Week 7 Open Discussion
The week's NFL action commences Thursday night the Giants (1-5) at the Eagles (1-4-1). Remember, nobody is forcing you to watch.
The biggest game on Sunday sees Pittsburgh (5-0) visit Tennessee (5-0). Also on Sunday: Carolina (3-3) at New Orleans (3-2); Dallas (2-4) at Washington (1-5) in a critical NFC East game; and Tampa Bay (4-2) at Las Vegas (3-2), maybe. The Sunday night game is now Seattle (5-0) at Arizona (4-2). The only Monday game (for now) sees Chicago (5-1) travel to L.A. to play the Rams (4-2). Use this thread to discuss them all.
Comments
187 comments, Last at 27 Oct 2020, 10:46am
#145 by dank067 // Oct 26, 2020 - 12:14am
That front Arizona has been showing these last few drives has just completely confounded Wilson. They've done a great job mixing up the rushers and coverage guys and he just hasn't been able to identify where the pressure is coming from. He didn't just not see Simmons on the INT, he missed on the throw, too.
#152 by oaktoon // Oct 26, 2020 - 2:42am
They have the weakest defense in the division.
SF has won impressively the past two weeks in ways the Seahawks have yet to win this season... Arizona was easily the better team down the stretch tonight. The Rams are still very talented and went to the SB two years ago..
I would say nearly every 1-4 ranking is possible, with Seahawks nominally better for now but in a month's time they could be fighting for a playoff berth as much as the other 3... TB/NO/GB/CHI and possibly DET are all legit teams... two of them plus a NFC East have to make the playoffs-- another almost certainly will and a Second could as well meaning that that the 4 team gaggle in the West could leave one or even two teams on the outside looking in come January..
#155 by Kopalec // Oct 26, 2020 - 3:36am
in the side of SEA for a couple years now. This game still sucks as an outcome, but let's not pretend it's a shocking outcome or that it decided anything in the division.
That last INT, Russ and Lockett were clearly not on the same page. Lockett broke towards the post, while he threw up the seam. One of them got it wrong.
Congrats to the Cards, they got a win after they didn't deserve it kicking that FG when they had Seattle's DEF on the ropes.
#158 by Aaron Brooks G… // Oct 26, 2020 - 8:54am
Arizona lost at home to a Detroit team that just squeaked past the cursed voodoo item that is Atlanta.
San Francisco lost to an Eagles team that has fewer healthy starters that they do and who tied Cincy and lost to DC.
Rams lost to said SF team.
#184 by theTDC // Oct 27, 2020 - 1:39am
I'm not sure where you're going with this one. By that Seven Degrees From Kevin Bacon you can make the argument for the worst team in the league being better than the best.
"Well you see the Jets lost by 24 points to the Dolphins, but the 9ers lost by 26, therefore the 9ers are worse than the Jets. Therefore the Rams are worse than the Jets, since they lost to the 9ers. Therefore the Bears are worse than the Jets, since they lost to the Rams. Therefore the Bucs are worse than the Jets, since they lost to the Bears."
It's not week 1, that logic doesn't hold up.
#162 by DIVISION // Oct 26, 2020 - 10:10am
Seattle in 2020 reminds me of those AFC Chiefs teams of yesteryear. All offense and a horrible defense.
They can't stop the run. They can't stop the pass. They can't handle elite WR's, mobile QB's and dynamic RB's.
Let's get real.
This Seattle team will not even make it out of the NFC West without upgrading their personnel.
Chris Collinsworth was talking about SB or bust for Seattle. They won't even win their first round game with this defense.
I can't wait to see what the Rams and Niners do against them.
#165 by Bill Walshs Ho… // Oct 26, 2020 - 2:33pm
As much as I love watching SEA lose (I admit it, I'm a petty man), the NFCW is far from decided. All four teams are good with distinct holes. If SF wasn't ravaged by injuries, they might be the favorite, but they are so depleted there are likely to be multiple UDFA starting for the rest of the year on any given week. Last year the division came down to the last game, I don't expect this year to be any different; and it could be any of the four winning it.
