2022 NFL season - Regular Season Thread - Picks etc.

Eagles and Chiefs. Going for a 100% this round.

I had no expectations for the cowboys to win last night, so I don't think they were as bad as some of the Media wanna make out, but they're never winning anything with McCarthy as Coach, time to throw the bag at Sean Payton. But that'll never happen cause he won't go for pints with Jerry.

I called Bengals/Niners weeks ago and I'm sticking by it, Burrows just seems built better for these situations than Mahomes, and hopefully niners show up the Eagles for the absolute frauds they've been all season.

I see someone blaming McCarthy and someone saying the niners defense was the reason for Dak's poor performance.

If the Cowboys had a decent QB last night they'd be playing Philly next week. Dak has been awful most of the season. He threw 13 interceptions in his last nine games including last night. He threw two against the Giants, Texans, Jags and Titans in the none games as well.as last night. In.tjat run.if games he threw 20 TDs to those 13 ints which is horrendous. He was tied for the highest amount of interceptions in the regular season despite missing five games.

So you can't just give kudos to the defense and say what happened last night was all.them. Prescott threw two awful picks, they had nothing to do with the defense. He was a pathetic 23 of 37 for 206 yards. His QB rating was 51.5, slightly worse that Purdy's 53.1. He was only sacked once and the 49ers weren't getting there that often.

The Eagles will give Purdy nightmares with their pass rush. He faced a high level pass rush last night for the first time in his career and he wasn't able for it. He's going up against a better one next next weekend.

Also I seen somebody who talked about who the Eagles faced. How about who the niners faced during that run of wins in the regular season. They faced three teams with winning seasons and three teams who made the playoffs, two as wildcards avd the Bucs with a losing season. Not exactly stellar competition.

Maybe you need to watch the highlights again.

https://www.nfl.com/videos/cowboys-vs-49ers-highlights-divisional-round

If you watch from 25 seconds you'll see the first int and then from 1.52 you'll see the second.

When you do that come back to me and tell me how much pressure Prescott was under for those two throws.

Purdy's rating was 87.4 which on regular season numbers would put him just behind Heinicke, Mariota and Brissett.

There were four QB's that had a completion percentage in the 65's over the course of the regular season. They were Cousins, Tanehill, Mac Jones and Goff.

Those numbers are not good when you are averaging 7.4 yards per attempt and that's with two thirty yarders to George Kittle thrown in. If you took those two throws to Kittle out he averaged just over 4.5 yards per attempt for the rest of his completions. That's very poor accuracy on those 17 throws with such low yards per attempt numbers.

I understand you are a niners fan but defending such a poor performance and such a drop in standard compared to what he was doing before then is basically putting the goggles on.

It's the first time he faced a serious pass rush and he didn't look like he could handle it. He's facing an even better pass rush at the weekend.

The two throws were awful and he wasn't being pressured on either throw. That's my point.

Do you disagree with that?

Purdy had a bad game. He'd have lost against a QB like Goff or Cousins because that's how bad Prescott was.

I've been raving about Purdy since he started with the niners and I liked him in college and it's a great story. I never thought he'd make it at this level but he has looked great. But against the Cowboys he didn't look good at all, running backwards towards your own end zone is crazy and he did that a few times. He had some nice throws, nearly all of them to Kittle, but overall he was very poor.

On the two Prescott interceptions he threw awful balls and it was all on him, it wasn't that he was seeing something different. Even if things looked different a top class QB wouldn't throw the ball if things change, he'd throw it away or take the sack rather than make a stupid throw. Both ints were horrendous throws.

At no point have I said that the 49ers D was bad. They weren't getting there like they've done in most games this season though. They still played well just not up to the high level we are used to seeing from them. That is why the Cowboys had a chance to win. A decent QB, not a great one, would have gotten the Cowboys across the line in my opinion.

Anyway I didn't like how Purdy reacted to being pressured and I see that happening again against the Eagles. Maybe he'll learn from last weekend and it'd be great if he has.

The Eagles have the best roster in football at the minute, their offense is just so good with two elite receivers, an elite TE a great QB and three running backs who just mesh together so well. Their OL is top notch too. The most interesting battle is how the niners D does against that OL.

I think the Eagles win on both sides of the ball and win it by something like 9 points.

I don't know what you see in the video but I looked at Dak and he's looking downfield all the time. He's not pressured and he throws an awful ball. It might be close but he never sees it coming so is unaffected by it. Tell me what you see from Dak?

How do you come to the conclusion that I cherry picked stats? I went through all of them. QB rating, completion percentage and yards per attempt. What did I not talk about? Referencing regular season stats was because of the falloff from the incredible level Brock showed during the regular season. He was comparable with the elite QB's up until the weekend.

He may get back there this weekend and it'd be a great story if he does but I'm not confident he will after what I seen against the Cowboys. He's still a rookie though and has plenty of time to improve.

