NFL Week 12 thread -- As sweet as a Kolber kiss

The spread was 6 1/2. Maybe Doug Pederson had a little action on the game?

 

It somehow fucked the Steelers

 

Didn't Cook and Yates start one of those wild card playoff games against each other?

 

Ray gets right to the heart of the clinical picture

 

Steelers should refuse to play till Franco Harris is healthy enough to run at least 20 times. Only fair.

 

No, JC. I am not paying rent. I own that space.

 

Oh, I knew it would make people laugh. Thing is, it is also accurate, in and out of context.

I'm used to being ahead of the game here. I was way ahead of everybody else on Roger Goodell's inconsistent and arbitrary style of handling discipline, just to offer an example, and I'm correct now. The league supposedly cited competitive advantage for the Broncos as a reason not to postpone their game against the Saints. The only reason to move that game would have been moved back would have been to help Denver with its roster because the COVID situation seemed to be contained. That decision was shitty, but it was in line with stated guidelines and precedent this season.

Now, look at the Ravens' situation. If the outbreak isn't contained, why are they being allowed to practice today? If it is contained, they should be playing tonight. Yes, it would have been an incredibly shitty situation for them. Other teams have been put in incredibly shitty situations by COVID and they were forced to just suck it up. Being allowed to get in a practice first is about competitive advantage, one of the reasons the league cited for not postponing a game for the Broncos. The league has been letting teams and players take the field with limited or no practice often enough this season that citing safety in that matter is bullshit.

Again, this is not me thinking the league is out to screw the Steelers. I don't think the league is ever out to screw a particular team. (Okay, maybe the Raiders in the past. That stuff got ugly.) I get the fanboy assumptions and hatred of the Steelers clouding some people's thinking on this, so I will try to clear it up. The league was facing a potential shit show Tuesday night, this time in front of a much bigger audience than the Denver-New Orleans mess. They even faced the threat of a last-minute forfeit by the Ravens, whose players were threatening to refuse to play. So the league caved for the sake of protecting the image of the shield and got a better chance of a competitive game in the deal. I know people are assuming this is going to be a blowout for the Steelers anyway, but I already laid out a good explanation of why that won't be the case. I do hope I'm wrong about that last part.

 

And that medical professional is A-Rod’s Cousin Yuri.

 

There are a handful of coaches who adhere to the “down 14, I’m going for 2 if I get the TD to make it 6” philosophy. I don’t understand it but I know it’s out there.

Northern Illinois coach got me on that last year at Vandy (-6.5). I had the Commodores. Vandy up 14 and the NIU coach did exactly that. Vandy wins by 6. I lost.

In the NFL, 6 is now a “key number” on spreads. For a long time, 3/4/7 have been the key numbers but you can put 6 in there. With longer extra points and more teams going for two, we see more six-point differences than 20 years ago.

Also, be wary with Seattle. They tend to have more “weird scores” at certain points of the game. How many times have we seen Seattle involved in a game that is, say, 15-6 or 13-9 midway through the third? With their games, every half-point really does matter.

I wasn’t involved in the game last night. Would have taken Seattle -6 (which I saw at kick but choose not to) but not -6.5 or -7 with their defense.

 

David Woodley has retired the trophy for worst starting QB in a Super Bowl. If Don Shula had never done anything else in his career, he’d have deserved to be in the Hall of Fame just for getting a team that far with Woodley at QB.

 

Woodley might've been the worst starter in terms of overall career, and he was atrocious in that game, but in terms of performance in the Bowl, don't sleep on Tony Eason. 0 for 6 with three sacks and benched in the first half. To be fair, if the Pats had started a clone mixture of Marino, Brady and Sammy Baugh they were gonna get waxed in that one, and the QBs' stats wouldn't have been very good.

 

Eason was a very good player his first two or three seasons. He just decided he didn't want to get hit anymore, and that was that.