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The Toughest Loss

23 Thursday Jan 2020

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Well, we know the Super Bowl match-up, which looks as good as I can remember for a long time so let’s take a quick look at how we got them before we say goodbye to those who fell at the final hurdle.

What I Saw

The first game on Sunday followed the pattern of the Chief’s previous game, but whilst putting up a better fight that then Texans, the Tennessee Titan’s ultimately could not keep with up with the Chiefs on the road.

The Titans took an early lead and held it for most of the half, but they were not able to hold it until half time as the Chiefs once again demonstrated just how explosive their offence is. This time it was Sammy Watkins who led the teams in yards whilst Tyreek Hill caught two touchdowns.  Patrick Mahomes once again looked remarkable for the Chiefs, scoring the go ahead touchdown on an unforgettable run as well as once again demonstrating that he is possibly the best quarterback in the game right now.

The Titans didn’t exactly do badly on defence, but you are going to have to score points to beat the Chiefs and Derek Henry could only managed sixty-nine yards after the sequence of heroic games. With the run bottled up and the play-action passes slowing down after the initial outburst the Titans were not able to keep up with a healthy Mahomes and there’s no shame in that.

The next game was much less of a contest as the Green Bay Packers were held scoreless in the first half, going in 27-0 at half-time and whilst the Packers technically won the second half, they couldn’t get to within two scores of the 49ers.

The toughest thing to take for the Packers and their fans is the complete domination of the run game with the 49ers’ Raheem Mostert running for two-hundred and twenty yards and the 49ers only attempting to throw the ball eight times. I wonder how the 49ers will approach the next game but that’s a discussion for another day.

If feels like we have got two great teams in the Super Bowl, but it has been interesting to hear how these are probably the worst games to lose as you’re so close to the Super Bowl, which even if you do lose there will still be the stories and the build up. I can’t bring myself to care about the Pro Bowl so let’s say goodbye properly to the Titans and the Packers.

The Toughest Loss

The Tennessee Titans had a rough start to the season, but in took off when they made the switch to Ryan Tannehill as starting quarterback. In Derek Henry they had the league’s leading rusher and iookie AJ Brown broke a thousand yards receiving although he was quiet in the playoffs. The big question surrounding their quarterbacks seems to have been answered as it is hard not to see Tannehill returning, but there are several other players who also need resigning and we’ll have to see how they manage to pull things together but it feels like this team have taken on the character of their coach Mike Vrabel, and it seems like they may well be competitive again next season.

With Aaron Rodgers as your quarterback you should always have a chance, but time is running out for the Green Bay Packers to get a second Super Bowl with him, and whilst this was a more balanced team than in recent years, the offence looks like it could use more receiving options and the defence has to shore up its run defence. The Packers have re-modelled their roster since Brian Gunterkist took over, but there is still work to be done and a closing window of opportunity before they have to find Rodgers’ replacement.

What We’ve Been Asked

‘It’s nearly the end of the season and I believe that the Super Bowl could be one of the most appetising prospects for some time.

What took me aback in the first game last weekend was that the Titans took an unexpected and significant early lead, but the Chiefs were not tardy in making amends and gained a lead they would not lose before half time. A dour scoreless third quarter was followed by an effective Chiefs performance which augers well for the 2nd Feb.

The NFC game, it is true, brought together two teams who have had solid, consistent seasons and the prospects were good. It’s not just because I’m a Vikings fan which makes it hard to favour the Packers but I’ve seen the 49ers consistently turn in workmanlike performances and that is what happened here. With the Packers shut out in the first half the game was all but over before there was a reply. Even with SF easing down the die was cast and my expected Super Bowl was delivered.

For the record, I’ll pick the Chiefs by 6

Which brings us, must we, to the Pro-Bowl. I know many find it a nice way of rounding out the season but for me it’s my ‘bye week’.

The idea of sending two coachloads of very rich athletes, who haven’t played well enough over the season to make it to Prize Day, off on a ‘jolly’ just doesn’t do it for me. Whether it’s like a prize for turning up or another money making-opportunity, you choose.

I can’t see how, in such a short time, even a good coach can mould a disparate crop of athletes into anything more than a team akin to a good College set up I don’t know. OK, some fans get a few days away and get to see some players playing together which they wouldnt get to see but still it leaves me cold.

Rant over, it’s time we moved onto the Trivia.

There were 3 questions this week as we steer toward completing the 32.

We started in Oakland asking “ Who did the Oakland Raiders play when they made it to Super Bowl II?” I think Gee’s thought process was well argued and he correctly scored the point for picking the Green Bay Packers.

The Raiders met the Packers on January 14, 1968 in Miami at the Orange Bowl. The Packers beat the Raiders 33-14.

Moving on it was Philadelphia where I asked  “Which Eagle quarterback threw for 464 yards in one game setting a team record?”

This was Donovan McNabb and they both mcNabbed a point for giving me the right answer.

McNabb’s big day was against the Green Bay Packers on December 12, 2004. The Eagles won 47-17 at Lincoln Financial Field. Randall Cunningham set the previous mark at 447 yards in a win against the Redskins in 1989.

Finally we hit Pittsburgh so tell me, “In the Steelers’ first Super Bowl appearance, who did they defeat? “

Gee had the jitters because while it would fit, he didn’t know if 3D was coming into play. Well, this time it wasn’t (but it may return soon)

The answer was, “Minnesota Vikings”

Super Bowl IX saw Pittsburgh defeat the Vikings 16-6. The game capped off a 10-3-1 1974 season and was played January 1975 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana.

No points either way so this week it ran out 2-1 to Gee bringing the totals to Gee 28 v Dan 31. Very close with 6 questions to go.

