Tag Archives: Odell Beckham

NFC Preview

05 Wednesday Sep 2018

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18-09-05 NFC-2

So having set myself this ridiculous task, it’s time to try to finish my whistle-stop previews in time for the start of the season so on to the NFC!

NFC North

The Minnesota Vikings won the division at a canter last season and whilst they might not have it all their own way this year now the Packers have Aaron Rodgers back and healthy, they are one of the fancied teams in the NFC. Having let three quarterbacks walk at the start of free agency they signed Kirk Cousins and expect to match offensive production with their fearsome defence. The offensive line is the one obvious weakness but in Mike Zimmer they have one of the best coaches in the league and I think they will be there or there about come December.

The Green Bay Packers had a down season last year thanks to Aaron Rodgers’s broken collar bone, but they will be hoping for a return to the playoffs now he’s back and healthy. A new GM saw the Packers dip into free agency more aggressively this offseason and after nine years they let go of Dom Capers and brought in Mike Pettine as a new defensive coordinator. It hard not to see the Packers in contention come the end of year as long as Rodgers stays healthy and if things gel for them they could be one of the better teams in the league.

The Detroit Lions went nine and seven but failed to make the playoffs and decided to go for a new head coach. They brought in Matt Patricia from the Patriots and a lot of the focus this year will be on just how good a coach the Belichick pupil is. Having left a team with the thirtieth ranked defence by DVOA last season , Patricia takes over a Lions team that ranked nineteenth so we shall have to see, but I like the continuity of Jim Bob Cooter staying in charge of offence and continuing his successful work with Matthew Stafford. I can’t take too much from pre-season as I didn’t see any of the starters, but they were not impressive against the Browns and they could be a candidate for a team who struggles. We’ll just have to see how things work out and a lot depends on how successfully Patricia blends what he learnt in New England with his own beliefs now he’s the man who is ultimately responsible.

I was feeling things were on the up for the Chicago Bears even before they swung the trade for Khalil Mack. I’ve seen their offence improve over the course of the pre-season and whilst I’m not necessarily convinced by Mitchell Trubisky, with the skills players the Bears brought in through free-agency and new head coach Matt Nagy’s offensive scheme the Bears almost can’t help but improve on offence. The defence was pretty good before the addition of Mack and rookie linebacker Roquan Smith so I can see why there is a buzz around this team. How many wins this will actually yield this year I don’t know, but I like the aggressive approach the Bears took having realised how short a window an NFL franchises gets to exploit having a quarterback on a rookie contract. Whilst I didn’t like how they manoeuvred to get Trubisky in the draft, I like how they surrounded him with talent this offseason. Now let’s see just how big a dividend the team gets.

NFC East

The Philadelphia Eagles come into the season with one of the strongest rosters on paper, but there are a fare few injuries floating round apart from the Carson Wentz making his way back from the ACL and LCL tears. More worrying is that the Super Bowl winning Nick Foles and the first team offence have not scored a touchdown in pre-season. I think they are still favourites for the season and after the Super Bowl win Doug Pederson had all the affirmation he needs to stick to his plans but there may be a difficult few weeks ahead.

The Dallas Cowboys have lost a lot of franchise cornerstones over the last couple of seasons and big questions remain over who Dak Prescott will be throwing the ball to so a lot rests on how well Ezekiel Elliot can run the ball. That won’t be helped by the injuries to an offensive line that has been the cornerstone of the Cowboys’ offence in recent years. Meanwhile the defence has been more impacted by whether Sean Lee plays or not than any other unit has been by a single player that is not a quarterback. I’m not ready to declare them non-competitive just yet as there is potential for them to have a good year but it would not surprise me if they do in fact struggle, particularly as Jason Garrett doesn’t fill with a lot of confidence as head coach if this team starts to have difficulties.

Washington failed to make the playoffs last season and after several seasons of franchise tagging Kirk Cousins they traded for Alex Smith and then promptly gave him an extension. I am not convinced by the roster moves over recent years and I have a feeling that Jay Gruden will likely have his team win another 7-9 games like they have the last three seasons. There have been positive noised about Smith’s performance in the pre-season and when healthy Jordan Reed has been one of the most effective tight ends in the league in the passing game but I don’t know if the changes that have been made indicate a big improvement.

The New York Giants were a car crash last season with Ben McAdoo losing the locker room, the offence failing to function minus Odell Beckham and the defence slipping to a rank of eighteenth by DVOA having been second in 2016. This year’s Giants have a new GM and head coach who doubled down on Eli Manning despite his flagging form in recent years. They brought in Nate Solder from New England to solidify their offensive line at left tackle and drafted Saquon Barkley second in the draft without trading down and ignoring the various quarterbacks they could have had. There are genuine arguments about taking even as transcendent a talent as Barkley is thought to be over a quarterback given their respective values to a team and career length, but it seems they could have also struck a deal to move down but this what they have to play with now. The worry is how much does Manning still have in the tank but the coaching situation has to better than last year and so whilst I expect an improvement, I don’t know quite how much of a step up the Giants will make. I just hope they don’t regret not grabbing a quarterback when they had the second pick in the draft, who know when they’ll next pick that high again and they certainly will be hoping it isn’t for a while.

