A Cynic’s Reaction to the Draft

02 Thursday May 2019

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

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Alexander Mattison, Andre Dillard, Andrew Whitworth, Andy Dalton, Baltimore Ravens, Cedric Ogbuehi, Cincinnati Bengals, Dan's Dad, Daniel Jones, Denver Broncos, Devin Bush, Drew Lock, Dwayne Haskins, Garett Bradbury, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Irv Smith Jr, Jake Fisher, John Elway, Jonah Williams, Josh Rosen, Miami Dolphins, Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants, NFL, NFL Draft, Ozzie Newsome, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Rick Spielman, Ryan Finley, Ryan Shazier, Saquon Barkley, Tytus Howard, Washington

I don’t think that you can know how good a team’s draft was until at least three years after the players were picked, and even then the process can be logical and the players don’t work out for injury or various other reasons. Not to mention that as someone who listens to draft podcasts but doesn’t actually watch college games I don’t have strong opinions on individual players.

I would suggest one of the reasons the Bengals have failed to make the playoffs the last three years is that the first four pick from the 2015 draft are not on the roster right now. You are never going to have every pick working out, but the combination of missing on the two offensive tackles selected in the first and second rounds in 2015 and letting Andrew Whitworth go undermined the offence because Andy Dalton is a quarterback who needs a clean pocket to operate and neither of Cedric Ogbuehi or Jake Fisher played well enough at tackle. I don’t generally believe that there are simple solutions to complex questions, but this is pretty clearly the start of the Bengals’ problems on offence. At least two of the last three seasons were also derailed by cluster injuries and that can happen to any team, but getting the depth of roster right is part of being a winning franchise and there are plenty of teams who are competitive nearly every year.

So, whilst I don’t think we can know which teams have drafted well last week, I can take a look at the moves I liked and what I have questions about.

I will start with the three franchises supported by the TWF team, although not my Bengals for once.

I am increasingly impressed by the Miami Dolphins’ approach this offseason and they sealed this by not reaching for a quarterback in the first round and then acquiring Josh Rosen for only a 2019 second round pick and a fifth round selection next year. This gives the Dolphins a top ten quarterback prospect for minimal draft capital, they only have to pay him $6 million dollars for the rest of his contract, and they have the fifth year team option for a first round draft pick. This gives them outstanding value and even if Rosen doesn’t work out they can draft a quarterback next season in a draft that is supposedly a better one for quarterbacks. The simple fact is that there is a clearly identifiable plan in in Miami, and they are sticking to it. That doesn’t mean it will definitely succeed, but they stand more chance of winning big by resetting and rebuilding than they did on the constant treadmill of not quite being good enough that has been the approach for the last few seasons.

As for the Bengals 2019 draft, the pick of tackle Jonah Williams seems very logical given our roster and quarterback. A lot of draft experts liked the player and enough said he was the best tackle in the draft so I’m pretty happy he will start somewhere along the line this year. There were comments about the Steelers trading up to the tenth pick to grab Devin Bush and hurting us in the process, but the Bengals did pick a linebacker in the third round and that would be the kind of move that I would usually associate with the Bengals given their approach to value and where they typically invest their draft capital. The Bengals have generally been really good at drafting for a number of years (the 2015 draft obviously being an exception) and whilst this never resulted in playoff success there were rarely criticisms of the talent ofnthe roster. The 2015 season is still the one that feels like it got away where Andy Dalton was playing as well as any quarterback in the league before he broke his thumb. I’ll be really interested to see they go under the new regime. I also like the trade up to grab quarterback Ryan Finley in the fourth round as whilst I don’t think there is a pressing need to replace Dalton right now and wasn’t expecting the Bengals to aggressively go after one, Finley has time to develop behind Dalton. The new regime looks to be building competition across their entire roster and this includes the quarterbacks’ room. I think it is a good idea to keep a flow of young quarterbacks into the room as you never know who you might found and these can often be traded away towards the end of their contract if they are not challenging your starters. Just look at how many quarterbacks developed behind Tom Brady that the Patriots have later traded away for picks and who have also helped them win games.

The Minnesota Vikings’ offseason has not created a lot of news in the corners of the NFL media I follow, and nor has their draft despite them selecting twelve players. I am not at all surprised that with their first four picks they addressed concerns on offence by picking a centre, guard, tight-end and running back. I will late Dan’s dad take it from here as he’s been following the Vikings’ offseason more closely than I have:

‘While I accept the excitement that the bringing in of new faces has for the fans I will admit to never totally understanding the process. I know that last year’s position determines where a team sits in the pecking order for the draft but allowing teams to trade up and down almost makes a mockery of the event. I’m sure some of you understand it better than I but to me it’s like explaining cricket to a French exchange student, or an American for that matter.

What I do understand are numbers and the comments of the GMs explaining their strategy. For example I understand that there was a record of 40 draft day trades across the league this year and the Vikings GM Rick Spielman was involved in 6 over the 2 days.

What did strike me though from looking at the names the Vikes went for is that firstly there were no marquee names, often there is hype around one or more names which cause a stir in their selections. Secondly the balance of positions throughout the team suggests a considered approach looking for general strengthening rather than a quick fix. Indeed ‘quick’ isn’t really the aim, it takes time to bring new blood into any team especially in the NFL when everyone has and works to very specific roles.

This year then, for me the big ticket item is Boise State running back Alexander Mattison. Only a 3rd round pick but Spielman’s patience was rewarded, managing to land N.C. State centre Garrett Bradbury in round one and Alabama tight-end Irv Smith Jr in second were on the list and fortune left them both available in what can become a lottery.

Trying to absorb all the changes it does seem clear that the selections have, as should always be the case, been ones which will ‘fit’ alongside what is already there. To me that is a huge positive. In a season long grind you don’t need ‘show ponies’ when well drilled and safe hands are what’s needed. Mike Zimmer is a builder of teams and scouting will have found the best targets. That said getting them from your wish list and through the draft takes luck and I think this year luck has been on the Vikings side.

Time will tell but for now it’s encouraging!’

I think that’s a pretty full summary but did want to pick up on a thing Dan’s Dad mentioned about augmenting your roster with the draft. Although I think that a team should look to build through the draft rather than relying on free-agency, I do think it is important to go into the draft with no glaring needs on your roster. You can have priorities but where I think teams get into trouble is reaching for a player that solves a problem rather than picking the best player available. It can be dangerous to go after a star free agent but you can still augment your roster carefully so come the draft you get what your players is available and sure, if you have comparably rated players and one is a weaker position you would take that player but it is dangerous to reach, and it looks like the Houston Texans did just that after the Eagles traded up above them to take Andre Dillard. Now, the tackle the Texans took could work out and I really hop Tytus Howard does work for them as I generally want teams to be successful but it does feel like the Texans just went down their list of tackles rather than their overall list.

If balancing your roster and picking best player available is my key concept going into the draft, then I would generally prefer a team to trade down rather than up, although this gets more flexible the deeper into the draft you go. I think the only player you should really move up for in the first round is a franchise quarterback unless there is a player deep in the first round that you think is worth coming back up for to get the fifth year option. That said, I didn’t mind the Pittsburgh Steelers’ moving up to ten to take linebacker Devin Bush as their defence has just not been the same since Ryan Shazier suffered his horrible injury and this should give them a real boost. I also understand why the New Orleans Saints have been so aggressive in trading picks to get the right players as they are trying to maximise their chances of getting Drew Brees another ring before he retires and they have to carry out a longer term reset.

I liked the Colts moving down to acquire more players as their rebuild continues to progress and I get the feeling they could be really competitive next year. I’ve not been a fan of Washington approach to the offseason in recent years but they have to be pretty happy that quarterback Dwayne Haskins fell to them at fifteen. It looks like the Baltimore Ravens didn’t miss a beat in their first post Ozzie Newsome draft and I suspect the AFC North is going to very competitive this season.

