NFL 2018 V: The Packers Win With A Loss While The Cowboys Lose With A Win

[Lord Lyman]

2 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

I saw this morning that the record for receiving yards by a TE is 215, set by Shannon Sharpe... And that Kittle didn't get a single yard in the second half. How weird.

 

Gronk was in for that play, and that was also the one defensive snap that Devin McCourty didn't play. *sigh*

Not that it should have been even possible to lose on the last play. But a missed extra point and a missed 42 yarder by Gostkowski and Brady taking a sack at the end of the first half (instead of preserving time for a chip shot field goal) kept a touchdown's worth of points off the board.

Even if he had made the extra point, the Patriots probably would have still lost, had everything else played out the same way. The Dolphins didn't kick the extra point on the last TD. 

[Trebla]

5 hours ago, Bronn Stone said:

Reggie McKenzie out with the Raiders.

He should be out of work for about ten seconds longer than he wishes to be.  I don't think he's the best in the business, but he's far from the worst.  All in on Chucky.

Well, as one wit wrote today, Gruden should get coach of the year since he's likely gotten TWO teams into the playoffs this years. The Bears and Cowboys thank him!

[briantw]

Minnesota out there channeling their inner Browns.

[Iskaral Pust]

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It could, but it won’t. Your dirty Seachickens are going down tonight!!!

You need to picture me doing the GOB Bluth chicken dance.  Boc-a-boc-a-boc.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

You need to picture me doing the GOB Bluth chicken dance.  Boc-a-boc-a-boc.

Lol, that’s fair. And the sad thing is you guys were bad last night. You just benefited from us being terrible.

8 hours ago, Triskele said:

If you were a Minnesota fan and you were really looking for a sign that Cousins was a good signing after all tonight could not have felt good.  

Cousins had a bad night, that’s not up for debate. However, the play calling was what was truly horrific. It felt like they made the wrong decision every time they were in a pivotal situation. And really, that’s been true all year, it’s just that Diggs and Thielen seem to be able to bail them out most of the time. IDK why people think DeFilippo is a hot head coach prospect. He’s terrible.

[Iskaral Pust]

8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Lol, that’s fair. And the sad thing is you guys were bad last night. You just benefited from us being terrible.

Wilson was dire but good runs and then the turnovers pushed up the scoring. 

I’m surprised the Viking receivers didn’t do more against an indifferent secondary, but Cousins was poor under pressure. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Wilson was dire but good runs and then the turnovers pushed up the scoring. 

I’m surprised the Viking receivers didn’t do more against an indifferent secondary, but Cousins was poor under pressure. 

But that goes back to the play calling. It was obvious that the Vikings line couldn’t sustain their blocks, and yet the OC kept calling long developing pass plays. They should have switched to a lot of three step drops, but they completely failed to do so.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

And on that note, the Vikings have fired their OC. Further proof that people are stealing our ideas!!!  

[Ferrum Aeternum]

51 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And on that note, the Vikings have fired their OC. Further proof that people are stealing our ideas!!!  

Now he's free to pursue all those head coaching opportunities! 

[Jace, Extat]

3 hours ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

Now he's free to pursue all those head coaching opportunities! 

The Browns are calling.

[IamMe90]

I'm so happy Amari Cooper is breaking out again after the trade. I think it's pretty clear that he is a very talented receiver who had a down year last season. He runs great routes and gets a ton of separation, yet everyone (at least, in fantasy communities) seemed to looove getting on the Trash Amari Cooper train after last year to a ridiculous degree. Think Carr and Gruden are obviously the source of his lack of production this year rather than a lack of talent on his part.

[Bronn Stone]

26 minutes ago, IamMe90 said:

He runs great routes and gets a ton of separation, yet everyone (at least, in fantasy communities) seemed to looove getting on the Trash Amari Cooper train after last year to a ridiculous degree. Think Carr and Gruden are obviously the source of his lack of production this year rather than a lack of talent on his part.

Amari earned every bit of rancor that he got.  He gave up on routes far too easily in Oakland.  There were and are problems with the adjustment to the Gruden offense this year and with the mental state of the whole Raiders team last season.  But to hold Amari blameless is not an accurate representation of what was happening.

