I was rooting Saints and thinking they’d just get the 3 and I could go to bed.
Ha! 
The kicker just breathed a big sigh of relief!
I don’t like that touchdown. It’s too quick. I need to kill time.
The kick he missed was 3 yds shorter than an extra point. The hold was fine: he blew it.
I saw a ton of face guarding by DB’s in the games yesterday as well as grabbing on to the receiver on almost every route plus obvious pick plays - one called against NO (?) because the receiver made it so bleeping obvious he wasn’t in a route. One thing I learned watching Revis play for NE last year is that he gets away with arm holds all game. He holds his arm low like he’s just running instead of high where the officials tend to call it. Smart player. As for face guarding, it was legal then illegal and now it’s legal again with the caveat that the receiver has to be able to reach the ball. What I saw is a lot of illegal face guarding not being called. I don’t know how I feel about that; it was the Colts (of course) who made that a point of contention (when Polian was on the competition committee and they enacted the “don’t touch/don’t face guard rules”) and part of me says it leads to whistles deciding games. You may be on the winning side of the whistle but then again not, like when NE was called for interference in the end zone against the Colts (Asante Samuel as I remember) because he was running in front of the receiver thus preventing the receiver from being able to run to the ball. Ticky-tacky call that the league apologized for later - they actually send out letters to players from time to time acknowledging bad calls - but which led directly to NE losing the AFC Championship. So the whistle can help or hurt and sometimes I think it’s better to avoid blowing the whistle unless the foul is clear.
Luck has regressed stat-wise this year - completion percentage, YPA, TD %age, interception %age, and it shows in his QB rating, which is the worst of his career.
However, I believe a lot of this can be blamed on Ryan Grigson, the GM, who has not upgraded the offensive line in order to protect their franchise player (and they are pretty offensive, pun intended). Luck has been running for his life, and it led to his being injured. The Colts’ failure to create a run game (a first round pick for Trent Richardson? That should be a firing offense right there. Or Frank Gore - two lost fumbles inside the red zone so far this year) only add to the pressure on Luck. And spending a first round pick on a receiver, when they already had one of the best receiving corps in the league, when needing so much help on both the o-line and d-line?
There are stories coming out now that Grigson is ordering Pagano who to play, who to start, would not let him pick is own coordinators and coaches, and give the coach no say over who makes the final roster.
So I’m sure Luck is pressing in order to try to get something, anything, going, and this leads to bad decisions. Pagano will be gone after this year. Who would want to be coach under these conditions? Plus the whole slap in the face of his contract situation. Turning over coaches, coordinators, and systems can kill a quarterback. Look at Alex Smith’s early years. Or Kaepernick now.
If I were Luck, I’m not sure I sign a long term deal if Grigson is there. The qb franchise tag for 2016 will be in the $25 mil range and even higher in 2017 when his contract is up. That money is guaranteed, and a second franchised year would be in the $30 mil range. Why do a long term deal?
Grigson is doing a terrible job. But I love that because the Colts don’t deserve respect. And Luck has played badly this year.
Speaking of poor play: I’m watching the winless Detroit Lions versus Seattle. The Seahawks offense sucks. Wilson is getting away with wounded ducks thrown into the middle of the field. The offensive line is less than impressive and on one play - a catch by Luckett I think as Wilson ran around - none of the other receivers, not one made a move to get open and just stood around downfield. I think this is basically Wilson’s fault: he runs around a lot rather than work through progressions so the receivers don’t know what to do and they tend to give up. It’s early in the year but this isn’t trending well for Seattle. Detroit, btw, is hopelessly bad.
It is Wilson’s fault but mostly in that he makes do dang much money now that they can’t afford to pay any veteran O lineman. I guess he’s earning it tonight. Games like this are not good for my blood pressure. Too much time yelling at the TV.
I take it back . . . it’s completely Wilson’s fault
Maybe Seattle shouldn’t have traded their center for a TE who won’t block and has had very little impact this year.
Seattle’s cap woes start big time next year. Assuming a $150 mil cap (up from $143 mil this year) they have only around $23 million of cap space, and have only 31 players under contract. And they have to pay their rookies. Plus Chancellor will be clamoring to redo his deal.
Would not be surprised to see them cut/trade Graham to free up his $9 mil, especially if he keeps contributing the way he has.
