NFL 2024
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There's a bunch of stuff going wrong, so this might turn into a bit of a ramble.
There are a coupe of issues on defence, partly caused by roster construction and partly caused by key guys having down years.
The past couple of years Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams have both been top 3 at their position. That's pretty much the dream for every team - reliable pressure on the interior and a lockdown corner. They've both regressed this year. I'm not sure why; in the case of Williams I'm confident it's just a down year caused by other issues on the line, and in the last couple of weeks he's shown some signs of improvement (more on that in a moment), and for Gardner I suspect the same is true but there's a school of thought that his first two seasons were a mirage and he's really not that good a corner. I don't buy that - you don't have the college career he had, then be first team all pro your first two years in the league without being an elite talent. Maybe he's not going to be a top 3 CB long term, but if he's not a consistent top 10 CB for his entire career I'll be stunnned. Two studs having bad years, along with general underperformance makes me suspect locker room issues, but probably won't know that until after the season if at all.
So that leaves roster construction. Until this year the Douglas/Saleh regime was basically the perfect case study of how to build a defence. They used premium draft picks on premium positions, they brought in role players with skill sets the complimented how their defence operates, they had a clear and coherent philosophy and they developed guys well. And then this year their recruitment is almost a total bust.
A note on the scheme the jets run (this is mostly based on Saleh's scheme, Ulbrich is maybe changing it a bit, but too early to tell). The basic philosophy is to play as fast as possible; they have relatively simple schemes, with the idea that if players are execute the same thing over and over, they won't need to think and can just execute. The place this is most obvious is defensive end and linebacker. At DE they favour smaller, twitchier guys who can bend around tackles, and at linebacker they favour smaller, faster guys with coverage skills (basically, big safties). This creates issues in the run game, because you end up with a bunch of guys who struggle to shed blocks. In the past couple of years they've had two solutions to this: Quinnen Williams being a monster in the interior and John Franklin-Meyers, who is really a pretty middle of the road player, but was a bit of a hybrid Edge-Tackle, so could set the edge strongly to stop runs, but then collapse the pocket and create pressure if it was a passing play.
So this year, they traded away John Franklin-Meyers and hoped that Michael Clemons (a 4th round draft pick from a couple of years ago) and Jermaine Johnson (1st rounder from the Sauce/Wilson draft) would step into that JFM role. But Clemons has been useless and Johnson is out for the season, so the line is really struggling to stop the run. This team has probably the worst run defence in the league. Some games they've been able to stop the run, but if you watch the games, what's happening is their linebackers have played out of their skin. People say 'it's a passing league', but what they really mean is 'it's harder to stop the pass'. Running the ball is less efficient in general. But in the case of this team, often running the ball is a reliable way to gain yardage - the 49ers and Bills games especially the Jets were just helpless to stop them.
On the offensive side of the ball it's not as rosy as you suggest. Wilson at his best is a WR1 but most of the season him and Rodgers haven't really got on the same page, so he hasn't produced a lot (although that's improving), and even as a WR1, I'd put him in the lower tier of WR1 guys, not the kind of game destroying WR1 like Justin Jefferson etc. Adams was that kind of guy, but he's now 32 which is an age very few WRs have maintained a high level at (basically just Larry Fitzgerald). He's a useful complimentary piece, but I'd say he's really a high end WR2 at this point.
But Wilson, Adams, Lazard, Mike Williams, Conklin, Hall and Allen are a pretty good set of playmakers, and although there are better units in the NFL, you should be able to thrive with them.
The o-line has been a mixed bag. They're solid without being elite in pass protection, but their run protection has been awful. I suspect that Keith Carter, the oline coach is a big part of the issue (he had an awful rep at his last gig, the titans), because often the issues look like they're scheme/communication based rather than a lineman totally missing a block. But I think age is a factor - Tyron Smith and Morgan Moses were both allowed to leave their previous teams for pretty reasonable deals (a late round pick for Moses and only 6m in guarantees for Smith who is a future HOFer). Sometimes you get a bargain because the other team has cap issues or a logjam of players, but sometimes when a team lets a stalwart go cheap it's a sign that the player is declining. I think Breece Hall also has to take some of the blame for the run protection though, he wants to be a patient back looking for the gap to open, but that's just not happening, so he probably needs to get more decisive and be more of a downhill runner, although even if he did that, he'd probably struggle, because his biggest strengths are really making guys miss in the open - he's the kind of guy that if you get him at the line he probably won't break the tackle, but if you get him into a gap, he'll turn a 5 yard gain into a 50 yard gain.
So that leaves Rodgers. He's not good. He either doesn't trust his protection or doesn't trust himself, because he is really focused on getting the ball out ASAP, and bailing on the pocket way too early. He's also missing passes that he wouldn't have a couple of years ago. I don't think this team needed MVP calibre Rodgers, but they needed him to be at least in the top 12-15 QBs in the league. What they've got is a guy who is probably around the 20 mark. Every now and then he produces a sequence of plays that look like vintage Rodgers, but it's not consistent enough to turn drives into TDs.
