NFL 2014

[01101010]

Falcons would need to win three out of: Arizona, @Green Bay, Steelers, @Saints, and Panthers; which is doable, but a bit of a stretch since those next four all look pretty iffy.

Saints would need to win two or three (depending on tonight's outcome) out of: @Steelers, Panthers, @Bears, Falcons, and @Buccaneers. Which *might* be doable. The Road games in Pittsburgh and Chicago won't be kind on the Saints though, two stadiums with all of that cold northern weather.

I'm forced to watch this division mess weekly. I can tell you with about 75% certainty that nobody is getting to 7 wins.

Saints should hit 7. Panthers, Bears (yeah, @ CHI, but that Bears def vs Brees?), Buccs. Hell, they have a good shot on ATL to get to 8-8.

Meanwhile, the AFC north is insanity.

[Paelos]

I don't believe in the Saints and here's why.

They need to win 3 games to get to 7-9 out of their last 5.

@Pittsburgh - They will get demolished. Outside of the weird TB game at home, Pitt doesn't lose those games. Plus Pitt is coming off a bye. Loss.
Carolina - At home, Carolina is a trainwreck, they won big already on the road. This is a win.
@Bears - I know the Bears are shit. I don't care. Outside on the road, the Saints are made out of glass. Chicago can beat TB and Minny at home, they can beat the Saints. Loss.
Atlanta - At home. The Falcons are pathetic, BUT they are a unique kind of pathetic. For the most part they are the type that keeps things close. The Saints have been involved in 4 games decided by 3 points or less. They've lost them all. For the Saints, close = loss. I think the Falcons stun the Saints here.
@Tampa - This is one of those games that I think if the Saints won against Atlanta, they lose this game. If they lose against Atlanta they win this game. I think this is a flip game. The Saints went to OT against the Bucs at home. If the Bucs can spoil the Saints they will. 50/50 game.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, the Saints on the road are just fucking awful. They aren't much better at home, but they stink on ice when playing outside of the Superdome. You can't really count on any team in the NFC South playing well anywhere against anybody, no matter how bad the opposition. I'm really starting to think Atlanta wins this division and it absolutely would not shock me if they do it at 6-10. This may be the worst division in football EVER.

[Paelos]

Atlanta at 6-10 winning this division is the biggest fear of fans. Why? Because the fans hate the coach, and they hate the GM. They don't want any reason for these assholes to hang around. You have fans on sportstalk verbally hoping the Falcons lose even while they are in first place. That's how much they hate this team's leadership right now.

[HaemishM]

Why would you hate Mike Smith? I mean, he took them to the playoffs and he generally seems to be a bland, inoffensive coach. He beats the fuck out of Petrino. Or is it just a "we're done with sucking and it's his fault?"

The GM, yeah, he should be shitcanned for letting the team get this bad this fast.

[Hoax]

Did you not see him actively lose the Browns game? That was terrible.

[WayAbvPar]

He is a TERRIBLE in game coach. Many of his decisions are just indefensible.

[Paelos]

As the others noted, Mike Smith is renowned for have ZERO fucking clue on how to use his timeouts, or manage the end of the half. This comes up often. Allow me to demonstrate.

Against Detroit, Atlanta is up 21-0 at the half. Almost an un-losable situation in the NFL. In terms of comebacks, I think having 24 at the half is essentially a 99% chance of a win. I have no idea what 21 is, but it's large. Especially considering the Lions didn't score in the first half.

Conventional coaching wisdom would say run the ball, go short passes, eat clock, and maybe score once more to ice the game. If any of that had actually happened, the Falcons would have won. Literally 3 points at any juncture of the 2nd half = win. Bear that in mind. Atlanta allows Detroit to go for almost 7 minutes in the first possession, but they stalled at the end and got a FG. Still, that looked like a win for the Falcons. They grinded off seven minutes, and Detroit got 3 points. Who cares right? Indeed.

Remember what I said about conventional wisdom and running the ball? NOPE, Falcons come out passing and Matt Ryan gets sacked for a loss of seven and almost fumbles the ball away. Then they run for a yard, and throw an incomplete pass. For a 3-and-out, it took literally 1:30s off the clock. Fans are left wondering what the hell we are throwing the ball for. Detroit of course goes right down the field and scores a TD in less than 2 minutes. Uh Oh. Now it's 21-10.

