Tag Archives: San Francisco 49ers

Super Saints go Ballistic, Bengals are Atrocious

14 Wednesday Nov 2018

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Nothing much really happened in week ten of the NFL so maybe we should all just prepare ourselves for the upcoming Monday night matchup between the LA Rams and the Kansas City Chiefs? Not buying that… okay I guess there’s only one place to start for me so let’s do this.

The Cincinnati Bengals didn’t just get beat, they had a fifty burger put up on them by a rampant New Orleans Saints team. I told you I was scared about this game! There wasn’t just one thing but there never is in a game like this, it was a combination of factors that produced an absolute thumping. However, for about sixteen game minutes things were okay and looked vaguely competitive. Yes the Saints marched down the field and scored on their opening drive but the Bengals were able to start with a touchdown drive of their own and even pulled a Saints move with their backup quarterback Jeff Dreskel taking a snap with Andy Dalton lining up as a receiver. However, whilst the Saints continued the pattern that would dominate the game, i.e. moving the ball without any trouble and scoring on every drive bar the last on, the Bengals were unable to keep their offence moving consistently. There were flashes from Joe Mixon and Tyler Boyd but the offence sputtered and were not able to match the Saints’ machine like efficiency. The Bengals having to punt on their second and third drives was one thing, but then when they did move the ball Andy Dalton threw an interception on a play that snapped with twenty-four seconds left in the half that was returned seventy-eight yards and just like that the Saints had time to squeeze in another touchdown to go into the half 35-7 up.

You could argue the second half was better as the Bengals only gave up sixteen further points and scored another touchdown with Jeff Driskel in the game after Dalton had been pulled, but clearly not. The Bengals have a lot of injuries in the back seven of the defence, but there has also been a lot of talk about grey areas in the new defence scheme and clearly there is something to it as defensive coordinator Teryl Austin has been fired and Marvin Lewis is doing something he has always been reluctant to do, and that’s call the defence himself. How this is going to work I don’t know, but just to throw extra murk into the waters, or possibly improve the juggling of game day, Hue Jackson has been rehired – this time as special assistant to the head coach. The players have been saying it’s not time to panic as their destiny is still in their own hands, but if ten is the magic number of wins that nearly always gets you into the playoffs, then they would have to go 5-2 the rest of the way including two games against the Browns and visits to the Chargers, Steelers and next week the Ravens. I keep hearing that you know how good your team is by how they travel and the Bengals are 2-2 on the road but have had two bad losses already and three divisional road games coming up. I’m not calling them done just yet but I think it’s more likely than not that things don’t get much better.

Oh yeah, and the Saints right now are the best team in the league.

Can I stop now?

Good.

So, the fluid nature of teams and the small sample size continue to confuse those of us picking game but it does entertain us. The New England Patriots lost to a Tennessee Titans team who have had two solid wins after the bye and whilst it is too early to hit the panic button if you are a Patriots fan, they are outside of the top ten in DVOA in the second half of the season for the first time since 2005 with Tom Brady as the quarterback and since 2008 when Matt Cassel led the team (this has been taken from Aaron Schatz’s weekly update that you can read here). In the absence of time to watch coaching tape this week (life just keeps getting in the way) I may well try to just watch this game to get a better idea of how it happened.

Other notable results were the Buffalo Bills scoring forty-one points after Matt Barkley made his first start in two years and his first for the Bills, which has led to the release of poor Nathan Peterman and who knows if he will get another shot with a team. The Pittsburgh Steelers put up fifty points against the Carolina Panthers on Thursday night whilst both the Chiefs and Rams won their games ahead of the matchup. Interestingly both teams has asked to play the Broncos in Denver before their Mexico city game but the league was smart enough to deny both teams and in a twist of fate with fears about the safety of the pitch in the Azteca stadium the game has been shifted back to LA. The Chicago Bears ran out easy winners against the Detroit Lions but the real test comes next week when they face the Minnesota Vikings coming off their bye.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers managed to put up five hundred yards of offence and only come away with three points, which just should not be possible and is the kind of thing I deserve for picking them. Washington continues their improbable run atop the NFC East but their coaching staff should get credit for finding a way to win despite the raft of offensive line injuries. Things got even better for them when the Dallas Cowboys went into Philadelphia and beat the Eagles meaning that Washington are now two games ahead at the top of the division. However, not only did the Cowboys defence continue to look pretty good and have moved away from their reliance on Sean Lee, but there were signs of their offence evolving. It’s not as if they are suddenly the Saints, Rams, or Chiefs, but with more motion before the snap, the addition of Amari Cooper, and Ezekiel Elliott catching some balls out of the backfield to complement his one hundred and fifty yards on the ground there is a chance the Cowboys could make a nuisance of themselves.

