If you're a Football Outsider you're a TRUE player and true players don't stick to one passion only, so here's something else to excite you while you're waiting for the game to start. How about a free $30 chip to play slot machine games for as long as you want?
Some fumbles are more likely to be recovered by the fumbling team than others. The Jones fumble (or is it being called a muff?) is a good example of this. A fumble by a punt receiver, all alone, with 11 coverage team guys charging at him is less likely to be recovered by the fumbling team than a fumble in the backfield.
Well, it would depend on how you condition the stats. I suspect most muffs happen with returners in the open field, not when the returner is immediately hit by a coverage man.
That's my general problem with "fumble recovery is due to luck." You can make that argument, but there are a lot of different kinds of situations, each of which has a different probability. I think the latter claim has been substantiated.
This link covers the topic in general. But it doesn't cover muffs.
That is kind of taken into account; not every fumble is treated as a 50/50 scenario in DVOA. For example, I do recall Aaron once saying that QB sack-fumbles are more likely to be recovered the defense, so that is built into the (negative) value of the fumble.
So yes, since most muffs happen with the returners all alone, muffs are likely treated as a better-than-50/50 proposition from the returners point of view.
Most muffed punts hit the returner and drop right at his feet, as happened with Jones' second muff.
The bad decision wasn't simply attempting to field a bouncing ball, it was attempting to field that particular bouncing ball with a Ravens player right on top of him ready to hit him the split second he touched it and no other Texans player in sight. There was a huge risk of a turnover for only a slight potential gain in field position.
Possibly I'm motivated by not wanting to agree with Dierdorf, but I don't see what was necessarily so stupid about Jones attempting to field the punt. If he catches the ball and is tackled immediately, then the Texans get the ball at the 20. If he gets the heck out of the way, they could wind up buried inside the 10 depending on how the ball bounces. The tackler didn't force a fumble; Jones just iron-thumbed the ball off his hands, then off his face.
So either Jones just has bad hands, or he lost concentration on the ball because he was too aware of the tackler. But either way that's a flaw in the execution of the attempt to receive, not a mistake in the underlying decision to try to catch the ball.
It's a risk-reward calculation, sure, but to me the risk of a fumble is too great to be justified by the gain in field position. He did the same thing last week and got away with it, but I thought at the time it was a horrible decision then too. And yes, Jones has bad hands.
And as we see Jones drop another ball, one where no one was in his face at all, maybe then the bad decision-making isn't Jones catching the ball or not (sorry, but I just can't see "the risk of a fumble" as being that big a risk if a professional football player has the chance to catch the ball and put it away before being hit; if that was the case then every that doesn't outkick the coverage by ten yards should be fair-caught), but Kubiak putting Jones back as his punt returner--or at least doing it when Jones the punt is going to come down deep in the Houston end--in the first place.
Jones is frustrating, because he is a real threat to break big returns - he has several punt return TDs over the years, and some other big gains. You would be losing something. But I think there's a big difference between not taking punts on the bounce and fair catching everything in sight.
Yes, the difference is that a standard punt is more difficult to catch than a ball that bounces fifteen feet in the air and comes down softly right in your hands.
I don't think that's true. A bouncing punt has a much less predictable trajectory, and you have much less time to adjust to it in the air. It's also more likely to be spinning awkwardly. Ask a cricket batsman if he'd rather hit a looping delivery from a spin bowler before or after it pitches, given the choice.
In addition, the time the ball takes to land, bounce up into the air, then fall again means you're much more likely to have a 250+ pound man in your personal space looking to slam into you the instant you touch said ball.
I think the bad hands is more a factor here. Yesterday, there was a punt caught on the bounce (I forget by whom) that the announcers said was dangerous but turned out just fine and prevented his team from starting inside the 20.
Should that play by LaDerius Weeb on the interception not have drawn some sort of illegal contact penalty? He seemed to bodycheck Johnson as he checked his route, and it was well past 5 yards.
If you're looking at the ball and trying to catch it, you can body check all you want, the WR has no more right to the space than the DB. If he'd come from behind I think that might have gotten a call though.
Yeah. I just get paranoid any time he looks even slightly gimpy, because that guy pretty much is the Texans offense with Yates under center. A fungible product of the system he ain't.
Discount douvle check commercial tupid . Raji finny but nerd annoying and dork wirh fakw chewsw on jead relly funny but not haha funny. Like if see giy on street with that on head would think maybe need to stau away from him. Like cross the atreet or somehing.
Did anyone else think the Texans play calling on the very first drive of the game was wrong? 3d and 1 at the Ravens 21. Why not treat this as 4 down territory, take a surprise shot into the endzone, and then go for it if the shot fails?
Curious what kind of threat to win it all the Texans would have been with Shaub and Mario. Fantastic running game. D seems just a notch below the niners without one of their best players. Receivers that can make a rookie 5th rounder seem competent even against a playoff caliber D. Has to be frustrating for the Texans and fans.
Well, they were #1 in DVOA without Williams and with extensive missed time from Foster and Johnson. I'd say they were the best team in the AFC, but might struggle against the Packers due to their poor CB depth.
I know the Bengals had a great draft, but Watt+Reed+Yates+Joseph+Manning really ought to be adding up to more Executive of the Year love for Rick Smith.
by Joshua Northey (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 4:58pm
Presumably he was a third string QB for some reason. I think some of the language used referring to him is fumy. The announcers still love to be all sanctimonious. "The throw is inexcusable from a starting NFL QB". Sure, but he isn't a starting NFL QB...
Thing is, he wasn't doing this stuff in his first 2 and a half games - maybe more. Locking onto a guy pre-snap and throwing to him even when he's double covered is a new problem for him. Before that, he was a sack machine but didn't throw many picks - which is much more reflective of the player he was in college.
Well, I've only been paying intermittent attention to this game, and other than general affection for some Houston players and Gary Kubiak I don't really care about the outcome. So even though the Texans seem committed to losing this game via turn overs, I just wanted to say that I'm happy for them as an organization, to make it to their first playoffs and win their first playoff game in spite of all the injuries. Glad that Kubiak got some success this year.
I can forgive Yates those last two INTs. 3rd & 12, if incomplete they will be punting anyway, so an interception 30 yards down the field aint too bad. Poor throw, but not a terrible decision. Then you need to score a TD somehow - heaving it towards Andre Johnson isn't the worst choice. Ed Reed made a nice play.
I just don't know why they were throwing downfield at that point. You have nearly two minutes, and two time outs, and Arian Foster, and you don't want to leave the Ravens with time to come back and score a field goal. Running was still very much an option.
Arrghhh. Want to throw something at nerd guuy in state farm discount doubld cjeck commercial. Wife annoying too. Thuey don't think rodgers is foorball player
I grew up a Giants fan, but have never liked Eli, Coughlin, or Gilbride. I love watching Rodgers and the Packer offense.
I'm torn.
My attachment to laundry is not strong, and when the Pack were unbeaten it was easy to root for that to continue. And I would appreciate a repeat. But it has been 28 years with the Giants...
I don't know but I am sure Mike Pereira will have an article up on FOX Sports tomorrow explaining how we're all idiots for not understanding what the refs saw and how we should just shut up if we don't know the rules.
Also I wasn't paying attention after the review. Did they even trot Mikey out there to explain this one? The game is on FOX, after all.
I'm a Packer fan, and I thought every controversial call, the Jennings "fumble," the spot on Ware's third down run, and one more that I can't remember now because I'm trying to block the game out of my mind, went against the Giants.
The Giants prove that playing mistake-free football is really, really important. The Packers prove that while offense may win championships, SOME defense is really, really important.
I hate generosity. Rodgers underthrows Nelson by ten yards when he was past Grant, and allows Grant to make a play. Rodgers misses Jennings. Rodgers misses Finley. Three fumbles. Can't tackle in bounds with 11 seconds left in the half. Hail Mary. Can't tackle Hicks on the first touchdown. Good plays by the Giants made into great plays for the Giants by the Packers.
No, of course not. Were they to spend day in, day out involved in refereeing football games and related practice, training, and duties, that wouldn't improve their performance at all.
That a league of the NFL's stature doesn't have full-time, fully professional match officials is absurd.
by CraigoMc (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 6:58pm
No, it will not necessarily make someone better at their job if they lack baseline competency. A referee who lacks good vision to see play clearly, the recall ability needed to remember a large playbook, the critical thinking to apply its multitudinous provisions to new situations, or the basic objectivity required to make fair calls will not benefit from practice.
I'm down with Rich's suggestion - the NFL needs to come down hard on refs who make mistakes, and cull the officiating corps ruthlessly every season. I know it's a very difficult job - that's why I expect that, no matter how rigorous the selection process is, a large percentage of NFL referees simply aren't up the task.
I have no problem with this strategy, but the issue that remains is who do you replace them with? You need some sort of academy, at least, and a full-scale training program. The latter is basically what the pro-full-time crowd is suggesting.
But you still need somebody to put uo with that kind of scrutiny. The only way "comming down hard" on referees wont result in lack of talent is if you up the salary.
A referee who lacks good vision to see play clearly, the recall ability needed to remember a large playbook, the critical thinking to apply its multitudinous provisions to new situations, or the basic objectivity required to make fair calls will not benefit from practice.
Then the question becomes "why are they officiating in the first place?" Again, those are ailments that I think professionalism would relieve, not exacerbate.
Some believe that if you give the refs more time and money to get their job right, they will produce better.
Yes, if the thing is broken then it won't help to throw more money on it. So maybe you guys are both right.
Get better refs in the first place and then educate and train them more and better so the NFL has the best refereeing possible.
If I were the NFL, I would make sure I have the best refereeing product possible. They are your business card to the rest of the world.
Another advantage of professionalism, at least judging from UK equivalents, is that you should find more people wanting to become referees in the first place, as it's a viable career path rather than a hobby for people whose jobs let them take the time off. Broadening the talent pool should result in the top level officials being better as they'll have more competition for those top places.
Meanwhile for the new starters, even refereeing amateur youth games is worth £25-40ish depending which league it is. A busy "amateur" referee can make over £100 most weekends, sometimes even £300-500 in a busy end-of-season week.
Not bad for a 14 year old. (The lowest permitted age for a SFA-badged soccer referee.) I started at 14 and was quite regularly refereeing games worth £40-50 by the time I turned 16. It's now possible to not only make a bit of pocket money refereeing soccer games, but to actually make a career of it even without getting to the very top of the game. Before refereeing at the top level was full-time, you needed not only to advance as a referee but to have a "day job" that allowed you big chunks of time off both on Saturdays and for those dicey midweek ties in Dingwall and Dumfries.
Same is true in the US for soccer referees. I made @$1200 this year on, by my count, 29 games. If I lost track of some, call it 40. Granted, I live in DC (high cost of living, wealthier people paying for it all), I had a lot of centers (pays more than line), and the club I mostly work for is very generous. On the other hand, those were all youth games – even discounting the club bonuses and them paying the referee recertification fees (since you won't find that everywhere), that's $25-$35 a game which is fairly standard. If you get paid less than $15 to do any game, even the little kids' games, after making grade 8, you're getting ripped off.
Of course, I'd be surprised if soccer refs make fewer mistakes than football referees, at least proportionally. Due to the nature of the game I get the impression that there are fewer things to call in soccer, and when you do get it wrong (mainly offside, and inconsistent foul calling) it can have more of an impact... but then again maybe not.
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"When you absolutely don't know what to do any more, then it's time to panic." - Johann van der Wiel
Officiating recreation soccer matches way my first job as well. I mostly did games of 8-12 year olds. The money wasn't too bad for a part time job of a kid in high school, about $15 - $25 per game I think, depending on which age group (younger kids played shorter games) and whether I was the ref or the assistant ref (AKA lineman). I did, however, very quickly realize that it was not the job for me.
by alljack (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 7:05pm
So different part-time officials would be better just by being different? And you don't have to name yourself at the end of your post. It's already at the top.
On the contrary, in the MLB the only calls that are routinely done badly are ball/strike calls, and even for those the umpire is usually consistent throughout the game. One of the reason bad calls in the past few years have received such attention is how surprising such things are. Mind you, an NFL official usually has a much more difficult job than an MLB umpire, since in baseball one generally only has to follow the ball, while in football penalties can happen all over the field. The levels of staggering incompetence shown by NFL officials week-in, week-out, however, trump anything baseball can come up with.
IMHO, NFL refs do a much better job than officials in either the NBA or in MLB. The NBA is, of course, the worst. And as Rich says, many MLB umpires are horrible at calling balls and strikes.
About the only area where NFL refs are poor is in their willingness to let all but the most egregious holding go uncalled.
Of course, that's hardly the only commercial that doesn't understand the first thing about what's being depicted in the commercial. The one I can't stand is the Buffalo Wild Wings commercial showing a presumably last second TD that has Gus Johnson screaming "We're heading to overtime!" Of course, there would still have to be an extra point, which would either win the game (if the score is now tied) or send the game to OT if the team that scored the TD still trails by a point. And extra points are not automatic, even when the last play of regulation results in a miracle touchdown. Just ask Saints fans about that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Od9C2dKiCI.
Dang. I leave the room for five minutes and finally somebody in that studio says something intelligent.
This from the studio team who actually felt it worth reading out - and dodging - a viewer's question yesterday: "Who would you rather have, Tom Brady or Tim Tebow?"
"Forces Eli to make a throw he didn't really want to have to?"
No, Troy, he didn't have to. He wanted to and did. And that kind of poor-mechanic, ill-advised overthrow is exactly why he's so frustrating to watch. No matter how great his stats are, he's still good for a dangerous throw or two like that every game. That's two already today (with the first being the floating toss into the flat when Woodson came in untouched on a blitz. Ended up harmless but the loft he put on it while falling back was very dangerous, given that he hadn't had the time to consider where the linebacker might be, that it was nowhere near his receiver, and that it was six points the other way if picked.)
Clifton has always done well against elite pass rushers. I trust him in those situations more than almost any LT in the league. Can't run block worth crap though.
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“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
If Kuhn never runs with the ball again from the FB position, I'll have no problem. That play hasn't worked for quite some time. Now he fumbles it. They should just burn that play.
by steveNC (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 7:12pm
As long as we get to post "and that's why it's stupid not to take a knee at the end of the half" after each turnover at the end of a half. A sample size of one doesn't prove anything.
Only if the turnover results in a touchdown the other way. No a sample size of one doesn't prove anything, but a touchdown on a hail mary is a LOT more likely than a pick 6.
No, you're only allowed to make such a post if a turnover somehow hurts the team that makes the turnover. As in, the turnover leads to points on the scoreboard.
Also, when you do so, you're going to have to explain why the offense should ever take a snap, instead of taking a knee out of fear of turnovers.
Don't talk to me about "sample sizes." That's not a can of worms you want to open.
by Malene, Copenhagen (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 7:29pm
And what, exactly, would be the downside of a turnover to end the half?
Isn't that the whole point? The half is over anyway. The odds of completing the hail mary should be better than the odds of the occasional INT return TD.
by steveNC (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 7:51pm
Yes, I should've said a turnover leading to points by the other team before the end of the half, as people have pointed out. The probabilities depend on the situation. It may be the case that, in most situations, going for the TD is better in terms of expected points and win probability. I wouldn't be at all surprised if NFL coaches are more conservative than the optimal strategy. (In some situations, though, like 1st and 10 on your own 10 with 10 seconds left, the probability of your own score just might be so low as to make it not worth it to go for a score before the half ends.) But "proving" something with one example rather than lots of historical data is silly. I'm not sure why we wouldn't want to talk about sample sizes on an "innovative statistics" site.
Charlie Peprah just blew his second big play this game. Earlier, he tried to blow up Nicks who then ran half the field for a TD. On the Hail Mary, he kept backing up instead of challenging Nicks for where the ball was heading.
Since I wouldn't put it past this crew (or these coaches) to send this one into a review (and then botch it), that fumble was just a tuck rule-able pump fake but then a second attempt, which is a separate event, and in that second attempt, he was stripped before the arm was coming forward. Which makes it a clear fumble... right?
(Which means we should expect them to overturn it once we get back from this commercial, given how things have gone so far?)
Aikman really is going on and on about how Greg Jennings was open on the fumble play. But it seems to me that the fumble was already happening by the time he was open.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 7:41pm
Not having watched a whole heckuva lot of the Packers this year, I'm a bit unsure of what I'm seeing here. Even when Rodgers is making plays, it seems like he's scrambling for his life buying time to do it. What gives?
by paddypat (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 7:49pm
Yeah, but not so hot as this according to Aaron and Mike. I don't know that I'd say this looks like the 2007 Super Bowl, but the Packers' line and especially the backs just don't seem to be able to hold up past about three one thousand.
Jason Pierre-Paul has been excellent all season. Osi Umenyiora has been battling injuries but looks decent today. And then there's Justin Tuck.
The Giants were 3rd in the NFL for sacks this year. I don't recall Aaron or Mike saying anything negative about their pass rush. It's usually considered the strength of the team.
Not to take anything away from the pass rush, but what has raised my eyebrows repeatedly has been the downfield coverage by a typically weak and undermanned Giants secondary. There are times when the rush isn't causing any immediate problems when Rodgers has to just stand there and wait because nobody is open. That's really unusual.
I totally agree with this. And the commentariat NEVER mentioned it, and the replays never showed it. Why WAS Rodgers running? We who watched at home will never know.
Tuck and Canty have both been banged up even when they started. This is the healthiest the DL has been all season.
That said, I actually think the Packers' OL has been doing pretty well. The Giants have gotten some pressure, but haven't controlled the LOS the way they did against Atlanta.
Hm. I can either watch the rest of the game and throw and kick stuff while watching the packers D, or I can play Uncharted 3. Hm. This is a tougher decision than I thought.
That was the third terrible call that went against the Giants. And add the roughing the passer call towards the end. All the close calls went one way, and it didn't matter.
That was right after he took on the hit for the first down, right after that slide Manning made only to come up short for a first down.
Most QBs do nothing on a HB sweep.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 8:15pm
The 4th and 5 looked like crossing patterns. Anyone get a better look at the routes? Didn't seem like a great play call to me. I wonder how much the OC's son's death is affecting concentration and clarity on play calling.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 8:30pm
Of course this is statistical nonsense, given the tiny sample size, but does anybody find it interesting that 15 or 16 win teams are doing uncannily lousily? The Pats losing the Super Bowl, the Steelers in 2004, the Vikings in '98? It probably just points to the fact that win total is a very deceptive statistic, and the 85 Bears did win it all with 15 wins, and so did the '84 49ers. Still, it just seems weird--that a team could be so amazingly effective and consistent throughout a season and then flop in the playoffs. Makes you almost wonder if there's something to the notion that it's better for teams to face adversity?
I tend to think its a result of schedule strength that led to the great record, individual matchups in playoff games, general winning odds, and luck. More than enough to make the small sample size seem like a negative trend.
It is interesting. Although I would point out that both the Falcons and Steelers lost to 14-2 teams. And the Pats and Packers both lost to the Jekyll & Hyde Giants.
Akranian's been here a long time, and I don't recall him being insufferable. PaulM went from bad, to good, to bad again. NYMike has popped up from time to time, but I feel he's been OK in general. And QQ was worse than PaulM, but he disappeared a while ago.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 8:31pm
Of course this is statistical nonsense, given the tiny sample size, but does anybody find it interesting that 15 or 16 win teams are doing uncannily lousily? The Pats losing the Super Bowl, the Steelers in 2004, the Vikings in '98? It probably just points to the fact that win total is a very deceptive statistic, and the 85 Bears did win it all with 15 wins, and so did the '84 49ers. Still, it just seems weird--that a team could be so amazingly effective and consistent throughout a season and then flop in the playoffs. Makes you almost wonder if there's something to the notion that it's better for teams to face adversity?
Again, incredible coverage downfield. Rodgers took a leisurely stroll rolling out to his left, had loads of time, and nobody was open.
Bad call gives them 15 free yards anyway, but man. This really is starting to look like 07. The Giant DBs that year were a weak link too (though Eli's turnaround into safe reliable QB was even more dramatic).
by paddypat (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 8:44pm
Baltimore is not the most intimidating version of itself this year though. I think NE might struggle pretty badly with SF or with the NYG, the way they're looking right now, but Baltimore was not very impressive today, even accepting the fact that Houston is pretty good--Flacco's reads were not very level-headed, and the defense was hit and miss.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 8:51pm
Well, 70 percent is insane. Give the Pats something like 63 percent next week, maybe a little better if Ed Reed doesn't suit. Then, the Giants are tough for them. That could be 48 percent. Maybe a little better against San Fran; I don't think the 49ers match up super well against NE. 32-35 percent odds of winning the Super Bowl feels about right. And I'm a pretty rabid fan.
Well, the Pats will have no trouble maintaining a motivation level for the Ravens, who eliminated them from the playoffs, in Foxborough, only two years ago.
But in the bigger picture, Pats fans have to be happy to see all the other pass-happy teams lose this weekend. The Pats certainly match up better against either the 49ers or the Giants than they did against either the Packers or the Saints.
In any case, I'll wait to see if anybody over-estimates the Pats this week. With the failure of the Packers, the Pats clearly have the worst defense left in the playoffs. But they also clearly have the best offense.
by Mr. Guest to you (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 9:51pm
But it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, you're right: Yeh, no Rodgers and Brees! On the other, 2 of 3 amazing offenses have already been trampled by defensive efforts.
The Pats have beaten only two playoff teams all year: The Denver Broncos and ... oh yeah, the Denver Broncos. Baltimore is up to seven wins against playoff teams. I think they're better than they look.
by Mr. Guest to you (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 11:17pm
I must say, that frequently mentioned fact would sound a lot better if it was said the other way around. The Pats losing to the only playoff teams they faced is stronger than their beating 11 other teams their schedule required they play.
Okay. They lost to the other two playoff teams they faced: the Giants and the Steelers. They played the schedule they had, but so far it's been pretty easy. Not any more.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 11:59pm
This line of reasoning isn't all that sound. The pats played some tough teams this year according to DVOA, including the Jets, twice, who they essentially housed. The Raiders looked like a playoff team early in the year, the Cowboys were a tough opponent, the Eagles were serious; I don't see it the way people say it. Many of these teams could have been in contention, but losing to the Pats hurt them.
by unAnonymous42 (not verified) :: Mon, 01/16/2012 - 4:14am
Last season, the Patriots had a tough schedule, won six (I think) games out of seven against playoff bound teams, and went 0-1 in the playoffs.
What exactly does that tell you?
All this yada yada about what the numbers apparently tell or don't tell is silly. And I don't really care whether the chances for a SB win are 38 or 46 percent either.
Jacobs looks like he should be, but in actual fact is not, a north-south runner. He is a cut back runner. The body type/size is misleading, in this case
Except that wasn't a toss - that was a cutback where the entire defense sold out inside.
Anyway, to get back to the original point, a toss allows him to run north-south on the outside, and lets him build up a head of steam before hitting the line of scrimmage. It's the stretches that don't made sense to me.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 8:57pm
That performance really baffles me. I'm a Pats fan, and I've been hearing all season about how horrible we are. But the Pats defense is wretched for isolated drives and then forces turnovers and 3 and outs, even against pretty good offenses like the Giants and the Cowboys. With the exception of the 4 pick game against the Bills, the Pats defense was never blown out like the Packers just were. How are the Packers so much higher rated in defensive DVOA?
by Gribblecillin (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 8:48pm
The Giants have to be the Superbowl favorite now, right? They have the second-best defense after the Ravens, and are probably the second-best offense after the Patriots.
Er, I think the Niners have the 2nd best defense on the season. The Giants D in the postseason is completely different from the regular season.
I think the better comparison isn't to the 2007 team, but to the '06 Colts when they got Bob Sanders back.
This is the worst I've seen the Packers play all season - they looked worse tonight than they did against KC. On the other hand, the officials spotted GB 14 points tonight (the roughing penalty, and the fumble).
Yes, the Packers peaked too early and were clearly backsliding in December. I picked the Giants to win this game before the playoffs started (pats self on back). Now if only I hadn't been so wrong about the Saints...but Alex Smith was much better yesterday than I thought he could be.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 8:54pm
I actually think the Giants lose to the 49ers. I think New York will struggle horribly with field position; the 49ers were so good this season, and I'm impressed with the aggression of the SF defense. They were rallying and playing right through the whistles amazingly yesterday.
...and gave up 32 points even though they forced three turnovers (and benefited from two more on special teams that kept the Saints from even having possessions). Frankly, they looked a lot more like stereotypical Green Bay (get beat up a lot, but force turnovers and win the game). Game looks like a toss-up to me.
The game between them was pretty close, and the Giants look much better now.
The real question in my mind is whether Eli will have some dumb picks, as he
sometimes does.
But the Patriots offense is the best unit left in the playoffs by a very, very long way, and the Giants have to go on the road to play what looks at present like a stronger opponent than the Pats face in their conference championship game.
They beat the hell out of Alex Smith, but that defense doesn't seem to have showed up in the same way for a while, and certainly wasn't in evidence today. TJ Yates is an eminently sackable man, and was not sacked much. And their offense is often awful (as it was today). The last game was tied going into the 4th quarter, in Baltimore, and I think the 49ers are playing better football now than they were then, and the Ravens worse.
I've been a huge fan of Ray Lewis for years, but he doesn't look right to me
after his injury this year. And for all the criticism Mark Sanchez gets, I
still think he can be fixed. I don't think that Flacco is the long-term solution.
I might be wrong on both counts, but that's how I see it.
I expect the Patriots to crush them, but they play the games for a reason.
I hope Ed Reed is OK. I want to see the best players on the field at all times.
