NFL 2016 Week 7: Nobody's Burfict

[trickster]

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Well, at least tonight it's looking a lot like Luck is better than Wilson. 

 

6 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I've been waiting for you...

The real question: is Luck as good as Dalton  

Also what a strange but riveting game in AZ....Jeebus!

[Rockroi]

Quote

If you hold anyone in the NFL, even the Browns, to a 6 point game, your defense played great.  Let alone a prior year playoff contender. 

But, how much of that was Seattle ineptitude until the very end?  And vice-versa (we can agree that Palmer has not been the same since the injury scare last season, right?).  Seattle and the Cards played ... okay defense at times and at other times were the beneficiaries of some very poor play on the other side of the ball.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

19 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Right. I'm saying that Bradford in a new system is going to start looking worse, too, as teams get more film on him in this system. It's not likely to be quite as bad - and apparently Philly's defense is pretty decent this season too - but one can expect new QBs in a system to get a few notches lower as the season goes on and you get some film on tendencies and what works.

That may have played a role in yesterday's result, but it wasn't the main reason why the Vikings struggled on offense. Both our starting tackles are on IR, as well as one of the backups, and two of our other linemen are playing hurt. Add in a ton of dropped passes and it's pretty easy to see why they struggled against a good defense on the road (plus the officiating was incredibly one sided). 

Also, Norv Turner really needs to stop calling so many 7 step drop backs when we can't block the pass rush. 

[ljkeane]

I just caught up with the Seattle Arizona game. Well that was different anyway.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

That was the scoreline for the greatest professional soccer game ever.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

But the most important news of the week: Rob Gronkowski has caught 68 touchdowns.

Now, I'm guessing his plan is to catch one more and then retire. But maybe he's willing to catch one more and never catch a touchdown again. Or try to catch another 100.

But how do Brady and Belichick respond? do they just not throw to Gronk in the red zone anymore? What if they try to make him catch two in order to thwart him? What if Gronk purposefully drops the second one?

[Kalbear]

Y'all should appreciate this week in review from a very angry person.

[Week]

My favorite part of the game last night (the only good part) was while the final shank careened off to the left is that the Seattle kicker has allowed his name to be spelled incorrectly for entire career.

When your name is Stephen Hauschka - you wouldn't think that the trouble would be with spelling your first name.

http://deadspin.com/stephen-hauschka-has-been-letting-people-spell-his-name-1788039628

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

12 hours ago, Rockroi said:

I don't know; I can't say you played really good D when all you did was mess up a whole bunch of plays in a row and then on special teams looked up and said - in effect - "Bet you miss."  

 Still can't agree that this was a crap game. I tuned in towards the end of the 2nd quarter, and it was just one big defensive play after the next. I WAS ENTERTAINED. 

[Week]

Torn ACL for Geno and the Fitzmagick show is back in action!

[sperry]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Y'all should appreciate this week in review from a very angry person.

 

Good read. The NFL obviously has to switch to competent leadership before they can accomplish anything, but they are facing major problems.

 

The problems boil down to a couple things.

1. The product is shit.

2. The secondary products are kind of shit too.

 

Not sure how to solve the first one exactly, but I think one easy thing that will help is increasing the roster size.  Allowing teams to actually develop talent rather than cutting anyone who can't contribute immediately is going to help. Also rotating in fresher players is going to help.

 

Two, they have a big problem in that fantasy football is kind of a shitty game. Yeah, the draft is awesome. The first couple weeks are fun.  But past that, it gets old in a hurry for most people becuase of the rash of injuries, benchings and lack of bellcow RBs.  It used to be that your first round pick was going to be a running back who was going to get you 80+ yards and a TD every game, and your second round pick was probalby the same. Now there are about 5 guys like that in the league.  There are great wide receivers, but they are way too high variance because they tend not to score a lot of points. TDs are way too valuable in fantasy, but the game no longer has reliable TD scorers.  It just feels way too random, and it's been severla years since I really enjoyed fantasy football. Obviously this is just anecdotal, but I think it's the same with my friends, all of whom are the NFL's dream fanbase (young high-earning professionals without kids).

