Ever seen a 250 pound man hurdle another man? You have now. Welcome to the NFL, LeGarrette Blount.
Probably past time I retired my Cadillac Williams jersey anyway. He’s not going to see the field again once Blount learns to pick up the blitz.
Jesus, the Bengals. The linchpin game to turn around the season at home and they flounder it away, yet again after having a lead…for FOUR GAMES IN A ROW. They’ve lost four in a row. They had the lead in each game in the 3rd quarter. Our defense is terrible.
This team went to the playoffs last year, returned the #4 ranked defense, added some parts on offense and one would expect they’d play better. But they have regressed in an astounding way. I don’t understand my team. They have too much talent to be this shitty.
Just got back from the 49ers vs Broncos game - loved it!
First three quarters were pretty dire to be fair, but the final quarter was v. good.
Saw pretty much all the elements of pro-football - couple of touchdowns, field goals, fumbles, interceptions, sacks and a really, really tough break for the Broncos at the end when a fantastic TD was disallowed for a foul way back near the scrimmage line.
Would have set up a brilliant finish, as the missed extra point would have left Denver needing a two-point attempt to tie the game with a minute or so left.
Anyway, as a life-long 49ers fan it was great to see “my” team win, so I have a great big grin on my face this evening. 
Not only that, the Orton touchdown would leave me with a chance of winning my fantasy money league this week. 
Well, if it makes you feel better, now they’re in 4th place in the AFC North behind the browns.
Wait, there’s no reason that would make you feel better.
The Buccaneers continue to beat the teams we’re supposed to beat. Thankfully, last year’s last place finish means we don’t have many games against the teams we’re supposed to lose to, and we’re even winning the games that could go either way.
We play at Atlanta next week for first place in the division, but the next two are gimmes against the Panthers and at San Fran (maybe not a gimme if Troy Smith is as good as I think he’s going to be, and Singletary doesn’t do something dumb like give Alex Smith the starting job back).
Then it’s at the Ravens, home for Atlanta, at the Redskins, home for the Lions, home for Seattle, and at the Saints to close the season.
Assuming we lose to the Ravens, split with the Falcons, lose at New Orleans, and lose one of the other four, we’ll be 10-6 and almost certainly in the playoffs considering the state of the rest of the NFC.
ETA: For a team that was 3-13 last year and lost most of its veteran talent in the offseason, there probably shouldn’t be any games we’re supposed to win. This team is so young most teams have a couple of players older than our head coach.
The place you finish in your division only affects 2 games.
The weird thing is it still doesn’t quite feel legitimate. The only way this will feel real is by beating KC next week. Maybe it’s because they’ve looked almost decent before and then fell apart. So they don’t need to rack up 500 yards again, just make sure to win. One big question is whether to stick with Campbell or not (I say yes).
Yeah, but it makes a big difference that those two games are the Lions and Redskins rather than the Vikings and… Giants? Don’t even remember who won the NFC East last year.
I’m going to get you, sucka…
What? A Browns fan dissing on the Bengals? Well shit son, who did the Browns magically beat today? Uh-huh, I thought so…
After the savage beating they gave to the Saints two weeks ago, the NFL office decided the rest of the rest of the league needed a week off from the Browns for their own sake.
You gotta fit James Harrison in there somewhere.…
Saints put together a solid defensive effort to shut down the Steelers tonight. Didn’t look like the same team that got manhandled by the Browns last week.
I don’t care what the talking heads say. Ndamukong Suh would have worked out just fine in the Tampa 2. Ndamukong Suh would work out just fine in a 1-6 defense, for that matter.
Not that I’m unhappy with Gerald McCoy- Warren Sapp didn’t record any sacks until the end of his rookie season, either. It’s just that while McCoy might be a very good clear, it’s already obvious that Suh will be great.
Suh, a rookie DT, has 6.5 sacks so far this season. That’s a half a sack more than the entire Bengals defense through 7 games…ugh.
What do you suppose it would have cost Tampa to swap picks with Detroit (i.e., to move up one spot from 3 to 2)*? As a fan, what would you have been willing to accept as a fair deal (knowing what you knew at the time, not now)? What’s the most you would consider a fair deal with your knowledge of the season so far? (Just curious – I don’t even know for sure that you were implying Tampa should have tried to trade up.)
- –> The chart says the difference between the 2nd and 3rd overall picks is equivalent to the value of the 18th pick in the Round 2 (50th overall). Of course, the chart is all kinds of wonky as regards the very top of the draft. For example, the difference in value between successive picks is identical from 1 through 4 – 400 points – but the difference between #4 and #5 is just 100 points (i.e. the 4th pick in Round 4).
I wasn’t really implying that we should have, though after watching Nebraska’s last couple of games, I would have traded practically all our picks to get him, Ditka-for-Ricky-Williams-style.
The bloom came off the rose a little leading up to the draft when all the prognosticators said McCoy was a better fit for the Tampa 2, but I would still have preferred Suh. Not sure what I would have given up for him at that point, but I certainly would not have been unhappy giving up our second round pick. That was Aurelious Benn, who looks like he might be good down the line but is totally invisible right now (except for the gorgeous adjustment he made to catch a bomb yesterday to set up the go-ahead touchdown).
Either way, it was clear to me now and then that Suh was the only truly special player among the “lottery” picks (mea culpa on Sam Bradford, who I thought was the bustiest bust who ever put on a #1 jersey).
Granted, I felt the same was about Glenn Dorsey, and I was extremely pissed off when we made no effort to move up to get him in 2008 (although we would have had to jump from #20 to #5, and our actual first round pick was Aqib Talib, who has been superb when not suspended for drug infractions).
I bought into the hype that Suh was the best player of the draft by far and I’d have given up a 2nd rounder if I were Tampa.
Interesting. I’m generally a fan of being rather conservative when it comes to trading up – it’s fine to give up 5 or maybe a 4 to make sure you get your guy, but 3s and especially 2s are extremely valuable commodities (to say nothing of giving away future 1s). For the most part, I consider the prospects to be unknown commodities, so in general I don’t like sacrificing quantity for quality (relative to most others, that is). In a spot like Tampa’s, then, I wouldn’t have been happy giving up more than, say, an (early) 3rd and 5th (or a 3rd and 4th but we get a 5th back).
That said, I don’t follow college football closely at all, so I’m sure I’d be more likely to buy into the hype (rightly or wrongly) from time to time if I was a bigger NCAAF fan.
I don’t really disagree with your reasoning. There are different but valid ways of looking at it.
I figure - top 3 or maybe top 5 busts are crippling to a team. It eats your salary cap for years for an underperforming player. If you aren’t totally confident that the top prospects won’t be busts, you should trade out of your pick for very little in return, just to reduce the financial commitment. Take way less than the chart indicates.
That chart, by the way, is the biggest fucking anchor around the NFL GM’s neck. It’s arbitrary and one guy’s opinion and it was designed at a time where you didn’t have to pay 3 billion dollars for the top picks. So it massively overvalues the top picks. But fans seem to think the chart is some official word, and that if you don’t get proper value on the chart, your GM is getting ripped off. So GMs live in fear of the fan backlash of not getting proper trade value, and therefore won’t trade down out of the top picks, eevn when it’s in the best interest of the team.
Anyway, the flip side of this is that if you’re confident that one of the top prospects won’t bust, and you may not get him at that position, it may be worth the extra investment to grab him to avoid getting stuck in a bust situation. A busted top 5 pick hurts a team more than an above average 2nd round pick helps it.