The first 2 of which are

San Francisco 49ers:

How many 49er quarterbacks were inducted into the Hall of Fame in the 20th century?

Seattle Seahawks

Which player finished the 2003 season as the Seahawks starting quarterback?

Enjoy the Pro Bowl’

The Conference Championship Games

19 Sunday Jan 2020

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

Dan’s Dad asked us:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now over to Dan:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

The Divisional Disappointed

16 Thursday Jan 2020

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The divisional games mostly lived up to expectations, the last NFL head coach was hired and new staff’s are beginning to take shape so let’s get going.

What I Saw

I’ve been delayed in getting to this week’s post by work and travel so I’m going to zip through the games a bit as I’m pretty sure you know what happened by now!

The San Francisco 49ers win was an impressive team effort based on a defence that limited the Vikings all game and running the ball. Jimmy Garoppolo had a quiet game, but the 49ers looked comfortable and will be confident going into the weekend having beaten the Packers 37-8 in week twelve, but more on the Packers in a moment.

The next Saturday game saw the Tennessee Titans pull of the shock of the weekend as they beat the Baltimore Ravens in a similar fashion to the previous game. The Titans were able to contain the Ravens’ offence, helped no doubt by the injury to Mark Ingram that lessened the impart of the Ravens running game. The Titans didn’t get a great game from Ryan Tannehill, but he did enough whilst Derrick Henry ran for nearly two hundred yards and combine that with special teams and the Titans deserve to be in the conference championship games.

That start of the Sunday pair of games saw a wild game where the Houston Texans produced an almost perfect quarter of football and went twenty-four points up in the second taking advantage of special team errors and Chiefs receivers dropping the ball. However, the Chiefs’ rust didn’t last for long and by half-time they had taken a lead as they scored an unanswered forty-one points. The Chiefs managed to score fifty-one points in three quarters whilst the Texans couldn’t do anything to stem the tide or get back into the game.

The final game of the weekend was the most competitive and was the only one to feature a real quarterback duel. For all that things aren’t exactly humming for the Packers offence, they were able to do enough to take and hold the lead. Down the stretch Aaron Rodgers got the first downs for the Packers not to have to face a final win the game drive from Russell Wilson. I’ll talk about how maddening the game plan was later, but Wilson almost singularly dragged the Seahawks back from 21-3 down to win the game and had them within a score with over nine minutes left in the game. However, as they have done all season, the Packers ran the ball well with Aaron Jones, played good defence and so didn’t need Rodgers to play to the level he had to previously to win games.

What I Heard

The Cleveland Browns have hired Vikings offensive co-ordinator Kevin Stefanski, which wasn’t a huge surprise as he was Paul DePodesta’s choice last season, and after the failure of Freddie Kitchens saw him fired after a year and lost John Dorsey his job it appears the Browns are swinging back behind the analytics model. The only worry is if things don’t turn around quickly it feels like Jimmy Haslam could pull the trigger to early but let’s see how this shapes now.

I also thought it interesting that fresh off helping LSU win the national title as their passing coordinator, that Joe Brady has been hired by the Panthers to their new offensive coordinator. The only way was down for Brady in the college ranks after the year that LSU had but by hitching his wagon to Matt Rhule and his seven year contract he should have time to find his feet in the NFL.

Whilst I’m talking about the Panthers, I just wanted to acknowledge the retirement of Luke Kuechly who was one of my favourite players to watch on coaching tape. He was a linebacker who always seemed to know what was going to happen, never seemed to put a foot wrong and clearly wishes he could still play. It’s not the all time career I said was possible a few seasons ago, the concussions and injuries put pay to that but eight years is five longer than average at one of the tougher positions to play in the NFL and he is a Hall of Fame player as far as I’m concerned. I’m glad he’s stepping away on his own terms. Very few players get to do that.

The Divisional Disappointed

This is going to be a painful section to write as I have a huge amount of affection for Mike Zimmer and what he did for the Bengals, but I’m beginning to think that the Vikings have a Marvin Lewis type problem. Now some might draw the comparison between Kirk Cousins and Andy Dalton, but my worry is that Zimmer is clearly a good coach and taken the Vikings to the playoffs three times in his six years in charge. However, I’m not sure if he’s going to win the big one, and for me the problem is that he is too old fashioned in how he wants the offence to run, quite literally running the ball too much into a 49ers defence that was stuffing them. Now the pass rush of the 49ers played a huge part in thee Vikings’ offensive woes, but Cousins is now going to have his third play caller going into his third and final year with the Vikings. We shall have to see how next year’s team are assembled, but the defence is not getting any younger and when you have one of the best receiver pairings in the game should you be as reliant on the run game as Zimmer wants? I await Dan’s Dad verdict on this theory and would love to be proved wrong next season, but I have my concerns that the window for this current version of the team is closing.

The Baltimore Ravens had such a successful year and so the ending of it has to be particularly hard to cope with. Clearly they need to work out a plan B on offence, but this is not proof that you can’t win with Lamar Jackson who did things no quarterback has done before and is only twenty-two. Given the franchise stability you expect the Ravens to improve again in the offseason and they would be my favourites to win the AFC North next season and likely for several years to come. The questions about Jackson in the playoffs will remain until he gets a win, but it wouldn’t surprise me if next year the Ravens get that win and go deep into the playoffs.

The Houston Texans are a funny team to evaluate because this is the fourth time in his six years as head coach that Bill O’Brien has won the AFC South, and yet he has never totally convinced. This is the second year in a row that quarterback Deshaun Watson has got his team into the playoffs and he did all he could in this game, but there simply wasn’t enough around him to compete with the Chief’s offensive explosion of points. The truly worrying thing is that O’Brien is defending the trades he made and is keeping control, yet the all in moves got them one playoff win and a horrible loss. For all of Watson’s heroics, this does not look like a team capable of winning a Super Bowl and the Texans are now missing the draft picks they traded away to augment the roster in the offseason. They may well get away with it again next year if the Colts can’t find an improvement at quarterback, but Chris Ballard has been doing great work in Indianapolis and I wonder if the Texans fall back next season.

