NFL 2018 IV: A Hue, A Cry and now Goodbye

[.H.]

1 hour ago, The Lasr Storm said:

I think some Jet fans had hope at a wild card shot earlier this season. that hope is long gone.

What?  Who are these people and what is wrong with them?

It cannot be unknown that the Jets are just win-thieves.  They don't actually win games, they simply steal wins from other teams who are obviously bad and obviously not really trying to win the game.  The correct expectation from any Jets fan is exactly zero wins, expecting more than that is absolutely delusional.

I've spent my entire life watching the Jets be various shades of bad.  There is no way anyone could imagine the Jets would be good if they know even the smallest amount about: the game of football, the Jets, the NFL, the fundamental character of human beings, and the underlying nature of Reality itself.

[Iskaral Pust]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

?

We’re exactly where I said we would be outside of the loss to the Bills. We had a front loaded schedule and we were missing our best player. Now were rolling despite having the worst offensive line this side of the turn of the millennium.

Maybe my expectations were too high.  Looking at the schedule so far (below), wins against 49ers (home), Cardinals (home), Jets, Bills (home) and Lions (home) was the minimum expectation, plus two wins against the tougher teams.  Beating a slate of pretty weak teams, four of them at home, and going 50:50 against contenders seemed reasonable for a team coming off a SB appearance after a ruthlessly efficient regular season, who upgraded at QB and did not weaken too much elsewhere.  Cook has been a miss in recent weeks but they managed without him most of last season too, and every team has injuries. 

So I was expecting a 7-2 right now, perhaps a 6-3 if we allow for unpredictability in the league.  5-3-1 looks like an underperformance rather than meeting expectations.  Patriots, and maybe (maybe) the Packers, are the only contenders on the rest of their schedule.  So they could comfortably reach the play-offs but they haven't yet shown much against good teams even if the Bills game was an anomaly.  The Saints and the Rams were able to score plenty to win, the Packers got a tie with a weak team around Rodgers, and it was a narrow win against the Eagles who are struggling themselves.  It's not terrible, but it's a regression from a 13-3 season considering the QB is much better.  They should still take the division pretty comfortably (if they cannot beat the Bears at least once then they don't deserve it), but they need to improve before January.

vs 49ers              W          24-16

              @ Packers          T            29-29

              vs Bills                L             27-6

              @ Rams              L             38-31

              @ Eagles            W          23-21

              vs Cardinals       W          27-17

              @ Jets                 W          37-17

              vs Saints             L             30-20

              vs Lions               W          24-9

[The Last Storm]

1 hour ago, .H. said:

What?  Who are these people and what is wrong with them?

It cannot be unknown that the Jets are just win-thieves.  They don't actually win games, they simply steal wins from other teams who are obviously bad and obviously not really trying to win the game.  The correct expectation from any Jets fan is exactly zero wins, expecting more than that is absolutely delusional.

I've spent my entire life watching the Jets be various shades of bad.  There is no way anyone could imagine the Jets would be good if they know even the smallest amount about: the game of football, the Jets, the NFL, the fundamental character of human beings, and the underlying nature of Reality itself.

they won 10 games with Boles. do i really have to mention the AFC championship games they were in a few years ago? im not a jets fan, but since 2011 they have been better than the Giants

the Giants had 1 decent year with Mcadoo. Everything else has been a dumpster fire.

[briantw]

 

I'd take Arians as the Browns' head coach.  Probably not my first choice, but definitely top three to five.

[.H.]

27 minutes ago, The Lasr Storm said:

they won 10 games with Boles. do i really have to mention the AFC championship games they were in a few years ago? im not a jets fan, but since 2011 they have been better than the Giants

the Giants had 1 decent year with Mcadoo. Everything else has been a dumpster fire.

10 games and what?  What difference does it make, because it was a flash in the shit pan.  Where did that season get us?  It didn't get us better in the short or longer term.  There was nothing to build on.  Still isn't.  Maybe Darnold is, but I'm sure they will fail to develop him, even if his potential is there,

A few years ago?  That was 7 years ago.  And that put the team in the position for what?  Again, a flash in the shit pan.

