mannc

Raiders will get one of them…

I know we’re not supposed to talk CFB here but it’s Saturday night before a huge Bills game and this is a preview of guys who are going to be huge players in the draft in a few months. Unreal game, with both guys delivering as promised, and more. Penix throws a beautiful ball and seems to me to be the better overall prospect, but Willams’s running ability is going to translate really well at the next level. Will be great to see both of them play in the league next year…

The worst is when players wear bright yellow gloves…when I’m watching on TV it makes me think there’s a flag thrown on every play…

There’s no telling that the Bears could have signed Sweat in FA and they have zero pass rush and really very little DL talent at all. He’s certainly better than what they could get with the 40th pick in the draft, albeit more expensive. They are still going to be loaded with draft picks in April and they just filled a big hole.

It’s very important (for both teams) not to get behind early…I predict that whichever team wins the toss will elect to receive the opening kickoff. I really hope the Bills do this. Says who?

There is urgency if you’re a GM or coach who’s afraid he’ll be fired if the team shows no progress this year.

You’re probably right, especially with a draft like this…they’ll never have a better chance to get a quarterback.

What I said is that Rousseau and Sweat are comparable players, both physically and production-wise. Rousseau is still young and developing and yes, he will probably land a big contract in a year or two… Do you think there is a chance they stick with Fields and use the first of those picks on Harrison? I think they are in a really good position, thanks to Carolina’s foolishness.

Yep, the Bears will have two top-five picks in a loaded draft. Will be interesting to see if they use one on a QB, but they can certainly trade one of those picks for a huge haul. They will be in a position to rebuild very quickly if they play this right.

Sweat has elite traits…his production has been somewhat disappointing but that Washington team is a joke and Del Rio is an abysmal defensive coordinator. He is young and has a lot of upside.

Not a bad move by Chicago. Their defense is awful. Got a very good edge player for a second round pick. Sweat seems comparable to Greg Rousseau…next year Beane will have to decide whether to offer him a deal like this.

There is no evidence that there are more injuries on Thursday night, nor is there any reason to believe “Thursday Night games suck”…there have been some really good Thursday night games, and some stinkers, just like MNF. i just don’t understand this argument…you’d really rather have no football on Thursday nights??? Do fans complain about the player’s’ “exhaustion” during the NHL playoffs? That’s surely as much of a grind as playing one football game a year with three full days rest…

The problem with that play on the goal line is that if it gets stuffed, it's liable to lose yardage. In the Tampa game, the third down play was literally from the 1-foot line, a perfect spot for a sneak. After the 3rd down play was stuffed, it became 4th and 2, which became a passing down, apparently, leading to the near-disaster throw into the flat

It seems like that to me, too, but are there really more injuries this year than in the past? There has to be data on this...

Totally agree. The identity argument is a little silly. But seven years in (six with Josh Allen) and one AFC championship game is totally unacceptable. I doubt any team has had more continuity over the past six years…it needs to translate into Super Bowls or else it’s time to re-set the table while Josh Allen is still in his prime.

The bolded is something I've never heard before...I'm not sure why that would be true, but OK. I can see why it's nice to have two possessions in a row, but according to the Sharp study, you're likely to have the same number of drives during a game, regardless whether you receive the opening kickoff or not. And again, I don't understand why your end of half strategy would change based on whether you are receiving the second half kickoff; either way, on your last drive of the half, you're going to try to score as many points as you can, while at the same time trying to leave your opponent as little time as possible to score. Sorry for belaboring the point, but I find this to be a very interesting topic. I still maintain that the data supporting deferring is weak at best and that coaches are exhibiting a herd mentality when it comes to deferring.

Have you seen statistics on how often teams defer? I've seen the number 85%, but I don't know how accurate it is. But again, it doesn't matter. I'm trying to debate the practice on its merits, not how popular it is with NFL coaches. McVay admitted in the article posted by BigTurk that he lets the players decide. And it's totally fair to question a "study" from four years ago that provides very little information about sample size.

Yeah, McVay feels so strongly about it that he lets the players decide what to do😃 And his explanation about "stealing a possession" makes no sense. Again, how is that "stealing a possession"? Can you explain it? You always want to have the last possession of the second half, regardless whether you're receiving the second half kickoff. The more I hear people trying to explain why deferring is better, the less convinced I am that it's so.

Yeah, that's the Sharp article I referred to. It's well-written but it's hard to tell how big the data sample is or whether it's still valid four years later. And I'm not sure what "stealing a possession" means. How does having the ball at the end of the half and then receiving the second half kickoff equal "stealing a possession"? It doesn't make any sense.

Why isn't control of the ball at the start of the game as valuable as control of the ball at the start of the second half? Why is not knowing when you'll get the ball in the second half worse than not knowing when you'll get the ball in the first half? Isn't knowing you'll get the ball to start the game a "known quantity" too? Why would it matter to your end of half strategy whether you were getting the ball to start the second half? Aren't you always going to try to score with as little time left on the clock as possible to prevent the other team from having a chance to score before halftime? I don't actually know how often teams defer vs. taking the ball to start the game, but it doesn't matter. NFL coaches are mostly followers who often do things a certain way for no very good reason. As far as I can tell, this preference to defer is all based on a 2019 article by Warren Sharp, in which he concluded--based on games played from 2016-2019--that there was a very slight advantage to be gained by deferring. That advantage is so minor that it can easily be offset by things like weather or the quality of a team's offense or defense. I've never seen Sharp's research updated so it wouldn't be surprising if an analysis of more recent NFL games came to a different conclusion. One thing that's clear is that there is no evidence to support gaining a clear advantage by deferring.

That’s simply not true

They also dropped a stinker on MNF…probably took a day or two for the lawyers to get the paperwork ready…

I’ve heard deferring gives you a very slight advantage from an analalytics standpoint, but it makes no sense and a lot of teams don’t do it. In a game like this, against a great QB, on the road, it gives the other team an opportunity to get a quick two-touchdown lead (like what happened to the Bills in Cinci last year) and your entire offensive game plan just went out the window. There might be some games where it makes sense, but not this one.

I know for sure that if the Bengals win the toss, they’re taking the ball, just like they did last year. They are confident and aggressive. We need to match that.

Nonsense. There is no evidence whatsoever to support that notion. We want to take the fight to these guys. We have the best QB in the world. Get the ball, go no-huddle all the way down the field and score on them. Then do it again, and again. That's the only way we're going to beat them.