last wildcard place. As a team with a high profile quarterback free-agent and an offence that hasn’t quite come together it is perhaps not a surprise that the Vikings have let go their offensive coordinator John DeFilippo, but it is a blow to the coordinator who was being quoted as a likely head coaching candidate before the season. There is however, a big difference between being the quarterback coach for a Super Bowl winning team and being the offensive coordinator, yet alone a head coach. I do idly wonder whether DeFilippo might find a quick rehire to lend a hand in Philadelphia given the struggles they have had on offence after the brain drain of the offseason, although the lack of deep threat doesn’t help either. Having lost to the Cowboys it feels like the Eagles won’t win the division, although technically it is still possible, but they have six wins and are one of the three teams that I think have actual shot at making the playoffs. Things are not exactly looking great for the Carolina Panthers as they lost on the road to the Cleveland Browns and there’s talks of issues with Cam Newton’s shoulder. The Panthers have also had changes in coaching staff, this time on the defensive time but having now lost five straight games they are running out of time to turn things round. I suspect it is already too late for six win Washington who at least scored some points when they brought on recently signed quarterback Josh Johnson, but when you lose to the New York Giants this badly it is a sign of a team who needs to rethink their approach.

That pretty much covers all the teams in the playoff race, but I thought I should mention the Green Bay Packers because of the news that’s surrounding them. Having fired Mike McCarthy last week they got back to winning ways against woeful Falcons and now stand at 5-7-1. It will be interesting to see how they try to retool on the fly given the age of Aaron Rodgers, and it was interesting that long-time coach Winston Moss tweeted about, ‘…Find somebody that is going to hold #12 and everybody in this building to a #LombardiStandard!…’ shortly after McCarthy was let go. The team may have bounced back with a win this week but after such a period of stability who can foresee how the offseason will go with the recently hired GM and his search for a new coach?

Finally, or at least the last thing before I finish up with the week fourteen safeties, I have to comment on one the teams whose major effect on the playoffs could well be that win against the Steelers this week. On Monday the Raiders let go of general manager Reggie McKenzie, which possibly wasn’t a surprise given that the Raiders have traded away such draft picks as Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper. The power dynamic for the Raiders obviously shifted when they handed Jon Gruden a ten-year $100 million contract and they will now have to find someone to work closely with Gruden but whoever they hire won’t have the power of a usual GM so only time will tell whether this will ultimately result in a more competitive team. However it works out, it is pretty clear that Gruden is central to the Raiders’ plan and the defining factor in the success of the team is the design and execution of Gruden’s plan by Gruden. There won’t be much room to hide whatever the result.

So we had two safeties this week and I got lucky enough to pick both games to watch anyway. The first took place in the Thursday night game and re-affirms the importance of special teams play when the Titans’ Cameron Batson muffed the catch and recovered the ball to be tackled into the end zone. In one play the Jaguars scored two points and got the ball back, they just failed to capitalise on that chance. The second took place early in the third quarter and is the kind of thing that drives an offensive coordinator round the bend as on second and fifteen on their own eight yard line Jared Goff took the snap and drifted back into the end zone where Eddie Goldman just beat Akiem Hicks to the sack and the safety. It’s the kind of play where situational awareness is so important and there is so much for a quarterback to learn so I don’t want to judge Goff too harshly but it makes you appreciate the Tom Brady or Drew Brees who stilllmake mistakes and take sacks but you think would have got rid of the ball in that situation. Still, the important thing is that the quarterback got sacked for points because that is what should happen to the glory hunters every now and again to keep them grounded. Let’s hope for some more next week and for those counting these were the ninth and tenth safeties of the season.

The Battle of the Big Guns

07 Wednesday Nov 2018

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I had a serene Sunday with the Bengals on a bye, although I have a creeping dread more worthy of the Halloween that just passed about the upcoming game as the New Orleans Saints are visiting Cincinnati and that bodes ill for the rested but injured Bengals team.

Still, before we get to the future outlook of the team there’s the minor matter of this week’s games to contemplate and the interesting results that occurred.

The obvious place to start would be the pretty amazing run of late games that I think entertained everyone. Although watching back later, I saw two games in sequence before circling back to the best game of the week once the UK Gamepass blackout had cleared. The first of these was the LA Chargers going into Seattle and demonstrating the faith I had placed in them was not misplaced with a relatively comfortable win against the Seahawks. It could have been even more comfortable had Caleb Sturgis not missed two extra points and a field goal, which also resulted in a missed two point conversion attempt by the Chargers trying to get back the original missed extra point back. Unsurprisingly the Chargers have moved on from Sturgis and reinstated Michael Badgley who was also on the roster, but that still means they have had seven kickers in the last three years! At this point surely some question are surely being asked about the special teams evaluation process of the front office as the Chargers have also had four people punt for them during this period.

