San Francisco has surprised me. Looks like maybe they are “for real” after all. The win over the Rams yesterday was most impressive (why Dallas @ the Jets was shown on national T.V. instead of Niners @ Rams is beyond me except for that team from Texas having a larger hold on the national consciousness than it deserves considering that it’s now been nearly ¼ century since it last won anything of note). As a Seahawks fan I’m still wary of “Nawlins” and I think the Packers are to be contended with in the N.F.C. Over in the A.F.C., though - as I saw in an online article, yesterday - it already looks like N.E. will end up with home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Not sure what’s happened to the Chiefs (injury bug?) but I agree, at this point, that no other team in the A.F.C. looks like it’s going to upend the Patriots.
A similar deal happened in the Giants/Patriots game late in the 4th quarter, Giants down by 21. It was clear to everyone there was defensive PI, Giants challenged, call stands, no flag.
Later clarifications from sportswriters and pundits, going by what their contacts have told them, is that the league is explicitly using this new rule for one purpose: “To prevent the wrong team from going to the Superbowl” like what happened that caused the rule to be added in the first place.
Giants are a bad team, down by three TDs, 3:00 left in the game. Clear and obvious DPI (not called on field) is challenged, but this play won’t prevent the wrong team from going to the Superbowl, so call upheld, no flag.
Yesterday’s game someone interfered with a Chiefs receiver, it was clear and obvious, and yet they let the no-flag call stand? That’s because not overturning it didn’t send the wrong team to the Superbowl.
As I understand it, that is literally the review standard for pass interference. It has to be as obvious and egregious as it was on that Saints play last postseason, AND it has to send the wrong team to the Superbowl if you don’t get it right.
EDIT: Link to the Giants/Patriots play.
I hear this all the time. But it makes no sense to me. (And I’m a Bills fan. I’d love to believe that the Patriots are only winning due to the games being fixed.)
But why would the owners of thirty-one other teams allow a system to exist that benefits Robert Kraft?
What does it have to do with the Patriots? The rule was instituted because the Rams got away with a clear PI against the Saints in the NFC Championship game, sending the wrong team (Rams) to the Superbowl.
I already was not a Rams fan. That non-call made it that much easier for me to not be one.
This article was written on Friday, after the Pats-Giants game that featured one of the more obvious PI calls that wasn’t called or overturned on appeal.
From the article:
‘According to NFL GSIS data, 40 pass interference-related plays have been challenged in the 79 games played so far this season, but just seven have been overturned. That’s a total of 17.5 percent. Of those 40 plays, 28 involved non-calls, with only five (17.9 percent) resulting in a reversal. And just two (16.7 percent) of the 12 penalties that were challenged have been overturned. In recent weeks, challenges have basically stood no chance at all’
IMHO, the NFL will abandon the PI appeal after this season, if not before.
The 49ers and Saints are the only NFC teams with as many wins as Seattle. Saints have done it without Brees in most games. Packers have a good defense but I am not sure how “good” they are. Nobody in the NFC East looks good, I could see someone with a losing record winning the division this year (like Seattle did in 2010).
What is more likely, in my opinion, is that coaches will limit their challenges to the most egregious cases.
The Saints have a bona fide top-notch head coach. I forgot to include them in my list from earlier. I’m not sure about the 'hawks. Sure, they’re 5 - 1 but not one win has been all that impressive and San Francisco has beaten four of the teams that the Seahawks have beaten this season and they beat three of them (Cincinnatus, Cleveland, and the Rams) much worse than the Seahawks did. It’s early but I think the 'hawks make the playoffs. Beyond that I’m not willing, at this point, to speculate on anything in that regard.
I think the Seahawks have a really good, balanced offense. Russell is playing as the undisputed MVP this year, Chris Carson is building on last year’s success as a RB (and stopped fumbling), Tyler Lockett is a legit #1 WR and Metcalf is a rookie WR not playing like a rookie. The OL goes from decent to crap but that’s nothing unusual.
The defense though isn’t good. The defensive line should be better, and maybe when Reed comes off suspension next week it will be better, but… The linebackers are awesome but they can only do so much. Only Griffin is looking good in the secondary (and he’s looking really good). They are allowing too much and while Russell keeps bailing them out you have to wonder if that’s enough.
