nfl 2020-2021

[Gromnir]

HA! Good Fun!

[Bartimaeus]

Cowboys winning more pointless games to tank their draft position, you hate to see it.

[Keyrock]

23 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Cowboys winning more pointless games to tank their draft position, you hate to see it.

Pointless is the only type of games muh Boys seem capable of winning.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Keyrock

[the_dog_days]

So the Jets beat the Rams. I've known for years that the Rams secretly sucked but this surprised me. It's the most Jets thing ever that we can't even ****ing tank right.

Edited December 21, 2020 by the_dog_days

[rjshae]

2 hours ago, the_dog_days said:

So the Jets beat the Rams. I've known for years that the Rams secretly sucked but this surprised me. It's the most Jets thing ever that we can't even ****ing tank right.

Rams probably got caught looking ahead to next week. Hint: the Seahawks don't think they suck.

[the_dog_days]

2 hours ago, rjshae said:

Rams probably got caught looking ahead to next week. Hint: the Seahawks don't think they suck.

There's a reason Seahawks are scared:

[rjshae]

Yes there's still room for improvement on that side of the line. They've made some good progress though.

[rjshae]

That was a pretty nice win by the Seahawks; the defense played a solid game and Russ was on form. They were helped a lot by a Goff mental mistake, but that's all part of the game. Green Bay has the first seed all but locked, unfortunately. Too bad we couldn't find a way to pull it out vs. the Giants.

[Gfted1]

My wife bought me a new Cowboys sweat shirt to replace, and Im not kidding, my 15+ year old "lucky" Cowboys sweat shirt. Loe and behold they win by 20 points. The Cowboys are winning the super bowl this year! WOOOooo!

[Bartimaeus]

Just gotta beat the Giants and hope the WASHINGTON FOOTBALL TEAM lose to the Eagles and you're in.

Aaron Rodgers will be winning his third MVP this season (pending victory over the Bears?), putting him in rare company. Hoping a SBMVP is also on its way, but I'll see it when I believe it. Fantastic bounce-back year for him after a couple of more above average seasons.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

Muh Boys are 6-9 and tied for 1st.

[rjshae]

Hey, if the 2010 Seahawks can make the playoffs with a 7-9 record and still win a playoff game...

[the_dog_days]

This whole ****ing season:

 

[Bartimaeus]

Packers lost All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari in practice to a torn ACL today. One last "**** you" from 2020, I guess.

[rjshae]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Packers lost All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari in practice to a torn ACL today. One last "**** you" from 2020, I guess.

Somebody needs to do a study of modern injury rate versus the rate 30-40 years ago. It sure seems like it's a lot higher, even from practice. Too many massive brawny guys constantly running into each other and this is what you get. I wonder if the sport wouldn't benefit from some weight caps?

[Keyrock]

Cowboys losing in week 17 when they are on the cusp of backing into the playoffs is the most Cowboys thing ever. The cherry on top is losing because of a 4th quarter red zone interception. It's as if Tony Romo never left.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Keyrock

[Bartimaeus]

lmao

[the_dog_days]

It took two years, the 32nd offense both years, a 9-23 record, and the single worst season in Jets history, but ding-dong, the witch is dead.

https://www.newyorkjets.com/news/jets-chairman-and-ceo-christopher-johnson-informs-adam-gase-he-will-not-return

One quibble, they screwed over Rex after firing him, they even fired Todd Bowles, who is very well respected by the league, before he even left the stadium. Compared to that, this was very mild despite the fact Gase was both the worst and the most arrogant head coach we've ever had.

[rjshae]

55 minutes ago, the_dog_days said:

It took two years, the 32nd offense both years, a 9-23 record, and the single worst season in Jets history, but ding-dong, the witch is dead.

https://www.newyorkjets.com/news/jets-chairman-and-ceo-christopher-johnson-informs-adam-gase-he-will-not-return

One quibble, they screwed over Rex after firing him, they even fired Todd Bowles, who is very well respected by the league, before he even left the stadium. Compared to that, this was very mild despite the fact Gase was both the worst and the most arrogant head coach we've ever had.

One wonders who would want to coach there. No amount of salary is worth all that.

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, rjshae said:

One wonders who would want to coach there. No amount of salary is worth all that.

