NFL 2017 Week 9 Thread

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The Official And I Mean Completely Official GWJ Mid-Season Awards Certis Make Me Trophies

MVP: It’s Tom Brady. I don’t care if you hate Tom Brady. I don’t care that he’s a snake oil salesman or a Trumpkin or you’d rather resurrect Hitler and give him the award instead. Tom Brady is the best player in the game and has been for years. With his WR corps banged up and having to constantly throw to overcome a shockingly awful defense, he’s still #1 in both DYAR and DVOA in Football Outsider’s rankings, and the difference between #1 Tom Brady and #2 Alex Smith (WAIT WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST WRITE) is greater than the difference between #2 Alex Smith and #6 Deshaun Watson. Also, if you’d told me in the preseason that three of the top six QBs in DYAR at the midpoint of the year would be Alex Smith, Case Keenum, and Deshaun Watson, I’d have asked you who the hell you were because I’ve never met any of the people who post in the NFL thread in real life.

Most Surprising Team, Bad Edition: The Giants, barely beating out Tampa.

Most Surprising Team, Good Edition: While the turnaround of the Rams is shocking in all sorts of ways, I think it has to be . . . *heavy sigh* . . .

The Jacksonville Jaguars, by actually building enough of a defense to overcome the existence of Blake Bortles. Bortles has positive DYAR and DVOA per FO, and, while he’s not great in either (20th and 19th, respectively), he’s not actually awful this year. I want you to know I’m in no way whatsoever hoping Bortles turns it on in the latter half of the season, leading the Jaguars a game or two into the playoffs, and inspiring the team to give him a massive, Flacco-esque extension based on him finally turning the corner. Because that would be wrong.

Coach of the Year, Good Edition: It’s Sean McVay, and it’s not even close. The Los Angeles Rams were laughable and awful and terrible and Jared Goff was positively Gabbertesque his rookie year, and I’d have been shocked if they went .500 this year. They’re currently 5-2, #2 in DVOA, and FO rates them as having an 82.3% chance to make the playoffs and 10.1% to win the Super Bowl. THE RAMS. The city of Los Angeles should build a statue to McVay so the ten people in the entire metropolitan area who actually care about professional football can pay him tribute.

Coach of the Year, Bad Edition: It’s Jeff Fisher. I don’t care if he’s not coaching. See above; there really aren’t that many additions to the Rams team from last year, and most of those are cast-offs or second-tier guys. Jeff Fisher would be 1-6 with this same team.

Fine. Uh . . . Chuck Pagano. Make a list. Pick anything he has failed to do. He is a train wreck of clueless and incompetent and the only way he could keep a job is if his owner was on drugs INSERT OBVIOUS JOKE HERE

Clevelandiest Clevelanding: Guys, we have an upset. The winner is . . . Cleveland! Where do you start? Is it starting rookie Deshone Kizer, while repeatedly benching him and then starting him again, all while having Cody Kessler as the third-string, when Kessler was honestly at least decent last year? Is it passing yet again on Deshaun Watson, after passing on Wentz and apparently-no-longer-sucky Jared Goff last year? Is it arranging to overpay for A.J. McCarron in a trade with the Browns, and then being too busy celebrating to actually file the paperwork? Or, alternatively, the front office passive-aggressively and intentionally not filing the paperwork in time, just to spite the coaching staff?

How Cleveland is Cleveland?

IMAGE( http://u.cubeupload.com/MilkmanDanimal/Orange.png)

NONE MORE CLEVELAND.

Most Expected Free Agent Failure: Desean Jackson, come on down! No, further; Jameis is overthrowing you again. Fun fact; Football Outsiders did a ranking of QBs by routes in the offseason. Jameis Winston was excellent on all sorts of routes, but was the singly-worst QB in the league last year on go routes. Desean Jackson is great at go routes. The hope here was that Winston had fixed his deep ball, but he keeps OVERTHROWING DESEAN JACKSON.

Funniest Subplot of the Year So Far: Even I admit it’s the Bucs’ kicking game. There are people over at Bucs Nation posting that the Bucs should draft kicker X next year because that worked so well last time.

Best Trade Deadline Ever: This trade deadline. What the hell? Ayaji, Benjamin, Dareus, and Garappolo all moving, A.J. McCarron pretending to. Also, let the Kirk Cousins speculation begin. Jacksonville? The Jets? Arizona? Denver? Lots of possibilities now.

