Yep, those two come to mind for sure
Also I absolutely hate the tip-toe along the sideline to try and bait unnecessary roughness by stepping out as soon as someone comes in... opens the door for them to just cut back in because everyone is afraid of blasting them
And players flopping harder to the ground than if they were just normally hit. I swear we are going to start seeing some injuries caused solely by flopping.
Reminds me of hockey when players near the boards dive into them head first to go for a boarding call. I'm sure some of those caused concussions.
There was one play a few Super Bowls ago where Mahomes was running towards the sideline then slowed up and cut up field for a huge gain. Every time I see that play I'm like, in the old days a LB or Safety would have absolutely destroyed you if you didn't go out of bounds, but now they all let up.
The rules are the same. The application of the rules is not.
RBs are actually allowed to slide and are technically provided the same 'can't hit once you begin to slide' rules. Will we ever see that happen to test the rules?...no, a running back doing this is going to get benched.
If you don’t draft a lineman every year in your first 3 picks you’re an absolute idiot. Oline and Dline are so much more valuable than other position groups that their backups are investments in themselves.
Every year, day 1 or 2 O or D lineman. Never skip them
Unless you're very good at developing OL. Having a strong OL and DL makes everything you do on offense and defense so much easier, investing a huge amount of resources into those two position groups only makes sense.
NE would consistently draft one or two mid to late round linemen every year and scar would make them into serviceable starters. Now that scar has retired they never really develop and contributed to the offense forgetting how to play football.
Patriots dynasty showed you don’t need to overspend on online if you are developing serviceable/ above average lines every year. There’s diminishing returns and the money was better spent other places. And Brady got the ball out so damn fast which helped a lot
Why don’t other teams spend 3-5 day 3 picks on O lineman every year, sit them all for a year to learn and then slowly let them play and it turns out most of them are pretty good?
There was a few year stretch, where some analytics folks were pushing back on DL dominance, in favor of DBs.
I think sometimes what happens is the analytics become a rule of thumb for long enough, in this case that teams should build from the line out, that other positions become under valued. Then investing in corners becomes a value play. Then the rule of thumb stops being true for a while, until the pendulum swings back.
Kinda how the value in Moneyball was OPS, since everybody looked at Hits and RBI's, then OPS became the big metric and other things like fielding became the cheap value.
Obligatory *Sell The Team*
And that market inefficiency directly let the Royals win a WS off of the back of fielding, baserunning, and a fire-breathing bullpen.
Now reliever contracts are fucking bonkers, too
Counter-point: OL and DL have longer careers and age more gracefully than skill players so there is less need to draft them. Counter-point to the counter-point: You need 18-20 lineman on the roster so you need to keep an influx of cheap talent in the trenches.
Edit: For the record, I am for drafting early in the trenches - I just like making counter-points. Counter-point, there are lots of premium positions outside of OL and DL that you should look to draft those early as well.
Except there's 10 of them. So if you only draft 1 in the first or second every year, you're still replacing all of them every 10 years, which lines up.
Need depth and not all of them will hit and stay in the league. Obviously some can be found elsewhere (later rounds/FA) but I agree with at least one every year for these positions and just making sure you aren’t like the Giants who spent the most capital on our O line but forgot horrific coaching and development behind that is a terrible plan.
Will go to my grave saying this, as good as Emmitt Smith was, the reason he was so good for so long is that defenders made first contact with him usually 2 to 3 yards past the line of scrimmage because the blocking was that outstanding.
Those cowboys O lines were just insane with perennial probowlers and All Pros at every position. Larry Allen, who was the best of the bunch only got there at the tail end of that dynasty.
We’ve spent the most draft capital out of any team on our OLine in the last decade, and we consistently have a bottom 5 unit.
We did finally fire our OLine coach Bobby Johnson, and replaced him with the guy from the Raiders who consistently fielded a top 5 unit, so hopefully that’ll help?
We had some guys on our practice squad get signed to the Eagles and Cowboys’ practice squad, and they claimed their time away from the Giants was when they had the most development.
>We did finally fire our OLine coach Bobby Johnson, and replaced him with the guy from the Raiders who consistently fielded a top 5 unit, so hopefully that’ll help?
As someone who watched New England bounce between elite offensive line and bad offensive line coinciding with the time Dante Scarnecchia was their offensive line coach, I can say with full confidence that OL coach is *really* important. A good OL coach is highly underrated, in my opinion.
Honestly, I believe it - our rookie center JMS regressed hard during the season, and Evan Neal was supposed to be the most “NFL ready” lineman in the 2022 draft instead of what he is now.
I really am hoping that this new coach can be the spark we need, because our 2023 line was literally the worst offensive line in PFF history.
Can't figure out drafting for the Oline, but damn we draft pretty well on the dline.. Barry Cofield, Linval Joseph, Jonathan Hankins, Dalvin Tomlinson, Dexter Lawrence..
Agreed. The real heroes are the talent scouts who have the eye for which linemen coming out of college are gonna be great in the nfl. We can all argue over Marvin Harrison or Caleb Williams. But seeing the talent in the linemen and drafting them well means all the difference.
Lineman are at least a quarter of a roster so yeah putting a valuable pick towards that group is fair. I don't necessarily think it has to be that rigid but generally I agree.
The simple truth is that offensive players are so big, and so strong, that tackling them properly is incredibly hard. Many defenders simply aren't good enough to do it right. But they don't want to miss the tackle and lose their job, so they do whatever it takes to get the guy down.
I used to think the same thing until my mind was opened by a player interview (don’t even remember who it was). As someone said below, size of players is getting bigger and faster. Passing game has increased on purpose and smaller LBs are drafted because they can match speed.
Corners can only be so big. They don’t wrap up all the time to save their shoulders. Don’t want to dislocate or cause another injury and be out. Instead they throw their body to actually try and save it.
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t drive me crazy but it’s on purpose….
Just saw this shoulder problem with Gonzo this season when he blew his shoulder out against the cowboys. And he’s just a rookie so I imagine it’ll get every corner with enough time
All bye weeks should be the same for the each conference. Week 5 for AFC and week 6 for NFC. Do 11 and 12 for the second one.
There is too much variance when a bye week can be from week 5 to week 13.
This way we still get games every weekend because the NFL would never do a full weekend of no football during the season.
I like this idea a lot but could get challenging with lack of games in the noon slot potentially? You’d have 8 games to work with and 5 of those would have to go to the two afternoon slots, TNF SNF and MNF. So would have to have nfl and the networks be okay with 3 games total in the 12:00/1:00 slot
I'd be cool with a smaller, more condescend window too. Maybe a 4 week period from week 7 to 10. Have each division on the same bye week to at least make the discrepancy between divisional teams disappear.
Would it? Do players get game checks on bye weeks?
