2020 Week Two Picks

20 Sunday Sep 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition

Tags

Aaron Rodgers, Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Brian Flores, Cam Newton, Carson Wentz, Chris Godwin, Dallas Cowboys, DeAndre Hopkins, Doug Pederson, Gardner Minshew, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Josh Allen, Kansas City Chiefs, LA Rams, Las Vegas Raiders, Le'Veon Bell, Michael Thomas, Mike McCarthy, Minnesota Vikings, Mitchell Trubisky, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, NFL, Philadelphia Eagles, Ron Rivera, Russell Wilson, Sam Darnold, Seattle Seahawks, Tom Brady, Tua Tagovailoa, Washington Football Team, Week 2 Picks

We are still early enough in the season that every game holds plenty questions as we don’t truly have a handle on how all the teams compare.

Early Games:

The games that leap out of the early slate first are the ones that see two 0-1 teams facing each other as one team will get over the early loss and another is going to be looking at a very tough if not impossible task to get to the play-offs.

The Cowboys host the Falcons is one such game and having talked about the use of analytics and indeed gone for it on a fourth down, this year’s Cowboys under Mike McCarthy don’t look that different to last season’s only the defence appears to be thinner and already weakened by injuries. The Flacons looked like their defence was still a problem and their offence generated plenty of stats but could not keep up with the Seahawks last week. I like the Cowboys to win this game, but I am not sure they are going to do it by six points, although I think this could be a very entertaining game with plenty of scoring..

The Vikings will be looking to get over last week’s heavy loss to the Packers, but they face a Colts team who moved the ball well enough and I am still concerned about the number of new players on the Vikings’ defence. I am making a numbers based play in this game, but this is definitely one to watch for me as I’m still trying to figure out these teams.

Finally, the Eagles lost to a surprisingly tough Washington Football Team in week one, with their offence struggling thanks to the injuries on the offensive line and never quite getting things together. People are already asking questions about Carson Wentz and Doug Pederson and this week they host a Rams team who started with a win against the Cowboys and who look to have some of their offensive mojo back. There are plenty of questions around both teams, but I have that bit more faith in the Rams right now and so I am going against the numbers in my spreadsheet and I am just hoping that I am not wrong.

Other things of interest:

Josh Allen threw the ball for three hundred yards last week, but this is a test of whether they can beat the teams that they should, whilst the Dolphins will be looking to bounce back in a second divisional game as Brian Flores tries to build on last season. It will not take many losses for the clamor for Tua to start in Miami.
The Giants are not a good football team, but the Bears had to rely on fourth quarter heroics from Mitchell Trubisky to get their win last week so which version of the Bears offence is the true one and can the Giants show signs of improvement?
The Broncos were more competitive than I was expecting last week, but they have to face a Steelers team who look like they have the capacity to make the Ravens work for the AFC North title.
The Lions looked back to their familiar losing ways last week, so can they truly compete on the road against the Packers, or will Aaron Rodgers continue to look sharp as the Packers try to establish themselves as the best team in the NFC North and I am already wondering if I was wrong about them and they may not regress as much as I thought.
The Titans won a close game on Monday, but the offence did not look as strong as it did late last season so given that the Jaguars won in week one with Gardner Minshew looking like he has build on his debut season, I wonder why the Jaguars are getting this many points
I’m not sure what the Jets are meant to be building on going forward, there are plenty of questions surrounding Sam Darnold’s development and Le’Veon Bell is injured and doing little to justify his contract. The 49ers have a cluster of injuries at receiver and lost to the Cardinals last week – I wonder how the 49ers will pull things together but I still would be surprised if the Jets can compete in this one
The Buccaneers have plenty of work to do on offence but receiver Chris Godwin being out of the game with a concussion won’t help Tom Brady look better than he did last week. I think the Bucs can bounce back against the Panthers, but I don’t think it is a sure thing given how close the Panthers pushed the Raiders last week so the points looks wonky to me.

Falcons @ Cowboys (-5.5)

Gee’s Pick: Falcons
Dan’s Pick: Cowboys

Bills @ Dolphins (+5.5)

Gee’s Pick: Bills
Dan’s Pick: Bills

Giants @ Bears (-5.5)

Gee’s Pick: Giants
Dan’s Pick: Giants

Broncos @ Steelers (-6.5)

Gee’s Pick: Steelers
Dan’s Pick: Steelers

Lions @ Packers (-6.5)

Gee’s Pick: Lions
Dan’s Pick: Packers

Jaguars @ Titans (-10.5)

Gee’s Pick: Jaguars
Dan’s Pick: Jaguars

Vikings @ Colts (-2.5)

Gee’s Pick: Colts
Dan’s Pick: Vikings

Rams @ Eagles (+1.5)

Gee’s Pick: Eagles
Dan’s Pick: Rams

49ers @ Jets (+6.5)

Gee’s Pick: 49ers
Dan’s Pick: 49ers

Panthers @ Buccaneers (-8.5)

Gee’s Pick: Panthers
Dan’s Pick: Panthers

Late Games:

Despite all the turmoil of the off-season, Ron Rivera got off to a winning start with Washington, but I don’t know how good they truly are given the problems the Eagles have. That said, I would expect Washington to be a tougher team to face under their new head coach. The Cardinals got off to a winning start with DeAndre Hopkins giving their offence a boost as quarterback Kyler Murray builds on his promising rookie season. I would not be surprised if the Cardinals win, but this line looks rich to me.

The other games look somewhat lopsided as they feature the two AFC teams who looked ominously good last week. The line might be too big for the Chiefs to cover but I couldn’t bring myself to pick the Chargers, particularly as they lost their starting center as they once again they are struggling with injuries whilst I don’t trust the Texans’ defense to be able to contain the Ravens potent offence.

Washington @ Cardinals (-6.5)

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

Chiefs @ Chargers (+8.5)

Gee’s Pick: Chiefs
Dan’s Pick: Chiefs

Ravens @ Texans (+6.5)

Gee’s Pick: Ravens
Dan’s Pick: Ravens

Sunday Night Football:

Patriots @ Seahawks (-4.5)

The re-run of Super Bowl XLIX features very different rosters but looks a hugely enticing game. The Patriots ran Cam Newton a lot last week, but some of them were read-option plays according to offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and with the Pat’s chameleon approach to game plans you don’t know if the Pats offence will change this week or if Newton will be heavily running again. However, the Seahawks looked like an offensive team last week with their defense only ranking twenty-first in the league by DVOA while Russell Wilson completed a preposterous thirty-one of thirty-five passes for three hundred and twenty-two yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions. I an really not sure who will run out winners in this one, but it promises to be a fascinating game featuring as it does half of the top four teams in DVOA after week one.

Gee’s Pick: Patriots
Dan’s Pick: Patriots

Monday Night Football

Saints @ Raiders (+5.5)

The Saints got the win in week one, but have ruled out Michael Thomas for several weeks with a high-ankle injury and he didn’t look right in week one. However, if the offence wasn’t exactly their high flying best, the defence looked good against the Bucs and the Saints look set for another strong season. The Raiders play their first game in their new home after their week one win on the road against the Panthers. The big question for me is whether the Raiders defense can improve on the last two seasons and this will be a stiffer test than the Panthers new offence last week. The Raiders are one of the teams I am not sure about so I am very interested to see how the Raiders shape up against one of the best teams in the NFC in recent seasons.

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

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

AFC and NFC East Preview

31 Monday Aug 2020

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

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Adam Gase, Alex Smith, Bill Belichick, Brian Flores, Bruce Allen, Buffalo Bills, Cam Newton, Carson Wentz, CeeDee Lamb, Chase Young, Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys, Dan Snyder, Daniel Jones, Dante Scarnecchia, Dave Gettleman, Dwayne Haskins, Jamal Adams, Jason Garrett, Joe Judge, Josh Allen, Kyle Allen, Miami Dolphins, Mike McCarthy, New England Patriots, New York Giants, New York Jets, NFL, Philadelphia Eagles, Pre-Season, Ron Rivera, Sam Darnold, Saquon Barkley, Sean McDermott, Stefon Diggs, Tom Brady, Tua Tagovailoa, Washington Football Team

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

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

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

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

AFC East

New England Patriots

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

Buffalo Bills

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

New York Jets

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

Miami Dolphins

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

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

NFC East

Philadelphia Eagles

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

Dallas Cowboys

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

New York Giants

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

Washington Football Team

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

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

That’s All Folks

06 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Uncategorized

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Andy Reid, Damien Williams, Jimmy Garoppolo, Kansas City Chiefs, Kyle Shanahan, NFL, NFL Trivia, Patrick Mahomes, Philadelphia Eagles, Sammy Watkins, San Francisco 49ers, Super Bowl, Tyreek Hill

Here we are, the season is done, and we have our Super Bowl champions.

