NFL Regular Season Thread

[worstblogever]

The Broncos managed to achieve an abysmal defensive feat: the Dolphins scored 70 in a glorious dumpster fire game. 70 is the second most points scored by an NFL team in an NFL regular season game or playoff game.

This last part isn't true. Washington got 72 back in 1966, and in 1950, the L.A. Rams put up 70. The Chicago Bears put up 73 in a 1940 Championship game.

I mean, what happened to Denver hasn't happened since prior to Super Bowl I, but it still has happened.

[worstblogever]

WEEK 4 "WHO'S COOKIN' ON THE HOTSEAT?/FIRE THIS COACH!" DISCUSSION

10. Mike McCarthy, Cowboys : Someone might say, “Hey, Dallas has a winning record! How are they on this list? Well, Mike McCarthy starts every season as on one of the hottest coaching seats in the NFL, just because Jerry Jones has the expectations of a Lombardi every year. Jones is going to hit the “EJECT” button if this team doesn’t make a deep playoff run.

But they’re 2-1! How can Mike McCarthy’s job be in jeopardy?

They got upset by the Arizona Cardinals, who came into the game ranked #32 in the NFL in most sites’ power rankings. They trailed the whole game. They lost by two scores. Their defense didn’t force a turnover and they gave up 222 rushing yards. They were 1 for 5 in the red zone. They had THIRTEEN PENALTIES for 107 yards.

A single loss like this is embarrassing enough to at least put someone in the fringe of “job security in question”. He’s not #1… but this loss puts McCarthy’s job at a low simmer.

Next week, Dallas plays the Patriots in Arlington, and should Bill Belichek outcoach Mike McCarthy enough to get a win in front of the Cowboys’ home fans… things could get more interesting. They’d better win that before they have to play the 49ers on Sunday Night Football, for sure.

9. Doug Pederson, Jaguars: The Jaguars are 1-2 after winning their division last year, which had a lot to do with Pederson coaching up Trevor Lawrence after his rookie season, where Urban Meyer was too busy getting dry-humped back in Ohio rather than coach the kid. How does that put him into “warming seat” territory?

Well, when you lose to the Texans, that’s almost a given. When you lose to the Texans by TWENTY… hoo boy. When in that game, you give up a kickoff return TD… TO A FULLBACK…
https://twitter.com/HoustonTexans/st...s-analysis-wtf
those are the details that will turn the temperature up on your coach’s office recliner REAL fast.

The Jags signed Calvin Ridley this past offseason to bolster their WR corps, but are dealing with the dropsies throughout that unit. Their O-Line are also causing the offense to move backwards with pre-snap penalties way, way too often. That’s not going to help Trevor Lawrence out much.

Luckily for Pederson, there’s a lot of games left, his division should remain WIDE open all year, given the other records throughout it right now, and that his owner remains Shad Khan, one of the most patient owners in the league. It’s early in the year, and we expect him to climb back outta the ten hottest seats before much longer. They do have the Falcons on the schedule next week, so it’s not like they’re running into a wood chipper or anything.

8. DeMeco Ryans, Texans: In the three prior years, the Texans’ overall record was 11-38. It started with the end of Bill O’Brien, who got fired after four games in 2020, then twelve games with Romeo Crennel, and a full season with David Culley, and then Lovey Smith. It’s almost like their ownership just enjoys firing African American coaches after giving them a substandard roster from an incompetent front office.

DeMeco Ryans, come on down.

After two games, it doesn’t look like much has changed. Baltimore only needed 265 yards of offense to win 25-9 in their opener. In Week Two, hey, C.J. Stroud threw for 384 yards and had no picks! Unfortunately, he was sacked six times, and their defense was a sieve against Anthony Richardson, who got two rushing TDs before leaving the game, and then Gardner Minshew just had to not f*** it up with an 18 point lead, but that’s underselling it… he still completed 19 of 23 passes against this porous defense. Yeah, the final score was 31-10, but the Texans got a garbage-time 4th quarter TD and FG to make it way more respectable than it actually was.

Now, DeMeco Ryans got his first win as a coach yesterday. But C.J. Stroud is putting up stats as a rookie signal-caller in terms of TDs and yards without INTs… and that could mean there’s a lot of hope. It seems like AFC South teams are always winning to gift a victory to one of the league’s bottom feeders inexplicably, like how the Colts spotted the Texans two last year. In 2023, maybe the Jags may have been just what the Texans needed to avoid a winless season.

