Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

The willow is too close to the house.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

After roe, women are no longer free.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Let there be snark.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

You are here: Home / Sports / NFL Open Thread

NFL Open Thread

by | 69 Comments

This post is in: 

It sickens me to say this, but Brady’s performance tonight has been the greatest QB performance I remember in recent history.
Also too, Pass DEFENSE, WTF IS THAT?

Sorry for the lack of posts but I was swamped all day and now struggling to get a new laptop up to speed.

Reader Interactions

69Comments

  5. 5.

    Three-nineteen

    Can you have the greatest QB performance ever if it’s against defense ranked what, 25th?

    Disclaimer: I didn’t watch the game. This is more of a philosophical question.

  6. 6.

    clayton

    struggling to get a new laptop

    You know most of us aren’t so lucky as to live our fruitful lives on disability checks.

  9. 9.

    Bostondreams

    I will be the first to admit it: I love Tom Brady. BUT he has almost always dominated the Phins in Miami, and their defense just really stinks.

    And hate that he is in the game. Great for my fantasy team, horrible for my nerves.

  10. 10.

    Calliope Jane

    Brady is nuts tonight — most passing yards in 15 years? Crazy. And I thought that when he threw the interception, we’d have a different game. Apparently that just pissed him off. Sheesh.

  12. 12.

    victory

    Seems all teams are passing 40+ times these days.

    Will RBs become obsolete and replaced by a 6th lineman or 3rd or 4th TE?

  13. 13.

    butler

    Eh, I’d take Rodgers Super Bowl performance over tonight. The numbers weren’t as great but he did it against a top defense. Miami was way outclassed tonight.

  14. 14.

    Svensker

    Brady has a pact with the devil, but the Miami D coulda made Ben look good.

    Ba dum dum.

    I hate the Pats.

    Chad Henne deserves a better offensive coordinator. The kid’s pretty good.

  16. 16.

    butler

    Seems all teams are passing 40+ times these days.

    Will RBs become obsolete and replaced by a 6th lineman or 3rd or 4th TE?

    RBs are usually the best athletes on the field. You adjust your game to get them the ball a different way, you don’t just cast them aside.

  19. 19.

    Calliope Jane

    @Bostondreams: Heh, that’s true — oh, and another tipped interception. Weird :)

    I was hoping that Miami could make a game of it but, well, it’s Miami. And the Miami D :) Comforting to know some things just don’t change!

  22. 22.

    some guy

    welker going for 99 yards was the icing on the aaron hernandez cake.

    it pleases me to no end to see Brady find a Gator receiver who fits his groove

  23. 23.

    LT

    I could only watch the little green field image online, but gads, it must have been something to see. When they stopped them on the 1 yard line, you could almost see Brady leaning over the line, going, “Do you like apples?” And…BAM. 99-yard TD the other way. Just fucking ow.

    And then Henne pops over 400. Just crazy.

    P.S. Bills 41, other team 7. Hellyah.

  24. 24.

    SmallAxe

    Bienvenidos A Miami Baby, take that Will Smith in the party suite, what a performance. That one to Welker for 99.5 was simply gorgeous and takes balls to call as a coach on first down from the half yard line.

  26. 26.

    The Dangerman

    517 yards? That’s terrible; his receivers are going to cramp up something terrible. Now, McNabb’s 39 yards is far more cramp resistant.

  27. 27.

    LT

    @some guy: Oh yeah that’s right. 31 yard TD to Hernandez…called back. Brady: fine. 30 yard pass to Hernandez, then 1 yard pass to Hernandez. What team let’s that happen?

  29. 29.

    devilham

    Brady looked great tonight, and Welker is freaking awesome…sorry haters, but I have been a Pats fan since the 70’s (when I became sentient), and am thrilled with the last 10 years!

  32. 32.

    Svensker

    @devilham:

    You should be thrilled. Bellichick is one of the best coaches ever and Brady is one of the best QBs.

    Still hate their guts, though.

    They shredded poor Miami. Was really hoping Cameron Wake would knock Brady on his elite butt a whole buncha times. A big shame it didn’t happen. Well, there’s always food poisoning. A girl can hope.

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    This is too funny, from the Guardian

    9.55pm ET: Oh sweet Jesus, now Wolf Blitzer is asking what changes the candidates would make to the White House. Really.
    Newt says he’d bring ballet and a chess set. Bachmann wins: “I’d bring a copy of the declaration of independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and that’s it.”

