2016 NFL Playoffs

[2001mark]

5 minutes ago, BringBackTheVet said:

 

IMO sports are better when there's dynasties.  

I think so too.  Even when they're not winning rings like the Cowboys, Yankees, etc their presence in the leagues we follow offers baked in storylines.  

Alabama wins every time, except they don't.  New England wins every time, except Eli showed they don't.  Sports is the fun.

[Alex Houston]

5 minutes ago, CS85 said:

 

People hate success, which is understandable - I used to be one of those fans, but after awhile it gets so tiresome.  The song never changes.  Nobody likes to see the same teams win all the time; THAT is absolutely tiresome.  It's so hard to pull this kind of stuff off, though, so at some point?  At some point fans need to look in the mirror and see the reality of the situation:  The Pats have likely the best coach and best player to ever play, gameplan, and manage over a long period of time.  

 

They're just unbelievably good, slimy as hell (just like every other goddamn team in the NFL), and are firmly in the business of winning.  They know what they're doing.  Most other organizations can barely figure it out.

 

Good points across the board. I suppose jmac's point was the most accurate, when people hate repetition in sports titles, except when it happens to be your team doing it. Unless you have a personal vendetta against teams, sometimes you just have to be in awe of how the sausage is made. 

[2001mark]

re. 2017 opener, I would like to see the Chiefs v Patriots... Panthers might seem appetizing though 2 of those in a row for a non champ might be weird... Falcons?  I don't feel it, I bet Arthur Blank would rather not play the team that just demoralized the next handful of seasons raise their banner on them, he's got to have some hand in that out.

No one else really to bet on there - LA Chargers? lols  Texans? No.  AFC East?  Child please.

[habsfan1]

11 minutes ago, SabresRule7361 said:

That was very ,very painful to watch.

 

For 3 quarters, the Patriots looked slow and Atlanta was flying around with all that speed.

 

And then came a 4th quarter that I'm not going to get over for a long, long time.

 

As I said a while back, reasons I can't stand the Patriots have little to do with alleged cheating.

 

THEY. WIN. TOO. DAMN. MUCH.

 

I mean, Boston gets ANOTHER title at the expense of an upstart.

 

The Patriots get ANOTHER Super Bowl.

 

That final 15 minutes and OT was as devastating as anything I've ever seen in football.

 

The few errors the Falcons started committing in the 2nd half ended up being costly. When you play versus Tom Brady in the Super Bowl, the margin for error is incredibly thin. Even a near-30 point lead doesn't guarentee victory.

 

That penalty when they were trying to get into field goal position pushed them out of position and they had to punt. A field goal would have made it a 3 possession game, even with 2 successful 2-point conversions. To me, it felt like that's what broke the camel's back.

[BBTV]

3 minutes ago, Alex Houston said:

 

The issue I have with that is it takes away the randomness and variety of seeing other franchises finally succeed. Especially when every league has something like 30+ teams, watching the best keep winning gets dull and uninteresting. Though I respect Brady's accomplishments, it didn't surprise me how much disdain people had about the team being back in. I wouldn't be surprised if a fair chunk of fans specifically didn't even watch the game because the Pats were back in it.

 

What you see as randomness I see as a bad thing.  It shouldn't be random.  You should have to build and work to win.  When every team is so close that a few breaks here and there can turn a 4-12 team into a 12-4 team, that's bad.  How many 11-5 / 12-4 teams do we see that get smoked in the playoffs nowadays?  I don't have the stats in front of me, but it seems like a regular thing to see a team with a bye get beat.  That rarely happened back in the day.

 

I don't know of a better way to put it than when it's random, you're not really getting a champion.  You're just getting the winner of a draw.  

 

I'll go a step further - I hate when a team comes out of nowhere to win and then disappears.  It devalues the whole league.

[2001mark]

1 minute ago, habsfan1 said:

 

The few errors the Falcons started committing in the 2nd half ended up being costly. When you play versus Tom Brady in the Super Bowl, the margin for error is incredibly thin. Even a near-30 point lead doesn't guarentee victory.

I truly believe the most remarkable aspect which'll garner few words is how poised the rest of the entire Patriots' remained marching back to victory.  The sexy headline is the green Falcons collapsed - well, the look on the Patriots' at halftime was zombieville.  They earn legit props from this fan for sticking to the gameplan & outworking Atlanta.

