NFL updates/news

[Elbren]

Wow.

Ravens / Cardinals game ... not even half time and the Ravens are already down by 3 TD's.

- Offense still looks horrendous.
- Torrey Smith continues to look mediocre. Turned a ball over when it hit him right in the hands.
- Ray Rice once again consists of most of their offense.
- Offensive line has looked ok, but they have had definite issues with the passrush.
- 1st round pick J. Smith (CB) has looked hooooooorrible. Looks like he's never tackled before in his life. He's gotten his hands on Fitzgerald, but Fitzgerald has basically dragged him for at least 15 - 20 yards down field.
- Just like I thought, a team that looks even remotely decent at throwing the ball is basically doing whatever they want to this secondary.

---------- Post added 2011-10-30 at 03:02 PM ----------

Big shock.

Ravens come out of the half time running a 2min. offense (with little/no playcalling from the sideline) and they immediately drive downfield for a TD. It's amazing how different this offense looks when you take Cam out of the picture.

[conscript]

Big shock.

Ravens come out of the half time running a 2min. offense (with little/no playcalling from the sideline) and they immediately drive downfield for a TD. It's amazing how different this offense looks when you take Cam out of the picture.

Ya I watched a chunk of that game on Red Zone, when I wasn't in an allergy medicine induced haze, and it was like two totally different teams. That St Louis game though, wtf. The Rams have shown absolutely no sign that they were a real team this year and yet they somehow managed to completely blank the Saints for three quarters. There was a time when the Fins, Rams, and Cards were all winning their games and I thought I was having a bad reaction to the medication. Bizzaro NFL.

If I hear the phrase "dictate the pace" one more time in the Lions game I might snap. The announcers have talked about how the Lions want to get back to dictating the pace of games about two dozen times in the first half. We get it already John Lynch.

And could Seattle possibly look worse? They are back to the quarterback carousel since neither guy is performing, although Jackson was admittedly hurt. Sad part is as terrible as they are, they would still be in the hunt for the division title if the Niners didn't have their miraculous ascendance under Jim Harbaugh.

[Northy]

No Packers this week. Bye week. So boring.

[ptwonline]

Wow. Tim Tebow may be the worst QB to actually get to play in the NFL in years.

[conscript]

Wow. Tim Tebow may be the worst QB to actually get to play in the NFL in years.

The Broncos actually scored points today. The Redskins didn't. Detroit also has a much, much better defense than the Bills, so if anything John Beck is significantly worse than Tebow. How about Whitehurst? He isn't even near as good as Tebow.

Tebow did suck today for sure. Then again, everything about the Broncos sucked today. The Lions did what they wanted on both sides of the ball all game long. Denver is just a bad, bad team regardless of who is under center.

[RollTide]

The Broncos actually scored points today. The Redskins didn't. Detroit also has a much, much better defense than the Bills, so if anything John Beck is significantly worse than Tebow. How about Whitehurst? He isn't even near as good as Tebow.

Tebow did suck today for sure. Then again, everything about the Broncos sucked today. The Lions did what they wanted on both sides of the ball all game long. Denver is just a bad, bad team regardless of who is under center.

In two games as the starter(That's 120 minutes of football), Tebow has had 5 minutes of looking even remotely marginal. That just isn't going to cut it in this league. No Denver isn't good, but damn he's awful. There is just no way to excuse how bad he looks. He makes even the most basic throws look hard. Even if he had talent around him, they can't make him throw better. Or make better decisions with the ball.

I don't think he looks too much better then Whitehurst or Beck. And both of them looked anemic today.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go watch my Cowboys gets annihilated.

[Amsden]

What? Uhh? Did the Cowboys think this was practice? I can't even find the words. We didn't even show up for it. Was that a bunch of high-school kids in Dallas Cowboy Halloween costumes or something? Losing I can handle, but that? I don't even know if you can call that a loss. Kinda wish Rob Ryan kept his mouth shut now, jeez man stop giving teams ammunition.

[RollTide]

What? Uhh? Did the Cowboys think this was practice? I can't even find the words. We didn't even show up for it. Was that a bunch of high-school kids in Dallas Cowboy Halloween costumes or something? Losing I can handle, but that? I don't even know if you can call that a loss. Kinda wish Rob Ryan kept his mouth shut now, jeez man stop giving teams ammunition.

Ya know, I don't mind losing on the road to a division team. I really don't. It happens. And I know Andy Reid has an incredible record coming off of a bye. But what happened to night is not fine. This team didn't show up. And it's baffling. How do you not show up for a prime time game on National television. Against Philly no less. We're in a relatively tight division that is probably going to come down to the last week. Every game counts. And you don't even put up a fight? Really?

