NFL 2021 Regular Season Thread

[Coffee Warlord]

There's zero chance Fields makes it through the season without a major injury if this keeps up.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Are the Ben-Gals actually for real?

Apparently.

I certainly believe the Bengals are for real. Johnson was 5-0 against them and Bengals beat them up on the road

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Very excited to see how Zach Ertz does as a Cardinal today against the Texans. Can't see them struggling against Houston, but they have the Packers next week, on Thursday I think, and just hope they don't overlook the Texans in the David Johnson/Watt/Hopkins "revenge" game.

Doing pretty well!

[Brian Swartz]

Looks like the Chiefs have some real issues. There are some stringent Mahomes fanboys among my online connections that are in denial.

[Brian Swartz]

Welp good effort by the Lions. If they could have turned a FG or two into a touchdown ... or not thrown a 4th-quarter interception ... they would have had a chance. Good of them to go down fighting after last week.

[NobodyHere]

Lions lose in Lions fashion. I still can't believe that people pay money to watch this team "play".

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Doing pretty well!

Yep it ended well but man that start with the safety and FG, and Kyler getting hurt after was pretty scary. Glad sanity was restored. 7-0 baby, bring on the Packers!

[bronconick]

31-5 for Arizona-Houston is a Scorigami

[Brian Swartz]

That Arizona team looks like it might go places

[JPhillips]

The Bengals look really good, but hope is fucking deadly for a Cincy sports fan. I'm just waiting for the wheels to come off.

[Jon]

It's time to reconsider Kyle's tenure with the 49ers. He likely won't be fired, but there needs to be a discussion where he loses some authority- maybe over personnel or have him turn over some playcalling duties.He coaches scared.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

Going to be quite the battle between Miami and Carolina for Watson looks like. Ethics and morals be damned.

I have been a Dolphins fan my whole life. I lived and died with them through the Marino years, through the 1-15 season, through the Wildcat, and more. However, I will not, absolutely will not, root for a Deshaun Watson led football team.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Because of Tua’s injury, I would have drafted Burrow over him. But I fully admit that if he had been healthy, I’d have picked him and not thought twice about it. That’s not looking like a good prediction at this point.

Tua made two big mistakes today, but otherwise played really well. I think people forget that he has 2 of his top 3 WR's out, a nonexistent running game, a weak OL, and a defense constantly giving up big plays. Giving up on the guy at this point would be ridiculously stupid.

[Brian Swartz]

Yep. It's easy to underestimate the effect of the coaching stability, surrounding talent, etc. has on the development of these players. Suffice to say Burrow and Tua's situations haven't exactly been equal on those fronts.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by Jon

It's time to reconsider Kyle's tenure with the 49ers. He likely won't be fired, but there needs to be a discussion where he loses some authority- maybe over personnel or have him turn over some playcalling duties.He coaches scared.

Maybe he's Mike Martz. A top-tier offensive coordinator who lacks the skills to be a top head coach.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

Tua made two big mistakes today, but otherwise played really well. I think people forget that he has 2 of his top 3 WR's out, a nonexistent running game, a weak OL, and a defense constantly giving up big plays. Giving up on the guy at this point would be ridiculously stupid.

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Yep. It's easy to underestimate the effect of the coaching stability, surrounding talent, etc. has on the development of these players. Suffice to say Burrow and Tua's situations haven't exactly been equal on those fronts.

That's fair. I haven't watched a lot of Dolphins games. My comment still stands, but it has more to do with Burrow being more impressive than I would have predicted than with Tua--who is probably best graded with an incomplete at this point.

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

That's fair. I haven't watched a lot of Dolphins games. My comment still stands, but it has more to do with Burrow being more impressive than I would have predicted than with Tua--who is probably best graded with an incomplete at this point.

I thought Tua played pretty well in London too

If you take a look at the Dolphin's QB performances over the past 20 years, and in particular what Tannehill looks like for the Titans as the most recent and relevant example, it is not necessarily the person behind center in Miami that is the main problem.

[albionmoonlight]

I was a fan of one of the two teams playing last night, so I watched that game last night.

But that seemed pretty painful for those of you who were just looking for an entertaining football game.

[miked]

As a Jets fan, I'm amazed that anyone saw Geno Smith's body of work and said, yeah, I'd be good with him in case of emergency.

[cuervo72]

Yeah. We stuck with it mostly, but it was not great.

[spleen1015]

I only watched it for Manning Night Football and I couldn't even stick with that.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by miked

As a Jets fan, I'm amazed that anyone saw Geno Smith's body of work and said, yeah, I'd be good with him in case of emergency.

