NFL 2012 Week 14 - We want a good snow game !

[Howdyphillip]

Bills/Jags last week in Buffalo in December, and it is raining? What kind of crap is that?

Redskins nickel CB Cedric Griffin suspended four games for PEDs. He could potentially return for the playoffs, if we are so lucky. Does anyone know why he is getting suspended straight off, but the Seahawks CBs are not? I don't understand how you can just claim you didn't use PEDs and continue playing until your appeal is heard. Why wouldn't everyone appeal in that case? Griffin might not even be in the league next year, it's not like he's particularly good.

I am pulling this directly out of my rear end, but maybe the team debating on whether or not to appeal so his suspended games will not happen during a possible playoff run.

[Mexal]

AFC Defensive Player of the Week goes to Carlos Dunlap for his 2 sack, 2 forced fumble, fumble recovery, batted pass and 3 TFL against San Diego. It's the 5th Bengals POW this year. Kind of surprising actually but I'm glad our talent is finally being recognized.

Dunlap has the talent to be one of the most dominating DEs in the league but he's so maddeningly inconsistent. I keep waiting for him to take that jump. If this game kickstarts it then we're in good shape.

[balefired-ed]

It's strange for me to see the Bengals defense really starting to come together now, especially with how my boys played against them.

Were they missing some players due to injury/suspension? I don't know if I can say that they are playing lesser competition, because they manhandled the Giants. What's going on over there?

[Mexal]

It's strange for me to see the Bengals defense really starting to come together now, especially with how my boys played against them.

Were they missing some players due to injury/suspension? I don't know if I can say that they are playing lesser competition, because they manhandled the Giants. What's going on over there?

Sort of. The first game we played you guys, we had three issues. First, Carlos Dunlap was still out with a knee injury he suffered in the first preseason game. Second, Maualuga was playing through a knee injury he suffered in the first preseason game. Third, Thomas Howard, our best LB, tore his ACL in practice leading up to that game and forced Vontaze Burfict, an UDFA, to play WLB, a position he never played before. Not only that but Hall was coming off an Achilles tear from the year before, Newman was getting comfortable in the system and our safety play was mediocre.

In the 2nd game, the defense didn't really play bad. The only reason the Browns were in that game is because Dalton had 4 turnovers, including a pick 6.

At the end of the day, people don't realize that this defense went from 32nd in the league after the first 3 games to 8th in yards and have given up 1 TD in the last 3 games, 2 in the last 4. Granted we're not playing offensive juggernauts (except the Giants I guess) but they're still playing well. Not only that but they lead the league in sacks, 90% of them from the DL and have the best defensive tackle in the league on their team in Geno Atkins.

[balefired-ed]

That second game also had the difference from the first game of Joe Haden returning from suspension. With him in the game, we are an entirely different defense.

[Mexal]

That second game also had the difference from the first game of Joe Haden returning from suspension. With him in the game, we are an entirely different defense.

I'm sure that contributed. But Dalton looked poor regardless. We didn't have a running game then, our center was the worst in the league and no WR2 stepped up. Plus, I think Dalton has a tough time reading 3-4 defenses which has me worried for the next 4 weeks since 3 of the teams we play run them. We'll see. This week against the Cowboys will be huge for him.

[Fez]

With the election over, PPP has put out their annual NFL poll. Among the results:

PPP's second annual poll on Americans' favorite NFL teams finds a tie at the top. 12% each pick the Cowboys and Packers as their favorite team, followed by the Broncos and Bears at 10%, Giants and Steelers at 8%, Patriots at 6%, Saints at 5%, and Redskins at 4%.

...................................

There's still no contest when it comes to the country's most hated NFL team. 18% pick the Cowboys to 11% for the Bears, 10% for the Patriots, 8% for the Broncos, 7% for the Steelers, 5% for the Redskins, and 4% each for the Packers, Giants, and Saints. Hating the Cowboys is one of the rare things that can bring Americans together across party lines- Democrats, Republicans, and independents all say that they're their less favorite franchise.

