The New New NFL thread

[Daeric]

ANd now it seems that TD isn't being counted on the webpage, I'm just so confulded.

[grozeng]

For the Sehorn INT. It wasn't one handed, but it was batted up (with his leg I think) and then he scored the TD.

And what is Portis doing on the field. I thought he had a sprained knee.

[WarGalley]

Polamalu is without a doubt my favorite Non-Giants player to watch play. I'm glad to see that Sehorn INT being bandied about. I didn't think that play was so well known. Chrebet had an incredible catch that I can't find a link to, but he basically dived for a catch, tapped it twice in mid-air and caught it. Great play.

Redskins are looking good right now despite the tight score.

[grozeng]

[quote name='WarGalley' post='1591183' date='Nov 16 2008, 22.01']Polamalu is without a doubt my favorite Non-Giants player to watch play. I'm glad to see that Sehorn INT being bandied about. I didn't think that play was so well known. Chrebet had an incredible catch that I can't find a link to, but he basically dived for a catch, tapped it twice in mid-air and caught it. Great play.[/quote]

I'm from NY originally. The Jets are my favorite team and the Giants are my 2nd favorite. I went to school in central NY and we got the Buffalo games each week and the Giants game. Chrebet had many amazing catches. He's one of my favorite players ever.

[Jaime L]

Ugh, Redskins had a chance to put a nail in the Cowboys coffin but just weren't good enough. Now they're in that ugly morass of 6 and 5 win teams competing for 1 of the 2 wildcards. Seems like a Herculean effort for the Skins to score points these days and this is the second game in a row Campbell got killed out there. Not good times.

If they don't find a way to win in their house of horrors, Seattle, this season is going off the rails entirely.

[Daeric]

The Skins seemed to perform like they did against the Steelers all those chances to put them away but failing to do so.

On the SD Steelers game, it seems thats the first time a game has ever finished with the 10:11 scoreline.

[Ser Paladin]

Andy Reid's gotta go. I might be the last Philly fan jumping off the Reid era bandwagon, but unless he gets a GM above him and a strong OC below him, he's just not getting it done anymore.

My predictions... Andy Reid in Seattle to take over the Seahawks. Donovan McNabb in Minnesota, reunited with Brad Childress, playing "don't screw it up for AP".

[The Brandon Stark]

So at this point in the season, who's the best team? 10-0 Titans or 9-1 Giants. Both looked very impressive yesterday. The Titan's coming from behind in Jacksonville and then smoking the Jags in the second half. While the Giants made mince meat of the best rushing D in the league and smashing the Ravens right in the mouth.

I go with Giants (yes, they are my team) but their schedule is more difficult and only gets worse for the last six games, however it is hard to argue with perfection.

[Jaime L]

[quote name='Ser Paladin' post='1591549' date='Nov 17 2008, 10.58']Andy Reid's gotta go. I might be the last Philly fan jumping off the Reid era bandwagon, but unless he gets a GM above him and a strong OC below him, he's just not getting it done anymore.

My predictions... Andy Reid in Seattle to take over the Seahawks. Donovan McNabb in Minnesota, reunited with Brad Childress, playing "don't screw it up for AP".[/quote]

Yeah, Andy Reid has been just brutal in game management situations this year. Short yardage and goal-line situations have been horror shows..calling for field goals that Akers can't make...the lesiurely 2 minute drill rearing its ugly head at various times this year. And there's no way they should tie that Bengals team. Not when Jim Johnson's defense got 8 sacks and dominated so thoroughly. Even if he's a great coach during the week in preparing his scheme and getting his guys ready to play, it really makes him look bad when he continually botches gameday.

[quote name='Tywin's Golden Deuce' post='1591555' date='Nov 17 2008, 11.01']So at this point in the season, who's the best team? 10-0 Titans or 9-1 Giants. Both looked very impressive yesterday. The Titan's coming from behind in Jacksonville and then smoking the Jags in the second half. While the Giants made mince meat of the best rushing D in the league and smashing the Ravens right in the mouth.

I go with Giants (yes, they are my team) but their schedule is more difficult and only gets worse for the last six games, however it is hard to argue with perfection.[/quote]

Giants, to me, are easily the best team in football.

Generally believed the axiom that a great run defense shuts down a great run offense, but the Giants just blew that out of the water with their execution. Titans running game can clearly be shut down, Giants apparently can't. They physically beat the crap out of the Ravens, just like they'd done to the Redskins and the Eagles and the Cowboys. Only the Steelers fought 'em to a draw, but Eli, right now is better than Ben. And their receivers are way better than the Titans. I don't see anyone beating them unless they make a bunch of mistakes.