The other contender for game I would still like to see is the Jacksonville Jaguars continuing their losing streak, this week to an Indianapolis Colts team who have dragged themselves to 4-5 record with Andrew Luck continuing to shake off the worries about his return to the game. We are a long way from him being subbed out for a Hail Mary play.

Finally, the Cleveland Browns separated themselves from the 49ers and the Giants with their third win of the season that also likely scuppered the Falcons unlikely recent playoff surge and the Oakland Raiders are officially the worst team in the league thanks to the Giants win over the 49ers on Monday night that leaves the Raiders as the only single win team. I’m sure the schedulers were thrilled about how these two once mighty franchises were faring going into this week’s prime time game, but at least it was competitive. Right now I’d take that from the Bengals…

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Don’t Worry, No-One Knows Anything…

17 Wednesday Oct 2018

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18-10-17 M-Tomlin

Image Credit: behindthesteelcurtain.com

So with a heart filled with the familiar pain of a loss to our divisional rivals I have to pick up the jagged bloody pieces of my fandom and get on with the blog because the NFL schedule waits for no one.

The Bengals lost to the Steelers again, but it wasn’t exactly an implosion and Andy Dalton gave the boys in stripes a lead with 1:18 left on the clock in the fourth quarter, but Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brows sealed the game and whilst some are complaining about calls, this was a close game and the mounting injuries were as much the cause as anything. It doesn’t get any easier though as the Bengals are on the road against Kansas City this week and have been flexed into the Sunday night game, which bodes badly given the Bengals poor record in nationally televised games.

However, enough of my gloom! One of the reasons that covering the NFL is fun is that even with the most detailed preparation no one knows anything and there were plenty of surprises amongst the entertaining week six games.

I chose entertaining deliberately as we had one of the best games of the season this week with the Kansas City Chiefs going to New England taking them down to the final whistle as Stephen Gostkowski kicked a twenty-eight yard field goal to seal the win. For what felt like the first time this season it looked a little bit like Patrick Mahomes felt some nerves being on the road in front of the nation, but the Chiefs recovered from a half time score 0f 9-24 and forced a final second field goal out of the Patriots. I’m sure plenty of people are already hoping for a repeat game in the playoffs, whilst I’m just worried about what the Chiefs are going to do to the Bengals next week, but let’s not disappear down that rat hole!

Part of the excitement of this season has been the dominance of the offence this season where even a team that has the number one defence by DVOA can give up five hundred yards to a Miami Dolphins offence helmed by Brock Osweiler. Now a lot of this was done by Adam Gase utilising his young skill players ability to turn short passes into long gains, but is impressive none the less. I’m beginning to think the only reliable defence at the moment belongs to the Baltimore Ravens who shut out the Tennessee Titans this week and managed to rack up eleven sacks. This is too many for me not to take a look at their pass rush for my amateur adventures in film post and it will be nice to get back to some defensive tape. However, the story this season really is offence and not always from the usual suspects. I shared the frustrations I had heard repeatedly stated about the Dallas Cowboys offence having seen it for my own eyes against the Texans earlier this season, but thanks to modern technology it takes so much less time for plays to spread and the Cowboys came up with a doozy of a game plan in week six that enabled them to stick forty points on the Jacksonville Jaguars defence. Okay, so there were four field goals in that total but Cole Beasley racked up over a hundred receiving yards and a two touchdowns whilst Ezekiel Elliott also ran for a hundred yards. All this was with Dak Prescott throwing for a modest one hundred and eight-three yards but he also chipped in with eighty-two yards on the ground. I’m not saying everything is suddenly fixed, things are far too unpredictable but this game is definitely something that could be built upon.

