NFL 2021 Regular Season Thread

[henry296]

I'm not sure it will change much. Much like the team in college always picking defense when they win the toss, I think that collective wisdom will be to have the winning team go on offense. You get the extra possession and even starting on the 10 yard line, I think team's will have confidence.

[Carman Bulldog]

Originally Posted by henry296

I'm not sure it will change much. Much like the team in college always picking defense when they win the toss, I think that collective wisdom will be to have the winning team go on offense. You get the extra possession and even starting on the 10 yard line, I think team's will have confidence.

I disagree. If Team A says "Own 1", I think there is almost zero chance that Team B doesn't say "take the ball". When you are that deep in your own end zone, expected point models are into the negative. Even a 1st-and-10 at your own 10 is still in the negative when it comes to expected points. That's why people are projecting around the 13-yard-line.

Having said that, even if every team says "own 13-yard-line" every time, statistically that creates a fairer approach when compared to the current or previous coin toss system.

I think you are right that teams won't stray too far from that point. But if you are the Chiefs for example, I think you start pushing that saying "own 7" or even deeper.

[QuikSand]

So, to wrap it all up...

-nearly every win-the-toss team offers "own 15" or something like that
-the other team makes the tough call on whether to kick/receive
-the resulting overall win odds are closer to 50/50 than what we have now
-the OT outcome seems less determined by the coin and more by the choice

How could you argue that this isn't a better setup? I get that it's "complicated" up until you see it happen one time, and after that it's just "the way we do it now."

I'm in.

[molson]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

-the resulting overall win odds are closer to 50/50 than what we have now
-the OT outcome seems less determined by the coin and more by the choice

How do we know that?

Once coaches have figured out which is the right yard line to start at every time, I'd think the team with the next choice of who gets the ball, informed by the strengths of the teams and what has happened that game, including injuries, would have an advantage.

Isn't the current coin toss winner something like 52% likely to win? I can't find a stat that includes the last two seasons. But that's tough to improve on. College is around 55% in favor of the team going second

[albionmoonlight]

I love the extra psychological element.

You are playing against Tom Brady's team. You win the toss and pick your own four yard line. You force the opposing coach to keep Tom Brady off the field if he wants to make the "stat nerd" (i.e. correct) play.

They will have to add an extra head to all the talking head shows to deal with the fallout of that on Monday morning.

[henry296]

That's fair, I guess those 10 yards matter, since the winner of the coin toss starts around the 25 yard line today and wins a little more often than not.

[Carman Bulldog]

Heard an amazing stat today that was apparently going around when Wentz got traded but that I missed at the time...

Of the 22 quarterbacks selected in the first round between 2009-2016, zero are still with the team that originally drafted them.

If Trubisky and Watson move on, that will leave Mahomes as the only quarterback (out of 25) taken in the first round between 2009-2017 still with the team that drafted him.

[JonInMiddleGA]

IMO, a really nice piece of writing here.

'Luv Ya Blue,' Bum and Earl too - When Houston and the Oilers were the NFL's perfect match

[cartman]

wew, Dak got PAID

4 years/$160 million, with $126 million guaranteed. Part of that is a $66 million signing bonus.

[cuervo72]

Yeah, I miss the Oilers.

The Texans may never capture the city's hearts the same way.

They've never felt more than "Generic NFL Team" to me. Granted, I'm not from anywhere near Texas, but from here they're just...bland.

[sterlingice]

I haven't had an NFL team since the Oilers left Houston. That's the single biggest reason I've never really glommed onto another NFL team. I've watched more Kansas football than NFL the last 10 years and I was slightly annoyed the COVID robbed us of the chance to be the first team to lose 100 games in a decade.

Another thing that killed some of my interest in the NFL was NBC buying up the rights to 6pm highlights, effectively killing off NFL Primetime in the mid 2000s

SI

[albionmoonlight]

Betting outlets in Vegas have removed Russell Wilson trade destinations as a prop bet and the Bears Super Bowl odds just went way up ��

— SportsTalkATL.com (@SportsTalkATL) March 11, 2021

No idea how legit this source is, but if the sportsbooks are moving on this, that's a pretty big tell. Those guys have their ear to the ground.

Bears made the playoffs with Trubisky and Foles. Bears with Russ are no joke.

[Lathum]

I am almost positive Vegas books can't offer that prop. Not to mention if the Bears acquire Wilson their superbowl odds would go down, not up. I am calling BS on this one.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Another thing that killed some of my interest in the NFL was NBC buying up the rights to 6pm highlights, effectively killing off NFL Primetime in the mid 2000s

SI

NFL Primetime is back on ESPN+.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Yeah, I miss the Oilers.