So far, the playoffs have been a repudiation of the argument that you can win with all offense and no defense. Could change, because New England is still alive, but, once again, balance has trumped crazy passing greatness.
by Paul M (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 9:44pm
I'm here-- had to finish my crow. See below. I think the McKenzie to Raiders thing in concert with the Philbin ordeal may be bigger then we all realize, Not taking anything away from Giants, but Packers were as unprepared tonight and as guilty of fundamental failures as I've seen in a few years. To have no fewer than 4 coaches, including both coordinators, being openly speculated about the last few days in connection to the Raiders after Jackson's firing, could not have helped. And i think this was the last time Rodgers will ever not play a game when he is healthy.
But the better team won, and GB wasn't half of what I thought they were. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry.
Shit happens, even to good/very good/maybe great teams. They will contend next year. Could be worse, you could root for the Rams. Tragic Philbin story also obviously potential source of perspective.
I'm watching the highlights on NFL Network right now - the officials also blew the spot on the DJ Ware run in the 3rd, (after the Rodgers fumble). If the GB receivers could hold on to the ball, this is a very close game, but if the officials make the right calls, it becomes a blowout again.
The fumble in the first half, the 'blow to the head' on Rodgers on the other touchdown drive, every close call went the Packers way, and still they got pantsed. What a weird game. It didn't even seem like the Giants defense had that great a game, at least in the conventional sense (their sacks and hurries came late, after the game was larrgely decided, I guess they excelled in coverage, which was supposedly their weakness)
by Paul M (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 9:39pm
I just want to apologize to all those I irritated or whose judgment I questioned with my misguided belief in the Packers. They were simply awful today-- props to the better team, and it could have been even worse-- but also a big bunch of questions to McCarthy and Co. for clearly not having a team ready to play. Things happened today that simply never happened all year-- crazy onsides kick decision ion the 1st half, 3 actual fumbles, could easily have been 5, should have been 4, Rodgers and his receivers misfiring on wideopen passes (the drops were awful too though that wasn't the first time). The defense played better than the score or the stats indicate, but for the inexplicable collapse on the last two plays of the first half. It wasn't a good defense, but it was good enough to win today if the offense had been anything like normal. But this wasn't an all-time great team; in fact, wasn't even your garden variety great team, since one of those would not have laid this big of an egg. We'll see how Rodgers reacts and what Thompson and McCarthy do in response.
On a final note-- people are going to talk about Joe Philbin. I don't go in the locker room so I can't judge the true impact, although clearly nearly all the little problems that just happened to have occurred tonight were on the offensive side of the ball. But the Karma around here was already plenty bad. Of course none of the following is connected, but we are all fans, and by nature we tend to overdramatize a lot of things. A state which had seen what was unquestionably the most successful sports year in history in 2011-- beginning with the Badgers winning the Big 10 and going to the Rose Bowl, then the Packers magical run and SB victory, then both major college hoops teams making the Sweet 16, and culminating with the Brewers winning their division, and almost making the World Series, followed by Ryan Braun's MVP, which in turn were followed by repeat Packer and Badger success in 2011-- it all came crashing down beginning with the Braun PED report. Then the Packers lost their chance at an unbeaten record, the Badgers lost another heartbreaking Rose Bowl game, their basketball team got off to the worst start in the Bo Ryan regime, and then.... A key Packer execuitve resigned for a personal health problem (an addiction), a key Badger football executive suddenly resigned for a still nonspecific scandal that occurred in or around Pasadena and the Rose Bowl, half of Bret Bielema's coaching staff bolted with Paul Chryst, the offensive coordinator, for Pitt, Reggie McKenzie took the Raider job and immediately speculation about which Packer coach(es) might be joining him arose, and then the Philbin tragedy. Most of those events took place in the last 3 weeks-- and they got beat by the Giants.
Karma's a bitch, ain't it?? Congrats to the Giants-- they were by far the more deserving team.
You put the blame on the offense, but really, the offense didn't give up 37 points.
The turnovers were awful, and I didn't fathom the first onside kick. It's not like the Giants were being undisciplined on special teams. That play call signaled to me that the Packers were suffering from a lack of confidence. And that's how they played all day (with the exception of Rodgers, who seemed determined to try to win the game by himself).
Just way too many mistakes by the Packers. And they were facing a team well-suited to exploit them.
by Paul M (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 10:22pm
well the offense had 4 turnovers, should have been 5, and the onsides kick makes 6 when you think about it. The defense was what it was all year-- made some big plays, gave up a lot of yardage, bent but didn't break except for the horrific end of 1st half sequence and the first pass to Nicks-- but I'd say only about 20-23 of those points were on them.
One of their beat reporters just texted me that the thing about Philbin is that he is the details guy in terms of preparation for games-- and obviously none of that happened this week, and their details on offense were horrible tonight.
by Paul M (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 10:25pm
yes, but both can also be true.
1. A inexplicable two play sequence culminating with the Hail Mary
2. 3 fumbles-- only 1 really the product of a great Giant play-- could easily have been 5.
3. Dropped passes up the wazoo, by a litany of receivers (Jennings, Finley, Kuhn, Starks and Crabtree come to mind)
4. And most importantly, some very curious failed connections between Rodgers and his receivers when the latter were wide open that simply didnt happen all season.
Of course the Giants had something to do with it-- but a lot of it is on the Packers themselves.
I do have the feeling that the ability of the Giants to play mistake-free and convert long third down situations, something the Packers could not or did not do, was the difference. I hate it when my team leaves its A-game in the locker room. I think of the eight teams that played this weekend, Green Bay was the seventh best (this weekend).
by Independent George :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 11:57pm
It seemed to me that the Packers converted quite a few 3rd and longs - usually with a 15-yard Rodgers run. Someone on the coaching staff needs to teach him to slide, though - it's great that he can pick up the yards, but he has to go down as soon as he crosses the marker.
Randomness happens. The Packers were the better team all season, but sometimes, weird crap just happens, and this was not their day. This sort of thing happens all the time, though it's usually to Marty Schottenheimer. At least they've already got their Super Bowl win, so they can't be accused of not being able to win the big one.
by Paul M (not verified) :: Mon, 01/16/2012 - 12:29am
He's been sliding all the time since the Detroit concussion last December. The reason he didn't tonight was that almost every time he had the ball he was reaching for the first down in a crucial situation. And given the state of the game and their offense, can you blame him?
They can now be accused of not winning the big one at Lambeau (4 of the last 6 and the last two to the Giants)-- it has been a given amongst Packer backers and now I think a whole lot of other people that their offense is really better suited for a dome or Lambeau not in the wind and/or cold-- and tonight was further evidence of that.
Contrast with Eli who had a long scramble on 3rd down but instead of diving and picking up the first he slid and punted. I do give him some credit for throwing a decent (and fairly safe) backside block on a big cutback run towards the ends of the game.
by Paul M (not verified) :: Sun, 01/15/2012 - 11:57pm
Yep-- the Packers have 3 problems going forward, aside from some coaching uncertainty at the assistant level yet to play out:
1. They need a pass rush. All the ROLBs failed in that; Matthews regressed in terms of his pass rushing; Jenkins was not adequately replaced and Neal appears to be on the way to becoming a bust;
2. They have to determine pretty quickly if Nick Collins can play anymore. If he can't, with Woodson nearing retirement, they all of a sudden have a certifiably bad secondary. Peprah is limited; Williams fell off dramatically compared to last year; Burnett may still get better but was hardly Pro Bowl caliber; Shields regressed.
Do they use their top draft pick(s) on both of those needs, or select one over the other?
3. Finley. Pay him, franchise him, or what? Pretty obvious that he was no better than the 4th best tight end on display this weekend, and that's not he or his agent envisioned things playing out. He has fast become the most unpopular player on this team with the fanbase, FWIW.
But the bright future "I think I'll wear shades" doesn't look so attractive anymore-- they will be cofavorites with the Lions to win the NFC North, but unless and until the defense gets better, no one can think of them as an obvious Super Bowl choice.
1. This seems to me to be a bigger problem with the line than the LBs; though a pass rushing OLB would obviously be a boon, he'd need to be able to cover too otherwise the OLBs will be too predictable. Unless he's an early-career-Merriman-level rusher, a predictable LB doesn't really seem to be what the Packers need.
2. Secondary regression seems to be a problem for a few teams lately. I wonder how much rules changes and "points of emphasis" are causing that. The lack of training camps and OTAs can't have helped either, so here's hoping it's an aberration this year. As a Patriots fan, I'd really like to see 2010's Devin McCourty back in 2012.
3. Finley's agent won't accept it, but from what I've seen he's only the second best tight end on the PACKERS at this point. He was certainly no better than the fifth or sixth best tight end on display this weekend (Gronk, Hernandez, Davis, Graham, Dreessen). He's nowhere near the superstar he was supposedly becoming before his injury. Again, a full offseason program and another year removed from the injury might help - but you can't base a contract offer on such a huge maybe.
by Paul M (not verified) :: Mon, 01/16/2012 - 1:15am
that's a bit harsh on Jermichael, but if you mean that Quarless might be better given his blocking skills, remember that he suffered a brutal injury that with reconstructive surgery makes him very iffy for the beginning of next season. So both Finley and the Packers are dealing from some weakness here.
Well, if he isn't franchised, he might as well look improved in navy blue, orange and white next year. The Bears' offense certainly could use him as a red zone weapon and matchup nightmare for opponents. And the Bears' defense also would look better, as they wouldn't be giving up 4 or 5 TD passes to him, as they did this year.
"All year" in a football season just isn't a large enough sample size to have extreme confidence as to what will happen in the next game. Somehow, nobody is shocked when a single baseball player with 5000-6000 plate appearances in his career, coming off a good season and playoffs, wiil string together 30 bad plate appearance in the World Series. Yet, take a game with a sixteen game season, with maybe, I dunno, 2000 snaps, FORTY-FOUR starters, excluding the special teams, and huge performance interdependence, and all of sudden people think they can confidently fortell the future. It just ain't so.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Mon, 01/16/2012 - 12:32am
But it used to be! Getting the number 1 seed used to mean that you had a very powerfully good chance of getting to the Super Bowl. 15 years ago, an upset like this one was unthinkable! Look at the numbers.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Mon, 01/16/2012 - 12:58am
Short, but statistically significant. There's a very significant change in the data. It's hard to determine where to draw the line. If you include as your total sample the period from 1978 to the present, which includes all seasons with bye teams in the playoffs, you find that drawing a line in the data either at 2004 or at 1995 yields a difference in the number of annual upsets in the divisional round of almost a full game with a power that suggests, in statistical terms, that even with the small sample size, the likelihood of the difference stemming from chance is less than 3 percent. The naked eye tells you more though. Looking back from before 2000, several of those few upsets were Marty Schottenheimer's teams. I think the effect has been getting a lot stronger in recent years. Is this just parity between the teams? I'm not sure. I think it may have a lot more to do with the recent passing rules changes, which seem to make the game more chaotic.
I wonder if the increased importance of the passing game has something to do with it, too. If a QB suddenly turns hot (Kurt Warner 2008) or cold (Rodgers 2011), it has a disproportionate impact on the game relative to all the other phases.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Mon, 01/16/2012 - 1:12am
I think this is more in the right direction. These teams don't look strong if you look back at. 10-4-1 Denver has the number one seed in 1987, wins, of course. San Francisco, 10-6 in 1988, plays the upstart 11-5 Vikings, wins. Home field advantage and a bye meant something back then. 9-6-1 Browns, 1989, win. Where's the big upset? 1989 12-4 Giants lose to an 11-5 team? I mean, let's talk recent years: 2006, 14-2 loses to 12-4, 2007 13-3 loses to 11-5, 2007, 13-3 Cowboys go down to 10-6 Giants, 2008, 13-3 to 11-5, 12-4 to 9-6-1, 12-4 to 9-7. These are big upsets by road teams playing against fresh opponents. The game has changed.
by Paul M (not verified) :: Mon, 01/16/2012 - 1:29am
Candidates for the 97% chance it's not simply a statistical aberration:
1. The week off means that teams which increasingly depend on pass-catch timing and QB-receiver route adjustments get rusty;
2. The NFL schedule (how long have they pitted teams within conference against each other based on the previous season's placement??) means that the "best" teams may have become so against a softer schedule than the "weaker" playoff teams;
3. Coaches have gotten too soft concerning injuries and have rested their teams out of synch when they already had home field and/or a playoff spot wrapped up;
4. Conversely, the lower seeded teams generally have to play their best just to qualify (true of NY this year, but not Denver, of course) and may accumulate late-season momentum. (Not sure this is appreciably different than it was 20 or 30 years ago)
5. Constant media barrage on so many platforms (this is the time for me to blame Skip Bayless) makes the frontrunner too cocky or complacent. Or gives the underdogs fuel for their fire. (Of course so many of the talking heads picked the Giants, so perhaps it was more of a confidence builder)
any others??
