NFL 2023

[GhostMachine]

50 minutes ago, Busch Wyatt said:

When you look at the Bills schedule it's not inconceivable they miss the playoffs entirely.  My best guess is they still find a way to make it but they really haven't looked impressive for a month now.

Chiefs, Ravens, and Jags should take their divisions.  Dolphins can't seem to beat good teams but their schedule sets up nicely to take the East.  Bengals feel like they're properly back and ready to go on a run.  That's 5.

It's possible both the Browns and Steelers make it and the North gets a clean sweep.  But there's a bunch of teams in the mix (Texans, Jets, maybe Chargers) and Buffalo seems better than all those teams on paper but their schedule is also harder.

I was discussing football with someone yesterday, and neither of us believe the Chiefs make it back to the Super Bowl, but we both agree on the Ravens making the playoffs and disagree on the Dolphins making the playoffs. (I think they will, he doesn't. I just don't think it will be a deep run.)

Edited November 6, 2023 by GhostMachine

[The Buscher]

It's kinda wild how sports doctors on Twitter are effectively able to diagnose torn ACLs/Achilles just from footage, moments after it's happened.  They were largely all over Jones' injury as soon as it happened and of course whenever the team says "it's a serious knee injury but we are awaiting MRI" they also are pretty much just telling you he's out for the year.

Anyway, Tyrod Taylor's on IR too until at least December so it's Tommy DeVito and Matt Barkley for at least a month if not the rest of the year.  With those two at QB there's not a winnable game on the schedule, unless Saquon pulls one of his 150 yard, 2 TD games on a day the defense shows up too.

2-15 is absolutely in play now.  Of course, this happens as the most hyped QB prospect since Trevor Lawrence has completely tanked his value and feels like a stayaway.

[Maxx]

32 minutes ago, GhostMachine said:

I was discussing football with someone yesterday, and neither of us believe the Chiefs make it back to the Super Bowl, but we both agree on the Ravens making the playoffs and disagree on the Dolphins making the playoffs. (I think they will, he doesn't. I just don't think it will be a deep run.)

You are likely correct here.  Dolphins still have a relatively soft schedule until the final 3 weeks of the season.  Win 4 out of their next 5 games before that and I think they at least get a wild card spot.  The Bills are on shaky ground, and I can't see the Jets getting a better record than them.  One of the AFC wild card spots are already reserved the second best team in the AFC North.  The final spot will come down to the other two AFC North teams and whoever doesn't win the AFC East between the Bills and Dolphins.  

[Lineker]

 

[LL!]

Why would he come out of retirement for the PANTHERS?

[The Buscher]

58 minutes ago, LL! said:

Why would he come out of retirement for the PANTHERS?

Tbf, the actual answer is pretty hilarious - because he turned selling Pokemon cards into his full-time career after football, managed to get banned from it, and presumably now just is happy to take a paycheck from any team who would've given it to him.

[Lint]

How do you get banned from selling Pokemon cards?!

[Lineker]

 

[Pooker]

15 minutes ago, Lint said:

How do you get banned from selling Pokemon cards?!

From his Wikipedia...

Spoiler

In August of 2023, Blake Martinez's Pokemon stream on the Whatnot platform was accused of scamming buyers by rigging casino-like games. Multiple videos of examples of the alleged scams surfaced and the Pokemon community launched their own investigations into the alleged scams, including a series of videos published to Youtube by the streamer RattlePokemon. The outcome of the allegations resulted in Whatnot permanently banning Blake's Breaks and multiple associates from the platform, as well as implementing updated ToS to prevent future scams from being run on their platform. 

That is amazing and hilarious all at once. Besides the people that got scammed. Feel for them.

[LL!]

I'm so glad we got this story. 

[The Buscher]

The ManningCast is hysterical tonight.  Peyton can barely contain his rage watching Zach Wilson and Eli is just egging him on.

[LL!]

Oh come on!

[The Buscher]

The Jets falling for Zach Wilson when he put up artificially great numbers in a weak conference while playing an altered schedule amidst a global pandemic will never not be hilarious.  They deserve what they got with him.

[gunnar hendershow]

9 minutes ago, Busch Wyatt said:

The Jets falling for Zach Wilson when he put up artificially great numbers in a weak conference while playing an altered schedule amidst a global pandemic will never not be hilarious.  They deserve what they got with him.

When they were hyping up his tapes from pre-draft workouts "look at how far he can throw it" I got immediate Kyle Boller flashbacks.

[LL!]

The Rams are signing Carson Wentz. 

 

They're finally good again.  

[gunnar hendershow]

At this point you have to assume the Jets are convinced Rodgers is back by Dec 10th. Anyone is an upgrade over Wilson, even Wentz.

[The Buscher]

The Jets have the Raiders, Bills, Dolphins, and Falcons before December 10th.  Theoretically there could be 3 wins in there as the defense alone should keep them in the Raiders and Falcons game + the Jets D seems to always have Josh Allen's number.  On the other hand, Wilson is so terrible they could easily go 0-4 because they simply can't score.  If they aren't at least .500 by December 10th you'd wonder if it's even worth it to bring Rodgers back.

Of course, you could wonder that point anyway.  The Jets OL is really bad.  Not that I'm wishing injury on the guy but Mr. Science rushing back in record time from a torn achilles only to immediately re-injure when the line gets him killed it feels like it'd be on the table.

[Maxx]

I know its different for basketball, but when you consider NBA players need pretty much a year to recover enough to play and then usually almost another full year to look back to normal, its just completely insane that this dope is gonna try to come back by December.  Moreso that the team would even entertain the idea.

[gunnar hendershow]

27 minutes ago, Maxx said:

I know its different for basketball, but when you consider NBA players need pretty much a year to recover enough to play and then usually almost another full year to look back to normal, its just completely insane that this dope is gonna try to come back by December.  Moreso that the team would even entertain the idea.

He's on the "illegal stuff the NFL will ignore" rehab regimen.

[Krabby]

A conspiracy was floated on the Dan LeBetard Show that he never actually tore his Achilles so that he can "defy" science by coming back so early - apparently he is off crutches and chucking 50 yard passes in workouts