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Competition Thursday: 2022 Week Six

13 Thursday Oct 2022

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I am absolutely not taking things for granted, but we’re well over a quarter of the way through the season, we’re starting to get team byes and I’ve got a double digit lead in the picks competition. There’s still a long way to go but I can’t think of a much better way to start, even if can’t salve the Bengals’ stumbling start to the competition that matters.

On to week six!

Gee:Week 5:  10 – 6Overall:  43 – 37
Dan:Week 5:  5 – 11Overall:  32 – 48

Washington @ Bears (-0.5)

I am looking forward to watching these teams again and seeing the changes in both of them. However, picking it is a different matter entirely, particularly when the line truly is giving us nothing to work with. I’m not sure what Dan’s rationale is, but mine is that the Bears are at home on a short week and haven’t had their head coach throwing their quarterback under the bus, but that isn’t exactly convincing.

I guess in a week where the Chiefs are playing the Bills I shouldn’t complain about this matchup too much.

Gee’s Pick:     Bears
Dan’s Pick:     Bears

Survivor Competition

Dan made the mistake of trusting the AFC South last week and so got his second elimination of the season with the Texans beating the Jaguars. Meanwhile two weeks of comparatively safe picks has seen me at least drag myself back into contention and whist it might come back to bite me later in the season, I’m going to continue that trend with the Buccaneers taking on the struggling steelers, while Dan has opted for the Vikings visiting his Dolphins.

Current Score

Gee: 2
Dan: 2

Week 6 Selection:

Gee:    Buccaneers @ Steelers
Dan:    Vikings @ Dolphins

Bold Prediction of the Week

I hate this process and so tend to pull my bold prediction out the ether when Dan asks me, which this week left me picking the Jets to beat the Packers, which in the cold light of day is certainly bold, and possibly foolish but I don’t think impossible.

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Success is a Fragile Thing but its Absence Sitcks

27 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts

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It has been a mixed week for the TWF team with the Bengals getting a statement win on the road against the Ravens to get people talking about them, whilst the Dolphins managed a déjà vu field goal loss against the Falcons against a back drop of trade rumours that I think will worry Dan until we are past the trade deadline next week.

What I Saw

For me there’s only one place to start with the Sunday games that I watched this week and that is in Baltimore. The game started as a tight contest that the Bengals edged out 13-10 at half time, but the Bengals’ offence broke out in the second half as the defence clamped down after an early third quarter touchdown for the Ravens to turn a 17-13 deficit into a 41-17 statement win. Ja’Mar Chase had a two-hundred yard receiving day and the rookie receiver now has the most receiving yards through seven career games of any player in NFL history. The defence is what was winning game initially, but now it feels like both sides of the ball are coming together. The Ravens have no need to panic at 5-2 as there is plenty of season left to go and they have too much experience to fall apart after a bad game, but for now the Bengals deserve to be taken seriously,  although that also involves dealing with expectations so let’s see what happens next week at the Jets.

The other of the early games I watched was the Kansas City Chiefs getting beaten soundly 27-3 by the Tennessee Titans. The thing I didn’t mention on the podcast this week is that it is really hard to get to four Super Bowls in a row, which is what the Chiefs are trying to do this season. It is even harder if you have not nailed your draft picks or all-in moves in free agency. The key players are there, but right now Patrick Mahomes is pushing and turning over the ball in a way he never used to. They need to find some way to exploit more space underneath or to challenge the two high safety looks that they are now seeing regularly as now the offensive production is slipping and the defence shows no sign of improvement. The Titans don’t exactly have a fearsome defence but had more than enough in this one and it was Ryan Tannehill throwing the ball that was as effective as anything on offence for the Titans, although seeing Derick Henry throw a touchdown pass was undeniably fun.

Finally, on Sunday night the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers took on each other and a bomb cyclone in a contest that was understandably heavy on the run game, particularly as at some poins throwing the ball looked like a quarterback’s nightmare brought to life. It’s not that often that you see two running backs from opposing teams run for matching one-hundred and seven yards and a touchdown from eighteen carries, but that’s what the 49ers Elijah Mitchell and Jonathan Taylor managed. The up and down nature of Jimmy Garoppolo season continued as he returned from injury but still hasn’t exactly convinced, while Carson Wentz still tries to do too much and has a nasty habit of in trying to make an impossible play simply giving the ball back to the opposition. The Colts have won three of their last four games after an 0-3 start so their matchup with the 5-2 Titans next week is a pretty huge contest but at least they seem to be finding themselves. As for the 49ers, you are beginning to hear enough questions about the job Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch are doing in building this team that there could be questions to face if things don’t start to improve. As good as a play caller as Shanahan is, his career record is 31-39 with only one winning season, though he did take his team to a Super Bow, but if anything it is play of both Garoppolo and Trey Lance that could be seen as the biggest questions for this franchise.

