NFL Week 17: Playoffs for Some, Miniature Improvement in Draft Picks for Others!

[Lord Lyman]

So the Patriots are going to face either a Cook/McGloin Raiders, an Osweiler/Savage Texans or a Moore Dolphins in the Divisional round.

Side note the AFC Championship game has been held in 6 cities in the last 22 years. (Foxborough, Oakland, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Denver and Indianapolis.) In that same timespan, the NFC Championship game has been to 13 cities. Detroit, Washington and Tampa are the odd ones out.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Triskan said:

His record as a starter coming into today was 11-4, and this was the first loss since he started playing this year.

Really? PFR says 15-12 coming into today including 8-6 with the Dolphins (so 15-13 and 8-7 after the loss).

1 hour ago, Triskan said:

But here's the best way I can put it:  if you have to face Oakland in the playoffs how relieved are you that it's McGloin or Cook instead of Carr?  Quite hugely, I would think.  But if you have to face Miami in the playoffs how relieved are you if you dodge Tannehill to face Moore?  I'd imagine not much if at all.

That's a fair point. Tannehill is 37-40 and 2016 is the one and only season where he has won more than half of his starts.

[Rockroi]

I don't think this week could have gone better for the Pats.  They avoided a major injury so enter the post season relatively healthy; they have home field throughout the playoffs, which is gigantic.  They seemed to have discovered another impact player in the NFL's "Lost and Found Bin" in Michael Floyd (thank you self-righteous NFL... THANK YOU!).  

But the moist important thing was that the Pats have a fantastic playoff schedule that guarantees that they will play a semi-pro team in the Divisional round (Miami, QB-less Oakland, or Houston) and will, at most, only need to face either KC or Pitt (not both), easily the two scariest teams besides the Pats in the AFC.  Its sort of on a platter for the Pats again.  Only unlike other seasons, the Pats have a real running game, a gelled O-line and a pretty vicious D. 

Tons of stuff n the NFC to be afraid of ( a resurgent GB team, a near flawless Cowboys team, a high scoring Atlanta team and Walking Kryptonite in the Giants.

But , right now, Pats have to feel great looking at the AFC.  

More later.  

[zelticgar]

4 hours ago, Rockroi said:

I don't think this week could have gone better for the Pats.  They avoided a major injury so enter the post season relatively healthy; they have home field throughout the playoffs, which is gigantic.  They seemed to have discovered another impact player in the NFL's "Lost and Found Bin" in Michael Floyd (thank you self-righteous NFL... THANK YOU!).  

But the moist important thing was that the Pats have a fantastic playoff schedule that guarantees that they will play a semi-pro team in the Divisional round (Miami, QB-less Oakland, or Houston) and will, at most, only need to face either KC or Pitt (not both), easily the two scariest teams besides the Pats in the AFC.  Its sort of on a platter for the Pats again.  Only unlike other seasons, the Pats have a real running game, a gelled O-line and a pretty vicious D. 

Tons of stuff n the NFC to be afraid of ( a resurgent GB team, a near flawless Cowboys team, a high scoring Atlanta team and Walking Kryptonite in the Giants.

But , right now, Pats have to feel great looking at the AFC.  

More later.  

Pretty much every fellow Pats fan I have spoken with has brought up the Giants lurking over in the NFC as their biggest point of concern right now. Not sure I can handle another Super Bowl game against the Giants. Too many nightmares.  

 

[sperry]

Hopefully yesterday's performance locked up the MVP for Matt Ryan. It should be a two man race between him and Rodgers, although it seems like the actual competition is 12 games of Tom Brady and Ezekiel Elliot in proxy for the Dallas offensive line.

[Lord Lyman]

Given the Raiders offensive play yesterday, I'ld give it to Derek Carr.

[sperry]

Defensive player of the year, I have no clue.

Rookie of the year, I'd go with Tyreek Hill, although one of the Cowboys will get it.