[aawagner011]

There are some real jackasses in this thread. As if us Atlantans don't have enough heartbreak already, we don't need all y'all sorry people whose teams probably didn't even make the playoffs acting like we have the worst franchise in the league and reminding us how our city never wins. Acting like the defense sucked but forgetting that the New England offense held the ball for 2/3 the entire game. The Pats had 90+ plays. I'm sure you'd be gassed, too. Give New England their due, but let off of the Atlanta hate train. It's ridiculous.

[infrared41]

15 minutes ago, BringBackTheVet said:

 

You also didn't worry about your top WR leaving in free agency (because it didn't even exist), or worry about cutting your tight end to save cap room.

  

In my opinion, the fact that teams did stay together made things tougher in Montana's era. The good teams stayed good. That 80's Bears defense was a beast for a quite a few seasons. Giants too. You didn't have the luxury of watching the Bears players that made your life hell split up and go to four different teams the next season. The Giants with LT that you played in, say, '88 was going to essentially be the Giants team you played in '89. Chances were slim that in '89 LT would be a Raider, Banks would be playing in Miami, and Carson had bolted to the Eagles. 

 

That all being said, you're right, every era is different and that makes comparisons both impossible and silly. 

[TJSC]

I would say that the whole game was rigged, however if the NFL actually wanted to make money they wouldn't have made the Patriots win a plethora of Super Bowls from 2000-2017 and would've made other big-market cities win it

[2001mark]

8 minutes ago, Dolphins Dynasty said:

 

I'll admit I didn't watch the first half, but I did watch some of the second (and of course that's when Atlanta layed an egg).

For everyone hating on watching a NE SB, they've only ever played a single one sided affair & that was with the rock star Bears.  At least they're not destroying teams or being blown out in losses (except the 85 Bears).  NFC South v New England should be a banner raised in that Houston stadium.

 

[C's]

2 minutes ago, aawagner011 said:

Acting like the defense sucked but forgetting that the New England offense held the ball for 2/3 the entire game. The Pats had 90+ plays. I'm sure you'd be gassed, too.

 

Maybe they shouldn't have committed so many 3rd down penalties.

 

This isn't an "aw, shucks, Brady and Belichick, maaaaan! Doggone it!" situation. Atlanta's defense completely crapped their pants and gave the game away.

[infrared41]

2 minutes ago, TJSC said:

I would say that the whole game was rigged, however if the NFL actually wanted to make money they wouldn't have made the Patriots win a plethora of Super Bowls from 2000-2017 and would've made other big-market cities win it

 

WTF? Take that nonsense to Reddit or something. 

[See Red]

35 minutes ago, BlueSky said:

Wonder if SF is second-guessing their coaching hire. What was that play call on the 3rd & 1 sack fumble? And what the hell was Freeman looking at instead of the freight train bearing down on his QB? That was the beginning of the end. 

 

I feel for the Falcons' fans. Losing is one thing; watching your team collapse like that in the SB was just cruel. 

 

That's where I'm hung up.  That deficit should be damn near impossible to come back from unless the opponent messes up multiple times.  Third and one, wanting to at least run down the clock and averaging seven yards per carry and they attempt to throw it?  And then Julio gets them in FG range where they should just run the ball and take their chances with the FG unit and they end up getting sacked out of FG range.  It was unreal.

[BBTV]

5 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

  

In my opinion, the fact that teams did stay together made things tougher in Montana's era. The good teams stayed good. That 80's Bears defense was a beast for a quite a few seasons. Giants too. You didn't have the luxury of watching the Bears players that made your life hell split up and go to four different teams the next season. The Giants with LT that you played in, say, '88 was going to essentially be the Giants team you played in '89. Chances were slim that in '89 LT would be a Raider, Banks would be playing in Miami, and Carson had bolted to the Eagles. 

 

That all being said, you're right, every era is different and that makes comparisons both impossible and silly. 

 

I don't disagree with any of that, but the counter to that is that in this era a QB is playing behind a different line every year, throwing to different receivers every year, doesn't have the luxury of familiarity (I remember thet time when they said that an OL needed 3 or 4 seasons to gel before they could be great - now it needs to be plug-and-play.)