The Denver Broncos did well to move down and pick up and extra second round pick yet still get quarterback Drew Lock in the second round. The worry will be that apart from Peyton Manning so far John Elway has failed to find a franchise player at the position he himself was so good at. There’s time for Lock to develop behind Joe Flacco who the Broncos traded for in the off-season, but Elway really needs one of them to work out soon or questions really might be asked by ownership about if Elway can get them another Super Bowl.

However, if there is one team where ownership should be asking questions it is the New York Giants given that a year after refusing to listen to offers and picking Saquon Barkley with the second pick they ignored the order of most draft grading and picked Duke quarterback Daniel Jones. If he works out and plays better than Sam Darnold then David Gettleman can prove his doubters wrong to a degree, but Jones would likely would have been available at pick seventeen, which they got for trading away Odell Beckham and who did they get with the seventeenth pick? A run stuffing defensive tackle to replace the one they traded away during last season which hardly seems to be a good return for one of the most dynamic receivers in the game. As I say Gettleman could prove his doubters wrong but I don’t like the way he’s gone about this and the aim isn’t to pick a quarterback that does better than the one he had last season, it’s to win a Super Bowl and that feels a long way away for the Giants as currently constructed.

Still, the only way to tell for sure is to wait three years and see how things pan out so lets sit back and wait out what is the quietest bit of the NFL year, but it’s the beginning of May so before you know it we’ll be starting training camps and gearing up for the one hundredth NFL season.

The Season of Hope is a Con but Enjoy the Draft Anyway

24 Wednesday Apr 2019

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

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AFC North, Antonio Brown, Baltimore Ravens, Bill Belichick, Bob Quinn, Brian Flores, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, CJ Mosely, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Earl Thomas, Kansas City Chiefs, Khalil Mack, Landon Collins, Matt Patricia, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, New York Giants, New York Jets, NFL, NFL Draft, Nick Foles, Oakland Raiders, Odell Beckham, Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl, Trenton Brown, Trey Flowers, Tyrann Mathieu, Washington

We are days away from the NFL draft and with so much having gone on already I shall be taking a particularly personal swing through the offseason with no intention of preparing you for the draft, but I’ll come to that in a bit.

This season I’m going to mix things up a little and so in season I’m going to be moving the newsletter format into my regular Wednesday posts and try writing only one thing a day to make life easier on myself.

This is a little taste of what I’m planning.

I will email that out as a newsletter with modifications for those subscribed so do sign-up at here as there will be bonus bits, just not a whole second post!

So without further preamble let us get to the off-season so far, or the season of hope as I tend to call it.

What I Saw

There has been a swirl of news over the offseason and team activities have already started for the teams with new coaches, whilst there were plenty of free-agency moves.

Some of the things that caught my eye include:

The New York Giants trading Odell Beckham to the Cleveland Browns, who have very much won the off-season and are already being tipped to be the team to beat in the AFC North this year with the various talent they have acquired in recent years and this off-season.
Antonio Brown got his wish and was traded to the Oakland Raiders by the Pittsburgh Steelers, which is somewhat at odds with the Raiders apparent drive to acquire youth and draft picks.
The Raiders also handed out a four-year contact with $36.25 million guaranteed at signing to left tackle Trenton Brown after his year-long stint with the Patriots and their famed O-line coach Dante Scarnecchia. It is a very typical Patriots move to let another team overpay one of their players and I wonder how Brown will play outside of the Patriots structure as I’ve not heard him mentioned as the kind of player who should have the biggest on-signing contract guarantees for a left tackle in the league.
The three 2019 free-agent contracts with the largest guarantees at signing are:
Nick Foles – who signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars to give them a quarterback who presents a credible passing threat as he reunites with the Jags’ new offensive co-ordinator John DeFilippo
CJ Mosely – who bucked the trend of inside line backers being devalued by getting a contract that guarantees him over $40 million from the New York Jets who have cap space to use whilst having a quarterback on rookie contract.

Trey Flowers – whilst the Lions are trying to become the Detroit Patriots under ex-Patriots Matt Patricia and GM Bob Quinn, they made the distinctly un-Patriots like move of paying top dollar for a pass rusher as they try to build their own version of the New England culture. The problem could be that you can’t just recreate Bill Belichick as several of his coaches have demonstrated in the past. I am curious to see how things develop for the Lions this second season of the new regime. Not many coaches get the old fashioned three seasons to turn things around; although I’m not sure that’s always a good thing.
It should surprise no one that the top five guaranteed at signing contracts all belong to quarterbacks. Now that Russell Wilson has signed an extension last week he becomes the player with the highest average salary in the league right now, which will last right up until the next franchise quarterback signs their new deal.
In case you were interested, the contract with the sixth largest guarantee at signing was the one that Khalil Mack signed last season after being traded to the Chicago Bears.
After the market was slow for safeties last season, we saw three 2019 free-agent safeties sign contracts that put them in the top ten for guaranteed money at signing this off-season.Earl Thomas – I like the individual signing for the Baltimore Ravens, but there has been so much turnover on defence that I’m not sure how good they will actually be. Certainly we have seen the effect not having Thomas has had on the Seahawks’ defence in previous seasons, he has amazing range and his broken leg shouldn’t be a hindrance but only time will tell. I’d quite like the other AFC North teams to stop acquiring big name talent though…
Landon Collins – there was an implication from some that Collins picked up a huge contract because he was a big Washington fan, but they will be hoping he can recreate his form of 2017 rather than last year, although at twenty-five he is a good age to be signing such a big contract.

Tyrann Mathieu – signs with the Kansas City Chiefs as they overhaul their defence. He will give them a flexible near the line player but doesn’t solve the lack of pass rushers on the roster after the Chiefs let go or trades their outside line-backers. As the Chiefs transition to a 4-3 defensive scheme we will have to see how much support they can give an impressive offence that almost has to take a step back from last year’s stellar performance since it will be nearly impossible to maintain.
The will still be good and keeping a lot of defensive players and coaches up this Autumn.

What I Heard

Lots of offseason coverage.

There may not be any games to analyse, but NFL coverage has truly gone year round. We hadn’t even played the Super Bowl before teams started announcing new coaches and the game is barely over before we start the new cycles of new coaching staffs, free-agency, and preparation for the draft.

I have followed along in my usual ways, so I can hardly say I’m above paying attention to the season of hope but I am wary of it and if you’ll follow along to the next section I’ll explain why.

What I Think

One of the reasons that the NFL news cycle dominates nearly the entire year in the States is because of one of the strengths of the league. It is curious that for a society so distrustful of social democracy yet alone socialism, that one of the most conservative of American sports is almost actively socialist in how it is managed.

It is a league that features a regulated market place for labour with a salary cap to ensure fair competition, redistribution of wealth via revenue sharing and a young talent acquisition system that favours under-performing franchises by rewarding them with high draft picks.

What all this means is that it is not unusual for a team to jump from first to last in their division and so for all but a handful of franchises their fans can believe they can compete next year or at least be better.

This is why I call the off-season the season of hope.

However, I also think the season of hope is a big con.

The teams who have a strong off-season, particularly the high spenders in free-agency, often struggle when games are being played and it is rare for a team with a high pick to have their fortunes turn around with one player, even if getting the quarterback right can lift an entire city.

However, as much as the draft is a fascinating process, it is part science, part art, and whole dollop of luck. Even the best of franchises can only get so many of their draft picks right.

There’s a reason that only the Patriots have managed sustained success under the current CBA, and even then it is because they build their rosters round a specific profile of player that doesn’t rely on star talent but is built on a foundation of player development, trading down to acquire more picks and constantly churning the bottom of the roster. They also never overpay players and look to move players on a year early rather than a year too late.