Going into 2015 they fired long time head coach Rex Ryan. You can say what you want about Rex, but his teams always over achieved. Rex's biggest flaw wasn't his foot fetish but the huge number of draft busts he collected over the years. When he left the team had little to no talent because of years of failing in the draft. They then hired Mike Maccagnan (which was a huge mistake) as GM and then tried to marry him to Todd Bowles at owner's orders. Bowles is less than average coach, but I don't think he was as bad as his record with the Jets would indicate. He was mostly hampered by Maccagnan who insisted on building the team through free agency. Maccagnan bought a surprise 10-6 2015 season by over paying over the hill free agents. This was a band-aid fix and everyone knew that, but after the season rather than trying to trade away those free agent assets with their newly (slightly) risen value and beginning the inevitable rebuild, Maccagnan doubled down and wasted even more money in free agency. After the Maccagnan/Bowles 3rd season (each season with these two the team got worse) and now, knowing that with one more bad season Bowles at least was gone, they decide to rebuild. They were sitting at 6 and traded away the 6 and 3 2nd round picks to move up three spots to the 3rd. Essentially, they spent a 3rd overall and 3 2nd rounders on Sam Darnold. Which is about an entire season's worth of draft capital to pick up Sam, and unless he became a multi-Super Bowl winning quarterback, the Jets were never going to get 4 players worth out of him.

Add to this that Sam really needed a season or two riding the bench to iron out his serious flaws, and the fact that everyone knew that Bowles as gonna start him right away to save his job and the Jets were probably going to lose enough games to get Bowles fired and then Sam would be on his 2nd head coach and 2nd offensive coordinator in 2 years. I knew that this was a marriage from hell given that Sam would never live up to those picks and that he'd likely never be given a fair chance to.

Sure enough, 2018 ends and 4-12 Jets fire Bowles. But the Jets decide to hold onto Maccagnan (the real villain). Instead of firing the GM, having the new GM find a coach and then proceeding from there, acting (and inexperience) owner Chris Johnsons kept Maccagnan and decided that the new head coach (who he was to pick rather than the GM) would then take on the coaching staff Chris Johnson also picked out. The only person to agree to those terms was Adam Gase who just got ran out of town on a rail from Miami. This hire was universally panned. So Johnson hired Gase as head coach, brought in Gregg Williams as co-head coach/defensive coordinator and thought he could somehow voltron the most passive aggressive offensive mind and the most aggressive defensive mind in the NFL into a great coach.

Needless to say, it didn't work. To make matters worse, Gase didn't even hire a QB coach. Sam hasn't had a QB coach since 2018. Gase gets Maccagnan fired after he over paid for Le'veon Bell in free agency so we go a season with Gase as coach/GM. (Notice how both the GM and head coach could report directly to the owner, creating no line of communication and opening the door to office politics. This will come back into play later in this epic.)

Nobody liked Gase when he came in but at the same time the New York media had to step lightly around him 'cause his staff was quick to ban media personalities from press conferences. Over the last 2 years we went from a team with some pieces but with a few weapons we could be decent to being the worst team in the NFL. Thanks to Gase.

After the Maccagnan fire they hired Joe Douglas, a former scout. Part of that statement linked above was a promise from Chris Johnson to leave the running of the team to the GM rather than trying to continue to Jerry Jones the team into the ground. Now the three biggest problems are gone (Chris Johnson making football decisions, Gase being an idiot, and Maccagnan over paying free agents) the team can go through a proper rebuild.

Oh, and that was Sam Darnold's last game with the team. You don't get to throw 9 tds and 11 ints on what is effectively a contract year and get to keep your job. He's got one year left on his rookie contract and they'll start shopping him around once they've hired a new head coach.

TL;DR: The last 6 years were unprecedentedly bad for the Jets but the biggest problems are now gone.

Edited January 4, 2021 by the_dog_days

[Gromnir]

am rooting for the eagles. why? an eagles victory means nfc east winner is 6-10. 

HA! Good Fun!

[rjshae]

Good team systems tend to do well despite the lack of first round draft stock; bad teams often remain so despite years of excellent draft positions. I think it's the later rounds that make the difference between winners and losers.

Here's the 2021 draft positions:

https://www.nfl.com/news/2021-nfl-draft-order-top-18-picks-set-eagles-sixth

[the_dog_days]

 

[Bartimaeus]

Getting shades of latter-day Mike McCarthy-and-the-Packers with Pete Carroll...

[Keyrock]

If you are a Colts fan you have to be sick to your stomach. They had so many opportunities to put that game away. Props to Josh Allen and the Bills for that epic 96 yard drive, though.