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AFC Preview

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

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18-09-04 AFC

With the new season only days away I thought I would take you through a whistle-stop tour of the league starting with an AFC preview and I’ll give the NFC teams their own post before the Philadelphia Eagle and Atlanta Falcons get things under way on Thursday.

I don’t particularly like making predictions as there are too many variables and injury luck is can be such a huge part of team success so I’ll be breaking the divisions up into favourites, competitive, and likely to struggle as I work my way round the division compass so without further ado let’s make a start on the .

AFC North

Much as it is painful for a Bengals fan to say it, the favourite to take the AFC North division is still the Pittsburgh Steelers. They may have questions at linebacker thanks to Ryan Shazier’s injury, but the defence still finished top ten last year by DVOA in and the options in their offence are still terrifying. Time is ticking for Ben Roethlisberger but as long as he doesn’t suffer a dramatic fall off then this is going to be one of the teams of the conference who should have their eyes on the Super Bowl.

The AFC North is always a tough division, and even when the Browns are struggling they are often a tough out, but not so much under Hue Jackson. However, with a defence that has looked good in pre-season and the additions of Jarvis Landy and Tyrod Taylor as well as new offensive co-ordinator Toddy Haley it at least feels like the infrastructure for success is more solid. In a position to let rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield develop and not rush him I think the Browns will be more competitive than last season, but whether their ill-discipline (they got penalised a lot in pre-season) will allow them to win games I don’t know. I think we’ll know a lot more about this team by the end of the first four games.

The Baltimore Ravens are another team who are perennially competitive but had to do it with defence and special teams last year. With a kicker like Justin Tucker you can mask a lot of deficiencies in offence but the thing the Ravens coaches might be most happy about having drafted Lamar Jackson this year is the fire it seems to have lit under long time quarterback Joe Flacco. He may also have been helped by better receiving options and being healthy in the offseason for the first time in two years but if the Ravens’ Super Bowl winning play caller can lead the offensive to a better ranking than twenty-first by DVOA the Ravens will be right in contention for the playoffs again.

I’ve written a fair amount about the Cincinnati Bengals this pre-season and it is telling that neither of the offensive tackles two years that they drafted to prepare for a transition of talent have worked out whilst Andrew Whitworth looked great for the LA Rams last year. With new playbooks on both sides of the ball there have been a lot of changes to coaching and the roster. Whilst the Bengals have another young team there seemed to be a lot to like and if the O-line gels, then Andy Dalton should have a much easier time finding his myriad of skill players. I’m not pencilling them into the playoffs, but I’m not ruling it out and I wasn’t sure that would be the case when it was announced the Marvin Lewis was coming back.

AFC East

Is this the year that the New England Patriots falter? For the first time Tom Brady was not ever present through the off-season, their first round offensive lineman Isaiah Wynn ruptured his Achillies after they let starting left tackle Nate Solder leave in free-agency, and this was a team that went to the Super Bowl with a defence ranked thirty-first in the league by DVOA so they can ill afford an offensive wobble. I think we’re all at the point where we’ll believe Tom Brady is done when he has signed his retirement papers, but what will help them is that none of the rest of the division are exactly standing up as challengers at the moment and so the Patriots look to be favourites still. This could finally change though.

The Buffalo Bills made the playoffs for the first time in eighteen attempts last seasons, but they responded to this by cutting the quarterback that got them there, not signing the linebacker that led the league in tackles and trading their left tackle to the Bengals in the draft manoeuvres required to get their quarterback of the future. Have traded away AJ McCarron they have opted to go with rookie Josh Allen and Nathan Peterman as their QBs, but whilst Peterman has looked good in pre-season and Allen has flashed, the Bengals defensive line had a field day against Buffalo’s o-line and it could be a very long season for whoever starts. I was impressed with everything Sean McDermott did last season bar benching Tyrod Taylor but I don’t think this season’s roster is better than last years and I have a nasty feeling they will struggle for a lot of the season.

If you trade away your best offensive and defensive players for chemistry reasons, you had better have an awful lot of talent coming in and I’m not sure that Miami Dolphins do. I thought they had a good draft and I would say Adam Gase is a good coach but I’m not at all sure of the roster construction and this feels like the latest in a long series of make or break seasons for Ryan Tannehill. I believe that Gase can keep the locker room together and make them competitive but it would not surprise me if they fall into a difficult season. Nothing would make me happier than to be proved wrong, if only to cheer Dan through the season.

