Sports: NFL

[dok]

Originally Posted by Spidey'tilIDie

But if you are being honest and not I-told-you-so after the fact, at the end of the playoffs, Blake Bortles looked like he had finally turned that proverbial corner.

Nope, nope nope nope. You can go ahead and check this thread. I was calling him a bad QB (specifically worse than Kaep) at the beginning of the season. They went 10-6 last season because their defense was phenomenal. Bortles had a career year, which was enough to not screw it up, but he was still pretty clearly not good.

Originally Posted by Spidey'tilIDie

And honestly, committing to one year to make him prove himself again is much better than a long term commitment.

But... they signed him to a three year extension? And they could have kept him for one more year on his rookie deal, for cheap, instead?

Just seems like an obviously bad decision to me.

Originally Posted by Spidey'tilIDie

But I think dok's real issue is that Kap is good enough to still be in the league and were it just for talent, I agree. But off the field matters, say what you will about Johnny Football but on the field, he made Cleveland relevant again. Were they a playoff team? No, but they were a threat to win most weeks. And they certainly didn't go 1-31 when he was there, winning 10 games over his two seasons. Almost seems worth it, right? But his antics off the field tore the team apart. Some supported him, some questioned his commitment; turmoil is no good for a locker room.

Comparing Kaep to Manziel is insulting, really. First, Manziel never showed any real productivity on the field; in his very limited action he was pretty bad. But while Kaepernick has never been in any serious off-the-field trouble, Manziel has a long list of incidents and legal troubles.

Originally Posted by Spidey'tilIDie

Like it or not, Kap has the same effect on a Locker room. Agree with him or disagree with him, his stance will divide a locker room.

There's no evidence that this was the case in San Francisco. By all accounts he was a fairly understated guy in the locker room, and nobody really had any issue with the protests. He's not a problem in the locker room.

Where it is a potential issue is for fans, or management, or ownership, or the league itself. The NFL doesn't want the headache and doesn't want to be in Trump's tweets. The team owners don't want the attention, even if the players themselves wouldn't mind his presence.

Anyway, this is at least the fair discussion to have. Kaep absolutely deserves to be signed in a league where Matt Barkley (out of the league as long as Kaep, less talented, much less of a record of success) was signed and started a game two weeks later. My point has always been, simply, that he's being kept out of the league for reasons that have nothing to do with playing football.

[Spidey'tilIDie]

Respectfully, I agree to disagree. Having played team sports year round through high school, I know a locker room's psyche is tenuous at best. Any little thing can divide a locker room and result in finger pointing and infighting which limits a team's success. Hell, look at my Steelers this year, a guy not wanting to play and not showing up caused them to struggle for 4 games. It was clear everyone was not on the same page and in full agreement. Now take a similar locker room and divide the players based on politics, a subject which causes far more arguments and unrest than something NFL players can actually agree on - a player getting paid what he's worth. Next to arguments over religion, nothing inspires more passion and therefore arguments than politics. That's a cancer that NO locker room wants.

[Hahma]

Go Bears!

[dok]

Originally Posted by Spidey'tilIDie

Respectfully, I agree to disagree. Having played team sports year round through high school, I know a locker room's psyche is tenuous at best. Any little thing can divide a locker room and result in finger pointing and infighting which limits a team's success.

And having played team sports year-round in high school and college, continuing into club sports as an adult, and having coached at both the youth and college level, I have the broad experience to know that different teams have different cultures and different levels of resilience. CAN a given conflict lead to finger-pointing? Sure. But it needn't, and some teams can handle purported "distractions" just fine. When the 49ers say that Kaep wasn't a problem for them, I see no reason to not take those statements at face value.

Again, I think it comes down to the league office being risk averse and wanting to avoid the controversy. If it were not for the league's influence, I'm sure there are teams that would have stayed away anyway, but I'm also confident there would have been teams willing to take a chance.

[Yodaking]

Alex Smith done for the season, maybe Kap will take over for him again. But first Colt McCoy will look like a legit starter vs. the Cowboys in Dallas on Thanksgiving Day, he loves playing football in the state of Texas.

