NFL 2016 Discussion Thread - Ready for Some Football

@i_stay_puft: some of that was seemingly due to the fact the the niners focused on defending the pass

@gorillamopena said:

this is not a good football play josh mccown

He made two plays like that? I stopped watching after the first one. The one after that amazing 54 yard run.

I haven't read through the whole thread so I'm not sure if someone else has called you out and whether you've tried to justify that thought or not, but, as a lifelong Broncos fan, you're insane if you think they are worse in any way than last year.

I'm not completely sold on Ball yet, I wish we would've kept Moreno but with the addition of Sanders and players like Julius Thomas having more experience we're definitely better than last year.

Yeah, I was scared about Ball being the main back after all his fumbles last year, but this game has convinced me that he'll be more than okay.

If anything I'm more worried about the defense's continued insistence on shutting down completely after the first half (as well as the second-half playcalling being almost consistently awful when the Broncos are up by a bunch), welcoming comebacks with open arms.

Broncos schedule is way harder than last year though.

Sure, but the original quote says "whilst their offense is clearly worse than last year. I understand that how much worse they are is up for debate, but they are still worse.", which isn't even almost true. They lost Knowshon Moreno but just moved Montee Ball up into a starting role, they got Ryan Clady (a 3-time Pro Bowler) back at Left Tackle, allowing their patchwork starter from last year to upgrade their interior offensive line, and they replaced Eric Decker with Emmanuel Sanders. How is that offense "clearly worse" and not "obviously upgraded"?

Closer than I thought it would be based on the first half, but Denver got it done. Here's hoping the defense gets some long lasting chemistry as the season goes on. Now to try to get a decent amount of sleep for work tomorrow despite that stressful 4th quarter!

@ajamafalous: This was pretty much my thinking. I also think their first 4 games aren't as hard as Slaps does. Sure, the team might not end up going 13-3 again or in the Super Bowl, but I don't see the team being weaker right now. Them losing half of their first 4 games doesn't jive with me with the way things stand at this moment.

Pretty exciting first week so far. Probably biggest surprise to me was the Vikings blowing away the Rams, wasn't expecting that after last season. I really wonder how the Pats are gonna do this year, it seems like it could kind of be a make or break year for Brady in if he is still considered an elite QB or will start to decline. A healthy Gronk should certainly help him but if I were a Pats fan I would put zero faith in Gronk's health.

The only way this should have ended

@ajamafalous: As a Broncos fan, you are insane to think you are the best judge of your own team. You're biased. I never said the broncos were suddenly a bad team, but an offense doesn't do the kind of things it did last year for two straight years. It doesn't happen. Simply going by the fact that last year's Broncos had the best offense in the history of the NFL means that they are most assuredly going to be worse. I'm sorry that it's hard for you to hear and that it makes you want to call me insane, but you will not see anywhere near 55 td receptions like you did last year. That doesn't happen twice. Add to that the fact that they are in a competitive division and that they play a handful of tough non-division opponents. If/when their stats/record show that I'm wrong I'll be happy to eat crow, but I'm entirely confident that I won't have to.

@gorillamopena: Just read that on my twitter feed. Bravo to the Ravens for making the gutsy call, that was a strong message sent to everyone about their organization and where they stand on domestic violence. A strong message for an organization that's been iffy with handling personal conduct in the past aka Ray Lewis.

Question for folks, Ray Rice is a talented dude, he's 27 and clearly has about 3-4 years left in the tank. Now players have come back from a media shit storm like this in the past and have been able to continue their careers. I'm pretty positive somebody will take a chance on him again but do you guys think any team will give him a chance this year?

I for one think with all this being fresh on peoples mind and the bad publicity this can be put on a team no team will pick him up until at least starting next off season. Even if they do it's not guaranteed he'll be the 1st string rb.

@i_stay_puft: The NFL (now claiming to have never seen the video) has suspended him indefinitely.

@kaiserreich Wow. Good on the NFL for correcting the original suspension as well.

@i_stay_puft: He has also been suspended indefinitely by the league now, and was pretty bad last season. So I think he is done.

I don't see anyone picking him up this year. There would be too much outrage if they did.

Colts fans, espn reporting Robert Mathis likely out for season with torn Achilles.

The situation will probably unfold in the same way Vick did. No one will touch him for a couple years and one team will sign him and put on a show about how he has been reformed etc. However it is so far looking like Rice will not be charged so he may be able to play in the CFL after the NFL suspension is over if a NFL team doesn't want to take a chance on him.