What I Heard

I exist in a state of quantum flux when it comes to discussion of the Deshaun Watson trade rumours, both amazed that any team would consider trading for a player with that litany of complaints and police charges against them and yet simultaneously not at all surprised because patriarchy and football.

One of the teams I didn’t mention on the podcast that has also been floated as a Watson desitination was the Washington Football Team, which I have to think Ron Rivera would oppose given the recent investigations into the Football Team for their toxic work environment, particularly for women. That said, while the NFL through Roger Goodell are stating that they have handled the situation well (there is no report to publish, although they are apparently cooperating with a request from the House Committee on Oversight and Reform for all documents and communications about the investigation into the workplace culture in Washington) you wonder whether Dan Snyder might make the trade, even if he is not running things at the moment..

What I Think

The Detroit Lions may be 0-7, but there are five teams below them in the DVOA rankings and frankly they threw the kitchen sink at the LA Rams on Sunday, made them work and so far this season have only been beaten badly by one team. I don’t think this looks like a winless team, they are still fighting for their coach, and they can perhaps look at the first year of Brian Flores in Miami where the Dolphins also lost their first seven games but closed out the season 5-4. The unfortunate thing for the Dolphins is that after going 10-6 last season, they have not kicked on this season, but to me that hints at how fragile a thing success can be in the NFL.

As a Bengals fan I was hoping for progress coming into the season and prepared for disappointment. I certainly was not expecting a 5-2 start that includes win in Pittsburgh and Baltimore and whilst I’m certainly not expecting the end to one of our two playoff droughts, I can at least dream of it. The Dolphins were unlucky not to get into the playoffs last season with ten wins, but while there are several teams with as bad or longer droughts for appearances, the Bengals, Lions and Dolphins make up the top three longest playoff win drought. The injury to Andy Dalton in 2015 still haunts me as the team who could have been something, particularly as the Bengals haven’t had a winning season since and are without a playoff win in thirty seasons despite Dalton leading the Bengals to the playoffs for five straight seasons from 2011-2015. The Lions’ last winning season was in 2017 and after the spectacular failure of the Matt Patricia tenure the reboot is going to take time and with their one playoff win back in 1991 (a whole season more recent than the Bengals) their drought looks set to  continue for a while. Going into the season the Dolphins would have looked best out of these three teams to end their own playoff win drought, and at twenty seasons they have some time before they catch the Lions and Bengals but this year does not seem destined for them to get that win.

The season is more random for teams than many like to admit, but these long streaks demonstrate that for some teams there are definite patterns, even if they felt more competitive to you as a fan at the time. The Marvin Lewis period transformed the Bengals from and national laughing stock to a credible franchise that included several incredibly talented teams threatening to break the playoff drought but they never quite could. There’s no guarantee that Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase can do better than Andy Dalton and AJ Green, or for that matter Carson Palmer and his talented offence so yes I’m cautious, but I am definitely enjoying the game right now.

What I Hope

I have two hopes this week. I really hope that the Bengals are focussed and beat the Jets to maintain their run as there is a lot of season left and they really can’t afford to drop winnable games. I also hope that the Dolphins give Dan something to be happy about come Monday.

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

Fallen at the First Hurdle

15 Friday Jan 2021

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

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

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

Indianapolis Colts

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

Seattle Seahawks

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

Washington Football Team

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

Tennessee Titans

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

Chicago Bears

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

Pittsburgh Steelers

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

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

2020 Wildcard Saturday

09 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Playoffs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2020 Week Fifteen Picks

20 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition

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I would love to think that I am getting into Dan’s head having gone three out of three so far in week fifteen and picked up two points on him already, but despite his text this morning I am keenly aware that this still only cut his lead to under double digits and there are plenty of opportunities to fall further back.

Still, it is nice to be perfect so far so let’s take a look at the rest of the week fifteen games.

Early Games:

There are a couple of games that leap out of the early slate and once again one of the teams involved is the Miami Dolphins. They are hosting the New England Patriots, and this is a fixture that the Pats have had difficulties with for a number of years even when they were still running up double digit wins and making the AFC East their own. The East looks to be going to the Bills this season, but the Dolphins are very much in the hunt for a wildcard slot and I think this divisional game should be the next step in them doing just that, but I also think it should be a tense competitive game.