Early season the play calling was awful. Completely unimaginative, and consistently putting the team in third and long by running the ball to often. Since Hackett has lost the play calling responsibilities that's got slightly better.
Finally, they've been unlucky. That doesn't excuse this record at least 4 of these games should have been blow out wins, where bad luck would have reduced the margin a bit, but because of the issues above, it's been more decisive. Some of that is the kicker (Zuerlein is a decent kicker, who has either got old or having a down year; kicking in the NFL might be the most ruthless job in the world, it's really only a couple of kicks a year is the difference between keeping a job and getting cut), but also there have been a few freak plays that have got against them (for example in the steelers game, there were two slightly freakish interceptions, while two long steelers plays that on another day would have either falling incomplete or been picked off). I don't want to make too much of that though, because they have also had luck help them (Will Levis incomprehensible-for-anyone-else implosion is basically the only reason they beat the Titans, the hail mary vs the Bills made it look closer than it really was).
The situation isn't as bad as the record looks - there is a good core of genuine talent here, but they probably need to accept that next year is a cap-reset year so they can resign all that talent, and keep restocking, but I don't think Woody Johnson will accept that. If Rodgers comes back next year I think it's the kind of move that will destroy the roster for another 5 years.
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Thursday night football is just so consistently low quality football. I guess Amazon won't care as long as people keep paying and the NFL won't care as long as Amazon keeps paying them.
One of the crazier drives I've seen though is the Texans field goal miss. They made it from 44 yards but a penalty gave them a first down, so they wiped off the field goal, sent the offence back out and ended up having to settle for a chip shot field goal. Which they missed.
Check out the second Wilson TD if you can, on all time great catch from him, showing off the body control that got him drafted in the top 10.
Rodgers lit it up in the second half. Too early to read too much into though, he's had other periods of elite play earlier this year then gone cold again.
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@barbarian said in NFL 2024:
It's unfathomable given the stakes. On his second career touch. Unsure if he will get a third.
Saved by the win I think. The mood of this jets team at the moment, he would almost certainly have been scapegoated and cut after a loss, but in o win it'll be reduced to a teachable moment and maybe a few weeks as a healthy scratch while he rebuilds trust.
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wilson lit it up
amazing
another amazing thing about this game is ....
the bookies favoured the jets, but 90% of the public were on houston
this is the 7th time in a row the bookies have won when over 80% of the public have bet against them
i think thats the story -
we spent the week clowning on the Jets and they got a win. So if @Cyclops wants we can do it all year?
Carolina won! and the Saints really suck. What the fuck was that first 2 weeks?
Dak got hurt, the Cowboys lost again, and best of all, Dak got caught on the sideline saying that we all know "we fucking suck"
The Ravens cub stomped the Broncos to show exactly where we are
Lions stamped their authority on the NFC by taking care of the Packers.Half way through the season, and i think only the Commanders and the Niners, for opposite reasons, are a surprise.
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@antipodean said in NFL 2024:
25M views · 484K reactions | Saquon Barkley wanted the young guys to...
Saquon Barkley wanted the young guys to play instead of going for his record. What a teammate..
And the man can play a little too….
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If I'm making a Super Bowl pick I'm taking the Lions. They look so complete, even without Hutchison. They've got depth, smart playcalling, ability to play tight, ability to play loose, and they just make good decisions. They rolled over Green Bay at Lambeau in the wet in an almost effortless way, super impressive.
The Ravens are tempting but they are an injury to Lamar or Henry away from coming right back to the pack. Given both are injury prone I wouldn't be betting against that outcome, sadly.
I think the 49ers are the interesting smoky. CmC due to come back, the underdog mentality, a division that still looks very winnable... I don't think you'd want to run into them down the stretch.
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and the Saints sack their head coach. I'll keep posting this, they scored 91 points in the first two weeks. They only conceded 29.
In the next 7 weeks that goes to 116-200.
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yeah i have been reading about this. Some of the worst management you will see.
I have seen a few teams enquiring about Lattimore.
That Carr hit though, eeeesh (coming from the supporter of a team that is still paying Russell Wilson).
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The worst part is, who the fuck can they get to replace him? No one is going to look at that roster/cap situation and think it is a good move.
Aspiring coaches will see their reputation getting tanked as they can't turn trash in to treasure. Established coaches will wait for a better situation with better pieces. No one good (an not desperate) is taking that job.
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Exactly. The only thing in their favour is being in the worst division in the NFL, so you're always in with a chance of making the playoffs. And they aren't a historically bad franchise.
But QB is ugly. They probably try and take a chance on a guy like Fields, or else tank hard and try and take a QB in the top 10. No idea what this draft class is like though.
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smart move is eat 2025 and come back in 2026.
