2017 NFL Playoffs - Super Bowl LI Confirmed! Atlanta Falcons vs New England Patriots!

[Anacybele]

Er, you're welcome? (can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. xP)

Anyway, Panthers stay undefeated, WOOT. :D I couldn't watch the game this time though, because my Mom just HAD to watch one of her weird shows instead...

Speaking of Mike Tomlin, I like him as a guy, but his coaching... I don't know. He feels really hit and miss because of these losses to below-.500 teams lately. Sometimes it seems like he's doing a great job, but other times he's being an idiot, like going for those fourth downs instead of using our very reliable kicker. A 51 yarder? Boswell proved he could do that no problem in Heinz Field of all places. I get that the loss to the Ravens was just a stroke of bad luck due to a crappy kicker, but the loss to the Chiefs is inexcusable. How can our defense hold the explosive Cardinals to just 13 points but let a depleted Chiefs offense get 25? They also forced two turnovers vs the Cardinals, but none vs the Chiefs. It makes no sense at all.

The only good thing about Tomlin's coaching, it seems, is that he's never had a losing season since he's been coaching the Steelers. The same can't be said for Cowher. It's probably the only reason he still has his job.

Edited October 26, 2015 by Anacybele

[TheAssassinMercenary]

"hatred tier list" - chococoke

Sorry, that made me lol. Anyway, I feel like this season has been pretty predictable. Not many surprise twists, or anything like that.

[Lord Raven]

You mean you are not surprised by the Ravens being 1-5 and Washington being like 3-4?

[-Cynthia-]

The Cardinals had a lot of penalties and turnovers at key times- they actually outgained the Steelers 469-310. The Steelers defense, though a bit improved from last year, is probably mediocre overall.

Edited October 26, 2015 by -Cynthia-

[Anacybele]

Yeah, the Steelers forced those turnovers, and they got penalties as well. Yet they didn't force any turnovers vs the Chiefs. They looked improved by a long shot from last year and week 1 of this season.

[chococoke]

I find it impossible to believe that the Ravens didn't report their player as eligible on an unbalanced line play lol

They showed the replay and the ref totally fucked it up.

Classic refs

Edited October 27, 2015 by chococoke

[Lord Raven]

hey they scored like 30 less points than i expected them to at this point in the game

EDIT: we just blocked a punt, false start on the 2pc. this 2pc is game :|

EDIT 2: Got the 2pc, just need one more stop...

EDIT 3: Flacco gets picked off in the endzone. I was expecting a 45-10 game, not an 8 point game where we almost got the final TD. Oh well. Toughest stretch of our schedule is over, I expect us to go like 5-4 down the closing stretch and secure like a top 10 pick.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Lord Raven

[-Cynthia-]

All right, time for next week's picks:

Dolphins at Patriots- Dolphins have looked a lot better the past two weeks- but the Patriots are not the Titans or Texans. Hard to pick against the Pats now, especially at home.

Lions vs. Chiefs- Chiefs managed more offense than expected against the Steelers and their defense looks like it's coming together a bit. Lions offense was terrible for most of last week, they literally got like 5 yards between the end of the first quarter and 4 minutes left in the 4th.

Vikings at Bears- Maybe that Peterson injury report was BS because he looked fine, Vikings also threw it better than they usually do last week. Bears have a bad defense and questionable talent on offense.

Cardinals at Browns- Traveling across the country on a short week can be tough, but the Browns can't stop the run and might be starting Manziel who I don't have much faith in.

Chargers at Ravens- Two disappointing teams...Ravens are at home I guess and I think they might finally get Forsett going against the bad run D of the Chargers.

Bucs at Falcons- Falcons offense has been off the past few weeks- I think the Bucs D can fix that. They did manage to make Kirk Cousins look like Dan Marino.

Giants at Saints- I'm iffy on both these teams, but the Saints D seems improved and they're running the ball well...going with the home team I guess.

