NFL Regular Season Thread

[InfamousBG]

Bill is so close to breaking Shulas win record that he can do it in the next few seasons. I think it will take a really bad year for him to step down or Kraft to fire him.

I honestly could care less about Bill and his record. It means nothing to me and should mean nothing to fans. Winning footballs games and superbowls is what football is about. If the Pats are all over the place this season Bill needs to go. This is all on him. He is the head dog. He wanted Brady gone well he got it. He wanted Patricia and Judge last year he got it. He brought in Cam Newton. His draft picks are awful and always have been. HE goes for Jones then slaps him in the face. He will not support Mac Jones and he keeps letting that joke Zappe think he will be a NFL QB someday (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa). Bill has been there for almost 25 years. Times change especially in the NFL. Bill will not change anything. He is cheap. It is his way or no way. He thinks he is the greatest...well this is the year to prove it. If not goodbye.

P.S. The AFC East is not as stacked as it seems. Do not let those fools fool you. The Jets are the Jets and unless Rodgers and that team comes together they are going no where. Miami is Miami and until the get a QB who can take hits and make plays they are not doing much. I pick the Bills to win the division as lomng as defense stays healthy.

[babyblob]

I dont give two figs about the record either. But I was pointing out with him being so close he will not step down on his own. And Kraft may be more hesitant to fire Bill given everything he has done for the Pats, even though it is pretty clear at this point that the success had nothing to do with him and pretty much everything to do with Brady.

I think they finish last in the east but if they dont get embarrassed I think Kraft keeps him on.

[Kirby101]

Th AFC East has three top QBs and Mac Jones. The Pats would be better off tanking and getting a top QB pick next year.

[InfamousBG]

Bye bye Bailey Zappe from the Pats. Interesting move. I dont see him wanting to come back if he clears waivers but you never know.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

NFL News -

The Indianapolis Colts were talking to 2 teams about trading Jonathan Taylor (RB). Miami had some interest but the 2nd mystery team to discuss a trade was ...the Green Bay Packers. But the deal never happened. And Taylor is on injury list to start the year and now the Colts have to repair that relationship.


- KC put Chris Jones on the Did Not Report list. His contract demands had KC trade for a DT from the Raiders. This saga could end up with a trade ahead due to Jones wanting paid like Aaron Donald now.

[cable guy]

Dak will once again lead the NFL in INT and Jones will move off of him at the end of the year as he already does not have faith in him. (Did anyone here the interview where he said he was thinking of drafting Hurts if he dropped low enough) The only reason to say that to reporters is to tell your QB in a very public way that he is not happy with him.

I would not be surprised one bit if that's the case with Dak. I think it's going to be a rough year for him and the Cowboys.

[babyblob]

I would not be surprised one bit if that's the case with Dak. I think it's going to be a rough year for him and the Cowboys.

I think the Cowboys make the playoffs. But just because the NFC does not really have a lot of great teams this year. But they get bounced in the Wild Card round. Dak is on a very short leash and I think this is the year that Jerry has enough.

[godisawesome]

I think the Cowboys make the playoffs. But just because the NFC does not really have a lot of great teams this year. But they get bounced in the Wild Card round. Dak is on a very short leash and I think this is the year that Jerry has enough.

The Cowboys will forever have expectations that are both too high and too easily disassociated from their inevitable failure because Jerry doesn't want a championship if he can't be the main star and the one credited with it, and while he pretends otherwise, he's much more content to be the star of an overhyped team that falls short where he can blame others for that failure than to risk having a coach outshine him in the authority role.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Speaking of the Cowboys...the great Gil Brandt has passed away. He was 91.

https://www.nfl.com/news/gil-brandt-...las*********-i

Brandt helped create modern day scouting. He was so good he could memorize everything about a player ...and their family.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

New England's weird moves continued. I had thought the idea was to pick up a veteran QB to mentor Mac Jones and Zappe (who went to practice squad). But yesterday the Patriots picked up Matt Correl who was cut by the Panthers the same day. Correl came out last year like Zappe and Carolina made a trade with New England to get him mid rounds wise. But he never played due to an injury.

So its odd....

[worstblogever]

A disclaimer for those who haven't seen this before... I don't root for anybody to be fired. At most, I get bewildered when owners don't fire guys that seem like they've gone beyond the threshold of where most would have dropped the axe (That Urban Meyer year in Jacksonville, for example). This is just a weekly check-in where we discuss the long term job security of NFL coaches, based on what their record is like, how the team is performing given the statistics, and what gossip is leaking out of the locker room in media reports. I'm not an expert, I'm just here to have a few digs at guys getting paid millions of dollars who when fired, still get millions of dollars after the fact. So the folks, these coaches that we're taking shots at will be JUST fine if a few people on the internet have opinions about what might happen with their employer (again, not rooting for anyone to get the axe, quite the opposite in some situations).

