National Football League

[red_flanders]

Raiders beat down a team for the first time in...I don't know...14 years? Neither of my kids were alive or even close. Good day. 2 bike rides and a Raider win. Very good day.

 

[Pricey_sky]

Panthers win again and go 6-0. Davis, Short and of course Kuechly outstanding in defence.

10 consecutive regular season wins in a row, Love being a Panthers fan right now!

 

[movingtarget]

Re:

Panthers win again and go 6-0. Davis, Short and of course Kuechly outstanding in defence.

10 consecutive regular season wins in a row, Love being a Panthers fan right now!

I agree. Very good defensive display. That is definitely their strength. Nice run of wins they have going.

 

[infeXio]

Re:

Panthers win again and go 6-0. Davis, Short and of course Kuechly outstanding in defence.

10 consecutive regular season wins in a row, Love being a Panthers fan right now!

Not to mention Josh Norman who has been an absolute beast this season!

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

That was an excellent win. Plus, when it looked like they might let the game slip out of hand against an improving Eagles team, they buckled down and make sure the game was in lock.

That was a great beat-down by the Raiders. Carr looked very sharp, great arm. And Cooper is a beast. Their defense also played very well for the first time in probably a decade, no, longer. I didn't think they could stop Rivers any more than the Packers could, but they did. And this game was in San Diego.

As to the Cowboys, this is Jerry Jones history, isn't it? I'm not so sure I think Cassell is their guy though. He definitely goes through the reads better than Weeden, but he has one of the weakest arms in the NFL. He couldn't make any real throws down field, and had no zip on the pick six that another QB would have not made.

 

[jmdirt]

Dallas: Weeden wasn't the problem, he played well, in fact better than Cassell. Cassell's poor play looked better than it was thanks to the ground game that came alive. Romo wouldn't be winning with this team either. Hardy is a perfect fit for this dysfunctional team.

Panthers: This is a pretty good team and I think that Cam will still get better.

NE vs NYJ was a pretty entertaining game.

Colts: WTF?!

Are Miami and St. L teams to watch? Not just because of their wins against poor teams yesterday, but they seem like they could be tough in November/December.

 

[The Hitch]

I'm pretty sure Romo would be winning with this team. They are 2-0 with him and 0-4 without him. 2nd best qb in the league last season. Clearly way more talented than Cassel and Weeden. This feels like the 11 Colts team. Sb contender with Manning, but the moment he gets injured worst team in the league.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

I agree with Hitch on Romo. The Cowboys wouldn't be 6-0 with Tony, but they wouldn't be 2-4 either. And if Bryant were back they'd be better still. But their defense has got to gel and play as one unit, regardless of who is at QB on the offense. I think Barry Church (defensive captain) is also going to have to take Greg Hardy aside and let him know he can whoop and holler all he wants, but he can't hurt the team when he does it, and that has to come first.

The team that feels like the 2011 Colts to me is Baltimore. There were a lot of people (including me) saying they would go deep in the playoffs. In the opening game against Denver the game was tight, and then, once Suggs was gone, the head of the beast was cut off and that was it, maybe for the season. They are 25th in team defense, giving up 27 points a game on average, some of it ugly. The Cardinals have been an opportunistic, explosive team good at beating up on weak competition, so it makes me wonder what tonight's game will be like. Can the Ravens prove me wrong?

 

[52520Andrew]

Another close Ravens loss, becoming very predictable at this point

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

I'm pretty sure Romo would be winning with this team. They are 2-0 with him and 0-4 without him. 2nd best qb in the league last season. Clearly way more talented than Cassel and Weeden. This feels like the 11 Colts team. Sb contender with Manning, but the moment he gets injured worst team in the league.

I think that they would be 3-3 with Romo. The rest of the team just isn't good enough (due to both injuries and plain old lack of talent).

My argument all along was that D and the media were putting it all on Weeden, but the entire team is playing poorly. They brought in Castle, and D and the media said that they would be fine. Castle didn't play as well as Weeden. Now what will they point at? I say point at the fact that the Cowboys are a .500 team with Romo and less without. Note: prior to some key injuries, I would have said that D was a 10 or 11 win team, now they might get 6.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

I don't want to over analyze it (too late?!) but here's their schedule:

Giants - W 27 - 26 - Recall they pulled the win out in the last possible second.
@ Eagles W 20 - 10 - Eagles were really sloppy early.