NFC South

The NFC south was one of the most competitive division s in the NFL last season with three teams finishing with double digit wins and making the playoffs.

The New Orleans Saints had a franchise changing draft bringing in enough defensive talent to shoot their ranking up into the top ten by DVOA whilst Alvin Kamara generated 1901 yards of offence. There were whispers that Drew Brees’s arm was not quite the same but he’s still as good as any quarterback in the league and threw for four thousand yards for the twelfth straight time! Yes he’s thirty-nine, but there don’t seem to have been any serious signs of decline yet and the Saints have just traded for Teddy Bridgewater who looked excellent throwing the ball for the Jets in pre-season. I’m not sure I would have invested the amount of draft capital the Saints did to pick such a raw pass rush talent in the first round as they did in this year’s draft but I suspect they will be there or there abouts at the end of the season.

The Carolina Panthers’ experiment with changing the way Cam Newton plays failed early in the season but he now has a new offensive coordinator in Norv Turner and I will be very interested to see how this works out. They do have multiple injuries at offensive tackle so it may be a work in progress but for his occasionally maddening accuracy issues, Newton is an effective quarterback in the style that he plays. If the defence continues to be in the top ten by DVOA then I would feel confident in saying that the Panthers will contend. My only concern is that for the last six years the Panthers have alternated double digit win seasons with seven win seasons, although one of them did net a playoff appearance. I certainly don’t believe this constitutes a pattern that is going to suddenly manifest itself in a seven win season but I do worry about their Panthers consistency from year to year. As ever we shall just have to see what the season holds.

The Atlanta Falcons were coming off a difficult Super Bowl loss last season and losing their offensive coordinator to the San Francisco 49ers. They were still a good team but the offence didn’t quite flow under Steve Sarkiesian but the defence continued to shape up under head coach Dan Quinn’s direction and they made it to the playoffs once more. Having adjusted Julio Jones’s contract and extended Matt Ryan’s contract the Falcons look set to challenge once again this season and may feel they weren’t far away last season in the playoffs.

The other team in the NFC South very much feel like the other team. Head coach Dirk Koetter was promoted because of his relationship with Jameis Winston who so desperately wants to be a leader but hasn’t quite managed that or to develop his play. Winston starts the season on suspension after groping an Uber driver and this franchise feels like it is disarray and it would not exactly surprise me if this team struggles all season. We shall have to see how the season plays out and it wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong, but come the end of the year I suspect it could be all change for the Buccaneers.

NFC West

Last season’s surprise package in the NFC were the LA Rams who were transformed by young head coach Sean McVay who overhauled the offence to reignite Todd Gurley and rescue Jared Goff from the category of draft bust whilst leaving Wade Phillip alone to run the defence. Not content with making it to the playoffs last season they added Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib, Sam Shields, and Ndamukong Suh to the defence. It’s clear they have faith in Wade Phillips to control that combustible mix of personalities but there is no doubting these players talent and if both sides of the ball live up to expectations they will be one of the more formidable teams in the league. I’m not sure if it is possible to live up to some of the hype but the Rams would be my pick as favourite for this division.

The Seattle Seahawks had a tough time last year as injuries hobbled the legion of boom and it has been all change for the franchise in the offseason. Not a lot is expected of them, particularly with Earl Thomas holding out but I’m ready to give up on Pete Carroll just yet. The offensive line might finally have solidified a little according to those watching closely and Rashaad Penny, the Seahawks’ rookie running back, has been turning heads in pre-season. As has Australian rookie punter Michael Dickson who managed to kick two fifty yard plus punts out of bounds within the five yard line in one game. I’m not prepared to guarantee anything other than a competitive team, but I think they could surprise a few people this season.

The Arizona Cardinals seem a strange prospect for me without Bruce Arians never mind having to find a new starting quarterback. We know that Sam Bradford is unlikely to make it through the season without getting injured and that receiving legend Larry Fitzgerald deservers a better team, but David Johnson is returning from a wrist injury and so he should get back to something like his previous form. However, with a new coaching staff and so much turmoil it feels like whilst this team in transition might rally round and surprise people, it could also really struggle and something says to me that struggle is the more likely option. I always want to see teams and players do well so I hope to be proved wrong.

Finally, in this two day scramble of writing madness we come to the only team with a quarterback who has an undefeated starting record in the NFL. It is a small sample size so whilst I’m certain that Jimmy Garoppolo’s steak won’t continue throughout this season, the hope that he and first year head coach Kyle Shanahan gave last year will continue to come to fruition this year. However, they have already lost running back Jerick McKinnon to an ACL injury and it’s worth remembering the place that the 49ers started from when John Lynch came in to be Shanahan’s GM last year. I expect the 49ers to be competitive even if they can’t replicate the five game winning streak from the end of last year’s season but the fans from San Francisco may have to wait until next season to return to the playoffs given the size of the rebuild job that had to be taken on. I wouldn’t necessarily put any money on that though…

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Trying to Make a Plan Stick

30 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in Picks Competition, Thursday Night Football

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A combination of the Thanksgiving games and an ill-timed support call at the weekend got me thinking about the obsession with routine that many NFL head coaches seem to have.

