TheFunPolice

Harbaugh looked like he knew the outcome pre play... Lol He looked like he was shaking his head no

My prediction is Ravens will win by 10 The SB winner hasn't done great in these games lately. Hopefully next year's opener in OP goes better!

it might possibly work, but if it was ever tried even once then every team would drill for it and prepare for it, making it impossible to pull off a second time

If you had a QB who could also punt sometimes that would make for some interesting options/fakeouts. It's been done before! There's a lot of psychology to going for it on 4th down or faking it. 3rd down stop! Everyone is excited! Defense jogging off the field, high 5's helmets on the posts, gatorade... All the fans of the team on defense are feeling relief: we stopped them! We're getting the ball. What does the team who just made the 3rd down stop want more than anything? A simple punt that isn't muffed or fumbled.

Jets are going to be a top 4 AFC team this year if Rodgers stays healthy. Chiefs Bills Ravens Jets That's your divisional round, IMO

In the AFC: Jets... IMO they will the #1 contender the Bills need to deal with for the AFC East crown. Dolphins are a video game team, but that only works for so long, as we've seen. In the NFC: Rams: they seem to have retooled and added a lot of young talent

I'm not saying it's planned but man does it feel like it! Every weekend is trash (including most of last) then the weeks are gorgeous. At least it looks nice out the window from the office...

Yeah it was a total team loss, that much is for sure. Diggs isn't much different from most WR not named Kelce. Once the playoffs start you're playing the top 2-3 teams in the conference, and they are good enough to neutralize your #1 guy. That doesn't change the fact that Diggs creates drama everywhere he goes. That much is just a fact.

IF (and it's a big IF) the story is actually true about some huge blowup at Allen's house the night before a playoff game then I could understand Diggs being furious. You work all year for that opportunity and in 3 hours it's gone and you start all over again at 0 with OTA's in a couple months. Imagine Coach Kilmer from Varsity Blues in that post game locker room. He would make Diggs look like Mr. Rodgers. Now, things happen and life often doesn't happen at convenient times. And Diggs could probably have handled it better. But I 100% get being furious about that, and I can also understand it being the type of thing that ruins a relationship. After something like that being OK is probably the best case scenario, but nobody is taking photos of piggy back rides for the cover of sports mags after a blowup like that. As much as we like to say we can move on, forget/forgive and all that, there are just certain things that happen between people that you can't come back from. That's of course an individual thing. Diggs seems to be done when he's done and that's it.

I like football in late January and all the way to mid to late February better. Nothing else going on

The Jets are interesting at least. I'm really curious to see Rodgers actually play. Can't figure him out. He obviously pushed himself like crazy to rehab that Achilles, and seemed intent on proving something. But then he misses mandatory camp because he always wanted to visit Egypt? I'm pretty sure he could have made that happen whenever he wanted. It's been a long time since a Jets game was interesting so I'm all for a little chaos.

If I was living outside of WNY I would do it for sure, but Red Zone is much better to watch to me, anyway, if there isn't a Bills game on. Even then, the minute a commercial hits I switch over until the game is back. I'm so happy for the people who want the ticket that the NFL has finally woken up and joined the 21st century. Now anyone who wants it can just buy it, which is the way every other league has been. No more asking your landlord for permission, installing dishes (if you even can), not being able to but having Direct TV say according to them you CAN, etc. etc. Getting it off of a satellite company is enormously beneficial for fans.

one type of defense slows down elite passers: physical on all 3 levels and with DL who can get to the QB. That is really, really hard and quickly becomes expensive to assemble. A great team usually has a top QB and some offensive weapons, who make such a defense even harder to assemble or keep together.

It's been said earlier in the thread, but football is a game of matchups, maybe more than any other major sport. You can be great yet struggle with an average team because of the way that team plays the game. It's part of what makes NFL football great, IMO. The Dolphins take moonshots to track starts and when it works it looks like a video game. Totally unstoppable. The Ravens can run it 57 times a game , including with their superstar QB who can make a huge play on any down. Coupled with a vicious D. 49ers have the Shanahan system, which works amazingly well until Super Bowls. Lions are a gritty, fun team that will score 40 points and hope it's enough. That's an oversimplification but it's why we love this game! McDermott has a system that works, and it does work against KC. We're just evenly matched with them and it could go either way each time. Plus they have the uncrowned (for now) GOAT in Andy Reid.

I think so too... It could be that they win some games with 13-9 or 14-6 type scores until Rodgers gets up to speed. I wouldn't underestimate the impact of optimism and hope on that team either. Last year their season basically ended 4 plays into week 1 and they still battled and gutted out 7 wins, including that game. If the D starts to see Rodgers look like Rodgers and starts to believe that they can do some damage then it will get very interesting.

This just goes to show how much of this game is mental. Mechanics, timing, focus, confidence. Everyone has the physical skills.

