2020 NFL Season

[IceCap]

29 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

Actually, if the NFL was fixing games, isn't having Brady win exactly what they should do?

 

To use your analogy, Brady beating Mahomes was like Rock over Cena at XXVIII.  The league would/should fix next year to have the epic rematch, where it's an LII-style shootout that ends up with Mahomes making one more play than Brady to win it, and then they have an epic handshake at mid field (and maybe a literal torch to pass because otherwise fans wouldn't get it.)

 

 

The WM 29 buyrate was down compared to XXVIII. The "once in a lifetime...twice!" angle kind of backfired. 

 

The safe play is one match, and not to get greedy 

[FiddySicks]

3 minutes ago, the admiral said:

It was a hard path and yet it was never in doubt. And as a 5 seed, at that.

Speaking of that, I’m trying to find a good comparison to this team. I wanna say the 05 Steelers, because of the low seed, but even that’s not all that close. 

[The_Admiral]

The '05 Steelers were coming off a 15-1 season where they lost in the conference championship; they were a deferred championship much like the '06 Cardinals for '04 and '05. Maybe the '06 Hurricanes who were out for years, won it all, and went back out again, but the Buccaneers added Tom Brady; the Hurricanes added, like, Cory Stillman and Bret Hedican. I think this one is sui generis.

[DCarp1231]

16 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

Weird to make the “Their path to winning the Super Bowl wasn’t that hard, you guys.” point but you’re certainly free to make it if you so choose. I’m still good with it! 

Again, I’m not saying the path wasn’t hard. It was one of the toughest, but you’re justifying the path by excusing a win in the playoffs.

 

All things considered, a Tom Brady-led 11-5 Tampa Bay team should’ve given a 7-9 Practice Squad QB-led Washington team the works, but they didn’t. It was a tough win. Why ignore that?

[FiddySicks]

Because I really do think matchups in the NFL are the real keys to winning and losing games. Washington was just a tough matchup for the Bucs to get, despite what it may have seemed record wise.  These guys are all so close in terms of talent. Even the worst team in the league is one of the top 32 football teams in the world. Washington had a lot of issues this season and won a division, but they were kinda rounding into form themselves at that time. The defense was really starting to figure it out, and had a lot of the same strengths along the front line as the Bucs do. That absolutely caused issues for them the Saints, Packers and Chiefs wouldn’t be able to. That also wasn’t terribly surprising to me. Their QB playing out of his mind was for sure a surprise, but Tampa also had basically zero time to prepare for him and probably not a lot of tape, either. Again, he’s no Pat Mahomes, but he’s still an NFL quarterback. Sometimes that stuff just happens. You’re a world beater who catches the one team who matches up with you really well, and boom, seasons over. Or your a team who struggled all year but pulled a division winner who’s QB broke his leg in week 16. Thems the breaks. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I hate Brady a whole lot less now that he's on the Buccaneers. Brady, Belichick and the Pats beat my team like a drum for 20 years, and did so in soulless, joyless fashion. And they had :censored:ty locker room decor taste.

 

But the Buccaneers? At least they gave a :censored: and looked like they wanted to be there. Bruce Arians seems like a guy who enjoys winning football, while Belichick enjoys seeing what he can get away with. I like the Bucs' receivers and running backs and their playoff defense was incredible. I'm happy for Byron Leftwich. There's a lot to not hate about the Buccaneers.

 

As for Brady, I often say that people who hate LeBron are spiting enjoying one of the great careers of all time. And I recognize my own blind spot when it comes to Tom Brady. What he did during the postseason and Sunday night is the greatest run of his career, and he did so at 43. It's incredible, and he's so clearly the greatest football player of all time and it's not especially close. Brady elevates teams, wins titles, and does so in the smartest and most frustratingly consistent way. He broke football without breaking football, and he keeps coming back year over year. I don't like him, but #7 -- done without Belichick -- at least makes me respect him.

 

There was a conversation about cheating and I'll repeat myself from Sunday -- I think the refs took the Chiefs out of the game the second quarter. The Chiefs took themselves out the rest of the way, of course, but that's still 15 minutes of a 60-minute game where they had killer soft penalty after killer soft penalty; it's really hard to come back from that. And, as it happens, they didn't.

