#19

Last night was the most SOL game I could envision. Three touchdowns written off due to flags… a last minute interception… key players all taken out with niggly injuries… legit calls NOT being made (like the knee hit on Stafford).

I agree that the offence, on a good night, will be really frisky and fun to watch (if Abdullah comes back okay, even the run game is clicking). But the defence is looking very ropey. Shame we have two legitimately good teams in our division.

#20

I’ve been on holiday for 3 weeks. Obviously I have a lot of feelings about the Bridgewater thing but it feels pointless going over it now.

Watched the Vikings Packers game condensed this morning and I’m still all fluttery about it. What Bradford did was so impressive, and far exceeded any expectations I had of him. To do that a week and a half after arriving, you have to give him and Turner/Shurmer a shitload of credit. I don’t feel too bad about the high price they paid for him now.

Stefon Diggs is the truth. He had a quiet second half of the season last year, and I was worried he wasn’t as good as I initially thought. But he is so, so good. Great combination of speed, route-running and savvy, he really is reminiscent of Antonio Brown.

A couple of years ago I would have been in the abyss about Peterson’s injury,but I honestly think this could benefit the offense. McKinnon is so much more versatile and having him start should make them a lot less easy to predict. The O-line needs to sort their shit out for either of them to have success, though.

Anyway, how is everyone.

#21

This would be hilarious if it wasn’t so true:

#22

Can’t argue with that. Didn’t we have a safety playing LB at one point. I think that’s like Arsenal staying in a game despite only having 10 men on the field.

#23

Bradford really impressed me, the 2 week turnaround is pretty amazing. Astounding to think where the Vikes have got to from where they were about when you went on holiday. I still have serious doubts about Bradford’s ability to keep it going week to week, but as a start that’s pretty hard to beat.

#24

Patriots news - Evil Bill is keeping us rolling merrily along, somehow, without Brady or Gronk. Jimmy G was absolutely pasting the Miami D until he got squashed, which is a real shame for him and us. There’s a pretty decent chance that Julian Edelman gets to throw some passes in the next couple of weeks, so there’s that.

#25

The state of The Vikings and Lions is worrying. Not sure how the Bears are going to get a division win

#26

Loved Edelman’s quote when asked if he was ready to step up. “I play receiver for a reason.”

Also, I guess this slightly out of date, but really fascinating: a list of emergency QBs for every team (the player who will play QB if all your actual QBs go down in a game).

#27

The thing I find most interesting about that is the number of pass catchers who used to play QB at college. I would have thought it would be too late to change position by the time you finish college, but it seems like it’s a reasonably regular occurrence. I’d be pretty pissed off if I was a WR coming out of college and a QB got drafted to my position in front of me.

#28

but loads of college schemes have the QB running much more than they pass. Seems that in high school and somewhat in college, some teams just put the best athlete at QB to get them the ball as much as possible, regardless of their passing ability

#29

Yeah, that makes sense for runners, but I’m mainly thinking receivers, I’d have thought route running and catching would be better learned as early as possible. But then again, I know literally fuck all about learning or actually playing football, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

#30

Yeah this was one of the best games of his career, he almost definitely won’t keep it up. He doesn’t need to be that good against most opponents though, the defence looks like a top 5 unit this year and will be able to keep games close. Bradford just needs to not fuck up egregiously and make a few plays a game.

The other thing about Bradford is that he will almost certainly get hurt at some point (he hurt his non-throwing hand last night ffs), so we will have to deal with Shaun Hill again this year.

#31

Think there’s a couple of things.
1 - if they’re using the ‘best athlete at QB’ thing, that person’s likely to be too tall to be a running back
2 - less experienced players can be more use at WR than at RB. Obviously they have to be able to catch but they only need to know a couple of routes to contribute, and can get more plays as their knowledge grows, while runners pretty much have to be able to block, follow blocks, recognise gaps/schemes and other complex stuff to be able to contribute.
Denard Robinson’s the only QB - RB I can think of and he’s not had much success in the NFL

#32

could be something to do with understanding routes/down and distance/etc concepts more as a QB, and then using that knowledge to be a good WR, even if they don’t have the physical dominance of someone who was ‘born’ to play WR. I would have thought it’d translate to safety as well (understanding what the other team’s QB is trying to do, and jumping routes/covering certain areas of the pitch), but can’t think of any examples.

#33

I said in about week 8 last year that the NFC North could be a really competitive division in 2016, with possibly all the teams capable of 8-8 or better. Looks like (unfortunately) the bears will be the main question mark, tonight will go some way to answering that. I think Houston could be really good, especially if they get their oppo into a passing situation, and I thought Chicago hanging in there (leading at the end of the first 3 quarters!) was a sign of a half decent team, although there were outclassed second half (bit of a trademark for Houston tbf).

If they win or get beaten in a tight game where Wentz is great tonight - all is well. If they aren’t competitive… :expressionless:

If they can get McPhee back in week 7 with a 3-3 record (Dak’s Cowboys, Lions (H), Colts and Jags (H), so possible esp with a win tonight), then you never know. I think the inter-divisional games this year are all going to be really close, injuries allowing.

Vikings could run away with it mind - give Bradford 2-3 more weeks to really get this O, get the running game going as Ds have to respect the passing game (Diggs especially) more, the minnesota D is great (obvs, although Waynes really needs to stop manhandling receivers)

#34

Was an absolute stinker of a game, the only interesting things that happened were dreadful refereeing decisions (the TD, the fumble, about a dozen missed holds and literally everything Mike Mitchell did).

#35

:expressionless:

Only good thing I can think of is that a lot of the bad things by the Bears were boneheaded as opposed to talentless, time to right that. But eeeesh. Fumbles under no contact, hitting the post from 30 yards, icing the kicker (not seen stats on it, but I reckon the completion percentage is higher after an icing than without one), the first Mathews TD. Yuck.

Freeman looked great at least. And, er, Hoyer went 9-9 or something from his first 9 throws (Philly D was very much in soft coverage though).

Wentz looked pretty good, one throw he made (that was called back for holding) was thrown about 0.25 s before Freeman had a free rush at him and absolutely nailed him. Great composure, but it’s a bit Luck/Griffin - he’s going to get himself killed if he doesn’t start avoiding (or at least mitigating) these hits to a degree.

#36

No need for the word division in there.

2 Likes
#37

We have home games against the Jags, 49ers & Titans, surely we’ll win one of those

#38

Bookmarked… Actually they’ll probably just pull something out of the bag against a really good team, because that’s just the NFL, but outside of Jeffery and king of the early season Eddie Royal, they looked shite last night. After the first couple of plays I thought Cutler was going to die.