2020-21 NFL thread

Maybe he was betting Gostkowski would miss again and figured he'd let the Titans run out the clock for him.

 

Not always.

Regards,
Pete Carroll

P.S. - Too soon

 

Most coaches won't use those time outs when they're ahead. Why is that so hard to understand? They're trusting their defense to make a stop.

 

Fangio's answer:

"It was two-fold there," Fangio said, via the Denver Post. "One, their field goal kicker had obviously been having his problems so I didn't want to extend the drive to where they could get closer.

"And we would have used a timeout but we got the running back out of bounds, and we would have used the second timeout, but they threw an incompletion."

 

I was struck by Gardner Minshew's performance on Sunday (19-20, 3 TDs) and did some rummaging around pro football reference:
Minshew got the starting job for good over Foles with three games left last season. Those three games, plus Sunday: 9 TDs, one pick, 850 yards, .639 completion percentage, 106.78 passer rating, team is 3-1 in those games.
The other four starting QBs from the 2019 draft:
Murray 5/4/892, .656/86.48/3-1
Jones 9/6/1,172/.611/85.22/1-3
Haskins 6/1/742/.634/101.18/1-3
Lock 3/1/793/.612/82.09/1-3

Based on overall performance and team record, Minshew has clearly outplayed those guys. I'm not sure the Jaguars are tanking for Trevor (who I'm not completely sold on anyway).

 

A couple weeks ago one of the NFL.com analysts -- I don't remember which one -- wrote a rather lengthy piece laying out an argument for why Minshew is a franchise QB.

 

Losing teams don't just lose, they almost always suffer an inordinate number of blowout defeats. Those games drag their quarterbacks down with them, and those poor performances tend to be given more weight by fans and media than is justified. The Jaguars also had an unhappy unproductive offseason. Why that would influence opinions on Minshew I have no idea, but it pretty clearly did.

 

I'm not sure their off-season is "unproductive." They played 12 rookies in the opening game and many of them made significant contributions, so their draft class looks good at this point. Their No. 1 pick, CJ Henderson, had a pick and knocked the ball away from Hilton on fourth down at the end of the game. The top free-agent signings of Joe Schobert and Tyler Eifert were at areas of need (if Eifert stays healthy). And often overlooked is their kicker-punter combination is the best in the NFL.

 

The first is more legit, though Gostkowski is a good kicker and he was going to figure it out.

The second part is bull. He should have been using timeouts well before the clock stoppages.

 

I'm not sure he's a franchise quarterback in the Brady or Manning sense. He can't do anything about being 5-11 (the 6-0 he's listed is generous ... I'm 5-10 and I've stood next to him in scrums and pretty much see eye to eye) and his arm will never be Mahomes-like. I also don't think he'll be another Brees or Wilson, guys of similar size. But can he have a career slightly better than guys like Dalton, Carr, Cousins or Prescott? Absolutely.

 

In that instance, you want to leave yourself a buffer. The losing team knows they only need to get past midfield to try a field goal with a pretty good kicker. If you make a stop, what does it matter how much time is left? You start to run the ball to kill clock and their timeouts. If you don't, you need time to make a play. In that case, the losing team is trying to milk all the clock they can so they can make the last play of the game.

 

Except all evidence to that point indicated the Titans did not have a kicker.