NFL 2017-18: Watch athletes destroy their brains

Vanderhoof said:

Ultimately, this bullshit is just a flaw in the overall nature of football. In the late 80's-early 90's, I was in favor of instituting replay to help eliminate the occasional corner cases of incorrect calls. Over the years it has just grown totally out of control. I am probably a monority, but I am in favor of just totally scrapping it.

My wife hates football because of the constant, horrific injuries to people's brains and because it is so slow but will sit on the edge of her seat for every, single St. Louis Blues game because its non-stop action and the rules are fairly simple to understand (in comparison to football). People I know who were always excited about football seem to care more about NBA, MLB and NHL. Maybe XFL can liven things up a little.

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I love my NFL and NHL...although I'd say currently the replay problem is actually worse in the NHL with the ridiculous offside challenges taking goals off the board. They tried to reduce it by giving a team that incorrectly challenges that a penalty to discourage so many, but still just see silly shit with a skate blade a couple of centimeters off the ice taking goals off the board. In those cases, the actual advantage that they're trying to prevent with offside rule isn't even being enjoyed by the team being punished for it. I'm all for getting the big decisions right, but when it comes down to shit like that it's stupid.

True and I will admit I have developed a strong bias towards hockey because I live in St. Louis. Still, I feel like the nature of replay is fucked up in football. 100% of the time, my eyes are correct when watching hockey replays. Football replays are like a nonsensical Santeria ritual mixed with augury arguing the metaphysical nature of reality. What is the essential nature of my being? Am I a 'catcher' or have I morphed into a 'runner'?

Whidon said:

Without Precedent your essentially just allowing Judges/Refs to say

"Welp, screw it we are just making up the rules as we go along"

Do you seriously think this is a good idea?

If the NFL head rule guy wanted to announce in the off season he was altering his interpretation of the rule so that plays like those would be Complete. Now.. Thats would be fine. But baring an official rule change i don't see how you re argue against them using the precedent thats been established repeatedly all year.

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The ref makes his ruling based on the rulebook. He doesn't factor in what a different ref did on a different play in a different week. That's nonsense

Patriots let Blount walk over money, they didn't spend money to fix pass rush, Edelman went down at the beginning of the year and worse of all they let all of their LB talent either leave, traded, or ended up hurt.

No pass rush, mediocre LB play which continuously got burned or couldn't stop the run and get off the field and poor pass defense overall met they relied on the offense to score 30 points every week. Eventually that bend don't break shit catches up with you.

BrutulTM said:

"Bend don't break" has never made any sense to me. What's the difference between a "bend don't break" defense and a just plain good defense? Obviously they want to stop them where they're going to get good field position but people talk about the Pats defense as if it's some sort of strategy to only stop them in the red zone.

With regard to Blount though, I think the key to Belichick's longevity, aside from having Tom Brady, is not paying stars the big bucks. They are good enough talent evaluators that they can consistently find quality players through the draft and free agency even though they let good players go to free agency all the time. With the salary cap, there's always going to be a part of the team that you can't afford to pay. That's why Seattle has a shitty O-line for several years running, because they are paying the QB and the defense so much. That's why the Steelers might lose Lev Bell this off season. You just can't have a team full of stars for very long. I think every team would like to run things the way that Belichick does but they don't have the skill to do it consistently.

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Barnwell did a good breakdown of the Pats' D, and how protected they were by their offense. They were like 31st ranked D in DVOA rankings, but he was comparing how many actual drives against they faced over the course of the season, versus Jacksonville's defense, and he found that Jax D basically faced what was the equivalent to 3 extra games worth of offensive drives against over 16 games than that Pats' D did. Pats' offense averaged over 6 plays per offensive drive, the most in the league, and their special teams are very good compared to the rest of the league. This helped protect their bend don't break D, and I didn't see their red zone defense ranking, but I have to assume it was decent if you're 29th in yards against, 31st in DVOA, but somehow 5th in points against. Eagles just didn't want to settle for shit and played super aggressive, going for it on 4th and goal from the 1, and 4th down from about their own 45 with under 5 minutes to play. It worked, and their D made a big play when they needed.