There’s a reason that I said could. If this season has taught us nothing else, it is to be wary of the grand statement. Now this is a familiar feeling to me having been blogging about this league for four years now, which is really nothing, but it does feel like the development and changes within the league are accelerating. Every year we see teams who were bottom of their division suddenly leading, even if there are a handful of teams who always seem to do well or poorly, but it does feel like things are increasingly topsy-turvy and week to week. This is likely to be that apart from the structural things to do with the rosters, injury luck, and tactical complexity that makes predicting outcomes difficult, we have such a small sample size that every game takes on more importance and we draw bigger inferences than we should on the basis of one game. Across the entire season they sort themselves out a little, but it is so hard to remain competitive across a season never mind to build a dynasty like the Patriots currently have, or that the 49ers had when I was growing up.

It also doesn’t help when trends spread across season. It feels like LA Chargers have been competitive but losing too many close games for a while, but if you look back at their results to include last season. They may have started 2017 with four losses, but since week five of last season the Chargers have only lost to the Patriots, Jaguars and Chiefs last in 2017 and the Chiefs and Rams this season. That gives them a record of 13-5 record over an admittedly arbitrarily selected series of games. However, they beat the Cleveland Browns convincingly this week and so perhaps I should be a little more trusting of them given that they had moved cities and hired a new head coach before the start of said 2017 season and that four loss streak. There is plenty of talent on their roster and having listed them as a real contender two weeks ago, I’m really beginning to think they will compete across this season. I hereby apologise for the jink I have just placed on the Chargers.

I can’t finish this blog without saying a quick word about the London game. It was a rainy Wembley that saw the host Oakland Raiders get thoroughly beaten by the Seattle Seahawks and we should not take for granted that we still get to see live regular NFL games in this country. There have been some great competitive games at Wembley, but we have also seen our fair share of one sided contests. This time both teams had to travel from the west coach of America so there’s no real disadvantage there but whilst the Seahawks may well be rebuilding, at least they have a settled head coach and general manager working together. It feels like Jon Gruden is rebuilding the Raiders by tearing everything down, which is interesting as the GM who built it, Reggie McKenzie, is still there. Not content with trading away Khalil Mack there’s now rumblings the Raiders would accept a number one pick for Amari Cooper and people are talking about how little a cap hit it would be to cut Derek Carr at the end of the season. This is all getting a bit speculative for me to want to cover, other than to say with a roster that has a number of older players, if they are going to tear everything down it could take a while to get good again and I don’t see how this is going to sell tickets in Las Vegas. Still, all we can do for now is watch and wonder, which is pretty much how I’ve felt all season, be it considering thoughtfully or gazing in awe.

Plays, Penalties, and Injuries

26 Wednesday Sep 2018

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18-09-26 Josh Allen TD

Image Credit: wyosports.net

So Wednesday marks the transition from one NFL week to the next as I move from catching up on games and highlights, evaluating the news to preparing to make picks, even if I won’t start the coaching tape for Week three until tomorrow, but more of that later.

I’m currently reading The Score Take Care of Itself by Bill Walsh, and whilst I haven’t got very far yet, the section on the 49ers losing to the Miami Dolphins and coping with adversity rings ever so true. This week we have some coaches who will be facing down despair and problems, whilst others will have taken a moment to savour a win before swiftly moving on to the next week’s game.

The usual king of this, as exemplified by his famous, ‘We’re on to Cincinnati.’ press conference back in 2014, is Bill Belichick who will be trying to turn around the fortunes of his 1-2 team who got thoroughly outplayed by the Detroit Lions. I’m not sure too many people saw that one coming and we had a couple of reminders in week 3 of the old maxim that anything could happen on any given Sunday. The Patriots struggled on offensive as they continue to falter when running the ball and haven’t found the right mix in the passing game. We may see Josh Gordon if they can get him worked into the mix this week and after they take on the Dolphins this weekend they will have Julian Edelman back from suspension but it could take a while for this be sorted. I’m not going to overreact as it is early and I’ve written several times about how the Patriots plan to peak later in the season but for context the Patriots haven’t lost three straight since 2002 when they had a four game losing streak and missed out on the playoffs (they still had a winning 9-7 record).

Perhaps more surprising even than the Lions getting a win over the Patriots was the Buffalo Bills travelling to Minnesota and beating the Vikings 27-6 as Josh Allen managed to rushing touchdowns as well as a passing one. The Vikings will be looking to shake things off quickly as they are on the road in LA for the Thursday night game against the Rams and I’ve heard several people suggest that the Vikings had one eye on this game and that is why they had such a surprisingly poor game against a team they overlooked. I always find such talk a little troubling as I have no way of verifying and the infrastructure for the Vikings is such that my default would be to think it was an aberration that will quickly be righted but given the Packers (who the Vikings drew with last week) lost to Washington this week and the only team the Vikings have beat are the 49ers there is perhaps some concern that there might be deeper problems. Definitely one to keep and eye on, whilst I will have to take a look at Josh Allen on coaching tape this week to find out just how he managed to lead the Bills to a comfortable win.

