Kalli posted:

The Jets schedule is so weirdly top heavy. After that they will probably beat most of the Browns, Dolphins, Rams, Colts, 49ers and Bills and get to 6-10 to 8-8 ish.

corn on the cop posted:

the level of play is as bad as its ever been, the league is incredibly short on star power, everyone is injured, and there are fifty commercial breaks every game.

why are ratings down?

quote:

Rick Venturi: "After three years of losing football, they were nearing the end of their rope in Cleveland. We turned it around in 1994. We won 11 games and won the wild-card playoffs. We were really on the cusp of something great there in Cleveland."

quote:

Heath Evans (Patriots Fullback 2005-08, Current NFL Network Analyst): "Everything was ripped out from underneath him. Nobody in the world could have survived that. It was an absolute dumpster fire, what ownership did to him in Cleveland. If you look at the Bill we know now, the same thing he did in New England was going to happen in Cleveland. I have no doubt that 1995 in Cleveland would have been like the 2001 Super Bowl season in New England if Bill had been allowed to continue to grow and groom his staff and his team."

quote:

Rick Venturi: "Once they announced the move, 1995 became as bad as anything I've ever been through from a football standpoint-a total, miserable death slide. It went from the greatest sports city in the world to an 80,000-person wake on Sundays. Bill would never show it, but it took a toll on him."

quote:

Amy Trask (Raiders CEO, 1997-2013): "In 1998 I recommended to Al Davis that we hire Bill as the Raiders head coach. Al decided to go with Jon Gruden, an offensive-minded coach, which surprised no one in the league. But Al liked Bill very much. Bill made it clear he would always tailor his schemes to maximize his players' talents. That's what the best coaches do, the best business people do and the best leaders do: They put their people in the best possible position to succeed. And that's what Bill does. I was always tickled pink years later when Al would say to me, 'Well, you sure can pick a coach, kid.'"

quote:

Jaguars against Packers: 26 for 48, 1.85 ypc
Jaguars against others: 61 for 253, 4.15 ypc

Vikings against Packers: 22 for 30, 1.36 ypc
Vikings against others: 122 for 323, 2.65 ypc

Lions against Packers: 23 for 50, 2.17 ypc
Lions against others: 92 for 399, 4.34 ypc

Giants against Packers: 15 for 43, 2.87 ypc
Giants against others: 95 for 375, 3.95 ypc

TheChirurgeon posted:

Simply having a great offensive line doesn't guarantee good decision-making, pocket presence, or performance. A large number of sacks are the fault of the Quarterback and/or the scheme

quote:

From 2008 to this week in 2016, Aaron Rodgers has attempted 63 "deep passes" (meaning the target was at least 15 yards downfield) on 2nd or 3rd down, 1 - 2 yards to go. On those passes, Rodgers is 27 of 63 for 848 yards, 13 TDs to 3 INTs.

To give you an idea of just how aggressive this is:

• Tom Brady is 15 of 27 for 448 yards, 3 TDs to 1 INT over the same time frame.
  
• Peyton Manning is 5 of 13 for 143 yards, 2 TDs to 1 INT.
  
• Ben Roethlisberger is 12 of 21 for 417 yards, 2 TDs to 2 INTs.
  
• Drew Brees is 9 of 12 for 253 yards, 3 TDs to 0 INTs.

Digging deeper, on 3rd down period, Green Bay has attempted 279 deep passes total. Of those, 67 were with 0-3 yards to go, or 24% of their deep passes on 3rd down were with < 3 yards to go.
The Patriots have attempted 184 passes on 3rd down, and only 26 were 0-3 yards, or 14%.
The Steelers? 47 of 295, or 15.9%.
The Saints? 27 of 274, or 9.9%.

Is anyone seeing a pattern? Green Bay throws deep on 3rd and short more than any other team in the league, by a huge margin. Rodgers and McCarthy like to take deep shots, even at the cost of the continuing the drive. This is a core tenet of the Rodgers/McCarthy offense.

Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:

I would have thought Ben would have way more. What about Flaccid?

MacheteZombie posted:

I guess no one can claim that McCarthy is overly conservative anymore.

Kirios posted:

I'm always surprised the Packers have somehow only won one Super Bowl with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. I suppose it's not technically a waste since they did win one, but considering he has the best stats of all time up to this point I feel like they should be a dynasty.

quote:

Bryan Bulaga, Packers right tackle: "They weren’t a bad football team. The crazy thing about it is, they reminded me a lot of us in 2010 when we snuck in as the sixth seed — and so did they."

Durandal1707 posted:

I wonder if it's a combination of that (plus injuries) and the Packers just not being as good of a team overall as they were a couple of years ago.

Grittybeard posted:

My God he was even decent in San Francisco.

