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Lazuli  7d ago (text post)   570 thread views

Weekly NFL Thread: Week 2

Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):

Thu 8:15PM  Buffalo Bills @ Miami Dolphins
Sun 1:00PM  Cleveland Browns @ Jacksonville Jaguars
Sun 1:00PM  Indianapolis Colts @ Green Bay Packers
Sun 1:00PM  New Orleans Saints @ Dallas Cowboys
Sun 1:00PM  New York Giants @ Washington Commanders
Sun 1:00PM  New York Jets @ Tennessee Titans
Sun 1:00PM  Las Vegas Raiders @ Baltimore Ravens
Sun 1:00PM  Los Angeles Chargers @ Carolina Panthers
Sun 1:00PM  Seattle Seahawks @ New England Patriots
Sun 1:00PM  San Francisco 49ers @ Minnesota Vikings
Sun 1:00PM  Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Detroit Lions
Sun 4:05PM  Los Angeles Rams @ Arizona Cardinals
Sun 4:25PM  Cincinnati Bengals @ Kansas City Chiefs
Sun 4:25PM  Pittsburgh Steelers @ Denver Broncos
Sun 8:20PM  Chicago Bears @ Houston Texans
Mon 8:15PM  Atlanta Falcons @ Philadelphia Eagles
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Week 3 is now live: https://www.themotte.org/post/1171/nfl-weekly-thread-week-3

Fun game to watch live, besides the gut punch at the end. Perfect weather.

But Nick Sirrianni will not make it to the end of the season. Maybe not Fangio either. They might not make it past the bye week. The absolute lack of a pass rush dooms this team to mediocrity, they have invested in talent up front on D, they need to see pressures or the coaching staff is toast. Which applies regardless of whether Barkley catches that last pass or not, but unlucky twice more and it might not even take to mid season.

The offense was lackluster, but the defense was truly bad. Eagles will not be competitive in the playoffs, if they make it that far. Something happened near the end of last year, the pass rush just evaporated.

Do Steeler fans still love football or it's just a tradition of punishing your liver on Sunday?

Ha! I do miss the football of the 2000s. I feel like that was one of the best eras. Passing wasn’t so easy. Defense was still permissible. And the athletes were amazing.

What’d I tell you about those Saints, @FiveHourMarathon? You better pray that Derek Carr just blew several games’ worth of talent this week.

I'm just sad my favorite Cowboys podcast is off the air. I wish I could listen to them squirm tonight while I clean up the house for the week.

Falcons is feeling like a real trap game now.

I was rooting for the Bills but...fuck man, why Tua have to do that? And in the season when, if he had played well, hawkers outside the stadium would have sold a million tasteless t shirts and hats.

Damar Hamlin's K/D is back towards 1.

My condolences to every Miami fan who watched that disastrous game.

Any survivor players? I'm in a small league (12/24 remaining) and a medium league (350/500 remaining). There are several decent candidates this week in the 6-7 point favorite range. I'm looking at Houston and Dallas, as both have minimal future value (although Dallas w13 vs. Tampa Bay is a strong option). If I go with those, I'll probably use Dallas in the small league which is unlikely to last past week 10 or so, and Houston in the bigger pool.

Also the bigger pool allows 1 rebuy through week 4 which adds some complexity. I've always ignored that possibility when handicapping and just used it if necessary.

What, exactly, is a survivor league?

(This is a good example of a personal bubble!)

In its simplest form, a survivor league for the NFL involves choosing one team per week which must win its game. If the team wins, you survive to the next week. The caveat is that you can only choose each team once for the entire season (I believe 18 weeks currently). There are several strategic considerations: how likely each team is to win in the current week; how often the team might be a good choice in future weeks; how popular you expect the choice to be; etc. For a simple example if you have a team that is expected to win nearly all their games, and there are 1000 entrants in the contest, you'd want to save that team as long as possible for use in a situation where there are no other great options. Also regarding popularity if you have a team that say 50% of entries are likely to choose, then you almost never want to pick them because if they lose you've now eliminated half the field.

https://www.survivorgrid.com/ has a lot of this information in convenient format, the most valuable being the percentage picked for each team.

