dave mcbride

LVE's season this year is better than any Hawk ever had. Hawk was decent in his rookie campaign, but even in his best seasons was really never better than a mild disappointment. He's not good this year. He's OK - at best. He has a high ceiling, but so did Aaron Curry.

Fox was always a defensive minded coach; he didn't run the offense. BB made a concerted, years-long effort to understand the offensive side of the ball and be able to game plan the offense in an innovative way. He is as good an offensive coach as he is a defensive coach. I also think that he's so smart that he got bored with simply focusing on defense and gave himself a new challenge. I would never say that about Fox.

Belichick has a defensive background, but unlike any other DC-turned HC, he remade himself by focusing on offense. He's not a defensive minded coach anymore and hasn't been for at least 15 years. That should be factored in. It's not black and white.

When you look up the word "douche" in the Oxford Pictionary (a real thing), this is image that comes up.

Does anyone know how many penalties were called in the game, including offsetting penalties? Did it hit 30+? EDIT: Whoops -- I now see that it was exactly 30. That is RIDICULOUS. On the Bills first TD drive, Coleman's crew gifted the Bills another 10+ yards because they didn't call Benjamin down even though his knee clearly and obviously touched the ground. People criticized the Jags for not challenging, but I think they would have lost the challenge because there was a bobble by Benjamin during the process and there was some room for doubt. If he had been called down initially, though, the Bills would have lost the challenge too. Regardless, Benjamin should have been called down.

Fournette to me *looks* great when he plays, and I think a core reason why his stats are unimpressive is because the Jax quarterback is fundamentally terrible. Put him on the Saints, Pats, or Rams and watch what happens.

http://www.angelfire.com/ia3/colts2/walthistory.htm

Oh, absolutely, and the jury is still out. But amidst the negatives, the positives are VERY positive: blazing foot speed for a qb, ideal size, lightning quick release, amazing arm, and -- no small thing -- a ton of moxie. He's also bright too. They have to stick with him for the long haul, and we fans need to be patient.

Oh, I know. The jury on Allen is still waaaaaaaaay out.

Not on a rope like Allen, though. Allen is capable of throwing frozen ropes 60 yards downfield. I've never seen a qb who could do that, and I include Jeff George (who had a stronger arm than Vick) when I say this. There is a reason why a qb from a nothing school who had only ok college stats was seriously under consideration for #1 overall.

The Taron Johnson play was straight-up holding. It gets called a lot, although certainly not every time. Still, no one should complain about that one (the Edmunds one was a much dicier call.) There were a ton of penalties against Jax too. The big problem, aside from the terribly sloppy play by the teams, was the time taken to make calls and getting it wrong on the review plays -- all of which combined added about 10 minutes to the game. Bottom line though: both teams committed tons of legit penalties, and there were probably a ton that weren't called. It was a badly played game for the most part.

Allen is hardly a finished product, and yesterday was only one game. But he should have had more completions on deeper throws than he did; drops affected his numbers. His deep accuracy yesterday was remarkably good, and his arm strength is something every team will have to game plan against. He has the strongest arm I have ever seen, and it's not even really a close call. He was throwing 50-yards-in-the-air throws on a freaking rope.

He also made throws yesterday that literally no other QB in the NFL can make. His arm is staggeringly impressive.

8.4 ypa and an amazing 9.47 adjusted ypa wins you games.

I'll take 8.4 ypa with no negative sack yardage or turnovers all day every day. Adjusted ypa is the most telling qb stat of all.

I had escalating levels of punishment as a kid, with the belt being second worst. The wooden slipper was the apex punishment. Anyway, nothing to see here.

Bush never lived up to the hype, but he WAS a good player for a while (8 yrs; 2006-13). He was an exceptionally good receiver, and in his three-year run with miami and detroit (2011-13), he had ~1000+ rushing yards each season and averaged 4.6 ypc cumulatively. In NO, he put up big receiving numbers and had 4 return tds in his first two seasons. Still, relative to the hype, he was a disappointment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/11/21/nations-top-running-back-recruit-is-changing-positions-smart-guy-says-adrian-peterson/?utm_term=.39c5f08b1b37

I thought it was a good game; I just don't want it to become a norm. It's not about being a football traditionalist; it's my opposition to scores (in any sport) coming too cheaply.

Regardless of the source, goals and half-goals (FGs) shouldn't be cheap. It's why I find basketball mostly boring as a spectator sport. Both winners and losers routinely score 45-55 goals every game.

44-40 is still too high. The ideal score in baseball, in my opinion, is 4-3. Same with hockey. 4-3 in football is effectively 28-21. I actually prefer 3.5 to 3 in football (24-21). Last night was 7-6 minus the defensive scores and roughly 8-7.5 if you factor them in. That's too many goals for my liking.

Carr does not suck. He's not elite, but his 2015 and 2016 seasons were both above average (combined, ~8,000 yards, 60 TDs/19 INTs, and 11 4th quarter comebacks/game winning drives). This season, he's doing as about best as can be expected given the terrible personnel situation/clown show in Oakland. He's on pace for over 4200 yards and a 94 rating. Key stat - in his best season (2016), he had the lowest sack rate in the league. Actually, it was really just his first half season. He played pretty well, relatively speaking, in the second half of his rookie season. There's a better than even chance that Carr will be better than Allen ever will be. We're betting on the upside potential of Allen, which I understand and support, but Carr has actually had genuinely good seasons. I also expect him to land somewhere at some point that is a sane situation, and I won't be surprised if he turns into another Carson Palmer (great first couple of seasons followed by an early-mid career lull due entirely to organizational chaos followed again by near elite play).

Worth a read — https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/11/14/18094854/new-england-patriots-tom-brady-bill-belichick-super-bowl-contention

So the consensus seems to be that we’re nearing THAT time!

One of things that Amazon always focuses on is access to talent. NYC and the DC area simply have a lot more of it.