The Seattle Seahawks have an interesting test this week as they travel across the country to face the Washington Football Team who currently stand atop the NFC East and still have a shot at a winning record. I somehow doubt the Football Team are going to win out, particularly with the Seahawks coming to town this week, but watching the Washington defensive line trying to limit Russell Wilson should be fun and I think Washington could well cover even if I think the Seahawks are more likely to win.

Points from the rest:

  • The Tampa Bay Buccaneers really can’t afford too many more losses even with possession of the sixth wildcard spot as the Cardinals are only a game behind them and with the Vikings and Bears two games back neither are out the hunt yet, although you would fancy the Bucs to hold on. Still, while the Falcons should not prove too difficult an opponent this week, the Bucs have not impressed for a while and hanging on for a wildcard spot was not exactly the aim coming into the season
  • The Chicago Bears finally broke their six-game losing streak against the Texans and looked pretty good doing it. The Minnesota Vikings have improved after a bad start to the season and I do like the Vikings to win at home, but I have a feeling this divisional game will be closer than the line suggests with he Bears actually ranking better by overall DVOA.
  • It’s hard to take too much from the Dallas Cowboys’ win last week as the Bengals are a terrible football team, whilst the 49ers have remained competitive despite numerous injury problems and playing in an NFC West division that has been fearsomely competitive in 2020. I lean towards the 49ers winning this one and the points are not enough for me to pick against them.
  • The Detroit Lions followed up their win over the Bears with a loss to the Packers last week, although it was a reasonable showing. Still, the Tennessee Titans looked very solid against the Jaguars last week and with the league’s thirty-first defense by DVOA and the twenty-sixth ranked rush defense facingthe Titans I don’t expect that the Lions will manage a different result than the Jags.
  • The Indianapolis Colts are a very solid football team, top ten in both defense and special teams by DVOA and have enough good quarterback play through the combination of Philip Rivers’ experience and Jacoby Brissett providing short yardage sneaks and run-options close to the goal line that they should win this game. The Houston Texans are a divisional opponent so the line does worry me, but the Colts are a better team than the Bears so I think the Colts should cover
  • The Jacksonville Jaguars got a bit of a boost from starting Mike Glennon for two games but didn’t get a win and they were beat convincingly by the Titans last week. Meanwhile, the Ravens looked very good last week with Lamar Jackson running the ball effectively and it’s hard to see anything other than a Ravens win, although whether they cover the points is another question.

Buccaneers @ Falcons (+5.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Buccaneers
Dan’s Pick:      Buccaneers

Bears @ Vikings (-3.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Bears
Dan’s Pick:      Vikings

49ers @ Cowboys (+2.5)

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

Lions @ Titans (-9.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Titans
Dan’s Pick:      Titans

Texans @ Colts (-7.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Colts
Dan’s Pick:      Colts

Patriots @ Dolphins (-2.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Dolphins
Dan’s Pick:      Dolphins

Seahawks @ Washington (+5.5)

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

Jaguars @ Ravens (-13.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Ravens
Dan’s Pick:      Ravens

Late Games:

The pick of the late games is clearly the Kansas City Chiefs visiting the New Orleans Saints as this is probably the game of the week. The Saints will welcome the return of Drew Brees after the Taysom Hill experiment ran aground against the Eagles last week. This should be a fascinating contest, but how good Brees can be given his layoff for eleven broken ribs is a reasonable question and there does seem to be something inevitable about opposing quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offence. That said, the Saints defense is second only to the Steelers by DVOA and there are enough questions surrounding the Chiefs defense and performance in recent weeks that they are beatable. It’s just no-one but the Raiders have managed it so far this season.

Points on the Rest:

  • The LA Rams looks to be a better-balanced team this season than the year they went to the Super Bowl and should have no problem beating the New York Jets at home.
  • The Arizona Cardinals got back to winning ways last week, and Kyler Murray looked much more like himself. That said, the Eagles found something in Jalen Hurts and having beaten the Saints last week will be hoping to build on that win. I wonder if the Saints were complacent last week, but this line still seems a bit high to me but we shall see.

Jets @ Rams (-16.5)

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

Eagles @ Cardinals (-6.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Eagles
Dan’s Pick:      Cardinals

Chiefs @ Saints (+3.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Saints
Dan’s Pick:      Chiefs

Sunday Night Football:

Browns @ Giants (+3.5)

The New York Giants lost their first game in five weeks against the Cardinals and the games don’t get any easier this week with the Cleveland Browns coming to town. There is three points between the consensus line and this one so I pretty much have to pick the Browns by default, and I would expect them to win given recent performances. The Giants still have a good defense but they will need their offence to do better if they want to apply pressure to Washington at the top of the NFC East over the final three games.

