Thanks the bye week and my schedule finally relenting a bit, I got to spend the day behind the tube yesterday.
And I was treated to grade A garbage as far as football is concerned. It's reaching the point where it's almost less sloppy to watch a few hours of college football than the pros.
For example:
- Alex Smith and KC dicing up the Chargers. You'd think vintage Joe Montana snuck in for Smith, while Rivers didn't help his cause any with a pick-six. Noticing a trend - the middle of the field wide open with nobody covering.
- Minny/GB - was looking forward to this one. Two teams with winning records. One off a six game winning streak. GB struggling, on the road in frigid Minny. You're thinking AP is going to get a ton of carries and run wild on GB, right? Nope - only 13 for him (him fumbling didn't help his cause), and Bridgewater spent the day running for his life (which resulted in some damaging sacks).
-Jets/Texans - right up there with Dallas/Miami under the 'well, someone has to win, right?' category. The Jets once again proved they can lose to the worst of them.
I could go on - but in each game, it was the usual - poor tackling, bad drops, penalties up to wazoo (Minnesota could have woven a nice yellow Viking flag out of what they had thrown at them). Another recurring theme - bad depth. Guys hurt, and replacements stepping in and looking awful.
The records seem to indicate the same - there's only a handful of teams with good records, and none of them look all that dominant.
What gives? CBA limitations killing the product on the field? The uptick in injuries and limited roster sizes resulting in unprepared players taking the field? Rule changes - seems like you could just skip running altogether, if you throw on every down, you're likely to get PI called in your favor every 3rd or 4th shot anyway.
The middle of the field in every game I was watching yesterday looked wide open - hell, even Blaine Gabbert nearly managed a 300 yard day (remember when that was a big deal)?
This isn't a 'pardon the Giants' thread - they could easily be better than they have been, but injuries and mistakes in both management and execution have prevented that. But it sure as hell looks like a general theme.
What happened to the NFL?
Plus, add the Redskins debacle where they took a pick 6 away from them on a complete bullshit call and you can see the effect that the refs have on drives.
That being said, jcn is right about the quality of play. It is very poor, especially for this late in the year when teams should be peaking.
That rams-Ravens game was horrific and there were some incredibly odd penalty calls there, too.
The NFL is now more or less arena league football. Add the above factors to a game that is evolving and trying to find itself in light of concussions, and you've got a weak stew and too many chefs.
And quite frankly, professional athletes making way too much money, regardless of sport. What is their incentive once they've banked millions? Winning? Not enough. Most men start looking outside of football after a few years in the NFL, it seems.
Problematic rules, CBA, and too much money involved. Goodell and most of the modern owners are business man first and only, the football purists are dying off. imv.
The Golden Goose has been killed, as Terps opined years ago.
Only NE, Carolina, Arizona are playing solid football week to week.
And on the flip side, the San Francisco game was great for a nice prime time W!
The officiating is awful. The rules are awful. There's no flow to the game.
This is definitely not the same game we've all grown up with.
I still love it but it sure isn't the same.
dumb coaches
and some really dumb rules
The quality of this game has been going downhill for years. This year has been one of the worst I can remember.
These end of game drives are so predictable. There's little suspense anymore. If a team has a halfway decent QB and more than a minute (or less than that if they have timeouts), you can be pretty sure that they are going to get in FG range and the FG kicker is going to make it. Need to bring back defense into the game and make FG's harder.
Replays show there was minimal contact and the defender is looking back to make a play on the ball.
Result - 1st and goal from the 2.
Went from a 40+ yard FG try to a TD.
Rookie coach who has done some good things but is way in over his head.
We live in an age where a player, may make one single play in the game, and it doesn't matter if his team is up by 20, or down by 20, and he starts struttin' his stuff.....the game is not the same, unfortunately......how many times did we see LT make a great play and just walk back to the defensive huddle?
I was thinking, who the fuck on that Eagles team could celebrate anything right now, especially on defense.
There are currently only 10 teams in the NFL with winning records and if the Patriots beat Buffalo tonight there will be only be 9.
As inconsistent as the Giants have been they are 7th in Number of TDs (29) scored this season.
The TD scoring leaguewide looks as follows:
Cardinals (40),
Panthers and Patriots (34),
Saints (33),
Bengals (32),
Falcons (30),
-------------
Giants (29)
-------------
Packers, Raiders and Bills (28),
Jets, Colts, and Chiefs (27),
Eagles and Dolphins (26),
Steelers, Texans and Bucs (25),
Seahawks and Redskins (24),
Ravens, Jaguars, Broncos and Chargers (23),
Titans, Vikings, Bears and Lions (21),
Browns (20),
Cowboys (19),
Rams (19),
9ers (13)
The Cowboys at 3-7 are tied with the Ravens, the Lions and the 9ers for the 4th worst record in the NFL and are being shown love as contenders for the crown .
The only teams with a worse record than the Cowboys are in the AFC - and they would be the Browns the Titans and the Chargers all at 2-8
3 teams lead their divisions with 5-5 records the Colts who are tied with the Texans, and the Giants
Interestingly while the Giants are 7th from top in TDs scored - they are 7th from the bottom in points allowed this season
I think a major culprit is the management of the teams in an era where keeping a cohesive team together is very difficult. GMs may need to rethink how they spend their cap space.
The current cap is $143.28 million. The current roster size is 53 players. That's $2.7 million per player. Right now the popular model is to have a handful of starters make way past that figure with backups making less in order to balance the books.