What I Saw

Kansas City Chiefs: 31 – San Francisco 49ers: 20

There was only one game on everybody’s mind this week and what a fascinating contest it was. For three quarters the 49ers looked like the better team and maintained a lead, but in the end Patrick Mahomes found something of his normal form and was able to help the Chiefs offence stage another comeback to clinch the game with a score that in truth slightly flatters the Chiefs.

The marquee matchup of this game was the 49ers defence against the vaunted Chiefs offence, but through pass rush and coverage the 49ers were able to make Mahomes have one of his worst games in a Chiefs’ uniform. However, the Chiefs were clearly expecting the 49ers game plan to an extent as they ran the ball well with Damian Williams who amassed over one hundred yards, sealing the game with a thirty-eight yard touchdown as the Chiefs ran out the clock. However, it was only in the fourth quarter when the quick strike resurfaced for the Chiefs that the offence truly came alive when Andy Reid ran a play that Mahomes had been asking to try again. The third-year quarterback was able to connect Tyreek Hill for a forty-four yard play, which was the first big chunk pass of the game. Within a minute on the game clock the Chiefs scored their first touchdown since the first quarter and began the twenty-one-point swing that took place in the final seven minutes that also included a thirty-eight yard pass to Sammy Watkins to setup the second touchdown before Williams sealed the game with the aforementioned run.

As for the 49ers, they came up with the right game plan and so nearly executed it well enough to win the game. They generated over three hundred and fifty yards of offence and into the fourth quarter they looked like the more likely team to win. There were a couple of occasions where they came away with field goals, which would have frustrated Kyle Shanahan, and Jimmy Garoppolo couldn’t execute to the level they were both hoping. In this game Mahomes actually threw the same number of interceptions as Garoppolo but we left this game with some questioning whether the 49ers QB is a true franchise quarterback. This might be a little unfair as Mahomes is an exceptional talent and this is now the second Super Bowl where Shanahan was coordinating the offence and his team couldn’t hold a lead. The question I do think is worth looking at is how much the 49ers tried to run the ball given that they only had twenty-two carries in this game at well over six yards a carry. This is actually less carries than the Chiefs, which you would not have expected going into the game. However, there is much to love about the 49ers offence, whose one receiving touchdown was to a fullback and who also accounted for the 49ers longest receiving play.

In the end, despite history seeming to favour the more well-rounded team with the better defence in the Super Bowl, it was Andy Reid with Patrick Mahomes and that offence who found enough to win the game whilst their defence did enough to get the win. I’m sure the 49ers will be really hurting after this loss, but both teams are relatively young so whilst they will be different next season, both look in good shape to have a run at the Super Bowl next year. Given the quality of this game I think we could all live with that.

What I Heard

I have to report that Dan was not that impressed with the half time show, but I enjoyed it. Although it is interesting to compare some of the complaints about the risqué nature of some of it to what was happening during Janet Jackson’s performance before her legendary wardrobe malfunction.

The reason I started there, apart form the play on words, is that the NFL media has covered the win and almost already moved on to off-season news.

I’m not ready to go there quite yet, although I will have to seek out the Mic’d Up segments which are always entertaining if not informative.

What I Think

I was surprised by how much I was supporting the Chiefs and Andy Reid getting that Super Bowl win in this game, and that now ends the argument that Reid can’t win the big one and likely cements his place in the Hall of Fame.

Given how many games he has won for so long, and the innovation he has show throughout his career I think there was a pretty good case for him getting in anyway. This season we had two teams in the Super Bowl that apart from division rivals, noone would particularly object to see winning. I thought it was a lovely touch for the Eagles to show their support for their former coach, and it does also demonstrate some of how well Reid is liked around the league.

What I Know

I will be taking some time off for a couple of weeks, but I will try to follow something of the pattern of last year’s off-season and do a couple of off-season posts either on the next step of the year-round football news cycle or what I’ve dug into.

I would love to have the time to dig into the coaching tape of this game at some point, and later in the year I very well might but things have been very difficult this season for reasons outside of football so I am ready for a break.

There may be some changes in process and posts next season, I evaluate the blog every year but there may be some factors that could affect my writing time so we shall have to see how things shake out. Rest assured though, that The Wrong Football will be back in some form for our seventh regular season at the start of September.

What I Hope

That everyone has a productive off-season and fills the time spent on football reading books, pursuing other hobbies or relaxing. We only have so much time gifted to us so make sure you use it wisely.

And now, for the last time this season over to Dan’s Dad:

The 2019 Trivia Contest

‘They Think It’s All Over…

Kenneth Wolstenholme’s famous Wembley commentary in 1966 is no less relevant now than it was then.

The Superbowl was acknowledged as one of the best and a comeback worthy of Lazarus! It rounds off a season in which the un-predictable became a regular feature but with some teams coming to the fore that were not always the usual suspects. One big event in 2019-20 was, of course the Pats failing to win playoff game with the inevitable Brady-fest which followed it. That could be an interesting story to play out on the way to next season.

For one last time this term we move to the quartet of questions for the final week. We begin with Dan in the lead by 33 to 30 and this week its 3 points per correct answer.

We started in Tampa and asked: The Bucs played in only one tie game in the 20th century. Who was it against?

Well the guesses were the Lions or the Falcons, but unfortunately for Dan and Gee the team was actually the Packers.
This happened on October 12, 1980. Packers kicker Tom Birney missed a 36 yard field goal attempt as time expired, ending the game in a 14-14 tie. The two teams finished the 1980 season tied for last place in the NFC Central at 5-10-1.

It’s the ‘tied for last place’ that did it for me, devious to the end.

Right next was Tennessee and the simple question was: Which player started at quarterback for the first game of the 2005 season against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Pittsburgh?

Both correctly identified Steve McNair so it’s 3 points each.

On now to DC where I threw in this, the Washington Redskin franchise began in 1932 in the NFL. What was the team’s name in that season?

This one threw me too, but the backstory is more than interesting.

We got some interesting fantasy team names but the answer is Boston Braves.
The franchise was named the Boston Braves for their first season, then changed their name to the Boston Redskins for four seasons before moving to D.C. Their first season in 1932 brought them a 4-4-2 season record, for a fourth place finish of eight teams. The Chicago Bears won the title in the season for going 7-1-6, although the runner-up Green Bay Packers went 10-3-1.

And finally…

Also with a Washington and a Superbowl element I finished with: Which famous football czar ended his career in Washington as coach.

Czar was perhaps a bit of a giveaway, but both successfully went for Vince Lombardi – 3 points each.

For the record Daniel Snyder wasn’t the first Redskins owner to spend a lot of money to bring in a veteran coach and players and try to win an instant championship but Lombardi was too good to overlook.

Which brings us to the final scores and we end with Gee on 36 against Dan’s 39.. So congratulations and commiserations in equal measure to the pair who have been tormented for another season which I’d say was probably my most devious yet. On well – Onwards and Upwards.’

I would like to send my congratulations to Dan on a well-earned trivia victory and thank Dan’s Dad for his efforts all year as well as congratulate him again on keeping the blog in Vikings’ purple and gold. I’m sure he’s already working on more sneaky or downright evil questions to ask us for next season.

This blog wouldn’t be the same without either Dan or his Dad, and I am very grateful for their involvement and all the effort they put in.

Until next time, live long and prosper!
Gee

The Conference Championship Games

19 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs

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Aaron Jones, Aaron Rodgers, Andy Reid, Davante Adams, Deebo Samuels, Emmanuel Sanders, George Kittle, Green Bay Packers, Kansas City Chiefs, Matt LaFleur, NFL, NFL Trivia, Oakland Raiders, Patrick Mahomes, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, Tennessee Titans

We are running out of games, but the upside is the quality of the contests now that we’re down to the four teams left. I am incredibly excited about tonight’s games, but before I look at them I have to fail at another week’s trivia questions.

