DCOrange

It's hard to give specifics on this because it's never been a big deal before. But for example, I'm sure you've probably seen instances where a runner is down near the goal line and one ref signals TD while the other signals that he was short. Then they have a huddle together before ultimately making their call. And then if that call is a touchdown, they review it. In this case, they huddled up and decided that their call was a touchback (which was wrong) and therefore, no review. It sucks because we literally saw the one official initially rule a TD and then another ref initially call a penalty, but after their huddle (with the backup refs), they ultimately decided on a touchback and no review. The only part that hasn't been done before is having the backup refs run onto the field to interrupt them and I suspect they did that because they knew if it was called a TD on the field, they couldn't overturn it since there was no rule to support overturning it.

They do this literally all the time. It's no different from picking up a flag in their eyes. They had a conference and then ultimately decided the call on the field was a touchback, not a scoring play. Therefore, no review.

That's why the backup refs ran on the field. They got the ref to change the call on the field so that it didn't need to be reviewed.

Has Spotrac never paid attention to a coaching search before? This is totally commonplace.

I would argue that DK was a gamechanger from day 1, just not in the traditional, 100-catch per year, kind of way. The threat of him changes the way the defense has to defend the Seahawks basically every play.

Yes, I've watched plenty. I would expect that the majority of catches for basically every receiver are not go routes. He's still going north-south more than almost any other WR in football, and that's backed up both by the eye test and the numbers.

As I said in the lead up to the draft, I would argue that aside from potential health concerns (which you and I wouldn't have a clue about), he was one of the safest prospects in the draft. At the absolute minimum, it was easy to see he'd be what he was this year: a very dangerous vertical threat and a very dangerous contested catch threat. On Day 1, he was immediately a mismatch for pretty much every corner in the NFL. Obviously Seattle hopes he rounds his skillset out so that he can impact the game in more ways; but from Day 1 without improving on anything from college, he was going to be a guy that you basically pray drops the ball or you send a safety to help over the top and therefore open up the offense for everyone else. Edit: That's not to say that he'd be considered a good pick in the top 10 if he never improved on anything, but his floor (aside from potential injuries) was that he was going to be a very good deep threat that opens things up for his teammates every single play. That's better than a lot of picks end up being and would have helped our offense a lot. Edit x2: Also just FWIW, I did have Oliver higher on my board than DK. But DK was my next choice and both of them were top 7ish prospects IMO.

I think it was a mix of Texans adjustments, Bills energy wearing out a bit, and Watson just settling in. Watson was flat out missing a lot of open receivers in the first half (as in, not seeing them) that could have gone for big plays. He also didn't use his legs nearly as much as he did in the 2nd half. On top of that, the defensive line just didn't get home as consistently in the 2nd half, and even when they did, you could tell they had lost their edge (i.e. everyone doing the air guitar celebration after every big play early in the game versus being stoic in the 2nd half).

There’s always Ryan Finley’s though that justify those statements ?

I’ve been pretty consistent on this from the get go...I like Cody Ford. Liked him before the draft, happy to have him on the team. But DK was IMO a top 5-10 prospect in the draft and would have addressed a huge need here. Thankfully this upcoming draft class is very strong but DK was right up there with the guys that are already out of reach for us.

I think they’re all relatively replaceable honestly. Spain was the best of the 3 main guys this year imo, but could also argue that Ford should be at guard and Spain’s presence likely prevents that so -shrugs-. I won’t mind if we re-sign the big 3 but I won’t be upset if they walk either. Think we likely sign them given our cap space though.

Understood it isn’t always called that way, but there have definitely been forward laterals that we’re called. This is no different. The rule book clearly states that an intentional forward fumble is considered to be a forward pass. And in this case, it would be an illegal forward pass. I also don’t think the refs knew if Plaxico threw it forwards or not since it was very close to being a downward spike.

I’m still not sure I am. The rule book says if the ball touches the ground in the end zone at all, it’s a touchback. It doesn’t say it needs to initially land in the end zone. Maybe that’s the way it’s enforced but it’s not the way it’s written in the rule book. Those are the alternate refs. He almost certainly was talking to the league office and they sent him out there to make sure the refs didn’t actually go through with enforcing the rule.

Yes, if the ball hits the end zone now, it’s a touchback just like it is on punts. That’s why the Texans kick returner stopped catching the kicks after his mistake. If you don’t intend to return the kick, there’s no reason to even catch the ball anymore. Only bad things can come from it.

Yes. And ironically, they changed the rule after the fact so if we made that mistake again today, it would be a touchback.

An intentional forward moving fumble is an illegal forward pass and is dead the second it hits the ground so no TD.

I think it’s technically a safety rather than a TD, but yeah, the NFL just flat out chose not to enforce their rules there because they didn’t want people to complain about the officials letting Buffalo score on that.

I don’t think it’s a big deal that Lamar wasn’t a unanimous first team All Pro, but the opinion that Lamar should play WR will never be correct. That was always indefensible but is especially so after he won an MVP as a QB.

He threw 30 of them, so naturally, a lot of flukes and a lot of bad throws and a lot of throws that should have been INTs that were dropped. It was honestly pretty crazy watching him this year. He's also been a bit of a gunslinger but the pros always outweighed the cons. That is highly questionable this season. Still though, the Bucs have pretty much been a good to great offensive team ever since they got Jameis despite the fact that he's generally had horrible O-Line and RB play. Oddly enough, this season was probably the best that he's had from those two units.

That's not true. He's literally said almost every single week this year that he knows it's something he needs to fix to the point that fans are rolling their eyes because it's gotten so repetitive while nothing is really changing.

Unless the logic for choosing Allen is "He's the QB of the Bills and I'm a Bills fan", this shouldn't be a contest at all. I like Allen a lot but Watson was an MVP candidate for most of the season. Allen is still trying to prove that he's an average to above average starting QB.

Re: Tyler Johnson (obviously a lot of this will change as the process goes forward): Matt Miller: #33 WR in the class Mel Kiper: Outside the top 10 WRs Todd McShay: #22 WR in the class The Draft Network: #8 WR in the class WalterFootball: #12 WR in the class PFF: #15 WR in the class

There’s no chance Shenault is a sub 4.4 guy. I’d be pretty surprised if he’s sub 4.5. Still a good prospect regardless though.

To be fair, that’s been included in the expanded universe for awhile now and was canonized in Mandalorian if not earlier than that.

My overall thoughts on the trilogy: