Board 8 > NFL week 4 discussion

(+) Yeah! (+)

Jonathan Taylor ruled out for Thursday

MrSmartGuy posted...

So with this, I'm really confident in the top 3 teams being the Bills, Chiefs, and Eagles in some order.

......... who the fuck is #4?

The Ravens have trailed for a total of 14 seconds this season. So they are either going to be a terror or utterly collapse. There is no middle ground.

it's like when the Packers beat the Lions twice in one season despite leading for 0 seconds in those two games

no better company to have than the Lions

FFDragon posted...

The Ravens have trailed for a total of 14 seconds this season. So they are either going to be a terror or utterly collapse. There is no middle ground.

The Ravens became the second team ever to blow two games in the manner they did in just the first four weeks of a season.

The Ravens have some potentially fatal flaws and we've already seen them on display.

Power Rankings are really difficult this year. You could easily make an argument for many teams.

My current power rankings:

#1. Philadelphia Eagles
#2. Buffalo Bills
#3. Kansas City Chiefs
#4. Miami Dolphins
#5. Baltimore Ravens
#6. Green Bay Packers
#7. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
#8. Cincinnati Bengals
#9. San Francisco 49ers
#10. Los Angeles Rams
#11. Dallas Cowboys
#12. Jacksonville Jaguars
#13. Minnesota Vikings
#14. Los Angeles Chargers
#15. Arizona Cardinals
#16. Denver Broncos
#17. New York Giants
#18. Tennessee Titans
#19. New England Patriots
#20. New Orleans Saints
#21. Atlanta Falcons
#22. New York Jets
#23. Pittsburgh Steelers
#24. Cleveland Browns
#25. Seattle Seahawks
#26. Detroit Lions
#27. Chicago Bears
#28. Las Vegas Raiders
#29. Washington Commanders
#30. Indianapolis Colts
#31. Carolina Panthers
#32. Houston Texans

Some of those I could be argued down/up.

There are not 27 better teams than the Raiders. Let alone the god-awful Bears. Your top 15 looks just like mine, though I'd bump the Vikings up over the Cowboys. But my bottom 17 would look like this:

#16. Las Vegas Raiders
#17. Tennessee Titans
#18. Detroit Lions
#19. Denver Broncos
#20. New Orleans Saints
#21. New England Patriots
#22. New York Giants
#23. Atlanta Falcons
#24. Cleveland Browns
#25. Seattle Seahawks
#26. New York Jets
#27. Pittsburgh Steelers
#28. Indianapolis Colts
#29. Washington Commanders
#30. Chicago Bears
#31. Carolina Panthers
#32. Houston Texans

Raiders have to beat a non-divisional opponent before I give them much credit. They would move up if they play well against the Chiefs.Might have them a little low, but they were the only team that was completely winless last week.

I still would've had them at like #24 last week.

I'd probably have them at #24 this week, but their coach is still Josh McDaniels, who I have zero confidence in.

Excuse you, show some respect for the Titans beating the Raiders

Miami at #4 and I'm not remotely convinced they beat the Jets this week.

The Bears have a historically bad offense and their defense isnt even good. And somehow Id have them at 30 too just because of how pathetic the panthers and Texans are.

Crescent-Moon posted...

Miami at #4 and I'm not remotely convinced they beat the Jets this week.

yeah you've made it clear that you think Miami beating two of the best teams in the league in improbable manner means they're not actually good

(they could lose to the Jets because Teddy has a noodle arm that can't take advantage of Waddle and Hill, and also because the Jets might secretly not be terrible)

also the Bears are like the Tebow Broncos if all Tebow did was not win

has Fields even completed 10 passes in a game this season

actually I guess I should do my quarter season (sort of, curse you 17 games) projections

AFC East

1. Bills
2. Dolphins
3. Jets
4. Patriots

Am I just trolling? Maybe...! Seriously though, the Bills are still the best team in this division. The Dolphins will be fine with Teddy until whenever Tua gets back. The Jets might be...average? The Patriots might be...below average? Actually, the Patriots have some decent players on defense. I just don't trust their offense.

