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AFC and NFC East Preview

31 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Pre-Season

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Despite having a longer run up to the start of their season than the rest of the major four American sports did to restarting their seasons, it feels like the NFL are approaching the 2020 season with a higher degree of improvisation and as a result there are no pre-season games.

This means that as far as I know the season opener will be the first time the NFL plays a game with the as yet untested protocols. Certainly, this is the case for two teams playing each other and only time will tell how that goes.

The inaugural draft of The Wrong Football Dynasty NFL fantasy league takes place this week, and we are under two weeks away from the start of the season so I thought it was time to roll through the divisions to see what I thought about the teams.

I always want to see how a team does rather than speculate too much, and I think that is going to be even more true for the upcoming season, for which we have nothing but training camp reports to work with so there is a lot of speculation and little we know for certain. In fact, I think it’s distinctly possible that things will move faster than a website can keep up with, but let’s start with the two East divisions and see what I can say.

AFC East

New England Patriots

Let’s start how we mean to go on, with a Patriots team who lost an all-time great quarterback, and so were already in flux before half a dozen players opted out of the season due to Covid-19. I can’t find fault with any player deciding to sit out, but with a shortened offseason, a retooled defence, and a Brady-less offence for the first time since his ACL tear in 2008 things are going to be very different for the Pats this season. I would say with their coaching staff they should be fine, but the last time Dante Scarnecchia retired the Pats offensive line really struggled. The pickup of Cam Newton was a canny stroke and I really hope he can get back to his best, but whilst I expect the Pats to compete, this is the first year in a while where you can’t pencil them in for the playoffs, although it would hardly be a surprise if they do make it.

Buffalo Bills

After a seventeen year wait, the Bills have gone to the playoffs in two out of the last three seasons under head coach Sean McDermott and they are hoping that their off-season trade for receiver Stefon Diggs will catapult them to the next level. The aim surely has to be to win a playoff game this season, but Diggs can’t catapult the offence to more closely match the defence’s top ten ranking by DVOA on his own. A lot rests on if quarterback Josh Allen can take another step forward in his third year. It feels like the Bills front office have done an excellent job of building around the young quarterback and he doesn’t have to become elite for the Bills to be a dangerous team, but their ceiling is going to be set by his performance. Still, they look to be the other contender for the AFC East title and will be looking for more than that.

New York Jets

I have very little idea what to make of the Jets coming into this season. They had a top ten defence by DVOA last season, but traded away their All-Pro safety Jamal Adams to the Seahawks, their special teams were top five by DVOA, but their offence was ranked thirty-first by DVOA and second year quarterback Sam Darnold missed games with mono. More importantly there seems to be very little stability in their front office and with all the caveats that he’s likely forgotten more about football than I’ll ever know, Adam Gase does not inspire confidence and I suspect he is a better co-ordinator than head coach. Even after having said all of this, they still went 7-9 last year so we can’t write them off completely, but I definitely have them pegged for a similar or worse record this season. As ever I would love to be proved wrong, although I’m sure Dan would disagree.

Miami Dolphins

I am pretty certain I’m going to be singing the Dolphins’ infuriatingly catchy fight song on the podcast a time or two this season as despite their 5-11 2019 season, things are definitely on the up for the ‘phins. For starters, they were tanking and so had no business winning five games, yet they still got to draft quarterback Tua Tagovailoa who for many fans was the off-season target all along. More importantly, Brian Flores is probably the first Bill Belichick assistant who truly convinced in their first season as a head coach. They had a raft of draft picks in April and I think the arrow is definitely pointing up for this team. They might not win that many more games this year given the shortened pre-season, but I believe Flores will make them competitive no matter how many games Tagovailoa does or does not start and I feel as confident as I ever remember since I started this site about the Dolphins going forward. I’m sorry if that’s a jinx Dan.

Now it’s time to jump conferences and look at the NFC East

NFC East

Philadelphia Eagles

The 2019 season was a really odd one for the Eagles with a lot of people, including myself, thinking that they had one of the deepest rosters in the league, but they were ravaged by injury, particularly at receiver and corner and so just getting to the play-offs was in truth something of an achievement. They seemed to put a high priority on speed in the draft, but it is a slightly odd quirk for Carson Wentz is that in his four season in Philadelphia the Eagles have gone to the play-offs the last three season, won a Super Bowl yet his play-off record is 0-1. I think this is just a quirk of some bad injury luck, but I’m sure Wentz would like to get at least one win and put this behind him before the passionate Philadelphia fans start to question their franchise quarterback. I like the Eagles chances of doing just that, but we shall have to see.

Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys were a very good team on offence last season, finishing second in the league in offensive DVOA, but a middling defence and poor special teams when combined with some less than inventive coaching led to the end of the Jason Garrett era in Dallas. The Cowboys come into this season with the same offensive coordinator, operating the offence under new had coach Mike McCarthy who made headlines by running a staff without a team last season and professing that he’s been studying analytics. We can’t know if such an approach will survive contact with the season, particularly given McCarthy’s reputation for conservative play calling at the end of his tenure in Green Bay, but it will be fascinating to watch. I don’t understand why they haven’t committed to Dak Prescott yet and signed him to a long term contract, but Prescott will be hoping to prove that it was a mistake not to get him signed up and the addition of rookie receiver CeeDee Lamb gives them a potentially formidable receiving group. The Cowboys really weren’t that far away from winning this division last season and I expect them to compete with the Eagles all the way for the division.

New York Giants

Last season was a mess for the Giants, who went 4-12 with very few positives on either side of the ball. The hire of thirty-eight-year-old Patriots’ special teams coordinator Joe Judge was definitely not a big name hire. I like the idea of hiring a special teams coach who is used to interacting with the whole roster, but it has to be viewed as a gamble with quarterback Daniel Jones going into his second year. The young quarterback has not shone early and the Giants are a team that looks to be a multi-season rebuilding project that they are entrusting to a young first time head coach. The Giants have some good skills players, and in Saquon Barkley a truly special running back, but I’m not sure I trust Dave Gettleman’s judgment of draft value in terms of who he picks where, though he clearly has an eye for talent. I simply don’t know enough about Judge as a coach to have strong feelings about this team, but I would be surprised if they did more than show progress. However, at this point in their team building, that would still be a positive step.

Washington Football Team

It’s hard to know where to start with Washington. It might be easier to go through what hasn’t happened to them. The 2019 season was a disaster on the field and off, leading to the hire of Ron Rivera as their new head coach, and loss of long-time president Bruce Allen. So far this off-season we’ve had the horrible revelations of the climate of sexual harassment around the team. The franchise has finally been forced into addressing their name, but only after major sponsors threated Dan Snyder with pulling out of contracts, and their owner has now also had allegations related to sexual harassment levelled against him. The turmoil does not end there as the conduct of Snyder over the years has led to several minority-owners of the team looking to sell their stakes, and Rivera who has so much on his plate already this off-season has been diagnosed with cancer. The one truly positive on-field news story has been the remarkable return to practise of Alex Smith from his gruesome 2018 leg injury, that after complications and infections nearly cost him the leg. As big a feel-good bit of new as Smith’s return to practise is, it’s hard to see him being anything other than a valued veteran voice in the quarterback room unless Dwayne Haskins continues to struggle in his second year and Kyle Allen (who has followed Rivera from Carolina) can’t get the job done either. The addition of first round draft pick Chase Young should really help this team’s pass-rush, but with so much change it is hard to see this team excelling this season, but Washington are another football team for whom forward progress would be a genuine achievement considering the position they are starting from.

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

Competition Thursday & The Disappointed Twenty: NFC Edition

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition

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Well the picks competition is over and for a second consecutive year since he started competing, Dan’s Dad is pick champion whilst I slipped back to third.

Dan’s Dad: Week 17:   6-10 Overall:   143-113
Dan: Week 17:   6-10 Overall:   136-120
Gee: Week 17:   7-9 Overall:   130-126

Looking back at last year I am three points worse whilst Dan has increased his score by eleven (I suspect through not blindly picking the Dolphins) whilst Dan’s Dad added a modest six to beat Dan by seven, which is a three point increase on his lead over me last season.

The moral of all this is that Dan and I will need to really step are games up next season if we’re stop the blog permanently being purple and gold. I’ll let 3D fill in the rest in his trivia write up, whilst I take a run through the teams from the NFC who left us this week.

The Disappointed Twenty: NFC Edition

The Dallas Cowboys have plenty of talent on the roster, but couldn’t convert good statistics into wins with clear issues in coaching. However, there is still no word out of Dallas about Jason Garrett losing his job despite everybody thinking it would happen. His contract doesn’t run out until later this month, but with a series of solid drafts the big question for next season is what is going to happen with the coach and until we know that, you can’t say too much about the Cowboys’ plans for next year, although they do have to make big decisions on who to re-sign.

The New York Giants had a tough season with a few scattered bright spots from rookie quarterback Daniel Jones, but clearly had a disappointing season finishing 4-12. After two consecutive losing season this has cost Pat Shurmur his job, but interestingly not Dave Gettleman. I mention Gettleman not because I have any wish to campaign for someone to be fired, but the Giants have not won for two season and Gettleman was responsible for picking Saquon Barkley with the second pick two years ago rather than taking a quarterback or even listening to offers. Even in last year’s draft he took Daniel Jones at a position much higher than he was predicted to go when he had a second pick in the first round to use on him. It’s hard to know what is going to happen in the off-season, but I don’t have a lot of faith in this franchise to make enough of the right decisions to improve drastically next season.

