The NFL Thread - Root for your favorite team (or laugh at the Browns, whichever's easier)

[1Tonka_Truck]

That and all the bs underthrown deep ball DPI get's me pissed even when it's AJ Brown doing it to perfection. It's a legit play at this point.

Lockett pulled some AJ-level DPI bait on the Cowboys.

 

[DSP's Tax Lawyer]

NASCAR immediately jumps to mind.

The only other organizations that I can think of who make the kind of money the NFL makes AND are run this incompetently would be UEFA and FIFA with soccer. But that incompetence includes corruption. NFL is just stupidity

 

[Kilo Riley]

Lockett pulled some AJ-level DPI bait on the Cowboys.

Lockett is the fucking master of DPI jiu-jitsu. Too bad it can't win us any damn games.

 

[Absolutego]

What I witnessed last night was not a football game. It was a team of referees attempting to conduct a football game, like its an orchestra.
The Cowboys had an entire scoring drive where they didn't convert a single set of downs on their own in the 3rd quarter that totally flipped the momentum of the game. The Seahawks had to score 3 straight touchdowns just to get one where the only defensive penalty the refs could reasonably claim happened was one we could decline and keep the score, instead of replaying the down yet again.

It was even more egregious than the game against the Rams, and that was pretty bad. Goodell should just put the big market teams in their own special-boy divisions and let the rest of us play real football against each other instead of jobbing the mid-market guys every other week for ratings.

 

[DSP's Tax Lawyer]

What I witnessed last night was not a football game. It was a team of referees attempting to conduct a football game, like its an orchestra.

That's usually what happens when the Cowboys play a team that isn't big market and can beat them. Especially at home. Use to see it all the time when the Packers would go down to Dallas and play. Had to win by more than a touchdown because the Cowboys were going to get a billion final chances to score at the end. And heaven forbid you have to have a game winning drive

 

[TVB]

NASCAR immediately jumps to mind.

The only other organizations that I can think of who make the kind of money the NFL makes AND are run this incompetently would be UEFA and FIFA with soccer. But that incompetence includes corruption. NFL is just stupidity

I'd argue that NHL are also incompetent with their business strategies, especially what happened almost two months ago with the bloody incident

 

[DSP's Tax Lawyer]

I'd argue that NHL are also incompetent with their business strategies, especially what happened almost two months ago with the bloody incident

NHL is losing money though. And the bloody incident happened in the UK.

But thats what I am saying. Other sports leagues and companies are nearly as incompetent as the NFL but they don't make money like the NFL does. It is mind boggling

 

[Absolutego]

That's usually what happens when the Cowboys play a team that isn't big market and can beat them. Especially at home. Use to see it all the time when the Packers would go down to Dallas and play. Had to win by more than a touchdown because the Cowboys were going to get a billion final chances to score at the end. And heaven forbid you have to have a game winning drive

Herbstreit at one point early in the game added a fun fact that the Cowboys had a 13 win streak at home. When I watched what we had to go through just to score to end the 1st half, and then watched the refs start picking up flags against the Cowboys in the 2nd, I remembered that factoid and thought "gee, I wonder why".

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

What I witnessed last night was not a football game. It was a team of referees attempting to conduct a football game, like its an orchestra.

You'd think at some point, the NFL would start asking if the refs were gambling on the outcome of games, and fixing them accordingly, from the sheer amount of refball going on.

Then I remember that this is the NFL, and unless it's the players doing things the league doesn't give 2 shits unless it makes the Shield look Bad.

 

[std::string]

You'd think at some point, the NFL would start asking if the refs were gambling on the outcome of games, and fixing them accordingly, from the sheer amount of refball going on.

Like the NBA did?

Yeah we looked into it and found ourselves blameless.

 

[DSP's Tax Lawyer]

Like the NBA did?

Yeah we looked into it and found ourselves blameless.

That would be the one thing that kills the NFL. If people start paying attention and realize that certain teams are picked to win specifically by the league through the refs, the league dies. And I gotta say, I wouldn't have seen it coming. I would have put money on the concussions issue as the thing that killed the league

 

[Illidan Stormrage]

The Refs are absolutely gambling on games. At the very least, they have very specific instructions from the league as to how to make certain calls when certain teams are playing.

