2011-2012 NFL Season Thread

[Enigma869]

Saying the Pats are one of the greatest of all time is laughable.

You're a moron!

[Enigma869]

Incidentally, the Pats and Steelers have absolutely OWNED the last 12 years and the Colts cleaned up whatever sloppy seconds they left behind. So your parity (and only "good and bad but no great teams" corollary) don't really hold empirical weight in my eyes.

Well said, Matt. There is absolutely nothing worse than one dope who follows one team pontificating about "the good old days". Some of us have been following the NFL for decades and know better. I would never disparage Joe Montana because I was a huge fan of his, and watched his entire career. That said, just because the Patriots lost a football game doesn't mean that Tom Brady is all of a sudden Alex Fucking Smith! Sure, Montana was 4-0. I watched all 4 games and know the numbers well. I also know that for 3 of those 4 games (and for 98% of his career), Montana played with the best wide receiver in the history of the NFL, while Brady won three championships with David Givens, David Patten, and Troy Brown! I don't know if Brady is better than Montana, but I can tell you this...he is in the conversation, and nothing that happened last night changes that. The reality is if Wes Welker makes that catch, the Patriots win the game and Brady is the runaway MVP winner. Welker didn't make the catch, but as Brady said last night "I'd rather get to this game and take my chances than be sitting at home and watching it on TV".

[Jonny B]

Geez, the Pats are good at repeating history. How difficult is it to RUN THE BALL AND CHEW THE CLOCK UP??? Who cares if they got pushed into a 2nd an 11 situation. The Giants had already wasted 2 timeouts on their previous drive. Run the ball, eat the clock, and don't give Eli time to win the game!

[conversationpc]

I'm calling it right now...NE goes undefeated next season. Mark my words, this won't sit well with the Hoodie. Maybe this year he will draft a pass rusher.

The Patriots will be a contender again next year, no doubt, but they will not be going undefeated.

[AR]

I'm calling it right now...NE goes undefeated next season. Mark my words, this won't sit well with the Hoodie. Maybe this year he will draft a pass rusher.

I do know the game better than you if you think New England will go undefeated next year.

Flacco = better than Brady. Proven in the AFC Championship.

[AR]

I'm calling it right now...NE goes undefeated next season. Mark my words, this won't sit well with the Hoodie. Maybe this year he will draft a pass rusher.

The Patriots will be a contender again next year, no doubt, but they will not be going undefeated.

2012 Pats Schedule


Home: Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Denver Broncos, Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers
Away: Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans, Baltimore Ravens, St. Louis Rams, Seattle Seahawks


I could easily see another 12-4 or even a 14-2 record with that schedule.

AWAY - Baltimore. Loss for the Patriots.

[AR]

1. Baltimore Ravens

Home: Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders, New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants
Away: Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Kansas City Chiefs, San Diego Chargers, Houston Texans, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins

Rough schedule.

Pretty cool though to get the two Super Bowl teams at home though.

[Enigma869]

Rough schedule.

Definitely some tough out of division games for the Ravens. That said, they still get to play the Bengals twice and Browns twice, which represents 25% of the entire season! Not to mention, the Chiefs blow and the Raiders aren't much better!

[YoungJRNY]

Giants are the luckiest team in NFL history.....lucky Gronk wasn't healthy. Fuck Eli...he had ONE lucky throw.

2 counting XLII

GREAT game. Another INSTANT classic. I think Eli just punched his ticket to the H.O.F. What a finish, great way to close out the NFL season with a Super Bowl like that. Can't wait for 2012 season opener!

Not sure what game you watched. It only got good in the last 7-8 minutes. The rest of the time I don't think either team knew it was a super bowl.

Haha......YJ...spoken like a 20yr old. Wonder how many SB games have he seen on TV? Sure, the score was close...but neither team did much to get excited over.
Eli...2 MVP's... HOF....?! Brady...greatest clutch QB....?!
Try Joe Montana...4-0 in SB's....3 times MVP... 11 TD passes, 0 INTS....
49ers steamrolled over their SB opponents 5 times (81-82, 84-85, 88-89, 89-90, 94-95). Okay, the 1st one was close.

