Giving the recent history of hiring decisions by TB, I figure it'll be a coin toss for them to hire Hue Jackson or Jeff Fisher next.

I was kinda rooting for the Browns there-but that would mean Pittsburgh making the playoffs, and I really don't think they deserved a playoff spot this season. On the other hand, dare I say it-Browns have /finally/ found their franchise QB.

Marvin Lewis might be available too.

Not a single team finished the season with an 8-8 record. Minnesota 8-7-1 and Cleveland 7-8-1 were closest. A novelty since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule in 1978. Not counting 1987 (15 regular season games) and 1982 (9 regular season games), of course.

Not sure I agree. I assume that you are referring to the throws from the 39-yard line.

The first down throw to Njoku was broken up by a great defensive play.

Regarding second down, even though it hit him in the hands and he probably could have made the catch, I agree that this throw could have had better placement. I conversion here would have put them in field goal position.

I thought the pass on third down to Njoku was fine and am not sure if he could have thrown it any better (not saying that he couldn't, I'm just not sure how).

I thought Mosley just made a really nice pick on 4th down.

I'm somewhat surprised that they didn't go for the field goal on 4th down. What are the odds of a 57-yard field goal? Is it worse than 4th and 10?

Nice start for the Colts*

*though I probably just jinxed them

Well that wasn't a lucky throw

Ugh, the Colts have no one to blame but themselves if they lose this game.

Did the league put out some pronunciation update to Mariota's name? Al seems to really be punching up the TA all Italian-like.

They ain't waiting for "Black Monday"-Jets fire Bowles

Was in Atlantic City yesterday.

Did a 5 team parlay before I left for $175. Would pay just over $4600. The 5 teams

Chiefs
Eagles
Rams
Colts

and...

Alabama team total over 48.5.

So it looks like I am going to miss because Alabama couldn't get one more TD when it looked like they would destroy them early.

Feels as if Atlanta should be lower than 14

2019 NFL Draft Order: Full List of Picks for Every Team After Week 17 | Bleacher Report | Latest News, Videos and Highlights

Maybe he's been hanging out with Giada?

Fournette has his remaining guarantees voided and looks to be headed down that Trent Richardson path

I guess if the Raiders are going to have a booth man as their head coach, might as well have a talking head as your GM...

Oakland Raiders hiring Mike Mayock as General Manager

Jacksonville keeps their head coach and GM

Marvin Lewis has used all his lives.

Miami fires Gase
Broncos fire Joseph


can't find an official source yet but looks like Cards have fired Wilks, which would be a mistake after just one season I think.

Cincy your long torment is over at last. And there was much rejoicing?

Hue Jackson has been mentioned, couldn't be serious could they?

Next step complete.

Now we just need them to hire Marvin & the Bungles to hire Hue

It's now official.

That was a very strange Patriots season, and probably their worst team since 2009.

They lost 5 games to non-playoff teams, Gronk was a corpse, Brady has declined, the defense is old, and the offense stalled a lot. Yet they somehow still went undefeated at home, beat the Chiefs and Bears and Texans, got a bye, and would have gotten the #1 seed if not for the Miami Miracle. And they're setup pretty well now in a weak AFC. Their best shot is obviously someone else knocking off the Chiefs (and getting the AFC Title game at home), and maybe avoiding the Ravens or Chargers in the divisional series.

Atlanta fires all three coordinators

Pretty tough deal for Wilks. GM should have been gone first as far as I can see. With that being said, Wilks didn’t exactly give off the air of knowing what the hell he was doing, so maybe a complete cleaning of house would have made more sense.

I've always wanted to see the draft "experts" like Mayock and Mel Kiper become GMs just to see if they really do know what they're talking about.

Falcons fire all three coordinators, but keep the coach and GM. I think this just means Quinn and TD is gone next year.

Meanwhile in Tampa they are going to pay Jameis over 20 million next year and only hire a coach who commits to playing him as the starter. Is there something in the water in Florida that forces front offices to pay a ton of money to really shitty QBs?

Remember when Lovie was fired so Koetter could be the guy to develop Jameis?

I thought the Buccs might be intentionally firing their coach, specifically to give themselves an excuse for finally getting away from Jameison. Shows what I know.

NFL News: Bengals request interview with Patriots OC Josh McDaniels - Cincy Jungle

This needs to happen.

