REAL FOOTBALL Thread

Carp said:
Also, I think either Bradford or Bridgewater ends up in Cleveland. I think Cousins stays in Washington.
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Cousins needs to get far away from that team. Has no help at all from any of his teammates. Before today he actually had a pretty solid season. They lost so many players on offense and their response was signing the worst contract in 2017 with Pryor. The Redskins are a joke and a poorly run team.
 
Carp said:
Titans limped into the playoffs. We've been playing pretty mediocre for about 10 weeks now. If we played in basically any other division, we'd be a 7 win team. Mariota has regressed this year. I mean things could change with a deep playoff run, but I would expect Mularkey to be gone if we go 1 and out in the playoffs.
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Mularkey isn’t going anywhere. The 3rd season was always going to be the make or break year for Mularkey barring some catastrophic seasons, and no way in hell that should change after a playoff berth.
 
Carp said:
If we played in basically any other division, we'd be a 7 win team.
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Oh, and how the hell do you figure that?

1. Did you pay attention to how mediocre the AFC was this year?

2. We’re 8-4 in conference, and 3-3 outside of our division. One of those losses came against the Steelers on the road on a short week. Another came in Miami where we win if we have anyone else other than Matt Cassel at QB. The other was week 1 against the Raiders. We went 2-0 against the number 3 seed in the conference, who happened to be in our division. I think we would have been just fine in any other AFC division. If the Bills can win 9 games facing the Patriots twice, we sure as hell could have.

So, yeah. That particular comment holds about as much water as an open palm.
 
CyYoung31 said:
Mularkey isn’t going anywhere. The 3rd season was always going to be the make or break year for Mularkey barring some catastrophic seasons, and no way in hell that should change after a playoff berth.
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It's already being reported that Mularkey may be fired unless we win a playoff game. Ownership and fans are pretty unhappy with Mariota regressing this year with more talent than he's ever had. Josh McDaniels being rumoved as the favorite to take over.
 
CyYoung31 said:
Oh, and how the hell do you figure that?

1. Did you pay attention to how mediocre the AFC was this year?

2. We’re 8-4 in conference, and 3-3 outside of our division. One of those losses came against the Steelers on the road on a short week. Another came in Miami where we win if we have anyone else other than Matt Cassel at QB. The other was week 1 against the Raiders. We went 2-0 against the number 3 seed in the conference, who happened to be in our division. I think we would have been just fine in any other AFC division. If the Bills can win 9 games facing the Patriots twice, we sure as hell could have.

So, yeah. That particular comment holds about as much water as an open palm.
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We got lucky that Baltimore was slightly more inept than we were. We gave up significantly more points than we scored and we had a negative turnover ratio. Pretty much all signs point to the Titans being a pretty mediocre team.
 
Carp said:
We got lucky that Baltimore was slightly more inept than we were. We gave up significantly more points than we scored and we had a negative turnover ratio. Pretty much all signs point to the Titans being a pretty mediocre team.
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Of course they are. I said that before the season started. And guess what? So was the rest of the AFC. I’m disputing that we would have been a 7 win team at best in another division. We met expectations after surpassing expectations last year. Any reasonable person would not see reason to fire the head coach.
 
Carp said:
It's already being reported that Mularkey may be fired unless we win a playoff game. Ownership and fans are pretty unhappy with Mariota regressing this year with more talent than he's ever had. Josh McDaniels being rumoved as the favorite to take over.
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You believe everything you read, don’t you?
 
Carp said:
I'll take the opinion of people connected around the NFL over you.
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Understandable, but you should probably use some logical deduction yourself instead of taking something that was reported as gospel just because you want it to be true. The thought that Mularkey is/was on the verge of losing his job is laughable. Reminds me of the Gruden to UT “rumors”.
 
CyYoung31 said:
Understandable, but you should probably use some logical deduction yourself instead of taking something that was reported as gospel just because you want it to be true. The thought that Mularkey is/was on the verge of losing his job is laughable. Reminds me of the Gruden to UT “rumors”.
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Difference being message border "insiders" were reporting the Gruden rumors. Not actual national sports journalist. Ian Rapaport reported last week that Mularkey is coaching for his job and anything less 1 playoff win could mean his firing.

