Nextmanup

The weather is great down here this time of year!

This is funny. Or maybe sad. https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizona-coyotes-pay-1-4-million-in-back-taxes-after-threat-of-being-locked-out-of-gila-river-arena If Phoenix moves, they are talking about going to Kansas City (gag), Houston (gag) or back to Quebec City (would be AWESOME!) Let's hope they go to Quebec. This franchise is an embarrassment to the NHL.

Agreed. I have been saying all week that if he makes a handful of throws more than he did make, at the right time, we win the game. And then I'm not sure people would be talking about the things they are talking about. The same will happen if we manage to win in Tampa. Suddenly we'll morph into a good team again.

And now Mittelstadt is going on IR and "seeing a specialist." Another Eichel situation developing?! LOL He's out at least 7 days, but I bet it will be weeks.

I guess if you add an old rusty car into the mix it's no big deal.

Do you have the phone number for that? Asking for a friend.

I wish! We won the AFC East in 1989. That ain't happening this year, I don't think.

Football Outsiders has us currently ranked 1st in the NFL for defense, and 3rd in total DVOA. Other than that, you're right, we suck.

The really scary part is you can probably convince a sizable percentage of fans here that we are undefeated! I just did some numbers and it looks to me like we will be the #1 seed for the playoffs! Home field all the way through, and a first week bye!

As I said up-thread, they will be able to do more given normal weather, but so will we. I'll take our offense over theirs and each team has as strong D. But we have to come up with smarter play calling and can't get bogged down in this "establish the run" crap, kind of for the sake of doing it, our of machismo or God knows what.

I don't know about that. I think the Bills are the better team, the game was on the road, and we had the stud QB, not NE. And BB still went home with the win. If BB was our coach this year, I bet our record is 3 wins better.

I do think we could adopt different play calling to try and make do with what we have on offense at least. Otherwise I agree, it's an off-season fix, if not multiple off-seasons fix.

Yeah, I'm talking about the attempt to run the ball all night long, to no avail. Not a red zone passing play that didn't work.

This is what I referenced here yesterday (God knows which thread it was in)...they were talking about this sort of thing all afternoon on GR-55. Like we get the ball down in the red zone and need to score a TD. The first play is run into the line for no gain. Is that play called b/c Daboll thought it was a good idea? Or because he is being TOLD to call that play? Perhaps he has been pressured to give the running game more attention... I just don't think Daboll does that on his own, especially toward the end of the NE game based on how it was going. Daboll is the gambler of the team and I think he'd call Josh-Keeper-Sweeps or passes into the end zone. This story line isn't really being discussed that much, but maybe it will gain some traction. I would hate to find out we are kind of shooting ourselves in the foot...it's hard enough to score in this league as it is.

I just re-did it at NY Times. 85% chance to make playoffs with losses to TAMPA and NEW ENGLAND. IF we lose at TAMPA, but win out, we have a 100% chance of making playoffs, according to Times. And you were saying Tampa is not entirely unimportant? Maybe you are suggesting we have no chance to win out after Tampa? I think we have a good chance to do that, but we haven't won 4 in a row (or 2 in a row!) in a long time. I just refuse to get caught up in the Tampa panic; it's not necessary. The time for panic will be in NE and then the 3 "easy games". If we don't take care of business there, we're done.

Nah....we are heading down the path of wild card berth. Gotta get used to that. We have a 89%-90% chance of playoffs even with losses in Tampa and NE. Not sure where you are getting your percentages. I'm using the NY Times simulator and the ESPN simulators. It will probably come down to our ability to take care of business and beat up on the 3 "easy" games. If we lose 1 or more of those, we won't make the playoffs and THAT'S when this place SHOULD go off the rails! But that is a long way from happening now. For the most part, we have beaten up on bad teams this year and I think we win those 3 going away.

I have never understood the "collector" thing, and I have a lot of interests that could spill over into "collecting" if I were inclined to go in that direction. I think some people have a weird "ownership" fetish. Like they "have to have" something, and once they have it, they are happy, such that the thing itself is not important--it's the having. This is why the guy who actually owns the vintage toy worth $20,000 doesn't even play with it! Or the guy with the $37,000,000 Ferrari doesn't drive it. It's sickening to me; if you are going to "hoard" or "collect" at least have the decency to use your collection as it was intended. If you collect cooking equipment, cook with it now and again!

I like Jerry as a writer, a lot... But he really does have a face for print media. LOL

Why weren't we crowding the line of scrimmage? We had 10 guys within 4 yards of the line! What did you want exactly?

Hang in there! We may easily lose in Tampa, but I think we run the table thereafter, assuming "normal" cold weather in Foxborough; we're the better team. On a normal day when we can do whatever we want (and so can NE) we are the better team. Keep in mind losing in Tampa doesn't really impact our playoff odds at all; a win there would be nice, but it's not necessary. I think a lot of fans don't get that.

Gives us a reason to watch an otherwise garbage game!

Hate the "all white" look. Terrible.

It was just speculation; talking about it all afternoon at wgr 55.