I'm surprised McDaniels is getting mentioned this much this off-season. I didn't think the Indy thing would prevent him from getting looks, but he really didn't impress this season. A lot of it was Gronk playing at about 60% & Edelman also having some drop issues (I think the Brady decline is again vastly overstated), but there were some really weird personnel decisions along the way (going away from James White & Chris Hogan during the Josh Gordon era, not having Gordon in for our last play vs Pittsburgh, etc) and pretty much all our losses except Miami (& maybe Pittsburgh since a lot of that was execution & the 4 3rd down drops) where we came out with one game plan and never made an adjustment when it wasn't working. Plus whether there's an unofficial promise he'll succeed Belichick or just the implication he's not going to be cheap, so idk why the Bengals are interviewing him.

Flores is young, seems solid, but is still very unproven/hard to separate how much is him vs Belichick, and our ex-DC's track record are so abysmal as HC's good luck if a team pulls the trigger on him.

It's also a yearly thing at this point, and we again have the bye so it's not as pressing, but I wish the NFL would put a moratorium on interviewing coaches still in the playoffs. It's not like college & you have almost a full month after the super bowl until FA starts.

In good coaching news for the Patriots, Mike Tomlin will be back with the Steelers. Antonio Brown upset with Steelers, skipped practices before final game

I'm sure they can blame this on Le'Veon Bell too.

AB almost has to get traded. Love him but we can move on if even by just using some of the excess Bell cap rollover space. Would like a first and third, who knows though. Also Tomlin back is expected but not a fan of the status quo. I’d like to move on from Roethlisberger. I don’t think we have a QB on the roster who is even competent but a new Ben deal is going to be 27m per and fixing our defense and going cheap at QB could rebuild us fast. Or just bottom out for Tua.

I'm mystified that Tomlin is still employed (and felt that even before the weirdness of this AB situation).

He has morphed into the latest version of Jeff Fisher and Marvin Lewis in that he is inexplicably still employed despite his team playing well under their talent level.

I don't know if I agree with that at all, to be honest. He's never had a losing record, made the playoffs 4 straight years and missed it by a hair this year. Some bad losses sure, but are we saying Ben is such a transcendent QB that they should be in the Super Bowl every year? If anything this year showed that Bell and to a lesser extent AB are products of the system.

He's not as bad of a coach as either Lewis (by a decent bit) or Fisher (by a lot). But his teams underperform often to my admittedly spotty and unconfirmed memory.

And if Bell and AB (and Big Ben?) are system players (not an argument I necessarily agree with but I will roll with it for now), then isn't an indictment on the system that the franchise hasn't seen more success since 2008 or whenever that last Super Bowl was?

I'll take Tomlin and his success year after year over pretty much anyone except Belichick. The Steelers have made the playoffs 8 out of 12 years he's been the head coach. There's not too many teams that can say they've done the same thing over the same time frame.

I think it was pretty clear this year's offense was mostly scheme. The talent was mostly White, Michel and Edelman coming off an injury. Gronk was mostly injured and the Gordon experiment messed with the flow (esp for guys like Hogan and Dorsett). They were still 5th in yards and 4th in points despite facing six of the top 10 scoring defenses. I'd say that's a pretty good accomplishment by McDaniels and Belichick. Heck, the leader in passing TDs caught was White and 3rd was Cordarrelle Patterson (tied) - who's mostly a gadget guy.

I agree here. Plus, I think you feasted on some bad offenses/QBs. NE averaged around 30 PPG allowed to the playoff/near playoff teams you faced (Bears, Titans, Colts, KC, Houston, Pit). Facing Miami, Buffalo and the Jets crap offenses six times really made your numbers look better.

Yeah, I can see that. But it's also a little unfair to successful assistants if you have to wait until February to interview. Most teams like to have a their head coach settled on by the Super Bowl. You only have a few weeks before tags are set and FA begins in March. Throw in the combines and it is nice to have a staff right when the SB ends. Plus, if you make a team wait until Feb for the SB coaches, there may not be that many assistants left if other teams were able to fill their spots in early January.

