2017 NFL Season: Then there were Two

[Carolingian Steamroller]

Best analogy I'd give would be the Mantle-era Yankees. They won a lot of World Series, lost quite a few World Series. Had one of the best players of the era as the centerpiece. People hated them when they won and cheered when they went down but they still won more than they lost.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Tom Brady = LeBron James. Yes or no?

 

Also, calling back either of those Eagles TDs last night would have been terrible and would have impugned what was a fun game. Thank got they let the spirit of the game prevail, which is generally what should happen.

 

[FiddySicks]

2 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

Tom Brady = LeBron James. Yes or no?

 

Lol, no. Brady has NEVER had the criticism James had, and the beginning of their stories are absolutely polar opposite. James seemed for awhile there that he could never get over the hump, while Brady was constantly getting over that hump when it didn't even make sense for him to. 

[BBTV]

Are the Patriots a true singular "dynasty" in the true sense of the word, or are they multiple "dynasties" strung together, or something else altogether?

 

Asking because the early 00s Patriots were a 99.9% different team than the late teens version.  Typically "dynasties" are teams who's core is relatively consistent through their era of dominance.  In this case, it's literally just the coach and QB and everyone else has been replaced.  I think it's its own thing altogether - something we've never seen before, and likely never will again.

 

 

[neo_prankster]

Cue the music!

 

[OnWis97]

35 minutes ago, Pharos04 said:

I was beginning to think Collinsworth was having asthma issues the way so many plays were breathtaking.  The Ertz TD was absolutely without question.  I get they need to fill the review time so it's not dead air but to even question that....I agree, baffling is really the only term for it. 

Given the history of NFL catches with guys falling down, I did not think it was a certainty.  Sometimes it seems like the purpose of the rule is to put the catch under intense scrutiny and find any excuse not to award it.  Because he never stood straight up, I don't think it was wrong to be unsure of how that call would end up.  We know the breaking the plane is meaningless.  The difference appears to be the extra step to "become a runner."  But again, I don't think it would have made sense for them to just say "yeah; catch."  Next year, both that play and the Pittsburgh play will probably be easy TDs.

[Sport]

37 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

Also, calling back either of those Eagles TDs last night would have been terrible and would have impugned what was a fun game. Thank got they let the spirit of the game prevail, which is generally what should happen.

 

 

I've kind of always thought that the official review should not be allowed to use slow motion replay. The games are called in real-time, they should be reviewing what the official saw in real-time. If it looks like a TD in real-time it should be a TD. If you put every single play under slow motion scrutiny you'd find 20 infractions. Instead we're dissecting fractions of an inch at 5% speed to see if a guy's left foot grazes the blue endzone paint. Right now in the NHL we have officials wiping good goals off the board on offsides reviews because a guy who wasn't involved in the play at all had his skate blade 2 centimeters off the ice and it sucks and is not at all the purpose of the rule they're enforcing. Sometimes getting that pedantic about the letter of the rule violates the actual spirit or purpose of the rule. 

 

I thought the officials did a great job last night and that's with Steratore who is kind of known as a flag-happy official. There were a couple times they could've flagged the Pats for pass interference, but I wasn't outraged that they let them go. The real thing is there were no egregiously bad calls. Super Bowl 40 this was not. 

 

[bucknut42]

6 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

 

I've kind of always thought that the official review should not be allowed to use slow motion replay. The games are called in real-time, they should be reviewing what the official saw in real-time. If it looks like a TD in real-time it should be a TD. If you put every single play under slow motion scrutiny you'd find 20 infractions. Instead we're dissecting fractions of an inch at 5% speed to see if a guy's left foot grazes the blue endzone paint. Right now in the NHL we have officials wiping good goals off the board because a guy who wasn't involved in the play at all had his skate blade 2 centimeters off the ice and it sucks and is at all the purpose of the rule they're enforcing. Sometimes getting that pedantic about the letter of the rule violates the actual spirit or purpose of the rule. 

 

I thought the officials did a great job last night and that's with Steratore who is kind of known as a flag-happy official. There were a couple times they could've flagged the Pats for pass interference, but I wasn't outraged that they let them go. The real thing is there were no egregiously bad calls. Super Bowl 40 this was not. 

 

I haven't ever really thought about how much slo-mo effects the call on the field, but now that you mention it, I can see why it shouldn't be used. I was pretty happy with letting the game play itself out in terms of calls and non calls. 

[Lights Out]

46 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

Tom Brady = LeBron James. Yes or no?

No way. LeBron's 2016 Finals alone is more impressive than Brady's entire career.