Dan’s Dad asked us:

‘We start at Oakland and the question is:
Q1. Who did the Oakland Raiders play when they made it to Super Bowl II?

Moving on we get to Philadelphia and I want to know:
Q2. Which Eagle quarterback threw for 464 yards in one game setting a team record?

Finally this week we arrive in Pittsburgh. So tell me:
Q3. In the Steelers first Super Bowl appearance, who did they defeat?’

I am trying to make an informed guess for question one, where I’m slightly worried that my answer is too often the Packers when it comes to the early Super Bowls, but I think they won the first two Super Bowls and so beat the Raiders.

I’m less sure about this next question, my first instinct was trying to work out if either Randall Cunningham or Ron Jaworski would be the answer, but framed in the context of overall NFL passing they probably played too long ago to pick up such spectacular numbers and so my mind turns to Donovan McNabb as a modern era quarterback who played under Andy Read so with that neat tie in to today’s games I am setting with McNabb.

Whilst I can see 3D asking two questions where the answer is the Packers, I don’t think they made the Super Bowl after the early few until Brett Farve led them there in the 90s and so I’m trying to remember who the Bliztburgh Steelers played in their four Super Bowl wins. I probably should know this, but I’m blanking a little, but the Dallas Cowboys are the team lurking in my head so I might as well plump for them.

Now over to Dan:

‘Right, not long now and I was more than shocked that I got any points at all last week, let alone 4 for 2 correct answers!!

Oakland: I don’t know the answer to this so I’m going to guess. Super Bowl 2 would have to mean it’d be an NFC team who has been around a long time. I’ll guess it was the Chicago Bears.

Philadelphia: Think I know this one – I had a jersey of his while I was at uni. I think it’s Donovan McNabb.

Pittsburgh: The Steelers have been in loads of super bowls so this could be anyone. It’ll be another guess I’m afraid so… maybe the Green Bay Packers?

While I’m writing, I’m REALLY hoping that the Titans make it to the Bowl! I always said Tannehill wasn’t as bad as he appeared in Miami and poor coaching and offensive lines meant he looked worse. If they don’t though, I’ll be supporting Kansas in the bowl as Mahomes has been so exciting to watch in his 2 years in the league – he more than deserves a ring already!’

Tennessee Titans (6^th) @ Kansas City Chiefs (2^nd)

The AFC Conference Championship pits the Titans going for their third upset in a row as they travel to Arrowhead stadium to face the Kansas City Chiefs. I have so much respect for Andy Reid as a coach and he apparently also seems to be a really nice guy, but for all his success he has only won one of the six previous conference championship games he has made and he has not won a Super Bowl. One of the big topics of discussion this week was whether he was a Hall of Fame coach without a Super Bowl win and that this was one of his better chances to get that win. However, even as impressive as the Chiefs performance last week was, the Titans are a much stiffer opponents than a Texans team who never fully convinced me this season.

The Titans come into this game full of belief that between their defence and Derek Henry’s ability to finish a game that they can beat the Chiefs, not least because they have already done it once this season. The difference this time is that Patrick Mahomes is a lot further away from his dislocated knee cap than he was when he faced them in week ten and indeed the Chiefs have not lost a game since. You can’t rule out the Titans winning this game having already beaten the Patriots and the Ravens, but the Chiefs’ offence is even more multi-faceted than the Ravens and with an improved defence from last year and fresh from a fifty point outburst last week, my hunch is that the Chiefs are going to win out in this one.

Green Bay Packers (2^nd) @ San Francisco 49ers (1^st)

The NFC Conference Championship games pits the first and second seeds against each other as the Green Bay Packers return to Levi’s Stadium hoping to do better than the 37-8 loss to the San Francisco 49ers that was the result of their week twelve game.

The Packers have consistently won all season but the 49ers look like one of the most complete teams in the league and will be a real handful. The addition of receiver Emmanuel Sanders via trade and the development of rookie Deebo Samuels has given the 49ers’ offence the passing options to complement their stable of running backs, whilst tight-end George Kittle has played so well this season he has been called Gronk 2.0 by some in the media. The 49ers defence has been fearsome, finishing the season ranked second by DVOA, with their defensive line causing havoc against the Vikings last week.

That said, the Packers defence has been much better and in Matt LaFleur’s first season they have finally had the defence and running game to backup Aaron Rodgers. The concern for me in this game is that outside of Rodger’s link up with receiver Davante Adams, the Packers are very reliant on Aaron Jones running the ball and whilst I don’t exactly expect a repeat of the week twelve humbling, it does feel like the 49ers have the edge as they can play in more ways than the Packers. I think that much like with the Patriots, I won’t believe Rodgers is beaten until I see it, and he has acknowledged that he doesn’t know how many more chances like this he will get, but in the end I have to give the edge to the 49ers in this one.

A Chiefs versus 49ers Super Bowl would be pretty spectacular, but there has been no shortage of upsets and truthfully I would be excited by any matchup of these four teams, and with three games left (no, I don’t count the Pro Bowl) we need to enjoy every moment we can before the long off-season begins.

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

Fallen at the First Hurdle

09 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs

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Baltimore Ravens, Bill Belichick, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Carson Wentz, Cleve, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, DeAndre Hopkins, Derrick Henry, Deshaun Watson, DK Metcalf, Doug Pederson, Drew Brees, Houston Texans, Jadeveon Clowney, Jerry Jones, Jimmy Haslam, JJ Watt, Joe Judge, John Fassel, Josh Allens, Josh McCown, Josh McDaniels, Julian Edelman, Kellen Moore, Kirk Cousins, Kyle Rudolph, Matt Rhule, Miami Dolphins, Mike Vrabel, Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, NFL, NFL Trivia, Philadelphia Eagles, Ron Rivera, Russell Wilson, Ryan Tannehill, Seattle Seahawks, Tennessee Titans, Tom Brady, Washington, Wildcard Weekend, Will Fuller

We have had a weekend full of competitive games that yielded upsets and storylines that will rumble on into the offseason, plus there has been a run of new head coach hires so there is plenty to dig into this week.

What I Saw

The first game of weekend saw the Buffalo Bills lose in overtime to the Houston Texans, but whilst the outcome was very similar to what I was predicting before the game – it took a slight detour to get there. For the first forty minutes or so of the game, the Bills had the upper hand, steadily building to a 16-0 lead having scored a touchdown on their opening drive. However, the Bills were unable to make the most of their early offensive success, kicking three field-goals as their defence held the opposition scoreless. The problem was that in the second half, despite being without with receiver Will Fuller through injury, Deshaun Watson was able to lead the comeback as he started connecting to DeAndrew Hopkins, and the highlight of the game was Watson bouncing off two Bills defenders trying to sack him and completing the pass. It was also pretty impressive to watch JJ Watt get a sack with limited use of his arms as he’s not fully recovered from his pec injury. It has to be said there was some questionable game management on both sidelines and fourth down attempts, but the Texans live to fight again whilst the Bills have cause for optimism that I’ll talk about later.

The second game on Saturday is the one that generated all the headlines, even if it was the upset that was being predicted beforehand, but it was still odd to see the New England Patriots have the ball twice in the last five minutes down one point and not be able to get the win. The Tennessee Titans under Patriots alumni Mike Vrabel sealed the win with a last minute pick-six interception of Tom Brady, but the moment everyone is talking about is the Belichick style move Vrabel pulled as he ran out the clock with multiple delay of game and false start penalties before the Titans finally punted the ball having ticked off another minute and a half of clock. What was distinctly un-Belichickian was the two hundred yards of rushing the Patriots gave up to Derrick Henry, although to be fair they did move to the Super Bowl defence of six defensive lineman in the second half and that slowed down Henry some and did disrupt the play-action passing of Ryan Tannehill but not enough to secure the win. This was because once again the Patriots offence couldn’t move the ball consistently enough and of all people, it was Julian Edleman who dropped a crucial fourth down pass when the Patriots really needed it. Take nothing away from the Titans, but their next game could well prove a tougher test.

