2018 Divisional Discussion Thread

(ATL-24 vs PHI-14) (N.E.-27 vs TEN-17) (PIT-21 vs JAC-10) (N.O.-20 vs MIN-17)

So are Vikings and Saints fans cheering for Philly here?

Edit: no, you'll all want Atlanta to win because then the NFCCG is in the Twins or Nawlins

It's chat or go home for all the marbles in FO slack gameday chat! For people who are already in, just go to https://kotakuites.slack.com/messages/fo/details/. For anyone that wants to join a star-studded cast of their favorite FO posters for gameday chat, we're getting lazy at this point in the season so just follow https://tinyurl.com/ydyqh626 for an invite

Those were some seriously non-sensical scoring drives.

Collinsworth: "I wish I could show America what the Falcons defense looked like last year"

Isn't it fortunate then that you're employed as a commentator for national football broadcasts and you can actually do that. You also had a week to prepare some tape...

Re: Jay Ajayi I wonder what kind of message the other Dolphins got when Ajayi was traded out of the Miami dumpster fire to the Eagles. If you want to send the locker room a message, it probably works a lot better to do it like Belichick and send Jamie Collins to Cleveland. But then lots of things work better if you do them like Belichick.

Whatever happened to this being a copycat league? I could do with seeing more teams copy Belichick.

Terrible decision by Pederson to not go for it there. Did he get cold feet after the time out?

And of course a high profile playoff game involves a high leverage "catch-rule" play. Makes you proud to be an NFL fan.

What do people think about the Eagles waiting until 1:19 to take their time outs?

Really weak playcalling on that last Falcons goal-to-go series

1st down: obvious fade to 11, well defended and incomplete
2nd down: inexplicable middle shovel screen, incomplete
3rd down: slant to 11 short of goal line, could have been a good call if they followed it with a handoff to Coleman or at least PA
4th down: I'm not against the general idea of the bootleg, but even if Jones didn't fall I'm not sure how it could have worked

Nothing hindsight about that 2nd down shovel pass call. I thought it was horrible as I saw it unfold. I understand wanting to get Julio the ball, but Coleman was averaging almost eight ypc. He should've got it at least once.

And pretty clear there was no backup plan on fourth down if Julio wasn't open

Pederson eschewing a fourth down attempt on that last Eagles drive may have been questionable, but he did go for it in the first half to get the Eagles their only TD. Outside of the Falcons' final attempt, that might've been the play of the game.

On the subject of that last play, I would have liked to surprise them with a run. You only needed two yards.

Anyway, I think DVOA is going to have the Eagles as being solidly the better team in that game. They had advantages in total yards and yards per play, while Atlanta had good fortunate in the fumble luck department.

And mere hours after I predict the importance of Alan Branch in stuffing the Titan's run game, he is declared inactive.

Tremendous coaching effort from Pederson, Schwartz and co.

Did someone kidnap Mike Mularky before the game and replace him with a Westworld robot? This is some unpredictable and aggressive play calling by the Titans offense so far.

The only good Tom Brady is a bored Tom Brady

Pats D has been garbage most of the year, and we saw it on that Tennessee drive. If they don't get it together they will lose, Henry is too good of a clock-killer.

Great start to the game. Trying not to get too excited but that catch was amazing and the playcalling by Mularkey is surprisingly adventurous. I really like the way we've opened the game.

So guess we shouldn't expect holding to be called on NE tonight

A BS OPI call wipes out a first down for TN. Shocking.

OPI? Seriously?!?!?!?

There’s the mandatory bullshit PI call everyone outside New England knew was coming.

Blindside block not called

Must be nice to be able to get announced penalties reversed.

When does a penalty call become set in stone? I don't remember the refs announcing one call, then switching to another one like that

Man, when the announcers are talking about shady officiating, something is badly wrong.

Somehow NE manages to get a first down on 4th from a false start. Only after a position coach walks down and whispers sweet nothings to the side judge. Clearly no conspiracies, though. That would be silly.

Refs just going in with no lube on TN tonight

There we go. No reason to watch any more of this nonsense. I didn't think it was going to be that incredibly bad. But wow. Those were some really bad calls there.
And the NFL can't figure out why people are watching less and less every year....

I think McDaniels got upset Mularkey was upstaging him so he opened up the good playbook they were saving for Pittsburgh. Some really beautiful play designs by NE

Should've at least let one of the refs spike the ball after TD

The refs are bad but I don't believe the conspiracy stuff. They just make bad calls. As a Titans fan who benefited from this last week I certainly don't think they were on our payroll at Arrowhead. Great, Pats just scored again...

