NFL 2020: Week 4

Looks like game is going to be delayed to Monday or Tuesday. They are probably doing this to make sure no more positive tests pop up later today or tomorrow. Any more positives and then its probably going the way of the Titans - Steelers.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...

"The NFL announced in a statement on Saturday that the game will be postponed to Monday or Tuesday due to “positive COVID-19 tests on both teams.” Patriots quarterback Cam Newton has tested positive and NFL Media reports that Chiefs practice squad quarterback Jordan Ta’amu has as well."

This is not looking good for football in general. It's not like the schedules can be very flexible.

They're gonna end up dropping games or pushing games into the playoff schedule, which is something they proooooobably should've built into the season.

I expect we won't have a two week wait for the super bowl.

So I guess we get Bills-Raiders nationally at 4:25?

Also: You know CBS is furious because Pats-Chiefs was going to be a ratings bonanza.

Also: You know the Pats are furious, too. If the game is ppd to Mon or Tues instead of a month from now, Patriots will go into a game against an AFC rival with (a) a second-string QB who (b) has barely gotten any reps.

The Ringer had an interesting podcast this week (recorded before Steelers-Titans was ppd but after the positive cases were announced), and competition issues are a big factor, so big in fact that the NFL set up a kind of shadow competition committee to deal with Covid. (The NFL already has a competition committee, and it's made up of current coaches, GMs and owners; the Covid committee has former execs, etc, to eliminate the obvious conflicts of interest.) Switching up bye weeks, for instance, is a potential competition issue bc apparently teams build theirs season (workouts/conditioning, etc.) around the bye weeks that are set well in advance.

TL,DR: As I said earlier, everything is terrible right now.

garion333 wrote:

They're gonna end up dropping games or pushing games into the playoff schedule, which is something they proooooobably should've built into the season.

I expect we won't have a two week wait for the super bowl.

Coming this May, the Super Bowl / NFL Draft double-header weekend!

*Legion* wrote:
garion333 wrote:

They're gonna end up dropping games or pushing games into the playoff schedule, which is something they proooooobably should've built into the season.

I expect we won't have a two week wait for the super bowl.

Coming this May, the Super Bowl / NFL Draft double-header weekend!

I'd be okay with that. Why not have two weeks between games and a season that lasts from August to May?

*Legion* wrote:
garion333 wrote:

They're gonna end up dropping games or pushing games into the playoff schedule, which is something they proooooobably should've built into the season.

I expect we won't have a two week wait for the super bowl.

Coming this May, the Super Bowl / NFL Draft double-header weekend!

This may be the best idea you've ever had.

Update: Colts-Bears moving to 4:25 pm CBS national slot.

Eh, I'd rather see Wacky Josh Allen vs Fresno State's Finest than BDN vs Marmalard.

Rat Boy wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
garion333 wrote:

They're gonna end up dropping games or pushing games into the playoff schedule, which is something they proooooobably should've built into the season.

I expect we won't have a two week wait for the super bowl.

Coming this May, the Super Bowl / NFL Draft double-header weekend!

This may be the best idea you've ever had.

Yeah until you try and figure out where the Combine, Senior Bowl, and Shrine Game go.

All cancelled. Everyone's just drafting out of Street and Smith's like it's the 1930s again.

Enix wrote:

Eh, I'd rather see Wacky Josh Allen vs Fresno State's Finest than BDN vs Marmalard.

The Athletic ran a story this week about Josh Allen and how devastated he was to not be recruited by Fresno State, which was literally all he wanted since he was a kid.

Stupid Tim DeRuyter.

Genuinely shocked it took until week four for things to start imploding, just because it doesn't feel like the NFL did much to address this than hope things went well. There's a report on PFT that the NFL wanted to try a bubble before the season but the NFLPA balked, and maybe they'll do that now, but, rather than doing that at the start, they decided to pretend they were playing every week.

There's just too many opportunities for this to move downhill in the coming weeks.

IMAGE(http://u.cubeupload.com/MilkmanDanimal/DOOM.jpg)

Eh... we'll see. I was skeptical that MLB would get through their season after that first outbreak ... and then it was basically quiet the rest of the season. They had to move games around here and there, but it was nowhere near as bad as I expected.

On the other hand, baseball can play multiple games per day, which makes scheduling a bit easier and it really was the best-case scenario as far as interaction between players was concerned.

Anyway, like I said, we'll see. The MLB season made me cautiously optimistic.

