2023 NFL Regular Season Thread
 

I think this is an appropriate way to open this thread.

Excited about another season but it’s time to reveal after my 33rd NFL draft in April, I made a decision to step away from ESPN and focus on my health, family and faith.
The gratitude and humility is overwhelming.
It’s not a classic retirement. I’ll still be here talking ball.…

— Chris Mortensen (@mortreport) September 5, 2023

He has always been one of the best. We came close to losing him, and I hope stepping away helps keep him around for longer.

I am both incredibly excited and incredibly nervous about this upcoming season...

Hope I'm wrong but it seems like my beloved Cards are already playing for the #1 pick. No idea if Murray will be back this season or not and how he will play after the injury. So yeah? football is back for me

Yeah, I've already read multiple articles that treat the Cardinals as if they're tanking before the season has even started.

Same. It's like they're playing Madden, made their trade during the draft for Houston's first and third round picks, and now just plan to sim this season to get to next year's draft where they have all of that juicy draft capital and start building the franchise anew.

We've all been there.

I remember back around the start of the 2017 season, I was wondering "where are all the good young quarterbacks?". I may have even made a post about it on here somewhere.

We were nearing the end of an era of great quarterbacks; Peyton had retired, Brady, Brees, Rivers, and Roethlisberger all had a limited window left. Rodgers wasn't that much younger. Guys like Matt Ryan and Stafford were kind of in that next age group but also weren't getting any younger. Even Luck, who seemed like the heir to the mantle was turning 28 and showing some durability issues.

In terms of young quarterbacks, neither Wentz nor Goff looked very good in their rookie seasons. Winston and Mariota each had two years under their belts and also didn't scream superstar or potential HOFer. Not much needs to be said about Blake Bortles. Derek Carr was coming off a great year and was arguably the best young quarterback.

As for the 2017 draft class itself, the Bears were already getting a lot of flack for reaching on Trubisky and as much as everyone else apparently saw it, not being a college football fan myself, I didn't foresee Patrick Mahomes being what he was.

The lack of future superstar or Hall of Fame level quarterbacks was glaring and I really wondered what the NFL would look like once Brady, Brees, et al all retired. It seemed like there was a dearth of future QB talent and we were destined for an era of mediocre signal callers.

What a difference six years makes. Mahomes became the biggest star in the league and is currently the same age as Luck was back then. Mahomes is also the elder stateman of a group that includes Burrow, Herbert, Allen, Hurts, Lamar and Lawrence. When you factor in guys like Watson, Tua, Murray, and Fields, as well as the potential of a lot of other young guys, the amount of young quarterback potential is overwhelming.

It's a great time to be a football fan and the future is way brighter than I anticipated back in 2017.

I wonder who is going to blink first on Stafford. This Rams team is going to mega suck. They have all of their high picks. Stafford has a guarantee of 31 million on his 2024 salary. Trading him dumps 55.5m dead money into their 2024 cap I believe. It’s a lot, but Stafford was already going to count at 49.5m anyways.

Pats-Mac Jones is on a super hot seat
Washington-Surely Sam Howell isn’t the move. Stafford is a classic Redskins type move
Atlanta-might grow tired of Ridder quickly.
Dolphins-Tua will break again I’m sure
Unknown injury team ?- if someone good has a QB injury early, I can’t see punting the season.

Stafford would be a terrible fit in Atlanta.

Making a record of my random predictions:

Super Bowl: Bengals over Cowboys

MVP: Joe Burrow

Favorite Long Shot Super Bowl Pick: Ravens (+2000)

Some Teams to Finish Under their Vegas Win Projections: Chiefs (11.5), Bills (10.5), Eagles (11.5)

Atlanta will get a top 2 seed in the NFC.

Thing I most want to see: Jahmyr Gibbs and Jack Campbell win OROY and DROY, and Dan Campbell gives the most sarcastic press conference of all time talking about how he read all the criticism of the picks by the smart writers, but the Lions just wanted to draft good football players and maybe that's old-fashioned, but they're just an old-fashioned team.

Superbowl- Chiefs over Eagles

MVP- Mahomes

Longshot MVP/Superbowl Trevor Lawrence/ Jags

Not doing win totals because I quit betting on sports.

This also seems like a good season to tank for a QB. The recent CBS mock had six going in the first round. Caleb Williams and Drake Maye look like top of the draft types and then Bo Nix seems like he's in a tier between those two and some of the other guys. Penix is a guy that I could see slipping to playoff (or borderline playoff team) due to his medical history, but he is in his 6th year and has been really good when healthy. And then you have Shedeur, who obviously needs a few more games against top notch competition, but looked great last week and CBS has him going to the 49ers in the 1st round.


2024 NFL Mock Draft: Shedeur Sanders to 49ers, six total QBs from loaded class land in Round 1 - CBSSports.com

I saw that Jeff Blake has earned a reputation as a great QB coach and Sanders has been one of his students.

Caleb Williams' dad is already making noise about him returning for another year if the draft order doesn't shake out the way he wants. Doubtful, but with NIL it isn't as crazy as it used to be.

I don’t see it either, but why not maintain some leverage and control over the situation.

Yes, NIL is a thing but it’s not making up the difference if he shreds his knee at the combine and slips 20 spots in the draft or worse. If he’s healthy and still the no doubt number one pick I can’t imagine it’s a particularly difficult decision in reality.