I tend to prefer some teams’ approaches over others but that doesn’t guarantee success so by all means enjoy the season of hope, analyse rosters and players but don’t put too much faith in what this all means for the upcoming season.

We don’t know and really can’t tell who did well until games that mean something are being played.

I will mention one more team before I start to wrap up.

The Miami Dolphins are a team who are changing tack after years of being around 8-8 and not quite making the next step. They have shipped out older talent and now have a very young roster. I’m not sure tanking is the right word, more like building for the future, and certainly the coaching staff and players will be trying to win as much as they can. Things may get rough next season but for the first time I see a clear plan by the front office that meshes with the approach of the head coach. We don’t know if first time head coach Brian Flores will be any good, but there is at least an obvious cohesive plan in plan. It now just rests in the execution.

The last time I made such a statement about a franchise it was the Cleveland Browns, but I am also the one warning not to expect too much of them this season.

What I Know

That draft grades are the biggest waste of time ever.

By all means read analysis of the players and individual picks, there are valid opinions on all of that but we won’t know how well a team’s draft went for something like three years.

An A grade from a draft guru in April means nothing.

What I Hope

That the Bengals draft well.

The Disappointed Twenty: NFC Edition

03 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Aaron Rodgers, Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Bill Belichick, Bruce Arians, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, Christian McCaffrey, Dave Gettleman, Detroit Lions, Dirk Koetter, Eli Manning, Green Bay Packers, Jameis Winston, Jason Licht, Jerrick McKinnon, Jim Bob Cooter, Jimmy Garoppolo, John Lynch, Kirk Cousins, Kyle Shanahan, Matt Patricia, Matt Ryan, Mike Zimmer, Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants, NFL, Norv Turner, Rueben Foster, San Francisco 49ers, Saquon Barkley, Steve Keim, Steve Wilks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Washington

Following on from yesterday’s post it is time to say farewell to the NFC half of the disappointed twenty.

Washington

I almost don’t where to being with this team. They had a 6-3 record going into week eleven but no team can survive two quarterbacks breaking their legs and they also lost both starting guards in two separate games as injuries wreaked havoc over their roster and 2018 campaign. However, this is a franchise that has also just fired a huge number of their front office staff whilst the coaching staff have never quite convinced. Meanwhile, fans are attending games in ever fewer numbers and the glory days on the field are now over a generation away. I’m really not sure what to expect this offseason, a team that claims Reuben Foster on waivers three days after a domestic violence arrest are capable of pretty much anything but it’s possible they could compete in NFC East next year yet I could equally see it all going wrong and I certainly have very little confidence in them for the upcoming off-season.

New York Giants

The Giants got themselves a possibly all-time great a running back in this year’s draft, but that didn’t exactly result in a huge turnaround for the team, which is why the pick was questioned back in April. There is still talk of Eli Manning coming back for another year, but whilst he’s a lot better than I would be, he doesn’t look like the player who was part of two Super Bowl wins. Until they truly face up to, and resolve, the quarterback situation for the future then I think there is a pretty severe limitation to what this franchise can achieve. They also have other areas of the roster to address and are not exactly flushed with cap-space either but at least GM Dave Gettleman has built a Super Bowl contender before. There were questions about his iteration of the Panthers, but they built around Cam Newton and right now I think the Giants need a quarterback they can build round before they can improve by much. The Giants’ fans will live in interesting times this off-season.

Minnesota Vikings

The Vikings went into the season’s final week needing a win to make it to the playoffs and so they can hope to compete next year, but the window might be closing for a talented team that were hoping that the addition of Kirk Cousins as their quarterback would put them over the top. This very much did not happen, but there were other issues as the offence sputtered this season. The defence may have only slipped a couple of places in DVOA by the end of the year, but you don’t expect a Mike Zimmer defence to ship twenty-seven points to a woeful Bills offence and there were other slip ups. I love Zimmer as a coach, but he has not been able to find an offensive co-ordinator or quarterback to work with long term and this is something the Vikings need to get right this offseason. Cousins isn’t going anywhere with his guaranteed contract and the Vikings have the least amount of cap space available going into next year of the teams who aren’t actually over the cap at the moment i.e. thirtieth in the league. The problem with that is the Vikings’ offensive line is still letting its skill players down and so I have to wonder whether the Vikings will be able to pull something together next season or if they are going to have similar problems again. They are not going to turn into a bad team overnight but I’m not sure how they get the answers they need on offence, which would be a concern if you a fan or attached to the team but I wouldn’t rule them out of improving either. It’s just not as easy to see as for certain other teams and they need to hire the right offensive coordinator and stick by them.

Green Bay Packers

The Packers fired one of the longest tenured coaches in the league this season, having hired a new GM in the offseason and so now we get even more change. On the face of it the Packers job is appealing given the tradition of the Packers and the presence of Aaron Rodgers. However enough people have speculated about Rodgers to make me wonder if there is something about the way he has been handled by the franchise and the stories of his attitude. More concerning is the fact that he is thirty-five, the expectations that come with this job will be huge yet the Packers are in the bottom half of the league for available cap space next season and Green Bay is not exactly a free-agency destination. This is the first season where a healthy enough Aaron Rodgers hasn’t got you into the playoffs, and with the right hires and roster moves I’m sure the Packers can be back in contention next season, but I’m not sure if it is the slam dunk that some might have you believe.

Detroit Lions

The coaching tree of Bill Belichick has not exactly prospered when they have left New England and Matt Partricia had a difficult first season. The offence was hobbled by injury at the skill positions, but long term offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter paid the price and Patricia will now get to hire his own coach to run the offence. However, it would not surprise me if there was very little room for Patricia to manoeuvre going forward as he was hired to take the team on and they went backwards from their 9-7 record of the 2017 season. If Patricia can step away from some of the Belichick inspired behaviours and find his own way then the team could rebound next season, but I would not exactly be surprised if the Lions have another difficult year and then Patricia should be very concerned about his job given how cut throat the world of NFL coaching has got in recent years.

Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons had a difficult season, with injuries up the spine of their defence wrecking their hopes early in the season and they actually battled back pretty well to finish 7-9. It was always going to be a hard job to follow Kyle Shanahan as offensive coordinator, but the offence has never quite been the same since he left and Steve Sarkisian has paid the price this off-season after two years of not quite putting it together. That said they still finished with a top ten offence by DVOA and Matt Ryan is thirty-three so whilst the Falcons window to get a championship has not closed, they need to get the new co-ordinator hire right if they are to make this a blip rather than the start of a downward trend. They also can’t have a defence that ranks thirty-first in the league by DVOA, but getting players back from injury and a good draft should solve that, but they really need their offence to fly again if you’ll forgive me the pun. I couldn’t help myself. Sorry…

Carolina Panthers

This was one of the stranger falls from grace as the Panthers were 6-2 after week nine but then lost seven straight games before closing out with a win against a resting Saints team in week seventeen. Until his shoulder started to bother him the unlikely pairing of Cam Newton and sixty-six year old offensive co-ordinator Norv Turner was paying dividends in their first season together, ably assisted by Christian McCaffrey who totalled nearly two thousand yards of offence this season and might have hit it if Cam Newton had not been sat for the last couple of games. More worrying for this team is that the defence slipped from seventh in the league by DVOA to twenty-second. I’m not entirely sure what the off-season holds given that the Panthers have a new owner with a background in finance and analytics whilst the coaching staff have an avowedly old school feel and the team ranks twenty-eighth in terms of cap space for next season. I think a lot of this will be immaterial if Cam Newton can’t get his shoulder healthy and manage it so he’s healthy for all of next season. I know I like to say we’ll have to wait and see a lot, but with the Panthers I think that is especially true for the next fourteen months or so.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Buccaneers got off to an entertaining start whilst Jameis Winston was suspended, but then things fell apart and head coach Dirk Koetter was let go after a 5-11 season. I’m more surprised that GM Jason Licht is staying and that the Bucs have committed to Winston for next season, but now whoever the new head coach is, he will have to buy into a roster that has threatened but never quite lived up to expectations and make it work. The Bucs are actually twenty-ninth in the league for cap space next year and with a new coach but no questioning of a regime who have failed to have a winning season then I’m not sure I can buy into a turnaround until I can actually see it. For context, the Buccaneers haven’t had a winning season since 2010 or back to back winning seasons since the 1999/2000 seasons. I take no pleasure in this, but I can’t look at this record and the previous four years of Jameis Winston and say yes, the Bucs are going to be fighting for the playoffs next season. As ever, I would be delighted to be proved wrong but I think there is more turbulence to come for this franchise unless they knock this coaching hire out the park.