In fact, there’s quite a lot I wish I could watch in more details including games I didn’t even see the highlights for. Apart from the two upsets I have already mentioned, the New York Giants travelled to the Houston Texans and won, surely placing even more pressure on head coach Bill O’Brien, whilst the Tennessee Titans managed to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars despite starting Blaine Gabbert and then having to play Marcus Mariota despite the limitations he has from a nerve injury when Gabbert was ruled out the game with a concussion. It has to be said that Mike Vrabel has done well to win two games given his quarterback situation and whilst it is far too small a sample size to draw any big conclusions about him as a coach, it is encouraging. Less encouraging is a third loss for  Oakland Raiders under Jon Gruden who along with the Arizona Cardinals join the Texans as the only teams yet to register a win this season.

The Atlanta Falcons lost a barnstormer of a game 42-37 to the New Orleans Saints, with Drew Brees spinning to get the winning score and the Falcons losing a second starting safety for the season to injury so things are getting increasingly tough for them.

Sadly for the San Francisco 49ers, Jimmy Garoppplo was lost for the season with a torn ACL as he tried to gain some extra yards rushing out of bounds. There has been a lot of focus on the steps the NFL are taking to protect the quarterbacks and with the effect losing that one player has on a team I can understand it up to a point. However, with another seemingly form tackle by Clay Matthews resulting in a penalty, not to mention the string of penalties some linemen are picking up in games the new interpretation of the roughing the passer penalty is definitely a huge talking point. In fact the Dolpins (who I’m sure Dan would like me to remind you are 3-0) lost William Hayes to a torn ACL on a sack that head coach Adam Gase is blaming on the new rules. If players are injuring themselves trying to comply with the new rules and some of the bigger name quarterbacks are suggesting that things have gone too far then perhaps the league will look at it. I don’t want to argue that the league has gone soft, and frankly I think this has more to do with keeping the star quarterbacks playing the safety concerns, but a lot of the plays that have been penalised were simply tackles and I have no idea how a two hundred and ninety pound player fighting his way past an offensive linemen to tackle a quarterback, who are often not exactly small themselves, are supposed to lay said quarterback gently to the turf so they don’t risk an injury. You need a certain amount of momentum to tackle a player and explosiveness to get there before the pass is thrown so a lot of these defenders are being put in a very difficult if not an impossible position.

There have been a number of exciting games, and I think we’d all much rather be focussing attention on say the amazing start to the season Patrick Mahomes has had in Andy Reid’s offence or how the LA Rams are ominously rolling through the season, but until the roughing the passer penalties slow down the conversation about the zebras could keep dominating the conversation and frankly I’d much rather be focussed on the surprises and the good play that is happening in the league. After all, the Cleveland Browns and Buffalo Bills won this week, all things are possible.

High-fives All Round!

26 Wednesday Sep 2018

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So, we’re three weeks into the season now, and things are starting to spice up a bit!

Where to start this week? Suppose I’ll start with the Dolphins as is traditional. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re 3-0 – how on earth did that happen?! We’ve not looked overwhelmingly fantastic this year so far, but have been doing enough to win games, which I suppose is all that matters. With only one of our first three opponents going into Week 4 with a winning record (the Titans, if you’re asking), the Patriots this week are going to be a real test.

Performance-wise, it was a bit of a mixed bag. Tannehill and his receiving team seem to be on the same page and working well together, and a special mention this week has to go to Albert Wilson for not only taking the QB role in a trick play touchdown, but also managing to run in a 74 yard touchdown which won us the game – if he doesn’t get a Madden Team of the Week card in Ultimate Team this week, I’ll be very disappointed.

On the other side of the ball though, the Defence weren’t as good as they have been for the first two weeks. Some of that’s down to injury (and ejection!) meaning the line were taking a lot more reps than they would usually have in the Florida sun, but we’ll have to wait and see how they pick up next week.

