NFL Week 18 -- Motown Showdown

Well, Warner took the Cardinals to the Super Bowl, so I'd say his latter career was a hell of a lot better than Case, get ready.

 

Dammit. Meant to flip those around.
I denounce myself and will sit in the box for two minutes and feel shame.

 

Are we at that place where the QB of a 14-2 team has an off-night and the consensus is to banish him from the league?

Can't even have a bad game anymore. Gotta throw for 398 and 7 TDS every week now or you're trash.

 

He has a history. He was bad far longer than he's been good.

No one says Darnold should be banished from the league. But the Vikings used a top 10 overall draft choice on a QB they obviously think can be a success in the league, and the clock is ticking on McCarthy's bargain rookie contract. The franchise tag for QBs in 2024 was $38 million, and Over The Cap is projecting it will be $41 million this year. McCarthy's cap number for '25 is right around $5 million. What kind of talent could you add or keep with that difference?

If you believe McCarthy can give you similar results, it's only logical that's the way to go.

You're gambling if you throw $40-plus million (or $100 million-plus if you sign him long-term) at Darnold and assume he can take you to the promised land (or close). It's a gamble if you let him walk and pin your hopes on a virtual rookie. Which gamble has better odds?

Darnold is going to play. Someone is going to sign him. But does it make sense for Minnesota to be that team? That's the question the Vikes have to answer.

 

I find the chart stunning. Not so much the dominance of football, guess I'm glad some political programming made it in there, but only two Olympics broadcasts cracked the top 100? The only basketball game to make the list was a women's college game? The NBA gets dragged a lot, but any sport not called football seems to be struggling.

 

Bad night, missed some throws, totes sucks. Sack him.

 

As a reference, that Grammy Awards at No. 96 is 16.9 million viewers

 

Is it based on being a single platform? Like are the Olympics ratings only for NBC or does it included streams

 

This should surprise no one. The NFL has dominated TV programming for decades. According to Nielsen, 27 of the 30 most-watched broadcasts in U.S. TV history are Super Bowls (well, at least that's what Wikipedia says).

 

What if Darnold is Steve Beuerlein?

 

It's not banishing him from the league, it's simply acknowledging the truth...if a team doesn't have a QB who is elite every week, it's probably not winning the Super Bowl. Darnold is good but he's not in that class.*** As noted, even accounting for the great Lions defense, last night wasn't the first time he looked Jets-esque this season.

***Vikings are now winning the Super Bowl

 

Back in the day a middling show could attract 20 percent of the TV audience. Of course back then, you had three networks, cable was just getting going in the 80s. Now? A Tuesday network sitcom isn't just competing with literally 100s of networks available around the world for eyeballs, they are competing with every movie and TV show ever made for eyeballs given the new media eco-system.