Even with the McNair family’s pattern of firing black coaches after one year… maybe Ryans is the one to break the trend. Maybe.

7. Mike Vrabel, Titans: The Titans managed to dominate the AFC South during the prime of Derrick Henry, but it looks like Father Time is converting him from “most dominant back in the league” to “respectable veteran RB” right now. Ryan Tannehill has never blown anyone’s mind while he’s been in Tennessee, or for that matter, his first few years in Miami… and even with DeAndre Hopkins added to his WR corps this offseason, the Titans managed only five FGs in Week One, so I guess congratulations to anyone with Nick Folk on their fantasy team. Mike Vrabel had his time on top of the AFC South, but it’s beginning to look like he’s not evolving to handle the reality that his RB is getting older, and his QB is mediocre at best.

They lost to Cleveland in a lopsided 27-3 matchup yesterday where they were 2-12 on third down in this matchup, which is coincidentally how they were on third down against the Saints in the opening week loss… but more glaringly, they only had 94 yards of total office. Their O-Line gave up 5 sacks and 9 tackles for loss to the Browns’ defense. Derrick Henry went for 20 yards on 11 carries, and Tannehill only threw for 104 but lost 36 yards on the sacks. 94 positive yards. Putting that in worse perspective… they also had 8 penalties for 80 yards.

So… yes, in total, the Titans productivity was positive 14 yards. Just… what a s***show.

But we’re not done! You say, “Well, at least it wasn’t a shutout!”

Let’s talk about the supposed “scoring drive”. After Cleveland fumbled in their own territory, the Titans began the “scoring drive” at the Cleveland 17 yard line. The first play from scrimmage?
Derrick Henry Rush for -3 yards.
Second and 13? Ryan Tannehill sacked for -7 yards, fumbled, and Derrick Henry had to dive on it to recover at the Cleveland 24.
Third and 17? Tannehill passes to Okonkwo for -2 yards.
Fourth and 19, Nick Folk comes out and nails a 44 yard FG after a disastrous three plays for -9 yards.

We don’t know if Tannehill gets benched, or the OC Tim Kelly gets fired, or Vrabel gets fired… but something’s gonna change in Nashville.

Next week, the Titans host the Bengals, and had better hope whoever has Joe Burrow’s voodoo doll adds a few more pins to it before that game.


6. Brian Daboll, Giants: After years of embarrassment, the Giants hired Brian Daboll prior to 2022, and gave him almost the exact same roster that Joe Judge led to a 4-13 record. With Daniel Jones still the starter… Daboll got the team to a 9-7-1 record that might not be at the tops of the league, but far exceeded anyone’s expectations. Improving a team by 5.5 wins without any real additions to the roster is a testament to either that he’s a damned fine coach, or just that Joe Judge was a s*** one.

So how is he in the top ten hot seats?

Daboll and the G-Men just got waxed like a bikini model before a photo shoot in Prime Time on Sunday Night Football in the opener, losing to Dallas 40-0. While they beat Arizona in Week Two, they had to come back from a 20-0 halftime deficit to escape with a win. On Thursday Night Football in Week Three, they were completely outclassed by the 49ers for the whole game…

And we’re going to back up and say that New York has played twelve quarters of football thus far this season, and has looked like absolute garbage in ten of them. To the tune of being outscored 90-12 in those moments (excluding the second half in Arizona).

It won’t get easier over the next three weeks. The Giants host Seattle, then have to go on the road in consecutive weeks to play the scary-ass Dolphins, and then the Buffalo Bills on Sunday night football. They could be 1-5 by the time they get to play Washington.

5. Josh McDaniels, Raiders: Oakland brought in 25 new players in free agency coming into last year, and were surprised McDaniels couldn’t coach them up during early season struggles. They blew four double-digit leads in games all season. They ran Derek Carr out of town in favor of Jimmy Garoppolo. Carr was the only one providing this team with through a ton of strife in 2021, and once they sat Carr down, they lost every game. The Raiders were in the Top 3 in penalties in 2022, kept forgetting to give the ball to Josh Jacobs (who missed the whole preseason on a holdout), and blew leads in ways the franchise hadn’t since its founding, you’d think maybe he wouldn’t be the guy for this job going forward… well, because Mark Davis is such a terrible owner and still has half of Jon Gruden’s bloated contract to pay off… they can’t afford to fire McDaniels and also pay him to not be there. That’s the only reason he got to get a second year as coach.

