Fallen at the First Hurdle

15 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs, Season Goodbyes

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Aaron Rodgers, Alex Smith, Andrew Luck, Andy Dalton Paradox, Anthony Castonzo, Arthur Smith, Baltimore Ravens, Ben Roethlisberger, Brian Shottenheimer, Buffalo Bills, Chase Young, Chic, Chicage Bears, Chris Ballard, Dak Prescott, Deshaun Watson, DK Metcalf, Drew Brees, Frank Reich, Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts, Jared Goff, Jimmy Graham, Joe Flacco, John Schneider, John Wolford, Josh Allen, LA Rams, Matt Nagy, Maurkice Pouncey, Mike Vrabel, Mitchell Trubisky, New Orleans Saints, NFL, Nick Foles, Patrick Mahomes, Pete Carroll, Philip Rivers, Pittsburgh Steelers, Ron Rivera, Russell Wilson, Ryan Pace, Seattle Seahawks, Taylor Heinicke, Tennessee Titans, Tom Brady, Trent Dilfer, Washington Football Team

The first ‘Super’ Wild Card weekend certainly provided plenty off football to watch, a couple of upsets and plenty to digest. As usual I will be saying goodbye to the losing teams, and for this post in the order they were knocked out so let’s take a look at the six who fell at the first playoff hurdle.

The cap numbers for next season still come from spotrac.com and the ranking/numbers were right at time of posting with an assumed team salary cap of $175 million.

Indianapolis Colts

This season the top of the AFC was so competitive that a ten win team did not make the playoffs and the Colts were seeded seventh despite an 11-5 record and ranking tenth overall by DVOA. It would have been no mean feat to go into Buffalo and beat the number two seed Bills in their own stadium, even if the long suffering but vociferus Buffalo fans were not present to cheer on what they would hope with be the first playoff win since 1995, but sadly for the Colt it was just not to be. There’s an argument that the Colts played better for large parts of this game, they had the ball for longer, outgained the Bills and their defence prevented the Bills from running up the kinds of scores they had over the last quarter of the season but sadly for the Colts, the Bills ability to put up points quickly saw them eek out the 27-24. I have been impressed with the job GM Chirs Ballard has done since he joined the franchise, which has not been easy given the injury status of Andrew Luck when Ballard took the job in 2017 and then had to deal with Luck’s retirement in 2019 just before the season. In that time the team had become competitive and with the addition of Frank Reich the Colts have won double digit games when they have had a true franchise quarterback. This is hardly a surprise but I mention it because the singing of Philip Rivers canonly be short term with him mulling retirement and as good as the Colts were this season, they really need to find a long term solution at quarterback. Their left tackle, the ten year vet Anthony Castonzo is retiring so there are a couple of key decisions coming up on offence this off-season. Rivers may decide to come back for another year, and the good news is that right now the Colts have the third most cap space going into 2021, but whether they can find the right pieces I don’t know. I trust Frank Reich as a head coach to keep this team competitive as he has managed that from the moment he got there, despite taking the job very late in the process and inheriting a stage that was assembled by Josh McDaniels before McDaniels pulled out of the job. However, if the Colts are to truly challenge, they need to sort the two key positions of quarterback and left tackle and whilst I admire Ballard, that is not an easy task in one off-season.

Seattle Seahawks

The Seahawks under Pete Carroll have gone to the playoffs in all but two of his eleven seasons, but they have not got back to the conference championship game since the 2014 season and their second Super Bowl appearance. It might be considered churlish to be picking at the sustained success of the Seahawks under Carroll, but I am getting a little concerned about their current direction and I think that feeling is shared by their fans. The league has moved on since the 2013/14 and whilst the Seahawks formula is clearly still successful up to a point, this is no longer a team with an era defining defence if it is still even possible to build such a unit with the current rules. These days the clear best player on the Seahawk’s roster is quarterback Russell Wilson and after the fans’ clamour to let Russ cook was met at the start of the season, the Seahawks won their first five game with Wilson an early MPV candidate as things were humming with receiver DK Metcalf absoultely dominating in the deep passing game. However, the defence was struggling to contain offences and as teams started to play more cover two coverage against the Seahawks the offence faltered and stagnated. As the defence improved, the Seahawks fell back to running the ball more and their old familiar formula. Whilst they still won twelve games this way, the Seahawks also just got knocked out by a Rams team who started their backup John Wolford at quarterback and when he was injured early were forced to play Jared Goff who is still recovering from a fractured thumb and cleary was having problem throwing the ball. Even more concerning for me was Carroll’s talk post game of getting better at running the ball and a lot is going to depend on who is selected to be the new offensive coordinator as the franchise parted ways with current OC Brian Shottenheimer citing philosophical differences. I would love to be proved wrong and the Seahawks bring in a fresh coordinator who can diversify the passing offence whilst maintain the running game as a genuine threat as I believe that is the most successful formula in the NFL these days, but the other thing that Wilson could benefit from as a shorter quarterback is for the Seahawks to take a leaf from the Saints’ handling of Drew Brees and fortify the interior of their offensive line. However, the Seahawks have not focussed on the offensive line with the tandem of John Schneider and Pete Caroll in charge so I doubt that will be done in the off-season. Even with only $5 million under the 2021 cap I expect the Seahawks to compete again next season, but I am beginning to wonder if the Seahawks are going to put themselves in a position to maximise Russell Wilson’s prime, or if he is going to end up in a situation similar to the Packers and Aaron Rodgers where they need to refresh the coaching scheme to maximise their investment. Having read his book on coaching I have a lot of respect for Pete Carroll, but I do wonder if he is going to help get the Seahawks offence in the place it needs to be to allow him to return to the Super Bowl and for the Seahawks, that should be focus right now.