Huh? If you turn on the television right now, it's another automatic "classic" being weighed in from the so called "experts." Even your boy, Steve Young was releasing bodily functions over Super Bowl XLVI. It doesn't get more dramatic of a re-match than what we saw last night. We had early gaffe's by both teams, we saw the first safety in Super Bowl history, we saw a 10 play, 96 yard drive that saw Brady go 10/10. We saw Brady pass Montana's straight completion records. We saw Eli start the football game 9/9, setting a Super Bowl record. We saw one hell of a clutch catch, after clutch catch and we also saw a dropped clutch catch that would ultimately win the football game. We saw one of the greatest last second QB's with the ball in his hands to mount one last comeback after leading the football game for most of the second half, just fall a little short. I've seen a TON of football games in my lifetime, the earliest I can remember was Super Bowl XXX when I was in first grade seen in person but I've watched ALL of those 70's classic matchups that you speak of. The natural eb and flow of the football world is changing. No, it isn't Montana and the 80's 9'ers out there, but to say that wasn't an exciting Super Bowl in the closing minutes or the last 30 minutes is just laughable. This ranks right up there with Super Bowl XLII and people rank that as one of the best games ever played for the Lombardi.

[YoungJRNY]

Today, with league parity and dilution of players/talents (what..30 or 32 teams now?)...just bad and good teams. Saying the Pats are one of the greatest of all time is laughable.

Just good and bad teams? You say in one breath that there are no more dominant teams in the NFL like the 70's Steelers, 80's 9'ers or 90's Cowboys but fail to realize what just happened over this past decade. Over the last 10 Super Bowls, the New England Patriots advanced to 5 of them, winning 3. The Pittsburgh Steelers have advanced to 3 of them, winning 2. The Indianapolis Colts went to 2 Super Bowls, and won 1. The New England Patriots won 3/4 Super Bowls in the early 2000's in a league to where it's TOUGH to keep a player under your hood for one whole season before someone throws the Benjamin's at them. The free agent market and the salary cap of today's NFL makes it VERY hard for a good football team to handle the backbone and landscape of their football team. Back in the 70's, the Steelers virtually played with the same players throughout their entire dynasty run. Lambert, Green, Franco, Bradshaw, Bleir, Blount, Swann, Stallworth and the list goes on. In today's world, one player makes one good play in the Super Bowl and virtually every NFL team wants to take him off your hands and throw the money at him to come play for their organization. It's VERY tough to keep your team together consistently in today's NFL. If you ask me, it's even MORE impressive with how the New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts handled their business throughout this decade in such a dog eat dog business nowadays because those 3 teams did nothing but DESTROY the 2000's.

[Don]

Giants are the luckiest team in NFL history.....lucky Gronk wasn't healthy. Fuck Eli...he had ONE lucky throw.

2 counting XLII

GREAT game. Another INSTANT classic. I think Eli just punched his ticket to the H.O.F. What a finish, great way to close out the NFL season with a Super Bowl like that. Can't wait for 2012 season opener!

Not sure what game you watched. It only got good in the last 7-8 minutes. The rest of the time I don't think either team knew it was a super bowl.

Haha......YJ...spoken like a 20yr old. Wonder how many SB games have he seen on TV? Sure, the score was close...but neither team did much to get excited over.
Eli...2 MVP's... HOF....?! Brady...greatest clutch QB....?!
Try Joe Montana...4-0 in SB's....3 times MVP... 11 TD passes, 0 INTS....
49ers steamrolled over their SB opponents 5 times (81-82, 84-85, 88-89, 89-90, 94-95). Okay, the 1st one was close.

You seem to have forgotten about SuperBowl 23 also, where the Niners scored with 39 seconds left to get the win.

[YoungJRNY]

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/20 ... -teammates

Gisele goes potty mouth on fans:

Watching your husband's team lose the Super Bowl can't be easy, but nobody expected this kind of reaction from the world's most famous supermodel.

Gisele Bundchen tossed Tom Brady's teammates under the bus following the Giants 21-17 upset of the Patriots in the Super Bowl. The Brazilian beauty was caught in a moment of weakness by TheInsider.com waiting for an elevator as she left the suites at Lucas Oil Stadium.