Gee’s Pick:      Browns
Dan’s Pick:      Browns

Monday Night Football

Steelers @ Bengals (+12.5)

The Steelers have a particularly good record against the Bengals anyway, but I can’t see any hope for a bad Bengals team who will be starting third string quarterback Ryan Finley who has an 0-3 record as a starter. There are genuine issues with a Steelers’ offence that cannot run the ball or stretch the field and a defence that has a cluster of injuries at linebacker but the Bengals are simply not equipped to exploit this.

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

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.

2020 Week Thirteen Picks

06 Sunday Dec 2020

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So after the longest NFL week in history, we start week thirteen on Sunday with the games planned to roll to Tuesday night. I had a winning record in week twelve but Dan extended his lead to a whopping double digits so it would seems hard to predict that I will make a comeback at this point.

Still, I will run through our usual Competition Thursday bits as we prepare for the final week with teams on a bye, and eye up the run-in over the final quarter of the season.

Gee:Week 12:  9 – 7Overall:  83 – 95
Dan:Week 12:  10 – 6Overall:  93 – 85

Survivor Competition

Both Dan and I got back to scoring ways last week, with the Browns having to work a little harder than the Seahawks to get their win, but win both teams did. This leaves Dan a single point ahead of me going into week thirteen. It is getting harder to find teams now, but Dan has found a matchup he likes with the Broncos visiting the Chiefs, whilst I am nervously going to the well of picking against the Jets one more time to take the Raiders, but I don’t exactly feel great about it.

Current Score

Gee: 8
Dan: 9

Week 13 Selection:

Gee:    Raiders
Dan:    Chiefs

Bold Prediction of the Week

My bold prediction on the podcast this week is that the Detroit Lions will bounce back from the Matt Patricia firing and beat a struggling Chicago Bears team. Dan could not see it happening so allowed it, and I’m not exactly totally convinced but it certainly qualifies so let’s see how it goes.

Early Games:

When discussing the slate of games on the podcast Dan was not that excited about it but I found several contests that catch my eye.

I’ll start with the New Orleans Saints taking on the Atlanta Falcons, which I think could be interesting for several reasons. After an 0-5 start that saw head coach Dan Quinn fired, the Falcons have gone 4-2 under Raheem Morris and are coming off the demolition of the Raiders last week. I am particularly intrigued to see what the Falcons defense can do against Sean Payton working with Taysom Hill at quarterback. The Saints stuck to a simplified game plan last week with the Broncos not having a starting quarterback so this week’s divisional game will prove a sterner test. I can’t guarantee it will be competitive, but I have a feeling it will be.

The other game that catches my eye in the early slate is the Cleveland Browns’ visit to the Tennessee Titans. This is a meeting of two 8-3 teams who both like to run the ball a lot. I would give the advantage to the Titans given how they have played recently, and quarterback Ryan Tannehill is playing better than the Browns’ Baker Mayfield. It should be a really physical and competitive game so whilst they are not the biggest names in the NFL these days, they have been having very solid seasons and should put on a good game.

Points from the rest:

  • The Lions will be looking to bounce back from their last two poor performances after the firing of both their head coach and GM, whilst the Bears’ offence continues to struggle and though the defense maintained it’s top five ranking by DVOA, did not look that good last week. I’ve picked the Lions to win as my bold prediction of the week, but to be honest this is a hard game to read.
  • We don’t have word on whether Ryan Fitzpatrick or Tua Tagovailoa is going to start for the Dolphins but it also doesn’t feel to me like it matters that much. The line was too rich for me to back the Dolphins, but I fully expect them to win this one at home against the Bengals
  • The Texans lost receiver Will Fuller and corner Bradley Roby to PED suspensions and cut Kenny Still this week, whilst the Colts have activated Deforest Bucker from the Covid-19 list so whilst I’m curious about how competitive the Texans will be, I think the Colts should win this one
  • This week’s game has suddenly got a lot more important for the Las Vegas Raiders having lost two games in a row. That does make me nervous, but they should beat the Jets because at this point it feels like pretty much everyone should beat the Jets. That’s not to say that everyone will and after their demolition by the Falcons last week I’m not as trusting as the Raiders as I was two weeks ago.
  • The numbers suggest I should pick the Vikings, and I do expect them to win but there was more of a balance to the Jaguars offence last week with journeyman quarterback Mike Glennon starting and I think this could be a closer game than the number suggests.