Finally we have the New York Jets, and I though Todd Bowles did an excellent job of coaching with a lack of talent on the roster last season and not sure many other coaches would have got as many wins. The most ready of the rookie quarterbacks fell into their laps in the draft and Sam Darnold looked good enough in pre-season that the Jets traded Teddy Bridgewater to the New Orleans Saints. I think it will take another or season or two to turn things round and I don’t know if Bowles will get the chance to complete the job, but I can see the Jets equalling their record of last season. There will be ups and downs with a rookie quarterback but the real question for this season is have the Jets finally got a franchise QB. Everything else after that can wait.

AFC South

The Jacksonville Jaguars continued to build their defence, stuck with Blake Bortles and their big free agent signing was a offensive guard. I thought that Bortles might have learnt a thing or two in last season’s playoff run but with the exodus at receiver and the injury to Marqise Lee this team will be as reliant as ever on their defence and the run game. The good news is that the defence will be no less scary and they should rightly be considered the favourites for this division.

The Houston Texans may have only won four games last season, but they revealed they could have a bright future as long as the young quarterback Deshaun Watson can recover his blistering form from last season before his knee injury. With the defence hoping a number of players stay healthy, including JJ Watt this could be really good team even if the offensive line looks to be a big problem. There are a lot of ifs there so whilst the Texans will start out competitively, how long they will remain so is the big question.

The Tennessee Titans ground their way into the playoffs with a run first offence and a defence that ranked twenty-first in the league by DVOA. This was not enough to save Mike Mularkey his job and there rookie head coach Mike Vraebel is hoping that Matt LaFleur can revitalise the offence and fourth year quarterback Marcus Mariota. The coaches with links to Bill Belichick have not necessary flourished as head coaches and Vraebel has limited experience as the man with ultimate responsibility so I am very curious to see how he goes. The honest answer is I’m not sure so this is one of the teams we’ll need to follow closely through the start of the season.

The Indianapolis Colts have struggled mightily with Andrew Luck being out injured but this also laid bare the problems with the rest of the roster and whilst there are signs that things are improving in the second year of Chris Ballard’s rebuild, a lot will depend on Andrew Lucks surgically repaired and extensively rehabbed shoulder. The good news is that he’s back to starting but new head coach Frank Reich will be hoping that he can get enough from his franchise quarterback that the season can be a success, but I have a feeling that being competitive would qualify as just that and would be a good place to start.

AFC South

The Kansas City Chiefs won the division last year and I have too much faith in Andy Reid to see this team as anything other than competitive and I would place them as favourites to win the division. That is despite trading Alex Smith to Washington to promote Patrick Mahomes as the starter after a season where the young quarterback sat on the bench. Mahomes has the arms to make use of the myriad of skills players the Chiefs can use in their offence that has borrowed liberally from college, whilst their defence was only ranked thirtieth by DVOA last year when they won the division. It wouldn’t take much to improve that ranking and with the potential of their offence the Chiefs could be one of the most fun teams to watch this season.

The other potential favourite in this division could be the LA Chargers but it would require them to get out of their own way and they couldn’t quite manage that last season. The abiding image of Philip Rivers for me these days is a player somehow functioning as an effective quarterback despite minimal protection from his line. The defence was just outside of the top ten with a fearsome pass rush led by Melvin Ingram and Joey Bosa and they should be competitive again this season. The problem is that they have a nasty habit of losing close games and their ‘home’ games in LA were frequently more like home games for the opposition thanks to fan turnout. I’d like to think they can improve but I’m not willing to just outright declare it, although I’d be very willing to be proved wrong again.

I’m not entirely sure where to begin with the currently Oakland soon to be Las Vegas Raiders. The big move of the off-season would have been luring Jon Gruden out of the commentary booth nine years after he last coached except they have just traded Khalil Mack, one of the best young defensive players in the league, to the Chicago Bears. The reasoning is that the Mack’s contract demands were just too big, and the Bears wasted no time in signing Mack to a six year deal with $90 million guaranteed days after Aaron Donald signed a contract with $87 million guaranteed. The difference between the three franchises is that the Rams still have a young quarterback on their rookie contract as does the Bears, whilst the Raiders have already signed Derek Carr to a five year extension. The issue is that Gruden has been out of the league for a while, even if he was staying plugged into the NFL through his media gig, and the defence his brother Jay Gruden [I appear to have gone made, too many ex-Bengal coordinators involved as it is in fact Paul Guenther who is the new defensive coordinator – Ed.] takes over was ranked twenty-ninth by DVOA with Khalil Mack. I’m really not sure what to expect out of the Raiders this year, and whilst I can see the salary cap argument to an extent (I don’t study it hard, maybe that’s a task for next off-season) the Mack trade amongst others does nothing to help the Raiders now and I think this club will be in for a very interesting time this year.

