DCOrange

He's been ESPN's main NFL writer for like a decade now.

I think there are decent cases to be made for Josh, Oliver, Douglas, Bernard, and Taron. Josh might be the only one I'd actually give it to this season though, and even that might depend on how Week 18 goes. I think Oliver, Bernard, and Douglas are close but not quite in the real discussion. Taron is definitely in the discussion but we'll see.

Aaron Donald has to be ahead of Oliver too. Feels like Oliver's at best #4 and I don't think it's likely the league views him THAT highly.

Interesting. I feel like that's been the most impressive part of his game so far this season and (granted the number is low) he's among the league leaders in broken tackles for tight ends. I feel like nobody on this team transitions into being a runner after the catch quicker than he does, sometimes to a fault.

#68 is the only one who reported. #58 and #70 were just a distraction to try to confuse the defense. The latter two never actually said anything to the ref, but #70 had been reporting throughout the game so the ref just assumed he was going to report again. Was a great design by the Lions and they even warned the ref in advance that they were going to do it to avoid this exact situation but the ref just couldn't help himself from messing up.

#70 is the only one that the ref reported as eligible and he's also the only one that didn't have a chance to talk to the ref in order to report lol

The stadium announced #70 as eligible. Most likely, nobody on the field heard the announcement because it was very loud and they were all focused on listening to Goff since they were in the huddle at the time. Detroit also had no timeouts to stop the game and having Decker go over and correct the officials would have likely caused a delay of game or completely given the play away to Dallas at that point. The whole point of the play was to get Dallas assuming #70 was the one reporting as eligible just long enough to sneak #68 into the end zone for the play.

I don’t think that’s a reasonable assumption at all. One player reported as eligible and the ref acknowledged him. They all did their job perfectly and then turned around and started listening to their QB who was talking as the stadium announced it. Players are too busy and too focused to have to listen to a stadium announcement too, especially when they safely assume they already know what the stadium is announcing.

They probably never heard it in the first place given the fact that it was loud and they were focusing on running the play. But even if they did hear the announcement, how do you want them to correct it without (1) taking long enough to get a delay of game and (2) without being like “Hey guys, it’s me, #68, I’m the one that’s supposed to sneak into the end zone and catch the game winner” without making it blatantly obvious to the defense at that point? They would have wanted to run an entirely different play instead.

No. The WR in his left (Reynolds) was off the line so Decker was properly uncovered. It was a legal formation, just unbalanced OLine.

Definitely agreed with that. It’s not the refs job to remember something that was mentioned to him nearly 4 hours earlier. Having said that, it looks like Decker is telling the ref he’s reporting while Skipper is innocently running in his direction not saying anything at all. THAT is definitely on the refs to get right regardless of Campbell’s warning.

The Schwartz brothers (former OL guys) were tweeting about this after the game. Basically said offenses do this because between the adrenaline and the crowd noise, players can’t hear/willfully don’t listen to who they’re announcing as eligible so if you’re slick about it, you can trick them. They should be able to tell based off the formation anyways but Detroit motioned Sewell over to the line late in the pre-snap to cause confusion on that front too.

It sounds like 70 ran over to the ref to trick the defense into thinking he was the one reporting, but Campbell had warned the ref in advance that it would be 68 actually reporting and you can see 68 is the one actually speaking to the ref.

You’re not interpreting the article correctly. If Decker was covered by a WR, it would have made him an ineligible WR. He wasn’t covered though, so if he reported as the replay seems to indicate, he would have been an eligible receiver and no illegal formation would have occurred.

The ref commentator dude was saying because Decker did NOT report as eligible, there were a bunch of different penalties; the fact that he was ineligible and uncovered = penalty, the fact that he was ineligible and downfield = penalty, and the fact that he was ineligible and caught the ball = penalty. But if he reported as eligible, which the replay made it look like he did, all of that is washed away. He was legally lined up as a tight end and the refs just screwed up (again, IF he reported as eligible which it looks like he did on replay but you don't really know unless you heard what he said on the field).

Unfortunately, it looks like he did in fact report in and the ref's got the number wrong lol.

Denver really screwed up with the Wilson and Payton moves. Convinced themselves that this roster was close to contending when it simply isn’t a good roster and then went all in on two guys that aren’t particularly good at their jobs anymore. It’s not that Wilson is the worst QB in the league or anything but they’re getting bottom 5-10 starter play from a guy that’s getting top 5 QB money. You just can’t build a winner that way. Might as well strip this team down to the studs and start completely over IMO.

Think it’s fairly simple. 1. Sure, the young QBs are young. But their teams have likely decided they’ve seen enough and don’t believe they’re the answer. 2. They want to evaluate the other players and think more competent QB play will help make that easier. 3. Coaches and players want to win and therefore want the better players to play. Might be a little more controversial to give up on Howell, but he’s looked very bad for a month or so now and Washington is in position to get a highly coveted rookie QB if they want. They could also pursue Fields or Wilson in the offseason. Hell, they could just want to sit him down and let him regroup mentally after his recent struggles (but realistically, they probably try to replace him this offseason).

Reality of the situation is nobody has really had an MVP season. Voters have to decide between a lot of underwhelming candidates, which is the only reason a RB and WR are even garnering consideration.

He was literally #2 in betting odds going into the week. Purdy was a heavy favorite, but going into the week, Vegas had it as Purdy, Lamar, Dak, Allen, and CMC in that order. He was #3 the week prior as well.

This kinda put into perspective how relatively good he is compared to most WR2s for me. I think I'd probably only take 10 of the other WR2s you listed over Davis. At any rate, we need to start cutting costs somewhere and this might be one of the places that we unfortunately do. If we can bring him back on a bargain contract, I'd gladly take him (and while I think he COULD get a big contract, I think there's also serious risk that a lot of free agent WRs, himself included, end up stuck with a disappointing contract due to how strong the draft is and how many good free agent WRs there will likely be this offseason). I want to go WR in Round 1 or 2 if at all possible in the draft and hopefully give us another option, but having Gabe as a cheap #3 would be nice.

Think that’s probably the same order for me.

I would rather play KC personally. They just aren’t good this season. We arguably aren’t either but Baltimore is in the extremely short conversation of good teams this year IMO.

That was maybe the most confused I’ve ever been by a catch decision. The ball hit the ground and then rotated into his body because he did not have possession.

The main things I've discovered in my wings journey is I prefer wings to be smoked and prefer either a buffalo sauce or various dry rubs. I also tend to prefer dunking wings in a side of sauce rather than the restaurant drowning them.