2018 Divisional Discussion Thread
Here's the open thread for discussing all of this weekend's divisional-round action. On Saturday, we've got Atlanta at Philadelphia followed by Tennessee at New England. On Sunday, we start with Jacksonville at Pittsburgh, then New Orleans at Minnesota.
Comments
389 comments, Last at 16 Jan 2018, 11:07am
#3 by joe football // Jan 13, 2018 - 5:33pm
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
#6 by Mountain Time … // Jan 13, 2018 - 6:40pm
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.
#12 by Mountain Time … // Jan 13, 2018 - 7:44pm
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
#15 by duh // Jan 13, 2018 - 7:51pm
This is a little hindsight bias I think. They took 3 shots to get the ball to their best player and arguably the best receiver in the league when he was single covered. A better throw on the slant probably would have meant 6.
#113 by Will Allen // Jan 14, 2018 - 8:18am
Yeah, his normal body control really seemed to be out of whack, after getting off the turf. Normally, if you asked the Falcons if they'd like a road playoff game, with Jones given the chance to win with that catch, they probably say that was ok with them.
#114 by Will Allen // Jan 14, 2018 - 8:18am
Yeah, his normal body control really seemed to be out of whack, after getting off the turf. Normally, if you asked the Falcons if they'd like a road playoff game, with Jones given the chance to win with that catch, they probably say that was ok with them.
#16 by Steve B // Jan 13, 2018 - 8:00pm
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.
#19 by Cythammer // Jan 13, 2018 - 8:08pm
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.
#296 by Hextall_27 // Jan 14, 2018 - 6:27pm
They have given up 141 points in their last 11 games for 12.8 per game.
Garbage? I don't think that word means what you think it means.
They had a rough first 6 games as they figured things out. I'm not sure what that has to do with the last few months though.
#36 by Aaron Brooks G… // Jan 13, 2018 - 9:30pm
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.
#38 by morganja // Jan 13, 2018 - 9:30pm
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....
#80 by morganja // Jan 13, 2018 - 11:02pm
Why don't you stop with the antisemitism nonsense? Who is being irrational here? Me stating irrefutable, documented, facts:
1) Robert Kraft and Sheldon Adelson are very close friends.
2) Sheldon Adelson is a mobster whose racket is gambling. Especially sports gambling.
3) The Patriots are perceived to benefit from otherwise inexplicable reffing, as evidenced, for the umpteenth time, by this game.
You on the other hand, are equating criticism of the Patriots with the most horrible genocidal holocaust the world has ever endured. Men, women and children, starved, tortured and murdered.
That is not something to be trivialized. Just stop.
#97 by RobotBoy // Jan 14, 2018 - 12:26am
V.I. Lenin was an ally of Leon Trotsky who had an affair with Frida Kahlo who was married to Diego Rivera who painted political murals and helped make public them popular in the U.S. Therefore, all public murals are obviously part of a communist plot to overthrow the West.
#101 by PatsFan // Jan 14, 2018 - 1:13am
Because anti-semites like you never ever have prattled on about how people who just, accidentally happen to be Jewish control this, or run that, or are involved in shady conspiracies, etc.
No, that's never ever happened.
And they've never every tried to excuse it with the same tired crap you keep pulling.
Just keep on reading your Protocols of the Elders of Zion so you can figure out what your next set of excuses for why you're not, really you're not an anti-semite. You're just asking questions.
#115 by deus01 // Jan 14, 2018 - 8:27am
While I think the that the Patriots conspiracy theory is crazy I wouldn't call it anti-Semitic. If he was making claims about other conspiracy theories that invovled Jewish people in positions of power than I would agree that the motivation would likely be anti-Semitic, however, as far as I know that hasn't been the case and this specifically involves the Patriots and gambling magnate and the religion of either is not important.
This conspiracy nonsense is starting to spread into ever comment section though, can we all just stop responding to any of those comments and just agree that it's crazy?