Saints @ Falcons (+2.5)

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

Lions @ Bears (-3.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Lions
Dan’s Pick:      Bears

Bengals @ Dolphins (-11.5)

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

Browns @ Titans (-5.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Browns
Dan’s Pick:      Titans

Colts @ Texans (+3.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Colts
Dan’s Pick:      Colts

Raiders @ Jets (+8.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Jets
Dan’s Pick:      Raiders

Jaguars @ Vikings (-9.5)

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

Late Games:

The game that leaps out of the late games is the LA Rams coming off a tough loss taking on an Arizona Cardinals team with struggles of their own. The concern for the Rams is the play of Jared Goff, who did not look at all good against the 49ers last week and the usually ultra-positive Sean McVay criticized Goff publicly, although McVay did say he did it because he though Goff could take the challenge. The Cardinals meanwhile come into this game having lost three of their last four games with Kyler Murray nursing an injury and not running the ball as well as he was earlier in the season. This is the first time these two division rivals face off and so I expect a good contest, but I think the Rams are the most likely to win out.

Points on the Rest:

  • The New York Giants need every win they can get with them in the race for the NFC East lead, but with quarterback Daniel Jones injured it will be tough for them to win on the road. The numbers are very clear about the Seahawks being the right pick against the spread, but there’s something about the Giants where I wouldn’t be surprised if they did do something in this game, even if they are starting Colt McCoy at quarterback.
  • The Philadelphia Eagles continue to struggle and so I don’t see anything other than another difficult game for them against the Packers in Green Bay. I would  love to be proved wrong but I’m not sure where you can find hope as an Eagles fan this season and much like I was saying about the Lions earlier in the season, it is beginning to feel like there will inevitably be changes in the off-season in Philadelphia.
  • The LA Chargers have struck gold with rookie quarterback Justin Herbert and with the talent on their roster they should be doing better, but this is genuinely a tough spot for them. Bill Belichick has an excellent record against rookie quarterbacks and the Chargers run defense ranks thirty-first in the league by DVOA, and the Pats are not going to miss the chance to exploit that.

Rams @ Cardinals (+2.5)

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

Giants @ Seahawks (-9.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Seahawks
Dan’s Pick:      Giants

Eagles @ Packers (-8.5)

Gee’s Pick:      Packers
Dan’s Pick:      Packers

Patriots @ Chargers (-1.5)

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

Sunday Night Football:

Broncos @ Chiefs (-13.5)

It has been a touch couple of weeks for the Broncos as having had to play without a recognised quarterback last week thanks to their quarterbacks breaking Covid-19 protocols, they travel to Kansas City to play the Chiefs. The reverse matchup finished 43-16 in week seven and so whilst the Chiefs have won their last three games by close margins, they are still 10-1 and I expect the Chiefs to do well again in this one.

Gee’s Pick:      Chiefs
Dan’s Pick:      Chiefs

Monday Night Football

Washington @ Steelers (-8.5)

We get two Monday night games this week and the first sees the Washington Football Team take on the Pittsburgh Steelers who are coming off a short week having played Wednesday. The Steelers are a good team, but having had an awkward week of preparation and game moves in week twelve, they have a short week to face Washington and whilst I think the Steelers should win, it would not be surprising to see the Football Team make this game more competitive than this line suggests given how they have been playing recently.

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

Bills @ 49ers (+2.5)

The San Francisco 49ers are hosting the Buffalo Bills in Arizona thanks to not being able to train or play at their own facilities. The 49ers beat the Rams last week and starting to get some players back from injury and might have a chance to drag themselves into playoff contention. The Bills beat the Chargers solidly last week having been unlucky to lose to the Cardinals in week ten, but I think this will be a tough game for them and I would not like to predict a winner, but I do like the 49ers getting the points even if home is not actually home this week or for the rest of the season.

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

Tuesday Night Football

Cowboys @ Ravens (-9.5)

The Baltimore Ravens host the Dallas Cowboys on Tuesday night, somehow getting the better end of the schedule this week than the Steelers despite being the cause of their game being postponed until Wednesday. Dan has picked the Ravens depending on the status of Lamar Jackson, but the problems the Ravens are having this season are more than just those caused by Covid-19 last week. The Ravens have lost four of their last five games and the offence has not looked right for the majority of this season. I don’t exactly trust this Cowboys team and particularly as Washington absolutely battered them on Thanksgiving after the Cowyboys had even more problems on the o-line, which leaves me in a conundrum. I think that Dan will likely get to stick with the Ravens as it is thought that Jackson should come off the Covid-19 list by Tuesday, but despite all my concerns about the Cowboys the numbers strongly indicate the Cowboys and given how seldom I have won going against the numbers I’m going to reluctantly back the Cowboys, but I also reserve the right to change my mind nearer the game.