They've never felt more than "Generic NFL Team" to me. Granted, I'm not from anywhere near Texas, but from here they're just...bland.

Yep. Would love to see them revert to the Oilers name.

[molson]

What is a "betting outlet in Vegas?" That sounds made-up.

[bhlloy]

I get that many teams are needing to shed salary, but the Chiefs cutting both starting tackles (along with their third string probably leaving for FA) after seeing what happened without them in the Super Bowl seems like an interesting decision. The top tackle on their roster today is a 2020 3rd round pick who opted out of last season.

Andy Reid dances to his own tune and I'm sure he's already planned to fix what went wrong in that game, but you can't get a couple of starting offensive linemen in FA for an $18m cap hit, let alone anything close to a above average tackle. Definitely something to watch.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

I get that many teams are needing to shed salary

I don't quite understand how free agency is supposed to work this season. Practically every team seems to be cutting or avoiding signing/tagging their star players because of salary cap concerns. but who is supposed to sign these players? Are there going to be a ton of high-priced, high-value free agents who aren't signed by anybody, or is there going to be a whole slew of high value FAs signed for well below previous market value?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

I get that many teams are needing to shed salary, but the Chiefs cutting both starting tackles (along with their third string probably leaving for FA) after seeing what happened without them in the Super Bowl seems like an interesting decision. The top tackle on their roster today is a 2020 3rd round pick who opted out of last season.

Andy Reid dances to his own tune and I'm sure he's already planned to fix what went wrong in that game, but you can't get a couple of starting offensive linemen in FA for an $18m cap hit, let alone anything close to a above average tackle. Definitely something to watch.

From what I'm hearing second-handed from Chiefs fans on Royals blogs, both were expected to be hurt all season anyway. Like one had an Achilles injury and the other was hurt, too. So they were going to have to find new tackles anyways.

SI

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I don't quite understand how free agency is supposed to work this season. Practically every team seems to be cutting or avoiding signing/tagging their star players because of salary cap concerns. but who is supposed to sign these players? Are there going to be a ton of high-priced, high-value free agents who aren't signed by anybody, or is there going to be a whole slew of high value FAs signed for well below previous market value?

A lot of one year below market contracts, I bet.

[JPhillips]

I don't expect the Bengals to take advantage of this year, but they could easily get to 65 mil under the cap and really solidify their team for the Burrow rookie contract years.

Free agency 2022 is going to be crazy when everybody has a ton of cap space.

[albionmoonlight]

Brees officially retires. No surprise. Today is fifteen years to the day of him signing with New Orleans, and he's always been into symbolic stuff like that.

This is probably the most telling Brees stat, for me:

Go ahead TD drives in 4Q, team still lost game (career)
Drew Brees - 21
Aaron Rodgers - 11
Peyton Manning - 6
Tom Brady - 4

Brees now has as many as Rodgers, Manning and Brady combined.

— Scott Kacsmar (@ScottKacsmar) December 9, 2019

[miami_fan]

In other Saints news,

Saints' Taysom Hill: Restructures contract - CBSSports.com

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Brees officially retires. No surprise. Today is fifteen years to the day of him signing with New Orleans, and he's always been into symbolic stuff like that.

This is probably the most telling Brees stat, for me:

Go ahead TD drives in 4Q, team still lost game (career)
Drew Brees - 21
Aaron Rodgers - 11
Peyton Manning - 6
Tom Brady - 4

Brees now has as many as Rodgers, Manning and Brady combined.

— Scott Kacsmar (@ScottKacsmar) December 9, 2019

The Athletic had an awesome article a while back on just how bad the Saints were defensively for most of his time there compared to the other leading QBs who won Super Bowls. With a semi-competent defense he wins at least another one.

It just sucks that by the time they had an average or above average defense, his arm was starting to fall off a bit.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

In other Saints news,

Saints' Taysom Hill: Restructures contract - CBSSports.com

This deal is the most blatant example of NFL contracts being stupid. The reality is nothing really changes with how much he'll actually earn but the headline will be 4 years and $140 mil for Taysom Hill.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Atocep

This deal is the most blatant example of NFL contracts being stupid. The reality is nothing really changes with how much he'll actually earn but the headline will be 4 years and $140 mil for Taysom Hill.

Feels like a tipping point deal, like they shut down this sort of garbage after seeing what the Saints (duh) did to skirt the rules

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by bronconick

A lot of one year below market contracts, I bet.