[unJon]

23 minutes ago, Lord Lyman said:

Given the Raiders offensive play yesterday, I'ld give it to Derek Carr.

QFT

[Rockroi]

I have no idea who should win various awards.  They will give the MVP to Ryan because its his "turn."  I can imagine what the trophy will say, "For finishing a season of football without peeing on yourself and leading your team to an eventual conference loss, Matt Ryan, you are the NFL's MVP!"

(that was a little too mean.  I actually think Ryan takes a bit too much shit for his lack of playoff success).  

I would vote for Brady (I know, you;re stunned by this).  Pats have a 75% winning % without him; a 92% winning % with him.  The Pats lost their best offensive weapon and are throwing to a bunch of guys who were not even on the team last season (Floyd, Bennett, Mitchell).  Brady also has the best TD-to-INT ration in the history of the NFL.  

Brady finished 5th in Compl%, 2nd in yards per attempt, 2nd in QB rating, and 7th in TDs (even though he played 4 fewer games).  He was a monster this season.

The problem with my rating ... Ryan, almost always, finished above Brady in all those stats.  In fact... I'm just an asshole.  It should probably be Ryan and I'm just being a jerk-face.  

voteBrady.  

Anyway... Its the most wonderful time of the year: coaches getting fired for not solving all the problems of their franchise in 365 days or less. Fuck these owners.  They fuck up their teams beyond recognition then hire terrible GMs who fuck it further then they hire a head coach to manage a locker room filled with head cases and glory hounds.  And they spend wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much money for these morons, mismanage the salary cap and screw up trades and long term planning.

But its the coaches fault! See owners cannot effectuate immediate change for their team anymore.  Salary caps, long-term contracts, drafts etc make it all but impossible for the owner to do anything to quickly change the destiny of his team because him and his GM have skull-fucked their team with colossal mismanagement.  So they fire the HC.  Now, please let it be known that I AGREE with several of these firings.  Lets go over the body count together, shall we?  

Jeff Fisher (overall record with team at the time he was fired: 31-45, 40.7%; 0 playoff appearances) : The scion of 7-9 was fired after failing to fix a team that abandoned two cities in 3 decades.  Jeff's biggest single failure was being unable to unfreeze Marshall Faulk.  I'm kidding, he was a dumpster fire.  

Gus Bradley: (14-48, 22.8%, 0 playoff appearances).  Fuck me... this guy was the Jags head coach for four seasons?  Four... miserable, soul-crushing seasons?  That team had double-digit loses EVERY SEASON under Gus!  I mean, that's terrible and I am pretty sure that there were jack-asses on this board who DEFENDED GUS BRAD-

(somebody whispers in my ear) 

Wait ... I-I defended the guy?  Why?  Was... was I drunk again? No... no... I honestly though Gus Bradly was a good head coach?  Holy shit.

Rex Ryan (15-16, 48.3%, 0 playoff appearances): I have said all this before, but compared to the other asses on this list, Ryan is practically Lombardi.  But he made this team worse than it was under Marone and did the same thing with the Jets before.  

Chip Kelly (2-14, 12.5%, 0 playoff appearances): You mean to tell me an overrated coach who flunked out of Phily after a power-grab there could not fix a franchise in free-fall since their Superbowl loss, a mass of early retirements and a completely dysfunctional front-office?  I'm shocked I say, shocked.  

Mike McCoy (27-37, 42%, 01- in playoffs): Let me quote the "Why Your Team Sucks" for the Chargers from earlier this year:   

You’re gonna struggle to remember that Mike McCoy once coached this team. It’ll be a black hole in your sports memory. Five years from now, you’re gonna be like, “Well they had Marty, and then Norv, and then I think after they moved is when they hired Jim Mora Jr. I think that’s how it went. Wait, am I missing someone?” You are! There was that one other guy! He was there for a bit! You know you’re a forgettable coach when even Norv has more moments than you do. McCoy will join the likes of Mike Nolan, Chris Palmer, and Scott Linehan in the hall of totally anonymous head coaches. Watching him coach is like suffering through depression… it’s just a great white fog.