Last year’s AFC West strugglers the Denver Broncos will be hoping that the addition of Case Keenum at quarterback will be enough of an upgrade to the offence to give the still competitive if retooled defence a chance of winning games. In the one game I saw them this preseason the offensive line still looked to be a problem but after a good pre-season from Chad Kelly, the Paxton Lynch development plan has finally been shelved. It is way too soon to question a GM who has won a Super Bowl and given his history as franchise quarterback you would think that the job is John Elway’s as long as he wants it. However, whilst he’s made a number of sharp moves in free-agency, his record in the draft is a bit patchier and his choice of Vance Joseph as head coach didn’t exactly yield the early returns that Elway would have hoped for. Still, if either Keenum or Kelly can make the offence competitive then the Broncos will be a team no one will want to face, especially at home and that could be enough for them to be in the playoff race come December.

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The NFL can be brutal!

03 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in Dan's Thoughts

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I mean, the NFL really can be brutal! This time of year, we’re looking forward to the fresh start that comes with a new season, however on Saturday, just 5 days before the first ball is kicked, teams were busy shattering dreams while slimming down to a 53-man roster. And while all of the players know that’s what’s going to happen, I can’t imagine it makes it any easier for either side come cut-down day.

Hard Knocks has been around for a few years now, and off the back of that comes an increased level of understanding of what exactly goes down during the off-season, and a major part of its focus is on who makes the team and who doesn’t. Appreciating that there wouldn’t be much left to the series if they didn’t go so in depth on this element, the final episode of each season is still a tough watch. I’m not quite sure I’d like to find my career (and potentially financial well-being) forming part of a soap opera.

Clearly there’s two sides to this. People like Eric Kush (Bears Centre) who was picked up by Chicago after being cut publicly cut by the Rams on Hard Knocks, will argue that it doesn’t do your chances any harm to catch someone’s eye when the eyes of the media have spent a month and a half following you around.

Image Credit – USA Today

But this year (**Spoiler Alert, People!!**), people like the extremely likeable Devon Cajuste will be hoping to pick up a team quickly. And even though I couldn’t stand how fourth string QB Brogan Roback came across, it’s not going to be a nice watch when this week’s Hard Knocks lands. Seemingly, not many are safe either – not even 2016 first round draft pick QB Paxton Lynch could escape the cut from Denver. 2016 was a tough year to go into the league as a QB as there was a strong draft class that year (Goff, Wentz, Prescott… Hackenberg?!) but for a first rounder who Denver put a lot of hope on at the time to be gone already seems harsh to me, especially when the likes of Wentz and Goff were given a year or so to ‘bed in’.

Even for the lucky ones though, the average career in the NFL is just 3.3 years (according to Statista.com) – I don’t know about you, but if I’d dreamed of doing something as a career my whole life and invested that much time, effort, blood, sweat and tears into making it happen, I’d really hope it lasted a bit longer than 3.3 years when I finally got there… perhaps that’s why I buy Office Supplies for a living and don’t play professional sport [I’m not sure that’s the only reason – Ed.]. I guess that’s why it’s so important for those who do get there to be the best they can on every down… and keep saving their money for retirement!

This may be my last blog before the season starts so I should probably cover off a few things while I’m here! Firstly, here’s a look at the Rams ‘odds to cash out’ chart as it stands:

The Wrong Football are also taking part in a charity fantasy football league in aid of 4Louis, a charity whose amazing work provides memory boxes to hospitals in the U.K. in aid of bereaved parents who have lost a child through stillbirth or neonatal death. It’s a great charity and while I’ll share more about the team when the draft (currently moving at the speed of global warming) is complete, but in the meantime, go to 4Louis.co.uk for more information, and if you would like to donate, head over to https://www.justgiving.com/4louis – a donation of just £30 allows them to provide a family with one of their memory boxes.

Happy Week One everyone!!

@TWFDan

As the Season of Hope Turns

08 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by in Off-Season

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kigoa football on green grass during daytime

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

It will not be very long before the players start practising in pads and before you know it we’ll be though the summer and into the weekly grind of the full NFL season.

Quiet as I may have been during these off-season milestones, I was following along as ever and so whilst we wait for training camp and the start of something we can actually dig our teeth into, I thought I would write a series of deliberately partial articles about what has been going on. The NFL media and coverage continues to expand and my aim has never been to bring you breaking news, but there’s been some interesting developments over the last few months along with the usual flurry of coaching and player changes so I’ll be digging into these and maybe straying into such things as the new rule changes as well, although I might side step the anthem protest developments until we are closer to some games actually being played, but let’s say I’m not exactly impressed with the NFL’s new policy or Trump’s reaction.

