Watson, massage enthusiast extraordinaire, may be back for my Browns. Thankfully the defense is healthy. I predicted a slaughter by the 49ers last week but the defense, key injuries and a missed field goal saved the day. Should be a win over the Colts. Not betting advice, my track record? (O for lifetime)
General football question: I’m watching the beginnings of the Lions - Ravens game, and the announcer said “the Ravens won the coin toss and elected to receive the ball rather than kick, which is unusual in the NFL these days”.
I think I have noticed recently that a lot of teams do choose to kick off when they win the coin toss. It seems like in the past a team would usually choose to receive, unless there was some specific reason, like not wanting to play against the wind. But all things being equal, you’d think a team winning the coin toss would want to receive and have a better chance to draw “first blood” and get off to an early lead. What’s the strategy behind choosing to kick off most of the time, assuming the announcer was right and that is the norm these days!
Technically, they’re not choosing to kick off; they’re choosing to defer their choice for the beginning of the second half; the team that lost the coin toss then gets the choice for the first half, and they choose to receive. According to this article, the NFL changed its rules regarding coin tosses in 2008, and prior to that, it wasn’t possible to defer the choice.
And, yes, in recent years this has become the default approach that NFL teams take regarding coin tosses.
Ah ok, I see. The coin toss winner didn’t choose to kick off, they chose to defer the choice to the other team, who usually choose to receive, in order to reserve their choice for the second half. That makes sense. Thanks.
Myles Garrett is awesome.
In other news, yay Ravens and its nice to be with someone who doesn’t get bent out of shape by me rooting for the Ravens.
Some odd results in the early games today. NE beats Buffalo. Detroit gets walloped. Chicago wins big without Fields. Deshaun Watson leaves early under mysterious circumstances. The Giants may win without Daniel Jones and must be rethinking that contract.
Regardless if it’s during the season or Black Monday, Ron Rivera is fired after today.
Offended status retracted, they fully earned pillow fight status 
Well, the refs love of the Browns continues…
Two weeks in a row the Browns were bailed out on last minute drives by bad calls. It’s actually pretty weird. I’m used to being on the wrong end of these sorts of calls - happens all the time. I don’t know why it’s going the other way now.
Apparently Donovan People Jones is 12 feet tall, with 8 feet long arms.
I don’t care about the Browns or the Colts and I’m still mildly pissed off about the end of that game. Colts fans must be losing their minds. Awful officiating.
It saved my Survival pick, so I’m OK with it.
Hmm… So now it’s legal to grab a receiver’s face mask, pull his head to the side, and cause him to fall to the ground as the ball is being thrown to him.
With this revelation, I expect defensive backs to use very different strategies from now on.
The next play was a pick six against the Eagles so it doesn’t matter for the game, but it’s a really bad look for officials in a national game.
That pick six tied the game with 4 minutes left in the third quarter. From that point on, the Eagles completely dominated the game.
Yeah, the Dolphins kind of fell apart after that. I don’t think bad officiating had anything to do with it. But it was a pretty egregious no-call all the same, regardless of the fact that it had no effect on the game’s outcome. Heck, maybe the Dolphins wouldn’t have scored if the Eagles hadn’t been in the position to throw the pick six.
Welp. Even against one of the worst defenses in the NFL, Jordan Love still looks bad. The apologists are saying all the same crap about him that they do about every young QB: poor protection, bad playcalling, lack of playmaking pass catchers are why. And, to a point, thats true, but watching him, he still plays poorly. He looks good sometimes, has the arm, the running ability, poise in the pocket, and the occasional great pass. But he’s still everything we feared: inaccurate and makes boneheaded mistakes.
The worst part, though, is he’s not improving. Instead, he seems to be regressing. That is not a great sign. I was hopeful the Broncos would be a easy test to see his development, but he’s making the same stupid mistakes, still has crappy ball location, and is still missing guys.
Of course the Pack will stick with him (we dont have a superstar like Tyson Bagent in the wings), as they should. But he really needs to start showing some improvement before he becomes a lost cause.
Yeah but there really did need to be a chance for everybody to find out one way or the other for sure. This season is that chance
Rodgers was not the QB of the future and GB needed to figure out what they have on hand and what to do about it
What’s wrong with the Bills? They were picked by many (including me) as a championship contender this year, but they are just 4-3 and should be 3-4 were it not for incredibly stupid goal line play by the Giants. They dominated Miami, but they’ve lost to the Jets, the Jags, and now the Pats. Obviously there’s still plenty of time to win more games, but their recent play has to be of concern.
I rather agree and think it’s worse than that
Their wins are against the Raiders, Washington, the Giants, and Miami. And that Giants game was pretty close.
And Miami, despite that one 70 point win, is looking closer to pretty good at best than interstellar, not seeming capable of pulling off convincing wins (or rather losing) to contenders.
Buffalo still has a solid shot at a relatively weak division but that looks like their current ceiling