With the impact of injuries and roster turnover, it might be time to concede that the money should be distributed more evenly at the expense of the top players.
It can't be overstated: teams need to think long and hard about giving any player a lucrative second contract.
Our top six average salaries (according to Spotrac) are:
Eli
JPP
Cruz
Beatty
DRC
Beason
By average salary those six guys account for $58.5 million, or 40.8% of our total cap. And of those six four have contributed almost nothing this year. You could probably do a similar exercise for other teams around the league and get similarly poor results.
Another factor may be that GMs and coaches have very short lifespans, and are thus not motivated to conduct business with an eye toward any sort of long term cost/benefit analysis.
It is a serious problem.
Look - you can have a perfectly contested game turn on a dime because on 3rd and 18 a flag is thrown for defensive holding where the defender away from the ball touches the shoulder of the WR.
You have rules so open for interpretation that a receiver coming across the field who gets knocked hard has a better than likely chance to draw a flag. You have 40-50 yard chunks freely given to a team that doesn't earn it, but is the beneficiary of a ref who sees slight contact and decides to award a drive-changing and possibly game-changing penalty.
these penalties have ripple effects:
1) They keep drives alive that result in points that wouldn't have otherwise
2) They cause defenders to pull up on hits or try to avoid any contact, which lessens the viewpoint of a "good" defensive game
3) It allows the offense such freedoms that end of game scenarios of a team needing a drive are often allowed to happen, regardless of the talent level of the defense
To make matters worse, the teams who are adapting on defense aren't adapting with skill, they are adapting by employing a strategy that calls for repeatedly fouling the other team hoping that flag fatigue sets in.
I don't believe that the gameplay suffers because of a lack of talent - but by conscious and deliberate rule changes that favor the offense and cause defenders to have to resort to means that make the game tough to watch.
Rookie coach who has done some good things but is way in over his head.
Thats bad ... but wasnt even the worst coaching blunder of the day. How about John Fox electing to go for it on 4th and goal from the 5 down 8 with over half a quarter to go.... at home... facing Denver's backup QB in his first NFL start. I mean WTF?!?
It's the stylish thing (like "I hate TNF") to say but I don't buy it. We're seeing athletes who are stronger and faster than ever and solid young QBs.
I used to watch 5 games a week - Thursday, 3 games on Sunday, the Monday night game. Now, I'll watch the Giants then go walk the dogs or go somewhere with the wife.
George Yong foresaw this when FA began. Said the existing system allowed for more $$ for more players, that FA would result in top heavy salary structures
Also, this "arena league" stuff doesn't appear to be making its way into the data. Scoring is up insignificantly from 30 years ago and if you adjust for better kicking conditions and accuracy, it's marginal at most.
Also, this "arena league" stuff doesn't appear to be making its way into the data. Scoring is up insignificantly from 30 years ago and if you adjust for better kicking conditions and accuracy, it's marginal at most.
I agree except I would say it's crappy, it's football
But I still see a lot of physical play. That's what's causing all the injuries people are complaining about.
They've got to reach a CBA that allows more practice time as a team, more contact during training camp, etc.
Theres nothing wrong with paying good players. Its about structure. Too much guaranteed up front $$$. Not every team is struggling to field quality. The CIN Bengals are being lauded for low guaranteed contract structures with incentives. Pay for play. 4 straight playoff years. About to be 5. There GM - under mike brown - will b a hot commodity
RB, no disrespect intended but I think the poor football is plainly visible. As Joey pointed out, teams like the Cards play a strong fundamental brand of football, which reflects their daily habits and accepting drilling from the coaches. They clearly are doing something many other teams are not.
TC changed how the team prepared in training camp, and they came out swinging in the season opener, whereas the past few years of the new CBA they were dreadful in their fundamentals the first 2-3 games of each season.
I still maintain that scoring doesn't seem to be affected significantly by this or by tighter rules for the defense, etc.
80s NFL was better than the 70s, but I can't say that about the '10s versus the prior decades I've witnessed. The athletes are superior, the skill and technique are probably superior, but we don't see enough of that reflected in team performance on a consistent basis.
Pork Fried Rice with garlic chicken wings.....oh yeah.
As others mention, its the fantasy football world today and if you dig yourself a hole, or you blow a 10 point lead like the Cardinals did, you could easily march down the field because you have the ball last. It’s not just the Giants that this happened against. I think with Andrew Luck, Ben, Flacco, Brees, Romo and other starters missing games(include Peyton in there since he had a bad start) you are going to be seeing more shitty match-ups. Next week is Matt Schaub vs Johnny Manziel on Monday Night Football. Garbage. I’m not gonna watch that. One of the many many reasons the Giants have killed the Redskins of late is they got…Kirk Cousins starting games for them. Can’t wait to see what he has in store for us come Sunday.
I haven’t watched a Sunday Night Football game in a while. I do watch clips of the Monday Night games live because thats the only true night during the week where I have no work or classes. Even though the matches are bad, I’ll watch some football. Forget the Thursday Night games. I completely forgot the Jaguars were playing the Titans last Thurs. Fuck that. I used to like the Thurs Night games after Thanksgiving, but its an overload and it’s sloppy, boring and the dull divisional match-ups I don't care about make it pointless to watch.
That simple me thinks!
But serious we need more quality quarterbacks in NFL.
They need to expand the rosters and the salary cap which will allow teams to have actual back-ups on the bench instead of wash outs.