AFC North

1. Ravens
2. Bengals
3. Browns
4. Steelers

The Ravens SHOULD be the best team in this division, but they've put some up head-scratching performances where the offense does nothing for long stretches and the defense is a big-play liability. The Bengals have the potential to be good, but they're still hard to trust. The Browns with Brissett are better than I thought, and hoo boy, the Steelers are way worse than I thought.

AFC South

1. Titans
2. Jaguars
3. Colts
4. Texans

Gotta roll with the Titans out of fanboyism, but like I said, you should've bet on the Jags to win this division if you're a betting type. I said before the season that they'd be sneaky not terrible, but they're actually sneaky good (or maybe not sneaky now). The Colts under Matt Ryan are the same as the Falcons under Matt Ryan. The offense is completely unreliable while Matty Ice compiles meaningless stats. The Texans at least have an awesome running back, but that's about it.

AFC West

1. Chiefs
2. Chargers
3. Broncos
4. Raiders

So this may not be the best division of all-time, after all. My opinions here haven't really changed. The Chiefs are still one of the best. The Chargers are still wildly overrated. Russ is playing like the last season and a half is the new norm, not a fluke or the result of injury. The Raiders are not for real.

NFC East

1. Eagles
2. Cowboys
3. Giants
4. Commanders

I knew the Eagles were talented, but if Hurts can keep playing like this, they're the best team in the NFC. The Dallas defense is the most pleasant surprise I've had with this team in a while. The Giants are sneaky not terrible as long as Saquon is healthy. Carson Wentz is cooked.

NFC North

1. Packers
2. Vikings
3. Lions
4. Bears

The Packers have serious issues on offense because they can't put anyone away, but I guess that just means Rodgers will have to win a lot of close games. The Vikings have the potential to be the best team here, but the minute I expect great things from them, Cousins will put up a stinker. The Lions are a lot of fun, but they'll be the opposite of the Packers in that they'll just lose a lot of close games because their defense is nonexistent. I don't know if Justin Fields is just not good or he's cursed by being the quarterback of the Bears, but it's not promising.

NFC South

1. Bucs
2. Saints
3. Falcons
4. Panthers

Yeah, I think I was wrong about the Saints, although they might actually be better with Andy Dalton, so we'll see. The Bucs have all sorts of question marks, but no one in this division is good enough to make them pay for them. The Falcons are surprisingly fun, but as a Titans fan who watched four years of Mariota, I don't trust him to stay healthy for a full season. The Panthers should be better than this, but they're just...not.

NFC West

1. 49ers
2. Rams
3. Cardinals
4. Seahawks

The 49ers are the best team in this division unless (and maybe even still) Jimmy G gets hurt. I don't think anyone wants to say this quite yet since they're the defending champs, but the Rams are in trouble. Their entire offense is Cooper Kupp and every team knows it, and they have zero depth on either side of the ball. I still think the Cardinals suck aside from Murray, and Kyler can't bail them out of every deficit. The Seahawks and Geno have been better than I thought so far, but I'm not sure they can keep it up.

Bears are bad at everything but still feel like they're clearly more functional than the Panthers

Oh also the clown who jumped onto the Rams field and got taken down by Wagner is attempting to press charges when he's the only one who actually committed a crime.

He still wants attention apparently!

LeonhartFour posted...

yeah you've made it clear that you think Miami beating two of the best teams in the league in improbable manner means they're not actually good

(they could lose to the Jets because Teddy has a noodle arm that can't take advantage of Waddle and Hill, and also because the Jets might secretly not be terrible)

They're just a 3 point road favorite this week and just a 1 point home favorite against the Vikings next week.

