Speaking of which, the Eagles and Carolina are both 2 win teams. I wonder, since the Eagles backups are better than Carolina, if they’d be better off starting them.
Other than the Patriots, who are magical, and teams which lucked into backups who were future Pro Bowlers, what team has ever lost a top-5 quarterback and not collapsed?
The Patriots play in the AFC East, where all three opponents have been average to bad over the last ten seasons. The Chargers play in the AFC West, where all three opponents have been bad pretty much for all of the last 10 seasons. The Steelers play in the AFC North, where the Ravens were mostly average, the Bengals were mostly bad with flashes of brilliance, and the Browns were uniformly terrible.
The Colts played in the AFC South, where Jacksonville have had only 2 sub-.500 seasons, the Titans have vacillated between awful and great, and the Texans have been mostly awful.
The AFC North is the only division in the AFC which was arguably stronger over the past 10 years.
This is unusual.
The Ravens are averaging just over 2 inches per play tonight, which is only marginally more than Colt McCoy’s yards per attempt.
What fucking game is this officiating crew watching?
I don’t have cable anymore, but I have the box score up on Yahoo. I’m assuming that there has been softball-sized hail throughout the entire game, correct? Odd that they haven’t delayed on account of brimstone.
It’s a perfectly clear night. Kind of chilly by Florida standards, but nothing to explain this.
I can explain this.
The universe wants me to beat Jules Andre in fantasy football. It’s all coming together.
Is it… God? Maybe I will become a believer.
I desperately need an Ed Dickson TD to win in my money league. And, thanks to Josh Scobee, the Ravens have to try to throw one.
This may be the worst officiated game I’ve ever seen.
Rats.
Well that was a steaming pile of suck. At least the blowout last night featured my team looking strong. This thing tonight…wow. What a mess.
I wonder how anyone thought that this one would be worthy of a Monday night.
Marley23 stated
implying (to me) that he believed two things:
That a typical 12-4 Indianapolis team of recent years would have devolved into the caliber of this year’s team but for Peyton Manning, and that this year’s team would be 12-4 caliber if only Peyton Manning were the starting quarterback. I don’t believe either premise is remotely true.
Did the Ravens accidentally field the Rams offense last night?
Whoever told Del Rio to challenge that play in the end zone should be slapped around. There was clearly a foot or more of green between Flacco’s plant foot and the back of the end zone. Waste of a challenge and a time out.
Nights like this are why the NFL had to outlaw calling out the officating crews publically. It was baaaad.
No kidding. I don’t get worked up about bad calls lie the clean hit that was called as helmet to helmet. Going full speed, it’s easy to get that wrong. It’s only obvious to us on replay that it was a bad call.
However, things like not knowing how offsetting penalties work, or how personal fouls are enforced, or whatever that mess was with allowing the Jags to get 11 men on the field after the play clock expired? Inexcusable. How are you an NFL ref if you don’t know the rules? I think even the below-average fan knew that something wasn’t right during those calls.
(edited by me for clarity)
If Manning would have won 9 games with this team (as opposed to 12) he’d still be worthy of another MVP, no?
The Colts did this to themselves by never getting a competent backup QB. Yes, Manning probably would lead this team to 9+ wins. But, a capable backup probably should win 7+ with this team. They built the whole thing around Manning. The problem is that their QB options are so bad and they don’t have a true feature RB, either.
This is the one call I can forgive. The defenders head and shoulder did catch the bottom of the facemask, so at full speed i can understand erring on the side of caution, but some of the others…
I have to give props to Mel Tucker and the Jag’s D though. They really managed to capitalize on the Ravens not being ready to bring thier game. The coverage was everything they could ask for and the front seven ran right over the Ravens O-line.
No capable quarterback would sign to back up Manning except for a huge premium, knowing that he’d probably never see the field. “Capable backups” go to teams with shitty starters.
Aaron Rodgers is backed up by Matt Flynn, a 7th round pick. Drew Brees is backed up by Chase Daniel, who wasn’t drafted.
Remember 2009, when Tom Brady was replaced by a seventh round pick who’d never started a college game? Did anyone really think Matt Cassel was a “capable backup”?