All I know is that all of them could very well have applied to this Packer-Giant game, FWIW.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Mon, 01/16/2012 - 1:52am
I have the curious sense that a bye and a home game just meant more back then. Figure that if the passing game was more predictable--you could mug receivers beyond 5 yards to your heart's content, then performance was more predictable--teams were actually more reliable week in and week out, so a 10-6 team was essentially a 10-6 team, maybe they were really a 9-7 team reaching or a crumpled 11-5 team, but you get the picture. This is what I see in older seasons. A 10-6 team with a bye sometimes loses to a 10-6 team. A 13-3 team never loses to an 11-5 team. I think that the prevalence of passing offenses creates more 9-7 teams that played like 12-4 teams and 13-3 teams that are actually 10-6 teams because it adds so much more randomness. It's not just the phenomenon of the "hot" quarterback and receivers, it's actually just that there are more big plays per game, more opportunities for mistakes to result in points. If there are fewer big pass plays, more 3 and outs and steady run attacks, you would expect the random bounces of the ball to even out over the course of a game and the power of the athletes to assert themselves. A 15-1 team would have gotten to 15-1 by pulverizing its opponents. Give them an extra week to rest and homefield, and that physical advantage gets magnified; no 9-7 squirt is gonna come onto their field and beat them. Now you get these 15-1 or 16-0 monster teams built around timing precision and repeat performances of a sort that aren't all that controllable--witness Brady's 4-pick day against the Bills this year when the Pats had that shocker loss in week 3. He didn't play that differently from a week with 6 TDs; it was just the random bounce of the ball.
All of this adds up to the fact that I think the right place to draw the line in terms of when the Divisional round advantage evaporated (almost, there's still a tiny .08 or so edge to the home teams) is when the NFL began enforcing the 5 yards contact rule.
I think the schedule disparity is a huge part of it. It seems like several teams a year roll through an easy schedule to a playoff berth, and, conversely, several good teams fall short due to a brutal slate. It seems to me the formula changed when the current alignment was adopted (when the Texans entered the league),and this has been more pronounced since
This much is certainly true; there is much less work in season on tackling as the season wears on, and tackling stinks as a rule. A game that features bad tackling probably has wider variance.
Well, like I implied, if you go back to '78, the biggest change is the salary cap. I think of the salary cap era kicking in full bore in the mid 90s, and really, the last truly great team we've see was the 96 Packers. These days, it is almost mathematically impossible, unless you recreate Chuck Noll's best draft year, to assemble a roster that is dominant on both lines of scrimmage, at qb, and with the other ball handlers. Even if you dod recreate that draft, you would not have those pkayers to coach as long as Noll did.
I think the rules favoring passing probably has some effect as well, but the salary cap just makes roster construction completely different, for obvious reasons.
I want to thank you guys for talking football here. For some reason (insanity, I guess, you know, repeating the same behavior and expecting a different outcome), I stupidly went to the ESPN board. Why people take joy in the misery of others is something I can't understand. I bailed in 40 seconds, and won't ever go back.
I'm a poker player. There's something extremely beautiful about a guy who is suffering. Even if it was my best friend, the pain associated with a hurt pride is just ... well beautiful.
This may make me seem like a horrible person, but if you claim to never have felt just the slightest bit of schadenfreude, you sir are a liar.
by paddypat (not verified) :: Mon, 01/16/2012 - 12:24am
I continue to be baffled by the instability of powerhouse teams in the divisional round in the past few years. The Ravens-Texans game and the 49ers-Saints game were the ones that could legitimately have been upsets based on regular season performance. This Packers loss is ridiculous! Green Bay was the champion team of the regular season by a big stretch. If we look back through recent history though, this kind of thing has been happening a lot in ways that it didn't used to. Top seeds ALWAYS made it to the championship game. The statistics bear this out: .8 upsets in the divisional round per year from the beginning of the bye format until 2003, and 1.84 upsets from 2004 until now. It's gotten so random of late that it's very hard to feel confidence in a team--just get to the postseason, and your chance is as good as any... the regular season doesn't seem to matter much. I guess that makes it "exciting." But it feels sad to me.
The Patriots last year had to be overwhelming favorites to win the Super Bowl too. A 14-2 team that was obliterating the opposition losing to a team it had just beaten 45-3? Ridiculous. One odd aspect of this has also been that the teams that look like juggernauts have been more successful in the postseason a season before or after the year they rolled through the league (2005 Colts winning title in '06, 2008 Giants after winning in '07, the Packers last year and this,maybe the Pats this postseason). I think it's because the difference between the top teams is slight enough that a few breaks make a huge difference in regular season record, but there really isn't much difference in the teams at the top beyond who is healthy that given week
I think it's more about the fact that it's now possible to assemble a dominant regular season record by fielding a great pass offense and not much else. If an unusually excellent defensive performance, or an off-day for the quarterback, or both, derail that offensive dominance for one game, it all comes crashing down. It's worth noting that the two most notable upsets have been at the hands of Giants teams with absolutely outstanding pass rush from the front four. It's also probably not completely inconsequential that such all-pass-offense juggernauts are unusually ill-suited to playing in northern outdoor stadia in January, and that two of the most prominent play their home games in just such venues.
Oh, and will the league stop giving choice assignments to Bill Leavey's officiating crew, please? By his own admission Leavey blew his Super Bowl assignment, and today's failure to call the fumble right, AFTER seeing it in super slo-mo, defies explanation that doesn't involve putting back shots of Wisconsin's cocktail of choice, Peppermint Schnaapps, until 5 AM this morning.
by Paul M (not verified) :: Mon, 01/16/2012 - 1:21am
I'm in the minority on this one, but it seemed to me, if we're talking the Jennings "fumble", that the call on the field would dictate the outcome. Once the fumble was overturned before replay, that meant the replay had to be conclusive. And what I saw, looking very closely at the ball and Jennings' hand was that while the ball appeared to be in motion right as his butt hits the ground, I didn't/couldn't yet see separation from his hand. Meaning that it was not absolutely certain that he had lost control of the ball at that point, though clearly a split second later he had. It doesn't matter anyhow, because the better team won despite that call.
I'm starting to think that having a few meaningless games at the end of a season, plus a bye week, is actually a disadvantage. When the running game was more important back in the 70s and 80s, more rest = more likely to physically dominate your opponent on the line of scrimmage. Now the passing game is more important, so things like timing in the passing game is more important than rest for the linemen. Green Bay hasn't played a meaningful game in over a month. That has to be detrimental for their passing game. I think the way to fix this is to get rid of the bye week. Let two more teams into the playoffs in each conference. If the Packers (or any #1 seed) had to play a much inferior opponent #8 seed like the Bears or Cardinals in the first round, they could "get the rust out" against the easier opponent and still win, and be much better prepared against a better opponent like the Giants. This would also make the playoff better. 8 games in the first round! Make it happen, NFL.
10 yards of contact and more stringent rules and enforcement of rules regarding intentional grounding would probably make the game more enjoyable to watch. Since ultimately that's what the NFL is for, I think there's a real chance that changes along those lines are made.
Intentional grounding leeway reduces hits on qbs; they know they don't have to hang in there, risk a big hit/sack, or risk an int. That's not coming back. As to the other rule, I suspect the league has a mountain of evidence to to support the theory that passing success brings in the casual fan, and it is the causal fan that increases/maintains viewership on the margins. I'd like to see it, but I'm extremely doubtful.
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Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Texans v 49ers in the Super Bowl!
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
KCW Jacoby Jones.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Attempting to field that punt may well be the dumbest thing I've seen any player do at any point this season. Not even the Suh stomp comes close.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Hideously stupid play by Jacoby Jones.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Wondering if anybody has any Raven other than Ray Rice in the post-season fantasy competition. Surely nobody would have taken Flacco.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
I took Boldin... might be working out OK ;)
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Jorrible play by J
Jones . Really dumb. Niec to watch a foster run. Want to see winner rhis game defeatvpates next week
To answer question from last nightr am not fan of Cher. Prefer looking at Rihanna and Christina Perri
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Overlooked in the discussions of Texans injuries this season: Brett Hartmann was pretty good. Matt Turk freakin' sucks.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
So that's 3 out of 3 fumbles recovered by Baltimore so far.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Some fumbles are more likely to be recovered by the fumbling team than others. The Jones fumble (or is it being called a muff?) is a good example of this. A fumble by a punt receiver, all alone, with 11 coverage team guys charging at him is less likely to be recovered by the fumbling team than a fumble in the backfield.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Jones really wants to test that sample space, doesn't he?
(sigh)
OK, Jones, it's not impossible for you to recover your own fumble.
...and as I type this, Yates announces his candidacy for the KCW award.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
I thought that muffed punts were more likely to be recovered by the returner.
A bit of googling couldn't find me any studies on this, though; anyone else know of one?
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I'm pretty sure remember Aaron saying this. I remember because I remember thinking how counterintuitive it was.
Can't find it though. I feels recent, but ah...
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Well, it would depend on how you condition the stats. I suspect most muffs happen with returners in the open field, not when the returner is immediately hit by a coverage man.
That's my general problem with "fumble recovery is due to luck." You can make that argument, but there are a lot of different kinds of situations, each of which has a different probability. I think the latter claim has been substantiated.
This link covers the topic in general. But it doesn't cover muffs.
http://www.advancednflstats.com/2010/01/fumble-rates-by-play-type.html
Googling "muff" is curiously unhelpful. :)
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
That is kind of taken into account; not every fumble is treated as a 50/50 scenario in DVOA. For example, I do recall Aaron once saying that QB sack-fumbles are more likely to be recovered the defense, so that is built into the (negative) value of the fumble.
So yes, since most muffs happen with the returners all alone, muffs are likely treated as a better-than-50/50 proposition from the returners point of view.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Most muffed punts hit the returner and drop right at his feet, as happened with Jones' second muff.
The bad decision wasn't simply attempting to field a bouncing ball, it was attempting to field that particular bouncing ball with a Ravens player right on top of him ready to hit him the split second he touched it and no other Texans player in sight. There was a huge risk of a turnover for only a slight potential gain in field position.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Possibly I'm motivated by not wanting to agree with Dierdorf, but I don't see what was necessarily so stupid about Jones attempting to field the punt. If he catches the ball and is tackled immediately, then the Texans get the ball at the 20. If he gets the heck out of the way, they could wind up buried inside the 10 depending on how the ball bounces. The tackler didn't force a fumble; Jones just iron-thumbed the ball off his hands, then off his face.
So either Jones just has bad hands, or he lost concentration on the ball because he was too aware of the tackler. But either way that's a flaw in the execution of the attempt to receive, not a mistake in the underlying decision to try to catch the ball.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
It's a risk-reward calculation, sure, but to me the risk of a fumble is too great to be justified by the gain in field position. He did the same thing last week and got away with it, but I thought at the time it was a horrible decision then too. And yes, Jones has bad hands.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
And as we see Jones drop another ball, one where no one was in his face at all, maybe then the bad decision-making isn't Jones catching the ball or not (sorry, but I just can't see "the risk of a fumble" as being that big a risk if a professional football player has the chance to catch the ball and put it away before being hit; if that was the case then every that doesn't outkick the coverage by ten yards should be fair-caught), but Kubiak putting Jones back as his punt returner--or at least doing it when Jones the punt is going to come down deep in the Houston end--in the first place.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Jones is frustrating, because he is a real threat to break big returns - he has several punt return TDs over the years, and some other big gains. You would be losing something. But I think there's a big difference between not taking punts on the bounce and fair catching everything in sight.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Yes, the difference is that a standard punt is more difficult to catch than a ball that bounces fifteen feet in the air and comes down softly right in your hands.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
I don't think that's true. A bouncing punt has a much less predictable trajectory, and you have much less time to adjust to it in the air. It's also more likely to be spinning awkwardly. Ask a cricket batsman if he'd rather hit a looping delivery from a spin bowler before or after it pitches, given the choice.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
In addition, the time the ball takes to land, bounce up into the air, then fall again means you're much more likely to have a 250+ pound man in your personal space looking to slam into you the instant you touch said ball.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
After it has taken a soft, high hop and is gently coming down right to you, predicting its trajectory is a non-issue.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
This is what I'm talking about when I talk about "conditional probability."
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
I think the bad hands is more a factor here. Yesterday, there was a punt caught on the bounce (I forget by whom) that the announcers said was dangerous but turned out just fine and prevented his team from starting inside the 20.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
That's what happens when you bring Jake Delhomme in to mentor a rookie.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Should that play by LaDerius Weeb on the interception not have drawn some sort of illegal contact penalty? He seemed to bodycheck Johnson as he checked his route, and it was well past 5 yards.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
If you're looking at the ball and trying to catch it, you can body check all you want, the WR has no more right to the space than the DB. If he'd come from behind I think that might have gotten a call though.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
And now Foster's hurt. Great.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
He looks like he's in good shape now.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Looked like a fairly blatant hold by Houston #86 on that big run though. Seems a very leniant approach by the zebras so far.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Has holding been whistled at all this weekend? I've seen a lot of it go unwhistled.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Good point. Can't recall a single flag for holding.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Yeah. I just get paranoid any time he looks even slightly gimpy, because that guy pretty much is the Texans offense with Yates under center. A fungible product of the system he ain't.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Discount douvle check commercial tupid . Raji finny but nerd annoying and dork wirh fakw chewsw on jead relly funny but not haha funny. Like if see giy on street with that on head would think maybe need to stau away from him. Like cross the atreet or somehing.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Clay Matthews is quite funny in the third one.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Arrrrrrriannn Foster with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better rum outrun the Ravens
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
haha
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This is about yesterday's game. But I can't help but love it when it's shown that Phil Simms is an idiot.. Thanks Doug Farrar.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Somebody in the truck mistakenly running a play other than the one Simms had asked for isn't a mark against Simms.
