The NFL Thread

And now, for your weekly dose of maddness:

Peyton Manning is now the all-time leader in touchdown passes with 510. Brett Favre's mission: to surpass that in a single game. We realize how impossible this sounds.

Only the Lions could have won a game off a delay of game penalty.

The Packers lose one, win one, lose one, win four, then just when they're getting on a roll in the eighth game, Aaron Rodgers gets hurt with a potentially serious injury. Am I talking about 2013, or 2014?

At least Rodgers is still playing, so there's hope that it's not too serious, and the Packers have a bye next week.

Aaaand the Jets bench Geno in favor of Vick. It's...it's like a comedy show, except not funny. What IS it with the Jets and quarterbacks?

edited 27th Oct '14 2:01:00 PM by tryrar

Drafting quarterbacks is a total crapshoot. The Jets are just that guy who keeps rolling snake-eyes. In all seriousness though, quarterback is a position that has a phenomenally high bust rate. Because of the value placed on the position, quarterbacks are often overdrafted, and then expected to start out of the gate because of their draft position. This sets the player up for failure, and makes it incredibly difficult for a team to secure a franchise quarterback. There are other teams with track records similar to or worse than that of the Jets. The most extreme example is, of course, the Browns, but some others are pretty bad as well. The Bills haven't really had a quarterback since the Jim Kelley era. The Dolphins had a string of quarterbacks bad enough to make them pick a guy at #8 who had only played the position for two seasons. Byron Leftwich is probably the best quarterback to play for the Jaguars. Cutler isn't particularly great, but compared to the run of Bears quarterbacks before him, he's practically Peyton Manning. Prior to Stafford, the Lions had a number of atrocious quarterbacks. Houston is a young team, but they have yet to have an actually good quarterback. Did the Saints actually have anyone who could play that position between Archie Manning and Drew Brees? Lots of teams have bad quarterback runs, and the Jets just happen to be in one right now. Either they'll eventually find one, or they'll turn into the Browns.

Tonight's MNF has become the Ex-Browns Bowl.

Here's something interesting.◊

It's a map, released by the Facebook Data Science team, which colors each counties favorite team based whether or not a team has a plurality of "likes."

Couple of notes:

• The Cowboys have the largest range of plurality of any other team.
• The Jets have no county in the country where they are considered the most liked team.

Your thoughts?

With the trading of 2012's 7th overall pick safety Mark Barron from the Bucs to the Rams, the 2012 1st round is looking to be one of the heaviest bust rounds in recent memory. Barron joins a growing number of players from that first round who are on their second team, injured, or out of the league entirely. At this point, if you weren't either Andrew Luck or a member of a defensive line, you're not doing very well.

edited 28th Oct '14 8:15:17 PM by EagleFan

My only problem with the trade is that the Bucs got literally nothing in return. Sure, Barron is a safety that sucks at coverage and is mediocre against the run, but...a 4th and 6th round pick for a former first rounder?

edited 28th Oct '14 9:39:28 PM by NoChorus

The Bucs screwing themselves over? Shock, that.

That's the sunken cost fallacy talking. It doesn't matter that he was a former first round pick. All that matters is that he's a safety that sucks in coverage and is mediocre against the run. Overall, you're probably better off with the fourth and sixth round picks. There are lots of good players in the league who were picked in those rounds. There aren't a lot of good players who were safeties that sucked in coverage and were mediocre against the run. I think the Bucs won this trade by cutting their losses while they still could.

Maybe if Romo is held out next week, the Jags will have a chance

but then again Weeden doesn't play defense.

edited 2nd Nov '14 2:40:15 PM by NoChorus

Raise your hand if you had the Cardinals leading the NFC (with a two game lead in their own division no less) after half a season.

crickets

Yup, I'm right there with you.

Not only that, it seems like everyone considered the Seahawks to have as good a chance as anyone of breaking the eight-year Super Bowl "curse" of defending champions being unable to win playoff games. Well halfway through the season, they're underdogs to make the playoffs at all.

If you had told me that Mark Sanchez would be starting for a team in the 2014 season, let alone have had as many wins as his old team, I'd probably be laughing.

Even now, I'm still somewhat chuckling.

edited 2nd Nov '14 8:01:07 PM by NoChorus

Sorry for the double post, but: Nick Foles has a broken collarbone and will miss at least a month.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I empathize with the Eagles, since you guys are basically about to go through what Packers fans went through last season. On the other hand, if the Foles injury takes the Eagles out of the playoff race, it can only help the Packers' playoff chances in a crowded NFC.

edited 2nd Nov '14 8:02:39 PM by Linhasxoc

NFC East is really looking like the Cowboys' division to lose...but history has shown that's not necessarily a good thing for Dallas.

Cardinals were legit last year. No one outside the NFC West noticed because they missed the playoffs, but they missed the playoffs with an 10-6 record

edited 2nd Nov '14 8:29:24 PM by ch00beh

Even after eighty-nine years, the Eagles still can't win a Super Bowl. Even when the other team is being led by Mark Sanchez.

sigh

I guess some things never change.

edited 6th Nov '14 7:26:52 PM by EagleFan

Packers are up 28-0 and it's only a few minutes into the second quarter. Lovie Smith must be laughing his ass off.

Also some rather amusing commentary from Michaels and Collinsworth: "If you're a Bears fan, are you more flipped off at the offense or the defense?" "Yes."

I've never seen a team implode like that on primetime.

...is what I'd want to say if it weren't for the fact that the Bucs did that in week three on Thursday Night Football. As did the Christian Ponder-led Vikings against the Packers.

But that was a putrid performance by the Bears from start to finish.

They had two weeks to prepare for this, but I couldn't really tell if they did anything.

They might as well have started scarecrows on defense. Emery must be kicking himself by signing Cutler to that much money. He could’ve franchise-tagged the erratic quarterback for one year and let him walk if he played as badly as he has played this year. But what's done is done: they are basically handcuffed to him for two years unless they want to deal with dead money.

Between the Dolphins debacle, the Patriots beatdown and now this disaster I really don't see how Trestman can survive this season barring a miracle turnaround. I'm not even a Bears fan, but getting blown out like they did today against their biggest rival on primetime is inexcusable.

edited 9th Nov '14 9:36:17 PM by NoChorus

First week of playoff scenarios!

• Raiders are eliminated with a loss or tie.

Rams are the ultimate trap game.

Also I think i am in love with Chris Borland.

edited 16th Nov '14 7:35:36 PM by Ch00beh