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

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Tag Archives: Teddy Bridgewater

Fallen at the Final Hurdle

28 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by gee4213 in Playoffs

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Aaron Rodgers, Adam Thielen, Andrew Sandejo, Bill Belichick, Blake Bortles, Case Keenum, Chris Long, Doug Pederson, Green Bay Packers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, NFL, Pat Shurmur, Philadelphia Eagles, Sam Bradford, Stefon Diggs, Teddy Bridgewater, Tom Brady, Xavier Rhodes

So between illness and life it feels like a while since I’ve had a chance to sit down and get things written for the blog or said on the podcast.

The conference championship games from last weekend produced one blow out and once close contest, and the two losers have very different problems to face in the offseason although both have questions surrounding their quarterbacks.

In the first game the Jacksonville Jaguars fell to a seemingly inevitable Tom Brady comeback that put the New Patriots back into the Super Bowl again. I say again as this is the eighth time that Brady and Belichick have made the final game since 2001 but more on that next week. The Patriots had to stage another comeback because for a large chunk of this game the Jaguars were in the lead. In fact they took the lead at the start of the second quarter and didn’t relinquish it until 2:48 in the fourth quarter. The defence looked to control the Patriots whilst Blake Bortles looked good, throwing for nearly three hundred yards and a touchdown without turning the ball over. There has been much discussion of the decision to kneel with fifty second left in the second quarter and I agree that this was a contributing factor but the problem for me arose in the second half for the Jaguars’ offence. I’ve heard some say that the play calling was to conservative and others that the Patriots adjusted and that the Jaguars ran out of plays. It is hard for me to comment on how many passing plays the Jaguars had prepared, but the run on first down and lack of play action short throws did make it feel like the Jaguars were trying to protect their lead late in the game when I was watching this game for the first time. I’m going to go back and look at the Jaguars offence on coaching tape to see what happened this week so I might come back to this later.

The Jaguars themselves felt like they were the better roster after this game and couldn’t quite believe that they lost, but once again the Patriots proved themselves to be the masters of situational football and this is a team game. The good news is that the Jaguars have made plenty of progress and have a young foundation to build upon next year. As I watched the game I was thinking that Bortles had taken a step having come through two games of playoff pressure, but with an option that pays him nineteen million dollars next season, there still seems to be a lot of expectation that he might not be retained. I don’t really want to second guess this, but it will be the big turning point of the Jaguars’ offseason as they can either exercise the nineteen million option, sign him to a long term deal or cut him. There is nothing to say that he won’t sign a long term deal at a number that helps the Jaguars continue to build a team, after all that is what Brady has done, but I suspect regardless of what happens with the quarterback, this team will be making noise next year. The question is where the offence can live up to the standards the defence has set this season.

The second game started well for the Minnesota Vikings, with them taking a 7-0 lead and moving the ball well until Case Keenum had his throwing motion altered by the Eagle’s Chris Long on a play in the second Vikings’ drive that caused Keenum to throw an interception and then things fell spectacularly apart. The Vikings were not to score another point as the Philadelphia Eagles ran out easy 38-7 winners.

There must be a familiar sense of doom for Vikings fans given their history of tough playoff losses but following their miracle win the week before, the Vikings just couldn’t find a way to compete. On offence they simply were unable to cope with the depth of the Eagles’ defensive line and the pass rush stopped what had been a formidable offence as Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen can’t do much if Case Keenum can’t get them the ball. The Vikings quarterback only took one sack but was not comfortable and the Vikings could keep their offence balanced as they fell further behind the Eagles.