I read Tim Donaghy's book and the information there was jarring about how much manipulation happened in the NBA. Or I should say, still happens...if you have a chance, give it a read. We're talking straight up point spread fuckery so that certain betting lines would cover. That's also not to mention vendettas that some refs had against certain players and teams.

To think that something similar is not going on in the NFL especially with all of the horrible calls week in and week out ? Well that's the very definition of wishful thinking.

I do agree with Tom Brady's assessment that the game is pretty mediocre now.

Think about how similar NFL offenses are now (not every team, but by and large) to College offenses. In the vast majority of cases you're seeing QBs sit in shotgun and play pitch and catch with their 1st read or taking off and running for a 1st down because the lanes are so wide open.

The only place where QBs are somewhat challenged is deep in the red zone and that's assuming that the Refs aren't (purposely) fucking shit up with all of the flags; or they have shit like the Tush Push where once you get to the 2 yard line, it's game over.

For decades the Steelers were famous for their Zone Blitz scheme. The Eagles had their famous Jim Johnson Jailbreak Blitz. The problem with blitz heavy schemes is that you need the 2 or 3 Defensive Backs left in the secondary to be physical at the line of scrimmage and really fuck with the Receivers' release.

However, in the modern NFL you're not even allowed to challenge or put any amount of hands on Receivers running their routes. Even within the first 5-10 yards, I see flags for Defensive Holding or Illegal Contact every other fucking series.

So what's a Defensive Coordinator to do ? Well, one method is to just use 3 Down Linemen and get bodies back in coverage to "clog up" the lanes and try to make those windows not so wide open...and even then, you're dependent upon the QB to miss throws rather than forcing mistakes.

Defense has become more "reactive" than at any point in NFL history.

 

[Dildo_SHwaggins]

At the very least, they have very specific instructions from the league as to how to make certain calls when certain teams are playing.

This is my theory for which I have no proof of. Manipulate games to have the bigger markets and bigger name players in the playoffs and everyone else be damned.

 

[Illidan Stormrage]

The rules started to change about 20 years ago, when the league got tired of Peyton Manning and the Colts getting their shit pushed in by the Patriots' physical style of defense, especially in how their Defensive Backs use to rough up the Colts' Receivers.

It wasn't nearly as faggot mode as today, but Refs started to "call the game" more in favor of the Receivers having more free releases.

Even back then, QB's needed to have the ability to immediately assess where the ball should go. It wasn't this whole "1, maybe 2 reads and if it's not there then take off running" that you see practically every team employ.

Do you remember those random plays where Brady or Manning would get the snap and immediately throw the ball into the ground ? Yeah, that was because right at the snap they could see that the Defense had the play perfectly covered and nothing good was going to come from trying to extend the play and "make some shit happen".

To me, that's an example of truly exemplary QB play. You don't really see that these days because most of the QBs are drafted for "athletic traits" rather than being cerebral extensions of the coaching staff on the field.

High level QB play involves not just calling out who the Mike is, but things such as the following:

Throwing the ball to an area where your Receiver wasn't going to get leveled by a Safety and potentially get injured.

It involves throwing the ball to parts of the field where only your Receiver has a chance to make the catch.

It involves recognizing the Defense before the snap and calling the right audible.

Do you know that the Atlanta Falcons didn't let Mike Vick audible at the line ? Know why ? Because he was too fucking stupid to be able to read NFL Defenses.

Even Mahomes who is so physically gifted has explained that he's still learning how to read NFL Defenses. Take a minute to think about that. The guy who has the highest Passer Rating of all time and 2 rings, not to mention being on the way to break so many records...still can't properly read Defenses.

Why is that ? Because you no longer have to be a truly cerebral QB to be prolific in the league anymore.

Speaking of Passer Rating, look at the all time list.

Fuckwads like Deshaun Watson, Russell Wilson and Dak Prescott are ranked higher than Dan Marino and Steve Young.

That should tell you all about how inflated modern Passer Rating stats are, because of how much weight yardage and completions carry.

The sad reality being that in the evaluation of modern QBs, yardage and completions should be the last statistics that are taken into consideration.

Steve Young is one of the very greatest QBs to ever play the game, in part because he had an insane Passer Rating at a time when Receivers could get absolutely mauled.

 

[DSP's Tax Lawyer]

The Refs are absolutely gambling on games. At the very least, they have very specific instructions from the league as to how to make certain calls when certain teams are playing.