MAKE YOUR WEEKLY GAME PICKS HERE

Atlanta Falcons at Carolina Panthers: The best WR left on the Panthers is either Funchess or Russell Shepard, who, for a wide receiver, is a really good special teams guy. The best GM on the Panthers is Marty Hurney, who, for a GM, is a pretty good radio guy.

Baltimore Ravens at Tennessee Titans: HOT TAEK—is Mariota’s ceiling Slightly More Affluent Man’s Donovan McNabb? DISCUSS.

Arizona Cardinals at San Francisco 49ers: We’re likely looking at the last game of the C.J. Beathard era/career. No idea if Jimmy G is any good, but this is going to be the first time in a number of years San Francisco is actually interesting to watch.

Kansas City Chiefs at Dallas Cowboys: Kareem Hunt is the Offensive Rookie of the Year, though Deshaun Watson will have a lot to say about that. Ezekiel Elliott currently exists in a quantum state, both suspended and not suspended, until you stack eight men in the box.

Detroit Lions at Green Bay Packers: Brett Hundley has been very, very bad at football. Going back to FO stats, he has “accumulated” -197 DYAR on 64 passes. Jay Cutler, by way of comparison, has accumulated -176 on 192. Hundley has had several years to absorb things from Aaron Rodgers and prepare himself for this, and I think there’s a vague chance he might not be very good.

Week 8 Results
iaintgotnopants: 5-0
MilkmanDanimal: 5-0
TheGameGuru: 4-1
*Legion*: 4-1
Infyrnos: 4-1
oldmanscene24: 4-1
sr_malo: 4-1
tboon: 4-1
Vector: 4-1
Oddsmakers: 4-1
garion333: 3-2
cube: 3-2
kaostheory: 3-2
karmajay: 3-2
Rat Boy: 3-2
Torq: 3-2
Zaque: 3-2
ballnchained: 3-2
PorkSmoothie89: 3-2
LeapingGnome: 3-2
EvilDead: 2-3
UpToIsomorphism: 2-3
Abu5217: 1-4
Jayhawker: 1-4

Season to Date
oldmanscene24: 27-13
ballnchained: 27-13
*Legion*: 27-13
TheGameGuru: 25-15
PorkSmoothie89: 24-16
Oddsmakers: 24-16
Infyrnos: 23-17
Vector: 23-17
garion333: 22-13
MilkmanDanimal: 22-18
Jayhawker: 22-18
UpToIsomorphism: 22-18
tboon: 22-18
Rat Boy: 21-19
sr_malo: 21-19
Torq: 21-19
karmajay: 20-20
iaintgotnopants: 20-20
LeapingGnome: 19-21
Zaque: 19-21
kaostheory: 18-12
cube: 18-22
EvilDead: 18-17
Abu5217: 14-21
Kush15: 12-18
Jowner: 5-5
Minase: 4-1
Nomad: 4-1

3-2, 3-2, 3-2, 3-2

I'm not sure why I submit picks at this point! We know the result...

Arizona Cardinals at San Francisco 49ers

OMG why would you pick this?!? Drew Stanton vs. Beat Hard? Ick.

garion333 wrote:

OMG why would you pick this?!? Drew Stanton vs. Beat Hard? Ick.

It kills me that it's not Gabbert vs. Beat Hard. It should be.

Bringing this over:

*Legion* wrote:

The Cleveland Browns' terrible, horrible, no good, very bad trade deadline story continues to bear fruit.

According to PFT: Ownership went "nuclear" on Browns front office on Wednesday

Per a league source, ownership (specifically Dee Haslam) went “nuclear” on the front office in the aftermath of the failed effort to consummate a trade for Bengals quarterback A.J. McCarron.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the offseason. Clearly there's a lot of finger-pointing going on in the building, and at least at the moment, it's the front office bearing the full wrath of ownership. If Hue can somehow scratch together a couple wins over the last half of the season, can he make a case for himself to stay, blaming the FO for giving him a poor roster?

Possibly its my own bias against the FO, but my thinking is that the FO is gone at the end of the season. What I'm less certain about is if Hue and the coaching staff are. How much starting over does the Browns ownership have the stomach for this offseason? And who would they even be able to attract to the job that's going to be better than Hue?