 

But that said, Brady may be on #7, but the Pats will be stuck on #6 for a good long while. That's a huge win for me, a huge win for the game of football, and a huge win for America.

[Red Comet]

Stuff happens. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. In hindsight, I should've known something was up when the team ran out looking like they were all beaten save Mahomes.

[Kramerica Industries]

6 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

I was saying before the game that Tampa getting their asses kicked in week 12 by these guys is the best thing that could’ve happened. They knew the weapons KC had, and decided to play conservatively.

They realized after getting bent over in the first quarter that doing that was NOT going to work, so they adjusted and they kinda won the rest of that game. I think despite the disaster of a first quarter, they still only lost by three. They learned a LOT from that game, and they applied it brilliantly on Sunday. 

 

I really can’t get over how good the defense was. I was scared of them all season long, yet they rounded into form at the perfect time. I was PRAYING that they would come out firing vs KC because I just had a feeling it could work. They played pretty much PERFECTLY and it paid off. 
 

That was by far their best game of the season, and one of my favorite Bucs games of all damn time (obviously). 

 

 yeah. They did it. Fire them  mother:censored:in cannons.  

 

You do kinda get to something that applies in an even broader sense - their last three opponents were all teams who they played in the regular season. They only won one of the four games and maybe it's not the biggest surprise of all-time that the game they had the toughest time defensively in was against the one team who they didn't have any head-to-head film to work with (and their last meeting with Washington had been in 2018 with much different rosters and coaching staffs, making that film useless). I'm well aware they were also without Devin White in that game but, as absolutely awesome as White was this postseason, I can't allow myself to think one player makes that big of a difference, especially against what was one of the NFL's weakest offenses playing their fourth different starting QB of the season.

 

Bowles game plan defensively to begin the Week 12 game was an absolute disaster. Anytime a WR puts up 200 yards in one quarter, you've butchered things with your coverage schemes. Now, Todd deserves every bit of credit for the coverage schemes he ran in this game, that he was able to be the exact opposite of his usual blitz-heavy playcalling, and that he and his assistants had everyone prepared and in position (and, of course, ultimate credit has to go to the players, as always, for executing the plan as designed). Thinking back to the Week 12 game, he did do a good on-the-fly job of adjusting his coverages when he could see that his Plan A clearly wasn't working - that his Plan A was what it was being a different problem altogether - but I can't help but think the Bucs lucked out in that sense, facing a team in the Super Bowl that they already faced in the regular season. Don't think I need to say that this is a pretty rare occurrence; it's only happened four times in the last 20 seasons (Tom Brady's team was involved in all four of them, of course). While there's little doubt that Kansas City was better than Buffalo, as we saw on two different occasions this season, I can only wonder if things would've gone as well for the Bucs against the Bills instead, playing a team without a battered offensive line and, more importantly, no head-to-head film on. Bowles knew what to correct for with Kansas City; if he had gotten things wrong against the Bills from the outset, I'm sure adjustments would've been made, but when they would've been and what the game situation would look like by then could make a huge difference in the final outcome.

[BBTV]

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

The WM 29 buyrate was down compared to XXVIII. The "once in a lifetime...twice!" angle kind of backfired. 

 

The safe play is one match, and not to get greedy 

 

The more I think about it, I'd book the rematch like this: It's an old-school slobberknocker, with players getting carted off right and left until both teams are out of bench players.  At the very end, down 7, the Chiefs score and decide to go for two.  The Bucs, out of players, have to insert Tom Brady to play defense.  At the two point conversion, Mahomes calls his own number and runs to the right, and everything goes slow motion (somehow, even for the live crowd) as Mahomes stiff arms Brady and goes in for the winning score, and while he's celebrating, Brady somehow vanishes - leaving only his jersey and helmet neatly folded on the field.  Brady may or may not reappear as a force ghost.

 

1 hour ago, FiddySicks said:

Speaking of that, I’m trying to find a good comparison to this team. I wanna say the 05 Steelers, because of the low seed, but even that’s not all that close. 

 

There's no comparison team.  Basically, the GOAT and two of his HOF buddies decided to retire in Florida and team up for a title.  I don't think there's precedent for it in the NFL.  This was not a low-seed underdog story - Brady is never the underdog.