Titans at Texans- Mariota might be back which could help the Titans here. The Texans are terrible on defense and with Arian Foster injured they become more one dimensional on offense. Titans have been much better at defending the pass than the run this year.

Bengals at Steelers- Big Ben being back should give the Steelers a fighting chance, but he's probably still not 100%. Bengals are coming off the bye too and it's not a primetime game- I think this puts the odds in their favor.

Niners at Rams- Rams should be able to dominate a weak Niners O-line and run the ball for the win here.

Jets at Raiders- Interesting game- I think the Raiders offense takes a step back here. They haven't looked as good against winning teams so far this year.

Seahawks at Cowboys- Seahawks defense should be able to dominate Cassel(or Weeden if they go back to that). Cowboys need Romo to be a good football team.

Packers at Broncos- I'm normally against picking against the Broncos at home, but their offensive issues worry me and I don't think they'll be able to shut down the Packers completely.

Colts at Panthers- Panthers are running the ball well and playing good defense- the Colts are turnover prone and can't stop the run.

[Lord Raven]

Chargers at Ravens- Two disappointing teams...Ravens are at home I guess and I think they might finally get Forsett going against the bad run D of the Chargers.

I predict this will be a 6-3 game with neither team able to take advantage of massive flaws in the other defenses.

[Anacybele]

The Ravens keep losing, yaaay.

Now I just want the Bengals to lose! Steelers need to grant that wish this week! Big Ben is coming back at last too and we'll finally have our full offense sans a couple o-linemen, which hasn't been that big of an issue (Cody Wallace and Alejandro Villanueva have been decent enough backups)! WILL THE REAL STEELERS PLEASE STAND UP.

Oh yeah, the Texans released Ryan Mallet, so they have more QB problems now. :P

Edited October 27, 2015 by Anacybele

[chococoke]

Have you watched Mallett at all this season? On the field he's been dreadful, off the field he's been an even bigger wreck (somehow.) Their QB situation is absolutely fucked this year, but they don't lose anything of note by releasing him

[Anacybele]

Oh yeah, I heard about how bad he's been. :P

[chococoke]

Of course, if he could rush the passer well it probably wouldn't matter...

[TheAssassinMercenary]

@Cynthia - The one pick I don't agree with is the Saints beating the Giants. As a Pats fan, it pains me to say this, but the Giants are a pretty solid team.

@Lord Raven - It is kind of surprising that the Ravens keep losing. In my opinion, they're one of the best teams in the conference.

Edit: Oh yeah, and I think the Steelers will beat the Bengals. I think it will be a close game, but in the end I think the Steelers will come out on top.

Edited October 27, 2015 by TheAssassinMercenary

[Anacybele]

Yeah, I'm picking the Steelers too. Although I have to admit that I'm not 100% sure they'll win, for two reasons: One, as Cynthia pointed out, Ben isn't 100%, more than likely. Two, as Cynthia also pointed out, the Bengals are coming off a bye.

But why I think the Steelers have a better chance of winning is that their offense will now be at nearly full strength, as will their defense, and their offense, when healthy, is practically unbeatable now. So many weapons! Big Ben, AB, Bell, Bryant, Wheaton, and now Hey-Bey and Williams. And HEEEEATH. The defense is improved quite a bit from last year too. Also, Ben has a nice history of playing well even when he isn't 100%. The Bengals kind of have a history of being unable to beat us too. lol And we've also all seen how the Steelers do vs winning teams. :P The Steelers also need this win a lot more than the Bengals do, so they'll be fighting hard for it. They're at home for this game too!

Now I just hope they wear the bumblebee suits since last year they had a huge ass game when they wore them. XD

Edited October 27, 2015 by Anacybele

[Lord Raven]

@Lord Raven - It is kind of surprising that the Ravens keep losing. In my opinion, they're one of the best teams in the conference.

They've been a very flawed team the past 3 years with coaching able to bring them over the hump. As it stands this is our weakest roster in years due to no longer having anyone who can fulfill a basic outside role (outside WRs, outside linebackers) and we lost McPhee and Ngata for our 3-4 DEs. Canty and Jernigan should've been a good replacement for them but that's not what happened.

