2019 NFL Thread v. Chiefs are Champs, Missouri rules the sports world

[Cool Chris]

I guess I just recognize that the NFL is full of scumbgs and assholes. Every team's got some and why should NE be any different? I don't have to like somebody to admire the work that they do. The NFL is not where I look for role models and heroes.

This is where my struggle is. I think there was a thread in the Music subforum about listening to artists that you don't like personally. For some reason my musical tastes are independent of if I find an artist to be a douchenozzle. I can listen to music and put aside the rest. Though it makes the music more enjoyable when I find the artist endearing. When I want to follow sports, I have a hard time compartmentalizing. When I think about sports, I want to check out stat lines, roster moves, forecast playoff chances... but I can't because when I go to espn.com I am inundated with stories about contract disputes, Instagram posts trashing a team's front office, complains about what headgear is allowed....

On a separate note... can we stop already with the cute and funny player introductions? Either get rid of them altogether, ensure everyone say their name and school/hometown at risk of suspension, or go full XFL and let everyone say whatever the hell they want.

[Stadler]

I believe Goodell just licked his finger and stuck it in the air.

He'll get back to you in a few days.

HAHAHA, this is spot on.   

[TheCountOfNYC]

My Jets still finding new ways to lose. It’s so goddamn frustrating rooting for them.

[Stadler]

The NFL is probably with the current program enough to believe only white people can be racist.

I wonder if they consulted with Jay-Z on that?

I'm not really happy with this signing either, as I'm not usually a fan of rewarding bad behavior.    I don't think it's a "Belichick v. Gruden" thing, but Belichick IS close friends with Mayock, so that has to factor in to this as well.  I can't believe Bill is sticking it to his friend, but it sure seems like he is.   I'm more in the camp of "this is intended to send a message to his team", or "send a message to the Stillers", though given that he cannot play tonight, I can't imagine what those messages could be.

[TAC]

The signing is sickening. If he gets in line and plays well, Pat's fans will reap the rewards, but this fan will be holding his nose the entire time.

I guess I just recognize that the NFL is full of scumbgs and assholes. Every team's got some and why should NE be any different? I don't have to like somebody to admire the work that they do. The NFL is not where I look for role models and heroes. If he works out, great. If he doesn't Bill will send him on his way, presumably less an amount of money that they were willing to part with.

Right. I mean I rooted for the Red Sox even though Ortiz is a fuckbrain.

[KevShmev]

In other news, the Cleveland Browns are still the Cleveland Browns.

[El Barto]

I'm not really happy with this signing either, as I'm not usually a fan of rewarding bad behavior.    I don't think it's a "Belichick v. Gruden" thing, but Belichick IS close friends with Mayock, so that has to factor in to this as well.  I can't believe Bill is sticking it to his friend, but it sure seems like he is.   I'm more in the camp of "this is intended to send a message to his team", or "send a message to the Stillers", though given that he cannot play tonight, I can't imagine what those messages could be.

Seems to me this is kind of like a trip to Vegas for Bill. You figure out how much money you can flush down the toilet and then take it to gamble with. Bill figures he's got 9 million on the cap he's prepared to wager. And of course if it pays off the result is pretty much terrifying. As long as he's prepared to cut him before he becomes a problem then there's really not much downside.

[King Postwhore]

If AB is smart,  this is a way to repair his image to get that "big" contract again and he gets to pick where he wants to go.

But this is AB.

[Stadler]

I'm not really happy with this signing either, as I'm not usually a fan of rewarding bad behavior.    I don't think it's a "Belichick v. Gruden" thing, but Belichick IS close friends with Mayock, so that has to factor in to this as well.  I can't believe Bill is sticking it to his friend, but it sure seems like he is.   I'm more in the camp of "this is intended to send a message to his team", or "send a message to the Stillers", though given that he cannot play tonight, I can't imagine what those messages could be.

Seems to me this is kind of like a trip to Vegas for Bill. You figure out how much money you can flush down the toilet and then take it to gamble with. Bill figures he's got 9 million on the cap he's prepared to wager. And of course if it pays off the result is pretty much terrifying. As long as he's prepared to cut him before he becomes a problem then there's really not much downside.

I don't think you're wrong at all.  I think I'm letting my emotions get the best of me; I don't like players like Antonio Brown.  I know Bill has done "reconstruction" before, but was Corey Dillon and Randy Moss as toxic and obnoxious as Brown?   I don't know.   I just hate rewarding assholes like that. 