So what do the Falcons do? They come out passing again. Granted they actually move the ball a bit due to penalties. But they ran twice in the series for 17 yards in two plays. The run was working. It was grinding clock. So what do they do when they get to mid-field on first down? They fucking pass again, and it gets intercepted. And I mean a horrible looking interception where Matt threw to the guy standing by himself. Detroit gets a FG out of this. It's 21-13.

So you're still fine. For the love of God there's an entire quarter left. Move the ball and burn some fucking clock Mike Smith. Stop this fun and gun! Please. Run on first down, pass for another first down, incomplete on first down, run short on second down, sack on third down, punt. The play calls just keep getting backwards. You don't throw on first down ever when you're on these drives. You certainly don't run on second down and 10 when you have to move the ball. But yet, here we are. Less than 3 minutes off the clock, no points.

Detroit of course scores a TD. BUT they fail the 2 point conversion. HAHA! We're going to escape! Falcons get the ball with less than 4 minutes left. All they have to do is get a couple of first downs and grind the clock. They run, run, pass for the first down. Liked that series. Run, pass for the second first down. Liked that too. It's looking good. We're correcting the problems. The playcalling finally making some sense. With the next run, Detroit is out of timeouts. You have second down and 1:55 left. Game over right?

Wrong. First of all they run the ball on 2nd down and get a holding call. It's declined, but that stops the clock. You can't hold there as a lineman. You have to be told that coming out of all the fucking timeouts that nobody cares about these runs. You can freaking kneel on the ball at this point and take it to about 25 seconds left before you punt. But that was dumb. Then, comes the inexplicable. MIKE SMITH THROWS A FUCKING WR SCREEN ON 3RD AND 10, and it gets dropped. Clock stops. 1:40 left. So from about 25 seconds, Matt Stafford suddenly has a buck forty go get into FG range to win.

The Falcons pin them on the 7. Good job by the punter there. But Stafford starts hitting passes. 32 yards, 20 yards, spike. Atlanta tries to call some timeouts to stop this, but Stafford gets another first down. They line it up with 4 seconds left after a spike. He missed. BUT NO. It's a delay of game. Back it up 5 yards, kick again. Boom. Lions win.

I could do the Cleveland game because it's even worse. Sufficed to say that with about 1:09 left after getting a catch on second down in field goal range. Mike Smith burns his own timeout. Instead of the Browns. So he saved the Browns an extra timeout, and then elected to throw a fucking pass on 3rd and 2 instead of running the clock. The Browns got like 5 timeouts in that game because of Mike Smith. They had 44 seconds and 3 timeouts, where they should have had 44 seconds and one timeout minimum. It's insane.

The man is incompetent inside two minutes, and it's not like that's a small part of being an NFL head coach!

[HaemishM]

Ok, yes I get that he comes from the Art Shell school of time management. Other than that, though, he's not like Rex Ryan asshole type.

EDIT: Also, the throwing on first down with a lead and a need to milk the clock thing is SUPER annoying in a coach. Unfortunately, it's all just about anybody does these days because fuck running games. It's a passing league and the head coaches (and their OC's who want to be head coaches) are trying to impress people with their playcalling skills. But does Mike Smith call the plays or does the OC?

[Paelos]

The OC calls the plays. But here's the thing, after you got buried in Detroit for calling that 3rd down play, and believe me it's all people talked about, you do the EXACT SAME THING AGAIN?

That's not the OC anymore. That's the head coach not impressing upon his staff their roles. He's not a fan out there. He can go tell the OC to stop fucking around.

Here's what's even worse. Mike Smith is the defensive head coach. He was a DC and a LB coach going back. The Falcons defense is and has been a complete trainwreck for years. He can't even get that part right.

[HaemishM]

Proof that the NFC South is the worst division like... ever. Or at least this century.

Even the worst divisions win at least 25 percent of their games outside of the division. The 2008 NFC West went 10-30 against the rest of the league. The 2004 NFC West, 2010 NFC West, 2002 NFC North and 1984 AFC Central each went 13-27 in nondivision games.

The NFC South is 6-23-1 against the rest of the league. That's an embarrassing 21.6 winning percentage. Eight of the NFC South's 10 remaining nondivision games are against teams with winning records. The Falcons are 0-14 against teams with .500 records or better over the past two seasons and are 0-7 outside the division this year.

The 2010 Seattle Seahawks were the first team in NFL history to win a division with a losing record. They went 7-9 and ended up upsetting New Orleans in the first round of the playoffs. A 7-9 NFC South winner is possible, and it's not out of the question for a team to win the division at 6-10.