San Francisco

The 49ers got their first bad piece of injury news in pre-season when running back Jerrick McKinnon, who came across from the Vikings in the off-season, was lost to IR with a knee injury and then quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was lost for the season before the 49ers even made it through a quarter of the season. In fairness the season never really got going and that will be a worry, as will the performance of a defence that couldn’t get out of the twenties by DVOA and a team who were thirtieth in the league overall. You can’t really judge the direction of this franchise by this season but I would imagine that both head coach Kyle Shanahan and GM John Lynch will be feeling a sense of urgency going into this offseason. I don’t think it is time to panic, but they could do with a good offseason and a definitive improvement to solidify their project in San Francisco or they might not get to complete it. The 49ers are at least in the top ten for cap space next season so they have room to manoeuvre and I wouldn’t necessarily bet against Lynch and Shanahan pulling it off but we’ll know a lot more by about week five of next season.

Arizona Cardinals

The first thing I want to say about the Cardinals disaster of a season is given the state of the roster, that GM Steve Keim had a five-week suspension from the team after pleading guilty to an extreme DUI charge in the summer, and that the Cardinals’ defence was top ten at points this season, it feels a little unfair to fire head coach Steve Wilks after one year. The offence had a rookie quarterback for lots of the season and a bad offensive line and there is a lot of work to do with this team. I will be interested to see who they go with for next season and how much room Keim will be given to manoeuvre, although he seemed to work very well with Bruce Arians so has some track record with the franchise. It could take more than one offseason to turn things round again though and clearly this is a franchise who now expect a certain level of success but I wonder if they will be able to achieve the results they expect if they don’t show some patience. There are certainly a number of coaches around the league who have demonstrated that in the right situation it is possible to turn things round quickly, but I’m not convinced that any coach doesn’t deserve more than a year unless there are serious problems in the locker room or behind the scenes and I’m not aware of anything like that in Arizona. This is a situation I’m going to watch closely but I wouldn’t like to predict right now what I think will happen next season.

20 down, 12 to go!

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by TWF Dan in Dan's Thoughts

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Adam Gase, Baltimore Ravens, Carson Wentz, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Derrick Henry, Ezekiel Elliott, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Jarvis Landry, Kiko Alonso, LA Chargers, Miami Dolphins, NFL, Nick Foles, Philadelphia Eagles, Philip Rivers, Playoffs, Rex Ryan, Robert Quinn, Saquon Barkley, Seattle Seahawks, Stephen Ross, Vontaze Burfict, Washington

This is my first blog post since Christmas, and my first of 2019, so I hope you had a great festive period. It’s back to reality now though, and the work really begins for the 8 teams left in the running for the Vince Lombardi trophy.

I don’t want to dwell on it too much as I want to spend the majority of this post looking at the ‘Wildcard 8′ but I feel I must mention – the Dolphins were woeful in the last 2 games of the season, and it’s ended up costing Adam Gase his job. To me, it’s not really a surprise if I’m being perfectly honest. He was even more Average than Average Andy in Cincinnati – going into Week 16, his record was 23-23 as Dolphins head coach, and with owner Stephen Ross’ ambitious expectations for his team, that doesn’t really cut it unfortunately. That being said, I can’t see him being out of a job for long as he’s known as being fairly highly regarded amongst a number of teams, especially the Browns, who are also on the look out for a new coach. I wonder how popular that would be with Jarvis Landry…?! The problem the Dolphins have now is who might come in to replace him – news I’ve heard has Rex Ryan going around telling everyone who will listen that he’s getting the job, which is a bit worrying to me (although I’m not 100% sure how reliable the source of the story was!).

Another final point of note on the ‘Fins before I move on is the annual ‘End of Year Ejections’ from this weeks game. This year, it was Kiko Alonso and Robert Quinn who were ejected in the third quarter for Unsportsmanlike Conduct and Unnecessary Roughness. It’s difficult to defend Kiko on this one; it’s not the first hit like this that he’s made this year, and he’s started to get comparisons to Vontaze Burfict for similar hits. It decimated our defence for the game, but even before that point, we’d established a terrible stat of the most yards allowed in a season in franchise history… not a great record to be breaking.

So, on to the Wildcard 8! There’s four games this weekend for the right to go onto play the Chiefs, Patriots, Rams and Saints in the Divisional round. I’ll go through each of the games and make my predictions…

Saturday kicks off with the Colts visiting the Texans. The Colts snuck through on Sunday night and I’m looking forward to seeing how the Houston rushing game develops. This year, the Colts haven’t allowed a single rusher a 100 yard game – especially impressive considering they’ve faced the likes of Ezekiel Elliott, Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry (twice!). As divisional rivals, they’ve met twice already this year, sharing wins. My pick for this one is the Houston Texans.

Next, we have the Dallas Cowboys hosting the Seattle Seahawks. For me, this is going to be the game of the weekend, and is definitely one I’m looking forward to catching. Both teams finished 10-6, and both are largely here due to a really strong finish, with Dallas winning 7 of their last 8 games, and Seattle winning 6 of their last 7. Dallas are a good team but I just think this might be the end of their road, so I’m picking the Seattle Seahawks.

Moving on to Sunday, the early game is back to the AFC, where the Chargers and Ravens meet. This one’s quite straightforward to me having watched quite a few Chargers games this season and being really impressed – I genuinely think that Philip Rivers is finally going to get another Postseason run, so I’m going to go with the LA Chargers. That being said, I strongly suggest you go back and check out the Ravens/Browns game from Week 17, where the Ravens clinched their post-season visit – really good game with an exciting ending.

Finally we have the Eagles and the Bears who meet late on Sunday. These two teams are, in their own ways, a bit of a surprise. Not many people would have picked the Bears to win the NFC North, especially so convincingly. They’ve done incredibly well this year though, and have gelled brilliantly as a team. On the other hand, while it shouldn’t be surprising that the Eagles are there (given that they’re the defending champions), they really struggled with consistency this year, and if it wasn’t for a strong end to the season, they might have missed out. A lot of this is going to depend on how Nick Foles recovers this week – he’s got sore Ribs following Sunday’s game with the Redskins. With Carson Wentz out, they may struggle if he isn’t at his best. This is the most difficult to call of the weekend I think, but I’ll go for the Chicago Bears.

Only one final thing remains before I wrap up for the week – a quick look at how my bet is looking for the Rams:

And that’ll be that. This time next week, we’ll be down to just 8 teams, and there’ll be only 7 games (plus a pro-bowl, which listeners of the pod will know we don’t count!) left this season. Buckle up – there’s still a lot of football to be played!