Elsewhere, there were some comings and goings at the QB position – it was Carson Wentz’ first game since his mid-season injury last year, and he wasted very little time in getting back into the swing of things. That’s hardly surprising though given that the reports coming out of Philadelphia suggested he was keeping deeply ingrained in the foundations of the team during his absence, and was frequently seen as the Eagles biggest fan in their run up to the Super Bowl. Bit harsh on Nick Foles though, I must say. He’s not done too badly this year so far but it’s clear they feel that Wentz is their Franchise QB for years to come, so it makes sense to bring him back.

Jimmy G though has gone the other way. He came off mid-game on Sunday with an injury which has turned out to be an ACL tear officially ruling him out for the rest of the season. I’m really disappointed about this – he was such an energising force for the 49ers at the end of last season (who remembers how badly they were doing before he joined?!) and while it hadn’t completely carried over into this season, he won’t be playing any further part this year.

Oh hang on, how have I got this far into this week’s post without mentioning the BROWNS?! The fans in Cleveland woke up on Friday feeling like it was Christmas morning… not least because the last time they woke up after a win it WAS Christmas Day… in 2016! (Note – I cant take credit for this. Neil Reynolds pointed this out on twitter the other day!). I’m really pleased for Browns fans. I don’t think they’ll get too many wins this year, but they seem to be in a much better place than they have been.

Betting update:

At what point should it get tempting to cash out?! The Rams are now showing themselves as the actual favourites for the Super Bowl this year (according to bet365 anyway!) but it is of course still early days!

Oh, and less said about picks and fantasy the better – stupidly, after sending my picks to Gee, I think I forgot to actually submit them, and as a result, it didn’t register, so this week I’m very thankful to Gee for being the organised member of the team who keeps spreadsheets of this kind of thing! I take back everything I said last week when I was rubbing in the fact I was beating him (although… I think I still am!). [We are in fact level after three weeks -Ed.]

How are your team doing so far this year? Is anyone particularly surprising you so far? Drop me a line on twitter and lets have a chat!

This time next week, I’ll be in Dubai with Mrs. B celebrating our anniversary, so my Dad will be filling my shoes and making his picks for the week against Gee. Be gentle on him – he’s a Vikings fan so hasn’t finished scratching his head over how they managed to lose to the Bills!

Speak to you in a couple of weeks…

@TWFDan

NFC Preview

05 Wednesday Sep 2018

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18-09-05 NFC-2

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

NFC North

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

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

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

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

NFC East

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

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

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

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

NFC South

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

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

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

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

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

NFC West

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

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

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

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

AAF: Jimmy Garoppolo

10 Sunday Dec 2017

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So for this week’s amateur adventure in file I took a look Jimmy Garoppolo’s first start for the San Francisco 49ers against the Chicago Bears.

The quotes from his team mates were glowing after the game, but this is not a set of coaching tape that initially wows you with amazing throws. Partly this is the offence as whilst it is undeniably well schemed, there is a lot more two running back sets and running than you will see from a lot of teams in the league, and partly it is that Garoppolo is an accurate thrower that doesn’t necessary throw darts. However, arm strength is often somewhat over rated and what particularly impressed me the timing of Garoppolo’s passes. Looking at his completions you would see the receiver run their route, turn for the ball and it would arrive as they got their hands up.

One of the reasons the players were open was that the 49ers offence is so well schemed. There is a lot of motion before the snap, helping Guroppolo identify coverages as well as enabling them to move the point of attack for their run depending on what play has been called. On any given pass play there are players running combinations of routes to stretch the defence, and when you have a quarterback capable of reading this then you have an effective offence.

The obvious problem in this game came in the red zone. This is perhaps not surprising given that Garoppolo has only been with the franchise for a month and everything is harder in the red zone as there is so much less room to work in. The 49ers are also a little lacking in talent at the moment, but unless this becomes a trend I would not worry too much and given the offence that Kyle Shanahan co-ordinated last year with the Atlanta Falcons, I would back him to sort this out in the long run.

The big question going forward will be how quickly they can develop this offence, but before that they have to finish the season and get Garoppolo signed up long term, but for the first time in what feels like a very long time the 49ers’ fans have something to get really excited about.

Early Season Frustrations

21 Thursday Sep 2017

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It is not just that the Bengals have got off to an 0-2 start that has me frustrated at the start of the season, although it doesn’t help.

In Europe we are bedding a brand new NFL Gamepass site, and whilst there are some good points like the quality of the streams now that they are being hosted over here, and being able to download games to your tablet or phone for watching at a later date, there are plenty of teething issues. A quick search will find you talk of this video is not available in your region, which appears to be some kind of connection/cache issue.