Yeah, they really are that fucking bad.

[MrHat]

Rice reinstated.  Wonder where he ends up.

[HaemishM]

Last night clarified a few things.

Detroit is going to hang in there for the playoff chase and Chicago really is just a bad team with no real reason to be bad. The Bears' fans have buyer's remorse over Cutler and they probably should have - he's just not good enough to carry that team.

Philadelphia is a better team than Dallas. Dallas on the other hand is a worse team than their record would lead you believe. That offensive line withered under good pressure and Romo couldn't carry the team along with all those Eagles he had draped over him all game. Good news for the Cowboys is they only have 2 games against good teams in their last 4 - they should be able to get 10 wins. Whether that gets them in the playoffs is up in the air. If Philly can beat Dallas again at home (assuming they lose to the Seahawks which isn't a foregone conclusion), they probably coast to the NFC East title.

San Francisco, meanwhile, is likely done as a playoff contender. Their defense is good, but not good enough to overcome Kap's pretty obvious shortcomings as an NFL caliber quarterback. He can't read defenses for shit. His O coordinator doesn't seem to know what kind of offense he wants to run, especially when the team can't run the ball. They seem shit-scared of getting Kap injured so they aren't using him to run the ball. As a pocket passer, he's Mark Sanchez. His tight end has disappeared, and though they have good receivers, they have no idea how to use them and it doesn't matter anyway because Kap makes SHITTY SHIT SHIT reads. Both the INT's to Sherman were balls that should never ever have been thrown. Hell, the first one looked like Sherman was the intended target. They'll beat Oakland easily next week but they could very easily lose their last 3 games (@Seattle, and home to San Diego and Arizona). There won't be an 8-8 wild card and maybe not even a 9-7 one.

San Fran and Dallas have to hope Detroit chokes down the stretch, which seems unlikely considering 3 of their last 4 games are against SHITTY teams (Tampa, Minnesota, @Chicago and @Green Bay). Seattle's remaining schedule isn't easy (@Philly, San Fran, @Arizona and home to St. Louis) but their defense seems to have finally showed up and their offense isn't coughing up the ball with regularity like San Fran's.

[Mithas]

Detroit will definitely hang in there. Green Bay will likely have to win out in order to win the division. New England will be tough for them this week. Detroit will win their next 3 and it will come down to the last game of the year.

[HaemishM]

I don't expect Detroit to beat Green Bay at Lambeau unless Green Bay is already in the playoffs and letting guys rest or a big name is injured between now and then. I think the New England game will be one of the best games of the year to watch and will likely be huge in determining playoff seeding.

[HaemishM]

PACKERS WIN!!!!!

So yeah, I do not think that game goes that way if it's played in New England. Home field seems to be a HUGE fucking benefit to all the good teams this season. Packers looked pretty good considering their 2 best receivers were being blanketed all game by either the best cornerback in the game or a double team. New England made the mistake of not running the ball enough. They should have gone with the game plan from the Colts' game - run run run run run pass run. Green Bay still struggles with the run up the gut. Throwing the ball as much as New England did actually played into Green Bay's strength - they could pass rush. On a neutral field, I'm not sure who would have won that game. I'm still not even sure Green Bay can beat a team with a good defense like Seattle or Arizona if they have to go on the road. At home? They got a chance.

Oh Cleveland - you just couldn't go through a season without starting your QB controversy. Enjoy it! It may mean you don't make the playoffs but JOHNNY FOOTBALL!!!!!

Arizona might actually be in trouble. Too many injuries means they might well slip out of the playoffs altogether. The Football Gods hate you.

[Mithas]

Arizona is in trouble. They were sometimes shaky even with Carson Palmer. Their defense is legit and it has got them to where they are. Remainder of schedule:

• Chiefs
• @Rams
• Seahawks
• @49ers

All of which have at least decent defenses.

A lot of pundits are saying NE vs GB was a Super Bowl preview. I don't know that the Packers make it there. If they run into Seattle, or anyone else with a good defense they could be toast. They will need to win home field throughout the playoffs in order to have a chance.

[Hoax]

At this time it looks like New England vs GB / Seattle.

Can't really say which NFC team it is because I haven't seen Seattle play for awhile so I don't know how much to believe that they are past whatever that identity crises they were having early in the year was.

Gun to my head I'd say Pats vs Hawks.

Better defense + better coach + better overall roster > better QB + home field(?)