Falcons L 39 - 28 - They would have lost this even with Romo. Weeden was fine, and the D caved late.
@ Saints L 20 - 26 - This game they probably would have won with Romo.
Patriots L 30 - 6 - Hardy & McClain returned, but score may have been 30-13, 30-20 if lucky.
@ Giants L 20-27 - This they probably would have won with Romo.

Seahawks - I anticipate a Cowboy loss here.
Eagles - Philly playing better, but both teams erratic. Bryant may return here.
@ Buccaneers - Really should win here. Defense could dominate.
@ Dolphins - Miami is a very different team under Dan Campbell.
Panthers - Romo returns here, against a top tier team on Thanksgiving.
@ Washington - Who knows which team shows up here?
@ Packers - Green Bay is beatable, and Cowboys will be out for revenge. But at Lambeau?
Jets - The Jets under Todd Bowls are very different than in the past.
@ Bills - Who knows. Talent. But like all of Rex's teams prone to blunders.
vs Washington to close out the season.

This looks like maybe 7-9 to me. And even as bad as that division is, that's probably not enough to win it.

 

[Billie]

With Romo the Cowboys would have easily won against Falcons, Saints and Giants. They would've even been able to make it a close game against New England. I'm an Eagles fan but you guys seem to underestimate how good Romo was last year.

When Romo get back I quickly expect them to be very good again. Unfortunately he is on IR and apparently can only come back after week 11 even if he is fit earlier. So they'll probably lose the next 2 after which they would have to win out (or maybe one loss) I think to make the playoffs.

Not sure who will win the NFC East. Giants look best so far but their schedule is pretty hard. Kirk COusins no way lol. Eagles need to get better passing game (hopefully when the recievers get healthier) and play Ryan Matthews over Demarco Murray.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

They gave up 39 points to the Falcons. Weeden went 22 out of 26 for 232 yards. He did throw 1 pick early, but was only sacked twice. Their defense gave up 141 yards to Freeman on the ground, and 12 passes to Jones for 164 yards. They also gave up two really long drives of almost 7 minutes in the 4th quarter that resulted in Falcon touchdowns to seal the game by 11 points. I agree Romo had a superb year, and he's definitely better than Weeden or Cassel, but I don't know how he would have won this game for them.

 

[The Hitch]

Weeden capitulated in 1nd half against falcons. Few horrible interception that turned the game too. I'm with Billy. With Romo this team is 5-1 with a chance at 6-0. They just so happened to lose the one game Romo didn't play last year and also the game Romo went out In. Come on. With Romo this team beat Seattle away and outplayed greenbay up north.

 

[Billie]

Those passing numbers form Weeden are the most empty stats a QB could possible put up. Their playbook with him was incredibly small. They gave him one read on the passing plays: Is Witten open? throw it to him. If not quickly dumb it off to the RB and hope he gets yards. He didn't even throw to a wide reciever that game. You could already see this week how much more trust they had in Cassell who actually got to make throws.

 

[Amsterhammer]

The NLE has passed the wooden suck baton to the ALS.

Unless the Indianapolis Colts can pick things up, the AFC South will end up being the worst division in NFL history.

After Sunday's 27-21 loss to the New Orleans Saints, the Colts dropped to 3-4, a disappointment, but still enough to lead the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans by one game. According to Elias research, it's the first time since the 1970 merger a team has led a division after seven weeks with a losing record. But that's just the start of the story.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/13974553/indy-demise-make-afc-south-worst-division-ever-nfl

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Re: Re:

I think you're in the wrong thread.

I think he's drunk.

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

Those passing numbers form Weeden are the most empty stats a QB could possible put up. Their playbook with him was incredibly small. They gave him one read on the passing plays: Is Witten open? throw it to him. If not quickly dumb it off to the RB and hope he gets yards. He didn't even throw to a wide reciever that game. You could already see this week how much more trust they had in Cassell who actually got to make throws.

