And it’s weird that Chicago gets Washington v Arizona as a late game today. I’m happy but it’s an odd choice for this market
Aye, late-afternoon games are one of two cases:
- The “Game of the Week” doubleheader game on Fox or CBS (which alternate weeks on having this), which, as you say, are typically chosen to have national appeal
- Games played in the western U.S., for which a 1pm ET start would mean an 11am or 10am local start
As I understand it, if a network isn’t on their “doubleheader” week, the only late afternoon games which they’ll be running are West Coast games, and those games will typically only be shown in certain regions.
This week, CBS has the doubleheader, and their lead game for that is Chiefs at Chargers (which would have been a late start, anyway). They also have Ravens at Texans as a late start, which you wouldn’t normally expect to be a late game, but this map on coverage from 506 Sports indicates that CBS is running that game through a fair amount of the country, too (so, they’re running two options for the doubleheader game). The only late-afternoon game for Fox is Washington at Cardinals, and that’s due to time zones.
With Barkley’s injury not looking good, the Giants are really gonna be hurting even worse.
It’s actually the only option that can be shown. Fox can’t show an early game in Chicago, because the Bears’ game is on CBS, and the TV contract doesn’t allow the “off” network to run a game in the same time slot, in the home team’s market. (The Chicago Fox station has, instead, been running filler during the early slot; they have “Extra” on right now.)
So, Fox can only run a late-afternoon game in Chicago today, and Washington-Arizona is the only late game on their schedule.
Someone forgot to tell the Jags that they’re supposed to be tanking hardcore this year.
Is the first Packers home game that isn’t sold out in like, forever? (Though recently if it looked like it wasn’t going to sell out some company would buy up the remaining tickets)
Brian
Teams choose to either have no crowd or to have a very reduced crowd to allow for distancing. No team runs at more than like 20% capacity.
I’m sure it sold out. “Sold out” doesn’t mean “every seat filled” it means “every available ticket sold”.
I know that, while Lambeau has been 100% sold out for decades, a big part of that is that, until the stadium expansion in the early 2000s, it was also 100% season tickets. (The top rows of the main bowl are now single-game tickets, only sold to Brown County residents, but those always sell out, too.)
However, I also know that, when the Packers played several games every year at Milwaukee County Stadium, those weren’t 100% season tickets, and they had some non-sellout games there during the 1980s, when the team was terrible.
And, in the case of this game (and their next home game), the Packers had no fans admitted. They have told ticketholders that the first possible home game that might have fans in attendance (at reduced capacity) will be on November 1, against the Vikings.
Atlanta lost because they just let an onside kick roll 10 yards on purpose and let Dallas pick it up. It looks like they thought it might not make it the whole 10 yards and let it go, but it didn’t take any unexpected bounces or anything. It just rolled on a straight path and they just let Dallas recover it uncontested.
So the Packers defense decided to continue the fourth quarter of last week into the first quarter of this one, then settled down and held Detroit to just over 150 yards for the rest of the game, half of that in an essentially garbage time drive at the end of the third. That’s half the yardage and 70% of the points allowed in two of eight quarters played. This defense playing four quarters instead of three might just be okay. Probably not great, maybe not good, but they’re okay. Next week against Brees and Kamara will give us a clearer picture.
That offense though. Granted, they played the Lions and half of a Vikings defense, but that was spooky. Only four punts, no turnovers, and huge TOP difference through the first two games makes me happy. Despite a couple missteps (even the announcers noticed Rodgers throwing off-balance when he didn’t need to), QB play has been fantastic and the rushing attack has been incredible. Even taking away the 75 yard scamper to open the second half, Jones and Williams combined for almost 175 yards.
Just need Rodgers to stop with the receptions for negative yards. That gave me way to many flashbacks of McCarthy bubble screens blown up behind the line of scrimmage.
Next week may bring me back to Earth, but I’m flying high as hell right now.
That was so weird, watching the Falcons players act like they had to wait for it to go 10 yards too. I’m guessing that’s a lack of practice/coaching issue.
What team can lose its starting QB, and 2 Pro Bowl defensive lineman and still win a NFL game?
A team playing the NY Jets.
Going back to the “How good will Joe Burrow be?” question, I point out someone like Sam Darnold or Matt Stafford for that matter. I don’t care how talented you are, if you’re on a shitty team, you’re going to lose more than you win, and you won’t be considered among the best even though you could be under the right circumstances.
I actually think Baker Mayfield could actually be a reasonably effective QB - not elite but good - in the right system and surrounded by the right people. Odell Beckham Jr, as athletically gifted as he is, is not gonna help that guy.
I’m beginning to think that time is running out on Dan Quinn. He’s just blown too many games with shit coaching at the end. I don’t think he’s a bad coach at all, and he’s clearly a good X’s and O’s guy as a coaching specialist, but he just blows too many games like this for his game management to be called ‘good.’
You forgot about them losing their #1 RB and starting DT, and went into the game without their #1 CB, #1 WR, and #1 TE.
That field was atrocious. The Jets had guys go down, too. And the 49ers play there again next week.
Wow, I can’t believe the awfulness of Haskins. Look, it’s obvious that the Washington O-line sucks and they have to keep throwing him out there to see if there’s any hope. They don’t want to have to waste another high draft pick on QB, especially with the limited college schedule this year
It was obvious he was going to be awful when he decided to leave OSU.
Some thoughts:
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After a slow start, the Packers looked really good again. The offense was clicking pretty well, despite the loss of Davante Adams, and the running game was particularly impressive this week. With Kenny Clark’s injury, rushing defense is still a major problem though. But those coverage guys are damn good. Of course all this is irrelevant, because it was against the Lions, but it was nice to see anyway.
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Does anyone but the Ravens, Steelers, and maybe the Bears actually play defense? Scoring is through the roof so far.
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Kudos to the Cowboys’ special team coaches for the brilliant onside kick strategy. Love it.
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I’ll go ahead and add Justin Hebert to the long list of young QB’s who have one or two good games and are suddenly declared “special” and worthy of their draft position. He gets to join Daniel Jones, Drew Lock, Mitchell Trubisky, Jimmy G., Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield, etc. etc. etc.
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Deshaun Watson’s gonna get himself killed or at least shorten his career.
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I will not mind seeing Adam Gase fired during the season as long as he takes perennial asshole Gregg Williams with him.
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No one tested positive for Covid. I’ll be honest, that surprises me a little. Hopefully, they’ll keep it up.
Possibly a technicality… but the team playing the Vikings each week is given credit for playing defense.