NFL 2013: Week 1

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My friends, it's that time of year. The camps are all over. The preseason games played. The fantasy drafts run through to their final team defense selection. It is time for the NFL season. Let's refresh everyone on what's new this season.

NFL Rule Changes for 2013
* Ballcarriers may no longer use the crown of the helmet to initiate contact with opposing players when outside of the tackle box. An illegal hit requires the ballcarrier to square up on the opposing player (not a penalty when players are running at angles with each other), and must deliver a "forceful blow" with the crown of the helmet (simply lowering the head is not, in and of itself, a penalty)

* The "Tuck Rule" is gone. If the ball comes out while trying to pull it back down, it's a fumble.

* Peel back blocks (when an offensive player hits a defender that is running towards his own end zone - in other words, pursuing an offensive player that has gotten by him) are now illegal anywhere on the field. Previously they were illegal only outside the tackle box.

* All players (other than kickers) must wear thigh and knee pads.

* A play can now still be reviewed if a coach erroneously throws a challenge flag

* Points of emphasis: late hits near the pile, contact after a blown whistle, offensive players grabbing defenders' facemasks, taunting

The New Pick'Em
Our good buddy Stele has engineered us a new solution to the Pick'Em game. As before, picks will be announced here on the top post of each weekly thread. But, now instead of posting picks as comments in the thread, you will follow a link to a handy form, with which you can enter your picks.

Our Week 1 Pick Games:

Packers at 49ers: Harkening back to the early/mid '90s, these two teams are among the NFC's elite, and look to stay that way for the foreseeable future. One franchise QB already has his first ring, while the other took his team to the precipice of a win in only his first half-season. Green Bay will be unveiling their new ground game, powered by Eddie Lacy, while San Francisco will look to put together a viable passing attack without Michael Crabtree.

Bengals at Bears: Just a couple of days ago, the Bengals signed Geno Atkins to a 5 year, $55 million contract extension. That's money that usually doesn't find its way out of Mike Brown's bank account. Cincinnati is starting to act like an organization that believes it's a contender. The Bears are coming off one of the most disappointing 10-6 seasons in recent memory, missing the playoffs by tiebreaker. The Bears, for the first time in the Jay Cutler era, have made some positive moves to shore up their bottom-feeding offensive line. The team drafted Kyle Long and signed Jermon Bushrod, both of whom will be key starters.

Falcons at Saints: It's hard to imagine the Saints not improving on last year's performance. The team suffered without Sean Payton's guiding hand on offense, and the defense was the worst in the league by a clear margin. Whatever Rob Ryan's failings, it seems inconceivable that he does not spark improvement here, although the team's transition to a 3-4 scheme will be rough on the available personnel. The Falcons won't make it any easier this week. The team has tasted their first playoff win, and they're gunning for the conference elite. The high-powered offense added Steven Jackson in the offseason, a veteran up their in years, but fired up at his first true chance to compete for a championship. And the team managed to talk Tony Gonzalez down from the retirement ledge, for one more run.

Cardinals at Rams: A tale of two rebuilding projects. The Rams responded to Jeff Fisher in 2012, working up to a surprisingly spry 7-8-1 record. There's a lot of buzz around Sam Bradford this year, and the team hopes that the passer can kick his clinically low yards-per-attempt up a few notches with the addition of Tavon Austin, and the increased roles of last year's rookies Chris Givens and Daryl Richardson. The Cardinals are trying to capture veteran QB magic again with Carson Palmer, whose 4000 yard performance in Oakland last year was extremely impressive, if completely unnoticed. Palmer in the Bruce Arians offense with Larry Fitzgerald is a recipe for some sparks.

Chiefs at Jaguars: The two 2-14 teams from a year ago, both undergoing serious rebuilding. No team in the NFL housecleaned more than the Jaguars this offseason, as GM David Caldwell turned over the lion's share of the roster. Despite the team's 2012 woes, the WR corps that was formerly the league's worst now has one of the better young receiver pairs in Cecil Shorts and Justin Blackmon, although the latter needs to jump off the Kenny Britt career path and find the Cris Carter one. Maurice Jones-Drew returns from offseason surgery to play out the final year of his deal in Jacksonville, in which the team will likely squeeze every last bit of performance they can get out of him. Kansas City appears to be a little further along in the rebuilding process, with efficient veteran Alex Smith at QB and the explosive Jamaal Charles returning from a productive, injury-free season.