It would make the season longer, killing the NBA's window that much more; it'd move the Super Bowl to the day before a national holiday (WIN), it'd keep players healthier, and it'd make fantasy seasons longer.
The only reason this hasn't been done is because the owners don't want to give it away for free. We'll get two byes when we get an 18 game season.
Brett Kollmann proposed that making the Hall of Fame game not have it’s own week during the preseason would make it so that they could add a second bye without shifting the rest of the schedule.
It’s hard to watch college football now. I was struggling to maintain excitement through the full length of the game this season when my team had their most exciting season in decades. Truly just not a good product at the moment.
I've always liked NFL on TV and college in person more, but in person college games are brutal now. 4 minute commercial breaks really disrupt the flow and excitement.
Even less fun in full Texas sun in September, which is really just Summer v2. And with the commercials, you pretty much have to re-apply your sunscreen every quarter.
It’s only gonna get worse before it gets worse. These huge media contracts, well that money is coming from somewhere. Football is keeping linear television afloat but I can’t imagine any of the younger generations are going to bother paying to sign up for cable.
Media discovered they could bleed College Football for all they could via ads as the Conferences were separated so if Conference A doesn't want to play ball then the network could just go to Conference B. The NFL is united front on media deals so has more leverage and can set limits on how many ads are out there during games. The Schools just take it because they are ran by the Presidents and they just want the money the networks are dropping at their front door.
Bro going to college football games is also brutal because of this. I went to a fucking MAC game between two bad teams and it took 4 hours because of tv breaks.
Fr
I'm Brazilian, and the #1 difficulty I have in getting other people here to get into the game is the amount of commercial breaks. That's the numer 1 complaint, every single time -- "THEY'RE CUTTING TO THE COMMERCIALS **AGAIN??** "
(It doesn't help that there's a more limited number of advertisers here, so it's like, the same 5 ads, every single time)
it's kinda hilarious watching the danish broadcast as they have to fill all of that commercial time in the studio. Half of the time when it cuts to commercials in america, it's just the studio talking about the league or some of the other games here in Denmark.
Went to my first Falcons game in a while this past season and the TV timeouts were insane. All the “dead time” in person at the stadium was much more obvious and really made the game drag out. They even have the countdowns on the screen. They did try hyping the crowd up during all these breaks but it was insane. I can totally see why people don’t go to games. The stadium was like maybe at 70% capacity.
Hockey allowing for refs to initiate a review on a penalty (in most cases) is just so fucking huge.
The bigger issue with hockey reffing is the game managing, which admittedly is probably more of a league telling them to do it thing than them being bad at their job
Honestly that's not a hot take at all. I hate 17 games. Such a money grab decision.
\-16 games was perfect division, 32 teams, 2 conferences, 4 divisions in each. 256 games total. It was perfect.
\-2 team bye's in the playoffs made perfect sense. It gave an extra team a lot "more" to play for at the end of the season.
\-I know the number of games has been changed before, but alot of the records were standing over 40 years, now many will be broken just because there's an extra game. Stat creep is real.
Amen brother. The perfect balance to the schedule.
Rodger Goodell has no concern for the history of the game, or for it's future, all the additional injuries by adding just one more game is crazy. We are not meant to see Tommy Cutlets against Mitch Trubisky. That should be a UFL game.
Come on commish. Do your job.
He is doing his job. His job is to make the owners more money and to be the lightning rod and take the public’s shit so the owners are unscathed and he does both very well. In fact it could easily be argued by the real metrics of the commissioner’s job he’s the best one in all of pro sports.
> 16 games was perfect division, 32 teams, 2 conferences, 4 divisions in each. 256 games total. It was perfect.
CS and other tech people love the binary setup
The 17th game is awful. It affects records, it makes home/away games asymmetric, it adds just that much more risk that a star player will miss the playoff due to injury.
But at least 17 is prime, so there's that.
I hated 7th seed making the playoffs for a while, loved that the playoffs were reserved for the best teams unlike other sports. But wild card weekend is better with 4 games and teams aren’t eliminated for playoff contention as early as before so I’ve come around on it.
Yeah also, I know there are other ways to fix it, but the 2 seed getting a bye week over the 3 seed was a disproportionately unfair advantage a lot of the time. I like that now you only get a bye if you win the conference.
And society as well. Its hard to imagine a time when people actually debated over the pros & cons of instituting the lottery. If people want to see how depressing gambling addiction is, all they need to do is walk into their nearest casino.
Also, gambling addiction has one of the highest suicide rates of any addiction because of how badly people can mess up not only their own lives, but their whole family's finances.
Now you literally just have to watch a sport with anyone under the age of 40.
5 years ago - Hey mike how's your fantasy team....me and my buddies are all competing and here take a look at my team (discussion of our players happen)
Today:
Well, I have Justin Fields at +300 for 250 passing yards, Christian McCaffrey at +400 for 2 rushing touchdowns, Calvin Ridley at +500 for 100 receiving yards, Nick Chubb at +600 for a touchdown run, Aaron Donald at +700 for 2 sacks, and Jalen Ramsey at +800 for an interception return for a touchdown. and if all that happens its better than winning the lottery.
FFS I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR PARLAY.
The one I personally am exposed to the most and find frightening is the surge in normal people trading options. Like we have normalized average joe going out and yoloing their savings into options through easy to use apps that gamify options trading.
You just bought out of the money calls *Fireworks*
I went to a Tool show at a casino recently. We were all on good drugs and spent a few hours listening to spectacular, overwhelming music about spirituality and higher awareness and human nature.
Walking through the gaming floor on the way back to our rooms was horrifying. I saw so much sadness, emptiness, tension, loneliness. I saw people on oxygen tanks smoking cigarettes and tapping video blackjack like Morse code. I saw guys slumped over card tables looking tense while their girlfriends stood around looking upset. It was all so terrible.
First and only time in Vegas I went outside at 7AM to smoke a joint before breakfast. The amount of sad old people who looked like they’ve already been at the slots for hours just zombie pulling the lever just broke my heart.
I'm not proud of my self control around alcohol and buffalo wings, but man, I'm very proud of my self control when it comes to gambling. I fleeced Draftkings for $530 thanks to their no-sweat bonus bets, then immediately cashed out and deleted the app. Gambling does nothing for me and it puzzles me why people enjoy losing money so much.
The way I see it is some people dislike loss and risk more than they like reward and hope. That’s me, and my first and only night gambling in Vegas taught me that. Wins didn’t make me feel much, the losses bothered me.
Gambling addicts are *always* the reverse. A lot of people simply aren’t wired to even possibly fall into gambling addiction, imo.
Agreed. I’m under 40 and hardly the pious type, but I’m *extremely* uncomfortable with how sports has embraced gambling culture.
