The Eagles are 4-0 despite themselves.

They nearly blew the game against Washington yesterday as the secondary got consistently shredded by Howell, which is embarrassing.

They lost so many players and coaches, including both coordinators that it’s been predictably ugly, but being undefeated could be worse.

In tonight’s Giants game, Daniel Jones throws a 97 yard Pick 6 from the Red Zone as the Giants attempted to get into the end zone.
Now Zach has received all the grief in NY for the past 4 weeks and the Giants have been under the radar but even a Daniel Jones who has been in the NFL 6 years still makes a major blunder. Nothing worse than a Pick 6 in the Red Zone.

Seconded.

Daniel Jones was also sacked 11 times, and fumbled once or twice while doing so. At some point, it stops being about the Defense, and starts being about the coaching. And given the lack of weapons, it might even be about the GM. A lot of those plays looked like Jones was saying "Z in, Sweep right, run for my life, on 1, on 1"

i don't think i have ever seen a worse offensive line than the one the new york giants put on the fil=eld last night. shame shame shame on them, they are lucky they did not get jones seriously hurt.

pathetic.

Tom Brady has thrown pick sixes in his Super Bowls and he's won more than anyone else. It's not really about never making a mistake, it's about your body of work as a whole. Yes, Brady has made bad plays -- but he makes far more good ones than bad.

Again, nothing against Zach and I'd love to see him succeed -- but what gets him in trouble isn't a single bad play here and there, it's the ratio of good plays to bad plays, and good games to bad games, throughout his entire career.

Yeah, I think they were back ups, but even accounting for that, it was absurd. He was almost instantly under pressure on every play in the second half.

Generally, I'd agree with you, but I'm not feeling that way this year. Excluding the injuries piece, while I agree some teams I didn't discuss can still have a better than expected season, for the major preseason favourites, I haven't seen anything which makes me think they're going to fall off and make room for a Seattle or LA or Houston. And those pre-season favourites haven't really changed since the pre-draft window, iirc.

For me, the nature of the NFL opposed to other sports -- the one game and it's over -- really does lend itself to volatility and unexpected outcomes, so it's hard to ever feel like I definitely know what will happen. For example, the 4-13 Colts last year beat the Super Bowl Champion Chiefs and were about 90 seconds away from beating the NFC Champion Eagles. Heck, look at some of the stuff that happened this year --

Rodgers tearing his achilles on his first series as a Jet
The Lions beat the Chiefs
The Rodgers-less Jets beat the powerhouse Bills
Colts beat the Ravens
The Bengals have totally collapsed this year and I don't think it can all be blamed on Burrow's calf
I didn't think they'd be a powerhouse, but I did think they'd take the next step, so the utter collapse of the Steelers offense is surprising
The Texans are starting to get hot and CJ Stroud is setting records left and right
Cousins is on pace to throw for over 6,000 yards and 51 touchdowns and still miss the playoffs

And so on. There's always something interesting each week, some outcome or story we didn't expect.

Yeah. Andrew Thomas, who a top LT was out and the center John Michael Schmidt went out injured in the first quarter.

Yes this is why football is fun and entertaining, ya never know what will happen each week. For instance if you thought the Jets had a shot of competing with the Chiefs and that technically Wilson would have better game stats vs Mahomes in that game, people would think you’re nuts.

By coincidence, the Colts' starting left tackle and center were out last Sunday and the backups had to go against all-world DT Aaron Donald -- and while it did impact the Colts' offense, it wasn't nearly as bad as what Daniel Jones had to go through. I agree with what Eli said, "If Daniel Jones wasn't mobile, it would be around 15 sacks."

Yeah, I saw this. Though I would have to think Brady and Burrow have outplayed him by the numbers in their playoff wins (Brady in the Super Bowl).

Everyone keeps ignoring the fact that the Seahawks whole starting OL was either injured (4/5) or playing out of position last night. They started with 2 or 3 of them and by the end of the game only Evan Brown was left, moving over to Guard to finish the game. Can’t blame that performance by the Giants simply on injuries.