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

It might not be just the NFL though: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/oct/24/sky-sports-bt-sport-people-switching-football-off

[Maithanet]

Well, for those who were keeping track, I commented a few weeks ago that the Redskins were definitely getting lucky in terms of stupid penalties by the Giants, and wacky fumbles by the Browns and Ravens.  Well, in the Lions game Lady Luck came to collect, we just couldn't get out of our own way with fumbles, bad bounces, missed opportunities and untimely penalties.  At one point the offense had 20 first downs and 3 points!  I don't know if that is some kind of record, but it is an impressive achievement. 

Cousins was ok.  I definitely blame him for the second fumble, when instead of just falling on the ball and settling for a field goal, he attempted to hand it off while falling over, which of course led to a turnover. 

But the worst of all was the no contact fumble into the end zone by Jones, which is just an astonishingly bad play.  I was genuinely kind of pissed that we put him in at all after that.  We are entering Ryan Torain territory where we just keep putting the inferior back out there and nobody knows why.  Give Ryan Kelley a chance!  He keeps running better than Jones and he hasn't fumbled it yet (unlike Jones who has like 4 fumbles already this year?  Five?)

EDIT:  Maybe Jay Gruden has Matt Jones on his fantasy team. 

[Kalbear]

The product is losing its appeal to families and women at a time when more people are being able to switch and watch as they want.

The Thursday night games make you think about the NFL every week as generally a bad thing. Instead of looking forward to those one or two games and thinking wow, what a game, you're diluting the product by making people remember that one game that they watched and had no choice to watch as one of the games they watched that week. 

Monday night games aren't much better, either, and instead of it being appointment TV have become fairly meh. For that matter, Sunday night games are pretty meh.

I do think that bigger rosters is a really big deal here. You can't afford to develop players, you can't afford not to play your starters instead of giving some a break for some of the time like you can in college, and you have no continuity. 

[Kalbear]

Also, seriously - the bullshit penalties that aren't remotely understandable and obliterate the flow of the game have to stop. 

 

[Jaime L]

I do think the product is suffering this season in large part because of QB play. If it wasn't clear before SNF, the Golden Age of QBs is officially over. A hobbled Russell Wilson is just a guy at best. Palmer's now over the hill. Big Ben's injured (again). Romo's injured (again). Cam Newton is 1-5. All the effortlessness in Rodgers' game is gone - seriously every GB drive feels like a root canal. It's hard to enjoy Luck being marooned on such an awful team with little hope to get better. 

And the up-and-comers, lol. Blake Bortles, Ryan Tannehill and Brock Osweiler are all unconscionably bad, Marcus Mariota, ugh. Remember when people were talking preseason about how the AFC South had 4 young potential franchise guys playing at the same time - uh, how's that working out? I don't know what it is exactly, but even when he's effective the way Jameis Winston plays is so unaesthetically pleasing. I kinda hate watching him play. The best thing about watching Kaepernick now is his hair. RGIII and Manziel, the two most exciting college players of the last 20 years, may never play again. Carson Wentz is reverting to rookie form. No matter how much Case Keenum sucks at his job, Jared Goff still can't see the field. The less said of the 2013 QB class (Geno, EJ Manuel, Mike Glennon) the better. The best you can say is Dak appears competent and Carr has his moments. 

But really when you turn on a football game Sunday, who are you actually excited to watch play? For me the schadenfreude:genuine enjoyment ratio is like 5:1 this year. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The product is losing its appeal to families and women at a time when more people are being able to switch and watch as they want.

The Thursday night games make you think about the NFL every week as generally a bad thing. Instead of looking forward to those one or two games and thinking wow, what a game, you're diluting the product by making people remember that one game that they watched and had no choice to watch as one of the games they watched that week. 

Monday night games aren't much better, either, and instead of it being appointment TV have become fairly meh. For that matter, Sunday night games are pretty meh.

