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The Wrong Football

~ A UK American Football fan writes about the game he loves

The Wrong Football

Tag Archives: NFC North

AFC and NFC North Preview

03 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Pre-Season

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Tags

Aaron Rodgers, AFC North, AJ Green, Andy Dalton, Antonio Brown, Baker Mayfield, Baltimore Ravens, Ben Roethlisberger, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Deshaun Watson, Detroit Lions, Freddie Kitchens, Gary Kubiak, Green Bay Packers, Jim Caldwell, Joe Burrow, Joe Mixon, Jonah Williams, Jordan Love, Kevin Stefanski, Khalil Mack, Kirk Cousins, Lamar Jackson, Le'Veon Bell, Mason Rudolph, Matt LaFleur, Matt Patricia, Matthew Stafford, Mike Tomlin, Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings, Mitchell Trubisky, Myles Garrett, NFC North, NFL, Nick Foles, Odell Beckham, Patrick Mahomes, Pittsburgh Steelers, Stefon Diggs, Zac Taylor

AFC North

Baltimore Ravens

The Baltimore Ravens finished last season with the best regular season record but came up short in the play-offs against a Tennessee Titans team on a roll. This will lead to ongoing conversations about Lamar Jackson’s ability to win play-off games. That question is going to hang around until he does, but Jackson was the 2019 MVP for a reason, namely over three thousand yards of passing and twelve hundred yards on the ground. The Ravens did a great job of building their offence around Jackson and had a top five by DVOA defence to boot. The Ravens are in fact one of the better run franchises in the league so as long as Jackson can stay healthy then it is hard not to see this team competing again this season.

Pittsburgh Steelers

The Steelers went 8-8 last season despite losing veteran quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in week two to an elbow injury. Their defece ranked third in the league by DVOA and their special teams was was top ten but a dead last offence saw them miss out on the play-offs. This is perhaps not surprising given they had no killer Bs left after Big Ben went down with Le’Veon Bell underwhelming for the Jets and Antonio Brown’s erratic and troubling behaviour seeing him barely play for Patriots before being cut for a second time having already failed to make the start of the season with the Raiders. The Steelers are another stable franchise so if Roethlisberger can stay healthy while getting somewhere near his best and the defence manages not to regress too much then they should be in contention come the end of the year. There are no guarantees in the NFL, and the AFC North should be a battle this year but I expect the Steelers to be in contention again as they usually are. That said, out of the thirteen season he has been head coach for the Steelers, Mike Tomlin has only failed to reach the play-offs in five, but that does include the last two seasons. I wouldn’t expect this to lead to problems for Tomlin if there are further struggles this season as the Steelers have been famously patient with their coaches and he did a great job under the circumstances, but it could be one to keep an eye on.

Cleveland Browns

Turmoil seems to follow the Browns ever since their return to the league, but last year was a nightmare. They had play-off ambitions with a talented roster and a new head coach in Freddit Kitches who had established a connection with young quarterback Baker Mayfield in his rookie year. However, things were not right all season. Mayfield regressed in his second season with a falling completion percentage and similar numbers despite starting the full season for the first time. One of his new receiving targets, Odell Beckham was injured all year and so did not look like himself and nothing quite clicked on offence. The defence was hamstrung with Myles Garrett got involved in a fight with Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph, and having hit the quarterback over the head with their own helmet was suspended for the final six games of the season. The Browns come into this season with another new head coach, who almost can’t help being better than Freddie Kitchens and there is still plenty of talent on the roster, but Mayfield needs to take a step as a quarterback and so a lot is resting on how he will run new head coach Kevin Stefanski’s system. I have a feeling that thinkg will be better for the Browns, but in a competitive division I’m not sure if they will be able to push for the play-offs or not.

Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals were truly woeful last year in Zac Taylor’s first season as head coach. Some of that wasn’t his fault as AJ Green was lost to an ankle injury that was picked up at the first training camp practice, which for an NFL 100 event was played on a high school field they should never have been on and soon after that the Bengals’ first round draft pick, left tackle Jonah Williams, was lost to a shoulder injury whilst they were still in camp. In fact, the offensive line was bad all year as the offence struggled so much they had to rip up the approach halfway through to get Joe Mixon going and the defence was bad.  They had the worst record in the league for a reason, but they were within a touchdown in half of their fourteen losses and after several seasons where Andy Dalton could never find the form he showed in the 2015 the Bengals moved on, taking college sensation Joe Burrow with the first pick after his ridiculously good Heisman winning season at LSU where he led the Tigers to the college championship. All the talk is that he’s been learning the playbook during the offseason via zoom and has looked in good in training camp, but who hasn’t looked good in training camp this year? There’s no way to know without seeing him in games, and the offensive line needs to be better for him to operate successfully, but there are still lots of good skill players and if they don’t need a perfect pocket for the quarterback to operate then they stand a solid chance of improving on that side of the ball. The Bengals defence has a re-tooled linebacker group and the team signed some free-agents, but it’s hard to get too excited. I think there is a good chance this team will look better and win some more game, they might even flirt with going .500 but after such a bad season I don’t think you can expect a worst to first type performance with a rookie quarterback, and particularly not in this division. I would love to be proved wrong but I think this should be a season of growth for the Bengals and after last season that will be okay.