Ok will SKS please help me. I was distracted when the Hawks were 3rd and 2. When I refocused on the game, they were just taking two knees. Can someone explain what I missed?
The talking heads are now saying that when the Seahawks’ player batted the ball out of the end zone, a penalty should have been called because it is illegal to do that in the end zone. That would have given the Lions the ball back on the 6 inch line with a first down and 4 tries to punch it in.
The ref was looking right at it, plus it got reviewed since it was a turnover.
Wow. The Lions got royally screwed.
Of course, if the Lions did get the ball back at the 6" line, they’d have probably found some other way to screw it up.
Andrew Luck has been making bad decisions, but you can’t exactly blame it on him, Indy has no offensive line. For years Peyton Manning carried that team, but at least they had a somewhat decent line, the line Indy has right now reminds me of the offensive lines on the NY Jets when Vinnie Testaverde and Boomer Esiason were playing, OSHA should investigate for workplace safety violations. Grigson reminds me a lot of John Idzik, an arrogant delta bravo who smugly thinks he is a genius, when he should be counting paper clips someday. The NFL has this obsession with the paper pushers, didn’t they learn enough from idiots like Idzik and Mike Tennenbaum and this clown, who when it comes to personnel make the wrong decisions? It is like hiring a CPA to run the R and D for a company, you end up with some idiot obsessing about the cost of pencils and paper the engineers are using and is proud he cut his budget, then when the company is dying can’t understand why that is so…how do you have someone like Andrew Luck, who they drafted knowing he was the franchise, then let him get hurt because you have no O line, and is trying to carry the team because the defense is a joke. Pagano shouldn’t be fired (not that I think he is necessarily a great coach), Grigson should be requested to find another job, preferably doing inventory for a Costco or something, he absolutely sucks (and I don’t even like the Colts).
The Jets are proof positive about needing a good QB, the Jets potentially could make the playoffs, but if they don’t it will come down to the QB. Put it this way, Miami to quote Ray Lucas, laid a steaming pile of dung on that field on both sides of the ball, yet the Jets basically made it so Miami was in it until late in the game. If the Jets had a marginally good QB, like Eli Manning, they would probably have won 65-3, but because Fitpatrick at best is servicable, the game stayed in reach. Chris Ivory is an utter beast, I don’t believe him, I realize part of this was Miami’s D is a joke, but wow, he was running Suh over and the others, impressive.
I also enjoyed watching Tannehill get his comeuppance, the guy has an ego the size of Mount Rushmore, no doubt fed by people like Gruden who fawn all over him (he is in the Tebow class of being fawned on, and equally as terrible), I loved watching him get knocked around. I don’t know if anyone saw the story on Twitter, that Tannehill routinely was getting picked off by the scout squad D, and said nasty things to them like “oh, you should enjoy getting your paycheck for being on the scout squad”, or “Enjoy your championship in the scout squad league”, and then whined to the coaching staff, who told the scout squad players to go easy on him (like, WTF? What was next, Philbin asking Revis and other teams secondary to ‘go easy’ on Tannehill, because his feelings were hurt? Now I know why Philbin got fired, if Tannehill pulled that with someone like Belichick or any halfway decent coach, they would laugh at him and tell him to grow a pair. Tannehill has been a tool since the day he got into the league, he thought he was going to be another Tom Brady when in reality, he is just another ego like Mark Sanchez, and plays like it, too. I’ll never forget him in some interview with a reporter, snottily correcting him for saying his last name as “tan-a-hill”, saying “it is Tan-ee-hill”.
As far as Buffalo and the Jets having a lot of penalties, refs are throwing a lot more flags, and a lot of them IMO are questionable. Leaving out the dubious roughing penalties, with secondary and receivers I routinely see holding and interference calls on the D that are really, really questionable, someone briefly grabs a jersey and it is pass interference, meanwhile the ball was 20 yards over the guys head (the penalty against Revis that helped Miami get its first TD was like that, the second one was legit, though). I have seen QB’s scrambling and getting hit, and they call it roughing the passer, I have seen receivers already running, getting it, and calling it hitting a defenseless receiver, it is pretty aweful. I think they have set records for penalties this year, and that is not the kind of records you want to see, I don’t know if this is the NFL trying to pretend they want to 'civilize" the game, or if the refs are just that bad.