[Sivin]

I'm convinced that the horseshoes on the Colts' helmets are actual good luck charms, because they figured out the absolutely best times to suck dick and hit the lottery twice.

Fucking jerk offs.

If you're mad, just watch one of our comebacks this year. That always cheers me up. ;)

Hah, that's an awesome indictment of 20 years of Redskins QBs.

Nope.

Yardage is a meaningless stat. All the ones that matter favor RG3 by a lot except two:

1) Wins, but that's more a function of the Colts tissue paper soft schedule.

2) 4th quarter comebacks, which admittedly have been incredible (seriously, incredible), but are also a function of the sneaky fact that Andrew Luck hasn't been very good in the first half of a bunch of games this year. If their schedule wasn't as soft as it was, they'd end up with a lot of weeks like they had against the Patriots.

Don't get me wrong, I know Andrew Luck is the Colts and the reason behind every success they have. I just know RGIII is the same thing for the Skins and he's been way more consistent.

Luck and Griffin have the same number of passing TD's, and Griffin has one more rushing TD. Luck also has over 1,000 more yards. And saying that yards don't matter is being ridiculous. It's the ability to move the ball, it's important. Is it as important as pure TD's? No, but don't just write it off, that's being ridiculous.

RGIII has not been asked to do what Luck has. Don't get me wrong, Griffin lifts his team just like Luck does, but Griffin has a nice running game (obviously, helped by Griffin himself, but I think it'd be serviceable anyway) Luck was given the entire system and told "win". Griffin had a system specifically designed for him and was told "play".

Once stellar defense? Do two bad games in 12 really justify already using that in the past tense? How does 2 bad negate 10 good to stellar?

Yes, the offensive line sucks but its also only given up 2 sacks in the last two games against 2 pretty good defenses. And both of those sacks were on Cutler. They've come together the last two years for a solid series of games, who is to say its not happening again?

I also don't get the argument that they've willfully ignored the line for years. In the last 4 years they've used 2 first round draft picks on the line. They brought in another 1st round draft pick in Chris Spencer and a 2nd round pick in Rachal. Now, none have really worked out, though I still have hopes for Carimi, but that's not ignoring the line. That's just failing.

Yes, bringing in busts to fill out the line is a perfectly valid strategy...

Really? This conversation again? Luck is not the OROY.

He is.

Are the Bears different from every other team in the league in that they absolutely must have awesome replacements ready at every single position of the roster? Name one team in the league that does.

New England Patriots. San Francisco 49'ers. Houston Texans. Denver Broncos.

Just a few teams that are doing ok this year. Is it easy? No. But you should at least aspire to it.

[Bronn Stone]

Worst. Thread Title. Ever.

Snow football sucks.

If I want to see a bunch of guys running around falling on their faces, unable to throw, unable to kick or unable to cut, I will watch The Three Stooges. Not the NFL.

Back in the good old days, the people who ran football knew. College seasons ended before Thanksgiving (and college football was the more important spectator sport, by far, up until the 60's). The NFL would have its title game right around now. Because they knew. Snow football is bad football.

[awesome possum]

Yes, bringing in busts to fill out the line is a perfectly valid strategy...

Right, because guys who were considered busts have never gone on to do better on a second team. Never.

New England Patriots. San Francisco 49'ers. Houston Texans. Denver Broncos.

Those teams have guys at every single backup position who can come in and not miss a beat? What are you smoking?

[Mexal]

He is.

No, he's not and it's not even close in my mind. I have it RG3, Wilson then Luck. You can give Luck all the credit in the world and he deserves a lot, but he's been ridiculously careless with the football (16 interceptions, 9 fumbles), completing only 55% of his passes and the only reason the Colts have to make these comebacks is because Luck turned the ball over 3 times before the half. I like the guy and think he'll be a stud but they're massively overachieving against bad teams (sort of like the Bengals last year). Is Luck a great QB? Yes. Will he be one of the greats? Most likely. Has he been better than Wilson or RG3 this year? No.