Washington Football Team

The Washington Football Team didn’t just make the playoffs but gave a credible performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and whilst they never truly troubled the Bucs, they did a lot better than the Bears who I shall be covering in a bit. Alex Smith steadied the ship and brought Washington back into playoff contention when he was made the starter at quarterback, but the Football team had to work hard to hold on to top spot in the NFC East when Smith picked up a calf strain yet they did managed to slide into the playoffs. If nothing else in the last few weeks, fringe quarterback Taylor Heinicke who had one career start going into Saturday’s game, hadn’t been on a NFL roster since final cuts ahead of the 2019 season, and didn’t even see the field for his XFL team last year moved the ball well enough that someone surely will sign him to take another look in the pre-season. However, Washington’s offence clearly still needs work in Washington as it ranks bottom in the league by DVOA (and let’s not forget that means it was worse than the Jets!), but in his first season Ron Rivera and his coaching staff got special teams up to fifteenth by DVOA and the defence finished third. The defence in no small part flourished with the addition of rookie defensive end Chase Young who looked every bit the top of the draft era defining pass rusher that Washington hoped for when they selected him last year. This was a very credible turnaround in one season, and there were a couple of players who caught the eye on offence, but the clear focus in the off-season is improving their quarterback play and getting their offence to at least league average. Washington have over $27 million in cap space next season and so whilst it is too early to know how far the new regime can take them, having taken a decent first step this season for the first time in a long time it feels like there is some hope that Washington can improve in consecutive seasons. My one concern is that I have said this before and been proven wrong as no regime has managed to take promise into production on the field or been given time to see a long term project through so we shall have to see what does actually happen this time. Even if you can’t bring yourself to hope yet, there is at least reason to monitor Washington’s moves this off-season and that has not been the case for many a year.

Tennessee Titans

The first team that we lost on Sunday was an upset in seeding but was one I predicted before the game although it was hardly a controversial prediction. The Tennessee Titans continued to improve their standings in the AFC South under Mike Vrabel, winning the division for the first time since he took over in 2018 as well as achieving double digit wins for the first time. That said, this season’s iteration of the team differed from last year’s in that the 2019 version were competitive across all three phases of the game whereas this season the defence improved to fourth overall by DVOA whilst both the defence and special teams regressed badly. The short-term future on offence seems secure unless they lose coordinator Arthur Smith, but much like my criticism of the Raiders, it will not matter how good their offence is if the Titans can’t get the defence up to somewhere near the league average in play. The hope would be that as defence tends to be more volatile than offence the Titan’s defence could bounce back next season, but they need to address the pass rush from somewhere and with them $5 million over next season’s cap they will have to be clever or draft well to turn that around. The right draft pick could very well help them turn the corner, but you could say that about plenty of teams in the league. Still, this is now five seasons with at least nine wins so I have no reason not to expect the Titans to compete next season. However, there is a limit to how long running back Derek Henry can maintain his currently volume of production, particularly with his physical running style and five years in the league is a long time for a running back with his kind of usage. There are always cycles for any NFL team and I just hope that the Titans maximise their current situation because it is rare for a team to have their success tied to a running back and it last for long.

Chicago Bears

The Bears were the most comprehensively beaten team of the Wild Card round, and the score would look a lot worse if it were not for a garbage time touchdown from the Bears thanks to a ridiculous one-handed catch by Jimmy Graham. However, for most of the game the Bears offence never really took off and the Saints had full control of the game. This really mirrors the Bears season where despite starting 5-1, the Bears were worried enough that having signed Nick Foles to a three-year $24 million contract in the off-season they made him the starter but as so often has been the case unless pressed into service for a limited period, Foles did not impress. This leaves the Bears in the position where Trubisky played well enough to get them into the playoffs, but not to win in a demonstration of what I call the Andy Dalton paradox. Now Trubisky isn’t as good as Dalton was at his height for the Bengals, but neither of them were able to elevate those around them on their own and with the modern rules I don’t think you can build the kind of defences that allowed the Ravens to win with a Joe Flacco or a Trent Dilfer. In a league that is segueing from Drew Brees and Tom Brady to Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson, Josh Allen, Dak Prescott and it seems more good quarterbacks than ever before, I believe you simply must have an offence that performs to a certain standard and I think the Bears by splitting between Foles and Trubisky have ended up with no quarterback and awkward decisions to make this off-season. I do not know what they plan to do with Foles and having declined the fifth-year option for Trubisky, they now have to make decisions having invested draft capital and free-agent money without a clear path forward and who really knows what changes are the front office prepared to make to improve next season. This is particularly prescient as with their defence and special teams both ranked in top ten by DVOA, if they can sort out what is after all head coach Matt Nagy’s side of the ball in the offence, then they might be able to push on and really challenge in the playoffs. However, I am not sure about GM Ryan Pace who not only drafted Mitchell Trubisky, but traded up for the privilege to do so when it did not seem like the 49ers were going to draft a quarterback and passed over both Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson in the process. It’s always easy to look back in hindsight so I do want to be careful as Pace will obviously know a lot more about player evaluation than me, but I did not like the process at the time and everyone questioned the choice of player as well as the draft capital given up. I’m not sure anyone knew what Mahomes was going to turn into, but Pace’s evaluation of the three players was clearly wrong and with one winning season in six there is no record of consistent success under the current administration. The Bears are $8 million over the draft cap so I will be following the Bears’ off-season with interest as there are some big decisions to be made, but I’m not sure about the process or the people who are making them.

Pittsburgh Steelers

The last team to finish their season on Sunday was in some ways the most surprising, but the warning signs were there, and things went wrong from the very first snap of the game for the Steelers. They may have started out 11-0, but the end of the season saw the lose five out of six games including Sunday’s Wild Card game to a team who could barely practice and were without several players as well as their play-calling head coach due to a Covid-19 break outs. The Steelers’ first snap saw nine-year veteran centre Maurkice Puncey shotgun a snap over quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s head and the Browns were first to secure the ball in the end zone and score a touchdown. By the end of the first quarter, the Steelers were down 28-0 and despite generating over five hundred yards of passing offence in the game ultimately lost 37-48. You can understand how as the defence accumulated injuries at linebacker the defence struggled late in the season, but the real problem was the balance of the offence where they could not run the ball and were overly reliant on short passing plays that required yards after the catch. Once teams had figured out how to stop this then the Steelers could not seem to adjust. They approach next season with a thirty-nine-year-old quarterback mulling retirement who is an eye watering $41 million cap hit in 2021, with $22 million in dead money if he is cut, but with the Steelers $23 million over the 2021 salary cap and with a number of free-agents there are going to be some difficult decisions. They will certainly have to be careful about who they seek to retain, though at least they have young receivers to take over if they let some of the more experienced players go. I have wondered for years about the Steelers cap management, though they usually find to way remain competitive but they have not had to think about quarterback for a long time. I think you have to be impressed at how they are run but with no obvious successor to Roethlisberger on the roster and a murky cap situation the Steelers are going to have to create a new era and there might well be some pain ahead before they get back to the kind of success we are all used to seeing in Pittsburgh. I would not bet against them coming good again soon though.

