NFL 2015: Week 3

cube wrote:

So... who's the top college prospect? Because they'll be on the Bears next year.

Yes, who will be the next JFF?

Abu5217 wrote:

So, this Rodgers fella, he's pretty good, huh?

He's very clean.

garion333 wrote:
cube wrote:

So... who's the top college prospect? Because they'll be on the Bears next year.

Yes, who will be the next JFF? ;)

I am hopeful that the new Bears GM will have some skill at drafting decent players. The previous tenures have had next to no luck with first round picks.

Jerry Angelo became GM in 2001 (the year after they drafted Urlacher)

2001 8 David Terrell Wide Receiver Michigan Awful
2002 29 Marc Colombo Offensive tackle Boston College Awful
2003 14 Michael Haynes Defensive end Penn State [v] Awful
2003 22 Rex Grossman Quarterback Florida [v] not spectacular
2004 14 Tommie Harris Defensive tackle Oklahoma Great, derailed by injury
2005 4 Cedric Benson Half Back Texas Awful
2006 — No Pick — — [w] Traded to Bills for Daniel Manning (pretty good) and Dusty Dvoracek (awful)
2007 31 Greg Olsen Tight End Miami Very good, though he's been better in Carolina
2008 14 Chris Williams Offensive tackle Vanderbilt Awful
2009 — No Pick — — [x] Jay Cutler
2010 — No Pick — — [x] Jay Cutler
2011 29 Gabe Carimi Offensive tackle Wisconsin Awful
2012 19 Shea McClellin Defensive end Boise State Not very good
2013 20 Kyle Long Offensive tackle Oregon Looks very promising
2014 14 Kyle Fuller Cornerback Virginia Tech Hopefully good
2015 7 Kevin White Wide Receiver West Virginia IR for rookie season

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:
Abu5217 wrote:

So, this Rodgers fella, he's pretty good, huh?

He's very clean.

It was a pretty miserable game to watch as a Chiefs fan. The game was nowhere near as close as the score. Heck, it wasn't as close as the score indicated when it was 31-7.

I wasn't surprised to see the Chiefs offense having issues. The OL is a mess, and I'm not sure the guys getting healthy are going to make it much better. But I was surprised to see just how easily GB moved the ball on their defense. I think getting Sean Smith back at CB next week will help a lot, especially with how well rookie Marcus Peters is playing.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/8sSdm7Q.jpg)

Heh. I wasn't the only one who thought Gruden's fascination with Rodgers' happy feet was a bit over the top.

We should come up with a list of how many teams jump to serious SB contenders with A-Aron as their QB.

Arizona is already looking good.. imagine Rodgers on that team.

TheGameguru wrote:

We should come up with a list of how many teams jump to serious SB contenders with A-Aron as their QB.

Arizona is already looking good.. imagine Rodgers on that team.

All of them? Well, maybe not the 49ers or the Jags.... =p

I live surrounded by Bears fans, and they have simply given up. Or if they are baseball fans then the Cubs, yep the Cubs!

kaostheory wrote:

2003 22 Rex Grossman Quarterback Florida [v] not spectacular

The Sex Cannon is the definition of spectacular.

The Bears were bad, but at least their starting QB wasn't in the game.

If you're a Niners fan, though, there's this:

Kaepernick's performance hardly improved after that, and his final statline looks like something out of JaMarcus Russell's nightmares: 9-of-19 for 67 yards with no touchdowns and four interceptions. He's the first player to throw four or more interceptions while gaining less than 70 yards in a game since Luke McCown did it for Jacksonville in 2011, and just the fifth to do so since 1986.

Jamarcus and Luke McCown comparisons! Phenomenal!

From here.

Kaeps fall from grace is kinda spectacular given he was one penalty call away from winning a Super Bowl in his first real action as a starter. I kinda wish in an alternate reality it would have been exactly what would have happened to Tom Brady if the NFL didn't hate Al Davis so much.

