NFL 2018

[DMN in the House]

15 hours ago, Lineker said:

So Oakland suck.

They looked ok for three quarters, outside of Derek looking extremely gun shy.

[livid]

Something was missing on defense for them too. Couldn't really place what, though.  

[Meacon Keaton]

6 minutes ago, livid said:

Something was missing on defense for them too. Couldn't really place what, though.  

On an unrelated note, that Bears pass rush looked pretty damn good, eh?

[Pooker]

3 hours ago, Busch Luck Fale said:

This being Stafford's 10th season already feels weird for some reason.

During the Packers/Bears game on Sunday, they mentioned that Rodgers is a sure fire Hall of Famer...made me feel old since I can clearly remember his draft and watching him drop to the Packers. Just feels weird that I'm old enough to have watched and remembered an entire players career. 

[Lineker]

Raiders are signing and playing Martavis Bryant again.

[VerbalPuke]

3 hours ago, Meacxico said:

This upcoming draft isn’t gonna be the year to take a QB. Best hope they wait a year.

Maybe Stafford pulls the trifecta and copies Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson and retires early just to stop being a Lion.  

Yeah, that and the defensive line is so unbelievably bad that they need to fix that before anything else. 

[GhostMachine]

I thought the Lions were idiots when they gave Stafford his current contract. People disagreed with me, and are probably rethinking that now.

Problem is, like was said, next year won't be a good draft for QBs. And there aren't really that many quality free agents QBs out there. Aside from you know who *, and he'd probably prefer being out of the league to starting for the Lions.

*I don't mean Tebow or Manziel!

Edited September 12, 2018 by GhostMachine

[Meacon Keaton]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Stafford or the money he's being paid. If you watch that team play and think "Yup, all because they paid Matt Stafford too much!" then I'm not sure there's anything anyone can say or do to make you think like a normal human being. 

The breaks need to be pumped on the Matthew Stafford leaving thing anyway. He's got a lot of guaranteed money. And the Lions would be committing franchise suicide to release him with absolutely no back-up (literally) plan. If they were to put together a decent offensive line and defense, they'd be fine. But if you want to jump on him and blame him for way the team has been put together, you're just taking the easy and most basic route. Even just a very quick five minute search shows me that the Lions are missing 2016 first-round lineman Taylor Decker to injury and their first round pick of 2015 was traded to San Francisco last year. So that's two out of the last three first round picks missing. But let's blame it all on Stafford?

 

EDIT/ADDED ON POST: Going even further back and 2014 first round draft pick is now on the Colts. 

I mean, I played defense. I hate quarterbacks. But three out of the last four first round draft picks aren't even playing. And the one that is is on a defense, which has issues in it's own right. So even I can't put what is going on there right now on the QB. 

Edited September 12, 2018 by Meacxico

[GhostMachine]

I don't think anything is wrong with Stafford. I just thought (and still think) that they would have been better off spending some of that money on shoring up other positions than on keeping him longterm. Now, if a team had given a contract like that to someone like injury prone Sam Bradford, then I'd think they were outright insane.

As for next year's QB class, there aren't really any that I can see being franchise QBs.

 

 

[Meacon Keaton]

But who should they have been giving that contract to? I just showed that their draft classes have been meh. Any quarterback that's been on the free agent wire would've been a downgrade to Stafford. It's not like Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers has been out there free to sign. It's been the Mark Sanchez's and Sam Bradford's and Brock Osweilers'. 

[GhostMachine]

I'm not saying they should have signed someone else. I'm saying that they should have offered him something like about 15 to 20 million less, but told him they were going to spend that 15 to 20 million on acquiring some better players for him to work with.

[gunnar hendershow]

Matthew Stafford is what would happen if you took someone like Roethlisberger and put him on a franchise that doesn't know how to manage the cap and build depth.

[GhostMachine]

That's actually a pretty good assessment. 

[VerbalPuke]

So, I want to say I wasn't slamming Stafford when saying he could be gone at the end of this season. He's a polarizing dude in Detroit, both sides are a bit too over zealous in how they feel about him. Anyway, I understand the contact, it's the nature of the NFL now and Meacon is right that there weren't any viable alternatives. The reason I say he could be gone is I could see Patricia and Quin using him as their excuse to buy more time if this season really blows up in their face. I already believe that Jim Bob Cooter is gone if the offense continues to sputter.

A lot of the problems on offense fall squarely on Cooter and his play calling. Here is a great example, it's 1st and Goal with about 45-55 seconds and two timeouts. Great time to try and run especially with boasting you want to emphasize the run game. Instead you pass, and then run it with Theo Riddick? Why? Why did you draft Kerryon Johnson and sign LaGerrete Blount only to hand the ball off to your third down back that is a pass catching specialist (and has shown that while not a terrible runner, he should really not be getting too many carries). There is also the problem of the Jets defense knowing our signals, that's pretty fucking bad. 

Cooter isn't the only problem though. The defense is bad, and a lot of Quin's draft picks are looking rough. Speaking of, Taylor Decker isn't hurt Meacon, he was hurt last season for eight games. TJ Lang is hurt, he left the game and didn't return, he was a free agent signing that looks to be injury prone. 

Anyway, the coaching staff in general doesn't look good right now. Every phase of our team was an utter failure, and the concerning thing is that these guys didn't look this atrocious under Caldwell. There are still a lot of players from Caldwell's tenure that didn't look so bad under him and Austin (defensive coordinator). My fear here is that the talent has always been mediocre but Caldwell and Austin actually knew how to get the most out of them. The concern of course is that Quin is pretty much incompetent when it comes to his personnel decisions which is odd since his first draft class had a good showing in their rookie year. What the hell happened there? 

And no Stafford is certainly not the problem. He's a concern with how bad he came out, but a lot of people think he really just looked off, like hurt or disengaged. Not really his style, he has his flaws but I'd never question his character or effort. He did had three TD passes dropped by the Marvin and TJ Jones, they would have been great catches no doubt, but they were passes that guys of their caliber should come down with. The running game never got going, and the one guy that did show some flash (Kerryon Johnson) they inexplicably stopped using (typical Cooter). The TE's were non-existent, and the OLine was pretty fucking rough in their own right. 

The defense, nothing to see here. Just awful. 

[Meacon Keaton]

I was more responding to GhostMachine's proclamation that Matt's bad contract is why the Lions are in the shape that they're in. It wasn't directed at you @VerbalPuke.

[VerbalPuke]

I figured, I just wanted to clarify that the Stafford sucks shit storm isn't coming from me. 

Hey at least Kenny Golladay looks good....

[GhostMachine]

Going off what damsher said, I think he's accurate about the Lions when it comes to managing the cap and building depth. I think they want to build a winning team, but are clueless about how to do it.

Compare that to the Browns, though: They're either beyond incompetent, or simply don't care about winning as long as they're making money. The fact Hue Jackson wasn't canned halfway through last season and still has a job clearly means it is more likely to be the latter.

[Lineker]

New England have picked up Corey Coleman. The Patriots now have six first-rounders ... from other teams.

[Lineker]

Josh Allen has been named the starting QB for the Bills.

[Meacon Keaton]

10 minutes ago, Lineker said:

Josh Allen has been named the starting QB for the Bills.

This is less “Josh Allen is ready to start” and more “My God, Nathan Peterman isn’t even allowed to wear a jersey anymore”.