[OnWis97]

53 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

 

I've kind of always thought that the official review should not be allowed to use slow motion replay. The games are called in real-time, they should be reviewing what the official saw in real-time. If it looks like a TD in real-time it should be a TD. If you put every single play under slow motion scrutiny you'd find 20 infractions. Instead we're dissecting fractions of an inch at 5% speed to see if a guy's left foot grazes the blue endzone paint. Right now in the NHL we have officials wiping good goals off the board on offsides reviews because a guy who wasn't involved in the play at all had his skate blade 2 centimeters off the ice and it sucks and is not at all the purpose of the rule they're enforcing. Sometimes getting that pedantic about the letter of the rule violates the actual spirit or purpose of the rule. 

 

I thought the officials did a great job last night and that's with Steratore who is kind of known as a flag-happy official. There were a couple times they could've flagged the Pats for pass interference, but I wasn't outraged that they let them go. The real thing is there were no egregiously bad calls. Super Bowl 40 this was not. 

 

The problem is that once you go down the "review" rabbit hole, it's pretty hard to draw lines.  If the point of review is to get it right.  I have a hard time imagining that fans and media would let it go if non-overturned reviews were actually the wrong call.  When enforcing rules, common sense often gets pushed aside.

 

The Clement catch is a good example.  While it's kind of hard to be truly upset by the outcome simply because the ball moved a couple inches after the left(?) foot was down, it's kind of a hard line to draw.  I kinda think they should have overturned it

 

When it comes to things like this, you could argue that replay does make things worse.  All these silly "surviving the ground" calls would have stood as catches and we'd be better for it.  Clement's catch would have stood and I don't think anyone, even Pats fans, would be too worried about that "missed" call.  But it's almost like you either have to have it or not. I don't think "call stands because while it was missed on the field, it was not egregious" or "call stands because, come on" works.

 

I think you had a similar take on the off-sides review taking away a goal that some opponent (Tampa?) scored on Pittsburgh in the playoffs.  As cheesy as that was, I think it's hard to say "yeah but he was only off-sides by an inch."  I'd be curious to hear your take on the Wild vs. Blue Jackets no-goal at the buzzer.  I think there's no choice but to take that goal off the board, myself.  As for offsides, I think it may be OK to just not review for that.  Any missed offsides call should be a close enough call that there's no competitive advantage in the spirit of the rule (cherry-picking) is kind of intact.  So don't review.  But if they're going to, I think there's no choice but to not draw a line. Same with football.  

[Wings]

The Brady Era:

 

2001 Won Super Bowl (Rams)

2002 Missed Playoffs

2003 Won Super Bowl (Panthers)

2004 Won Super Bowl (Eagles)

2005 Lost Divisional (Broncos)

2006 Lost AFC Champ. (Colts)

2007 Lost Super Bowl (Giants)

2008 Missed Playoffs (Brady injury)

2009 Lost Wild Card (Ravens)

2010 Lost Divisional (Jets)

2011 Lost Super Bowl (Giants)

2012 Lost AFC Champ. (Ravens)

2013 Lost AFC Champ. (Broncos)

2014 Won Super Bowl (Seahawks)

2015 Lost AFC Champ. (Broncos)

2016 Won Super Bowl (Falcons)

2017 Lost Super Bowl (Eagles)

[BBTV]

So the local news was interviewing random partiers on the streets last night, turned around, and Joel Embiid just appeared there!

 

[BBTV]

nm

[Red Wolf]

3 hours ago, BringBackTheVet said:

 

There's always some trendy term that comes up and gets beaten to death by people who act like they use it all the time.  This year, it was "11 personnel" or "12 personnel".  I don't doubt that those are terms that are used, but I've never heard fans or announcers use them until this year.  Now, common ham-and-eggers at the watercooler are like "yeah man, when they went to 12 personnel, that's when the game changed".  RPO is another one.  I hadn't heard that used until the past few weeks, and now it's every other word out of every other person's mouth.

RPOs have been a thing in college football for years, and yet I don't think I've heard the term uttered more in those cumulative years than I did from the commentary last night. It wouldn't have been so bad if they weren't just calling every single play action play an RPO even when they weren't (Hint: if the running back comes nowhere near the handoff, it's not an RPO). 

 

As far as debating the Ertz TD, I not only found it baffling that the commentators had trouble understanding if it was a catch, I thought it was crazy that the replay took so damn long. This wasn't a situation where it felt like it should be a catch (Dez and Megatron's infamous incompletions for instance), it was clearly a catch by every conceivable measure. 

[BBTV]

9 minutes ago, Red Wolf said:

RPOs have been a thing in college football for years, and yet I don't think I've heard the term uttered more in those cumulative years than I did from the commentary last night. It wouldn't have been so bad if they weren't just calling every single play action play an RPO even when they weren't (Hint: if the running back comes nowhere near the handoff, it's not an RPO). 