This shows *someone* to be an idiot...
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
+1
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
I think there's a difference between making a mistake (don't we all) and providing wrong and stupid commentary.
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Jacoby Jones is really having a special game. Just lost 5 yards on a punt return compared to standing still.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Did anyone else think the Texans play calling on the very first drive of the game was wrong? 3d and 1 at the Ravens 21. Why not treat this as 4 down territory, take a surprise shot into the endzone, and then go for it if the shot fails?
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Aargh! Kareem f*ing Jackson!
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I presume Harbaugh knows to go for it here, right?
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Texans have struggled when backed up this year. Schaub's injury came on a third down sneak trying to create punting room.
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That seemed like a terrible place to FC that punt
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Jeff Reinebold just claimed that helmets weighed 13lbs a piece. Um . . .
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Including the head, he might be right.
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Curious what kind of threat to win it all the Texans would have been with Shaub and Mario. Fantastic running game. D seems just a notch below the niners without one of their best players. Receivers that can make a rookie 5th rounder seem competent even against a playoff caliber D. Has to be frustrating for the Texans and fans.
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Well, they were #1 in DVOA without Williams and with extensive missed time from Foster and Johnson. I'd say they were the best team in the AFC, but might struggle against the Packers due to their poor CB depth.
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Helmet to helmet by Pollard on Walter?
God I hate Matt Turk.
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I wonder what Jacoby Jones special teams DVOA is gonna look like today? Yeesh
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I wonder what Jacoby Jones special teams DVOA is gonna look like today? Yeesh
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So you're telling me that this team will get a top-10 QB and an elite pass rusher next year?
Scary.
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I know the Bengals had a great draft, but Watt+Reed+Yates+Joseph+Manning really ought to be adding up to more Executive of the Year love for Rick Smith.
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Dierdorf with a zinger - "Jacoby Jones gets to recover someone else's fumble." That's funny.
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Ok, I can understand why you'd throw to a double covered Andre Johnson. But a double covered Kevin Walter?
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Presumably he was a third string QB for some reason. I think some of the language used referring to him is fumy. The announcers still love to be all sanctimonious. "The throw is inexcusable from a starting NFL QB". Sure, but he isn't a starting NFL QB...
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Thing is, he wasn't doing this stuff in his first 2 and a half games - maybe more. Locking onto a guy pre-snap and throwing to him even when he's double covered is a new problem for him. Before that, he was a sack machine but didn't throw many picks - which is much more reflective of the player he was in college.
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I know they're "letting them play" today, but outright tackling a receiver away from the ball ought to be SOME kind of penalty...
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Well, I've only been paying intermittent attention to this game, and other than general affection for some Houston players and Gary Kubiak I don't really care about the outcome. So even though the Texans seem committed to losing this game via turn overs, I just wanted to say that I'm happy for them as an organization, to make it to their first playoffs and win their first playoff game in spite of all the injuries. Glad that Kubiak got some success this year.
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It was about time they shook off the 'expansion team' tag.
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Third time's the charm for Reed! And I note that Dierdorf forgot that Reed had dropped two early on, not just one...
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There are only four things that can happen when TJ Yates has the ball, and three of them are bad.
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I can forgive Yates those last two INTs. 3rd & 12, if incomplete they will be punting anyway, so an interception 30 yards down the field aint too bad. Poor throw, but not a terrible decision. Then you need to score a TD somehow - heaving it towards Andre Johnson isn't the worst choice. Ed Reed made a nice play.
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I just don't know why they were throwing downfield at that point. You have nearly two minutes, and two time outs, and Arian Foster, and you don't want to leave the Ravens with time to come back and score a field goal. Running was still very much an option.
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Yes. Horrible pass play thwre at that rime. Yates shiul d not throw it there unless no safety in area.
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Too many bad passes by Yates. Have to wonder how this game would have gone with a healthy Schaub.
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Well, for one thing, it would have been in Houston.
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Great news for the Patriots. Ed Reed just got carried off with an ankle issue.
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Ates no excuse if nkt get to super bowl now. Balt qb is el crappo. Reed hurt. Pates at home. All the marbles im pates corner.
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"Mustafa is still the king"?
Did Jeff mean Mufasa? And if so, should Ray Lewis be looking out for stampeding wildebeest? And who's Scar?
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Arrghhh. Want to throw something at nerd guuy in state farm discount doubld cjeck commercial. Wife annoying too. Thuey don't think rodgers is foorball player
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It's 4:41 and Green Bay has just kicked it off. This wouldn't be unusual except it's the opening kickoff.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
I grew up a Giants fan, but have never liked Eli, Coughlin, or Gilbride. I love watching Rodgers and the Packer offense.
I'm torn.
My attachment to laundry is not strong, and when the Pack were unbeaten it was easy to root for that to continue. And I would appreciate a repeat. But it has been 28 years with the Giants...
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In each playoff game this year one of the teams have played in white uniforms. They are 0-7. God speed, Giants.
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No worries, all playoff teams left are relatively close to a coast. The Giants will be ok.
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Been seeing some really bad tackling in the secondary this weekend.
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WTF???
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How, in the name of all that is sacred, do you mess that call up EVEN WITH REPLAY?
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I don't know but I am sure Mike Pereira will have an article up on FOX Sports tomorrow explaining how we're all idiots for not understanding what the refs saw and how we should just shut up if we don't know the rules.
Also I wasn't paying attention after the review. Did they even trot Mikey out there to explain this one? The game is on FOX, after all.
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You mean like how Pereira just went on live TV and said he thought it was a fumble? Or how he also said the same thing on Twitter?
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Read the timestamps, professor. If you're not too busy sucking Mikey's D on Twitter.
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Huh? The Tweet I posted was at 5:21 pm, your post was at 5:27...
But thanks for the personal attack.
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The just brought him out and he said it should have been overturned.
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Ok nevermind they did right as I clicked 'post'. Mikey doesn't agree with the officials judgement call. Not really surprised.
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I'm a Packer fan, and I thought every controversial call, the Jennings "fumble," the spot on Ware's third down run, and one more that I can't remember now because I'm trying to block the game out of my mind, went against the Giants.
The Giants prove that playing mistake-free football is really, really important. The Packers prove that while offense may win championships, SOME defense is really, really important.
I hate generosity. Rodgers underthrows Nelson by ten yards when he was past Grant, and allows Grant to make a play. Rodgers misses Jennings. Rodgers misses Finley. Three fumbles. Can't tackle in bounds with 11 seconds left in the half. Hail Mary. Can't tackle Hicks on the first touchdown. Good plays by the Giants made into great plays for the Giants by the Packers.
It was a long day.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
The decision by the NFL owners to go with part-time officials appears to have some weaknesses.
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None of the problems they have, or mistakes they make, have anything to do with them being part time.
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No, of course not. Were they to spend day in, day out involved in refereeing football games and related practice, training, and duties, that wouldn't improve their performance at all.
That a league of the NFL's stature doesn't have full-time, fully professional match officials is absurd.
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Exactly which games would they be refereing?
I don't believe there are any leagues that play in the offseason that have the same rules.
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Hmm. Apparently you failed to read a quite remarkably huge chunk of what I posted. Maybe I didn't use a clear enough font.
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No, I read it. I just don't agree.
They're bad at their jobs. Working more won't necessarily make them better.
The NFL needs a more transparant method of weeding through their bad referees. They don't need to make them work more.
Thanks for being an asshole though.
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So you disagree with my viewpoint that training and practice tends to make professionals better at their jobs? Each to their own, I guess.
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No, it will not necessarily make someone better at their job if they lack baseline competency. A referee who lacks good vision to see play clearly, the recall ability needed to remember a large playbook, the critical thinking to apply its multitudinous provisions to new situations, or the basic objectivity required to make fair calls will not benefit from practice.
I'm down with Rich's suggestion - the NFL needs to come down hard on refs who make mistakes, and cull the officiating corps ruthlessly every season. I know it's a very difficult job - that's why I expect that, no matter how rigorous the selection process is, a large percentage of NFL referees simply aren't up the task.
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I have no problem with this strategy, but the issue that remains is who do you replace them with? You need some sort of academy, at least, and a full-scale training program. The latter is basically what the pro-full-time crowd is suggesting.
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But you still need somebody to put uo with that kind of scrutiny. The only way "comming down hard" on referees wont result in lack of talent is if you up the salary.
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A referee who lacks good vision to see play clearly, the recall ability needed to remember a large playbook, the critical thinking to apply its multitudinous provisions to new situations, or the basic objectivity required to make fair calls will not benefit from practice.
Then the question becomes "why are they officiating in the first place?" Again, those are ailments that I think professionalism would relieve, not exacerbate.
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Some believe that if you give the refs more time and money to get their job right, they will produce better.
Yes, if the thing is broken then it won't help to throw more money on it. So maybe you guys are both right.
Get better refs in the first place and then educate and train them more and better so the NFL has the best refereeing possible.
If I were the NFL, I would make sure I have the best refereeing product possible. They are your business card to the rest of the world.
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Another advantage of professionalism, at least judging from UK equivalents, is that you should find more people wanting to become referees in the first place, as it's a viable career path rather than a hobby for people whose jobs let them take the time off. Broadening the talent pool should result in the top level officials being better as they'll have more competition for those top places.
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Good point. Google tells me that Premier League referees make around £60k - thats about $100k - a decent salary for sure.
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Meanwhile for the new starters, even refereeing amateur youth games is worth £25-40ish depending which league it is. A busy "amateur" referee can make over £100 most weekends, sometimes even £300-500 in a busy end-of-season week.
Not bad for a 14 year old. (The lowest permitted age for a SFA-badged soccer referee.) I started at 14 and was quite regularly refereeing games worth £40-50 by the time I turned 16. It's now possible to not only make a bit of pocket money refereeing soccer games, but to actually make a career of it even without getting to the very top of the game. Before refereeing at the top level was full-time, you needed not only to advance as a referee but to have a "day job" that allowed you big chunks of time off both on Saturdays and for those dicey midweek ties in Dingwall and Dumfries.
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Same is true in the US for soccer referees. I made @$1200 this year on, by my count, 29 games. If I lost track of some, call it 40. Granted, I live in DC (high cost of living, wealthier people paying for it all), I had a lot of centers (pays more than line), and the club I mostly work for is very generous. On the other hand, those were all youth games – even discounting the club bonuses and them paying the referee recertification fees (since you won't find that everywhere), that's $25-$35 a game which is fairly standard. If you get paid less than $15 to do any game, even the little kids' games, after making grade 8, you're getting ripped off.
Of course, I'd be surprised if soccer refs make fewer mistakes than football referees, at least proportionally. Due to the nature of the game I get the impression that there are fewer things to call in soccer, and when you do get it wrong (mainly offside, and inconsistent foul calling) it can have more of an impact... but then again maybe not.
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"When you absolutely don't know what to do any more, then it's time to panic." - Johann van der Wiel
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Officiating recreation soccer matches way my first job as well. I mostly did games of 8-12 year olds. The money wasn't too bad for a part time job of a kid in high school, about $15 - $25 per game I think, depending on which age group (younger kids played shorter games) and whether I was the ref or the assistant ref (AKA lineman). I did, however, very quickly realize that it was not the job for me.
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Hey look, it's Patriot fan on Patriot fan crime.
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So different part-time officials would be better just by being different? And you don't have to name yourself at the end of your post. It's already at the top.
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Also, MLB has full time officials, and theres are drastically worse than the NFL.
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On the contrary, in the MLB the only calls that are routinely done badly are ball/strike calls, and even for those the umpire is usually consistent throughout the game. One of the reason bad calls in the past few years have received such attention is how surprising such things are. Mind you, an NFL official usually has a much more difficult job than an MLB umpire, since in baseball one generally only has to follow the ball, while in football penalties can happen all over the field. The levels of staggering incompetence shown by NFL officials week-in, week-out, however, trump anything baseball can come up with.
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Umpires are wrong on close strikes/balls almost 70% of the time. Its absurd.
"and even for those the umpire is usually consistent throughout the game. "
You've clearly never even looked at PitchFX data. Its almost never consistent.
The NFL job is much tougher, and they don't get it wrong 70% of the time.
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IMHO, NFL refs do a much better job than officials in either the NBA or in MLB. The NBA is, of course, the worst. And as Rich says, many MLB umpires are horrible at calling balls and strikes.
About the only area where NFL refs are poor is in their willingness to let all but the most egregious holding go uncalled.
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Wauw - the onside kick! I love it!