I think both of those spreads are fair.

those spreads would be at least a couple points higher if Tua were the quarterback and I'm pretty sure you're aware of this so that's not a fair indication of what the Dolphins actually are

About 2 points to both, but he's probably back for week 6 so I guess we'll see what that line is reflective of. Vikings will be 4-1 but close wins over the Saints, Lions, and (soon) the Bears aren't exactly impressive.

I'm probably picking the Dolphins to win for like 7 straight weeks until they go to SF, though... For a stretch of four games I might pick against them in every game.

Steelers, Lions, Browns, Texans, Bears over a 5 week span. The most dangerous one there is the.. Lions?

Looking it up in detail, this game at the Jets is either their second or third hardest game of the next seven weeks. It's either them or the Lions.

The Lions are the only team there with an offense, so yeah, they'd be the only one I'd worry about as long as Miami is healthy.

It'll probably be a fun game with a lot of big plays, if nothing else.

LeonhartFour said some stuff

I agree with the vast majority of those predictions, as a Jags fan obviously Im hoping we win the AFC South, but the Titans have had our number for the most part for our entire existence, so Im not writing them off even with the myriad injuries. Somehow because of the Doug Pederson effect, I believe.

Dont know the NFC close enough to do this, but AFC final regular season standings and playoff predictions, estimates on W-L so may not be plausible based on remaining h2h game counts:

1) Chiefs (14-3)
2) Bills (13-4)
3) Ravens (12-5)
4) Jaguars (10-7)
5) Dolphins (11-6)
6) Bengals (10-7)
7) Titans (9-8)
-
8) Chargers (9-8)
9) Browns (9-8)
10) Broncos (8-9)
11) Raiders (8-9)
12) Patriots (7-10)
13) Colts (6-10-1)
14) Jets (6-11)
15) Steelers (5-12)
16) Texans (3-13-1)

Chargers barely miss out, again. Staley is the surprise firing of the off-season. A certain former Saints head coach heads to LA for 23.

The Browns achieve their mission to stay in contention until Watson returns, at which point they turn away from the hot hand (er, warm hand? Hot may be too strong a word) that got them that far and discover their new sexual deviant QB they paid a kings ransom for is not as good at football as he used to be. They stick with Deshaun because of course they do, but it makes for an off-season of angry fans asking what if Jacoby had been under center to finish the season as the Browns come one game shy of the last wild card spot. Going to be a lot of wishing the draft capital and $ went elsewhere.

Broncos ride their defense to an almost-winning record, but Russ is cooked rather than cooking. Hackett is the surprise not firing of the off-season but theres a clear ultimatum for 23: make the postseason and make some noise, or heads will roll.

Raiders turn things around after their slow start, going 7-6 down the remaining stretch, but its clear McDaniels is not the guy. Bisaccia deserved a chance!

Im sleepy now but this makes me want to go through each teams schedules including the NFC and make some playoff predictions too

I know most people are hoping Watson is bad when he finally plays again, but all indications were from those who saw him in the limited time he was allowed to be with the Browns that he's still got it.

I had the Broncos as a ~.500 team when the season started but I still expected them to look better than this on offense.

A cursory scan says ~80% of people in pick 'em are on the Broncos which is actually a bit lower than I expected.

And of course 0 people are on the Giants. Even if I'm awake for that game I doubt I'm watching it.

On a side note I'm confused by the Saints being a 5.5 point favorite when I took Seattle without any second thought

The Saints are better without Jameis

It's not the Dalton Line anymore, but Dalton would probably be an upgrade at QB for a good 5-7 teams off the top of my head. Including the one he's currently on, probably.

Bills aren't playing the Jags so I think 3 losses is more likely.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Bills aren't playing the Jags so I think 3 losses is more likely.

I have them beating Jags in divisional round on their way to the super bowl

I have the Jags beating the Bills to go on to lose to the Chiefs after Devin Lloyd is ruled down when he's very clearly not.