The seasons of failure continued in Washington, but Dan Snyder has certainly wasted no time in making changes having fired Jay Gruden earlier in the season. Gone from the front office is Bruce Allen whilst the news of new head coach Ron Rivera’s hiring was broken Monday and made official on Wednesday. There is a lot of work to turn around the culture in Washington and a lot will depend on who the new GM is and who has final say in drafting players and roster moves, but they do at least have an experienced coach who has always had a great relationship with his locker room.

The Chicago Bears finished 8-8 with third year quarterback Mitchell Trubisky failing to develop from last season. There are some big decisions coming with regards to their signal caller, and certainly the move to get him is not justifying itself yet so all eyes will be on him until he either proves himself or another player is given a go. It will be worth watching the Bears in the off-season to see if they make any moves at quarterback.

The Detroit Lions hired Matt Patricia to put them over the top having missed out on the playoffs with a 9-7 record under Jim Caldwell. Unfortunately, Patricia decided an overhaul was needed and the Lions have been rewarded with first a 6-10 season and now 3-12-1 so next season is a big one for Patricia who has kept his job. It may be that the saving grace for him was quarterback Matt Stafford being out for the latter half of the year, but the defence hasn’t been good (it’s never good for a head coach if their side of the ball is not great) and I imagine there will need to be a dramatic turnaround next season for there not to be big changes.

The Atlanta Falcons started the season 1-7 but managed to finish 7-9 and come second in the NFC South as the players seemed to rally round their head coach Dan Quinn and were successful in keeping him his job. However, I don’t know if they can turn things round in the off-season given that things haven’t really been right since they were in the Super Bowl and at some point there may need to be a change to get back to winning ways.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers also finished 7-9, although they started 2-6 but their season can be summed up in the performance of Jameis Winston who threw for over five thousand yards and thirty touchdowns, but he also threw thirty interceptions. It feels like the positive statistics means that you have to re-sign Winston, but unless Bruce Arians can find a way to limit the turnovers it is hard to see the Bucs consistently win.

The Carolina Panthers had a rough season, starting with two losses before Cam Newton was sat with injuries that ultimately didn’t see him return to the field. The Panthers turned to backup quarterback Kyle Allen who was able to get the team back to a 5-3 record before things truly fell apart and they could not win another game this season. This led to Ron Rivera being fired before the end of the season, and has overshadowed the remarkable feat of running back Christian McCaffrey who managed to amass over a thousand yards rushing and receiving. New owner David Tepper says he wants to meld old school football toughness with modern analytics and is also overhauling the front office so we shall just have to see what this results in next year.

The LA Rams finished with a winning record, but could never quite compete with the Seahawks and 49ers in their division. They never fell below .500 but Todd Gurley does not look the same running back and as a result for much of the season Sean McVay couldn’t find the right balance on offence. He is still a really good coach, but there are now structural problems with the roster as they have a lot of money tied up Todd Gurley and Jared Goff. Neither player have really lived up to them, and there are other players who also need signing and not many draft picks to refresh the roster. The front office think they have a different formula to compete, but next season will be key to see if the franchise can bounce back or if things are going to go badly.

Finally, we have the Arizona Cardinals who got five wins in Kliff Kingsbury’s first season as an NFL head coach with rookie quarterback Kyler Murray showing promise. Given how much work was needed to improve the roster, it was no mean feat to improve their season record by two wins and a draw from last year given the quality of the other teams in the NFC West. However, they will need Steve Keim to have a good off-season if the Cardinals are to get enough talent for them to challenge for the playoffs and if they fail to make it for a fifth season then perhaps the position of Keim is the one that will need examining.

Wildcard Trivia

‘Greetings Friends

Week 17 has come and gone and the end of the Regular Season has delivered what we hope will be a juicy playoff series.

I will be keen to see if the Vikings can reverse their recent collapse of momentum against the Saints, but with the 49ers lying in wait this will be a big ask. Equally attractive is the Seahawks and Eagles vying for a match up at Green Bay. Yet again the NFC seems to deliver some meaty games.

In the AFC I am less excited by the Wildcard games, although never rule out the Pats is one lesson I’ve learned. The excitement though will be in the next games when the oft-unfancied Ravens and the Chiefs re-enter the battle.

I feel that the week’s gap for 4 teams can go either way. Momentum or recovery time can be important and this is one area where a coach earns their corn.

I’ll stick my neck out now and predict that Superbowl LIV will be contested between the Saints and the Chiefs with Kansas running out narrow winners. There, I’ve given you a stick to beat me with. Ho Hum never mind.

Talking of predictions the Picks competition also ended on Sunday and I agree with Gee’s comments in Thursdays post that week 17 is very difficult to call as some teams have nothing to play for while others would be desperate to position themselves well for either the Play-offs or, don’t forget, who will be on the roster for next year. Already we have seen the coaching merry-go-round starting up and I see this being a very busy closed season.

I think the mixed agendas contributed to one of the lowest scoring weeks we have had. What is pleasing though is that as a group we have increased the total of wins by 9 over last season. Dan and I managed a disappointing 6 each but the week was won by Gee on 7. But how I achieved a rank of 2253 in the whole competition I will never know. Maybe it proves I have a smarter pin than I thought.