I think the desire for routine was part of the reason that John Harbaugh was comfortable in complaining about his team’s trip to London earlier this year.

An NFL head coach is used to micromanaging. I’m sure there has to be a degree of flexibility built in, but a coach has his plan for the entire season prepared before it starts in terms of practise, travel, and everything it takes to play a game of football. This is much easier to implement if you are working in a familiar routine, particularly if you have a heavy schedule and any NFL coach, yet alone the one in charge of an entire team works an awful lot of hours.

One of the reasons that Bruce Arian’s is a favourite coach of mine is that he often talks about how important it is to maintain a work life balance and that if he hears of any of his coaches missing an important family occasion then he’ll fire them. However, in the ultra-competitive world of professional sports people are always looking for advantages and with the complexity of tactics that make up an NFL game plan you can see why coaches put in as many hours as they do.

I know from personal experience how if you don’t have a focussed plan, that you can spend a huge amount of time watching the coaching tape of a single game, and comparatively I know nothing about football. Not that I let that stop me from commenting about the game or coaching.

However, I don’t pretend that coaching is easy, and whilst I can and do share frustrations or wonder what was going on, something I heard Michael Wilbon of ESPN say really struck a chord with me.

He was talking about coaching and given how prepared these coaches are, the hours they put in, what interference and distractions must be going on for them to make the decisions they do.

Take for instance the Buffalo Bills. They have a quarterback in Tyrod Taylor that the franchise has not committed to, and with the GM and coaching regime change and apparently there still being no faith you begin to wonder what influence the owners are having. Certainly the decision to start Nathan Peterman ended badly and with Taylor back under centre this last week, the Bills were able to beat the Kansas City Chiefs.

I had a lot of time for what Sean McDermott did this season with a team that had move a lot of players on yet was still found a way to win, but for many the decision to sit a quarterback who didn’t turn the ball over for a rookie because Peterman gave them the best chance to win was fireable given how badly Peterman played. However, with a win McDermott at least stabilised the situation and what we don’t know is how many people were involved in the decision, but when it comes to a starting quarterback I wonder how many voices are involved.

Certainly with the announcement that Eli Manning is to have his starting streak of over two hundred games for the New York Giants ended because he is being sat for Geno Smith I start to wonder who was involved in the decision apart from Ben McAdoo. I’m not saying that anyone else told him to do it, but with all that is going on in New York, with the press being less than impressed with McAdoo’s handling of the team – what influenced him? The play of Eli Manning has not looked that great for a while now, and predates the loss of Odel Beckham earlier in the season, but what is he hoping to gain with his two time Super Bowl winner on the side lines.

I wonder how you get into the position to keep making the best decisions. How you have to be in lock step with all the people round you. I know how some approach it as coaches like Pete Carroll or Bruce Arians will write a book or talk about it, whilst someone like Bill Belichick reveals as little as possible.

However, I can easily see how being in the head coach’s office of an NFL franchise could be very different once you’re in there to how even an experienced coaches thought it might be.

And how only a tiny change could derail the best laid but highly complex plans.

So we move to a game featuring a coach who very much appears to be on the hot seat after a quick glance at last week’s results..

Gee:      Week 12   8-8                     Overall   97-80
Dan:      Week 12   9-7                     Overall   94-83

Washington @ Cowboys (-1.5)

The Dallas Cowboys have really struggled over the last few weeks, and the reaction of their coaching staff does not inspire confidence with a lack of creative scheming not helping a group of skills players who have not been getting it done with Ezekiel Elliott’s suspended. It maybe that Washington are so injured that they are going to lose on the road, but with both teams having played on Thursday of last week, I’m backing Washington in this one.

Gee’s Pick:          Washington
Dan’s Pick:          Washington

Farewell to the Wildcards

14 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by in Playoffs

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Last weekend saw us wave goodbye to the four wildcard teams as each suffered double digit losses on the road with the closest margin of victory being thirteen.

The first to go out was the Oakland Raiders, whose strong season started to fall apart when they lost Derek Carr to a broken leg in week sixteen and actually went into their wildcard game with rookie quarterback Conor Cook as their starting QB. You could see his potential, but Cook is not ready to start yet and it showed in this game. He wasn’t helped by the turmoil on the Raiders’ offensive line as Pro Bowl tackle Donald Penn was already out of the game with a fracture in his knee, and Pro Bowl centre Rodney Hudson had to come out for a period as well. The Raiders’ defence has been troublesome all year, ranked in the twenties by DVOA despite some good looking free agent pickups and it was quickly apparent how reliant as a team the Raiders were on their breakout quarterback.

This only goes to highlight that there is a reason that quarterbacks are valuable to their team as the Raiders with their 12-4 record go home with Derek Carr injured, whilst the Houston Texans have soldiered on with JJ Watt for most of the season and travel to face the Patriots in this week’s divisional games. The Raiders should be ready for next season with Carr back from injury as long as the front office can improve the defence and keep the offence competitive.