Most likely we will see the cap-friendly teams and the dumb teams announce their standard splashes today and tomorrow, and the smart teams will be doing a lot of one-year deals to tread water.

That path makes sense for the Ravens, frex... a veteran team who feel like they are already major contenders and are traditionally willing to take a couple of the declining years from proven vets. Not so sure about a team like the Dolphins... they aren't sure they "have their young QB" but there are elements of that team that do seem like potential tent stakes.

But the Jags have to be the most intriguing team in this free agency period. Tons of cap, they have a new front office, and "have their QB" and are immediately in "build around him while he's cheap" mode.

Should be peculiar.

[QuikSand]

Oh, and I'll offer a preemptive "lol Jets" here, feeling safe that it will age well.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Feels like a tipping point deal, like they shut down this sort of garbage after seeing what the Saints (duh) did to skirt the rules

As long as the NFL has non-guaranteed contracts, there will be "voidable years" at the end of them.

Right now, a team/player can agree to this deal:

DECENT SIGNING BONUS

Year 1 & 2 salary: reasonable

Year 3 & 4: voidable years with huge fake salary

______________________________________________

If "voidable years" are banned, then a team/player can agree to this deal:

DECENT SIGNING BONUS

Year 1 & 2 salary: reasonable

HUGE ROSTER BONUS THAT VESTS IF PLAYER IS ON TEAM AT BEGINNING OF YEAR 3 FREE AGENCY

Year 3 & 4 salary: outrageously large

I hope that the reader can see that these two deals, for practical purposes, are exactly the same. They are both two year deals for the amount of the bonus and first two year salaries. They allow the player to get his money and hit FA in two years. And they allow the team to spread the cap hit of the bonus into the fake years.

I like the "voidable years" model because it is just a bit more honest about what is going on.

If the NFL bans "voidable years" without making any other changes, you will see the teams change the window dressing but nothing else.

Of course, the NFL could decide to really get into the weeds with this and start policing contracts and deciding whether years are the end of a contract are "realistic" or some other such subjective standard. But I don't see the NFLPA being OK with that.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

One guy I am interested in seeing what happens to is Trey Hendrickson.

He's a former 3rd round pick DE from Florida Atlantic. The book on him has been that he has a ceiling to his athleticism, but he plays incredibly hard. (And, yes, every white player from a small school is described as unathletic and a hard worker. But that's really all you hear about him from the coaches and local media. The guy plays every practice rep like it's the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl. Even in a world where "great motor" is thrown around too much, apparently he really does have a notably amazing motor)

He's only 26 years old, and he's going into unrestricted free agency. And he just put up 13.5 sacks.

But if you really break down the numbers, you see that he got a lot of those sacks against single-team blocks b/c other guys on the D-line got extra attention.

And his high motor means that he's probably at or close to his ceiling.

I think that he's much more of a high-energy rotation guy/average starter than a double digit sack guy. If I had to predict, I would say that this season was a an outlier.

But, he's a 26-year-old DE with double digit sacks hitting unrestricted free agency. And those don't really ever hit the market.

So I am interested to see if some team overpays for him. All it would take is two teams to get into a bidding war to give him stupid money.

Or, do all 32 teams see him like I do?

Like I said, I'm interested to see where he ends up and for how much.

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Oh, and I'll offer a preemptive "lol Jets" here, feeling safe that it will age well.

Whispers and nuggets: the #Jets heavy in on Trey Hendrickson. A "crap load" of teams have checked in on/are pursuing Curtis Samuel. 2 of the bigger name backs in FA were contacted by the #Patriots but right now, are seeking employment elsewhere.

— Michael Giardi (@MikeGiardi) March 15, 2021

[bhlloy]

lol Jets

[sabotai]

lol Jets

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Whispers and nuggets: the #Jets heavy in on Trey Hendrickson. A "crap load" of teams have checked in on/are pursuing Curtis Samuel. 2 of the bigger name backs in FA were contacted by the #Patriots but right now, are seeking employment elsewhere.

— Michael Giardi (@MikeGiardi) March 15, 2021

Running backs? We do need a receiving back if James White goes elsewhere (there's this guy in Florida who could use a receiving back...), but Damien Harris is better than anyone out there (Kenyan Drake, Fournette, Mike Davis?)

Patriots did sign both Matthew Judon and Jonnu Smith to solid 4 year $12-14m/y deals. Jalen Mills as well for about $6m/y, and some DT from the Dolphins (Godchaux).

Joe Thuney off to the Chiefs - good start to building an OL for them, but they still need tackles at some point.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

...So I am interested to see if some team overpays for him. All it would take is two teams to get into a bidding war to give him stupid money.