[Anguyen92]

Wow, I so don't have a clue about this game where I keep reading this whole thing as "Why does everyone keeps thinking Bill Belichick makes all the GM decisions for the Patriots as the head coach?"  Then I just goggled "Patriots GM" and found that yep, Belichick is the de facto GM.  Mind blown.

[Stadler]

Walker, the Tennessee TE, said it all:  "Crown 'em if you want to, but you still have to play football."

I picked them, and was wrong, but watching the highlights, it doesn't look good for Cleveland.   Bad penalties - BAD penalties - and Bakey Mayfield having to be a gunslinger, that's not a recipe for Cleveland success.

Nick Foles, out.   Feel bad about that. 

[TAC]

I'm not surprised Cleveland played that bad. The real surprise is that Tennessee played that good.

[TheCountOfNYC]

Ties need to be eliminated from the NFL. It’s the only one of the big four leagues that still allows them, and it’s so deflating to get invested in a game only for it to end in a draw.

[TAC]

Al Michaels on Antonio Brown arriving at the airport: "Good thing he didn't have to go through baggage claim, because he's got a lot of baggage to claim." 

[Cool Chris]

Al Michaels on Antonio Brown arriving at the airport: "Good thing he didn't have to go through baggage claim, because he's got a lot of baggage to claim." 

 

[Architeuthis]

Seahawks and Bengals was a good game. Seahawks won it 21-20. Both teams played well though, specially the defense on both teams.
Dallas Cowboys were on fire today against the Giants. 35-17

[Stadler]

Wow, they're letting them play tonight.  I don't think these are bad calls (just the opposite; I like it) but it's unusual at least over the past couple years.

Gotta say, though, as a Patriots fan, already tired of the talk about Antonio Brown.  I know he has numbers, but I think the Pats have done just fine until now.  This isn't like the Browns hoping OBJ is going to vault them from Division II college level to playing with the big boys.

EDIT:  Gordon is a beast; I've seen him make two nice catches while taking a shot like it was nothing. 

[dparrott]

AB is a whiny lil bitch who went to the only team who DIDN'T need him.   Raiders are free of his drama and high price tag.  Good riddance.

Rams and Hawks with the close wins!  Hopefully Raiders can make me 3-3.

[black_biff_stadler]

Ties need to be eliminated from the NFL. It’s the only one of the big four leagues that still allows them, and it’s so deflating to get invested in a game only for it to end in a draw.

I can understand your wanting closure from a game but I like ties a lot. A big part is the rarity since there have never been more than two in a season since the introduction of overtime in 1974. I enjoy the suspense of seeing the clock wind down with basically two teams ganging up against my desired outcome (as long as I'm neutral in that game, anyway. If I dislike one of the teams, fuck 'em.) I got into the NFL in 1988 and not long after that the NFL had its biggest tie drought ever, 1990-1996, so it really became this holy grail kinda thing for me.

Beyond that, ties ironically work awesomely as a tiebreaker if a team with a tie in their record is in the playoff hunt late in the season since the only way their record can tie anyone else's with whom they're jockeying for a playoff spot would be if that team had a tie as well and those odds get further diluted by the possibility that the tie could've occurred with a team from the other conference.

So basically what I'm saying is that I think it's a lot worse to have a tied record between two teams at season's end be broken by NFL tiebreaking procedure than it is to have one game out of a team's 16 end in a tie and ultimately lead to that team having a clear-cut better or worse record than a team with no ties.

[pg1067]

Ties need to be eliminated from the NFL. It’s the only one of the big four leagues that still allows them, and it’s so deflating to get invested in a game only for it to end in a draw.

But what's the alternative?  You can't realistically do what the MLB and NBA do in the NFL regular season.  The NHL uses shootouts, so do you want field goal kicking contests at the end of OT?  Have the kickers attempt uncontested field goals starting from 40 yards and move them back after each kick until someone misses?

I actually thought the OT in the Lions v. Cards game was pretty compelling (but I won't go as far as "black_biff" did).

[El Barto]

Christ, how many players broke collarbones yesterday? I see at least three.

Also looks like the Steelers got decimated in garbage time last night. Only got to see the first quarter, but from what I gather the game was over long before they lost Watt and JJS-S.

Ties are stupid and unnecessary. BF makes an interesting point about simplifying the tie-breaks, but in the NFL tie-breaking is already so stupidly convoluted it doesn't actually help much that I've seen. Particularly when there's more than one tie in a conference.

[El Barto]

Ties need to be eliminated from the NFL. It’s the only one of the big four leagues that still allows them, and it’s so deflating to get invested in a game only for it to end in a draw.