More frustrating are the tools that we have so far lost, that we were used to in the old system. The video player is more basic, and we are no longer able to navigate via play by play bookmarks. Even more difficult for someone like myself, is that the coaching tape is not available yet and all I’ve heard so far is that it will be added soon. Given that this is one of my favourite things about having Gamepass, not to mention that it is putting on hold my regular tape break downs here on the blog, it is really frustrating not to have it already.

So if the presentation is getting there, but missing key things I am used to, how have the games been? Here we get to a meaty discussion that seems to have been the theme for a lot of the NFL coverage that I consume. The quality of play at the moment is a point of contention, and it seems to break to down into a couple of areas.

The first is that under the current collective bargain agreement (or CBA), practice time and specifically the amount of hitting that can be done has been reduced. Now this is for player safety and is a hard thing to argue about, but coaches have been talking about it limiting their ability to develop players. You could write a book on how to coach a team and split reps at practice, so I’m not going to delve heavily into this, but there are two areas that I think is worth highlighting.

Unusually for me, these are both on offence, and might help why according to some commentators the league’s defences have had the upper hand in the early season.

There are some positions where due to the amount of communication involved, there is no real substitute for live reps, even if you are trying to make use of new training advances like the remote controlled mobile tackling dummies. One of them is the offensive line and there seem to be fewer good ones in the NFL at the moment.

This is being highlighted at the moment with a different approach to training camp, with many teams seemingly focused on getting into the season healthy as much as preparation and so offences may improve through the season but are not looking sharp right now. Some teams actually embrace this timetable for peaking their performance with Pete Carroll explicitly stating that the Seahawks focus is to peak in November and December, whilst Bill Belichick has talked about not even having his roster settled until October.

I’m wary of focussing on the Seahawks too much when discussing offensive line play, as it is an area of the roster that they have consistently not invested in heavily be it draft picks, or free-agents. However, whilst teams have different approaches, a consistent theme I have heard apart from how hard it is to develop players is the quality of player entering the league.

In terms of athleticism, there has been massive improvement in terms of the size and speed of players, particularly in terms of how quickly larger players now move. However, the college game, and for the purposes of this particular blog, specifically the offences run by the majority of college games is not developing players for the NFL.

Now in fairness this is not their job. A college head coach is paid to win football games, and so they should do that in the best way they can. But with the popularity of spread offences, there are highly touted, physically gifted offensive line players, who have never taken up a three-point stance or used an aggressive pass set. Now the NFL teams have to scout and work with what they have available, and there are still good linemen out there. However, I keep hearing discussions about a developmental league, and it would seem a very good idea. Not only would it help young players develop, but it might solve the other area of the offence I want to focus on, namely, the quarterback.

Now the reason I want to mention quarterback is not just Andy Dalton’s struggles over the first two games, but the way we cover them and the simple fact that there are nowhere near enough of them to go around.

Given the talent pool that is the continental United States, it might be considered surprising that with only thirty-two spots to fill, that not every team can have a quality starter. However, it is a very complex position to play, requiring a particular set of skills. There is some variation of course, but a quarterback needs to be able to read what is happening on defence, co-ordinate the response, and have the physical tools to get the ball to where it needs to go. It might help if they are athletically gifted as a running quarterback does help open up other ways to attack a defence, but it is not essential.

Generally, the media put too much of the credit on a quarterback’s shoulders when a team wins, and blames them too heavily when a team loses, but given the amount of control a quarterback has over an offence this is seen as part of playing the position.

The problem we have is not only supply and demand, but again goes back to college and practise. Along with the spread system, college quarterbacks increasingly don’t have to call their own plays as signs are used from the side-line. They may rarely take snaps under centre, and this all has to change dramatically upon entering the NFL.

You only have to look at the slow development of a player like Jared Goff, who is having to learn the fundamentals of his trade whilst already a pro, and a combination of media and owners mean that a lot of pressure comes to bear when a high draft pick doesn’t get on the field quickly. This is particularly the case if a team is bad, as they will often be the team drafting a quarterback early. The issue is that whilst a quarterback will only develop so much without reps, the plan to let them take their lumps early is all very well unless the team around them isn’t good enough to succeed. In fact it can actually harm a player if you can’t protect a quarterback and he gets hit too much causing injury or develops bad habits.

