NFL and College Football (American Football) Thread

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by Dilla

If John Fox was still the coach, then Newton wouldn't be Panther. I'm 99.9% sure that Fox would have drafted Marcell Dareus.

God he is a terrible head coach....

[FDW]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

Sorry but you 49ers fans are delusional, look at the schedule the Niners have played, then look at the fact that Gore was averaging under 2 yards a carry prior to his 10 per carry against the eagles, there is no way that the niners can be considered elite, will they make the playoffs? probably just look at that shit division, they get to play the worst pass defense that is the Cardinals, they get to play the inept seahawks led by tavaris, I mean alex smith is no trophy but that division is just PURE garbage. I just don't see the niners beating any good teams, maybe some fakers but no really good teams thus a quick exit in the playoffs, I will give you guys one thing, your at least going to make the playoffs unlike my sorry Colts, if management plays him this year..... I will lose my freaking mind.

Not gonna lie the best team in the league are the packers, although their run game needs work, the bears are fakers, and john fox has effectively nuetered orton from a 400yd a game guy to a 200yd a game guy, cam newton must be thanking god Fox is gone from carolina.

The Niners are very likely to end up 10+ wins this year, since 5 of their 6 NFC West games occur after the bye, Cleveland is beatable, and so are the NY Giants and Redskins squads that barely managed to defeat the Cardinals and if they beat Tampa Bay, then they'll be able to beat every team left in their schedule except Baltimore. As for SF's chances in the playoffs? The best keep secret about the NFC west team is the fact that they've only failed to get out the wild card round twice in the last 12 seasons and each of four times in that they managed to get out of the divisional round they've went on to the Super Bowl. And every time an NFC West got to the Super Bowl they matched or had a better regular season record they had in each of the ten proceeding seasons.

[Last Sinner]

The Bengals have the #1 defense in the league at present? Once Dalton learns the ropes on offense, Cincinatti may finally get out of the tag of being perennial cellar-dwellers.

San Francisco may hardly be a top-notch team yet. But what they are doing so far is being consistent and sticking to what they're good at. They have a great defense, especially against the run. They've got a couple of good WRs. Harbaugh knew this was going to take time to undo the damage Singletary did. But he's got a system in place and the players are adhering to it. Things will gradually get better for them.

Seeing the Colts flounder without Manning makes me wonder how the Patriots would do if Brady missed a full season, Rivers for the Chargers, Rodgers for the Packers, etc. But surely Polian could have found SOMEONE competent in the 12 years Manning has been there. Surely...

[Kyuu]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

The Bengals have the #1 defense in the league at present?.

By what criteria? After seeing the Ravens defense -- there's no way the Bengals D surpasses them.

[Last Sinner]

NFL.com quoted the Bengals as being rated as the #1 defense. *shrug* I'd have thought it was the Ravens.

[Kyuu]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

NFL.com quoted the Bengals as being rated as the #1 defense. *shrug* I'd have thought it was the Ravens.

Hence, I am quite curious as to what set of stats are they basing that off of.

[Dilla]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/te...sition/defense

Baltimore's defense has more takeaways, but Cincy is ahead of them in every other category.

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

Seeing the Colts flounder without Manning makes me wonder how the Patriots would do if Brady missed a full season, Rivers for the Chargers, Rodgers for the Packers, etc. But surely Polian could have found SOMEONE competent in the 12 years Manning has been there. Surely...

Tom Brady missed the entire season in 2008 and the Patriots still went 11-5 without him with Matt Cassel. And they recently drafted Ryan Mallett, who was a top 5 QB prospect last Draft. And if you recall, Matt Flynn nearly beat the Pats last year when Rodgers was out with a concussion, so I would say that those teams would be fine thanks to good coaching (and by fine, I mean not pathetic). If this was three years ago, I would have said the same thing for the Chargers, since Billy Volek beat the Colts in Indy when Rivers tore his ACL in the divisional playoffs four years ago, but he is getting old now.

