If the Jags win one game this season, they will beat the Colts (sob!).
Six teams left:
Washington Redskins @ Oakland Raiders
New York Giants @ KC Chiefs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers v. Arizona Cardinals
Jacksonville Jaguars v. Indianapolis Colts
And a matchup of two undefeating (what? that’s a thing) teams:
Pittsburgh Steelers @ Minnesota Vikings
Four games in, four teams remain. As promised, sorted by penultimate letter of the head coach’s middle name:
Pittsburgh Steelers (head coach Michael Pettaway Tomlin)
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- Point Differential: -41 (29th)
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- 3rd Down Conversion Rate: 35.3% (20th)
Jacksonville Jaguars (head coach Paul Casey “Gus” Bradley)
- 3rd Down Conversion Rate: 35.3% (20th)
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- Point Differential: -98 (32nd)
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- 3rd Down Conversion Rate: 29.5% (29th)
New York Giants (head coach Thomas Richard Coughlin)
- 3rd Down Conversion Rate: 29.5% (29th)
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- Point Differential: -85 (31st)
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- 3rd Down Conversion Rate: 22.9% (32nd)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (head coach Gregory Edward Schiano)
- 3rd Down Conversion Rate: 22.9% (32nd)
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- Point Differential: -26 (27th)
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- 3rd Down Conversion Rate: 37.7% (15th)
Pretty sad, really. The St. Louis Rams are right in the mix as far as the stats I included, but they got a win right off the bat (then promptly broke their own foot with the bat). As dysfunctional as all these teams appear, the Bucs should fail at matching their own history of winlessness at some point. The other three just look punchless, unless you include the fan base, who might start punching themselves soon.
The Jags and the Bucs wallowing around in the mud, no big deal.
Whooda thunk the Steelers and Giants could look soooo bad? Both are suppose to have top level Super Bowl QB’s.
It’s almost as if when Plaxico Burress shot himself in the leg the bullet passed through the whole Giants team. They have been on the downslide ever since.
And the mighty Browns claw their way to 2-2.
In other news, they allegedly aren’t going to trade Joe Thomas (who made his 100[sup]th[/sup] consecutive start), thus denying Joe any chance to play on a decent team throughout his entire NFL career. Sigh.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s kinda interesting the way the Giants and Steelers have mirrored each other during the Eli/Big Ben years.
What’s nice about the Giants and Steelers are the self-righteous fanbases are so deserving of this punishment. Especially fun is the fact that neither team is merely a victim of bad luck or losing to top teams. Both groups have to come to terms with their teams really, truly sucking like a spoiled lemon.
What-fucking-ever, dude. My Giants have sucked before, they suck now, and quite likely will get better then suck again during my lifetime. But they’ve also won a Lombardi that they also had absolutely no right to win. Calling the fanbase self-righteous (this isn’t the Yankees we’re talking about, and I say that as a Yankee fan too) sounds more like sour grapes on your part than having any real meaning.
Your tears taste delicious!
Looking at my Bucs’ remaining schedule:
Philadelphia
@ Atlanta
Carolina
@ Seattle (that one has 56-0 written all over it)
Miami
Atlanta
@ Detroit
@ Carolina
Buffalo
San Francisco
@ St. Louis
@ New Orleans
…I have to say, they are real contenders for 0-16. Slow clap for Greg Schiano, everybody!
That sure is a tough schedule. Still, the Bucs have been in a winning position three times already and have lost, and with their core statistics being nowhere near the bottom of the league like the other three teams, I can’t see them losing every single one of those games. Top 10 pick, sure, and an extra 3rd or 4th Rounder if they can move that QB, but there are way worse teams this year.
You make an interesting point. We’ll see how it plays out. Is there decent talent and the coaching can’t put together a winning game plan? Some guys play well no matter what happens around them. Others have to be motivated to produce. There are numerous situations where, with a coaching change a team starts winning. That means they had to have some inherent talent.
Contrast that with the Giants. The coach has 2 Super Bowls so he must know something. Same with the QB. Is the talent so lacking due to continually low draft picks that it can’t make up for that?
There are a lot of “X” factors here. The subplot of the season may be the direction that the Giants and the Bucs go. I say the Giants show some major improvement due to coaching and the QB while the Bucs muddle along, maybe winning a few on young talent. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a sudden coaching change in Tampa and a marked improvement. I don’t know.
What do you think would happen if Tampa had Caughlin and the Giants had Schiano? In that scenario I see the Giants getting the first draft pick and Tampa in the lower middle. Your guess is as good as mine.
Schiano doesn’t make it through the season.
We’ll see what happens.
You’re probably right, the Bucs have an elite run defense and some real talent on offense. They’ll probably beat Buffalo and Carolina at home and finish 2-14.
The x-factor, though, is the Schiano/Freeman circus and the resulting instability in the organization. When your coach is suspected of rigging the vote for team captain, benching his quarterback for a rookie to save his own job for another few weeks, and leaking the fact that Freeman was in the league’s drug program…we might see a full-on mutiny against Schiano, a walkout, an assault, who knows?
Christ, I hope not. What a debacle. And to think, almost had Chip Kelly!
How dare you!? :mad: 
JK
No question this years Chargers team is way off it’s talent peak from a few years ago but Rivers is playing great despite a poor running game, woeful OL and a WR injury list that looks like a military combat report!
The Bolts could easily be 4-0 but more importantly… Norv is gone and the coaching changes are so obviously yielding a tougher team with a killer instinct. No playoffs this year, but we have a solid foundation.
Need to draft a QB to get mentored by Rivers for a few years but I am happy with where we are heading.
I hear Lane Kiffin is available! /duck
You better duck! That’s just uncalled for. Though, if he brought Monte back with him…nah, our defense is solid as it is.
I do have one soft spot for Lane: he left the Volunteers in such a shambles that my beloved Kentucky Wildcats were able to beat them for the first time in 26 years, back in 2011, in one of the greatest college games I’ve ever seen.
You might have to change the title of the OP.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/spurrier-unsure-clowney-play-vs-185359195–ncaaf.html
What’s going on with this guy? His conditioning is being questioned. He’s starting to sound like the football version of Greg Oden.
Is he hurt or is he starting to agree with the people who said he should just sit out this year to avoid getting really hurt?
New York Giants (0-5)
Tampa Bay (0-4)
Pittsburgh (0-4)
Jacksonville (0-5)
Next week’s schedule:
Giants at Chicago (Thursday night)
Philadelphia at Tampa Bay
Pittsburgh at NY Jets
Jacksonville at Denver
Pittsburgh is the only team with a chance to win, it looks like - and even those chances aren’t that high. Lord, can you imagine how many points Peyton and Co. are going to put up before they all get benched at half time against Jacksonville?!