But what's the alternative?  You can't realistically do what the MLB and NBA do in the NFL regular season.  The NHL uses shootouts, so do you want field goal kicking contests at the end of OT?  Have the kickers attempt uncontested field goals starting from 40 yards and move them back after each kick until someone misses?

I actually thought the OT in the Lions v. Cards game was pretty compelling (but I won't go as far as "black_biff" did).

If you're to go the shootout route then you do it with 2-pt conversions. Or anyplace between 5-15 yds, I suppose. You shoot it out based on red-zone offense. But only after a normal OT period.

[Stadler]

I rarely support Mike Tomlin, but here, I think it's not unfair to say he was between a rock and a hard place.  The Steelers did not look sharp.  At the end of the first half, they had I think first and goal at the six, and settled on a field goal.  Al Michaels was critical of that, being down I think it was 20-0 at that point, but I thought it was smart.  It remained a three-possession game, true, but if they went for it and didn't get it - a decent likelihood - that might have broken them.

Increasingly, we're seeing pre-season games as "tryouts" and starters and vets are not playing.  That makes the first game or so of the regular season to be "de facto" preseason for those vets.  I watched through the third quarter, and while it was over at that point I think you need to get these guys reps at some point, and what's better than reps against the Pats? 

[bosk1]

Anyone see this play?  https://sports.yahoo.com/49-ers-kwon-alexander-ejected-after-head-shot-to-former-teammate-jameis-winston-212635794.html

Curious what people think.  I've watched it a few times, both at regular speed and in slow-mo.  I'm fine with the call.  But to me, it's a play that highlights the difficulty with that kind of call in the NFL.  If the QB keeps running on the path he is on, the LB probably makes a perfectly fine, fairly low tackle with his shoulder, and all ends well.  But as the LB is already going low, the QB starts to go into an indecisive slide at the last moment, so the LB goes even lower and reflexively lowers his head, which then causes helmet-to-helmet contact.  And not only that--it causes helmet-to-helmet contact with the crown of the LB's helmet, which is a penalty every time and an ejection most of the time, despite that it's pretty tough to avoid in the microsecond that it would take to realize how to avoid it.  That's my take anyway.  But it's interesting to me to read some of the comments, both by fans AND even reporters, on both sides.  Some screaming that it was blatant and "the bum should be out of the NFL for such a hit."  Others screaming about how it's "SO unfair" to the defense and how the NFL is devolved into "pansy ball" where you can't even play defense anymore.  I think that for a lot of these hits, this one included, it's neither one of those, and it's just the call that has to happen in this situation.  I know it's not what a lot of people want to hear, but I think it's just "one of those things" that we'll always see because the NFL (rightly) wants to prevent a certain type of injury that, due to the nature of the game, probably can never be completely eliminated.

[gmillerdrake]

To my eyes that's all on Winston.....and, it was a perfectly fine hit. It's literally impossible on a play like that for the LB to decipher what/how/where the QB is going to slide....at the same time doing his job of laying a hit on a QB who's decided to run out of the pocket.

[El Barto]

Anyone see this play?  https://sports.yahoo.com/49-ers-kwon-alexander-ejected-after-head-shot-to-former-teammate-jameis-winston-212635794.html

Curious what people think.  I've watched it a few times, both at regular speed and in slow-mo.  I'm fine with the call.  But to me, it's a play that highlights the difficulty with that kind of call in the NFL.  If the QB keeps running on the path he is on, the LB probably makes a perfectly fine, fairly low tackle with his shoulder, and all ends well.  But as the LB is already going low, the QB starts to go into an indecisive slide at the last moment, so the LB goes even lower and reflexively lowers his head, which then causes helmet-to-helmet contact.  And not only that--it causes helmet-to-helmet contact with the crown of the LB's helmet, which is a penalty every time and an ejection most of the time, despite that it's pretty tough to avoid in the microsecond that it would take to realize how to avoid it.  That's my take anyway.  But it's interesting to me to read some of the comments, both by fans AND even reporters, on both sides.  Some screaming that it was blatant and "the bum should be out of the NFL for such a hit."  Others screaming about how it's "SO unfair" to the defense and how the NFL is devolved into "pansy ball" where you can't even play defense anymore.  I think that for a lot of these hits, this one included, it's neither one of those, and it's just the call that has to happen in this situation.  I know it's not what a lot of people want to hear, but I think it's just "one of those things" that we'll always see because the NFL (rightly) wants to prevent a certain type of injury that, due to the nature of the game, probably can never be completely eliminated.

