Andy was the betting favorite to first infect the college thread. Congratulations to Steagles on the upset victory.

I might have decent odds as well, having come thisclose to posting something NFL-related in the college thread just the other day because I had nowhere else to turn.

topics being:
- predictions on which star QBs in next year's draft will thrive - and who will be a bust?
- which teams need a QB most?

Andy was the betting favorite to first infect the college thread. Congratulations to Steagles on the upset victory.

someone clearly hasn't been paying attention to my posts over the years. i'll try to troll some more on sundays, for your benefit of course.

In the most important news of the year, Seattle beat Detroit 48-45 for the only scorigami so far this year. Scorigamis are increasingly scarce, so every new one is a cause for celebration!

Andy was the betting favorite to first infect the college thread.

I love the misplaced moral superiority. As if college football isn't a disease.

I think the networks might be reconsidering their decisions to have Denver play three primetime games in the season's first six weeks.

Out of curiosity, what's the best way to find this thread if it is not in Hot Topics? It is tagged with 'nfl' and 'off-topic' but clicking on those tags does not bring you to a page where this is listed.

Bookmark it?

Tampa puking all over themselves aside, it is strange trying to absorb that the Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the worst teams in the NFL. The last time they were this bad, Richard Nixon was president.

They've had it coming.

Good idea. I always forget about the bookmarking tool.

Isn't that a little premature about the Steelers?

The 49ers are a weird team right now. They are all-in and have a very talented roster for the most part. Where they are most lacking in talent is at QB which the most important position. They acquired CMC and really have a lot of good offensive players to try to make it easier for Jimmy G.

Garoppalo is 3rd in the NFL in DVOA this season. He was 5th last season. The year before he was at 9.4%, which would have been 13th if he had been healthy. He was 11th in 2019. If you prefer the cumulative stat DYAR, he was higher last season then Josh Allen. QB isn't their main problem, staying healthy (across all players) is.

He is around the 15-20th best QB in the league. The league knows how good as he was as he was very available this offseason and know one was willing to give up much for him. That is telling.

His injuries might have helped drive down his potential trade value.

Isn't that a little premature about the Steelers?

Nope. They are godawful. The offense is an endless string of three-and-outs; the o-line is bad, they have no quarterback, and it turns out that when every pass is a rollout, it's easier on the defense to only have to defend half the field. The defense started out pretty good, but it's tough having to be on the field 35 minutes a game, and they've been wrecked by injuries.

I'm sure they'll keep battling hard every week--Tomlin and his staff are very tactically poor, but Tomlin's teams always play hard--but they're going to go about 4-13 or 5-12.

Kenny Pickett is intriguing, though. If concussions don't drive him into early retirement he could be a good player. He plays and carries himself with an unusual level of self-confidence for a rookie, and he's flashed better accuracy than I thought he had. He has the feel for the pass rush that can't really be taught. The decision making has been, well, what you'd expect of a rookie behind a bad o-line. I predicted he would be a mega-bust, but he might prove me wrong.

I can't understand what anyone ever saw in Mitch Trubisky. He has zero plus skills at the NFL level. He's even undersized and doesn't have a howitzer arm or anything. But I'm not sure throwing Pickett into the deep end like this is a great idea. Like many observers, when the Steelers signed Trubisky, I assumed his job was going to be to take the licks until the team gets through the Murderer's Row schedule they're currently in the midst of, which ends with their Week 9 bye, before turning it over to Pickett. But apparently the only people on Earth besides Mrs. Trubisky that were surprised by how bad Mitch turned out to be were the Steelers' coaching staff, and they'd seen enough by halfway through the Buffalo game.

His injuries might have helped drive down his potential trade value.

Not to the 49ers! Based on what they gave up for McCaffrey, apparently they think being injured all the time has positive value.

I can't understand what anyone ever saw in Mitch Trubisky. He has zero plus skills at the NFL level.

in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king:

4/25/17: Trubisky is almost a certainly going to go in the top half of the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft. He is the consensus top quarterback prospect even though he has flaws such as a lack of experience and downfield accuracy. Still, teams across the league feel Trubiksy is the most polished of any of the 2017 quarterbacks.

