Thursday
SD @ DEN
Sunday early
DET @ ATL (London)
MIN @ TB
CHI @ NE
STL @ KC
SEA @ CAR
BUF @ NYJ
MIA @ JAX
HOU @ TEN
BAL @ CIN
Sunday afternoon
PHI @ ARI
OAK @ CLE
IND @ PIT
Sunday night
GB @ NO
Monday night
WAS @ DAL
BYE
SF, NYG
I thought this would be a fun game. The rules are simple: we watch football, then we discuss it.
I’ll start! The London game is a 9:30 am EST start, so you can roll out of bed and immediately have football. I approve.
930 am game, hogs get slaughtered.
This… isn’t a game thread, so the [game] tag is just going to throw people off if they’re manually scanning the forum for this thread. Oh well.
[GAME]?
Can a mod remove that please? This isn’t a game thread and isn’t it SenorBeef’s job to start these weeklies?
I forgot to Wednesday and I wasn’t around Thursday so it’s fine if someone else starts hen I don’t. I generally will though.
The game last night went about as expected, I thought. The Broncos are just better, and being at home they should win that matchup pretty comfortably. Verrett and Flowers being hurt certainly didn’t help matters for the SD defense. There were a couple high-leverage calls that went against SD that could have made it interesting, but I think the result was pretty fair.
The Chargers have been a bit overrated due to their early record, I think, and they’re actually now in a fair bit of trouble. Their last five games are Ravens, Pats, Broncos, 49ers, Chiefs, so if they make the playoffs they’ll have to earn it.
Sure it is! This is the “Speak to me in NFL Week 8 discussion” thread. A perfectly cromulent game.
CTRL + F: NFL
The Chargers offense didn’t look too bad, once Rivers stopped looking as nervous as if this was his first game of playing tackle, and whoever it is calling plays for the Chargers finally admitted that if the first 25 runs gained an average of 1 yard each, maybe it’s finally time to throw on first down. Maybe the Chargers should hire a hypnotist to make them think they’re down by two touchdowns at the start of the game.
I kind of feel bad for Rivers; once he settled down, he had at least as good a game as Manning. It’s not his fault that his O-line doesn’t comprehend run-blocking, that his receivers slip at the wrong moment to create an interception, and that the referees are bought into the Manning-as-God myth so much that they’re convinced a Manning interception MUST be the result of a defensive foul.
So does that mean 10:30am for most folks, except for some in parts of Indiana where they are never on daylight time?
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you took a top tier offensive line and stuck a high school level player on it? This. It turns into a complete piece of shit.
The Jags got their first win over the Browns due to this guy. Edit: I originally mistakenly used this picture.
Who would’ve thought I’d have longed for the glory days of O’neil Cousins?
Anyway, that seriously shortcircuited the whole offense. Couldn’t run, couldn’t pass. Just awful. I have no idea how he was a starter for most of the Seahawk’s superbowl season. The score to the game was 10-6 until late in the fourth quarter when some dumbass turnovers came into play - the game would’ve easily been winnable with even below average NFL play out of that position. It’s not often you can chalk up a loss on a single O-lineman, but here you can.
They’re going to start a journeyman injured center this week and move Greco back to guard where he was ranked top 5 in PFF’s ratings. If the center can play merely bad, it will be a huge upgrade to the line. That Mack injury really fucked us.
No idea what to think today. I wish the raiders won a recent game - playing winless teams scares me a bit, it feels like bad teams get a little more complacent when they get that win under their belt and aren’t at risk for having a historically bad record. The game is in Cleveland and if the O-line issue is resolved I feel like they’ll have a bounce back game and tee off on the Raiders. But the Raiders are keeping games close and the irratic Browns can’t take anyone lightly.
Apparently the Browns had McQuistan for a month back in 2010.
This brings us back to Pettine’s decision to go for it on 4th down. By the 2nd quarter, it should have been clear that the line was a problem and they couldn’t run the ball (2 first downs on the ground for the whole game). On that possession late in the 2nd, they had 2nd and 2 and went 1 yard run, 0 yard run, incomplete pass. If your offense is having one of those days, then you need to take the points where you can get them and have your defense step up. I feel like the complexion of the game would have changed with a two score lead, even if Jax had still marched down the field and scored before halftime.
Speaking of bad offensive line performances, check out the deciding play in the Ohio St-PSU game. What a manhandling.
I actually agree about the fourth down thing. Never in my viewing of the NFL over the last 15ish years have I ever seen a head coach that’s too aggressive when it comes to going for it on fourth down. Not even close. But Pettine may be.
But I basically will not criticize a coach for being too aggressive - so many coaches are so far on the wrong side of the line that having someone err on the other side of the line is refreshing in an odd way.
Not a game thread. Annoying. Carry on. Go Panthers.
So the Lions have set records for futility for field goal kicking in the first half of the season, and it’s third down and they’re looking at a 48 yard field goal, so they… call a run into the pile. Then when they get bailed out on an iffy defensive penalty, with 20-ish seconds left, they kneel down and kill the clock. Are you really that petrified of a turnover?
And the plot thickens with a missed FG… that doesn’t count because of a delay of game. So back into the high 40s for try two! This is terrible, terrible coaching.
When can a team decline a penalty by the other team? Because I am sure the Falcons would like to decline the delay of game…
Brian
Unfortunately (for Atlanta), the delay of game means the play (and the miss) never actually happened. Same as a false start, penalties before the play vs. penalties during the play.
I’m watching the kickoff of the SEA @ CAR game, two NFC teams, on CBS. What? I thought this would be a FOX game for sure. Why is this one on CBS?
Fox and CBS split the games fairly evenly. Sometimes the schedule works out so that one or the other would have significantly more games (perhaps depending on who has the double header) and so some games can be shifted to the opposite network.
My understanding had always been that FOX takes the NFC games and CBS the AFC games, where they use the visitor’s conference in the case of cross-conference games.
And sometimes you’ll end up with more NFC visiting or AFC visiting games for the schedule to be split evenly, on a case by case basis, some games will be switched to the other network.