Not sure how you can knock Tomlin. He's currently 2nd among all active coaches in win percentage behind only Belichick. By the time we hit the midway point of next season, he'll be 6th all-time in win percentage among coaches who have coached in 200 games. Ahead of him will be Halas, Belichick, Shula, Paul Brown and Tony Dungy. He's got a better win percentage in the playoffs than Dungy, Brown and Shula (albeit extremely marginal in some cases).

In 12 seasons, he's never been below .500! They've won 54 games over the past 5 seasons, an average of 11 wins a year.

Ben Roethlisberger has missed 18 starts in Tomlin's tenure as head coach. in those games, the Steelers have a record of 10-8! With their backup quarterback!

From a numbers perspective, he does look good on paper......however, think there are other factors to look at.

* His first couple of years winning including the super bowl had talent/systems left over from previous leadership

* In game decisions are very questionable at times. Makes the craziest decisions to challenge calls that have little chance of being reversed

* Unwilling to make changes...I get it that Pittsburgh likes stability, but when things don't work you need to fix it. Didn't make a move to replace the kicker until the last game of the season when he cost a number of games and was the worst kicker.

* Appears to have no control over his players. Over the last few years, always drama with someone.

* Plays down to the competition....it's great that the Steelers are competitive with the good teams, but they also need to win the other games too. It seems rarely they blow out anyone, most games seems like a nail biter even when you think the game is won.

* Although statistically the defense looks decent on paper, if you watch all their games the defense in recent years seems to always give up the big play. How many times does the opponent convert 3rd and long on Pittsburgh? They seem to always have low turnover ratios. For the life of me I don't know why all opponents just don't throw the ball 100% of the time against them, always someone open. Needs to make leadership changes to get the best out of the talent.

* Special teams are always a joke. Look at the fake punt against the Saints. First, bad decision to even try it. Second, they have a guy in motion that basically gave the play away.

etc.

So yes Tomlin has good stats on paper and has won a super bowl and won a number of playoff games. I wonder how many more playoff games and super bowls they could have won if different coaching leadership in place to motivate the team and get the most out of the talent. With the roster the Steelers have had, they should have been more successful.

I am not a person who likes a lot of coaching changes and love stability, but when you start to see signs and not maximizing what you have, I really do think they need to start thinking how much more room to give him.

Let's be honest here though, most teams would kill to have a coach like Tomlin. Who are you going to replace him with? Hue Jackson?

Tomlin has had a top 5 or so QB his entire tenure. That can’t be understated. Hue Jackson could get this team to the playoffs. Tomlin is basically Colts Jim Caldwell.

I hear that a lot, but what specifically about Tomlin? Yes, no arguing on paper he has done well. But is that because of him specifically? Or is it the overall organization structure/system and talent (Ben is a future HOF QB)?

Don't get me wrong, wouldn't necessarily want Hue Jackson.....but could Hue and other coaches succeed just as well as Tomlin in the right system? Just haven't really seen what is Tomlin's specialty and/or stamp on the team. His in-game coaching decisions are head scratchers and off-the field stuff now catching up to him. I suspect if Tomlin moved on to another organization, he wouldn't nearly have the same level of success unless surrounded with the same circumstances as Pittsburgh. Do you really think he could turn around Tampa, Miami, and the Bengals?

You are insane if you think Hue Jackson could get the Steelers to the playoffs.

Do you think Tomlin coaching the Raiders or Browns (like Hue did) would have seen those teams become elite and constant playoff contenders? No chance.

Again, I am not trying to defend Hue, just saying the circumstances and systems has a lot to do with a coach having success or not.

Tomlin absolutely would have had success with the Browns this year. Gregg Williams went 5-3 with them after Hue got off to a disastrous start. You think Tomlin would do worse?

Please explain to me what specifically Tomlin brings to the table. Yes, the team he has coached has had success, but I would argue that is a result of the talent and organization around him. Tell me what coaching decisions, gameplans, and specific things he has shown to say it was specifically because of him. In other coaches like Patriots, Rams, and Eagles, you can tell the coach is actually making a difference on the field....provide me some examples where Tomlin demonstrates those things? He is a nice "safe" coach to have, but nothing special.

And yet he's won at a much higher clip than McCarthy and Payton, who have had 2 of the top 3 QBs in the entire league their entire tenure. Some insane comments in this discussion.

I don't know what anyone might see in Hue Jackson that qualifies him as head coaching material. And he seems toxic to an organization on top of that. No thank you.