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.

2020 Wildcard Saturday

09 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs

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Aaron Donald, Alex Smith, Chase Young, Cole Beasley, Darius Leonard, DeForest Buckner, Indianapolis Colts, Jalen Ramsey, Jared Goff, Jocobt Brissett, John Wolford, Josh Allen, Kansas City Chiefs, LA Rams, New York Jets, NFC East, NFL, Philip Rivers, Playoffs, Ron Rivera, Russell Wilson, Sean McVay, Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tom Brady, Washington Football Team

The expanded Wildcard Weekend is here, that unsurprisingly throws up a couple of tasty games, but thanks to the structure of the playoffs we have a lopsided road favourite, but we shall get to them in a bit.

Indianapolis Colts (7^th) @ Buffalo Bills (2^nd)

The play-offs start with a cracking matchup that sees the Colts take their seventh ranked defence by DVOA to Buffalo to see if they can stifle the Bills and their fifth ranked offence who have look as good as anyone in the league. The Bills come into this game having scored 48, 39, and 56 points in the last three weeks but the loss of slot receiver Cole Beasley could well cause this offence some problems as could the Colts defence. The addition of DeForest Buckner this off-season has helped the Colts’ pass rush and Darius Leonard continues to impress as a linebacker up there with any in the league. This Colts offence might be outside the top ten by DVOA, but Philip Rivers has added veteran leadership and has been splitting red-zone and short yardage snaps with Jacoby Brissett as the younger QB being better able or more willing to be his body on the line. In truth this is not your average play-off seventh seed given that the Colts won eleven games but with the Bills defence playing better in recent weeks and a perfect 6-0 following their bye week the Bills look like the team best placed to test the Chiefs in the play-offs. The improvement from Josh Allen in his third season is remarkable, with the ten point leap in completion precentage jumping out at you and I would expect him to lead the Bills to a first play-off win since the 1995 season. Anything else will be a disappointment for the Bills.

LA Rams (6^th) @ Seattle Seahawks (3^rd)

The second of the Saturday matchups is a game that is intriguing rather than one promising fireworks, but it is a divisional matchup that has potential. The LA Rams lost in a head scratching manner to the New York Jets of all teams in week fifteen, before losing to the Seahawks in a game that saw Jared Goff dislocate the thumb in his throwing hand although he finished the game. There were stretches of the season where Goff looked really good, but towards the end of the season the quarterback had a couple of bad games and after surgery on his thumb had to watch the Rams eek out an 18-7 win without an offensive touchdown in week seventeen for the Rams to secure their play-off spot. There is talk that Goff could be back for this game, but the Rams have not named the starter yet so it could be that John Wolford gets to start his second NFL game, and in the play-offs. Wolford offers more with his legs both on designed runs and scrambling to make plays than Goff, but does not have the potential to match Goff when he is playing well. The good news is the Rams are much more balanced than the year they went to the Super Bowl thanks to a defence that ranks fourth in the league by DVOA this season, anchored around the other worldly talents of defensive tackle Aaron Donald and corner Jalen Ramsey. The offence also welcomes back Andrew Whitworth from IR who barring setbacks is set to start at left tackle but it seems they will need to dig deep into head coach Sean McVay’s excellent playbook to get the win.

The Seattle Seahawks have been in contention all season, which is hardly a surprising statement given their 12-4 record, but I confess that it feels a little flattering to me. The Seahawks started the season strongly on offence with Russell Wilson throwing the ball all over the field, but as the season wore on and defences adjusted to the new attack the Seahawks faltered, losing two games in a row. The Seahawks traded for veteran pass-rusher Carlos Dunlap and as the Seahawks defence improved they also reverted to running more on early downs. This has brought them the 12-40record and the division, but I am concerned that Russell Wilson might have to find some truly special performances when he has not looked as good as he did to start the year if the Seahawks are to go deep into the playoffs. With the situation at quarterback, it is hard not to give the edge to the Seahawks, even if McVay has a good coaching record against them, but it wouldn’t be the shock of the century if the Rams were to find a way.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5^th) @ Washington Football Team (4^th)

Thanks to the state of the NFC East, the final game on Saturday sees a 7-9 fourth seed hosting an eleven-win fifth seed. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are appearing in their first play-off game in thirteen seasons and will be looking for their first play-off win since the 2002 Super Bowl win. The addition of Tom Brady clearly helped the Bucs improve and with his playoff experience and their opposition the Bucs are favourites to win on the road, but might not have everything all their own way. The Bucs have at times looked as good as anyone in the league, with a plethora of pass catching options for Brady and a defence than can be truly scary. Any team who has a top five offence and defence should feel confident and the Bucs have definitely looked better towards the end of the season as Brady adjusted to the new team and scheme and got over the disrupted pre-season. However, the Washington Football Team made the play-offs thanks to their defence and in particular their defensive line. This is not to say that the Football Team will win, but with impressive rookie defensive end Chase Young leading the way you can see their pass rush getting pressure on Brady and as impressive as the veteran quarterback is, he was very quick to get rid of the ball even before he turned forty-three. The problem that Washington will have in this game is even if their defence can disrupt the Bucs and Brady on offence, there has been genuine discussion of a quarterback rotation as Alex Smith deals with a calf strain that has hampered the veteran quarterback in recent weeks. It takes nothing away from Smith’s incredible comeback from a horrific injury and post-surgery complications that nearly cost him his leg, but with Taylor Heinicke and his one career start being next in line it is hard to feel confident in Washington’s chances. This is still a season of progress for Washington who have not been to the play-offs since the 2015 season or won a play-off game since the 2005 season, and they had a record of 3-13 last year. In fact given the turmoil off the field, Ron Rivera’s transformation of the franchise is pretty remarkable and let us not forget that he has managed all this whilst undergoing treatment for cancer. There are no participation trophies in the NFL, but if you look at both quarterbacks and Rivera it is a remarkable achievement just to be involved in this game, but you know that Brady will see anything other than a win as a disappointed and I think I would be genuinely shocked if he didn’t get one more win tonight.