The Raiders went into Sunday Night Football against a Steelers team whose own fans were giving their offense some serious side-eye, and at home… their stands got invaded by Yinzers, and they wasted a magnificent game from Davante Adams after Jimmy G threw his third pick, for Vegas’ fourth overall turnover.

Next week, the Raiders travel to L.A. to play the Chargers, so maybe they’ll feel like they’re in front of a proper “home crowd” back in Los Angeles. (Relocation makes things weird sometimes with that rivalry.)

[worstblogever]

4. Frank Reich, Panthers: Frank Reich was the guy Jim Irsay fired halfway through last year, and the Panthers looked at their own inept coach, Matt Ruhle, then their interim coach, Steve Wilks, and were like, “YES, WE WOULD ABSOLUTELY TAKE FRANK REICH, PLEASE AND THANK YOU.”

Carolina has a solid front seven on defense, but has been searching for a QB ever since Cam Newton fell apart half a decade ago. They’ve put Teddy Bridgewater in, Baker Mayfield out there, Sam Darnold, they almost made P.J. Walker a thing, but kept putting Cam’s moldy corpse out for seemingly only nostalgia… and then mid-season last year, they traded away Christian McCaffrey, virtually the only working piece of their offense, to the 49ers. Their top WR, D.J. Moore, left in free agency to Chicago. This team needs a complete rebuild on offense, and with the #1 pick in the draft they took Bryce Young out of Alabama, and gave him uh… Miles Sanders and the ghost of Adam Theilen to call an offense.

The good news… the Panthers had their most productive day from an offensive standpoint in Week Three against the Seahawks. Andy Dalton had to take over for Bryce Young… and the Panthers went into the locker room with the lead… but came up short against Seattle. You know how to lose a game? You have Andy Dalton throw the ball 58 times. Oh, and commit 13 penalties.

Honestly, for a supposed “QB whisperer”, it sure seemed like Reich’s waning years in Indianapolis were spent pining for washed up veteran QBs that he didn’t have to coach up. Maybe the Colts’ front office knew something about their former head coach…


3. Kevin O’Connell, Vikings: Minnesota, a year after being abysmal in one-score games, went undefeated in them in 2022. They only lost four games, but we’ll note two of them were embarrassing blowout losses to the Cowboys and Packers, who they let hang around to sneak into the playoffs. Still, running away with the NFC North in his first year at the helm should mean O’Connell would be set for years to come.

This year… the Vikings do not look right without Dalvin Cook in their backfield. They’re 0-3 after nearly being gifted a victory by Brandon Staley, the coach of the Chargers. Inexplicably, Staley did not punt the ball away with under 2 minutes left, and went for it on a 4th down from their own 25 yard line. Thus, Cousins just had to go that far for a win...

And they blew it in a fashion that is downright tragic. They picked up a first down while out of timeouts, and rather than rush to the line and spike the ball to stop the clock and take their time… but no, as the crowd started panicking and screaming at that suggestion, it made enough noise that Kirk Cousins couldn’t hear the play called in by his coach (ALLEGEDLY) and called his own play… eating up the majority of the time left and forcing them to have a half-assed play call… where he forced a throw that got tipped twice and picked off to seal a victory for the Chargers.

Now… again, blowing one score games is in Minnesota’s team DNA in odd-numbered years. But the most telling thing is post game, Cousins blamed the crowd noise. He’s in the last year of his bloated contract in Minnesota, and while being winless after three games, he could be bait in a trade to the Jets, who have their own 1-2 start and crisis to solve.

What that means for Kevin McConnell, it’s hard to say at this time… his team is dead last in the NFL in turnover margin (he’s threatening to bench people over turnovers, a surefire way to either correct the problem, or totally lose a locker room)
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...urnover-issues
as they go on the road next week, but to Carolina. One team has to walk out of there with a win, and save the other from a potential 0-17. If I was betting, I’d lean towards it being Minnesota, who just aren’t playing up to their potential.

2. Sean Payton, Broncos : Sean Payton is, by most estimations, a HOF coach. He’s back out of retirement, and inherited a disaster in Denver, including the reclamation project that is “figure out what the hell happened to malfunctioning robot Russell Wilson”.