Moving on from the special teams’ conundrum that is the Chargers, we saw this week’s contender for the best game of the season when the New Orleans Saints hosted the LA Rams and ran out 45-35 winners. The Saints built a big lead only to see the Rams close the gap back to 35 all in the fourth quarter before the Saints extended the lead once more for the win. It was an entertaining game, even if someone like me would have liked to see a little more defence, and that could be the Achilies heel of the Rams. It seemed like Marcus Peters was being picked on in the continuing absence of Aqib Talib who is seen as likely to return from IR in week thirteen. However, whilst the Rams defence has some very high profile names on it, including Dante Fowler who joined the team via trade on deadline day, doesn’t look to have quite gelled yet and are currently ranked only sixteenths by DVOA. The ranking against the run of twenty-fourth by DVOA showed up as Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram did the work on the ground whilst Drew Brees threw for four touchdowns and three hundred and forty-six passing yards. The Rams and Jared Goff were not quiet able to match this efficiency in the air whilst Todd Gurley finished with a modest sixty-eight yards on the ground and now the jockeying at the top of the NFC will get really interesting.

Finally, on Sunday night we had the battle of the 12s as the Green Bay Packers visited the New England Patriots but whilst keeping it relatively close for a lot of the game, the Packers were ultimately done for by the Patriots better consistency. The use of Cordarrelle Patterson as a makeshift running back in this game was effective enough that we might see more of it going forward even when Sony Michel comes back from injury whilst Josh Gordon caught five balls from ten targets to go over one hundred yards for the first time as a Patriot. What this game really showed however, is that so much of a quarterback’s success depends on the infrastructure around them and you get the feeling that there could be a coaching change in the works for Green Bay given the moves the newly installed GM is making.

Other notable things around the league include the Kansas City Chiefs beating the Browns convincingly and the Chiefs have one of the best offensive DVOA ratings ever. Conversely the Buffalo Bills have an historically bad offence, with their offensive DVOA of -53.9% putting them in the bottom ten of offences for the last thirty years. The Chicago Bears beat the Bills to stay atop the NFC North and now have two forty point blowout wins this season. The Carolina Panthers continue their quiet challenge for the playoffs with a big win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to take them to 6-2 whilst the Pittsburgh Steelers managed to do the double over the Ravens to stay atop the AFC North. The wheels came off for Washington when they lost both starting offensive guards to injury against the Atlanta Falcons and got beat badly. This could give Washington real problems going forward although they stay a game clear at the top of the NFC East whilst the Falcons have now won three straight and still have an outside shot of pulling themselves back into playoff contention. Speaking of streaks, the Houston Texans have now won six in a row while the Denver Broncos continue to struggle.

Finally, it is my mission to bring you every safety of the season and whilst we did not have any this week, we had three in week eight that I didn’t bring you because I was rushing off to London. That’s a total of eight so far this season and the 28th of October was second Sunday in a row where we had three safeties.

The first I’ll mention is a classic of joined up football where an LA Rams’ punt pins the Green Bay Packers up against their goal line and on their first down of the drive running back Aaron Jones gets met in the hole by Mark Barron and stopped for the safety. The second is combination of comedy of errors and situation awareness as on 3rd & 7 on the eight yard line, the Arizona Cardinals’ Josh Rosen starts in a shotgun formation and drops back to pass into the end zone, and whilst getting tackled tries to throw the ball away and gets called for intentional grounding, giving up the safety anyway. You can’t hold on to the ball in this situation and once again this is what happens to an offence when pinned against its own goal line by a punt. The final safety was again after a punt but this time it was a holding penalty called against Desmond Harrison of the Cleveland Browns in the end zone that results in the safety, and if you seek out the play from the week eight game against the Steelers you will see that it wasn’t exactly a marginal call.

Speaking of which, is it me or have the rule changes settled down over the last few weeks even if the defences to seem to be really struggling to contend. Anyway, I’m off to worry about this weekend’s game, the awful lines we’ve got this week, the trivia question I’m utterly stumped on, and to get on with this week’s newsletter.

Bring on Thursday night football, which looks to be a cracker of a matchup!

The Week of the Safety

24 Wednesday Oct 2018

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18-10-24 C Littleton

Image Credit: therams.com

It may not be the headline most people would go for, but it will do for me as we had three safeties over the weekend, taking the season total to five on an increase of 250% in one day and that has to be more interesting than the Bengals and Dolphins getting beat this weekend.

