NFL 2020: Week 13

Work has kicked my ass this week, sort of like like how the Falcons whipped the Raiders. (I, of course, am Las Vegas in that particular formulation.) So get ready for my continued NFC East treatment of the weekly thread.

Three quarters of the season down, and here's what we're looking at:

AFC

Division leaders: Bills, Titans, Steelers, Chiefs

Wild cards: Browns (8-3), Dolphins (7-4), Colts (7-4)

Smart pick(s): The Chiefs because of Mahomes, duh. I'd feel a little better about the Chiefs if their defense was better. I'm still not sold on the Steelers. And the Titans might be the best team in the league right now.

Fun pick: Bills. Carolina North, baby!

NFC

Division leaders: Giants or DC (I don't care enough to see who has the tiebreaker), Packers, Saints, Seahawks

Wild cards: Rams (7-4), Bucs (7-5), Cardinals (6-5)

Smart pick: I hate to say the Saints but the Saints, who keep winning with Tebow 2.0 under center. (I won't say You Know Who is playing QB until he actually throws a TD pass.) Or maybe the Rams. How about the Packers? The NFC has a lot of pretty good teams but no great team.

Fun pick: Packers (Rodgers) or Seahawks (Wilson, plus a D that seems to be playing better)

Chaos pick: Eagles trade Wentz to the Bears for Foles, who does a Philly Special 2.0 all the way to the Super Bowl, which is delayed until late 2021 because of Covid. FUN!

STAT OF THE WEEK

Carolina rookie Jeremy Chinn is the first player to have multiple fumble return TDs in a game since Fred "Dippy" Evans did it for the Bears in 1948. Chinn is the first player to have scoop-n-scores on consecutive plays (not counting XPs and kickoffs). Chinn is also the first player (I think; the boxscore from 1948 isn't clear) to return two fumbles for TDs and lose the damn game because Matt Rhule I swear to god couldn't manage the timer on a toaster, much less of an actual NFL game. I mean, WHO KICKS A FIELD GOAL UP THREE WITH TWO MINUTES LEFT.

Oh, yeah. Dippy Evans' Bears beat the crap out of the team now known as the Washington Football Team, 48-13. Thanks to Evans' TDs, the Bears led by 34 at half. Dippy Evans is a winner. The Panthers are (breaks down sobbing) ...

WEEK 13 SCHEDULE
(with coverage maps)

Maybe the most interesting thing about Week 13 is the weird schedule — no game on Thursday, two on Monday (but only certain markets get the early game) and one on Tuesday (at this point). I guess the good news is that we get Mahomes (Sunday night), Josh Allen the QB (Monday night) and Lamar (Tues night) in the marquee games.

Thursday: No game! (Boo)

Sunday early: Browns-Titans is the best of the usual not very compelling slate. The rest are Raiders-Jets, Jags-Vikings, Bengals-Dolphins, Colts-Texans, Lions-Bears and Saints-Falcons.

Sunday late: Rams-Cards is my pick here, but Eagles-Packers is the national game of the week. Also: Giants-Seahawks and Patriots-Chargers.

Sunday night: Broncos-Chiefs

Monday: WFT/WTF-Steelers (5p) and Bills-Niners (8:15p)

Tuesday: Cowboys-Ravens (8:05p)

Bye: Carolina and Tampa, which means we get a week off from HOT TAKES on Tom Brady's post-game handshake boycott. Thank goodness.

Lucky week.

If the Niners managed to find a way to beat the Bills, they'd be 6-6 and have a legitimate shot at making a wildcard run, particularly with Washington and Dallas as their next two games, then Arizona (one of the teams currently in a wildcard spot) after that.

Especially given the presence of the 7th playoff spot this year, and with the NFC North and East having only 1 winning record between the two divisions.

That they're even remotely in the playoff picture after playing half a season with a taxi squad is absurd.

Enix, thanks again for doing these. You're a Saint among men.

Dippy Chinn has a nice ring to it. Gawd, folks don't get enough cool nicknames anymore.