I do think that bigger rosters is a really big deal here. You can't afford to develop players, you can't afford not to play your starters instead of giving some a break for some of the time like you can in college, and you have no continuity. 

Not sure about that first bit. It's not like Netflix/Hulu/Whatever streaming service you care to name are new to this season or anything. I think the family thing is likely centered on individual households. My brother and I would watch NFL football with my dad as kind of a family ritual. My kids never particularly cared for it, and I never forced it on them, so we don't continue the same tradition.

 I think Thursday Night is kind of its' own thing, and has become recognized as an inferior product by most discerning fans. I rarely watch it unless my team is playing in it, or if the matchup is particularly juicy (and how often does that happen?)

Monday Night is pretty much the same. I'll mostly follow it on a tracker (say CBS Sports, or whatever) and if it looks like the game is good, I'll go turn it on in the back bedroom, so as not to dominate the TV. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

19 minutes ago, Jaime L said:

But really when you turn on a football game Sunday, who are you actually excited to watch play? For me the schadenfreude:genuine enjoyment ratio is like 5:1 this year. 

I can enjoy a game that doesn't involve inspired QB play, but yeah, I agree with your ratio. I haven't seen many really enjoyable games this season.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Not sure about that first bit. It's not like Netflix/Hulu/Whatever streaming service you care to name are new to this season or anything. I think the family thing is likely centered on individual households. My brother and I would watch NFL football with my dad as kind of a family ritual. My kids never particularly cared for it, and I never forced it on them, so we don't continue the same tradition.

I don't think that it's the killer, but it's the inexorable march. More things are being watched online at will than ever, and more kids and teens are getting used to that notion and caring less about watching sports live. The notion that you have to have appointment television on a specific device is incredibly antiquated to a lot of people now. As an example, in my house we have a TV downstairs that hasn't been able to turn on for months and we didn't even notice because no one bothered with it - a year ago it was being used for all sorts of things. 

And sure, part of it is that the election has taken over that instant arguing with random strangers thing about sides that makes sports so enticing, but part of it also is that the NFL has been utterly crap at allowing you to watch where you want, when you want, without spending a lot of money.

[Jaime L]

54 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Well, for those who were keeping track, I commented a few weeks ago that the Redskins were definitely getting lucky in terms of stupid penalties by the Giants, and wacky fumbles by the Browns and Ravens.  Well, in the Lions game Lady Luck came to collect, we just couldn't get out of our own way with fumbles, bad bounces, missed opportunities and untimely penalties.  At one point the offense had 20 first downs and 3 points!  I don't know if that is some kind of record, but it is an impressive achievement. 

Cousins was ok.  I definitely blame him for the second fumble, when instead of just falling on the ball and settling for a field goal, he attempted to hand it off while falling over, which of course led to a turnover. 

But the worst of all was the no contact fumble into the end zone by Jones, which is just an astonishingly bad play.  I was genuinely kind of pissed that we put him in at all after that.  We are entering Ryan Torain territory where we just keep putting the inferior back out there and nobody knows why.  Give Ryan Kelley a chance!  He keeps running better than Jones and he hasn't fumbled it yet (unlike Jones who has like 4 fumbles already this year?  Five?)

I felt at the time that Jones' fumble into the end zone would very likely cost us the game and after the fact you can definitely make that case. Still after coming back from 10 down in the 4th quarter only to let Stafford, easily, go 75 yards in a minute for the game-winning score...kinda shifts around the blame. They coulda won in spite of Jones' major fuck up, on the one hand. On the other, they get in the end zone there and maybe the rest of the game unfolds differently. 

The frustrating how thing is how good the offense looks at times and how much it shoots itself in the foot. It's so clear when they go down 10 and suddenly it's like "fuck this" and they march down for two TDs like it's nothing. Why couldn't you do that earlier? And you lose a winnable game like that and you from looking like a real contender to the basement of the NFC East. NFL's real unforgiving that way.