"Bad football" to quote Tom Brady. We're seeing a lot of it.

[upstater1]

Scoring is down marginally with fully half the league around the 20 ppg mark. Very few teams at 25 ppg and above.

A few weeks ago Brady said he's seeing a lot of bad football. He wasn't looking in the mirror though, and maybe he should have. But he wasn't wrong when evaluating what he was seeing on the TV.

It's not only Green Bay and Tampa Bay stinking it up. The Rams and Chargers have underwhelmed compared to last year. The Raiders have fallen off the map. The Broncos got Russell Wilson who is currently working his way out of the HOF. This is now a league wide problem.

Heck, look at the NY teams, both of these teams combined are 11-3, and neither of them have any semblance of a passing game.

You do have a bunch of bonehead coaches who swear by analytics passing up FGs that will either extend their leads to 2 scores or bring them within 1.

All around, the product is not what it used to be.

Belichick called the first few weeks extended preseason, and maybe he's right that the new CBA rules have caused teams to put their plans together much much later in the calendar than in the past. Maybe teams will ramp up now that we're about midway through the season. It may happen. BUT it's also the time of year when teams start losing players to season ending IR, and the latter 3rd of the season sometimes becomes a slog.

The parity is great for the league. The football product though is really bad for the league.

7 games into the season, only 8 QBs have thrown for more than 10 TDs. We'll end the year with a bunch of QBs having thrown less than 20 TDs and a bunch in the 20s.

Now--there may be a lot of reasons for all of this, like the CBA and practices.

But I'm going to go one level beyond that. The offensive players are not getting the level of instruction that they used to in college. It's a new generation. Ultra talented athletically. But the coaching / instruction / learning level isn't there any more. There's a lot more ineptitude. Maybe Belichick noticed this happening which lead to all the "simplifying" of the offense. Maybe the pandemic has had an impact as people being sick and out has caused some delay. Heck, the college football season was half canceled 2 years ago. I don't know what it is, but it's clear that Tom Brady was right, there's a lot of bad football.

 

[signbabybrady]

Bill has a saying for this not sure if it's still used.

EBFB eliminate bad football

 

[jah]

I can't tell if you're blaming the Gen X coaches, or the Gen Z players. Personally, I blame drill rap music.

 

[Guts]

No coincidence that the two #1 seed teams leading the way so far are teams with continuity and a great #1 skill position player.

Eagles- 2nd year coach with AJ Brown
Dills- McDermott/Diggs.

Division leaders also give you a clue on who may start off hot other than Tampa(who are playing like ****) and Seattle/Tennessee who lack talent

 

[upstater1]

I can't tell if you're blaming the Gen X coaches, or the Gen Z players. Personally, I blame drill rap music.

Millennial coaches

 

[Rob0729]

The funny thing is all the hype about all these big offseason moves with QBs and WRs have mostly been busts thus far. Tyreek Hill is getting a ton of yards, but it really hasn't helped the Dolphins win or score a lot of points (he leads the league in yards, but has 2 TDs and the Dolphins are 19th in PPG). Davante Adams has mostly been a disappointment thus far and has hurt the Packers more than helped the Raiders (even yesterday the Raiders did more damage on the ground than the air). Russell Wilson has been a bust thus far. Hollywood Brown did nothing to help the Cardinals before he was injured. Obviously DeShawn Watson is suspending and doing nothing to help his team.

The only offseason move that really has made any measurable positive impact is AJ Brown to the Eagles.

 

[ashley]

Millennial coaches

Yeah, the coaching in this league is absolutely putrid. Horrible decision after decision in these games, just blows your mind. Kind of makes us, as fans appreciate what we have.

 

[Steve102]

There's a lot going on, IMO. Much of which is already posted above.

Bad coaching
Bad GMs
Bad owners
Bad contracts

The NBA-ification of the league is not a good thing.

 

[upstater1]

Yeah, the coaching in this league is absolutely putrid. Horrible decision after decision in these games, just blows your mind. Kind of makes us, as fans appreciate what we have.

I think the younger coaches are susceptible to pressure to seem innovative. This means going by analytics. The last thing you want to do is seem like a fuddy-duddy when all your peers are using newfangled thinking.

But a lot of these guys have outsmarted themselves, especially over the last 2 weeks.

 

[Steve102]

I think the younger coaches are susceptible to pressure to seem innovative. This means going by analytics. The last thing you want to do is seem like a fuddy-duddy when all your peers are using newfangled thinking.