And remember, we’ve already discussed that good offensive lines are not exactly getting easier to build.

So we have the current situation with not enough quality quarterbacks to go round, and a number of them (even quality players) under pressure as they can’t be protected.

So you get NFL defences on top. These things do go in cycle, but a combination of issues developing talent and the readiness of that talent could cause a real issue in terms of quality of play. We can’t go back to endless hitting and two a day training camps as we know that is detrimental to player health. I just hope that new ways to develop talent are found, and that if it does, there will be coaching tape for me to marvel at.

And so on to the week three picks.

Gee:      Week 2   9-7                       Overall   18-14
Dan:      Week 2   8-8                       Overall   15-17

Rams @ 49ers (+2.5)

I think Dan thought I was little crazy when I said I was looking forward to this game, but I genuinely am. The LA Rams beat the Colts by a large margin in week one, yet travel to San Francisco with a 1-1 record and Aaron Donald back in the fold to face an 0-2 49ers team. I am interested in looking at how both teams are developing under rookie head coaches as they come back from poor performances in recent years. However, the Rams have shown more this season, and with a surprising eighteen place difference in their ranking by overall DVOA and going into what has been a poorly attended Levi’s stadium, I am trusting the team with a win to get another despite the record of home teams in the Thursday night game. I could regret this.

Gee’s Pick:          Rams
Dan’s Pick:          Rams

The Time of Overreaction

14 Thursday Sep 2017

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Week one is in the books and so it is time for the annual period of overreaction in the NFL to the first set of games, but whilst there are some things that can be taken away from these games, there’s still plenty that falls into the we’ll see pile.

I’m not going to go through every team just yet, but here are some of the things I took away from the games I watched or results that jumped out at me.

We knew the New York Jets were going to be bad, but they were at least designed that way. The Indianapolis Colts appear to be even worse, we don’t know when Andrew Luck will return, and it is going to be a long season for them. The San Francisco 49ers gave rookie head coach Kyle Shanahan and his GM John Lynch a demonstration of just how big a rebuilding job they took on.

The Cincinnati Bengals were one of serval teams who failed miserably to disprove the concerns people had about them going into the season, but were the only team with no points this week that actually played. The Baltimore Ravens look good on defence, are well coached, and will cause problems for many this season and go a very useful divisional win in Cincinnati. I wasn’t expecting anything particularly different in terms of performance against the Bengals, but it was painful to watch the Bengals fail to rise to the occasion. There were points where the Bengals moved the ball, and I can see Andy Dalton bouncing back from the horrible performance as he has done it before – I just wish they didn’t happen in the first place. A short week against the Texans’ pass rush is not how I would have liked to rediscover the offence, but at least the game is at Paul Brown Stadium.

I had thought the Kansas City Chiefs looked good in pre-season, and I thought they would run the New England Patriots close, but they went better than that with a very good win in the opening game of the season. The loss of safety Eric Berry to an Achilles injury is a big blow to the Chiefs defence, but that offence looks like it is going to function well this season. It is too early to panic if you’re a Patriots fan, and the infrastructure is well set to get over this initial setback, but they will be watched as carefully as ever over the next few weeks for signs of decline, particularly in Tom Brady.

The Oakland Raiders are another team who looked very good in week one, easily taking care of the Tennessee Titans on the road, with their defence looking stouter than I thought it would coming into the season, and it looks like they will be continuing their good form of last season and pushing for the playoffs if they can stay healthy.

I don’t want to get too quarterback centric, but although he is still making young player mistakes, Carson Wentz is looking every bit the franchise quarterback at the beginning of his career, with several plays where he held off multiple pass rushers before making a successful pass. I wanted to be sold on the Eagles as a whole and their performance in Washington certainly started the process.

Continuing on the quarterback theme, there’s only so much you can tell about the LA Rams from them beating Colts, but they scored forty-six points and Jared Goff showed that he might have a future in the NFL. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but the Rams did what they needed to in week one and we will just have to see how things progress for Goff under rookie Head Coach Sean McVay.

So we start to look at the week 2 games, with the Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers finally playing first games of the season after last week’s postponement, and a number of teams looking to pick up from shaky starts. There’s has been a lot of questions about what the pre-season is for and how it might change, but it seems a number of teams still need to get themselves into form as their offseason hasn’t prepared them to hit the ground running. It is a long season, and nobody needs to peak in September, but divisional home losses are bad things to rack up, and several teams started with them in week one.