Jets are no joke. As someone mentioned above, they won 7 games without a QB last year, and still had an outside shot at the playoffs until very late in the season. Jets are probably the non-Bills team I'm most interested in seeing early in the year. Bears are the other. I could see the Jets starting off not looking great on offense as Rodgers knocks the rust off, but picking up steam later in the season. I think Saleh is a better coach than people give him credit for. His team has been a tough out for a couple years now without anything on offense. If their offense becomes top 10 then it is only going to help the D. In that case I think they make the Divisional round in the AFC, at a minimum. Rodgers on his game, a strong running game, fierce defense, that is a recipe for a very tough out in January. Biggest question mark there is Rodgers.

I keep seeing criticism that the renderings look "dark" Fancy places are dimly lit for some reason. I remember eating at a now closed "fancy" steakhouse locally and it was so dark in there that I thought about breaking out my camping headlamp to see to eat. Now THAT'S FANCY! Commas on the menu instead of decimal points are a real bonus. Hopefully they have that in the new stadium. I would settle for just a plain number too (like Popcorn 20 Pretzel 22), but that's not as fancy.

After spending 2 decades rooting against him, I am shocked to find that I actually enjoy listening to Brady discuss football. I think he'll actually be great as a broadcaster. He has this friendly but edgy persona that makes him interesting. Hopefully he keeps that in the booth. I also like Peyton for the same reasons. They have a lot in common in terms of how they discuss players and games, they just go about it in their own ways. It's fun for fans to see these guys still involved with the game too. My Top 5 (based on 2024, not past performances necessarily): Mahomes Allen Jackson Stroud Burrow Honorable mentions: Tua, Stafford, Goff I'm not sold on Jordan Love yet. I saw him look pretty mediocre to bad last season before he caught fire. Stroud, on the other hand, just came out looking great and only got better, and he was a rookie. That's why I put him in there and not Love. Tua puts up insane numbers in that offense. Gotta give him credit. Stafford and Goff are both tough and both gamers who rise to the occasion in big games. Herbert just doesn't impress me. Not saying he's awful but he's just never struck me as a great QB. So inconsistent and also injury prone.

I get what you're saying but this is the type of year when a contender finally wins it all. Many of the last Super Bowl winners were not exactly expected going into the year. It's not like it was a total shock, but there were serious questions about them. All that matters is being in the game. Whether that's the AFC Title Game or the Super Bowl, because you never know. You could dress last year's Browns and stick them vs the 49ers in the Super Bowl and they would have a 50/50 shot at winning. But you can't win if you're not in the game.

I will say this.. McDermott and his staff have been able to find good LBers and DBs almost every year to add to the mix.

Most of the time you win a Super Bowl when it's not expected. Look at both Giants SB wins with Eli. They weren't powerhouse teams all year long. Yet they slayed the dragon at the end of each of those seasons.

Preseason is an opportunity for young guys to step up and make some noise! Young guy steps up and makes some noise. Yeah, but it's preseason...

If making plays all over the field against the other teams 1s doesn't matter because it's preseason then there's literally no point to playing the games. Yeah, he's doing a great job especially for a young guy at playing football but that doesn't matter when we're evaluating football players? In no other field is this a thing. Sure you just led the entire kitchen, put out incredible food for a 400 person wedding, and everyone said it was beyond their expectations. That's all well and good. However, we're not sure you have what it takes to make it in this business. That sounds crazy to me just like saying a guy having a great game as a football player doesn't mean he can play football.

I've always been a huge fan of radio... the theatre of the mind. I drive a lot, so I listen to a lot of radio, and a lot of types of radio. WGR misses Howard. He was a true pro, and good at what he did. To be great on the radio takes a truly rare and special skill. You have to be interesting, fluent, connect with the audience, have a certain "persona" if you will that is genuine and people gravitate to for whatever reason. And have a voice for it. Elocution matters when it's your only tool to communicate with the audience. This is sorely missing from so many shows nowadays. As a music fan I remember when it dawned on me years ago the value of a great DJ on the radio. They all play from the same library of music on a given station, and they don't talk a whole lot compared to talk radio. But there is absolutely a real difference when a truly great DJ is on the air. The flow of the songs, the little bits in between... the voice, the persona... the little details matter. And that's just music stations. I think back to my days decades ago delivering pizzas at night, driving through the farm fields and hills of Northern NY listening to Art Bell talk about ghosts, UFOs and EVPs as I'm cruising by myself down some country road on a dark September night and I still get chills. Radio when done well is awesome. All that to say, WGR is often not radio done well. It's so bad, especially morning and midday. The morning show is young guys and Jeremy desperately talking over each other for airtime, interrupting each other constantly. It's annoying. Maybe I'm just old and cranky but listening to that spikes my blood pressure. I genuinely feel for the hockey show guys. I mean, what is there to even do at this time of the year? It's God awful radio. Afternoon guys are ok at times, especially once the season starts.