Did anyone else see the terrible call in the Bills-Bengals game? Stevie Johnson clearly caught a pass for a first down–the ball shifted slightly but never left his hands or hit the ground as he went down. Inexplicably, it was ruled an incomplete pass and upheld on challenge.
This is the worst officiated game of the year. The Buccaneers are getting called for ticky-tack fouls on every play while the Colts linemen are jumping before every snap and haven’t been called for a false start yet.
For fuck’s sake! Our wideout gets a personal foul for a perfect, clean block (never mind that it was miles away from the play) on a defensive tackle, and Reggie Wayne launches himself headfirst on Garcon’s second touchdown and there’s no flag.
ETA: and Dallas Clark gets away with an obvious block in the back on the same play. :mad:
Dammit, are we going to be subjected to all this pink crap for the rest of the month?
Agreed, those seemed like some picky fouls. Especially the 12-man foul, that was just cruel.
I think we’re awfully aware of breast cancer these days.
I’m not surprised Giants fans think it’s a good call on Cruz’s play. Not just because of bias, but because they’ve been watching Eli “give himself up” in the most awkward and pathetic ways possible that it must be very routine for the fans to see. Of course seeing someone stumble to the ground like he just got shot by a sniper in the stands is giving himself up. That’s how it’s done in NY.
Correction…Calais Campbell moves into second place.
I know everyone is going to find this really hard to believe, but there was an NFL game where the Colts got almost all the optional officials calls (PI, holding) go their way, including all the pass interference* calls in the game (both of which weren’t flagged until after the receiver complained). I"m shocked, shocked, I tell you…
*It’s possible one of these was technically defensive holding or illegal contact or something else, but in essence it was as PI call.
I am fascinated by what is going on in Carolina. From a purely statistical level, Rob Chudzinski is doing wonders and Cam Newton is looking like Randall Cunningham. I think Chud should get mega kudos for tailoring an offense to fit the strengths of his rookie QB and his only real playmaker on offense, Steve Smith. They are number 3 in total offense, and #3 in passing offense (yardage). They’ve had a lot of big plays and have been in most every game they play.
And they’re 1-3.
I’m very curious to see how much of that is due to their defense and how much is due to their problems in the red zone and untimely, costly interceptions. I can’t get a real good read on the team yet.
I was completely against Cam Newton as the #1 pick, but I have to admit he has outplayed my expectations for him. I still see some of the problems I saw (poor decision-making, middle of the road passer rating), but he is such a good fit for that offense it’s very surprising. It will be interesting to see what happens from here, because I hate to be wrong about QB’s.
Defense and special teams are the problem. Specifically, run defense (losing Beason and T. Davis really hurt a team already weak at run-stopping D-line.) Special teams have just been atrocious. Offensively, they’ve been able to stay in the games. I agree about Chud’s offensive game-planning. He’s been creative so far, and really playing to Newton’s talents. Newton has not been the problem at all. He still has a lot to learn, but is much further ahead then where I expected him at this point.
Based on the Bears game, their problems on offense are in the red/green zone. The just don’t have a reliable option there and if Newton isn’t running the ball in they are stuck. Steve Smith is undersized and the rest of the WRs suck. They need to lean heavily on the TEs down close and teams with good LBs will shut that down.
They are bad defensively and the Bears killed them on special teams, but we do that to a lot of teams. Not sure what the Panthers special teams have looked like in previous weeks. All in all, the Panthers look like a classic between the 20s team. They’ll have huge yardage in the middle of the field but bog down in the red zone and Cam will force the ball downfield into coverage often. That seems like a typical rookie problem, but usually one that get corrected when the talent around them improves.
How much of that is the Panthers and how much is the offense they run? One of the big knocks on the spread offense used so much in college (which it looked to me like the Panthers were using a lot of the spread, quick read for Newton) is that it doesn’t work in the NFL in the red zone (unless you have Brady or Rodgers). It’s interesting to me to see how much yardage, yet how little scoring and less wins, that the Panther’s version is doing this year.
