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NFL 2021: Full Speed, Eyes Closed, Can't Lose


Maithanet

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Yeesh I thought Rams-Cards would at least be competitive...

So on top of a broken thumb Garoppolo apparently also has a strained shoulder.  Doctors still maintained the worst ailment he needs to overcome to win on Saturday is between his ears.

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Pretty terrible wild card weekend.  The NFL opted for quantity over quality when it went to the 14 team playoffs, and it showed.  4 of the 6 games were over by halftime.  SF/DAL was close, but I'm not sure I'd call it a good game.  The final 3 minutes took like an hour and both teams made some huge mistakes.  Cincy/Vegas was a good game at least. 
 
On the plus side, divisional weekend looks really good.  Every one of those matchups is pretty appealing and relatively hard to pick.  These are probably at least 7 of the 8 best teams,and the only exception (Dallas) lost to both SF and Arizona, so it's not like they just got a bad matchup.  They should have either played better in the regular season to earn an easy game vs Philly or played batter in the postseason and beaten the Niners.
 
SF @ GB:  Aaron Rodgers is 0-3 vs SF in the playoffs, isn't that crazy?  This GB team is a lot of smoke and mirrors, but then I'm not totally convinced that SF is for real either.  GB won at pants stadium early in the year, and they're fairly healthy.  I can see why GB is favored, but picking them still makes me a little queasy.
 
LAR @ TB:  Rams are so talented, they just need to play like it.  They looked very good against Arizona, the question is whether Arizona is any good.  We know Philly wasn't.  The Rams are going to be a lot more aggressive in taking away the dink and dunk stuff from Brady, the question is whether the Bucs O line can hold up for longer routes.  And on the other side of the ball whether the Bucs defense is clicking again.  They haven't looked anything like as dominant as they did in last year's postseason (even against Philly) so we'll see if Kupp/Beckham can exploit TB's secondary. 
 
CIN @ TEN:  Cincy has the better qb and the better offense in this game.  But they might be too banged up on defense to go any further.  I can definitely imagine Derrick Henry getting going.
 
BUF @ KC:  Kinda feels like the real AFC championship (as it was last year).  Yes, I know that Tennessee has actually beaten both these teams and Cincy won convincingly vs KC.  But I still think these are the teams to beat come playoff time.  Buffalo looked very good (to say the least) vs New England.  The Patriots defense until that game was decent, and KC's is statistically worse (although they do get turnovers).  Hard to imagine Buffalo scoring less than 25 points in this game.  Buffalo's defense looked good against KC in the regular season, but postseason is a different animal and I kinda expect Mahomes to go off as well.  Should be a good game. 
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2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

These are probably at least 7 of the 8 best teams,and the only exception (Dallas) lost to both SF and Arizona, so it's not like they just got a bad matchup.  They should have either played better in the regular season to earn an easy game vs Philly or played batter in the postseason and beaten the Niners.

LOL, the Niners are clearly a better team than the Cowboys - a team that, counting Sunday, was 6-6 against non-divisional opponents.  Sure, they killed themselves with penalties and Garoppolo predictably let them back in the game, but the Niners thoroughly controlled the game in the trenches on both sides of the ball.  That's your better team.

Anyway, I'd be tempted to go chalk on all four games this week.  The Niners are clearly capable of beating the Packers (and the cold weather may even help them), but, again, I don't think I'd feel comfortable with a 3 score lead and a quarter left.  Plus Rodgers has got to be SUPER motivated to beat the Niners.  Chiefs-Bills is indeed the AFC championship for me, excited to watch that one, but I'll go with the home team.

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Been off here for a while but the Cowboys season ended like I thought it would. The def let us down, to reliant on turnovers. When they didn't get them or sacks it exposed the weaknesses. Offense let us down, been calling for Zeke to get benched for weeks and they just refuse to play Pollard even though he looks way better. Dak doesn't look like himself yet.

If it were me I think I'd fire Moore and McCarthy and promote Quinn to HC.

I still have my adopted team the Bills to watch. Hey @Tywin et al., he looked pretty good this year for an avg white QB who can run huh!   Man the Vikings and Cowboys go into next season in just a mess.

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1 hour ago, dbunting said:

I still have my adopted team the Bills to watch. Hey @Tywin et al., he looked pretty good this year for an avg white QB who can run huh!   Man the Vikings and Cowboys go into next season in just a mess.