It's not even a game where you can say "Well we did this good, but if we could have done this better we'd have been right in the game." Not one player showed up tonight. It was surreal. They walked into the Linc and got punched in the mouth right off the bat and did nothing. This team is so ridiculously inconsistent and its frustrating. This is the same team analysts this morning were calling the most complete in the division. But they're so inconsistent. Thank god we've got a joke schedule for the most part going forward.

[Badpaladin]

Well shit, there goes 12-4. My Broncos can make 11-5, I fucking know it.

In two games as the starter(That's 120 minutes of football), Tebow has had 5 minutes of looking even remotely marginal. That just isn't going to cut it in this league. No Denver isn't good, but damn he's awful. There is just no way to excuse how bad he looks. He makes even the most basic throws look hard. Even if he had talent around him, they can't make him throw better. Or make better decisions with the ball.

Hold on, how bad he looks? I'm not denying that he was awful until the last minutes of this week's game (not that it mattered), but come on. Even Tom Brady looks dreadful when he doesn't even have 2 seconds to throw the ball, not to mention when his defense allows 45 unanswered points, the only stable part of the offense (McGahee) is injured, or receivers can't keep their feet in on touchdown passes. Do you think Orton would have somehow been better with those issues? Doubtful. I wish it were as simple as replacing Tebow with somebody else. At least Tebow could make a few things happen on his feet, however futile those efforts were.

Denver has a LONG way to go. At least there is a bright side, though. Von Miller is a good pass rusher and although he's no Calvin Johnson, Eric Decker is actually a pretty good receiver.

Unfortunately I think Denver is going to have just enough wins with Tebow that they won't have a shot at Andrew Luck.

[RollTide]

Well shit, there goes 12-4. My Broncos can make 11-5, I fucking know it.



Hold on, how bad he looks? I'm not denying that he was awful until the last minutes of this week's game (not that it mattered), but come on. Even Tom Brady looks dreadful when he doesn't even have 2 seconds to throw the ball, not to mention when his defense allows 45 unanswered points, the only stable part of the offense (McGahee) is injured, or receivers can't keep their feet in on touchdown passes. Do you think Orton would have somehow been better with those issues? Doubtful. I wish it were as simple as replacing Tebow with somebody else. At least Tebow could make a few things happen on his feet, however futile those efforts were.

Denver has a LONG way to go. At least there is a bright side, though. Von Miller is a good pass rusher and although he's no Calvin Johnson, Eric Decker is actually a pretty good receiver.

Unfortunately I think Denver is going to have just enough wins with Tebow that they won't have a shot at Andrew Luck.

It doesn't really matter how who else is on that offense. They can't fix his mechanics. They can't fix his accuracy. They can't fix his ability to read and react to defenses. Read something last night that pointed out he's still struggling making his second passing read. He has very little pocket awareness. Also read that barring a huge turnaround, Tebow likely only makes a couple more starts before Brady Quinn gets a shot.

That defense does have bright spots. Von Miller like you said. Rahim Moore from UCLA back at safety. I mean, I don't think Denver has a shot in hell at Luck at this point, but there should be other options in the draft(Staring at you Landry Jones/Matt Barkley).

[Badpaladin]

It doesn't really matter how who else is on that offense. They can't fix his mechanics. They can't fix his accuracy. They can't fix his ability to read and react to defenses. Read something last night that pointed out he's still struggling making his second passing read. He has very little pocket awareness. Also read that barring a huge turnaround, Tebow likely only makes a couple more starts before Brady Quinn gets a shot.

We'll have to see. Mechanics can definitely get better. Aaron Rodgers wasn't even remotely spectacular for a while, but experience and confidence made him the league's most accurate passer. Now that he has good receivers to throw to, he almost makes it look easy. I don't suspect that Tebow will be that good any time soon (if ever), but it's hard to judge a quarterback off of 2-3 record (especially with a bad team around him).

That defense does have bright spots. Von Miller like you said. Rahim Moore from UCLA back at safety. I mean, I don't think Denver has a shot in hell at Luck at this point, but there should be other options in the draft(Staring at you Landry Jones/Matt Barkley).

I was thinking Barkley would be great, but the Stanford game kind of changed my mind a bit. He's accurate and makes decent reads, but he choked quite a few times on big plays that were needed. USC could have won that game with the way their defense was playing and the way his receivers were getting open, but he consistently missed some pretty important throws. I don't think that's going to translate very well in the NFL.

Honestly, I'd be more interested in bolstering the defense some more. I haven't looked at all the potential choices, but we can't rely on Bailey forever and a new CB would suit the Defense very well. Our offense is dreadful, but our defense isn't quite so bad. Bolstering up the secondary and perhaps trading around for a good defensive lineman could easily add a handful of wins next season.