In Week One, they lost to the Las Vegas Raiders, who overcame the distraction that their own highest paid pass rusher, Chandler Jones, has made for the team for the past week. The Broncos again only managed to get 16 points, failing to score even twenty like they did for the bulk of 2022. Don’t worry, though, because now the Broncos also have problems in their kicking game, where Will Lutz managed to miss from 55 yards away, and also missed an extra point that was the margin of victory. Did we mention they didn’t get a single sack? Or had 10 penalties for 83 yards? WOOF.

Week Two… they got the Washington Commanders at home, and REJOICE! Russell Wilson managed to throw for 3 TDs and put up 33 points!

Bad news, though. Denver’s defense, that has propped up this team for years had an uncharacteristically terrible day against Commanders QB Sam Howell in what was only his second start… and had nine penalties. They somehow didn’t force a turnover, and coughed it up twice to come up short.

So, in Week Three, they went to Miami...

SEVENTY POINTS. The Broncos gave up SEVENTY POINTS in a 70-20 drubbing. That’s the most points given up in any game since 1966. For those keeping track… that was prior to the first Super Bowl. And the Dolphins could have kicked a FG to get SEVENTY-THREE at the gun to tie the all-time most points allowed as a mercy.

We’re three games into the Sean Payton era in Denver, and all his bluster about this team suffering from bad coaching LAST year is looking even more ridiculous with results like this. While a lot of franchises might not fire a guy and admit they made a HUGE mistake in dropping a Brinks truck in their front yard, remember that the Broncos are owned by the Walton family who own Wal-Mart, so they can afford to correct what right now looks like a colossal blunder. (Also… what happened to Sean Payton? Did Drew Brees just make him look good for all those years?)


1. Matt Eberflus, Bears: Throughout most of last season on this list, we left Eberflus, a first year coach alone for awhile because, y’know… first year coach. It’s hard to fire a guy in his first year. But the Bears finished 3-13 and on a ten game losing streak, getting the #1 pick in the draft (and trading it to Carolina). Chicago led the NFL in rushing yards (getting over 1,000 out of Justin Fields sure helps), but they were also dead last in passing, 31st against stopping the run, and their scoring defense was dead last in the NFL.

And after three weeks… that losing streak now stands at 13. Their first loss come against their dreaded rivals, the Green Bay Packers in a BLOWOUT and it was Jordan Love carving them up, seemingly ready to take Aaron Rodgers’ title as the guy who gets to declare “I still own you” to Chicago fans. Week Two, the Bucs got 6 sacks, and forced Fields to throw two INTs. Don’t blame it all on the QB, though, because Chicago’s defense got zero sacks, forced zero turnovers, and Baker Mayfield put up over 300 yards against them. Tampa got another 120 yards on the ground. In every phase, the Bears sucked out there.

Week Three… Coming into this game, the Bears DC resigned. Justin Fields blamed the coaching staff for any struggles he was having. Their were rumors the FBI raided the team facility that are still unclear as to what the hell they are… but even the team groundskeepers had their lawn mowers stolen by thieves in the night. This… is now easily the least competent run team in the NFL from top to bottom. The Arizona Cardinals should send them a thank you bouquet.

In the actual game, the Chiefs were up 34-0 at the half, and coasted to a 41-10 victory at Soldier Field where Travis Kelce’s budding relationship (?) with Taylor Swift drew more attention than ANYTHING the Bears did on the field.

The Bears’ owners, the McCaskeys might hit the EJECT button on Eberflus, but they’re notoriously cheap and might not fire him just to avoid having to pay him to stay home (he’s still a long shot as a mid-season firing). Tell their fans, “Hey, it’s just one year, it’ll get better…” It might, but this team needs to build around Fields before he loses the threat of being a running QB. But if Eberflus can’t get the Bears trending better and fast, he might be done after two seasons.

The last Bears win was October 24th, 2022. We’ll see if they get a win before a calendar year passes.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Did anybody see this NFL Toy Story ad? I have to give this a look, it's going to be weird.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/toy-...104750024.html

Yeah, sure looks interesting!

[babyblob]

My Bengals pulled it out last night much to my surprise. Burrow still has me worried as it was clear at times he was favoring one leg over the other. He was off sync on a lot of passes and didnt take it deep, and didnt get into the endzone.

Still problems in cincy but I will take the win.