That’s true.

This just in (although I knew it watching the Big Ten)…Seattle has a beast in Witherspoon.

I think you can blame it on weaker roster depth then? The Giants weren't getting nearly the amount of pressure on Smith that the 'Hawks were getting on Jones.

That said, maybe Seattle is just a more talented team overall at full strength anyway? They don't have receivers as good as either Metcalf or Lockett. Who knows.

Yikes.


https://www.bigblueview.com/2023/10/3/2 ... st-seattle

No NFL talk this week?

The Colts were handed some bad news after rookie QB Anthony Richardson was diagnosed with a Grade 3 AC joint sprain and is likely to miss a month at the very least. But this will give some of the fans less enamored with him the chance to see Gardner Minshew as the starter -- while less explosive, he's been more accurate and consistent than Richardson. I've wondered why Minshew hasn't been given the chance to be a starter in a QB starved league after Jacksonville and the answer seems to be arm strength -- he can't make the more difficult throws and if you take away the ones he's good at, he becomes easy to defend against.

Given that the Colts will be playing some of the toughest defenses by DVOA in the coming weeks, I guess we'll see if that's the case --

Jaguars - 10th (-6.9%)
Browns - 1st (-27.5%)
Saints - 4th (-15.7%)
Panthers - 29th (+12.1%)
Patriots - 12th (-5.1%)
Buccaneers - 6th (-14.1%)

So a very tough stretch of defenses ahead. I guess if Minshew plays well against these guys, he'll make me a believer. Interestingly, this same QB controversy happened in Philly with Minshew and Hurts. And I don't think anyone would argue that Philly didn't make the right move in developing Hurts and leaving Minshew as the back-up --

"But the case still remains: This was the best an Eagles quarterback had looked in the passing game all season. Minshew was more accurate than Hurts has been, with an astounding 14 completion percentage over expectation—multiple ex-Eagles remarked via Twitter on the improved passes they saw. Minshew underthrew more than a few passes, as is often the case with him, but he was able to account for his weaker arm strength with anticipation and accuracy.

[...] And that’s why Hurts is the starter. Minshew might be able to better execute the passing game now, but the Eagles know what Minshew is: a really good backup and solid spot starter, akin to a Taylor Heinicke or Teddy Bridgewater. Hurts very well might end up in the same bucket, but he has far better physical tools, and the Eagles would rather see if they can cash on that potential in future years than make a quarterback change and win now.

So there is no quarterback controversy in Philadelphia—not because of the play of the respective quarterback options, but because of the priorities in the Eagles’ building. The Eagles want to develop. Hurts is the young guy they drafted with the intent to develop, and he’s been improving this year, and when he’s available to go, he’ll be right back in the starting seat, just as Sirianni said after Minshew’s breakout performance."

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2021/12/5 ... hia-eagles

On the Brotherly Shove / Tush Push -- I don't think they should ban it, but Richard Sherman has a point -- the same move of players pushing another player through the line of scrimmage was banned for the defense for "safety concerns". As Sherman said, why is it unsafe for the defense but safe for the offense?

I think they should allow it but then also allow the defense to do the same thing -- they should be allowed to shove one of their players between the tackles to defend the play. Let's see what happens when you have linebackers shoving a defensive tackle through the A-gap and meeting Hurts halfway.

or jumping on a team mates back to block an extra point/field goal.

Two of the biggest stories this past weekend involved teams from the AFC East, the Pats and Bills, both lose. The Pats are now long from the Brady Years and the Bills definitely are not a guarantee to make the Super Bowl anymore. The good news for the Jets was both those teams losing and they getting a win.

Now next Sunday is an interesting matchup, Jets vs Eagles. The Jets haven’t beat the Eagles since 1973 so one day eventually they will finally win one, is it next Sunday? Anyway after that game the Jets go into a bye and the schedule gets a bit easier.

This is astonishing to me. I realize they don't play all that often, but still, over that long, to never win ONCE? I wonder if there are any other similar or longer droughts in the league?