Suggs was older but he was extremely versatile. Fact is that he is actually a game changer because he can stop the run, play coverage, and rush the passer. Not having a 3-down linebacker like that hurts when Dumervil is strictly a pass rusher that has to be a 3-down guy.

This leads to our secondary - which is honestly more talented than last year - not having the ability to hold on for as long as they can. They can get beat one on one but we can't get pressure without putting them all in an island. CJ Mosley's coverage abilities have also regressed from last year, so there's a few sophomore slumps happening.

Our Tight Ends are first and second year guys, and Gillmore seems to be injured and playing limited snaps. I'm a moderator of /r/nfl's IRC and most of them are like "Who the fuck are Kamar Aiken/Marlon Brown/Buck Allen/Nick Boyle???" as well, and two of them are undrafted dudes and the rest are late round guys.

I sincerely think Trestman makes us do a lot of quick throws because our receivers can't beat any corners one on one so they can put 5-6 on a pass rush and still have our receivers covered. Our run game is headed by rookies and Forsett, who doesn't have particularly good vision but he is great in open space. Our checkdown targets aren't great and if we still had Ray Rice then we'd be a much better team.

You're just looking at a team who's been at the edge of the cap for years and has had to make incredibly tough decisions with our more talented personnel. Our 2012/2013 drafts are the ones that are about to get their contracts next season and those two drafts were generally very poor. 2014/2015 have a lot of potential but they're young. It's just potential. I think our lack of quality UDFAs from 2012/2013 contributed as well.

Ozzie with a Top 10 draft pick should scare the shit out of all you guys especially with Harbaugh's incredible coaching. I think Flacco has actually lived up to next year's cap hit at this point, because he's probably the reason why Ozzie hasn't done much with skill positions - he made Marlon Brown and Kamar Aiken look like they can start in the league. Aiken's probably talented enough to be a slot guy at best and Marlon Brown is really just poor. He's definitely giving Steve Smith look young again at points.

I'm personally a lot less stressed about the coming years than I was earlier. We're keeping Yanda and Zuttah who are Top 10 at their position, and Osemele/Wagner have regressed heavily. Monroe is serviceable I guess but he's injured a lot, so we gotta put Hurst out there again.

Ozzie has shit the bed a bit with trying to sign FAs at this point though. Kendrick Lewis isn't working out and is the reason why our corners keep getting torched (no Safety help) although Will Hill is fucking incredible. Also, Jason Babin and Dwight Freeney were on the open market and last night showed that we made the wrong choice here - Freeney did well, and Babin was awful when he was with us. Hell, I don't know why we didn't even try for Andre Johnson or Reggie Wayne because they are fundamentally better than Aiken and Brown despite their age. Ozzie tries too much for raw WRs.

I think only like... Packers/Patriots/Broncos or Colts (Peyton Manning teams) could consistently get away with low picks and everyone else can't sustain things without a Top pick. This is kind of that biting us because we haven't actually properly rebuilt for a while. Next year we could be dangerous or we could go 8-8 but I can safely say that in 2017 we'll be making a solid run.

I also don't think it helps that last night was our worst loss of the year - 13 seconds and 5 yards left and 8 points down. 1-6 in one score games (read: every game this season) means that we had a significant amount of bad luck and possibly personnel issues. At this point I have no idea what to think of Dean Pees because I think playing 10 yards off is because our CBs may not be fast enough to keep up with certain receivers so they need the cushion to prevent the deep pass. Though Jimmy Smith is excellent at pressing at the line so I don't know why we don't at least try that more.