It could perhaps be argued that the Seattle Seahawks have if anything overachieved this season as they continue their rebuild, but with Russell Wilson they always have a chance. If anything that makes their continued insistence on over emphasising the run even more infuriating. In DK Metcalf they have a fearsome rookie receiver who combined with Tyler Lockett helped Wilson excel and yet in the biggest game of the year they managed a three runs then punt drive and gave Marshawn Lynch twelve carries two weeks after he came out of retirement that yielded only twenty-six yards. It’s one thing to use him short yardage as he scored touchdowns but with the injuries at running back not maximising Wilsons prime seems a flawed plan. I have  a lot respect for Pete Carrol but I am beginning to wonder whether whilst I think floor for the Seahawks is always going to be high with him as coach, I’m not sure if they are going to reach their full potential with a quarterback as gifted as Wilson if they don’t build the offence round him. I’m sure that the Seahawks will be competitive next season, but I don’t know if they will be pushing for the Super Bowl.

What We’ve Been Asked

‘And then there were 4.

I wasn’t surprised that the Viking’s luck finally ran out as the 49ers season has been a good one and they have clearly earned their home field advantage. It was by no means a rout, but any defeat hurts especially when the Packers are still in the hunt. That was resolved by the meeting on Sunday of the Packers and Seahawks at Lambeau Field. A close affair, this went the way of the home team but only by 5. This brings the two 13-3 teams head to head in San Fran next weekend. My pick would be the 49ers but as a Viking I’m conditioned to support the Vikes and anyone playing the Packers. I think it will be close though.

In the AFC the Titans played up to their name to take down the 14-2 Ravens in the only road win of the weekend, and by a decent margin of 16 too. The final game of the weekend saw the Chiefs win a high scoring match-up racking up 51 points and I think they will fare well against the Titans whose luck has to run out sometime.

OK, now for the trivia and I know that I may have caused some frustrations in the ranks. Despite claiming to have no idea they both managed to come up with some answers nearing the truth. So here we go.

Q1. 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?

Well he didn’t return two Punts in a game Dan, but he did return a punt and a kick-off for a TD in the same game. Gee also went for 2 kick returns so I feel I have to award them both the points for that, but I will take a note of Gee’s thoughts to bone up on rule changes for next season.

Q2. In a game against the Washington Redskins on October 30, 1955, Jim Patton was the first player to achieve what?

I think that Dan must have a camera in my flat as he managed to sniff out my being in one of my devious phases. Gee’s answer about a 50 yd field goal was good but didn’t quite bring home the points. Again we aren’t talking two punt returns but it is another case of a return a punt and a kick-off for a TD in the same game – Sorry it was too tempting when I found these two facts for two adjacent teams so once again despite having no clue they both delivered…

Q3. This should have been the easier one of this week’s questions and asked: From 1960 – 62 the NY Jets were known as what?

Well, Metros and Cities were believable offerings but the actual answer is the New York Titans.

So this week Dan and Gee score 4 and 2 points respectively bringing the total to 30-26 in Dan’s favour.

Now we reach the exciting Championship Week where the real questions get asked on the field but for those of us without helmets here’s the trivia.

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

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

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

Well after this we just have the Pro-Bowl and Super Bowl to go, a sure sign we are at the business end of the year.

Happy Triving’

Saturday’s Divisional Games

11 Saturday Jan 2020

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We get both number one seeds in action against the sixth seed today, so let’s see if either game has much chance of an update.

Minnesota Vikings (6th) @ San Francisco 49ers (1st)

The San Francisco 49ers started the season with an 8-0 run and finished the season 13-3, whilst they rank fifth overall in DVOA. The impressive resume won’t phase the Vikings who have already beaten the third seed Saints who ranked above the 49ers by DVOA.

The 49ers turnaround from last season is impressive even accounting for them having their franchised quarterback back from the injury that saw Jimmy Garoppolo only played three games last season. An offence that features an all pro tight-end in George Kittle who some are calling Gronk 2.0, a group of speedy running back and a quarterback whose completed nearly seventy percent of his passes. The defence is perhaps even better, second only to the Patriots in the DVOA rankings, with rookie Nick Bosa seeming to complete a fearsome defensive front.

Enter the Vikings, coming off their win against the Saints and looking more like their mid-season selves where they went 8-2 once they got the offence really working. It is clear how important running back Dalvin Cook is to the Vikings offence and Adam Thielen had a great game last week, although is dealing with cut that required stitches, which could bother him today.

This will be a fascinating contest between head coaches when the 49ers have the ball, but it looks like a great contest all round. I wonder if the Vikings playoff experience might tell at some point but it’s hard to pick an edge in this despite the seeding.

Tennessee Titans (6th) @ Baltimore Ravens (1st)

The Baltimore Ravens are perhaps one of my favourite teams to watch in the NFL right now, which is only tempered by the fact that the Bengals will have to compete them in the division for years to come. In his second season Lamar Jackson passed for three thousand yards, ran for another thousand as he dominated the league and made the extraordinary seem routine. When combined with a blitz heavy defence whose coverage improved with the acquisition of Marcus Peters you had the recipe for the best record in the record season. Hell, they even had a three-hundred-pound two-way play in Patrick Ricard who plays both fullback and defensive end.

