Green Bay -3 at Detroit: The Packers are in a slump, mainly due to their suddenly mediocre offense, as defenses finally realize that without having to worry about Jordy Nelson they can pack it in on Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers seems frustrated by his new status as a nickel-and-dime QB, and his teammates seem equally frustrated, with sideline squabbles and mysterious players-only meetings. The Lions have won three in a row, with Matthew Stafford and Calvin *Megaphony* Johnson cementing their status as the National Football League's All-Time Greatest Garbage Game Producers. But the real reason the Lions have *turned it around* is because defensive coordinator Teryl Austin has managed to rebuild Detroit's defense. . .it took half-a-year to figure out what to do without Donkeykong Suh, Nick Fairley and DeAndre Levy, but
Arizona -5.5 at St. Louis: Jeff Fisher is getting testier by the week, as the Rams have flopped Big Time with a 4 game losing streak. QB play is once again dooming the Rams, even Todd Gurley hasn't been able to do much the last couple weeks. Fisher needs to acknowledge the truth: he failed in St. Louis, and he has five games left to coach in his National Football League career. He might as well relax and enjoy them, and open up his *Music City Miracle* bag of tricks, try every goofy strategy and play imaginable, have some fun before the Rams show him the door. Arizona lost Chris Johnson. . .but does it really matter? They still got Palmer and a ton of good receivers. Arizona.
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| For Matt Ryan, it's always breast cancer awareness week. |
Atlanta +2 at Tampa Bay: Wild Card Cage Match. . .Falcons on a real skid, if they lose this one, their once seemingly insurmountable lead for a WC spot will have been surmounted by the negro-coached Tampa Bay Buccaneers. . .white head coach Dan Quinn needs to quit babying Matt Ryan. . .hey, Quinn, take Ryan and stand him up in front of everyone in the locker room and tell him to quit throwing like a fucking girl in the red zone. Challenge him to play like a man. The level-headed approach to losing needs to end. But it won't. Tampa Bay.
Seattle EVEN at Minnesota: The last time the Vikings played a game as an NFL heavyweight, they looked like they didn't believe in themselves, and they gave a sorry-ass performance, getting whipped by a Green Bay team that has been shoved around by Detroit and Chicago. The Vikes get another chance to prove they are the real deal, this time facing a Seattle team that finally beat a squad with a winning record last week. Are the Seahawks about to start another late season run? No. The defense ain't what it used to be. And Russell Wilson burned up his allotment of 5 TD pass games against the Steelers. The real Vikings show up this time around. Minnesota.
Houston +3 at Buffalo: After apologizing to his team for back-stabbing Brian Hoyer, Bill O'Brien has the Texans on a 4 game win streak, with a good shot at winning the crappy AFC South. Having stability at the QB spot benefits the whole team, as the Houston defense is finally living up to its potential, allowing only 35 points in those 4 wins. Rex Ryan's been a bit of a flop in Buffalo, especially his defense, which ranks in the bottom half of the League. Maybe Rex really isn't a very good coach? Maybe he just got lucky his first two years with the Jets? Whatever the reason, he won more games when he was fat. Houston.
Kansas City -2.5 at Oakland: The Chiefs have come back from the dead, and are the AFC's hottest team, despite playing a new running back every week. This is Oakland's last chance to stay in the playoff race, as they barely remained alive last week, after almost choking one away to the horrible Titans. . .(and they needed to get a little help from the zebras). The Chiefs defense is too good for the young Raiders. Kansas City.
GB at Deeeetroit - this is a game that will really hurt if GB actually loses. It's bad enough they're struggling as badly as they are after looking so good at the beginning of the season, but to lose to the Lions would be a devastating blow. Who knows what's going on with Rodgers? Nelson is missed but he wasn't missed this badly at the beginning of the year. Maybe the dink passes are getting to Rodgers.
ReplyDeleteWhat was that movie, Tin Cup? Yeah, Tin Cup. A silly movie about golf with Don Johnson and Kevin Costner, two of the greatest skeaseballs in Hollywood history, where Johnson is the successful pro golfer who "lays up" all the time for his pars and occasional birdies, and Costner who goes all out for the birds and eagles. A lot of QB's are happy with the pars, but Rodgers wants the bombs. He's frustrated.
Even with all that, GB wins this game. Rodgers would rather compromise on dink passing than lose to Deeeetroit. GB to win and cover.
