NFL Thread - 2019-2020 season

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10 months of Patriots roster construction is basically summarized by that game

>Be Bill Belichick
>Push all your chips in on the defense
>Big offseason offensive acquisitions are: Austin Seferian Jenkins, Bruce Ellington, Maurice Harris and DT (zero make the week 1 roster)
>Just completely ignore the TE position
>You are notoriously awful at drafting receivers
>Obviously you draft the 8th best WR in the draft in the first rd
>Realize that you might not have done the best job at addressing the offense and you literally can't win in an offensive league with the worst group of skill players in the league
>Sign crazy person AB to fix it
>He inevitably does crazy person shit and gets rightfully cut
>Still realize that you have no TE or receivers
>Cut your starting (39 year old) TE just for fun
>Resign him later when you realize you actually don't have a TE now
>Fulfill your 2 year long fetish by shooting a 2nd rd pick into the sun to get Mo Sanu over Manny Sanders
>Realize Sanu can't separate and is actually slower than all your current receivers
>Watch Manny sanders tear it up in San Fran
>lose to all 3 AFC top seeds because they have explosive offenses/skill players that you just don't have the weaponry to compete with
>unleash a ridiculously conservative gameplan week 17 against the dolphins because your only viable receiver (edelman) is hurt
>watch your defense get torn up by an actually good receiver
>Blow a first rd bye

Next step:

AJ Brown (the receiver you should have drafted but passed on twice) burns your defense for 125 yards in the wildcard round.

BUT I STILL BELIEVE
 
What a day. I'm annoyed as fuck, but the playoffs should be entertaining. Last top ten. Accidentally skipped last week, but whateva.

Baltimore Ravens
New Orleans Saints
San Francisco 49ers
Kansas City Chiefs
Green Bay Packers
New England Patriots
Seattle Seahawks

Houston Texans
Minnesota Vikings
Tennessee Titans


No team is in better position going into the tournament than Baltimore. Got the useless win that really wasn't useless because they got to put their rivals down without putting their main players at risk. 13-3 is a first-rate record, but 14-2 is much better. Season's a success if they reach the championship round, but the Super Bowl is the goal.

Tough break for the Saints. Best team in the conference, but go lose out on the bye with a 13-3 record. 49ers is one thing, but the Packers end up with the week of rest over them? Really sucks. Everyone let them down. One win was needed between three teams within these two weeks and it didn't happen.

Pretty close for the 49ers, but they got it. The bye is more crucial for them than the Saints or Packers as far as health is concerned, so the rest will do them good. While Garappolo still isn't much better than average to above average, the offense is dangerous enough to threaten big plays with their skill position players. That and the head coach.

The Chiefs scored the other bye week. As the other major contender in the conference, that's a major problem for everyone else. While they didn't look the most impressive throughout the game today, is anyone really worried they won't make a major push to the championship?

Packers definitely move up mainly by their record and the final result. They're certainly not better than the others at this range though. Still apart of the shithouse group. The Lions really had them with Blough, but they choked the big league. They can certainly get a win in the divisional round, but they continue to show how thin they are at the skill position level. Guys made a couple catches here and there (including a couple crucial ones), but it's too painfully obvious how this team is only Adams and Jones (plus a little Williams). Get some new receivers in March and April.

Regardless if they won or not, the Patriots had to not struggle on offense for fans to not worry on that side as much for the playoff run. Just for that last game of the season. Not only did they fail to do that, but they flat out gave up the first round bye to the Chiefs. And at the hands of their rivals in their own stadium. They suck and everyone's a winner. Now there's no reason to put either them or the Seahawks ahead of one another at this point, but they did win last week while the Seahawks lost embarrassingly to the Cardinals. But man, the Dolphins are rolling out tenth stringers at this point. Finally, lets not forget the fact that Parker made Gillmore his bitch today. They're lucky you still can't bet against them in the playoffs and feel safe about it.

What a shitty way to finish the season. 10-2 and drop to 11-5. So much I can add here as a fan, but what's there to say. We suck. Can't score in the first half? Good luck with that strategy. And keep getting outcoached on top of that. No way we can survive three weeks in a row. Need Diggs to come back. Thank God Lockett didn't go down for good. Clowney lasted the whole game. At least they lost to the 49ers....

Kinda blurs here, but the Texans get this spot courtesy of their win last week. They rested their starters, so nothing really to gain that isn't already known. They're up and down and Wayson gives them a ceiling, but they have a floor when not everyone is clicking. They need some guys back or Saturday will be rough.

The Vikings also rested their guys, but the loss last week was their knock. I just don't feel they have it to make any sort of convincing run. They have their pluses and will be in better shape when Cook is healthier. Don't count out their receivers if Cousins is playing well and the line holds up.

