NFL 2016: Week 3

Enix wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

The LA Rams are 2-1.. wtf happened to TB to lose that game?

Terrible safeties neglected to cover on two long TD passes, had up a long fumble return on a strip sack because Tampa's LT is awful. Two things that were patently clear last year, didn't bother to address them in the offseason.

Also, the stupid drafted kicker missed some kicks and effectively cost the game.

First team to seven wins takes the NFC South!

Back on topic (and speaking of kicking disasters): The Browns signed a kicker on Saturday and he missed three kicks Sunday (but made three, somehow).

Did they trade up to draft him in the second round?

No?

THEN YOU SHUT YOUR DIRTY MOUTH, ENIX.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/fafggHB.png)

Not that I'm all that happy with Jason Myers at 28th right there, but at least the Jaguars signed him from the Arena League instead of spending a 2nd rounder on him.

The only name that I cut off in this screen grab was Randy Bullock, who has kicked XPs but no FG attempts.

The gift that keeps on giving.

*Legion* wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

so I'm not sure how it's a negative that the WR were basically invisible.

It's not a negative. It's the absence of a specific positive.

Wentz is a rookie and the #2 overall pick. With that kind of investment comes an expectation of being a player who will develop into a long-term franchise QB. So when we're watching this kid play, we're looking for the traits that would suggest that kind of development is in his future.

It's not going to be consistent, but QBs who go on to be that kind of player usually flash plays in their rookie season that you can point to and say, "right there, that's that franchise QB kind of ability".

Watching Wentz play and not throw much downfield doesn't mean he can't, but it means that we haven't yet seen if he really can.

Carson Wentz is, at the moment, playing Alex Smith football. Which is little surprise, given that that's exactly who Doug Pederson built an offense around for the past 3 years, and it's the kind of offense that gives a rookie QB a fighting chance to be successful early, without having to push and do more than they're ready for (which, in a slightly different way, is what Carolina did for Cam Newton's rookie year, something I've praised them for ever since). And playing Alex Smith football as well as he is is hardly something to look down upon - I would kill for that for both of my teams right now (you're killing me, Bort).

But is Carson Wentz more than an Alex Smith, Andy Dalton type? Given his measurables and all the praise for his physical tools in the draft process, there's reason to expect him to be able to do more than that. Through 3 games, we haven't seen that. Not yet.

With guys like Andrew Luck, or Jameis Winston, we saw them play far less efficient football than Wentz in their rookie seasons, but we also saw them make elite caliber throws. Winston in year 2 is of course still struggling mightily with efficiency, but he's flashed the ability that makes you say, "if he can polish out the rough parts of his game, he could be special".

He's got more confidence and is getting better results from his check downs.. besides this is a coach who came from a system of check-down and not forcing the ball downfield.

Agreed. But that leaves us with the absence of the more challenging class of throws against which we could evaluate his ability.

Even you though have to be impressed how mature he looked on the broken play TD to Sproles...even if it didn't go for a TD that would have been a great move and throw.

I've been impressed with his maturity across the board. Even running an Alex Smith style passing attack is no walk in the park for a rookie QB. There is a lot to be said for the absence of bad plays, of bad decisions, of just plain "WTF rookie?!?" kind of hair-pulling nonsense. A rookie not making a ton of rookie mistakes is something to hold in high regard.

Mainly what bothers me is the automatic narrative that pops up when a team has a big jump in success with a rookie QB, and all of that success is projected onto the rookie. Nevermind that the defense has jumped from literally bottom 5 to #1 (so far). It makes me remember Vince Young getting a rookie of the year award that was so painfully undeserved. The narrative just goes on autopilot without any scrutiny. Fortunately for Philly, Wentz is not VY, and his level of play so far is worth praise, just not necessarily the level of credit that it's being blindly given at this point. He may deserve ROY honors when all is said and done.

Philly should be in no hurry to take off the training wheels. There's no reason to rush. Over the course of the season, they should slowly ramp up what they expect Wentz to do. Especially since they have a winning team right now, and especially since that's their offensive identity anyway. What you want to happen is for Wentz to grow and eventually expand your playbook. You want him to move the team away from the Alex Smith football because he turns out to be too good to keep on that tight a leash. But that's not something Wentz has to achieve in Week 4. It's a long game, and right now, the expectations for Wentz should simply be to do a little more each week than he did in the last one.