A few Giants fans started heckling her about Brady's performance as she walked quickly through the concourse. After initially smiling and even trying to ignore the fans, Bundchen let her guard down just long enough to deliver a foul-mouthed defense of her man -- and a sideswipe of his receivers.

"You (have) to catch the ball when you're supposed to catch the ball," she is heard saying. "My husband cannot [expletive] throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can't believe they dropped the ball so many times."

Pats receivers Wes Welker, Deion Branch and Aaron Hernandez all dropped passes. As a team, New England dropped at least four catchable balls.

Get rid of her now while you can, Tom. Or ATLEAST try to muzzle her big mouth before she gives the media every reason to turn your fairytale marriage into the next Tony Romo/Jessica Simpson saga! The "Please pray for Tom" message was embarrassing enough.

[YoungJRNY]

Speculation on who the Giants could open up with on Thursday Night for the 2012 NFL Season by Peter King:

Opening day is 214 days away, and the opening game of the 2012 season will be ...

Lots of candidates for the Giants to open with next September 6. The favorites, in order:

1. Green Bay. Easily the most attractive game, but will FOX lobby hard to keep it as a doubleheader game, and keep it from opening night?

2. New Orleans. Drew Brees-Eli Manning is a heck of a No. 2 choice.

3. Pittsburgh. Great story angles at the midpoint of the careers of Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning. Each will be entering year nine. If the Giants didn't get Manning in the 2004 draft, they'd have taken Big Ben. And each has two Super Bowl wins.

4. Philadelphia. Good rivalry game. Mike Vick, presumably healthy.

5. Dallas. But after FOX got robbed of both Giants-Cowboys games for 2011 by NBC, I doubt sincerely NBC's going to be lobbying for this game.

[Enigma869]

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201202/tom-bradys-wife-blames-patriots-teammates

Gisele goes potty mouth on fans:

Watching your husband's team lose the Super Bowl can't be easy, but nobody expected this kind of reaction from the world's most famous supermodel.

Gisele Bundchen tossed Tom Brady's teammates under the bus following the Giants 21-17 upset of the Patriots in the Super Bowl. The Brazilian beauty was caught in a moment of weakness by TheInsider.com waiting for an elevator as she left the suites at Lucas Oil Stadium.

A few Giants fans started heckling her about Brady's performance as she walked quickly through the concourse. After initially smiling and even trying to ignore the fans, Bundchen let her guard down just long enough to deliver a foul-mouthed defense of her man -- and a sideswipe of his receivers.

"You (have) to catch the ball when you're supposed to catch the ball," she is heard saying. "My husband cannot [expletive] throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can't believe they dropped the ball so many times."

Pats receivers Wes Welker, Deion Branch and Aaron Hernandez all dropped passes. As a team, New England dropped at least four catchable balls.

Get rid of her now while you can, Tom. Or ATLEAST try to muzzle her big mouth before she gives the media every reason to turn your fairytale marriage into the next Tony Romo/Jessica Simpson saga! The "Please pray for Tom" message was embarrassing enough.

While I think Gisele's comments about Brady's receivers was fucking ridiculous, I find criticizing an email that was only meant for close family and friends to be every bit as ridiculous. Listen, I'm the most anti-religion guy you'll ever meet. The fact that many think there is an invisible man, living in the sky like Santa Claus in laughable to me and always has been. That said, she is certainly entitled to ask for thoughts and "prayers" from friends and family members. It's not like she posted it on Twitter. It was a private email that some scumbag in her circle sold to a tabloid.

[Ehwmatt]

Anybody besides me wish the NFL would not open with divisional games? Opening with divisional games is as pointless and arguably unfair as closing the season with a divisional game is genius/great.

[RossValoryRocks]

Travis...that wasn't the first saftey in Super Bowl history my brother...the Steelers had one in their first Super Bowl against the Vikes.

The score at 1/2 time was 2-0 in favor of the Steelers...go check it...Oh and it was a REAL safety...not one induced by penalty.

[brandonx76]

Classic..

