djp14150

that is actually not the reason....... If you look back..... in the 70s....the schedulin for mat was that the 1st and 4th placed played each other and the 2nd and 3rd played each other. If a team is strong in its division where they could go 6-2 in their division (sweep the bottom two, split 2nd and 3rd) ...outside their division they play 4 3rd and 4th place teams, and play 3 1st and a 2nd place team.....they go 3-0 against the 4th place teams and win1/ 2 against the rest they end up with 10/11 wins and likely WC spot. In the mid 80s-early 2000s.... they changed the schedule format where the 1st place played 2 1st, a 2nd, and a 3rd. a 4th place team played 4th and 5th place teams. Thus the 4th place and 1st place played 4 different games......thus this produced pendulum swings in standings if the 4th place team was an up and comming team. During this teams you would see a lot of worst to first flipping in standings. Since 2002....division teams only differ schedule by 2 games...not enough to cause swings in the results. Thus you dont have much of the worst to first flips than you did before. If they instead did a schedule of 1st and 2nd play the other 1st and 2nd in conference and 3rd and 4th played 3rd and 4th...thus having 4 games different......you would see more swings in standings. This could happen if they go to an 18 game schedule.

2 yrs in a row isnt a pattern. First of all...Denver is a vastly different team from last year. The other teams are strong teams. basically its that the 4 division winners advance to the conference semifinals. I have a feeling this has happened before.....basically in the wild card round the two home teams won.

i would trade back and get extra picks. The priorities are LB and QB. There isnt a high QB in this draft...you can find a QB in the second half of the 1st or early in the second. They keep Levitre and Byrd...they sign as UFAs a WR and CB. bringing in a CB and WR would have more impact then drafting one.

Buffalo is not a rebuilding team......they underperformed/poor coaching The biggest factors to success/failure in this league are: 1. motivation/wanting to win/confidence 2. being healthy 3. luck of the schedule 4. overall luck Sure you ccan argue if Buffalo needs a #2 receiver....but do they have one that was not utilized?

I question the OC hire....he may be too fresh..I would have liked it beeter having his father in as OC and him as QB coach......if it wasnt for his dad being who he was I would be even more livid.

why?????

All he does at the combine is shouw up and get measurements...he doesnt participate in any drills.

Indy and Atlanta easily could have missed the playoffs...the teams won alot of close games that a play or two here or there would have meant a loss. For Indy.....2 of their 11 wins were buy more than 7 pts.....Jacksonvile and Houston to end the year. Many of their wins they were tied/triling late in the 3rd or later. For Atlanta....9 of their wins were by a score....many of them they were tied or behind late in the 3rd or later. On the flip side is Clevelend...excluding their final 3 games where they seemed to check out of playing....they were 5-8...7 of those loses were close games they were in during the 4th quarter...the 8th they had a 14-0 lead on the Giants witht he ball in the redzone before a pick was thrown. Carolina went 3-8 the first 11 games....other than games against the Broncos and Giants....they were very in those 6 loses and they easily could have been wins. 7 of their 9 loses were by 6 pts or less. Winning 3 of them they are in the playoffs.

Success in the league is all about attitude and emotion plus some luck. Indy had the emotion plus a frienfdlier schedule which allowed them to gain confidence in the season. Buffalo lost 3 games in the final minute...one when they were on offense...the other 2 when on defense. The won those games te attitude in the team is very different. This likely would have affeted how they played at Miami, Indy, and in Toronto (where they checked out). They easily coulkd have been 10-6 with wins against St Louis, New England, Tennesee and either Indy or Miami....if they did they would have been a wild card team in the playoffs.

Denver (-9) over ravens: With point I take the Ravens. This will be a close game but I see Denver winning by 3 or 4. Seaharks over Atlanta (-2.5) : don't like injury to clemons at all. Seattle ahs more than just Clemmons for rushing the passer. IMO Atlanta isnt as good as their record. This year they won alot of really close games where they easily could have been an 8-8 club. Seattle upsets Atlanta in a close 3/4 pt game where theis is decided in the final 5 minutes. 49ers over the Packers (+3) : this is a push--49ers 3 pt win. I dont read anything in the 49ers game a few weeks ago. This game is in SF...not GB. This will be a close game. Had this been in Gren Bay I would have gone with the Packers...but its not. Houston over New England (-9): Take Texans with the points. Houston rebounds and beats New England in this game...decided in the 4th quarter based on who has the ball last. Housotn knew it was likely going to play NE in the playoffs so they held back on their playboook.

Is this weird or what..... If Caldwell takes over the Jags coming from Atlanta..... And Mularkey came over to Jacksonville as OC of Atlanta and Matt Ryan..... Yet they say Caldweel will fire Mularkey.