I don't think either team is in that bad of a situation tbh. The Cowboys need to get out of Zeke's contract, but you'll have to wait a year to do that. Other than that the team is fine. And McCarthy, assuming he keeps his job, will either take you deep into the playoffs next year or he'll get fired. Likewise, the Vikings only downside assuming they don't fuck up the coaching/GM hires is Kirk's contract, and realistically they can just playout the last year of it and move on after next year. If the team looks poor at the midway point they can bench Kirk and see if Mond looks good. If so, great, if not, time to draft a new QB in 2023. 

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52 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I don't think either team is in that bad of a situation tbh. The Cowboys need to get out of Zeke's contract, but you'll have to wait a year to do that. Other than that the team is fine. And McCarthy, assuming he keeps his job, will either take you deep into the playoffs next year or he'll get fired. Likewise, the Vikings only downside assuming they don't fuck up the coaching/GM hires is Kirk's contract, and realistically they can just playout the last year of it and move on after next year. If the team looks poor at the midway point they can bench Kirk and see if Mond looks good. If so, great, if not, time to draft a new QB in 2023. 

I'm more looking at Dallas free agents and cap space, but they always find a way to make it work.

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17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I don't think either team is in that bad of a situation tbh. The Cowboys need to get out of Zeke's contract, but you'll have to wait a year to do that. Other than that the team is fine. And McCarthy, assuming he keeps his job, will either take you deep into the playoffs next year or he'll get fired. Likewise, the Vikings only downside assuming they don't fuck up the coaching/GM hires is Kirk's contract, and realistically they can just playout the last year of it and move on after next year. If the team looks poor at the midway point they can bench Kirk and see if Mond looks good. If so, great, if not, time to draft a new QB in 2023. 

Sweet summer child. Kirk is never leaving. They'll panic when he puts up good stats again next year (he's good at stats, that Kirk) and extend him again because they fear letting him hit the market and win a Superbowl with Shannahan

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1 hour ago, Babblebauble said:

Sweet summer child. Kirk is never leaving. They'll panic when he puts up good stats again next year (he's good at stats, that Kirk) and extend him again because they fear letting him hit the market and win a Superbowl with Shannahan

Our GM probably got fired because the Kirk experiment failed. He's otherwise done a really good job over a long period of time of finding talent and building good rosters. I'm pretty sure the new regime will move on from him, the only question is can they trade him now or not?

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I loved it... but a couple thoughts.

1)  Kendrick Lamar seems the easy set up for a Sesame Street style "One of these things is not like the other."

2)  I can already start prepping myself for the complaints on my FaceBook timeline from people who every year seem like they'd prefer to have Clint Black sitting on a stool singing slow sad songs or some shit.

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The Texans are also worried that they'll look bad because they fired David Culley after just one season, when he was handed a complete shitshow with the Watson situation and possibly the worst roster in the league.  Nonetheless Culley managed to be pretty competitive in most games and rookie QB David Mills showed surprising promise in the latter half of the season.  Did it have something to do with Culley being black?  I don't know, but it does seem like black coaches always get a shorter grace period, and this was particularly egregious.

But sure, give the job to Josh McCown.  He worked with Sean McVay once didn't he?   

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9 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

The Texans are also worried that they'll look bad because they fired David Culley after just one season, when he was handed a complete shitshow with the Watson situation and possibly the worst roster in the league.  Nonetheless Culley managed to be pretty competitive in most games and rookie QB David Mills showed surprising promise in the latter half of the season.  Did it have something to do with Culley being black?  I don't know, but it does seem like black coaches always get a shorter grace period, and this was particularly egregious.

But sure, give the job to Josh McCown.  He worked with Sean McVay once didn't he?   

I don't think anyone expected Culley to win four games with that shitty Texans roster.  The fact that he got fired so quickly was a joke, and doubly so if they fired him to hire a guy with zero coaching experience.

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13 minutes ago, briantw said:

I don't think anyone expected Culley to win four games with that shitty Texans roster.  The fact that he got fired so quickly was a joke, and doubly so if they fired him to hire a guy with zero coaching experience.

I think everyone knew he was a one year bridge, and they gave him $22m for it. Not a bad retirement plan really.

And if that wasn't the plan they probably fired him because he won too many games. 

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Both of the really terrible firings this year were black coaches (Culley and Flores).  In both cases there was widespread head scratching, because both those guys won at least as many, if not a few more, games as could have been expected with those rosters.  And given how few black coaches there are in the league, it is just a really bad look. 

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