#129 by Noahrk // Jan 14, 2018 - 11:06am
I think the anti-semitic discourse idea was started by Aaron the other day on a thread and I didn't get it there, either. Every "bad guy" belongs to a group of people - religious, race, nationality, etc. Accusing any one certain guy of being a bad guy shouldn't lead to accusations of being anti that group of people. Unless I'm missing some major context here.
#66 by voytron // Jan 13, 2018 - 10:23pm
The only reason the crap Titans are even playing in this game, and I use the term "playing" loosely, is because of bad officiating. The bad calls in that game changed the outcome. This game is currently 21 to 7. Bad calls happen, and in this game, they're having minimal effect.
#78 by sbond101 // Jan 13, 2018 - 10:56pm
This is a fair comment; especially in a matchup like this where which team is playing with the lead really changes the game. The Pats leveraged a couple of relatively minor favorable calls into a decent lead, which has eliminated the power run game from the Titans game plan, which makes the matchup ridiculously one sided.
#89 by sbond101 // Jan 13, 2018 - 11:28pm
BS.
In terms of actually questionable calls at the leverage point of the game, were talking about am OPI & a special teams false start. Maybe throw in calling the Eric Rowe play late in the second quarter illegal contact rather than PI for a third if your generous. That's 2-3 penalties for <30 yards.
Two of them were pretty high leverage, but get some perspective. The fact that they were an important part of the game really says more about the nature of the matchup and all the things that had to go right for the Titans than anything else.
#93 by Steve B // Jan 13, 2018 - 11:45pm
I thought they were "a couple of relatively minor favorable calls"? Now they were "pretty high leverage"? My perspective is that I see stuff like this routinely go in NE's favor.
Both things can be true - As expected, NE was clearly the better team, but the officials had their thumbs on the scale just in case.
#94 by Lyford // Jan 13, 2018 - 11:50pm
"the officials had their thumbs on the scale just in case..."
The Decker OPI looked right live, but on replay, was clearly wrong. The officials got that one wrong, and it cost the Titans a completion for a first down.
I don't see any other calls worth mentioning. Tennessee clearly jumped on the punt. What else would qualify as a bad, or even a questionable, call?
#298 by Hextall_27 // Jan 14, 2018 - 6:37pm
Amen to that. I am hearing rumors that Triplette will *retire* (forced out)
The Chiefs won that game by a point on that 2 point conversion and they also should have had the ball after the sack fumble earlier. Those are not questionable calls that people can have an opinion on (like the loons who think Gronk does not get called for offensive PI often and that DBs don't get to hang on him like barnacles on the Vikings party boat)
Jesse James did not make a catch, but it was close enough to debate.
There is no debate that Triplette made the 100% wrong call on the sack fumble.
The 2 point conversion was also horrible but not as obviously blatant since he did back up a bunch and deal with a bunch of contact (still a very bad call)
#49 by stoste // Jan 13, 2018 - 9:42pm
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...
#59 by Mountain Time … // Jan 13, 2018 - 10:00pm
Up until today I thought the whole ref conspiracy thing was funny (at least theoretically), but seeing it dominate the discussion like this is getting tedious. There were a couple of bad calls, sure, but there's always a couple bad calls. Even the "false start no wait neutral zone infraction" was more clumsy than nefarious.
#90 by morganja // Jan 13, 2018 - 11:30pm
What is wrong with you? If you have a an accusation to make of antisemitism, state what it is. Otherwise, just stop. You might think its funny to equate criticism of the Patriots with the genocide of men, women and children in the Holocaust, but its not.
It's sick. Get some perspective. Or get some therapy. Either way, just stop with that nonsense.
#102 by PatsFan // Jan 14, 2018 - 1:18am
Another strawman to cover your anti-semitism.
No one's comparing your criticism of the Pats to the Holocaust. And you're giving yourself far to much credit to compare anything you do to something at that a high level of evil, planning, etc.
