if by "superbowl contender" you mean "go 11-5 and lose to the first good team they play in the playoffs" then yes
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The Everything NFL Punter Thread - 2014/2015 Season
- Thread starter Stallion
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TheValkyries
proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
Dear Footballah, May our OLine figure out how to block, may Brady get out of this funk, and may we continue to be blessed by the defensive football gods. Amen.
The AFC looks pretty weak so maybe. Good chance they get a bye.
I mean, they're definitely the best team in the AFC North. The only teams as good or better than the Bengals are Denver and maybe San Diego. They could very well make it to the AFC championship..
The bengals have a 50% better point differential than any other team in the league, and their opponents are a combined 5-1 when not playing them. Hard to say they haven't been the best team so far. And since they already have a one game lead for the best record in the afc, they don't have to play all that well to hang onto it, especially since their division gives them a piss easy schedule. Odds are some team is going to emerge as a legitimate fourth team in the afc, so it won't be as easy a trip to the conference championship as it looks atm, but the fact is even if every game is just roughly a 50/50 you still have a pretty damned good chance of making the super bowl just for getting that bye.
xJownage
Even pendulums swing both ways
Bortles is fucked. I just want to say this is exactly what happened with blaine gabbert. Getting thrown in stunts your progress in making reads, and it makes you much slower than you should be. It often doesnt get better for qbs just thrown into the fire. See Blaine Gabbert. The same problems for him exist for bortles. Bad recieving corps, bad o-line, bad running game. He just doesnt have a lot going for him. As a fan and a person at the game, I can attest to the fact that his reads were not all that fast, and his play was mediocre against a mediocre defense that wasnt even trying anymore up by 30 pts. The overreaction to bortles is no suprise to me, but common sense has an easy answer for this.
Bengals are by far the most complete team in the AFC. They will as good as how few mistakes their qb makes. The number of playmakers on offense and the skill of their defense means that andy dalton doesnt need to even play all that well, he just needs to be patient and manage the game. If he doesnt make mistakes with the football, the skills of the players around him will take that team a hell of a long way. People who are saying this team will be as good as dalton are wrong, they will be better than however good dalton is.
Bengals are by far the most complete team in the AFC. They will as good as how few mistakes their qb makes. The number of playmakers on offense and the skill of their defense means that andy dalton doesnt need to even play all that well, he just needs to be patient and manage the game. If he doesnt make mistakes with the football, the skills of the players around him will take that team a hell of a long way. People who are saying this team will be as good as dalton are wrong, they will be better than however good dalton is.
The Oline is the biggest reason for Brady's play right now.
sure, that could be the case.
except Bortles is not Gabbert. Bortles also had an entire offseason, which was also a huge part of Gabberts stunting. Gabbert was the 3rd stringer right up until like the week before the season opener. They cut Garrard, started McClown The Younger, and after 2 atrocious games, they threw Gabbert in without even having a single rep with the first team in practice.
Time will tell, but this feels much different, and Bortles looks good in games, not just practice.
The Jags receiving corps arent bad. Theyre definitely young but there is some talented there. A lot of the sacks were Henne's fault and yes Bortles is not walking into a good situtation but he's not going to develop by sitting on the bench for the entire year.
Get that "stunting" shit out of here. You can either play or you can't. QBs will develop faster playing than not playing, simple as that. Practice makes perfect and actual, real game experience is going to get one up to speed faster than holding a clipboard and playing pretend with the second-stringers between games. Failure is the result of the player and/or coaching simply not being good enough.
Peyton Manning should be an example for not judging QBs in their first year.
Blake is a continent better than Gabbert.
Blake is a continent better than Gabbert.