The Second Wave Hits the NFL

02 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Adrian Peterson, Alex Smith, Antonio Gibson, Baltimore Ravens, Bill Belichick, Bill O'Brien, Bob Quinn, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Covid-19, Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys, Daniel Jones, Denver Broncos, Derek Henry, Deshaun Watson, Detroit Lions, Ezekiel Elliott, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Jeff Driskel, Jerry Jones, Jim Caldwell, JJ Watt, Joe Burrow, Joe Judge, Kendall Hinton, Marvin Lewis, Matt Patricia, Mike Brown, Mike McCarthy, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, NFC East, NFL, Pittsburgh Steelers, Ron Rivera, Tennessee Titans, Thanksgiving Football, Vic Fangio, Washington Football Team

Against a backdrop of second waves of Covid-19 across Europe and the United States it is not a surprise that there has been an increased affect on the NFL in recent weeks that means that I’m writing the week twelve summary post with one game left to finish as I put this post live. The Baltimore Ravens have become the second team to have a facility-based outbreak of Covid-19 and so for reasons of medical safety as much as anything the Ravens take on the Steelers on a Wednesday afternoon nearly a week after it was initially scheduled to play. I will mention the other team who had a serious Covid-19 issue later, but while the cracks are showing in the NFL’s strategy, it is holding up so far and it is clear the league are now determined to keep to their weekly schedules even if they are moving individual games around.

Still, let us start with the games I have seen before we get to the details of the schedule changes that stretch into week thirteen.

What I Saw

A slightly underwhelming pair of Thanksgiving games which saw two forty point blowouts started with the Houston Texans beating the Detroit Lions 41-25. The Lions actually moved the ball well on their opening drive and scored a touchdown to take an early lead. However, the Texans quickly answered with a pick-six touchdown from JJ Watt before the offence got in on the act with a touchdown of their own. The Lions got a second rushing touchdown from Adrian Peterson to give them their last lead of the game as the Texans soon scored another touchdown and hardly looked back. I’ve heard Greg Cosell talking about how well Deshaun Watson has been playing for a number of weeks so it was nice for him to get to demonstrate this on a national stage, but the truth is that this was not a competitive game. The Lions took what seemed like the inevitable step of firing GM Bob Quinn and head coach Matt Patricia after this latest loss and will be looking to start over again as the rebuild with Quinn and Patriicia after the firing of Jim Caldwell produced worse results. This game featured two tweams who started the season with former Bill Belichick coordinators as head coaches, but while Bill O’Brien’s actions as GM of the Texans let himself down despite a good record as head coach, from the outside it looks like Patricia’s attempt to recreate Belichick’s formula rather than create his own was his downfall. This is a pattern we have seen before with the Belichick coaching tree, and stands in contrast to the success that Brian Flores is having with Miami, but it will be interesting to see in what direction both of these franchises head come the off-season.

The second Thanksgiving game saw the Washington Football Team go to Dallas and beat the Cowboys 41-16. There have been problems with the Cowboys’ defence all season, but the offence’s struggles in this game at least could be explained as the pair of alternative tackles that were starting their second game for the Cowboys both went out injured early, reducing them to third string tackles. Throw in a poor day and a fumble from Ezekiel Elliott and it’s easy to see how this game got away. It’s not as if Ron Rivera had an easy task turning around the Football Team to start with, but his coaching through cancer treatment is frankly remarkable, and his team are playing tough football and looks to be heading in the right direction. Alex Smith is not a long term answer at quarterback but there is already talk of him coming back next season, whilst rookie running back Antonio Gibson looks to be establishing himself and finished this game with over a hundred yards rushing and three touchdowns. With the injuries on the offensive line and to Dak Prescott there is some cover for Mike McCarthy’s difficult first season, but the Cowboys are probably still under-performing in a very winnable NFC East and it is the defensive side of the ball that would worry me if I was Jerry Jones. It wouldn’t take much to get the Cowboys back in the race for the division, but even if they do drag themselves back into contention there’s going to be some serious decisions to be made in the off-season.

Continuing the theme of the NFC East, the New York Giants took a share of the division lead with their 19-17 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. This was more of a contest than I was expecting, with the Bengals defence stepping up to an extent but the offence was only able to generate a total of one hundred and fifty-five yards of total offence and the one touchdown drive took place late in the game against a Giants playing a prevent defence. In truth, the Giants were in control for the majority of the game, had the ball for more time and I like where their defence is headed even if the offence has its limitations with Daniel Jones at quarterback. I worry what the Bengals long term prospect are, even with Joe Burrow who is a phenomenal talented young quarterback, but Zac Taylor has not convinced me with his total of four career wins and the ugly truth is that the Bengals have not had a winning season since 2015. It feels right now like my mindset as a fan has to be a lot more like the pre-Marvin Lewis Days and I find that deeply concerning. I would love to be proved wrong, but right now I feel better about how the Giants are shaping up under first year head coach Joe Judge (and there is no shortage of questions there) than how the Bengals are building. I truly hope I am proved wrong next year and it always used to be said that you shouldn’t judge a coach until their third year. These days teams are a lot quicker to judge (except ironically the Lions) but as old school as Bengals’ owner Mike Brown is, I wonder how long he will put up with the Bengals losing now they have a franchise quarterback.

The final game I watched in it’s entirety this week was the Tennessee Titans return trip to face the Indianapolis Colts that was another forty point blow out (there have been five so far in week twelve) where the Titans won 45-26. The downfall for the Colts was that their top ten defence by DVOA, that had only given up three one-hundred yard plus rushing games going into Sunday, allowing over a hundred in the first half as the Titans amassed a total of two hundred and twenty-nine yards rushing, with one hundred and seventy-eight of them coming from Derick Henry. This efficiency on the ground let the Titans keep the game script how they wanted and they quite literally ran out easy winners. There’s still a little over of the quarter of the season to go, but after a bit of a wobble the Titans have won their last two games to take sole position of the AFC South as they prepare to host the Cleveland Browns next week. The Colts are only a game back from the Titans and are solid football team so I expect these two to be neck and neck going forward unless there is a significant change to either teams roster, which is even more possible than usual this season with Covid-19 stalking teams as well as the more traditional injuries that an NFL team face throughout a season.