On an unrelated note: Giants ball.
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When your D is this bad I like the onside.
I agree the fumble ruling was odd.
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How is it that Miller Lite doesn't understand the first thing about Mardi Gras?
Sorry, that ad bothers me. It's very hard to go to Mardi Gras and not leave with bags of free beads.
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Of course, that's hardly the only commercial that doesn't understand the first thing about what's being depicted in the commercial. The one I can't stand is the Buffalo Wild Wings commercial showing a presumably last second TD that has Gus Johnson screaming "We're heading to overtime!" Of course, there would still have to be an extra point, which would either win the game (if the score is now tied) or send the game to OT if the team that scored the TD still trails by a point. And extra points are not automatic, even when the last play of regulation results in a miracle touchdown. Just ask Saints fans about that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Od9C2dKiCI.
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onaide kick good decision but didn't work out. No harm done anywaybas packers block.nyg fg att
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Hey! A holding penalty!
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Jeff Rheinbold on UK TV just did a nice job of breaking down that blocked field goal. Basically a badly blown assignment by Dave Diehl.
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Dang. I leave the room for five minutes and finally somebody in that studio says something intelligent.
This from the studio team who actually felt it worth reading out - and dodging - a viewer's question yesterday: "Who would you rather have, Tom Brady or Tim Tebow?"
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Yes, it was a rare nugget.
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"Forces Eli to make a throw he didn't really want to have to?"
No, Troy, he didn't have to. He wanted to and did. And that kind of poor-mechanic, ill-advised overthrow is exactly why he's so frustrating to watch. No matter how great his stats are, he's still good for a dangerous throw or two like that every game. That's two already today (with the first being the floating toss into the flat when Woodson came in untouched on a blitz. Ended up harmless but the loft he put on it while falling back was very dangerous, given that he hadn't had the time to consider where the linebacker might be, that it was nowhere near his receiver, and that it was six points the other way if picked.)
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Gotta wonder how the refs are going to justify giving the ball back to the Pack this time around...
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I'm not a particularly skilled evaluator of Oline-play, but Chad Clifton seems to be having a great game (when he's in there anyway).
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Clifton has always done well against elite pass rushers. I trust him in those situations more than almost any LT in the league. Can't run block worth crap though.
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“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Well, then he's in the right offense in the right division.
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If Kuhn never runs with the ball again from the FB position, I'll have no problem. That play hasn't worked for quite some time. Now he fumbles it. They should just burn that play.
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How is that not hands to the face? Wynn nearly took that guy's head off!
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Very nice run by Bradshaw.
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BOOOOOM!
Is it just me, or did it look a lot like the Packers weren't quite expecting that Hail Mary?
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That's not successful often...
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...and that's why it's stupid to take a knee with time left on the clock in the first half.
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As long as we get to post "and that's why it's stupid not to take a knee at the end of the half" after each turnover at the end of a half. A sample size of one doesn't prove anything.
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Only if the turnover results in a touchdown the other way. No a sample size of one doesn't prove anything, but a touchdown on a hail mary is a LOT more likely than a pick 6.
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No, you're only allowed to make such a post if a turnover somehow hurts the team that makes the turnover. As in, the turnover leads to points on the scoreboard.
Also, when you do so, you're going to have to explain why the offense should ever take a snap, instead of taking a knee out of fear of turnovers.
Don't talk to me about "sample sizes." That's not a can of worms you want to open.
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And what, exactly, would be the downside of a turnover to end the half?
Isn't that the whole point? The half is over anyway. The odds of completing the hail mary should be better than the odds of the occasional INT return TD.
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Yes, I should've said a turnover leading to points by the other team before the end of the half, as people have pointed out. The probabilities depend on the situation. It may be the case that, in most situations, going for the TD is better in terms of expected points and win probability. I wouldn't be at all surprised if NFL coaches are more conservative than the optimal strategy. (In some situations, though, like 1st and 10 on your own 10 with 10 seconds left, the probability of your own score just might be so low as to make it not worth it to go for a score before the half ends.) But "proving" something with one example rather than lots of historical data is silly. I'm not sure why we wouldn't want to talk about sample sizes on an "innovative statistics" site.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BNDZtsgWRs
Alternatively, ask Kurt Warner.
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It is a good thing the Packers defense is so good at only giving up points and yards when they are sure the Packers will win.
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I guess that kind of cancels out the results of the bad call.
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Charlie Peprah just blew his second big play this game. Earlier, he tried to blow up Nicks who then ran half the field for a TD. On the Hail Mary, he kept backing up instead of challenging Nicks for where the ball was heading.
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Since I wouldn't put it past this crew (or these coaches) to send this one into a review (and then botch it), that fumble was just a tuck rule-able pump fake but then a second attempt, which is a separate event, and in that second attempt, he was stripped before the arm was coming forward. Which makes it a clear fumble... right?
(Which means we should expect them to overturn it once we get back from this commercial, given how things have gone so far?)
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Aikman really is going on and on about how Greg Jennings was open on the fumble play. But it seems to me that the fumble was already happening by the time he was open.
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Why the hell didn't they go for it?
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It sure seemed like the spot to try for it.
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Not having watched a whole heckuva lot of the Packers this year, I'm a bit unsure of what I'm seeing here. Even when Rodgers is making plays, it seems like he's scrambling for his life buying time to do it. What gives?
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The Giants have an excellent pass rush.
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Yeah, but not so hot as this according to Aaron and Mike. I don't know that I'd say this looks like the 2007 Super Bowl, but the Packers' line and especially the backs just don't seem to be able to hold up past about three one thousand.
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Jason Pierre-Paul has been excellent all season. Osi Umenyiora has been battling injuries but looks decent today. And then there's Justin Tuck.
The Giants were 3rd in the NFL for sacks this year. I don't recall Aaron or Mike saying anything negative about their pass rush. It's usually considered the strength of the team.
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Not to take anything away from the pass rush, but what has raised my eyebrows repeatedly has been the downfield coverage by a typically weak and undermanned Giants secondary. There are times when the rush isn't causing any immediate problems when Rodgers has to just stand there and wait because nobody is open. That's really unusual.
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I totally agree with this. And the commentariat NEVER mentioned it, and the replays never showed it. Why WAS Rodgers running? We who watched at home will never know.
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Tuck and Canty have both been banged up even when they started. This is the healthiest the DL has been all season.
That said, I actually think the Packers' OL has been doing pretty well. The Giants have gotten some pressure, but haven't controlled the LOS the way they did against Atlanta.
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Hm. I can either watch the rest of the game and throw and kick stuff while watching the packers D, or I can play Uncharted 3. Hm. This is a tougher decision than I thought.
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Are the Packers' defense usually this bad? They really, genuinely look worse than the Pats or the Saints...
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they've been this bad almost the entire season.
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At what point are the Packers going to drop the pretence of running the ball and just have Rodgers sling it every down?
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Not yet...
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Sometimes running can slow down the pass rush, like hey, wait, how about that long run right there?
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Gosh; I almost wonder if the Pack should go for it on 4th down here... They're so close.
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Eli came really close to intentional grounding there while he was standing in the end zone...
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I'm not convinced it wasn't. He was outside the tackles but he didn't get it to the line of scrimmage. I didn't see anyone but linemen nearby.
Maybe he was just trying to set some kind of goofy record for safeties in the playoffs.
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Holding again. I can't figure out these refs. There's been much worse than that uncalled.
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That was the third terrible call that went against the Giants. And add the roughing the passer call towards the end. All the close calls went one way, and it didn't matter.
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I like that half-assed little block my Rodgers on the Starks run. It looked like face-guarding, or almost like he was trying to moon the guy!
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That was right after he took on the hit for the first down, right after that slide Manning made only to come up short for a first down.
Most QBs do nothing on a HB sweep.
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I wasn't dissing him. I just thought it looked funny! I thought he did a heckuva lot more than most qbs would.
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agreed then
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The 4th and 5 looked like crossing patterns. Anyone get a better look at the routes? Didn't seem like a great play call to me. I wonder how much the OC's son's death is affecting concentration and clarity on play calling.
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McCarthy calls the plays, so I don't think that's a factor.
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“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
By the siunds of "cruuuuuuuuuuuuuz" after every catch, it seems like Giants fans sure travelled for this one.
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3 big points here.
[edit] bigger fumble.
[edit2] bed time
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Well, that looks like game. Weird how important fumbles have been this weekend.
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Punch it in here and its over. crimeny,
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It is really bad to turn the ball over. When your defense is horrible you simply cannot afford it.
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Worst. Officiating. Ever.
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Of course this is statistical nonsense, given the tiny sample size, but does anybody find it interesting that 15 or 16 win teams are doing uncannily lousily? The Pats losing the Super Bowl, the Steelers in 2004, the Vikings in '98? It probably just points to the fact that win total is a very deceptive statistic, and the 85 Bears did win it all with 15 wins, and so did the '84 49ers. Still, it just seems weird--that a team could be so amazingly effective and consistent throughout a season and then flop in the playoffs. Makes you almost wonder if there's something to the notion that it's better for teams to face adversity?
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I tend to think its a result of schedule strength that led to the great record, individual matchups in playoff games, general winning odds, and luck. More than enough to make the small sample size seem like a negative trend.
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It is interesting. Although I would point out that both the Falcons and Steelers lost to 14-2 teams. And the Pats and Packers both lost to the Jekyll & Hyde Giants.
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Weird that the refs announce the "blow to the head" penalty exactly when the replay is showing that there was no blow to the head.
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That's an awful personal foul call.
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Horrible PF call there. Very homertastic
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So whats the over-under on when we see "Akranian" and "PaulM" here again? 40 weeks? Never?
On an unrelated note:
I am not rooting for either team, but wow that is a bad roughing the passer call.
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Akranian's been here a long time, and I don't recall him being insufferable. PaulM went from bad, to good, to bad again. NYMike has popped up from time to time, but I feel he's been OK in general. And QQ was worse than PaulM, but he disappeared a while ago.
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Well I try to be. And here I am.
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Good to have you around.
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Aaron Rodgers, greatest QB ever, his head is in his armpit.
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Eh. Still threw 2 fewer interceptions than your beloved Breezy.
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“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
This was a Roughing the Passer comment.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Of course this is statistical nonsense, given the tiny sample size, but does anybody find it interesting that 15 or 16 win teams are doing uncannily lousily? The Pats losing the Super Bowl, the Steelers in 2004, the Vikings in '98? It probably just points to the fact that win total is a very deceptive statistic, and the 85 Bears did win it all with 15 wins, and so did the '84 49ers. Still, it just seems weird--that a team could be so amazingly effective and consistent throughout a season and then flop in the playoffs. Makes you almost wonder if there's something to the notion that it's better for teams to face adversity?
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"Super Bowl loser" hardly seems like "uncannily lousily," either.
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Again, incredible coverage downfield. Rodgers took a leisurely stroll rolling out to his left, had loads of time, and nobody was open.
Bad call gives them 15 free yards anyway, but man. This really is starting to look like 07. The Giant DBs that year were a weak link too (though Eli's turnaround into safe reliable QB was even more dramatic).
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First the fumble, now this. The conspiracy theorists ought to be out about Bill Levy any time now...
...I wonder if Rogers will actually have higher rushing DVOA than passing DVOA; he's been devastating
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Damn. The Giants need Canty.
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And...Packers again take advantage of horrible call.
While still in control, still reason for Giants fans to be concerned.
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Cruuuuuuuz!!!!
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I hate the prevent offense.
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Cannot wait to see people overestimate NE all week as they forget to adjust for the fact that they played by far the easiest opponent.
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Baltimore is not the most intimidating version of itself this year though. I think NE might struggle pretty badly with SF or with the NYG, the way they're looking right now, but Baltimore was not very impressive today, even accepting the fact that Houston is pretty good--Flacco's reads were not very level-headed, and the defense was hit and miss.
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Oh NE looked great. I just think that people will see it as say a 70% chance NE wins the superbowl, I think it is a lot more like say 37%.
Mot people and pundits are terrible at adjust for opponents.
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Well, 70 percent is insane. Give the Pats something like 63 percent next week, maybe a little better if Ed Reed doesn't suit. Then, the Giants are tough for them. That could be 48 percent. Maybe a little better against San Fran; I don't think the 49ers match up super well against NE. 32-35 percent odds of winning the Super Bowl feels about right. And I'm a pretty rabid fan.
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Well, the Pats will have no trouble maintaining a motivation level for the Ravens, who eliminated them from the playoffs, in Foxborough, only two years ago.
But in the bigger picture, Pats fans have to be happy to see all the other pass-happy teams lose this weekend. The Pats certainly match up better against either the 49ers or the Giants than they did against either the Packers or the Saints.
In any case, I'll wait to see if anybody over-estimates the Pats this week. With the failure of the Packers, the Pats clearly have the worst defense left in the playoffs. But they also clearly have the best offense.
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But it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, you're right: Yeh, no Rodgers and Brees! On the other, 2 of 3 amazing offenses have already been trampled by defensive efforts.