Idk what you are watching but his downfield throws have been on the money. Typically they get dropped but the throws have been there on time more often than not. He has hung up a few but I've watched every QB do just that.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Enix wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

The LA Rams are 2-1.. wtf happened to TB to lose that game?

Terrible safeties neglected to cover on two long TD passes, had up a long fumble return on a strip sack because Tampa's LT is awful. Two things that were patently clear last year, didn't bother to address them in the offseason.

Also, the stupid drafted kicker missed some kicks and effectively cost the game.

First team to seven wins takes the NFC South!

Back on topic (and speaking of kicking disasters): The Browns signed a kicker on Saturday and he missed three kicks Sunday (but made three, somehow).

Did they trade up to draft him in the second round?

No?

THEN YOU SHUT YOUR DIRTY MOUTH, ENIX.

I will open it long enough to say that I'm hoping tonight's game ends right where it is now -- in a 7-7 tie. Then I hope the earth swallows up both teams so we never have to watch something so awful ever again.

At least we can agree on hating the Falcons and Saints more than our respective teams.

I think there's a fair chance Tampa has the second-best defenses in the division. Neither of these teams can stop anyone.

TheGameguru wrote:

Idk what you are watching

Mostly plays like these (large GIFs so I'm linking instead of embed)

Overthrows the corner route

Sails the seam route too high over an open receiver

Underthrow to a receiver whose defender stumbled, this should have been an easy touchdown

Now, when I say "downfield", I don't just mean any old pass that went X amount of yards past the line of scrimmage. I'm talking about throwing through windows, splitting defenders. The hard throws, not just hitting an open receiver downfield.

So let me leave you with one where Wentz does make that kind of throw. This is an "NFL arm" throw. Deep in route, splitting defenders. That's throwing through a window downfield.

His video on intermediate throws is, so far, pretty good. Once the pass attempt crosses the 20 yard marker, that accuracy is dropping dramatically. What does get completed tend to be uncontested throws. Plenty of time to improve, it's not even a quarter of the way through his rookie season, but the number of challenging downfield throws on tape isn't very high, and the success rate on them isn't stellar. He's throwing a metric ton of short stuff.

Anthony Davis... retires again.

It's cool Anthony. Trenton Brown is throwing Michael Bennett into the ground like he's nothing, you're not needed any longer.

garion333 wrote:

Russell Wilson has sprained MCL, with low-grade MCL injuries return within 7-10 days in the NFL. I expect them to bench him for the next game.

IMAGE(https://shop.recoverywater.com/core/files/recoverywater/cart/l_b56369dee30e4fe4fc85458808b985d2.jpg)

*Legion* wrote:

Anthony Davis... retires again.

Immature. Good riddance.

Chase Stuart on the Ravens and Vikings 3-0 starts.

Baltimore first:

All three of Baltimore’s games have been close, with the team winning by a combined total of just 13 points. And its three opponents were Buffalo, Cleveland, and Jacksonville — teams with a combined 1-8 record
What does history say about 3-0 teams that feasted on bad opponents? From 1990 to 2015, 63 teams started the season 3-0 against opponents that, like Baltimore’s foes, went 1-8 through three weeks. On average, those teams finished with 10.9 wins — only a little worse than teams who had beaten better opponents

That's good, at least.

If we use a simple linear regression between a 3-0 team’s points differential through three games and its final win tally, we’d expect Baltimore (at +13) to win 10 games, implying that they’d go only 7-6 the rest of the way. Things were even worse for the 10 lowest-ranked 3-0 teams by points differential: That group averaged just 6.3 wins over the rest of the season. So although Baltimore should be happy with its 3-0 record, a low points differential against a cupcake schedule is enough to fuel skepticism about the team’s chances right now.

tldr One and done in the playoffs!

The issues surrounding the Vikings should probably be more obvious: defense and special teams are winning their games.

In terms of fluky scoring, so far this season, Minnesota has scored as many return touchdowns (three) as it has offensive touchdowns, and that trend is unlikely to continue.
As for the turnovers, the Vikings have an NFL-best +8 margin in that department through three weeks, and that trend is also unlikely to continue.

Obviously, not turning the ball over on offense, scoring TDs on special teams and forcing turnovers on defense are all things that statistically regress to the mean (ie. stop happening with regularity) however the Vikings seem to be in much better position to continue doing well than the Ravens. That Vikings D is something else, while the Ravens are still trying to find an identity outside of "play to the opponent's level".