#159 by Lost Ti-Cats Fan // Oct 26, 2020 - 9:16am
And yet, in OT, the Wilson and the SEA O had two chances to win the game, and couldn't.
I credit the Cards D for the win with a great OT performance. After the way they were almost run out of the building in H1 (and got tackled from behind while trying to do so), that was a great bounce back for ARZ.
#164 by DIVISION // Oct 26, 2020 - 10:13am
If the Hawks gets swept in the West, they aren't finished 10-6.
Maybe 8-8 at best. Why?
If they lose to the Cards, Rams and Niners, you can bet they are losing some out of division games as well.
They have serious problems on defense that scheming won't solve.
Good luck.
#166 by LyleNM // Oct 26, 2020 - 3:09pm
Seattle's remaining non-division games are Buffalo, Philadelphia, Washington and the two Football-Like Substances from New Jersey (TM). Not hard to imagine Seattle sweeping all of those. Not implausible that they lose two of them either. But the Seahawks problem defense will only be facing 1.5 functional offenses in those 5 games. Meanwhile, the Cardinals already have two losses in out of division games.
#167 by Lost Ti-Cats Fan // Oct 26, 2020 - 6:00pm
"the two Football-Like Substances from New Jersey (TM)"
Are you sure there's anything particularly football-like about them?
I guess NYG is officially "The New York Football Giants", which, like the WAS franchise, is smart to get the "football" right there in the name, because otherwise consumers could be confused about what product they're actually offering.
NYJ, on the other hand, is, as best I can tell, a remake of Office Space, but without the clever red stapler parts. I suspect it's next up to play in theaters once Borat finishes its run.
#169 by Spanosian Magn… // Oct 26, 2020 - 9:05pm
Acknowledging that the opponent adjustments are still fluctuating significantly, DVOA rates the Rams' offense and Bears' defense as roughly equally good (both very good), but rates the Rams' defense (average-ish) as quite a bit better than the Bears' offense (god awful). I tend to think this is a bit generous to the Rams' offense, but more or less squares with what I've seen. This would seem to portend a low-scoring but not especially close game, something like 20-6 Rams. I hope it's more exciting.
The Bears appeared to take a page out of the Rams' playbook on the FG drive, rolling Foles out on seemingly every play. If you can't stop Aaron Donald, nor can you hope to contain him, just run away early and often, I guess. It worked fairly well, all things considered.
It does make me wonder, are designed rollouts more effective when the QB has a strong arm (to keep more of the whole field "in play" despite his physical location)? I think it doesn't matter if it's a once- or twice-a-game thing, but if you're going to keep doing it all game long, weaker-armed QBs might be easier for the defense to adjust for. I guess we'll see.
#173 by Spanosian Magn… // Oct 26, 2020 - 10:01pm
On the other hand, the Rams just got hosed as the Bears clearly held in the endzone but the safety was not called. The rules guy (I think) suggested the Rams could've/should've challenged the spot of the hold, essentially; I didn't know that was allowed.
#174 by oaktoon // Oct 26, 2020 - 10:26pm
1) The order of the NFC West is just about a random exercise-- and yes, that means Seattle may very well be the worst of the four;
2) Matt Patricia can face his team tomorrow and say "playoffs" and they won't think he's BSing them
#181 by theTDC // Oct 27, 2020 - 12:11am
Any of the great NFC West teams could easily miss the playoffs just because of a few bad bounced in divisional games.
Any of the awful NFC East teams could easily make the playoffs just because of a few good bounces in divisional games. In fact, one of them must make the playoffs.
Thank god the NFL went to 7 team playoffs this year.
#180 by theTDC // Oct 27, 2020 - 12:04am
Sheer luck? I mean they now have a -2 net points differential, despite being 5-2, which leads me to believe that they're an average at best team that got all the bounces.
I mean the Rams are a bogus pass interference call from being 6-1, and a Kupp easy drop in the endzone from tying the 9ers game and sending it into overtime. The other games have all been easy wins, Cowboys excepted. Sometimes a win comes down to a single play, sometimes it doesn't. The Bears are a few good plays going against them from being 2-5.
