NFL Playoff Hunt

[hurtinbuckaroo]

So, Chandler Jones shows up at the local police station half-dressed and disoriented, and is taken to the hospital. Dispatch radio transcripts make reference to finding some kind of narcotic at his home.

Foxborough police chief later denies his dept had any contact with Jones, and the dispatch transcripts are edited to remove reference to the narcotics.

The Long Arm of Belichick strikes again.

*sigh*

I remember when the Patriots weren't killers and drug addicts. Odd timing as Belichick has a black eye now.

That will teach him not to Bogart.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

Foxborough police chief is also Head of Stadium Security for the Patriots. They're all just one big happy family.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Arizona won via the still really stupid OT rules. Denver wins because Pittsburgh liked giving them the ball. Carolina wins because of a great first half. Patriots win decisively. So of the four teams left, still a little bit hard to tell, other than the Patriots looked much better with a healthy offense. They hardly threw the ball against one of the better defenses and were able to give Brady protection which when he has protection, he is very hard to beat.

Patriots in the Super Bowl (hard to go with Manning in a game against Brady, it can happen, but the history isn't quite too good). Arizona seems pretty solid. Hard to tell with Carolina. Their stats don't blow you out of the water with the win against Seattle.

 

[Terrell]

NCAA does have the best OT rules IMO. Each team gets the same number of possessions barring a defensive score. Starting with third OT teams must go for 2 after all touchdowns. Winner decided when one team fails to match the other team in any round. NCAA starts each possession at the 25, perhaps NFL could do it at the 35. 52 yard field goal try if the offense fails to gain any yardage.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What is wrong with a 15 minutes overtime. Just go 15 minutes.

 

[ronburgundy]

I agree. In fact, he shifts his shoulders to ensure head contact. He clearly hit wit intent to harm, and should have been flagged and ejected by today's rules and that's a good thing. I'm just saying players used to get away with that, and the NFL sold videos of clips of nothing but players doing that and not getting flagged for it.

Care to share some clips?

So, you deny that receivers were ever hit in the head 20 years ago? Or do deny that the rules have been changed to make such hits illegal? If you don't know that both of those are facts, then you are approaching your sports like you do your politics.

How about a clip supporting your claim that Burficts hits was "a few seconds after" the ball had passed brown. A claim that every clip of the hit on the internet shows is absurdly false.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I'm glad that there'll be another Brady/Manning playoff game. I'd like to see Manning win another Super Bowl ring before he retires and it wouldn't be right if he didn't go through Brady to do it. If nothing else, it would stop his little brother from constantly calling him up in the middle of the night to start laughing.

 

[ronburgundy]

What is wrong with a 15 minutes overtime. Just go 15 minutes.

A timed OT is a bad idea. First, it means forcing players to go longer than needed, even when one scores more than the other after both getting a chance. Second, it means you can still end in a tie even though one team scores right away but the other fails on multiple attempts, then manages to score right at the end of the 15 minutes.
Players are exhausted and injuries more likely in OT. They don't want it going any longer than needed to untie the score, but don't want a coin flip having too much influence either. So, something close to current rules make sense, maybe with just getting rid of the "unless the first score is a touchdown" caveat, or adding a "if the first score is a touchdown with a successful 2 point conversion". With the latter, it would mean teams would have to decide whether to gamble on going for 2 to end the game, but if they miss then the other team only needs a TD and 1 pt PAT to win it.

NCAA does have the best OT rules IMO. Each team gets the same number of possessions barring a defensive score. Starting with third OT teams must go for 2 after all touchdowns. Winner decided when one team fails to match the other team in any round. NCAA starts each possession at the 25, perhaps NFL could do it at the 35. 52 yard field goal try if the offense fails to gain any yardage.

Disagree. NCAA stinks. Kickoff and punting special teams are a huge determining factor in regulation, then suddenly they are not allow to factor at all in OT. Plus, no offense is needed to get into field goal range, and a difference in nothing but the leg of the kicker (including whether 1 kicker got hurt during the game) and completely determine the outcome. 1 or 2 plays are what determine most NCAA OT games. In NFL, a sustained drive is usually required and its determined more by the same multiple factors that determine the score in regulation. Rarely is it a single big play that leads to a TD on the first possession.

Current NFL is better than NCAA, but would be even better with either of the changes I mentioned to Jimmy.