Sure, the Jets aren't the Browns, because you'd have to really do some serious back-breaking work to be that bad, but the Jets are aspire to mediocrity in a way that cannot be comprehended.  2005 was the year I actually think they had a legitimate chance to win the Super Bowl, but managed to miss two (or was it 3) game winning field goals from highly reasonable distances.   Since then, it's a joke to assume they'd be anything but 100% mediocre.

[The Last Storm]

58 minutes ago, .H. said:

10 games and what?  What difference does it make, because it was a flash in the shit pan.  Where did that season get us?  It didn't get us better in the short or longer term.  There was nothing to build on.  Still isn't.  Maybe Darnold is, but I'm sure they will fail to develop him, even if his potential is there,

A few years ago?  That was 7 years ago.  And that put the team in the position for what?  Again, a flash in the shit pan.

Sure, the Jets aren't the Browns, because you'd have to really do some serious back-breaking work to be that bad, but the Jets are aspire to mediocrity in a way that cannot be comprehended.  2005 was the year I actually think they had a legitimate chance to win the Super Bowl, but managed to miss two (or was it 3) game winning field goals from highly reasonable distances.   Since then, it's a joke to assume they'd be anything but 100% mediocre.

lot of teams are that way till they find the right coach/gm/owner

[.H.]

7 minutes ago, The Lasr Storm said:

lot of teams are that way till they find the right coach/gm/owner

OK, so that doesn't really refute my assertion that the only logical win total you can expect is zero.  Anything else is delusional.  You could plausibly assume they'd win a few more than that, but they will all be meaningless in the grand scheme of things.  There is absolutely no chance at all they win the Super Bowl, unless every other team suddenly forgot what football even was and how to play it.  I couldn't care any less about a 10 win season where the team doesn't win the Super Bowl and doesn't make progress toward getting better the next season.  That's just ten wins stolen from other teams in a demonstration of how poor the rest of the league is.

I don't feel any better knowing that other teams are worse than the Jets.  The Jets are still terrible and show no signs of having a cogent plan to get better besides "draft a good QB" and seemingly then, I guess the rest of the plan is to pray to God.  Maybe I am just fatalistic, but how has that worked out for the Colts?

I guess for some people, some mediocre season where you are the best not-good-enough team is some kind of success.  No thanks though.

[Jace, Extat]

3 hours ago, briantw said:

 

I'd take Arians as the Browns' head coach.  Probably not my first choice, but definitely top three to five.

That's not a bad idea, have him come in for like 3 years. Get a chosen successor in place.

[briantw]

1 minute ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

That's not a bad idea, have him come in for like 3 years. Get a chosen successor in place.

If their current OC (Freddie Kitchens, who was a QB and RB coach in Arizona under Arians) continues to perform well for the rest of the year, I could see them keeping him on as OC and grooming him.

Need to see more than one game, but the Browns' offense looked significantly better yesterday than they have the past several weeks.  Kitchens seemed to remember that Duke Johnson is on the roster, which was nice because he's one of the better satellite backs in the league.

[dbunting]

Dallas is officially a dumpster fire(not the Cleveland level though). The future that looked bright in 2016 now appears to have been a mirage. Yes Frederick being out hurts the o-line but this is ridiculous. Prescott just lobbing the ball into double coverage in the end zone was sickening to see, Dallas was up 7-0 and could have put it at 14-0 but instead he tossed up a pick. His accuracy is off, decision making off and Dallas has to decide what to do with him long term soon. Garret needs to be gone and the sooner the better. Let Linahan take over for the rest of the season and see if there is a spark of life. Oh and yeah, just traded what will likely be a top 10-15 1st round pick for a middling at best WR, nice... way to once again trade a 1st rd pick for a receiver JJ.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

1 hour ago, dbunting said:

Dallas is officially a dumpster fire(not the Cleveland level though). The future that looked bright in 2016 now appears to have been a mirage. Yes Frederick being out hurts the o-line but this is ridiculous. Prescott just lobbing the ball into double coverage in the end zone was sickening to see, Dallas was up 7-0 and could have put it at 14-0 but instead he tossed up a pick. His accuracy is off, decision making off and Dallas has to decide what to do with him long term soon. Garret needs to be gone and the sooner the better. Let Linahan take over for the rest of the season and see if there is a spark of life. Oh and yeah, just traded what will likely be a top 10-15 1st round pick for a middling at best WR, nice... way to once again trade a 1st rd pick for a receiver JJ.