Titans deserve the jump into the list after the work they've done for the past couple months. While there's no guarantee that next year will be as good with Tannehill, it's working right now and could potentially threaten the Patriots. Henry has been steam rolling dudes and AJ Brown is a grown ass man out there. Should be a very good matchup between the receivers and the defensive backs next week
 

TheValkyries

proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
I hate existing with Patriots fans who insist on laying the blame at the feet of the best parts of the team and organization rather than at the feet of where it belongs. Such spoiled brats in terms of expectations, demanding literal perfection. “If you’re the best you should never make a mistake ever.” It’s like they’re resentful of people being extremely good at something. Example: Pretzels whining non stop all year about Belichicks ability to build a team. After we’ve won 3 Super Bowls and been to like what 4 straight? Did we miss one one year? Or taking out N’keal Harry to force this “Belichick is bad at drafting” story when it’s pretty damn clear to anyone with normal eyeballs that Harry is very good, not to mention that a hell of a lot of our starters have been drafted and that we’ve drafted a handful of Hall of Famers which is A Rarity.

Example of non Pretzels: I was talking with someone insisting that Gilmore shouldn’t get DPoY because Davante Parker had a good game. And the Belichick should lose his paycheck(???) for not calling timeouts at the end of the first half (when doing so would’ve given the ball back to the dolphins with a minute+ left and all their timeouts????).

Maybe it’s boston fans? Or maybe it’s sports fans in general? There’s this need to condemn failure louder than you can appreciate success. Failures give the context for a teams success and vice versa. But people would rather view failure or success as a binary judgement on such massive scales rather than a string of individual nuanced moments. The basic unit of football is a single play, not a season, or even a game.
 
Pretzels whining non stop all year about Belichicks ability to build a team.
I've been pretty consistent in my opinion that Belichick built the leagues best secondary and defense, and even got into an argument with you a few months back when you thought gilmore wasn't the league's best corner.

But Belichick isn't above criticism for his roster mis-mangment when it comes to the offense. My previous post is Cleveland browns level bungling of the skill positions. For years Belichick just threw random receivers at Brady and basically told him to make it work, and now that Brady's 42, he finally just couldn't make it work anymore.

I mean, he just literally went into the season without a TE.

Or taking out N’keal Harry to force this “Belichick is bad at drafting” story when it’s pretty damn clear to anyone with normal eyeballs that Harry is very good, not to mention that a hell of a lot of our starters have been drafted and that we’ve drafted a handful of Hall of Famers which is A Rarity.
I'm not saying hes bad at drafting, I'm saying hes bad at drafting receivers. Which is one of the most painfully obvious things in the NFL. The Patriots rarely invest high draft capital in pass-catchers (receivers in particular), and when they do they always draft a bust (non-hyperbole).
 

TheValkyries

proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
the marriage to the idea that you absolutely need a tight end to have an offense is laughable. Whose Seattles tight end? Whose the star Ravens tight end? Is Jason Witten really doing all that much for the Cowboys aka number one offense in the league? In Atlanta? Tampa Bay, who had the most passing yards this season?

And yeah he didn't sign a WR that worked out. But he did sign one of the best WR's in the league who just was insistent on self destructing. So like does he not get any credit for signing one of the top 3 WR's in the league for the past 5 years or whatever? Are you serious in how you have to have a perfect answer and perfect foresight the immediate season after your Hall of Fame offensive weapon retires suddenly at a relatively young age? Like obviously the moves weren't perfect but it's not the only reason the offense is struggling. Maybe just maybe if we have such bad receivers some blame should go to the fact that Brady threw over 600 passes this season? Maybe some blame should be laid at how badly the offensive line has managed this year, but could some of that be thrown to the injuries that ravaged them? Can we talk about how important Develin was to our rushing attack considering that 1 in 5 of all our rushing plays ended behind the line of scrimmage? There's a lot of things that went wrong on Offense but to say it's because Belichick flubbed the offseason is ridiculous. How many seasons are entirely solved based off of one off season? Like ever?

And I'm just laughing at "always a bust" which again takes out Harry for no reason and ignores Gronk? And also just like... is every wide receiver draft pick supposed to be a home run when you're drafting at 30-32 every single year? The obvious ones are gone by the top 10 LMAO. Are we supposed to just get really lucky and find the diamond in the rough that was overlooked?

All I'm saying is you don't have to go for the hottest take imaginable and go hardcore on criticizing the literal best Organization in the history of football as some weird defense mechanism against all the haters. Or whatever the heck the reason is.
 

Stallion

Tree Young
is a Tiering Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Three-Time Past WCoP Champion
Fuck it, I'll go.

