NFL Week 5
 

So, does Josh Johnson get the start tonight?

No. In a surprise move, Spencer Stone steps in and throws 4TD for a big win.

Considering the news this morning, I feel like this comment is in extremely poor taste.

?

Spencer Stone, French Train Attack Hero, Stabbed in Sacramento - NBC News

Hadn't seen that news yet.

Sorry to offend by all means, I was trying to flatter him and not besmirch him. He's part of a remarkably heroic "save the day" circumstance in Paris, and appears to have stepped in to defend a friend in the incident last night. I was just following along this same riff:

I swear to God, we’re two news cycles away from discovering that this guy is Batman. http://t.co/ZCE6Z24vQW pic.twitter.com/ohbYWU36uP

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) October 8, 2015

Again, sorry if I mis-measured this. My meaning was that he's the save-the-day type.

Report: Dolphins parting ways with Kevin Coyle | ProFootballTalk

I guess the only surprise is they didn't do it when they fired Philbin.

Apparently, they allowed Dan Campbell to make that call.

Must've been an awkward couple of days.

Patriots sign Dion Lewis to an extension. Yet another reason why you don't spend draft capital or tie up big money in RB's (looks in Buffalo's direction.) (Although we're not entirely exempt - still hate the James White pick. He wasn't even the best RB on his college team.)

Concussion protocol isn't worth much if you just let guys go back out on the field. Didn't ODB do the same thing in one of the first Giants game this year too?

hahahahahahahahahahaha

That might be the worst play I've ever seen by Greg Toler. Instead of looking for the football he tries to prevent Strong from entering the endzone, somehow gets run over and setting a perfect pick on 3 separate defenders who were actually looking at the ball and could've knocked it down.

This game h as not been bad

Been very impressed with Hasselbeck's play. He's been great and has really helped turn this season around. The big play to Hilton was a gutsy call.

That said, Greg Toler is the worst Colts DB since Jason David. Just inexcusable.

The whole dynamic between QBs and backup QBs, is a very interesting thing to me. It's easily the most high profile position on the field and, where the starter is not a premier guy, a very competitive thing especially if a team isn't winning and fans are calling for the backup... Yet still, most guys seem to handle it really well, and I love seeing pics of the QB and his backup sitting with coaches after a drive and listening to them speak, or discussing things between themselves.

And then you have Ryan Mallett......

Mallett has no one but himself to blame for getting benched during that game. He took a shot, and essentially took himself out of the game. Maybe O'Brien was making a point to him by not letting him back into the game after taking what looked like not that hard of a hit. Or maybe he was making a point at not putting him back in because he was clearly pouting like a fucking baby. A few minutes after he came out when Hoyer went back in on the next drive, you could see him mouth the words "this is fucking bullshit".

Then Hoyer proved why he is good at times and not at others. That interception with under 2 minutes left was just an awful, awful throw.

Matt Hasselbeck is a class act. After receiving the game ball after last night's game, he dedicated it to Michelle Bair on twitter. Michelle lost her battle with breast cancer yesterday. Michelle was the wife of my daughter's AAU basketball coach and the mother of one of her good friends. Matt's daughter is also on the AAU team. Thanks to Matt for bringing a lot of good to a terrible situation.

This game ball is in honor of Michelle Bair who lost her battle with cancer today. pic.twitter.com/7PkHLLCFe0

— Matthew Hasselbeck (@Hasselbeck) October 9, 2015

QB controversy in Indy? :)

And neither QB in HOU is the answer they are looking for- I suspect that will cause the coach to lose his job-pick one and stay with him.

Still can't believe HOU let Bridgewater get within reach and didn't pull the trigger. I think Hoyer might be okay if given support

I can't believe Houston has allowed this QB thing to go this long before making a serious play for a real QB. I mean, at least 2-3 whole offseasons where they didn't try to sign one or trade for one (no, Mallett doesn't count) or draft one. Just inexcusable. It's the most important position on the field.