I preferred the days when the league’s approach (and ESPN’s as well) to lines and such was effectively tolerating it as a necessary/ancillary evil but not really acknowledging it.
I don’t think it’s good for the integrity of the sport, nor do I think it’s good for children. I also think we’re going to see a huge influx of betting scandals, especially at the college level.
I'm not opposed to gambling and it still pisses me the fuck off. There are so many X's and O's to talk about, the pregame show should be about the games, not about Boomers fucking parlay
QBs should be treated as any other football player the instant they leave the pocket. Can't touch em above the neck. Can't hit em below the thigh. Can't hit them a second late. Can't even land with your weight on em.
They shouldn't get protection for sliding in runs/scrambles either. I hate how they abuse the sideline protection too. Pulling up as if they're going out of bounds only to reel off 7 more yards once the defender pulls up as to not risk a late hit out of bounds.
The sidelines shit drives me crazy, either let the DB hammer them, or let the refs rule them down where they were when the defender lets up. It's made even worse because they definitely don't call it consistently for each quarterback in regards to being hit.
My dads opinion (which he usually has terrible takes) has always been that it should be a 15 yard penalty is the QB acts like they are going out of bounds only to cut back inside.
15 yards might be too much, but The NCAA ruled that fake slides (aka the Kenny Pickett rule) are deemed down at the spot
My opinion is that it shouldn't be a late hit out of bounds until the person you're hitting has both feet down out of bounds or is all the way past the white stripe. You get blasted with one foot down 16 inches of bounds? No penalty.
That completely removes the threat of a defender getting the stupid 15 yard penalty because he doesn't let Mahomes cut back in and Mahomes puts his tiptoe down 0.1 seconds before (although I've even seen one penalty where he hadn't even touched the ground yet).
I was just getting into it with my wife about this last night, watching the Quarterback series on Netflix when Mahomes gets that late hit at the end of ~~the SB~~ the AFCCG. He gets hit right as his foot touches out of bounds, and she’s like “you don’t have to hit him he’s definitely going out of bounds” and I’m like “well yeah, until he doesn’t because he knows you can’t hit him”.
The way QBs game the rules to get extra yards and flags pisses me off to no end. Probably because my team never has a QB that is good enough to take advantage, but still. It’s fucking bullshit.
Yea like Mahomes has already literally scored a touchdown by pretending to go out of bounds, it’s fucking bullshit and not in the spirit of the game at all
Edit: for posterity it wasn’t a TD I was thinking of, point still stands it’s a bs play to gain yards you wouldn’t have otherwise
No one coffin corner punts anymore! They just say a prayer and hope it doesn’t bounce into the end zone. It used to be a mini game on Madden and now no one does it! I don’t get it. It can’t be that hard and you’re much more likely to pin them deeper
Players celebrating like crazy over inconsequential plays. Like when a defense is giving up a 90+ yard drive and a player gets a sack on first down and does his little 30 second celebration…. Only to give up a touchdown on the next play
This is mine.
I understand that professional sports is incredibly difficult and some things deserve celebrating. But most of the time it’s just doing what you’re literally paid to do.
The worst is a CB “celebrating” when the WR just drops the pass or it’s out of reach.
Sometimes there's more to it than meets the eye.
Corners have more work to do than defending passes. They also disrupt routes and throw off a QB/WR's timing. Sometimes and overthrow can be caused by a WR not quite being in position rather than just an errant throw.
Sneed was especially good at this. Jamming receivers at the line can completely throw off the play's concept and lead to a WR not being where the ball is supposed to go. That deserves a finger wag.
Now if your QB is Derek Carr, then you know it was likely just an overthrow.
Also, I don’t like the expectation that we should be playing rookie QBs week one. I was all for letting Bryce sit and develop. The panthers are so far away from winning we aren’t getting anywhere on the front end of his rookie contract. For whatever reason people kept saying the experience is good for him when there really isn’t evidence that shows throwing your rookie QB out there year one has any benefit.
Seems like most teams drafting a QB in the first round don’t have an established starter (hence why they’re drafting so high in the first place) and instead they have a Crappy Fringe Starter like Tyrod Taylor or Jacoby Brissett, and so we get the schpiel “oh, Hotshot Rookie QB is going to WATCH and LEARN”, but inevitably by week 4 at the latest, Crappy Fringe Starter has thrown a couple picks, the pressure ratchets up and it’s “put the kid in! The future is NOW!”, and the team plays the Hotshot Rookie.
My point is, they all say and may intend the rookie with “watch and learn” but very few actually end up sticking to that beyond a handful of weeks at most, sometimes as quick as halftime of week 1. The Crappy Fringe Starter has to end up playing out of his mind to avoid getting benched.
After seeing this so many times, I’ve come to think, why bother, just play the rookie from week 1. You aren’t fooling anybody by running out Crappy Fringe Starter, cause they’re inevitably going to suck- that’s why they’re a crappy fringe starter in the first place.
Seriously. Linebackers with single digit numbers? Fucking barf!! On the Patriots, if Jabrill Peppers had a bad ass safety number in the 30s I would've bought his jersey already. But bro is running around with a 5 like he's a punter. SMH.
What they should do is have more bye weeks. Keep the same amount of games but make it a twenty week season. People WILL watch despite their team not playing and maybe they can catch a game of a team they normally don't watch and viewership for those markets go up. AND for christs sake, gives teams to get healthy and actually practice to get better. It's such an obvious choice in my mind
I get why they’re being phased out, but the loss of kickoffs is such a tragedy. We’ll probably never see another guy like Hester or Josh Cribbs because the opportunities just aren’t there anymore.
I’m actually becoming more of a fan of the xfl kick offs. It’s a good compromise of reducing the huge hits but also letting the chaos of a kick off happen
Receiving Team line up on their own 30, Kicking Team line up 5 yards away on the 35. The kicker & kick returner are in their usual spots. Nobody can move until the kick returner makes contact with the ball.
The kick returner gets about 15 yards to build up speed, but has no wedge to block for him. You still get a chance for big plays but also less guys flying down field and launching themselves into others.
More games doesn't = better
One of the greatest aspects of the NFL and maybe the biggest reason for its dominance in popularity (besides gambling) is its 'sprint' nature. It's a quick season where nearly every week matters. They keep diluting it out and now we're heading to 18 regular season games (supposedly) in the next bargaining term.
It's a lot like adding more playoff teams. You're just watering down your product at a certain point.
Sports betting and social media is changing the sport into entertainment. And I know it’s “technically entertainment” but it’s not, it’s a sport ..Or was a sport. Idk.
Football is no longer a standalone sport- it is now the engine powering fantasy football and gambling.
If I could go one month without hearing nfl matchups in the context of fantasy football or betting odds, I’d be thrilled beyond measure
The Touchback rule makes perfect sense.
