I don’t think this LV team is that good for the Carolina win to be considered good
Are the Pats the worst team in the NFL?
- Thread starter ShaneTrot
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They were one of the biggest underdogs this week and they're up 3 touchdowns on the road.....
The Browns are a bottom 5 team in the league and their best player, Myles Garrett, hasn't been great since around Week 11 last year due to injuries and both his feet are in bad shape this year.
They have the worst QB in the league by any metric you want to use. He also has the biggest guaranteed contract in NFL history and cost the Browns 3 first round picks. Solid management.
edit - technically, Bryce Young is worse than Watson but he's not an NFL player and he's already been replaced and it completely changed the team.
They have the worst QB in the league by any metric you want to use. He also has the biggest guaranteed contract in NFL history and cost the Browns 3 first round picks. Solid management.
edit - technically, Bryce Young is worse than Watson but he's not an NFL player and he's already been replaced and it completely changed the team.
Definitely a lot of scraggly football. Offenses will need to find an answer to the two high safeties look. That's likely more running, which isn't particularly sexy for fans but is undoubtedly a winning formula (see Baltimore before they fell apart in the 4Q). For the good teams I think these games are just about figuring things out and, as an added bonus, putting some Ws in the bank. KC is doing a good job of that, the other contenders (SF) not so much. I don't think we learn much in the first four to six games of the season about who is actually any good. That doesn't come out until 10-12 weeks in. I thought TBs comments about September football on the broadcast were interesting yesterday. BB has addressed it before. You find out now what your team does well and what it doesn't, and that charts the course for the rest of the year. Actually more important than wins and losses, although if you can also win then all the better.
Offensive lines are terrible for almost every team in the league. And most of the young QBs just aren't ready for the NFL. Combine those two, and there is ugliness.
Since the pre-season is more and more of a joke every year, I suspect we won't see teams really lock in until mid-to-late October.
One of the big problems is that everyone knows how to beat cover 2, but that is a combination of running the ball, flat routes, and deep posts and the like. Problem is 80% of the league can't protect long enough for the posts and other deep routes that stress Cover 2 and a lot of teams can't run good PA because their QBs have only done RPO. So that means having to string together long drives without negative plays or penalties, and teams with bad O-lines can't do that.
The good analysts have been talking about this as part of the cover-2 conversation (Tice and Klassen I know for sure)
Here is a nice clip of Foxworth explaining how you beat it, with clips (Including Shaheed and the Saints obliterating cover 2).
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpUjZzPgrgE
Just bad offensive line play all over the league. Can’t protect, can’t move the defense at all on fourth down. It’s ruining offensive football because we live in a time of really good defensive players and every line seems to have a weakness that can be exploited.
I read here last season a theory that OL has become a less attractive position for younger players as the game has become so pass dominant. OLmen don't get to road grade anymore.
Personally, I'd let more holding go. I mean I'd also cut the NFL rulebook in half, so allowing far more holding is just one of a thousand things I'd be lenient on.
That might be part of it, I think what you hear the most from line coaches and former linemen is that the decline really started with the new CBA, you can't practice in pads as a unit and it's probably more important for them than any other position by a huge margain. I think it was Whitworth? I saw in an interview and he was talking about how different it was even by his last year as a player in terms of how much work you could do and how it hurts O-line.
There are only so many people that are large enough to be OL. Are those prospects being recruited to other positions for some reason?
I think it is all of this. It’s not a glory position but in the run game you still get to try to knock the shit out of someone which is fun. In the passing game, it’s all technique and using your size strength to maybe pancake someone. How boring must it be to play oline in an air raid scheme? So then, even the guys that have the right attributes don’t develop and then they get to the NFL and they hardly practice.
According to this there are more than 5 and a half million reasons to be OL instead of an edge rusher.
OL play is shitty and the NFL is emphasizing OL illegal formation. Maybe they are trying to make defense sexy again?
(https://www.marca.com/en/nfl/2024/02/12/65c2fe1c268e3efc498b4591.html)
I think that the league overall is probably pretty concerned about the state of OL play and the progress that defenses have made at disrupting offenses. They're trying to stop the illegal formation stuff for good reason, but it's not to make life easier for defenses.