Without further adieu...

WEEK 1 "WHO'S COOKIN' ON THE HOTSEAT?/FIRE THIS COACH!" DISCUSSION

12. DeMeco Ryans, Texans: The Texans have been awful now for three years, with their overall record being 11-38 in that stretch. 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.

Okay, maybe they’re do for a turnaround. Getting the top QB in the NFL draft, and then trading back in at #3 to take the top defensive player in the draft in Will Anderson? Any team needs more than two players to start fresh, but those two are a hell of a potential game-changer for this franchise.

If they end up as one of the worst teams in the league again, expect ownership to, of course, blame and potentially fire the coach.


11. Jonathon Gannon, Cardinals: Arizona is a trendy pick to be one of the worst teams in the NFL. Jonathon Gannon was hired via a tampering charge against the Cardinals, who interviewed him DURING Super Bowl week, and who already are under investigation by the NFL because allegedly, their old GM, Steve Keim, was still barking orders to subordinates while under suspension via burner phones handed out on the orders of owner Michael Bidwill.

That’s the behind-the-scenes dysfunction with the franchise that they still will be taking the hit for.

On the field, Kyler Murray’s knee isn’t healed yet, and he’s not expected back until October. They traded backup Colt McCoy because his arm fell off. Their first month schedule starts with Washington on the road, and the New York Giants at home. From there, it’s a murderer’s row of opponents until they play the Rams on the road Oct. 15th (Sean McVay has destroyed this team during his coaching tenure), and they get the Atlanta Falcons on Nov. 12th, the Texans on Nov. 19th, the Rams again on Nov. 26th, and then the Chicago Bears on Christmas Week.

They’ll be lucky if they can get six wins. With or without Kyler.

Oh, their offense no longer has DeAndre Hopkins in it. Their offensive line has been rebooted again, with a new left guard and center, and maybe not for the better. The defense lost JJ Watt to retirement, and Byron Murphy and Zach Allen to free agency. Budda Baker was demanding a trade this offseason. High Draft picks wasted on guys like Isaiah Simmons and Josh Jones have seen late-round picks in return.

The only good news in Arizona is… the bar is set low enough for Jonathon Gannon that he just has to be a better coach than Kliff Kingsbury. Even with a roster with more holes in it than an orgy, no one is expecting Arizona to do better than 3rd in their division, and that’s more a reflection on how far the Rams have fallen.

10. Bill Belichik, Patriots : The Patriots finished 8-9 last year and now are being picked as a last place team in the AFC East, given they were in what ended up being one of the toughest divisions in football now. They’re getting underwhelming QB play from Mac Jones (they’d better call handoffs to Ezekiel Elliott and not try to have him throw to JuJu or DeVante Parker too much), and this team’s defensive roster is built mostly on bricks made of Darth Hoodie’s arrogance that he needs “smart” players that do what he says, and the wins pile on in. His coaching staff also features former LB Jarod Mayo, his own sons Brian Belichek, Steve Belichek, Steve Belichek’s mullet, and the abject failures Bill O’Brien and Joe Judge.

The main debate seems to be if Belichek is allowed to coast until he gets the all-time wins record as a coach (it should take 2-4 more seasons), or Robert Kraft just pulls the plug.

9. Mike McCarthy, Cowboys : Mike McCarthy started last season as on the hottest coaching seat in the NFL, but then he went out and put up a dozen wins again, even while having Dak Prescott out for a few games and playing Cooper Rush without missing much of a beat. His coaching future depends on postseason success, because Jerry Jones is going to hit the “EJECT” button if this team doesn’t make a deep playoff run.

That’s the story, as it has been his entire tenure. Now they have the wrinkle of losing Ezekiel Elliott, and most pundits, including their own fanbase, are comparing their franchise QB, Dak Prescott, to former QB Quincy Carter. In other words, “Good, I guess, but won’t win anything important.”

The Cowboys will still probably get a Wild Card playoff spots, and fail to make the NFC Championship game, and Jerry Jones starts losing sleep at night are sobers up enough to realize he’ll be dead before his team wins a title with Mike McCarthy as coach.

[worstblogever]

8. Kevin Stefanski, Browns: Cleveland’s front office traded for a serial sexual predator knowing full well that he would be suspended for at least part of last season, and then found out that it would be a total of 11 games, which averages out to less than two quarters of punishment per sexual assault committed by DeShaun Watson. Kevin Stefanski was 4-7 at the end of that stretch, and then after winning the DeShaun Watson “revenge game” on their defense’s effort… the six games with Watson they went 3-3. They fired their defensive coordinator, Joe Woods, which is mind-boggling considering the defense was what was winning the Browns games this year.

