nfl 2021-2022

[Bartimaeus]

It's probably an 8 right now, from what I can generally discern of the Packersphere. For myself personally, it's about a 3, because this is really just more of what I saw in the first few weeks, so nothing much has really changed and it's not terribly surprising to me. Packers must get significantly better in multiple areas if they want to stand a chance of getting into the (admittedly pretty weak) NFC playoffs. The offensive line has been playing poorly on the whole, the WRs and TEs are somewhere between bad and terrible (also most of them hurt), Aaron Rodgers has looked quite bad (no doubt compounded or possibly even caused by the former two issues), and the defense...generally plays well in the first half but has a tendency of falling apart in the second, probably because they're tired as hell from the offense completely and utterly failing to effectively play ball control. They can still turn things around if the offense can find itself, and that last wildcard spot is wiiide open with it being currently occupied by the 3-3 Rams, so I don't think the season's over yet, but...I think we'll have a better idea of whether the Packers are truly down and out within the next three to four weeks or so.

On a side-note, I stopped playing fantasy football probably 3-4 years ago now, but I still do one pick'em group on ESPN with the friends that I used to play with, and I am currently beating the snot out of them all by a pretty significant margin, so much so that they aren't even talking to me about it anymore, which is a pretty surefire sign that you're being too successful at something versus your friends: ESPN says that I am currently in the 99.9th percentile out of the millions of ESPN pick'em players.

So at least I have that going for me, which is nice. Sadly, I still have not taken up sports gambling, so I wasn't able to parlay my apparent wild pick'em success this season into free money, but...you take your wins where you get them, right?

Edited October 24, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

Yeah, the NFC East is a murderer's row right now, but the rest of the NFC looks rather weak. The Vikings are 5-1, but it's a rather suspect 5-1.

[Keyrock]

I'm not a fan of Antonio Brown, but this is some amazing trolling:

[Bartimaeus]

"Context" if you're like me and didn't get it at all (...it would've at least helped to know whom the lady was):

I mean, I still don't really get it, besides that Antonio Brown is randomly being a bit of a piece of **** to Tom Brady after Tom Brady stuck his neck out for the guy multiple times and even let him live in his own home for a while, but I mean, I guess whatever. I don't really get the angle on the part of Brown here, so it's hard for it to strike me as being particularly funny.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

Antonio Brown is definitely a piece of $#!+, but I still got a laugh out of him selling that shirt to **** with Tommy Terrific. It's an absolutely tasteless move, but I love me some tasteless comedy.

[rjshae]

On 10/24/2022 at 9:56 AM, Keyrock said:

Yeah, the NFC East is a murderer's row right now, but the rest of the NFC looks rather weak. The Vikings are 5-1, but it's a rather suspect 5-1.

Guess we'll see this Sunday, 4-3 Seahawks vs. 6-1 Giants. S-hawks were predicted to have 4-5 wins this season. Who knew?

[Gfted1]

Geno Smith is playing out of his mind.

[Keyrock]

19 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Geno Smith is playing out of his mind.

That's the biggest surprise of this season. Geno Smith is... Good?

(I've gotten so many years of use out of that Blink 182 gif)

[Keyrock]

The Bucs are 3-5, they look terrible, and yet I still think they will win their awful division.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

I'm quite happy with muh Boys being 6-2 going into our bye week. The bye couldn't come at a better time as quite a few of our defenders, particularly the secondary, got banged up. Seemingly no serious injuries, so they should all hopefully be good to go in 2 weeks in Cheese Curd Country.

[Bartimaeus]

Bears got smashed even by the Packers, don't look into it too much. I don't know how they blew out the Patriots.

Falcons are gonna win the NFCS...maybe.

(e): nvm there was 20 seconds left and Falcons let up a 60 yard hail mary idk

(e): But then the Panthers missed the game-winning XP, .

(e): And then missed the game-winning FG from like 30 yards out. Okay then.

Edited October 30, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

My original plan was to do more predictions at the halfway-ish point of the season. Given how unbelievably awful my predictions at the start of the season were, I'll try something else instead.

