NFL 2017-18: Watch athletes destroy their brains

pharmakos said:

Wouldn't that necessarily mean there's more competition?

It's when teams are getting in winning 12-14 games that you know the conference is boring and one sided.

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Chanur said:

The Bills got crushed by the Chargers who ended with the same record. The Bills never should have gotten in , its just how the tie breakers work.

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Chanur said:

Yeah. They needed the Bills to lose and the Titans or they needed one of them to lose and the Ravens to win. They should have paid a kicker and have no one to blame but themselves. There were better teams that didnt make the playoffs is my point. It happens.

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BrutulTM said:

You need an elite quarterback to be in contention year after year. With Brady, Manning, Roethlisberger, or Rodgers you just need a mediocre team to be a contender. Having a great defense can win you a superbowl, but it's tough to keep that together for more than a year or two. There are examples that show that if you're totally incompetent, you can lose consistently even with an elite qb (Stafford, Rivers, Marino, to a lesser extent Brees) but it's almost impossible to win consistently without one.

Seattle did a little of both. They made it to two superbowls on the strength of a great defense, but as the defense got weaker, Wilson developed into an elite QB, or at least almost elite. For that reason the Seahawks probably aren't going to fall apart as badly as the rest of the NFC West would like them to now that the defense is mostly old or gone. Because of Wilson's play style though, he's probably not going to stay elite as long as guys like Manning or Brady unless he learns how to play from the pocket for real which doesn't seem likely at this point.

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BrutulTM said:

You need an elite quarterback to be in contention year after year. With Brady, Manning, Roethlisberger, or Rodgers you just need a mediocre team to be a contender. Having a great defense can win you a superbowl, but it's tough to keep that together for more than a year or two. There are examples that show that if you're totally incompetent, you can lose consistently even with an elite qb (Stafford, Rivers, Marino, to a lesser extent Brees) but it's almost impossible to win consistently without one.

Seattle did a little of both. They made it to two superbowls on the strength of a great defense, but as the defense got weaker, Wilson developed into an elite QB, or at least almost elite. For that reason the Seahawks probably aren't going to fall apart as badly as the rest of the NFC West would like them to now that the defense is mostly old or gone. Because of Wilson's play style though, he's probably not going to stay elite as long as guys like Manning or Brady unless he learns how to play from the pocket for real which doesn't seem likely at this point.

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Zajeer said:

My argument is this - the Patriots get to feast on a weaker conference every year for the last 17 years, with only really the Steelers as competition. The NFC generally fields Steelers/Patriots level of contenders each year, but instead of the AFC only having generally 2, maybe 3 of them per year, the NFC has generally 4-6 of them each year. And not only that, I feel like average NFC teams are generally stronger than most AFC teams.

Just look at the playoff landscape this year. The Steelers and Patriots are heavy favorites, but I'd bet most people on this board would split 50/50 on each of the NFC teams because they are all about the same power level. The NFC has to beat itself up harder just to get to the Superbowl IMO, and all the Patriots have done each year they've been in the SB has either closely won or lost. Now they've won more than they've lost, and have been perennial which makes them the greatest NFL team I've ever seen, but they look very beatable by any of the 4 NFC teams this year and most years

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Axlrose said:

The Cutler icon was not for you Brando, but for the news.

Someone should have reminded the Bears that a regulation football game is sixty minutes long. Pace probably watched the first five to ten minutes of the Kansas City - Tennessee game, saw the score 14 to zip, and told himself, "Yep, that's our man!"

Just when I thought the Bears could not get worse, they surprise me. Granted, I should not judge this guy yet as a head coach; but geesh - his offensive work left much to be desired.

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Lenardo said:

Over the past 18ish years
the afc has had excellent repeat contenders, the problem everyone has with the Patriots is,..every single Year the patriots HAVE been a contender (even the year they missed the playoffs, the lost to a tie breaker or they would have made the playoffs that year) to make the super bowl no other team EXCEPT the steelers are close in that time span..

every OTHER team in the AFC AND the NFC has had a few good years as Serious championship material potential, then poof.. gone...Colts with manning, Bronco's with manning, Ravens for a few years, and the Steelers that is it..

Chiefs have made the playoffs several times, yet, never can get over the Hump to actually WIN when needed.
Bengals, Same thing

NFC is worse, at least the AFC HAS the pats and Steelers as regulars

NFC.. most years its this team. this year, then that team, then this other team
for a few years it was the giants, for a few years it was the Rams, for a few years- recently- it's been the seahawks, or the Packers

most other playoff teams are one and done -good one year, bad the next few, then good one year etc (see carolina, rams recently, Cardinals, 49ers, etc etc etc.

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Merrith said:

Wilson can't afford to play from the pocket because Seattle's O line has been terrible in pass protection. They need to find some good picks in the middle rounds that stay cheap for a couple of years to protect him.

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Vimeseh said:

Supposedly Nagy called the first half and Reid called the second along with Nagy calling the games during their late season winning streak. Seems weird to me but that is what is being reported. You could really tell a difference between the run/pass balance in those time periods though, so maybe? Reid's coaching tree has also been pretty successful once they've been given a chance to head up a team, so cautiously optimistic at this point I guess.

edit: Other pro's for him is that he is supposedly high on Trubs as opposed to Shurmur or Mcdaniels and that hiring him at this point is making keeping Fangio a lot more likely with his contract coming up tomorrow. If not Nagy would probably bring in Pettine which isn't at all a bad DC hire.

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