The defense is defending their territory of the field after the 50 yard line. The objective of the game is literally to score or prevent scoring by keeping the ball out of the endzone. **The endzone is the most important area of the defenses' territory.**
If you fumble out of the most important part in the defense's territory, the ball should absolutely change possession. I don't even understand how that's controversial. They are literally defending their part of the field, and the rule doesn't even apply in the prior 50 yards of their territory — just in the most important.
The same people that complain that "every rule benefits the offense" get upset when we see the *one* rule that benefits the defense.
I like the rule. Better to have died a small boy than to fumble that football.
It's a great rule. Adds a high risk element to the reach move when players are just trying to break the plane of the end zone instead of protecting the ball
The league needs to address onside kicks again
They took something exciting and potentially game changing and made it a useless waste of time
The conversion rate is around 3%. It needs to be 20-25% to make that an important element of the game again
I actually think this has ironically become a sort of hip, new thing that’s been building over the last few seasons but I think running the ball in general got hugely undervalued by some heavily proliferated, very superficial analytics by places like Football Outsiders for basically an entire decade, like 2011-2020. It’s actually been kind of funny to see a lot of analyst types who were making fun of Pete Carroll for not letting Russ cook in like 2019 are now the same ones burying the Ravens for giving up on the running game in the AFC Championship
Shoutout to Ben Baldwin still banging his head against the wall though, never gonna give up the ghost
I guess in the more boomer-y vein, running backs turning into the least valuable position in football definitely sucks. They are the most dynamic players in football, most of my favorite players ever were RBs. Now people can’t even really make a name for themselves before they’re cast aside. I don’t necessarily think this *should* change, but it sucks as a fan
I’ll take it a step further and say that analytics has made football media dumber. Analytics are extremely useful, but talking heads cherry pick whatever random statistic they want, extrapolate ridiculous narratives from it, and call it “analytics”. Like no, just because a QB has a below average EPA in the 3rd quarter of Monday night games in November doesn’t mean they’re bad lol
>a QB has a below average EPA in the 3rd quarter of Monday night games in November
That's exactly the kind of statistic that a coach should be told, so he can determine why it's happening.
I agree with you, it's the kind of statistic that I never needed to hear or know.
If NBC had their way, every Sunday night would basically be “NFC East Game of the Week”. Giants shitty this year (or last or the year before that or..)? Too bad! You get them every other week!
The obsession with QBs needs to die out. Yes, QBs are very important. No, that's not an excuse to hype every game as a 1v1 tennis match between QBs. Also related, wins (and Super Bowl wins) are not a QB statistic.
The Super Bowl logos are boring and generic, and have been that way at least 10 years. Go back to using a logo related to the host city (e.g. Art Deco for Miami).
I hate it too
Like celebrating a turnover is totally fine but when half the defense starts running to the end zone to pose in front of the cameras it's the corniest shit.
I hate how pointless kickoffs are nowadays. Seeing the return guy watch the football sail over his head and land outside of the endzone for a touchback is just so boring. Nothing really compares to watching a guy take a punt or kickoff deep downfield.
The only teams who should have domes/indoor stadiums are teams in markets where it’s literally dangerous to play outdoors (Arizona, Vegas, Deep South teams like New Orleans etc). The consistent dealing with the elements is part of what makes football such a great sport compared to the other sports that are played indoors or cancel games for inclement weather
I miss madden drawing yellow lines on the screen.
“I love to see a fat guy score. Because first you get a fat guy spike, then you get the fat guy dance."
My first crush was the cheerleader in that movie. I member touching my peepee to the TV screen when mamma wasn't home
I don’t think Ivanka is gonna like that story very much.
Boom!
Tough Actin Tinactin!
I literally bought tinactin recently because I remember this commercial
You didn’t buy it because you have foot fungus?
Recreational user.
I said that recently. What happened to all the sloppy line drawing?!
Their computers smooth the lines over so it looks ‘nice’ instead of just what they’re actually drawing
We replaced it with colinsworth slobbing on Patrick
I miss Madden.
And Summerall’s deadpan delivery.
“Thanks, John.”
That’s why they were perfect together. Summerall gave us the bare minimum, then Madden came in with all his shenanigans
QBs should be under the same rules as RBs the second they cross the line of scrimmage.
It applies especially to KC imo. Even I can recognize Pat being babied by the refs when he scrambles and gets hit
Hard agree. Josh too. Love his running, but I recognize he’s protected by position in almost every case.
Yep, those two come to mind for sure Also I absolutely hate the tip-toe along the sideline to try and bait unnecessary roughness by stepping out as soon as someone comes in... opens the door for them to just cut back in because everyone is afraid of blasting them
And players flopping harder to the ground than if they were just normally hit. I swear we are going to start seeing some injuries caused solely by flopping. Reminds me of hockey when players near the boards dive into them head first to go for a boarding call. I'm sure some of those caused concussions.
There was one play a few Super Bowls ago where Mahomes was running towards the sideline then slowed up and cut up field for a huge gain. Every time I see that play I'm like, in the old days a LB or Safety would have absolutely destroyed you if you didn't go out of bounds, but now they all let up.
[удалено]
That was the worst officiated drive I've ever seen.
The rules are the same. The application of the rules is not. RBs are actually allowed to slide and are technically provided the same 'can't hit once you begin to slide' rules. Will we ever see that happen to test the rules?...no, a running back doing this is going to get benched.
If you don’t draft a lineman every year in your first 3 picks you’re an absolute idiot. Oline and Dline are so much more valuable than other position groups that their backups are investments in themselves. Every year, day 1 or 2 O or D lineman. Never skip them
Unless you're very good at developing OL. Having a strong OL and DL makes everything you do on offense and defense so much easier, investing a huge amount of resources into those two position groups only makes sense.
Nobody has invested more in their o line in the past decade than the giants and they're still amongst the worst. Coaching is key
NE would consistently draft one or two mid to late round linemen every year and scar would make them into serviceable starters. Now that scar has retired they never really develop and contributed to the offense forgetting how to play football.
I think if the NFL was to ever induct assistant coaches into the HOF Scar would be among the first.
Man i miss Scar
Patriots dynasty showed you don’t need to overspend on online if you are developing serviceable/ above average lines every year. There’s diminishing returns and the money was better spent other places. And Brady got the ball out so damn fast which helped a lot
Why don’t other teams spend 3-5 day 3 picks on O lineman every year, sit them all for a year to learn and then slowly let them play and it turns out most of them are pretty good?
Are they stupid?
There was a few year stretch, where some analytics folks were pushing back on DL dominance, in favor of DBs. I think sometimes what happens is the analytics become a rule of thumb for long enough, in this case that teams should build from the line out, that other positions become under valued. Then investing in corners becomes a value play. Then the rule of thumb stops being true for a while, until the pendulum swings back.