I've always liked George Kittle and was talking about him when he was coming out of college and nobody rating him. I don't agree that he's on a different level to Goedart though. This season George had 60 receptions for 765 yards, Goedart had 55 for 702. Both on 12.8 yards per reception. Big difference is TD receptions where it's 11 to 3 in favour of George. Seven of them have come since Brock came in, he's been Brock's favourite target.

On the rushing situation, McCaffrey is awesome and Mitchell is really good, I'd say individually that both are better than any of the Eagles running backs but they have Hurts, Sanders, Scott and Gainwell. They just sync together with different skillets and it's a very powerful run game.

You had 2360 rushing yards and 20 TDs. They had 2509 yards and 32 TDs on the ground. It's a very underrated running game.

You say that Purdy did what was asked of him and I don't agree with that. He ran towards his own end zone too many times. In fairness you agreed about him doing that and said you are unhappy with it. Too many times he got out of the pocket with no plan.

I hope my prediction about Brock struggling against the Eagles is wrong. If I'm right I hope it doesn't become a big thing where people say he'sl been found out and all that crap. He's a rookie, Mr Irrelevant, and I want so much to see it all work out for him.

We'll find out the weekend how it goes. For many years the niners were my second favourite team but then things got really bad for them and I wasn't really passing much heed on how things were going for them but I like what I'm seeing there now from John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan to Deebo and McCaffrey and now Brock. There's a lot to like but I don't see them beating the Eagles. Hopefully you have all the pieces still in place next year and hopefully with a full year behind him Brock can become the QB you've yearned for over a long number of years.

In a suicide league and down to last 12 people with a pick each, $45,0000 on the line, tried to do a split this week but 2 people didn’t want to split it. So got to pick the winner of both games this weekend. We’ve been picking 2 teams for a few weeks now cos so many people made it this far.

thinking eagles and Cinci, torn cos Iam a big niners fan

Still torn on who I think will actually win, I think Eagles have the edge but don’t sleep on the niners, it’s just the kind of game they can grind out

kc and Cinci is a wild one, a lot of variables

How many postseason starts has Purdy? How many divisional round games has Brady had? How about if you want to do that right you take all Brady's divisional round games and put them up against Purdy's one game? You picked one Superbowl game out of all of Brady's postseason starts.

Can we pick a different game of Brady's to compare it to like the divisional round against the Chargers in the 2018 season or against Tennessee the year before or all the way back to the 16-0 2007 season and that divisional game against the Jags?

I showed season averages and compared them to how Purdy played in his divisional round matchup. I was providing an idea of the level that Purdy played at. I also said that Purdy played at an elite level before then. The big question mark remains how he handles a top level pass rush. He didn't do well against the Cowboys and it remains to be seen how he does against the Eagles.

You are lowering your expectations before the game and then finding his performance to be near enough what you expected. I'm looking at it as a poor performance plain and simple. You shouldn't be lowering your expectations to start with. Plenty of QBs played at an elit level against the Cowboys during the season.

We had eight teams play last weekend. The most outstanding performance for me was Burrow then Mahomes and Hurts who both played well.

After that we had five poor performances. Purdy was the best of them but he was poor. He was better than Allen, Lawrence, Jones and Prescott.

I'm not here to dish the guy and say he's the worst ever or anything of the sort. I'm simply saying he didn't handle the pass rush well and he has to face it again this weekend. We'll find out then if it was just a once off or if he has work to do on his game. Either way I think he's going to be around for a long time.

I'm just not confident he's ready yet for a serious pass rush is all I'm saying.

Just on Brady again, he used to have an absolute stinker of a game every couple of years. When it was going on I just accepted it because it happens to every QB. I laughed about it. If anybody said he played badly I agreed.

Yeah but you are including games before 2007 when the whole game changed and it became a passing league with a huge emphasis on officials calling PI's on defenders.

John Elway is considered one of the best to ever play the game and he retired with an all game 56% completion rate.

Joe Montana, considered the best before Brady, retired with an all game 62% completion rate and an all game QB rating of 92.

PI calls have become more prevalent as time has gone on and as a result completion percentages and QB ratings have gotten higher and higher. A 65% completion percentage today is equivalent to a 58% rate at the end of the 90's. A QB rating of 100 is similar to 92 back then.

There's an awful lot to be considered because of changes in the game. The lowest QB rating to lead the league at the end of the season in the last ten years was 104, in the ten years before that it was 100, in the ten before that it was 97 and in the ten before that it was 92.

You go and show me anywhere I've ever compared player stats from 20 years ago with a player today.

I'd guess Brady was around the sixty mark prior to 2007, no idea about his QB rating back then. I know it was 117 in 2007. I'd guess his last ten years are a lot higher in percentages to the previous ten and that's down to the changes in the laws of the game.

I wouldn't feel confident betting a euro on the outcome of either of these games, probably the four most closely matched teams in conference championships games in a good few years. I suspect many will go for Eagles and Bengals wins based on their more impressive wins in the divisional round and question marks over Mahomes' ankle and whether Purdy will crack

Can you send me a link to where you got those stats?