NFL 2017 Week 3: Now Panic Begins!

[DanteGabriel]

Browns are favored in a game for the first time since 2015, against the Colts. I guess that Grigson hire is paying dividends.

[Jace, Extat]

39 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Browns are favored in a game for the first time since 2015, against the Colts. I guess that Grigson hire is paying dividends.

He knows the weaknesses of all the busts he signed and drafted.

[Maithanet]

So I thought the Rams looked very unimpressive against a pretty average Washington team.  Any chance they lay an egg on the road at SF on TNF?  Or are the Niners too terrible to even entertain such thoughts?

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

So I thought the Rams looked very unimpressive against a pretty average Washington team.  Any chance they lay an egg on the road at SF on TNF?  Or are the Niners too terrible to even entertain such thoughts?

I maintain that The Rams are crap. But the 49ers are a dumpster fire.

[Kalbear]

14 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I maintain that The Rams are crap. But the 49ers are a dumpster fire.

I'm curious now: how many teams are there in the league that you would consider are 'good' or better? Not above average, because as far as I can tell 'average' is really shitty this year. 

How many are actually good?

From hearing chat, it sounds like Atlanta, Denver, KC, Oakland, Tampa, New England...is that it?

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'm curious now: how many teams are there in the league that you would consider are 'good' or better? Not above average, because as far as I can tell 'average' is really shitty this year. 

How many are actually good?

From hearing chat, it sounds like Atlanta, Denver, KC, Oakland, Tampa, New England...is that it?

I think that the Eagles are going to be good, in the vein of the Giants last year, with a strong defense and an offense that struggles with consistency, but is capable of being dangerous. 

Pittsburgh hasn't set the world on fire, but they're at least good.

Detroit's defense looks much improved, too early to say for sure yet.  If they have even an average defense then they're a good team. 

[Mexal]

NFL sucks this year.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, Mexal said:

NFL sucks this year.

The number of teams who seem hugely flawed does seem high this year.  A lot of the best defensive teams have offenses that are unforgivably bad, like Baltimore, Seattle, Carolina, NYG, Cincy, Houston, Jacksonville. 

[Kalbear]

This is a great article on why the NFL sucks - namely, there's no incentive to make it not suck. Spencer Hall is awesome. 

[Jace, Extat]

19 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'm curious now: how many teams are there in the league that you would consider are 'good' or better? Not above average, because as far as I can tell 'average' is really shitty this year. 

How many are actually good?

From hearing chat, it sounds like Atlanta, Denver, KC, Oakland, Tampa, New England...is that it?

Denver, New England, kc, Dolphins, Steelers, packers, 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Denver, New England, kc, Dolphins, Steelers, packers, 

Jay Cutler's dolphins, the ones that Rock just lambasted?

And I've been hearing so much bitching about the Packers.

[Jace, Extat]

26 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Jay Cutler's dolphins, the ones that Rock just lambasted?

And I've been hearing so much bitching about the Packers.

The Dolphins have a good running game, stacked WR's, and a fine pass rush. I like that team and despite the fuckbrained timeout I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt regarding Sunday. The Chargers are a talented team and the 'Phins had circumstances.

[Mexal]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

This is a great article on why the NFL sucks - namely, there's no incentive to make it not suck. Spencer Hall is awesome. 

Here is another article about why the NFL isn't fun anymore.

[SkynJay]

I am cautiously optimistic about Denver.  But really I think they only look so damn good because everyone else looks so mediocre.  I want to see them come back from behind once before getting to happy, Trev has thrown some bad picks (and had at least one pick 6 that a defender just dropped) and ever worse has twice taken LONG sacks that knocked them from FG range. 

The defense though... Peko has changed the interior of that line and now I don't know where their weakness is.

[sperry]

15 hours ago, Kalbear said:

This is a great article on why the NFL sucks - namely, there's no incentive to make it not suck. Spencer Hall is awesome. 

 

The point that NFL ownership is out of touch with the consumer is valid.  However, the article focuses way too much on alleging that NFL owners dont' care about winning, which is just not accurate.  These guys care about winning a ton. The article singles out Dan Snyder on this: that dude wants to win. He's just such a toxic douchebag that it's basically impossible. The article also badly needs an editor.