It's the ebb and flow of sports. Folks have called out the practice limitations within the CBA as a cause, accurately imo, but for whatever reason, pass rushers are defensive lines in general have the higher ground at the moment. There's no way that the league doesn't have top men trying to figure out how to solve it right fucking now. Allowing more holding is one possibility, but I'm sure that the geniuses will think of something else. They've done it plenty of times before (e.g., the Polian rules, all of the QB protections, etc.)
Who had the Bengals as the last team to record a victory for 2024? Will Levis and Trevor Lawrence may still have something to say about that.
* and "cost" them a starting QB who is absolutely a NFL-quality starter currently way outperforming the guy they paid a king's ransom to replace him.
On any given Sunday, or Thursday, the Pats can be the NFL's worst. I'd say that was the case this past week, though it's hard to tell how good the Jets are. The Pats made them look great.
The Pats were far from the worst in weeks 1 and 2. We'll see about week 4, but I'm expecting a result closer to week 3 than week 1.
The Pats were far from the worst in weeks 1 and 2. We'll see about week 4, but I'm expecting a result closer to week 3 than week 1.
Some of the issue is that the mobile “new era” QB makes so many plays on the move/out of the pocket in college that linemen aren’t having to learn how to block (or rather, aren’t being taught adequately). Or college programs are converting their big strong agile guys to DL since they don’t need clean pockets for statue-esque QB’s to sit in
the popularity of the mobile/off platform QB (whether it’s a Mahomes/Williams off platform backyard football type or a Murray/Hurts true throw on the run type) has fed into the lack of focus on OL play.
Seems like a cycle which is hard to break out of. The game became pass focused, so a few generations (recruiting sense) of big athletic guys became pass rushers which prompted college teams to focus on athletic QB which lessened the need for traditional clean pockets and also drove a need for even more athletic big guys to get after the QB and so forth
At some point, perhaps, the lack of supply of OL will drive their salaries way way up and that might prompt more kids wanting to stay on the offensive side of the ball but until colleges focus on OL, you’re just not going to see the type of league wide talent you did 20 years ago. And I don’t know what will need to happen on the college level to drive that.
It seems like rule changes might be the only way to improve the OL play but the league actually seems to be moving in the opposite direction so that’s unlikely (for now)
Sack % has been trending up for a few years, with ANY/A trending down accordingly
I don’t think we’re really seeing anything new as much as a continuation of what we’ve been seeing and it’s getting talked about more on social media (etc)
In 2020, leaguewide it was 5.9% and 6.4 ANY/A, last year it was 7.1% and 5.8 ANY/A, so far this year it’s 8.1% and 5.6 ANY/A
I don’t think we’re really seeing anything new as much as a continuation of what we’ve been seeing and it’s getting talked about more on social media (etc)
In 2020, leaguewide it was 5.9% and 6.4 ANY/A, last year it was 7.1% and 5.8 ANY/A, so far this year it’s 8.1% and 5.6 ANY/A
Taylor is a terrible coach propped up by a very good QB and great WR production for a few years.
had they not gotten to the Super Bowl a few years back, he’s have been fired and they’d probably be better off
I think he’s a bottom 5 HC in the NFL
Screwing around with their WR and not paying at least Chase to make him happy is also an issue but coaching is the big problem in Cincy
I think the biggest thing is they let Bates walk and did nothing to help the defense. They should have just traded Higgins for assets to help the D. He's really good, but you aren't paying him and Chase.
The Bengals won't do it, because Mike Brown is cheap and/or he is the least wealthy owner in the NFL, but the firing of David Bell and Zac Taylor need to happen in the same week. The defense is an affront to anyone who has ever worn shoulder pads or eye black. I was kind of surprised the Commanders even threw the ball at all. With the Bengals front six, they could have run for 8-10 yards a pop, but it was also nice to see Daniels pass the ball all over the field to receivers not even remotely defended. Talk about a waste of a career, JB9 is going to rot in this town. And I love the guy (go Gators), but when did Money McPherson turn into Crypto McPherson? The math is a lot different if he makes his field goals, and his extra points last week. He is starting to enter the Tucker Zone.
McP is 7 for 8 on FGs this year. (5/6 on Xps)
Tucker is 5 for 8 on FGs this year. 8/8 on XPs.
So not quite the Tucker zone yet, despite the missed XP.
Yeah I mean they’re 0-3 while NE is 1-2, and NE has the H2H win over Cincy. They score more points than NE and have Burrow and Chase and Higgins so people are going to say they’re way more talented. But so far they’ve been even worse than the Pats.