Okay fine, I’ll start with the Bengals running into the buzz saw that is the Kansas City Chiefs at home. The fact that the Chiefs offence was good is of no surprise to anyone, although it would have been nice if the talented Bengals pass rush was more effective and the tackling was better. No one seemed to be able to stop Kareem Hunt and I knew the Bengals were in trouble when Al Michaels announced that the Chiefs’ defence hadn’t forced a punt in seventeen drives and the Bengals opened with a three and out then punt. In fact they punted on the second drive as well and it wasn’t until the second quarter that they scored any points when CJ Uzomah caught the Bengals only touchdown. It’s easy enough to write of this game as a fan of the Bengals but the prime time stats are worrying and the game against the Buccaneers takes on huge significance if the Bengals are going to turn things around.

So the Chiefs are really good, as are the LA Rams who remain unbeaten with a comfortable 39-10 win over the San Francisco 49ers and to no one’s surprise it is late October and the Patriots have rounded into form and have a sole lead atop the AFC East after a win over the Chicago Bears.

We had a really competitive London game where the LA Chargers ran out 20-19 winners over the Tennessee Titans who couldn’t make a two point conversion after two attempts. I can understand the decision Mike Vrabel made to go for it and try to get the win, particularly with all the travel to London and it’s clear that at least a section of the new head coaches obviously believe in this aggressive approach as Frank Reich tried it earlier in the season and also lost. However, I’m not sure with Marcus Mariota’s movement skills why you wouldn’t have him move on one of those attempts. Another coach who might want to think about his late game tactics is Hue Jackson as the Cleveland Browns lost their fourth overtime game this season to a Tampa Bay field goal, which means they have already racked up half an extra game for their players despite the shortened overtime period introduced this season.

Moving on to one of the more surprising results of week seven, the Houston Texans went to Jacksonville and won 20-7 meaning the Jaguars have two divisional home losses already and Blake Bortles has very much not take a step this season. In assessments that should have the Giants worried, plenty of commentators are suggesting that perhaps investing the pick the Jaguars used on Leonard Fournette was not wise given that they could have had Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson with their fourth selection. In fact, of the quartet of high pick running backs we’ve had in recent years – Leonard Fournette, Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley, and Todd Gurley, it is only Gurley who is in the conversation for MVP and he also happens to have a head coach who’s quickly establishing himself as one of the best in the league as well as a very good young quarterback in Jared Goff. Just to heap it on a little more, apart from the hamstring problems that have side-lined Fournette for most of this season, you could argue that Fournette wasn’t even the most effective running back in his draft class given that Alvin Kamara was offensive rookie of the league last year. Now it is early and we could be saying different things in a couple of years and certainly Sqauon Barkley is some talent, but effective running backs are found at all kinds of rounds in the draft and sometimes undrafted too where as it much rarer to find quarterbacks outside of the early rounds. There’s a reason everyone makes a fuss about Tom Brady going in the fourth round or Tony Romo having the career he did having been un-drafted. It is not that plenty of quarterbacks picked early don’t flame out, but the low picked ones that make it are much rarer than effective running backs taken outside of the first round.

Moving away from draft strategy, but sticking to team building we have several teams who clearly are in win now mode and one that is very evidently tearing things down. Not content with trading away Khalil Mack, Jon Gruden has sent Amari Cooper to the Dallas Cowboys for a first round pick. There’s been plenty of criticism of the price the Cowboys paid given Cooper’s performance the last couple of seasons but they are belatedly trying to address the issues they have at receiver and the talk of the Raiders trading away Derek Carr is only increasing. Perhaps more intriguing is the New Orleans Saints move to acquire Eli Apple for a 2019 fourth round pick and a 2020 seventh round pick from the New York Giants. The Saints know they have a limited window given the age of Drew Brees but given that they have the second best record in the NFC already, you can see what they are doing in trading for a first round draft pick although given the recent moves to get up the draft (for defensive end Marcus Davenport) and in acquiring Teddy Bridgewater in pre-season. There are some thinner drafts coming, but with an ageing hall of fame quarterback you can see why they are trying to get him another ring now. I will assume that Dan, with his love of kicking, will cover the Saints winning thank to an unprecedented event or I will add it in myself if it is missed.

So finally, as I mentioned at the start of this post the #TWFSafties watch continues with the three we saw this week. Going through them in sort order from pro-football-reference.com we had a blocked punt that went through the back of the end-zone for a safety for the Ram against the 49ers. The fun stat about this play is that this is Cory Littleton’s fourth blocked punt since the start of last year, which is kind of incredible. I may have to dig into this a little more if I can find the stats to see how that compares historically. The second was pretty standard as Peyton Barber of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was tackled before he could get out the end-zone as the Buccaneers were on their own one yard line. It was Trevon Coley’s only tackle in the game but he scored the Browns two points and a field goal and it’s just a shame that they couldn’t put them to better use. Finally, the Buffalo Bills lost 37-5 against the Indianapolis Colts and two of those points they had very little to do with as a high snap bounced off Andrew Luck’s hands and into the end-zone before squirting out the back as players pursued the ball. I usually like to see a quarterback safety but my favourite for this week has to be the Littleton’s fourth punt block.