Kinda makes you want to revisit the Alex Smith vs. Kaep debate.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

Kinda makes you want to revisit the Alex Smith vs. Kaep debate.

Yeah, I'm thinking that is not a debate that has any need to be revisited. Alex Smith if still Alex Smith.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
UpToIsomorphism wrote:

Kinda makes you want to revisit the Alex Smith vs. Kaep debate.

Yeah, I'm thinking that is not a debate that has any need to be revisited. Alex Smith if still Alex Smith.

Was watching the game yesterday with a friend who quoted me that Smith threw the ball deep 13? times last year?

My response was how do you come back against a team when down 14+ (Packers were pummeling them at that point) if your QB cant throw deep?

His response... Well you cant.

Fingers crossed on the injury front but yea trying to keep my expectations humble as it is football. Really think this defense could morph into a turnover/wrecking ball machine. Boom bust where they will give up comically easy TDS but also win the turnover battle considering Godgers gives up 0.

When your QB is Rodgers and you get 1-2 extra possessions its hard to lose. Even if you're Mike McCarthy.

jowner wrote:

Was watching the game yesterday with a friend who quoted me that Smith threw the ball deep 13? times last year?

My response was how do you come back against a team when down 14+ (Packers were pummeling them at that point) if your QB cant throw deep?

His response... Well you cant.

Fingers crossed on the injury front but yea trying to keep my expectations humble as it is football. Really think this defense could morph into a turnover/wrecking ball machine. Boom bust where they will give up comically easy TDS but also win the turnover battle considering Godgers gives up 0.

When your QB is Rodgers and you get 1-2 extra possessions its hard to lose. Even if you're Mike McCarthy.

13 is a bit of an understatement (depending on where you put the threshold), but not by much.

Smith threw 24 pass attempts of 20+ yards (PFF's threshold for their "deep passing" statistic), with 8 completions. That put him at 5.2% of his attempts going "deep", whereas the next lowest passer was 9.0%. (Median was about 12%, top end was 18%).

Aaron Rodgers was only middle of the pack in deep pass attempts (56, tied for 16th) but he was 4th highest in yardage and 3rd best in completion % of those attempts. He was by far the most productive per-attempt on deep passes. They're tactical about when they call their deep shots, and Rodgers connects when they do.

There is no doubt that Alex Smith is risk averse, and is never going to be a big arm. But he would take more shots, and those shots would be better if the Chiefs OL wasn't a complete disaster.

I miss the days of the OL being a core strength of team, making the average playmakers much better.

More of Jed York being an asshat.

After the San Francisco 49ers rallied support for their new stadium by promising to pay for new youth soccer fields, the NFL team isn't following through with its part of the deal -- and taxpayers will be left footing the multimillion dollar bill.
Jed York, owner of the 49ers, told the soccer league in a letter two years ago that the team would fund replacement fields. But the team's front office shocked the soccer league last week by telling them the Niners had abandoned those plans.

"You feel betrayed or lied to," said Matt Heintz, president of the 1,500-member Santa Clara Youth Soccer League, which had supported the new stadium that voters approved public financing for in 2010. "It sounds like they got what they wanted, they got the stadium built -- and pushed us aside, brushed us under the rug."

The 49ers wrote back to the soccer group Friday, saying they supported the city's new effort to find replacement fields and reiterated their longtime promise that soccer leagues would be able to use the fields on game days if they could stomach the traffic.
It said now the 49ers would only fund replacement fields if the soccer league was willing to give up its prized soccer park to the Niners to use for VIP stadium parking.

To me it sounds like they're strong arming the youth league in order to use their facilities for parking on game days. Classy!

jowner wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:
UpToIsomorphism wrote:

Kinda makes you want to revisit the Alex Smith vs. Kaep debate.

Yeah, I'm thinking that is not a debate that has any need to be revisited. Alex Smith if still Alex Smith.

Was watching the game yesterday with a friend who quoted me that Smith threw the ball deep 13? times last year?