[Kalbear]

uck and Griffin have the same number of passing TD's, and Griffin has one more rushing TD. Luck also has over 1,000 more yards. And saying that yards don't matter is being ridiculous. It's the ability to move the ball, it's important. Is it as important as pure TD's? No, but don't just write it off, that's being ridiculous.

it's not that we write them off - it's that a lot of yards tend to indicate things that aren't actually 'good'.

For instance, teams that are behind and lose a lot or have to come back in the last minutes because of poor play early on tend to have a lot of yards passing - because they abandon the run early. (note that Indy is fairly low in actual rushing yards). Similarly, teams that are behind a lot tend to get a lot of passing yards as the teams they're facing don't really care about yards at that point. Carson Palmer is 7th in the league in passing; no one would call him a great QB at this point, nor would we think that the Raiders are good. Matthew Stafford is #1 in the league in passing yards at this point - of the 4-8 Lions.

This is also analogous to teams that have good running yards. What people often think is that teams that can run the ball well win, and show how the teams with tons of rushing yards have good records. Well, no. What happens is that teams that get leads then run the ball more when they have the lead. The correlation is exactly reversed. Good luck telling the sports talking heads that though.

[Kalbear]

Also on Luck: the thing that worries me about him other than his horrible turnover ratio is that his accuracy is really meh so far. He has a 55.5% completion percentage; the next QBs that are worse than him are Sanchez, Skelton and Henne. Another one to look at is yards/attempt: Rg3 has over 8 and is 2nd in the league. luck is 17th. Luck has also thrown 175 times more than RG3 has so far, which is pretty insane.

[Bronn Stone]

Are the Bears different from every other team in the league in that they absolutely must have awesome replacements ready at every single position of the roster? Name one team in the league that does.

New England Patriots. San Francisco 49'ers. Houston Texans. Denver Broncos.

Those teams have guys at every single backup position who can come in and not miss a beat? What are you smoking?

Exactly one of those teams has a backup QB worth a damn. Lose Peyton or Brady and they are done. Schaub is a bit dicier - Arian Foster is so special the Texans might survive Matt's absence.

You are out of your gourd if you think a QB who leads a team that won two games the preceding season to eleven or more wins is not going to be right there in OROY voting. And probably will win. If that happens, it will be Luck, stats be damned.

[Jaime L]

Luck and Griffin have the same number of passing TD's, and Griffin has one more rushing TD. Luck also has over 1,000 more yards. And saying that yards don't matter is being ridiculous. It's the ability to move the ball, it's important. Is it as important as pure TD's? No, but don't just write it off, that's being ridiculous.

Yards matter, but they're probably the single most misleading stat as far as assessing quality. One of the easiest and most common ways to accumulate big passing yards is to be behind a lot. Carson Palmer has thrown for 25 more yards on the season than Peyton Manning. Is he a better QB than Peyton Manning?

Or what Kal said.

RGIII has thrown 12 less interceptions than Luck. 12! He also averages 8.1 y/a vs. 7.1 and has a 67% completion rate vs. 55%. He's just been a much more efficient player than Luck all season. Advanced and subjective stats bear the same result.

There's team related reasons for why Luck has been less efficient - lack of a serviceable running game is a big part of it - but the stat differences are too great in my view to say that Luck has been better just because he has less to work with. It's too big a leap.

[Mexal]

Also on Luck: the thing that worries me about him other than his horrible turnover ratio is that his accuracy is really meh so far. He has a 55.5% completion percentage; the next QBs that are worse than him are Sanchez, Skelton and Henne. Another one to look at is yards/attempt: Rg3 has over 8 and is 2nd in the league. luck is 17th. Luck has also thrown 175 times more than RG3 has so far, which is pretty insane.