Most Overachieving Team: New York Giants

Despite their recent loss to a legitimately good C-Hox team, the Giants are playing waaaaay above their collective talent level. Saquon Barkley is a monster, so him beasting is no surprise, but Brian Daboll & Co are getting absolutely everything out of the rest of the team and utilizing Daniel Jones, who's never going to light it up but can get you tough gritty yards, as well as possible. That's the power of good coaching, finding ways to stick around and win close games.

On the other end of the spectrum...

Most Underachieving Team: Jacksonville Jaguars

How is this team 2-6? How? This team should currently be right in the mix for a very winnable AFC South. Instead they're in the running for yet another #1 pick next year (can we stop rewarding $#!+ teams for sucking?). They keep finding ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I don't want to give up on Trevor Lawrence just yet, but man, he's terrible in pressure situations. I keep wondering if he could have been a great NFL QB had he been drafted by a team that wasn't a dumpster fire.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Keyrock

[Gfted1]

Yeah, I keep waiting for Lawrence to flip a switch and rise to the next level but it might not happen. Imo, its critical to rookie quarterbacks that they get drafted by a team with a strong QB room, but its also notoriously difficult to predict their NFL level success. Starting out on a lousy team seems like a death sentence. RGIII maybe as an exception, he would have been legendary if not for that knee.

[the_dog_days]

On 11/1/2022 at 7:41 AM, Keyrock said:

Most Underachieving Team: Jacksonville Jaguars

In 2020 and 2021 the Jags had better teams in worse division than my Jets and won fewer games. Though, in both seasons after a certain point they were tanking while we were just that bad. It seems too early for them to be tanking again so I don't know what's going on.

Edited November 3, 2022 by the_dog_days

[Keyrock]

Up until today, I kept thinking that the Packers could still salvage this season. Now I think they're done. This is a rough (final?) season for Aaron Rodgers.

In more positive news, holy $#+! Jets beat the Bills!

[the_dog_days]

I think my Jets are the weirdest NFL team I've ever seen. We're near the bottom of the league in yards given up but 11th in scoring defense, 12th in sacks, and tied for 3rd for team interceptions. We run the ball really well when we have a healthy runningback, but our passing game is the definition of small ball. I guess we'd have 7 wins for the season before the injuries started mounting up (I think we have four linemen out for the year), now I haven't predicted any of their wins so far this year aside from Cleveland. I hope we don't somehow stumble our way into the playoffs--I don't what to hear my fellow Jets fans whining when we get blown out in the first round and outrageous predictions of Super Bowl runs for the following year only to win 5 games.

[Keyrock]

I think the Jets have an overall good team, I just don't know about Zach Wilson. Is he the guy?

[Bartimaeus]

Packers and Raiders are both now in the hilariously bad stage of football failure. Particularly the Packers for me, as it has gone from concerning, to disappointing, to infuriating, to genuinely funny in seeing how incompetently an Aaron Rodgers-led offense is run week in and week out.

[the_dog_days]

2 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I think the Jets have an overall good team, I just don't know about Zach Wilson. Is he the guy?

It's so hard to tell. On one hand he looks like he needs a QB coach to drill into his head how the short passing game. On the other can you blame a guy who in a season and a half hasn't had the starting give offensive linemen take a single snap together?

[Keyrock]

Man, that was an UGLY win by the Bucs, but they won and saved their season (for now). The defending cham... I can't even call the Rams that because they're not putting up much of a defense of their title. They're curled up in the fetal position while the rest of the league is kicking them.

[the_dog_days]

This flew under the radar, but the XFL is back (third time's the charm).

 

 

[Keyrock]

38 minutes ago, the_dog_days said:

This flew under the radar, but the XFL is back (third time's the charm).

 

 

Ugh, she's doing the presenting voice. It's not really a knock on her specifically, lots of hosts use that exact cadence, inflection, and manner of speaking and presumably it works on the majority of people, but it's so artificial, so phony. No person ever in history has spoken like that casually among friends. That's a "I'm trying to sell you something" voice. It's probably just a me thing, but that way of speaking bothers the **** out of me.

[Keyrock]

https://youtu.be/MoUaxxIir_k?t=6

Sadly, the No Fun League won't allow this link to embed.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

I'm not the least bit surprised that muh Boys lost today. It doesn't matter how well we've been playing or how poorly Green Bay has been playing, the Packers are our boogeyman. We'll always lose to them.

[Gfted1]

They have an uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Smh.