What I Heard

I wanted to step away from podcast topics this week to go straight to the head coach of the Denver Broncos after they were forced to play against the New Orleans Saints on Sudnay without any one of the four quarterback on their roster being available.

The reason this happened was fairly straight forward, third string quarterback Jeff Driskel tested positive for Covid-19, which is not so unusual this season. However, all four Broncos’ quarterbacks on the team/practise squad held their own workout on Tuesday and broke the protocols enough to be deemed close contacts of Driskell. This was discovered late enough in the week that none of them had five days to register clear tests ahead of Sunday and be available to play. In fact, the news broke so late that the Broncos only had a few hours to prepare a practice squad receiver Kendall Hinton, who had played some quarterback in college, to start Sunday’s game. It is unsurprising that he only completed one of his nine passes whilst throwing two interceptions.

If there is a positive to come out of this situation, I would say it is the way Fangio handled the discussion after the game stating that he was disappointed in the players for putting the team and the league in this position, but also owning up that he had obviously hadn’t done a good enough job of selling the protocols to them, when they are on their own.

You can see him talk about this and get a snippet of Kendall Hinton discussing the game here.

What I Think

It’s seems pretty clear that the NFL are very focussed on sticking to their schedule of games in a week, even if specific games do get moved about, but at this point they are doing that for medical reasons and not those of competitive balance. The Ravens got moved because they had an outbreak and then delayed an extra day so the players could have some form of in-person workout before playing.

The Broncos however, despite asking for a delay were not granted one because although at a competitive disadvantage, were able to field a team safely from a medical point of view on Sunday.

This week the teams were only allowed to operate virtually on Monday and Tuesday because of concerns over people having out of town visitors for Thanksgiving, and against a background of a second wave of Covid-19 building as we go from autumn into winter the NFL is concerned about getting to the end of its season at it’s usual pace, trying to minimise medical issues, but not worrying about competitive balance to their usual degree.

Given that teams have been fined millions of dollars and a draft pick so far over Covid-19 protocol violations, and still teams like the Raiders have been repeat offenders, perhaps the example of the Broncos playing without a recognised quarterback will sharpen people’s focusses. I remember questioning whether entire position groups going down would delay games early in the season, and now to an extent we have our answer. Unless there is in-facility transmission the answer appears to be no, you are going to have to find a way to cope.

What I Know

I knew it was going to be an odd season, but it somehow feels like it has been going on for months and yet I still can’t quite believe that we are nearly three quarters of the way through the regular season. For all that there were problems in week twelve and as a consequence we have another Wednesday game in week thirteen, I think that if you had told the NFL that they wouldn’t have lost any games by the start of week thirteen, they would definitely have taken it.

What I Hope

It feels more relevant than ever with how the world is to hope that the NFL gets through this pandemic season with no one catching a life changing version of Covid-19. Yes, I hope the league makes it through the season, and I am grateful for football as I always am, but if we learned anything from this week it is how important following protocols are for protecting yourself from Covid-19. Whatever that means for you, I hope you stay safe. With vaccines on the horizon if we can hold things together for a few more months then there is a real chance we can get back to a lot of things we are missing, even if the world will still be a different place.

We owe it to ourselves and all we’ve lost to learn from this experience, and I hope that as we can get back into the world that we do a little better with it and each other. That feels like something worth holding on to as we head into the depths of winter.

2020 Week Two Picks

20 Sunday Sep 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition

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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 South Preview

06 Sunday Sep 2020

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

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Adam Vinatieri, AFC South, AJ Brown, Alvin Kamara, Andrew Luck, Atlanta Falcons, Bill O'Brien, Bruce Arians, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, Chris Ballard, Chris Godwin, Christian McCaffrey, Dan Quinn, Darius Leonard, David Caldwell, David Tepper, DeAndre Hopkins, Derek Henry, Deshaun Watson, Dirk Koetter, Doug Marrone, Doug Pederson, Drew Brees, Frank Reich, Gardner Minshew, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Jadeveon Clowney, Jameis Winston, JJ Watt, Joe Brady, Julio Jones, Leonard Fournette, Luke Kuechly, Marcus Mariota, Marshon Lattimore, Matt Rhule, Matt Ryan, Michael Thomas, Mike Evans, Mike Vraebel, New Orleans Saints, NFL, Nick Foles, OJ Howard, Philip Rivers, Rob Gronkowski, Ron Rivera, Ryan Tannehill, Sean Payton, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Teddy Bridgewater, Tennessee Titans, Thomas Dimitroff, Todd Bowles, Tom Brady, Tom Coughlin, Will Fuller, Yannick Ngakoue

Somehow this is the final weekend before our first NFL Sunday, and having take part in the Kickers Matter podcast-athon yesterday, the TWF Dynasty draft is in the home stretch and I think I have time to get the last previews up ahead of Thursday’s season opener.

It has been an odd pre-season given the state of the world and the lack of games so it almost feels weird that we’re going to get actual football this coming week, but here it comes so I had better get to it is as we go through the AFC & NFC South divisions.

AFC South

Houston Texans

The Texans are one of the stranger teams to assess in the league as every year there is plenty of criticism of head coach Bill O’Brien, particularly now he has personnel control and the trading away of star receiver DeAndre Hopkins this off-season has done nothing but encourage that criticism. However, O’Brien has only had one losing season in his six years in Houston, going to the play-offs four times so he has almost always kept the team competitive, even if he has not always had a top tier quarterback to work with. Now that he has a franchise QB, O’Brien will be relying on Deshaun Watson to run his offence without Hopkins, and it will be interesting to see how this goes as there did seem to be two Texans’ offences last year, depending on whether receiver Will Fuller was fit and able to stretch the field or not. To go 10-6 with an offence that only ranked seventeenth by DVOA and a defence ranked even lower at twenty-second is not something I think will be easily replicable so the Texans will be hoping to improve but having traded big names like Jadeveon Clowney ahead of last season, and Hopkins this year, fans will be worried. I have a feeling that given his track record, that O’Brien will manage to keep the Texans competitive and my love of JJ Watt is well documented but my hunch for who is going to win this AFC South is another team, and not the team who came second last season either, but more of that in a moment.