I do think that the Seahawks are better than their numbers suggest. For example, they beat the Browns by 4. They could have beaten them by 11 if they wanted to. They got the ball just outside the end zone and the way the Cleveland D was playing they probably could have walked in. But they didn’t because the Browns had no timeouts and there was only a minute on the clock, so they went into victory formation to end the game. They do just enough to win.
While that’s not unusual, I feel like it’s a peek into their philosophy. They play conservative and grind out games. They are explosive when they need to be (and when opportunities appear) but don’t push it. Unless a team is just folding over with no resistance like Arizona they are unlikely to run up the score. So I don’t necessarily see that one team blowing out opponents is automatically better than the one barely beating them, though that could be the case.
Here’s an example… The Rams crushed the Saints, 27-9. Obliterated them. The next week the Saints go to Seattle and beat them. Clearly the Rams are better, right? But then Seattle beats the Rams, and are currently two games ahead of them in the standings. I would say that the Rams are not as good as Seattle and are fighting a serious SB hangover.
If things progress as they have been, with the Seahawks winning close games and the Niners winning by huge margins, I don’t know if we will get a real measure of them before Nov 11 when they meet.
Because usually when people are saying how the NFL is conspiring to send a specific team to the Superbowl, they’re talking about the Patriots.
Given that the Patriots have appeared in four out of the last five Superbowls, if the NFL is conspiring to send some other team to the Superbowl, they’re doing an amazingly bad job of it.
LOL. Truth.
Or the NFL is trying to keep the Patriots out and are failing because New England is that good. (Said nobody ever except maybe the most die-hard Patriot homer.)
I can’t tell if you’re serious or joking, or I don’t understand what you mean.
This rule isn’t about furthering an agenda. It’s to prevent avoidable error, but so far not so great.
Agreed.
One of the fellow “football nerds” (who is not, as far as I’ve been able to tell, a Seahawks fan, per se) that I communicate with has admitted to me that he thinks that Russell is a future H.o.F.er
I’ve liked Chris Carson from the first time I saw him play.
Okay
A big, strong, fast WR. I don’t know if the 'hawks have ever really had that, before.
There’s only so much $$$ to go around.
I was telling a good friend of mine that just yesterday. Actually, what I told him is that “I don’t think the offense is the problem” when he was complaining about certain aspects of it.
I think that one thing that people thought before the season is true: that they don’t have much for a pass rush, despite the additions of Clowney and Ansah.
Very true! I’m a HUGE Bobby Wagner fan.
One of those “football nerds” e-mailed me a while back that as good as he thinks R.W. is, banking on him to “rescue” the team every game probably isn’t sustainable.
Well, “a win’s a win,” as they say, but to my mind all the ‘hawks’ wins this year, save one, could’ve very easily gone the other way.
Pete Carroll may run around like he’s 25 all over again but he definitely has an “old school” philosophy about the game of football.
Fair point but I still say that the scorelines don’t really impress.
Yeah, I know sports isn’t like math where if A beats B and then B beats C then A will necessarily beat C when the two meet.
I’d like to believe that that’s correct but I think that remains to be seen.
You could very well be right about that.
I remember last year when the Niners ended their losing streak to the 'hawks I thought it was simply a case of the Seahawks not taking the 49ers seriously that day but the start that the 49ers are having to this season is causing me to rethink that.
It’s not like they overhauled they entire team in the offseason. Some of the great stuff we see now was there last year, waiting, like a creeper in the attic. Maybe the creeper peeked out in that game.
If that wasn’t the biggest eff-up I’ve ever seen…
Absolute horseshit officiating in the fourth quarter of Lions-Packers.
A terrible officiated game, and the Packers win it. What else is new?
Agreed. I love Aaron Rodgers and I’ve never had anything against the Packers but those critical calls against the Lions tonight were pretty bad.
I have to question those final Green Bay decisions. They’re down by two points in the last ninety seconds of the game. They want to score, of course, but they’re also concerned about the possibility of Detroit scoring.
So they have a clear opportunity to score a touchdown - and they sit down on the one yard line. They spike the ball twice to run down the clock. And then they kick a 23 yard field goal.
It worked. But I think it was a unnecessary risk. People miss field goals, even at short range. If the snap had been bobbled, the clock would have run out and they would have lost the game.
The first thing they should have done was secure the lead. They should have run in that touchdown and taken the lead. Even if it meant Detroit getting the ball back. Defending against Detroit making a touchdown in ninety seconds (with no timeouts left) was less of a risk than chancing a bad field goal attempt.