I can't speak for @ajamafalous (though I suspect they feel the same) but I wasn't talking about stats or records, just that they are clearly more talented this year. Yes, it's unlikely that they'll get close to the records they set last year but that doesn't mean they are a worse team.

I would say Ray Rice is done in the league. No one would be willing to deal with the backlash (especially right away) from fans if they signed him and he was awful last year so I wouldn't even say he has a few years left. Might be best to wait a year or two on his part, do some in the spotlight stuff in helping those suffering from abuse and hope to get a back up position eventually. He is done for the year period.

@mems1224 said:

Play of the year

Hey soccer kicks are illegal in MMA! Oh wait...this is football?!

That is fucking badass by the way.

@topsteer: When I was talking originally, the end result is exactly what I was talking about. I don't care how many hall of fame players you sign, no team ever would do anything but perform wore than a year like last year. I also submit that a team with worse statistics is a worse team.

Clarification: I'm not saying Emanuel Sanders is a hall of famer. The hall of famers were hypothetical. He's nowhere near, and I'd honestly rather have Eric Decker.

Houston Texans first pick Jadeveion Clowney torn meniscus out 4-6 weeks. Ouch.

This Ray Rice stuff is sickening. I mean I knew it was bad but that video is awful. He deserves a lifetime ban.

@i_stay_puft: Yea, that sucks. Hopefully Mercilus steps up now.

@gorillamopena:Rice should have been cut in the first place but glad they eventually got it right. That video is disgusting.

@patoday said:

Video that bad? Not really in the mood to see a dude decking a woman so haven't sought it out.

Vick came back after the dog fighting thing. Donte Stallworth came back after pleading guilty to vehicular manslaughter. Ray could conceivably come back, but I don't think he will. I think it has more to do with his abysmal season last year than this incident though.

Somehow Ray Rice gets released and indefinitely banned for domestic violence, but Ray McDonald suited up on Sunday for the 49ers. I guess you only get suspended immediately if the entire nation sees you commit the crime. This Ray Rice video just confirmed what people should have already known and gave Goodell the leverage to correct his blatant mistake from last month. It looks like the NFL is still miles away from appropriately handling player misconduct and I'm afraid it is going to stay that way so long as Goodell is in charge. How many of these terrible PR situations are the owners going to allow Goodell to bungle? I mean how can Ray McDonald and Greg Hardy be playing right now?

Sad that we had to wait this long to finally get this decision, but glad that it's finally happened. His position is totally indefensible now, if it ever was before. He's an idiot and a scumbag.

In other unrelated news, Robert Mathis was suspended for the first four weeks of the NFL season, and the NFL rules on suspensions like this state that he can't work out with the team or in the facility during his suspension. So he can't work out with the support of the Colts training staff that he's worked with for more than 10 years now.

And guess what? He tore his Achilles at a workout in Atlanta today, and is gone for the year. Yuuuuupppp. Wasn't too disheartened by how we played last night, but boy it's a tough day to be a Colts fan.

@slaps2: Bah, stats are hugely overrated, they're good for bragging rights and that's about it. I would hope all Broncos fans and players would trade all of last years records for a Super Bowl win, I know I would.

I would easily take Sanders over Decker, I was never a big fan of his and we needed somebody with speed alongside D. Thomas.

@thatpinguino: Yea, it seems like year after year Goodell has the uncanny ability to make the worst decision when it comes to anything but he will stick around because the NFL is getting more and more popular.

@mems1224: Is it though? It is certainly getting more and more profitable, but it seems like its popularity is stagnant or waning. The league is such an institution in the US at this point that it is hard for it to lose money, however that doesn't mean that the status quo should be maintained. David Stern was a great commissioner and Adam Silver still looks like an improvement right now. The NBA upgraded from good to great. Now I think the NFL could afford to upgrade from bad to at least mediocre.

Ready for the real start of the season tonight.

Yeah; I look at sports pretty objectively, despite what most people do (it's the reason I can't fucking stand college football). I live in Houston so I'm also a pretty big Texans fan, and I'll be surprised if they make it past 6 wins this year because they're not very good. Calling someone biased because the team they like happens to be good this year is laughable.