 

1 hour ago, DNAsports said:

Again, I’m not saying the path wasn’t hard. It was one of the toughest, but you’re justifying the path by excusing a win in the playoffs.

 

All things considered, a Tom Brady-led 11-5 Tampa Bay team should’ve given a 7-9 Practice Squad QB-led Washington team the works, but they didn’t. It was a tough win. Why ignore that?

 

Because if you're writing a headline, Mahomes, Brees, and Rodgers are going to get people's attention.  Nobody cares about the other guy.  It's not that it wasn't a tough game, it's just that it was not memorable compared to his battles against former champs and probable HOFers.  The WFT game was a tough one, but it was one they were supposed to win, and there's no story to be told there.

[Red Wolf]

1 hour ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I hate Brady a whole lot less now that he's on the Buccaneers. Brady, Belichick and the Pats beat my team like a drum for 20 years, and did so in soulless, joyless fashion. And they had :censored:ty locker room decor taste.

 

There's nothing wrong with hating a team that constantly beats your favorite team. That's just regular sports stuff.

 

1 hour ago, Red Comet said:

Stuff happens. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. In hindsight, I should've known something was up when the team ran out looking like they were all beaten save Mahomes.

 

I believe this is the first time Mahomes has lost by more than one possession since he played at Texas Tech. Mahomes is a special player, likely to be one of the greatest of all time. It's been said a million times that he was pressured more than anybody in history and he still made some incredible plays that didn't work, but that wasn't on him. It's not fair to criticize a QB for having the gall to throw the ball at his receiver's hands. I hate it so much that he's so good.

[ManillaToad]

6 hours ago, the admiral said:

I don't think there was any rigging involved, but it's so ridiculous that the Buccaneers limped along for years as a non-factor in the division, let alone league, then Tom Brady parachutes in and the team just cruises right past the 17-1 Chiefs to a Super Bowl win.

 

16-2

[Sport]

11 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

Speaking of that, I’m trying to find a good comparison to this team. I wanna say the 05 Steelers, because of the low seed, but even that’s not all that close. 

 

11 hours ago, the admiral said:

The '05 Steelers were coming off a 15-1 season where they lost in the conference championship; they were a deferred championship much like the '06 Cardinals for '04 and '05. Maybe the '06 Hurricanes who were out for years, won it all, and went back out again, but the Buccaneers added Tom Brady; the Hurricanes added, like, Cory Stillman and Bret Hedican. I think this one is sui generis.

 

Weird because they beat Brady both times, but I think they're the 2007 Giants or the 2011 Giants. Defense first, rock solid defensive lines, and offenses that didn't beat themselves and occasionally pop a big play, but there wasn't much advance warning that they'd be tough to beat in the playoffs, especially in 2007. Both those Giants teams made me believe it's not as hard to win a Super Bowl as it seems, which is how I feel after watching the Bucs. Also the 07 Giants lost to their 'unbeatable' Super Bowl opponent earlier in the season and took some lessons from that, which is similar to what happened with the Chiefs and Buccaneers. 

[DEAD!]

3 hours ago, Sport said:

 

 

Weird because they beat Brady both times, but I think they're the 2007 Giants or the 2011 Giants. Defense first, rock solid defensive lines, and offenses that didn't beat themselves and occasionally pop a big play, but there wasn't much advance warning that they'd be tough to beat in the playoffs, especially in 2007. Both those Giants teams made me believe it's not as hard to win a Super Bowl as it seems, which is how I feel after watching the Bucs. Also the 07 Giants lost to their 'unbeatable' Super Bowl opponent earlier in the season and took some lessons from that, which is similar to what happened with the Chiefs and Buccaneers. 

 

Yeah the 07 Pats beat the Giants in the final game of the regular season to go 16-0. But in 2011, the Giants beat the Pats twice. So there's that....

[Sport]

2 minutes ago, DEAD! said:

 

Yeah the 07 Pats beat the Giants in the final game of the regular season to go 16-0. But in 2011, the Giants beat the Pats twice. So there's that....