The Titans go into Baltimore having knocked out the Patriots last week, will be hoping that Derrick Henry will be able to control the clock again and that Ryan Tannehill has a better game. However, I think this is a clearer contest as whilst the offences will be more conservative in the post-season, I think the Ravens are going to have too much offence for the Titans to keep up. For all of Henry’s two hundred rushing yards last, the Titans offence only scored thirteen points and I think that is going to be the problem.

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

The End of the 2019 Regular Season

01 Wednesday Jan 2020

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

What I Saw

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

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

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

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

The Disappointed Twenty: AFC Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the Road Again

11 Wednesday Dec 2019

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With week fourteen in the books and me away working, I am going to give you another on the road edition that I would say will live up to the week’s action, but the game of the week was probably the game of the season and so I’m not sure anything will match up to it. Intrigued? I’ll get to the specifics in a minute.

What I Saw

The week started with a game that has had me kicking myself ever since as the Dallas Cowboys rolled into Chicago with their current brand of dysfunction and trebled down on their last two losses to the Vikings and Lions by losing to the Bears. The Cowboys actually started the game well, marching down the field on their opening possession and scoring a touchdown to take an early lead, but they surrendered this lead in the second quarter and were never able to get level again. Despite slightly out-gaining the Bears and winning the turnover battle the Cowboys fell to 6-7 but are still not out of the battle for the NFC East. I’m not sure you would exactly say that Mitchel Trubisky has turned things around, but he’s playing better and the Bears have found a better balance in the rushing attack with David Montgomery getting more carries and Trubisky using his running skills. It’s probably too late for them to get a wildcard berth given the strength of the NFC race which could see a team from the NFC hosting a wild card team with a better record, but the Bears are heading in the directio again. If you’re wondering why I’m kicking myself about this game, guess which team I backed in the picks competition…

I’ll start the Sunday games with the Cincinnati Bengals frustrating loss against the Cleveland Browns where the Bengals out-gained the Browns by one hundred and twenty yards, and up to half time looked okay on defence. However, a chronic problem in the red-zone and the Browns remembering they have two of the better running backs in the league saw a 13-14 half time deficit grow to a 19-27 defeat. There is still too much noise surrounding the Browns and both teams will feature in the what I heard segment so I’ll move on to the two match-ups I was really excited about going into the weekend.

I was really looking forward to seeing the Baltimore Ravens take on the Buffalo Bills and in particular how the Bills defence did against the Ravens’ high-flying offence. The quick answer is that for the most part the Bills did well, partly aided by an injury to Ravens tight-end Mark Andrews but they could only contained the Ravens. This is more than many have done this season, but it quickly became apparent that the problem was that the Bills’ offence couldn’t keep up as the Ravens defence caused Josh Allen too many problems. The Bills did manage a later sure after three field goals all game, but the late touchdown with two point conversion that pulled them to within seven was as close as they could get. The Bills are a good team with a tough run of games coming but still have a sound shot at a wildcard spot, but they are a step down from the elite of the AFC.  The Ravens very much look to be the elite of the AFC right now.

This is probably a bad time to admit defeat, but as glorious as I think words are, I’m not sure they can do justice to the final game I watched this week. Hidden away in the early games was the San Francisco 49ers trip to face the New Orleans Saints and we ended up with a rip roaring 48-46 win for the 49ers to bounce back from last week’s loss to the Ravens. As can be seen from the score, despite featuring the second and fourth ranked defences by DVOA going into this weekend, this was very much an offensive slug fest with two of the league’s best game callers operating at something like the height of their powers. The Saints were boosted early by the speed of Deonte Harris in the returns game, but that wasn’t really needed as Drew Brees put in a vintage performance that saw him pass for five touchdowns and nearly three-hundred and fifty yards, with Brees throwing the deep ball as well as I have seen for a while. The 49ers were able to keep up thanks to Jimmy Garoppolo have a great game passing the ball, helped by how Emmanuel Sanders had integrated into the offence since his acquisition by trade and special mention should go to George Kittle who looked more like himself in the passing game and had one of the plays of the season, carry multiple Saints players down the field with one of them holding onto his face mark for at least five yards. It’s going to be a play that turns up in all the end of season montages, particularly as it was on a fourth and two play that kept the 49ers final drive alive. Either team could have won this game, and I would love for there to be a repeat in the playoffs, where both these teams are clearly headed,

What I Heard

There have been several topics running through the media the last couple of days. There were yet more blown calls and the most maddening thing about the new pass interference review system is the seemingly arbitrary way they are applied. Then again we had another game where the refs blew the whistle early and denied a potential touchdown scoring opportunity. I don’t entirely blame the refs as the game is fiendishly hard to officiate thanks to the complicated rule book, but when the wrong penalty yardage is being called then there needs to be a rethink and clearly the NFL agree as they announced a top-down review will take place in the off-season. Let’s see what that bring…

In the continuation of familiar themes we also have a new accusation of if not cheating, then dubious behavior by the New England Patriots. Thanks to their history most people will have made up their minds quickly when it was announced that a Patriots film crew had filmed the Bengals side-line this weekend. The explanation was that this was a TV crew making a documentary about working as a scout for the Patriots, who had permission from the Browns to be there. To be honest, I’m not inclined to disbelieve the explanation and I can’t find myself able to get worked up about it. This could be as I don’t expect the Bengals to have that much success against the Patriots this week, but it feels like after the previous instances people are desperate to leap on anything and it just doesn’t seem like that big a deal.

What I Think

There was a bit of a mess surrounding the Browns again this week as Baker Mayfield spoke about Odell Beckham’s medical situation, seemingly announcing that his receiver’s sports hernia problem had been mishandled by the Brown’s medical team. Now Mayfield clarified later and I don’t think it is a huge deal, but for a player who had not taken the next step this season and important off-season is looming.