Gee’s Pick:      Cowboys
Dan’s Pick:      Ravens

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 Second Wave Hits the NFL

02 Wednesday Dec 2020

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

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

What I Saw

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

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

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

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

What I Heard

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

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

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

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

What I Think

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

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

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

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

What I Know

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

What I Hope

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

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

Competition Thursday: 2020 Thanksgiving

26 Thursday Nov 2020

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Whilst week eleven was eventful on the pitch, but in terms of the TWF competitions it was a week of maintaining status quos with Dan keeping his nine point advantage in the picks competition and both of us scoring another elimination in our survivor competition.

Still, with games starting early today it is time to start our week twelve picks, minus the Ravens @ Steelers game that has now been moved to Sunday due to Covid-19.

Gee:Week 11:  5 – 9Overall:  74 – 88
Dan:Week 11:  5 – 9Overall:  83 – 79

Texans @ Lions (+2.5)

It somehow feels odd that both the Detroit Lions have won four games and the Houston Texans have won three. I have been pretty harsh on the Lions this season, but I was not expecting them to get shut out last week against the Panthers and I am certainly expecting some kind of reaction. That said, the Texans are coming off their own win against of all opponents the Patriots. Unhelpfully, these teams are ranked right next to each other in overall DVOA as a slightly surprising nineteenth and twentieth. I don’t have a strong lean in this one, and the consensus number suggests picking the Texans, but the points at home in what amounts to the Lions’ yearly Super Bowl party has me nervously grabbing the points. It doesn’t hurt that I have to pick us wins against Dan either.

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

Washington @ Cowboys (-2.5)

The Dallas Cowboys pulled themselves back into the race for the NFC East after they beat the Minnesota Vikings last week. A re-jig of the offensive line and the return of Andy Dalton was enough to dent the Vikings streak of wins as they try to mount their own play-off bid. This makes today’s game against the Washington Football Team even more important and this is another game where I am really not sure where to go. The Football Team are not exactly good, but Alex Smith has given them stability at quarterback, and they have been a tough team to face throughout the season. Their overall ranking by DVOA is actually six places better than the Cowboys, but the consensus line has moved to -3 so this is good value if you like the Cowboys. I don’t like the Cowboys particularly, but I’m not sure I like Washington either and I am wary of bias having watched the Football Team beat the Bengals last week. In short, I want to trust the numbers, but I have conflicting sets of those as well. In the end, there are some trends for both Washington and Cowboys that reluctantly has me going for the Cowboys, but I could feel a real idiot tomorrow as 0-6 or 8-0 runs are probably due to be broken.

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

Survivor Competition

Well, both of use were wrong last week, with misplaced faith in the Patriots and Vikings being Dan and mine’s downfall. Dan has decided this week to back the Browns over the Jaguars, which is pretty hard to argue with, but isn’t an option for me so after considering going against the Jets or picking the Saints, I have settled on the Seahawks taking on the Eagles.

Current Score

Gee: 7
Dan: 8

Week 12 Selection:

Gee:     Seahawks
Dan:    Browns

Bold Prediction of the Week

I really dislike this feature and particularly struggled with it both before and on the pod, as evidenced by the fact that my shock of the week is the Eagles beating the Seahawks despite selecting opposite that in the survivor pool.

I guess at least this way I have emotionally hedged that game….

Grateful for What You can Rely On

25 Wednesday Nov 2020

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It feels like 2020 as a year has emphasised how important it is to be able to rely on different parts of our lives, and I’m sure that those working in the NFL feel no different, so as we approach the US holiday of Thanksgiving it feels more important than ever to think about the things we are grateful for in our lives.

I have been enjoying recording a podcast again, even if we have been a little more sporadic than we would have liked coming into the season, but thankfully the missed weeks were not for any serious reasons. I have had enough of those through the year and as odd as it still is to be missing part of the team I am used to have working on this site, it has been so good to speak to my friend Dan nearly every week, both on the pod and around recording. The dynasty league is also getting to the business end of the season, and the teams’ records are closing nicely to keep things competitive to the end. I’m grateful for a relatively smooth-running league given it is my first season as a commissioner and the disruption that Covid-19 threatened early in the season.