You're the banal, casual anti-semite (though one who still enables the badness of the competent anti-semites of the world) by going on about how those Jooooooz control the media, Hollywood, money, sports leagues, and so on.
#96 by Alternator // Jan 14, 2018 - 12:09am
morganja's done it in the past, though he hasn't here. His conspiracy theories read like Alt-Reich posts sometimes, with the names changed to slander the innocent.
Mostly he's just a teenage troll pouring out his angst to the world, but it's pretty tedious to slog through after so long.
#98 by morganja // Jan 14, 2018 - 12:38am
Really? Quote me. Copy and paste any comment I have ever made that is antisemitic. Quote any comment I have ever made that is Alt-Reich.
Those are some despicable accusations. One might say slander.
Once again, I am going to refrain from making any personal attacks. Most likely, Your comments are meant to be just trolling and you might think them funny. Get some perspective. Go visit Auschwitz. Tour the Holocaust museum.
Don't trivialize genocide.
There are still survivors alive. Go talk to them. The Holocaust isn't a joke to be used to troll people who don't like your sports team.
Have some respect.
#108 by JoeyHarringtonsPiano // Jan 14, 2018 - 6:37am
Yea, I’m wondering myself. I roll my eyes when Morganja starts posting his anti-Patriots conspiracy nonsense, and I disagree with pretty much everything he posts, but I honestly don’t think he has ever posted anything that can possibly interpreted as anti-Semitic.
#122 by Alternator // Jan 14, 2018 - 9:12am
Overtly, no. Implied, yes.
Sheldon Adelson actively promotes Jewish causes, both political (he's staunchly pro-Israel and donates accordingly) and and philanthropic (among the many charities he donates to, many are focused on helping Jews). Robert Kraft is an observant Orthodox Jew, and his charitable donations match that (to a lesser degree than Adelson, though).
Now mix in the "They secretly Rule The [NFL] World!" conspiracy nonsense, along with the unfounded gangster accusations, and sprinkle with frothing hatred, and it's not hard to see bigotry.
#134 by morganja // Jan 14, 2018 - 12:59pm
Unfounded gangster accusations? What is it exactly you think Adelson does for a living?
You know who else believes the 'gangster accusations'?
The NFL.
Read the Sin City article about the Raider relocation to Las Vegas. Or any article about it for that matter.
http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/19143486/the-story-how-owner-mark-davis-moved-raiders-las-vegas
The NFL owners refused to let Adelson own a part of the team because of his 'ties to gambling'. Which is a very polite way of putting it.
From the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/09/sheldon-adelson-macau-testimony-las-vegas-sands
Or the notoriously antisemitic paper the Jerusalem Post:
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Jewish-billionaire-Sheldon-Adelson-alleged-ties-to-Chinese-mafia-may-spell-downfall-402566
In Israel, where I gather you have never spent any time, Adelson is a known gangster, and his 'pro-Israeli charities', as you put it, is his anti-democratic backing of Netanyahu.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Think-About-It-Sheldon-Adelson-and-democracy-381982
I don't want to discuss any of that here. But if someone is going to hurl the despicable accusation of antisemitism at me, then I am going to refute it.
Sheldon Adelson is, putting it politely, involved in organized crime. That has nothing to do with his ethnicity, and certainly nothing to do with his alleged religion. It has to do with Sheldon Adelson.
#87 by Will Allen // Jan 13, 2018 - 11:10pm
There is a certain subset of Vikings fan who has been convinced for decades now that Walt Disney, the Rothschild dynasty, the Rockefeller clan, the Queen of England, and the College of Cardinals at the Vatican, bring in Spanish dubloons in a fleet of black helicopters,the night before any Viking elimination game, to persuade the zebras to cast the purple headed favorites into the pit, just as they seem to be about to advance.
#63 by BJR // Jan 13, 2018 - 10:07pm
Even so, what was the thinking behind the play call? What were they going to had they gained the first down with a run up the middle? Spike it and throw a hail mary? And that was after the hideous time-out. Just an unacceptable sequence of events.