[sperry]

My thoughts on the biggest problems facing the NFL:

 

• Roger Goodell.  The CEO is a bumbling buffoon. That's not a good place to be. He consistently botches everything he touches. America is incredibly polarized, yet no one likes Goodell. That's difficult to accomplish. Dude is less popular than Donald Trump, which is impressive.
• Putting awful games on Monday and Thursday nights. This was just arrogance, and it's hurting them. People tune in for these games, and see shit product. Makes them less likely to tune in for other games. The beauty of the Sunday afternoon dominance is that you can bury those shit games and no one has to see them. Instead, you end up with the good games all at the same time on Sunday, and the trash on Monday and Thursday. If they fix that, they'll be in much better shape.
• Helmets: Helmets = no stars. There are only three real stars in the NFL right now:  Rodgers, Brady, Odell Beckham.  NBA has tons of recognizable figures. Kahlil Mack is a top 10 player in the NFL, but if you showed me his picture vs. 5 other similarly built black dudes, I couldn't pick him out because you never see his face.
• The fantasy football bubble:  the NFL picked up millions of casual fans in the mid aughts as fantasy football blew up. Turns out, fantasy football isn't a great game. Way too many guys get hurt. Way too much variance. Way too swingy if somebody picks up a waiver wire guy that turns into a bellcow running back. I would wager that fantasy participation is WAY down.
• Netflix, Hulu, etc.  10 years ago, no one would compete with the NFL on tv.  So that was kind of the only thing on. Now people can watch whatever the hell they want, when they want.
• Younger generation doesn't seem to care much about sports. Smart-phone destroyed attention spans have kind of killed the premise of watching a 3 hour sporting event. Kids get their sports through highlights and gifs on twitter.
• Other factors: Politics, CTE, etc.  I don't think people are tuning out because of Colin Kaepernick.  I don't think people are tuning out because of CTE.  But they are a constant barrage of negative perception that only hurts the NFL's overall image and may incrementally tune out users.

[Maithanet]

26 minutes ago, sperry said:

The point that NFL ownership is out of touch with the consumer is valid.  However, the article focuses way too much on alleging that NFL owners dont' care about winning, which is just not accurate.  These guys care about winning a ton. The article singles out Dan Snyder on this: that dude wants to win. He's just such a toxic douchebag that it's basically impossible.

I think the issue is that NFL teams WANT to win, but they NEED to make money.  Dan Snyder may consider the season a failure if the Redskins go 4-12, but that's a lot easier to swallow with another $20 million in the bank. 

But I'll be honest, I think that was always the case.  There were cheapskate owners in the 70s and the 90s when the league was growing.  The NFL is just getting less watchable, and there are a lot of reasons for that (as discussed in the article Mex posted)

10 minutes ago, sperry said:

My thoughts on the biggest problems facing the NFL:

 

• Roger Goodell.  The CEO is a bumbling buffoon. That's not a good place to be. He consistently botches everything he touches. America is incredibly polarized, yet no one likes Goodell. That's difficult to accomplish. Dude is less popular than Donald Trump, which is impressive.
• Putting awful games on Monday and Thursday nights. This was just arrogance, and it's hurting them. People tune in for these games, and see shit product. Makes them less likely to tune in for other games. The beauty of the Sunday afternoon dominance is that you can bury those shit games and no one has to see them. Instead, you end up with the good games all at the same time on Sunday, and the trash on Monday and Thursday. If they fix that, they'll be in much better shape.

Goodell is terrible, his just lurches from one PR disaster to another.  His job isn't that hard, he just makes it look hard.

I would not put MNF and TNF in the same sentance at all.  MNF teams have an extra day to prepare.  Sometimes the games are bad, but it's not because of timing.    TNF is consistently a shitshow because nobody has time to install a full offense and everybody is still injured from last week.  If the NFL really cared about their product, they would have the teams on TNF have a bye beforehand to ensure they're ready.  See Goodell?  This is the kind of simple fixes that you would do if you were good at your job.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

@sperry

Some of the points you raised are valid and some aren’t, but they’re all secondary. The main problem is simple and clear: the product is awful right now.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I would not put MNF and TNF in the same sentance at all.  MNF teams have an extra day to prepare.  Sometimes the games are bad, but it's not because of timing.    TNF is consistently a shitshow because nobody has time to install a full offense and everybody is still injured from last week.  If the NFL really cared about their product, they would have the teams on TNF have a bye beforehand to ensure they're ready.  See Goodell?  This is the kind of simple fixes that you would do if you were good at your job.

 

Personally I agree and have always argued for this, but I read that the NFL doesn’t want to do this because it loses revenue and they don’t think fans will like their teams missing two consecutive weekends.  

[Maithanet]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Personally I agree and have always argued for this, but I read that the NFL doesn’t want to do this because it loses revenue and they don’t think fans will like their teams missing two consecutive weekends.  

THAT'S the issue the NFL chooses to "do it for the fans"?  Yeah, that makes sense. 

Let's say you asked NFL fans, "would you be ok with the NFL season lasting one week longer, with every team having two byes?"  This would have the advantage of one more weekend of the year with NFL football (which is way better than no football), and it would allow more guys to return from injuries.  I'm sure some people wouldn't like missing out on their team for one more week, but I think a lot of fans would happily jump at that.  I know I would.  And yet, the NFL instead talks about making the season longer only in the context of playing a 17 or 18 game season.  Which just exposes the lie that the NFL cares about player safety.