Make your Week 1 Picks!

These seem like tough picks, ugh. Why did I go with them?

Anyway, the option to edit your picks up until 1pm Sun is there. After you submit the form it gives you a personal link to edit your responses. If you want to come back to that later, be sure to bookmark it or something. At the very least click on it so it's in your browser history.

Just in case you make your picks on Thurs and someone gets hurt on Fri in practice or something crazy.

Hopefully we won't have any issues with the new format. Good luck and have fun everyone.

I made my picks! Nifty process you whipped up there.

49ers
Bengals
Falcons
Rams
Chiefs(sorry)

I guess you can still post picks here for discussion, but the official tally will be on the forms.

Early thoughts for me:
49ers-Have to go with my team
Bengals-Just a gut feeling here, might change my mind.
Saints-Home team, coach back.
Rams -Just leaning with home team again.
Jaguars-Leaning home but might change my mind.

Sunday Ticket for non-direct TV subscriber:

If I buy madden and get the Sunday Ticket for computers and Tablets do I also get Redzone channel (streaming)? I'm assuming that its the same Redzone that I have been subscribing to for Verizon. I just want clarification before I throw down $100.

EvilDead wrote:

Sunday Ticket for non-direct TV subscriber:

If I buy madden and get the Sunday Ticket for computers and Tablets do I also get Redzone channel (streaming)? I'm assuming that its the same Redzone that I have been subscribing to for Verizon. I just want clarification before I throw down $100.

In the past Red Zone was a part of the online stream, yes.

What a great picture to put at the start of the season thread, you know it's going to be a great season. Largely because you can only go up from Blaine Gabbert, so the entire season should seem awesome by comparison. Great plan!

I'm not currently buying a Saints resurgence this year, largely because their LBs were steaming piles of crap last year, and now they need four on the field instead of three. It's like Ryan said "Hey, what's the worst part of our team, and how can we build around that?" While I'm at it, let's talk Dallas, a team built for the 3-4, switching to the Tampa 2. I mean, I think there should be a 400-foot-tall statue of Monte Kiffin in Tampa harbor for all eternity, but he hasn't coached in the pros for a number of years, plus I just don't get the personnel switch. Tampa's defenses were great because you had guys like Derrick Brooks and Ronde Barber playing smart and keeping everything in front of them, slowing down the other team and waiting for offenses to make mistakes. Does Morris Claiborne really strike anybody as that kind of player?

Also, I'm really, really looking forward to Geno Smith's first start.

garion333 wrote:
EvilDead wrote:

Sunday Ticket for non-direct TV subscriber:

If I buy madden and get the Sunday Ticket for computers and Tablets do I also get Redzone channel (streaming)? I'm assuming that its the same Redzone that I have been subscribing to for Verizon. I just want clarification before I throw down $100.

In the past Red Zone was a part of the online stream, yes.

Thanks. I think I'm going to bite. For some reason Verizon won't even let me order Redzone anymore since I lowered my cable to basic HD. Making pay channels only available to premium bundlers doesn't make any sense to me.

It has me really nervous that as of my voting, all 9 pick 'em votes were for the 49ers over the Packers. I think that's a really close matchup. It's one I want the Packers to lose because they're the Packers. I also had to go homer on the Bears game, but am not super confident that I'll get that one right.

Bengals / Bears are split 5 /5 as of my voting. Looking forward to that game!

kaostheory wrote:

It has me really nervous that as of my voting, all 9 pick 'em votes were for the 49ers over the Packers. I think that's a really close matchup. It's one I want the Packers to lose because they're the Packers. I also had to go homer on the Bears game, but am not super confident that I'll get that one right.

Tbh I went with the home team regardless. I think the Chiefs have a definite shot to win since a Jags home game counts for nada. Bengals have a shot as do the Cards. But I was being lazy in my picks. First week is always crazy.

kaostheory wrote:

It has me really nervous that as of my voting, all 9 pick 'em votes were for the 49ers over the Packers. I think that's a really close matchup. It's one I want the Packers to lose because they're the Packers. I also had to go homer on the Bears game, but am not super confident that I'll get that one right.