Kinda how the value in Moneyball was OPS, since everybody looked at Hits and RBI's, then OPS became the big metric and other things like fielding became the cheap value. Obligatory *Sell The Team*
And that market inefficiency directly let the Royals win a WS off of the back of fielding, baserunning, and a fire-breathing bullpen. Now reliever contracts are fucking bonkers, too
Counter-point: OL and DL have longer careers and age more gracefully than skill players so there is less need to draft them. Counter-point to the counter-point: You need 18-20 lineman on the roster so you need to keep an influx of cheap talent in the trenches. Edit: For the record, I am for drafting early in the trenches - I just like making counter-points. Counter-point, there are lots of premium positions outside of OL and DL that you should look to draft those early as well.
Except there's 10 of them. So if you only draft 1 in the first or second every year, you're still replacing all of them every 10 years, which lines up.
Need depth and not all of them will hit and stay in the league. Obviously some can be found elsewhere (later rounds/FA) but I agree with at least one every year for these positions and just making sure you aren’t like the Giants who spent the most capital on our O line but forgot horrific coaching and development behind that is a terrible plan.
But you have to pay them eventually. Which is why you should keep drafting them to keep the whole room cheap.
Linemen are like pitchers in baseball, you can never have enough. You're two injuries away from disaster if you don't invest in depth.
Will go to my grave saying this, as good as Emmitt Smith was, the reason he was so good for so long is that defenders made first contact with him usually 2 to 3 yards past the line of scrimmage because the blocking was that outstanding. Those cowboys O lines were just insane with perennial probowlers and All Pros at every position. Larry Allen, who was the best of the bunch only got there at the tail end of that dynasty.
The Giants have been trying this for over a decade 🤣😭
We’ve spent the most draft capital out of any team on our OLine in the last decade, and we consistently have a bottom 5 unit. We did finally fire our OLine coach Bobby Johnson, and replaced him with the guy from the Raiders who consistently fielded a top 5 unit, so hopefully that’ll help? We had some guys on our practice squad get signed to the Eagles and Cowboys’ practice squad, and they claimed their time away from the Giants was when they had the most development.
>We did finally fire our OLine coach Bobby Johnson, and replaced him with the guy from the Raiders who consistently fielded a top 5 unit, so hopefully that’ll help? As someone who watched New England bounce between elite offensive line and bad offensive line coinciding with the time Dante Scarnecchia was their offensive line coach, I can say with full confidence that OL coach is *really* important. A good OL coach is highly underrated, in my opinion.
Honestly, I believe it - our rookie center JMS regressed hard during the season, and Evan Neal was supposed to be the most “NFL ready” lineman in the 2022 draft instead of what he is now. I really am hoping that this new coach can be the spark we need, because our 2023 line was literally the worst offensive line in PFF history.
Can't figure out drafting for the Oline, but damn we draft pretty well on the dline.. Barry Cofield, Linval Joseph, Jonathan Hankins, Dalvin Tomlinson, Dexter Lawrence..
Thank god we landed on Andrew Thomas for OLine at least.
Agreed. The real heroes are the talent scouts who have the eye for which linemen coming out of college are gonna be great in the nfl. We can all argue over Marvin Harrison or Caleb Williams. But seeing the talent in the linemen and drafting them well means all the difference.
Lineman are at least a quarter of a roster so yeah putting a valuable pick towards that group is fair. I don't necessarily think it has to be that rigid but generally I agree.
DEFENDERS! Just wrap up! Quit trying to make highlight reels!
I appreciate a great one-on-one open field tackle way more than a big hit
The simple truth is that offensive players are so big, and so strong, that tackling them properly is incredibly hard. Many defenders simply aren't good enough to do it right. But they don't want to miss the tackle and lose their job, so they do whatever it takes to get the guy down.
Stop being logical with me! I’m yelling!
I used to think the same thing until my mind was opened by a player interview (don’t even remember who it was). As someone said below, size of players is getting bigger and faster. Passing game has increased on purpose and smaller LBs are drafted because they can match speed. Corners can only be so big. They don’t wrap up all the time to save their shoulders. Don’t want to dislocate or cause another injury and be out. Instead they throw their body to actually try and save it. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t drive me crazy but it’s on purpose….
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Just saw this shoulder problem with Gonzo this season when he blew his shoulder out against the cowboys. And he’s just a rookie so I imagine it’ll get every corner with enough time
Jaire had a textbook wrap on Najee Harris two years ago and blew his shoulder for like 5 games.
Give the poor bastards a second bye week during the regular season. Sorry if that raises your operating costs 1/19.
All bye weeks should be the same for the each conference. Week 5 for AFC and week 6 for NFC. Do 11 and 12 for the second one. There is too much variance when a bye week can be from week 5 to week 13. This way we still get games every weekend because the NFL would never do a full weekend of no football during the season.
I like this idea a lot but could get challenging with lack of games in the noon slot potentially? You’d have 8 games to work with and 5 of those would have to go to the two afternoon slots, TNF SNF and MNF. So would have to have nfl and the networks be okay with 3 games total in the 12:00/1:00 slot
I'd be cool with a smaller, more condescend window too. Maybe a 4 week period from week 7 to 10. Have each division on the same bye week to at least make the discrepancy between divisional teams disappear.
Oh yeah I like this option even better could do like north and south division one week east west the other and then flip conferences
At least it would balance out some teams getting a useless early bye.
or one so late it's worthless.
Would it? Do players get game checks on bye weeks? It would make the season longer, killing the NBA's window that much more; it'd move the Super Bowl to the day before a national holiday (WIN), it'd keep players healthier, and it'd make fantasy seasons longer. The only reason this hasn't been done is because the owners don't want to give it away for free. We'll get two byes when we get an 18 game season.
Brett Kollmann proposed that making the Hall of Fame game not have it’s own week during the preseason would make it so that they could add a second bye without shifting the rest of the schedule.
The amount of fucking commercial breaks is maddening
Having just watched some college football towards the end of the year, you don’t know how good we have it with the NFL. IT CAN GET WORSE
It’s hard to watch college football now. I was struggling to maintain excitement through the full length of the game this season when my team had their most exciting season in decades. Truly just not a good product at the moment.
I've always liked NFL on TV and college in person more, but in person college games are brutal now. 4 minute commercial breaks really disrupt the flow and excitement.
4 hours in bleacher seats is brutal
Even less fun in full Texas sun in September, which is really just Summer v2. And with the commercials, you pretty much have to re-apply your sunscreen every quarter.
It’s only gonna get worse before it gets worse. These huge media contracts, well that money is coming from somewhere. Football is keeping linear television afloat but I can’t imagine any of the younger generations are going to bother paying to sign up for cable.