BrutulTM said:

"Bend don't break" has never made any sense to me. What's the difference between a "bend don't break" defense and a just plain good defense?

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You don't have the horses across the defense to straight stop someone from the 20 to 20. You may have a few players that can more than make up for that by covering the red/end zone.

zombiewizardhawk said:

Rapaport saying on Twitter sickness, rough week of practice, and apparently curfew violation which is probably the most likely since you don't simply play by your own rules in NE.

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Or the league's rules for that matter.

I think at the end of the day, even with all of the stunning statistics, and weird quirks (QBs catching, and dropping passes) the biggest takeaway from this Super Bowl besides the ascendancy of Foles, is the Malcom Butler conspiracy.

February 2015, Butler, who was a 3rd stringer, didnt see much of the field at all during Super Bowl 49. Then, after the Patriots were continuously getting burned deep, Belichick puts Butler in the game in the 4th quarter. (or somewhere near that point) Butlers presence, is immediately felt, as he breaks up two passes which were huge defensive plays at that point in the game. Fast forward to an incredibly lucky catch by Kearse and the Seahawks are improbably in position to win the game at the goal-line, with Beastmode primed to plunge into paydirt, sealing Wilsons second Super Bowl victory, and the 3rd straight Patriots Super Bowl failure.

Then the Seahawks line up and it looks as though they might run a pass play.....they do! A quick crossing route, with Wilson trying to fit a ball into a slant window, only for Malcom Butler to make the most incredible defensive play in sports history. I will say that again, the most incredible defensive play in sports history. He somehow lunged at the perfect second, and extended both of his arms and corralled the pass, AND securing it on the way to the ground. He single handedly secured the a 4th Patriots title, and bailed out Brady, Belichick and the rest of the organization from coming perennial Super Bowl losers, and chokers.

He went on to start every game over the next 3 seasons (he missed one game). He was 2nd team All Pro the following year, and a Pro Bowler in 2016. He was the Patriots number one cornerback. WHy the fuck did he not play on defense? There are reports of weed, and women in his hotel after curfew, and supposedly he was sick and had a terrible week of practice. Even with all of that shit, he was in the final game of his contract, and its the fucking SUPER BOWL. Him not playing had an effect on that game, period. Im not saying the Eagles won because Butler didnt play, but you would have to think his presence might have turned a couple plays and affected the outcome of that game.

Brandon Browner exposed the Patriots in an instagram post hightlighting how they play favorites and saying they just didnt like Butler overall, hence the signing of Gilmore and never extending him. Its a sad story really, and I hope wherever he plays next year he does well. That Patriots 2017 Super Bowl defense will go down as one of the worse in history.

lol - perfectly good reason to bench a dope player in the biggest game of the year

Fucking Belichick's arrogance got the best of him this time.

Merrith said:

I get what you're saying about precedent in general...but that doesn't actually apply to almost

every catch b/c they're all slightly different situations, rarely is each one going to be the exact same potential issues happening at the exact same time throughout two different catch scenarios.


Whether or not those situations should be handled by two different rules is another discussion entirely, of course...

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You are correct that two catches are never "exactly The same" But the Rule as it has been interpreted all year is simply this. A player must have control IE: Ball not moving, wrapped in his hands/hand Plus two feet on the ground for it to be a Completion. On that first pass it was clearly a break with precedent and how the rules have been interpreted.

Replays clearly show on the first TD he was boggling the ball and only had two feet on the ground before he had possession.

Now let me say about being "salty". GO back a page or two and you''ll see what Sports game makes me very salty even 20 years later. That URI was one of the rare chances to change the longterm destiny of a franchise in College sports.

As i said in my post right after the Eagles win. Compared to to that I've since witnessed more Boston pro sports teams triumphs in the past 17 years then the the majority of other major sports towns will experience in a century. So that i really can't get much upset over losing a close superbowl.

Ultimatly, It's about applying the rules based on how they are written and have been interpreted up to that point. Everyone seems to agree this is how it should be done so i don't see why we are even arguing the first TD was an awful call that broke precedent."letting them play" is totally different then ignoring the rules, or simpyl changing them without warning.