I think his yards per attempt is misleading. No one throws it down the field more than Luck. RG3 has thrown 175 less attempts and his down the field passing is limited to PA passes where the running game gives a HUGE boost to the passing game. RG3 is accurate with those but so often, his receivers are wide open because the defense keys in on the run. Luck doesn't have that benefit. I will also point out that Luck's adjusted accuracy (taking away spikes, drops and throw aways) is 67%, 3rd lowest in the league. So can't really blame it all on drops like Sivin will do.

You are out of your gourd if you think a QB who leads a team that won two games the preceding season to eleven or more wins is not going to be right there in OROY voting. And probably will win. If that happens, it will be Luck, stats be damned.

Only if you have the hype machine of Andrew Luck but if Dalton won 10-11 games last year, he still would have lost to Newton.

[Kalbear]

I will also point out that Luck's adjusted accuracy (taking away spikes, drops and throw aways) is 67%, 3rd lowest in the league.

where does that come from?

Also, saying that RG3's long passes only come on play action is both wrong and a bit silly to say to start with. Even if it were right, he still throws 50-yard bombs to random receivers. If he does mostly PA it's because he's so good at running the ball that selling the run fake works amazingly well. How is this a knock on RG3, exactly? Yes, Luck can't get away with it because he's not as good as RG3.

[awesome possum]

Yeah, I don't think stats will count for much in OROY. If Luck gets the Colts to the playoffs and RGIII doesn't, he wins. Might not have played better to deserve it, but he'll get it nonetheless.

[Maithanet]

Luck and Griffin have the same number of passing TD's, and Griffin has one more rushing TD. Luck also has over 1,000 more yards. And saying that yards don't matter is being ridiculous. It's the ability to move the ball, it's important. Is it as important as pure TD's? No, but don't just write it off, that's being ridiculous.

RGIII has not been asked to do what Luck has. Don't get me wrong, Griffin lifts his team just like Luck does, but Griffin has a nice running game (obviously, helped by Griffin himself, but I think it'd be serviceable anyway) Luck was given the entire system and told "win". Griffin had a system specifically designed for him and was told "play".

Luck throws the ball almost 15 times per game more than Griffin, so he damn well better have more yards. And the fact that he doesn't have more touchdowns is actually a pretty serious indictment of Luck, seeing as how he is throwing so damn much. How about yards per attempt? Griffin is far ahead. QB Rating? Griffin is 4th in the league. LUck is 31st, just behind Gabbert and Locker. TD to INT ratio? Griffin is more than 4 to 1, Luck is 1 to 1. If we count rushing touchdowns too, Luck is just under 3 to 2, and Griffin is more than 5 to 1. Do you think that 12 more interceptions for the season simply do not matter?

Even if we use your precious yards figure, if we add in Griffin's running totals, he has produced 2660 yards passing and 700 rushing, compared to Lucks 3600 passing yards and 200 rushing. So "total" yards would be Luck ahead by less than 500 yards. Hardly a staggering margin, considering you seem to be basing your entire argument around it.

The stats of Griffin vs Luck are not even close. It's like arguing that Trent Dilfer and Brett Favre are equally good quarterbacks based on the number of Super Bowl wins.

The only reasonable argument for Luck is that he has won more games, and that he is "clutch". The won more games thing is something, but since this is a team sport, it isn't much of an argument. The clutch thing is mostly just in how you look at it. I would rather have the quarterback that doesn't throw three interceptions in the first three quarters, so that he doesn't need to come back against the crappy Lions. But you can't argue with Luck's performance on late drives, it has been excellent.

[Bronn Stone]

Most people do appeal. I'm sure Griffin will as well.

The timing of appeals of suspensions and dropping thereof is an art form in MLB. A bit less so in the NFL because the schedule is more consistent. Since the Redskins are on the outskirts of the playoffs fighitng to get in, I would surely expect an appeal here.