Let's chat about the National Football League: This week's schedule (all times Eastern):
Thu 2024-10-24 8:15PM Minnesota Vikings @ Los Angeles Rams
Sun 2024-10-27 1:00PM Atlanta Falcons @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Sun 2024-10-27 1:00PM Chicago Bears @ Washington Commanders
Sun 2024-10-27 1:00PM Indianapolis Colts @ Houston Texans
Sun 2024-10-27 1:00PM Arizona Cardinals @ Miami Dolphins
Sun 2024-10-27 1:00PM Green Bay Packers @ Jacksonville Jaguars
Sun 2024-10-27 1:00PM New York Jets @ New England Patriots
Sun 2024-10-27 1:00PM Tennessee Titans @ Detroit Lions
Sun 2024-10-27 1:00PM Baltimore Ravens @ Cleveland Browns
Sun 2024-10-27 4:05PM Buffalo Bills @ Seattle Seahawks
Sun 2024-10-27 4:05PM New Orleans Saints @ Los Angeles Chargers
Sun 2024-10-27 4:25PM Carolina Panthers @ Denver Broncos
Sun 2024-10-27 4:25PM Kansas City Chiefs @ Las Vegas Raiders
Sun 2024-10-27 4:25PM Philadelphia Eagles @ Cincinnati Bengals
Sun 2024-10-27 8:20PM Dallas Cowboys @ San Francisco 49ers
Mon 2024-10-28 8:15PM New York Giants @ Pittsburgh Steelers
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Notes -
Week 9 thread: https://www.themotte.org/post/1223/weekly-nfl-thread-week-9
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The Seahawks ran up the score against Atlanta, and seemed to look pretty good doing it. Metcalf hurt his knee, but not badly (one hopes), and with the win and SF's cumulative injuries, they sit atop the NFC West.
And yet...
They are firmly in the middle of the pack by most metrics, and still can't block.
I'm just waiting for the roof to come crashing down.
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This week was the closest thing the Eagles have had to a Get Right win since October of '23. While there was some weirdness to it (70 or so net passing yards in the entire game), it was for the most part a wall to wall win. The Browns win would have looked pretty similar, to be fair, without the blocked field goal TD; but if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. The Giants are terrible, and were banged up, but this is what you're supposed to do to terrible teams and the Eagles seemed incapable of just being normal for almost a year now, every game featured unaccountably weird and bad decision making or performance issues. This win probably protects Nick Sirianni's job for the rest of the regular season, though if he misses the playoffs he's probably out in the off season.
Jalen Hurts didn't throw the ball much, but he didn't turn it over either, and he was out by the middle of the fourth quarter to rest anyway. Interesting contrast between the Eagles and the Lions: against the Cowboys the Lions had an insurmountable lead, and used the opportunity to scheme up bizarre trick plays to get an offensive tackle a touchdown. The Eagles, with a smaller lead, chose to take their foot off the gas, putting in lots of backups to get reps. Even Saquon personally, when Nick Sirianni asked him if he wanted to go for a new PR in rushing yards against his old team, he demurred, saying to get the other guys some reps. Maybe the Eagles lack killer instinct, or maybe they have sportsmanship. I'm not sure which.
Elsewhere, it looks like Deshaun Watson's sad saga has taken another turn. Watson tore his Achilles during the game Sunday, and will be out for the remainder of the season. Browns fans reportedly booed aggressively, having no patience for their downed hero, leading to Miles Garrett pronouncing afterward that Watson had been a model citizen "most of the time." The Browns reportedly insured Watson's contract, and thus will get salary cap relief as a result of the injury, which may therefore be a best case scenario for the team. I'm a Truther here, this is entirely too convenient for the league and the team. While players tear their ligaments all the time, and Watson was getting beat up by every pass rush he faced, the timing lines up a liiiiitle too conveniently. Every football commentary podcast was talking about "what are the Browns going to do about Watson?" It was a black eye on the league, even moreso because the off-the-field stuff interacted with the on-the-field product. I think this is all kabuki theater to shuffle Watson out of the league.