Trubisky was very efficient in 2016, displaying a quality skill set and accuracy. The junior beat up on some weak secondaries during the year, but it still is impressive that he had three straight games throwing for over 400 yards without throwing a single interception. Trubisky was impressive against Florida State and Pittsburgh before an ugly game against Virginia Tech. On the season, Trubisky completed 69 percent of his passes for 3,748 yards with 30 touchdowns and six interceptions. He also scored three rushing touchdowns. Trubisky was a backup as a sophomore and freshman.

Trubisky has more of a second-round-caliber skill set, but what teams love about him his accuracy in the short to intermediate part of the field. They also feel he was the most consistent quarterback in the 2017 NFL Draft. Some teams have had second-day grades on many quarterbacks who ended up going as top-32 picks. Sources from three different teams told me they graded Trubisky in Round 2, but other teams have him graded as a first-rounder. One playoff general manager told WalterFootball.com that they rate Trubisky the highest because he has the tools to play with accuracy and athleticism.

keep in mind: he wasn't exactly drafted ahead of two perennial MVP candidate QBs......oh...oh.

Tomlin and his staff are very tactically poor

that seems monumentally unfair, considering tomlin hasn't had a losing season in 15 years as the steelers' head coach.

The issue with Mitch is that he's too fragile for his strengths. He's be a perfectly good QB and possibly an occasional pro-bowler if he could stay on the field and do a bunch ofRPO, bootlegs, and scrambles.

Tomlin is a motivator/leader who has always relied heavily on his coordinators to handle the tactics, which I hasten to say is a good model that more teams should embrace in their head coach. It worked great when the coordinators were Whistenhunt/Arians and LeBeau. It has worked less great since then, and in particular it's mystifying that Matt Canada remains with the team when he was only ever Roethlisberger's lapdog and has no idea what he's doing.

I have a lot of respect for Tomlin--his skills at handling the locker room and the media are unsurpassed--but the Xs and Os are definitely not where his strengths lie. He needs vastly better coordinators than he's got right now.

Is Tim America available?

He hasn't returned their calls, but the rumor mill has it they've reached out to Eric England and Todd France about their defense and special teams gigs.

Mahomes and the Chiefs are moving the ball with ease against the 49ers defense.

The 49ers didn't get touchdowns when they had chances to do so and couldn't stop Mahomes and the Chiefs on 3rd and 20. You're no going to beat the Chiefs like that.

Seattle is going to be in first place in the NFC West by the end of the day.

Mahomes just tearing apart the 49ers in the second half.

Seattle is going to be in first place in the NFC West by the end of the day.

One of just five NFC teams with a winning record.

The #Steelers have dropped four interceptions tonight.

Here's a clip of three of them... and they just had another. pic.twitter.com/IBJ0EjQhkE

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) October 24, 2022

One of just five NFC teams with a winning record.

And three of those five are in the NFC East.

the Commandos had been position to grab a franchise QB for the first time since Sammy Baugh 80 years ago.

then they staggered past the hapless Bears and Packers, and now they are tied for the last NFC playoff slot.

parity - or parody?

Aaron Schatz @FO_ASchatz
Another fun playoff odds simulation outcome.

In 1 out of every 100 sims, the Philadelphia Eagles win the Super Bowl *and* get the No. 1 overall pick from the Saints.

#14 and #15 -- I read a lot of the draft writeups that year after the Chiefs surprised me by taking Mahomes.

I get the impression that for a lot of draft analysts, "polish" = "footwork" and "footwork" = "3, 5, and 7 step drops from behind center, plus play-action passing".

I get the impression that for a lot of draft analysts, "polish" = "footwork" and "footwork" = "3, 5, and 7 step drops from behind center, plus play-action passing".

to the extent that it's anything more than just a gut feeling, it also includes pre-snap reads/audibles, how a QB goes through his route progression, command of the offense, leadership, experience, and probably a few more things.


but you do have a point. the NFL success of josh allen and patrick mahomes raises some very important questions about QB development that noone has come close to answering.

The issue with Mitch is that he's too fragile for his strengths. He's be a perfectly good QB and possibly an occasional pro-bowler if he could stay on the field and do a bunch ofRPO, bootlegs, and scrambles.

I don't think I agree with this, but also he's gone so I really don't care that much. He's very inaccurate and his arm strength is poor; add to that the poor decision making and I don't know how anyone sees he could be an average QB. The one year he looked good, he was asked to do almost nothing. He's a lesser Jimmy G with more mobility.

keep in mind: he wasn't exactly drafted ahead of two perennial MVP candidate QBs......oh...oh.