Anyway someone on reddit said it best, we have a shot at a sure-fire prospect next year instead of hoping someone fails a drug test. I don't think we're a Top 10 team at all, I think we're basically an average team with a tough starting schedule (Gruden did mention last night that we had 5 away games in western time zones). I expect a 5-4 run from this point forward, if only because I was expecting to get blown out by teams like the Broncos, Cardinals, and even the Michael Vick led Steelers but that just didn't happen. The NFL is a fickle mistress.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Lord Raven

[-Cynthia-]

Eh, I mean the Giants looked like shit against a mediocre Eagles team 2 weeks ago and only got 13 offensive points against the Cowboys. The NFC East is all sorts of unimpressive this year.

The tough schedule excuse kinda fell apart when the Ravens lost to the Browns and Niners. 5-4 seems optimistic IMO...maybe 3 or 4 more wins. I would find it amusing if they swept the Steelers and got swept by the Browns personally.

Edited October 27, 2015 by -Cynthia-

[Anacybele]

Oh my god, somebody shoot me if the Steelers get swept by this Ravens team... -_-

[Lord Raven]

The tough schedule excuse kinda fell apart when the Ravens lost to the Browns and Niners. 5-4 seems optimistic IMO...maybe 3 or 4 more wins. I would find it amusing if they swept the Steelers and got swept by the Browns personally.

That Browns game was some sort of outlier and even that was only a 3 point loss. As for the rest;

49ers - away game against an easy team but this is after going back and forth between the east and west coast constantly

Raiders - not too bad a team, still only lost by 4

Broncos - 6-0 right now, took them down to the wire with a chance to win it late

Bengals - 6-0 right now, took them down to the wire despite having a lead for all of a minute

Cardinals - 5-2 right now, took them down to the wire, see Broncos game. Again, another west game (EST-3)

Browns - lost by 3 in overtime, scored 30, defense couldn't stop them once Dumervil left the game. No Forsett in overtime gave us an early 3 and out.

Every team has injuries but we have injuries at extremely inopportune times, most notably mid-game injuries. That's an issue. This game we lost Monroe at some point late which made the pocket collapse quickly against Arizona blitzes. That's part of why we're 1-6.

The difference here is that we are now facing a stretch of our schedule where we're playing at home and not constantly shifting between timezones. Our only away games from here on out are @CLE, @CIN, and either @JAX or @MIA (I can't remember which). I think we can win one of those games and go 4-1 at home when we're not constantly moving back and forth between the east and the west coast. That shit is tiring.

EDIT: I'd also like to note that any DC we take that is high quality has a tendency to get poached for an HC job. Starting from the Billick days we've had Marvin Lewis, Mike Smith, Rex Ryan, and Chuck Pagano.

We've had four OCs in four years as well, two got poached for HC jobs (though one of them was gonna get fired regardless of whether or not the Lions took him). I firmly believe now that we should've gone after Kyle Shanahan, but hindsight is 20/20 and Gary Kubiak was amazing for our offense last year. Shanahan probably wouldn't have gotten an HC job though regardless of results.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Lord Raven

[Life]

That was one of the best analyses I've ever seen. Time to match that.

Reasons why the 2015 Buffalo Bills have managed to both surprisingly and expectedly disappoint me:

Before the season, I was raving about the Bills. Why? Because on paper, this looked like the single best team the Bills have fielded in 15 years. The defense was one of the most complementary defenses in the league. Sure, the front 4 made everyone else look like high-schoolers but the fact of the matter is that guys like Preston Brown/Nigel Bradham/Nickel Robey/Corey Graham... were no names and they played at a very high level. Aaron Rodgers got picked off twice by a guy named Baccari Rambo. I hadn't even had heard of him until the Green Bay game last season. The depth was absolutely incredible.

Now let's look at this season. Our front four cannot break through any offensive line. Period. It's a combination of three things:

1. Under Jim Schwartz, we were attacking the line. Rex has decided that setting the edge is that much more important. Which is great if you're working with speed demons who can't physically push their way through an OL. The problem in Buffalo is that Mario/Kyle/Marcell/Carrington are all physical maulers who go through rather than around. Sure, Jerry Hughes and Corbin Bryant are better at the speed game but even if you field both of them, you still have half the line needing to play powerfully in the trenches. Not to mention dropping Mario and Jerry into coverage (there's a reason why Jerry was terrible in Indy and it's because he played a lot of coverage as an OLB rather than DE).