One thing that is still running through the post season is the trivia quiz and in week 17 I set 2 questions both around LA Quarterbacks. They were:

I was the quarterback that led the Rams to a victory in the 2000 Super Bowl against the Tennessee Titans. I lost my starting job after I fumbled six times in the first game of the 2003 season. Who am I?

This was correctly identified by both Dan and Gee as Kurt Warner

Which Charger quarterback bounced back from a dismal 2003-04 season, winning the Comeback Player of the Year Award, throwing 27 touchdowns to seven interceptions, and landing himself a spot in the 2005 NFL Pro Bowl?

Here too they both named Drew Brees.

So 4 points each being Gee up to 19 and Dan 22.

This week I will drop in at 3 teams and again there is 2 points for each.

First we are at the Miami Dolphins, so no pressure here Dan.

After the Dolphins made it to Super Bowl VIII after the 1973 season, what was the next season they saw Super Bowl action?

Next we relocate to the Twin Cities to ask this about the Vikes.

Who did the Vikings play in their first Super Bowl, which was Super Bowl IV, played on January 11, 1970?

Finally this week it is the New England Patriots,

The Patriots moved and changed their name in 1971. What was the home city and their name prior to that?

Right then, that’s 2019 done and we look for a vision for 2020. Catch you next week’

Adjusting to the Adjustment

30 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts

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There seemed to be more running around than usual to get there, but I definitely don’t take for granted the opportunity to get to see my team play a game at the weekend, even if they have fallen to 0-8 but more of that later as I go through the results in week eight of the NFL and some of the results.

What I Saw

Week eight started with a professional looking if unspectacular win by the Minnesota Vikings over the visiting Washington team. The things that really struck me were that Dalvin Cook might be one of my favourite running backs in the league, and he is so deadly with just a little space thanks to his spread. The Vikings were efficient all game between the twenties but if there is a concern it is that they only scored one touchdown, although the margin of victory could have been bigger if the Vikings had not run clock out in the fourth quarter in a drive that took eight minutes but yielded no score as there was no attempt to pass the ball. I think one of the easy things to forget is that the margins between teams are not that great and whilst Washington are not suddenly a good team under Bill Callahan, they do at least look more competitive and the defence played its part in limiting the Vikings. Even the return of holdout left tackle Trent Williams is unlikely to help turn the team’s fortunes round and the important decisions will be made in the off-season, but until there is an overhaul of the front office I’m not sure when the team might look competent on the fired. Meanwhile the Vikings are improved to 6-2 and look a very dangerous proposition for any team to face.

The game I watched on Sunday was obviously the game I was at, as the Cincinnati Bengals lost 10-24 to the LA Rams hosted at Wembley. The start of the game saw both teams match scoring drives up un to 10-10 but then the quality differences really began to show in the second quarter. It was not that the Bengals couldn’t move the ball, they gained over four hundred yards of offence, but it was often a struggle and couldn’t be accurate enough in the red zone when it really matters. There were a couple of great plays, Auden Tate made a spectacular catch but too often plays were left on the field, including some open ones that Dalton admitted to after the game. The sign that things are different -this year under Zac Taylor, apart from the losing is that Andy Dalton has been benched and so Ryan Finley, the rookie who looked so good in pre-season will get the start against the Baltimore Ravens in week ten. More of that nearer the time, but back to this game, if the offence was a frustrating nearly performance, the defence was bad again. You don’t give up over two hundred yards to one receiver if you are a good team. One of the dirty secrets of watching a game live is that you don’t always get the best view and so I don’t know how Cooper Kupp kept popping up open in the middle of the field, but it kept happening. This week I have limited time for coaching tape and so because I’m a glutton for punishment I’m going to look at Cupp’s catches along with the incredible double-reverse flea-flicker that netted the Rams an impressive touchdown, helped by BW Webb falling down. The only thing I will say is that it seems a bit odd to be using such a cool play against a team that you were pretty obviously better than. The Rams record has stabilised a bit over the last couple of weeks, but there are going to be much tougher tests to come.

Whilst waiting for the morning rush hour to go so I could head home, I watched the Tennessee Titans hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which I had seen on the stadium screen had been competitive and the Titans are one of those teams that I don’t have a feel for yet. It has to be said, I’m not wholly sure about them now as their offensive stats were not that impressive and they benefited in the opening quarter by starting with two short fields thanks to turnovers. It’s not a surprise that Jameis Winston turned the ball over for the Bucs, but a day that saw him throw two interceptions and lose two of his three fumbles wasn’t even his worst in the last two weeks. I can see how the talent that allows him to make the spectacular plays is intriguing, but by now we know what kind of player he is and whilst he may well get another chance somewhere else, it is hard to see him staying with Tampa. For the Titans, whilst Ryan Tannehill is not exactly a future solution, he at least looked to be getting the ball out on time and executing the offence. The Titans looked competitive but given the turnovers and the problems the Bucs have I wonder how they will fare against tougher opposition. They are 4-4 so should be respected, but again I wonder what might happen for them at the quarterback position over the off-season.