[Kyuu]

Originally Posted by Dilla

http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/te...sition/defense

Completely disregards Turnovers. This stat has a far greater worth than yardage.

[Dilla]

Though, Baltimore has played some inconsistent-to-outright bad offenses ( Pittsburgh, St. Louis, NY Jets) so far. When they played Tennessee, they allowed 432 yards and that defense didn't look too hot, so I'll wait until they play more offenses worth a damn before crowning their defense the best.

[FDW]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

San Francisco may hardly be a top-notch team yet. But what they are doing so far is being consistent and sticking to what they're good at. They have a great defense, especially against the run. They've got a couple of good WRs. Harbaugh knew this was going to take time to undo the damage Singletary did. But he's got a system in place and the players are adhering to it. Things will gradually get better for them.

The pieces for a revival of the Niners for have been in place since 2007, it's just that inconsistent coaching and the distraction of trying to find a substitute for Alex Smith that prevented a breakout from occurring until this season.

[Last Sinner]

Originally Posted by Dilla

Though, Baltimore has played some inconsistent-to-outright bad offenses ( Pittsburgh, St. Louis, NY Jets) so far. When they played Tennessee, they allowed 432 yards and that defense didn't look too hot, so I'll wait until they play more offenses worth a damn before crowning their defense the best.

The way Hasselbeck is playing, the Titans are capable of finally achieving at a level they should be.

The real mystery to me this year is the Jets. Sanchez is playing worse than normal for his usual regular season performances. I know he turns it on in the playoffs, but they might not make it at this rate. Their defense is terribad against the run and leaking way too many points. Ray Rice had a field day against them this week. Feel for Bart Scott - guy plays damn hard yet his teammates are letting way too much slide.

Interesting poll on NFL.com. 'Who is the worst quarterback?' Tavaris Jackson is leading by a long way with McNabb in 2nd. Amusingly, Alex Smith was last out of the candidates. Tom Brady was ahead of Mark Sanchez - haters much? I don't like the guy but 11.38% calling him worst QB? Yeah, sure.

As for Atlanta, I'll say what I always say about them. Matt Ryan - show me you can win in the playoffs. Then I'll respect you. Until then, you and your Falcons are not the bigshots the media blows up Atlanta to be.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

Tom Brady was ahead of Mark Sanchez - haters much? I don't like the guy but 11.38% calling him worst QB? Yeah, sure.

New York's a much larger market than New England so it's not too surprising a result.

[Nosauz]

I hate NO, but Takeaways win superbowls, guess who won the superbowl against the colts, the defense with 46 takeaways.

Also SF has a glaring deficiency and that's the run game, Philly D especially the LB core is garbage so the 10 ypc isnt' an indicator of the run game picking up. You need to be able to control the game if you want to win in the playoffs and if you have gore rushing for under 2ypc it's not gonna happen.

Also on balt d, Im pretty sure Tennesse is one of the typical trap games, where the schedule seems to say that the game is insignificant, thus you focus on the team behind the trap game. Anyway defense this year has suffered really dramatically due to the lockout and the lack of CB/S cohesion.

Also falcons are bad, but they can score so it just depends on who makes mistakes in that game, not really a vote of confidence.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

Interesting poll on NFL.com. 'Who is the worst quarterback?' Tavaris Jackson is leading by a long way with McNabb in 2nd. Amusingly, Alex Smith was last out of the candidates. Tom Brady was ahead of Mark Sanchez - haters much? I don't like the guy but 11.38% calling him worst QB? Yeah, sure.

Well you admit he's a good QB, why don't you like him? Just don't like him in the sense of regular sports-related animosity for opposing players? Or do you legitimately not like him as a public figure? The vitriolic hatred Brady receives always makes me raise an eyebrow considering how humble and polite he usually is. Maybe I'm just too blinded by my Patriots fandom to notice, if so please give me some examples.

[RWBladewing]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Well you admit he's a good QB, why don't you like him? Just don't like him in the sense of regular sports-related animosity for opposing players? Or do you legitimately not like him as a public figure? The vitriolic hatred Brady receives always makes me raise an eyebrow considering how humble and polite he usually is. Maybe I'm just too blinded by my Patriots fandom to notice, if so please give me some examples.