Perhaps more surprising was how much the Vikings defence struggled against the Eagles’ offence. This was a unit that had been historically good on third down this season ranked second by DVOA with a far more even split between rush and pass defence than the Jaguars ranked above them. However, Doug Pederson found a way to maximise the abilities of his backup quarterback (albeit a highly qualified one) and demonstrated a big improvement from the previous week’s narrow win over the Falcons. This was a matchup I was really looking forward to as Zimmer is one of the best defensive minds in the game but he seemed to have no answer to the Eagles in this game. The loss of Andrew Sandejo in the game had a dentrimental effect and was something I noticed when he went out against the Saints the week before, and Xavier Rhodes was also struggling with a toe injury that saw him leave the for a stretch and although he battled, the defence clearly struggled. I’ll be taking a look at the Eagles offence next week as I prep for the Super Bowl so these injuries will be worth paying attention to then.

The tough thing for the Vikings as they head into the offseason is that not only do they currently have three quarterbacks going into free agency, but they have an established defence with many players already getting paid and a pair of linebacker starters expiring at the end of next season. This means they can’t really afford to wait around on developing a quarterback but with the multiple injuries of Sam Bradford meaning you can’t rely on him to play, the fact that Teddy Bridgewater has barely played in two years thanks to his horrific knee injury, and Case Keenum only having a year of quality starting who do you sign and at what size contract is a huge question. That’s if the Vikings even stick to the quarterbacks on their roster, but with offensive co-ordinator Pat Shurmur moving on to become the head coach of the New York Giants the Vikings will have a new offensive co-ordinator who they will be picking from those still available. The impressive thing Shurmur managed this year was to build a functioning offensive line and make the most out of a starting quarterback who had not achieved to this level before. An offseason of change on offence awaits and whilst it is certainly not impossible that the Vikings will be good on offence again next season given the quality of skill players theu have, Mike Zimmer and his staff face a big challenge going into next season. I have a lot of faith in Zimmer and I’m not saying they can’t do it, but you wouldn’t necessary count on it and with Aaron Rodgers coming back from the injury for the Green Bay Packers the NFC North could be a hard division for the Vikings to win again next season.

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AAF: Case Keenum and the Vikings Offence

19 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by gee4213 in Amateur Adventures in Film

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Adam Thielen, Case Keenum, DJ Swearinger, JerickMcKinnon, Kyle Rudolph, Latavius Murray, Minnesota Vikings, NFL, Nick Easton, Stefon Diggs, Teddy Bridgewater, Washington

With the discussions about starting Teddy Bridgewater taking place I wanted to take a look at Case Keenum and the Minnesota Vikings offence in this week’s amateur adventures in film.

I have to say that for me this was a game of two halves as the Vikings played more conservatively in the second half, particularly in the fourth quarter where they were very much running out the clock and barely threw the ball.

However, focussing on Case Keenum it has to be said that in this game apart from two throws in the second half Keenum looked a very competent quarterback, but that is the word. It was not a case of the things he did leaping of the screen, but Keenum executing a well-designed offence. There was one occasion where tight end Kyle Rudolph had to wait for a ball to arrive on an out pattern in the first half and it was that kind of ball that caused Keenum’s second interception as DJ Swearinger leapt the route and intercepted the ball for the second time this game. For Swearinger’s first interception Keenum wasn’t able to step into his throw and sailed a ball over his receiver’s head and into the waiting arms of Swearinger. However, for a lot of the game Keenum was throwing to open receivers, with Adam Thielen particularly catching the eye with his route running.

It has to be said that both Thielen and Stefon Diggs impressed me with their all round game, not only with their route running but frequently being motioned near the offensive line and being asked to block on run and pass plays. The Vikings may have only just got over one hundred yards rushing for the game, but they looked very balanced in the first half, with left guard Nick Easton pulling and opening holes for Latavius Murray and Jerick McKinnon. It was only in the second half when they were getting more conservative and running out the clock in the fourth quarter that the run game bogged down.

This was also the second week in a row where I saw the use of unbalanced lines, with the Vikings lining up several times with a tight end playing tackle on one end of the line so that the Vikings’ two tackles could line up next to each other on the opposite side. There were also several occasions where because receivers motioned towards the line on blocking plays, they were also able to run routes stacked or behind tight ends which helped scheme open plays. The tight ends also managed to block down then roll out to catch balls. All of this contributed to a scheme that made life very difficult for Washington in the first half.