The final game I saw this week looked like one of the best matchups of the week, but turned out to be a demonstration that yes the San Francisco 49ers are for real as they hosted the Carolina Panthers with a fifty burger – winning 51-13. There were a couple of performances that leapt off the screen for the 49ers. A strong candidate for rookie defensive MVP, if not league wide is Nick Bosa who finished the game with three sacks and interception he got leaping into the air having been cut by an offensive lineman. If that wasn’t impressive enough, the 49ers offence looked deadly with their chunk plays coming in the running game thanks to impressive speed of Tevin Coleman and Raheem Mostert. You don’t expect a team to run for over two hundred yards in any game, yet alone a Carolina Panthers team who have looked good all year. This kind of thing can happen when you are on the road, and Kyle Allen was not going to go all season without throwing an interception but the Panthers will need to rebound quickly, and we shall have to see if they can do that next week against the Titans. Meanwhile as one of the two remaining unbeaten teams, the 49ers will be hoping that Emmanuel Sanders affect will increase his production as he gets used to the offence but they already have established themselves as the team to beat in the NFC.

What I Heard

One of the interesting bits of commentary I heard was actually from the back end of last week when Robert Mays talking on The Ringer NFL Show was discussing a conversation he had had with a coach regarding young quarterbacks and the important thing to consider was not their strengths but their weaknesses. If a quarterback cannot adjust to counter their weakness they are not going to last in the NFL and you can see some of this already floating around this season’s performances and I’m going to take a quick look at three players to explore this.

There are a number of problems affecting the Cleveland Browns, but part of the problem is that over the off-season enough coaches put in time studying Baker Mayfield whose completion percentage has dropped by 6.2 percent so far this season. Additionally, having played half the number of games that he did last year, Mayfield is twenty-one touchdowns behind his season total of twenty-seven but only two interceptions behind his 2016 total of fourteen, effectively reversing his 2:1 touchdown to interception. Now, it is far too early to say that Mayfield can’t turn it around, particularly with a first time head coach in Freddie Kitchens who seems to be calling a different style of game than what was successful for this pair last season, but if Mayfield can’t adjust to what he’s seeing then he could well be another NFL quarterback who was able to flash but not maintain success.

Meanwhile, an almost classic example of somebody who has never been able to adjust to his weakness is a quarterback I mentioned earlier. Jameis Winston has never learnt to look after the ball, and is this failure more than any other that hampers him. It feels like this could be his final season in Tampa Bay as he is an unrestricted free-agent and I don’t know if the Bucs will franchise him or if they feel that he’s just not going to change as a player and there are plenty of people who will argue that if Bruce Arians can’t turn him around then who will.

Finally, we have Lamar Jackson who turned the Baltimore Ravens season around last year and who has continued that into this year with the Ravens currently standing 5-2 at the top of the AFC North. No one is saying that Jackson is suddenly picking apart teams with surgical passes, but his completion percentage is currently up by 5.1% and he’s has thrown five more touchdowns in his seven starts this season than he did in his seven starts last season. More importantly, there appears to be no sophomore slump so whilst we can’t pretend that he won’t be found out or that he will definitely adjust when he’s astonishing athletic ability begins to fade, he passed the tests asked of him so far and it looks like the Ravens are set at quarterback for a while yet.

What I Think

As I mention earlier, the Bengals have announced that for the first time in his nine year career Andy Dalton is missing a game that is not due to injury as he has been benched for rookie Ryan Finley. This does make sense given that the Bengals find themselves at 0-8 and need to find out what they have ahead of next season. Interestingly, despite many commentators suggesting otherwise, the Bengals were not sellers ahead of the trade deadline and they will be hoping that with a good off-season they can turn things round if Finley doesn’t give them a start. He certainly looked good in pre-season but you can’t trust that so it makes total sense to give him half a season to see what he can do. The timing for Dalton makes less sense as the announcement being so close to the trade deadline precluded any trade options for him and he will have to spend the rest of the season in limbo with a year left on his contract but no guaranteed money next year.

What I Know

To my eyes, the game between the New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens looks to be the marque game of week ten and for a week I don’t have to worry about the Bengals losing another one.

What I Hope

The I’m always hoping for is success for teams and players and the difference between them being one reaching a higher peak so I’m hoping the Browns turn it round, that someone else in the AFC joins the six teams with a winning record, and that we get exciting games, starting with tomorrow’s contest between the 49ers and the Cardinals – stranger things have happened!

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.

The Unknowable NFL

02 Wednesday Oct 2019

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All bar the two teams on a bye last week have sailed past the quarter pole of the season and this Sunday sees the first of the four game London series getting played so we can definitely say that the 2019 season is in full swing, but as so often the case it feels like we know less for certain than ever about how the teams are going. Let’s see if I can explains some of that as I take you through my week of the NFL.