    She’d bring a copy of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Gotta love an Oral Roberts-trained legal mind.

  38. 38.

    Corner Stone

    And I love Trent Dilfer. But him doing play by play is bogus.
    His breaking down tape is the freakin balls. That dude kills it.
    But do not let him do it live.

  40. 40.

    Anya

    How can anyone not like the awesomeness that’s Tom Brady. The haters need to admit that they hate him just a little for his all perfect perfectness.

  41. 41.

    General Stuck

    I bought an art illustration program over the weekend, called ArtRage Pro, and have become completely enthralled and cannot quit using it. It is as close to recreating actual painting with a computer program as can be.

  42. 42.

    NobodySpecial

    @Anya:

    How can anyone not like the awesomeness that’s Tom Brady. The haters need to admit that they hate him just a little for his all perfect perfectness.

    I’ll have to review the tape before I can comment on that.

  44. 44.

    Martin

    Brady’s performance tonight has been the greatest QB performance I remember in recent history.

    Oh god. My mom is going to be insufferable. Can one of you guys help me out and call her and let her gloat about her pretty-boy for an hour? I love her dearly, but I just can’t do it.

  45. 45.

    RareSanity

    @victory:

    Seems all teams are passing 40+ times these days.
    __
    Will RBs become obsolete and replaced by a 6th lineman or 3rd or 4th TE?

    The running backs of yester-year are obsolete, the reasons are simple. Interior defensive lineman have gotten too big and linebackers and safeties have gotten too fast.

    RBs can’t outrun LBs and safeties like they used to. Damn near everybody on the field is either 6’5″ 330lbs or runs sub 4.5 forty times. If you can poke a hole in the massive wall of humanity that includes the offensive and defensive lines, you still have to get past the 4.5 running linebacker and the 4.4 running free safety.

    The best hope for sustained offense is to use the passing game to create mismatches on the only normal sized people left on a football field, defensive backs. Then when you do that enough, you gash the defense with the run, just to get them to move closer to the line of scrimmage. Then you start uring them with the pass again.

    Now if someone could only explain this to the “run to set up the pass” coaching staff we have here in Atlanta. We have got to be the only team in the NFL that still thinks that paradigm holds water.

  46. 46.

    RareSanity

    @Three-nineteen:

    What about Rodgers in the Atlanta playoff game?

    Did you see the highlights of the Falcons/Bears game from Sunday? Jay-fucking-Cutler went for 320, 2 TDs and the real slap in the face, no turnovers.

    Apparently it is no great feat to put up gaudy passing numbers against my beloved Falcons.

  48. 48.

    Cacti

    @Anya:

    How can anyone not like the awesomeness that’s Tom Brady

    Easy.

    He was George W. Bush’s guest at a State of the Union Address.

  51. 51.

    SmallAxe

    @RareSanity:
    This

    I was watching the Alabama/PSU game the other day and one of Alabama’s star LB’s is 6’4″ 275lbs as a friggin LB thats old school (90’s D Tackle size see Howie Long etc.). That is huge (LB’s normally are at most 230lbs as I’m sure you know) and that dude runs a 4.5 as you say. Crazy big and crazy fast for that size it is a whole new world out there for sure.

  52. 52.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Comrade Kevin: I did not know that. Now that I think about it, isn’t he a hard-core Catholic? the whole ditching his pregnant girlfriend notwithstanding. I seem to remember reading something about him and his dad getting an audience with JP II

  53. 53.

    SFAW

    How can anyone not like the awesomeness that’s Tom Brady

    By getting off drugs?

    Yeah, he’s a great quarterback, but that doesn’t make him awesomely likeable or likeably awesome.

    Now, if he were to split from Gisele, and she decided that I’m the only one who can help her get over him, I might modify my opinion. (Of course, Mrs. SFAW might feel otherwise. But she can only kill me once. I think.)

  55. 55.

    Anya

    @Comrade Kevin: did not know that. But he said to Steve Croft in an interview that he was registered as an independent. Okay, now he’s dead to me. If it was 2000, I would have forgiving him for falling for his “compassionate conservative” schtick, but this was 2004.

  56. 56.