 

Back in the day, if you weren't #1, your only hope was to wait for attrition to help you out - like when Parcells retired and Ray Handley took the Giants into the crapper.  Everyone else moved up a notch.  SO yeah that was big.  Today though there's no patience, and nobody gets the luxury of a couple years to "work it out".  You're cut as soon as there's no dead money and they're on to the next guy.  It's a different type of pressure.  

 

I think social media and regular media is a big difference too.  Montana seems like one of those guys what wouldn't GOF about these things and would have been fine.  You never know though how players from the rotary-phone era would handle the pressure of having every step video taped by someone's cell phone, getting attackedon Twiter every second, having loudmouths on ESPN calling them names, and so on and so forth.

[aawagner011]

7 minutes ago, C's said:

 

Maybe they shouldn't have committed so many 3rd down penalties.

 

This isn't an "aw, shucks, Brady and Belichick, maaaaan! Doggone it!" situation. Atlanta's defense completely crapped their pants and gave the game away.

Well considering most of those 3rd down penalties were on a drive that ended in a pick six...the point still stands that a young and relatively inexperienced was up against the best in the history of the NFL for the entire game and rarely got a break. They held the ball for 40+ minutes and ran about as many plays as the spread fast paced Clemson team. And even still, the defense was very good at times. Got to Brady, we forced 2 turnovers, and got multiple sacks.

 

Even more so, the greater point is don't be a jackass ragging Atlanta because we lost in heartbreaking fashion and you're sad they didn't beat the Pats. I think I just read about 50 comments saying "F*** Atlanta" or "worst franchise in the league." I definitely read about 10 from Bucfan and one saying they wish the team was contracted.

 

TLDR: don't be a jackass.

[Alex Houston]

6 minutes ago, BringBackTheVet said:

 

What you see as randomness I see as a bad thing.  It shouldn't be random.  You should have to build and work to win.  When every team is so close that a few breaks here and there can turn a 4-12 team into a 12-4 team, that's bad.  How many 11-5 / 12-4 teams do we see that get smoked in the playoffs nowadays?  I don't have the stats in front of me, but it seems like a regular thing to see a team with a bye get beat.  That rarely happened back in the day.

 

I don't know of a better way to put it than when it's random, you're not really getting a champion.  You're just getting the winner of a draw.  

 

I'll go a step further - I hate when a team comes out of nowhere to win and then disappears.  It devalues the whole league.

 

Let me come at this from a slightly different angle. I like to see different teams cycle in and out every few years and have windows of competitiveness. It isn't an anomaly for a 11-5 team to get upset by a 9-7 team, but I could see the argument be made that that's why we play the games. Sure, the better teams usually win and the percentages favor them, but in cases like the '06 Steelers or the '12 LA Kings, the middling teams manage to sync at the right time and run the table. Does it seem like a disingenuous way to crown a winner? Perhaps and leagues like the Premier League try and remedy that. But a team like Leicester City had to play the elites and win. Sure, those teams may "randomly" fade back into the middle of the pack but when sports become predictable, it loses a sense of unpredictability and I would argue, vitality. I think it says something that when the playoffs go on in every league we get the perpetual "Anybody but (blank)" statements.

[BlueSky]

Must admit that the fatalistic pessimism of Saints fandom was having its way during the Vikings' last drive of the '09 NFCCG. I was convinced Minny was about to crush my soul again with a last second FG. That may be where my empathy tonight is coming from for Atlanta's fans. To wait so long, see them running away with the game only to absolutely p*** it away...that's rough. 

[rsaline]

Goodell's probably thinking, Next time suspend him for the LAST four games not the first four.

[C's]

8 minutes ago, aawagner011 said:

Well considering most of those 3rd down penalties were on a drive that ended in a pick six...the point still stands that a young and relatively inexperienced was up against the best in the history of the NFL for the entire game and rarely got a break. They held the ball for 40+ minutes and ran about as many plays as the spread fast paced Clemson team. And even still, the defense was good at points. Got to Brady, we forced 2 turnovers, and got multiple sacks.

 

HAVE YOU CONSIDERED that Atlanta committing all those dumbass penalties and extending drives might have been a critical factor in the Patriots getting to run that many plays and spending that much time in possession of the ball?

 

Quote

TLDR: don't be a jackass.

 

[2001mark]

5 minutes ago, rsaline said:

Goodell's probably thinking, Next time suspend him for the LAST four games not the first four.

Sustained booing was fantastic.  Kraft's intro was doubly so.