2018 NFL Regular Season!!!!

[Timsup2nothin]

Falcons improve this, Falcons correct that, Falcons...play exactly the same game they lost in Philadelphia last January. Massive juggernaut of yardage, no production in the red zone, clock expires on the fifth play in a row from inside the ten.

 

[caketastydelish]

You're going to take offense to this but I thought the refs favored the home team. They were extremely harsh on the Falcons.

 

[Serutan]

A prediction based on nothing remotely resembling evidence : Bell reports to Steelers right after Week 4.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You're going to take offense to this but I thought the refs favored the home team. They were extremely harsh on the Falcons.

They were "harsh" both ways, because both teams were sloppy. They called a ton of penalties, seemingly almost all blatantly valid fouls, and missed or let go as many as they called. But at the end of the day the Falcons snapped the ball EIGHTEEN times in the red zone and got one touchdown and two field goals. That's why they lost. It wasn't the refs, and frankly it wasn't the Eagles...other than their red zone defense the Eagles looked like they were still thinking about February.

 

[caketastydelish]

Did you remember the part where they said that the Falcons literally hadn't been penalized that many times since 1999? I think that stat speaks for itself.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Did you remember the part where they said that the Falcons literally hadn't been penalized that many times since 1999? I think that stat speaks for itself.

Yeah, I heard that...but it speaks about the Falcons. They had fifteen penalties and the Eagles had eleven. A whole bunch of those on both sides were offsides/false start calls that certainly don't make for a controversy, they're just sloppy play by the blayers that leave the officials no choices. Another whole bunch were holding calls, and the ones I specifically looked at the replays to see were just the usual offensive lineman gets beat and figures either the play gets blown up or he makes a takedown...and if by some miracle he gets away with it; WINNER, and if he doesn't it's not that much worse than the play blowing up so what the heck. Again, nothing particularly controversial either way. Pass interference/illegal contact had the usual smattering of dubious calls and dubious non-calls, but went both ways. Collinsworth had one non-call that he got very vocal about, even when NBC's 'expert' said it was incidental contact the former receiver grumbled that 'no receiver would agree,' but that non-call favored the Falcons. Then there was the play where the Eagles player is running along and all of a sudden he looks over his shoulder as his head stops and the rest of him keeps going. A facemask call that could be seen from Atlanta without a TV. And again, in the end when Atlanta had failed from inside the red zone for the seventeenth time, on fourth and goal with a second left, the refs made a dubious call to give them another play...which didn't help because they again failed to punch it in. If there was any bias in the officiating they'd certainly have swallowed the whistle on that one.

It was sloppy on both sides, but it is week one. Everyone was jacked up for Thursday night, and the crowd was absurdly loud. Stuff happens. But seriously, the takeaway for the Eagles is that they have to clean up a lot of stuff, penalties included, and the takeaway for the Falcons is that nine months has made no difference; they played the same team in the same stadium and lost for exactly the same reasons twice in a row. Even the score wasn't much different.

 

[Sommerswerd]

You're going to take offense to this but I thought the refs favored the home team. They were extremely harsh on the Falcons.

The last penalty of the game basically blows this argument out of the water. If the refs were biased towards the Eagles, there's no way they would have given them a fifth down to win the game.

 

[Light Cleric]

I'm guessing the profanity filter still exists and will stop me from saying what I want so I'll just say HECK THE FALCONS

 

[rah]

What little of the game I watched was pretty tough to watch. But at least my two fantasy players beat their projections, so it was a good night.
Jones and Ajayi.
And as a Bears fan, I wouldn't feel too upset if the Packers were boring to watch this year.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

What little of the game I watched was pretty tough to watch.

I started thinking of it like "a parody crew reviewing last year's playoff game between the Eagles and Falcons." It made it sort of funny to see. Sort of a Keystone Kops thing. Right down to "The game ends with an out of bounds end zone throw to Julio, but we forgot so we need a fifth down, okay, there you go."

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The last penalty of the game basically blows this argument out of the water. If the refs were biased towards the Eagles, there's no way they would have given them a fifth down to win the game.