What I Saw

The first of the week eleven games saw the Seattle Seahawks tweak some of their game plan as they hosted the Arizona Cardinals in a divisional game, that the Seahawks ultimately won 28-12. Part of the Seahawks plan was to re-balance the offence with the return of running back Carlos Hyde from injury allowing Russell Wilson to make a more reasonable twenty-eight pass attempts as opposed to the fifty he had when these teams faced each other earlier in the season. The Seahawks’ defence also seemed to have a better plan for containing the Cardinals and Kyler Murray, with the Cardinals quarterback only rushing for fifteen yards in this game. I’m not sure that the addition of Carlos Dunlap was the entire answer, but with three QB hits and two sacks it certainly helped, although I suspect it will always be odd for me to watch the long time Bengal play in a number forty-three jersey after his decade in orange and black wearing ninety-six. The NFC West continues to be fearsomely competitive, and I think the Seahawks could well be mounting another run on the play-offs. I’m not panicking about the Cardinals as their destiny is still in their hands, but playing the Rams twice will be the very opposite of facing the NFC East teams still on their schedule.

Moving on to Sunday and the early game I watched was the heart-breaking loss of the Cincinnati Bengals to the Washington Football Team. It was horrible to watch for obvious injury related reasons, but the first half was frustrating as the Bengals generated plenty of yardage but could not score points and so only took a 9-7 lead into half time. It was painfully obvious just how many offensive line problems Joe Burrow was covering up by getting the ball out as the Bengals just couldn’t move the ball without him. My resolve to watch every snap is going to be tested over the next six games as I’m really not sure what there is to be taken from these games, and I am not at all convinced by this coaching staff. As for the Football Team, they did what they needed to win in the second half, and it is still a source of joy to see Alex Smith back on the field. I really don’t want to call who will emerge from the NFC East to host a play-off game, but you cannot count anyone out of it now all four teams have three wins, so it seems there could be many twists and turns to come.

The last Sunday game I watched was the Las Vegas Raiders hosting the Kansas City Chiefs, who went into the game coming of their bye, a situation that Andy Reid’s teams were 18-3 in before Sunday and now stand at 19-3. It was a back and forth game with the Raiders all the way through, but Patrick Mahomes is just behind the tax man and death for inevitability, and led the Chiefs to their final touchdown score with a pass to Travis Kelce to put the game away 35-31 with twenty-seconds on the clock. This drive followed on from Derek Carr giving the Raiders the lead a little over a minute earlier with his own touchdown drive that ended with a pass to a tight-end. The Raiders are a serious team this season, whose defence has risen to the lofty heights of a twenty-fourth ranking by DVOA, and whilst it still looks like the Cheifs and the Steelers are the best of the AFC if not the NFL, I am sure no one would look forward to facing the Raiders with the way they are playing at the moment.

The final game I saw was the Monday night contest between the LA Rams visiting the Tampa Bay Buccaneer, which was another back an forth game that saw both teams trade score, but the Bucs only took the lead once and were eventually defeated 27-24. This game did not go how I was expecting, and as much as Tom Brady struggled again and threw a couple of bad interceptions, it was the fact that the Buccaneers could not disrupt Jared Goff and the Rams offence even with veteran left tackle Andrew Whitworth missing through injury. A couple of weeks ago it felt like the Buccaneers were shaping into one of the best teams in the NFL, but they seem to have fallen back in the last few weeks. This dip does seem to coincide with the signing of Antonio Brown but it might not be that, and those of us outside the franchise can’t truly know. I am still inclined to think this is the growing pains of a team still assimilating a lot of new players without a proper off-season programme, but they are running out of weeks to get everyone on the same page ahead of the play-offs. There should still be time, but I do not feel as confident that they will pull this off as I did only a couple of weeks ago. The Rams meanwhile continue to compete and whilst there are going to be questions regarding Jared Goff in the big game until he repeatedly proves people wrong, he still does enough to win more often than not and has already played in one Super Bowl for Rams. I am not sure he can live up to his contract, but I think the criticism of him often goes too far the other way and I expect the Rams to be there or there abouts come the sharp end of the season.

What I Heard

There has been a lot of talk about the Joe Burrow injury, with lots of people pointing out how often he had been hit this season and everyone agreeing what a blow it was. As a fan the tweet is still pretty heart breaking, even with the positive attitude:

I’ve heard positive things from medical commentators that he should come back as good next season, and I just hope the Bengals have an improved situation for him to work with.

Still, hearing Alex Smith on Peter King’s podcast was an even greater comeback and as much as the loss was painful, there’s not another quarterback I’d rather lose to than Smith after all he went through to get back on the field.