I can’t say I have particularly warmed to Mayfield’s brash style, but as much as anything I wonder about who is helping him to lead and find his way. There is no history of success at the Browns, and so how is Mayfield meant to learn how to lead a professional team given the surrounding environment? I don’t know what will happen in the off-season, but unless there is some kind of change I’m not sure if he will be able to turn things around by himself going into next season.

What I Hope

I really enjoyed the 49ers at Saints game so I hope we get more played with that kind of execution, although I would be just as happy (if not more so) to watch defensive excellence.

On the Home Straight

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

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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.

Thanksgiving Prep

27 Wednesday Nov 2019

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With the three Thanksgiving games coming up tomorrow there is a feast of prime-time football for everyone to enjoy so let’s take a look at the run up to week thirteen as we near the final quarter of the season.

What I Saw

On Thursday night we saw a close divisional game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Houston Texans where the Texans were able to eek out a win. This was not a spectacular game but a tough tense one where the Texans were able to bounce back from their heavy defeat against the Ravens the week before by stepping up their defensive performance and making enough plays on offence with receivers Will Fuller and DeAndre Hopkins working well as a tandem. The Texans do look a different team when they have both of these receivers fit, but the Colts were as competitive as they have been all season, getting more out of their offence than I feared because of their injuries, but in the end a couple of drops by TY Hilton cost them the game. This was Hilton’s first game back after several weeks out with a calf injury, but he wasn’t using that as an excuse and the backups to Marlon Mack (out with a broken hand) ran the ball well enough but the Colts fell short in the end. Still, the Colts are not out of the race for the AFC South but with the Titans catching them up with another win this week the race for this division could get very interesting. I’m not sold on the Texans being the ultimate winners even if they have a game lead for now.

On Sunday the Cincinnati Bengals welcomed their local rivals, and even led the game for a while but in the end fell to the all too familiar loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers in a close 10-16 game. The Steelers didn’t look that great doing it as whilst their defence played well, holding the Bengals offence to multiple three and out drives as Ryan Finley never looked comfortable, it took a change in quarterback to spark enough offence for the Steelers to win but more about that in a moment. For the Bengals, Tyler Boyd made some great catches and Joe Mixon showed flashes in the run game but they couldn’t move the ball consistently. The Bengals defence has looked stouter over the last couple of weeks but that doesn’t really matter if you regularly can’t even get to twenty points and the Bengals have barely managed that this season. The desperation for a win is clearly growing as the Bengals are going back to Andy Dalton this week, and with a game against the Dolphins, two against the Browns, and the Jets visiting this weekend they will be hoping to break their duck somewhere. As for the Steelers, they are comfortable in this kind of defensive game as they are not prone to the long touchdown concession the Bengals are, and when Mason Rudolph was struggling Mike Tomlin made the switch to Devlin Hodges in game who promptly threw for the seventy-nine yard touchdown play that did enough for the Steelers to maintain a push for a wildcard spot. They probably need to win three or four games and have results go their way to be in with a shot but they are at least still alive in the chase.

I was planning to watch the Patriots take on the Cowboys, but given the weather in New England I made the switch to watch the Jacksonville Jaguars travel to face the Tennessee Titan’s and it was a curious watch. It was nip and tuck until the third quarter with both teams moving the ball but struggling to maintain drives yet the four point deficit at half time was the closest the Jaguars would get after the Titans opening touchdown. A twenty-eight-point explosion in the third quarter sealed the game for the Titans with Derrick Henry breaking out for the type of monster game that he has proved multiple times he is capable of but we don’t always see. Henry finished the game with one hundred and fifty nine yards, with a seventy-four yard long touchdown run very much being the highlight. The Titans have now won four of their last five games since switching to Ryan Tannehill as the starting quarterback and you begin to wonder where they might be if they had made the switch earlier. It is strange to think that the Jaguars were in the AFC championship game two seasons ago and have a Super Bowl winning quarterback but don’t look great, and you begin to wonder what changes await in the off-season for a coaching staff and front-office who have never been able to repeat their first year of success.

The final game I watched this was the incredible looking matchup of the Green Bay Packers visiting the San Francisco 49ers that turned into a romp for the 49ers. I was worried about the extra half point in the picks competition because of how good Aaron Rodgers is, which turns out to have been no problem at all for the 49ers. Their defence smothered the Packers, holding them to under two hundred yards total offence and Rodgers could only throw for one hundred and eighteen yards. He didn’t throw any interceptions, but fumbled the ball away whilst being sacked and couldn’t get comfortable all game. The 49ers defence limited Rodgers ability to bide time in the pocket, which so few teams have managed to do but this enabled then to get five sacks and numerous hits whilst Fred Warner racked up eleven solo tackles at the heart of the defence. I don’t think the Packers are suddenly a bad team, but there appears to be a gap between the 49ers and the rest of the top teams in the NFC that does still include the Packers. What this game did do was increase my respect yet again for the 49ers defence, who are still second in the league by DVOA to the Patriots’ defence but whilst there is 6.6% between the 49ers and Patriots, there is 14.9% back to the third place Steelers. I knew the 49ers were playing well on this side of the ball, but seeing them play together is really impressive and I can’t wait to see them go against the Ravens next week.

What I Heard

The headlines from the weekend focussed a lot on the fall out of the ugly game between the New England Patriots and the Dallas Cowboys, where the weather hampered both teams but the Patriots adapted whilst the Cowboys did not and with Jerry Jones criticising Jason Garrett the speculation about his job security has started up again. There are plenty of valid criticisms of both Garrett’s game management and his game planning but after a number of years without change, the talent of the current Cowboy’s roster seems to giving a Jones a different impression of the job Garrett is doing. Everything with he Cowboys get over-covered, and this is hardly the first time that rumours have started but it is beginning to look like a change is finally coming for one of the longest tenured head coaches in the league.