Until next time…

@TWFDan

The Changes of the Season

19 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts, Picks Competition

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Baltimore Ravens, Bill Belichick, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, CJ Anderson, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, Hue Jackson, Indianapolis Colts, Jasonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs, LA Chargers, LA Rams, Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings, Mitchell Trubisky, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, NFL, Oakland Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles, Picks Competition, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Tennessee Titans, Todd Gurley, Todd Haley, Tom Brady, Washington

It feels like we are on the edge of change on many fronts, and that is only a partial reference to Brexit. The winter solstice is on Friday and as the days start to get longer again it is all change in the NFL as the playoffs near. We have had our last Thursday night game of the regular season, which will be wrapped up before the new year starts. Closer to home for this blog, with some terrible timing I was ice cold with my picks this weeks dropping to five points behind Dan’s Dad whilst Dan had another double digit total that pulled him to within four points of me. This change of method for Dan is possibly too late to win the whole competition but he could very easily catch me and it certainly feels like the blog will be going purple and gold in the new year. I’m mostly annoyed at myself though as I’m tinkering with a spreadsheet formula for making picks and if I had just listened to that I would have gone 11-5 and things would look very different.

So as the world (and possibly the blog colours) change it also feels like things have shifted in the league. None of this season’s three elite offences have really fired properly in the last couple of weeks. This is probably due to a combination of injuries and maybe some weather but only the New Orleans Saints won this week. The Chiefs at least won the week before but are now level with the late surging LA Chargers in the AFC West with 11-3 records whilst the LA Rams have lost two straight and have just signed free-agent running back CJ Anderson after Todd Gurley picked up a knock against the Eagles.

Speaking of which, don’t look now but through a combination of beating the Rams and the Cowboys getting shut out the Eagles now have an outside shot of making the playoffs, although they have to win out and hope results go their way. It will not be easy to beat the Houston Texans or a Washington team that are somehow not eliminated from the playoffs either thanks to grinding out a win against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

However, I should go back to the best teams for a moment as thanks to their ability to keep grinding out wins despite their offence falling back a bit the Saints are now the only team with twelve wins having prevailed in an entertaining game against the Carolina Panthers who lost another game and maybe should look at siting Cam Newton as he does not look right thanks to his injured shoulder.

More interestingly for a competitive postseason, not only have these three elite teams as I called them come back to the pack a little, but there are other teams who are rounding into form. Okay whoever actually comes out of the NFC East looks to be somewhat flawed, but the Chicago Bears won the NFC North for the first time since 2010 thanks to their win over the Packers and whilst Mitchell Turbisky doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence yet their defence certainly does. The Seattle Seahawks still have a game lead on the other wildcard contenders despite their loss to the 49ers on Sunday and facing them if they get through certainly won’t be easy. I’m withholding judgement on the Minnesota Vikings for another game in case the game against a bad road team isn’t a pre-cursor of things to come, but the offence certainly ran the ball against the Dolphins and if they play more like they could be a horrible game for any team they face.

In the AFC, the Houston Texans should not be underestimated with their 10-6 record but the Indianapolis Colts could give a team a nasty surprise with their combination of good offence and tough enough defence (shutting out any NFL offence is impressive, even though the Cowboys rank a surprising twenty-sixth by DVOA ). No one would fancy facing the Ravens’ mix of strong defence and ability to run the ball should they make it and the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots have enough muscle memory that no one will want to play them, even if there are strange things going on with both franchises. I’m sure that if you told Bill Belichick last week that his defence would limit the Steelers to seventeen points that he would have been happy but in further evidence that things are just not right with the Patriots this year they only scored ten points and actually lost the game. We’ve been here before with Tom Brady and the Patriots and I still maintain that I won’t believe it is over until it is over, but Brady is a forty-one year old quarterback so time has to be running out. That said, no one would be surprised if the Pats made another Super Bowl but it’s very possible they have already cost themselves home field advantage and\or a bye with their last two losses. I still don’t know what to make of the Tennessee Titans, other than that they were clearly offended by my terrible pick at the weekend as not only did they beat the New York Giants in the MetLife Stadium, but pitched a second shutout of the week!

For those of you who support teams like my Bengals who are well and truly out of the playoff races, don’t worry the blog goodbyes will start up following the last the week of the season. However, the Bengals did at least manage to halt their losing streak with a win over the Oakland Raiders. Joining the Bengals in the losing record but won their week fifteen game club were the Buffalo Bills, who have actually gone 3-2 over their last five games and snuck out a win against the Detroit Lions, the aforementioned San Francisco 49ers, and the Cleveland Browns who are already above the Bengals in the AFC North and just imagine what they might have done this season if you look at their record since Hue Jackson and Todd Haley were fired.

We are rapidly approaching the playoffs and I am sad that the Bengals won’t make it, but I’m very much looking forward to what should be some cracking makes. Now, I have to get my newsletter sorted so I can start on my Christmas coaching tape present to myself, namely JJ Watt.

We have to savour the football we have left as it won’t be here for very much longer!

The NFL’s Problem is a Reflection of Society

05 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Cincinnati Bengals, Domestic Violence, Ezekiel Elliott, Greg Hardy, Joe Mixon, Kansas City Chiefs, Kareem Hunt, NFL, Ray Rice, Reuben Foster, San Francisco 49ers, TMZ, Tyreek Hill, Washington

I don’t really want to be writing this post, there were comebacks and playoff changing results over the week thirteen games to discuss, another coach fired, and closer to home the picks competition through thirteen weeks has me level with Dan’s dad, but there’s a bigger topic to discuss.

There are always so many things going on around the league and I didn’t quite get to the San Francisco 49ers cutting Reuben Foster after he was charged on a count of domestic violence, and the subsequent claiming of him off waivers by Washington. This wasn’t so much ducking the issue as the timing of news not quite lining up with when I was sitting down to write. However, on Friday TMZ released a video they had obtained of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Kareem Hunt shoving and kicking a woman in an incident that took place in in a hotel back in February. The Chiefs were aware of the incident but cut Hunt straight away as the video, which they had not been able to obtain, proved that Hunt had lied to them. I don’t know if seeing the reaction to Washington’s claiming of Foster, or the fact that there was video was the deciding factor, but no team put a claim in for Hunt so he cleared waivers and is now a free agent.

Both players are now on the commissioner’s exempt list and we are back to discussing the way the league handles discipline and in particular violence against women.

We have moved on slightly from the two game suspension that was handed to Ray Rice after his domestic violence situation, but the parallels with the Hunt situation are all too clear given that once again it was the media finding the video that triggered a response from the NFL. You can make the argument that it is harder for the NFL to approach the relevant parties and obtain the video through official channels than it is for TMZ to get hold of the video but it is hard to feel sympathy for a league that hadn’t even interviewed Hunt about the incident as part of their investigation. I’m also not sure how much credit the Chiefs should get for their quick action as this is not the only incident that is swirling around Hunt and they still have Tyreek Hill on their roster, who assaulted his pregnant partner whilst at college and was suspended but they drafted him anyway.

Even when there is video of an assault that doesn’t seem to always provoke a reaction from a team or the league. The punishment for Joe Mixon, who punched a woman in a coffee shop after an altercation that left her with multiple facial fractures having hit a table as she fell, was to not be invited to the draft combine and the Bengals saw fit to draft him in the second round…

To me eyes we have an interaction of three factors that contribute to the poor way the NFL handles these situations.

The first factor is an extension of something that permeates the league for all players, which is the greater the talent, the greater the tolerance and teams seem incapable of resisting a talent that could give them a competitive edge on the field except if it directly hurts their profitability. There are multiple players currently playing that have such incidents in the past but there is still no roster spot for Colin Kaepernick after his ghastly crime of peaceful protest. It can only be because Washington were worried about missing out that they put in a claim for Reuben Foster. They can talk all they want about having multiple players on their roster who played with him in college and who could help provide an environment for him to turnaround his life. At the end of the day they were willing to pay thousands of dollars a week to a player who cannot play, train or even attend a game at the moment, in the hope that if he can work his way back onto the field his talent will be worth the bad PR. Washington are not the only team who have run this equation and come to such a decision, although few have been quite so ham fisted in the execution or seemingly surprised by the negative reaction to their move.