2. The refs are biased against the Bills in no small manner. Over the first 7 weeks, a total of 11 Offensive Holdings have been called on the offenses against the Bills. That's about 1.6 per game. The Bills D averaged over 3 sacks per game last season. Now they average about 1. The same front four are still being fielded. Saying that the DL has regressed is silly. The obvious answer is that they're simply being held at the line and could be averaging maybe 2 sacks per game instead of 1. And considering how close the Jacksonville/Giants games were, a single extra sack could have the team at 5-2 instead of 3-4.

3. The best way to hurt this Bills D is to release the ball in under 2 seconds. Checkdowns, screens, 3-step buttonhooks... The list just keeps going on. As solid as Brown and Bradham are, they've had to contend with running all over the field and they're dead tired midway through the season. Week 1, they weren't missing any tackles. Now? I don't expect them to wrap up their guy and just watching Yeldon proves it.

The Linebacking corps is solid for the most part but they're starting to look absolutely gassed. Nigel Bradham looks the worst because he was never fast to begin with (solid hitter though and plays the run excellently) but even Preston Brown and Manny Lawson can't finish tackles. The CB position is probably the best it's been in over a decade with Darby having an excellent rookie campaign and Gilmore has really stepped up his game. He's pressing and challenging which is wonderful to see considering the Bills DBs have never been known to frighten even a flock of sheep. Corey Graham is the other bright spot of the defense at FS but Aaron Williams has been playing awful (cannot play zone to save his life) and Duke Williams can't hit hard and can't ballhawk whatsoever.

The offense is just plain old depressing. Half the team is injured or out for any given reason. The offensive line looks porous which is nothing new if you've been even watching a random Bills game in the past two decades. Eric Wood might be a team captain but he's barely average when it comes to actual skill (probably the only thing most Bills fans are delusional about because they want to believe that Wood is half decent). Incognito has actually been playing well and John Miller's quietly having a pretty good rookie season. The issues are on both ends. If Glenn, Kouandjio and Henderson played for any one of the other 31 teams, they would not be starting and I'd be surprised if they were even on the 51 man roster. Glenn is a penalty machine, Henderson gets beaten around the end even single time and Kouandjio can't play the inside move.

Tyrod Taylor may be the only reason why this team is 3-4 and not 0-7. He put the Tennessee game on his shoulders and won it. Miami and Indy were probably because both teams were rusty coming out of the gate. As for EJ, I'm fed up. He was Buddy Nix's way of saying "fuck you" to Bills fans and it's kept us from even attempting to draft a QB since. But when it comes to the Bills and QBs, we haven't drafted a good one since... Jim Fucking Kelly. And that was before I was born.

RBs and WRs are a mess due to injuries. Which is a shame because if Karlos/Sammy/Shady/T-Mobile were all healthy, the team probably sits at 5-2 with wins against the Giants and Jaguars. Sammy's injury hurts the most because of how much we gave up to get him, how promising he is and the fact that he just can't stay healthy. But hey, he's still been more productive as a first round pick than say... Aaron Maybin.

Long story short, if the Bills can't get healthy and the DL can't generate any pressure on opposing QBs, I don't see us doing better than 6-10 for the rest of the season. Which is sad considering how fucking weak our schedule is. Jets x2 (I'm not convinced that they're actually good and I think they're just lucky), Chiefs, Texans, Eagles (another team that is weaker than everyone wants to admit) and Redskins. That should be 6 wins with Miami and Dallas in Buffalo making it 8 but that would mean that I expect this team to be good. And it just isn't.

[-Cynthia-]

The Bills lost by two touchdowns to the Giants- I don't think an extra sack is going to make up that difference.

[Lord Raven]

Corey Graham is the other bright spot of the defense at FS but Aaron Williams has been playing awful (cannot play zone to save his life) and Duke Williams can't hit hard and can't ballhawk whatsoever.