The other thing that leaps to mind was Ross Tucker commenting on how quietly the Buffalo Bills have gone 8-3 this season. That said they do get a chance this Thanksgiving Thursday to put on a good showing for the nation as they take on the Dallas Cowboys and I’m definitely looking forward to the chance to watch them again.

What I Think

This week felt like an odd one, there were one or two results that I just didn’t see coming, several blow outs, a couple of weather affected games, but not a lot of games grabbed the attention with how one sided the match ups actually played out. I can’t wait to se the Raven take on the 49ers this and the Vikings take on the Seahawks this weekend. I don’t know how I feel about the Bengals’ game against the Jets yet.

What I Know

That this is one of the highlight weeks of the season, where I can get to see an extra two games in a wee and four without knowing the scores (the joys of catching up in the UK) and so I’m determined to sit back and enjoy the games as much as I can.

What I Hope

I hope that whether your watching round work, taking a day off, or are in the States and celebrating the day, that you have a good one!

Dragging Themselves into the Playoff Race

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

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If the season in the NFL has been characterised by a few teams with good records and some with very bad records who are already turning their eyes to next season, then my season covering it has been one of scrambling to get posts out, and occasionally getting coaching tape watched. This week I find myself further behind in my process than I would like to be so let’s see what I can get out this evening.

What I Saw

The first game of week ten saw the Oakland Raiders host the LA Chargers and run out narrow 26-24 winners to get themselves into the playoff hunt despite a five week streak of road games that including them hosting the Bears in London. It was not a spectacular team performance, but Josh Jacobs gained one hundred combined rushing and receiving yards as the rookie running back continues to impress as the centre of Jon Gruden’s offence. I also through that Derek Carr looked sharp and in control of the offence, but with a total of only two-hundred and seventy-eight yards it was the team performance that got the win. The LA Chargers actually out gained the Raiders in total offence and rushed for one hundred and forty-six yards but the Raiders were able to get five sacks as they got pressure all game and picked off Philip Rivers three times with another voided by a holding penalty. That voided interception would have been Eric Harris’s third, but he still got over one hundred return yards and a touchdown from his two picks that counted. The Chargers have been competitive for a lot of their games despite their injuries but at 4-6 they would need a spectacular closing run to make the playoffs and I struggle to see them winning five or six of their remaining games to get to the nine or ten wins they’ll likely need to get to the post season.

On to the Sunday games and I’ll start with the Cincinnati Bengals hosting the Baltimore Ravens, which was no contest and there’s really not a lot I can say further about the Bengals. There wasn’t much difference in result for the Bengals, although Joe Mixon got a hundred yards off the back of thirty carries as the offensive game plan was rejigged for rookie quarterback Ryan Finley’s first regular season start, who was not great and threw a couple of interceptions but wasn’t awful. The defence is awful though, but the worst part is that I love the Ravens setup at the moment, Lamar Jackson is a special player to watch and the spin move he pulled off in this game is going to be on many a highlight reel. In fact Jackson has the eleventh most rushing yards in the league as well as being top ten in passer rating so it’s no surprise that he is in the discussion for league MVP. I also want to mention Patrick Ricard who is playing both ways for the Ravens, lining up as a three hundred pound full-back and playing on the defensive line, picking up a couple of solo tackles and a sack in this game. There really a lot about the Ravens that the TWF team are enthused by, I just with they weren’t in the same division as the Bengals!

Speaking of the TWF team, the other Sunday game I watched was Dan’s Miami Dolphins taking on the Indianapolis Colts and recording their second win of the year. It wasn’t a pretty game, and the defences did most of the work, but despite all the roster turnover and being bottom of the DVOA rankings, Brian Flores has made the Dolphins competitive for several weeks and now has two wins. It may not be what they wanted in terms of draft position next year, but I think they have a coach that is going to maximise the influx of talent is coming. As for the Colts, they were also competitive and the roster is still playing well, but the injury to Jacoby Brissett was a quarterback injury too far and they will be hoping that Brissett will be there for the run of three division games that are coming up. They are not out of the playoff hunt, but as the situation muddies in the AFC this is a loss they could come to regret.

Finally, the Monday night game lived up to its top billing as the Seattle Seahawks won in the last seconds of overtime with a field goal separating them for the now beaten San Francisco 49errs. It was a topsy-turvy game where the 49ers looked the better team at the start with their defence halting the Seahawks and the 49ers taking a ten point lead that held up until half-time. However, the Seahawks took a lead in the third quarter that despite getting level multiple times, the 49ers were not able to regain and the worry for the 49ers is that when it really mattered, it was Russell Wilson who got his team into a position to win and got them over the line. It could well be different the next time these teams play, but Jimmy Garoppolo could have thrown a couple more interceptions in the second half if Seahawks defenders were able to hold onto the ball and that is a worry for the 49ers. We get a rematch in week seventeen and I am already looking forward to it!

What I Heard

I don’t have big central point to expand on here, but there’s several snippets that spring to mine. One is that the volatility of the league was on full display, and that’s not an excuse for another poor week picking.

The Atlanta Falcons beat the New Orleans Saints, which I’m not sure anyone saw coming, although the points should have been tempting in this divisional game where both teams were coming off a bye. The interesting thing from my point of view was the talk of the Falcons pass rush chasing Drew Brees around, which is surprising as the Falcons pass rush has been struggling this season and the Saints offensive line is one of the better units in the league, so I’ll be taking a look at that on coaching tape if the opportunity arises.

