Soul

He'd probably be working on winning his 3rd straight championship in 3 seasons as a starter if Dee Ford had just lined up correctly in the 2018 AFC title game. I think a shoot out between him and Rodgers in the SB would have been fun to watch. Yes, separating it from my Packers hate, that game would have been a lot of fun.

I thought the same thing, except when Brady was throwing INTs I also thought the same about TB. All around there were mistakes being made that were beneath these teams. It got pretty bizarre at the end, with LaFleur's call being the capper for me. For Rodgers' part, after the game he said the call wasn't his to go for the FG. To me that's really close to saying it was BS, but maybe I'm reading into it. I agree if you are a Packer fan you've got to be wondering what it takes to get over the hump.

You’ve got to remember, they were giving the ball to the GOAT with an opportunity to ice the game. This isn’t a normal calculation at all. You can boil this down to a binary choice if you want to. You give the ball to your HOF QB to save the game. Or you give the ball to the other team’s HOF QB hoping he won’t ice it.

I just saw the highlights and I’ll bet Rodgers is wishing he ran it on the 3rd down play too. It didn’t look like the Bucs had anyone in position to stop him.

I couldn't believe it. I thought it was an awful decision at first. But gaming it out, I don't think it's quite as crazy as it initially appeared. I think people are underrating 1) the 2 point conversion only being a 50/50 chance, 2) Tom Brady having the ball and timeouts only needing a FG to win the game and 3) OT only being a 50/50 chance if it gets there. It's obviously easier to convert a 4th and goal from the 8 than to 1) stop them and 2) drive with likely no timeouts to score a last second TD. Quite a bit easier. But is it easier enough to also have to essentially flip a coin 3 times and have them all come up heads? That's where I'm not sure and I would like to see a better description of the math. I looked up on numberfire, and GB's win probability went up over 3 percent when they successfully kicked the field goal. I mean, they almost literally have 0 chance to win in regulation because they were down 8. So, them being down less than a TD naturally increases their chances because there was 0 chance of a tie at that point. #2 is the only point I halfway buy (Brady w/ ball w/ timeouts). But when you're losing, you have to get there first. You absolutely make them try to run out the clock in the shadow of their goalline. It's not like they were at the 20. Not to mention, they could have gotten yards without a TD and made it even more tough for Tampa. If any team should know that you don’t give the ball to a HOF QB to run the clock out, it should be the Packers. There’s just no way around this being a supremely horrible call.

The only thing further Brady could do is actually win the Super Bowl after doing all that previous stuff.

Hard to believe. Literally picked up Brady and instant Super Bowl. That’s how good he is.

That one will live on in Packer lore forever.

I don’t get the FG call, and I don’t get the slide down before the two minute warning either.

What the hell is he doing?

That sequence was insanely improbable. First, the defensive hold was obvious. 2nd, Rodgers doesn’t throw picks. 3rd, how is the defense not putting everyone back to cover the Hail Mary?

I don’t get it. He chose to play it and run it out.

Someone much smarter than me will write an article breaking down the "Belichick System" myth. This year showed us that Belichick - Brady = meh while meh team + Brady = contender I would say it shows us that going from Jameis throwing 30 picks to a competent QB turns you into a contender. Plus didn’t the Pats have a few key opt outs on defense this year also? Bray and Belichick are both great. If Brady stayed but Belichick retired, NE probably misses the playoffs also this year. I’ll give Belichick another year. But it was not good. Especially how they ended the year. I’ve got to believe he’s a good coach, I just don’t know if he could rebuild a perennial contender at this stage in his career unless he wins the QB lottery again. We’ll see. You know he’s motivated to show he can win without Brady.

Pick up Brady, POOF instant SB contention.

I thought the same.

KC will likely be in the AFC title game 3rd year in a row. NFC had more "new" teams in the playoffs this year. Sent from my SM-A115AZ using Tapatalk Perhaps he means the younger AFC QBs in the final 8 (Mahomes, Mayfield, Jackson, Allen) vs the old guys and the crappy guy in the NFC (Rodgers, Brees, Brady, Goff)? It’s all about the quarterback in the NFL anyway. Yeah, I think you nailed why it feels that way to me. I was just thinking how it is striking to see the Bills and Browns knocking on the door when a handful of years ago they were laughingstock franchises. Heck, it wasn’t so long ago that KC was just mediocre. Mahomes is still “new” to me. KC as a perennial contender still feels new. This is probably the last year for that though. I wasn’t commenting on AFC vs NFC. It wouldn’t bother me to never see Ben sniff another title game. A non-playoff Pats team is like the clouds parting giving way to sunshine, as far as I’m concerned. So this is much more fun to me than it’s been in a very long time.

The AFC is pretty cool this year. New blood.

It feels like the Packers have basically one game plan on offense. Run their shorter stuff early, wait for the D to have to come up to stop it, then unleash the deeper throws later. It almost always works too. As a football fan of a team out of the playoffs, and setting aside my genetic hatred of the Packers, the best SB is clearly GB/KC.

Why? I always have a ton of horsefeathers at home I need to do and Saturday noonish is typically when I want to do it.

You aren't telling them where they can and can't go to school. If Bama doesn't have room, they can still attend the school they just won't be able to play football. They probably won't because they want to play football. Just like if a normal high school student doesn't get into the med program of their choice, they can still attend that school if they get accepted into a different program, they just can't study medicine. They probably won't because they want to study medicine. But regardless schools have enrollment limits just like football programs have scholarship limits. That said, I dont think the idea will work for a few other reasons. You better start paying the players appropriately if you want to do this [expletive]. (You should pay them anyways.) People have to choose one school over another for a myriad of reasons and not all of them are merit. Athletes and non-athletes alike. And if you make other programs more attractive they aren’t going to feel slighted because they can’t get into the couple programs that have a chance. I don’t think it’s as ridiculous an idea as apparently some do. Pay the athletes, I’ve got no problem with that. Ultimately the most ridiculous thing is watching Bama, Clemson, and OSU play on a different level and destroy everything in their path towards an inevitable showdown. B1G even changed their rules mid-stream just to get their one team in the playoffs. It was dumb. Everyone knows that.

You make some good points. Why not limit the number of top prospects a school can get, or put stronger limits on them? That’s basically what the NFL does through the cap.

There’s less than a handful of stacked programs and everyone else fights for scraps. The CFB playoff is a snore, not because the playoff needs to be expanded but because it’s like eating the same thing for dinner every night.

Starting and backup kickers. That ought to make for some fun times.

I heard that, how and why is that? I didn’t catch all of it but I heard some coaches aren’t there (COVID?) and that injuries had made it necessary to play a newly-signed OL or two. Brief scan of articles - they’ve been dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak. If I was a Browns fan I’d definitely be calling in sick tomorrow.

Apparently the Browns are doing this with an OL and coaches that don’t necessarily know each other.