The first game on Sunday was perhaps the biggest upset of the weekend as the sixth seed Minnesota Vikings travelled to New Orleans and beat the Saints in overtime. This was a slightly curious game as the Saints struggled to get anything going on offence, which is largely down to Mike Zimmer’s defence, but Drew Brees was quiet and suffered his first fumble of the season, whilst the Saints seemed to forget they had one of the better pairs of running backs in the league. There was no bad winner for me in this game as I would love to see Drew Brees get a second ring, but this win at least goes someway to counter all those who say that Kirk Cousins can’t win a big game, particularly as it was his throw to Kyle Rudolph that sealed the game in overtime and he outgained Brees, even if the yardage for both quarterbacks was modest. The Saints didn’t look right for large stretches for the game, but the Vikings are no slouches on defence and got healthy at the right time. I understand why people think the last play should have been reviewed, and you can see Rudolph straightening his arm, but given the standard of evidence they have required to overturn calls this season I am not surprised that the play wasn’t reviewed.

The final game of the weekend was the injury bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and the visiting Seattle Seahawks. Technically this was the third upset of the weekend, but whilst this game saw the third road winner of the weekend, the Seahawks did have two more wins than the Eagles and didn’t lose their starting quarterback early in the game. The play where Wentz picked up a concussion didn’t look bad, but whilst he was diving forward on a scramble Seahawks’ defensive end Jadeveon Clowney landed on top of him and the contact to the back of Wentz’s head was enough for him to have to leave the game at the end of the drive. I’m not sure it was exactly a dirty play, although it should have been called a penalty, and Clowney was taking the opportunity to let Werntz know that if he ran there would be a prices to pay. The sad thing is that Wentz really did nothing wrong, got through the whole season uninjured and still was missing in the playoffs due to injury. The Eagles had dragged Josh McCown out of retirement to be their backup, and he kept the game competitive, in part because the Seahawks can’t play a normal game but in the end he couldn’t do enough. The standout player of this game statistically was rookie receiver DK Metcalf who had one hundred and sixty passing yards on seven catches, emphasising that he really should not have been the ninth receiver taken in the draft, but once again it was Russell Wilson to the rescue and you feel like as long as the Seahawks have him they have a chance.

What I Heard

There’s quite a lot of new, but before I get to that I want to pick up on something that was discussed on The Ringer NFL Show, namely that in the NFL playoff success is reliant on individual matchups and moments rather than how well a team has implemented current trends in the league. We had evidence of that this weekend with the Eagles struggling through a list of injuries that would have felled most teams only for their quarterback to get injured in the first quarter of their playoff game. The Patriots may well have got a win against another team, but having already lost the to the Dolphins the Titans were well constructed to beat the Patriots, much like the Vikings were a good match for the Saints due to their quality on defence and having beaten them in the playoffs two years before. I dislike the whole judging quarterbacks by how many rings they won as well as some of the wider commentary on the league as the NFL does not play a long season, it is a small sample size mini-league followed by a single elimination cup competition. By record the Ravens were the best team in the NFL this season, and they very well could win it all but whilst it might shock, it would not exactly be that crazy for them to be beaten, just like it was not that surprising that the Titans beat a team who won three more games this season. The margins in the NFL are very small, and there is not even that much difference between the roster talent of the best of the best, and that of an average team.

With that said, let’s take a look at where some of the crucial differences between franchises can be found.

Washington were early enough out the blocks with their hire of Ron Rivera that it got included in last week’s post, but the next team to hire were also one of the latest to let go of their 2019 head coach. Apparently, Jerry Jones wanted to give Jason Garrett a soft landing after nearly three decades round the team and after multiple internal meetings it was finally revealed that Garrett was being let go Sunday evening, The Cowboys wasted no time in announcing they had agreed terms with former Packers coach Mike McCarthy the following day. This is not the college coach hire many had predicted, and a lot depends on how fully McCarthy is committed to the analytics and revamped playbook he was talking about in the press in recent weeks, but they are hoping to keep current offensive coordinator Kellen Moore and are slated to hire LA Rams’ special teams coordinator John Fassel, which are both moves I like. You can’t tell anything at this time of year, but the Cowboys produced well statistically this season an it does feel that if you can manage your owner then this job has the most upside for a quick turnaround. McCarthy seems like a coach who will be happy for Jones to take the limelight so I can definitely see this working out if everything comes together.

It gets harder for me to pass comment on the next hires as I don’t know as much about them, but following on from the Cowboys hiring, the Carolina Panthers announced their signing of college coach Matt Rhule on a seven year $60 million contract and the New York Giants then promptly hired Patriots receivers coach and special teams coordinator Joe Judge.

The Matt Rhule contract is both long and rich, whilst Joe Judge is not a name that has been widely discussed, although the recent improved performance by members of Belichick’s coaching tree might have helped his chances.

The final interesting point is that this just leaves us with the Cleveland Browns searching for a new coach, which I mention only because apart from their long and tortured history, there was a lot of talk about Josh McDaniels leaving the Patriots but given the way Jimmy Haslam has burned through coachers and GMs I wonder if McDaniels will take what would likely last chance at a head coach position with the Browns or wait another year for a better situation.

Fell at the First Hurdle

Time to say fond farewell to those teams who were unlucky enough to fall at the first hurdle inn the playoffs.

The Buffalo Bills have a lot to build upon from this season, they may still have to go back to 1995 for their last playoff win, but they have now been there in two out of the last three years. They appear to have their front office and head coach working in unison so if they continue to find players and develop it is not hard to see them back in contention next year. I know from personal fandom how hard it can be to jump from a team that can make it to the playoffs to one that gets the win and so Bills fans will hope Josh Allen makes that leap at quarterback soon, but the arrow still seems to be pointing up for this franchise.

I’m sure rumours of the demise of the New England Patriots are slightly overblown, but looking at Tom Brady’s quote, and the age of both him and the roster and it does feel like it could be the end of an era. However, you would trust in the infrastructure to effectively rebuild, but it does seem odd to think that we might be about to see a new quarterback take over the franchise. The Bills are already challenging, and the Dolphins look set to improve, but this off-season more than most will set the expectations for the Patriots’ next season. All things must end, even the most stable period of a success that the league has possibly seen. I’m sure Dan is thrilled about it.

The New Orleans Saints there third straight last play elimination from the playoffs, and if there was a theme from last weekend it was the fall of the last generation of quarterbacks. The Saints look like they can compete for another year, but it is rare for quarterbacks to age gracefully, and it can’t be long before Father Time comes for Brees. In this age of counting rings, it’s worth taking into account the whole of Brees’s career and what he has done for both the Saints franchise and the city of New Orleans. As ever, we should enjoy these players whilst we have them because it may not be for long.

The Philadelphia Eagles didn’t really have any right to make the playoffs given the injuries they suffered. I went into season thinking they had one of the deepest rosters in the league, and that was sorely tested and there were definitely problems at both receiver and corner back. I have faith that the front office will address this in the offseason, but the Eagles have already moved on from their offensive coordinator and receivers coach, which is worth noting as head coach Doug Pederson had voiced his confidence in them only twenty-four hours before. It doesn’t feel like this team has ever recovered from the post Super Bowl brain drain, and they must start again on offence, and hope to get Carson Wentz in position to succeed in the playoffs. They will also likely need to address the backup quarterback position given how often they have had to play through Wentz’s young career and with Josh McCown being forty they cannot expect him to repeat the trick. I’m not totally sure what to expect next season, but Pederson has got this team to the playoffs three years in a row and won a Super Bowl in his second season so he has earned time to get it right again.

What We’ve Been Asked

‘OK just 4 rounds to go and I should start this week’s post with an apology to the Chiefs. Last week, you will recall, I predicted that the Super Bowl would see a narrow win for the Chiefs over the Saints. Well half of that has already gone the way of all flesh when the Vikings triumphed in Sunday’s overtime win.

I recall last year where some discussion was had over the number of road winners in Wildcard games. In truth there shouldn’t be a surprise as the seedings are such that teams will inevitably close. It’s when the top seeds enter the fray that form, and a bye week, can have an effect. This year, for the record, only the Texans scored a home win but there are 3 other sets of fans with that satisfied smile ahead of Divisional week.

Now for the Trivia and Dan started the week with a 3-point advantage, but has he maintained it?

Q1 – After the Dolphins made it to Super Bowl VIII after the 1973 season, what was the next season they saw Super Bowl action?

There was some thought checking here but both Gee and Dan went for 1982 which is, of course, correct. 2 points each

Q2 – Who did the Vikings play in their first Super Bowl, which was Super Bowl IV, played on January 11, 1970?