My prediction:

Spoiler:

Hue & company stay for another year. Baseball Paul and Sashi Brown the only ones fired. They keep the rest of their personnel department intact, and promote their most experienced personnel department guy to the top job, their Senior Personnel Executive. A man who has years of NFL general management experience. A man named... Ryan Grigson

Your prediction is disgusting and probably spot on. The Haslams are greasy and so is Grigson. Match made in heaven.

I feel like this all can go one of two ways:

(1) The Haslams hang on for one more year with all major players currently in place. They swore when they started this that they were in it for the long haul, which is the same thing they said with the previous 72 coaching hires.
(2) They fire everyone and hire ... whoever. No one wants to work in Cleveland as long as they're the owners, which is why their previous coach was interviewed twenty times before being hired. He was such a good candidate that they kept re-interviewing him every time someone turned down the job.

And that's how we end up with Grigson as coach and GM.

garion333 wrote:

3-2, 3-2, 3-2, 3-2

I'm not sure why I submit picks at this point! We know the result...

Arizona Cardinals at San Francisco 49ers

OMG why would you pick this?!? Drew Stanton vs. Beat Hard? Ick.

I have a strange fascination with utterly terrible football games, which I'm sure in no way is related to the team I root for.

Cleveland ownership fires Hue because he is generally a good coach but keeps Moneyball front office. Why would anyone think there would be a different outcome? This is the Browns we are talking about: logic and good football sense live very far from the Browns.

And, look, I hope this happens because everyone (except the Browns) wins. We get another year of hilarity. Browns fans get that deep sense of accomplishment when the Browns win Super Bowl XCII (right after the Cleveland Baseball teams wins the World Series - 2053 is a big year in Cleveland!).

Maybe someday I'll make a pick

Andrew Luck put on IR and told to stop throwing for a few months to let it heal.

Cleveland Browns:. "Nobody can screw up a QB situation like we can."

Indianapolis Colts:. "Hold my beer."

Ryan...Grigson...

garion333 wrote:

Andrew Luck put on IR and told to stop throwing for a few months to let it heal.

At what point does he have a serious workmans claim against the Colts?

Vector wrote:

Ryan...Grigson...

Who now works for the Browns. The circle is complete.

garion333 wrote:
Arizona Cardinals at San Francisco 49ers

OMG why would you pick this?!? Drew Stanton vs. Beat Hard? Ick.

I figured the games are whatever NFL network is more likely to broadcast across the nation as opposed to locally or something, so I guess NFL scheduled/hyped games or something. Does Milkman pick highlights for the week then?

tboon wrote:

Cleveland ownership fires Hue because he is generally a good coach but keeps Moneyball front office. Why would anyone think there would be a different outcome?

Because the Grigson timeline is worse/funnier/more painful than the Baseball Paul one.

Also, it brings with it a non-zero chance of "The Return 2.0", except instead of Lebron James, it's this beautiful bastard:

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://static4.businessinsider.com/image/508d704deab8ead47a000019/trich-10-28-12.gif)

I have to say that I am disgusted at Milkman's failure to have the banner image cropper focus on Jimmy Garoppolo's beautiful face.

Place that + on that million dollar smile where it should be!

I don't know what is worse, overpaying for AJ McCarron or screwing a trade partner publicly so that no one else will want to deal with us.

IMAGE(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0d/84/bd/0d84bd9f41e4ddbeb9e1b25ac779d794--cleveland-browns.jpg)

I mean, my Rogers point was to say how long we have been playing replacement-level QBs as starters, but everyone is right. Rogers, Brees, Manning, or Brady would be terrible with the other talent this team has. We hire GMs who consistently make terrible decisions with our pics (in spite of always doing a good job stockpiling them), hire coaches who don't improve the talent we acquire, and have gone from a apathetic owner in Al Learner who was more than willing to skate of the good will for bring the Browns back to a guy whose has made his livelihood scamming truck drivers and has no idea how to run a team or how to put in place people who can run a team.

So who do we fire? The coach who will have no more than three wins in the last two years? The front office who put together this garbage fire? Or just hit the reset button... again. Hire a new young head coach who can't get a HC job anywhere else, a new GM who is going to hoard pics like Smaug hordes gold, and draft our QB of the future! You know, like we do every few years.