Patriots vs Titans
Texans vs Bills
Eagles vs Seahawks
Saints vs Vikings

Ravens vs Texans
Chiefs vs Patriots
Packers vs Saints
49ers
vs Eagles

Ravens vs Chiefs
49ers vs Saints

Ravens vs 49ers
 
Patriots vs Titans
Texans vs Bills
Eagles vs Seahawks
Saints
vs Vikings

Ravens vs Bills
Chiefs vs Patriots
Packers vs Saints
49ers vs Seahawks

Ravens vs Chiefs
49ers
vs Packers

Chiefs vs 49ers
 
The Playtronics site is down, so no custom playoff brackets. Really strange that none of the big sites have one for themselves. Especially ESPN, who has their Playoff Machine for the regular season.

No playoff thread. We really sleepin this year.

Weekly:

#6 Tennessee Titans @ #3 New England Patriots
#5 Seattle Seahawks
@ #4 Philadelphia Eagles

#5 Buffalo Bills @ #4 Houston Texans
#6 Minnesota Vikings @ #3 New Orleans Saints

Overall:


#6 Tennessee Titans @ #3 New England Patriots
#5 Seattle Seahawks
@ #4 Philadelphia Eagles

#5 Buffalo Bills @ #4 Houston Texans
#6 Minnesota Vikings @ #3 New Orleans Saints

#4 Houston Texans @ #1 Baltimore Ravens
#3 New Orleans Saints
@ #2 Green Bay Packers

#3 New England Patriots @ #2 Kansas City Chiefs
#5 Seattle Seahawks
@ #1 San Francisco 49ers

#2 Kansas City Chiefs @ #1 Baltimore Ravens
#3 New Orleans Saints
@ #5 Seattle Seahawks

#1 Baltimore Ravens vs #3 New Orleans Saints

While absolutely no one would be shocked if the Titans win over the Patriots, you can't really bet on the Patriots being an instant exit.

Quite lofty goals I set for the Seahawks. They're not great and a run is improbable. The 49ers match can be anyone's game though and I'll hinge it on if we don't sustain any more injuries this week (Lockett, Diggs, Clowney, etc are on the watchlist) and if Wilson can ascend back to top form. Unfortunately, a road match against the Saints or the Packers would be their kryptonite.

Pretty unfortunate for the Saints. It's like the league has some vendetta against them with everything that's gone on. But, in 2017, they lose in a heartbreaking fashion in the divisional round, in 2018, they lose in heartbreaking fashion in the conference championship. Now, same thing in the Super Bowl?

The Chiefs exact their revenge against the Patriots. Should be a great match between them and the Ravens if they meet, but will their defense hold up?

I'm perfectly fine riding the Ravens for this road. They're too balanced and healthy. They shouldn't have trouble scoring a lot either.
 

WaterBomb

Two kids no brane
is a Forum Moderatoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Moderator
Patriots vs Titans
Texans vs Bills
Eagles vs Seahawks
Saints
vs Vikings

Ravens vs Bills
Chefs vs Patriots
Packers vs Saints
49ers vs Seahawks

Ravens vs Chefs
Seahawks vs Saints

Chefs vs Saints
 
the marriage to the idea that you absolutely need a tight end to have an offense is laughable.
Well nobody said that, but when you go from 10 years of the most TE dependent offense to not evening using a TE its gonna raise some eyebrows.
Whose Seattles tight end?
The dude the Patriots traded to them in the offseason is doing pretty well over there.
Whose the star Ravens tight end?
The pro bowler with 10 TDs
Is Jason Witten really doing all that much for the Cowboys aka number one offense in the league?
They have a ton of receiver talent
In Atlanta?
They have even more receiver talent than dallas and a very good TE
Tampa Bay, who had the most passing yards this season?
They have literally the most receiver talent in the NFL.

You don't need a good TE to have a good offense, but all these teams you mention either
1.Have a good TE
2.Have insane receiver talent
The Patriots quite obviously lack both

So like does he not get any credit for signing one of the top 3 WR's in the league for the past 5 years or whatever?
Not really since he planned on going into the season with the current receivers minus Sanu. AB was a lotta ticket that didn't pan out because he's a moron.

And also just like... is every wide receiver draft pick supposed to be a home run when you're drafting at 30-32 every single year? The obvious ones are gone by the top 10 LMAO. Are we supposed to just get really lucky and find the diamond in the rough that was overlooked?
I mean if you ignore all the great rookie receivers like
AJ Brown
Deebo Samuel
DK Metcalf
Mecole Hardman
Terry McLaurin
Diontae Johnson
Darius Slayton

who drafted after Harry, I guess it is pretty hard to find a diamond in the rough
 
Playoff predictions:

Patriots vs Titans
Texans vs Bills
Eagles
vs Seahawks
Saints vs Vikings

Ravens vs Bills
Chefs vs Patriots
Packers vs Saints
49ers
vs Seahawks

Ravens vs Patriots
49ers
vs Saints

Patriots vs 49ers
 
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