NFL 2021 Regular Season Thread

[albionmoonlight]

I am rooting hard for the Bengals.

But I think that the Rams just have too many good players. When you are picking between the team that is clearly better and the team that keeps defying the odds, you are better off just picking the better team.

All of the pro-Bengals points: "Stafford can't win in the playoffs" or "Joe Burrow just knows how to win" are the sort of mushy things that tend to fall away in the face of "The Rams have Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey and Von Miller and Cooper Kupp and OBJ" and "The Bengals O-line is below average."

I'll take the Rams +4 and hope that I'm wrong.

[Swaggs]

I was thinking that, should they win, the Bengals would probably be in the discussion for the worst regular season team to ever win the Super Bowl. It is debatable. It looks like there have been three 9-7 teams that have ever made it, with the 2011 Giants the only team to win ('08 Cardinals and '79 Rams lost), but every 10-6 win team that has ever made the Super Bowl has won ('88 49ers, '07 Giants, '10 Packers, and '12 Ravens). The Bengals would have a little better winning percentage than the '11 Giants. Both teams were also 4-seeds that advanced to the Super Bowl.

Fun little site: Error - Champs or Chumps

[QuikSand]

The Titans have evolved into a decent pass rushing team. They shredded the Bengals line and only a sequence of peculiar other things kept Cinti from losing that game by 2TD, as usually happens when you give up 8 or 9 sacks.

Doesn't it feel like the Rams, who have the best defensive front player in a generation basically at his peak, have all told a better pass rush than the Titans?

Last year, there was this undercurrent about the Chiefs' line being so ravaged by injures that it could change the game. Two drives into it, it was clearly the case - the Bucs offense didn't need to win the game, they just had to not make ghastly enough mistakes to lose it. The KC OL/TB DL mismatch was so profound the game was a built-in rout.

I don't know, but... most of my thinking about this game is less about complex matchups and just about whether this exact matchup (CIN OL v LAR D7) ends up washing out any more subtle differences in speed, scheme, grit, etc.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Had he made a different college choice (somewhere higher profile for example), he'd likely have gotten much more attention as a prospect (or suspect)

I also wonder what would happen if he stayed an extra year. He was in a draft class very deep at QB. And this upcoming draft seems incredibly weak. Good chance he would have been a 1st rounder.

[ISiddiqui]

I just realized I haven't watched a Superbowl since the Falcons broke my heart. I think I may have watched the end of the Eagles win just to see the Pats lose. But since then, nah.

Heck I barely follow the NFL anymore. That Superbowl just completely broke me as an NFL fan. Huh.

And no, I don't intend to watch on Sunday

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

[damnMikeBrown]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I just realized I haven't watched a Superbowl since the Falcons broke my heart. I think I may have watched the end of the Eagles win just to see the Pats lose. But since then, nah.

Heck I barely follow the NFL anymore. That Superbowl just completely broke me as an NFL fan. Huh.

And no, I don't intend to watch on Sunday

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

On the plane heading to LA with my daughter to watch the Bengals win in person!

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by damnMikeBrown

On the plane heading to LA with my daughter to watch the Bengals win in person!

That's great. Go get a win!

[Edward64]

Going to order a Mellow Mushroom pizza for Sun lunch. This way we'll have leftovers for the SB. Guessing they'll be really busy starting in the afternoon.

Hope my plan works.

[Thomkal]

So pulling for the Bengals to win but a close game with no major injuries. I just like the underdog stories though the Rams have one too with Stafford. With the Rams being a divisional rival to my beloved Cards, its pretty easy to root against them here.



If the Rams do win, I hope Beckham Jr does not get MVP. It still rankles me how he and his dad manuevered their way out of Cleveland and it would not surprise me if he did not play 100% either just to help get out of there. I don't want to see that rewarded with a MVP for the Super Bowl

[Butter]

Rams are -4.

I hear what QS is saying but the Rams were still the 4 seed in the NFC and had to mount a pretty impressive comeback to beat the 49ers at home. So they may have the talent advantage in some respects, but they're far from some juggernaut.

I expect the Rams to come out in the lead early, but if it's close at halftime, the Bengals will win.

[Butter]

Originally Posted by damnMikeBrown

On the plane heading to LA with my daughter to watch the Bengals win in person!

Nice! Wish I could go, but glad we've got a lot of representation out there. Bring it home

[Butter]

I expect the Bengals to attack the crap out of the soft middle of the Rams zone

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Butter

I expect the Bengals to attack the crap out of the soft middle of the Rams zone

Just find where Troy Reeder was supposed to be covering, someone is open.

[flere-imsaho]

I suspect the Bengals' chances will evaporate somewhere around the 12th time Aaron Donald sacks Joe Burrow.

[flere-imsaho]

Well, not 12 sacks, but still....

[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.

Turns out that I was totally wrong. Good for him.

77. Trey Hendrickson #NFLTop100 pic.twitter.com/FcTItjFbjx

— NFL (@NFL) July 24, 2024

[GrantDawg]

Paid:

Tua Tagovailoa is signing a four-year, $212.4 million extension, per @AthletesFirst. pic.twitter.com/bVgj0q3gsO

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 26, 2024

[GrantDawg]

Jordan Love paid more. 4 years, $220 million.

Edit: Highest paid player now. $75 million bonus and $155 million guaranteed.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Jordan Love paid more. 4 years, $220 million.

Edit: Highest paid player now. $75 million bonus and $155 million guaranteed.

I mean, there's always the argument that nobody this good is available on the free agent market so you might as well pay through the nose, but that is a lot of scratch for a QB with practically one full year, who was bouncing around the top-10 mark in most categories.


..as a Lions fan I of course hope he spontaneously combusts in the next few months.

[Danny]

Love outperforms Tua over those four years

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Jordan Love paid more. 4 years, $220 million.

Edit: Highest paid player now. $75 million bonus and $155 million guaranteed.

I know it's high but I actually thought it would be more with the demand for good young QBs. Not so much AAV, but thought he'd get a longer deal.

[CrimsonFox]

it's such crap they are paying these scrubs that much.
they aren't stars.

[weegeebored]

This is just crazy effing money. These salaries remind of the time in baseball when all the talk was about who was going to be the first million dollar man. (Small potatoes now.) In the NFL the talk will be "who will be the first $100M player?"

[flere-imsaho]

We're about to find out how much of an offensive genius Mike McDaniel really is, or isn't.

[Lathum]

Unspeakable tragedy and totally preventable. I hope the driver rots in prison forever

NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother killed in New Jersey crash on the eve of their sister’s wedding | CNN

[miami_fan]

That story just got worse and worse with every detail.

[Lathum]

Just realized I posted this in the NFL 2021 thread. Not even sure how that happened...

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Just realized I posted this in the NFL 2021 thread. Not even sure how that happened...

yeah I was wondering why this thread was such a necrofest

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

yeah I was wondering why this thread was such a necrofest

because I was brutally hung over when I searched for the right one

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by Lathum

because I was brutally hung over when I searched for the right one

the only right answer