/rant.

ccesarano wrote:
garion333 wrote:
Arizona Cardinals at San Francisco 49ers

OMG why would you pick this?!? Drew Stanton vs. Beat Hard? Ick.

I figured the games are whatever NFL network is more likely to broadcast across the nation as opposed to locally or something, so I guess NFL scheduled/hyped games or something. Does Milkman pick highlights for the week then?

I arbitrarily choose games based on what I think be a vaguely challenging pick; I didn't choose Colts-Texans, Saints-Bucs, or Rams-Giants because those games have a pretty clear and obvious favorite, so I skip those. Everybody would be taking Texans, Saints, and Rams there, so I figure at least theoretically closer games are more interesting. Sometimes those closer games are dumpster fires of suck like Cardinals-49ers.

So last week I said this:

Edit: to try to reverse my 2-3 rut, I have decided to pick the opposite of MMD's picks.
Week 8 Results
iaintgotnopants: 5-0
MilkmanDanimal: 5-0

Oops. (I got 1 right because I could not pick against the Cowboys)

This week I made my picks before reading MMD's picks. So, of course, they are exactly the same as his. (Excepting, again, Dallas, even though they are starting Schrödinger's Running Back and have no real defense). Sorry Dan, I see 1-4 or 0-5 in your future. (Or, more likely, 2-3).

Apparently Houston's World Series win demanded a blood sacrifice.

Nooo, still waiting for MRI I thought?

Well there goes my fantasy team.

Teddy just activated but probably not playing yet. Need another QB to fill the gap.

captainchaos wrote:

Nooo, still waiting for MRI I thought?

MRI is just due diligence, and assessing the full extent of the damage (other ligament damage, meniscus, etc)

The trainer knows the ACL ligament is torn as soon as he examines the knee. The instability of the knee, the warmth, the popping sound that the player tells them they heard. They move the knee in certain ways to assess whether or not the ligament is holding the knee where it should be.

That's the reason, in fact, that these reports are saying ACL specifically even though no MRI has happened. They know right away because of how the knee behaves.

2017 is brutal.

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUU . . .

So much fun to watch. Dammit.

That sucks.

Question as I watch McCoy do McCoy things.

Philly trades McCoy for Kiko Alonso who's not on the team. At the time it was to get out of paying him?

Philly trades for a RB with a wonky knee.

Wouldn't Philly be better off with McCoy? Maybe not a fair comparison once you take contracts into account.

I know this was previously talked about in the D&D forum, but considering this update,
I decided to put it here: Dallas Cowboys (and owner of 100 franchises) Jerry Jones might have been behind Papa John's rant.

The suspicion in some league circles is that Jones, who has reason to be even more upset with Commissioner Roger Goodell now that running back Ezekiel Elliott‘s suspension is back on, instigated Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter to use Wednesday’s quarterly earnings conference call to dump on the NFL, and to call out NFL leadership for failing to solve the anthem issue before it became a full-blown problem.

So this whole thing could actually be about Jerry Jones' waning power among NFL ownership.

jowner wrote:

Question as I watch McCoy do McCoy things.

Philly trades McCoy for Kiko Alonso who's not on the team. At the time it was to get out of paying him?

Philly trades for a RB with a wonky knee.

Wouldn't Philly be better off with McCoy? Maybe not a fair comparison once you take contracts into account.

Once the Dominos all played out though it led to Wentz. It's still early but im hopeful that it ends up worth it. As much as I love Shady he won't win you a SB like a QB can.

jowner wrote:

Question as I watch McCoy do McCoy things.

Philly trades McCoy for Kiko Alonso who's not on the team. At the time it was to get out of paying him?

Philly trades for a RB with a wonky knee.

Wouldn't Philly be better off with McCoy? Maybe not a fair comparison once you take contracts into account.

McCoy was to be a free agent the next year, and he commanded an $8 mil a year long term deal when he got to Buffalo. Ajayi costs the Eagles $300k this year and $700k next year.

It was a case of the Eagles not wanting to dedicate that much cap space to the RB1 position. McCoy has the 3rd biggest average contract value at the position, 2nd highest for actual multi-year contracts (highest RB value is LeVeon Bell's franchise tag value)

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