 

[ronburgundy]

I'm glad that there'll be another Brady/Manning playoff game. I'd like to see Manning win another Super Bowl ring before he retires and it wouldn't be right if he didn't go through Brady to do it. If nothing else, it would stop his little brother from constantly calling him up in the middle of the night to start laughing.

Part of me is glad for that too, even though I was rooting for Steelers and think they would have won without that fumble.
Given how weak the Broncos offense was, including Manning himself, I bet they loose by 10+ next week, as will the Cardinals, which is sad because Bruce Arians is awesome and Fitzgerald deserves another shot at a ring). A Pats v Panthers showdown should be a good one.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Care to share some clips?

So, you deny that receivers were ever hit in the head 20 years ago? Or do deny that the rules have been changed to make such hits illegal? If you don't know that both of those are facts, then you are approaching your sports like you do your politics.

So the answer is no then?

 

[ronburgundy]

So, you deny that receivers were ever hit in the head 20 years ago? Or do deny that the rules have been changed to make such hits illegal? If you don't know that both of those are facts, then you are approaching your sports like you do your politics.

So the answer is no then?

Tell me what fact you are denying and need a clip of. That will reveal whether your request is just a dishonest red herring not worth the effort or just a request by someone sincerely ignorant of the most basic facts of the sport.

The very fact that the NFL always has and still does make money off of the then legal head hunting hits that pervaded the NFL makes finding legally free clips of such historical hits very difficult. But no one minimally knowledgeable of the NFL prior to 10 years ago would request such clips because they saw them constantly in the past. So, your attempt to interpret lack of clips so far produced as evidence of absence of such hits has the same rhetorical status as that of the creationist who interprets lack of fossils for all transitional species as evidence that they did not exist.

In contrast, clips of the Burfict hit are everywhere, and yet you cannot present one that supports your claim that it was "a few seconds" after Brown missed the ball.

IOW, your argumentation about sports is identical to your argumentation about major political issues.

 

[Terrell]

NCAA does have the best OT rules IMO. Each team gets the same number of possessions barring a defensive score. Starting with third OT teams must go for 2 after all touchdowns. Winner decided when one team fails to match the other team in any round. NCAA starts each possession at the 25, perhaps NFL could do it at the 35. 52 yard field goal try if the offense fails to gain any yardage.

Disagree. NCAA stinks. Kickoff and punting special teams are a huge determining factor in regulation, then suddenly they are not allow to factor at all in OT. Plus, no offense is needed to get into field goal range, and a difference in nothing but the leg of the kicker (including whether 1 kicker got hurt during the game) and completely determine the outcome. 1 or 2 plays are what determine most NCAA OT games. In NFL, a sustained drive is usually required and its determined more by the same multiple factors that determine the score in regulation. Rarely is it a single big play that leads to a TD on the first possession.

Current NFL is better than NCAA, but would be even better with either of the changes I mentioned to Jimmy.

If you want special teams more involved, then perhaps a hybrid NFL and NCAA rules. Both teams get the same number of possessions, but instead of starting at the 25 or 35 yard line of the defense, kickoff after each score like they normally would, which barring a kickoff return for a touchdown, the teams would have to sustain drives. Would work something like this:

If either team scores on defense at any time the game is over and the team that scored on defense wins.

Whichever team wins the toss gets the same options they got at the beginning of the game except to defer.

Say Team A wins the toss and elects to receive, Team B kicks off to Team A. If Team A's possession fails to score then Team B can win with any score on it's next possession. If neither team scores, or both teams score the same amount of points on their possessions the game continues, with each team getting one more possession. If one team scored more than the other the game is over. Each team in such a situation would have had 1 possession.

Starting with the third possession for each team you have to go for 2 after a touchdown. Team A scores a TD but fails to get the 2 point conversion, team B still has to go for two.

With that hybrid, then special teams and field position matter, but each team gets the same number of possession, unless there's a defensive score.

Edit: you'd have to disallow the onside kick in overtime, not sure how best to write the rule for it, but a fumble or a muff, recovered by the kicking team, should count as a turnover.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So the answer is no then?

Tell me what fact you are denying and need a clip of.

Probably the clip showing that a hit that late wouldn't have been penalized in 1996.

That will reveal whether your request is just a dishonest red herring not worth the effort or just a request by someone sincerely ignorant of the most basic facts of the sport.

Wow, you are going all in on this aren't you?

The very fact that the NFL always has and still does make money off of the then legal head hunting hits that pervaded the NFL makes finding legally free clips of such historical hits very difficult.

OK, lets go the rule book then?