[hoagiepete]

Probably wrong thread, but Madonna's performance was a snoozer. Unenthused borefest. She's in great shape for her age, but her musical performance sucked. zzzzzzzzzzzzz

[slucero]

I took the career SB stats for SB QB's with 3 wins or more (Montana, Bradshaw, Aikman, Brady), and ran them through the NFL QB Rating formula, located here: http://brucey.net/nflab/statistics/qb_rating.html

There's no doubt that Brady is a great field general, but to be considered the greatest you gotta have both, stats and leadership... and Brady's SB stats don't measure up.

[Enigma869]

I took the career SB stats for SB QB's with 3 wins or more (Montana, Bradshaw, Aikman, Brady), and ran them through the NFL QB Rating formula, located here: http://brucey.net/nflab/statistics/qb_rating.html

There's no doubt that Brady is a great field general, but to be considered the greatest you gotta have both, stats and leadership... and Brady's SB stats don't measure up.

You can make stats argue any point that you want to get across. This notion that Brady somehow doesn't "measure up" now because of one big dropped pass is just plain fucking stupid. Listen, I don't excuse Brady's role in the game, but he certainly didn't suck. The intentional grounding in the end zone for the safety was a VERY critical play. Those two points are almost always difficult to chase over the course of an NFL game.

Let me preface what I'm about to say by saying that I feel horribly for Wes Welker. The guy is a vastly underrated player and overall really good guy. That said, if Welker makes that catch (and it was right in his two hands), Brady is probably on his way to throwing a third TD in the game, and being the runaway MVP winner in that game. At the very least, the game is over at that point, because there were under 5:00 left and the Giants had only one timeout left. Football has always been a game of inches, and I'm simply not willing to minimize a guy's career because he AND his team came up short in one game. The Giants won both of their Super Bowl matchups but just as easily could have lost both of those games.

If Brady had never won a Super Bowl game, I'd even buy into your argument. The fact of the matter is that only two guys in the history of the NFL have won more Super Bowls than Brady, even with the loss, and NO QB in the history of the NFL has a higher winning percentage than Brady has had throughout his career. It's also worth mentioning that as I look over all of those Super Bowl victories for the QB's that you listed, Brady is the only guy on that list who won Super Bowl games without a Hall of Fame WR to throw the ball to.

[Don]

If I read write, why not a big problem in 2011, Welker did lead the league in dropped passes in 2010. I can't imagine how they figure a stat like that out. Of course, he also has more catches than anyone else in the game over the last three years or so, so more opportunities to muff one every now and then.
Now, that said, I do think the catch wasn't as easy as some make it out to be. Even if you get two hands on the ball, without stick-um catching a pass behind you, over your head or at your shoelaces still has to be a bitch more times than not.

[Enigma869]

Now, that said, I do think the catch wasn't as easy as some make it out to be.

I don't recall anyone saying that it was "easy". The fact that he left his feet to try to catch the ball makes it a more difficult catch than it needs to be. The bottom line is that if you're a receiver in the NFL and the ball hits you in both of your hands, you absolutely MUST catch the football!

[Don]

Now, that said, I do think the catch wasn't as easy as some make it out to be.

I don't recall anyone saying that it was "easy". The fact that he left his feet to try to catch the ball makes it a more difficult catch than it needs to be. The bottom line is that if you're a receiver in the NFL and the ball hits you in both of your hands, you absolutely MUST catch the football!

Looking at the play in slow motion, didn't he have to leave his feet to spin around to that side? I think his height left him a position where he couldn't just run through the catch while turning.

[Enigma869]

Looking at the play in slow motion, didn't he have to leave his feet to spin around to that side?

Yes, but it doesn't change the fact that Welker MUST catch that ball. The catch Dwight Clark made for Joe Montana was a far tougher catch. Again, I'm not blaming this loss on Welker. I'm simply making the point that if Welker catches that ball, the game is OVER! I haven't overlooked that during the Giants first TD drive, the Patriots caused a fumble and recovered the ball, only to be called for 12 men on the field. I honestly don't ever remember a Belichick coached team having that penalty called on them, so that is on Belichick. You simply cannot like that to happen in a huge game.

[RedWingFan]

MVP for ONE throw? OK, the Mayan calender must have been wrong. The world ends right now! Are you serious?