What I Saw

Week four started with one of the more entertaining games we have seen this year with he Philadelphia Eagles running out 34-27 winner in Green Bay against the Packers. The game started out as I expected with the Packers defence looking strong and the packers taking an early touchdown lead but in the second quarter three Eagles’ touchdowns saw them take a lead that they would hold until late in the third quarter and retake in the fourth. A strong offensive line performance enabled the Eagles to rush for one hundred and seventy-six yards and not give up any sacks whilst their defence held the Packers to under four yards per carry until the Packers virtually gave up on running that ball. What the Packers were able to do was throw the ball and it was Aaron Rodgers who kept them in the game (despite losing tackle Bryan Bulaga early) thanks to a four hundred and twenty-two yard passing day. The offence may not be clicking yet for the Packers but I think that Rodgers and Matt LaFleur will find a way and the league had better watch out when they do given how the Packers defence has played. The Eagles meanwhile really needed that win to stay in the NFC East race now that the New York Giants have found two wins in the opening four games. They had some players come back from injury but it was good to see the coaching staff get the win despite the players they were still missing.

The first of the Sunday games that I watched was between the Houston Texans and the Carolina Panthers who through a defensive game that saw only two touchdowns but nine sacks as the Panthers ran out 16-10 winners on the road. This win was built on the Panthers’ derfence’s ability to contain the Texans offence, particularly in the passing game where Deshaun Watson only threw for one hundred and sixty yards whilst getting sacked six times and harried a lot more. There are still problems with the offensive line (which might be worth a coaching tape look at some point) and Watson has a tendency to hold onto the ball trying to make a play. You can hear him talk about the coverage in this clip that got a lot of people talking about his honesty so it’s worth having a look. Meanwhile the Panthers have got their second straight win since Kyle Allen has replace the injured Cam Newton, but whilst he was efficient enough to get the win he has to work on his ball security/pocket awareness as you can’t expect to fumble away the ball three times and expect to keep winning games. The defence played well, but in this era of multiple offences and running back by committee special mention has to go to Christian McCaffery who played all sixty-eight of the Panthers’ offensive snaps, amassing ninety-three yards on the ground with the teams only touchdown as well as eighty-six yards catching the ball. The Panthers look to be holding things together whilst they wait for Newton to get properly healthy, but they have an awful lot resting on the body of McCaffery at the moment and I just hope he can keep carrying the load until Newton comes back. Meanwhile the Texans are one of the four AFC South teams that are 2-2, which looks again to be a division that will beat each other up all year and then one or two teams will get hot at the end of the season and make the playoffs. The long term concern is the roster construction given the draft picks they have traded away going into the season as it does not appear that they are as close to challenging for the Super Bowl as the trades would suggest they think they are.

The second Sunday game I watched was another low scoring affair (if I wanted offence the Buccaneers @ Rams was the way to go) as the Dallas Cowboy lost a close one on the road 12-10 to the New Orleans Saints. This was a game that only saw one touchdown and that was for the losing Cowboys as both defences dominated the day. For all their early season success the Cowboys struggled to move the ball, particularly on the ground where they were only able to get forty-five yards as the Saints defence new exactly where to be for each run. The Cowboys were not able to get enough done through the air to win the game with Presscott throwing for two hundred and twenty-three yards and an interception. If the Cowboys didn’t quite look like themselves on the road, the Saints look to have a really good defence that is allowing them to win games without Drew Brees. Teddy Bridgewater threw for under two hundred yards in this game with a long of only twenty yards but the offence managed to rush for over one hundred yards thanks in large part to the power and balance of Alvin Kamara. The Saints will be hoping to keep themselves in the hunt until Drew Brees gets back, but I don’t know if they can keep relying on their defence to play like they did in this game. Meanwhile, the Cowboys have to hope that this was a blip road loss, but the offence did not look like it was flowing properly and that’s something to keep an eye on.

I don’t want to write about the final game of the week, but given that the Cincinnati Bengals were playing in the Monday night game against the Pittsburgh Steelers I have no good reason not to cover their miserable 3-27 loss on the road. The problems are perhaps obvious and to an extent predictable as the Bengals kept losing offensive line starters before the season had even started and four games into the season they are struggling to make room in the running game or protect Andy Dalton when passing the ball. The other worry I have is at linebacker and in particular at the edges of the defence and this came to pass as the Steelers used Jaylen Samuels to take direct snaps and touch passes to attach the edges. It’s hard to tell how much of a turnaround this is for the Steelers given how Bengals have played this season but it’s a step. Meanwhile, the Bengals are facing a huge game this Sunday as in only their second home game of the season they welcome another winless team, the Arizona Cardinals and if they don’t win that one then this thing could get really ugly. I’m probably clinging to tightly the fact that two of the games were really competitive and the Bengals have face three tough road games so far but that comes to an end this week.