There are also several variants of survivor including picking a team to LOSE each week, having to pick 2 teams each week, potential reentries if you lose, and many more. It's an interesting way to gamble.

Thanks for the thorough explanation. This seems like an elevated pick 'em scenario.

Mrs. FiveHour and I have tickets for this week's MNF game between the Eagles and Falcons, bird bowl! The weather is supposed to be in the sixties and clear, which will make my wife happy. The last two years we have attended one game each season: Jacksonville in 2022 and Buffalo in 2023, both were excellent games, but at both games it POURED. And she would very much like to go to a game with crisp, fall air. Right now the forecast is looking good. Hope it stays that way.

Gameplay wise, we learned very little about the Eagles last week. Weird game, long flight, bad field, first game of the year between two teams that kept their starters out of the pre-season, I'm not prepared to celebrate their performance, nor am I ready to give in to the anxiety about Hurts' performance or the pass rush without Reddick. There's really not a lot I'm confident saying about the Eagles at this point, they might have a great cornerback or a near-unplayable one, they might have a strong physical defense or a paper-thin secondary backing up an anemic pass rush. We'll see. I'm confident in Saquon playing his first home game in PA, but beyond that...

On the other hand, in terms of their schedule structure, this was a huge win for the Eagles, especially if the Falcons are as beatable as they looked week 1. The next three weeks are Falcons, Saints, Bucs; the only team that might be competent in there is the Bucs, who the Eagles have a minor rivalry against. They could make it to the bye week 5 undefeated. The Packers were one of the toughest teams on their schedule, so winning that game puts them ahead.

The Falcons game 1 was a complete disaster. The Steelers are always tough, but for Kirko to put up 155 yards and look completely incapable of running basic play action concepts, and Bijan to run for just 68 yards, that's not what they wanted to see. I'm excited to see Bijan live, running backs look more exciting live than on TV. I actually hope Kirk isn't as hobbled as he looked, it would be a little dispiriting to see the Formidable Opponent get beat on by the Eagles pass rush to the point where you wonder whether they should leave the poor old man out there.

If Kirk isn't able to get any lateral mobility throughout the season, the Falcons poor decision making is going to come into focus fast. Signing Kirk to a huge and largely guaranteed contract, only to replace him with high-first-round pick Penix Jr. is going to be a disaster either way. If Kirk is good, everyone is going to point to the other players they could have drafted. If he isn't, they're going to to be asking who else they could have signed with that money to support Penix Jr.

Hoping for a good game all around, and an Eagles win.

The next three weeks are Falcons, Saints, Bucs; the only team that might be competent in there is the Bucs

I think this is way underselling the Saints. While they’re certainly not a Super Bowl team, they have a very formidable defense, impressive skill position players (Chris Olave, the very underrated Juwan Johnson, etc.) and a QB who (and I can attest to this as a Chargers fan who had to watch him on the Raiders) is entirely capable of putting up a Pro Bowl level performance at any time. (You just can’t accurately predict when that time will be, and it’s usually bookended by inexplicable stinkers.)

We'll see. Maybe the Eagles will get lucky and Carr will ball out against Dallas before coming back to earth against the iggles. More likely, the Cowboys posterize the Saints, and regardless of the outcome against the Eagles, Philly will still look fraudulent.

God's own blessed centurions, the Kansas City Chiefs, will dismantle the heathens from South Ohio.

Josephus Burrow, the young blasphemous minor demon, will be made to understand the shining truth of THE LORD's light. Perhaps St. Jones will deliver the forceful sermon of sinew. Then again, the work of the blessed never ceases, and Brother Mahomes, with the aid of his deacons; Worthy, Pecheco, and Kelce, will, as always, preach the good word in front of the faithful at Arrow(God)head stadium.

Delivering peace to these sullied souls is often a brutal task. Yet, all those how know His divine word understand it is a necessary cleansing.

Deus Vult. Red Kingdom.

My poor Bengals. Close, but no cigar.