*Legion* wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Russell Wilson has sprained MCL, with low-grade MCL injuries return within 7-10 days in the NFL. I expect them to bench him for the next game.

IMAGE(https://shop.recoverywater.com/core/files/recoverywater/cart/l_b56369dee30e4fe4fc85458808b985d2.jpg)

Also:

IMAGE(http://www.jesuschristsavior.net/Savior.jpeg)

*Legion* wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Idk what you are watching

Mostly plays like these (large GIFs so I'm linking instead of embed)

Overthrows the corner route

Sails the seam route too high over an open receiver

Underthrow to a receiver whose defender stumbled, this should have been an easy touchdown

Now, when I say "downfield", I don't just mean any old pass that went X amount of yards past the line of scrimmage. I'm talking about throwing through windows, splitting defenders. The hard throws, not just hitting an open receiver downfield.

So let me leave you with one where Wentz does make that kind of throw. This is an "NFL arm" throw. Deep in route, splitting defenders. That's throwing through a window downfield.

His video on intermediate throws is, so far, pretty good. Once the pass attempt crosses the 20 yard marker, that accuracy is dropping dramatically. What does get completed tend to be uncontested throws. Plenty of time to improve, it's not even a quarter of the way through his rookie season, but the number of challenging downfield throws on tape isn't very high, and the success rate on them isn't stellar. He's throwing a metric ton of short stuff.

meh kinda cherry picking the results.. again some of his downfield throws were dropped by the WR or broken up at the last second by the defender.. the throw itself was on the money.. or about as on the money as you can get.

The almost TD to lesser Beckham against the Steelers comes to mind... and the Aghlor drop against the Bears in the second game. I gauge success downfield at around 50-60% of the attempts.. I'm not sure what % you are expecting...but he's just about around that % if you dont count the WR drops against him.. at least if the ball is catch-able.. the high throw to Burton was not catch-able in my mind for instance.

This kinda reminds me of the negativity towards McNabb with downfield throws when he had Trash and Pinky as his 1/2 WR.. then we get Owens in 2004 and all of a sudden the deep ball is there.

We can learn that Ryan Fitzpatrick had an unbelievably terrible day against the Chiefs -- quite likely the worst we have ever measured. We can't say for sure, because it's too early to know just how good this Chiefs defense is, and league-wide baselines will change throughout the season. But for now, Fitzpatrick's game scores at minus-324 DYAR, significantly worse than anything else on the record, and only the second to sink below minus-300 DYAR

As of right now, Fitzmagick had a worse day than such luminaries as Rex Grossman and Brandon Weeden, while also topping uber bust David Klingler's bad day in 1994.

More perspective and number crunching at FO.

Edit: As a footnote, the top QB performances (again, remember, no opponent adjustments yet) were Dak Prescott, Aaron Rodgers, Trevor Siemian, Carson Wentz, Matthew Stafford, Matt Ryan and Brian frickin Hoyer.

Bort and Blaine Gabbert happened to outperform Marcus Mariota, Joe Flacco (21 completions in a row!), Cam Newton, Carson Palmer and Fitzmagick.

garion333 wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Anthony Davis... retires again.

Immature. Good riddance.

To be fair to Davis, he retired in the first place due to worry over concussions, and he suffered a concussion in practice before the week 2 game against Carolina, and has been out of practice and in the concussion protocol since.

He could have handled things a lot better, but I don't fault his reasoning for retiring.

I recall Jeff Blake actually being a vaguely viable QB. I just hit his stats over on PFR; he made it to a 13 year career. Have vague memories of him having a Fitzpatrick-esque "Just good enough to stick around, just bad enough to make sure you lose" kind of career.

2-3 three weeks in a row for me. i think i have to abandon BORTLESMANIA

garion333 wrote:

Edit: As a footnote, the top QB performances ... Brian frickin Hoyer.

If your numbers say that, then your numbers are wrong and you need to fix them.

porksmoothie89 wrote:

2-3 three weeks in a row for me. i think i have to abandon BORTLESMANIA

The show wasn't canceled, it's just been postponed.

Possibly awaiting new management...

garion333 wrote:

Bort and Blaine Gabbert happened to outperform Marcus Mariota, Joe Flacco (21 completions in a row!), Cam Newton, Carson Palmer and Fitzmagick.

FO confirms: Bort more elite than Flacco.