A fifth down to TRY to win the game. Again. After four failures from the ten, here, try again from the five. Okay, you guys are hopeless, that's it, game over. If Atlanta can't solve their red zone ineptitude problem they are going to be a lot less competitive than I thought.

 

[Sommerswerd]

A fifth down to TRY to win the game.

Of course, you're right, I was imprecise ... But what is an interesting twist resulting from this game is the rampant poo-pooing of Superbowl hero and Eagleass-saver extraordinaire, Nick Foles.

I mean jeez... it's just one game... Dude led the team through the entire playoffs, to the Superbowl, against Tom Brady's/Billy B's Pats and won, and its like folks can't wait to push him out the door. Now all I'm hearing about him on the internets is how he's "unacceptable", "not going to cut it", "limited", "disastrous", and similar. People have really short memories.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Of course, you're right, I was imprecise ... But what is an interesting twist resulting from this game is the rampant poo-pooing of Superbowl hero and Eagleass-saver extraordinaire, Nick Foles.

I mean jeez... it's just one game... Dude led the team through the entire playoffs, to the Superbowl, against Tom Brady's/Billy B's Pats and won, and its like folks can't wait to push him out the door. Now all I'm hearing about him on the internets is how he's "unacceptable", "not going to cut it", "limited", "disastrous", and similar. People have really short memories.

You missed my post about the world's greatest fans booing their super bowl champions as they left the field for halftime. Gotta love Philadelphia.

 

[Sommerswerd]

You missed my post about the world's greatest fans booing their super bowl champions as they left the field for halftime. Gotta love Philadelphia.

And I thought I posted (but I just realized that I only texted it to some family members) about the world's greatest fans booing a guy on the opposing team for stopping the game by being injured... a phenomenon that I have had the pleasure of witnessing first-hand attending games at the Linc.

Philly fans are one-of-a-kind.

 

[rah]

Before the game, the talking head on the radio in Chicago where complimenting the Eagles for not cashing him out in a trade because you need such capital WHEN YOUR STARTER CAN"T GO and you need someone good to replace him. So yeah, throwing him under the bus on one game is just plain silly.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

And I thought I posted (but I just realized that I only texted it to some family members) about the world's greatest fans booing a guy on the opposing team for stopping the game by being injured... a phenomenon that I have had the pleasure of witnessing first-hand attending games at the Linc.

Philly fans are one-of-a-kind.

In fairness, they stopped booing when he came up limping, and that did look very much like the increasingly common "oh, crap, we are caught with the wrong defensive players on the field" smart player takes a dive.

 

[Light Cleric]

Philly fans are one-of-a-kind.

To be fair I know plenty of fanbases that will boo a player they think is faking an injury. But yeah, Brian Finneran played in Philly for a while and got a bunch of flak for saying Philly fans are "both the best and worst fans in the world". I know several people here who went to the Falcons playoff game and said it was the worst experience they've ever had at a sports event, including one being told to "shut his ***** up" referring to his wife, and read similar things Vikings fans during 38-7.

I liked what Eli Manning said

"Philly, you just gotta get used to," Manning said, "...because you're not used to seeing a nine-year-old cursing at you and talking about my mom and stuff. Once you get used to it, it's fine. It just takes a year or two. Now, he's 24 and training his four-year-old to curse at me."

I'm honestly trying to not crap on Philly too hard because know every fan base has drunk idiots at their stadiums but y'all put Crisco on streetlights to stop people from climbing them and then had to switch to hydraulic fluid for the Super Bowl because people climbed on the poles anyway.

 

[Sommerswerd]

In fairness, they stopped booing when he came up limping

But they didn't!! I remember last night thinking that was the funniest (Philliest) part of it all... when he got up they booed even louder... Now the booing may have started to die down as he was reaching the sidelines but the booing definitely substantially increased when he first got up limping.

The thing is... having gone there many times, that wasn't even unusual. They always act like that

 

[rah]

Where else do they throw snow balls at SANTA? And why is that considered so terrible?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Where else do they throw snow balls at SANTA? And why is that considered so terrible?

The funniest part of that is that everywhere outside of Philly that story is like "and they <breathless> threw snowballs...at...SANTA!!! <horrified expression>" and in Philly that story ends in "and we PASTED his butt good and hard! WhoooWhoooo!!!"