[Dad_Scaper]

As a long time fan of Joe Flacco, whose career and legacy were not served well by the Ravens front office, I was still excited today to watch the debut of Lamar Jackson.

He gave us about what I expected, which was an electrifying running game, and a capable but slightly inaccurate-and-scary passing attack. I am hopeful it will get better in time.

Here's something that was puzzling me. The Bengals knew, with Jackson under center, the Ravens would be leaning on the ground game, which they did. And yet the Raven's rushing attack was the best it's been all season in (I haven't checked, but I'm fairly certain) every major measurable.

I do not normally look at particular things and say "this is the fault of the coach," or even "this is the fault of such-and-such a player," because I don't know what happens behind closed doors and I don't know if some other person was not, for instance, where he was supposed to be. But how is it possible that the Ravens have had such a pathetic run game all season, when they had it balanced (from an opposing defense's perspective) against a competent passing attack? Now that they are more one-dimensional, how is it that their ground game is so much better on a per-play basis? Is there an explanation, other than a failure of scheming and play-calling? Curious minds want to know.

[dok]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

As a long time fan of Joe Flacco, whose career and legacy were not served well by the Ravens front office, I was still excited today to watch the debut of Lamar Jackson.

He gave us about what I expected, which was an electrifying running game, and a capable but slightly inaccurate-and-scary passing attack. I am hopeful it will get better in time.

I only saw the highlights but he made some nice plays. Nobody looks perfect in their first rookie start but I suspect he has a good future in the league. As I mentioned to you elsewhere, I wished the Broncos had traded back into the end of the first round to get Jackson, instead of throwing $25M at Keenum.

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

Here's something that was puzzling me. The Bengals knew, with Jackson under center, the Ravens would be leaning on the ground game, which they did. And yet the Raven's rushing attack was the best it's been all season in (I haven't checked, but I'm fairly certain) every major measurable.

I do not normally look at particular things and say "this is the fault of the coach," or even "this is the fault of such-and-such a player," because I don't know what happens behind closed doors and I don't know if some other person was not, for instance, where he was supposed to be. But how is it possible that the Ravens have had such a pathetic run game all season, when they had it balanced (from an opposing defense's perspective) against a competent passing attack? Now that they are more one-dimensional, how is it that their ground game is so much better on a per-play basis? Is there an explanation, other than a failure of scheming and play-calling? Curious minds want to know.

Exceptionally mobile QBs create unique problems for a rushing defense - it's like having the end around threat on every play without the end actually running around.

There was a long history of RBs doing unusually well when Vick was under center. And my Georgia Tech yellow jackets go out every week and continue to lead the NCAA in rushing by 50 yards despite everyone knowing they will run the ball well over 90% of the time.

[Dad_Scaper]

Ok, I’ll take it. Thanks, dok.

I feel like next season we’ll be running the Navy triple option or something.

[dok]

... also, consider the possibility that teams have been playing the run all season long.

[Tornado]

A running QB is hard to stop until they get hurt.
Most rushes for a QB in my lifetime, pretty cool.

The Lions are gloriously frustrating this year so at least that has not changed.

[dok]

Originally Posted by Tornado

Most rushes for a QB in my lifetime, pretty cool.

Our lifetimes (we're about the same age, yes?) is a pretty good standard for "the modern game", since you can't really compare stats with things that happened before the passing rules were changed in the late 70s.

The only really comparable game I could find to yesterday's Baltimore game was, unsurprisingly, a Tebow game. Those are the only games of the last 40 years where a team's primary QB ran the ball more times than he threw, as far as I can tell. Interestingly, their teams won both of those games.

EDIT: Actually there's another Tebow game. It didn't make it in my filter because he was only involved in 17 plays. They won that won, too. Man, Tebowmania was craaaaazy.

[Tornado]

73 for me. I think I saw the last time was 1970.
I have always been an advocate for a running QB.
Problem is that they do not last long.