[IamMe90]

7 minutes ago, Bronn Stone said:

Amari earned every bit of rancor that he got.  He gave up on routes far too easily in Oakland.  There were and are problems with the adjustment to the Gruden offense this year and with the mental state of the whole Raiders team last season.  But to hold Amari blameless is not an accurate representation of what was happening.

He had a terrible year last year and that was his fault, but I think people went too far after that, ignoring the overall team problems for the sake of scapegoating all of it onto him. I guess I'll walk back my take a little bit, as I agree he wasn't fantastic this season on the Raiders or anything and did give up on some routes too early (although as I recall he was in the top tier of receivers before the trade when it came to yards of separation). But I don't think it's a coincidence that he started pretty much immediately flourishing after getting to a new team, a team that doesn't even have a good QB at the helm at that. People basically wrote him off as a talentless hack after last year, and I think it's pretty clear that that is not the case, so I don't think he deserved all the rancor he got. 

[Bronn Stone]

41 minutes ago, IamMe90 said:

 People basically wrote him off as a talentless hack after last year, and I think it's pretty clear that that is not the case, so I don't think he deserved all the rancor he got. 

I live in the Bay Area and I never once heard "talentless".  Difficult, distracted and lazy all came up.

[IamMe90]

13 minutes ago, Bronn Stone said:

I live in the Bay Area and I never once heard "talentless".  Difficult, distracted and lazy all came up.

Comes up on the internet all the time my man. I dunno about what people in the Bay Area are saying in real life. 

[DanteGabriel]

21 minutes ago, IamMe90 said:

Comes up on the internet all the time my man. I dunno about what people in the Bay Area are saying in real life. 

I Googled "Amari Cooper talentless" and the only hits I got that had the word "talentless" were talking about the Raiders' roster.

[briantw]

41 minutes ago, Bronn Stone said:

I live in the Bay Area and I never once heard "talentless".  Difficult, distracted and lazy all came up.

Yeah, pretty much the only thing I ever heard was that he had the talent, but he lacked the consistency and the drive to be great, which seemed consistent with his Oakland tape.

And with that in mind, I still wouldn't want to be the team that pays Cooper big money.

[IamMe90]

5 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I Googled "Amari Cooper talentless" and the only hits I got that had the word "talentless" were talking about the Raiders' roster.

We can quibble over the exact diction, but I am saying that hordes of overreactionary people on Reddit and similar communities were calling Cooper a bust and a hack. Many renowned FF podcast hosts would float this sentiment as well. 

[Maithanet]

I feel like the main criticisms I heard of Cooper was:

1 - He has a lot of drops. 

2 - He struggles with week-to-week consistency and effort.

3 - He thinks he's better than he really is, and will want to be paid like a star.

I don't know if we've really seen enough of him playing for the Cowboys (he's had what, six games with them?) to say if any of those have gone away.  Lots of inconsistent players can put together a great month or two.  Six games is too small a sample size to say if dropping catchable balls is still a problem or not.  #3 definitely hasn't gone away, and I've no doubt that the Cowboys are going to pay him a pretty penny to keep him.  They may yet come to regret that deal, even if the initial returns on the trade have been as good as you could hope. 

[briantw]

4 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I feel like the main criticisms I heard of Cooper was:

1 - He has a lot of drops. 

2 - He struggles with week-to-week consistency and effort.

3 - He thinks he's better than he really is, and will want to be paid like a star.

I don't know if we've really seen enough of him playing for the Cowboys (he's had what, six games with them?) to say if any of those have gone away.  Lots of inconsistent players can put together a great month or two.  Six games is too small a sample size to say if dropping catchable balls is still a problem or not.  #3 definitely hasn't gone away, and I've no doubt that the Cowboys are going to pay him a pretty penny to keep him.  They may yet come to regret that deal, even if the initial returns on the trade have been as good as you could hope. 

My main concern with him is that he has effort issues, and that's a red flag when you're about to heinously overpay someone.  Yeah, he's playing great now because he was traded from the worst franchise in the league to a team that is currently winning games, but is he going to maintain that effort into next year, or when he gets paid like a top WR after next season?