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The Pats have beaten only two playoff teams all year: The Denver Broncos and ... oh yeah, the Denver Broncos. Baltimore is up to seven wins against playoff teams. I think they're better than they look.
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I must say, that frequently mentioned fact would sound a lot better if it was said the other way around. The Pats losing to the only playoff teams they faced is stronger than their beating 11 other teams their schedule required they play.
But either way, I don't think it means anything.
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Okay. They lost to the other two playoff teams they faced: the Giants and the Steelers. They played the schedule they had, but so far it's been pretty easy. Not any more.
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This line of reasoning isn't all that sound. The pats played some tough teams this year according to DVOA, including the Jets, twice, who they essentially housed. The Raiders looked like a playoff team early in the year, the Cowboys were a tough opponent, the Eagles were serious; I don't see it the way people say it. Many of these teams could have been in contention, but losing to the Pats hurt them.
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That cancels some of the Broncos, though. That's a playoff team that DVOA dislikes pretty strongly.
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Last season, the Patriots had a tough schedule, won six (I think) games out of seven against playoff bound teams, and went 0-1 in the playoffs.
What exactly does that tell you?
All this yada yada about what the numbers apparently tell or don't tell is silly. And I don't really care whether the chances for a SB win are 38 or 46 percent either.
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OK, two good plays by the Giants after two meh play calls.
Coughlin is one of the better in-game coaches.
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I fail to understand the logic of running tosses to Brandon Jacobs. Isn't he the definition of a north-south runner?
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“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Good timing.
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Despite recent evidence to the contrary, I still think it's silly. Unless it's just a tendency-breaker I suppose.
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“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Jacobs looks like he should be, but in actual fact is not, a north-south runner. He is a cut back runner. The body type/size is misleading, in this case
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Except that wasn't a toss - that was a cutback where the entire defense sold out inside.
Anyway, to get back to the original point, a toss allows him to run north-south on the outside, and lets him build up a head of steam before hitting the line of scrimmage. It's the stretches that don't made sense to me.
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Edit: I was referring to the play one or two before the cutback.
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“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Status check (Packer defense) = FAIL
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That performance really baffles me. I'm a Pats fan, and I've been hearing all season about how horrible we are. But the Pats defense is wretched for isolated drives and then forces turnovers and 3 and outs, even against pretty good offenses like the Giants and the Cowboys. With the exception of the 4 pick game against the Bills, the Pats defense was never blown out like the Packers just were. How are the Packers so much higher rated in defensive DVOA?
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Now Jacobs, I'll accept, should have taken a knee at the 1.
Looks like Aaron and co. were right about the team to knock off the Packers, just wrong about the date.
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The Giants have to be the Superbowl favorite now, right? They have the second-best defense after the Ravens, and are probably the second-best offense after the Patriots.
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First, though, they have to beat the niners, to whom they lost earlier in the season...
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Ignore - double post
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I'm pretty sure the Niners D is better than the Giants
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Er, I think the Niners have the 2nd best defense on the season. The Giants D in the postseason is completely different from the regular season.
I think the better comparison isn't to the 2007 team, but to the '06 Colts when they got Bob Sanders back.
This is the worst I've seen the Packers play all season - they looked worse tonight than they did against KC. On the other hand, the officials spotted GB 14 points tonight (the roughing penalty, and the fumble).
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Yes, the Packers peaked too early and were clearly backsliding in December. I picked the Giants to win this game before the playoffs started (pats self on back). Now if only I hadn't been so wrong about the Saints...but Alex Smith was much better yesterday than I thought he could be.
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Super Bowl favorite?
I doubt they'll be even favored against the 49ers (who have a better defense than NY).
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I actually think the Giants lose to the 49ers. I think New York will struggle horribly with field position; the 49ers were so good this season, and I'm impressed with the aggression of the SF defense. They were rallying and playing right through the whistles amazingly yesterday.
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...and gave up 32 points even though they forced three turnovers (and benefited from two more on special teams that kept the Saints from even having possessions). Frankly, they looked a lot more like stereotypical Green Bay (get beat up a lot, but force turnovers and win the game). Game looks like a toss-up to me.
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The game between them was pretty close, and the Giants look much better now.
The real question in my mind is whether Eli will have some dumb picks, as he
sometimes does.
We'll know in a week.
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But the Patriots offense is the best unit left in the playoffs by a very, very long way, and the Giants have to go on the road to play what looks at present like a stronger opponent than the Pats face in their conference championship game.
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Baltimore desroyed San Francisco head to head
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They beat the hell out of Alex Smith, but that defense doesn't seem to have showed up in the same way for a while, and certainly wasn't in evidence today. TJ Yates is an eminently sackable man, and was not sacked much. And their offense is often awful (as it was today). The last game was tied going into the 4th quarter, in Baltimore, and I think the 49ers are playing better football now than they were then, and the Ravens worse.
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I've been a huge fan of Ray Lewis for years, but he doesn't look right to me
after his injury this year. And for all the criticism Mark Sanchez gets, I
still think he can be fixed. I don't think that Flacco is the long-term solution.
I might be wrong on both counts, but that's how I see it.
I expect the Patriots to crush them, but they play the games for a reason.
I hope Ed Reed is OK. I want to see the best players on the field at all times.
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So far, the playoffs have been a repudiation of the argument that you can win with all offense and no defense. Could change, because New England is still alive, but, once again, balance has trumped crazy passing greatness.
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Haven't the Colts been repudiating that argument for the last 10 years? Does anyone still make that argument?
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The Colts usually had an average or better defense.
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It's also far more enjoyable to watch, which is why I'm tending to root for the balanced team over the offensive team.
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Paging Paul M (not verified). Paging Paul M (not verified)...
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I'm here-- had to finish my crow. See below. I think the McKenzie to Raiders thing in concert with the Philbin ordeal may be bigger then we all realize, Not taking anything away from Giants, but Packers were as unprepared tonight and as guilty of fundamental failures as I've seen in a few years. To have no fewer than 4 coaches, including both coordinators, being openly speculated about the last few days in connection to the Raiders after Jackson's firing, could not have helped. And i think this was the last time Rodgers will ever not play a game when he is healthy.
But the better team won, and GB wasn't half of what I thought they were. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry.
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Shit happens, even to good/very good/maybe great teams. They will contend next year. Could be worse, you could root for the Rams. Tragic Philbin story also obviously potential source of perspective.
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Somewhere Brett Favre is channeling his inner Mercury Morris and popping open a bottle or 3 of his favorite beverage to celebrate.
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Clearly, they should have started Flynn
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I'm watching the highlights on NFL Network right now - the officials also blew the spot on the DJ Ware run in the 3rd, (after the Rodgers fumble). If the GB receivers could hold on to the ball, this is a very close game, but if the officials make the right calls, it becomes a blowout again.
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The fumble in the first half, the 'blow to the head' on Rodgers on the other touchdown drive, every close call went the Packers way, and still they got pantsed. What a weird game. It didn't even seem like the Giants defense had that great a game, at least in the conventional sense (their sacks and hurries came late, after the game was larrgely decided, I guess they excelled in coverage, which was supposedly their weakness)
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+1 on the refereeing. Except for spelling.
And for those of you who haven't figured it out, I'm a Packer owner.
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I just want to apologize to all those I irritated or whose judgment I questioned with my misguided belief in the Packers. They were simply awful today-- props to the better team, and it could have been even worse-- but also a big bunch of questions to McCarthy and Co. for clearly not having a team ready to play. Things happened today that simply never happened all year-- crazy onsides kick decision ion the 1st half, 3 actual fumbles, could easily have been 5, should have been 4, Rodgers and his receivers misfiring on wideopen passes (the drops were awful too though that wasn't the first time). The defense played better than the score or the stats indicate, but for the inexplicable collapse on the last two plays of the first half. It wasn't a good defense, but it was good enough to win today if the offense had been anything like normal. But this wasn't an all-time great team; in fact, wasn't even your garden variety great team, since one of those would not have laid this big of an egg. We'll see how Rodgers reacts and what Thompson and McCarthy do in response.
On a final note-- people are going to talk about Joe Philbin. I don't go in the locker room so I can't judge the true impact, although clearly nearly all the little problems that just happened to have occurred tonight were on the offensive side of the ball. But the Karma around here was already plenty bad. Of course none of the following is connected, but we are all fans, and by nature we tend to overdramatize a lot of things. A state which had seen what was unquestionably the most successful sports year in history in 2011-- beginning with the Badgers winning the Big 10 and going to the Rose Bowl, then the Packers magical run and SB victory, then both major college hoops teams making the Sweet 16, and culminating with the Brewers winning their division, and almost making the World Series, followed by Ryan Braun's MVP, which in turn were followed by repeat Packer and Badger success in 2011-- it all came crashing down beginning with the Braun PED report. Then the Packers lost their chance at an unbeaten record, the Badgers lost another heartbreaking Rose Bowl game, their basketball team got off to the worst start in the Bo Ryan regime, and then.... A key Packer execuitve resigned for a personal health problem (an addiction), a key Badger football executive suddenly resigned for a still nonspecific scandal that occurred in or around Pasadena and the Rose Bowl, half of Bret Bielema's coaching staff bolted with Paul Chryst, the offensive coordinator, for Pitt, Reggie McKenzie took the Raider job and immediately speculation about which Packer coach(es) might be joining him arose, and then the Philbin tragedy. Most of those events took place in the last 3 weeks-- and they got beat by the Giants.
Karma's a bitch, ain't it?? Congrats to the Giants-- they were by far the more deserving team.
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Move away from the ledge..
Bad games happen. GB is the better team but just didn't have it today.
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Good for you for showing up to face the heat.
You put the blame on the offense, but really, the offense didn't give up 37 points.
The turnovers were awful, and I didn't fathom the first onside kick. It's not like the Giants were being undisciplined on special teams. That play call signaled to me that the Packers were suffering from a lack of confidence. And that's how they played all day (with the exception of Rodgers, who seemed determined to try to win the game by himself).
Just way too many mistakes by the Packers. And they were facing a team well-suited to exploit them.
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well the offense had 4 turnovers, should have been 5, and the onsides kick makes 6 when you think about it. The defense was what it was all year-- made some big plays, gave up a lot of yardage, bent but didn't break except for the horrific end of 1st half sequence and the first pass to Nicks-- but I'd say only about 20-23 of those points were on them.
One of their beat reporters just texted me that the thing about Philbin is that he is the details guy in terms of preparation for games-- and obviously none of that happened this week, and their details on offense were horrible tonight.
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Teams don't look ready to play when the other team outplays them so badly.
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yes, but both can also be true.
1. A inexplicable two play sequence culminating with the Hail Mary
2. 3 fumbles-- only 1 really the product of a great Giant play-- could easily have been 5.
3. Dropped passes up the wazoo, by a litany of receivers (Jennings, Finley, Kuhn, Starks and Crabtree come to mind)
4. And most importantly, some very curious failed connections between Rodgers and his receivers when the latter were wide open that simply didnt happen all season.
Of course the Giants had something to do with it-- but a lot of it is on the Packers themselves.
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I do have the feeling that the ability of the Giants to play mistake-free and convert long third down situations, something the Packers could not or did not do, was the difference. I hate it when my team leaves its A-game in the locker room. I think of the eight teams that played this weekend, Green Bay was the seventh best (this weekend).
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It seemed to me that the Packers converted quite a few 3rd and longs - usually with a 15-yard Rodgers run. Someone on the coaching staff needs to teach him to slide, though - it's great that he can pick up the yards, but he has to go down as soon as he crosses the marker.
Randomness happens. The Packers were the better team all season, but sometimes, weird crap just happens, and this was not their day. This sort of thing happens all the time, though it's usually to Marty Schottenheimer. At least they've already got their Super Bowl win, so they can't be accused of not being able to win the big one.
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He's been sliding all the time since the Detroit concussion last December. The reason he didn't tonight was that almost every time he had the ball he was reaching for the first down in a crucial situation. And given the state of the game and their offense, can you blame him?
They can now be accused of not winning the big one at Lambeau (4 of the last 6 and the last two to the Giants)-- it has been a given amongst Packer backers and now I think a whole lot of other people that their offense is really better suited for a dome or Lambeau not in the wind and/or cold-- and tonight was further evidence of that.
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Contrast with Eli who had a long scramble on 3rd down but instead of diving and picking up the first he slid and punted. I do give him some credit for throwing a decent (and fairly safe) backside block on a big cutback run towards the ends of the game.
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Yep-- the Packers have 3 problems going forward, aside from some coaching uncertainty at the assistant level yet to play out:
1. They need a pass rush. All the ROLBs failed in that; Matthews regressed in terms of his pass rushing; Jenkins was not adequately replaced and Neal appears to be on the way to becoming a bust;
2. They have to determine pretty quickly if Nick Collins can play anymore. If he can't, with Woodson nearing retirement, they all of a sudden have a certifiably bad secondary. Peprah is limited; Williams fell off dramatically compared to last year; Burnett may still get better but was hardly Pro Bowl caliber; Shields regressed.