Well Gee went for Kansas while Dan picked the 49’ers. The Vikings lost to the Chiefs 23-7. So 2 points to Gee

Q3 – The Patriots moved and changed their name in 1971. What was the home city and their name prior to that?

This caused Gee some head scratching but while the City was Boston they weren’t the Whalers, which could have been either a hockey team or a type of boat. Dan however, nailed it .

The Boston Patriots were an original member of the American Football League in 1960. They took part in the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. They moved to Foxborough in 1971 and because of the move, they wanted a name change. They originally wanted the name, Bay State Patriots, but the NFL rejected that one. The New England name was accepted in March 1971.

Gee scores 1 and Dan 2 to bring the current totals to Gee 24 and Dan 26 = but what is coming next?

Well, for Divisional Week I’ve landed in New Orleans before moving up to New York and I promise there are no Joe Namath questions.

For New Orleans I want to know this: In a game against the Washington Redskins on October 13, 2000, Michael Lewis became only the 7th player in NFL history and the first Saint to do what?

Now it’s the New York Giants so tell me In a game against the Washington Redskins on October 30, 1955, Jim Patton was the first player to achieve what?

Finally for the NY Jets – From 1960 – 62 the NY Jets were known as what?

2 points per question. Pick the bones out of those.’

2019 Wildcard Sunday

05 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs

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Boston Scott, Carson Wentz, Dalvin Cook, Drew Brees, Duane Brown, Kirk Cousins, Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings, New Orleans Saints, NFL, NFL Trivia, Philadelphia Eagles, Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks, Zach Ertz

Two games down and two more to go, but first we have this week’s trivia questions, where Dan’s Dad asked us:

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

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

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

So the first question is one of those that is worrying me because I know that Dan Marino went to the Super Bowl early in his career, lost and everybody thought it would be okay because he would go back but he never did, yet I’m not totally sold on the year. I think it’s 1982 or 1983 and I’m going to plump for 1982 and hope I’m not trumped by Dan’s franchise knowledge of his own team.

I had an idiot moment when I first looked at the Vikings question as my brain thought Packers before it realized that would be impossible as they are both NFC teams. I’m not totally sure on this, but I think the Kansas City Chiefs were one of the early winners so I’m going to plump for them, and hope it wasn’t the Jets…

I have no idea on the Patriot question as again I don’t remember hearing about a franchise move, and I’m now once bitten twice shy of accusing 3D of being extra devious after being wrong the other week about the Chiefs. I’m wondering if the team have moved from Boston to their current location in Foxborough, but I really don’t know so let’s go with the Boston Whalers, even though that might be a hockey team.

Now over to Dan:

‘So, the Dolphins question I know. 1973 was the third Super Bowl in a row for the Dolphins, and after that I believe it was 1982 (when I think we lost to the Redskins, but I might be wrong there).

Now the guess… while one of our ‘three in a row’ was against the Vikings, 1970 would be the year prior to that run, so it’s not us. I’ll guess it was the 49ers.

And then back to confidence! Before the New England Patriots were the New England Patriots, I believe they were known as the Boston Patriots. And they still weren’t good enough to beat the Dolphins! #FinsUp!’

Minnesota Vikings (6^th) @ New Orleans Saints (3^rd)

The New Orleans Saints are the fourth ranked team by DVOA, but are a lot of people’s favourites to come out of the NFC in the Super Bowl and have looked good all season, which is particularly impressive as they achieved their 13-3 record with Drew Brees missing five games with a hand fracture. Their offence ranks fourth by DVOA, but their defence that was for so long the Achilles heel of the Saints franchise post the Bountygate scandal ranks just outside the top ten and has done more than enough to facilitate winning. Even their special teams is ranked third in the league by DVOA and so at home they are a particularly formidable opponent for the Minnesota Vikings.

The Vikings are another wildcard team who had a winning record all season but like the Bills in the AFC East, couldn’t keep up with the division winner as the Packers won thirteen games. This is the second year of Kirk Cousins three-year guaranteed contract but with an 0-9 record in Monday night games and an 0-2 playoff record there are plenty of questions about his performances in big games. The playoff record is a little unfair as Washington have not won a playoff game since 2005 and he wasn’t even the starter in 2012, but to win in New Orleans is a tough ask. The Vikings managed to be the Saints two seasons ago with a remarkable last minute score, but their defence has looked slightly vulnerable against the pass this season, whilst the offence took a while to find its feet. Kirk Cousins has looked really good for a lot of the second half of the season, but in the last couple of weeks an injury to running back Dalvin Cook has hurt their running game and the Vikings come into this game having lost their last two.

I think it will be a close game, but I do think that the Saints likely have too much for the Vikings, which will do nothing to dispel the narrative that surrounds Cousins and I will be interested to see if the Vikings stick with their offensive coordinator if they do lose as if there is a criticism of Mike Zimmer it is his interference with the offence and the number of offensive coordinators he has been through, but let’s get this game out of the way before we worry about that. For the Saints, who have been so close the last two seasons and were essentially robbed of a place in last year’s Super Bowl by a bad call, time is running out for Brees to get another Super Bowl and this could be the year.

Seattle Seahawks (5^th) @ Philadelphia Eagles (4^th)

The last wildcard game pits two of the most injured teams to make the playoffs against each other. The Philadelphia Eagles are the fourth seed by dint of winning the NFC East, but this took a four-game winning streak against the rest of their division to close out 9-7. The Eagles actually have a worse record than the Seahawks, and rank three places below them in overall DVOA, but they should not be underestimated. However, they barely have any receivers left, and even their leading tight end Zach Ertz is dealing with a rumoured lacerated kidney. However, Carson Wentz seems to have adapted to the recent change in game plan well and running back Boston Scott caught the eye last week, even if his average yards per carry was pretty paltry. The defence is beginning to get its pass rush back, which is important as the secondary is another area where the Eagles have a cluster of injuries.

The Seahawks may not have quite the same number of injuries as the Eagles, but a key injury to left tackle Duane Brown as well as injuries at running back that has resulted in Marshawn Lynch being signed out of retirement have dented the Seahawks attack. It still seems slightly odd that the Seahawks insist on featuring the run so heavily when they have one of the best passers in the game, but it will take all of Russell Wilsons ability to evade the pass rush to keep the Seahawks in this game. Especially as their usually strong defence only ranks eighteenth by DVOA this regular season. Interestingly the Seahawks have actually been better on the road this year, going 7-1 as opposed to their surprising 4-4 home record, which is very poor for a team who pride themselves on being one of the tougher places to visit in the NFL.

This looks like another close game, and I can absolutely see the Eagles doing enough to win the contest, but I give the advantage to the Seahawks simply because we know how good Russell Wilson is and this is Carson Wentz’s first ever playoff game.

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

The End of the 2019 Regular Season

01 Wednesday Jan 2020

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Adam Gase, Adam Vinatieri, AFC West, Andrew Luck, Andy Dalton, Anthony Lynn, Baker Mayfield, Ben Roethlisberger, Brian Flores, Carson Wentz, Chris Ballard, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Daniel Jones, Dave Caldwell, Dean Spanos, Denver Broncos, Derek Carr, Disappointed Twenty, Doug Marrone, Drew Lock, Eric Rowe, Frank Reich, Freddie Kitchens, Gardner Minshew III, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Jacoby Brissett, Jimmy Haslam, Joe Burrow, John Dorsey, Jon Gruden, Josh Jacobs, LA Chargers, Las Vegas, London, Marshawn Lynch, Miami Dolphins, Mike Mayock, Mike Tomlin, New England Patriots, New York Giants, New York Jets, NFL, Oakland Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles, Philip Rivers, Pittsburgh Steelers, Regular Season, Russell Wilson, Ryan Fitzpatrick, San Francisco 49ers, Saquon Barkley, Seattle Seahawks, Stephon Gilmore, Tennessee Titans, Tom Brady, Tom Coughlin, Vic Fangio, Zac Taylor

So here we are at the end of the regular season, but the start of playoffs and a new decade. I’m going to do a recap of the games I watched in week seventeen before I run through the AFC side of the Disappointed Twenty, and will follow up tomorrow with the NFC side.

What I Saw

The first game I watched in week seventeen had no bearing on the playoffs or draft position, but it still made me happy as the Cincinnati Bengals secured only their second win of the season as they beat the Cleveland Browns in a relatively comfortable manner. The Bengals pass rush was able to harass Baker Mayfield all game and got six sacks as well as picking him off three times. I’ll be talking about both of these teams in my roundup so only thing I will add here is that I was surprisingly happy about this win, even if it was ultimately meaningless in the wider scheme of things.