[Elbren]

Ya I watched a chunk of that game on Red Zone, when I wasn't in an allergy medicine induced haze, and it was like two totally different teams. That St Louis game though, wtf. The Rams have shown absolutely no sign that they were a real team this year and yet they somehow managed to completely blank the Saints for three quarters. There was a time when the Fins, Rams, and Cards were all winning their games and I thought I was having a bad reaction to the medication. Bizzaro NFL.

Yeah, those were some crazy one o'clock games. lol

And could Seattle possibly look worse? They are back to the quarterback carousel since neither guy is performing, although Jackson was admittedly hurt. Sad part is as terrible as they are, they would still be in the hunt for the division title if the Niners didn't have their miraculous ascendance under Jim Harbaugh.

Good lord ... Seattle.

How do get 300+ yards from one QB, 50+ from another, 100+ yard games from 2 different receivers and 70+ from another ... and not have a single TD between them? lol That's crazy.

The Broncos actually scored points today. The Redskins didn't. Detroit also has a much, much better defense than the Bills, so if anything John Beck is significantly worse than Tebow. How about Whitehurst? He isn't even near as good as Tebow.

Tebow did suck today for sure. Then again, everything about the Broncos sucked today. The Lions did what they wanted on both sides of the ball all game long. Denver is just a bad, bad team regardless of who is under center.

In their defense, neither Beck nor Whitehurst came with the type of hype or media attention that Tebow has had. Also, Beck spent most of his game running for his life ... dude got sacked 9 times. NINE. Pretty sure BJ Penn took fewer shots to the face and that dude retired.

Ya know, I don't mind losing on the road to a division team. I really don't. It happens. And I know Andy Reid has an incredible record coming off of a bye. But what happened to night is not fine. This team didn't show up. And it's baffling. How do you not show up for a prime time game on National television. Against Philly no less. We're in a relatively tight division that is probably going to come down to the last week. Every game counts. And you don't even put up a fight? Really?

It's not even a game where you can say "Well we did this good, but if we could have done this better we'd have been right in the game." Not one player showed up tonight. It was surreal. They walked into the Linc and got punched in the mouth right off the bat and did nothing. This team is so ridiculously inconsistent and its frustrating. This is the same team analysts this morning were calling the most complete in the division. But they're so inconsistent. Thank god we've got a joke schedule for the most part going forward.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong w/ losing to a team that most thought would go deep into the playoffs, but that game was seriously hard to watch. Seemed like Dallas was done from the 1st whistle. Even looking at them on the sidelines. Seemed like none of them were standing together; just a whole bunch of guys standing by themselves. The few times you actually saw them standing together talking, they were arguing.

I have a feeling it's really time to just blow that team up and start over.

[Pendulous]

We'll have to see. Mechanics can definitely get better. Aaron Rodgers wasn't even remotely spectacular for a while, but experience and confidence made him the league's most accurate passer. Now that he has good receivers to throw to, he almost makes it look easy. I don't suspect that Tebow will be that good any time soon (if ever), but it's hard to judge a quarterback off of 2-3 record (especially with a bad team around him).

Difference is he was training behind Brett Favre. Not Kyle Obscurity

[wombinator04]

Lol, how can you not overturn that fumble call? The ref had to be paid to look away or something.

[Elbren]

Yahoo Sports Link

Basically breaks down what most have already been thinking. Nice read ... or maybe a hard read. Guess it depends on if you're a Tebow fan or not.

Some excerpts:

Come on – that’s embarrassing. I mean, it’s a joke. We knew all week that if we brought any kind of defensive pressure, he couldn’t do anything. In the second half it got boring out there. We were like, ‘Come on – that’s your quarterback? Seriously?’

Words like atrocious, terrible, completely exposed and not even close to ready kept coming up in these conversations; a couple of Lions even used the term oh my god.

In fairness, Tebow’s 18-for-39, 172-yard performance – numbers padded considerably by garbage-time completions, if you can believe that – wasn’t solely the product of dubious choices. His limited skill set was also on display, from an acute lack of accuracy, to a deliberate delivery (Avril dislodged the ball while Tebow was extending his arm backward before attempting to pass), to an apparent uncertainty about where to go with the ball.

None of this was necessarily a surprise to the Broncos’ brass, including coach John Fox and executive vice president of football operations John Elway. Tebow’s flaws were obvious to all trained observers during training camp, which is why veteran Kyle Orton was named the team’s unquestioned starter in August.

While few NFL players seem to have a problem with Tebow on a personal level, I know plenty who are put off by the mythology and the holier-than-thou fan base that lionizes his every accomplishment and perceives negative depictions of his ability through a persecution-complex-tinted prism.

On Friday, an NFL.com headline portrayed Sunday’s showdown as a struggle between good and evil, with accompanying photos of Tebow and Suh.

“Evil prevails,” Suh told reporters.