Rest assured that deliberately partial is not code for a long series of articles on the Bengals, although I’m sure they will feature, but I’ll pick out some key points I want to write about and I’d welcome input from any of you if there is a topic you’d like me to take a look at. However, as much as I like to say they get overly praised when a team wins, and overly blamed for each loss, not only are quarterbacks a very important part of any team but they are the focus of an awful lot of fans’ hopes in the off-season.

It has been an interesting off-season for quarterbacks. The Minnesota Vikings started the off-season with three quarterbacks going out of contract and kicked off a larger than usual move round of signal callers when they opted not to renew the contracts of any of them but instead signed Washington player Kirk Cousins to a three year guaranteed contract after Washington allowed his to expire. It is rare for a starting quality quarterback to hit the market, yet alone one who has accrued three straight four thousand yard seasons and is still in his twenties. It is an interesting contract that Cousins signed as all three years are guaranteed, but whilst I could very much see this becoming a thing for quarterbacks given their importance to the team (which does grant them additional leverage) it is hard to see the rest of the NFL players getting such deals.

With this first free agency domino falling the Vikings’ old quarterbacks were soon signed to new teams. It appears that the Denver Broncos were unable to get seriously into the competition to sign Cousins and quickly switched to signing Case Keenum after his impressive run to the Conference Finals. He had an excellent season last year but the Minnesota offensive line was unable to protect him against the Eagles pass rush in the NFC Championship game and so the Broncos will be hoping he is able to recapture the form of the regular season for them. The Broncos have named Keenum their start and are looking to continue the development of Paxton Lynch behind him despite Lynch not being able to make use of his impressive arm talent since he was drafted back in 2016. Still, this signing did allow the Broncos to draft Bradley Chubb in round one who is reckoned to be the most rounded pass rusher in this draft class and with the players already available to the Broncos, he will likely be an excellent addition to the front seven of their defence.

While Keenum headed to the Broncos, the Vikings’ opening day starter, the oft injured Sam Bradford, signed yet another big contract, this time with the Arizona Cardinals. With the retirement of Carson Palmer the Cardinals went into the off-season with no real option for a starting quarterback yet as well as the signing of Bradford, the Cardinals traded up to the tenth pick to select Josh Rosen. We won’t know how this turns out until a few years down the road but the criticism of Rosen’s off field interests seemed overblown and given the position in which the Cardinals started the off-season, they have given themselves a shot this year with their two new quarterbacks and could be set for the future if their young QB can back up his claim that the teams who passed on him made a mistake.

The final Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater signed with the New York Jets, but given that the Jets resigned last year’s starter in Josh McCown and moved up to take a quarterback it still looks like a long road back to starting for Bridgewater having suffered a horrendous injury in preseason two years ago. The Philadelphia Eagles have demonstrated the benefit of having two quarterbacks on the roster with their Super Bowl win and with the dearth at the position if Bridgewater can demonstrate he’s on the way back to something like his previous form he should get a legit shot as a starter somewhere. The early buzz coming out of the Jets OTAs (organised team activities) were that Bridgewater looked like the best quarterback of the team, but I’m always wary of the buzz surrounding players until we start seeing them in pre-season games and for quarterbacks, even good play in pre-season doesn’t necessarily translate into the regular season. The Jets could be taking a leaf out of the Eagles recent roster moves and be driving interest for a trade, but I think a lot of the league and most neutrals will be hoping Bridgewater makes a full comeback.

Before I dig properly into the first round quarterbacks who were drafted I just want to cover the saga of Washington and Kirk Cousins briefly, As I said earlier, it is not often that a quarterback still in his twenties with three consecutive four thousand yard seasons hits the free agent market. Washington seemed to be unwilling to make the kind of deal that Cousins and most quarterbacks of his ability would expect and whilst there was some defending the first franchise tag given to him two seasons ago as he was a fourth round draft pick and had really broken through late, there is no real defence for Washington not committing to Cousins long term when he threw for four thousand yards a second time. It is pretty remarkable that he completed the feat for a third straight season given that Washington let both of their top two receivers leave before last season. What they did do this year as Cousins second one year franchise tag was nearly expired was trade for thirty-four year old veteran Alex Smith from the Kansas City Chiefs, sending them a corner back as part of the trade, and signing Smith to a four year deal with fifty-five million dollars guaranteed at signing. If he makes it to the end of his contract he is guaranteed seventy-one million dollars, but whether he can make it to thirty-eight is a big question even with modern sports medicine and particularly as Smith is an underrated runner who doesn’t sit in the pocket and distribute the ball without getting hit like a Tom Brady or Drew Brees. I can’t pretend to know what lay behind these decisions, but I don’t like the process and it does not instill faith in the franchise.