8/16 2 TDs 0 INTs

For his career Alex Smith in that situation is 14/24, 58.3%, 437 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs, 18.2 YPA, for a 142.3 passer rating. When set up well and he actually throws the damned thing Alex Smith's deep ball is actually....good? My entire worldview is spinning.

fsif posted:

HEH.

https://twitter.com/uSTADIUM/status/785437930756210689

Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:

That whole story is just

http://www.sbnation.com/2016/10/13/13279950/ben-mcadoo-motivate-giants-step-brothers-will-ferrell

WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO MCADOO!?

Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:

Manning, and maybe Brady, were better at their peak.

Physically Rodgers is the superior QB. But when Manning was in his prime, the mental pieces to his game made him the superior player.

Febreeze posted:

Disagree, Favre seems like redneck fun who might not care about you until you ramp a tractor off a pig like him but Rodgers seems insincere and snobbish who will pretend to like you but really thinks your nothing.

Pops Mgee posted:

I still love Rodgers, but the more I hear about him the more he sounds like an insufferable douche.
http://thelab.bleacherreport.com/gunslinger-brett-favre-aaron-rodgers-feud-jeff-pearlman-excerpt/

quote:

The morning after the news, Nall arrived at the facility with a copy of an image someone had e-mailed him, featuring a person in a shirt reading ALL DADDY WANTED WAS A BLOW JOB. Pepper Burruss, the team trainer, told Nall to bring the picture to his office, found a photograph of Rodgers from draft day, cut off his head, affixed it to the body and laminated the newly mastered image onto a T-shirt. The garment was passed to Brett in the team meeting, and he could not stop laughing. The shirt was passed to Bevell and, lastly, to Rodgers. “He looked at it for 10 seconds and dropped it to the floor,” said Nall. “There was this awkward tension in the room.” When the meeting ended, Nall apologized to Rodgers, but advised him to relax. “You’re a first-round pick, Aaron,” he said. “You have to expect to be poked at a bit.”

Jiminy Christmas! Shoes! posted:

Hot Diggity! posted:

Oof so Shields, Randall, and Rollins all may not be able to play tomorrow. Shields is out still either the concussion and Randall and Rollins both have broken dicks.

quote:

DeMarco Murray’s return to the Dallas Cowboys during the off-season was close. How close?

“It was like 95 percent sure I was going to come back there,” Murray said in a phone interview. “I have a lot of respect for those guys — the Jones family, Will [McClay], coach [Jason] Garrett obviously and [Tony] Romo and Wit [Jason Witten], all those guys. I still consider them a great franchise, and they’re great friends of mine.

“I was very close to going back there. There were some things that fell through and just didn’t happen. I think everything happens for a reason. I’m here, and I’m supposed to be here. They’ve got a pretty good young back over there as well.”

The Cowboys discussed a trade with the Philadelphia Eagles to bring Murray back to town. A source within the team agrees with Murray that a reunion was “close,” but the Eagles preferred to trade Murray to a nondivision foe.

quote:

In the perfect NFL game, nobody smiles. Not even on the inside. Players react to scoring touchdowns the way they might react to, say, gall bladder surgery, or lukewarm beet-and-turnip stew, or single-tracking on the Red Line.

Create a moment of athletic brilliance in front of 78,000 beer-swilling fanatics while opponents attempt to decapitate you and TV cameras roll? Congratulations. Now please return to the bench and open your textbook to page 274, where we’ll be reviewing the history of the Glass-Steagall Act during this commercial break.

Early in the Redskins’ 27-20 win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, Vernon Davis forgot the rules. He made the unforgivable mistake of having fun. Sure, he had just caught his first touchdown pass in more than two years, for his hometown team, in a stadium he grew up visiting, against a division rival. And sure, his “celebration” — a football jump shot toward the goal posts — was an inherently non-violent act, so long as the jump shot isn’t being launched by Rajon Rondo. And sure, there wasn’t one single sentient being inside FedEx Field — including Eagles fans — who saw that motion and cried out to the heavens for retribution. Heck, the Philly folks were probably just curious if Davis could help out the Sixers.

No matter. The penalty flag came, and the Redskins were dinged 15 yards for “unsportsmanlike conduct” — an unsportsmanlike jump shot! — and Davis went back to the bench in agony.

https://twitter.com/BMitchLiveCSN/status/787715939118751744?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

“I have a contrite heart right now. I honestly do,” Davis said after the game. “It just makes you feel bad. Seriously. There’s some regret there, because I’m hurting the team. I went to the bench with my head down. I know I just scored a touchdown, but I went to the bench with my head down, like ‘Man, this feels bad. This is horrible.’ “

Well done, NFL. Pretty scoring plays should definitely make athletes feel horrible and contrite. This entertainment product might occasionally entertain, at which point the authorities need to step in, stifling anyone’s laughter with a yellow muzzle.