Well, to be fair, about 1/3 of the NFL teams dont even have 1 qb that you could make a case that "Id be good with him as my qb" so in that aspect hes a midlin backup QB.

It would be a heavy price tag to pay for 2 of the top 22 qbs in the league.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

I only watched it for Manning Night Football and I couldn't even stick with that.

If they knew how bad the game was going to be, they would have scheduled Marshawn Lynch for the 3rd quarter.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

It would be a heavy price tag to pay for 2 of the top 22 qbs in the league.

Should it be though?

I know what you are saying. I know that there are only so many quality QBs to go around. I know that if you have two good ones at some point, somebody is going to take one of them away from you. It just seems weird that NFL teams only have one option per team at the most important position in the game. If the starting QB goes down, the whole team is doomed. Maybe it is just that the gap between a Russel Wilson and whoever his backup is at the time is always going to be wider as opposed to the gap between someone like Baker Mayfield and Case Keenum.

[QuikSand]

"Fellas, if 18 [Peyton Manning] goes down we're fucked, and we don't practice fucked."

Same logic might apply to a lot of teams and their QB2 investments.

[Bobble]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

It just seems weird that NFL teams only have one option per team at the most important position in the game.

One wonders if it's a "there can be only one" situation though. Maybe there's not enough practice time, game-planning time, getting on same page time, etc. to prepare more than ONE guy for the season or game. By necessity, the backup can't have a real path to success.

Or maybe most just suck.

[molson]

Did backups used to do better generally?

I remember it being totally common for the backup to have a start a game or two and putting up huge numbers, often parlaying it into a misguided contract somewhere else.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by molson

Did backups used to do better generally?

I remember it being totally common for the backup to have a start a game or two and putting up huge numbers, often parlaying it into a misguided contract somewhere else.

Matt Flynn says Hi!!!!!

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Matt Flynn says Hi!!!!!

Also, Scott Mitchell.

[miked]

I keep reading that Chase Daniel has made close to 40M despite throwing like 200 passes in his career (and not throwing them well). Seems like the best bet in the 4D chess is just to get minimum salary QB and pray the starter does not get hurt. I mean the Bears are paying Dalton and Foles like $18M to ride the pine and put up crappy numbers. Brisette is being paid 5M and did not do that great. Why pay these guys $3-5M when you can just get a practice squad guy for 200k?

[JPhillips]

I think that's a big part of it. How much of your cap are you willing to devote to a guy you hope won't ever play?

[bhlloy]

Seems like a relatively simple cost optimization problem - what is the WAR for a typical QB in the 30-40 range and how does that compare with what you’d get if you spent that salary on something else? That’s the peak value of what is essentially your insurance policy.

It does feel like Foles has ruined a lot of teams thoughts on this, but how he has played since makes that pretty clear it was a complete short term flash in the pan (Hi Matt Flynn!). My personal thought is that the teams letting it ride with a replacement level player (or do what the Patriots had some success doing and pick a mid round guy you really like on a rookie contract) are doing the right thing - yeah Keenum won a game but if Mayfield doesn’t come back the Browns aren’t winning a Super Bowl. The chances that the starter gets you far enough and then the expensive backup comes in and can finish it off have got to be pretty slim.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

My personal thought is that the teams letting it ride with a replacement level player (or do what the Patriots had some success doing and pick a mid round guy you really like on a rookie contract) are doing the right thing - yeah Keenum won a game but if Mayfield doesn’t come back the Browns aren’t winning a Super Bowl. The chances that the starter gets you far enough and then the expensive backup comes in and can finish it off have got to be pretty slim.

This makes sense to me. Keenum was probably too good of an example as he did win a playoff game a couple of years back. Like I said, I don't expect to see a Don Strock backing up Dan Marino or Jeff Hostetler backing up Chris Simms. But I also don't expect to see the backup come in and look like he had not played football since pee wee league. It just feels like backup QB is pretty much a throwaway position. I feel like it is more a reflection of the coaching that QBs do and do not receive in the NFL.

[Brian Swartz]

I agree but think there are a couple of other elements as well. The modern game makes quarterback even more important than it used to be. The league is also large enough that by the time you go through 32 teams, a bunch of them are going to have starting QBs that are much, much worse than the top 5-10 elite ones are. And that's before you even *get* to backups. We see significant dropoffs all the time when an elite wide receiver, lineman on either side of the ball, linebacker, etc. goes down. Kind of like how Brady has said he didn't even throw over the middle in the vicinity of Ray Lewis on purpose because he'd get his receivers hurt. They were a different team when Lewis wasn't there. It's just that QBs have such an outsized impact that you take that normal gap and magnify it several times over.