So with the major quarterback moves wrapped up the NFL headed into the draft and I have already mentioned two teams that double dipped signing Vikings’ free agents and drafted quarterbacks in the first round but the first pick of the draft belonged to the Cleveland Browns and this time they did take a quarterback, but not the one everybody was expecting when they drafted Baker Mayfield. Now I’m interested in the draft and I do enjoy the analysis of players and even look up draft grades but I don’t take them seriously. We won’t know what players are going to work out or not, and so much is to do with scheme fit, changes in coaching staff, injury luck that whilst there are players you would feel more confident than others, no one can know. Hell, we’re still waiting for Andrew Luck to play again for the Indianapolis Colts having played through a shoulder injury and missed all of last season. You have to wonder at the medical advice the Colts young franchise quarterback received and why he was allowed to play for so long with what is clearly a serious issue during the 2016 season.

Getting back to the Browns, if this pick works out then great and what I do like is that they picked their player rather than the outside experts but we can’t know whether this was the right decision for a number of season. In fact we might never know as bad luck could scupper the pick or something else unforeseen. What I can question is what the New York Giants did with the second pick as whilst no one would question the talent or ability of running back Saquon Barkley, it is hard to argue that even as good as he can be that the Giants will get equivalent value out of a position that you are lucky to get through two contracts compared to having an entire career of a franchise quarterback. The Giants may well have not liked the quarterbacks in this year’s draft, but they refused to move down and even if Eli Manning regains some of the form that he has failed to display over the last two seasons, at thirty-seven he can’t have that long left in the league and when will the Giants be picking this high again?. Even if they have complete faith in the quarterback Davis Webb who didn’t see the field during a turbulent 2017 season that saw Geno Smith get a start, they could have likely traded the pick to one of the quarterback needy teams, got a big haul and still got a very good player.

What this did mean was the New York Jets who moved early to get up to the third pick took Sam Darnold who most people thought was the most ready quarterback of the draft. The Jets invested in three quarterbacks this off-season, but if Darnold can finally be the franchise quarterback the Jets have been missing for years if not decades then the cost would have been worth it. You can see the importance of the quarterback to teams who don’t have them in the moves of the Buffalo Bills, who having already traded up to the twelfth pick with the Bengals (only my second mention of them in this post) traded again with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to get to seven so they could take Josh Allen. I have already mentioned the Cardinals trading up to take Josh Rosen at ten, but at the end of the first round with the Ravens having already picked and the Eagles coming off a Super Bowl win but short on draft picks haven given up a lot to draft Carson Wentz in 2016, the Eagles traded out the first round as the Raven’s Ozzie Newsome in his final draft as GM picked the fifth quarterback to go on day one in Lamar Jackson.

I still find it somewhat strange that the 2016 Heisman trophy winner had four quarterbacks selected ahead of him and that he slipped past the Saints and Patriots who both have ageing quarterbacks that could have taught Jackson a lot. As could the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger although he was not exactly enthusiastic about the selection of Mason Rudolph in the third round and claims to be planning to play for a number of years yet despite several years of off-season where Roethlisberger talked of retirement.

This leads me to where I’m going to finish off, with this thought:

With the hope given to franchises in recent years by quarterbacks like Carson Wentz, the LA Rams’ Jared Gough, or the flashes from Deshaun Watson in Houston, it has reinforced the theory that there is no price too high to pay for getting a franchise quarterback. However, you had better be certain about that player as if you get that call wrong, even if it isn’t entirely your fault, as the person who put your faith in the player you are going to get fired if things don’t work out.

It’s not exactly fair, but that is life in the NFL.

The Futility of Making Picks but Doing It Anyway

06 Thursday Oct 2016

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Our picks have not been pretty over the last two weeks, despite me building a five point advantage over Dan, but in a way the failures highlights why I love the NFL and there is a reason we keep picking games.

One of the characteristic things about the NFL is through a combination of deliberate attempts to foster parity like the Draft and salary cap, and the unpredictable nature of a game with such large rosters and high injury rates, it is incredibly hard for a team to remain consistently good from season to season.

The Carolina Panthers, who last year went 15-1 in the regular season on the way to the Super Bowl have got off to a 1-3 start with Cam Newton picking up a concussion in the fourth quarter of their week four loss to the Atlanta Falcons. They Panthers were already well behind when Newton left the game as their defence that was such a strength last year gave up over five hundred yards of passing with Julio Jones accounting for three hundred of them as he caught twelve passes from fifteen targets and scored a touchdown. Some of this is likely down to the loss of not just Josh Norman, but Charles Tillman and the addition of two rookie corners, but team have not been in synch on offence either despite getting Kelvin Benjamin back from injury. The worry would be for me that one player was able to get so many yards individually and that the coaches didn’t adjust, but there appears to be a real problem in Carolina.