What I Heard

There has been continuing conversations about the new wave of quarterbacks and backups as rookies Gardiner Minshew II and Daniel Jones got their second wins as starters, Kyle Allen got a second win with the Panthers whilst Chase Daniels came off the bench to help the Bears beat the Vikings in a performance that has drawn comments about how Daniels was able to at least get the ball out where it was supposed to and accurately on the underneath throws.

The Vikings offence has been another source of discussion given it’s focus on running the ball despite Kirk Cousins being in the second year of an $84 million guaranteed contract. Normally you might question the offensive coordinator’s but given his track record with OCs this really sits with head coach Mike Zimmer who is always talking about running the ball, but it doesn’t make sense to be so focussed on that when you have arguably one of the best receiving duos in the league. There’s been plenty of criticism of Kirk Cousins, but to my mind that feels a lot like the criticism of Andy Dalton and no these are not the elite of the elite, but they are good enough to win if you put the right team around them. I agree with the commentators who say that you can compete by paying elite but were you get into trouble is overpaying for talent. This isn’t a matter of who deserves to get paid as a human being but how you build a competitive roster in a salary cap sport and the I don’t think the problem is necessarily in the roster of the Vikings (their o-line could be better but so could most teams these days) but there is a disconnect in paying Cousins what they are and then not utilising him. I respect coach Zimmer and was reluctant to see him leave the Bengals although happy he was finally getting a chance to lead a team, but I do wonder if he has reached his level if he can’t allow his offence to run as the current version of the NFL dictates. I have a feeling he’s stubborn enough to keep the team playing like this and so the Vikings will be competitive but I don’t know that they are going to maximise this year’s team and that is a worry as the defence is not getting any younger.

What I Think

I have watched the transformation of Vontaze Burfict from a tone setting star of the defence who got the team lined up and played up to the line whilst straying over it occasionally to a liability who seems lost in his own mythos as his time on the field got less reducing both his productivity and conduct. The hit that got him ejected from this week’s game is being legislated out of the game for a reason, but almost as bad was the grin as trotted off as if he was proud of himself. There are team mates and coaches for the Raiders who are unhappy but I’m not sure that feeling will be shared around the league and there are plenty who are happy to see him gone for the season. In fact it’s not hard to find people who don’t want to see him play again. There is an argument about taking away someone’s lively hood but the fact of the matter is that in no other industry would a disregard of the rules be tolerated, particularly in a matter of health and safety. It’s not always possible to adjust when players are going at full speed but when you have the track record of Burfict you lose the benefit of the doubt.

What I Know

That after a thoroughly miserable time watching the Bengals this week I am hoping to both actually get to some coaching tape and to cheer myself up by watching Khalil Mack who is once again showing just how bad an idea it was to trade him away. It should be a fun subplot this weekend in London as the Bears take on the Raiders for the first time since Mack was trade to Chicago last year.

What I Hope

That one of Dan and I get put out of our misery and gets our first win and that the NFL continues to be as unpredictable as it was this week, even if it is terrible for our picks…

The Other Quarterbacks

26 Thursday Sep 2019

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It would appear that a quicker process was what was needed to improve my picks in week three, but sadly there was no respite for Dan or I in terms of our teams doing anything other than losing. Still, here we go with my trip through the NFL this week.

What I Saw

Week three started with a one-sided Thursday night game that never quite took off as the Jacksonville Jaguars made a mockery of my pick by grinding out a 20-7 win over the Tennessee Titans. This was a game dominated by penalties and the Jaguars pass rush that sacked Marcus Mariota a massive nine times. The Titans have a real problem as they are good enough to compete across the roster bar quarterback with Mariota holding onto the ball and reluctant to throw the ball deep. This competitiveness will make it difficult for the team to replace Mariota if the team do decide to move on and I wonder at what point we might see Ryan Tannehill get a start if things don’t improve for the Titans offence. Meanwhile, the confident Gardiner Minshew II (I do enjoy that his father’s name is not Gardiner Minshew – he was just creative when registering his son’s name) did enough in his first start to get the Jaguars their first win of the season. The strange thing was the Jaguars defence finally looked really good this week yet it seems as if they are still likely to lose arguably their best player in Jalen Ramsey. In a division that is wide open it would be a curious move indeed to trade him, as was playing him in this game if you intend to trade him and having reported sick on Monday he is on the injury list for his lower back. I still do not trust this team but if their defence can play like this a little more often and Minshew can keep the offence ticking over when the opponent’s defence has time and film to game plan for him fully then the Jaguars could climb back into contention in the division.