It would seem harsh to drop Case Keenum given the record he has amassed with this team and given that Teddy Bridgewater has had very little practice time in the last two years. To my eyes this is an offence that is setup to succeed thanks to an improved line and a pair of receivers that are quickly gaining a reputation as one of the best pairings in the league. The quarterback situation is definitely muddy in Minnesota, but for once I don’t this is going to damage the team.

Everybody has a plan until you hit them in the mouth

22 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by gee4213 in Uncategorized

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Adrian Peterson, Bill Belichick, Carson Wentz, Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans, Jacoby Brissett, Jimmy Garopollo, Josh McDaniels, Los Angeles Rams, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, NFL, Philadelphia Eagles, Sam Bradford, Seattle Seahawks, Teddy Bridgewater, Tom Brady, Week 3 Picks

I won’t go into the reasons why me usual routine has been turned around this week, but it does remind of the various quotes regarding what happens to plans when they run into reality.

The NFL is a very real reminder of this, with various teams already facing very different situations than they expected. Of course, for the Vikings the plan didn’t even survive the pre-season, with Teddy Bridgewater going down with his horrible knee injury in practice. This not only affected the Vikings, but Carson Wentz is now starting and surprising everyone with the quality of his play for the Eagles after Philidelphia traded the expected starter Sam Bradford to the Vikings. Both teams are now 2-0, with Bradford surprising everyone with his performance against Green Bay on Sunday as the Vikings eked out a win despite losing Adrian Peterson to a torn meniscus that could keep him out until the postseason.

Meanwhile, the Browns who traded down with the Eagles, allowing the team from Philadelphia to select Wentz are facing questions about what they didn’t like about the quarterback. If the Browns are the ones that are getting asked the questions now having lost two starting quarterbacks in the first two weeks, there could be some awkward questions for the Rams who picked Jared Goff instead of Wentz. With Goff failing to even dress in week one, and the offence still not having scored a touchdown this season, you can see people beginning to wonder about the decision even if the questioning does seem to have been delayed by the win the Rams ground out against the Seahawks on Sunday.

These days everybody wants to declare the winners and losers as soon as possible, despite the fact things are often far more complex than they seen. Planning is important, but rarely do even the most basic plans survive when you put them into action.

The thing we need in life to counter this is adaptability and resilience. The mental toughness to take what is thrown at you is often the difference between trying to do something, and the perseverance to make it a success.

The actual truth is that we don’t know how either Goff or Wentz’s actual careers will go, two games of their rookie season is simply not a big enough sample size, and the thing I like about the way the Rams holding out Goff is that if he’s not ready he shouldn’t just be thrown in. Because we picked him first is a really bad reason to start a quarterback. If you have a player you hope will play of a decade, it doesn’t make sense to play them early to appease the matter of winning now, or at least it doesn’t if there is a real risk that you could hurt the development of the player.

Sometimes circumstances don’t allow for this. Tonight the New England Patriots will be starting rookie Jacoby Brissett thanks to a combination of Tom Brady’s four game suspension and Jimmy Garopollo spraining his throwing shoulder during last week’s win against the Miami Dolphins. I am looking forward to seeing how Josh McDaniels and Bill Belichick scheme an offence in only three days practice for a third round draft pick who was their third string quarterback going into the season.

For some this would be too much, and excuse for a team to lose a game, but somehow I think that at least part of the coaches will be relishing the challenge.

You trust that he’ll get good coaching but it’s a hell of a task and there simply could be not enough time, which leads me to tonight’s pick:

Texans @ Patriots (-0.5)

It turns out that apart from lots of points, the other thing that will get me to pick against the Patriots is being down to their third string quarterback with only three days to prepare. I’m not saying that the Patriots won’t win tonight, but it is a big ask and not one I’m prepared to pick as the most likely to happen. Watch Bill Belichick prove me wrong.

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

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