But a lot of these guys have outsmarted themselves, especially over the last 2 weeks.

There's a lot of that, to be sure. I think there's a lot of teams acquiring talent instead of building a team.

 

[signbabybrady]

Yeah, the coaching in this league is absolutely putrid. Horrible decision after decision in these games, just blows your mind. Kind of makes us, as fans appreciate what we have.

This is the pool of talent everyone wanted instead of Matty P and Judge. And I'm not saying Judge and Matty P are the right choice yet just that I totally understand why Bill wanted some of his own guys in a new role instead of these clowns.

 

[Bill Lee]

I think, also, some of the old school guys like AR and TB12 can no longer deal well with aversion. They are used to how things look/feel when they are going well, and can't seem to adapt to circumstances when they are not.




I mean, look at this display of drama:

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

There's a lot of that, to be sure. I think there's a lot of teams acquiring talent instead of building a team.

Assuming it's OK to mention it here but Tamper seems to be an aggregation of athletes yet dysfunctional (so far) as a team. As someone who roots for Benedict Arnold, I mean TFB, and watches the games, the last 2 games vs crap teams Pittsburgh & Carolina were 60 minutes of pain.

 

[VectorPrime]

There are 5 teams in the entire NFC with a winning record and 3 are in the NFC East.

I literally don’t understand how that’s possible.

 

[Bill Lee]

Assuming it's OK to mention it here but Tamper seems to be an aggregation of athletes yet dysfunctional (so far) as a team. As someone who roots for Benedict Arnold, I mean TFB, and watches the games, the last 2 games vs crap teams Pittsburgh & Carolina were 60 minutes of pain.

They seem to think a mix of TB12 throwing hero balls and Lenny Fournette running into the other team's DL is going to win games. They don't seem to be able to switch to a ball control offense to keep the chains moving and grind down the other team. Personally I think TB12 is a big part of this. IMO that's his vision of how to run an offense, and no one else in the building has the stature to call him out on it, unlike his days in NE where his "competitiveness" was kept in check.

 

[Steve102]

I think, also, some of the old school guys like AR and TB12 can no longer deal well with aversion. They are used to how things look/feel when they are going well, and can't seem to adapt to circumstances when they are not.




I mean, look at this display of drama:

I am willing to give Tom a pass. He's got a lot of chit in his life that is no doubt affecting him. I am not a Tampa fan, and I have not watched a lot of their games. I look back to how he handled his last year year here and I see a lot of parallels to how this season has started for him, albeit from my view at 30,000 feet. When I see him barking at guys on the sideline like a grumpy old Dan Marino, I wonder how much of that is him and his current emotional state. I am also aware that I don't want yet another Tom Brady thread, so... Aaron Rodgers, on the other hand, is the poster child of over rated QBs. He does not raise the level of play of his team mates, and Brady has done just exactly that for 20+ years.

And since we are discussing Aaron Rodgers...

@RobertWeathers

 

[Bill Lee]

No coincidence that the two #1 seed teams leading the way so far are teams with continuity and a great #1 skill position player.

Eagles- 2nd year coach with AJ Brown
Dills- McDermott/Diggs.

Division leaders also give you a clue on who may start off hot other than Tampa(who are playing like ****) and Seattle/Tennessee who lack talent

Not #1, but up for discussion: Dabol and (ugh!) Daniel Jones... Or, maybe, the old Barclay is back? Or maybe we shouldn't reach sweeping conclusions in week 7?

 

[Guts]

Not #1, but up for discussion: Dabol and (ugh!) Daniel Jones... Or, maybe, the old Barclay is back? Or maybe we shouldn't reach sweeping conclusions in week 7?

We just talking about right now.

Obviously it's a long season

 

[Sicilian]

There's a lot of that, to be sure. I think there's a lot of teams acquiring talent instead of building a team.

And a lot of that talent feels really top heavy in terms of what they're paying for them. Going ham on a #1 WR looks great and is a shortcut to having an explosive offense, but if you don't also invest in your OL and complimentary weapons, a good defense is going to expose you.

 

[Bill Lee]

And a lot of that talent feels really top heavy in terms of what they're paying for them. Going ham on a #1 WR looks great and is a shortcut to having an explosive offense, but if you don't also invest in your OL and complimentary weapons, a good defense is going to expose you.

Or put another way, MIA looks better with Tyreek Hill on the field, but you can only go so far with Tua as QB.