2017 NFL Regular Season Thread

[Sommerswerd]

It didn't get missed. The evidence with which you supported it got dismissed. The question is whether you are gonna just stick to it after the evidence got dismissed.

Fact: Alex Smith was doing a good job as the 49ers QB, got hurt, and the coach defied the general rule that you don't change starters as a result of an injury by giving his job permanently to the backup. The 49ers now look stupid since the coach AND the replacement QB have both subsequently been run out of the league and Alex Smith is leading a very strong contender.

I suspect that your position on Alex Smith has more to do with the faceful of egg the 49ers are wearing than his actual performance.

The way the 49ers lost their whole defense didn't have much to do with stupidity that leads to the egg on face you mentioned... but since you brought it up...

Alex Smith was doing a mediocre job as the 49ers QB. If you want to call it a good job, fine I guess that's defensible, tomayto/tomahto. You've pointed out before that 49ers fans tend to have lofty (possibly delusional expectations) and I would say that's also a fair critique, especially when it comes to QBs. So I can't deny that Alex Smith was a perfectly fine QB for the system the 49ers were running, ie Ground and Pound. But he didn't have any explosive playmaking ability... or at least he didn't demonstrate it on a regular basis. Harbaugh saw lightning in a bottle with Kaepernick, but then his relationship with the owner went south.

As for the 49ers being stupid... again, you've got me there. Losing Harbaugh was stupid. I can see why Harbaugh went with Kaepernick though... He was an exciting change of pace for humdrum Alex and his 200ish yds with 1 TD week in week out. But yeah I'm sticking with 251yds and 1 TD is mediocre. If you disagree with that then we disagree... its rare but I'll live.

 

[Light Cleric]

I think conflating "not being a fantasy machine" and "being a mediocre QB" is a really bad idea. 9 yards per attempt is excellent for this league, well above his career 6.3, but that doesn't rack up the fantasy points the same way.

I'm certainly not ready to anoint him yet, and I think he still has a lot to prove, but he's showing the talent he flashed several times, be it in 2011 against the Saints(which I think was our best shot at another Super Bowl, and is probably biasing me in his favor a bit) or that playoff game against Indy before Andy Reid withdrew into his shell and went to "play not to lose" mode in the second half, which had the usual result of losing.

I think it's especially unfair to call him "mediocre" when you look at how low the QB bar has fallen in the the last few years.

 

[caketastydelish]

Well, one was blocked, not missed, and 44 yarders aren't exactly "gimmies." But no matter what comes after "they'd have won if..." it is always beside the point.

They lost two extremely close games coming down to the final seconds of the game, both because of field goals not working. How common is this as an explanation of team being between 2-0 and 0-2? On paper the Chargers suck, but they don't.

On the Chiefs: The Patriots and Eagles are both solid opponents. I predict both the Patriots and Eagles will be easily one of the better teams this year. To start off the season by beating two solid teams is obviously a good sign. As the others have said, AFC West is just unbelievable this year. Closest NFCequavilent is either South or East. NFC North is starting to look better as well. I'd say the NFC, in general, is better than the AFC this year.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

As for the 49ers being stupid... again, you've got me there. Losing Harbaugh was stupid. I can see why Harbaugh went with Kaepernick though... He was an exciting change of pace for humdrum Alex and his 200ish yds with 1 TD week in week out. But yeah I'm sticking with 251yds and 1 TD is mediocre. If you disagree with that then we disagree... its rare but I'll live.

I can see why Harbaugh went with Kaepernick. Harbaugh is a college coach, and Kaepernick has all the tools of a great college quarterback. The 49ers are better off without both of them...but it's gonna take a long time to recover from the damage done.

 

[caketastydelish]

They are definitely better without Kaep, but your assertion of Harbaugh isn't fair. His win/loss record as a head coach of the 49ers indicates something else.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

They are definitely better without Kaep, but your assertion of Harbaugh isn't fair. His win/loss record as a head coach of the 49ers indicates something else.

His win loss record comes over the course of a very short career. Notice how many 49er players were ready to "graduate" into early retirement to get away from him. The guy is an exploiter, not a developer, which works fine when you are recruiting for a big time college program, but in the NFL it didn't work. Too many flashes in the pan, like Kaepernick.

 

[caketastydelish]

Maybe. But these are over-analyzed assertions. I'm just going to let his numbers speak for itself. He never had a losing season, did he?

 

[onejayhawk]

Hows the Pats D looking this week?

The Chiefs won a bruiser with Philly. Once again the team wore down the other side. It's not a time of possession thing. It's that they were getting better push in the 4th quarter than in 1st, on both sides of the ball.

Eric Berry's spark will be missed, but they have competent back ups. I wish I could say the same of Terrance Mitchell. Ouch. They need another CB.

Who though Dallas was good? I saw nothing to indicate so.

Denver has decided to not fade away quietly. That division is going to be a meat grinder.

J

 

[Light Cleric]

Tim does have a solid point. His personality started to wear on players after a while but I think the players deserve some blame, too.

On one hand, he did stuff like pursue Peyton Manning(and he would have been dumb not to, btw) and then denied he ever did it. The rah-rah stuff also didn't work as great on grown men as on college kids. He also benefited from a strong defense that was built by a disciplined coach in Mike Singletary, who also turned Vernon Davis around(the "Cannot play with them, cannot win with them, cannot coach with them" event and benching which Vernon himself later said he was grateful for).