The next team to be knocked out were there Detroit Lions who spent a large chunk of this season as fourth quarter comeback specialists, which was already something that is hard to rely on even before the quarterback who led all those scoring drives injured his hand. The Lions came into their game against the Seattle Seahawks on a three game losing streak since  Matthew Stafford’s injury, and were unable to do much of anything in this game. Their defence was unable to stop a Seahawk’s team that recommitted to the run and found a winning formula on offence, and the offence didn’t have the long strike plays to challenge the Seahawks secondary that was missing Earl Thomas at safety. Even if the Lions’ offence hadn’t been largely predicated on shorter throws, Stafford just hasn’t been the same quarterback since his injury, but the turnaround under offensive coordinator Job Bob Cooter does look to be a consistent upgrade, and so if the Lions can sort their defence that finished the year thirty-second by DVOA then they should be competitive again.

Moving to Sunday and the Miami Dolphins were basically out of this game in the first quarter when Antonio Brown scored two touchdowns and racked up over a hundred yards on two plays. Much has been made of the decision of the Dolphins to train in Miami leading up to a cold weather game in Pittsburgh, but it is hard not to conclude that they missed a trick there. Unfortunately, the secondary was too injured and not good enough to contain Brown and once they had the lead the Steelers were able to run the ball effectively. You would want to see more out of Ndamukong Suh given the contract the Dolphins gave him, but this was no one’s best day. The Steelers defence held the Dolphins in check, particularly Jay Ajayi in the run game and had some big hits on Matt Moore including a huge hit by Bud Dupree that was rightly flagged although I didn’t think it was a dirty play so much as highlights the problems that defensive players can face when make tackles at game speed. However, how they were able to get Moore through a concussion test and back out into the game and only missing one play I have no idea. It is hardly surprising that the NFL will be looking into this and re-evaluating the concussion protocol in the offseason.

Overall, whilst this game will be a big disappointment to both fans and the franchise itself, this is still the first time the Dolphins have made the playoffs since 2008 and so should be seen as definite progress. The front office does not inspire confidence in me, but Adam Gase’s first year in charge did see him bind the team into a functional unit that fought their way into the playoffs, and gives him credibility to push forward into next season.

The final game of wildcard weekend had the nearest to a competitive game with the first half remaining tight until the Green Bay Packers scored with a Hail Mary pass at the end of the first half to take a 14-6 lead having been trailing 6-0 for most of the first half. During the first half the New York Giants were playing much as they have all season, with very good defence and a grinding misfiring offence. This has not been a great year for Eli Manning, and the Giants have been particularly reliant on big plays by Odell Beckham and so the offensive struggles might not be that surprising except whilst the run game has struggled all year, a receiving group base around Beckham, Victor Cruz, and Sterling Shepard should have been strong enough against a depleted Packers secondary to produce more. Sadly they were not, and worse still was between corner Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie going down injured, and Aaron Rodgers figuring out the weaknesses in the Giaints’ re-arranged secondary the Packers were able to turn things round and pulled away in the second half to win easily.

The Giants turn around on defence was impressive as it was a rare case of a free agent splurge working, and they still have the foundation to push on next year, but they need to get the offence sorted. Strengthening the offensive line might help add a run game to the Giants’ offence, and they will want to find a way to get more efficient production from Eli Manning and Odell Beckham, who makes spectacular plays but who could help his team more if he was more consistent.

Wildcard Sunday

08 Sunday Jan 2017

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With yesterday’s games turning out to be easy home wins, our attention shifts to tonight’s matchups in the hopes of more competitive fixtures

Miami Dolphins (10-6) @ Pittsburgh Steelers (11-5)

In something of a theme for wildcard week, the Miami Dolphins face the Steelers with a backup quarterback. However, Matt Moore has looked pretty good and has at least won two of the three games that he has played. The Dolphins offence may not be consistently effective, but they have a number of play makers, and Jay Ajayi will be hoping to have the kind of success he had against the Steelers in week six when he ran for two hundred yards and the Dolphins won the game. That win sparked a six game win streak to take the Dolphins from 1-4 to 7-4 but this game is a tough ask. Their defence will face a difficult teat against the Steelers, particularly with their twenty-second ranked rush defence by DVOA goes against Le’Veon Bell, but if Ndamukong Suh and Cameron Wake can get going then maybe the Dolphins can contain them.

The strength of this Steelers team is the combination of Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and Le’Veon Bell. However, Roethlisberger has not quite looked himself since his return from a knee injury and it is very possible that he is banged up. As a result Antonio Brown has not been quite as dominant as last season, but he is still a phenomenal player, and you only have to look at the play he made against the Ravens in week sixteen as he stretched for the winning touchdown to see the impact he can still have. The good news for the Steelers is that they finally come into the playoffs with Le’Veon Bell healthy and having run for over twelve hundred yards in just twelve games. The defence may present some concerns given their up and down performance but they will want to make up for the two hundred yards they gave up early in the year.

If the Dolphins defence can do enough to limit the Steelers, then with their big play options on offence the Dolphins can do enough to win this game, but it is hard to see them doing so. This is Adam Gase’s first year with the Dolphins and their first appearance in the playoffs since the 2008 season, whilst the Steelers are filled with playoff experience and an offence that if it gets going could put this game away quickly. I expect the Steelers to win this game, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Dolphins got beaten heavily or made a game of it.

