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Lazuli  1d ago (text post)   263 thread views

Weekly NFL Thread: Week 9

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

Thu 2024-10-31 8:15PM Houston Texans @ New York Jets
Sun 2024-11-03 1:00PM Dallas Cowboys @ Atlanta Falcons
Sun 2024-11-03 1:00PM Denver Broncos @ Baltimore Ravens
Sun 2024-11-03 1:00PM Miami Dolphins @ Buffalo Bills
Sun 2024-11-03 1:00PM New Orleans Saints @ Carolina Panthers
Sun 2024-11-03 1:00PM New England Patriots @ Tennessee Titans
Sun 2024-11-03 1:00PM Las Vegas Raiders @ Cincinnati Bengals
Sun 2024-11-03 1:00PM Los Angeles Chargers @ Cleveland Browns
Sun 2024-11-03 1:00PM Washington Commanders @ New York Giants
Sun 2024-11-03 4:05PM Chicago Bears @ Arizona Cardinals
Sun 2024-11-03 4:05PM Jacksonville Jaguars @ Philadelphia Eagles
Sun 2024-11-03 4:25PM Detroit Lions @ Green Bay Packers
Sun 2024-11-03 4:25PM Los Angeles Rams @ Seattle Seahawks
Sun 2024-11-03 8:20PM Indianapolis Colts @ Minnesota Vikings
Mon 2024-11-04 8:15PM Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Kansas City Chiefs
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What a play: Jayden Daniel, fresh off an injury, threw a mind-blowing Hail Mary pass for the win in the final seconds against the Chicago Bears.

Not attacking you specifically, but it's weird to me that everyone is giving so much credit to Jayden Daniels. He played a great game on the whole, but he put up 18 points against a weak Bears team, and the play at the end was 90% luck on his part to get the TD. He wasn't even really targeting the receiver who came away with it, it was an arm-punt into a crowd and hope for good luck. That play, executed exactly that way with no additional Daniels contribution, would be expected to have less than a 1/5 chance of success I would guess.

Deserves some credit for scrambling around long enough to buy time for everyone to get down there, but yeah, once it left his hand ....

Good to be lucky.

https://x.com/joe_abdo/status/1850688286022406264

Lets pretend your Bears head coach Matt Eberflus. How should you handle Tyrique Stevenson?

For some background, he's a second year player, was a 2nd round pick a year ago (so still on a rookie contract).

He's a starter now (with fairly middle of the road PFF grades), (so his value relative to his contract is pretty high).

He's already expressed contrition on social media - "To Chicago and teammates my apologies for lack of awareness and focus .... The game ain't over until zeros hit the clock. Can't take anything for granted. Notes taken, improvement will happen. #Beardown" https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/42043231/tyrique-stevenson-taunts-commanders-fans-seconds-bears-lose-hail-mary-td

The twitter comments I read last night indicated that he needed to be cut immediately to send a message to everyone else on the team.

I think this is a space that understands that if twitter comment declare one thing, the wise man should probably do the opposite.

Indulge me the opportunity to knock down the straw man for a second.

I think if Eberflus is smart, he'll do the opposite, he won't publicly blast him, he won't privately blast him in front of the rest of the team either.

I think this is one of those deals where you either destroy your credibility by searching for scapegoats, or build a lot of trust by conspicuously not calling out obviously available scapegoats.

To the media - "I know Tyrique is really embarrassed by what he put on tape there, its obviously not what we want to be doing, and its a brutal way for that to end, its hurts for all of us, hurts for me, hurts for Tyrique, hurts for every guy in the locker room who put in the work to get a W. It was 1 play though, in a game with 120 (or whatever the actual number is) plays. Those 119 other plays were also opportunities to make the plays we needed to get the W. Tyrique learned a hard lesson in a hard way, he'll get better from this. Everyone else in that locker room will get better from it as well"

To the team - (in a calm none yelling voice) "Hey guys, Tyrique made a mistake there, it on you guys to learn from what he did, this a good reminder that we're out there in front of 70,000 fans with smartphone every second, everything you do is something that will be captured. It only take a second to put something on tape the will define you to people who don't pay attention to each play. The margins for winning and losing are small, let's all be better from this".

At least that's how I would advise handling it, it'll be interesting to see how Eberflus actually handles it.

Praise in public correct in private. Have him express contrition to his brothers and give him some nominal punishment like carrying pads for a practice. Then no one says anything publicly, if asked everyone gives a rote answer like, we win and lose as a team not as individuals. We need to perform better to win. Next question.

That fumble was way worse. Losing the ball on the one yard line on a trick play is on the coach. Having what appeared to be a QB spy on a hail mary was also weird.

A coach can't come down hard like that unless he has credibility to do it. Mike Tomlin or a Bill Belichek can cut people, Eberflus can't.

Yeah, I agreed with all that (although I would give the same advice to Tomlin or Belichek) (I didn't actually start watching until the coverage flipped over for the last couple of plays)

So did you startle your relative when it happened?

It was one of those games that they changed over to at the end where I was, I was kind of half watching while washing the dishes while my daughters were on their devices.

It definitely got an involuntary "Whoa!!!" out of me that startled my daughters lol

She was asleep during that game so I managed to restrain myself.

I am comforted by the fact that the last thing she ever watched on TV was an embarrassing cowboys loss. A true birds fan to the end.

Feels like defensive backs need to relearn you're supposed to knock hail Mary passes down not try for the interception.

Absolutely incredible finish. Commanders avoided a very tough-luck loss by handing the Bears one instead.

The Bears' defensive frontline must've been exhausted by the end because Daniels had plenty of time to run and make a big throw, even with his rib injury.

honestly on these hail Mary's I never understand why they don't rush 5. 6 should be enough on the back-end anyways? I guess maybe you are worried about hook and ladder type stuff but Washington kept 6 back to block + the QB = only 4 players downfield anyways. Make him get it out early and there's not a lot that can go wrong (Miami against NE a few years back being one potential counterpoint).

This play was weird though because of the spy, but 6 should be able to block 4 for a while even if they hadn't had the weird spy option.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Rv0t_S7bl0I&pp=ygUJcWIgc2Nob29s

Interesting breakdown of a similar play by the Colts defended differently by the Texans.

At 27:12

A Hail Mary isn't a typical pass play where the QB is trying to hit an open receiver. The idea is to bunch your receivers at the goal line and hope to create enough chaos for one of them to come down with the ball. The reason they don't rush 5, or even 4, for that matter, is that the play takes so long to develop that they should be able to get adequate pressure with 3. You need to post 3 DBs deep to defend the goal line, plus 4 CBs to jam the receivers at the line and provide trail coverage, plus a linebacker to spy or guard against the hook & ladder. Give up any one of these spots and you're creating a higher percentage play than if you make the WB throw the Hail Mary.

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