I may be wrong, but I feel like every other team in the NFL either has a big time QB (Brady, Luck, Rodgers), has a young QB they hope will become a big time QB (Carr, Manziel, Winston) or has a veteran QB with proven credentials (Cutler, Smith, Bradford), even if he isn't that good. I mean, if a team has a situation at QB they really need to fix, where they're not even getting in range of mediocre every game, almost all NFL teams make an effort to get a QB that gets them to that base level at least, with hopefully potential for more down the line. But not the Texans. They can't be bothered with that...

It's why JJ Watt will never win a title until he's in his mid 30s and playing the role of pass rusher for hire. Houston totally doesn't get it. They're like the southern version of the Jets

What exactly is Sam Bradford's proven credentials? Tearing ligaments?

Pedigree.

dola-

Bradford is like a Derek Rose except one that's never accomplished anything at the pro level.

Not a Bradford defender but rookie of the year is an accomplishment.

Bradford's completed just under 60% of his attempts in his career and has more TDs than INTs. I think that was the kind of "mediocre base level" Chief Rum was describing.

You mean like RGIII, Vince Young and Cadillac Williams had accomplishments?

man, that was like the worst year for rookies, looking at it. Only others receiving votes were Mike Williams(TBY) and Pouncey(PIT). Other possible contenders would have been Blount.

He has been dog food for most defenses. I agree.

flere's got it. It's a low base line. One Houston has been abysmal at even trying to reach. If I were their fans, I would be livid at management and would pretty much boycott the team until the front office got off its ass and brought in an at least semi-legit QB or QB prospect.

For those of you who have doubts, if you had Bradford, Hoyer and Mallet on the same team, who would you start? Pretty obvious.

Well, yeah.

I think Bradford's got too much of that introverted personality going on like Cutler. He never seems too pumped up. As if he's constantly just going through the motions.

The 49ers aren't far from being in this sort of situation themselves.

Yeah, Kaep feels like a bad call at this point. But I still put the Niners up there as trying. Kaep looked like a franchise QB 2-3 years ago, and they made an effort to keep him by signing him to the big deal. It may end up being a bad investment, and you can certainly blame the front office for buying in on Kaep when they shouldn't have. But you can't say they're not trying. I'm not sure Houston is.

Is this even in their top five of bad moves in the last few years though?

Yeah, not saying Bradford is great stuff. It really says something about what Houston is doing in that he is so much better than what they have.

Look at the backups currently playing, too, because of injury or ineffectiveness of the starter. Cousins (well, not a backup, but you get the point), Weedens, Hasslebeck, Vick. I would start all of them over the two-fer in Houston. And they're backups (or should be).

I mean, even look at Buffalo if they hadn't brought in Tyrod, who was a huge risk to start.

The Niners have had a combo of bad luck (guys retiring on them), bad judgment (risky character players) and bad scout/coaching evaluation (Kaep), but it's not fair, IMO, to pile on. They went to the Super Bowl three years ago, and were an up and coming talented team under Harbaugh.

They have certainly been dysfunctional at times, but I think just about everyone in the league thought Kaep was a star in the making, and who would have called Willis and Borland retiring when they did?

The Niners did a good job building up talent and there are a bunch of teams in the NFL right now who would probably trade the Niners' last five years for what they went through in their last five.

Yeah, Buffalo, IMO, was the closest to the "Houston QB approach." Nonetheless, they do seem to have done good getting Tyrod, so perhaps you say Buffalo got lucky, but still, they have what Houston doesn't.

No, not trying to pile on, just more generally curious.

I'd be interested to see if there's any correlation between the retirements and Harbaugh getting kicked out of town were, though.

I was never big on Kaep, but he did look like he had the potential to grow into a star. And then he forgot how to read defenses, etc etc. He's got an incredible arm and athleticism, but something's missing upstairs (to be an elite QB at least).

I've always kind of liked the 9ers, loved Joe Montana et al as a kid and I enjoyed seeing them good again. Not to mention, I absolutely loved Justin Smith and he got better with age once he left Cincy. Being drafted fourth was too much pressure for a run stopping DE. Never produced the sack numbers the Bengals expected. Still wish they hadn't let him go when they did, but it was time to part ways.

Jets

Bills at least tried to draft a first round QB recently. The Jets and Houston are both on idgaf mode.