As a related aside for the other kind of football, The NYT proves again and again why women's sports never makes it. TLDR: there's a new pro women's soccer team coming to Boston, their marketing slogan is that up until now sports has had too many balls, meaning men. There's been an outcry against the "transphobia" of equating lacking testicles with being a woman. I have occasionally watched women's sports: the olympics, the UFC women's divisions. But I'm so angry that women's professional sports, which I don't watch, is held hostage by weirdo activist types, who also don't watch the games. Professional Women's sports isn't about winning, it's about making some kind of political point. Women just don't understand that if Watson had played well, the Browns fans would have forgiven him, and as long as they even thought he might help them win his teammates accepted him. Have politics, fine, but they come after winning on priorities.
It was non contact though right?
The mysterious extra law suit though...
The injury was non contact but getting smashed in the backfield over and over isn't doing any favors in terms of movement quality. Beyond the sacks, I thought the Eagles were gonna catch a suspension for the late hits they were laying on him last week.
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Patrick Mahomes is America's only amphibious quarterback. And he is coming to kill you in your sleep.
REEEEEDDDDD KINGDOM!
It's like every season is an experiment in how much of the team can go to shit before Mahomes alone isn't enough to win.
The defense is still playing at an elite level, and the offense still has a very good line. But the WR situation is a disaster.
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We're seeing that happen with Brock Purdy and the 49ers. Most, if not all, of the team's star players are on the injury list. Their days as a Super Bowl-contending team are over.
The niners have had the even year injury curse forever.
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It looked like a team that would last for a long time, but now we're seeing it maybe fall apart. Same with the Joe Burrow Bengals, when they made it to the Suber Bowl everyone thought they were coming back soon. Contending windows are short! Makes the Rams look smarter, they made hay while the sun shined.
The Bengals front office is neither smart enough nor aggressive enough in the draft or free agency to have the depth of talent needed to win a championship or to be consistently competitive. They have a solid run about once a decade ('05, '15, '21), but it's usually derailed by a QB injury against a division rival.
EDIT: I say this as a Bengals fan.
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Hard to believe it was just three years ago the Bengals were competitive enough to be in the Super Bowl.
It's one of those things where we looked at that Bengals team and said "when they just fix the O-Line they'll be dominant!" But that's easier said than done. Team culture is such an important thing in the NFL, in a way it seems not to be in the NBA or even MLB. Some teams just produce those role players one after another, and some teams don't. The Eagles' Jeff Stoutland can get overhyped by the fans, but they at times they seem to be getting more out of guys like Fred Johnson and Tyler Steen than a lot of teams get out of their starters.
Sometimes they just never figure it out. I'll always love Joe Burrow for that season though, it was such an honorable showing as a QB, going out there and getting blitzed over and over and still doing what needed to be done.
Even as a Steelers fan, I was rooting for the Bengals in that season because that fanbase had put up with so much nonsense over the years, and they finally had a team that could be taken seriously. Even the Marvin Lewis "not your grandfather's Bungles" teams always looked like they were overachievers who would blow it as soon as the playoffs rolled around. Then Joe Burrow showed up at the Super Bowl in that horrible tiger striped suit and I decided to root for the Rams. After all, Aaron Donald is further proof that no matter how mediocre Pitt's football team may have been over the past 40 years, they can still crank out NFL hall of famers like nobody's business.
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The big Steelers storyline going into Sunday was Tomlin’s decision to switch up QBs. It didn’t look good through the first two quarters. But then Wilson hit a couple plays and seemed to get in groove.
The question now becomes is it repeatable. If so, then the Steelers become a strong second tier contender.
Pickens had his best game of the season. If there's one thing Russ can do it's throw moon balls. If there's two things he can do, it's reduce turnovers.
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