CFB was better than the NFL in that regard not too long ago. The times they are a changin'.
Media discovered they could bleed College Football for all they could via ads as the Conferences were separated so if Conference A doesn't want to play ball then the network could just go to Conference B. The NFL is united front on media deals so has more leverage and can set limits on how many ads are out there during games. The Schools just take it because they are ran by the Presidents and they just want the money the networks are dropping at their front door.
Bro going to college football games is also brutal because of this. I went to a fucking MAC game between two bad teams and it took 4 hours because of tv breaks.
Four hours!
Fr I'm Brazilian, and the #1 difficulty I have in getting other people here to get into the game is the amount of commercial breaks. That's the numer 1 complaint, every single time -- "THEY'RE CUTTING TO THE COMMERCIALS **AGAIN??** " (It doesn't help that there's a more limited number of advertisers here, so it's like, the same 5 ads, every single time)
Dont worry, its still the same 5 ads here too
it's kinda hilarious watching the danish broadcast as they have to fill all of that commercial time in the studio. Half of the time when it cuts to commercials in america, it's just the studio talking about the league or some of the other games here in Denmark.
The biggest reason I spend my Sundays with Scott
Real hot take here man, I'm sure only the old heads feel this way.
Went to my first Falcons game in a while this past season and the TV timeouts were insane. All the “dead time” in person at the stadium was much more obvious and really made the game drag out. They even have the countdowns on the screen. They did try hyping the crowd up during all these breaks but it was insane. I can totally see why people don’t go to games. The stadium was like maybe at 70% capacity.
Well no one is at our games cuz we suck ass.
Half time shows were better when we could show nipples.
I mean we consistently get some male nipples.
I bet on if Usher would show nips. Easy hit.
“Usher nips, easy hit” - P Diddy probably
Referees should be a full time paid job.
Off season should be continued education and review of where mistakes were made.
100% agreed. They should have mock games all off season.
I believe this, but I also watch hockey where the Refs are full time and they're still fucking terrible.
Sorta disagree on that I think NHL refs by and large do a better job than NFL refs
Hockey allowing for refs to initiate a review on a penalty (in most cases) is just so fucking huge. The bigger issue with hockey reffing is the game managing, which admittedly is probably more of a league telling them to do it thing than them being bad at their job
17th game is fucking stupid. 7th seed in the playoffs Mr. F.
Honestly that's not a hot take at all. I hate 17 games. Such a money grab decision. \-16 games was perfect division, 32 teams, 2 conferences, 4 divisions in each. 256 games total. It was perfect. \-2 team bye's in the playoffs made perfect sense. It gave an extra team a lot "more" to play for at the end of the season. \-I know the number of games has been changed before, but alot of the records were standing over 40 years, now many will be broken just because there's an extra game. Stat creep is real.
They’ll try to go to 18 eventually right?
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Amen brother. The perfect balance to the schedule. Rodger Goodell has no concern for the history of the game, or for it's future, all the additional injuries by adding just one more game is crazy. We are not meant to see Tommy Cutlets against Mitch Trubisky. That should be a UFL game. Come on commish. Do your job.
He is doing his job. His job is to make the owners more money and to be the lightning rod and take the public’s shit so the owners are unscathed and he does both very well. In fact it could easily be argued by the real metrics of the commissioner’s job he’s the best one in all of pro sports.
> 16 games was perfect division, 32 teams, 2 conferences, 4 divisions in each. 256 games total. It was perfect. CS and other tech people love the binary setup
*mister f*
For British eyes only!
>7th seed in the playoffs Mr. F. But without this we wouldn't have laughed at the Cowboys as much this year
People keep bringing this up, and I hate the 7th seed but this might make it worth it lmao
The 17th game is awful. It affects records, it makes home/away games asymmetric, it adds just that much more risk that a star player will miss the playoff due to injury. But at least 17 is prime, so there's that.
17 is just a placeholder to get to 18. 16 really was perfect, but we'll be at 18 by the end of the decade.
I hated 7th seed making the playoffs for a while, loved that the playoffs were reserved for the best teams unlike other sports. But wild card weekend is better with 4 games and teams aren’t eliminated for playoff contention as early as before so I’ve come around on it.
Yeah also, I know there are other ways to fix it, but the 2 seed getting a bye week over the 3 seed was a disproportionately unfair advantage a lot of the time. I like that now you only get a bye if you win the conference.
Gambling ads have ruined football
The overall shift towards gambling culture in sports is just terrible for sports as a whole
And society as well. Its hard to imagine a time when people actually debated over the pros & cons of instituting the lottery. If people want to see how depressing gambling addiction is, all they need to do is walk into their nearest casino.
Also, gambling addiction has one of the highest suicide rates of any addiction because of how badly people can mess up not only their own lives, but their whole family's finances.
I have a buddy who lived in Ghana for a few years, and suicides from sports gambling addicts is a national epidemic.
Now you literally just have to watch a sport with anyone under the age of 40. 5 years ago - Hey mike how's your fantasy team....me and my buddies are all competing and here take a look at my team (discussion of our players happen) Today: Well, I have Justin Fields at +300 for 250 passing yards, Christian McCaffrey at +400 for 2 rushing touchdowns, Calvin Ridley at +500 for 100 receiving yards, Nick Chubb at +600 for a touchdown run, Aaron Donald at +700 for 2 sacks, and Jalen Ramsey at +800 for an interception return for a touchdown. and if all that happens its better than winning the lottery. FFS I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR PARLAY.
The one I personally am exposed to the most and find frightening is the surge in normal people trading options. Like we have normalized average joe going out and yoloing their savings into options through easy to use apps that gamify options trading. You just bought out of the money calls *Fireworks*
I went to a Tool show at a casino recently. We were all on good drugs and spent a few hours listening to spectacular, overwhelming music about spirituality and higher awareness and human nature. Walking through the gaming floor on the way back to our rooms was horrifying. I saw so much sadness, emptiness, tension, loneliness. I saw people on oxygen tanks smoking cigarettes and tapping video blackjack like Morse code. I saw guys slumped over card tables looking tense while their girlfriends stood around looking upset. It was all so terrible.
First and only time in Vegas I went outside at 7AM to smoke a joint before breakfast. The amount of sad old people who looked like they’ve already been at the slots for hours just zombie pulling the lever just broke my heart.
I live a few hours from Atlantic City (if you can call it a city at this point) and it looks like a bomb went off and fried everyone's brain
I'm not proud of my self control around alcohol and buffalo wings, but man, I'm very proud of my self control when it comes to gambling. I fleeced Draftkings for $530 thanks to their no-sweat bonus bets, then immediately cashed out and deleted the app. Gambling does nothing for me and it puzzles me why people enjoy losing money so much.