[Jaxom 1974]

[quote name='Tywin's Golden Deuce' post='1591555' date='Nov 17 2008, 12.01']So at this point in the season, who's the best team? 10-0 Titans or 9-1 Giants. Both looked very impressive yesterday. The Titan's coming from behind in Jacksonville and then smoking the Jags in the second half. While the Giants made mince meat of the best rushing D in the league and smashing the Ravens right in the mouth.[/quote]

Hard to argue with either of them at this point. Anyone want to bet that neither makes the SB though?

[phoenix_rising]

The Cards are taking the G-women out on 11-23-08......

[Rockroi]

Thoughts on a week:

-Who is the better team: Giants or Titans? WHO CARES! They are great teams for people who like hard-nosed football and are filled with players who paly good, solid football. As long as they meet in teh Superbowl, I am happy (translation- it won't happen). I liek the fact that the regular season #1 and #2 best teams in football find one in the AFC and the other in the NFC- hence we ignore those lame conversations where we get all caught up in which Conf is superior, etc. and how the "real" SB happens in the AFC/NFC Conf game... you know, like they did in 2001 and in 2007 (when the Rams won and then the Pats won... right?).

-Want to clear something up in case anyone is wondering: yes, Pats fans want the Titans to go 19-0. We are not THAT protective of the 16-0 regular season thing for the strict reason that we lost the SB (it was an amazing ride, btw). However, we want to see the Titans go 19-0 for one very real reason: Because the 1972 Dolphins are filled with hypocritical douchebags. And Mercury Morris is their idiot King. Seriously, Tenn- go 19-0. Please FOR ALL OF OUR SAKES!

-I want the Lions to win a game. Yes, they are a crappy organization; yes, they brought this on themselves; yes, their players have given up in many ways. But NO TEAM deserves this. I believe I said the EXACT same thing about the 2007 Miami Dolphins, and I HATE them.

-Peter King said it best- Phily-Cinnci- 729 yards of punting! Cathc the excitment!!!

-Pitts SD- never has a 11-10 game been so entertaining... wait, there never has been a 11-10 game... but it was still a good game to watch for what it was.

-I still hate Brett Favre and the Jets.

-Dallas... ah... I'm "gald" you won the must win game... but ... look... its over, okay? Your team is not very good, your QB is all over the place and your team still acts like its "all that." I just want to point out that the LAST team that had all the talent in the world and was always the defacto AFC-Champ (the Chargers of the 2000's) were NEVER the AFC Champs... so... yeah, can we just skip your bad games and just get to the exciting part where TO explodes, Romo is arrested with 2 kilos of Crystal Meth and Jerry Jones attacks Phillips with one of the Lombardi Trophies? Please! That's all we all want tos ee at this point- the train wreck; not the pointless trip over the rickity bridge.

-Good Game, GB.

[Rockroi]

Ah one more things:

(from Peter King's article about the Pats draftings):

[quote]It's funny how you judge drafts sometimes. Look at the top of New England's draft in 2007, for instance, and here's what you see:

Round 1 (pick acquired from Seattle): DB Brandon Meriweather.
Round 1 (28th overall): Traded to San Francisco.
Round 2: Traded to Miami.
Round 3: Traded to Oakland.
Round 4: Traded to Oakland.
Round 4: OL Kareem Brown.

What a dud draft.

Upon further review:

· New England traded the 28th overall pick in 2007 to San Francisco for the Niners' first-round pick in 2008 and fourth-round pick in 2007. The fourth-rounder in 2007 was dealt to Oakland for Randy Moss. The first-round pick in 2008, the seventh overall, was dealt down three spots with New Orleans, and the Patriots took linebacker Jerod Mayo with the first-round pick and linebacker Shawn Crable, now on IR, with the third-round pick acquired in the swap with the Saints.

· New England traded second- and seventh-round picks to Miami for Wes Welker before the draft.

· The Pats traded their late-third-round pick to Oakland for the Raiders' seventh-round pick in '07 and third-rounder in '08. This year, they traded that third-round pick to San Diego for the Chargers' second-round pick in 2009.

Moss set the NFL record for receiving touchdowns, 23, last year.

Welker has more receptions, 184, than anyone in football since the start of the 2007 season.

Mayo is the favorite to win the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award. He has 85 tackles, 25 more than any Patriot.

The Chargers' second-round pick in 2009 could be a middle-of-the-round pick because of San Diego's current 4-6 record. The trade should end up being something like the 91st pick in 2007 for the 45th pick in 2009 -- in what the Kiper fraternity is calling a strong draft.

And Meriweather, second on the team in solo tackles, has been a good developmental defensive back.

Four morals of this story. One: It's amazing how misleading the fine print in draft records can be. Two: You can't judge a draft the day after it happens, which we learn over and over but still, for some reason, continue to try to do with Draft Report Cards. Three: Someday we may look at this draft as the one that propelled the Patriots to a second wave of championship contending, the way the 49ers look at the '86 draft (and trade for Steve Young). Four: Pats VP of Player Personnel Scott Pioli is pretty good at his job, taking three picks at the bottom of the first three rounds and turning them into three of the 10 most important players on the New England roster.