The second factor is that it seems that even with a new standard released by the league (without consultation with the players I should add) after the Ray Rice incident that saw Ezekiel Elliott miss six games last season, it still feels like the process is far too arbitrary. Some combination of the teams and the league investigate situations and then something might or might not happen, unless a video appears and then something definitely will. Now carrying out your own investigation is not easy and it takes a long time for police investigations and legal proceedings to be fully resolved. Suspension and placement on something like the commission exempt list is not in of itself a bad idea, but the arbitrary way the NFL seems to handle the investigations and subsequent discipline does not inspire confidence. Nor does the lack of openness in the process, which would help people to understand how decisions have been made. Currently it feels like these decisions are currently made in reaction to media scrutiny rather than the nature of the situation themselves.

Finally, the third factor is that we don’t handle these incidents well as a society. If the recent movements to give greater voice to the victims of domestic or sexual violence have shown us anything, it is not only that such violence and sexual predation is wider spread than many were prepared to admit, but that it is still very hard to get such cases successfully prosecuted. Whether it is the rugby rape trial in Ireland, or the Greg Hardy case where he was found guilty initially but late cleared when the girlfriend who had been choked and thrown on a couch covered in assault rifles couldn’t be contacted to be tried again in front of a jury, it is hard to get justice or establish what happened.

If the legal system doesn’t seem to be serving victims and results in a confused situation, is it any wonder that sports leagues, setup to govern a sport are failing to adequately deal with it but that doesn’t mean they get a free pass. The NFL could handle this so much better. There is a world of difference between someone being denied the opportunity to make a living and having the right to play a sport for a lot of money. The NFL is already providing some training and resources to players, but they could both be more active in advocating for change and holding their players to a higher standard.

It is all too easy to slip into characterisation of men who commit assault or acts of domestic violence as men out of control. Yes there can be anger issues, sometimes substance abuse, and if these are a result of work environments then teams and the league have a duty of care to their players but the narrative of monsters is damaging because the problem is most commonly men. Most assaults on women are carried out by men they know, not random monsters or strangers but by someone they know. NFL players are people with specific talents but still people, and this is a problem that is not limited to sports stars, it is a reflection of very real problems that are far too prevalent in society. With the resources available to them sports franchises can do more and if you ask why, how about because they have the power to reach directly into the very culture that needs to change? If we are to stop this problem then men need to talk about it, call each other out on attitudes that need to change, and be willing allies in the changing of society. It’s not a simple thing and requires consistent engagement and discussion, but it’s that rather than paying lip service that will change things. Kareem Hunt has been asking for forgiveness and has acknowledged he has done wrong. He can ask for forgiveness, and maybe one day he can earn it, but it should take more than words to deserve it. It’s not something we can forget, and nor should we. Only his actions going forward can rehabilitate him but given his age and talent I suspect that we have not seen the last of him on a football field. I’m not sure if he can earn that chance in my eyes, and certainly the NFL should make damn sure he tries before they let him anywhere near the field, but I don’t know if they will. I’m not sure that doesn’t speak more eloquently about the scale of the problem than anything I have written in this post but I had to try. We all do.

What Happens Next?

28 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Aaron Rodgers, AFC South, Amari Cooper, Andy Dalton, Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Baker Mayfield, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Deshaun Watson, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans, Hue Jackson, Jadeveon Clowney, Jeff Driskel, JJ Watt, Kansas City Chiefs, LA Chargers, LA Rams, Marvin Lewis, Miami Dolphins, Mike Brown, Mike McCarthy, Mike Tomlin, Minnesota Vikings, Mitchell Trubisky, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, NFL, Pittsburgh Steelers, Rob Gronkowski, Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Thanksgiving Football, Washington

Things managed to get worse for the Bengals this weekend and I will be writing about that, but I thought I would zip round the league first before letting rip to give those who don’t wish to indulge my reaction to the problems besetting the orange and black something to read.

There weren’t as many as in the previous week, but the NFL still managed to have four games separated by a field goal and a couple of upsets.

I’m going to start with a game I didn’t see, but on Monday night the Houston Texans won their eighth straight game to remain two games clear at the top of the AFC South. I suspect they are possibly the division leader I have written about the least this season and I will need to watch them again soon to get a better idea of what the transformation looks like. The obvious thing might be to take a look at their top five defence by DVOA that has JJ Watt and Jadeveon Clowney fit and combining for eighteen and a half sacks, but they are also getting enough out of an offence ranked twenty-first by DVOA to win and with them finding a way to run the ball and win with Deshaun Watson back at quarterback that side of the ball might be the more interesting study. Still, they have definitely established themselves as team worthy of more attention and I hope this paragraph doesn’t jinx them!

The Pittsburgh Steelers had a somewhat less successful weekend, losing on the road to the Denver Broncos. It feels like at least once a season the Steelers lose a game on the road they shouldn’t and as much as I admire what Mike Tomlin achieves in Pittsburgh this could once again lose them a shot of a playoff bye and home advantage later in the playoffs. They have a big game next week against the LA Chargers who got themselves back on track with a big win over the Arizona Cardinals and this meeting of AFC teams looks like it will be one of the highlights of the week thirteen.

With the Rams and Chiefs on their bye week, the New Orleans Saints were the only one of the top tier teams (according to me) in action in week twelve and ran out convincing winners in the evening Thanksgiving game against the Atlanta Falcon who will have to regroup in the offseason having been broken by injury. The New England Patriots got a healthy enough to win over the New York Jets but even though Rob Gronkowski returned to the field, he does not seem to be the same dominant tight end of previous years. Of their five remaining opponents the Patriots only have to face two with winning records and I will be very interested to see how they do hosting the Vikings next week and when they travel to Pittsburgh in week fifteen. I should also mention that the Patriots are yet to play the Dolphins in Miami where the Pats have lost in four out of the last five visits.

The Chicago Bears beat the Detroit Lions comfortably despite not being able to start Mitchell Trubisky and that leaves us with the NFC East as the only division that I haven’t discussed the division leaders. With Washington falling to the Cowboys on Thanksgiving and the Eagles scraping a win over the New York Giants on Sunday things remain tight in the east. The Cowboys have managed to get themselves equal to Washington but have the daunting task of hosting the Saints this Thursday night, whilst Washington and Philadelphia have the first of their two games against each other this weekend. Given the injuries to both Washington and Philadelphia most people seem to think the momentum is with the Cowboys right now and it certainly seems like the contest is going to go down to the wire in terms of winning the division. It is also worth noting that whilst the arguments about value are still valid, the Cowboys trade for Amari Cooper does appear to be making a difference and his breakaway touchdowns was pretty much the difference between them and Washington on Thursday.

This is your two game warning before I dig into the mess that is the Bengals right now.

The two games on Sunday I enjoyed watching were the Seattle Seahawks winning out over the Carolina Panthers despite the Panthers gaining well over double the amount of yards on the ground and seemingly moving the ball with more ease. However, costly failures in the red zone and some interesting decisions to go for it on fourth down led the Panthers to their third straight loss. I don’t know if a division game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is the right situation to try to turn things round, but they really need to get a win thus week if they want to stay in the race for a wildcard place.

