Am I a weirdo?
I agree. Of the six games they have left on their schedule, four of them are against teams with winning records. The Jets, meanwhile, don't face a team with a losing record until Week 17 against the Patriots. I can easily see them going 0-16.
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.
Would that it were so simple.
The Jets might actually win that second game against us in Week 17, since we seem to be playing down to our competition. We barely beat them and would have probably lost if Nick Folk chose that moment to miss a field goal.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
That's Dr. Title, thank you!
Denver apparently has lost all of their QB's to COVID protocols this week. They're planning on starting their practice squad wide receiver at QB (he was at least a backup QB at Wake Forest), and they tried asking the NFL to let them start a coach at QB, on the theory that he would know what their playbook is about.
Would that it were so simple.
New England def. Los Angeles Chargers 45 - 0.
- Cam recorded only 69 yards through the air (nice), but brought in 3 T Ds — two rushing, one passing to N'keal Harry.
- No Jules yet, but Gunner Oszlewski channels the young JE 11, scoring a punt return TD, returning another punt 50+ yards to set up a field goal, and catching a TD pass from Jarrett Stidham.
- Last second field goal attempt at the half blocked and returned for a score by Devin McCourty.
- Speaking of Stidham, Jarrett Stidham notches his first win and his best game with playing time as a Pats QB: 1 TD, 0 INT, 66 yards, 66.7% Comp., 99.6 QBR.
- Patriots defense absolutely feasted on Justin Herbert. Another rookie QB taken down by Bill Belichick. He walks away from the encounter with 0 TD, 2 INT, 49.1% completion on 53 passes, and a QBR of 8.8.
Absolutely crucial win. If BB can magick this team of vagabonds into the playoffs, he's coach of the year.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
I don't know, I think my vote has to be for Adam Gase at this point. A good leader can push a team towards success. It takes a truly special leader to get the entire organisation to commit themselves towards defeat at all costs so as to have the number one draft pick and the promise of a rebuild in future seasons.
Even when leading in the dying seconds and just needing to defend a Hail Mary the team kept to Adam Gase's vision and dialled up an all out blitz, defending the desperation play with man coverage. They executed the play flawlessly in allowing the Raiders to score to keep their perfect record intact.
At this point it has to be deliberate, hence why Gase deserves all the plaudits.
Would that it were so simple.
The Jets are going to destroy T-Law the same way they destroyed Sam Darnold. Draft picks are glorified lottery tickets. All the high picks in the world won't save a team that's gotten used to losing. Like, what if they use the No. 1 pick on Trevor Lawrence and he ends up hurt like Joe Burrow? Seems likely since Darnold has been snakebitten by the injury bug twice this season. He'll sure wish he didn't train the rest of his team to lose games. Woops!
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Dec 6th 2020 at 1:23:18 PM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Being serious for a moment though... I think it'll be hard to overlook Tomlin if he can maintain the Steelers position. I don't think anyone had Pittsburgh down as the last unbeaten team at the start of the season and going into December, plus he's had to adapt twice to a changing schedule through no fault of his own thanks to Tennessee and Baltimore having Covid-19 outbreaks. Sure, people might call the Steelers the worst 11-0 team in history but if I were a Steelers fan I'd gladly take that on the chin because it means my team is 11-0.
Edited by singularityshot on Dec 6th 2020 at 10:57:32 AM
Would that it were so simple.
The Steelers are a stacked team that has had two of their opponents get nut-slapped by Covid 19 outbreaks before their matchups and get to feast on a lot of weak teams: Washington, the Bengals twice, the Giants, the Jets, the Broncos, the Jaguars, and the Eagles. Those are 8 games of near-guaranteed wins with no significant Covid disruptions. Then you look at some of their wins...they eke out one against the Titans amid a late game collapse because Stephen Gostkowski fucked up. They beat a Ravens team in the middle of a Covid outbreak with Lamar's backup playing, but only by 5 points. Like there's a reason the 2019 Patriots got a lot of side-eye last year as a fraudulent undefeated team going into Week 9 with an 8-0 record. The 2015 Patriots put up 10-0 before limping to the playoffs 12-4.
If the 2020 Pats, starved as they on both offense and defense, thread the needle, get 10-6, and get into the playoffs after a season that saw a Covid outbreak, the loss of the greatest QB to ever live in free agency, several key pieces of our dominant 2019 defense, and a league record in Covid-19 opt-outs, we've managed to conjure up something far, far greater than sum of its parts. That's all coaching and that's why BB would deserve it.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Dec 6th 2020 at 2:20:58 PM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
All fair, just that coaches wrongly or rightly get judged on their win loss record first and foremost and 10-6 is rarely good enough.
Marvin Lewis won it in 2009 on a 10-6 record, but that was an improvement from 4-11-1, it won them the division plus he had a lot of off field issues to deal with including the death of Chris Henry.
Before that it was Sean Payton in 2006 with getting New Orleans playing again after Hurricane Katrina.
We'll see how the rest of the season pans out. If the wheels do come off the Steelers perfect record then it'll open the door to other coaches, and I'll admit I was struggling who else might deserve it other than Belichick. (Sean Payton for actually winning games with Taysom Hill?).
Edited by singularityshot on Dec 6th 2020 at 11:55:05 AM
Would that it were so simple.