Enix wrote:

Division leaders: Giants or DC (I don't care enough to see who has the tiebreaker)

Giants beat Football Team twice, FYI.

Actually, Ron Rivera gave the first game away, by going for two at the end of the game instead of playing for OT. You go for two vs Chiefs, because if they get the ball first in OT, the game is over. You don’t do it vs a winless team who struggled to move the ball in the 2nd half. That was bad coaching 101, and the longer this season goes on, the more that decision is going to hurt Washington’s chances at taking a very weak division.

garion333 wrote:

You're a Saint among men.

IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/L3oTUQIDkDJzRu6mzF/giphy.gif)

Kush15 wrote:
Enix wrote:

Division leaders: Giants or DC (I don't care enough to see who has the tiebreaker)

Giants beat Football Team twice, FYI.

Actually, Ron Rivera gave the first game away ...

Good for the G-men? At this point winning that division means a late first-round draft pick while all the other tire-fire teams will pick in the top 10 or so. Danny Dimes needs more help than No. 20 or so in next year's crap shoot of a draft, in other words.

Meanwhile, as much as I love the Riverboat, his game management skills are, more often or not, pre-Super Bowl winning Andy Reid-esque. Once he had some success on the analytics plays, he started going for 2 and on 4th down in some really odd situations (as opposed to not going for anything ever).

Riverboat Ron played to win the same way the Jets are by keeping Gase. They're playing the super long game.

Hem Edwards: No longer employed by the Jets. He didn't buy into their culture.

I'm not sure if Tebow to Hill comparisons are accurate.

Tebow was laughable as a QB but I don't see Taysom doing this:

Not that the throwing part of that play was overly impressive as Tebow loads up his slow motion catapult but from what I've seen from Taysom he can't really throw at all.

I guess maybe Sean Payton is thinking there's less risk just using Taysom as a game manager qb but even then he's liable to fumble.

Really hoping the Falcons can make it a game or at least go ahead early and put the Saints in an awkward position of down 7+ and not having someone who can actually throw.

Hill made throws like that against Atlanta. Intermediate depth seam and slant routes. If he can make this throw, he can make Tebow's throw.

The over the middle stuff is the easy throws though. It's being able to throw to the boundaries that separates NFL QBs. And you can watch that whole Hill video and see probably zero boundary throws. It's all between-the-numbers and screens. Which was pretty much the same for Tebow.

I think what makes the Tebow comparison most apt is the same sort of media overreaction to completing routine, less challenging passes. They're graded on a curve, pumped up for making throws any NFL starter would be expected to. Vince Young was in that same boat too.

hmm, I might need to schedule myself a meeting at 2pm on Monday. :/

garion333 wrote:

Hem Edwards: No longer employed by the Jets. He didn't buy into their culture.

You PLAY to WIN the DRAFT.

One little edit, and Herm works perfectly for the current Jets regime.

https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/...

TLDR

Howie Roseman has been bad drafting since 2015. Like next to last bad.

TheGameguru wrote:

https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/...

TLDR

Howie Roseman has been bad drafting since 2015. Like next to last bad.

Niners and Jags both drafting well in the past 5 years, but hoo boy that Jags 2010-2013 sequence. And that doesn't even include Bortles in 2014, a year where they actually scored high thanks to drafting Allen Robinson, Brandon Linder, and Telvin Smith in rounds 2-5.

And the 2012 49ers draft was the second worst single draft on the entire board. The AJ Jenkins - LaMichael James draft.

Kush15 wrote:
Enix wrote:

Division leaders: Giants or DC (I don't care enough to see who has the tiebreaker)

Giants beat Football Team twice, FYI.

Actually, Ron Rivera gave the first game away ...

Good for the G-men? At this point winning that division means a late first-round draft pick while all the other tire-fire teams will pick in the top 10 or so. Danny Dimes needs more help than No. 20 or so in next year's crap shoot of a draft, in other words.

I know this isn’t going to help the Giants in the long run by winning the division, but after the last 3 seasons, a 3 game winning streak has been a welcoming sight.

Also, Jones going down should help the Giants NOT win the division, unless Colt McCoy proves me wrong.