Poor Rudy. This is a team that went into Arrowhead and took out Mahomes en route to a SB appearance and now they’re 0-3 with a healthy Burrow.
I only watched 2 and a half quarters but spent most of it wondering if Belichick was a fit to replace Pederson. We also kind of gave Lawrence an excuse for not being good for awhile due to Urban Meyer and so many changes early in his career but he's had stability with his coaches and the offense and looks terrible. They gave him a good weapon in Calvin Ridley last year and it didn't help. Given his contract and lack of options they have to keep running him out there but another coaching change seems inevitable to see if that can salvage him.
Could Cinci be a landing place for BB? Let him work his defensive magic where it is needed most. Maybe reunite with Josh McD to work his magic with Burrows and company.
Are we going to do the BB thing for every team that has a coach on the hotseat with a decent QB?
It's really more interesting than thinking or talking about the 2024 Pats...
BB's future aside, how can any conclusions really be drawn from three games in September? I don't think seats get hot until things shake out in November/December. With a good QB, teams can weather a lot of storms through the season. Most teams are going to end up in the muddled middle again, with a legitimate chance at sneaking into the playoffs with a few good games strung together.
Things that should be taken into account--they were playing on a short week after an overtime game, and it was Mayo's first time preparing the team for a Thursday night game. They might be as terrible as they looked against the Jets, but it also might be an outlier as a lot of teams have not shown up for Thursday night games over the years.
We'll see.
If the Dolphins are rolling with Tim Boyle and Skylar Thompson the rest of the season, the Pats will finish above them in the division.
I think that matters less than an owner that will give him total control and stay out of his way.
I don't see how anyone can be confident of saying this given that the Pats looked like a bad Div.III team on Thursday night.
We don't know anything right now, and we certainly don't know if the Pats are even better than Miami with backup QBs.
Thursday night games can be outliers since sometimes one or both teams just physically isn’t ready to play on 3 days rest. If they look like this in two weeks against Miami at home with a backup QB, then I will agree with you.
What was disappointing for me was the seeming lack of effort. If the Pats are going to succeed this season, it won't be because of our talent or game planning. It will be because they'll play hard for Mayo. If that doesn't happen consistently, then I'm not sure what we have.
I'm not that worried about effort. The team was beat to hell on a quick turnaround after an OT game. I saw a lot more just exhausted guys than low effort.
I didn’t see a lack of effort. As Mike Lombardi says, bad lines don’t travel (I don’t have a stat). That line just from a talent level was bad, but also, they had no practice time. Then, somehow, Rodgers played this game like he was straight out of a time machine. So far, I have watched the first half of QB school of the game and it wasn’t low effort from the Pats. A couple of missed tackles, but the first half, the D was playing ok, and if it wasn’t a great Rodgers game it doesn’t get out of hand so fast. He made a lot of quick checks at the line that worked and Lazard looked like he took a lot of steroids and cocaine before the game. Now, when the Pats get down 14-3, say goodnight because that line could not pass block.
On the game tape, the Pats D wasn’t as bad as I thought watching live and Rodgers was even better than I thought. Crazy shit from him.
They were tired. Those TNF games always favor the home team. We had injuries on the line. I'll buy all that. It's going to be harder to come up with excuses if they tackle poorly and lose by 30 to SF, which I kind of expect. In that case I'll be shocked if Maye doesn't start against Miami. The great game by Daniels is also completely irrelevant but will affect the fan and media demand to get him in the lineup.
Miami was my pre-season target game... quietly bad defense, coming off the toughest stretch of the season at 1-3 or 0-4.
However if the line isn't healthy/better (or if they beat SF I guess), I could see them pushing it to the Jags or Titans game.
The other potential advantage of the Miami game is that until they can figure out their QB situation, it is unlikely to be a shootout.
the Bengals would be a fun landing spot for BB/McDaniels although Trent Brown probably wouldn’t be a fan
theyre probably too cheap though. If they fire Taylor, they seem likely to dip into the bottom tier retread market or another young inexperienced guy
Why not? He may not have had many suitors in the offseason, but he's undeniably the best coach on the market for the foreseeable future. Any coach on the hotseat better be thinking, "am I a better option for my owners than Belichick over the next 3 seasons?"
A team like the Bengals with high end offensive talent and a need to fix the basics on defense? Feels like a great spot for BB.
I thought I read after the Atlanta fiasco that he never told people he needed to buy the groceries. I may just be making that up, though.