NFL 2019: Week 1

jowner wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

That game was still more entertaining than the Super Bowl.

The last SB was so bad I struggle to remember any details.

As for this game clearly not the greatest piece of entertainment but a great Chicago defense vs what I'm not sure to make of a Packers O and D.

All week co-workers were asking me what did I expect. I kept shrugging, I had no clue as it's going to take time for the defense especially to gel. Doesn't hurt when the first game you get to figure things out is vs Mitch Trubisky.

Week 1 is 100% a preseason game nowadays. Ignore and move on.

Ben Muth has his preview article up and he'll be covering these three OLs this year:

Arizona Cardinals
Baltimore Ravens
New York Jets

That's a good mix of different schemes with Arizona having a generally terrible line due, in large part, to injuries but bringing in a completely unique system in the NFL; Baltimore running some sort of PRO scheme; and the Jets doing ... nothing interesting. Okay, he hasn't covered them before and Bell at RB is likely to help create good clips/gifs.

Last night's game summed up by Charles Woodson:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/086pjw4.png)

I half paid attention to last night's game (I streamed while playing WoW) and saw Mitch "Mitchell" Trubisky zip a couple of nice passes to Allen "Allen" Robinson. So I was a little surprised to see today a complete pan of his performance.

Granted, I wasn't paying attention, and I long ago thought Trubisky wasn't All That, but wow. Last night might have been a glorified preseason game, but the savagery was in full mid-season form.

Or maybe we're just going to be angry at sh!t all season again.

Enix wrote:

I half paid attention to last night's game (I streamed while playing WoW) and saw Mitch "Mitchell" Trubisky zip a couple of nice passes to Allen "Allen" Robinson. So I was a little surprised to see today a complete pan of his performance.

Yeah, Mitch threw a really nice back-shoulder throw down the sideline to Robinson in the 2nd quarter, and I thought, "hey, maybe he is taking that next step".

Then he Bortles'd the rest of the game.

AB called Mayock a "cracker" and directed a bunch of swear words at him during the altercation.

Also:

IMAGE(http://www.thedrawplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019-09-06-AntonioBrownNote.png)

Brown showed up to the Raiders team meeting and gave "an emotional apology". Yeah I'd be teary eyed too after realizing I was about to make $30m of guarantees vanish.

Now to see if the Raiders are big enough suckers to let this escape hatch opportunity slip by.

If I was the Raiders, well, I'd suspend AB, trigger the voiding of guarantees, and then dump him.

BUT if the Raiders don't want to go complete nuclear option, I would approach this teary-eyed AB and offer him this: we're going to suspend you for 1 week, and void the guarantees. But we're not going to release you, and in week 2 you can come back and play. You'll have the opportunity to earn every penny of your $50m contract (aside from the tiny bit that has been fined), but it won't be guaranteed.

Basically, giving him the Leonard Fournette deal.

If AB flips his sh*t, then you know the apology was pure bullsh*t and can move on. If he agrees, then maybe there is some hope to salvage things, but you've also secured your permanent exit plan for if/when things go south again.

IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/3o6ZtqhqxpEc8RTMM8/giphy.gif)

Am I missing something, or is the schedule kinda blah this week?

I'm geeked up for Panthers-Rams at 1 p.m. Sunday. And then there's ... Steelers-Patriots on Sunday night? The 4 p.m. Fox game is Giants-Cowboys, and I'm not all that interested in Zeke or Dak or Danny Dimes.

Broncos-Raiders (late Mon) might be interesting because AB, but I'll be in bed by the time they kick off.

PS: Nantz and Romo drew Titans-Browns, which kinda says all you need to know about Week 1.

This is well trod teroitory around here, but I thought this was a good article.

Claire McNear with an article at The Ringer about the no show on Hard Knocks:

Brown’s summer—from the improbable cryotherapy incident that badly damaged the soles of his feet and sidelined him for the entire preseason, to the clashes over his no-longer-permitted helmet that led to the wide receiver threatening to retire from football for good, to the present confrontation with Mayock—has indisputably been the biggest story of the Raiders’ offseason, if not the NFL preseason as a whole. But through a full season of Hard Knocks, we learned virtually nothing about Brown that hadn’t already been reported elsewhere; instead, we got feel-good compilations of Brown working out in his pool. At this point, the Mayock blowout could lead to Brown’s suspension, a forfeit of his salary guarantees, and perhaps even his departure from the Raiders before so much as playing a single game for them. Hard Knocks’ failure is complete. If the show couldn’t so much as engage with what was far and away its most pressing question, what’s the point?
But while some teams have been willing to let Hard Knocks present their training camp struggles with seeming accuracy—The Ringer’s Danny Heifetz pointed to last season’s well-received Cleveland chapter, during which, as he wrote last month, “the disconnect between then–head coach Hue Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley was palpable”—the Raiders apparently were anything but. As Hard Knocks got underway this summer, Pro Football Talk’s Peter King reported that the Raiders were less than enthusiastic participants: “Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock do not want any part of Hard Knocks,” he wrote, “and because teams have the opportunity to view the prospective show before it airs each week, there’s no question in my mind that the Raiders are being heavy editors.” Even before the team had been selected, the party line was clear: “It would be disruptive,” owner Mark Davis told ESPN earlier this year of hosting Hard Knocks.