NFC North

Green Bay Packers

I think this is one of the more intriguing division in football, and last year’s division winners are an interesting case in point. The Packers went 13-3 and got to the Conference Championship game, but were handily beaten by the 49ers and gave up over two-hundred and fifty yards of running in that game. A lot of the talk through the season and on into the off-season was the play of Aaron Rodgers who still threw for over four thousand yards despite what many were calling a down year and his new head coach Matt LaFleur’s focus on running the ball. If there were to be signs of this approach changing, they were not obvious in the Packers offseason. Not only did they not take a receiver again this draft, but they traded up in the first round to select quarterback Jordan Love. It might be that the Packers are taking the view that you should always have a quarterback in development, or that they saw the opportunity to recreate the transition the Packers had from Brett Farve to Rodgers, but it was a significant move. Given the age of Rodgers (36) and the change of both GM and head coach in recent seasons, they could simply be preparing to move on. However, whilst Rodgers is clearly closer to the end of his career than the start, with modern sports medicine and the NFL’s current rules to protect quarterbacks he should still have several productive years yet and has spoken of playing into forties. The Packers might be expected to regress from thirteen wins this season and will be looking to further improve their defence. I suspect they will remain competitive, but I can’t help but feel this will be a team battling to maintain their success rather than taking a step forward.

Minnesota Vikings

The Vikings won a play-off game against the Saints before losing to the Super Bowl bound 49ers in the divisional round, but this did give quarterback Kirk Cousins his first play-off win of his career. Under head coach Mike Zimmer the Vikings have alternated years in the play-offs with seasons missing out despite being around 8-8, but they had a busy off-season and they would be hoping these transactions will helps them build on last season’s success rather than having a fallow year. However, integrating a draft class of fifteen was always going to be a big task, but doing so with the current practice restriction in place for this season could be a step too far. This is particularly the case for an overhauled secondary that lost three starting corners with over 223 collective career games. I have a lot of faith in coach Zimmer to look after a defence, but it makes me hesitant to be too bullish on them, particularly given the number of offensive coordinators that the Vikings have been through under Zimmer and the fact that they traded away star receiver Stefon Diggs. Going into the season with so many unknows makes it hard to be certain of anything, and given the limited number of games in an NFL season there is a certain amount of randomness built in. I like that Gary Kubiak is the offensive coordinator having consulted last season before Kevin Stefanski left for the Browns, and I think the Vikings will compete for the division but I can easily see things going awry for them in a potentially turmultous season.

Chicago Bears

There is a large amount of anxiety surrounding the Bears, which mainly stems from the quarterback position as Mitchell Trubisky regressed in 2019 after a promising first season in head coach Matt Nagy’s debut as a head coach. I never liked the trade up to pick Trubisky, and that pick looks even worse given that the Bears picked him ahead of both Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson. The offence ranked a miserable twenty-fifth by DVOA whilst the defence regressed from first in 2018 by DVOA to eighth in 2019. The defence will likely be good enough, but with Trubisky now having Nick Foles in the quarterback room there is the potential for a quarterback controversy, although it is hard to have a huge amount of faith in either one as Foles has a history of inconsistent play. Special mention should go to Khalil Mack as the fearsome pass rusher he is, but I’m not sure that the fairly traditional for the Bears formula of stout defence and a struggling offence is going to cut it in 2020, and likely wasn’t envisioned when offensive minded coach Nagy was hired. The Bears could surprise me, but I’m not putting any faith in it.

Detroit Lions

The Lions opened last season with a concerning draw to the very inexperienced Arizona Cardinals, dragged themselves to 2-0-1, before falling back to 3-3-1 and failing to win another game. They were not helped by losing quarterback Matthew Stafford halfway through the season, who was playing well and very nearly had two and half thousand yards through eight games. My concern here is that the Lions were a nearly team under Jim Caldwell, but 9-7 was not deemed good enough when the Lions missed out on the playoffs and so Matt Patricia was brought in from the Patriots to get the Lions the play-off success Detroit thirsts so much for. However, Patricia has rebuilt the Lions as a pale re-imagining of the Patriots and has been unable to recreate the Patriot’s defensive formula away from Belichick. The Lions have only managed to win nine games in the last two season and whilst I can see that if everything goes right that the Lions might vault the Bears in this division, I’m not sure if I can see them doing much more. Matthew Stafford has some good skill players around him so it’s not impossible, but given the history in Detroit it could take a monumental effort to turn things around. Equally, the Lions could be due for a change, but for whatever reason, I do not find Patricia inspiring but as I tend to hope for success he could yet prove me wrong.

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

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Quarterbacks and Injuries

03 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Tags

Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Blaine Gabbert, Buffalo Bills, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Earl Thomas, Green Bay Packers, Jared Goff, julian Edleman, Kansas City Chiefs, LA Rams, Le'Veon Bell, Marcus Mariota, Matt LaFleur, Matt Nagy, Matt Patricia, Miami Dolphins, Mike Vraebel, Minnesota Vikings, Mitch Trubisky, New England Patriots, NFC North, NFL, Patrick Mahomes, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Sean McVay, Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans, Tyler Eifert

USATSI_10509735_164063748_lowres-696x463.jpg

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.

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