Arizona vs STL - AZ wins this. It's funny how AZ is kind of lingering in the background, putting together a nice season. Seems that Phoenix market doesn't get the attention of even the Vikings. AZ. Question will be how long Fisher lasts in STL.
Falcons vs TB - TB has had the number of the Birds for years, now. And with the Bird defense getting beat up after so many three and outs by Patti Melt and crew, it's inevitable they'll lose this game to Winston and his raggedy bunch. Ole Coach "Q" ain't the savior. See, the piss poor drafting and bad signings and lack of cohesive vision caught up. Go through the history of the last 13 years. Coach Reeves, fired. Wade Phillips filled in for the last of the season, so let's not count him. Then Mora. Hoo boy, that guy was a pisser, snorting his salts on the sideline. Then Petrino, who was bound to leave with Vick in all that federal trouble. Then Smith, who actually brought some stability to the team but was saddled with an owner who wanted to make the Falcons the Dixie Patriots. And now Quinn. Five HC's (not including Phillips who was a place holder) in 13 years.
Ryan isn't doing well with the Shannahan offense, but there may be an arm problem going on. It's got to be the elbow because the velocity is shit. Shoulder will hurt accuracy, but the shoulder is easier to rehab. If it's that elbow and surgeons have to start taking out bone spurs and the like, man, Ryan's days are numbered.
Rag armed QB's can work. I always liked Garcia because of what he was able to do with fewer natural talents. He wasn't fast but made himself a good scrambler. He didn't have a great arm but made accurate passes. He wasn't a dominant force but was the quintessential game manager. He wasn't a hulking presence but was tough. I know he did poorly in Detroit, but that's gotta be chalked up to Detroit. That's like going for barbecue when you're in Kansas City.
But Ryan doesn't show that he's wiling to adjust. Or able to adjust. Maybe he is hurt, but even so, it's probably the elbow and elbow injuries are tricky business.
TB wins big, petal to the metal.
Seattle vs VIKES - Vikes take this game. Peterson is imposing his will and the Hawks defense ain't what it was. Atlanta stacked that box to stop Peterson, hoping to get Teddy to pass more and Adrian busted them up. The relentlessness of a solid RB and a coaching staff's ball crushing philosophy psychologically breaks a defense. I doubt MN will psychologically break the Hawks but they're going to physically dominate them at the line. And Seattle ain't built to come from behind.
Vikes
Houston vs Bills - We called bullshit on O'Brien pulling Hoyer, but how difficult a call was that? He fucking pulled Hoyer in the opening fucking game! Look, I understand the appeal of Mallett with that huge arm. That's great. I always thought O'Brien ultimately wanted that big arm out there. But he should have named Mallett his starter from the beginning and waited to bench Mallett's ass when he started making shit decision and then install Hoyer. It would have kept quiet those who wanted the big arm out there and put in a good game manager named Hoyer.
ReplyDeleteLook, game management ain't a bad thing. Good game management is like body blows to a boxer. It ain't that sweet uppercut or vicious cross to the face, but it wears. Game management with hard counts and snaps at the 2 second play clock count, mixed in with occasional up tempo hurry-ups is good game management and wears on a defense. Keeps them on their heels or taxes their attention. By quarter three, if it's all played right, they should be tired and chippy and making mistakes.
That's Hoyer and that's fine. O'Brien owed his team an apology. Hoyer is owed an apology. He didn't act out when he got cut. Mallett did. Hoyer is one of those guys who is born to be shat upon. It's too bad because he seems like a decent guy. He has this air to him discomfort. It's not a nervousness, but almost a resignation to being shat upon. "When is it gonna happen next." Gatsby described the explorers when they saw the New World. "They must of held their breath, worried it would disappear if they breathed." That's Hoyer. The guy must hold his breath every time he gets the starting job.
Houston's defense is finally showing up. Houston takes this game and Rex Ryan gives some good post game quotes. Hopefully we'll get some new vids of his wife.
KC vs OAK - I'm rooting for Oakland but suspect your idea is the correct one in that the Raider team is too young to overcome the Chiefs. KC
I think part of Rodgers problem is this Olivia Munn person. . .remember, he popped after they lost at home to Detroit, said something about some fans making insulting comments during a moment of silence or something. . .that sounds exactly like something a cunt would nag a guy into saying. Rodgers has also made some pissy comments about the play-calling, probably because Munn tells him none of the offense is his fault, he's so great, blah blah blah, and he believes all this nonsense, and starts ragging on the coaches.