After the callous, cowardly decision to punt on 4th & 2 from midfield, I'm cheering New England to win by as many as possible. Mularkey deserves to be embarrassed.

That's the Mularkey we know and love.

That is awful preparation

This is a coaching mismatch of monumental proportions.

This is WWE level stuff. The league should be embarrassed.

Poor play call, bad running by Henry, horrific use of a timeout. Mularkey needs to go.

Mularkey said he wants the players to "overcome everyone" in the second half.....that would include himself then.

Funny how the result of last week's Chiefs-Titans game ended up being bad for almost everyone. Bad for Chiefs fans for obvious reasons. Bad for neutrals because it resulted in this horrible Titans-Pats matchup. And finally, bad even for Titans fans because it meant that Mike Mularkey got to keep his job.

I'm not sure which is worse: the posters who constantly gripe about conspiracies to fix games, or the posters who constantly accuse other posters of bigotry.

Out of all the places available to vent conspiracy theories and gripe about the diabolical Bob Kraft, FO seems one of the more unlikely. Until now, I assumed most readers came here specifically to escape. 'Your team sucks', blah blah blah, 'Oh yeah, deflate this,' blah 'Goodell hates us, that's why the refs..' blargh 'the Illuminati are among us!'

I noticed a few times that the refs were letting DBs get away with hooking the arm of a receiver as he went up for a reception. Happened on the Davis TD, hence the one-handed catch, and on a third down play during the Pats second possession (I think). It's hard to see the DB doing it if you're a sideline official and the receiver is on the outside. All you can see is the one handed grab which isn't always enough to make the call.

Can't say I can remember ever seeing a false start flag reversed to a penalty on the other team.

For all the fawning in the press about NE after this, TEN made NE look better than it really is. Some (many) truly head-scratching coaching decisions. And it seems like TEN stopped trying way too early.

Should NE be lucky enough to advance out of the AFCCG, I don't see them beating NO or MIN. Not that they can't, but I think the odds are against it.

And watching the PHI-ATL game and reflecting on the past few weeks, how can there be such inconsistent catch/no-catch calls when a single person is doing all those reviews??

(Oh, and why the hell did Belichick challenge that completion call with about 4:30 left in the NE game? Does he hate Mularkey and wanted to try for an FU? Was wondering about that with the failed garbage time bomb to Cooks, too.)

Although NE held up against the run, I think they were there for the taking in the air but Mariota was didn't see the open man a few times and instead pulled it down to run, then took a sack. I'd need to go back and look at the all-22 but you could see on multiple occasions Romo pointing out that Mariota had an open receiver and brought the ball down too early. I've got high hopes for our future as we've been steadily improving since we drafted Mariota but I really don't see him developing to that next level with Murlarkey as the HC. It was great to make the playoffs and that victory over the Chiefs was like a dream but now we're stuck with a HC that can't manage a game when the stakes are at their highest and is adverse to having a modern offense. As for the rest of the playoffs, I don't care who wins the SB as long as it isn't Pittsburgh or NE. 11 titles between them - I really hope we get a different team hoisting the Lombardi.

It was depressing to witness the chasm in coaching competence last night, and we can assuredly expect Belichick to run rings around whichever of Tomlin or Marrone he faces next week. So short of outstanding performances from Pittsburgh's offensive stars (much less likely now that it is evident that Brown is nowhere near full health), or an heroic defensive effort from Jacksonville, he will be coaching in another Super Bowl.

If there's a reason for optimism among neutral NFL fans wishing to see competitive football, it's that the remaining coaches in the NFC all appear to be of high quality. Zimmer/Shurmur against Belichick/McDaniels should be a terrific matchup. Pederson/Schwartz showed yesterday that they could conjure up a game-plan to knock off a team with a large advantage at QB (although of course Brady is another step up in class). Sean Payton has his faults as a coach, but we know he is willing to be extremely aggressive situationally, which will of course be required to defeat New England.

I honestly don't care who wins, I just want to see competitive, competently coached/executed games unlike last night's in Foxboro.

Man the Eagles look like championship team if only they had good QBing. In the interests of football fans everywhere, should they reach the Super Bowl, can they not arrange with the Vikings to loan back Sam Bradford?

Wow, on the opening drive it looked as if the Steelers think they do not have to play.