I read Tim Donaghy's book and the information there was jarring about how much manipulation happened in the NBA. Or I should say, still happens...if you have a chance, give it a read. We're talking straight up point spread fuckery so that certain betting lines would cover. That's also not to mention vendettas that some refs had against certain players and teams.

To think that something similar is not going on in the NFL especially with all of the horrible calls week in and week out ? Well that's the very definition of wishful thinking.

This is my theory for which I have no proof of. Manipulate games to have the bigger markets and bigger name players in the playoffs and everyone else be damned.

If you want to look for it, start looking in the 2nd and 3rd quarter for penalties. The NBA started doing that to make the games so far gone that any comeback won't actually happen. It happened last night with the Cowboys getting an entire drive from penalties.

Outside of Packers vs Cowboys games, the other one I have seen was when Tampa Bay won their super bowl. The amount of holding calls that happened against the packers secondary in the NFC Championship game that suddenly stopped being called in the Super Bowl was pretty shocking. That Tampa Bay super bowl was entirely pushed as well. Once they won, they became shit for the next 2 seasons under Brady because the deal was done.

Which means, they def push these teams to win. Which makes the Cowboys even worse. Having the refs try to get you to win and you still can't win a playoff game

 

[Dildo_SHwaggins]

If you want to look for it, start looking in the 2nd and 3rd quarter for penalties. The NBA started doing that to make the games so far gone that any comeback won't actually happen. It happened last night with the Cowboys getting an entire drive from penalties.

Outside of Packers vs Cowboys games, the other one I have seen was when Tampa Bay won their super bowl. The amount of holding calls that happened against the packers secondary in the NFC Championship game that suddenly stopped being called in the Super Bowl was pretty shocking. That Tampa Bay super bowl was entirely pushed as well. Once they won, they became shit for the next 2 seasons under Brady because the deal was done.

Which means, they def push these teams to win. Which makes the Cowboys even worse. Having the refs try to get you to win and you still can't win a playoff game

I know there are tons of examples of bad/suspicious calls, just nothing "official". I doubt we'll ever get anything, anytime soon. The NFL runs a tight ship and any accusation could bring down the sport.

We can go back to the Rams/Saint NFC Championship game. You can't convince me otherwise that the NFL was trying to reward the Rams with a superbowl for moving back to LA. In today's game, that was such obvious pass interference, still can't believe it wasn't called. Although it is funny seeing it happen to Sean Payton.

The Cowboys are pathetic and such an overrated team. There was a game against the Giants about 10 years ago but I haven't been able to find the clip. The Cowboy's player ran into the Giant's punter's leg after the punt was kicked. This would be roughing the kicker or some penalty hitting the punter after the punt was kicked. The ref picked up the flag and said the giants punter purposefully left his leg there for the cowboys player to into it, trying to get a penalty. Never heard anything like that before or since. I think the giants lost and that penalty hurt them. But I've learned to be patient with them. The cowboys will flex on the bad teams only to get their shit pushed in for the playoffs like every year.

 

[DSP's Tax Lawyer]

I know there are tons of examples of bad/suspicious calls, just nothing "official". I doubt we'll ever get anything, anytime soon. The NFL runs a tight ship and any accusation could bring down the sport.

This could be one of the reasons they clamp down on betting. The NBA scandal came because the FBI was wiretapping the mob and caught Donaghy passing information about the games on call. David Stern then went public with the investigation to shut down anything the FBI could have found, which is why we don't know more. NFL might have learned a lesson from there and prevented as much gambling as possible to avoid getting into a situation like that

 

[Makhnovshchina]

Broncos Country Let’s Ride.

 

[Illidan Stormrage]

The Cowboys are pathetic and such an overrated team. There was a game against the Giants about 10 years ago but I haven't been able to find the clip. The Cowboy's player ran into the Giant's punter's leg after the punt was kicked. This would be roughing the kicker or some penalty hitting the punter after the punt was kicked. The ref picked up the flag and said the giants punter purposefully left his leg there for the cowboys player to into it, trying to get a penalty. Never heard anything like that before or since. I think the giants lost and that penalty hurt them. But I've learned to be patient with them. The cowboys will flex on the bad teams only to get their shit pushed in for the playoffs like every year.

I believe I do remember the exact play that you're talking about and as a Giants fan, it was particularly sickening. You're right, I've never seen some shit like that ever since.

 

[TVB]

We ridin' high Bronco chads