ReplyDeleteThat AZ coach, Arians, he's another guy, like Rivera, that don't get the proper credit. . .though he does have better players to work with.
RIvera gets shit for credit but he's built and coached up a team around the talents of the team. These coaches who seem to get more out of their players than the individual abilities foretell are not necessarily coaching the team they want, but coaching the team they have.
ReplyDeleteThat's the big difference with some of these guys.
Richt going to HC for Miami.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ajc.com/news/sports/college-football/report-richt-expected-take-miami-coaching-job/npbLW/
Well, the race is on. . .let's see who gets into the Playoffs first, Smart or Richt. Smart has a little bit of a head-start, talent-wise, but Richt is in the EZer conference, now.
ReplyDeleteGood start for Dee-troit tonite. . .long way to go, though. Plenty of time for the usual assortment of turnovers, penalties and weird zebra calls.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is wrong with GB?
ReplyDeleteStill time for Lions to give it away. . .
ReplyDeleteStafford has to get a couple first downs. . .in the first Q when the pressure was off, he and Johnson were Hall of Fame Garbage Timers. . .now, under pressure, let's see if the mutt can two measly first downs.
ReplyDeleteNice throw, clutch throw. . .
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha. . .another classic Lions loss!
ReplyDeleteHaha, man, can't beat a Detroit loss
ReplyDeleteDid the refs make up a facemask to give GB another chance?
ReplyDeleteTaylor's finger brushed the face mask just before he grabbed Rodger's jersey. . .for the Lions, that's a penalty.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a joke, the NFL is picking winners and losers. Whether the refs are being directed by the NFL to look the other way on fence sitting calls, the holds, the PI calls, and be a leeeetle bit more stringent with the penalty flags with others.
ReplyDeleteThis is not advocacy. I'm not a fan of either team in particular. The facemask call was piss poor. Leave it to officiating in a Lions game for the team that led for zero seconds in the game to win the game with zero seconds on the clock.
The fix is in. Add to it the concussion protocol, where an official has no bright line in which he pulls a player but uses his "judgment", a game can swing a little this way or the other.
Should Detroit have defended that hail Mary better? Yes. Should they have allowed GB to come back from 20 pts down or whatever? Yes. But giving GB another chance, however remote, reeks of a fix.
It's little nuances, like point shaving.
Well, I'll say this. . .there are certain *brands* in the NFL that seem to get more favorable calls. . .and Dee-troit ain't one of them. Whether this is just because the refs subconsciously favor the *brand name* teams, or they are directed to, I do not know. But we see at least a game week where something fishy seems to be going on. . .
ReplyDelete{And that Hail Mary allowed the Packers to cover. . .tens of millions of dollars shifted on that one play}
Stafford's old lady knows the fix is in:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tmz.com/2015/12/04/matt-staffords-wife-refs-screwed-us-again/
Tony Dungy understands:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nbcsports.com/video/dungy-much-wont-be-made-facemask-because-its-lions
Hah, announcer said Ryan is clutch in the zone. What planet?
ReplyDeleteDamn, Vikings getting killed. . .maybe Seattle is gonna get on a run, again.
ReplyDeletePatti Melt's arm has major issues. He's throwing flailing ducks all over the place.
ReplyDeleteAnd he just got a grounding call.
His elbow is fucked
Falcons season might be on the line here, let's see if they can keep the Bucs out of the end zone.
ReplyDeleteWell. . .up to Ryan to win a game.
ReplyDeleteAnd it ain't happening. . .
ReplyDeleteLet's see if Quinn is once again level-headed after another loss.. .
Cam Newton is a winner. So is Brees.
ReplyDeleteSee, that's what Melt ain't. These guys are gamers. Hate losing. Patti Melt is okay with it. Doesn't like it but never seems to hate it.
"I've got to do better", is what he says.
Ha. . .I hate it when they say "I've got to do better."
ReplyDeleteRough day for the Falcons, huh?
ReplyDeleteI see the other QB got in the game. . .was that just mop up duty, or did they actually bench Ryan?