New York Giants (11-5) @ Green Bay Packers (10-6)

This is the game of the wildcard weekend. The Packers won their division with a six game win streak after Aaron Rodgers stated they would win out and the team backed that up by doing just that. The Packers have had problems with injuries, patching up their secondary and making do at running back. The offence has now found a formula they can make work and have scored thirty or more in the last four games. However, although defence led the league in rush defence early on, injuries have seen this unit slip to be distinctly average. At home they will hope that the offence can take the pressure off, but a young secondary could be the Achilles heel of the Packers in this game.

The Giants come into this game with a defence ranked number two in defence by DVOA having been thirtieth the year before. This is the largest single year improvement of defence ever recorded by DVOA and is off the back of a bunch of free agent signings and a major step forward by second year safety Landon Collin. In fact Collins leads the team in tackles with one hundred, plus four sacks, and five interceptions, which is an incredible season by anyone’s standard. This defence turnaround is very timely as the offence has really struggled for a lot of this year. The Giants have been unable to run the ball effectively and Eli Manning has thrown sixteen interceptions as he’s struggled to find his receivers consistently. Both Sterling Shepard and Victor Cruz have had their moments, but too often the Giants offence has been reliant on big plays to Odell Beckham. That said, Paul Perkins did manage to run for one hundred yards against Washington next week, and if the Giants can be a bit more balanced on offence or find Beckham a couple of times then they stand a real chance in this game.

I am really not sure who is going to win this one, but I am expecting a good game to close out the Wildcard weekend.

The End of Streaks

29 Thursday Sep 2016

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It was a strange week three that saw many a game going differently to how people expected, and saw both Dan and I get murdered on our picks.

I wrote before making my picks last week that I expected more teams to get their first loss or win than continue their streaks, but it seems I picked all of the wrong ones and even in the games where I made the right choice, those choices were hardly convincing.

  • One of the unbeaten Texans and Patriots had to lose their first game, but whilst I acknowledged that Bill Belichick could win this game, I was not expecting the Patriots to manage a 27-0 win over the Texans.
  • The Cardinals went to Buffalo and lost, giving them a losing record and granting the Bills their first win of the season and resulting in the usual Rex Ryan bravado about facing the Patriots this week.
  • The Broncos went to 3-0 with an impressive win in Cincinnati where the Bengals defence stacked the box and dared Trevor Siemian to win the game with his arm, which he promptly did.
  • Even when I picked the Dolphins to beat the winless Browns in Miami and get their first win of the season, they needed overtime to do it and were nowhere near the ten point lead I needed for my pick to come through.
  • I expected the Viking to keep the game close against the Panthers, but instead ran out with a victory to remain unbeaten despite their injury troubles.
  • I didn’t see Washington beating a Giants team that were off to a great start, and yet they managed it whilst Odell Beckham grabbed headlines with another emotional outburst. This time the talented receiver lost a fight to a field goal net on the Giant’s side-line.
  • The Ravens went down to Jacksonville to face a desperate Jaguars team who were not desperate enough to avoid going 0-3, whilst the Ravens have the quietest unbeaten record in the league.
  • The Colts were one of only three games featuring a 2-0 or 0-2 record that I picked correctly, when they managed to get a win over the visiting Chargers who now have a perfect record of played three, lost three starters for the season to injury.
  • The Eagles put pay to the Steelers unbeaten record and kept their own, making the hype surrounding Carson Wentz even greater. I am so impressed with the Eagles coaching staff and the turnaround they have made so far, I’m really looking forward to seeing how this team develop over the rest of the season.
  • The Bears continued to lose, giving me my only other totally correct pick of week two where I got it right and the game went how I expected.
  • Finally, I was tempted into picking the Falcons because of an extra half point the Saints were giving up, but it turns out that the Falcons didn’t need these points as they ran out easy winners in a game of a lot of points.

Now, the wonderful thing about the NFL is that it is doing a sterling job of giving us talking points and excitement over the weekends, but boy is it making predicting what is going to happen difficult.

Still it is still early, and even though I will be writing my quarter poll summary in a couple of weeks, there are very few teams that should be truly despondent. However, whilst the Cleveland Browns were never likely to be looking for anything other than progress, and to their credit they are playing tough for the Hue Jackson in his first year, the Bears, Saints, and Jaguars are all in trouble. Only three teams have made the playoffs after starting 0-3 since 1990 when the playoff format was expanded to its current format. The Bears were expected to be rebuilding this year even if the injuries have made things worse than I was expecting, but the Jaguars were hoping to make the next step and push for the playoffs whilst the Saints have a Super Bowl winning quarterback who they have failed to surround with enough talent to push as far as they would expect.

The Jaguars are a particular disappointment as they head over to London to host the Colts this week, and already people are wondering if the London game is going to cost another head coach his job. Despite the warm feelings that everyone who has ever dealt with Gus Bradley seems to have, it is hard to see the Jaguars owner putting up with these results for much longer, and the Jaguars will need to turn things round quickly if Bradley is to keep his job past the end of the season.