Dak misses Jason Witten in the worst way. They even talked about it last night on the MNF broadcast. A rock-solid dependable tight end makes an NFL QB's job so much easier. 

[Bronn Stone]

2 hours ago, dbunting said:

Dallas is officially a dumpster fire(not the Cleveland level though).

One a scale of 1 to Buffalo, just how bad are they?  I'd say 0.65 x BUF.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

@Iskaral Pust,

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I thought the team would start the year at 2-3 because three of the five losable  games were in that stretch and Cousins was going to need some time to gel with the team. 5-3-1 isn't that bad because they've now played four of the five games. The NE game is the only one left, and I wouldn't be shocked if the end the season at 11-4-1. The bright spot for the team is that they have looked competitive in those games so far. Beating the Eagles on the road when Wentz was back was solid, and we outplayed them through out the game. The Packers time was weird, but I can live with the result. And the two loses were close games. We only lost to the Rams by a TD and it was on the road. We largely lost because we were missing multiple pieces in our secondary which lead to some broken plays for LA. And we out played the Saints. Two fluke plays cost us the game. We were up 13-10 and driving when Thielen fumbled and the Saints returned the ball to inside the five. And we weren't down by much when the pick six happened. If you change the outcome of those two plays, we'd probably have won the game. And we are the one team so far this year that could make Brees look bad. I'm happy about where we're at right now, but we have half a season to go so we shall see. I think it all comes down to how our two games with you play out. I'm less concerned about the Packers. They need Rodgers to be an Empire God King for them to have any chance at winning. 

[Iskaral Pust]

@Tywin et al. I agree the Vikings weren’t blown out and some luck with turnovers against the Saints could have seen the game go the other way.  It’s a game of small margins sometimes.  But the Bears — a much weaker team — could say the same: they’ve only had narrow losses and some of them included some misfortune that could have gone the other way.  

I think the Vikes need to get stronger to go deep in the playoffs, and especially need to limit strong opponents to fewer points.  But they have a nice schedule ahead to build some momentum. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

@Tywin et al. I agree the Vikings weren’t blown out and some luck with turnovers against the Saints could have seen the game go the other way.  It’s a game of small margins sometimes.  But the Bears — a much weaker team — could say the same: they’ve only had narrow losses and some of them included some misfortune that could have gone the other way.  

I think the Vikes need to get stronger to go deep in the playoffs, and especially need to limit strong opponents to fewer points.  But they have a nice schedule ahead to build some momentum. 

The shame about the Bears is that Mitch's accuracy is so inconsistent. You guys run basically the same offense as KC expect Mahomes hits the wide open guys while Mitch is kind of 50/50 in that regards. I'm still confused why he went so high in the draft, but hey, what do I know? 

[Bronn Stone]

50 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The shame about the Bears is that Mitch's accuracy is so inconsistent. You guys run basically the same offense as KC expect Mahomes hits the wide open guys while Mitch is kind of 50/50 in that regards. I'm still confused why he went so high in the draft, but hey, what do I know? 

A high price is no guarantee of quality merchandise - author unknown.

[Iskaral Pust]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

The shame about the Bears is that Mitch's accuracy is so inconsistent. You guys run basically the same offense as KC expect Mahomes hits the wide open guys while Mitch is kind of 50/50 in that regards. I'm still confused why he went so high in the draft, but hey, what do I know? 

You’re not the only one.  And Nagy was part of the coaching staff at KC who preferred Mahomes over Trubiskey. 

I think Trubiskey got selected partly because he looks the part of a franchise QB.  He’ll be great for marketing if he can ever hit a WR with the damn ball. 

[briantw]

The refs just spotted Vance McDonald about a yard and a half to pick up a first down and the Panthers for some reason didn't challenge. 

[briantw]

Man, Baker Mayfield got hit worse than that two weeks ago and it wasn't even flagged.  How was that a fucking ejection?

[Wilbur]

The Steelers have improved outcomes when they aren't giving up 100 yards a game in penalties.