Tennessee Titans

The Titans were one of the surprises of the 2019 season, and after a modest start where they went 2-4 with Marcus Mariota as their starting quarterback, the Titans switched to Ryan Tannehill and rolled all the way to the conference championship where they fell to the eventual Super Bowl champions. It was only Mike Vrabel’s second year as a head coach, and he only spent one year as defensive coordinator in Houston before that, but he’s gone 9-7 twice and after last season’s run the Titans will be looking to be good again this season. The issue with that could be they have had to let some players go as they handed big contracts to both Derek Henry and Ryan Tannehill. It is good to see Tannehill succeed after things never came together for him in Miami, but in truth we don’t know if last year was an aberration or if he can finally establish himself as a franchise quarterback. It is for this reason that I completely understand the big contract that they gave Derek Henry. It doesn’t always make sense to invest a lot of money in a running back, but given how central Henry is to their game plan and the fact that it is only guaranteed for two years, it’s an okay investment. They will also be hoping receiver AJ Brown can build on his great rookie season but whether they can stay top ten by DVOA I don’t know. The defence was tough but didn’t rank great last season but it feels like the Titans are one of those teams who have taken on the identity of their coach and so I am expecting them to be pushing for the division all season.

Indianapolis Colts

The Colts had a tough season where the shocks started before the opening game had taken place with their franchise quarterback Andrew Luck retiring at age twenty-nine, choosing to step away to do other things and given all the injuries he had fought through it did made sense to me, although that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The Colts season actually started promisingly, but fell flat down the stretch, not helped by Adam Vinatieri at age forty-seven having some health problems and missing some kicks that he hadn’t throughout his career. I have been really impressed by the job GM Chris Ballard has done in building the Colts roster in recent years, avoiding splashing in free agency and building a talented roster but the Luck retirement was clearly a huge blow. They have several QBs on the roster and Jacoby Brissett was able to do a job for them last season but the signing of Phillip Rivers could be a coup if he can regain his form behind an offensive line that will be able to give him the time that the Chargers couldn’t in recent years. It helps that Rivers is familiar with head coach Frank Reich’s offence, and Reich’s success with the Colts has made some wonder how much of the Eagles Super Bowl win was down to his work rather than Doug Pederson’s. In truth of course the answer lies somewhere in the middle but has Reich had success with the offence already and there looks to be potential for them to be really good this year. The defence will be hoping to be nearer to their 2018 ranking of eleventh by DVOA rather than the nineteenth that they were last season, but with Luke Kuechly’s retirement the Colts have probably my favourite linebacker in Darius Leonard so I’m sure I will be watching their defence at some point. I could be completely wrong, but as Dan is desperately trying to make me make bold predictions, I’m going to suggest that the Colts are my pick for the AFC South in 2020.

Jacksonville Jaguars

So last, and actually probably least in this division if not the league we have the Jacksonville Jaguars who were a pretty rotten 6-10 last season, but held on to head coach Doug Marrone despite racking up double-digit losses for the second season in a row. Additionally, after grievances were upheld against the franchise over the excessive use of fines, a scathing letter was released by the NFLPA announcing that more than twenty-five percent of all grievances filed by players in the entire league were filed against the Jags and that players might want to consider this when selecting their next club. The visible reaction to those of us outside of the team was the firing of Tom Coughlin, but GM David Caldwell was retained despite a number of high profile players being moved on and the Jags once again being in rebuild mode. On the field it did not help that their new Super Bowl winning quarterback Nick Foles was lost to injury after four games, but their sixth round rookie QB Gardner Minshew II manage to lead them to a 6-6 record in the games he started giving the Jaguars some life and endearing himself to fans in the process. Minshew now has the chance to prove what he can do, but the trade moves continued with pass rusher Yannick Ngakoue being moved on this off-season to join players like Jalen Ramsey as highly drafted young players who are no longer on the roster. In fact the defence already looks very different to the Sacksonville Jaguars defence of 2017 that carried the team to the conference championship game. The ugly truth for GM David Caldwell is that through the seven years he has been in charge that 2017 team are the only ones to reach the play-offs, in fact they are the only team that didn’t amass double digit losses in a season. The Jaguars need to find out if Minshew can be consistently competitive and if they have found a gem in the sixth round that will set them up for success, but they have already held on to one supposed franchise quarterback for too long considering their on-field results. The Jags have not made life easy for themselves in building a roster given that they selected running back Leonard Fournette fourth in the 2017 draft, ahead of franchise QBs like Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson, and have not even given Fournette a second contract. In fact they cut the running back after his most productive season so didn’t even get anything back for him. You can’t hope to succeed with this kind of roster churn and I expect the Jaguars to struggle this season. If they can progress with Minshew as quarterback then there could be hope for the Jaguars, but there’s been precious little success over the last decade and I can’t help but wonder when the Jaguars will be truly set themselves up to be a winning franchise.

NFC South

New Orleans Saints

The Saints were one of three NFC teams to win their division with a 13-3 record in 2019, but for the second time in three years lost to the Vikings in the play-offs, this time not making it out of the wild card round. There has been a consistent push to maximise the Saint’s chances of winning a Super Bowl before Drew Brees retires and last season’s success was all the more remarkable considering that Brees missed five weeks with a torn ligament in the thumb of his throwing hand and the Saints went 5-0 with backup Teddy Bridgewater. The Saints have made some big moves in the draft but with players like Alvin Kamara, Michael Thomas and Marshon Lattimore they have built a roster to compete and this offseason seems to be no exception. Brees has returned for another shot at getting back to the big game, and whilst Teddy Bridgewater has moved on to division rivals the Panthers, they signed former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Jameis Winston to be the backup this season. Winston will be hoping that a season under the tutelage of Brees and head coach Sean Payton will help his development and lead to a chance to start next season, be it for the Saints or another franchise, although the Saints will be hoping the former first overall pick will be sat all season. The front office of the Saints really had done a great job of keeping the Saints relevant in the last few years, but the clock is ticking for forty-one year old Brees and the Saints will be hoping that given the history of old quarterback’s level of play declining rapidly when it does go, that Brees can continue to defy age and they can once again push for the Super Bowl. They certainly could be helped with the continuity of their squad and with Sean Payton trying to get as many players as he can living in a hotel to mimic a bubble I think that it is likely the Saints will be successful in their aim as long as Brees can get somewhere near the level he has reached in recent seasons.

Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons are coming of their second consecutive losing season and have been searching to recreate the formula that took them to the Super Bowl in the 2016 season. The Falcons have had seven winning seasons with GM Thomas Dimitroff in charge and they chose to stay the course with head coach Dan Quinn after he brought the Falcons back to 7-9 after a 1-7 start. In fact the Falcons went 6-2 after the bye week where Quinn and his coaching staff found something to get the Falcons going. To be fair there were a lot of injuries to the defence, but at thirty-five quarterback Matt Ryan will be hoping to get back to the Super Bowl if he can to make up for the tough loss to the Patriots. There are certainly big names on this roster including one of the best receivers in the game in Julio Jones, and with Dirk Koetter remaining offensive coordinator there is a good chance that the offence can improve on their ranking of fifteenth but it is the defence that has not come together in recent years. Some of this is down to health but my concern would be the cover-3 style brought over from the Seahawks by Quinn, which has been great if you had top class talent but hasn’t really been as successful anywhere else and Quinn has struggled to make the defence consistently good in Atlanta. However, this is another team with a good degree of continuity, and I can see them competing for the division this season if they can build on their performance in the second half of last season. However, it is not hard to see things going the other way either so it could be a tough season for the Falcons, but at this point there is definitely hope and we shall just have to see if that survives initial contact with the season.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

It has been an off-season of excitement and frustration in Tampa Bay as after head coach Bruce Arians could only get the Bucs to seven wins in his first year, the Bucs let their 2015 first round draft pick Jameis Winstone walk after he threw thirty interceptions to go with his thirty-three touchdowns and signed Tom Brady to be their new franchise quarterback, if only for however many seasons Brady (now forty-three) has left. The problem is that they are trying to integrate Brady into a new team in the year of Covid and so whilst Brady has been holding plenty of throwing sessions with his receivers before training camp started, he only took his place in the Bucs’ huddle for the first time a couple of weeks ago. In Mike Evans and Chriss Godwin the Bucs have two Pro Bowl receivers that gained over a thousand yards last season, and with Rob Gronkowski coming out of retirement and Brady apparently coaching up OJ Howard there are options at tight-end although who knows how productive they will be. There have been some very bold predictions this off-season, but whilst I am not prepared to write them into the Super Bowl just yet, I do think that a defence that finished sixth by DVOA last season and an offence helmed by Brady with a better selection of skill players than he has had in a long time means the Bucs do have a lot of potential. I also have a lot of faith in Bruce Arians and Todd Bowles is overly qualified to be a only a defensive coordinator so I expect them to compete but it will be a magical season if Brady takes them deep into the play-offs or to what would be only the second Super Bowl in the franchise’s history.

Carolina Panthers

It is all change for the Carolina Panthers in the off-season as having fired Ron Rivera during a disappointing 5-11 season they let franchise quarterback Cam Newton go as the Panthers embraced a rebuild. They hired college coach Matt Rhule to be their new head coach and gave him a huge contract of $62 million over seven years. The off-season also saw the retirement of standout linebacker Luke Kuechly who in his eight seasons went to seven Pro Bowls and was name First-Team All-Pro five times. Kuechly never dropped below one hundred tackles despite loosing a number of games to concussions and other injuries so as much as I would have loved to see him play for longer, I’m happy he is getting out now. However, the Panthers have had a lot of change this off-season and having signed Teddy Bridgewater to be their starting quarterback this season and handed Christian McCaffrey a four year contract extension they drafted seven defensive players. It should be an exciting time for fans of the Panthers, Rhule hired Joe Brady who was the passing game coordinator at LSU and was credited with having a large part in the turnaround in Joe Burrow’s play last season to be offesnive coordinator. However, with so much change, a head coach brand new to the NFL and coordinators hired from the college game it could take time for potential to turn into results. As good as Bridgewater looked last season for the Saints in the five games he started, it has been years since he was the starting quarterback for a franchise and this is not a one year rebuild. The positive thing from my point of view is that in the contract that owner David Tepper gave Rhule demonstrates a commitment to a long term project, but as ever in the NFL we shall have to see if that commitment survives the results on the field. It will be a year to see progression for the Panthers and we shall have to see how that manifests, but the Panthers are definitely a team I am looking forward to watching this season regardless of their record.

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.

Fallen at the First Hurdle

09 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs

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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.’

Competition Thursday & The Disappointed Twenty: NFC Edition

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition

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Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Bruce Allen, Bruce Arians, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Christian McCaffrey, Dallas Cowboys, Dan Snyder, Daniel Jones, Dave Gettleman, David Tepper, Detroit Lions, Disappointed Twenty, Jameis Winston, Jared Goff, Jason Garrett, Jay Gruden, Jim Caldwell, Kliff Kingsbury, Kyle Allen, Kyler Murray, LA Rams, Matt Patricia, Matt Stafford, Mitchell Trubisky, New York Giants, NFL, Pat Shurmur, Picks Competition, Ron Rivera, Sean McVay, Steve Keim, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Todd Gurley, Washington

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

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

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

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

The Disappointed Twenty: NFC Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wildcard Trivia

‘Greetings Friends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here too they both named Drew Brees.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally this week it is the New England Patriots,

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

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

On the Home Straight

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Andy Dalton, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Brandon McManus, Buffalo Bills, Carlos Dunlap, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, Dalvin Cook, David Blough, David Tepper, Detroit Lions, Drew Brees, Houston Texans, Jason Garrett, Jerry Jones, Josh Allen, Justin Tucker, Kenny Galloday, Kirk Cousins, LA Chargers, Minnesota Vikings, Mitchell Trubisky, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets, NFL, Ron Rivera, Russell Wilson, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Stefon Diggs, Tom Brady

There is now only a quarter of the regular season left and week thirteen saw the Bengals win their first game, the Panthers part with one of the longest tenured coaches in the league, and Jason Garrett looks to be heading the same way at the end of the season after the Cowboys loss on Thanksgiving so let’s take a look at a busy week in the NFL.