#79 by Cythammer // Jan 13, 2018 - 10:59pm
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.
#103 by RobotBoy // Jan 14, 2018 - 2:15am
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!'
#104 by RobotBoy // Jan 14, 2018 - 2:37am
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.
#105 by PatsFan // Jan 14, 2018 - 2:56am
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.
#107 by RobotBoy // Jan 14, 2018 - 6:36am
NE has major flaws but some of the most gaping have been pretty well paved over. Yes the Titans lost their right tackle early but the run defense was excellent, the pass rush had seven sacks and some of those were coverage sacks, which speaks to a fairly solid game by the secondary (although Malcolm Butler is still struggling and McCourty seems to have lost a step). Also, it seems like TB 12 has recovered from the injuries that nagged him toward the end of the season.
That said, the difference in coaching talent was the true takeaway. Didn't Mularkey consider the possibility that the Patriots would run no huddle or throw to running backs? The Titans tried a few things early, especially on that TD drive but afterwards, they were as predictable and depressing as Monday morning.
The tongue bath from the local media is to be expected but even if these aren't the 2007 Pats, they were on a different planet than the Titans. The game seemed over by the middle of the second quarter. People were right to pay attention to the calls that went against the Titans, as those calls extinguished the team's already minute chances of winning.
#106 by PatsFan // Jan 14, 2018 - 2:58am
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.)
#109 by coboney // Jan 14, 2018 - 7:18am
Belichick doesn't have a filter for 'game over' or for where the line really is. he pushes it constantly in everyway he can, and that includes not taking his foot off the gas pedal generally.
That sort of edge is part of what has made him a great coach. It's also led to the investigations of sorts by the NFL and it's also why a lot of folks dislike him.
That said, he's still probably the best coach of all time - and I say that as a 49ers fan who would normally take Bill Walsh on anyone there. Brady imo is a great QB and stands among a group of peers - Belichick is the great coach and leads that group - or is part of a very small group that has Walsh and a couple others.
---
As for the catch/no catch thing. I'm HOPING that someone got to the officiating room at New York and explained the whole clear and incontrovertible evidence thing and we'll stop seeing so many overturns on plays that are borderline. Today looked good that way - more stands and let it go with what was on the field.
#112 by stoste // Jan 14, 2018 - 8:08am
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.
#133 by morganja // Jan 14, 2018 - 12:30pm
I would love to see the Vikings, Eagles or Saints win it all.
I didn't follow the Titans this year. I had no idea they were anywhere close to being in the playoffs. How much of the issue is Mularkey and how much of it is the pieces that he has? Is it something that can be fixed as he acquires the players that his system needs? Or is it just bad coaching?
#120 by BJR // Jan 14, 2018 - 9:01am
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.
#141 by Cythammer // Jan 14, 2018 - 1:33pm
I think you are way over-emphasizing the importance of coaching, as people on anlytics-oriented sites often do. The game is still played by the players, and we could find many, many times in Belichick's career that he lost to inferior coaches. They'll be favorites next week, but no way can you just pencil in NE already.
#352 by RobotBoy // Jan 14, 2018 - 8:18pm
And yet far more often than he's lost to inferior coaches, Belichick has beaten them, often with a team that was less talented than the one they lined up across from. No one is penciling in the Patriots but it's ridiculous to argue that Belichick doesn't provide NE an enormous advantage.
#371 by t.d. // Jan 14, 2018 - 9:45pm
not sure i'm ready to put him in canton yet, but so far, marrone has had buffalo's best record in 18 years and then won as many games as gus bradley did in four years in one season-plus, and he's already won in gilette as a head coach, so i'm perplexed as to where the supposed incompetence lies. not sure the jags will be able to do as well defensively against whatever the hell new england runs, but there's no way in hell brady completes any of roethlesberger's zero-margin-for-error touchdown passes against coverage that tight. guess we'll see