And continuing the theme of disappointment, the big news of the last twenty-four hours is that JJ Watt has been placed on injured reserve as he having more problems with his back, and could possibly be gone for the season. I’ll write a little more about this over the weekend as I was already going through the coaching tape of Watt vs the Patriots, but hopefully he can make it all the way back as he is one of my favourite players to watch, but back injuries are hard ones to return from and people who’ve had such problems often say that they never felt the same.

The week five games look to offer plenty of excitement and intrigue, but already the attrition has really started to affect some teams, and it is an all too prescient reminder of how tough a game American Football is. I never want to see a player injured, but I will confess that part of me is curious to see what the Patriots would do if they were forced to play Julian Edelman as their quarterback.

Still, it is time to start looking at this week’s games, starting with tonight’s game that pits Dan’s Dolphins on the road against my beloved Bengals.

Our records are nothing to shout home about, particularly after our disastrous previous week, but I did manage to maintain my three point lead:

Gee:      Week 3   5-11                     Overall   21-27
Dan:       Week 3   5-11                     Overall   18-30

Dolphins @ Bengals (-6.5)

The Bengals lost their first home game of the season, in what has been a tricky open to the season, but if they can get back to 2-2 they can still hope to make a push for the playoffs. It appears that Tyler Eifert is not going to make it back for the game, but Vontaze Burfict comes off suspension and is likely to help the Bengals defence straight away. I think the Browns are going to give teams a tough game at the moment so I’m not reading too much into last week’s result for the Dolphins, but an overtime game before a short week road game is not the best prep, and I’m hopeful that the Bengals can win and hopefully find some rhythm on offence. For one game only I’m borrowing from Dan and picking blindly based on my fandom.

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

Odell Beckham and Josh Norman on Coaching Tape, plus the Early Week 16 Picks

24 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in Amateur Adventures in Film

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It was always my intention to look at the coaching tape of the matchup between Odell Beckham and Josh Norman as it was one of the most enticing prospects of the year coming into week fifteen. We were expecting to see a competition between two of the young stars of the NFL, with Beckham making breathtaking catches all through his short career and Norman being talking about as a candidate for defensive player of the year. I am going to focus on what I saw on tape, rather than go fully into all of the mess that has so dominated the post game coverage, but with Norman fined and Beckham suspended I cannot just ignore what went on after the whistle and sometimes during the play.

The first thing for me to say is that I can’t know what was said before or during the game, the amount of accusations thrown around after the game seems to be an attempt to distract from a spectacle that made neither player look good. However, there is plenty of blame to go around as there were plenty of signs that Beckham was not playing under control and neither team leaders nor coaches were able to bring him back from the edge. It is understandable that in such a physical game as football that players have to play with a fire, but there has to be a line that you don’t cross and Beckham hurt his team with a number of penalties. It is also disappointing that in 2015 we are still dealing with the questioning of a player’s manhood and the throwing around of homophobic slurs as accepted ways of trying to get into the opposition’s head. There is not the same organised chanting at football games in the States as there is over here in terms of songs and a terrace willing to say anything to put off the opposition, but the culture of masculinity is very similar and it is something that should be dismantled in a systematic way. Without going back and watching the game as broadcast it is hard for me to comment on what was going on between plays, but this was not what the NFL was hoping the matchup would look like going into the game.

Anyway, moving on to the game film, this game didn’t look to me quite as eventful as the highlights and the coverage has made it appear. I will be asking Dan about the game on the next podcast as I know he is intending to watch it, but in terms of what I could see on tape there were more snaps where Norman and Beckham lined up and not a lot happened than there were problems. The Giants move Beckham round the formation and bring him in motion to try to get him open. Meanwhile the Panthers played a mixture of zone and man, with Norman covering Beckham at times and others he was on the opposite sides of the field as both players lined up on either side of the formation.

We are used to seeing the spectacular catches and the impressive numbers for Odell Beckham, but he only had six catches in this game and a lot of the yards he did gain were wiped out by penalties he gave away. He also had a couple of drops, but what was striking on tape was his ability to get open. He is both quick and sudden, which enables him to often get open whether he is finding a way through zone coverage or in a one on one matchup. The touchdown he caught at the end of the game was from a lovely double move, that allowed him to get behind Norman to make the catch, and that wasn’t the only time he got behind Norman. There was a lovely deep post pattern that he ran in the third quarter creating a deep play opportunity, but Eli Manning couldn’t quite get the ball to him. The thing I will say about Beckham’s temperament in this game was that it was not just Norman that Beckham was petulant with, he ran into several safeties and other corners as the coverage rotated. I was also getting frustrated by his blocking in the running game as several times he bumped with a shoulder rather than truly engaging as a blocker. I don’t know how he is coached so it may be that this is what the team want him to do, but later in the game there was a snap where he engaged and turned his corner on a run play so he can do it. The egregious play to me was the running play where he went past Norman who did take a swipe at him, but Beckham came back down the field and clearly tried to take Norman out with a helmet to helmet hit. With the emphasis on player safety it was an outrageously dangerous play and you could easily argue that he should have been ejected from the game for that alone. It was hard to always see what was going on between snaps, but there was at least one play where part of an officiating crew put themselves between Beckham and Norman after the whistle had blown.