The Arizona Cardinals who played so well last season are, struggling as their offence is misfiring, and they have a fallen to a 1-3 record despite having one of my favourite head coaches in the league. Things are not clicking for them on offence in the passing game, although David Johnson looks to be continuing on from his excellent rookie season last year. However, a stumbling offence and a defence that hasn’t gelled yet do not win football games, and so it is now less surprising that the Patriots were able to beat them in week one despite Tom Brady being suspended.

Meanwhile, to counter this point the Denver Broncos are 4-0 despite losing Payton Manning and a number of defensive starters. The defence is still playing to a very high standard, whilst the offence is getting improved results from a very inexperienced starter in Trevor Siemian, and continued to do enough a win when he hurt his should and Paxton Lynch came into the game. They look to be up there again this season, and it certainly seems that John Elway has a clear idea of what he wants and this has been delivering results so far for him.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule model of consistent success for the last decade has been the New England Patriots. They have started the season 3-1 despite Tom Brady’s suspension, but even the best teams don’t win all of their games and they came a cropper this week as having beat the Texans 27-0 in week three, they lost to the Bills 16-0. I wouldn’t bet against them this week with Brady returning, but we get these kinds of results fairly regularly and so it kind of makes a mockery of picking games each week.

There is a reason that I do it though, and not just because it gives me a something to write about. I don’t really like making predictions in terms of it proving one way or another that someone knows what they are talking about, it’s a standard requirement of covering sports, but at the end of the day if the outcome was so predictable there would be no reason to play the games. I like writing about what I have seen, what happened, and why I think it did.

However, picking games against the spread gives me a framework to look at each team, and helps highlight which teams I need to watch more. Of course you always tend to be interested in certain games each week, but by looking at what might happen, it keeps you focussed across the entire league and encourages sharpness, or in the last couple of weeks, distinctly dull. That said, I doubt many people were expecting for the Bills to beat the Patriots in the way they did, and that was far from the only surprise result.

So despite the poor record, we’ll keep ploughing on and hopefully things will improve, but you can never guarantee anything in the NFL.

Gee:      Week 4   6-9                       Overall   27-36
Dan:       Week 4   4-11                     Overall   22-41

Cardinals @ 49ers (+2.5)

The Cardinals are in real trouble, with Carson Palmer not playing well even before he got a concussion and on a short week he shouldn’t play. Against almost any other team with the start they have had, this would strongly tempt me to pick against the Cardinals despite by admiration for Bruce Arians, but even though they are on the road in San Francisco, I can’t bring myself to pick the 49ers to win, especially after losing Navorro Bowman last week on defence.

Gee’s Pick:          Cardinals
Dan’s Pick:          49ers

Rams, Broncos, and Special Preseason Week 3 Guests the Miami Dolphins

28 Sunday Aug 2016

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We are twelve days away from the start of the 2016 season, and the preseason week three games where the starters will see the most game time have already started. I will take you through the remaining week two games I have watched, as well as the visit of the Atlanta Falcons to Dan’s Miami Dolphins taking in my quarterback curse and general thoughts.

There is always a ton of news at this time of year, each team still has ninety players on its roster until the Tuesday deadline for cuts down to seventy-five. There are injuries, worries about the team, and a lot of fan angst as the positivity of the offseason hits the stark reality of playing games in the NFL. Already the Buffalo Bills are struggling with injury to numerous players as Rex Ryan’s team seem to beset by difficulty as they approach the season.

Meanwhile, Tony Romo has a fractured vertebrae in his back, meaning that Cowboys fans will be getting an extend look at whether Dak Prescott can be a starter in the NFL as Romo is not expected back until mid-season. Prescott’s play so far would give some confidence, but it is always best to treat play in the preseason with a healthy amount of scepticism. You will hear people talk about vanilla plans in preseason, but that’s overstating things somewhat. However, coaches have teams work on what they want to work on, so blitz heavy teams will blitz as they will be getting ready for the season. What is not happening, is the detailed team specific game planning that goes into every regular season game, and so whilst flashing in preseason is definitely an encouraging sign, the test, and particularly for quarterbacks, is whether you can adjust and counter what your opposition put in place to specifically stop you. Any player that demonstrates a weakness in their game can expect to see a heavy dose of whatever counters or exposes it until said player can show that they have cleared it up.

So on to the games as I get myself into season shape with game watching, and hopefully step up the number of articles next week.

