NFL 2012 Preseason Thread

AnimeJ wrote:

Given that he just missed an entire season, I'd wager it was more that they didn't want to gamble on him not being able to play.

Didn't they let Smith stew for a while until Manning made his decision? Smith even went to Miami during the process.

sr_malo wrote:
hoosierjoe wrote:

Interested to see how "Hard Knocks" handles the whole Chad Johnson thing. Not sure if they cut him in person.

Spoiler:

It's in the newest episode. One on one with cameras rolling. It's almost uncomfortable to watch.You probably witnessed the end of his career.

Did they show him headbutting his (ex-)wife?

Moving over from the Draft thread.

Caption contest!

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/xkK9w.jpg)

Atras wrote:

Please don't throw me back to my mommy! I want to live!

fangblackbone wrote:

Where is my other leg?!
or
This orange growth on my shoulder hurts. I thought you said you could faith heal me, not make it worse!

So the Jets starter is either going to be you or Mark Sanchez?! MAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Even Tebow's baby holding mechanics are flawed.

It looks like he is trying to do a mind meld with the toddler's stomach.

Well I'll be in Cleveland the next two weeks so I'm going to the cleveland vs ny game next Friday. I figure at least I can root against the Yankees!

garion333 wrote:
sr_malo wrote:
hoosierjoe wrote:

Interested to see how "Hard Knocks" handles the whole Chad Johnson thing. Not sure if they cut him in person.

Spoiler:

It's in the newest episode. One on one with cameras rolling. It's almost uncomfortable to watch.You probably witnessed the end of his career.

Did they show him headbutting his (ex-)wife?

Um, no but he does look like he wants to cry.

Watched a little of the Dolphins - Panthers game. Awesome to see all three Aggie rookies involved in a scoring drive.

Now watching the Texans' D doing a great job of getting to the QB again this week.

Well, they don't count, but as long as they're keeping score, I'd just as soon win.

Doesn't mean anything. Lots of 3-1 or 4-0 preseason teams end up with losing records and missing the playoffs. 49ers did it just a couple years back. I got all hyped and thought the defense was ready to carry us... turns out our backups are just slightly better than some other teams' backups. Meaningless.

Meaningless would literally mean they had no meaning at all. I don't think that's the case. I also don't think this is remotely like a win against the Niners. Seems like when the first teams were facing off, they were very evenly matched.

How do the players like Harbaugh? Every time they show him on camera, he's angry and obviously condescending someone. Doesn't seem like a boss you'd love. Which may not matter in the league. On the flipside, people here routinely criticize Kubiak for being too much of a "player's coach", whatever that means.

Preseason doesn't mean a thing. The year Detroit went 4-0 in the preseason, they were 0-16 in the regular season.

If that's not meaningless, then I have no idea what would constitute such.

AnimeJ wrote:

Preseason doesn't mean a thing. The year Detroit went 4-0 in the preseason, they were 0-16 in the regular season.

If that's not meaningless, then I have no idea what would constitute such.

Counter-examples can disprove an absolute statement, such as "preseason games are always indicative of regular season performance". What they don't do is stand alone as proof of a contrary absolute statement, such as "preseason games are meaningless" (literally, contain no meaning whatsoever).

In any case, all I said originally is that I'd rather win them than lose them, which I think is a completely obvious sentiment. I'm happy to leave it to the Football Outsiders crew to determine whether there is any statistical meaning to them. In the absence of thorough analysis - which may exist and some may be privy to, although none has been offered here - saying that they hold no meaning whatsoever is an absolute assertion that no one has attempted to make a case for.

Yeah sorry. Meaningless in this case meant "not indicative of season or playoff performance." And since making, and winning, the playoffs is everything in this league... well, meaningless.

Fine if that's your definition, but these games do suggest things like "Carolina's pass protection cannot stop Houston's pass rush" or "Harbaugh is angry 100% of game time." It's not conclusive, and you need to examine personnel in each case, but these games do provide clues that astute coaches will notice.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Fine if that's your definition, but these games do suggest things like "Carolina's pass protection cannot stop Houston's pass rush" or "Harbaugh is angry 100% of game time." It's not conclusive, and you need to examine personnel in each case, but these games do provide clues that astute coaches will notice.

But to bring up Detroit again, while it suggests that, it's also very likely that it won't hold through in the regular season. Teams approach the preseason in a completely different mindset than they have in the regular season or the playoffs. I used the 08 Lions as the perfect example of this; perfect preseason, 180 out for the regular season.

At best, you might get a feel for what the second/third strings are going to look like in the regular season, so they might not be completely meaningless. But in the grand scheme of the regular season and playoffs, the impact is minimal at best, save instances where you have a season ending injury for a key player.