I don't think it's good for the sport in a competitive sense for one out of two dozen starters to have that much impact, but fans like high scores, passing, etc. so it is what it is.

[bhlloy]

The irony of this discussion is that Geno Smith has been above replacement value by QB Rating this year... better than guys like Jimmy G, Big Ben and Goff. Small sample size and an imperfect stat, but yeah. Career wise he's close to the bottom but not quite the worst "starter".

[Swaggs]

It would be interesting to somehow figure out how many years, on average, a typical back up is retained by teams in 2021 vs say 1990. When I think of my childhood, all the best teams had long-term back ups like Steve Young (and Steve Bono) on the 49ers, Hostetler with the Giants, and Frank Reich for the Bills, and Kubiak for the Broncos. Those guys all stuck around, knew the playbooks, and presumably had good cohesion with their offenses. I guess they all had long term coaches, for the most part, as well.

I think nowadays, there are a handful of different types of teams. The ones with superstar QBs that just need an injury back up, the teams with competent but unspectacular QBs that are willing to upgrade if the price is right (be it $$$ or draft capital), and teams that are train wrecks at the position that are hoping to get lucky enough to find one of the above. Between the cap and free agency limiting long-term development time, that makes it a risk to spend too many resources on the back up position for most teams outside of the ones with clear job openings. It kind of speaks to what caused all the hub-bub in Green Bay with Jordan Love, because it seemed like a waste of resources when you already have a franchise guy. So, in a lot of ways, it seems like a better use of resources to get the average guy for minimal resources, put the resources into other spots that are easier to fill and see improvement with, and then roll the dice hoping for the best.

As a Steelers' fan, I feel like we've been in the competent but unspectacular spot for several years where, Ben is good enough to get the playoffs when the rest of the team is solid, but it doesn't make sense to draft a replacement before the 3rd round and we've gone through 3 or 4 in the last 7 or 8 years without having a competent back up since Charlie Batch retired (and he probably only stuck around because it was his hometown team).

[QuikSand]

Too soon for a 22 offseason thread, for those of us moving on from this rotten year?

2022 NFL Free Agency Primer: Top players at every position | NFL News, Rankings and Statistics | PFF

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Too soon for a 22 offseason thread, for those of us moving on from this rotten year?

2022 NFL Free Agency Primer: Top players at every position | NFL News, Rankings and Statistics | PFF

How could you move on from 2021 when my Cards are still undefeated (for now?)

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

How could you move on from 2021 when my Cards are still undefeated (for now?)

Living in a simulation confirmed

SI

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Living in a simulation confirmed

SI

Heh

[Thomkal]

So no Devonte Adams for the Packers tonight (Covid), no JJ Watt for the cards-needs season ending shoulder surgery.

[bronconick]

JJ Watt having season ending surgery is the least surprising piece of NFL news possible.

[albionmoonlight]

The guy in the NFL Front Office in charge of making sure the mid-season Thursday night games are always shitty really messed tonight's game up.

He's had a really good run over the last few years, though, so we can cut him a little slack.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by bronconick

JJ Watt having season ending surgery is the least surprising piece of NFL news possible.

Yeah was certainly expecting to happen at some point, just wished he stayed healthy longer. This may open some trade possibilities for them with the dead line coming on the 6th. Not sure who will be available/will fit in their salary cap

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Yeah was certainly expecting to happen at some point, just wished he stayed healthy longer. This may open some trade possibilities for them with the dead line coming on the 6th. Not sure who will be available/will fit in their salary cap

Windows close quick in the NFL. And y'all are in one right now. If I were the Cards, I'd certainly trade future assets and push cap forward to YOLO this year (assuming that there's a player worth getting).

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

The guy in the NFL Front Office in charge of making sure the mid-season Thursday night games are always shitty really messed tonight's game up.

He's had a really good run over the last few years, though, so we can cut him a little slack.

I lol'd

SI

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Too soon for a 22 offseason thread, for those of us moving on from this rotten year?

2022 NFL Free Agency Primer: Top players at every position | NFL News, Rankings and Statistics | PFF

Thanks! I moved on from this season even before the pre-season began.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

Yeah was certainly expecting to happen at some point, just wished he stayed healthy longer. This may open some trade possibilities for them with the dead line coming on the 6th. Not sure who will be available/will fit in their salary cap

Sources are saying Watt tore his iabrum, bicep, AND rotator cuff and dislocated his shoulder as well. Most other players, I would say that's career ending injuries

[spleen1015]

Wow, the end of this GB/ARI game.

[Atocep]

AJ Green, wtf are you doing?