Whilst the Bengals win had no real affect on things, one of the other TWF teams had a definitive effect on the playoffs even thought they will not be playing either. For a bad season in terms of results, there has been much to be cheered about this season for a Miami Dolphins team, who got more wins that you are supposed to whilst rebooting your roster and look to have found a really good head coach who cemented this view with a win against the New England Patriots that cost their divisional foes a bye week and throws them into an eminently losable match-up against the Tennessee Titans next week. The problems that have plagued the Patriots offence resurfaced this week, but in addition Tom Brady threw a horrid pick-six where he sailed a ball between two receivers that Eric Rowe grabbed and took gratefully into the end zone. If that wasn’t bad enough, Stephon Gilmore did not look at all like the shutdown corner he has looked like for most of the season and the Pats’ defence did not look itself. I’m still not going to declare the Patriots done until I’ve seen them eliminated, but I can’t remember a recent time where the Pats looked this vulnerable this late in the season.

There were two divisions up for grabs in week seventeen and the first of them to be won saw the Philadelphia Eagles finish their mission impossible with four straight wins despite the injuries that plagued them all season. Their final victim were the New York Giants who offered up some glimpses of what Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley might be able to achieve between them as the Giants kept the game close into the fourth quarter, helped by an impressive sixty-eight yard touchdown run from Barkley, but whilst Jones managed to outgain the Eagles’ Carson Wentz through the air, he could not match his care with the ball and the Eagles finished strongly to win 34-17.

The final game of the regular season was to decide the AFC West as the Seattle Seahawks hosted the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers had dipped in form thanks to injury but looked to be getting back to some of their mid-season form in recent weeks and got out to a strong start in this one, building a thirteen point lead that should have been more whilst holding the Seahawks scoreless. The Seahawks have injury problems of their own, hence the signing of Marshawn Lynch out of retirement, who provoked a huge response from the Seattle crowd despite not producing that many yards but did get a touchdown. However, Russel Wilson was able to work out the 49ers defence in the second half and mount a comeback that very easily could have produced the win were it not for a combination of refereeing and the return of late game mismanagement. The Seahawks had three downs on the one-yard line to get the winning touchdown, or would have if they had not been called for delay of game and then failed to get in from the five. The result means the Seahawks travel to face the Eagles and could very well face the 49ers again before the end of the playoffs.

The Disappointed Twenty: AFC Edition

So here is my quick run through the AFC teams who missed out on the playoffs.

The New York Jets finished 7-9, despite losing their starting quarterback to mono and so you could say that this was not a bad year. The problem is that I am not convinced by Adam Gase as a head coach these days, but whilst I don’t think he has done anything to lose his job, a lot will be riding on next season.

I have already mentioned that the Dolphins looked to have found a really good head coach in Brian Flores, and with the influx of picks coming in the next couple of years things could really take off for the Dolphins. They need to find a franchise quarterback, and Dan would very much like them to re-sign Ryan Fitzpatrick as a mentor/capable backup, but if the Dolphins get the picks right they could be peaking as the Patriots enter into a new phase of the franchise.

Given the Pittsburgh Steelers lost their franchise quarterback to injury in week two, their 8-8 record is very creditable, and Mike Tomlin answered those who suggested that the Steelers might need to make a change at head coach. However, now having fixed the defence it is the offence that needs attention now, and given this franchise’s record of finding receivers in recent years you would like to think this is possible. However, the Steelers are another franchise who will need a new quarterback sooner than later, but we shall have to see if Ben Roethlisberger has another trip to the playoffs in him.

The Cleveland Browns had a horrible year full of dysfunction and disappointment that ended with the firing of both Freddie Kitchens and GM John Dorsey. I wrote that there were warning signs before the season, and having created a roster full of character issues and not been prepared to change his role after a discussion with owner Jimmy Haslam, Dorsey lost his job for it. There is a lot to put right in Cleveland and it feels like they need a coach capable of building a winning culture at the Browns and sorting out Baker Mayfield. Given their track record it’s hard to have faith that Haslam will get this decision right but the fans in Cleveland definitely deserve better.

The results for the Bengals may have been hugely disappointed, but the culture in Cincinnati certainly seemed to hold up through the season and the players were saying good things about Zac Taylor. It looks like Joe Burrow is going to be the Bengals selection with the first overall pick, which is exciting because of both the player he is and the person he seems to be (Heisman Speech). I always hoped that Andy Dalton would get the right team to prove people wrong as under the right circumstances he was a really good quarterback (that 2015 team will forever haunt me because of his injury) and I hope he gets to enjoy success going forward, but I am ready for a new leader and hopefully a better team. It will need to be given the how good the Ravens are likely to be for years to come.

The Indianapolis Colts had their plans for the season thrown into the air with Andrew Luck’s surprise retirement, but further burnished the credentials of head coach Frank Reich by going 7-9 with Jacoby Brissett as quarterback and with some different injury luck could have won more game. I wonder if they will be looking at quarterbacks in the off-season, but given their franchise progress over the last couple of years under GM Chris Ballard I see them being competitive again next season. That said, the other reason they struggled this year was that after a Hall of Fame career, kicker Adam Vinatieri had a bad year before having knee surgery that ended his season. It’s hard to see a forty-seven year old man coming back next season, but you would have said that for a number of seasons before now and it has been an incredibly impressive career that should not tarnished by a difficult season.

The Jacksonville Jaguars had a disappointing year where a sixth-round rookie Gardner Minshew outplayed their prime off-season signing at quarterback. The Jaguars have provided a structural conundrum for a while and really need to establish an identity, but it is interesting that after a second season of missing the playoffs they are keeping GM Dave Caldwell and head coach Doug Marrone in place having fired Tom Coughlin once the players’ union announced that the Jaguars accounted for 25% of all their filed grievances. I’m really not sure what to expect next season as there are a lot of questions surrounding their roster and we shall have to see if they can get everyone pointed in the right direction next season.

The Denver Broncos finished the season with four wins out of five and in Drew Lock may well have finally found a quarterback to follow Peyton Manning. It may have taken some time for Vic Fangio to get things working for the Broncos in his first year, but if they can build on their late season success in the off-season then the Broncos can be back in contention next season.

The last year of the Raiders playing in Oakland saw them improve by three wins from 2018, but Jon Gruden still finished with a losing record and questions will continue to be asked about quarterback Derek Carr. The Raiders lost their first round safety early in the season, but rookie running back Josh Jacobs established himself as franchise back until he was injured and if the Raiders can continue to add talent they can compete for the playoffs in their first season in Las Vegas. There’s still something that is making me hesitate to say they will do this, but if Mike Mayock and Jon Gruden have a second good off-season and don’t have the distractions of Antonio Brown they could easily do so.

It felt like Philip Rivers was saying goodbye after the LA Chargers last game, and the franchise seems to be in flux having failed to build on last year’s success, hampered again by injuries and seeming short on fans in LA. I don’t know what is going to happen to this franchise in the off-season, head coach Anthony Lynn seems safe but the Chargers need a new quarterback and something to bring the fans in. To be honest I’m not sure they are going to make a success of life in LA and whilst I think a possible move to London is a non-story (as their owner colourfuly explained earlier this year), I do think they could rue the day they left San Diego, even if Dean Spanos is unlikely to admit it.

That’s it for today’s post – check back tomorrow for a round up of the NFC teams as Competition Thursday swings into gear.

The Trading Game

23 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Adam Thielen, Andy Dalton, Andy Reid, Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Emmanuel Sanders, Frank Reich, Gardiner Minshew, Jacksonville Jaguars, Jalen Ramsey, Joe Flacco, John Elway, Kansas City Chiefs, Kirk Cousins, Matthew Stafford, Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings, NFL, Patrick Mahomes, Philadelphia Eagles

It’s been a long season as a fan of the Bengals, but there is still plenty of entertainment and good football to distract me so onward through week seven of the NFL.