Good thing they opened it up so Cassell could make three throws to the wrong team!

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

MIA@NE - I would love to see the Patriots lose this game, and since the Fins have done a 180 and become the team many expected, we can hope. The unfortunate part for Dolphin fans is that the easy part of their schedule was early in the season. Things get tougher now.

Lots of talk in Giants land, about how JPP is now back. I think it's amazing he's worked this hard to get back, and I wish him well. But I have to really wonder how effective he can be? We have seen lineman with broken fingers or even broken hands play, but It's fairly well known that in the trenches linemen at the highest level use their hands for leverage, much more than size and brute strength. He's missing an index finger, and much of his thumb, and suffered some damage to his middle finger as well. My gut tells me they'll test him at the left side of the line, maybe even as a DT, where he may be more effective using his left (good) hand to drive opponents in.

It also looks like Joseph Randel of the Cowboys will be suspended, even though charges against him were dropped. I just wonder why it took so long? This happened like 8 months ago.

On the flip side to that, it looks like Johnny Manziel will avoid a suspension for his latest incident.

 

[52520Andrew]

Yeah not too surprising to see the Dolphins get crushed, this isn't Houston or Tennessee.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Still, that was one damned impressive game by the Patriots. We can talk about this being Thursday, or the Dolphins lost a key player, or they over-performed the last two weeks, but the Patriots just slaughtered them. Even in areas where we expected Miami to be competitive - their DL against a patchwork Patriots OL, and their running game against an "average" Patriots defense being propped up by their great offense - turned out to be completely untrue. The Patriots dominated every phase of the game, including these two areas. This is as good as any Patriots team I have seen. And, whether he's extra bitter or not, Brady has never seemed more focused and determined. So far this year he's thrown 20 TD's, against 1 pick. That's it. And that one pick was a perfectly thrown ball that got mishandled by Edleman, and returned for a pick-6 against Indy, and arguably the play that kept Indy in the game.

The Patriots are unquestionably the best in the NFL right now, and IF they play like this the rest of the the season, I can't see anyone beating them, period.

 

[52520Andrew]

Yeah the Patriots are certainly on a tear(barf), maybe the Giants make the Super Bowl again and beat them? That would be pretty fun. I feel like the Patriots secondary is their biggest weakness, if they go down this year then it is going to be because the defense could not hold firm. Stopping that offense though is going to be a huge challenge.

 

[jmdirt]

"The Patriots are unquestionably the best in the NFL right now, and IF they play like this the rest of the the season, I can't see anyone beating them, period."

Agree.

 

[jmdirt]

The NFL is likely going to move the kickoff to the 40 next year (player safety). From the 35 most are kicked out of the end zone anyway. Even the ones that get run out of the end zone come back due to penalties usually. I would like to see the NFL eliminate kickoffs and just start with the ball on the 15. The exception is if a team declares that they will kick it less than 20 yards. Yes, that would eliminate the three surprise on-side kicks each season, but that is a good trade for what we have now.

Since player safety is the concern they are stating, what are they going to do about punts?

 

[Amsterhammer]

Re:

The Patriots are unquestionably the best in the NFL right now, and IF they play like this the rest of the the season, I can't see anyone beating them, period.

Pretty much agree, though the Cheeseheads might give them a good game. I would, of course, have picked the Pats if I'd posted on time.

DET @ KC - First of a number of apparent bankers.
TB @ ATL - Another one.
ARI @CLE - One more.
SF @ STL - And another.
NYG @ NO - I'll give the disappointing Saints a home edge over the equally lousy Giants.
MIN @ CHI - Bears awfully disappointing, Vikes just.
SD @ BAL - Ravens to finally win a game.
CIN @ PIT - Bengals to edge it.
TEN @ HOU - If they can't win this home game....
NYJ @ OAK - Sorry Alpe, can't believe in these Raiders.
SEA @ DAL - Away banker.
GB @ DEN - Manning keeps surprising every time he's written off, but Aaron is hot.
IND @ CAR - Home banker