I went with the Packers simply because I don't think they're going to let happen what happened in the playoffs. Clay Mathews has even addressed in an interview that the Packers have been working on defending the option. Plus, Aaron Rodgers and an improved running game.

FSeven wrote:
kaostheory wrote:

It has me really nervous that as of my voting, all 9 pick 'em votes were for the 49ers over the Packers. I think that's a really close matchup. It's one I want the Packers to lose because they're the Packers. I also had to go homer on the Bears game, but am not super confident that I'll get that one right.

I went with the Packers simply because I don't think they're going to let happen what happened in the playoffs. Clay Mathews has even addressed in an interview that the Packers have been working on defending the option. Plus, Aaron Rodgers and an improved running game.

Guess you haven't picked yet because it's still showing 13-0 for the 49ers.

I certainly think it will be a closer score than the playoffs in Jan, but I think home field will give the 49ers the edge.

The 49ers vs Packers and Bears vs Bengals are coin flips for me.

I can't pick against my Bears in a close match and screw the Packers, but I won't be surprised by either teams win.

Last throw out for the elimination league get your picks in before the games start.

Picking on a convenient web site makes me finally do this.

Easy week for picks since will always be for the packers and against the bears =p

Great work getting that set up!

Stele wrote:

Guess you haven't picked yet because it's still showing 13-0 for the 49ers.

Err, I'm 100% positive I selected Packers.

I don't want to fill the sheet out again in case it screws something up. :/

FSeven wrote:
Stele wrote:

Guess you haven't picked yet because it's still showing 13-0 for the 49ers.

Err, I'm 100% positive I selected Packers.

I don't want to fill the sheet out again in case it screws something up. :/

Hm... checking the results now and FSeven is not in the spreadsheet.

Did you use something different as your GWJ name?

If not, you might want to try the edit link if you saved it after submitting... but since it doesn't appear you have an entry I'm not sure you have one of those.

It's up to 23 entries now, with the most recent 4 min ago. Not sure what happened, but you might have to submit again.

I demand that you include the Panthers-Seahawks game. I know the rest of you suckers will pick the 'Hawks, and I need a gimme game.

P.S.: For anyone who hasn't picked yet, herewith is the Football Outsiders' 2013 DVOA.

Their top 10 picks: Patriots, Packers, Seahawks, Broncos, DC, Panthers, Niners, Ravens, Saints and Texans.

Yeah, I know, the team in bold probably doesn't belong. But who am I to argue with high-level math?

I'd pick the Panters too. Having grown up in Seattle, I'm expecting something like a 5-11 season out of the Seahawks.

Good things don't happen to Seattle sports teams, which means Russell Wilson is either going to suffer a terrible injury or at the end of the season people will again be talking about how there was a reason he went 75th in the draft.

What happened to the (silly) predictions thread? Did RB use to do that?

It was different than just choosing the division winners, right?

The death of the tuck rule is long overdue

Bzzz wrote:

The death of the tuck rule is long overdue

It was already dead, since Manning didn't get it in last season's playoffs. That alone showed it was really the "Tom Brady rule". Good riddance.

Stele wrote:

It was already dead, since Manning didn't get it in last season's playoffs. That alone showed it was really the "Tom Brady rule". Good riddance.

Maybe it was only enforced with snow on the field

I'm in! Isn't automation great?

As someone pulling for Jerry Rice (and secondly the Raiders) that night, good riddance tuck rule. Brady lying about his intentions afterward still boils my blood.

Also, all the picks for the Niners are making me extremely nervous.

49ers - The better team, if by slim margins. Playing at home, they beat the Packers twice last year. Better coaching.
Bengals - The better of the two teams. Not a huge difference, but a real one.
Saints - Home team in a match between two high powered offenses and sub-par defenses.
Rams - The better team and at home. Granted, both of these teams will suffer this year from the division they are in, but the Rams are solid.
Chiefs - I have high hopes for Reid and Smith in KC. And while the Jags aren't Oakland bad, they aren't all that good either.

Confirmed. Suggs continues to be the best looking athlete alive.

Anyone else a little sad about the Tuel time being cancelled?

Wow Collingsworth looks much older than last year.

Stupid storm delay. I blame the Orioles. :p

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