A source familiar with the Broncos’ thinking said he expected Tebow to last another couple of games until [...] the team turns to current third-stringer Brady Quinn, a 2007 first-round pick of the Cleveland Browns. The Broncos would then target a quarterback in the first round of next April’s draft

Sadly, I think one of the worst things from the article doesn't even have anything to do with Tebow; it's about McDaniels. He had EIGHT picks in the 1st and 2nd rounds of the 2009 and 2010 drafts. Only 3 of those picks are currently starters: Tebow, guard Zane Beadles and DE Robert Ayers. Of McDaniels’ 19 picks overall, only eight are on Denver’s active roster.

Man ... it's like that guy was a secret agent sent in to bring down the Broncos from the inside. I just can't imagine someone being that bad on accident. You'd have to think that the name 'McDaniels' would be considered a four-letter-word in Denver now.

[Badpaladin]

Sadly, I think one of the worst things from the article doesn't even have anything to do with Tebow; it's about McDaniels. He had EIGHT picks in the 1st and 2nd rounds of the 2009 and 2010 drafts. Only 3 of those picks are currently starters: Tebow, guard Zane Beadles and DE Robert Ayers. Of McDaniels’ 19 picks overall, only eight are on Denver’s active roster.

Man ... it's like that guy was a secret agent sent in to bring down the Broncos from the inside. I just can't imagine someone being that bad on accident. You'd have to think that the name 'McDaniels' would be considered a four-letter-word in Denver now.

He-who-shall-not-be-named. McDaniels has no business in the NFL.

I also read an article that struck my interest. Not that I think it's true, but the idea of it was that Jon Fox is making Tebow look a lot worse than he is. The guy brought up that in the final minutes of the Dolphins game was the first time Tebow really ran a true spread offense from the Gun. The first drive in the Lions game that lead to a good TD pass (could have been better, but it was very catchable) that was eventually called back by officials was also run in a spread formation. The first 50ish minutes of the Dolphins game was directly under center, and so were ensuing drives in the Detroit game.

The one thing I took away from it is that Tebow isn't bad when he's playing a particular type of offense, but Fox doesn't like to run those kinds of formations.

I dunno. Personally I think they should give a shot becuase McGahee is hurt and [b]No[/n]-shawn isn't any good between the tackles. Realistically, 5-11 is probably what's capable of being accomplished this season, so why not play to the QB's strengths?

...

And the "Tebowing" done by the first defender has an extended story -- he turned around and told Tebow that it was a joke, and they both had a laugh about it. At the end of the game Tebow personally congratulated the guy on playing well. "Evil" Lions really aren't that evil.

...

Now for my second-favorite team, SD. What the fuck, Rivers?

[Thallidomaniac]

Now for my second-favorite team, SD. What the fuck, Rivers?

I was more baffled by how bland that Chargers vs. Chiefs game was in total. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of penalties SD got.

[conscript]

I was more baffled by how bland that Chargers vs. Chiefs game was in total. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of penalties SD got.

When the Chargers miss the playoffs or get knocked out in the first round, do you think they will finally fire Norv Turner? They really, really need a new coach in there.

[Elbren]

I also read an article that struck my interest. Not that I think it's true, but the idea of it was that Jon Fox is making Tebow look a lot worse than he is. The guy brought up that in the final minutes of the Dolphins game was the first time Tebow really ran a true spread offense from the Gun. The first drive in the Lions game that lead to a good TD pass (could have been better, but it was very catchable) that was eventually called back by officials was also run in a spread formation. The first 50ish minutes of the Dolphins game was directly under center, and so were ensuing drives in the Detroit game.

The one thing I took away from it is that Tebow isn't bad when he's playing a particular type of offense, but Fox doesn't like to run those kinds of formations.

The problem with that is, you can't run an entire game out of the shotgun. Maybe you can do that in college, but definitely not at the NFL level. Your RB gets a lot fewer touches and it puts a lot of pressure on your offensive line. It puts the secondary one on one, but if the defensive line can put any kind of pressure on the QB, you're done. You can get it to work on one or two drives, but it's definitely not something you can do for an entire game. One of the reasons the Wildcat wasn't all that successful in Miami. It's basically the same offense, except you're snapping the ball to the RB instead of the QB.

When the Chargers miss the playoffs or get knocked out in the first round, do you think they will finally fire Norv Turner? They really, really need a new coach in there.

I dunno ... if they haven't done it by now, I'm not sure if they'll ever do it (short of him walking away at the end of a contract). How many quality teams are they gonna let him squander into mediocrity?

[Robbyjawz]

They can have Cam Cameron! We'll give him AND a Second round pick if someone will take him off our hands! Really though, Norv Turner, and Cam Cameron have no business in the NFL, like McDaniels, only McDaniels was overhyped due to his year(s?) as a protege to the Emperor Hoodie.