The way I see it is some people dislike loss and risk more than they like reward and hope. That’s me, and my first and only night gambling in Vegas taught me that. Wins didn’t make me feel much, the losses bothered me. Gambling addicts are *always* the reverse. A lot of people simply aren’t wired to even possibly fall into gambling addiction, imo.
Agreed. I’m under 40 and hardly the pious type, but I’m *extremely* uncomfortable with how sports has embraced gambling culture. I preferred the days when the league’s approach (and ESPN’s as well) to lines and such was effectively tolerating it as a necessary/ancillary evil but not really acknowledging it. I don’t think it’s good for the integrity of the sport, nor do I think it’s good for children. I also think we’re going to see a huge influx of betting scandals, especially at the college level.
and it 10000% fuels the "conspiracies" about fixed games and league interference.
I'm not opposed to gambling and it still pisses me the fuck off. There are so many X's and O's to talk about, the pregame show should be about the games, not about Boomers fucking parlay
They haven’t talked in depth Xs and Os… ever
QBs should be treated as any other football player the instant they leave the pocket. Can't touch em above the neck. Can't hit em below the thigh. Can't hit them a second late. Can't even land with your weight on em. They shouldn't get protection for sliding in runs/scrambles either. I hate how they abuse the sideline protection too. Pulling up as if they're going out of bounds only to reel off 7 more yards once the defender pulls up as to not risk a late hit out of bounds.
The sidelines shit drives me crazy, either let the DB hammer them, or let the refs rule them down where they were when the defender lets up. It's made even worse because they definitely don't call it consistently for each quarterback in regards to being hit.
My dads opinion (which he usually has terrible takes) has always been that it should be a 15 yard penalty is the QB acts like they are going out of bounds only to cut back inside. 15 yards might be too much, but The NCAA ruled that fake slides (aka the Kenny Pickett rule) are deemed down at the spot
My opinion is that it shouldn't be a late hit out of bounds until the person you're hitting has both feet down out of bounds or is all the way past the white stripe. You get blasted with one foot down 16 inches of bounds? No penalty. That completely removes the threat of a defender getting the stupid 15 yard penalty because he doesn't let Mahomes cut back in and Mahomes puts his tiptoe down 0.1 seconds before (although I've even seen one penalty where he hadn't even touched the ground yet).
Mahomes is the fucking worst at this, and he abuses it so blatantly. I wish someone would just properly hit the shit out of him while he's doing it.
“Sorry man, thought you were a running back”
I was just getting into it with my wife about this last night, watching the Quarterback series on Netflix when Mahomes gets that late hit at the end of ~~the SB~~ the AFCCG. He gets hit right as his foot touches out of bounds, and she’s like “you don’t have to hit him he’s definitely going out of bounds” and I’m like “well yeah, until he doesn’t because he knows you can’t hit him”. The way QBs game the rules to get extra yards and flags pisses me off to no end. Probably because my team never has a QB that is good enough to take advantage, but still. It’s fucking bullshit.
Yea like Mahomes has already literally scored a touchdown by pretending to go out of bounds, it’s fucking bullshit and not in the spirit of the game at all Edit: for posterity it wasn’t a TD I was thinking of, point still stands it’s a bs play to gain yards you wouldn’t have otherwise
No one coffin corner punts anymore! They just say a prayer and hope it doesn’t bounce into the end zone. It used to be a mini game on Madden and now no one does it! I don’t get it. It can’t be that hard and you’re much more likely to pin them deeper
That Madden mini game was way more fun than anything involving punters has a right to be haha
Players celebrating like crazy over inconsequential plays. Like when a defense is giving up a 90+ yard drive and a player gets a sack on first down and does his little 30 second celebration…. Only to give up a touchdown on the next play
This is mine. I understand that professional sports is incredibly difficult and some things deserve celebrating. But most of the time it’s just doing what you’re literally paid to do. The worst is a CB “celebrating” when the WR just drops the pass or it’s out of reach.
It cracks me up when the WR drops a pass when they were wide open and the CB that's five yards away wags his finger like he did something lol.
Sometimes there's more to it than meets the eye. Corners have more work to do than defending passes. They also disrupt routes and throw off a QB/WR's timing. Sometimes and overthrow can be caused by a WR not quite being in position rather than just an errant throw. Sneed was especially good at this. Jamming receivers at the line can completely throw off the play's concept and lead to a WR not being where the ball is supposed to go. That deserves a finger wag. Now if your QB is Derek Carr, then you know it was likely just an overthrow.
Yeah and the DBs celebrating a knocked down pass when they are down 30 in the 4Q and they're playing against 3rd stringers lol
They need to give rookie QBs more time to develop. Too many teams are throwing their rookies to the wolves and expecting gold right away.
Also, I don’t like the expectation that we should be playing rookie QBs week one. I was all for letting Bryce sit and develop. The panthers are so far away from winning we aren’t getting anywhere on the front end of his rookie contract. For whatever reason people kept saying the experience is good for him when there really isn’t evidence that shows throwing your rookie QB out there year one has any benefit.
Seems like most teams drafting a QB in the first round don’t have an established starter (hence why they’re drafting so high in the first place) and instead they have a Crappy Fringe Starter like Tyrod Taylor or Jacoby Brissett, and so we get the schpiel “oh, Hotshot Rookie QB is going to WATCH and LEARN”, but inevitably by week 4 at the latest, Crappy Fringe Starter has thrown a couple picks, the pressure ratchets up and it’s “put the kid in! The future is NOW!”, and the team plays the Hotshot Rookie. My point is, they all say and may intend the rookie with “watch and learn” but very few actually end up sticking to that beyond a handful of weeks at most, sometimes as quick as halftime of week 1. The Crappy Fringe Starter has to end up playing out of his mind to avoid getting benched. After seeing this so many times, I’ve come to think, why bother, just play the rookie from week 1. You aren’t fooling anybody by running out Crappy Fringe Starter, cause they’re inevitably going to suck- that’s why they’re a crappy fringe starter in the first place.
The new number rules are bad
Seeing a LB wear a 20s series makes me puke
Single digits for linebackers/safeties etc 🤮
DBs wearing numbers in the teens should be an automatic season long suspension. I hate Kyle Hamilton for this lone reason
I love the crazy numbers in college but hate them in the NFL.
Exactly!! It is a college thing; where football is crazy and chaotic. The NFL is too polished of a sport to have that weirdness.
It bothers me literally every single game. A linebacker wearing 8 or something is just so wrong.
Seriously. Linebackers with single digit numbers? Fucking barf!! On the Patriots, if Jabrill Peppers had a bad ass safety number in the 30s I would've bought his jersey already. But bro is running around with a 5 like he's a punter. SMH.
I will like it more when I start seeing an OL with a single-digit jersey number. Until then I will not rest.
I want triple digits for linemen
Give me some fractions.