The Titans underperformed in basically every aspect this year. They were preseason favorites to win the South. After having a 1 game lead in week 13, they lost 3 of their next 4 games and narrowly made the playoffs. The offense finished in the bottom half of the league despite more talent than they've ever had at the skill positions. And the defense was middling as well. In a year in which the Colts had no Andrew Luck and the Texans were down, the best the Titans could muster was 9-7, with 5 of those wins coming against the AFC South.

If you think Mularkey did good job this year then you are blind.
 
Carp said:
Difference being message border "insiders" were reporting the Gruden rumors. Not actual national sports journalist. Ian Rapaport reported last week that Mularkey is coaching for his job and anything less 1 playoff win could mean his firing.

The Titans underperformed in basically every aspect this year. They were preseason favorites to win the South. After having a 1 game lead in week 13, they lost 3 of their next 4 games and narrowly made the playoffs. The offense finished in the bottom half of the league despite more talent than they've ever had at the skill positions. And the defense was middling as well. In a year in which the Colts had no Andrew Luck and the Texans were down, the best the Titans could muster was 9-7, with 5 of those wins coming against the AFC South.

If you think Mularkey did good job this year then you are blind.
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If you think this team was more than a 9-10 win team before the season then you are blind. You should stop listening to Peter King. He’s an idiot.

Rappaport is good, but it doesn’t mean that everything he reports is accurate. He also reported Marvin Lewis wouldn’t return and look how that’s turned out.

Given everything we know of the relationship between Mularkey, Robinson, and AAS along with the fact that the team has seen a 270% increase in winning percentage these past two years over the previous two before that, you can’t actually believe they were seriously considering firing Mularkey after just two years. Make changes to his scheme or staff? Sure, maybe. But there is no way Mularkey is getting fired. It doesn’t make any sense.

In fact, I’m willing to make a board bet with you on Mularkey’s job status after we lose the Chiefs game.
 
Playoff predictions and outlooks.

Falcons vs. Rams - Rams are gonna probably murder the Falcons. I don't think the Falcons have any prayer to stop Todd Gurley. I think Gurley is the MVP of the league, The falcons best shot is to do 2 things. First contain the running game and second get ahead. Unfortunately the Rams also have a great defense. For Atlanta to win they have to do 3 things. First is Ryan needs to go super saiyan. Cannot afford to have a mediocre game, he has to be on his game. Second is the Falcons front 7 needs to be on their game. I personally like their front 7 for the most part, but they need to stick it to the Rams and contain Goff and Gurley and the LBs need to tackle people. Third is the Falcons need turnovers. Again, that being said, the Falcons are gonna get murdered.

Saints vs. Panthers- This game comes down to Cam Newton. If he plays his best he can carry them to victory. But the Saints are a much better team. Better offense, roughly equivalent defense and special teams. For my money, the Saints are the best team in the NFC. The only reason they didn't get the bye like the Eagles and the Vikings is that the NFC South is a much tougher division than the East and North. I think this is a close game but New Orleans wins.

Bills vs. Jaguars - Jaguars should easily handle the Bills. Let's be honest here, Buffalo isn't a good team. They lucked their way into the playoffs. Jacksonville has arguably the best defense in the NFL and Bortles has been surprisingly OK. Unless the Jags offense throws this away, expect them to roll.

Titans vs. Chiefs - Titans are basically mediocre across the board, average-ish offense, defense and special teams. Kansas City is an incredibly strong offensive team and has great special teams. Their defense will be their undoing in the playoffs though.

So if my predictions go through we'll look at the next matchups.

Rams vs. Vikings - This is a great matchup. This may be one of the best games of the playoffs. Both teams are strong offensively and defensively. Should be a hell of a game. This comes down to Gurley vs. the Minnesota defense. Minnesota is gonna live and die by Keenum.