What I Saw

The first Thanksgiving game saw the Chicago Bears take on a struggling Detroit Lions team who were down to their third starting quarterback, but after a successful first defensive drive – David Blough completed a deep pass to Kenny Galloday for a seventy-five yard touchdown and for most of the game the Lions were able stay ahead or level with he Bears but ultimately the Lions couldn’t hold on and the Bears won 24-20. Things are still not great for the Bears but this was a decent performance whilst the Lions have lost a fifth straight as things are just not working, and not getting pressure on Mitch Trubisky was enough for him to have a three hundred yards passing day, a rare thing for the Bears this year.

Next up the Buffalo Bills rolled into Dallas and ground out a win against the Cowboys to take themselves to 9-3, which gives them a two-game lead against any other second placed team in the AFC. The Bills took the chance to demonstrate the tough defence and steady progress of their second-year quarterback Josh Allen on the national stage. The Cowboys meanwhile continue to confound, and whilst this is not the first time there has been talk about Jason Garrett losing his job it definitely feels like the problems with the Cowboys have become too much for Jerry Jones.

The final Thanksgiving game was a strange contest that saw the New Orleans Saints out-gained by the Atlanta Falcons but ran out winners thanks to some steady kicking and the Falcons three turnovers. The Falcons mini-recovery was not sustainable whilst the Saints are still looking very competitive in what is a loaded NFC. The fact that the Saints managed to get to 10-2 without Drew Brees for five games is a demonstration of how good their coaching staff is and should not be forgotten amongst the other outstanding performances this season.

The first Sunday game I’m going to write about was a match-up of another pair of outstanding 2019 teams as the San Francisco 49ers traveled right across the country and played an early game against the Baltimore Ravens. The 49ers defence were helped by the rain and managed to contain the Ravens all game but lost to a last second Justiun Tucker forty-nine yard field goal from one of the best kickers to play the game. It’s almost unfair for a team who has one of the most explosive offences in the league to have such a good kicker, but the 49ers looked to be every bit as good in this game and I think people would be very happy to see this match-up again in a Super Bowl.

The other Sunday game I watched was the Cincinnati Bengals proving me wrong on Sunday and comfortably beating the New York Jets. The Bengals defence seems to have come on in the last few weeks whilst the injuries have caught up with the Jets who struggled to move the ball all game whilst the Bengals got lots of pressure and Carlos Dunlap racked up three sacks. On offence, Andy Dalton threw for two touchdowns to break the franchise record for passing touchdowns on his return to the starting line-up and looked solid in distributing the ball getting help from some impressive catches. I’m really pleased for the Bengals as no one wants to be another team to go winless and what I liked was the talk about not being satisfied but trying to build good habits and momentum for next season. We shall have to see. As for the Jets, they really struggled and I’m really not sure what they will do in the off-season given the disappointment this season has been given the investment over the summer.

The final game of the week was a great contest between the Minnesota Vikings and the Seattle Seahawks where the Seahawks were able to withstand a late game comeback from the Vikings a finish the game 37-30 winners. There will be a lot of talk about Kirk Cousins’ 0-8 Monday night record and I certainly had more faith in Russell Wilson but the injury to Dalvin Cook and a couple of drops by the normally reliable Stefon Diggs didn’t help Cousins. Given the quality of the Vikings’ defence you would expect to score thirty points and win a game but they were competitive and I would imagine they feel like they could still win against any team going forward. The Vikings fell a game behind the Green Bay Packers at the top of the NFC North, but with three divisional games their fate is very much in their own hands. As for the Seahawks, they have the same number of wins as the 49ers in the NFC West and are looking to kick on into the playoffs and see just how far they can get.

What I Heard

There has been plenty of talk about the Cowboys as there always is, but Jason Garrett is not the only coach to be under scrutiny. The LA Chargers found another way to lose a close game, this time not ensuring their opponents had to return a kick off and eat up clock so there was just time for the Denver Broncos to try a deep pass that drew a pass interference penalty and Brandon McManus to hit a fifty-three yard field goal in the thin Denver air to clinch the game.

There had already been speculation around Ron Rivera given the Panthers current losing streak so when the Panthers lost to Washington this Sunday, new owner David Tepper decided he wanted to get an early start on finding a successor and fired Rivera on Tuesday. The two time NFL Coach of the Year who took the Panthers to a Super Bowl stated his desire to get straight back into coaching today and it would not surprise me at all to see him in charge of a different team next season.

What I Think

I have gone through multiple games this week and still the headlines come. The New England Patriots are having problems in the passing game and weren’t helped by an illness running through the team that saw them take two planes to Houston, but segregating the ill players didn’t help them stay in the game against the Texans. I don’t know if the problems the Patriots have are solvable, but I don’t think anyone doubts that if there is a solution, the combination of the coaches and Brady will find it. However, with the Ravens marching on and the Chiefs looking like they are coming into form at the right time it could be a new team representing the AFC after a hat-trick of appearances from the Patriots.

There looks to several strong teams at the top of both conferences and if everyone can stay healthy in the last month we could have an exceptionally good series of playoff games. I don’t want to wish away the season, and there’s plenty of interesting match-ups to come but it does feel like we have a bumper crop of teams with realistic shots at playoff success.

What I Know

There are only four games left and whilst many teams are gearing up for a playoff run, there are also a lot of teams who will be looking at players at the bottom of the roster as they try to evaluate who they think will be the cornerstone of turning things round next season. It seems crazy to be thinking about that already, but this is the reality of the NFL.

What I Hope

I really do hope that the teams at the top of the divisions stay healthy so the outcomes are determined on the field and not in the training room.

The Wrong Football

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

Tag Archives: Ron Rivera

Fallen at the First Hurdle

2020 Wildcard Saturday

The Second Wave Hits the NFL

What I Saw

What I Heard

What I Think

What I Know

What I Hope

2020 Week Two Picks

AFC and NFC South Preview

AFC and NFC East Preview

Fallen at the First Hurdle

What I Saw

What I Heard

Fell at the First Hurdle

What We’ve Been Asked

Competition Thursday & The Disappointed Twenty: NFC Edition

The Disappointed Twenty: NFC Edition

Wildcard Trivia

On the Home Straight

What I Saw

What I Heard

What I Think

What I Know

What I Hope