I thought it could have gone either way…and it would have, had the ref behind the WR not ruled it incomplete on the field…the ref that was right there ruled it complete and was overruled by the (back judge)?
Had it been ruled complete on the field it wouldn’t have been overturned either.
The knock on the spread isn’t that it doesn’t work in the red zone. It’s that you can’t run effectively from it.
The Panthers have scored 21, 23, 16 and 29 points this season. That’s 22 points a game, good enough for 17th in the league - and they played three quarters of the Jacksonville game in a massive downpour (as in, there was at least two inches of standing water on most of the field).
Bear in mind that they did this against the Bears and Packers, acknowledged to be pretty good defensive teams*. Hell, the Jags are 10th in scoring defense this year despite having no offense to speak of.
Compare that to last season, when they were dead last in the league with 12 points a game - six less than the next worst team, the Cardinals.
Sure, the Panthers offense isn’t as good in the red zone as it is between the 20s, but it’s not bad; they have a 44% red zone touchdown percentage, 18th in the league.
The offense could explain the dropoff, but there’s a much simpler explanation: the quarterback is a rookie. Rookie quarterbacks always have trouble in the red zone, because the windows get so much smaller.
This is borne out by the fact that Newton is mostly under center with two wideouts when the Panthers get to the red zone: ie., they’re not running a spread there.
Any way you look at it, the Panthers’ offense is doing just fine- especially considering they have a rookie quarterback and one wide receiver. It’s the defense that is losing games. They are allowing 6.5 yards per play, second-worst in the league, and 25.5 points per game, eighth-worst.
*Admittedly, the Bears and Packers defensive stats are pretty godawful thus far, but they’d be at least middle-of-the-pack if not for playing Newton.
Except there are two problems, both previously mentioned in this thread. The rule is too vague and Cruz’s actions were not clearly an attempt to surrender. You stated earlier that abandoning the ball was an indication that he intended to surrender. That is not necessarily true. Abandoning the ball is an indication the player thinks the play has ended (which can be for any number of reasons other than giving up the play–he thought he was touched, etc.). His “flop” (not a feet first slide) could have been an unintentional stumble and rising to his knees so quickly could have been an attempt to rise and continue his advance. I have no problem with the officials (eventually) ruling Cruz had given himself up, but that judgment certainly isn’t indisputable.
My cite is the actual play.
[QUOTE=garygnu]
Whether Cruz went down on purpose or stumbled down is less important to me than the fact that he turtled once he was down there. Curling up into a ball like that is pretty obviously giving yourself up.
[/QUOTE]
Cruz didn’t “turtle,” cradle the ball, or go into a fetal position to indicate he was giving up. He immediately popped to his knees.
I don’t know, maybe this argument is passé now and I’m just a Johnny-Come-Lately. I’ve been away for a few days.
They didn’t look to be running much of a spread. The offense seems to be a prototypical Norv Turner offense with extra shotgun included. The Panthers run a lot of deep and intermediate routes with a lot of high-low combo routes. The only thing that looks “spread like” was the ratio of shotgun snaps, this isn’t anything resembling a Patriots like offense.
I’m not sure how legitimate this is, but there is talk that the NFL is gauging interest in providing the coaches tapes to the public. The coaches tapes show all 22 players for each play, something you can’t get on a broadcast.
The earlier link goes directly to the survey, which is hosted by some other company. I found the survey on an Eagles themed blog here. The survey kinda looks fake to me and I think anyone can create a survey on that site. Has anyone else heard anything about it? Is it legit? I’d like to see those tapes.
Well, with this particular Eagles season, I’m not sure I’d watch those tapes if you paid me.
This has been a big wish-list item for the Football Outsiders guys for a long time. I wouldn’t watch them—though the game does look a lot different from that angle, judging by a ‘Niners game I saw from an endzone box—but I can see a big demand from hardcore football fans for them. OTOH, I would watch a broadcast using coaches’ film angles, and in-depth commentary. I wonder how successful that broadcast would be?
I wouldn’t re-watch games with the wide-angle, but I’d watch the live games that way. The normal TV shot is about the worst possible. I’d love to see the SkyCam shot used more often.