The Cincinatti defensive coordinator has found a way to break Patrick Mahomes' otherwise excellent football brain. This has happened in pretty much every game in the Burrow-Mahomes rivalry era. Kudos.

But y'all gotta focus on beating the rest of the AFC North now. You can't re-play the Chiefs every week and, if you try to, you'll lose games you shouldn't.

I think the Burrow-Mahomes rivalry is good for football, so I hope Joe Cool stays healthy. Draft some damn linemen, homie!

I don’t have major hopes for the Patriots this year. I’d like them to be competitive, and I’d prefer that to stinking up the joint again and getting a good draft pick. I’d rather see them try, and to build a winning attitude, and use that to attract talent and keep building.

That said, if they get to 2-0, I’ll start to get excited. Again, they’re not winning a title (okay, in my heart of hearts I want that to be the case and a part of me will always believe it can happen), but if they can compete for a playoff spot and play spoiler, while I pig out on wings and beer, I will take it.

My Stillers have an interesting QB dilemma. Do they go with Fields or Wilson? It probably doesn’t matter (Tomlin wants to run a cave man offense). I think you go with Wilson if healthy (I think Fields is probably at best a homeless man’s LJ). Any takers?

9-8 seasons will continue until morale improves.

Yeah pretty much. It’s frustrating. If Tomlin could pair an average offensive with this defense they’d be a contender. But Tomlin’s preferred strategy is to minimize mistakes on offense meaning you will never have an average performance. It also puts a lot more strain on the defense.

Fields has his moments, he has the physical talent. Adds dimensions to the run game. Better than nothing?

Sure he has moments. But he isn’t a decent passer and will turnover the ball. He had a C+ performance. Okay. But not great.

Wilson has a decent chance of showing up with diva energy, I feel like you start Wilson and if he falls off... you switch. The other way around might be harder.

It probably doesn’t matter (Tomlin wants to run a cave man offense).

I think Fields fits the caveman run-heavy offense because of what he offers with his own running ability. Wilson looked so cooked last year that I’m not convinced that defenses still take him seriously as a passing threat, and he is long past the time when he was worth honoring as a run-option threat.

Yeah agree that’s a possibility (maybe even reality). On the other hand, Wilson had good TD to interceptions numbers suggesting he might not be cooked (or that might be fluke). The upside of Wilson is probably higher than Fields but the fit is probably better with Fields.

My Jags get a fortuitous get-right game this week against an absolute turkey of an offense. Ryan Nielsen’s defense was one of the silver linings of last week’s ugly defeat, so I expect them to stymie Deshaun Watson’s pathetic passing game and will be very concerned if they don’t.

Meanwhile my Chargers get to face the worst team in the NFL, so should be smooth sailing for them this week.

My Jags get a fortuitous get-right game this week against an absolute turkey of an offense.

The Browns had one of the best defenses last year. So much for that. It completely collapsed against the Cowboys. I have the Browns as my D/ST in my fantasy league, and I may go with the Ravens this time.

If you’re a Browns fan, you gotta be feeling down. Since they came back into the league in 1999, it’s been nothing but a slog. They’ve played three playoff games in that time. And they think that maybe, finally, this is their time. And then this past week happens and Watson happens and it’s just the same old Browns.

My favorite Browns star is that until very recently the QB with the most wins at Browns stadium was…Big Ben. Baker narrowly edged him out. The Browns have played something like 180 games there (and Ben much much less). Almost impossible to fathom.

I'm grateful to the Browns for giving me a reason to hate a team that sucks. Normality you hate a team that's awesome, like the Brady Patriots, and it's mostly pain with a few highlights when they played Eli or Foles. Even hating a well run team like the cowboys means mostly watching them dismantle teams in the regular season until the playoffs.

But the Browns? Total butt monkeys of the league. But also, did the betrayal, did the morally blameworthy, and now I can root against them with righteous fury, and be rewarded with watching them struggle in futility for the next few years.

Sorry for the delay in approval. Thread should be visible now. Go forth and speculate!

Thank you!

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