Stefanski is an offensive coach, and he’ll be on the hot seat in 2023 if he can’t get better play out of Watson, which Cleveland’s front office traded away the farm for, and then put the team in salary cap hell to sign to a long term deal without establishing if he still had a grasp on playing QB after almost two seasons away. Watson’s main abundance of things is, in order, “massage parlor handys” followed by “rust from not playing”.

This being said, any defense with Myles Garrett on it is gonna be good. The Browns have gotta make the playoffs, though, and the AFC North has four solid teams in it.


7. Sean McVay, Rams : The coach of the defending champs, who had the biggest drop off for a Super Bowl winner in the history of the league, finishing 5-12. Matt Stafford might have finally fallen apart, and is unlikely to last more than another season, given his health. His wife is on podcasts saying he can’t relate to his WR corps, who are “on their phones”. This team has traded away future draft picks for so long to “win now”, that they don’t have a roster built to recover if its stars retire (Aaron Donald is also thinking about calling it a career, or is already getting rumored to be traded by the deadline). Cooper Kupp still hasn’t recovered from his own major injury, and they have a TON of money tied up in him. Most of the stars from the Super Bowl run have cashed in elsewhere.

Sean McVay missed his opportunity to “pull a Madden” and take something in the range of $100 million to call games for Amazon’s streaming broadcasts. He could have taken that steel trap of a mind to the broadcast booth while he was young, and get paid stupid amounts of money with infinitely less stress in his gig. He chose to stick around, for whatever reason, and now will have his legacy tainted as a “risk/reward” lesson because the Rams are starting to look like they’re heading into the decade of mediocrity they had after the “Greatest Show on Turf” era before they started trying to “win now”. Yeah, they won, but… they’re headed into a deep, deep valley.

McVay doesn’t have to stick around for the dark years, and shouldn’t.

6. Ron Rivera, Washington Commanders: We hate putting his name on this list, but we’ve done it for four years now. Why’s it hard? The guy risked Covid-19 while coaching through fighting cancer and BEAT IT. That battle is probably the only positive news story you can find about the Washington Football Team from the past three years. He coached four players onto last year’s Pro Bowl roster. The new front office absolutely wants a guy they can champion who’s been up against something as reviled as cancer, because it’s only slightly better regarded than Daniel Snyder is and was. The Commanders also failed to trademark their new team name in court, meaning it could be “back to the drawing board” on choosing a team name already.

We have been, and continue to rooting for Riverboat Ron, and for all the nice things we can say about him, this franchise still has not had a franchise QB since… does Mark Rypien’s tenure count? Or are we going to say Joe Theismann? They’re starting someone named Sam Howell against Arizona on Sunday, and have Jacoby Brissett behind him. They’re starting the season without Chase Young (still hurt) and Terry McLaurin has turf toe.

Just expect Washington to be fighting with the Giants to avoid the cellar in the division. And that after this season, if not during a disappointing campaign mid-year… the new ownership team might opt to go a different direction.

5. Matt LaFleur, Packers: Green Bay last year at one point was 4-8, then went on a win streak that meant going into their season finale, they just had to beat the traditionally lowly Lions at Lambeau to get back into the playoffs. They blew it.

And look, I’m not going to say that finishing 8-9 and missing the playoffs is why LaFleur’s job could be in jeopardy, it’s obviously going to be whether or not he got Jordan Love ready over the past… three years? Yeah, he’s had that long to prep the whiniest bastard in the NFL, Aaron Rodgers’ heir apparent. The NFC North should not have a runaway winner, and if you can’t keep up with the likes of the Vikes or the Lions or Bears… you could be toast.

[worstblogever]

4. 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.

The McCaskeys might hit the EJECT button, but they’re notoriously cheap and might not fire him just to avoid having to pay him to stay home. 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 this year, he might be done after two seasons.

Just a reminder, though… the losing streak in Chicago sits at 10. The last win was October 24th, 2022. We’ll see if they get a win before a calendar year passes.

3. 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.

Now, 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.

Darren Waller’s gone from this team. Chandler Jones is still here, but looks washed.

It's not going to help Las Vegas that they’re still in a division with Mahomes & the Chiefs, Herbert & the Chargers, and… well, we’ll see if Sean Payton can coach Russell Wilson off the scrap heap after his disastrous season.

Point being, the Raiders are gonna have to fight to try to get 3rd place in the division. At best.