Finally, whilst looking good for stretches of the Packers’ game against the Minnesota Vikings, it appears that Aaron Rodgers might be mortal after all. I would suggest the problem is more that the offence he has been given doesn’t seem to have evolved under Mike McCarthy in recent years despite the developments round the league, but after a good start that saw the Packers go 14-7 up at the start of the second quarter, they failed to score again until near the end of the fourth quarter and ultimately fell 17-24. At 4-6-1 the playoffs are not completely out of reach but they would have to run the table and hope to get lucky. The big sticking point in the final five games that jumps out on the schedule is their visit to Chicago in week fifteen, especially as the Packers have gone 0-6 on the road.

Okay, so here we go. Final warning.

So the Bengals season is hanging by a thread and only the most optimistic of super fans can even contemplate things turning around. Not only did the Bengals lose the battle of Ohio to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, but they lost Andy Dalton to thumb injury for the rest of the season. Now as it happens Jeff Driskell is pretty good as backup quarterbacks go and it’s not as if the Bengals were competing for the Super Bowl, but there are real problems with this team which stretch further than the injury list. The offence still ranks sixteenth despite the injuries that have hampered this side of the ball but the defence have been woeful all season. The Bengals have already fired one defensive co-ordinator and there are now questions yet again about whether it is time for Marvin Lewis to step aside. Now I do think it is time for this to happen, in fact it might have been time a couple of seasons ago but I understand the reluctance to do so and it does make me nervous. Marvin Lewis took a perennially underachieving team and made them respectable, frequently one of the most talented rosters in the league who went to the playoffs five seasons in a row between 2011-15 but this looks to be the third season that the Bengals miss out and something has to change. However, as much I would like to see an inventive offensive minded coach take over the franchise as that seems to be what is required to win with the current set of rules, replacing Lewis worries me because of the tendency for Mike Brown to hire people he knows and the rumours that Hue Jackson is a potential candidate that surfaced over the weekend.

Yes Hue Jackson, who has a 11-44-1 overall record and who just went 3-36-1 with the Cleveland Browns. Now I’m not necessarily saying he’s a bad coach, he did great things with the Bengals’ offence as a coordinator before he left for Cleveland, but I’ve seen nothing that makes me think that as a head coach he could turn things round. Look at how the Browns have been doing in recent weeks. Not to mention the shots that Baker Mayfield has been taking both on the field and after the game in the press. There is still a lot of talent on this roster, and it might just need a new voice to turn things round or it could need more of a re-build but who knows if the Bengals infrastructure above the head coach can facilitate such efforts. I have no idea what happens next and that’s what makes me nervous. So much of an NFL franchise’s success lies in getting the behind the scenes right to get the right coach with the roster at the right moment, and yes with the right quarterback. It appears that as Bengals fans, we live in interesting times….

Anyway, I shall leave you with a comment from Dan as we were discussing quarterbacks after his misguided shot at the red rifle yesterday.

The NFL Spectacle

21 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Aaron Donald, Aaron Rodgers, Alex Smith, Alvin Kamara, Andrew Luck, Baltimore Ravens, Blake Bortles, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, Clock Management, Colt McCoy, Dallas Cowboys, Deshaun Watson, Detroit Lions, Ezekiel Elliott, Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Joe Theismann, Kansas City Chiefs, Kareem Hunt, LA Rams, Lamar Jackson, Leonard Fournette, Minnesota Vikings, Mitchell Trubisky, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, NFL, Patrick Mahomes, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans, Todd Gurley, Washington

The NFL got what it wanted on Monday night with a spectacular game that lived up to the hype. With a game that ends 51-54 you can understand all the talk being of the Rams win and the offences involved (to be fair there was over a thousand yards), but there are a couple of other things I wanted to mention from this game. Firstly, for all the talk of the yards gained and quarterbacks, perhaps the best player on the field Monday was Aaron Donald got two sack fumbles and caused enough pressure with his teammates that Patrick Mahomes threw three interceptions and fumbled the ball away twice. In fact, if I was the Chiefs I would not be overly worried by this loss as despite five turnovers and one hundred and thirty-five yards of penalties they only lost by a field goal. On a neutral field they will still fancy their chances but both teams could do with learning the lessons of the late game as they each manufactured chunk gains and neither seemed to worry about running out the clock and this could very well have lost either team the game. I’m not advocating for the old fashioned three yards and a cloud of dust runs, but a little manipulation of the clock could have definitely given one team an advantage.

So if Monday was a feast of offence that also featured multiple defensive touchdowns, the rest of the week showed that as much as anything, competitive games is what drives interest in the NFL. In fact the winning margin for eleven out of the thirteen week eleven games was five points or closer.

Other notable achievements included Lamar Jackson carrying the ball twenty-seven (yes 27) times against the Cincinnati Bengals in the Ravens’ 24-21 win. A double blow as the Ravens managed to beat the Bengals but not quite by enough for me to get my pick right. The Ravens only had Jackson throw nineteen times and the number of carries he had cannot be sustainable, but I will be interested to see how they develop the offence for him over the next few weeks. I do wonder how much of this game plan was about attacking the Bengals’ porous run defence and their inexperienced linebackers. The injury situation doesn’t look to be turning round quickly for the Bengals, but they were at least competitive in this game and if they can get AJ Green back they could have some success in a schedule that looks like it might lighten up a little in the coming weeks even if there are still visits to Pittsburgh and the LA Chargers left.

I picked the Colts to win but did not expect them to blow out the Tennessee Titans 38-10 and having heard Robert Mays wax lyrical about their offence and what they have done for Andrew Luck this season I will be taking a look at that for my coaching tape study this week. The other blow out this week was the New Orleans Saints rolling over the Philadelphia Eagles whose injury problems at corner as reached critical in terms of numbers, but the worst injury news is Washington’s who lost Alex Smith who broke both bones in his right leg in thirty-three years to the day since Joe Theismann had the same injury. With the advances in training and medicine it likely won’t be the career ender that it was for Theismann but Washington’s hopes for the season now rest on Colt McCoy. The Houston Texans managed to win out in this game though to maintain their two game lead on the Colts and Titans whilst stretching their win streak to seven.

The Pittsburgh Steelers got their revenge win in Jacksonville against a Jaguars team who have not got the memo about how modern offences should be run. They called a run play forty-one times with Leonard Fournette having twenty-eight carries and not making one hundred yards. Clearly they didn’t want to put the game in Blake Bortles’ hands but they might not of had to if they had selected say Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson who were both available in the 2017 draft when they picked Fournette. This is not a direct comparison of players so much as a comment on taking a running back that early and using them in this old fashioned way. You can still feature a running back, look at Todd Gurley, Alvin Kamara or Kareem Hunt but they need space to work and the days of the workhorse back running up the middle have been well and truly superseded.

A team who are very much running such a modern offence are the Chicago Bears, who are getting enough production from a developing Mitchell Trubisky and a defence that ranks first in the league by DVOA and this got them a big divisional win against the Minnesota Vikings this weekend. However, one of the other NFC team of the tier below the Saints and Rams lost whilst going for two at the end of the game as the Carolina Panthers stumbled against the Detroit Lions. This only furthers my confusion at the Lions’ set of impressive teams beaten, but also asks the question of whether the last games the Panthers have lost is a blip or the start of a trend. As usual, only time will tell but with the Seattle Seahawks getting their win on Thursday night over the Green Bay Packers the Seahawks could still have a shot at the playoffs whilst the Packers have probably lost too many games already unless Aaron Rodgers really is a dragon.

The New York Giants recorded their second straight win, this time over the flailing Tampa Bay Buccaneers who look like they need a new plan in the offseason. It is too late for the Giants to pull themselves into the race for the NFC East even with Washinton’s problems at quarterback, and likely the same for the Eagles but with another win the Dallas Cowboys could get themselves back into the conversation, particularly as they host Washington this Thanksgiving. The Cowboys seem to have worked out how to feature Ezekiele Elliott more on offence and with a defence that I’m surprised is only ranked twenty-first by DVOA but has been good enough, they at least stand a chance of winning their remaining division games and getting themselves into the mix.