It’s a timely reminder of the lengths these highly talented athletes go through to have a career and the risks they are taking even before you take Covid-19 into account.

What I Think

The fates appear to have been listening to Dan and mine’s conversation on Tuesday regarding Covid-19 and the NFL’s commitment to getting the season done as demonstrated by its upping of all teams to the intensive protocol. We mentioned the Raiders issues last week that still saw them play the Chiefs this Sunday, and mentioned that the Ravens were already operating virtually after some positive tests.

In a move that I think Dan is taking as a deliberate pre-empting of the podcast release tomorrow, the Baltimore Ravens game against the Steelers in Pittsburgh has been put back to Sunday. In the context of how the protocols are running it makes perfect sense as this gives the Ravens enough days that they can get five clear days of tests for those close contacts to the positive tests, and as long they don’t get an escalating situation that we’ve not seen since the Titans outbreak earlier in the season, then it seems likely the game will take place on Sunday.

I really wasn’t sure when the season started whether that the NFL was going to get to the end of the season, and I certainly expected them to have to run late, but in fairness the league and franchises (including all players and staff) are currently on schedule with no lost of games yet, and there are contingencies if the worsening situation should affect teams and the schedule more dramatically. The real world test of all of this is continuing to escalate, but on then league’s own terms it is a case of so far so good.

What I Know

If the trues wisdom is knowing that you know nothing, then the 2020 season has been a very apt demonstration of it.

I feel like you can trust perhaps two and a half teams to win regularly at the moment, and then there is a large number of teams that win or lose games when you are least expecting it. Let’s not even start on the mess that is the NFC East where all four teams have a riotous three wins and a shot at the play-offs.

There’s always a large element of randomness in the short NFL season, but that has never been clearer than in this Covid affected season with its absence of proper off-season, expanded practice squads,  more relaxed IR rules, and varying Covid-19 protocols. All that said, whoever does eventually win the Super Bowl, if and when it has been played, will have truly earned a championship.

What I Hope

This week I hope to be proved wrong, and that the Bengals give us something to enjoy. I’ll take Bandon Allen starting and helping this team develop in Burrow’s absence.

Of course I will be hoping for a full and swift recovery for Burrow as well, but I can’t write that every in post from now until next season so let’s just take it as read.

Get well Joe.

As for the rest of you, look at the things you are grateful and tell the people responsible thank you. I think we could all stand to hear that at the moment.

Competition Thursday: 2020 Week Nine

05 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition, Thursday Night Football

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It’s been a weird couple of days, and throw in the first site visit for work in months and my writing time has simply disappeared. The major news appears to still be Covid-19 with the 49ers having to close their facilities and the Packers missing multiple running backs through injury/Covid-19, but tonight’s game is still going ahead. So, as the NFL is waiting for no-one this season I guess I had better get on with Competition Thursday for week nine!

Gee:Week 8:  8 –6Overall:  57 – 63
Dan:Week 8:  7 – 7Overall:  63 – 57

Packers @ 49ers (+2.5)

This is a bit of a cheat line for us, as with the injuries and disruption to the 49ers preparation with their facility closed due to positive Covud tests the consensus line I am seeing is already up to +7 so whilst it’s always possible that the 49ers could spring a surprise, when you add both one of the best tight ends in the game in George Kittle and starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to the already extensive 49ers’ injury list it seems unlikely. I’m a little nervous about the Packers run defence going against a Kyle Shanahan co-ordinated offence but the Packers, whilst having their own injury/Covid-19 cluster at running back, have Aaron Rodgers and only need to win by a field goal to cover this line and I like that option.

Gee’s Pick:     Packers
Dan’s Pick:     Packers

Survivor Competition

Well, Dan changed his plan last week and took the Buccaneers against the Giants and won, whilst I had my third eliminating pick when the Packers had a dud against the Vikings and mainly Dalvin Cook (which in turn makes me marginally more worried about my pick above). This gives Dan a point lead as we go into week nine and Dan has gone for the Packers tonight as he doubles up on tonight’s game. I’m taking a leaf out of his book and I’m going for the Patriots at the Jets, which might be a slightly risky pick but hopefully will pay off in the long run.

Current Score

Gee: 5
Dan: 6

Week 9 Selection:

Gee:    Patriots
Dan:    Packers

Bold Prediction of the Week

I once again made two bold predictions this week, which as much anything is because I’m struggling to find them and am never sure that Dan will allow them but for week nine they are:

  1. The New York Giants will beat the Washington Football Team.
  2. The Jets will score more points against the Patriots than the Cowboys will against the Steelers.

If I manage another 50/50 week I will be very happy.