 

As far as debating the Ertz TD, I not only found it baffling that the commentators had trouble understanding if it was a catch, I thought it was crazy that the replay took so damn long. This wasn't a situation where it felt like it should be a catch (Dez and Megatron's infamous incompletions for instance), it was clearly a catch by every conceivable measure. 

 

The Steelers players are tweeting up a storm about it.  HOnestly can't say I blame them.  

[Sport]

16 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

The problem is that once you go down the "review" rabbit hole, it's pretty hard to draw lines.  If the point of review is to get it right.  I have a hard time imagining that fans and media would let it go if non-overturned reviews were actually the wrong call.  When enforcing rules, common sense often gets pushed aside.

 

The Clement catch is a good example.  While it's kind of hard to be truly upset by the outcome simply because the ball moved a couple inches after the left(?) foot was down, it's kind of a hard line to draw.  I kinda think they should have overturned it

 

When it comes to things like this, you could argue that replay does make things worse.  All these silly "surviving the ground" calls would have stood as catches and we'd be better for it.  Clement's catch would have stood and I don't think anyone, even Pats fans, would be too worried about that "missed" call.  But it's almost like you either have to have it or not. I don't think "call stands because while it was missed on the field, it was not egregious" or "call stands because, come on" works.

I've kind of become anti-review over the years, but I think we could have a middle ground between the Zapruder film over-reviews we go through now and a quick glimpse of the tape just to see if the refs seriously botched the call. If it's not egregious enough in real-speed to see a bad call I have no problem with allowing the call on the field to stand even if there's a slight Clement-like bobble or whatever. I like the idea someone proposed that if takes longer than, say, 30 seconds to review, then the call on the field should stand because clearly it wasn't obvious enough to overturn it. 

 

The other thing is officials make calls on the field because they know they'll be reviewed so if they're not certain what happened they'll just throw their hands up knowing it'll go to tape. If you take away that crutch they'll go back to being more decisive. 

 

I recently watched the 1981 AFC Championship game and there was some moments like "well they missed that one" and everybody just shrugs and they move on. Yes it was the wrong call, but the whole game wasn't worse for it. 

 

Quote

 

I think you had a similar take on the off-sides review taking away a goal that some opponent (Tampa?) scored on Pittsburgh in the playoffs.  As cheesy as that was, I think it's hard to say "yeah but he was only off-sides by an inch." 

 

The purpose of the blue lines is to keep players from cherry-picking by not entering that space ahead of the puck. The play in question the guy was neither ahead of the puck or cherrypicking yet his team got a crucial goal wiped off just because the rule is poorly written. For all intents and purposes he was onside and had nothing to do with scoring the goal. Reviews on offsides were implemented to stop a matt duchene situation, but it's had the very bad intended consequence of removing good goals because someone was a negligible amount over the line that would give zero measurable benefit in helping them score. I seriously hate it. The Duchene thing happened once in a while. The bad offsides review happens every week. It's so stupid. 

 

It's doubly bad because now instead of looking for "is his body on or behind the blue line, did he at least make an attempt to stay onsides, is he at least close?" (the "spirit of the rule") we're looking for "is his skate on the ice or is it centimeters above it?". If the former is the rule it would be much easier to confirm with replay.

 

 

Quote

I'd be curious to hear your take on the Wild vs. Blue Jackets no-goal at the buzzer.  I think there's no choice but to take that goal off the board, myself. 

 

The puck crossed the goal-line after the clock hit zeros so I don't see any controversy there. I'm okay with using slow motion to check in that specific instance. 

 

Quote

As for offsides, I think it may be OK to just not review for that.  Any missed offsides call should be a close enough call that there's no competitive advantage in the spirit of the rule (cherry-picking) is kind of intact.  So don't review.  But if they're going to, I think there's no choice but to not draw a line. Same with football.  

 

hockey offsides and ball/strikes are two things in sports that I think should be left to the human eye. Balls and strikes because the human element of that judgment is at the essence of baseball. Hockey offsides because it's always been a judgement call until recently and because most of the time the kind of minuscule offsides we overturn goals for didn't have any discernible impact on the goal being scored.

[BBTV]

The Flyers lost a stanley cup on a missed offsides call.  I'm sure they'd argue it should be reviewable (not that review was even a thing back then.)

[IceCap]

3 hours ago, DG_Now said:

Tom Brady = LeBron James. Yes or no?

Depends on what you’re implying by LeBron James. 

 

If you mean the best of their generation in their respective sport? Then yes. 

 

2 hours ago, Lights Out said:

No way. LeBron's 2016 Finals alone is more impressive than Brady's entire career.

I’ve said it before, but it warrants repeating. Your weird anti-homer schtick has run its course.  

[Sport]

A lot of historic goals would be overturned under today's rules. That's the problem with the rule as it is now. 

[RockyTopper]