Do they use their top draft pick(s) on both of those needs, or select one over the other?
3. Finley. Pay him, franchise him, or what? Pretty obvious that he was no better than the 4th best tight end on display this weekend, and that's not he or his agent envisioned things playing out. He has fast become the most unpopular player on this team with the fanbase, FWIW.
But the bright future "I think I'll wear shades" doesn't look so attractive anymore-- they will be cofavorites with the Lions to win the NFC North, but unless and until the defense gets better, no one can think of them as an obvious Super Bowl choice.
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1. This seems to me to be a bigger problem with the line than the LBs; though a pass rushing OLB would obviously be a boon, he'd need to be able to cover too otherwise the OLBs will be too predictable. Unless he's an early-career-Merriman-level rusher, a predictable LB doesn't really seem to be what the Packers need.
2. Secondary regression seems to be a problem for a few teams lately. I wonder how much rules changes and "points of emphasis" are causing that. The lack of training camps and OTAs can't have helped either, so here's hoping it's an aberration this year. As a Patriots fan, I'd really like to see 2010's Devin McCourty back in 2012.
3. Finley's agent won't accept it, but from what I've seen he's only the second best tight end on the PACKERS at this point. He was certainly no better than the fifth or sixth best tight end on display this weekend (Gronk, Hernandez, Davis, Graham, Dreessen). He's nowhere near the superstar he was supposedly becoming before his injury. Again, a full offseason program and another year removed from the injury might help - but you can't base a contract offer on such a huge maybe.
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that's a bit harsh on Jermichael, but if you mean that Quarless might be better given his blocking skills, remember that he suffered a brutal injury that with reconstructive surgery makes him very iffy for the beginning of next season. So both Finley and the Packers are dealing from some weakness here.
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I just want to say ACL tears have strange effects on players, and I would not be surprised to see Finley look much improved next year.
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Well, if he isn't franchised, he might as well look improved in navy blue, orange and white next year. The Bears' offense certainly could use him as a red zone weapon and matchup nightmare for opponents. And the Bears' defense also would look better, as they wouldn't be giving up 4 or 5 TD passes to him, as they did this year.
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Two birds with one stone!
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"All year" in a football season just isn't a large enough sample size to have extreme confidence as to what will happen in the next game. Somehow, nobody is shocked when a single baseball player with 5000-6000 plate appearances in his career, coming off a good season and playoffs, wiil string together 30 bad plate appearance in the World Series. Yet, take a game with a sixteen game season, with maybe, I dunno, 2000 snaps, FORTY-FOUR starters, excluding the special teams, and huge performance interdependence, and all of sudden people think they can confidently fortell the future. It just ain't so.
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But it used to be! Getting the number 1 seed used to mean that you had a very powerfully good chance of getting to the Super Bowl. 15 years ago, an upset like this one was unthinkable! Look at the numbers.
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Your "used to be" era is itself a relatively short period of time. I will say that the pre-salary cap era allowed stronger number one seeds, however.
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Short, but statistically significant. There's a very significant change in the data. It's hard to determine where to draw the line. If you include as your total sample the period from 1978 to the present, which includes all seasons with bye teams in the playoffs, you find that drawing a line in the data either at 2004 or at 1995 yields a difference in the number of annual upsets in the divisional round of almost a full game with a power that suggests, in statistical terms, that even with the small sample size, the likelihood of the difference stemming from chance is less than 3 percent. The naked eye tells you more though. Looking back from before 2000, several of those few upsets were Marty Schottenheimer's teams. I think the effect has been getting a lot stronger in recent years. Is this just parity between the teams? I'm not sure. I think it may have a lot more to do with the recent passing rules changes, which seem to make the game more chaotic.
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I wonder if the increased importance of the passing game has something to do with it, too. If a QB suddenly turns hot (Kurt Warner 2008) or cold (Rodgers 2011), it has a disproportionate impact on the game relative to all the other phases.
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I think this is more in the right direction. These teams don't look strong if you look back at. 10-4-1 Denver has the number one seed in 1987, wins, of course. San Francisco, 10-6 in 1988, plays the upstart 11-5 Vikings, wins. Home field advantage and a bye meant something back then. 9-6-1 Browns, 1989, win. Where's the big upset? 1989 12-4 Giants lose to an 11-5 team? I mean, let's talk recent years: 2006, 14-2 loses to 12-4, 2007 13-3 loses to 11-5, 2007, 13-3 Cowboys go down to 10-6 Giants, 2008, 13-3 to 11-5, 12-4 to 9-6-1, 12-4 to 9-7. These are big upsets by road teams playing against fresh opponents. The game has changed.
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Candidates for the 97% chance it's not simply a statistical aberration:
1. The week off means that teams which increasingly depend on pass-catch timing and QB-receiver route adjustments get rusty;
2. The NFL schedule (how long have they pitted teams within conference against each other based on the previous season's placement??) means that the "best" teams may have become so against a softer schedule than the "weaker" playoff teams;
3. Coaches have gotten too soft concerning injuries and have rested their teams out of synch when they already had home field and/or a playoff spot wrapped up;
4. Conversely, the lower seeded teams generally have to play their best just to qualify (true of NY this year, but not Denver, of course) and may accumulate late-season momentum. (Not sure this is appreciably different than it was 20 or 30 years ago)
5. Constant media barrage on so many platforms (this is the time for me to blame Skip Bayless) makes the frontrunner too cocky or complacent. Or gives the underdogs fuel for their fire. (Of course so many of the talking heads picked the Giants, so perhaps it was more of a confidence builder)
any others??
All I know is that all of them could very well have applied to this Packer-Giant game, FWIW.
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I have the curious sense that a bye and a home game just meant more back then. Figure that if the passing game was more predictable--you could mug receivers beyond 5 yards to your heart's content, then performance was more predictable--teams were actually more reliable week in and week out, so a 10-6 team was essentially a 10-6 team, maybe they were really a 9-7 team reaching or a crumpled 11-5 team, but you get the picture. This is what I see in older seasons. A 10-6 team with a bye sometimes loses to a 10-6 team. A 13-3 team never loses to an 11-5 team. I think that the prevalence of passing offenses creates more 9-7 teams that played like 12-4 teams and 13-3 teams that are actually 10-6 teams because it adds so much more randomness. It's not just the phenomenon of the "hot" quarterback and receivers, it's actually just that there are more big plays per game, more opportunities for mistakes to result in points. If there are fewer big pass plays, more 3 and outs and steady run attacks, you would expect the random bounces of the ball to even out over the course of a game and the power of the athletes to assert themselves. A 15-1 team would have gotten to 15-1 by pulverizing its opponents. Give them an extra week to rest and homefield, and that physical advantage gets magnified; no 9-7 squirt is gonna come onto their field and beat them. Now you get these 15-1 or 16-0 monster teams built around timing precision and repeat performances of a sort that aren't all that controllable--witness Brady's 4-pick day against the Bills this year when the Pats had that shocker loss in week 3. He didn't play that differently from a week with 6 TDs; it was just the random bounce of the ball.
All of this adds up to the fact that I think the right place to draw the line in terms of when the Divisional round advantage evaporated (almost, there's still a tiny .08 or so edge to the home teams) is when the NFL began enforcing the 5 yards contact rule.
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I think the schedule disparity is a huge part of it. It seems like several teams a year roll through an easy schedule to a playoff berth, and, conversely, several good teams fall short due to a brutal slate. It seems to me the formula changed when the current alignment was adopted (when the Texans entered the league),and this has been more pronounced since
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Ad 1...
I dunno, I think Brady-to-Gronk looked pretty sharp.
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This much is certainly true; there is much less work in season on tackling as the season wears on, and tackling stinks as a rule. A game that features bad tackling probably has wider variance.
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Well, like I implied, if you go back to '78, the biggest change is the salary cap. I think of the salary cap era kicking in full bore in the mid 90s, and really, the last truly great team we've see was the 96 Packers. These days, it is almost mathematically impossible, unless you recreate Chuck Noll's best draft year, to assemble a roster that is dominant on both lines of scrimmage, at qb, and with the other ball handlers. Even if you dod recreate that draft, you would not have those pkayers to coach as long as Noll did.
I think the rules favoring passing probably has some effect as well, but the salary cap just makes roster construction completely different, for obvious reasons.
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I want to thank you guys for talking football here. For some reason (insanity, I guess, you know, repeating the same behavior and expecting a different outcome), I stupidly went to the ESPN board. Why people take joy in the misery of others is something I can't understand. I bailed in 40 seconds, and won't ever go back.
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^This
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“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
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I'm a poker player. There's something extremely beautiful about a guy who is suffering. Even if it was my best friend, the pain associated with a hurt pride is just ... well beautiful.
This may make me seem like a horrible person, but if you claim to never have felt just the slightest bit of schadenfreude, you sir are a liar.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
I continue to be baffled by the instability of powerhouse teams in the divisional round in the past few years. The Ravens-Texans game and the 49ers-Saints game were the ones that could legitimately have been upsets based on regular season performance. This Packers loss is ridiculous! Green Bay was the champion team of the regular season by a big stretch. If we look back through recent history though, this kind of thing has been happening a lot in ways that it didn't used to. Top seeds ALWAYS made it to the championship game. The statistics bear this out: .8 upsets in the divisional round per year from the beginning of the bye format until 2003, and 1.84 upsets from 2004 until now. It's gotten so random of late that it's very hard to feel confidence in a team--just get to the postseason, and your chance is as good as any... the regular season doesn't seem to matter much. I guess that makes it "exciting." But it feels sad to me.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
The Patriots last year had to be overwhelming favorites to win the Super Bowl too. A 14-2 team that was obliterating the opposition losing to a team it had just beaten 45-3? Ridiculous. One odd aspect of this has also been that the teams that look like juggernauts have been more successful in the postseason a season before or after the year they rolled through the league (2005 Colts winning title in '06, 2008 Giants after winning in '07, the Packers last year and this,maybe the Pats this postseason). I think it's because the difference between the top teams is slight enough that a few breaks make a huge difference in regular season record, but there really isn't much difference in the teams at the top beyond who is healthy that given week
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
I think it's more about the fact that it's now possible to assemble a dominant regular season record by fielding a great pass offense and not much else. If an unusually excellent defensive performance, or an off-day for the quarterback, or both, derail that offensive dominance for one game, it all comes crashing down. It's worth noting that the two most notable upsets have been at the hands of Giants teams with absolutely outstanding pass rush from the front four. It's also probably not completely inconsequential that such all-pass-offense juggernauts are unusually ill-suited to playing in northern outdoor stadia in January, and that two of the most prominent play their home games in just such venues.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Oh, and will the league stop giving choice assignments to Bill Leavey's officiating crew, please? By his own admission Leavey blew his Super Bowl assignment, and today's failure to call the fumble right, AFTER seeing it in super slo-mo, defies explanation that doesn't involve putting back shots of Wisconsin's cocktail of choice, Peppermint Schnaapps, until 5 AM this morning.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
I'm in the minority on this one, but it seemed to me, if we're talking the Jennings "fumble", that the call on the field would dictate the outcome. Once the fumble was overturned before replay, that meant the replay had to be conclusive. And what I saw, looking very closely at the ball and Jennings' hand was that while the ball appeared to be in motion right as his butt hits the ground, I didn't/couldn't yet see separation from his hand. Meaning that it was not absolutely certain that he had lost control of the ball at that point, though clearly a split second later he had. It doesn't matter anyhow, because the better team won despite that call.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
I'm starting to think that having a few meaningless games at the end of a season, plus a bye week, is actually a disadvantage. When the running game was more important back in the 70s and 80s, more rest = more likely to physically dominate your opponent on the line of scrimmage. Now the passing game is more important, so things like timing in the passing game is more important than rest for the linemen. Green Bay hasn't played a meaningful game in over a month. That has to be detrimental for their passing game. I think the way to fix this is to get rid of the bye week. Let two more teams into the playoffs in each conference. If the Packers (or any #1 seed) had to play a much inferior opponent #8 seed like the Bears or Cardinals in the first round, they could "get the rust out" against the easier opponent and still win, and be much better prepared against a better opponent like the Giants. This would also make the playoff better. 8 games in the first round! Make it happen, NFL.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
It'll never happen, but I'd like to see dbs allowed to have contact through 10 yards. I just prefer less emphasis on qb play.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
10 yards of contact and more stringent rules and enforcement of rules regarding intentional grounding would probably make the game more enjoyable to watch. Since ultimately that's what the NFL is for, I think there's a real chance that changes along those lines are made.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Intentional grounding leeway reduces hits on qbs; they know they don't have to hang in there, risk a big hit/sack, or risk an int. That's not coming back. As to the other rule, I suspect the league has a mountain of evidence to to support the theory that passing success brings in the casual fan, and it is the causal fan that increases/maintains viewership on the margins. I'd like to see it, but I'm extremely doubtful.
Re: Sunday Divisional Round Discussion
Conveniently ignoring that the other 3 teams with first round byes all won this weekend. Sub-par performances happen, upsets happen.
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