In this case it looked kind of deliberate, but I do see your point. Wes Welker created a similar phenomenon, as his stature and running style made it pert near impossible to tackle him without hitting him in the noggin. What are you gonna do? 

[Grappler]

To my eyes that's all on Winston.....and, it was a perfectly fine hit. It's literally impossible on a play like that for the LB to decipher what/how/where the QB is going to slide....at the same time doing his job of laying a hit on a QB who's decided to run out of the pocket.

If Winston slid with his feet first, baseball style, he wouldn't have been hit in the head.  He just half-assedly went to the ground. 

That being said, the defender absolutely led with his head, which is just a big no-no.  Had Winston slid different, the head-to-head contact may not have happened and there's no flag on the play.

[bosk1]

But I'm not sure what "led with his head" really means on a play like that.  If Winston stays upright, it's likely a tackle with the defender's shoulder pad on Winston's thigh.  The defender's head is only in the lead because, anatomically, that's where your head is on your body.  And it looks like he ducks his head only reflexively at the last moment because of Winston going down.  Again, I'm not saying it was the "wrong" call.  I'm just saying that I think it is incredibly difficult to officiate in a lot of situations, and to me, this is one of them.  Part of me wants to say "on this play, I don't see any blatant intent to 'lead with the helmet,' and I'm not sure 'leading with the helmet' is easy to define in this situation, so I think the 15 yard mandatory penalty is fine, but I'm not going to eject the player."  On the other hand, it is impossible in man situations to judge intent, and the rule is designed to discourage that type of contact whatsoever, even if it may be almost unavoidable in some cases, so you always eject no matter what.  I don't think either interpretation is necessarily THE "correct" one.

[Stadler]

I don't like this for other reasons.   What behavior are you trying to drive?   From that clip, we learned that Jameis Winston - who I'm not a fan of even a little bit - doesn't have to commit when running the football.   He can't have it both ways; if he's going to slide, and avoid the hit, then slide and avoid the hit. If Alexander hits him then, penalize him into next week for all I care.  But if he's going to go in hard, he ought to be subject to whatever that entails.   I see what El Barto saw, that is, it didn't look like Alexander was indecisive on that but even if he was, he doesn't have that many options at that point.  And does anyone doubt that were he not touched that Winston would have advanced the ball? 

[Stadler]

Can we outlaw the "Feed me" hand motion after every run of more than ten yards?  Carlos Hyde of the Texans does it every time (though it was funny; he ran for about 15, did the motion, then the very next play the middle linebacker for the Saints stuffed him at the line and leaned over and did the motion to him).

On a related note, DeShaun Watson is a good player, and he's having a good (not great) game, but to listen to these announcers, he's thrown for 9 touchdowns, won six Super Bowls, won the Pole Position for next week's NASCAR race, and is playing guitar in Mike Portnoy's next "super group".  I get that this isn't the "A" team (Tessitore and McFarland), but a little perspective would be nice (and in contrast to an equally fantastic game by Brees).   EDIT: I suppose he deserves credit - that was a hell of a throw while taking a shot to the ribs - but still. 

[TAC]

I don't have any issue with that hit. What's the guy supposed to do, turn around and hit him with his ass? If two guys are diving to the same spot, so be it. You can't retract your head like a damn turtle everything you lunge at someone to make a stop.

[TAC]

Epic last minute of the Saints/Texans game, and while I'd have been happy to see the most overrated coach in the league lose there, I never root against the kicker in that situation.

[Cool Chris]

Can we outlaw the "Feed me" hand motion after every run of more than ten yards?

Had to Google that. I'd just as soon outlaw all stupid shit players do after any play short of throwing the game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. And save the orchestrated group celebrations in the end zone for soccer.

[dparrott]

Raiders looked damn good tonight.  Offense was clickin, defense was right there on Denver for the most part. 

Fans in the stands chanted "F*** AB" for a lot of the game haha

[black_biff_stadler]

Epic last minute of the Saints/Texans game, and while I'd have been happy to see the most overrated coach in the league lose there, I never root against the kicker in that situation.

The way that Payton's balls can go from being huge (calling a 40-yard pass play on 3rd and 2 to try to ice the game) to shrinking to the point that they're invisible to the naked eye (calling predictable runs every play thereafter) is fucking infuriating. He might be one of the worst coaches in the league when it comes to knowing how to milk the last 3-4 minutes of a game when nursing a one-possession lead.