Focussing on Josh Norman, the coverage of him this season has been very positive, but looking at his play I would not say that he is quite the man on man lockdown corner that some would have you believe. That is not to say that he isn’t playing well as he really is, but the Panthers play a fair amount of zone but it looks different to the three deep zone with almost man corner play that you see if you were to watch Richard Sherman in Seattle. However, Norman is similar to Sherman in that he moves well and has the length to bother receivers and cause disruption. This is however, a great defence at all levels and on the all twenty-two you could see receivers passed smoothly between corners, safeties, and linebackers, as the receiver ran their route through the defence’s zones. Norman was clearly taking his chances to be physical where he could, and was called for his own unnecessary roughness penalties apart from the retaliation for the helmet to helmet hit. It was clear that he was niggling at Beckham for chunks of the game, and there was one play were he clearly just went for the head area of Beckham.

With one player suspended and another fined, neither has created a good look for the NFL. More worryingly for Beckham is that he clearly let things get to him and so he will see a lot more of this needling tactic as he is too good a receiver to cover conventionally, and has revealed a potential weakness that the rest of the league will see if they can exploit. Only time will tell if this will be a problem, but in what is one of the most team orientated of sports, Beckham will have to learn integrate his phenomenal talents into the team ethic if he wants to win games. As for Josh Norman, he will be watched closely, and let’s hope he can find the balance between being competitive and detrimental to his team.

And now onto the first picks of week sixteen that are immediately around Christmas day, with me managing to eek out another game on Dan last week.

Gee:    Week 15   11-5                       Overall   119-105
Dan:    Week 15   10-6                       Overall   110-114

Chargers @ Raiders (-5.5)

The Raiders have definitely made progress this season, but they are still making the mistakes of a young team. They lost to the Green Bay Packers last week, and still have plenty of areas that they need to develop, but in 2014 they drafted Khalil Mack and Derek Carr, then followed it up this year with Amari Cooper, so there is hope for a franchise that sat in the doldrums for too long that they can continue to build and develop. This is another team that could be on the move, although I’m not sure any team has the votes they require to get a move approved by the other owners, but given the games last week I expect this to be an emotional occasion in Oakland.

The Chargers got the win that so many players wanted in what was possibly the last game at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. However, there is so much in flux for this team with it being up in the air where they will play next season, and likely who will coach them. They have been beset by injuries on the line, but they had problems with this last year as well, and they have a closing window given that as good as Philip Rivers has been, he is thirty-four.

In this game I think that the Chargers come back to Earth as they are not a good team, and with the Raiders at home for possibly the last time and them definitely heading in the right direction I think they will cover these points. It might also be another big day for Khalil Mack given the problems in pass protection that the Chargers have had all season.

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

Washington @ Eagles (-2.5)

There was a power struggle in the offseason at the Eagles, which Chip Kelly won, but I am not sure how much the total control of personnel has been of benefit. Initially I could see a plan in what he was doing, trusting his scheme on offence and focus his efforts on getting players for their defence, but the plan seemed to be ignored for some of his moves. However, a lot of talent has been shipped out over the last couple of seasons and it will be telling if he retains control over personnel and is given time to continue with his plan, or if some power is taken back or worse still if he is fired. On the field it has been a real mix with some good performances but nothing for them to really hang their hat on. The offence started of struggling, before they found a way to run the ball, but whilst high priced free agent DeMarco Murray might lead the team in rushing, he seems to have slipped down the pecking order and does not seem to fit the system. It appears that Sam Bradford is becoming more comfortable in the offence, but this is not the offence people were expecting to see coming into the year. More worrying is that the defence, which for much of the year looked like the stronger unit, has struggled in recent weeks and has given up forty points or more in three of the last five games.

This week the Eagles welcome a Washington team to Philadelphia who are currently a game clear at the top of the NFC East and who could clinch a playoff birth with a win in this game. It was not the most auspicious of starts for Jay Gruden in Washington, but you have to admire the way he stuck to his guns regarding the Robert Griffin situation and it would appear the starting quarterback question has been solved for now. The other thing that seems to have helped was the appointment of Scott McCloughan as GM, with his focus on building through the draft looking like it has been of benefit already, and I will be curious to see how they continue in the offseason. On the field the team has not excelled on offence or defence, although their special teams are ranked sixth in the league by DVOA. However, Kirk Cousins has managed to find a balance between willingness to make aggressive throws and protecting the ball. The team have played better in Washington than on the road, which makes me nervous about picking this game, but I do not trust the Eagles and if I am getting two and a half points then I am going to take them.

Gee’s Pick:      Washington
Dan’s Pick:      Washington

NFL Week 3 Washington at Giants

27 Sunday Sep 2015

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I was really looking forward to the Thursday night game this week, but sadly it was a demonstration of the criticisms of the Thursday night games with sloppy football, lots of penalties, and an easy win for the home team, although it didn’t turn into the kind of blow out that so plagued us last year. It started badly for Washington with a drive that saw a deep third down pass to Chris Thompsons for thirty-three yards wiped out by a penalty, a missed pass on the replayed third down, offsetting penalties on the resulting punt, and finally a blocked punt that bounced out of bounds in the end zone for s safety. This pretty much summed up the entire game for Washington, but let’s start with probably the most successful group in this game.