What I Saw

The first game of week seven was a pretty underwhelming Thursday night game that saw the Kansas City Chiefs travel to Denver and beat a confusing Broncos team, breaking the Broncos’ two game winning streak, their own two game losing streak, and proving me wrong for yet another Thursday night game (currently 2-5 this season). What is even more impressive is the Chiefs did this despite Patrick Mahomes being forced out of the game in the second quarter having dislocated his patella during a quarterback sneak. The good news for the team is that the damage is such that he should be able to return with a brace in a few weeks and delay the surgery to the off-season. The even better news for this game was that the Chiefs’ defence was clearly tired of hearing how they couldn’t stop anyone as they held the Broncos to just over two hundred yards of total offence with seventy-one yards rushing on twenty-one carries and one hundred and thirty-four yards passing. whilst sacking Joe Flacco nine times. This was not the high-powered offence overcoming defensive frailties, but a sound team performance that demonstrates how good Andy Reid continues to be at building competitive teams. The Broncos meanwhile, do have problems and I’m not sure how trading away Emmanuel Sanders is going to help, but the real problem is John Elway’s continued inability to find a quarterback outside of signing Peyton Manning. Until Elway finds that franchise QC then a lot of the other problems on the roster will continue to be moot. The reputation that John Elway has in Denver means that even now there does not appear to be a huge amount of pressure on him, but at some point that has to change if the Broncos don’t improve.

The first Sunday game I enjoyed was a tight affair in the first half but the Minnesota Vikings continue to find their form and having soundly beat the Eagles last week, they traveled to Detroit and ran out 42-30 winners in week seven. It would seem that after a slow start the Vikings offence is beginning to find its feet with the new scheme and even losing Adam Thielen to a hamstring injury he picked up making a touchdown scoring catch in the first quarter didn’t slow them down as Kirk Cousins still threw for three hundred yards and four touchdowns to four different receivers. The Vikings defence also managed to limit the Lions’ offence enough that although Matthew Stafford threw for over three hundred and fifty yards himself (making him the fastest QB to forty thousand yards in NFL history), he also added in an interception to his four touchdowns and the Vikings looked pretty comfortable through the second half. I’ll be interested to see how the Vikings go the next few weeks, but if they can keep this balance on offence, that combined with the always tough Zimmer defence should make them a team no one wants to face. Meanwhile, the Lions seem to be able to play teams tough for a while, but they don’t seem to be clinical enough when it counts and with a 2-3-1 record, they need to start winning games and soon if they are going to compete for the playoffs.

I watched the next game because it was one of the most important games of the week in terms of its affect on the involved team’s playoff odds, but it was a one sided affair that saw the Dallas Cowboys run out easy 37-10 winners over the Philadelphia Eagles. It seemed like the Cowboys got a lot of injured players back at just the right time and the Eagles gave up costly turnovers on their opening two drives of the game that saw them fourteen points behind before their offence had even got into the opponents side of the field. If you compare the Eagles record with the Colts over the years since the Eagles won the Super Bowl you can see why some are suggesting that Frank Reich made a big difference for the Eagles when he was on their staff, but this is a team that is fighting injuries and just doesn’t look right. I absolutely thought they had one of the stronger rosters on the league, but there only so many cluster injuries any team can sustain. Meanwhile, the Cowboys have given themselves an edge in the NFC East and will be hoping they can build on it in the coming weeks.

The final game I watched, was the Bengals falling to 0-7 against the Jacksonville Jaguars and there’s not a lot to say. The Bengals are a bad team, the offensive line is a mess and Andy Dalton threw three interceptions trying to get the team back in the game but the team can’t run the ball or maintain drives. The defence is no better and I get to find out how bad it looks in person this weekend. The Jaguars are only a win back on the division lead, but they need to find some consistency as Gardiner Minshew needs to adjust now that teams have some tape of him, which in fairness is meant to take some time when you are a quarterback selected in the sixth round. The Jags will be hoping that the defence will be better through the removal of the disgruntaled Jalen Ramsey, but it is a very talented player to lose and we will have to see if the Jags can get into the race for the playoffs or falls out of the race in the next few weeks.

What I Heard

One of the big things that is being discussed at the moment is the number of trades we are seeing across the NFL, particularly as we approach next week’s trade deadline. There has been plenty of talk that given the Bengals position they should be looking to trade away some of their talent and get a jump start on the rebuild. There’s been no sign of that, but there has been plenty of movement, including a number of trades this week with the Seahawks grabbing safety Quandre Diggs from the Lions, the 49ers picking up Emmanuel Sanders from the Broncos, and the Patriots trading for Mohammed Sanu to try to improve their passing attack.

The most convincing explanation I’ve heard regarding this increasing number of tades is that the current generation of NFL GMs are much more transactional and prepared to take risks to improve their team than their risk averse forebears, particularly as if they don’t improve the team quickly there’s no guarantee they’ll get to fix the problem given how quickly a team will change GM.

The approach to talent acquisition was also the focus of a discussion between Peter King and LA Rams GM Les Snead who is deliberately chosing to trade for known quantity players rather than risking picking players in the first round of the draft. Now, that’s an interesting approach, and I keep hearing people saying that teams have the cap space to make more of these moves, but I’m not sure how the Rams will stay competitive given the contracts they have given out to Gurley and Goff, and will need to give to Ramsey unless their plan is to not have expensive first-round draft pick second contracts (that’s a mouthful) to pay. Only time will tell if their sums are right and the plan works, but it is reassuring that there is an overarching strategy – it doesn’t always feel that way and let’s just see if it works in the coming years.

What I Think

We are now getting to the point of the season where there are some teams who are really beginning to separate themselves. We have two unbeaten teams in the Patriots and 49ers alongside a further two teams with only one loss, which is really impressive of the New Orleans Saints who have won the five games that Teddy Bridgewater has started. A team that loses a Hall of Fame quarterback is not supposed to do that. Meanwhile the scary thing about the other one loss team is that Aaron Rodgers just posted his first, I’m still a dragon stat line of the season.

There are more competitive teams lurking in their divisions, including the Vikings who as I mentioned earlier, look to be coming together. The picks competition might be open to anyone, but there’s a gulf between our actual teams.

What I Know

The Bengals are 0-7, which makes going to see them on Sunday a slightly odd proposition – I was told firmly by Dan that I have to wear my AJ Green jersey but it feels odd when Green is still out injured and it seems highly unlikely that they will beat the Rams. After all, the Bengals are ranked thirty-first overall by DVOA, twenty places and 47.6% below the Rams, which is an even bigger gap than the 34.6% the Bengals are supposedly better than the Dolphins. At this rate both teams really could be 0-15 when they meet in week sixteen.

What I Hope

I’m hoping for a dry Sunday and an entertaining experience, and a better week picking games.

NFL Tankapalooza 2019: Who Wants the Prize?

16 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Aaron Donald, AJ Green, Amari Cooper, Baltimore Ravens, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Cordy Glenn, Dallas Cowboys, Daniel Jones, Dontari Poe, Ezekiel Elliott, Fran Duffy, Gerald McCoy, Jalen Ramsey, Jameis Winston, Jared Goff, Jason Garrett, Kwann Short, Kyle Allen, LA Rams, Lamar Jackson, London Games, Marcus Mariota, Mason Rudolph, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New York Giants, New York Jets, NFL, Philadelphia Eagles, Sam Darnold, San Francisco 49ers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans, Toddy Gurley, Tom Brady, Wembley

We are already a third of the way through the regular season and each conference has only one unbeaten team left, but the league’s two winless teams reside in the AFC as the Bengals join the Miami Dolphins in NFL Tankapalooza 2019. The difference is that the Dolphins were built with this in mind whilst the Bengals were planning to compete before the roster fell apart, but more of that later. For now, let’s make a start on rounding up NFL week six.

What I Saw

The Thursday night game was a bit of an odd one in week six as the unbeaten New England Patriots neat the New York Giants 34-14 but their offence still does not look in sync. In fact the opening score of the game was caused by the Giants’ punter hitting his own player and the Pats recovering and scoring a touchdown, but that said the Patriots’ offence ranks top ten by DVOA through week six and have we not learnt by now not to question Tom Brady? Even if there is no way he should be performing as well as he is this far past thirty-five, yet alone forty. When you pair this institutional success with the number one ranked defence you can see why people are already talking up another Super Bowl appearance for the Pats. There is still a long way to go though. This can also be said for the Giants who on top of starting a rookie quarterback, had a number of skills players injured and were never really going to compete in this one. It will take time to improve the roster and you can still make an argument that Daniel Jones would have been there at pick seventeen, but the Giants would argue that if Jones is a franchise quarterback there is no price too high to pay. It is too early to tell and somehow they are only one game back in the NFC East and whilst I’m really not expecting them to make a playoff push, they will be looking to play spoiler in the division and develop their young talent.

