Category: NFL

Terrible news swept through Houston right after the Astros won the World Series — their star rookie QB Deshaun Watson tore his ACL in practice on Thursday afternoon. There were some rumblings that he had first injured his knee in the Seattle game but the tear officially happened on a non-contact injury during practice.

Houston was only 3-4 on the season but the rookie was lighting it up and beloved by fans of the NFL — because who can hate on the Texans offense? He had just put up 38 points against the daunted Legion of Boom before having the game slip away in the last minute. As soon as this news broke, the Texans season was done. Obviously having to overcome the injuries to JJ Watt and Whitney Mercilus were no joke but atleast they had a QB that could sling the ball. Watson was well on his way to a Rookie of the Year award with the slowing down of Kareem Hunt and ACL injury to Dalvin Cook but now looks like he’ll be joining Cook in that category.

Tom Savage took the ball on Sunday’s game against the Colts and looked HORRENDOUS.  The Colts, who have only won against the winless Browns and 49ers, were able to go into Houston and get the W. Don’t forget the Colts are led by arguably one of the most incompetent coaches in Chuck Pagano and still managed to let Houston have a chance in this game. Savage was able to bring them to 4th & Goal at the end of the game but ultimately failed to find DeAndre Hopkins in the endzone.  A line of 19-44 with 219 yds and 1 TD (no interceptions though!) is just not going to get the job done. The ceiling for the Texans was probably the same it was every year — one win in the playoffs and then a loss to a real contender but this one hurts alot. Watson also tore his ACL in college but was able to lead Clemson to two national championship games (one title). We know he can bounce back but for the short-term, it’s going to be ugly in Houston.

 

Big news out of Buffalo last week, when they traded for Carolina’s #1 receiver Kelvin Benjamin for a 3rd and 7th round pick. Benjamin, who was a huge talent at Florida State, hasn’t really impressed since coming into the NFL. The Panthers were hoping to find their perennial  #1 WR to pair up with Cam Newton but instead just found a big body with bad hands. The biggest news that had revolved around Kelvin Benjamin was how fat he was when he showed up to training camp.

He finished his last season as a Panther with 32 receptions for 475 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Not bad numbers definitely — but not what you want out of your #1 WR mid-season on a playoff contender. This move makes sense for the Bills but I’m still scratching my head on why the Panthers were so quick to give up on KB especially on a year that their main #1 target, Greg Olsen, is out with an injury. The Panthers seem to have enough trust in Funchess to wait out the storm until they get Olsen back.

For the Bills, this makes all the sense in the world — a team that is desperately trying to break the NFL’s longest standing playoff drought who actually look decent this year. They sit in second place in the AFC East with a 5-3 record but are only being carried by Shady McCoy. Tyrod Taylor has no weapons outside of rookie Zay Jones (who’s hardly a weapon). KB gives the Bills that big body and a potential #1 that teams need to respect rather than just stacking the box against McCoy. Although the Bills aren’t going to win the AFC East (because — well let’s be honest they have no shot), the wildcard is certainly in reach. They still have four divisional games to go (2 against the Patriots & the Dolphins) and a date with the Chiefs & Saints give them a tough finish to the season. It’ll be interesting to see how KB can stretch out defenses and we’ll see if they can hold onto that second wildcard spot.

Spoiler: They won’t — It’s Buffalo. 

A fairly easy week picking overall as everyone saw a huge amount of success. Onto Week 9 — leaderboard remains the same as it did last week.

CONSENSUS: 36-14 (LW: 6-0)

CONSENSUS PICKS: JAX, PHI, NO, SEA, OAK

 

 

 

 

 

The trade deadline came and went, leaving us with perhaps the most exciting one in years. The big one that dropped Monday night, a day before the deadline, was the move made by the New England Patriots for a second-round pick from the San Francisco 49ers.

Huge news from the Patriots regarding the supposed heir to Brady’s throne. Garoppolo had been pumped up by Patriots fans to be the next franchise QB once Brady finally throws the towel in. After playing 100 snaps and looking solid last year, he went down with an injury — which led to Brissett and then back to Brady and we all know how last year ended. Brady has been on record saying that he wants to play atleast 4 more years, and still looks really good (leading the NFL in passing yards after Week 8). However, he is 40 years old and age will eventually catch up to him — that or Giselle making him stop.