On offence the Giants looked like they were continuing the transition started last year into Ben McAdoo’s offence. They moved the ball well enough, and although they would like to run it more effectively, the passing game was working well with Odell Beckham looked good, helping Eli Manning out with an excellent grab in the end zone for a touchdown, and Rueben Randle led the team in receiving yards with one hundred and sixteen yards of seven catches, as well as adding a late touchdown. Manning finished with solid numbers, but there were still some missed chances and overthrows including one that he was very lucky not to have picked off. The running game never seemed to get going, and the highlight was Andre Williams running through Washington Safety Trent Robinson, who failed to get lower than Williams and so bounced off spectacularly. Unfortunately that was pretty much it for the running game highlights. The really worrying thing for the Giants though is the number of times they had to settle for field goals, they got one touchdown in three trips to the red zone in this game, giving them a measly three for the year from eleven red zone visits. If they can’t improve their efficiency in their opponents half then they are going to continue to struggle to win games.

The Washington defence continued to hold up fairly well, but they were not dominant and failed to stop the Giants slowly eking out their lead. They were sound in run defence, but failed to generate a pass rush with only two quarterback hits in the entire game. It is therefore unsurprising given the time he got in the pocket that Eli Manning was able to find his receivers, with his misses being more down to his erratic play than pressure or tight coverage, and his overthrow in the first quarter that just hit the ground before DeAngelo Hall could grab it was the nearest Washington came to causing a turnover all game.

Unfortunately, this could not be said for offence with Kirk Cousins throwing two interceptions, in a performance that wasn’t so much dreadful, as not quite good enough for so long that the accumulated damage had the same destructive effect as a full on melt down. They were unable to run the ball as well as in previous games, and for some reason the rookie Matt Jones, who has shown promise so far and did get over one hundred yards last week, got more carries that Alfred Morris, even though Jones fumbled the ball out of the end zone for a turnover whilst reaching for a touchdown. The problem was this failure to establish the run game, and the slowly expanding lead the Giants created, leant to a problem that Bengals fans will be all too familiar with. Whilst Cousins needed to play better, Jay Gruden had him drop back to pass nearly fifty times and this is too many times unless you have a truly top class quarterback. Washington did not end the game that far behind the Giants, and if they had been able to establish the run or at least run a more balanced attack, perhaps Cousins will have had an easier time and they would have been more successful. I will look at one of Cousins’s interceptions in a bit, but this version of the Washington offence is not going to win a lot of games.

The Giants defence did well against the run, and their secondary got a couple of interceptions and managed for the most part to contain Odell Beckham, but they didn’t get much pass rush with their only sack of the game coming from a six man blitz. They did get some quarterback hits and pressure, but this was more situational as a combination of their lead and Washington’s reaction repeated dropping back to pass, meant that the defensive linemen could spend a large amount of the later game simply rushing the quarterback.

I feel like I leave this game with more questions that answers, it was interesting to hear the commentators talk up how pleased Coughlin was with his special teams play, and then late in the game see the Giants give up a one hundred yard kick off return to Washington as they made this game closer than it perhaps should have been.

The Giants remain in contention in their divisions, but they need to close out games and to improve their scoring efficiency if they want to mount and effective campaign this season. Washington are progressing, but we are getting to a point where they may need to address the long term answer at quarterback if none of their current players truly demonstrate that they are the solution, and no one has done so far.

This weeks adventures in coaching tape is looking at two plays that caught my in this game.

I will start with Kirk Cousins first interception. Washington line up with 22 personnel in a strong side offset I formation with tight end Jordan Reed lined up as an outside receiver, whilst the Giant line up in their base 4-3 showing blitz with their middle linebacker. Washington run a play action pass whilst the Giants rush six using some delay/zone concepts, but what is interesting is that Cousins barely offers the ball to his running back, locks onto his receiver and throws the ball without a pause. The Giants rush their strong safety who has swapped with Prince Amukamara on the right side of their defence, who drops a few steps as the play begins, identifies what is happening, and simply beats Jordan Reed to the ball. It looks like a bad play on Cousins part as Amukamara can simply spy into the backfield, identify what is going on without much deception and make a play on the ball.

The second play I was curious about was a wide open pass that Jordan Reed caught in the third quarter. This time Washington lines up in 12 personnel with both receivers and tight ends lined up tight to the single back formation. The Giants again are in their base 4-3 formation, with strong safety Landon Collins lining up over tight end Derek Carrier on the left side of the defence. The Giants play a the three deep zone, with the linebackers and Collins playing zone underneath, but Jordan Reed is able to run a simple out pattern, whilst barely getting jammed by linebacker Devon Kennard, and so gets between the two sets of zones to pick up eighteen yards before Amukamara can force him out of bounds. There always ways to attack a zone, but I would have thought that Kennard has to disrupt a receiver running through his zone more than that if he is going to allow them behind him, particularly as there was lot of room as the outside receiver was running a deep go route on the play.