The LA Rams managed to get a second win hosting the Kansas City Chiefs despite going in down at half time again. In fact, things got off to a bad start for them as they gave up a touchdown on the opening drive of the game for a second game in a row. For those watching Hard Knocks, you will have seen Alec Ogletree’s frustration  as well as him fighting to get the first team defence lined up correctly. That said, the Rams had a good response with Case Keenum leading the Rams’ offence straight back up the field to score a touchdown, although the plaudits ought to go to Todd Gurley who ran the ball effectively and scored the equalising touchdown. The coaches had seen enough and pulled Gurley from the game before he could get hurt.

The Rams defence then stiffened to get the ball immediately on a three and out, giving the offence the ball. The Rams moved the ball well again, with Case Keenum passing to Pharoh Cooper for a go ahead touchdown and so Keenum was finished for the game.

The big question for Rams quarterback Jared Goff is when will he be ready, but whilst the coaching staff are seeing progress, they also are stating that you can see rookie mistakes, and given that on his first two plays Goff threw an incomplete pass, then was sacked and fumbled the ball, you can see what they mean. That said, he did finish the game completing eight of his twelve attempts for eighty-two yards and threw his first touchdown as a professional to running back Malcolm Brown.

We will have to see how this team fare on the road, and how much momentum the Rams can carry into the regular season, but if nothing else, their attendance has been huge so far and they will want to make the most of the interest by winning games if they are to make the transition to LA successful.

Following a week one win, the Broncos lost their second game of preseason as they welcomed the San Francisco 49ers to Denver.

It feels like there is only one question hanging over the Broncos this offseason, despite the loss of some players on defence, and all the usual roster skirmishes, the big question for this team is who is going to start at quarterback.

For the second week in a row, I sat watching a Broncos starting quarterback thinking that this might work out and they threw an interception. This week it was Trevor Siemian that I managed to retroactively curse, but it is a big step that he got the start and looks to be making a strong case to be the opening night starter. Certainly Mark Sanchez didn’t help his cause by losing two fumbles. In fact, it may even be possible that he is being pressurised by rookie project Paxton Lynch who threw two touchdowns and an interception, although he does still look like a rookie and held onto the ball a bit too long for my liking at times. There was even some talk on commentary about giving Lynch the start next week to see if has the goods, but I would suggest it is a little early for such a move, yet I do feel that Trevor Siemian could well be the starter come week one.

The Broncos starting defence looks good, and even if the team did lose this game, I do think the Broncos are going to have another strong based on another good year on defence, and a run game that looks better than last year with CJ Anderson looking in good shape already and strong players behind him that could make for a good rotation to support an inexperienced quarterback.

The Broncos played the Rams last night, and I look forward to seeing how they went over the next couple of days. As a result of this fixture I had an extra game that I could watch, and Dan asked me to take a look at the Dolphins, who conveniently hosted the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night.

I still have questions about the way the Miami Dolphins have approached their offseason, and in particular how they are building their offensive line given that of the three interior linemen that started the game, all of them are inexperienced and/or changing permission. However, new Dolphins head coach Adam Gase is a quality offensive coordinator who got the Dolphins job off the back of good work with Jay Cutler and Peyton Manning.

The Dolphins started the game playing no huddle offense, and did look to be making good use of Ryan Tannehill skills, moving him with roll outs, running the ball, and passing. However, he again fell to the, I think this going to be good Gee curse, and as soon as I thought how good he looked, Tannehill immediately threw an interception.

However, the Dolphins ran out pretty convincing winners in this game, thanks to an ability to move the ball and a defence that restricted the Falcons all game and didn’t allow a touchdown.

There are questions at running back with Jay Ajayi battling health problems, Arian Foster looking good but at age thirty and a recent history of injuries you probably can’t rely on him all season. I do however like Damien Williams who has caught my eye before, but who has never broken out, yet in this game he had a couple of nice runs and scored a touchdown.

My worry for the Dolphins is the depth, and whilst I like what I saw, the defence still seems to be thin past the starters, and I’m not sure about the secondary barring Reshad Jones who is a really good safety.

I did like the look of second year defensive end Julius Warmsley who got a sack and showed good penetration on a couple of other plays, but whether this will be enough to get him off the practice squad and onto the roster only time will tell. Fellow second year end Cleyon Leign also got a quarterback hit from a lovely spin move playing inside at tackle in the fourth quarter. However, even if the line play is better this season for the defence, the back seven is where the questions are and without access coaching tape in preseason, it is hard to know for sure how they will fare given how much you can see them play. Certainly, whilst unable to score touchdowns, Falcons backup Matt Schaub looked pretty good completing ten of eleven passes against the backup secondary.

Overall, I expect the Dolphins to be better than last season as they will have a more coherent plan on offence, after the muddle that was last year’s experience with two head coaches, but I think they will continue to be hampered by how the roster is constructed. I do wish them well if only to cheer Dan up next season, I still remember how much it hurts for your team to miss the playoffs for a number of year even if the Bengals have had a better run of it recently.