Or, do all 32 teams see him like I do?

Like I said, I'm interested to see where he ends up and for how much.

The #Bengals are believed to be pursuing the breakout pass rusher. They have company, with the #Browns, #Jets and #Vikings in the mix as well https://t.co/4wpJgg5bH6

— Pro Football Rumors (@pfrumors) March 15, 2021

Round up the usual suspects indeed.

[QuikSand]

damn i was both early and late to the lol Jets party

[albionmoonlight]

Lol indeed.

Also, tip for the Vikings: if ever you look up and find yourself in a bidding war with the Bengals, Browns, and Jets, you might want to just back away and have a front office meeting where you can discuss where things went wrong.

[JPhillips]

Bengals let Lawson go and sign Hendrickson for more money.

Same old Bengals.

[Swaggs]

Hate to see Bud Dupree leave, but I’m glad he got paid after that injury and I think Tennessee seems like a good fit. He seems like a good teammate and improved a lot from his first couple years, when he looked like a bust candidate.

[bhlloy]

Pats throwing a fair amount of money at 2 marginal receivers - I love Agholor from his SC days, but he's not worth what they are giving him.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Bourne was a guy the 49ers kept waiting to take that next step and he just never did. I'll miss him despite the disappointment that came with him.

[molson]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

Pats throwing a fair amount of money at 2 marginal receivers - I love Agholor from his SC days, but he's not worth what they are giving him.

You probably have to overpay if your QB can't reach the WRs with his throws.

They have SO much cap space and are using it. I just think Cam is absolute dead end at QB. Maybe they'll draft somebody, but then they're kind of stuck between reloading and rebuilding.

But then, with 7 playoff teams, I guess you shoot for 9 wins if you can and see what happens.

[miked]

If you are an RB, why would you go to the Pats? They have a mediocre QB and OL, and BB is known for benching RBs on a whim. I think Michel was hurt last year a little, but rushed for nearly 1000 yards in each of his first two seasons and then can barely sniff the field in year 3.

[molson]

After signing Hunter Henry today, the Patriots have now signed free agent contracts totaling $273 million in the last 24 hours, the most of any team in a single offseason in NFL history.

And they have lots of cap space left and appear to be in on several more players.

I've tried this approach in FOF before - cheap QB, build up the rest of the team around him. Maybe Bill Belichick will finally try to run the Navy wishbone offense as we know he's always longed to do.

[bhlloy]

Yeah, it's for sure an interesting approach. Elite defense and a mediocre QB with enough weapons around him is something that has worked, but can it still work in this league with the rule changes and the emphasis on offense?

And like you say, the problem is that really Cam is barely a mediocre QB at this point. And spending so much on WR/TE doesn't matter if your QB can't throw the ball over 6 yards anyway. So you'd think they have to look for a better solution there... Fitzmagic would have been an obvious one if he hadn't signed with WFT.

[molson]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

And like you say, the problem is that really Cam is barely a mediocre QB at this point. And spending so much on WR/TE doesn't matter if your QB can't throw the ball over 6 yards anyway. So you'd think they have to look for a better solution there... Fitzmagic would have been an obvious one if he hadn't signed with WFT.

It's probably too optimistic to wonder if the Patriots now may be appealing to one of the disgruntled star QBs.

But ya, Fitz would have been a great fit. I also wonder why we don't hear more about Gardner Minshew being available. Mariota would be interesting. All better options than Cam. I would be very surprised (but not shocked, because the Patriots are weird like this sometimes), if they went to camp with Newton/Stidham. I'd bet they find a QB in the draft and this is a position of big weakness overall in 2021, limiting their upside.

[bhlloy]

I guess the counterpoint to that is all the money they just spent on FA... it's hard to get an exact guess of where they are against the cap before some of these contract details become public, but back of napkin suggests they are up against it again. If they wanted one of the disgruntled star QB's, before spending all that money presumably would have been the time to do it.

Let's be honest, Bill has never been shy about winning his way. I can well believe one last attempt to show he can win not only without Brady but without a QB at all appeals to his psyche.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

without a QB at all

yes yes this, this is the way Bill, to get your name ranked higher than his

[molson]

I really don't buy that Belichick, or any successful coach, intentionally sabotages his team just for the challenge and accompanying fame.

And this something I've only read thrown at Belichick, which is quite the compliment of him in some ways, I guess.

[Coffee Warlord]

And the Bears choose their QB of the 2021 season....

Andy Dalton.

[Atocep]

It's the most Bears transaction the Bears could have possibly made this offseason.