In looking at some of these names---I thought the East-West game was for those players who didnt make a college bowl?

stupid is as stupid does..... There isnt a QB worth such a trade in this years draft class. this is the kind of trade the team takes a big step back. You can draft a QB in the 2nd or 3rd and he will have just as much luck as being anything as taking one in #1. Washington was able to make such a trade last year (which went up due to a bidding war).....because they really werent that far from a playoff team. Their issue was with QB. They had a decent defense and had tools on offense....except for the QB. The browns were actually smart in not making the trade.....as a result of the trade they wouldnt have drafted Richardson and they wouldnt have been able to draft Gordon in the supplemental draft.

the Syracuse fans would probably have been more jaded if Sysracuse was a 10-2 BCS team the past few seasons. If one of his assistants takes over in Syracuse things will be fine.

i have said before that Buffalo can easily put one of the low draw non division November/December games in Syracuse as well as a preseason game.

To go to 7 playoff teams per confe3rence makes it difficult for scheduleing. 8 teams makes it easier...... but instead of a 1 vs 8 set up....they will follow the model of what many smaller conferences in NCAA do for their tourne where the #1 and #2 seeds get double byes, #3 and 4 get single byes and then the #5-#8 plasy their way through.....so a playoff formet would be: week 1: 8 at 5, 7 at 6 week 2: 8/5 at 4 7/6 at 3 week 3: 8/5/4 at 1 7/6/3 at 2 week 4: Conference Championship Games week 5: Super Bowl For schedule they could come to an agreement to add another game plus another bye week for a 19 week schedule. The season starts the weekend before Labor Day. Tennis hasnt started yet. Week 1 it will be dual DH weekends for both networks...the other dual doubleheaders will be a weekend in November and week 19. Another option in the playoffs because of the unbalanced schedule is to just allow the top 2 teams in each division to advance to the playoffs irrelevant of record. Its hard to read good/bad teams when teams have much more difficult schedules because of the two divisions they had to play that year.

saving money......

that is the way it works....failed HC take coordinator jobs. Dont forget the friends of friends.....Sean Payton came from the Giants so there could be some people who came from those branches.

Why didnt they at least interview the Cincinnati Coordinators (Zimmer and Gruden) and Bruce Arians of the Colts before making this decision?

Can some of you please rationally explain to me why you wanted Lovie Smith as coach? In him I see Jauron Part Duex. Why did so many people want him as coach? I also read that a poll said some 40% wanted him as coach.

At least its not Lovie.....

Cleveland is an up and coming team. They lost alot of close one score games where they had the chance to take the lead. A play here/there they c easily have ended up 10-6. They have a strong defense core. They are set at Rzb and one Wzr slot. Weeden played well for a rookie. In KC they have strong WR/TE/RB set and thy have a strong defense. The big issue is at QB. This is why I expect KC to be big players in the Matt Flynn/Alex smith trade rumors. And then draft a qb in 2ndor 3rd. Look at defense rankings......They had a strong defense. They have Charles and another player for a strong RB duo. Then they have WR bowe. The issue was with QB.

The big difference with football nd baseball....is baseball is more an individual driven sport because a batter is up aginst a pitcher....the only comparison to this natives would be CBs on Wzr in man free overage. In football it's about everyone doing their responsibility for a play to work. There are numerous examples of players who excell with one team but fail hen changing teams.. Some of a players success can be attributed to surrounding players. When looking at game tape you can't analyze mistakes by players unless you knew whT the play call was. You see a CB let a receiver go past him thinking he has safety help but there is none..thus a long pass ply....who is at fault? You can't measure that. A guard fails to pull to make a blok...why....is it because of his slowness or was there a mistake by another OZl that preventing him pulling by blocking his path. A RB doesn't pick up a blitz thinking the TE on that side is supposed to stay in and block before he releases thus picking up any blitzes. Who is a fault? I could go on....play mistakes are judgement calls...there is too much subjective gray area for good analytics to be done Also you have more situations occur so results are more statistically significant in analysis. For example you can look at a batter facing righties or lefties...or hitter tendencies with 2 strikes. Over a career you can look at hitter vs pitcher numbers and see who has had unusual success or failure. This type of data isn't as robust given player shorter careers and some players only face each other once ever in there careers if st that. It's also system and style driven....under Shanahans system he can find good RB cheap and they excel because of his system. The RB style needs to match the team running style. Cedric benson is an example of a RZb who was a bust then turned very good after changing teams. An example is Herschel walker trade....he was a bust in part because his running style didn't match the running style on his new team.

I still feel they need to draft a qb but there is nothing I would touch at #8. I see a qb picked in 2nd or 3rd unless they trade down. But if you acquire a veteran then the pressure is on a first to step in and play. There is quite a few qbs who have 2nd round grades but not many high 1st.

Would you want him as buffalo QB? Its possible that in San Diego they want to just gut the aging team and rebuild everything. Rivers would be a marketable asset they trade.