1995

Defensive players are prohibited from launching into a defenseless player in a way that causes the defensive player's helmet or facemask to forcibly strike the defenseless player's head, neck, or face, even if the initial contact of the defender's helmet or facemask is lower than the defenseless player's neck.

link
Does that count? Or am I supposed to go off of your memory from 20 years ago. *insert character attack*.

 

[TSwizzle]

What is wrong with a 15 minutes overtime. Just go 15 minutes.

I think it's ridiculous that the other team (potentially) does not get an opportunity to score. Of course, being a Packers fan, I am a wee bit biased.

 

[ronburgundy]

Tell me what fact you are denying and need a clip of.

Probably the clip showing that a hit that late wouldn't have been penalized in 1996.

By "that late", do you mean your absurdly false "a few seconds" (which you have yet to support or admit was wrong) or the approximate 0.5 seconds that Burfict hit Brown after the ball had passed from Browns reach?
Keep in mind that Burfict also did NOT use his own helmet, but rather used his shoulder to hit Brown in the head. So, what you are claiming is that in 1996, any player who clipped a receiver's head with their shoulder within in a second of the catch (or missed catch) would be flagged?

The very fact that the NFL always has and still does make money off of the then legal head hunting hits that pervaded the NFL makes finding legally free clips of such historical hits very difficult.

OK, lets go the rule book then?

1995

Defensive players are prohibited from launching into a defenseless player in a way that causes the defensive player's helmet or facemask to forcibly strike the defenseless player's head, neck, or face, even if the initial contact of the defender's helmet or facemask is lower than the defenseless player's neck.

link[/UR
Does that count? Or am I supposed to go off of your memory from 20 years ago. *insert character attack*.

Great. That shows that you are wrong and I am right. Burfict's helmet did NOT strike Brown. Burfict used his shoulder to hit Brown and thus his hit did not violate the "defienselss player rule" in 1996.


That is why in 2009, the NFL changed the rule so that hits like Burfict's could be penalized.

It is an illegal hit on a defenseless receiver if the initial force of the contact by the defender's helmet, forearm, or shoulder is to the head or neck area of the receiver. Penalty: 15 yards.

Even then, hits like Burfict's were going without penalties because refs interpreted it as meaning at the moment of the catch, so the NFL changed it again in 2011 to specify that such hits were illegal until well after the catch when the receiver was a runner and had time to defend themself.

A receiver who has completed a catch is a "defenseless player" until he has had time to protect himself or has clearly become a runner. A receiver/runner is no longer defenseless if he is able to avoid or ward off the impending contact of an opponent.

But still, it was not called as often as today, so every year since 2011, it has been a explicit (point of emphasis) where the NFL has asked refs to call it more frequently.
Only then did such hits start getting called consistently, and many player and coaches from a couple decades ago bemoaned it, precisely because it was not played that way in prior decades.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

What is wrong with a 15 minutes overtime. Just go 15 minutes.

I think it's ridiculous that the other team (potentially) does not get an opportunity to score. Of course, being a Packers fan, I am a wee bit biased.

I don't like that part of the rule either. It makes absolutely no sense. It seems like a concession to a couple of hardcore traditionalists who wouldn't give in unless they got something. What's so hard about, "Each team is guaranteed at least one possession in overtime"?

 

[Colonel Sanders]

#1: Go Cards
#2: Go Panthers

I hate Denver and New England so I'm rooting for the NFC team to win the Superbowl.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

All of Tom Sawyers needless potshots against Brady about choking in the past in situations he didn't actually choke... and in a game where Brady hands the opponents seven points... not a word. Pity.

 

[Tars Tarkus]

Well my beloved Cardinals bit the dust in a hard way. Please, one Super Bowl win before I die!

 

[Tom Sawyer]

All of Tom Sawyers needless potshots against Brady about choking in the past in situations he didn't actually choke... and in a game where Brady hands the opponents seven points... not a word. Pity.

Well, that wasn't Brady's fault. It was his offensive line that collapsed and forced him to spend the game throwing before he was ready and that's what leads to these errors. In the final drive where he needed to nut up and make things happen, he got two fourth down conversions and threw a touchdown. If not for Gostkowski’s missed extra point early in the game (seriously, how difficult is it to to make the kick 524 times in a row? Ending a streak at 523 times is for pussies), that would have tied the game and put it into overtime. Brady did not choke in this game.

If the Pats had won, he'd have choked in the next game, to be sure, because it's the Super Bowl but he did his job in this one.