The next game I watched was the Baltimore Ravens traveling to Arrowhead stadium to take on the Kansas City Chiefs, but whilst the Ravens were able to generate over four hundred and fifty yards of offence they were not able to move the ball consistently enough to beat the Chiefs in their home opener falling to a 28-33 loss. The score is actually closer than it was for a lot of game even if the Ravens did get the first touchdown of the contest but Patrick Mahomes had another spectacular second quarter as the Chiefs scored twenty-three points that included two spectacular catches from the young Cheifs’ receivers. First Demarcus Robinson pulled in a lovely one-handed catch and then Mecole Hardman took advantage of a broken coverage to score on an eighty-three yard play that put the Chiefs 20-6 up. There was plenty of production from the Ravens offence, which managed over two hundred rushing yards as part of their day and several splash plays of their own including a several moments of rushing brilliance from Lamar Jackson. However, too many drives stalled and they cost themselves three points from failed two-point conversions, which is an interesting tactical choice when you have one of the most reliable kickers in the league. It was clearly a deliberate tactic and I don’t know the relative percentage of two-point tries versus extra points to do the maths, but if the Ravens had made all of them that would turn a five point deficit into a one point win so I can see what they were trying to do.

I’m not sure I want to write about the Cincinnati Bengals, but I’ll try as they travelled to Buffalo and suffered their third loss of the season falling 21-17 having taken a three point lead with under five minutes to go. However, whilst the record is lousy, the Bengals aren’t all that bad but maddeningly inconsistent. If they could put more consistent good play across four quarters I can see how they could be good – particularly as the pass rush is really good but the run game has been inconsistent ad I wonder where the team will be when they visit London at the end of October. Meanwhile, the Bills continue to be a tough team to face thanks to a stingy defence and an offence that seems to be doing enough. In his second year quarterback Josh Allen is finding a way to compete and the combination of him, TJ Yeldon and the ever reliable Frank Gore dominated a running game that generated one hundred and seventy-five yard. I don’t know if they can beat the visiting Patriots next week, but I suspect it will be a competitive game.

The final game of the week that I watched was the LA Rams travelling to Cleveland to beat the now 1-2 Browns: 20–13. For all the talk of offensive prowess about both teams in the off-season, this was a grind it out defensive contest that seemed to pit the Rams pass rush against the Browns generating three interceptions. The Browns got pressure of their own but it seemed that Jared Goff was the quarterback more prepared to take risks and paid the price in interceptions. However, he did enough to put twenty points on the board even with a missed field-goal, whilst the Browns offensive line seemed to scupper the Brown’s ability to move the ball consistently. The Browns looked good both running the ball with Nick Chubb and passing the ball when Baker Mayfield had time, but were not able to sustain drives regularly enough thanks to multiple Rams’ defenders getting into the backfield and harassing Mayfield. It’s no surprise that Aaron Donald played really well in this game, but the combination of him with Dante Fowler and Clay Mathews really worked for the Rams when rushing the passer with Mathews in particularly looking as good as he has done for several seasons. The saving grace for the Browns is that they have yet to play a divisional opponent but next week they travel to face the Ravens who are the early favourites to win the division. Even starting 1-3 wouldn’t necessarily scupper the Browns chances of making the playoffs given the state of the AFC North so far this season but this first AFC North game against the Raven is now massively important and the Browns have not convinced so far.

What I Heard & What I Think

I’m combining two section this week thanks to the scope of quarterback stories this week, but I’ll try to get back to my normal subjects next week.

There has been a lot of discussion about quarterback this week, which is understandable given that even discounting the Colts’ enforced change in quarterback we now have seven teams starting a different player than was planned at the start of the season. What’s more several teams got wins off the back of their new starter at quarterback. I have already mentioned Gardiner Minshew II who has been getting lots of headlines thanks to the various urban legends that are doing the rounds but one of the other performances that leapt out was by Kyle Allen who led the Panthers to their first win of the season. I don’t think this will necessarily create a quarterback controversy unless Cam Newton cannot get back to the level of performance he has in previous years, but what it does do if Allen can maintain this level of performance then the Panthers can afford to wait unit Newton is fully healthy before returning to the game. This is why whilst no team can afford to have two quality starters on the roster, a good veteran or a promising young player can turn around or rescue a season if they only need to do it for a short stretch.

For instance, the investment the Saints put into making Teddy Bridgewater one of the highest paid backups paid off when he stepped up and won on the road in Seattle. He didn’t look great, but he kept the Saints moving and got them a good win.

However, the other type of quarterback we saw step up was the high pick rookie. A lot of the headlines have gone to Daniel Jones because he plays for the New York Giants but Jones also got a win in his first start against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a game I’ll be looking at for this week’s Amateur Adventures in Film. It seems the days of a high round rookie quarterback sitting for an entire year are pretty much gone as even Patrick Mahomes got to start week seventeen of his rookie year. Sooner or later a highly drafted player is going to start. I suspect the next one will be in Washington but at what point I don’t know.

What I Know

That someone at the bottom of the AFC North should get their first win of the season next Monday, although it would be just my luck if the teams managed a second tie of the season.

What I Hope

That the Bengals don’t forget themselves against the Steelers and give a good account of themselves in front of the nation on Monday night.

It’s going to be a long wait…