If that is true about the missed call in tonight’s game, I’ll be having Fail Mary PTSD flashbacks all night.
Signed, A Packers fan who’s STILL mad.
Unfortunately, the total impact of blown calls like these aren’t known until the playoffs arrive. The year of the Fail Mary, Green Bay ended up as the #3 seed because of the stolen victory when they would’ve been the #1 seed with a bye the first week had the call been made correctly. Seattle’s seeding would’ve remained the same. Whether it would’ve changed the overall results of the playoffs that season is anybody’s guess. It doesn’t excuse the blown call, but at least one can try to rationalize it by the fact that it was replacement referees in that game.
There’s no excuse for the blown call in tonight’s game. Regardless of how infrequently that rule comes into play, those referees are paid an exorbitant amount of money to know the rules (average salary a few years ago was over $170,000…not sure what it is now). Instead of stepping up and just admitting they screwed the pooch on that call, the refs are now trying to claim they discussed it and decided it wasn’t an “overt” bat. Seriously?? Not even the most ardent Seahawks fan could look at that play and say that Wright didn’t intentionally bat the ball out of the end zone. Even Pete Carroll admitted in his post game presser that Wright batted it out of bounds.
Granted, none of the announcers, players, or coaches on either team knew the rule existed but they’re not being paid to know the rules…the refs are. If this “win” for Seattle turns out to effect playoff seeding (or playoff participation period) it’ll truly be a shame for whichever team(s) are impacted. I doubt it will end up changing the Lions fate this year, but it certainly could affect any of the potential NFC playoff contenders.
If they keep playing like they have the first 4 weeks I don’t see that being an issue.
I don’t think the lack of passing to Graham has much to do with him. There were many times that he was wide open for short and midrange passes last night. Wilson looked right at him, it seemed, and didn’t throw. Wilson seems to be not seeing the field well. He ran and didn’t get a first down (looked indecisive on run) when Graham was wide open 15 yards down field looking at him, the made bad choices on QB keeps on the zone read (keeps the ball with a guy in his face). I don’t even know. I wish the O coordinator would just draw up a conventional passing offense even if it’s just based on quick short passes. I see all kinds f other marginal QGs on marginal teams advance the ball for first downs with quick passes. Our rookie center keeps snapping the ball to Wilson’s left which eats time to get it readjusted. I’d love to see him go under center more and neutralize that issue. Basically it’s a mess.
- Wilson preferred to run and/or run around rather than throw the ball. ESPN caught one obvious one: they didn't cover Graham and he was downfield completely open but Wilson chose to run. He seems to think he's the offense, but more importantly I think a limitation is showing up: he's only comfortable reacting so he executes quick plays but if the play takes any longer he needs to improvise so he can react to what's happening. I thought this game boded poorly for Seattle: poor offensive performance and once Detroit realized they should pass the ball, they were able to drive. I don't understand why teams don't follow the NE game plan. I thought Detroit was something out of an old playbook in which you run to set up the pass when the modern game is pass to set up the run.
- It was a batted ball. No excuse for blowing that. And Johnson should have had the ball tucked under him going into contact. There's this strange goal line mentality that you absolutely must score - as though there isn't a next play - and so the guys leave the ball exposed so they can reach it forward. We've already seen over a half dozen near fumbles and fumbles at the goal line because these dopes aren't protecting the ball.
Count me among the folks who believe that the Graham trade was a mistake.
Wilson didn’t look like a 100 million dollar man last night, no in any game this season. Might have been a better bet (calculated risk) to have low-balled Wilson on the new contract and used the money for additional needs. I don’t think Wilson would have gotten the same money elsewhere. He’s a great fit for the present Seahawks offensive scheme but I do not believe that he would necessarily fit well with other teams in search of a passer. It’s a hard line but that’s life in the NFL.
I was very interested and surprised to learn from Gruden last night that Seattle has the highest number of un-drafted free agents in the NFL. Wow. I already knew that they had several low draft picks on the squad who have made a big impact, Wilson and Sherman being two of the most obvious. I like the way this team is run; very lean and efficient organization. Remember, a journeyman QB got them into the second round of the playoffs in Carroll’s first season.
Oh, also found the Seahawks’ philosophy of converting star college defensive players into pro offensive linemen fascinating. Loved Gruden’s comment; “the Seahawks think that the colleges are doing a poor job of turning out offensive linemen.”