So, that's not true. There are several examples of 10-6 teams getting the award. It has to do with the context of the season, how badly the team did the year before, and how well they do with the schedule they play and the players they have.
Anyway, I think the Steelers will lose to either Washington in a trap game off a short week because of their Covid rescheduling, or against the Bills or Browns.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Dec 7th 2020 at 8:43:34 AM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Yes, there are examples. I gave two of them. So I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it is rare.
Going back to 1978, the year the league moved to a 16 game season, there have been 9 occasions where a team with a record of 10-6 or worse has had their coach win Coach of the Year. So that's around 21% of the time.
Every single one of those nine teams saw an improvement compared to the previous season. On average, they improved their record by 5 additional wins. Belichick would be the first coach to win the award at 10-6 with a worse record than the year before (12-4).
I should also point out that the Steelers went 8-8 last year so they have improved already by 3 wins over last year's performance. If you don't like the Steelers, you have the Browns under a new head coach getting at least three additional wins with their current 9-3 record.
Those are the hard numbers. Everything else is pretty subjective and up for debate, but you have to admit that it's a bit of an uphill battle.
Would that it were so simple.
Yeah, I dunno, getting 10-6 facing the Chiefs, Ravens, Rams, good Bills, good Dolphins, and Seahawks, amid a Covid outbreak, seems like a prouder accomplishment than 12-4 against the bad Dolphins (to whom we lost one), the rebuilding Bills, the WFT, the cratering Browns and Bengals, the bad Giants, the bad Eagles, the bad Steelers before getting thumped by almost every playoff team in the AFC in a year where we spent most of the early season as heavy Super Bowl favorites. I'm going to qualify this by saying the Patriots still need to execute in this final stretch, but that final 12-4 season with Brady meant nothing — we were a Paper Tiger; we feasted on bad teams and were bounced in humiliating fashion by the Titans in a debacle that exposed our fraudulence to everyone, and in this offseason we lost a lot of the good pieces of that team, including Brady. Every win we have is coaching and only coaching; Belichick's getting blood from a stone, here.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
vicarious
@Crimson: I wasn’t sure what to expect on today, but I’m personally not thinking Steelers ending perfect season. Dunno if it’s possibly tonight as you said but I’m doubting
Would that it were so simple.
I qualified it as a trap game and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna be one tonight. The Redacteds are playing bad as usual.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Would that it were so simple.
Wash defeats Pitt 23-17, undefeated season over.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
You know what, I'm just going stay quiet on this one. Kudos on calling this win.
vicarious
Woah
Damn it happened
We didn't get that far this year, but one thing I'm tired of is when teams are close to going 16-0 and they stop trying because the regular season doesn't matter Blah, Blah, Blah.
Would that it were so simple.
I dunno, I absolutely love and cherish the memory of the 16-0 2007 Patriots, but if that had been a 14-2 or a 15-1 team, there would have been juuuuust enough humility mixed with the glory to keep them honest going into the Super Bowl.
I'd probably feel better about that season if it meant Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Logan Mankins, and Junior Seau got rings, even if, to give an example, they lost that nail biter vs. the Ravens. They aren't necessarily wrong — 16-0 is first and foremost a prestige thing; the Super Bowl is what really matters.
Also, looking back, I think if the Patriots won XLII, Brady leaves or even retires before 35 and BB definitely retires somewhere around 2015. The entire second act to the dynasty was authored in the shadow of that defeat.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Dec 7th 2020 at 11:50:23 AM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
That's Dr. Title, thank you!
Well, that's not going to happen. (That should have been obvious in hindsight; the Patriots recent run had been fueled partially by a weak portion of the schedule and going 3-0 versus Rams/Dolphins/Bills was unlikely.)
Would that it were so simple.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
No, we were projected to lose vs. the Cards, Ravens, and Chargers. It's the easy games that we lost in the aftermath of Cam's COVID diagnosis: the Texans, the Broncos, that debacle against the Niners, etc. Even the Seahawks and Bills were competitive games. Even the KC game wouldn't have been a disaster, that was all on Hoyer and Stidham. It's just that by the time we started winning, there's zero margin for error.
The Bills and Dolphins are still beatable teams on the strength of our defense, but at this point losing out might be better for the team overall. Even if we do win the division games, 9-7 teams don't get useful draft picks ever. And giving Jacksonville a shot at T Law would at least keep him out of the division.
That Rams loss was embarrassing. Cam is garbage, N'keal is garbage, Byrd is garbage, Sony is garbage, Jakob is garbage, Eleumenor is garbage, they're all garbage, and there's no hope. We were in the red zone four times and came away with a single field goal.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Dec 12th 2020 at 11:56:58 AM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
You must be new here...
*Trails off to just sit quietly numbly in a corner with a Jets jersey and Bears hat*
Would that it were so simple.
It’s not so much that I hate seeing the Pats lose. I hate seeing other teams succeed.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Am I a weirdo?
And the Jets won a game. I kind of wanted them to go 0-16, but I'll celebrate them beating the Rams and helping the Seahawks' chances of winning their division.
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.
Steelers will lose a game first. Jets are tanking. They did an intentional (I think...? You never can tell with those guys) 12-men penalty when it looked like they were on the verge of beating the Patriots.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."