The resulting series was bland, and sometimes outright boring.

My guess is that the Raiders kept NFL Films away from the best stuff and then made them cut any part they didn't like. Perhaps next year they're find a team that's a little more willing to let them in. And if they don't, then maybe the show has run its course.

garion333 wrote:

Perhaps next year they're find a team that's a little more willing to let them in. And if they don't, then maybe the show has run its course.

HBO/NFL Films needs to either reassert some editorial control of the show, or just kill it off.

The league wants Hard Knocks, hence the implementation of rules that compel a team to be on the show. But HBO needs to push to get the league to agree to preventing the team being covered from having the ability to completely neuter the show like that.

AB be playing on Monday's game.

Tyreek Hill got a three year contract extension. $54 mil with $35 guaranteed. Hope he uses some to be a better person.

And AB is going to play on Monday night. Until something else happens.

Cleveland acting like a legitimate football team has created a deficit in NFL dysfunction, and nature abhors a vacuum.

Raiders better hope whatever AB does next that is finally too much for them to take is something that is suspension worthy.

I'm changing my prediction to Mayock will be gone by Sunday.

*Legion* wrote:

When the Raiders signed Brown, they paid him left tackle money ($16.5m/yr average). That number was a small incremental notch above the previous left tackle top contract, which averages $16m/yr. But with Brown on the right side, he's now the highest paid right tackle by a significant margin - the previous right tackle high was $12m/yr! It's pretty clear that Brown was signed to be a franchise left tackle, and come the start of the season, he's not even a starting left tackle.

Why are they paid so differently? If we ever see another left handed QB, do the roles get reversed?

*Legion* wrote:

Cleveland acting like a legitimate football team has created a deficit in NFL dysfunction, and nature abhors a vacuum.

Raiders better hope whatever AB does next that is finally too much for them to take is something that is suspension worthy.

Two words: Freddie Kitchens

This might be news only to me, but there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Mitch "Mitchell" Trubisky can't throw to his left.

That would seem to be a problem anytime you snap the ball on or between the hashmarks, no?

Emmes wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

When the Raiders signed Brown, they paid him left tackle money ($16.5m/yr average). That number was a small incremental notch above the previous left tackle top contract, which averages $16m/yr. But with Brown on the right side, he's now the highest paid right tackle by a significant margin - the previous right tackle high was $12m/yr! It's pretty clear that Brown was signed to be a franchise left tackle, and come the start of the season, he's not even a starting left tackle.

Why are they paid so differently? If we ever see another left handed QB, do the roles get reversed?

Well, to answer the first question, since the majority of QBs are right handed, the strong side of the offense is the right side. That leaves the left tackle as the one most often left uncovered by a tight end, and thus "on an island".

Because that's how most offenses are, defenses have traditionally had their best pass rusher as the right side (offense's left) defensive end/outside linebacker.

In the event of a left handed QB, the offense will more typically make the left side the strong side, but defenses will typically still line up their best pass rusher at their normal RDE/ROLB position. So even then, left tackle is more important because they're matching up against the best opposing pass rusher. (See the 1990s Jaguars with Mark Brunell and Tony Boselli)

All of the above was pretty accurate up until the last few years. Defenses are lining up top pass rushers on the defensive left/offensive right far more often than before. As a result, right tackles are closing the gap in terms of importance.

But because the market is so determined by the structure of all the contracts already on the books around the league, the pay gap has not closed yet. And since the pay gap exists, most elite tackles want to be left tackles, which means all of the guys that deserve the big money are still left tackles, which perpetuates the situation.

Perhaps Trent Brown's contract will be the reset button the positions need to reach parity, but I think teams aren't going to acknowledge an overnight $4m jump in the right tackle market if they can avoid it.

You left out the LT is the blind side protector because of the way right handed QBs turn their back to the pass rush.

Report: Raiders fined Antonio Brown for his altercation with Mike Mayock:

Ed Werder of ESPN reports that the Raiders fined Brown an “unspecificed amount” for his “unprofessional behavior” in interacting with Mayock.

“He’s been fined and he’s not happy,” an unnamed source told Werder.

Soooo...back to where we were before AB hit Instagram on Wednesday?

Enix wrote:

This might be news only to me, but there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Mitch "Mitchell" Trubisky can't throw to his left.

That would seem to be a problem anytime you snap the ball on or between the hashmarks, no?

It looks to me like the conclusion to that article isn't that he can't throw to his left, it's that he is just as bad throwing anywhere.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/lzw75XS.jpg)

Guys, I'm starting to think the Oakland Raiders might not be a particularly well-run organization.

This is wild.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/71dt196.jpg)

I have no words.

This story could be one of the greatest comedy films of all time.

Well, it's not like this is the first time someone's laughed off commission of a federal crime.

So now the guarantees are gone, he's asking to be released and says he won't play Monday.

*gets up, eats breakfast, gets coffee*

All right, time to see what happened overnight in the world of football...

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