But I'd sure enjoy a GB vs Seattle frozen tundra NFC Championship.

[shiznitz]

At this time it looks like New England vs GB / Seattle.

As I much as I want to disagree, while the Eagles are highly likely to win the NFC East, it is hard to see the Packers dropping any of the last 4.  That means they secure home field and Sanchez with cybernetic implants cannot beat Rodgers in Lambeau.

Eagles could beat Seattle in Philly and they get Dallas at home after that followed by the doormats in the division. That puts them at 12-4 but does not likely give them the BYE or home field that they really need to have a shot.

[01101010]

Oh Cleveland - you just couldn't go through a season without starting your QB controversy. Enjoy it! It may mean you don't make the playoffs but JOHNNY FOOTBALL!!!!!

Well, Hoyer has not been up to much of anything the past 3-4 games, so why not let Johnny start playing more? Get his knee blown out early and get this over with already right? 

[HaemishM]

Yeah, after all, Jameis Winston won't draft himself. 

[Phildo]

Johnny Football probably would draft himself if he could, though.

[Megrim]

At this time it looks like New England vs GB / Seattle.

Can't really say which NFC team it is because I haven't seen Seattle play for awhile so I don't know how much to believe that they are past whatever that identity crises they were having early in the year was.

Gun to my head I'd say Pats vs Hawks.

Better defense + better coach + better overall roster > better QB + home field(?)

But I'd sure enjoy a GB vs Seattle frozen tundra NFC Championship.

As much as I want to see NE in the finals, the playoffs are such a crapshoot that its hard to guarantee anything. Imho, it will be the teams which are not only the 'best' of this year, but also the one which go into the playoffs most healthy.

[K9]

[Paelos]

I honestly don't think it will be GB in the Super Bowl. They just have too many problems defensively for me, and they are really winning a lot of games on turnover margin right now. I mean to the point of absurdity how much + they are in margin. That doesn't last forever.

Seattle can grind. They are a threat now that Arizona is toast. Arizona may not win another game. Philly is dangerous against anything but a solid defense, but there will be 3 of those in the playoffs minimum. Dallas will fold because their defense sucks. Detroit is much more dangerous than people realize because of defense and the hot/cold Stafford. Also, if New Orleans gets a home game, they will fuck up some wild card team's day. That's such a huge advantage for them, it's not even funny.

[Megrim]

From what little I've seen of Detroit - they are potentially very decent. If they can get the disconnect between QB and receivers sorted out, they will be a force.

[HaemishM]

I honestly don't think it will be GB in the Super Bowl. They just have too many problems defensively for me, and they are really winning a lot of games on turnover margin right now. I mean to the point of absurdity how much + they are in margin. That doesn't last forever.

Yes. You saw that happen in New Orleans, and it was why they lost that game. It's also why they are killing it at home - Rodgers just isn't throwing INT's at Lambeau and their RB's and WR's aren't fumbling. Their defense is also really susceptible to runners who can break tackles around the line of scrimmage. They get great penetration against both run and pass but when they whiff on those tackles, they usually will give up like 5 yards before another guy comes and makes another hit.

Detroit is streaky and their offense is not explosive on a consistent basis. Their defense has been playing great but if that fails them, they will not win a shootout.

[Trippy]

LOL Jets.

[Rasix]

What a dreadful fucking game.   

[HaemishM]

I am so glad I didn't watch it. What kind of a fucking muppet only drops back 15 times in the entire game? Right, the muppet that can't even complete half of those passes, fumbles once and throws another INT (though that one was as much on the receiver not paying attention as the dumbass throw to a completely covered receiver). Rex Ryan quite literally took a steaming grumper all over the NFL and the team just to piss off the GM. Not that he's wrong in trying to prove that Geno Smith is just not an NFL QB - I think this season and last night have proven that quite well.

[Paelos]

Miami should have blown the Jets off the field. Instead they fucked around for an entire three quarters of football.

[Rasix]

I am so glad I didn't watch it. What kind of a fucking muppet only drops back 15 times in the entire game?

It was 8 until the final drive.  8. 

[HaemishM]

Yeah, I heard Gruden mention that and thought to myself, "Did they resign Tim Tebow?" 

[Shannow]

Yeah, I heard Gruden mention that and thought to myself, "Did they resign Tim Tebow?" 

He's probably a better option at this point...

[K9]

reddit.com/r/nfl polled on who the top five coaches are. BB ended up getting 100% of the first preference votes apparently! (574 responses)