My response was how do you come back against a team when down 14+ (Packers were pummeling them at that point) if your QB cant throw deep?

His response... Well you cant.

Fingers crossed on the injury front but yea trying to keep my expectations humble as it is football. Really think this defense could morph into a turnover/wrecking ball machine. Boom bust where they will give up comically easy TDS but also win the turnover battle considering Godgers gives up 0.

When your QB is Rodgers and you get 1-2 extra possessions its hard to lose. Even if you're Mike McCarthy.

The one interesting "knock" on Aaron Rodgers and perhaps the GB Packers in general is how different his playoff home record is vs regular season. The argument that ESPN was making is that the Packers play style and Aaron Rodgers strengths don't really translate well to their home field in Jan vs regular season. The one year they won SB he was largely playing road games I believe.

It's almost better for GB to be on the road vs at home in the Playoffs.

True but I always feel like there are cold weather shootouts in GB. I don't recall an unexciting game there during the playoffs. For that amount of talent they are definitely underrepresented in the NFC title games.

From FOO: "Through three weeks of the season, it's hard to find a quarterback who is playing better than (Cam) Newton. He is comfortably on the level of Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. Brady is outproducing him and Rodgers is still the most talented quarterback in the league playing to a high level, but Newton has been as close to flawless as could be rationally expected."

I think FOO gives the Panthers' O-line a little too little credit -- they're competent on a good day, but never truly awful. That said, it's a testament to how well O-coordinator Mike Shula (!) is doing his job, too.

Just reread that last sentence three times.

Football is weird.

Shula has been a pretty good coach at the NFL level since Alabama. He went to Jacksonville as QB coach after 'Bama, and coaxed David Garrard to his best seasons and Pro Bowl nod. Then he took the same job in Carolina starting Cam Newton's rookie year, and Newton's development has been steady and positive the whole time. It's easy to see why they promoted him instead of reaching outside when Chud left for Cleveland. He took some heat last year given the team's lesser performance, but that was a cap purge depleted roster with a banged-to-hell Newton at the helm.

Better Mike Shula than Mike Sherman.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/pl...

Passer Ratings through Week 3

1. Aaron Rodgers - 135.4
2. Andy Dalton - 121.0
3. Tom Brady - 119.6
4. Carson Palmer - 117.8
5. Tyrod Taylor - 116.1
6. Ben Rothlisberger - 113.1
7. Marcus Mariota - 109.2 *
8. Derek Carr - 102.4
9. Philip Rivers - 100.5
10. Tony Romo - 98.8

*Mariota should only have one INT, the other one is a catch/fumble that Titans are petitioning the league to change to a fumble.

https://instagram.com/p/8QyvUrRu20/

Joe Flacco - Elite

As someone who may have been overly enthusiastic about a young first-round QB who played in a South division and really hadn't proved himself capable of keeping up the pace, I'm just going to lay a bottle of cheap whiskey to the side for Gumbie in case things implode.

NO LEGION I DON'T NEED TO SEE THE FAT JOSH FREEMAN PICTURE AGAIN THANKS MUCH

Gumbie wrote:

*Mariota should only have one INT, the other one is a catch/fumble that Titans are petitioning the league to change to a fumble.

https://instagram.com/p/8QyvUrRu20/

I'd love for a way for the stats to reflect the difference between a pick where the defense reads the throw perfectly and makes the play vs a pick-six where the throw tipped at the line, bounces off the 5 different linemen's helmet, then gets picked up by a linebacker running full speed for a touchdown.

The first is clearly the QB's responsibility. The second is basically the gods of football smiling on the defense, and yet is worse on any stat sheet.

I have no idea how you'd model it, but it would really be nice.

IMAGE(http://atlantablackstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Josh-Freeman.jpg)

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

NO LEGION I DON'T NEED TO SEE THE FAT JOSH FREEMAN PICTURE AGAIN THANKS MUCH

OK fine.

IMAGE(http://larrybrownsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Jameis-Winston-fat.jpg)