Regardless, Garoppolo has always been highly touted and keeping him through the draft last year while the rumors were floating around certainly made people scratch their ends. Garoppolo is at the end of his contract and it was highly doubtful that the Patriots were going to be able to provide him with the money and the opportunity that another team would be able to. However, he stayed on the roster as Brady’s only backup when the Brissett trade happened — furthering the belief that the Pats thought this was their guy.

Then the news broke — a second round pick from the winless Niners (which is pretty much the same as a late 1st rounder at this point) for a potential franchise QB. I don’t hate the move from the Patriots view — they were going to be put in a tough spot in the offseason with the potential for Jimmy G to leave without them receiving anything. It’s probable the Pats have their eye on a QB in this draft. It’d be very surprising to see them not to take a young QB considering the only insurance policy is now Brian Hoyer.

For the Niners, I think this is a great move. They’re going all in on a young, potential franchise QB to pair him up with their young coach. Although the talent isn’t necessarily there, other than Carlos Hyde, this is the right move to start to build up. CJ Beathard wasn’t going to provide you the victories that you strive to have as part of a historically good organization. Garoppolo gives you that chance. At this point, the Niners are going to have a solid draft pick so they can look to provide him with the talent that’s necessary. Historically, almost everyone traded by the Patriots never seems to quite pan out as expected but the Niners taking this chance was a good move.

 

Finally a good week in terms of picks where all writers were above .500. Week 8 features some premier primetime matchups, with the highlight having to be the NFC East showdown between the Cowboys and the Redskins. Essentially a playoff game for the two, it’ll be tough to have a chance in the NFC East falling to 3-4 with the Eagles looking sharp. Other matchups see the red hot Chargers at the Patriots and the Lions taking on the Steelers in Sunday night.

 

CONSENSUS PICKS: 30-14  (LW: 6-0)

CONSENSUS PICKS: CIN, NE, NO, PHI, SEA, KC

Cam Newton did his weekly press duties on Wednesday (which in itself isn’t consistent thanks to the female route question incident) and left abruptly after receiving a normal question. The legend of Cam Newton being a sore loser and acting ridiculous after a loss continues.

Cam is rivaling Odell at the point for biggest primadonna in the NFL. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this question but you can see Cam immediately shuts off and then leaves shortly after. Does the word “chunk” trigger Newton? Perhaps but this doesn’t really make sense. I’m sure we’ll get some muffled explanation from the Panthers brass but I doubt they’ll clarify this. Cam still needs to learn how to grow up after experiencing a loss, especially one that he was so detrimental to. He played like garbage, and in turn so did the Panthers. I’m sure if they win this weekend, he’ll be all smiles celebrating into the camera with his Superman pose like the clown he is.

SBNation – The Patriots embarrassed the Falcons on Sunday night in their Super Bowl LI rematch. For some in the stadium, the game was hard — and at times impossible — to see because of thick fog.

While that’s not great for the folks that were there, it seems the Los Angeles Chargers are going to suffer the most from the fog.

The Patriots are already the best team in the NFL the past decade and a half. Bill Belichick is going to go down as one of if not the best coach of all time because of his run with New England. He’s known to not only get the most out of his players, but also strategically, even if he did cheat that one time.

The Chargers haven’t been particularly good and would obviously benefit from some clear tape. That’s not going to happen.

Great — another year, another controversy for the Patriots (not really though). Anybody who watched the Sunday night beatdown of the Falcons noticed that NBC was forced to use different angles due to the immense fog that crept into Gillette Stadium. Of course, this isn’t a real controversy but we can use this an example of what extent people will go to blame the Patriots:

Julio — are you serious? “Not trying to make excuses” but blames the fireworks for creating that fog. Somebody please tell Julio that fog of that amount is not creating by fireworks. The Jets play Atlanta this week who — guess what — will also have to try to watch film of the Falcons but nobody really cares about them so you don’t hear a word. Wouldn’t surprise me if ESPN was debating the fact on whether or not the Patriots pumped in fog machines right now.

On a real note, the Patriots won’t be able to study their own tape either so they are at the same disadvantage. That being said, this team looked real good against the Falcons in all three phases of the game. They look to be clicking at exactly the right time.