If I remember right... Brady's greatness started with "one throw"... in a Raider game... or was it a fumble...

[RedWingFan]

Travis...that wasn't the first saftey in Super Bowl history my brother...the Steelers had one in their first Super Bowl against the Vikes.

The score at 1/2 time was 2-0 in favor of the Steelers...go check it...Oh and it was a REAL safety...not one induced by penalty.

The Bills got one on Jeff Hostetler in SB 25 also.

[slucero]

I took the career SB stats for SB QB's with 3 wins or more (Montana, Bradshaw, Aikman, Brady), and ran them through the NFL QB Rating formula, located here: http://brucey.net/nflab/statistics/qb_rating.html

There's no doubt that Brady is a great field general, but to be considered the greatest you gotta have both, stats and leadership... and Brady's SB stats don't measure up.

You can make stats argue any point that you want to get across. This notion that Brady somehow doesn't "measure up" now because of one big dropped pass is just plain fucking stupid. Listen, I don't excuse Brady's role in the game, but he certainly didn't suck. The intentional grounding in the end zone for the safety was a VERY critical play. Those two points are almost always difficult to chase over the course of an NFL game.

Let me preface what I'm about to say by saying that I feel horribly for Wes Welker. The guy is a vastly underrated player and overall really good guy. That said, if Welker makes that catch (and it was right in his two hands), Brady is probably on his way to throwing a third TD in the game, and being the runaway MVP winner in that game. At the very least, the game is over at that point, because there were under 5:00 left and the Giants had only one timeout left. Football has always been a game of inches, and I'm simply not willing to minimize a guy's career because he AND his team came up short in one game. The Giants won both of their Super Bowl matchups but just as easily could have lost both of those games.

If Brady had never won a Super Bowl game, I'd even buy into your argument. The fact of the matter is that only two guys in the history of the NFL have won more Super Bowls than Brady, even with the loss, and NO QB in the history of the NFL has a higher winning percentage than Brady has had throughout his career. It's also worth mentioning that as I look over all of those Super Bowl victories for the QB's that you listed, Brady is the only guy on that list who won Super Bowl games without a Hall of Fame WR to throw the ball to.

I never said Brady didn't measure up from the dropped pass... I never said he sucked... the Pats played a great game... and it wasn't their nite.

And that pass to Welker was a bitch to catch.. a little too wide and Welker had to turn almost 180 to get it... not his fault IMO. More Brady's than Welkers...

See the bold and colored part? That should explain it. I'd even say he's the equal of Montana, Bradshaw and Aikman as a field general... a very qualitative thing...

His rating, which is quantitative, indicates he wasn't as efficient a field general though... hence, in total: "he doesn't measure up"

Here, I'll even repeat it:

• Brady is the equal of Montana in field generalship.
• Brady falls short in his QB rating for SB's
  
• Give them each 1 point for Field Generalship
• Add that to their QB Rating
  
• Brady is behind by 30+ points. "he doesn't measure up"

It's also prolly worth mentioning that your comment regarding Brady not having a HOF WR is lame... unless they can get in while they are playing... we'll have to wait for Moss or Welker to get in the Hall... then this point will be moot....


BTW - "game of inches" is a metaphor... its actually measured in yards...

[RedWingFan]

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Stone Fingers Branch not dropped the first ball over the middle when the Pats got possession again with under a minute to go.

Is that the one that was deflected by the middle linebacker? If so, you can't blame that on Branch.

[slucero]

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Stone Fingers Branch not dropped the first ball over the middle when the Pats got possession again with under a minute to go.

Is that the one that was deflected by the middle linebacker? If so, you can't blame that on Branch.

Yup.. it got deflected a bit...

[YoungJRNY]

Travis...that wasn't the first saftey in Super Bowl history my brother...the Steelers had one in their first Super Bowl against the Vikes.

The score at 1/2 time was 2-0 in favor of the Steelers...go check it...Oh and it was a REAL safety...not one induced by penalty.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. I think it was the first intentional grounding penalty in the endzone that resulted into the safety call. I think Collinsworth noted that was the first time that was called that resulted in 2 points.