Mike McCoy... the Great White Fog... 

And that was all before this morning! 

I'm going to skip Gary Kubiak (21-11, 64.5%, 3-0 in playoffs, Superbowl win); he's leaving because the game is slowly murdering him.  But that makes it SIX vacancies and its still Monday morning. 

......

By all indications, as soon as Jim Irsay wakes up from whatever crack house he's passed out in and wipes the blood and vomit from his face, he'll fire Chuck Pegano (49-31, 61.3%, 3-3 in the playoffs) and the GM because Jim Irsay isn't the problem; Jim Irsay DECIDES WHAT THE PROBLEM IS!!!!!  Sean Peyton (94-65, 59%, 6-4 in playoffs, 1 Superbowl win) is already in talks to leave New Orleans because the Rams want to ruin his career hire him. Its up to him because I don't think the Saints will fire him (two years I argued that the Saints SHOULD fire Peyton and I agree that was probably too harsh... but Pyeton is 14-18 since then so ...) Do you fire John Fox?  He's 9 - 23 (28%) and yes I know- he gets a big curve for having to coach Jay Cutler.  But wow this guy seems like an empty suit now.  What about Todd Bowles (15-17, 47%)? That team quit in week 12 and they have no relief at QB coming.  Marv Lewis (117-103, 53%, and an astonishing 0-7 n the playoffs)? Its extraordinary that a team so great in the regular season could be so monumentally inept in the playoffs.  But if the Bengals want to shift gears, best time to do it was when the Bengals had such an atrocious regular season.

Lots more to happen.  But i think Pegano and Lewis get fired, Peyton leaves ina  pseudo "Mutual Parting Ways" sort of thing.  Everyone else stays, but John Fox getting shit-canned would be perfectly understandable.  

 

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Yeah, the Pats really have an Easy Mode path laid out for them. I don't see anyone in the AFC with a decent shot to derail them. They seem to be the most complete team in the playoffs from either conference. The NFC side seems to be chock full of good offenses paired with mediocre defenses, with the exception of the Seahawks and the Giants who are basically the flipside of that. 

[Kalbear]

Poor Chip Kelly. Per reports, he wanted to draft Dak Prescott and Baalke wouldn't even talk to him and the rest of the coaching staff. 

[Rockroi]

Just now, Kalbear said:

Poor Chip Kelly. Per reports, he wanted to draft Dak Prescott and Baalke wouldn't even talk to him and the rest of the coaching staff. 

But couldn't that just be a classic "cool story, bro?"  An easy excuse?  I mean, its a great story to throw around when everything is said and done, but how do we know its actually true?  If I were Chip Kelly and I wanted to ever coach again (after going 8-23 in my last two seasons) you bet your ass I would come up with this great story about how I wanted to draft the best rookie QB in the NFL but I couldn't because the GM is a big poopie-head.  

Even if I had 4 chances to do it.

 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Rockroi said:

But couldn't that just be a classic "cool story, bro?"  An easy excuse?  I mean, its a great story to throw around when everything is said and done, but how do we know its actually true?  If I were Chip Kelly and I wanted to ever coach again (after going 8-23 in my last two seasons) you bet your ass I would come up with this great story about how I wanted to draft the best rookie QB in the NFL but I couldn't because the GM is a big poopie-head.  

Even if I had 4 chances to do it.

 

We don't know anything is true, but it fits well with what we've been hearing about why Baalke was fired and how pissed off the coaches were with him in general - that he refused to coordinate with his coaches or ask input at all, and was basically just running things as he saw fit and telling the coaches to deal. This especially fits with Kelly given how badly Kelly fucked up his GM duties in Philly. 

Here's the source, btw.

As to where Kelly ends up, I think he'll be an OC somewhere. I don't think he'll go back to college.

[Rhom]

Niners do the right thing by carpet bombing the Santa Clara offices into the ground and starting fresh.