I think this Bears team is going to be the poster child for "teams that win close, tend to start losing close."
#177 by Spanosian Magn… // Oct 26, 2020 - 11:43pm
Might be time to switch back to Trubisky. This wasn't all on Foles, but the fact is they only managed 3 points against a solid but sub-world-beating defense. Trubisky almost literally couldn't have done worse, and with his mobility and somewhat stronger arm, he'd have at least given them a different look. Their next two games (vs. NO, at TEN) look pretty tough, and as they're stuck with two bad QBs, their best chance might be to just throw out some different looks and see if anything lands.
#179 by theTDC // Oct 27, 2020 - 12:01am
Honestly I didn't see much of anything good with Foles. I think it's time to start giving those 2017 Eagles receivers some credit, for making Foles and Wentz look better than they really are.
Big Dick Nick isn't good for much more than chucking it up to a 6'4 receiver in a 1 on 1 battle and hoping that he wins that battle. That's harsh, obviously he's a low end NFL QB, but nothing more than that.
#186 by Steve in WI // Oct 27, 2020 - 10:28am
I don't think there's any question. With an awful offensive line and with Foles proving that the problems endemic to Nagy's "system" go beyond the QB, the only way the offense succeeds is by improvisation, and that's what Trubisky actually does okay at. Almost 2.5 years into Nagy's tenure, I want him to stop trying to bend the (limited) talent around him to his system, and start bending his system to the talent around him. Face it, the 2020 Bears offense is never going to be good. They do still have a good defense and they've already got 5 wins, so the only logical way forward is to try to win games based on their strengths.
#178 by theTDC // Oct 26, 2020 - 11:58pm
As a rams fan, my thoughts.
First, the Rams have a good, but not great offense. They also have a good, but not great defense. I would rank both subjectively at about 10th best. That they could stomp all over a Bears team says more about the Bears than the Rams. I would rank the Rams at about 10th best in the league, which unbelievably might put them at 4th best in the NFC West, or potentially first. That division is just insane, and unfair for all four teams.
I didn't want to say this before the game, because people know I'm a fan of the rams, but I really didn't see this being particularly close. The Bears strike me as being one of the luckiest 5-1 teams ever. In fact, subjectively they seem more like a 6-10 team, that just kept getting all the bounces. I would not be surprised to see them finish out of the playoffs this year. The rams are an actually good, but not elite, team, and this is what happens.
The offense looked a little shaky, and yet they still moved easily on that defense. The defense totally overmatched that awful Bears offense. It wasn't much of a game.
#187 by Steve in WI // Oct 27, 2020 - 10:46am
Before the game last night, I was thinking to myself that if the Bears came out with a decisive win against the Rams to go to 6-1 and be the #1 seed in the NFC, I was going to regret my skepticism through the first 6 games. It would be so fitting for the Bears to go on a deep playoff run, or even win the Super Bowl, in a year where I was fully convinced they'd be terrible, and in fact rooted hard against them in the beginning until it was clear that they weren't going to be bad enough to get the GM and coach fired.
I have no regrets. This offense is emblematic of every bad Bears offense I've seen in my two decades of paying attention to the team - QB among the very worst in the league, bad O-line, bad and predictable playcalling. The galling part is that Nagy was hired based on his offensive pedigree (although the very small sample where he was ostensibly calling plays in KC was not good). This team isn't supposed to be a defense-only, try to win 13-10 type of team.
On Twitter last night I saw Marc Trestman's name being thrown around, and the Nagy defenders rushing to say that it's a ridiculous comparison. It is...in 2013, Trestman led the Bears to the 6th best offense in the NFL by DVOA. For all of his massive failings as a head coach, he briefly established a pretty good offense. Nagy has yet to do that. And while so far he has proven to be a good enough head coach, and hasn't lost the team or anything, let's see what happens if this team that started 5-1 ends up sitting at 6-6 or something.