Big Blue Huddle

With a Patriots win, Commanders win and Cardinals win (and a Giants loss).

Jets @ Patriots - Belichick almost never loses to the Jets in what should be a miserable game.
Cowboys @ Commanders - fingers crossed, both teams will have plenty of motivation with Dallas looking to clinch the East and the Commanders looking to play spoiler.  Also, the Cowboys on the road are a vastly different team.
Seahawks @ Cardinals - division game.  Seattle looks good but the Cardinals have been competitive of late. 

With all that said, I'd love nothing more than to spoil the Eagles' chance at the division depending on the outcome of the Cowboys/Commanders game.

There's a report on Twitter from Wesley Steinberg that Tommy Devito recently told the teams social media manager to "quit it with all the Italian s***, I just wanna play football".

If true, it sounds like he understands what's up.  Hopefully he ditches his agent and gets back to work.

I honestly don't know how the NFL or NFLPA can do much better than they're already doing to try and prevent this.  While the article doesn't explicitly say what his motivation is/was, it's certainly not a huge leap of faith to think he blew through the money he made in the NFL.  And that's a tale as old as time and strikes both fringe NFL players like Derrick Ward to Hall of Famers like Terrell Owens and Warren Sapp.  What they do when that money runs out might differ but it does beg the question how they got there in the first place.

The NFL and NFLPA hold mandatory rookie symposiums and have lots of content available that urges players to save their money, contribute to retirement funds, and plan for life after football.  I believe they offer free financial planners to help each individual player craft their strategy for life after football.  You can lead a horse to water....

The fundamental problem is football culture, in my estimation.  It's considered a "good" thing in the NFL to be short-sighted, live in the moment and pour everything you have into what's happening right now.  There's a macho "alpha male" vibe that playing with reckless abandon is a net positive for a player.  NFL teams and colleges often take care of all the issues on the periphery of one's life in order to ensure maximum performance.  Perfect combination of ingredients into the end result of spitting men out of the league who have done very little growing up and probably have the mental maturity of a teenager.

Ah the race to the bottom!  One of my (sadly) favorite past-times for the Giants of late.

Looking at the remaining schedules and such, I don't think the Giants can get much "higher" than 5th, even with an assumed "lose out".

Washington would essentially need to win 2 games for the Giants to leap-frog them.  They have a slightly higher SOS than the Giants as of right now and that would inflate massively if they lost to San Fran and Dallas to close out the schedule.  That said the Giants' SOS is likely to go up even with losses to Philly and LA.  They'd lose any potential tie-breaker if they had identical SOS, although there's enough other teams within the 5 win bracket that it's unlikely.

Arizona and New England would have to win 2 of the remaining 3 games go get into the 5 team bracket - pretty tall order for them.   

The Giants have the opportunity to send the Eagles into a real tail-spin.  They're no longer in control of the division, let alone the conference.  One more loss in the final 3 games almost seals their fate to playing away from home during the wild-card round. 

Maybe it's my blithe optimism that the Eagles will crater back to Earth, but I think they have some real concerns after this year and they don't look like a Superbowl bound team.  Lane Johnson and Jason Kelce, who are not only locker-room leaders but good players carry big contracts and Kelce has openly considered retirement in recent years.  They sunk a lot of money into their secondary with Slay and Bradberry and it's still one of the poorer units on their time after looking dominant last year.  Brandon Graham and Fletcher Cox are nearing the end.  They no longer have a cheap quarterback.  Devonta Smith looks like he'll command a big free agent contract when his rookie deal expires. 

Quote from: spiderblue43 on December 18, 2023, 05:01:43 PMMara is meddlesome...too. Barkley is his pet, for example..Jones another. Neopotism permeates during his ownership. Cronies get a pass (Ronnie Barnes) as well. And he gave loyal fans that awful stadium as a bonus.

The results speak for themselves.

You know, I've studied and studied this phenomena and I still don't get it.  Stadiums and the presences of NFL teams have shown almost uniformly that they do not: stimulate the local economy, create jobs or make the destination a more desirable tourist attraction.  They typically don't generate huge tax dollars. 

I totally understand why NFL owners try to negotiate some monies towards a new stadium be footed by the public - it doesn't cost them anything to ask/demand and the return can be huge in terms of offsetting the cost.  My question is why do public servants and politicians cede to those demands, or in the event a team is moving, like the Rams did a few years back - why a new location would jump for joy and throw money at them to move?

Totally baffling to me.  I'm of the opinion that no public monies should ever go towards the building/maintenance of an entertainment venue.  If owners want to try to push that cost on their consumers via PSLs, that's their right but I sure as xxxx wouldn't sign up for that.  The corporations can buy those up and give them away and your fan base will be fair-weather fans and one-time only attendees, not die-hards.