On the winning/losing note, I'm of the opinion that there are really two categories of people who really enjoy watching a team lose; folks in vegas betting against them, and really, really rabid fans.

The problem is, many times are testing things. They may go an entire series without blitzing just to see how much pressure the might put on the QB without it. A team may avoid keeping the TE or FB in to block, just to see. The results can be game-changing breakdowns that which may effect the team negatively in the gme, but actually provide information that will make them better in the season.

Players with minor injuries that would play in regular games are kept out in preseason games. Players that may or may not make the team might get put into critical situations just to see how they might perform. One team might leave starters in longer, getting them reps versus the other team's number 2's.

So yeah, it's more fun when they win. But neither team has winning as a top priority. So even looking at who wins the first quarter or half can be really deceiving.

One thing about preseason that I think a lot of people don't realize is that often times coaches from each team will make arrangements. Example: and offensive line coach wants to see his new rookie left guard protect from a blitzing linebacker, or how a guy fighting for a roster spot can handle certain scenarios. They will often times reach out to the opposing team and say "Hey, throw a few blitzes at this guy" and in return they will do the same for the other side. Happens all the time, and is why I never understand why people bet on pre-season football.

Honestly, these pre-season games might as well not even keep score. The only reason they do is so the NFL can call them "games" and get away with charging the fans full regular season prices for tickets. As a season ticket holder that is forced to buy those tickets for two games I won't go to... I have a problem with that.

Apparently they even apply the ludicrous blackout rules to pre-season too. The Tampa Bay game on Fri night was not on at 7 or 8 when it was actually played, but was rebroadcast that night after the news at 11:30.

Oh good grief! Really?!

Blackout rules are sh*t, especially when cities bend over backwards to finance the stadiums in the first place. Look, we paid for it. Even if we don't fill it on one particular Sunday*, we built the damned thing. Don't black the freaking game out.

*There has never been a Texans blackout. I do seem to remember some from the Oilers' days.

I used to live in an area that got the Detroit stations and little else that carried the NFL. In that case, you pray for a blackout.

When there's a blackout, there's no game. It's not like you get a different game. Just instead of the 3 afternoon games the rest of the country gets on Sunday you only get two games. It's a f*cking joke, especially when you're over an hour drive away from the stadium, in another city with it's own tv networks. Sadly the two NFL networks (CBS/FOX) carried by our particular cable station are the Tampa ones.

If it wasn't for RedZone I honestly would just quit watching most weeks. And of course you still get to see all the TDs in RZ, no blackouts there. So for the price of one single game ticket, you can get RZ for the whole season... why the hell would I ever make the drive to a game and try to prevent blackouts?

Stele wrote:

If it wasn't for RedZone I honestly would just quit watching most weeks. And of course you still get to see all the TDs in RZ, no blackouts there. So for the price of one single game ticket, you can get RZ for the whole season... why the hell would I ever make the drive to a game and try to prevent blackouts? :?

Now you see why Roger Goodell sometimes has trouble sleeping at night.

Related: It seemed like there were a lot of empty seats last year, a lot more than normal, at least. BoA Stadium in Charlotte always seemed to be only about half full at kickoff. No blackouts, though.

If you guys don't like blackouts the good news as you can pay the NFL something like $12 and watch em online or on your phone! AWESOME! /not

The only thing I take from the preseason is injuries. Not to say that you can't extrapolate info from the preseason, but that it's really hard to do. As a Ravens fan I've come to understand that they don't necessarily play to win in the preseason, it's all about player evaluation. They come in with a gameplan (say, 1st team is in for 3 possessions) and usually stick to it. How that plan lines up with what the other team is doing is perhaps coincidental and the outcome is somewhat superfluous. Veterans with minor injuries tend to sit out some preseason snaps or games, while younger guys play through them to get a roster spot.

The year the Lions went 0-16 is the example I tend to give when we talk about the preseason. It's not that there is some predictive value to watching the preseason, but I don't think it's all tied to the record. Perhaps there is a correlation between preseason wins and wins in the regular season, but if that's true it must be tenuous at best because we'd otherwise consider the preseason more important than it is.

There might be unsound logic there, but the last thing I try and do is get over or underhyped based on the preseason. In the end it tends to turn out to be the wrong way to look at things because on any given Sunday (or Monday/Thursday/Saturday) anything can and will happen. You can't predict injuries or a nobody blowing up (say, Victor Cruz) and I believe those unknown factors play a larger role than the record of a team in the preseason. Just like with pitchers in baseball, listing a stat for how many wins happened is nowhere near the full story.

Andrew Luck didn't look bad against the Steelers last night.

I think the Colts will probably win about 5 games this season.

The Pick-6 intended for Reggie Wayne wasn't pretty though. Their timing still needs work.