Eagles vs. Saints - This should be an open and shut case. New Orleans has the talent at corner to isolate the Eagles WRs and let everyone else congest the box and contain the TEs. The Eagles offense was Wentz. Foles has zero chemistry with his WRs and if you can take Ertz out of the game the Eagles offense is weak. THeir RBs are OK. But they can't take advantage of the Saints like the Falcons were able to.

Pats vs. Chiefs - Pats should win this. But it should make for an exciting game. Great offenses with bad defenses. I'm rooting for the Chiefs but the Pats will win.

Steelers vs. Jags - One of the top offenses in the league vs. one of the top defenses. Steelers advantage comes down to the Steelers defense being better than the Jags offense. Jags won their head to head earlier in the year but Pittsburgh is much better now. If they have Brown back, they have probably the best WR corps in the playoffs.

Pats. vs. Steelers - I like the Steelers in this matchup. They should have beaten the Pats before. They were robbed by the refs and they'll play with a huge chip on their shoulder.

Saints vs. Rams - Love this game. Love it. Think this has a lot of potential to be exciting. Rams and Saints are both good teams and it should be a close game. I like the Rams.

Rams vs. Steelers - Steelers and Rams are pretty similar teams really. I like the Steelers in this one.
 
CyYoung31 said:
If you think this team was more than a 9-10 win team before the season then you are blind. You should stop listening to Peter King. He’s an idiot.

Rappaport is good, but it doesn’t mean that everything he reports is accurate. He also reported Marvin Lewis wouldn’t return and look how that’s turned out.

Given everything we know of the relationship between Mularkey, Robinson, and AAS along with the fact that the team has seen a 270% increase in winning percentage these past two years over the previous two before that, you can’t actually believe they were seriously considering firing Mularkey after just two years. Make changes to his scheme or staff? Sure, maybe. But there is no way Mularkey is getting fired. It doesn’t make any sense.

In fact, I’m willing to make a board bet with you on Mularkey’s job status after we lose the Chiefs game.
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No idea who Peter King is.

Marvin Lewis and Cincy reportedly did have discussions about him stepping down or taking more of a front office role. That's been reported by several journalist. And while it ended up not happening, it's pretty clear it wasn't pure speculation.

I think board bets are pretty stupid and I don't care enough about this. So I'll pass. Let's also recognize that the coach being rumored to replace Mularkey is Josh McDaniels, who also has a very close relationship with J-Rob.
 
REALLY like the way the Falcons D has progressed (except for Trufant) this year. That's the only reason I'd give them a chance against anyone in the playoffs. The offense probably won't blow anyone away, but the D should be able to keep them in it long enough for a turnover or fortunate bounce to help them along.
 
Tapate50 said:
REALLY like the way the Falcons D has progressed (except for Trufant) this year. That's the only reason I'd give them a chance against anyone in the playoffs. The offense probably won't blow anyone away, but the D should be able to keep them in it long enough for a turnover or fortunate bounce to help them along.
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I'm rooting for the best. If they can beat the Rams they should have a pretty easy ticket to the NFCCG because the Eagles aren't very good. Especially without Wentz.
 
I've not seen anything that leads me to believe the Falcons make it that far this year. As mentioned above, Ryan and Julio are really just going to have to click. Something with them has been off all year. Defense did well against Carolina but the tackling as a whole has been embarrassing.

It's possible Goff could have a meltdown but all they need is him to not turn the ball over.

Hope Freeman will be good to go.
 
Falcons winning starts at controlling the line. If they shut Gurley down and force Goff to beat them with his arm it's their best chance. Not that Goff isn't a good QB (he is) but I'd take my chances on him over Gurley.
 
[MENTION=37]Carp[/MENTION] if the reports are true here’s what I think might be happening. Despite Mularkey and J-Rob’s close relationship, I think there may be some in fighting in regards to the offensive scheme. Maybe Robinson asked Mularkey to make a change in the offseason and Mularkey refused, so Robinson gave him an ultimatum: make a deep playoff run or you’re gone if you refuse to change. That’s the only way I can see both Robinson and the ownership doing a 180 on Mularkey after two relatively successful seasons and also being able to justify firing him.
 
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