Last Week’s Record:

Gee:        Week 1   9-7                           Overall   -9-7
Dan:        Week 1   7-9                           Overall   7-9

Texans @ Bengals (-4.5)

So tonight’s game pits two teams with disappointing first games against each other, and the Bengals could be in a real hole if they start 0-2 with two home losses. The problem is that there has to be a reaction by the Houston Texans to how they played last week, and their area of strength on defence matches up painfully against where the Bengals have all their questions on offence. Adam Jones’ return to the Bengals’ secondary may add a spark to the defence, but on a short week in a bad match up, with a rebuilt offensive line that has answered none of the questions asked of it, l will confess to a lack of confidence in my team. I’m not saying the Bengals can’t find the right formula as plenty of teams looked short or reps in week one, but with their history in prime time games I can’t back the Bengals to win by five points when they scored zero in their opening home game. I would love to be proved wrong!

Gee’s Pick:            Texans
Dan’s Pick:            Bengals

Week Five: Cardinals at 49ers

09 Sunday Oct 2016

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San Francisco 21
Arizona Cardinals 33

In a sometimes hard to watch game the Cardinal ran out eventual winners through a combination of taking advantage of turnovers and being more successful at getting to the quarterback.

It feels strange to say, but the offences in this game were eerily similar at times with strong running games and only one effective receiver but there were differences. The 49ers managed to rack up a lot of yards on the ground through a combination of effective straight ahead running by Carlos Hyde who ran for seventy-eight yards off twenty-two carries whilst Blaine Gabbert ran for seventy yards himself, including a quarterback keeper for a touchdown. However, Gabbert was only able to find receiver Jeremy Kerley consistently in the passing game, and Gabbert finished the game with an anaemic one hundred and sixty-two yards and two interceptions to one touchdown. He also spent a lot of time escaping from the Cardinals pass rush and yet still was sacked seven times, yet there were several long passes that Gabbert plane missed and it would not be a surprise if at some point if this inaccuracy loses him the starting job.

The Cardinals defence is still not where it was last year, with Tyrann Mathieu still coming back from his knee injury of last season and not looking himself, although the pass interference penalty that was called against him in the second half was very soft. However, the Cardinals were able to get consistent pressure with Markus Golden getting another two sacks to take his season total to six, and Calais Campbell adding an interception off a tipped pass to his two sacks. However, there are still questions in coverage opposite Patrick Peterson even if Marcus Cooper did cut under a route very nicely to get his interception. They got away with it in this game because the 49ers were unable to exploit open receivers when the opportunity presented itself but they will need to continue to improve if they are to get where they want as a team.

The Cardinals offence was struggling even before Drew Stanton was made starter through Carson Palmer’s concussion, particularly with both their starting guards being injured, but at least Stanton gave them a clean game with no interceptions and two touchdowns. However, he only threw for one hundred and twenty-four yards, most of them going to Larry Fitzgerald who looked as good as ever being constantly available in the passing game and doing his usual good job of blocking when required. Stanton was not as obviously inaccurate as Gabbert, and he threw a number of typical Bruce Arians’ long pass attempts, but could only connect on one to Fitzgerald. However, as good as Fitzgerald was, David Johnson was the other star for the Cardinals as he ran for one hundred and fifty-seven yards on an average yards per carry of over 5.5 and scoring two touchdowns.

The 49ers defence did a good job of breaking up long passes in this game, their secondary remaining close enough to the Cardinals’ receivers to break up plays and only allowing one long play when the corner covering Larry Fitzgerald slipped allowing him to score a twenty-nine yard touchdown. However, they were neither able to get enough pressure on Drew Stanton nor stop the run game, and whilst they did make the occasional good play behind or at the line to stop the run, overall this was a worrying number of points to give up given how limited the Cardinals were on offence.

The Cardinals got a much needed win, but they have a lot of improving to do if they are to drag themselves back into contention in their division, which given that like many people I was expecting the Cardinals to push for a Super Bowl, is a pretty major shift in expectations. The 49ers kept this game close for a while, and ran the ball effectively but I am not sure if between their two quarterbacks they have enough play to build on, but the 49ers were always a long term project given the state of their roster.

The Futility of Making Picks but Doing It Anyway

06 Thursday Oct 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cardinals @ 49ers (+2.5)

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

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