The first game I watched from Sunday was the second London game that saw the Tampa Bay Buccaneers become the second team to host at the new Tottenham Stadium as they lost 37-26 to the Carolina Panthers. The big takeaway from this game was that bad Jameis Winston turned up and gave away the ball seven times. He threw five interceptions, lost two fumbles and had a further two recovered by the team. You know it is going to be a bad day when your first pass is intercepted, and Winston managed to begin a second quarter drive with an interception as well as fumbling two plays in a row in another to make sure the opposition got the ball. It doesn’t matter if you throw for four hundred yards if your touchdown to interception ratios is 1:5 and it feels like we have the answer about one of the can’t miss quarterbacks of the 2015 NFL Draft (spoiler alert, the other features later). The steady play saw the Panthers win out eventually as Kyle Allan continues to keep the team in the race as Cam Newton focuses on getting truly healthy. There is already some talk of there being a controversy when Newton is healthy given the Panthers have done nothing but win since Allen got the start. The other things that struck me about the Panthers in this game was the depth of their defensive line as having put Kawann Short on the injury list they still had Gerald McCoy and Dontari Poe to play in the middle. It might be lazy to suggest that McCoy might have had a point to prove against his old team, but two and half sacks with four quarterback hits is a good day and the team finished with seven sacks.

Having seen that the New York Jets had won the first game of the season and with them being one of the few teams I haven’t seen yet I made a point of watching them heap further problems onto the Dallas Cowboys. It was an impressive turn around for Gang Green with Sam Darnold having his first three hundred yard passing day that included several beautifully placed balls and a ninety-two yard touchdown pass. The Jets are not suddenly a playoff team but it just highlights what a difference a starting quarterback can make and we now have eleven games to more fairly judge where they are as a team. The Cowboys however, will be very worried by a result that doesn’t doom their push for the playoffs but certainly doesn’t help. There seems to be less motion pre-snap to my eyes and Ezekiel Elliott is struggling to get going in the run game. This won’t be helped by injuries to both starting tackles, nor receiver Amari Cooper leaving the game early in the first quarter so you can perhaps expect some regression from the offence, but the defence is relatively healthy and currently ranked twenty-fifth by DVOA. I can’t pretend to have a huge amount of faith in Jason Garrett to turn things around but to do so the Cowboys need to get back to the formula that was working in the first three games,. Whether they can depends on health and coaching, but one to watch in the coming weeks.

The final game I watched this week is the latest loss for the Cincinnati Bengals who started the game with a kick-off return touchdown that sadly represented 41% of the Bengals total points as they lost 23-17 on the road to the Baltimore Ravens. I’m not sure how much this tells us about the Ravens given how the Bengals’ offensive spluttered and how Lamar Jackson is the perfect running quarterback to exploit the issues the Bengals have at the edge of their defence. This season is a lost cause for the Bengals and there are some worrying injuries to the Ravens secondary, which could be a problem for a defence that uncharacteristically languishes in the twenties by DVOA but the Ravens have a two game lead in the AFC North so remain the team to beat in the division.

I have a little addition for this week courtesy of Fran Duffy, an Eagles media employee who does several really good podcasts and watches a lot of film – there was really good breakdown of quarters coverage during this week’s Eagle Eye in the Sky Podcast and a breakdown of the play on this video.

What I Heard

I’ve already mentioned the big news of the weekend in terms of the Jets, but at the other end of the quarterback performance spectrum Jared Goff threw for only seventy-eight yards in the Rams loss to the 49ers. The Rams have reacted to the problems they are having on defence by trading away two first round picks to the Jaguars for Jalen Ramsey, who should certainly help their secondary. However, the problem with that is the combination of offensive line play and the injury restriction of Todd Gurley is hampering their offensive. This is compounded by the contracts they have given both Gurley and Goff when neither of them are carrying the offence right now. I understand going for it when you have a quarterback on a rookie deal but with the likes of Aarond Donald, Gurley and Goff all having big contracts this could become a real problem, particularly as Gurley’s knee is not going to improve massively given that he is suffering from an arthritic condition. The Rams could really miss those draft picks in the coming seasons.

The other quarterback I should mention is the other 2015 quarterback that will always be paired with Jameis Winston, namely Marcus Mariota who was pulled for Ryan Tannehill on Sunday and who has lost his starting position for this week’s games. This is a timely reminder that high drafted quarterbacks don’t always work out and a quarterback needs a lot of infrastructure around them to succeed. I think you can rebuild a team through a roster reset, but I don’t know it is a sure thing and whilst I like accumulating draft talent through getting more picks – if I was a Dolphins fan I would be worried about the talent that has left and whether one of those high draft picks is definitely going to be a franchise quarterback.

The other big topic of conversation has been the standard of officiating with the end of the Monday night game coming in for particular condemnation, but there was also a flurry of flags towards the end of the Jets and Cowboys. It’s too easy to rip the refs, particularly as football is very complex game to referee and the speed of the game has only got faster but there have been some pretty bad non-calls or ticky-tacky pass interference decisions. That said, it’s not the small calls that really annoy but the egregious ones and it seems pretty clear from the success rate of coach challenges that only those kind of pass interference calls are going to get overturned so can we get a memo to all head coaches to stop throwing the challenge flag unless someone actually got mugged and it was missed.

What I Think

I was glad that Mason Rudolph was able to go straight back to practice and the Bengals have announced today Cordy Glenn has been cleared to practice. These are grown men who are making their own decisions, but as someone who’s had his own issues with head injuries, I really hope they are listening to their doctors and are being duly careful. It seems to be the repeated sub-concussive blows rather than the big hits that cause a lot of the problems, but Glenn has been out for a couple of months now and as a linemen he is exposed to a lot of those sub-concussive blows. The Bengals could really do with a healthy Glenn, but the world could do with a healthy Glenn a lot more.

What I Know

I have really struggled to get to coaching tape this year, and even my re-arranged plan didn’t survive my work week and I have another series of interruptions coming this week. I’m not giving up on getting something done, but hopefully things will calm down in a couple of weeks, but that said I will be down in London to watch the Bengals in week eighth and suddenly we’ll be halfway through the season. Man is it slipping by quickly this year.

What I Hope

There is talk that AJ Green could be coming back soon and it would be really great to see him play live again and for the Bengals to be at least competitive against the Rams. In the meantime I hope that I can stay competitive in the picks competition as it looks like the only football based season win I’m going to get this year.

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

The Unknowable NFL

02 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Aaron Rodgers, Alvin Kamara, Andy Dalton, Arizona Cardinals, Bryan Bulaga, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, Chase Daniels, Chicago Bears, Christian McCaffrey, Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, Daniel Jones, Deshaun Watson, Drew Brees, Gardiner Minshew, Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans, Jaylen Samuels, Khalil Mack, Kirk Cousins, Kyle Allen, Matt LaFleur, Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings, New Orleans Saints, NFL, Oakland Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Teddy Bridgewater, Vontae Davis

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

What I Saw

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

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

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

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

What I Heard

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

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

What I Think

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

What I Know

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

What I Hope

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

What I Saw

What I Heard

What I Think

What I Know

What I Hope

The 2019 Trivia Contest

Tennessee Titans (6th) @ Kansas City Chiefs (2nd)

Green Bay Packers (2nd) @ San Francisco 49ers (1st)

What I Saw

What I Heard

Fell at the First Hurdle

What We’ve Been Asked

Minnesota Vikings (6th) @ New Orleans Saints (3rd)

Seattle Seahawks (5th) @ Philadelphia Eagles (4th)

What I Saw

The Disappointed Twenty: AFC Edition

What I Saw

What I Heard

What I Think

What I Know

What I Hope

What I Saw

What I Heard

What I Think

What I Know

What I Hope

What I Saw

What I Heard

What I Think

What I Know

What I Hope

Tennessee Titans (6^th) @ Kansas City Chiefs (2^nd)

Green Bay Packers (2^nd) @ San Francisco 49ers (1^st)

Minnesota Vikings (6^th) @ New Orleans Saints (3^rd)

Seattle Seahawks (5^th) @ Philadelphia Eagles (4^th)