What I Think

I am not ruling any team with five wins out of the playoff hunt, but there are a couple of those five win teams who have really pulled themselves back into contention rather than are still hanging on. The Raiders have won two weeks in a row to take second place in the AFC South, but the team who have caught my eye are another AFC North team, and not the Cleveland Browns. The Pittsburgh Steelers started the season 1-4, lost their franchise quarterback, and I was as surprised as anyone when their response was to trade for Minkah Fitzpatrick and not stock up picks and prepare for a high draft pick next year. In stead Fitazpatrick has helped the Steelers defence turn into the third best unit in the league by DVOA, and it is this defence and not asking backup quarterback Mason Rudolph to do too much that has enabled the Steelers to win four straight games and drag themselves back into the playoff hunt. I’m not saying they’ll get there, but the Steelers stand more chance than the Browns and that is thanks to some really impressive coaching by Mike Tomlin and his staff, plus the work done by the Steelers’ front office.

What I Know

I am still enjoying the NFL season despite the woeful performance of the Bengals, and I’m not feeling the grind as Dan and I have in the past back when we were podcasting, but it would be nice if work calmed down a little bit so I could dig in more. Sadly, I suspect that is unlikely and this is going to be the shape of the 2019 season. I shall make the best of it as I can, we are now past the halfway point of the regular season and before we know it the Thanksgiving games will be here and we’ll be staring at the playoff schedule.

What I Hope

I’ve not been able to settle on a singe NFC team to embrace to counteract the Bengals losing, but thanks to covering the league there’s plenty of intrigue and things to watch – but I hope the Bengals get a win at some point. It’s one thing for a season to go wrong and to get the first pick in the draft, controlling the whole might be exciting when we get there, but I wouldn’t wish a winless season on any player yet alone those playing for the team I support.

Separating the Merely Bad from the Truly Awful

06 Wednesday Nov 2019

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With week nine over we have one unbeaten team left, another year of London games completed, and Adam Gase continued to cause the Miami Dolphins problems by being so bad with the New York Jets that they lost to a Dolphins team who are not actually trying to win this year as they reboot their roster. So let’s take a swing through the NFL and what they have coming up.

What I Saw

The Thursday night game was more competitive than I was expecting as the Arizona Cardinals marched down the field in the opening drive and scored a touchdown then late in the game managed to claw their way back into contention but ultimately lost to the visiting San Francisco 49ers. Sadly for the Cardinals, the stretch from the end of the first quarter to early in the fourth allowed the 49ers to build a big enough lead to win. The plus points for the Cardinals were Kyler Murray’s continued improvement, posting a quarterback rating of 130.7 in this game and new acquired Kenyan Drake running for one hundred and ten yards on only fifteen carries as he managed to find creases in the 49ers normally excellent front seven. That said, the pass rush of the 49ers is very impressive and whilst only generated the three sacks, they seemed to be causing problems on most plays with Dee Ford catching the eye opposite rookie Nick Bosa. The 49ers offence was just as impressive with Jimmy Garoppolo posting his own quarterback rating of over 130 as well as four touchdowns and over three hundred yards of passing, all whilst the rushing attack had to use thirty-one carries to get to one hundred and one yards. There are definite signs that Kyler Murray can be productive in the NFL and find his way, but this was always going to be a building year for the Cardinals, whilst after several of their own building years it looks like Kyle Shanahan’s plans are finally coming to fruition as the 49ers remain the team to beat in the NFC, if not the league right now.

The first game played on Sunday was the last of four London games that saw the Houston Texans beings hosted by the Jacksonville Jaguars. I was expecting the Jaguars who are used to the trip to London to perform better than this, but they were never able to get anything going on offence, although it wasn’t until late in the game when Gardner Minshew was trying to make things happen to catch-up that he started turning the ball over repeatedly. It has to be said that the Texans’ offence didn’t look to be running that much better than the Jaguars, but the ability of Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Watson to make spectacular plays was the thing that really separated these two teams and it looks as if the Texans will be competitive to the end of the season, although I’m not sure they are good enough to maximise the all-in moves they have made in managing this roster. It’s not going to hurt them this season, but with all the draft picks they have given away they could have issues going forward. The Jaguars meanwhile, are sliding back in the race for the post-season and the question will be what they do at quarterback now that Nick Foles is near to being healthy, and whether either quarterback can get the team into the playoffs.

The next game I saw was the Minnesota Vikings losing a close game to the Kansas City Chiefs 26-23 at Arrowhead Stadium. The Chiefs are know to have a home field advantage and it certainly sounded loud on the TV. This was a close competitive game that I’m sure will be frustrating to Kirk Cousins as he missed a lot of throws and was not at all up to the level of play we had seen in October, although receiver Adam Thielen did have further problems with the hamstring injury he has been dealing with for a number of weeks. That said, the Vikings were held to under one hundred yards rushing at 3.5 yards per carry, which is pretty good for a rush defence that is currently ranked twenty-eighth in league by DVOA. If the plaudits should go anywhere though, it is to Andy Reid, who has kept his team winning despite losing Patrick Mahomes to a dislocated kneecap and starting Matt Moore at quareterback in his stead, and more was coaching high school football a month ago. Moore may only be 1-1 as a starter this season, but he also contributed to a win when he stepped into the game against the Broncos and it gives the Chiefs the luxury of not rushing Mahomes back. They may not look at their best right now, but they could look good come the playoffs, whilst the Vikings also looked competitive, but there will still be questions about Cousins in big games until he wins more of them.