They switched Corey Graham to FS? Shit. I missed that guy, I was actually really bitter when Ozzie didn't sign him back in 2014. Makes me wish they at least try it with Webb, because Webb spends a lot of time getting burned one-on-one and there's no way he's worse than Kendrick Lewis.

1. Under Jim Schwartz, we were attacking the line. Rex has decided that setting the edge is that much more important. Which is great if you're working with speed demons who can't physically push their way through an OL. The problem in Buffalo is that Mario/Kyle/Marcell/Carrington are all physical maulers who go through rather than around. Sure, Jerry Hughes and Corbin Bryant are better at the speed game but even if you field both of them, you still have half the line needing to play powerfully in the trenches. Not to mention dropping Mario and Jerry into coverage (there's a reason why Jerry was terrible in Indy and it's because he played a lot of coverage as an OLB rather than DE).

Rex Ryan is really odd to me this season because of that. I can understand not keeping Schwartz because Schwartz is about running 4-3 concepts which end up attacking the line and Rex prefers the edge concepts.

It's actually reminding me of the Rams last season, where they put in Greg Williams who tried to call a bunch of really exotic Rex Ryan-esque blitzes when they could just murder the line through sheer willpower. This led to the Rams not getting enough pressure through the first quarter of the season and then suddenly they lived up to their logo.

Also, your talk about Tyrod Taylor surprises me. What is he like in the pocket? Is it mainly his feet that's keeping you guys alive? I really haven't had the time or energy to watch much NFL this year to really know.

[Anacybele]

From what I've seen of Tyrod Taylor, he reminds me of the old Michael Vick.

[Jiac]

Also, your talk about Tyrod Taylor surprises me. What is he like in the pocket? Is it mainly his feet that's keeping you guys alive? I really haven't had the time or energy to watch much NFL this year to really know.

Watched quite a bit of Bills games this year because Tyrod Taylor looked so good.

He looks good in the pocket, but the system they're utilizing doesn't require him to stay in the pocket too often. Especially since it's a run heavy system utilizing many play actions. Primarily he has shown playing in the pocket in the Patriots game and throughout the preseason so the sample size is small. But he looks confident in the pocket, not immediately intimidated by first signs of pressure but reacts accordingly once he knows he can't stay in the pocket any longer.

But, he's essentially pass first then make plays with his legs. He extends plays with his legs and makes the best decision between passing and running.

They're not really alive. The two teams they beat have losing records minus the Dolphins. Barely beating the Titans. Currently suffering from injuries.

I'd be hypocritical to say that my Chargers are alive but clearly Rivers is elite.

The latter half of their schedule is much more brutal including the Chiefs, Jets x2, Patriots. With Eagles, Texans and Cowboys potentially being a threat.

Edited October 28, 2015 by ~Summer~

[Life]

The Bills lost by two touchdowns to the Giants- I don't think an extra sack is going to make up that difference.

I watched that game and we were a defensive stop away from tying it with about 3 minutes left in the game. Trust me, we were about a sack away from going to OT. But a missed tackle (by Bradham if I recall correctly) made it a two score game.

Also, your talk about Tyrod Taylor surprises me. What is he like in the pocket? Is it mainly his feet that's keeping you guys alive? I really haven't had the time or energy to watch much NFL this year to really know.

It's his feet and general accuracy in the pocket.

What's been surprisingly nice about Taylor is his ability to hit receivers in stride on the long ball, something Buffalo hasn't really seen since the Kelly days (Fitzpatrick was on and off with this). The chemistry between him and Charles Clay has been unreal and when Tyrod really needs to move the chains, he'll keep plays alive the same way Flutie used to. He's been quite accurate for the most part but he's also dealing with no pass protection.

Summer summed it up quite well. He doesn't look rattled with pressure in his face and he's always looking downfield before taking off (assuming that it's not a designed run). He really learned a lot from Flacco but brings his own style too.