2017 NFL Season Thread

[Twist]

My wife just got invited by a friend on a free holiday to the US to watch the Super Bowl (friend broke up with her boyfriend, has a spare place). I’m beyond jealous.

[Meacon Keaton]

I’m expecting Patriots and Eagles to win, because the college football season was so great that I expect the Football Gods to balance it out with a championship between two franchises I hate.

[The Buscher]

Probably.  Though as much as I hate the Pats if it's Pats/Eagles I want the Pats to dump a 40 burger on them.  I can live with a whitewash of a Super Bowl if it's at the Eagles' expense.

Brady's press conference was straight out of the Belichick playbook.  Smugly refused to answer any questions about his hand or how he's feeling.  And the Patriots listed him as questionable because of course.

[livid]

They had to list him on the injury report and there's no probable tag anymore.

[The Buscher]

Oh okay, didn't realize the probable tag had been dropped.  I remember he was on the injury report for like 5 years straight.

[livid]

Mike Vrabel is the new Tennessee Titans head coach. 

[Lineker]

Good luck to him, but not too much though!

[munky]

And Shannon Sharpe is shockingly playing the race card over it.

 

[Lineker]

I mean the unit was decimated by injuries.

[Dan]

Not expecting a win today at all but this is all exciting stuff. After years of spending the season looking forward to the draft I'm loving it.

[gunnar hendershow]

This has been a ridiculous offseason for minority candidates. Vrabel is a strange hire because the unit wasn't very good this year, injuries and everything. But he's been a "hot assistant" for 2-3 seasons now and teams love pouncing on guys before they're ready for a HC job. But seriously, like where are the minority head coaching candidates? Even assistant jobs aren't going to them. It's a very bad look for the league. But Norv Turner can bring his whole family onto the staff with him.

Also, expecting Pats to win something like 31-23. Maybe it'll be like 20-13 Jags at half and we'll have false hope, and then the Pats will do what they always do. Eagles-Vikes is a tossup. Could easily see a 13-10 game decided by a late FG drive.

[9 to 5]

Nah Damshow mate, we are gonna win this.

[DMN in the House]

Mel Kiper's mock is great. Rosen isn't a Brown or a Bronco, and, yes, I do believe I'll take one Roquan Smith.

[The Buscher]

Yeah, if Wilks doesn't get the Cardinals job I expect a huge talking point in the offseason to be the lack of minority hires.  Especially with the Raiders' Rooney Rule investigation.  The league confirmed the Raiders were compliant, but the Fritz Pollard Alliance is still going to seek reform on the rule and I don't blame them.  It's pretty obvious that they'd decided on Gruden before conducting any interviews, they just waited until fulfilling the rule obligation before making it official.  They were compliant based on the way the rule is written - but that's not in the spirit of the rule itself.

The problem is I don't know how you change it.  Even if you tweak the bylaws so that teams can be fined if there's reasonable cause that a team already knew who they wanted to hire before doing interviews - that's not going to change the overall problem that many owners don't really believe in an open process.  Louis Riddick wasn't interviewed by the Giants to fulfill the Rooney Rule (an internal guy who was interviewed, Marc Ross, would've covered that) - but I do firmly believe they interviewed him to keep up appearances.  The reality is they knew they were gonna hire Gettleman because they were familiar with him.

[Lineker]

Come on Jags. Do it for literally everybody else.

[GhostMachine]

3 hours ago, damshow said:

This has been a ridiculous offseason for minority candidates. Vrabel is a strange hire because the unit wasn't very good this year, injuries and everything. But he's been a "hot assistant" for 2-3 seasons now and teams love pouncing on guys before they're ready for a HC job. But seriously, like where are the minority head coaching candidates? Even assistant jobs aren't going to them. It's a very bad look for the league. But Norv Turner can bring his whole family onto the staff with him.

Also, expecting Pats to win something like 31-23. Maybe it'll be like 20-13 Jags at half and we'll have false hope, and then the Pats will do what they always do. Eagles-Vikes is a tossup. Could easily see a 13-10 game decided by a late FG drive.

Vrabel is an interesting hire. He's never been a head coach, but if he succeeds with the Titans he can get a new contract and maybe even write his own ticket. If he fails....it's the Titans. It won't hurt his chances of another team giving him a head coaching shot somewhere down the road.

And I'll echo what Busch said. If its Patriots-Eagles, I hope the Patriots win and run that shit up. Patriots with a blowout, for a change. We get Eagles-Patriots, everyone in this house except Heidi's son (who is an Eagles fan, for some reason) will be for the Patriots. But Heidi will be the only one not holding their nose while pulling for them. Heidi doesn't really watch sports, but she's basically a Pats fan because her parents, daughter and most of her friends up north are. (She moved here from New Hampshire, but was born in a military base in Germany and was raised in Mass.)

(Heidi says she's not a sports fan, but when she watches games - particularly football, college or pro - she does get into it.)

[Meacon Keaton]

Motherfucka's name is Phillip Phillips.  

[Schlitzbrille]

The Jags are up in the AFC Title game and this isn't describing a Madden Franchise game.

[Lineker]

5 minutes ago, Chuck Tingle said:

The Jags are up in the AFC Title game and this isn't describing a Madden Franchise game.

You just know that Patricia and Bellichek will adjust sooner rather than later though

[Meacon Keaton]

Jacksonville is running the most simple offense I've ever seen an NFL team run and it's actually working.