    RareSanity

    @Comrade Kevin:

    What, the Bill Walsh offense?

    Nope.

    No fullback, 3-5 wide receivers, 2-3 tight ends, just football pandemonium.

    Green Bay personifies the “new” NFL. They would line up with an empty backfield and have five wideouts. The trick is that three of them are tight ends. So you have two TEs on one side and one on the other.

    How do you match up? Before you answer, as The Rock would say…It doesn’t matter how you matchup! You are either going to have a TE on a CB or a WR on a LB…mismatch either way.

    The defense can’t go nickel or dime because there are still 3 TEs on the field. If they go nickel or dime, the TEs get in stance on the line, one of the WRs lines up in the backfield and they run it.

    Bill Walsh is somewhere looking down on people like Mike McCarthy, Andy Reid and Sean Payton and smiling his ass off!

  57. 57.

    Yutsano

    @Martin: And what do we get in return for this noble sacrifice? A good Oregon pinot noir is a good start, though my favorite red is a sangiovese.

  58. 58.

    RareSanity

    @SmallAxe:

    I was watching the Alabama/PSU game the other day and one of Alabama’s star LB’s is 6’4” 275lbs as a friggin LB thats old school (90’s D Tackle size see Howie Long etc.). That is huge (LB’s normally are at most 230lbs as I’m sure you know) and that dude runs a 4.5 as you say. Crazy big and crazy fast for that size it is a whole new world out there for sure.

    All you have to do is watch the fake punt South Carolina ran on Georgia this past Saturday. That was a freaking D lineman busting through the line and juking some powerless DB that (kinda) tried to tackle him. How the hell does 5’8″ 185 tackle 6’2″ 275 running 4.6 at full speed?

    When I came out of high school in the early 90s, I was considered “special” because I was 6’1″ 225 and could run a 4.6 at linebacker. If I came out now, I wouldn’t get a second look by a FBS (Div 1) school.

  59. 59.

    Comrade Kevin

    @Anya: For the most part, I don’t care which party professional athletes support. The only time I really got annoyed about it was back around, oh, 2003 or so, when some reporter decided to ask Steve Nash what he thought of the Iraq war, and he gave his honest answer. The response from the predictable asses were all along the lines of “Shut up, foreigner, you’re lucky we don’t deport you”. Typical response, from David Robinson:

    The time for debate is really beforehand. Obviously history will speak on whether this was the right thing or the wrong thing, but right now (the soldiers) are out there. Support’em. There’s plenty of time for commentary later. If it’s an embarrassment to them, maybe they should be in a different country, because this is America and we’re supposed to proud of the guys we elected and put in office.

  60. 60.

    Anya

    @Comrade Kevin: That’s the attitude Krugman was talking about in his 9/11 column. The country just went nuts and the scoundrels used 9/11 to justify hate and silence anyone who disagreed with their destructive policies.

  63. 63.

    LosGatosCA

    Brady did good. But the one stat that tarnishes the whole thing – Wes Welker out runs the entire Miami defense for a 99 yard TD pass.

    Come on.

  65. 65.

    Cermet

    @RareSanity: The Ravens did a similar thing to the Steelers and scored – it is not easy to defend against when the TE’s (2) and a RB (Rice) are really all good and the WR’s are fast, as well. Still, if it was so great, it would be used far more often … so, not sure what gives. I guess it comes down to the quality of the LB’s vs. the quality of the TE’s and if the RB has good hands.

  66. 66.

    tequila

    Let’s not forget that a bunch of rule changes to protect the QB and free up the passing game have tilted the field towards today’s aerial show in the NFL. It’s a passing league now, because passing is more exciting on television – defense and running won’t win anymore.

  69. 69.

    Mark D

    I know I’m way late, but as I watched that Miami-NE game, the one thought I had over and over again was:

    How in the holy fuck can Miami hang 24 on NE (and it shoulda been more, quite frankly) yet the Chiefs only score 7 against Buffalo?

    Sweet love of all that’s holy, the Chiefs suck — and without Berry, it’ll get much, much worse. As in, they could easily finish 1-15 worse … if that.

    I hope Matt Cassel has a good insurance policy, because he’s gonna get killed by Detroit’s (!) defensive line on Sunday.

    // bangs head on keybaoresdkfsjdfjsdfkjasdfjasdfjere //////

Comments are closed.