Then Niners do the wrong thing by starting a head coach search before they have a GM in place.  

And the continual front office leaks are an embarrassment as well.  Shut the fuck up Jed!!!!

When asked about why he thinks he can make a successful coaching hire after three coaches in three years, Jed York makes reference to the organization successfully hiring Bill Walsh... 40 years ago!!!

I find it frightful that I find myself hoping the Casiano/McDaniels combo from NE rumors are true. At least if that's the case, my fears of hiring a coach before a GM would be allayed.

[Rockroi]

Again, you said it best: we don't know the truth.  But, at best, Chip Kelly said he liked Dak Prescott. Once.  This seems like a case of Cognitive Bias: where Kelly remembers that time he said he liked this QB and that QB turned out to be really good.  And there are no further stories about all the players Kelly loved that didn;t do anything or were flat-out bad.  

Or more accurately, Kelly is telling people that he liked Dak once, and it may or may never have gone any further.  

Cutting Kelly slack for anything personnel-related seems misguided.  

THEN AGAIN... maybe its true.  Baalke seems like a tool box and there's a reason he got fired too.  

[Rhom]

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

We don't know anything is true, but it fits well with what we've been hearing about why Baalke was fired and how pissed off the coaches were with him in general - that he refused to coordinate with his coaches or ask input at all, and was basically just running things as he saw fit and telling the coaches to deal. This especially fits with Kelly given how badly Kelly fucked up his GM duties in Philly. 

Here's the source, btw.

As to where Kelly ends up, I think he'll be an OC somewhere. I don't think he'll go back to college.

You don't think he'll sit a year and see what big college job is open?

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

We don't know anything is true, but it fits well with what we've been hearing about why Baalke was fired and how pissed off the coaches were with him in general - that he refused to coordinate with his coaches or ask input at all, and was basically just running things as he saw fit and telling the coaches to deal. This especially fits with Kelly given how badly Kelly fucked up his GM duties in Philly. 

Here's the source, btw.

As to where Kelly ends up, I think he'll be an OC somewhere. I don't think he'll go back to college.

 I don't think you need to look any further than Baalke's relationship with Harbaugh for proof. 3 straight years of NFC Championships or Superbowl, and the two can't get along? It's fucking ridiculous. That's not all on Baalke (Harbaugh was by all reports equally difficult to deal with), but why wouldn't you listen to a guy who has helped bring such success to your franchise? Good riddance to the Baalkinator. 

[Rhom]

Just now, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 I don't think you need to look any further than Baalke's relationship with Harbaugh for proof. 3 straight years of NFC Championships or Superbowl, and the two can't get along? It's fucking ridiculous. That's not all on Baalke (Harbaugh was by all reports equally difficult to deal with), but why wouldn't you listen to a guy who has help bring such success to your franchise? Good riddance to the Baalkinator. 

But Manhole... we win Super Bowls around here.

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, Rockroi said:

Again, you said it best: we don't know the truth.  But, at best, Chip Kelly said he liked Dak Prescott. Once.  This seems like a case of Cognitive Bias: where Kelly remembers that time he said he liked this QB and that QB turned out to be really good.  And there are no further stories about all the players Kelly loved that didn;t do anything or were flat-out bad.  

Or more accurately, Kelly is telling people that he liked Dak once, and it may or may never have gone any further.  

Cutting Kelly slack for anything personnel-related seems misguided.  

THEN AGAIN... maybe its true.  Baalke seems like a tool box and there's a reason he got fired too.  

Then again had the Niners drafted Dak Prescott, no one would even know whether or not he was any good at the pro level yet. There would be no story. He wouldn't have saved Chip's job this season playing with the Niners.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, Rhom said:

But Manhole... we win Super Bowls around here.

 

Well, we did host one last year. 

I was just thinking about that the other day. The curse of Pants Stadium. The Niners have been shit since it was erected, and the two Superb Owl teams that played in it last season both failed to make the playoffs this season. Off to a bang-up start.