 

Sporting News–  Martavis Bryant said last weekend he was happy to be a Steeler, but his actions make that hard to believe.

Bryant, who reportedly asked for a trade weeks ago, was a no-show for a team meeting Monday. A teammate told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Bryant “called in sick.” 

After Sunday’s win over Cincinnati, Bryant commented on an Instagram post defending himself against fellow Steelers wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster. Bryant caught just one pass Sunday for three yards, while Smith-Schuster, a rookie from USC, had two catches for 39 yards and a touchdown.

The since-deleted comment read: “JuJu is no where near better than me, fool. All they need to do is give me what I want and y’all can have JuJu and whoever else.”

Bryant later refined his remarks and commented on the same post: “JuJu is the future and got great talent and is going to be one of the best to play this game. I want him to get his. I just want mines, period, point-blank.”

Bryant has 18 catches this season for 234 yards and one touchdown. He was suspended all of 2016 for multiple violations of the league’s substance abuse policy.

This comes on the heel of the rumors of Martavis Bryant requesting a trade last week. He suited up for the Steelers this week and things looked better as they opened up play with a reverse to — you guessed it — Martavis Bryant. That would be the first of TWO looks that he got all game. Bryant, clearly upset with the Steelers, went on a rant against his fellow WR JuJu Smith-Schuster (who absolutely crushed it with his hide-and-seek celebration) on a random Instagram post. And then today..

Now I’m never a fan of guys not playing out their contract but something has to be done in Pittsburgh. Bryant’s contract ends this season and he’s clearly not on the same page with anybody on the Steelers. Trade him or bench him — but the Steelers have to do something. Bryant is obviously extremely talented but isn’t near the level of Antonio Brown or Le’Veon Bell, Big Ben’s top two targets. The emergence of the dynamic rookie Smith-Schuster is clearly not helping his case either.

Lighting up social media and now skipping practice? The Steelers need to ship this guy out of town before it becomes detrimental to their Super Bowl efforts. Hardly utilizing him, they’re 5-2 anyway — might as well save some face and get some value before he pulls a Blount and walks out on the team.

ProFootballTalk-  Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell is fed up with Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict.

After Burfict kicked at the head of Steelers fullback Roosevelt Nix in a pileup during Sunday’s game, Bell posted a video of the incident on Twitter and blasted Burfict for his behavior.

“Dude gotta go, man,” Bell wrote. “That’s not football at all.”

Bell felt that Nix showed admirable restraint by not retaliating against Burfict, but the NFL shouldn’t be restrained in its punishment of him.

“It’s unbelievable the league is just condoning this activity,” Bell wrote. “But if Rosie reacts, Rosie would be the one that would get into trouble.”

Burfict was suspended for the first three games of last season for cheap shots against the Steelers in the 2015 playoffs, and suspended for the first three games of this season for a cheap shot in the preseason. Those suspensions apparently haven’t been enough to make him change his ways. Another suspension may be in order.

 

Another season, another controversy that Burfict finds himself involved in. After being suspended for a total of 6 games — this man does not learn. The game was only 45 seconds in before Burfict caused trouble against the Steelers — a team he has already been suspended for his actions against. This time it was for a kick on the Steelers’ FB Nix.

 

These plays aren’t going to stop happening and Burfict will continue to put players in harms way. Bell, clearly frustrated that he keeps getting away with it, aired his grievances out and I have to agree. Burfict has been flagged a whopping 17 times in his NFL career for a personal foul, and that’s not even counting all the plays he should have been flagged for (including this one).

If the NFL actually cared about player safety, which they don’t, Burfict would be gone. I don’t know if this play is strong enough to warrant any kind of suspension but this is a clear indication that even after the hit on Anthony Sherman in the preseason (yes, preseason), Burfict does not care and never will. It’s a joke that the NFL won’t actually step in and do something.

The parity this year has been incredible — it’s starting to look like nobody wants to separate from the pack. Our picks struggle for the third consecutive week but we have some movement on the overall leaderboard. The highlight no doubt this week is the rematch between the Falcons and the Patriots. Let’s take a look at this picks:

CONSENSUS PICKS:   24-14  (LW: 3-1)

 

CONSENSUS PICKS: MIN, LAR, DAL, PIT, NE, PHI