Stats can only take you so far; it also takes a lot of luck and extraneous circumstances to break records. You're right; I'm not at all expecting another 55-TD season, and I'll be very surprised if it happens. That has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they are a better team than last year at every position other than RB (and everywhere but MLB on defense), but it's not like they were working with an elite RB before. Saying that "there's no way they'll throw for 55 TDs again this season!" means "they're a much worse offense than last year!" is a false equivalency.

Also, they are in no way in a competitive division. The Raiders are the Raiders and the Chiefs have already lost like three main players for the season, got blown out by the Titans, and actually have a real schedule this year. Andy Reid did a great job turning that team around, but they're an 8-10 win team at best this year. The Chargers are a potential Wild Card team, but they're not winning the division unless the Broncos lose a bunch of starters to injury.

@nightriff: It's really rough. The Ravens are doing everything to get rid of any trace of Ray Rice with their organization. The video is enough to get Roger Goodell out of a job.

Ray Lewis will talk about Ray Rice on ESPN's Monday Night Countdown tonight.

You have to take into account the overseas revenues the NFL could possibly make as well since Fulham F.C owner Shahid Kahn purchase of the Jacksonville Jaguars he's kind of opened the door for the NFL to build it's brand in Europe. They are now hosting a game in London each year and are in talks about possibly expanding in the UK later along the line. As long as the NFL is making money no way Roger Goddell's job is on the line unless he totally fucks up and does something super, super dumb. If you look at last years revenues numbers when comparing the NFL vs NBA the NFL made about 6 billion more than the NBA last year and their games in terms of ratings are twice as more than your average nba game.

Speaking of Silver while he has done stuff in a positive way to differentiate himself from David Stern time as commissioner. We also have to remember guys that Silver was David Stern's #2 guy since 1992 and was handpicked with some influence by Stern to takeover. Silver is probably more like David Stern but with less of the sleazeball grin to him.

Oh by the way I was a Supersonics fan so I'll always hate David Stern. So my thoughts on David Stern are bias.

Just realized I just paraded into this thread with my ridiculous Eli GIF in the middle of serious Ray Rice talk. Whoops!

I'll say this about Rice. I doubt we see him in the NFL again. Vick got another chance because he's an explosive quarterback who (as we saw with the Eagles) can completely change a team. There's not many players in the NFL like that. Rice, on the other hand, ain't what he used to be. There's plenty of running backs out there who can average 3 yard per carry and most of them don't carry the baggage of being a wifebeater.

@milkman: Never apologize for any Eli related gif. They are almost always hilarious. He is the Luigi of the NFL who is hard to take serious yet he has had a lot big moments.

As for Rice. What he did was disgusting, I have no words beyond that.

They were already punishing him for what he did under the presumption that he did it. Increasing the penalty because the public now knows the extent of what it was is arbitrary and exactly the opposite of what the NFLPA and the league are going for in terms of putting together consistent and predictable consequences for any given crime.

@veektarius: This is totally only because the 2nd video came out in the public (I also find it hard to believe no one in the NFL had seen the 2nd video before)

But the initial punishment was horseshit, so at some point the idiotic Ravens PR campaign like this article on their web page.

It was absurd and idiotic how they eventually got to the right answer. Now the hope is the punishment is this tough for other players who aren't caught on tape from now on, but I doubt that happens.

Also let's make sure to not let the justice system off the hook.

Yup. It was clear that this is what happened if you watched the first video. Fucking bad job by the NFL all around, but good that they at least finally came around to banning the fucker.

I'm glad the league went back and adjusted their domestic violence policy, but their decisions with Rice have been bananas. The fact that this new video confirms how much of a monster he is reinforces the league's out of whack priorities. Rice shouldn't play in the league not because he is slow as molasses and nobody wants him, but because the NFL bans him.

I won't argue that - the 2 games was indeed horseshit. And this should also not be an issue because he should be behind bars and the NFL's discipline should be the least of his worries. Sadly this is a common outcome for domestic crime outside the league as well, as I understand it.

http://deadspin.com/keith-olbermann-on-roger-goodell-an-enabler-of-men-wh-1632150757

Olbermann went off

I love it when people use that term. Its just so beautiful. Horseshit.

@jiggajoe14: Olbermann is an absolute blowhard. While I can't disagree with anything he says there, I just can't stand listening to him.

Oh yeah Goodell might be boned.

Good time to bring up that Roger Goodell makes 44 MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR

As a Lions fan in NJ surrounded by Giants fans, that win was...satisfying, to say the least.