The LA Chargers run of only losing to really good teams fell to the Denver Broncos this week, which is the kind of divisional games that can cause such results but they hope this won’t be a return to the getting in their own way Chargers that started last season. The Oakland Raiders however, got their second win of the season against the Arizona Cardinals in a reminder that if you like the points, you should really take the points even if the team have been bad.

The teams at the bottom of the league all seem to be taking games off each other whilst the cream of the NFL really seems to be rising and it seems like the season is slipping away for all three of us at The Wrong Football. There’s still time for one of our teams to build their way into a winning record but I would be surprised if they all did and I’m not sure what it will take for the Bengals to win a playoff game. Maybe it really is the time for a fresh start in Cincinnati, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves as there’s plenty of football left to watch this season and a lot of it has been really good. Let’s hope we can keep this momentum.

Super Saints go Ballistic, Bengals are Atrocious

14 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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Altanta Falcons, Amari Cooper, Andrew Luck, Andy Dalton, Azteca Pitch, Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Chicago Bears, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Ezekiel Elliott, Hue Jackson, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Jeff Driskel, Joe Mixon, Kansas City Chiefs, LA Chargers, LA Rams, Marvin Lewis, Matt Barkley, Matt Cassel, Mexico Game, Minnesota Vikings, Nathan Peterman, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, NFL, Oakland Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, Sean Lee, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans, Teryl Austin, Tom Brady, Tyler Boyd, Washington

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

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

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

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

Can I stop now?

Good.

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

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

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

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

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

The Battle of the Big Guns

07 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by gee4213 in Gee's Thoughts

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#TWFSafeties, Aaron Rodgers, Alvin Kamara, Aqib Talib, Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, Caleb Sturgis, Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Cordarrelle Patterson, Dante Fowler, Denver Broncos, Desmond Harrison, Drew Brees, Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans, Jared Goff, Josh Gordon, Josh Rosen, Kansas City Chiefs, Kicking, LA Chargers, LA Rams, Marcus Peters, Mark Ingram, Michael Badgley, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, NFL, Pittsburgh Steelers, Sony Michel, Special Teams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Todd Gurley, Tom Brady, Washington

I had a serene Sunday with the Bengals on a bye, although I have a creeping dread more worthy of the Halloween that just passed about the upcoming game as the New Orleans Saints are visiting Cincinnati and that bodes ill for the rested but injured Bengals team.

Still, before we get to the future outlook of the team there’s the minor matter of this week’s games to contemplate and the interesting results that occurred.

The obvious place to start would be the pretty amazing run of late games that I think entertained everyone. Although watching back later, I saw two games in sequence before circling back to the best game of the week once the UK Gamepass blackout had cleared. The first of these was the LA Chargers going into Seattle and demonstrating the faith I had placed in them was not misplaced with a relatively comfortable win against the Seahawks. It could have been even more comfortable had Caleb Sturgis not missed two extra points and a field goal, which also resulted in a missed two point conversion attempt by the Chargers trying to get back the original missed extra point back. Unsurprisingly the Chargers have moved on from Sturgis and reinstated Michael Badgley who was also on the roster, but that still means they have had seven kickers in the last three years! At this point surely some question are surely being asked about the special teams evaluation process of the front office as the Chargers have also had four people punt for them during this period.

Moving on from the special teams’ conundrum that is the Chargers, we saw this week’s contender for the best game of the season when the New Orleans Saints hosted the LA Rams and ran out 45-35 winners. The Saints built a big lead only to see the Rams close the gap back to 35 all in the fourth quarter before the Saints extended the lead once more for the win. It was an entertaining game, even if someone like me would have liked to see a little more defence, and that could be the Achilies heel of the Rams. It seemed like Marcus Peters was being picked on in the continuing absence of Aqib Talib who is seen as likely to return from IR in week thirteen. However, whilst the Rams defence has some very high profile names on it, including Dante Fowler who joined the team via trade on deadline day, doesn’t look to have quite gelled yet and are currently ranked only sixteenths by DVOA. The ranking against the run of twenty-fourth by DVOA showed up as Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram did the work on the ground whilst Drew Brees threw for four touchdowns and three hundred and forty-six passing yards. The Rams and Jared Goff were not quiet able to match this efficiency in the air whilst Todd Gurley finished with a modest sixty-eight yards on the ground and now the jockeying at the top of the NFC will get really interesting.

Finally, on Sunday night we had the battle of the 12s as the Green Bay Packers visited the New England Patriots but whilst keeping it relatively close for a lot of the game, the Packers were ultimately done for by the Patriots better consistency. The use of Cordarrelle Patterson as a makeshift running back in this game was effective enough that we might see more of it going forward even when Sony Michel comes back from injury whilst Josh Gordon caught five balls from ten targets to go over one hundred yards for the first time as a Patriot. What this game really showed however, is that so much of a quarterback’s success depends on the infrastructure around them and you get the feeling that there could be a coaching change in the works for Green Bay given the moves the newly installed GM is making.

Other notable things around the league include the Kansas City Chiefs beating the Browns convincingly and the Chiefs have one of the best offensive DVOA ratings ever. Conversely the Buffalo Bills have an historically bad offence, with their offensive DVOA of -53.9% putting them in the bottom ten of offences for the last thirty years. The Chicago Bears beat the Bills to stay atop the NFC North and now have two forty point blowout wins this season. The Carolina Panthers continue their quiet challenge for the playoffs with a big win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to take them to 6-2 whilst the Pittsburgh Steelers managed to do the double over the Ravens to stay atop the AFC North. The wheels came off for Washington when they lost both starting offensive guards to injury against the Atlanta Falcons and got beat badly. This could give Washington real problems going forward although they stay a game clear at the top of the NFC East whilst the Falcons have now won three straight and still have an outside shot of pulling themselves back into playoff contention. Speaking of streaks, the Houston Texans have now won six in a row while the Denver Broncos continue to struggle.

Finally, it is my mission to bring you every safety of the season and whilst we did not have any this week, we had three in week eight that I didn’t bring you because I was rushing off to London. That’s a total of eight so far this season and the 28^th of October was second Sunday in a row where we had three safeties.

The first I’ll mention is a classic of joined up football where an LA Rams’ punt pins the Green Bay Packers up against their goal line and on their first down of the drive running back Aaron Jones gets met in the hole by Mark Barron and stopped for the safety. The second is combination of comedy of errors and situation awareness as on 3^rd & 7 on the eight yard line, the Arizona Cardinals’ Josh Rosen starts in a shotgun formation and drops back to pass into the end zone, and whilst getting tackled tries to throw the ball away and gets called for intentional grounding, giving up the safety anyway. You can’t hold on to the ball in this situation and once again this is what happens to an offence when pinned against its own goal line by a punt. The final safety was again after a punt but this time it was a holding penalty called against Desmond Harrison of the Cleveland Browns in the end zone that results in the safety, and if you seek out the play from the week eight game against the Steelers you will see that it wasn’t exactly a marginal call.

Speaking of which, is it me or have the rule changes settled down over the last few weeks even if the defences to seem to be really struggling to contend. Anyway, I’m off to worry about this weekend’s game, the awful lines we’ve got this week, the trivia question I’m utterly stumped on, and to get on with this week’s newsletter.

Bring on Thursday night football, which looks to be a cracker of a matchup!

The Wrong Football

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

Tag Archives: Washington

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What I Saw

What I Heard

What I Think

What I Know

What I Hope

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The NFL Spectacle

Super Saints go Ballistic, Bengals are Atrocious

The Battle of the Big Guns