 

I always say 2011 is the NFL season that didn't happen. The only things I remember are Rookie Andy Dalton taking a very forgettable Bengals team to the playoffs and losing to someone named TJ Yates who played for some team called the Texans, and that the Super Bowl was a rematch nobody asked for between a humdrum Giants team and the Patriots who were in the middle of their streak of winning in the most boring fashion possible. The only thing I remember from that game was the Giants running back trying to stop himself from scoring and then falling ass first into the endzone. 

[SFGiants58]

Hey, I’m a Niners fan. I remember 2011 fondly.

 

 

All aboard the rabies express!

[FiddySicks]

2011 was lame because instead of getting the Harbaugh Bowl a year earlier, we ended up getting Giants Pats Stupidness version 2.0. That was also the year that Alex Smith used one of the best defenses I’ve ever seen to trick people into thinking he was ever going to be a serviceable number one starter that could lead a team to a title. 

[Alex Houston]

18 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

There was a conversation about cheating and I'll repeat myself from Sunday -- I think the refs took the Chiefs out of the game the second quarter. The Chiefs took themselves out the rest of the way, of course, but that's still 15 minutes of a 60-minute game where they had killer soft penalty after killer soft penalty; it's really hard to come back from that. And, as it happens, they didn't.

This is a narrative that I still feel the need to contest. The score at halftime was 21-6 in favor of Tampa and the Chiefs got the ball back to start the second half, but only scored a field goal when they got it, making it 21-9. The Fournette run right after, coupled with the Winfield pick is what really was the fatal blow for Kansas City. CBS had a graphic at some point talking about how Kansas City erased leads like a Thanos finger snap so you got to believe, from that point on, that the Chiefs were likely to start getting some breaks and score a touchdown somehow and make it a two possession game with a quarter and a half left to play. Let's also remember the Chiefs got shut out on probably their best second half drive early in the fourth too.

So yes, I agree it was harder to come back for Chiefs Kingdom, but let's not pretend that one drive with four penalties decided a game that was only halfway over. It just seems like fans use the reasoning of "overcoming the refs and the opposing team" to cover up shotty play-calling or a lack of on field adjustments.

[IceCap]

Also the Chiefs stopped the Bucs on 4th and 1 in the second quarter, negating a long drive where the Bucs came away with zero points. 

That was the time for the Chiefs to get going. Put together a long drive, get back in the game. And indeed they did get a first down to get off their own goal line. It felt for a hot second like the Chiefs were going to make the Bucs pay for their arrogance going for it on forth down and score. Instead they stalled out in the face of an amazing defence and failed to take advantage of a turnover on downs.

 

The Chiefs just never got into high gear. And while you can blame some of that on the refs (I'd argue most of those calls are defensible) a lot of the times the Chiefs just...failed to put it together. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

21 minutes ago, Alex Houston said:

This is a narrative that I still feel the need to contest. The score at halftime was 21-6 in favor of Tampa and the Chiefs got the ball back to start the second half, but only scored a field goal when they got it, making it 21-9. The Fournette run right after, coupled with the Winfield pick is what really was the fatal blow for Kansas City. CBS had a graphic at some point talking about how Kansas City erased leads like a Thanos finger snap so you got to believe, from that point on, that the Chiefs were likely to start getting some breaks and score a touchdown somehow and make it a two possession game with a quarter and a half left to play. Let's also remember the Chiefs got shut out on probably their best second half drive early in the fourth too.

So yes, I agree it was harder to come back for Chiefs Kingdom, but let's not pretend that one drive with four penalties decided a game that was only halfway over. It just seems like fans use the reasoning of "overcoming the refs and the opposing team" to cover up shotty play-calling or a lack of on field adjustments.

 

14-6 (or 9) is entirely different than 21-6 (or 9).

[Sec19Row53]

19 hours ago, DNAsports said:

Again, I’m not saying the path wasn’t hard. It was one of the toughest, but you’re justifying the path by excusing a win in the playoffs.

 

All things considered, a Tom Brady-led 11-5 Tampa Bay team should’ve given a 7-9 Practice Squad QB-led Washington team the works, but they didn’t. It was a tough win. Why ignore that?

Are you familiar with the Sesame Street song 'One of These Things is Not Like the Others'?