Yeah, I figured of all the sports MLB had the best odds, because it's basically social distancing where you hit something with a stick. The sport is pretty much predicated on being apart from each other. The NFL . . . not so much. Every snap, you've got linemen pushing against each other, pileups of multiple people on the ground, and all sorts of other opportunities to be right next to someone. It's basically a sport where a fair amount of your team is directly breathing on somebody else a huge portion of the time, and that makes it clearly much higher risk. With all the basic logistics involved with scheduling NFL games, it's just so much harder to rearrange things to account for COVID outbreaks.

I can't even.

How can you have the game on Tuesday when afaik Cam and Ta'amu were just practicing with their teams on Friday?

Edit: I guess because they did it last week with A.J. Terrell, who tested positive *last* Saturday, and the Falcons played anyway. Sigh. I was under the impression that he had tested positive Saturday, and then the followups were negative.

I was okay with how they handled the Titans, when the positive results showed up on a Monday, and they were going to have the game the following Monday, and then cancelled the game when more positive results showed up on Wednesday.

Fantasy Football doesn't compare to the hellscape that is 2020, but I just spent a good chunk of time debating whether I need to pick up Brian Hoyer this week. I decided not to do it, just because I don't think the game will end up happening and sanity might still prevail.
Brian Hoyer.

garion333 wrote:

Gregggg Williams is the only head coach in my lifetime with a winning record for the Browns at 5-3.

*Stefanski notwithstanding at 2-1.

**Apparently Schottenheimer had a winning record and I was alive when he was their head coach, so there's that.

Out of curiousity, how are you counting winning records?

Schottenheimer doesn't count, he coached the Ravens.

I did some research, and it's almost as depressing as the list of browns QBs. However, there are two highlights in Browns History:
* In 2018, the Browns managed to not have a losing record after week 1, by tying the Steelers.
* In 2004, the Browns under Butch Davis had a winning record after week 1, though they would later go on to play so badly that year that Davis got fired.

https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2014/9/...

TL;DR: The browns had a winning record in part of 2004

PS - I root for all of AFC North in non-divisional games

Emmes wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Gregggg Williams is the only head coach in my lifetime with a winning record for the Browns at 5-3.

*Stefanski notwithstanding at 2-1.

**Apparently Schottenheimer had a winning record and I was alive when he was their head coach, so there's that.

Out of curiousity, how are you counting winning records?

Schottenheimer doesn't count, he coached the Ravens.

Wikipedia chart

Just based it on what they had, nothing special or fancy.

All other Patriots COVID tests came back negative.

Hey Cam, you've been wearing a mask, social distancing, and following all the guidelines away from the field, right?

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

New Orleans Saints Fullback Michael Burton has tested positive for Covid. The team found out after their flight landed in Detroit for Sunday's game

They're now re-testing Burton to check for false-positive and the players identified as being around Burton by the contact tracing bracelets the players are wearing.

Mr Bismarck wrote:

New Orleans Saints Fullback Michael Burton has tested positive for Covid. The team found out after their flight landed in Detroit for Sunday's game

They're now re-testing Burton to check for false-positive and the players identified as being around Burton by the contact tracing bracelets the players are wearing.

Once again, America shows it only cares for the rich.

Why in the hell don't we all have those? Why aren't we all opting in to an app on our phones?

Okay, okay, many Americans wouldn't agree to being tracked all over the place (even though they already are by having a cell phone).

Saints FB second test came back negative, so they're going to be playing.

Also, the Titans are up to 18 people infected, so it's pretty clear they're gonna have the Orange Hammer of Justice brought down on them for most likely not following protocol.

FitzTragic strikes!

I've known about the Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr. connection, but this is ridiculous.

"Yo Deshaun, how about I block only 60% of the time?"

"That's 60% more than I get from you now."

Brady with another pick six today; is there something in the water in the Tampa area that negatively impacts vision and causes you to not recognize the jersey of the guy you're throwing at?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Brady with another pick six today; is there something in the water in the Tampa area that negatively impacts vision and causes you to not recognize the jersey of the guy you're throwing at?

Cocaine?

Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!

garion333 wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Brady with another pick six today; is there something in the water in the Tampa area that negatively impacts vision and causes you to not recognize the jersey of the guy you're throwing at?

Cocaine?

No, thank you, I had a big lunch.

Brady now up to 4 TDs, he might be good. Considering the Bucs defense has looked really good this year, Herbert looks solid today.

There are a LOT of points being scored. Has this been the most point-crazy season already? Because it has to be after this week. Every game is 30-something on one side, if not both!

This is the most Cleveland Browns thing I've seen this season.

On the other hand, OBJ just took advantage of a pooped Dallas defense.

Edit: Scorigami.

Rat Boy wrote:

Edit: Scorigami.

Cleveland/Dallas had a 93% chance of being scorigami and managed to Falcons those odds.

We almost had double Scorigami.