You can't legislate injuries out of the game without materially changing the game.  In the past 20 years we've seen:

- a massive increase in defensive holding and pass interference because poster-boy Peyton Manning (who I love anyway) couldn't win a championship and whined about the back-to-back playoff losses to the Patriots where they mauled his receivers.
- a ban on horse collar tackles because Roy Williams injured poster-boy Terrell Owens using the technique as the Eagles marched towards a Superbowl loss that the NFL lamented because those darn Patriots won again!
- a ban on hitting the quarterback below the knees because poster-boy Tom Brady got wiped out in Week 1 of 2008.
- a ban on lowering your helmet and initiating contact.
- While the NFL will characterize it as "defenseless", essentially any big hit on a receiver in the act of catching the ball is flagged, regardless of whether it meets the supposed criteria of "forcible contact to the head or neck area".
- new stipulations on personal fouls when sacking the quarterback including slinging him to the ground, landing with your body weight on the QB, and forcible contact to the head/neck area.

Look I don't want to be the guy who says "put skirts on them" but I do ask how we're supposed to maintain a spartan game or even remotely hope to play defense. 

Boy am I glad none of you are general managers.  The level of unbridled, myopic hype for DeVito really is akin to Linsanity.  It's that kind of hot take fandom that makes me avoid talking football.

There's so much to like about DeVito, and not even the Italian-American local-kid-makes-good schlock the media is feeding us.  He's not putting the ball in harms way.  He's got some wiggle when he runs.  He's a credible passer.  He's an incredibly cheap backup on a team with a starter prone to injury.  And that's pretty much where the story ends for me.  Beating a couple of middling teams behind strong defensive efforts and playing turnover-free is what we should demand of every back-up, let alone a starter. 

That doesn't mean we need to commit to anything beyond this season.  With Tyrod Taylor on the way out and Jones' uncertain status, Schoen has already said he plans to address the QB position in the offseason.  The reality is, regardless of what people on this board seem to think, finances play a massive role in determining who the starter is and Daniel Jones will be your starter when he returns to being healthy.  I chuckle when I see the people who lauded the Jones deal now chasing the next shiny car like a dog.  2024 will probably include both Jones and DeVito and the results on the field are unlikely to change.  A sub .500 team who's got some scrap to them.  People will say "we could win a championship with him!" when they should really ask themselves "can we consistently compete for a championship, year in and out with him?"  Until you can answer that question with a yes, you continue to look for a QB who matches that criteria.  Not a "good enough to make the playoffs" guy like Jones.  Not a "OMG HE WON 3 WHOLE GAMES IN A ROWWWWWW" the drunkards in the parking lot scream about.  Please wake me when we draft the next Eli Manning, or draft a real QB in the top 10 that isn't a reach.  More likely than not, until then, the Giants won't amount to much.

Kinda hard to see the Giants winning a game for the rest of the season.  Not saying they won't but the Saints are the "easiest" team we have left to play.  The Commanders and Cardinals have games against the Jets and Bears respectively that will go a long way towards determining the top 10.  And while the Patriots are absolutely miserable, Bill Belichick always seems to get them to play against the Jets, against whom they have 1 more game. 

Hope I'm wrong, but if I'm not and the Giants don't win another game, it's not impossible to get to #2. 

Not only do we drop to 6, we could drop a few more spots during the bye.  There are 4 teams at 4-7, two of whom has SOS lower than the Giants.  So we could be sitting at 8 by the time we play the next game if the Bucs and Jets were to lose next weekend.

Let's not forget that Dan Snyder was owner when Rivera was installed.  New ownership surely is being fair to him but they will likely have all the "evidence" they need by seasons end to move on.  Lame duck for sure.  I wish him the best, always thought he was an under-rated coach, but probably more suited to DC.  He's had 13 seasons as a head coach and only posted a winning record in 3 of them.  You remove the 15-1 superbowl year and it looks even worse. 

I'm not entirely sure who's Twitter handle is "Balls Deep in Your Mom" but if it's Banks, grow up.  If he's responding to some other user with that handle, shame on him, and grow up.

I'm not sure what he hopes to gain with the extra week.  The top of the NFL draft will not be decided for another 7 weeks.  Not to mention a team could always trade up as several have in the last few years.  It's a fools errand to try and determine if his main concern is what team is going to draft him.  He can't possibly know. 

I don't mind a young man taking a step back to contemplate, but the question should not focus around what team might draft him but whether or not another year in college will improve his draft position.  It likely won't.  I hope he gets sorted out.  He's a talented player and while I can forgive him for being young and foolish, he can only play that card once.  Stop crying, stop talking to the media, figure out what is best for YOU and be decisive. 

This is a common complaint in college where scores often run really high and theres a much larger talent disparity, and frankly I don't think it has anything do with score.  Talented college teams often put in their backups when the game is out of reach, and the backups want meaningful time/reps to illustrate their talent.  They're often fresh, and the backups on many college elite teams are still way better than starters on lesser teams and continue to score.

I don't have any problem with what the Cowboys did.  They put their backups in at the appropriate time and the backups played better than our starters.  That is all.  The only time it's offensive is when it's done intentionally to embarrass the other team.  I didn't see any indication that was what Dallas was trying to do.

To clarify on how the order works:

- if ONLY TWO teams have identical records, the winner of the regular-season contest picks after the loser.
- if THREE or more teams have identical records, it's seeded based on strength-of-schedule.