On the other, some of the players got complacent. I think the most revealing thing was Alex Boone's quote from after Harbaugh left:

“He does a great job of giving you that spark, that initial boom. But after a while, you just want to kick his ass. . . . He just keeps pushing you, and you’re like, ‘Dude, we got over the mountain. Stop. Let go.’ He kind of wore out his welcome.”

I don't think losing the Super Bowl counts as getting over the mountain, but maybe that's just me.

But I'm not a Niners fan so there's probably more to the story than I'm aware.

Side note: I think it's a shame Baylor didn't hire Singletary. It probably sounds cliche but I think he would have been a great fit and helped clean up the vile, disgusting culture that Art Briles and company created.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't think losing the Super Bowl counts as getting over the mountain, but maybe that's just me.

I don't think that's what he meant. Teams suffer from a complacency about losing when they've done it for too long; that's "the mountain." Turning that around is hard, but treating players that are past it like they aren't is counterproductive. You see it a lot in coaches that have really short careers in the pros. Sometimes they eliminate the complacency and the team still doesn't have the talent so all that's accomplished is now the losing hurts worse. In Harbaugh's case they did have the talent to win a lot of games but at the high end I think everyone would agree they were still outmatched...and Harbaugh acting like they just weren't trying hard enough got old.

 

[stinkubus]

They are definitely better without Kaep, but your assertion of Harbaugh isn't fair. His win/loss record as a head coach of the 49ers indicates something else.

Hoyer went 15 of 27 for only 99 yards on Sunday. It's hard to argue Kaepernick would have been worse.

 

[caketastydelish]

I was referring to Alex Smith.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Hoyer went 15 of 27 for only 99 yards on Sunday. It's hard to argue Kaepernick would have been worse.

Hoyer has demonstrated that he can take the play from the headset and call it in the huddle reliably...despite having different offensive coordinators, coaches, and even teams most seasons. Kaepernick played three years in the same system and failed to master that. I think it is pretty easy to argue that Hoyer is a better quarterback, especially for a team full of youngsters that you really want to accumulate some consistent experience.

Again, this is the difference between college coaching and NFL coaching. EVERY decision in college coaching has 'win right freaking now' as literally the only measure. For a championship contender a single loss is pretty much a death blow. Win, lose, or draw the seniors are graduating after the season. A screwball improvisation that catches opponents by surprise and gets a few wins this season is great, and the players who made it work are leaving anyway so when it has no surprise value next season no one cares.

In the NFL look what happens. RG3 and the 'innovative offense' built around him meets the reality that NFL defensive coordinators given an off season to examine it are going to shoot it full of holes. Teams that win consistently are teams that keep a core of players together for five seasons or more. Losing a game early in the season can provide lessons and motivation that can fuel a championship drive, even for a wild card playoff team. It's a very different world.

 

[stinkubus]

There is literally no decent measure of performance by which Brian Hoyer is superior to Colin Kaepernick, nor has Hoyer ever shown upside comparable to what Kaepernicck demonstrated in his first year or two in the league. 6 wins is probably the ceiling for any team with Hoyer at QB where as Kaepernick had the 49ers in a Super Bowl with a legitimate shot to win the game after falling behind big early.

Hoyer's ability to accurately relay the play call is moot if he lacks the arm to actually complete passes. 99 yards on 27 attempts would be a mediocre average for a RB. It's completely unacceptable for a starting QB and the 49ers will be lucky if they win more than 2 or 3 games this season.

 

[Serutan]

Who though Dallas was good? I saw nothing to indicate so.

I thought (and still think) that the offense is good. Being made to look bad by Von MIller & Co. is not shameful, although Elliott quitting
on that interception is.

I knew better than to think the Giants game said anything about their defense other than they wouldn't be 2014 Saints bad.
I still think that, although it might turn out to be a close run thing.

 

[caketastydelish]

Yeah, I'd say Kaepernick is better than Hoyer. Getting rid of him was a mistake. Either way, I'm almost 100% sure they will draft a QB next draft. Next draft is unusually heavy with good QBs, and the 49ers clearly need one.

 

[stinkubus]

I'm guessing the 49ers, due to Kyle Shanahan, will be heavily involved in the Kirk Cousins sweepstakes this offseason. They also have the cap room to make an offer most other teams won't be able to match.

 

[caketastydelish]

Cousins is a B rated Quarterback that will most likely get paid elite level money. If I'm the 49ers I'd get a QB out of college. Not unless my prediction of someone else offering him much more than he's worth doesn't come true. The Colts paid Andrew Luck tons of money and now they don't have money to pay the rest of team, and Andrew Luck is much better than Kirk Cousins.

 

[Light Cleric]

Just to bring back up how bad the Colts are without Andrew Luck, they're currently underdogs to the Browns this week.

For perspective, the Browns haven't been a favorite since they played and beat the 49ers in late 2015. They also haven't been a road favorite since they played (and lost) Jacksonville in mid 2014.

They should bring back Ryan Grigson just so they can fire him again for the garbage roster he created.

 

[stinkubus]

The Colts coaching is atrocious, and I would expect immediate improvement, even with largely the same roster, once his is inevitably fired by the end of the season.