The final game of Sunday was the match-up of the week for most people, and it was certainly a good game but in the end the Baltimore Ravens ran out 37-20 winners as they hosted the now beaten New England Patriots. Ran out is definitely the right turn as the Ravens amassed over two hundred rushing yards where they got up early on the Patriots and never relinquished that lead. The Patriots did steady the ship after going down 17-0 by the start of the second quarter, but even if they slowed the Raven’s rushing attack, they never really contained Lamar Jackson and needed turnovers to get themselves into scoring positions. The Ravens were able to take advantage of the Patriots offensive line to pressure Tom Brady and limit the Patriots’ running game. It is only one loss, and the only one the Patriots have had this season so it would be unwise in the extreme to write off the perennial contenders, but their looks to be less of a gap between the Pats and the other contenders in the league this season. For the Ravens, I see them having no problem beating up on the Bengals defense next week given their problems at the edges of the front seven, and whilst there are tough games against the likes of the 49ers, Texans and Rams, as well as a not easy game in Buffalo in the coming weeks, the Ravens have two more AFC North games and host the Jets so I find it hard to see them not winning the division and the question is whether they can get a bye for the first round of the playoffs.

What I Heard

There are plenty of people who are happy for the Miami Dolphins’ players as they got their first win, but anyone who was surprised by the result had not been paying attention to how the Dolphins had played since putting Ryan Fitzpatrick back in as quarterback. There were some who greeted his signing in the off-season as not being fully aligned with the rebuilding project that was clearly taking place as he might win them too many games, and he has certainly had a positive effect on their offence in recent weeks. However, the real story is that the New York Jets were major players in free-agency and were meant to be kicking on this season and have done anything but. In truth, this is a franchise in a deep funk that has problems in the front office, on the roster, and the coaching staff so it is not surprising that their franchise quarterback looks to be regressing rather than improving this year. The real problem here is that there is no overall plan and the GM who drafted Sam Darnold is no longer there whilst the team have gotten worse since the firing of Todd Bowles. There is plenty of blame to go around and New York is not an easy media market to function in, but you have to wonder who is going to survive this at the end of the season.

I did hear an interesting discussion around the Trent Williams holdout and the reason why Williams is not happy with Washington’s medical staff. His grievance is about a growth he had for a number of years that turned out to be cancerous, and I thought that doctor David Chao did an excellent job of walking you through the medical side of things so if that sounds of interest then I recommend you take a look at this tweet and go from there.

What I Think

I want to take a quick look at a few of the losing teams because despite there being four teams with one win and the winless Bengals, I do think there is a difference between the bad and the truly awful. The first place to start in the separation is the Miami Dolphins, who for years have been suffering in mid-table mediocrity as they were to good to get elite players in the draft but weren’t making the playoffs every year. Losing was the plan this season, not as an aim in of itself, but in rebuilding with young players through next year’s draft and so whilst we don’t know if things will turn around the results this year are not a disaster but a calculated consequence of their method of rebuilding.

The rest of the teams are meant to be competing but there are perhaps extenuating circumstances for some. The results are of course going to be a worry for the Atlanta Falcons, and I don’t know if Dan Quinn is going to keep his job, but there is a lot of talent on this roster, but it is not deep and they have struggled with developing both lines. There is talent and a franchise quarterback so the right person might be able to turn this things around but it will likely require a change of approach by the front office if not new leadership.

The Cincinnati Bengals were pretty much sunk before the season started and my concerns quickly came to fruition. The loss of three starting lineman to injury and or retirement before the season was the precursor to their problems protecting Andy Dalton and I was always concerned about the hire of Jim Turner given his chequered history, but the loss of AJ Green to an ankle injury at the first practice o a high school field that the team should never have practiced on is particularly galling. I can’t help but wonder if a more experienced coach might have stopped the event when he saw the field. The Bengals were once a laughing stock, but Marvin Lewis brought respectability and Mike Brown has invested in the largest coaching staff the Bengals have ever had and renovated the building as they committed to Zac Taylor’s vision. It has done anything but pay off so far, but I’m not sure previous regimes would have turned the offence over to the rookie quarterback who looked promising in training camp to see what they have in him. They could have given more time for Dalton to try to find another team once they decided to bench him, but they probably want Dalton to be a mentor for Ryan Finley and it sure looks like we’ll see him in a different uniform next season.

However, this is where I think the extenuating circumstances end. The Jets as I said earlier were meant to be competing but their dysfunction starts with ownership and how they have approaches solving their problems in recent years and until they find the right GM to establish a culture and commit long term to its implementation they will continue to struggle.

The final team are the Washington no-names, who have an argument to have one of the worst owners in American sports. It’s not like Dan Snyder hasn’t spent money but he has presided over a mess in the front office and I’m not sure what Bruce Allen has achieved as president to earn such loyalty. Snyder bought the team in 1999 and since then Washington have had six winning seasons if you count 2016 8-7-1 and haven’t won a playoff games since 2005. Not only has the on-field performance been bad, but the franchise has gone from being the preeminent part of the Washington sports seen to a team that regularly sees more away fans than home in the stadium.

All of these teams need a lot to go right to turn them round next season, but I really do fear for the Jets and Washington.

I would also like to give a bonus mention to the Cleveland Browns who can’t get out of their own way and I’m not sure the Denver Broncos are truly going to compete until John Elway can find another quarterback.

What I Know

I had a terrible week in the picks competition last week, but what I know is that sometimes you modify your numbers by gut and your right, and sometimes you get led astray but it’s the over-correction in the following week that you have to watch.

If I put as much thought as I do into just picking games, I know that the staffs on these losing teams will be working as hard as they can to improve their team’s situations. There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes, no one is trying to lose and what I hope is that they learn from this situation and improve.

After five years of blogging about the entire league I spend my time wishing success for people – I want things won through skill and clever strategy and for players to be as healthy as they can when they get out.

What I Hope

I really hope that Ryan Finley gives the Bengals a spark and that if the tean are to move on from Andy Dalton, that they can take best player available or even drop back and pick up some extra picks in next year’s draft. After all, as we have had ample proof recently, there really is no such thing as guaranteed franchise quarterback just because they were selected in the first round.