So would Rodgers be an example of the advantages of holding a clipboard?
i won't argue with that.
xJownage
Even pendulums swing both ways
The reason they are bad for bortles is because they arent very good at getting off the line of scrimmage, just watch game film. Also, Henne was getting on average about 3 seconds before having to throw the ball, and with overload blitzes was getting multiple guys in his face often. When he got more than one guy he really cant beat the rush temporarily and cant find his timing routes without getting balls batted down, two of his biggest criticisms in jacksonville. I feel like even the best qbs would struggle with no running game, inexperienced recievers who struggle to get off the line, and no pass protection against overload blitzes. Not only that, but the jags arent healthy. Mercedes lewis, one of the only big-bodied threats for the jags and a very good TE, was out sunday, and clay harbor, the teams other TE was also out. They have basically no tight end support, which is an important bail for a rookie QB.
Please dont talk about qbs developing better being played than on the bench, it is an awful fallacy and so many people believe it for incorrect reasons. Having a qb wait is extremely important for not only health but development. It is a lot different seeing things from the sidelines watching a vet diagnose the defense than it is when you are doing it yourself or watching in hindsight. Meanwhile throwing a rookie in is very restricting for your offense. There arent a lot of plays they will be comfortable with, and the steep growth curve makes it much harder for them to learn nfl throws by experience considering they always need to be attempting to expand the playbook and dont have time to teach him much more difficult throws. It leaves more of this to in game which is much slower amd the results are much worse. The restriction is even worse when you realize everything is a time crunch, trying to get them to mature as a qb and get more comfortable with nfl plays, only gradually allowing you to expand the playbook. And with somebody to watch do these things, it is a lot easier, and without a time crunch it is much easier to get qbs accustomed to making nfl throws and running an nfl offense. Reads are also an issue as a result, and for a bad team, having a disadvantage at the line of scrimmage in terms of the ability to change plays just enhances the issue.
Game experience is not as valuable as you think it is, if they threw in the qb they are not able to just experiment and eventually learn everything by testing. Just use reasoning here, i dont want to spend 20 mins on my phone typing the logic on this.
Please watch game film before you argue acting like you have evidence. I am not pointing fingers and nobody has done this yet but i can feel it coming.
exactly. i mean, look at JOE FLACCO. the guy has a superbowl ring. how did he achieve that? with a top defense, power running game, and solid WRs. all he had to do was not fuck up, same case for andy dalton this year...
The Ravens proved that it's POSSIBLE, not that it's likely. There are always going to be outliers, but you'll find the majority of Super Bowl winners have Top 10 franchise QB at the helm. Obviously the Bengals have enough talent to be capable of winning a SB, but the rest of their team outside of Dalton would have to play lights out football when it matters most, in addition to Dalton not making mistakes.
xJownage
Even pendulums swing both ways
Thats because most good teams value franchise QBs. Im not going to go through about a quarter of super bowl winning teams that had mediocre-good qbs, and many more who were just dont make mistakes types of guys.
2012 Ravens defense was actually league average, and let's not pretend Flacco wasn't a key component to their postseason run that year, no matter how "fluky" the 11-0 TD-INT ratio seems...
Flacco was carried by his WRs bailing him out of bad throws more than anything else. I would say his lack of mistakes helped them, but calling him a "key component" is giving him too much credit.
I remember watching ridiculous catch after ridiculous catch the entire playoffs. Flacco was mediocre throughout.
Can you actually name examples of where QBs benefited from sitting on the bench as opposed to playing in their rookie season? I honestly cant think of many except for maybe Kaepernick and he was a 2nd round pick.
People believe in this "awful fallacy" because they see the success of rookie QBs who started from day 1 like Luck, Newton, RG3, Ryan, Big Ben etc.
Also how the fuck is having a QB wait important for their health?
So what do you suggest the Jags do? Sit Bortles for the season and then play him next year? Guess what the Jags are still going to be terrible next season. Im not saying Bortles should have been the starter from the opening game but no question he should play at least a few games this season.
Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady :)
Rodgers isnt a good example because he was drafted to a perennial playoff team with a future HOF QB so there was really no choice but to have him sit. Brady of course was the biggest draft steal ever but he was a 6th round pick nonetheless.
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