NFL 2018: Week 4

f*ck. Fumble. 49ers. Ugh.

3rd ot game today? What 6th of the season?

jowner wrote:

3rd ot game today? What 6th of the season?

Parity?

Think I'll start looking at who the Giants will draft in the top 5 to get me in a good mood.

Ravens game starting out OK so far.

It's not exactly a beautiful game in the neighborhood, a beautiful game for a beauty...

Hot mic!

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/R1Xw9JH.jpg)

The coordinator being referenced, for those unaware, is Brian Schottenheimer.

*Legion* wrote:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/R1Xw9JH.jpg)

The coordinator being referenced, for those unaware, is Brian Schottenheimer.

SMH.

Signed,
All lifelong Seahawks fans

Speaking of Seattle, here's Earl Thomas flipping off the Seattle sideline as he is carted off, in what will likely be his final act as a Seattle Seahawk.

I will never understand why Seattle turned down Dallas's 2nd round offer on Thomas. He was obviously unhappy, and Seattle was obviously not going to invest in keeping him. I would have taken that pick and run.

Alex Collins made that game harder than it had to be.

*Legion* wrote:

Speaking of Seattle, here's Earl Thomas flipping off the Seattle sideline as he is carted off, in what will likely be his final act as a Seattle Seahawk.

I will never understand why Seattle turned down Dallas's 2nd round offer on Thomas. He was obviously unhappy, and Seattle was obviously not going to invest in keeping him. I would have taken that pick and run.

I was wishing KC had made that offer.

Jayhawker wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Speaking of Seattle, here's Earl Thomas flipping off the Seattle sideline as he is carted off, in what will likely be his final act as a Seattle Seahawk.

I will never understand why Seattle turned down Dallas's 2nd round offer on Thomas. He was obviously unhappy, and Seattle was obviously not going to invest in keeping him. I would have taken that pick and run.

I was wishing KC had made that offer.

I was watching some of that game thinking. Do the Packers need to make that offer? Then he broke his leg.

I'm going to assume statistically speaking it's probably not smart to sit an entire season to get a better deal but Leveon Bell is probably at home right now feeling much better about his decision.

Whenever it comes to these things I always feel for the players. Also I'm surprised (not really) at how abrasive some commentators are plants for the owners.

Observation from the Ravens/Steelers game:

I guess defense still matters.

Cleveland: Also saving defeat from the jaws of a draw.

Can we fire the head coach that in three years hasn't won on a Sunday?

https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/...

Ian Rapport
@RapSheet
A case of bad timing: The #Seahawks had lowered their asking price for star S Earl Thomas, the #Chiefs were focused on clearing cap space for a possible trade... then Thomas fractured his leg.

There is a video of the conversation at the link. Man, why did Seattle put him on the field in that situation?

Jayhawker wrote:

Man, why did Seattle put him on the field in that situation?

Seattle is not a well-run franchise. As good as the team has been in their Super Bowl window, they hamstrung themselves with so many unforced errors. They should have had at least one more Super Bowl appearance. Lord, the team was #1 in fewest points given up for 4 straight seasons! They wasted years with some bad assistant coaching choices, a steadfast refusal to protect their franchise QB, etc. etc.

I was wondering if/when the national sports media was going to pick up on just how much the game has tilted towards offense in 2018. Peter King noticed:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/K11JQfj.png)

Also of interest in that column, King noticed from PFF's metrics that Pat Mahomes is feasting on wide open receivers:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/sqcf9uI.jpg)

Not that you can criticize a young QB for finding the wide open receiver and not missing his throws, but the super-inflated numbers seems to be a function of throwing to wide open guys as much as anything else. (Niners clued in a little in the 2nd half last week, and turned a blowout back into a game as a result, we'll see if the rest of the league does as well.)

So what's changed? I know it's a smaller sample size but why I receivers get open so much more this year compared to last year? I can't think of any rules changes that should have affected this.

Hard to say specifically about the WRs being open. I think it's part of the overall explosion in offensive production, and rule updates are a part of that. The roughing the passer rule/emphasis absolutely is a contributing factor. The rules behind what a catch is were changed this offseason, and made more permissive as a result.

But that's not the whole story.

Coaching is skewing younger, and now you have an influx of offensive-minded coaches who are not as bound to expectations and tendencies that were developed in earlier eras.

Some college concepts have become further cemented into standard NFL procedure. While people initially treated the pistol and read option as gimmicks akin to the Wildcat, they're actually now very standard tools in an NFL playbook. And the read option evolved into the "RPO", adding a passing element. Playcalls now don't get locked in until after the snap, when the QB gets a chance to react to the defense's first move.

There's a lot of good young QBs in the league. A lot of really talented arms have successfully made the transition to NFL play. QB health has been good so far this season, with one painful exception.

tldr Jeff Fischer is out of the league

I think the next step., which seems to be starting, is a more aggressive philosophy on 4th downs. At some point, it's going to become obvious that going for it on 4th down makes sense in far more circumstances than we are used to. In addition too it becoming easier to pick up that 4th down, even a 4th and 5, teams are going to start understanding that high scoring games means they need to be more aggressive.

Both of the OT 4th down calls would never have been made before. Some of the same analytics that have gone into changing baseball and basketball strategies have the same impact in football. And if the numbers continue to be as vastly different as they have been, strategies have to change.

25+ years later and I still have no idea what they hell they yell during defensive stops in Denver.

This Chiefs team goes 13-3 and loses to the 11-5 Patriots in the divisional round because Reid will call 60 pass plays after going down 10-0 in the first quarter. I hate it because it’s going to happen.

How is Genesis sponsoring the halftime show when they haven't put out an album in forever?

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/XrGZh0b.png)

I love when national writers say the same stuff that I say here a week or two after I say it.

Mahomes might have gotten away with one on that scramble throw. I don't know if his heel was still behind the line of scrimmage when the ball finally released from his hand. Certainly none of the rest of him was.

You know who wouldn't have missed that wide open would-be game-winning TD?

Blake Bortles!