Don't understand the thinking that Geno could ever be a competent NFL QB.

Fitzpatrick is fine if you're looking to finish 6-10 or 7-9, thanks to a few backbreaking picks late in games you're trying to get back in, but yeah... not good.

Naw, disagree. Remember, we're talking effort here, not results.

Yeah, the Jets suck at evaluating and developing QBs, but they drafted Sanchez in the first round a few years ago and drafted Geno to be the man high in the second two years ago. They're trying to get that top QB, they just suck at doing it.

Even Fitzgerald qualifies, IMO, as a functionally effective veteran QB. Hell, he was in Houston last year. They should have kept him.

I didn't realize Mallet left the field before halftime. I honestly would cut his ass at this point. He's a terrible qb but there was also the incident in training camp where he "overslept" the day after not being named the starter, he's clearly unhelpful as he can possibly be on the sidelines and pouting when he's not in the game and that would be the last straw for me. If you have the next Dan Marino I guess you'd live with that, but for a guy who is fucking awful why bother?

Niners structured Kaepernick's deal with this type of thing in mind. They can cut ties relatively easily/cheaply.

He didn't forget how to read defenses. Harbaugh just did a great job giving him simple reads and accentuating his strengths while hiding his weaknesses. Green Bay having no clue how to defend the read-option despite it being a thing in various places all season long helped his hype train a lot too. His upside was always righthanded Michael Vick - a.k.a. a player who looks much better in videogames than real life.

But in fairness to the 49ers, the deal they gave him wasn't that bad. It was really low on initial signing bonus, and allows them to cut bait pretty easily after any year.

The Texans have handled this QB thing worse than just about any team I have ever seen. I don't care who anyone thinks is the "best" QB of the two guys. The flip flopping back and forth is ridiculous.

You have a full training camp to determine your starter. Then you pull the guy you have picked after 1 game. The new guy comes in and has a good game against the Bucs before crapping the bed against the Falcons. You bench him against the Falcons in the second half and are thrilled that the replacement played well in the second half. (of a game you were losing by 45 points, I wonder why there were suddenly openings downfield)

You decide to give another start to the guy who crapped the bed against the Falcons and he does virtually nothing wrong during his time in the game. (seriously, he was executing the game plan perfectly. Screen passes, passes to the backs out of the backfield. He goes 7-10 for 52 yards. His errors? Well, he threw one pass about 2 inches behind Foster who turned it into an interception. He threw a laser to Hopkins who did a terrible job of keeping his feet in bounds. He threw a called screen where Foster lost 5 yards.

Everyone harping on the low yards per attempt seems to forget if those three plays are turned around (10+ yard gain for Foster, 20 yard catch for Hopkins, and an incompleted pass on the screen, suddenly Mallett is over 8 yards per pass attempt too.

So he leaves for a play and your week one starter comes in. He leads the team down for a FG. He then gets the benefit of the Keystone Kops Colts D and suddenly the national story is he's a "spark" He gets put in against the Colts defense (holy hell are those guys bad, I mean, that secondary is simply horrific) and suddenly you have a new savior?

Yikes, pick a guy, stick with a guy and then move on. For the love of God, if you want to tank the season this early, just release both and sign Orvlasky or something.

As for the Colts, they are 27th in the league in pass defense and they have played these QB's:

Taylor
Fitzpatrick
Mariota
Bortles
Mallett/Hoyer

Here are the next 7 QB's they face:

Tom Brady
Drew Brees
Cam Newton
Peyton Manning
Matt Ryan
Jamais Winston (bye week)
Big Ben (assuming he's back by then)

If they don't get their defense figured out and fast, they are headed for a complete and total disaster.

What an opening drive for Hue Jackson. Seattle looked confused on almost every play.

I wonder if we'll get last week's bend but don't break defense we had against KC, or something more suffocating.

Incredible first drive. Some nice diversity from Hue. The planned run spreading the tackles wide was nice, as was the rollout pass to Jones.

Horrible blown coverage from Kirkpatrick.

Editing to add: 55 yard TD catch last week notwithstanding, I find it amazing that Brandon Tate is still returning kicks for this team. He's horrible.