Gabbert gets a boost for throwing only 1 INT. Only because the defense can't intercept bounce passes.

*Legion* wrote:
porksmoothie89 wrote:

2-3 three weeks in a row for me. i think i have to abandon BORTLESMANIA

The show wasn't canceled, it's just been postponed.

Possibly awaiting new management...

IMAGE(http://a.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2016%2F0925%2Fr130905_1296x729_16-9.jpg&w=570)

IMAGE(http://cdn.fansided.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/229/files/2014/09/aaron-lynch-colin-kaepernick-nfl-philadelphia-eagles-san-francisco-49ers1.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/aue5lxG.png)

I don't normally like to bring up Deadspin-esque stuff, but Greg Hardy was arrested on Sunday for having cocaine in his wallet ... which he says wasn't his.

Hardy said that the night before, he had passed his wallet around a party because he was paying for everyone, and someone must have put the cocaine in his wallet at the time.

*facepalm*

*Legion* wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Bort and Blaine Gabbert happened to outperform Marcus Mariota, Joe Flacco (21 completions in a row!), Cam Newton, Carson Palmer and Fitzmagick.

FO confirms: Bort more elite than Flacco.

Gabbert gets a boost for throwing only 1 INT. Only because the defense can't intercept bounce passes.

They say the short passing game is really an extension of the running game, but that doesn't work here; most Gabbert passes don't travel nearly as far forward as handoffs do.

garion333 wrote:

I don't normally like to bring up Deadspin-esque stuff, but Greg Hardy was arrested on Sunday for having cocaine in his wallet ... which he says wasn't his.

Hardy said that the night before, he had passed his wallet around a party because he was paying for everyone, and someone must have put the cocaine in his wallet at the time.

*facepalm*

Seems plausible. Free cocaine is usually a thing, right?

Speaking of elite ...

IMAGE(http://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2016%2F0925%2Fr130854_1296x729_16-9.jpg&w=570)

The guy on the left is elite.

This is only my second-favorite shot from the weekend. The first? It's video from the last play of the TB game, when Jameis is still looking for a receiver 5 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

Feel free as a response to try to post pics or video from the Panthers' massacre, but you won't find any because I burned it all.

Since we're talking elite players wearing #89:

IMAGE(http://a.fssta.com/content/dam/fsdigital/fscom/nfl/images/2016/09/25/092516-NFL-Seattle-Seahawks-Doug-Baldwin-1.jpg)

IMAGE(https://usatftw.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/screen-shot-2016-01-10-at-3-01-49-pm.png?w=1000&h=600&crop=1)

Enix wrote:

Speaking of elite ...

IMAGE(http://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2016%2F0925%2Fr130854_1296x729_16-9.jpg&w=570)

The guy on the left is elite.

Which is funny, because he couldn't get open against the guy on the right to save his life.

Through 3 games, Jalen Ramsey has given up the fewest yards of any corner with 10+ targets.

Because teams playing him don't have to throw to win?

I so wish that the Cowboys had taken Ramsey instead of Elliot. Don't get me wrong, Elliot may turn out to be the next great back, but I haven't been all that impressed with him to this point. Alfred Morris has looked far stronger so far.

What's worse is seeing the Cowboys get torched time and again on defense, and Ramsey would have been an instant upgrade there. Oh well.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Because teams playing him don't have to throw to win?

And which game was that? Because you have two games where the opponent had to hold on and stop a last minute drive to win, and then you have the bad blowout game where Philip Rivers threw 4 TDs.

Abu5217 wrote:

I so wish that the Cowboys had taken Ramsey instead of Elliot. Don't get me wrong, Elliot may turn out to be the next great back, but I haven't been all that impressed with him to this point. Alfred Morris has looked far stronger so far.

What's worse is seeing the Cowboys get torched time and again on defense, and Ramsey would have been an instant upgrade there. Oh well.

I have been extremely surprised with how fast Ramsey has become an impact player for an otherwise struggling unit. I expected him to be good eventually, but I don't usually expect much from a rookie DB. In 3 games, he's ascended through all three CB spots, landing at LCB (ie CB1) last game, where I imagine he's going to stay.

The team badly needs to find a decent CB2 now. It's no coincidence that the pass D's best game was the one game Prince Amukamara played in. I'm still very much a fan of signing Amukamara even though you know he will miss games, but they desperately need another decent player in that rotation.