I can't really speak for anyone else on here but most people I know consider him the pinnacle of arrogance, anything but humble. Even to me, the way he acts in front of cameras seems pretty fake and just an attempt to be diplomatic. That said, I don't really have any problem with him myself, he's already shown he has the skills to back it up.

I also think a lot of people are just tired of hearing about him. He's been one of the media's constant most popular subjects for a really long time now. (Can also include the bandwagon fans who automatically hate on anything popular in that group.)

[Dilla]

Tom Brady=Eddie Haskell in the eyes of many people. I do kinda see it, that smirk that he has when he does press conferences plus the general arrogant aura that the Patriots franchise in general gives off.

[wingdarkness]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Well you admit he's a good QB, why don't you like him? Just don't like him in the sense of regular sports-related animosity for opposing players? Or do you legitimately not like him as a public figure? The vitriolic hatred Brady receives always makes me raise an eyebrow considering how humble and polite he usually is. Maybe I'm just too blinded by my Patriots fandom to notice, if so please give me some examples.

Well if I'm not mistaken, don't most Bostonians not like Tom Brady? I mean they all respect him, but he's too Hollywood for Boston...What makes it worse is he actually has an Irish last name, which ironically enuff is also my last name (wingdarkness Brady^^, yes it's true) ESPN the Mag recently did an all Boston Issue and they did an indepth story on this where the crux of the article focuses on Tom Brady's aloofness toward the fanbase and their meh toward him because apparently Boston folks love scrappy a$$holes that live in the neighborhood...That don't wear Yankee caps just for fashions' sake...

As for the rest...I've come a long way on Brady...For the longest I wouldn't give him his due, but he's proven to be the best QB in the NFL...I'll give it to him eventhough he is the least amazing "Greatest QB" of any era I can think of...Even Joe Montana had pretty good athleticism...Dude just sits there in a clean pocket and completes passes, all game long...He sometimes make you wanna punch the TV with how absolutely un-amazing he does everything, but he is teh best...

I just get kinda annoyed with his ascension to the thrown, considering he never really won any of those Superbowls in the last minute (It was all Vinateiri basically since Brady could never get that TD sealing drive), and his whole legacy and the legacy of the Pats sit on the foundatation of the horrendous tuck-rule play vs. the Raiders..So there's that...Add his apparent introvert attitude and general unapproachable-ness and there's just enuff out there for people not to like him, but in-turn i know that stuff has to fuel him...

[ChainLegacy]

Eh, I guess I just take his words at face value. Maybe he is arrogant secretly, but never outright. Being a fan of the team I never really had the motivation to try to psychoanalyze him. All I see is that he's professional, and yeah I agree he is kinda aloof but damn if I were an NFL quarterback I would be too. Not everyone likes being in the spotlight, think he might be among that group. Also I think he's not a very intelligent guy in terms of public speaking so he just copies Belichick's approach (who actually is arrogant, lol, but perhaps justifiably so).

[solomon]

No offense but anyone really looking to identify with sports figures as "hard scrabble boys from our block" needs to re evaluate themselves.

Like Phillies fans calling their boys "blue-collar" yea real blue collar when they're making millions while the guys in south philly toil on the oil yards and man shops.......geez it's not the 1930s anymore people.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by solomon

No offense but anyone really looking to identify with sports figures as "hard scrabble boys from our block" needs to re evaluate themselves.

Like Phillies fans calling their boys "blue-collar" yea real blue collar when they're making millions while the guys in south philly toil on the oil yards and man shops.......geez it's not the 1930s anymore people.

they mean blue collar as in their backgrounds, like guys who come out of Texas, tend to have gone to school in texas thus lived the roughneck life, I mean yea at their current points of their lives they are not blue collar but it's the idea of where they came from. Some teams are known to draft certain types of players with certain backgrounds so it's not implausible for them to identify with the brand their team purports to be a la pittsburgh.