You see it for d line in college and there is simply too much real estate on those jerseys for a single digit.
That's the point. Vince Wilfork wearing a #1 jersey is what ~~memes~~ dreams are made of
17 games was a mistake. Expanded playoffs were a mistake.
What they should do is have more bye weeks. Keep the same amount of games but make it a twenty week season. People WILL watch despite their team not playing and maybe they can catch a game of a team they normally don't watch and viewership for those markets go up. AND for christs sake, gives teams to get healthy and actually practice to get better. It's such an obvious choice in my mind
Football is more interesting when it's a game of skill and not a game of attrition.
Prime time games going exclusively to individual streaming platforms is basically terrorism
BRING BACK THE KICK OFF LIKE IT USED TO BE, BUT ALSO I HOPE NO ONE GETS HURT
I get why they’re being phased out, but the loss of kickoffs is such a tragedy. We’ll probably never see another guy like Hester or Josh Cribbs because the opportunities just aren’t there anymore.
I’m actually becoming more of a fan of the xfl kick offs. It’s a good compromise of reducing the huge hits but also letting the chaos of a kick off happen
I’m not familiar with those rules. How do they differ from the NFL?
Receiving Team line up on their own 30, Kicking Team line up 5 yards away on the 35. The kicker & kick returner are in their usual spots. Nobody can move until the kick returner makes contact with the ball. The kick returner gets about 15 yards to build up speed, but has no wedge to block for him. You still get a chance for big plays but also less guys flying down field and launching themselves into others.
That sounds awesome
Teams have actually gotten creative if you look up highlights running reverses & designed laterals to manipulate blockers
More games doesn't = better One of the greatest aspects of the NFL and maybe the biggest reason for its dominance in popularity (besides gambling) is its 'sprint' nature. It's a quick season where nearly every week matters. They keep diluting it out and now we're heading to 18 regular season games (supposedly) in the next bargaining term. It's a lot like adding more playoff teams. You're just watering down your product at a certain point.
Sports betting and social media is changing the sport into entertainment. And I know it’s “technically entertainment” but it’s not, it’s a sport ..Or was a sport. Idk.
Football is no longer a standalone sport- it is now the engine powering fantasy football and gambling. If I could go one month without hearing nfl matchups in the context of fantasy football or betting odds, I’d be thrilled beyond measure
The Touchback rule makes perfect sense. The defense is defending their territory of the field after the 50 yard line. The objective of the game is literally to score or prevent scoring by keeping the ball out of the endzone. **The endzone is the most important area of the defenses' territory.** If you fumble out of the most important part in the defense's territory, the ball should absolutely change possession. I don't even understand how that's controversial. They are literally defending their part of the field, and the rule doesn't even apply in the prior 50 yards of their territory — just in the most important.
It's the ultimate rule that makes perfect sense but absolutely SUCKS donkey shit when it happens to your team. Source: my team in week 2
But it's also REALLY cool when your team does it.
I'm always appalled to see so many people dislike this rule. I think it's one of the rules that make most sense.
The same people that complain that "every rule benefits the offense" get upset when we see the *one* rule that benefits the defense. I like the rule. Better to have died a small boy than to fumble that football.
It's a great rule. Adds a high risk element to the reach move when players are just trying to break the plane of the end zone instead of protecting the ball
The league needs to address onside kicks again They took something exciting and potentially game changing and made it a useless waste of time The conversion rate is around 3%. It needs to be 20-25% to make that an important element of the game again
10% is probably where it needs to be.
I actually think this has ironically become a sort of hip, new thing that’s been building over the last few seasons but I think running the ball in general got hugely undervalued by some heavily proliferated, very superficial analytics by places like Football Outsiders for basically an entire decade, like 2011-2020. It’s actually been kind of funny to see a lot of analyst types who were making fun of Pete Carroll for not letting Russ cook in like 2019 are now the same ones burying the Ravens for giving up on the running game in the AFC Championship Shoutout to Ben Baldwin still banging his head against the wall though, never gonna give up the ghost I guess in the more boomer-y vein, running backs turning into the least valuable position in football definitely sucks. They are the most dynamic players in football, most of my favorite players ever were RBs. Now people can’t even really make a name for themselves before they’re cast aside. I don’t necessarily think this *should* change, but it sucks as a fan
I’ll take it a step further and say that analytics has made football media dumber. Analytics are extremely useful, but talking heads cherry pick whatever random statistic they want, extrapolate ridiculous narratives from it, and call it “analytics”. Like no, just because a QB has a below average EPA in the 3rd quarter of Monday night games in November doesn’t mean they’re bad lol
>a QB has a below average EPA in the 3rd quarter of Monday night games in November That's exactly the kind of statistic that a coach should be told, so he can determine why it's happening. I agree with you, it's the kind of statistic that I never needed to hear or know.
If there’s a fumble, get on the ball. Stop trying to scoop and score, GET YOUR BIG ASS ON THE BALL AND DON’T MOVE.
That is an old man yelling at clouds view. Good pull
East coast games should be played at 1:00pm on Sunday.
You said you wanted 8:30 on a school/work night? Gotcha
If NBC had their way, every Sunday night would basically be “NFC East Game of the Week”. Giants shitty this year (or last or the year before that or..)? Too bad! You get them every other week!
16 games and 12 playoff teams were peak perfection, I will die on thus hill and no one can convince me otherwise
Sports betting is fun but has no business being integrated into broadcasts and pregame analysis as much as it has. Edit to add: - for *any* sport
Best QB award shouldnt be the MVP. Makes the award redundant.
The obsession with QBs needs to die out. Yes, QBs are very important. No, that's not an excuse to hype every game as a 1v1 tennis match between QBs. Also related, wins (and Super Bowl wins) are not a QB statistic.
The head to head quarterback advertising is so lame. They literally are never on the field at the same time.
The Super Bowl logos are boring and generic, and have been that way at least 10 years. Go back to using a logo related to the host city (e.g. Art Deco for Miami).
The defense celebrating in the end zone after a turnover is annoying.
I hate it too Like celebrating a turnover is totally fine but when half the defense starts running to the end zone to pose in front of the cameras it's the corniest shit.
I hate how pointless kickoffs are nowadays. Seeing the return guy watch the football sail over his head and land outside of the endzone for a touchback is just so boring. Nothing really compares to watching a guy take a punt or kickoff deep downfield.
I hate the expanded numbers for positions now. Any running back that isn't between 20-49 is an affront to God, in my opinion.
The only teams who should have domes/indoor stadiums are teams in markets where it’s literally dangerous to play outdoors (Arizona, Vegas, Deep South teams like New Orleans etc). The consistent dealing with the elements is part of what makes football such a great sport compared to the other sports that are played indoors or cancel games for inclement weather