*Legion* wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/...

TLDR

Howie Roseman has been bad drafting since 2015. Like next to last bad.

Niners and Jags both drafting well in the past 5 years, but hoo boy that Jags 2010-2013 sequence. And that doesn't even include Bortles in 2014, a year where they actually scored high thanks to drafting Allen Robinson, Brandon Linder, and Telvin Smith in rounds 2-5.

And the 2012 49ers draft was the second worst single draft on the entire board. The AJ Jenkins - LaMichael James draft.

Uh...those charts seem to say that Jerruh...is good at playing...an NFL...GM?

Top_Shelf wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/...

TLDR

Howie Roseman has been bad drafting since 2015. Like next to last bad.

Niners and Jags both drafting well in the past 5 years, but hoo boy that Jags 2010-2013 sequence. And that doesn't even include Bortles in 2014, a year where they actually scored high thanks to drafting Allen Robinson, Brandon Linder, and Telvin Smith in rounds 2-5.

And the 2012 49ers draft was the second worst single draft on the entire board. The AJ Jenkins - LaMichael James draft.

Uh...those charts seem to say that Jerruh...is good at playing...an NFL...GM?

Also, I feel like that spreadsheet is way more positive on the Seahawks draft returns (even though the results are seriously skewed by that 2012 draft) than the analytics-inclined fans of the team would expect.

Top_Shelf wrote:

Uh...those charts seem to say that Jerruh...is good at playing...an NFL...GM?

No, they say that Stephen is good at playing an NFL GM. Jerruh wants to draft guys like Manziel and Paxton Lynch but it doesn't happen because Stephen talks him into the correct decisions. Jerry has the title but Stephen has grown into a de facto GM.

And now that Jerruh isn't handing out the contracts they actually sometimes have cap space.

billt721 wrote:

Also, I feel like that spreadsheet is way more positive on the Seahawks draft returns (even though the results are seriously skewed by that 2012 draft) than the analytics-inclined fans of the team would expect.

2012 had two (2!) first ballot HOFers and they might have hit on another one in 2019 with Metcalf.

Whelp, Browns probably have a winning season.

That's crazy.

Mike Glennon is bad. Jags not playing Minshew is embarrassing.

Are the Raiders trying to cost the Jets Trevor Lawrence?

*Legion* wrote:

Mike Glennon is bad. Jags not playing Minshew is embarrassing.

I assumed Minshew was injured.

This smacks of Jay Gruden meddling. Minshew must not be "his guy".

Glennon is bad. He'd be a perfectly solid backup on a team with a good offensive line, and, otherwise, just bad. Still, has had a decent career for the first Giraffe-American to play in the NFL.

garion333 wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Mike Glennon is bad. Jags not playing Minshew is embarrassing.

I assumed Minshew was injured.

This smacks of Jay Gruden meddling. Minshew must not be "his guy".

Minshew was hurt, but this week he was healthy enough to be full-go at practice, and was made QB2 for this week.

I have no idea who is making the call. All I know is that Trent Baalke is now the Jags interim GM and I'm afraid of them making him the permanent GM.

Rat Boy wrote:

Are the Raiders trying to cost the Jets Trevor Lawrence?

Nevermind, they were just setting up a Heidi game.

Rat Boy wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

Are the Raiders trying to cost the Jets Trevor Lawrence?

Nevermind, they were just setting up a Heidi game.

Jags fans pissed at the lost attempt to even up the Lawrence race.

garion333 wrote:

Whelp, Browns probably have a winning season.

That's crazy.

They were up 20, now only 6.

But they saved it recovering onside kick. Good grief

How can the raiders play the chiefs so well, then fall apart vs. the *falcons* and *jets*? That's a steelers move.

I can't remember the last time I've seen

*Legion* wrote:

Mike Glennon is bad. Jags not playing Minshew is embarrassing.

Can't have a QB controversy for 2021 if Minshew doesn't play more games XD

But yeah, I didn't realize he was healthy. https://www.si.com/nfl/jaguars/gamed...