ReplyDeleteTomlin for worst HC of the year
ReplyDeleteMan, I had family stuff all day. . .took the noon shift off work, just now getting in jail and looking at the football. At least the Falcons won, but it may be a little too late.
ReplyDeleteTomlin still won the game but he called pass on a clock killer at the end of game and Ben threw an INT giving a chance to Denver. Brock didn't take advantage.
ReplyDeleteFalcons looked weak. Bortles actually looks like a decent QB.
Carolina looked good until their defense let off a bit at the end.
What a pussy. . .never saw a guy more disliked by his teammates.
ReplyDeletehttps://thecauldron.si.com/despite-what-you-may-think-my-nfl-career-was-a-success-179aeca1b1e7#.lgt7k6cnk
Ole Joey Blue Skies. He got two things right - he did have some good games as a Falcon and Petrino sucked as HC.
ReplyDeleteThe piece otherwise read as a "why me?" whine fest.
Detroit got snookered by his PR campaign. Remember the Time Square "Joey Heisman" billboard?
Of course Joey doesn't want to rip on Millen. Millen bought into the BS.
And what is this with hating every teammate save 2 guys? Shit, I now detest Joey. I never really thought of it before but the article cinches. Joey Harrington is a whiney asshole.
Harrington was also a faggot, which is the big reason his teammates quit on him. . .
ReplyDeleteDid you see Stafford last night? Hall of Fame QB when the games don't mean nothing. In the 9 games since the Lions started 0-5, and made the rest of the year meaningless, Stafford has completed 67% of his passes with 21 TDs and 5 INTs. . .and now the Lions have no chance at all to get Joey Bosa. . .they have to hope that pothead DT from Ole Miss slides down to them.
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ReplyDeleteDidn't see a single second of football Sunday. . .looking at the box scores. . .whoa, is it really true Matty Ryan outplayed Newton, and Ryan Mallet outplayed Ben Roethlisberger, and Ryan Fitzpatrick outplayed Tom Brady?
ReplyDeleteThe time has finally come for Tom Coughlin to hang 'em up. . .ain't going to be no fairy tale final season for him. If he comes back, it will be for yet another 6-10, 7-9 season.
ReplyDeleteThe Giants last night were pitiful. If Coughlin goes on, it needs to be at an assistant level. Doubt he can accept that but the role of HC is too big for him now. Lots of injuries and poor play from his QB but there needs to be a change for NY. I like Coughlin. But he can't fix NY at this point.
ReplyDeleteThe only games I watched parts of were the Falcons, Packers, and Giants games.
ReplyDeleteThe Packers are a mess. Rodgers is getting harassed on every play. And Rodgers is openly bitching at his receivers. The situation in GB is bad. The team is falling apart and looks to be going towards the finger pointing zone fast.
AZ looked great. Palmer is finally living up to his billing.Fitzgerald is going to be considered the Jerry Rice of his gen if he keeps up. The defense is tremendous.
Carolina looked like they took the foot off the gas. Falcons didn't look good. Ryan lucked into a td on a long pass to Jones. Any other receiver and the ball would have been picked. It was a good loss for Carolina. They could have come back and the feeling I had was if the game meant something, they would have won. The entire game was garbage time for Carolina. No need to get hurt. And the Birds still barely pulled it out.
The Giants. Can't say it enough, Manning must go. That means Coughlin must go. His decision making is shit and his passes fluttered way too much. MN didn't look great. They took advantage of a team that is that bad. MN has a nifty white safety who did make a play for a pick 6, the announcers gushed, and it was a nice play. But it was a play against what is now a mediocre QB who hasn't the arm to hit small windows or the smarts to know better.
The NE game, which I didn't watch at all, seems the same. NE can beat up on Miami next week. Don't know the truth of this but NE losing to Jets hurts the Steelers which may mean NE doesn't have to face Pitt later. Some say Belechick wanted a loss for strategic reasons.
Don't put it past him
Yup, I can see Belichick throwing a game for a better long-term result, and not having to play the Steelers is definitely a better long-term result. For the Steelers to not make the playoffs would be a horrible waste of talent. Tomlin is the worst coach to ever win a Super Bowl. . .far too many losses to bottom-feeder teams. . .never know if they will show up week-to-week.
ReplyDeleteThe Browns are probably the biggest disaster in the NFL. . .whole team totally out-of-control. . .Pettine the worst coach in the League, even the nigger coaches are better, including Caldwell.