Time is running out for players to make the roster, and with the regular season just around the corner, it’s nearly time for the games that count, although you try telling a player who is fighting to get on a roster that the remaining preseason games are meaningless.

The season is nearly here, and football already is.

Rams, Broncos, Bengals and Pre-Season Reps

21 Sunday Aug 2016

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It’s not only the players who need preseason reps, and in week 2 I am already fighting to catch up thanks to a very busy week at work. Still, I have managed to get all of week 1 watched and caught up with episode two of Hard Knocks as well as the Bengals second game.

The Rams got off to a rocky start in LA, given that on the opening kick-off they gave up a one hundred and one yard touchdown return, which the fans must have been hoping was not a predictor or things to come. In fact, the Rams had a slow first half with them going into half time 24-7 down.

The thing that would be worrying me if I was a Rams fan, was that the defence was not looking that solid despite arguably being the stronger half of the team, with the young Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott looking very good, and you would imagine some Cowboys fans will be already feeling a little better about their backup quarterback situation going into the season after the disasters of last year.

It was also a frustrating evening for Jared Goff who started off looking like a rookie, threw a couple of incomplete passes and got sacked to give him the sore shoulder which cost him some snaps. It is too early to take anything significant from his performance, but as a first round pick the attention is going to be focussed on him all through the preseason, and will continue if the Rams don’t win or if Case Keenum starts to struggle.

If the defence didn’t set the world alight, neither did the offence, and whilst there was some flash from Tavon Austin, and Goff finally threw a couple of pass to Tyler Higbee to demonstrate that a tight end is often a young quarterback’s best option, they will need to improve.

However, in the second half the Rams did manage to drag themselves back into the game and ultimately won it, and whilst preseasons records don’t matter, for a team trying to get back to a winning record this season, this could be an important habit to get into. If there is an area of strength for the Rams on offence it looks to be running backs, with several players looking good in Gurley’s absence and late on receiver Nelson Spruce made a number of catches to push his case to make the team.

I am very much looking forward to seeing the next game and how things progress with this team and watching the games alongside Hard Knocks.

After asking for suggestions, and taking into account the story lines following their Super Bowl win, Dan and I settled on the Denver Broncos as the third team for this year’s preseason, and in their opening game they got off to a good start with a shutout win over the Chicago Bears.

The strength of the Broncos team was defence last year, and they looked good again despite a number of players moving away, as they gave the Bears protection issues all game, racking up a number of sacks to go along with their shut out.

However, the big question for the Broncos after Peyton Manning’s retirement and Brock Ossweiler’s move to the Houston Texans is who is going to play quarterback for them this season. They opened the game with Mark Sanchez, who looked good initially but just as I was beginning to think they might be okay Sanchez threw into coverage and was intercepted. This pretty much seems to sum up Sanchez’s career. Next up they had Trevor Sjemian who looked okay as he ran the team and definitely demonstrated some promise. However, even Paxton Lynch was able to demonstrate some solid play for a rookie, and my big worry for this team would be that if they have a pair of quarterbacks fighting it out for a starting spot for too long, then they might not end up with a true starter going into the season.

Still, with a blocked punt giving them a touchdown, and a safety, the Broncos found multiple ways to score and whilst you can never truly to tell from preseason, it looks like the Broncos are set to make a strong defence of their title.

Finally, I can move into the second week of the preseason, with the Bengals running out to a solid win in Detroit against the Lions.

The offence seemed to move the ball well for the Bengals, although another tackle has picked up an injury which is not a great sign. However, the Bengals depth seems to be holding for the moment and neither Cedric Ogbuehi nor Jake Fisher’s injuries are long term. The more positive news is despite the losses of Jones and Sanu in the offseason, plus free-agent signing Brandon LaFell fighting a hand injury and not catching a ball yet, the Bengals’ receivers are still showing up well. I am particularly impressed with rookie Tyler Boyd who caught another touchdown this week and seems to have settled into the top of the rotation with surprising ease whilst Brandon Tate caught passes with the first team again.

The defence gave up yards to the Lions, but were able to restrict them to field goals until the fourth quarter. The early signs to me is that Golden Tate and Marvin Jones are going to be good pairing for Matthew Stafford, and the offence looked to protect him pretty well against  the Bengal’s pass rush. However, the Bengals defence got enough pressure to win the game and it does seem that they will be competitive again this year.

Things are beginning to heat up as cuts loom on the horizon, and I’m hoping for a smoother week so I can really dig in as we get closer and closer to the regular season, but with people playing for jobs, there’s plenty of competitive football for us to watch already.