I now I need to start worrying about next week’s picks (not going well) and the Bengals which aren’t faring much better!

Quarterbacks and Injuries

03 Wednesday Oct 2018

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Image Credit: milehighsports.com

Here we are, preparing for week five after which all the teams will have played four games and I can try to run through the entire league in a panic at the quarter pole post, but we are already beginning to get a bit more of a feel for how the league is shaping up.

Of the young quarterbacks that seem to be the story of the league so far this year, Patrick Mahomes traveled to Denver Monday night and struggled comparatively for him so far this year but still found a way to get the win for the  Kansas City Chiefs against the Broncos, whilst Mitch Trubisky threw for six touchdowns as the Bears thumped the Tamps Bay Buccaneers. I have only seen the highlights of the Bears game and yes there were a lot of wide open people catching the ball, but I thought Trubisky looked good in terms of his footwork and whilst you can’t expect this every week it is a promising sign that Matt Nagy can find a way to keep his team competitive in the division with Trubisky as his quarterback.

Speaking of the NFC North, the Green Bay Packers pitched a shutout against the Buffalo Bills who reverted to type and were bad in this game. This leaves them one game behind the Bears but one ahead of the Minnesota Vikings who could not keep up with the LA Rams on Thursday night but then no team has this season. With quarterbacks on the mind I should also mention that one of the reasons the Rams look so good is that Jared Goff is absolutely thriving in Sean McVay’s office and threw some absolutely amazing balls to beat the Vikings coverage. The Detroit Lions lost a close game to the Dallas Cowboys who managed to find some offence this week, which is not how the Lions and Matt Patricia will have wanted to follow up their impressive win against the Patriots.

I hesitate to do this, and it is perhaps lucky that Dan is on holiday this week as the Miami Dolphins got demolished in New England. There is a reason why everyone was hesitant to write off the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, and this was it. They ran for one hundred and seventy-five yards and got themselves back to 2-2 before Julian Edelman comes back next week. Things could well still go wrong but it would surprise no one if come December the Patriots are once again top of their division.

The other perennial contender that is struggling at the start of this season were not so lucky as the Pittsburgh Steelers failed to win their second division game as they lost at home to the Baltimore Ravens to go 1-2-1. We have seen dips of form before with the Steelers, but with the Le’Veon Bell situation rumbling on and a defence that is not the kind we usually associate with this franchise there could be real problems. They face the Atlanta Falcons next week in a game that will very much be decided by who can score the most points as the Falcons are struggling to stop anybody on defence. In week four this benefited the Cincinnati Bengals who squeezed out a 37-36 win game despite losing Tyler Eifert to a season ending injury for the third straight year. This was heart breaking as Eifert had finally had a healthy offseason and it was a horrible ankle break, but at least it wasn’t connected to his previous back/ankle injuries. Eifert has so much talent and it’s really sad he’s so seldom been able to make the most of it or get to that lucrative multi-year second contract given what he has produced when he has been on the field.

The other big injury from the weekend was to Earl Thomas who had been playing well for the Seattle Seahawks despite hardly practicing in protest at the Seahawks refusal to trade him after not giving him a new contract. The middle digit he offered to the bench was a sign of the frustration a player must feel when what he feared materialises, but a broken leg is at least an injury that shouldn’t affect him next season. That may not be that much comfort to a safety going into his thirties though, particularly given the lack of activity in signing veteran free agent safeties this off-season and this is exactly why Le’Veon Bell is holding out as he fears a similar injury when running backs are treated with even more scepticism as they approach thirty.

I think I will end this week’s round up though with a team who may not be playing pretty football week to week, but have got themselves a winning record despite multiple injuries. In week one the teams with new head coaches went 0-7 but rookie head coach Mike Vrabel and his staff have now won three straight games despite Marcus Mariota sustaining a nerve injury in week one that has led to numbness in the fourth and fifth fingers of his throwing hand as well as grip issues, and his backup Blaine Gabbert being lost to a concussion in the opening quarter of their week three game against the Jaguars. The Titans may only be ranked twenty-sixth on offence by DVOA and fifteenth by defence, but they are top ten in special teams and are finding a way in win games. It also helped that Mariota looked better in this week’s overtime win against the Philadelphia Eagles where Mariota played with a modified glove on his throwing hand where the first and second fingers had been cut off so he could feel the ball but the glove could help his week fingers/hand. I’m sure this is not what offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur was not expecting to have to deal with this when he joined the staff, but the Titans have remained competitive in the AFC South and will be looking to build on this solid start. This is a pretty impressive achievement for Mike Vrabel who does not have that much coaching experience compared to a lot of coaches yet alone experience running a team. Let’s see how sustainable this is.