2. Arthur Smith, Falcons: 7 Smith is now 14-20 as a head coach overall. Arthur Blank is a patient owner, but the Falcons won their last two games, and Desmond Ridder started looking like he might develop into a future starter in Atlanta. (Having Drake London at receiver helps a LOT.) The Falcons need to fix their defense, which considering their DC just retired for the third time, expect a lot of changes on that side of the ball in 2023. Which, anything has got to be better than what they’ve been doing for the past twenty years or so.

One thing that could work out to help Smith off this list? The NFC South is WIDE OPEN. A lot of mediocre going on in this division, with maybe Derek Carr and the Saints at the top, and three terrible teams fighting for relevancy below that. The Falcons could snag some wins from Tampa Bay and Carolina… or not.

We’ll see if Smith gets to .500 or not.

1. Todd Bowles, Buccaneers: I’ve personally rooted for Todd Bowles since he was Bruce Arians’ DC in Arizona, and getting a coaching job with the Jets was a near death sentence for the man’s career given he didn’t see like he had the “offense” part of things figured out. Still, he went back to Tampa Bay and got a ring working as DC under Arians there when Tom Brady walked through the door. This is his second year in his second stint as a head coach and…

The Bucs did win the NFC South last year… but at 8-9. Tom Brady looked frustrated all year, like he regretted coming back out of retirement. This squad has visibly deteriorated from what it was just three years ago, and it’s still a noticeable step backwards from 2021.

Bowles doesn’t have Tom Brady dragging this team to a playoff run in a terrible division… it’s Baker friggin’ Mayfield. With Kyle Trask unable to win the starting job… from BAKER MAYFIELD. They still would have Mike Evans and Chris Godwin to throw to… but need those two to stay healthy, something they haven’t been since that Super Bowl run.

While most pundits are yelling about Arizona, Houston, or Indianapolis being the worst teams in the NFL this year… don’t sleep on the Falcons or Bucs. Whose coaches are not in their first year, and would likely get pink slips if they don’t get out of the cellar in year two or three.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

WEEK 1 "WHO'S COOKIN' ON THE HOTSEAT?/FIRE THIS COACH!" DISCUSSION

11. Jonathon Gannon, Cardinals: Arizona is a trendy pick to be one of the worst teams in the NFL. Jonathon Gannon was hired via a tampering charge against the Cardinals, who interviewed him DURING Super Bowl week, and who already are under investigation by the NFL because allegedly, their old GM, Steve Keim, was still barking orders to subordinates while under suspension via burner phones handed out on the orders of owner Michael Bidwill.

That’s the behind-the-scenes dysfunction with the franchise that they still will be taking the hit for.

On the field, Kyler Murray’s knee isn’t healed yet, and he’s not expected back until October. They traded backup Colt McCoy because his arm fell off. Their first month schedule starts with Washington on the road, and the New York Giants at home. From there, it’s a murderer’s row of opponents until they play the Rams on the road Oct. 15th (Sean McVay has destroyed this team during his coaching tenure), and they get the Atlanta Falcons on Nov. 12th, the Texans on Nov. 19th, the Rams again on Nov. 26th, and then the Chicago Bears on Christmas Week.

They’ll be lucky if they can get six wins. With or without Kyler.

Oh, their offense no longer has DeAndre Hopkins in it. Their offensive line has been rebooted again, with a new left guard and center, and maybe not for the better. The defense lost JJ Watt to retirement, and Byron Murphy and Zach Allen to free agency. Budda Baker was demanding a trade this offseason. High Draft picks wasted on guys like Isaiah Simmons and Josh Jones have seen late-round picks in return.

The only good news in Arizona is… the bar is set low enough for Jonathon Gannon that he just has to be a better coach than Kliff Kingsbury. Even with a roster with more holes in it than an orgy, no one is expecting Arizona to do better than 3rd in their division, and that’s more a reflection on how far the Rams have fallen.

Perhaps this is sour grapes in retrospect, but some Eagles fans (myself included) upon learning of Gannon's under the table duplicity with Arizona suspected he was either too distracted to do his job in the Super Bowl, or just plain mailed in his performance because he had his first head coaching gig in the bag. Sure, Andy Reid made adjustments during halftime, that was to be expected, but the Birds' defense couldn't get even ONE goddamn stop in the second half as the Chiefs scored on ALL five of their possessions. If the Birds had managed to keep Patrick Mahomes and company out of the end zone just ONCE, they win that game. And I don't want to hear **** about the bad field affecting Philly, Kansas City had to play on it too. As for Gannon, from what I've seen and heard, he's already looking like a buffoon who might not last more than two seasons in the desert.

[babyblob]

God I really hope The Jets crash and burn this year!