It'll be interesting to see if Detroit, San Francisco or some other team that blows up its front office after the season goes after Pioli hard. Why wouldn't they?[/quote]

I just wnated to sue this oppertunity to explain why, as I had stated, it looked like the Pats draftingw as actually pretty good because they used their picks well, while others decried them for "blowing it." Well... turns out... Pats nailed it... again... like they always do...

[Mexal]

By the way, I just want to reitterate what I said in the beginning of the year and got shit for doing.

The Giants are the best team in the league (this is in response to the question posed above).

Eat it!

But yea, the Titans are a very strong team as well.

I wish Cinci had a defense like that :( 20 years later and we still can't build a servicable one.

[Kalbear]

I always said that the Giants needed to show they were the best. Well, they have. It was premature to anoint them at 3-0 or 4-0 after they blew up the Rams. I still stand by that.

And yes, I do think that trading their star WR for a pick was not in the Pats' best interest that year (Reche Caldwell's eyes agree with me). I do think that one of the reasons that they lost the superbowl was because they did not have a lot of depth on their team that year - and a lot of that was because of the lack of new stars. Meriweather has disappeared compared to the other safeties that year that could have been drafted.

Mostly, you can't evaluate a draft based on trades. That's just silly. Moss wasn't a 4th round pick. Welker wasn't a 2nd and 7th round pick. Both were trades. My problem with their drafting from before was that they weren't getting any younger on their D and they needed to pick up more players. Well..that's still a big problem. Their offense looks pretty good, though Moss's best years are gone now and they still need some kind of running back that can stay alive for more than 2 games in a row. But their defense...they lost their star CB and haven't replaced him at all. Their safety help has been abysmal; really, their whole secondary has kind of sucked. Mayo's been good, but part of his success has been the Brian Urlacher syndrome, where he gets a lot of tackles because he's the person they funnel the play to - and he's the only young player on that entire LB corps. So of the last two seasons, I'd say Mayo's definitely a success, but Meriweather is a wait and see at best.

[Rockroi]

[quote]Meriweather has disappeared compared to the other safeties that year that could have been drafted.[/quote]

Meriweather has been very good this season. Yes, I wish he had been better, but if I can only have one draft wish it would be that the Pats took Addai instead of Maroney, but every tema makes draft day mistakes, otherwise Tom Brady would not have gone 199th. The point is that the decisions you DID make panned out.

[quote]Mostly, you can't evaluate a draft based on trades. That's just silly. Moss wasn't a 4th round pick. Welker wasn't a 2nd and 7th round pick. Both were trades.[/quote]

This is too limited a view of draft picks. You can do more with them than just draft rookies who may or may not make yoru squad. You can trade them for more draft picks (which, many have noted, is a trend teams are taking as #1 picks are too expensive to keep) or you can trade them for established talent. Yes, Moss was not a 4th, but we got him for afourth. Hence, it was a big win for the Pats. Welker was even more (if possible) a coup for the Pats. In other words- we got very very goiod value for those draft picks.

[quote]My problem with their drafting from before was that they weren't getting any younger on their D and they needed to pick up more players. Well..that's still a big problem.[/quote]

Well, as I satetd, they got Mayo and Merriweather; they signed Thomas (forearm notwithstanding) Crable was very good before he went on IR. They ARE addressing the issues. Their D is still stocked with very valuable players (who continue to get horribly injured).

[quote]Their offense looks pretty good, though Moss's best years are gone now[/quote]

You're right- he'll never catch 25 TDs in a season again. I guess we should shoot him.

[quote]But their defense...they lost their star CB and haven't replaced him at all. Their safety help has been abysmal;really, their whole secondary has kind of sucked. Mayo's been good, but part of his success has been the Brian Urlacher syndrome, where he gets a lot of tackles because he's the person they funnel the play to - and he's the only young player on that entire LB corps. So of the last two seasons, I'd say Mayo's definitely a success, but Meriweather is a wait and see at best.[/quote]

Who has been in the leaguie all of 1.5 years... ah... that's actually pretty good. With Mayo being the studd many said he would be (even I am suprised by how great he has been able to fit in) those pciks worked. And you cannot address every need in one or two drafts. It just cannot be done (unless you are the 1991 Cowboys). And our secondary blows and is developing. It will take time. Yeah, we lost Samuel, but its not like there was this studd DB out there that was going to solve all of our problems (well, there was- his name was Asante Samuel, but he cost wayyyyy too much). So if the WORST thing that can be said about Mayo is that he suffers from "Brian Urlacher" syndrome, I'll take that.