You would have to be really principled to try to pull that off. Williams is estimated to be getting between $2.5-3M in NIL this year, coming off a Heisman winning season and playing in one of the largest markets in the country. Bryce Young, as the #1 pick this year, got a $24.6M signing bonus and is fully guaranteed to get $38M. That is a change in stratospheres.

Well, if the Rams suck with a broken Stafford, it's worth trying almost anything to get to LA over Arizona. Try the Eli approach rather than going back to USC and pull a Matt Leinert.

Yeah I think that would be the scenario. It’s just leverage to try and force his way to a team he wants, the chances of him passing that money up is basically 0.

Jb?

Hearing quite a splash of galaxy brain takes out there (not local DC people, national/fantasy people) that Howell is indeed the move for them, and that we'll all believe mid-season that they do have their guy now.

And the only one of those I think has much chance of being a viable NFL QB starter (past the games they're given soley due to a wasted draft pick) is Williams.

Drake Maye could be good. But Penix and Nix are like if Chris Weinke and Brandon Weeden went top 10. They look good because they've been there forever and are in their prime against kids.

Lions fans who have hope are just so adorable at this time of year.

Anyone know where Dr Sak is going to be reffing this weekend?

Buccs-Vikings

He is on Scott Novaks crew

Week 1 referee assignments – Football Zebras

For practically my entire football fandom life the Lions have had to account for a Hall of Fame QB in Green Bay (not you Don Majkowski) and I'll be highly invested in seeing how that aspect turns out.

Football games on streaming sucks. At least have some talking heads on where the commercials are supposed to be. The place card screen is boring.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

lol at announcers putting a pause between the first and last name so they don't accidentally say Clar Cunt.

I am so proud of my timing. I turned on the game just as the kicker began his run up to kicking off the game. Not even a second of pregame coverage. Yay me!

Burrow gets his extension and gets 219 mil guaranteed over five years. Just 188 mil more in guaranteed money than the past Bengals record.

Going for it on their own 17 was crazy, but it worked.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

We spend so much time thinking about football analytically. And then a coach runs an aggressive fake punt and it just changes everything. It is easy (at least for me) to forget much emotion is still in this game.

I really hope that putting mics on parents in the stands does not become a trend.

Has there ever been an NFL head coach more likable than Campbell?

Hey, rookie, that's the easiest six points of your career, and it's almost three quarters old.

Twitter tells me that I should probably say something like "Matt Nagy, ladies and gentlemen" right about now

So since my Cards are going to suck this season, can I jump on the Lions bandwagon?

That was a really good opening game.

Yes! Welcome aboard, my friend! As a Cardinals fan, you have the bonafides.

Victory!!!!

1-0!

Fun fact: last time the Lions won their first game of the year was 2017. What happened that year? Same thing that happened last year. They won 9 games and missed the playoffs. Go figure.

Also is it even possible to be a Cardinals fan (Lions fan is even worse of course)? At a certain point, aren't you a sufferer or endurer or tolerator or something like that?

I’m hoping the Lions have a great season. As an IU football fan, I know it is draining to root for a perpetual loser.

There's another franchise that has the honor, though, because it's all self-inflicted and the team is often decent, with terrible quarterback play.

Leading Passer for the season:

2008 - Derek Anderson
2009 - Brady Quinn (first-round pick in 2007)
2010 - Colt McCoy (third-round pick in 2010)
2011 - McCoy (the only two-time contestant on this decade-long game show)
2012 - Brandon Weeden (first-round pick in 2012)
2013 - Jason Campbell
2014 - Brian Hoyer (Johnny "Football" Manziel was their first-round pick in 2014)
2015 - Josh McCown (one of the eleven teams that employed him over a long career)
2016 - Cody Kessler (third-round pick in 2016)
2017 - DeShone Kizer (second-round pick in 2017, this led to the second 0-16 season in NFL history)

Record over these ten seasons: 38-122. Kizer has the distinction of most career quarterback starts (15) in modern history without ever winning a game.

2018 - Baker Mayfield (first overall pick in 2018)

Hey, stability! A playoff appearance in his third year and what looked like a breakout. But he got hurt and management turned on him like he wrecked his shoulder and tried to play through it just to spite them. Which meant Jacoby Brissett and another guy who may or may not make an impact this year.

But Lions... one playoff victory in the last 65 seasons. And Cardinals... last championship was in 1947 - two franchise moves removed from today.

At least the Cardinals have had some good teams, and even made a Super Bowl appearance with Kurt Warner. It's definitely between Detroit and Cleveland for the long-suffering crown.

I give it the Lions over the Browns. They're a notable honorable mention, but their playoff record in the Super Bowl Era is far better.

I wonder how the guy that got the "Chiefs 20-0" tattoo feels this morning

Lots of survivor pools went down last night

I've got JAX over IND in my survivor pool. I suspect I'm not the only one :-)

Go Lions! :)

Really good Xs and Os here:

There was a play last night where Amon-Ra St. Brown was wide open for a touchdown. I talked about:

��why he was so wide open
��why Jared Goff didn't throw him the ball
��what Matthew Stafford once did with a very similar look (in the playoffs) (to win the game) pic.twitter.com/hkoXiHX5Vh

— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) September 8, 2023

When you talk about "speed of the game", that is a great example. It is not just the ability to progress your reads, but notice something that is not even in your reads.

I wonder how much of this example is "game sense" versus how much is more physical, like something about their literal vision, how their eyes work/how well their eyes work?