Davis’s problem was he used football as a prop in his joy, which is verboten — unless Rob Gronkowski is spiking the ball in the end zone, in which case the NFL’s official Twitter account will glorify the moment not once but twice. That same account also twice saluted Odell Beckham Jr. for triple-jumping in the end zone on Sunday, track-and-field events being permitted while archery remains outlawed.

https://twitter.com/NFL/status/787730261819600896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/SI_PeterKing/status/787714602201145344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

More importantly, this one mattered. The 15-yard penalty meant that Redskins cyborg place kicker Dustin Hopkins couldn’t boot the ball out of the end zone. That gave Eagles returner Wendell Smallwood a chance, and 86 yards later, the to-that-point-incompetent Eagles had a touchdown and their first points. Sure, blame Washington’s special teams. But don’t forget why they were put in that position.

“I mean, you can’t breathe anymore,” said Josh Norman, who was penalized and fined this season for a pantomimed bow-and-arrow celebration.

“You can’t do anything any more,” Will Blackmon said at the next locker.

“Hell, I’m surprised we can go out there and suit up and play the game,” Norman said.

“I’m surprised we can high-five,” Blackmon added. “High-fives might be 10 yards next week, I don’t know.”

What is the constituency for this? Whose complaints are we solving? Which outraged fans are we pacifying? Were basketball purists horrified by Davis’s form? (“It was a terrible jump shot,” Blackmon pointed out.) Is it a slippery slope that we’re trying to flatten? One day they’re shooting jump shots, and the next day they might be infecting footballs with the Zika virus?

These, remember, are grown men being scolded like unruly third graders. Grown men who are often rather thoughtful about this profession they’ve chosen.

“Fans want to see excitement,” said Norman, who tried to stop himself from commenting but couldn’t manage the trick. “They come for this. They work their tails off during the week, go to work to their 9 to 5. They get a day off on Sundays to come out here and watch their team put on a show. I mean, shoot, that’s what we are, we’re entertainers. Whether you like it or not, that’s what we are, man. We want to have fun with you guys. We want to have fun with the game.

“It’s ridiculous,” Norman went on. “And if they’re going to say I’m outspoken about it, so be it, because this is what we do man. Having fun. Gladiators in the sport. Back in the day, they celebrated, they had their time, so why can’t we have ours? I don’t understand it, man, I really don’t.”

Norman is an outspoken extrovert who dresses like Batman and poses for magazine covers. Spencer Long, on the other hand, is a 315-pound Nebraskan who plays offensive line and isn’t often in the business of celebrating touchdowns. But he isn’t closer to figuring it out than Norman, this renewed focus on purging the game of joy. (Unsportsmanlike conduct penalties were up 56 percent in the first month of this season, according to ESPN, and most of those calls were for prohibited celebrations.)

“It’s really counterintuitive, if you ask me,” Long said. “The fans love it. We love it. It’s not taunting — he wasn’t taunting anybody. He’s not getting in anybody else’s face. He just threw the ball in the air, celebrating. I mean, I think that’s a win-win for everybody. Everybody loves to see that.”

Well, not everybody. There must be somebody out there, somebody with a heart made of charcoal briquettes, who sees a happy Davis and shudders, turning around to look for a teacher with a ruler. Which part of the NFL constituency is this? That answer eludes me.

“I have no idea, man,” Niles Paul said.

“They’re not really allowing us to have fun,” Chris Baker said. “But we understand that now.”

“I mean, you have to cut us some slack,” Davis said. “There has to be something that we can do to celebrate. Just something. I don’t think there should be a penalty for everything.”

“It’s not even like he’s showing off,” Redskins Coach Jay Gruden said. “He might have been flipping it to the cheerleader back behind the goalposts.”

“When is enough enough, you know?” Norman asked. “It’s just getting too ridiculous.”

Norman offered a strong and impassioned response, one of the stars of this game trying to stop his sport from slamming a sledgehammer on its thumb. His words were nearly perfect.

One problem, though. Norman smiled as he talked. Smiling isn’t allowed.

quote:

In the last 52 weeks the Browns are 1-16. Winning pitcher in that 24-10 victory over San Francisco? Johnny Manziel.

quote:

Since the start of the 2015 season, Rodgers, at a moribund 6.63 yards per attempt, is 33rd among all NFL passers (minimum 200 pass attempts).

Johnny Manziel (6.73) is better.

Leon Einstein posted:

Packers are going to lose on Thursday.

Chilichimp posted:

I feel you though, seems like every time a catch it made or not made, a CB or a WR is looking at a line judge pantomiming throwing a flag.

MY NIGGA D-LINK posted:

I have zero sympathy for him, that's what