As the years go on, yeah, the Pats will take more defensive players in their drafts. But I think the point King was making (and its hard to argue) is that based on what they got and based on what people were saying about their drafts, The Pats did pretty darn good.

[Kalbear]

[quote]This is too limited a view of draft picks.[/quote]I don't really think it is. Evaluating what you can do with your draft picks is not the same as evaluating how well a draft works. Yes, the Pats have been tremendously successful (and lucky) at attracting top-name talent to their organization for less money than they'd get elsewhere. They've been very good finding players who were good elsewhere who fit great with their team; Welker comes to mind here.

But that's not saying anything about their draft. If you say that their draft was a success because they signed AT, Moss and Welker, you're saying that other teams are failures because they couldn't do that in the draft. Which...doesn't make sense.

So instead, you evaluate what the players they did draft have done so far. So far, Maroney has been a failure. Chad Jackson is a failure. So far, Meriweather was not as good as some of the other defensive players drafted ahead of him, and he still didn't address the glaring issue of their CB problems, especially since they knew Samuel wasn't staying. Mayo's been good. Mankins was a great choice. Terrence Wheatley has been burnt toast.

So they've had a couple good starters in their first round, one bust, and one 'who knows' player. Their second round choices have been much worse - probably a good thing they gave it up. Mostly, I think that King and you overstate how awesome their drafts based on the people they drafted have been. That's really the big problem with the Pats right now - they're old and getting older, and unlike previous years where they simply reloaded they've not got the youth backing up anyone. I said last year how this year was likely their last gasp at a superbowl, and with Brady injured I think that's it. They were absolutely the team of the 2000s, but that's done now.

[Bronn Stone]

Part of the value of a draft pick, especially a 3rd or lower round pick, is the possibility of locking in a very good player for a long time at relatively low money. If you trade those picks for established players, you give up that possibility.

It isn't that hard to trade a third-round pick for a player who is worth more in the short-term. Most teams that are nowhere near the cusp of the Super Bowl are happy to make such trades. A proper evaluation of the Patriots 2007 draft will have to wait to see just how many teams overall acquired good players with the picks New England deferred or gave up. I personaly think they did a great job and that the draft was one teams should be glad to have avoided. But it is too early to truly make that call.

Eyeing through the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NFL_Draft"]draft results[/url] quickly, the only name that really jumps out as a post-first-round bargain is Tyler Thigpen in the 7th - and he is no longer with the team that drafted him - and that is a team (MN) that desperately needs a QB.

[Whiskeyjack]

[quote name='Bronn Stone' post='1591723' date='Nov 17 2008, 12.30']Eyeing through the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NFL_Draft"]draft results[/url] quickly, the only name that really jumps out as a post-first-round bargain is Tyler Thigpen in the 7th - and he is no longer with the team that drafted him - and that is a team (MN) that desperately needs a QB.[/quote]

I'd add Ahmad Bradshaw as a 7th round bargain. And Zac Diles was having a good season in Houston before getting hurt.

[CelticBrennus]

[quote]Mostly, I think that King and you overstate how awesome their drafts based on the people they drafted have been. That's really the big problem with the Pats right now - they're old and getting older, and unlike previous years where they simply reloaded they've not got the youth backing up anyone. I said last year how this year was likely their last gasp at a superbowl, and with Brady injured I think that's it. They were absolutely the team of the 2000s, but that's done now.[/quote]

Out of curiosity, who do you view as the people getting older and older? The real problem with the current Pats D for instance, is their youth - they have a bunch of young cornerbacks and such who have the physical skills, but not the experience. Mayo has played great, as has Guyton. Right now, IIRC, the only two starters players on the Pats D over the age of 30 might be O'Neil, Vrabel and Bruschi. They are a very young D, and thats the biggest problem they face now.

The O is pretty solid, although the WR corp is a pretty thin after Gaffney. The O line needs reinforcements (although virtually everyone they brought in in the offseason is residing on IR).

[quote]So instead, you evaluate what the players they did draft have done so far.[/quote]

I have to agree with Roc, you need to take a wider view of the draft process. Every NFL team is given a resource for them to use to better the team, their draft picks. You then need to judge what the team did with those draft picks to evaluate things. If a team thinks that trading a pick for a vet player will increase the teams effectiveness, then you judge the use of the pick based on the effectiveness of that player, rather then on the unknown potential of that pick. And really, what combination of 2nd, 4th and 7th round players picked that year can possibly compete with what Welker and Moss have to offer the team? They didnt "attract" either of them, but acquired them.

And I really hope that the Pats can franchise Cassel and trade him for some nice picks, something that will give the team a lot of flexibility in the upcoming draft, given the boatload of picks they already have or should be getting in compensatory picks (Asante, here's looking at you). And hey, no Brady means no Superbowl, so for me it comes down to what can we get in the draft for next year.