Unless there's something else MVP stands for, I don't care what awards Watson is responsible competing for.

Not just their success, but also the fact that there are only two elite quarterbacks in the league right now. The demands of the traditional quarterback position within the framework of modern football have become so complex that only two humans currently alive can do it at a consistently high level. There are only a dozen or so that can do it at even a consistently competent level, and half of them are old.

Coaches need to rethink from the ground up their whole concept of how to construct an offense if you're not fortunate enough to have one of the few guys around that can play the modern quarterback role competently, an offense that doesn't place nearly so much responsibility on the shoulders of one person.

People say there are no good QB's every year and I think they are always wrong.

I don't necessarily think the quarterbacks of 2022 are objectively worse than those of 2012, or 2002, or 1982. I do think what's being asked of them is now more than most of the quarterbacks of 2012, or 2002, or 1982, could handle. You have to be athletic enough to elude modern NFL pass rushers and gain yards when the pass isn't there, and you have to be able to read defenses that both are more complex and comprised of faster, quicker players than they were even ten years ago.

Then again, scoring isn't down leaguewide, and rushing is only a little bit up (much of the increase accounted for by quarterbacks), so maybe I'm seeing ghosts and not giving the Jared Goffs of the world enough credit.

But I do think teams like the Texans and Browns and Jets and Commanders and Steelers and Bears and Panthers that don't have a quarterback would benefit a lot from rethinking their entire offensive philosophy, rather than continuing to plow high draft picks into college prospects or acquire veterans other teams have discarded and asking them to do what only a very few guys in the world can do effectively.

Of course, all those teams except the Steelers have a long history of inept management, so there's more than one theme in this story and their lack of a competent quarterback is at least as much symptom as disease.

Thanks for the clarification, I think I understand now. I guess maybe those teams fall in love with the idea of striking gold by finding the next Mahomes/Fields or Brady/Stafford (depending on how fast the guy happens to be).

Of course, all those teams except the Steelers have a long history of inept management,

one of them is not quite like the others.
one of them - while it IS pretty long ago - won 3 Super Bowl titles and another NFC title in a span of just 9 years in the 1980s-1990s, on the tail end of having only 2 losing seasons in a span of 22 years (7-9 and 6-10).
not many franchises have ever done that.

two of the others have never had a string of success, while the other two - not since before almost any of us were born. but "30 years" can reasonably be taken as a "long history of inept management." it just wasn't always so.

I don't necessarily think the quarterbacks of 2022 are objectively worse than those of 2012, or 2002, or 1982. I do think what's being asked of them is now more than most of the quarterbacks of 2012, or 2002, or 1982, could handle. You have to be athletic enough to elude modern NFL pass rushers and gain yards when the pass isn't there, and you have to be able to read defenses that both are more complex and comprised of faster, quicker players than they were even ten years ago.

NFL teams did a very poor job of evaluating and developing young QBs for about a decade, from around 2005-2015-ish. NFL coaches, front offices and organizations were slow to adjust to the proliferation of spread offenses throughout college and high school football, and as a result, there was too large a gap in knowledge and ability between college and the NFL for QBs to develop. either the game was too different, or too fast, or too complicated, or the communication wasn't there, but it just didn't work.


basically, there was an entire cohort of would be 25-35 year old QBs that never happened, at least in terms of historical relevancy. there's russell wilson, there's andrew luck (and maybe stafford), but after that, the best of the rest is a string of overachieving randos like flacco, cousins, carr, cutler, okafor, romo and matt ryan.

Re 31. Yeah he's not great as a traditional QB but in 2018 when he came thr closest to being a scampering playmaker he was legitimately very good.

His two worst games that year happened in thr game he injured his shoulder forcing him to miss two games and the first game back from that. He'd go on to get surgery for his other shoulder in the off-season.

Through his first 9 games he was averaging over 290 combined yards and almost 2.5 TD per game. The next 5 games he only averaged 100 yards per game and 1 TD per game. The guy was on pace to have over 4000 throwing yards around 4600 in combined yards. He was on pace to almost hit 40 total TD for the year as well.

I don't know how that equates to being asked to do nothing. The next year Mitch and the Bears changed up what they wanted him to do and they went 8-8. The defense went from 1st best to 4th best but the offense went from 9th best to 29th best. Losing around 9 points for while only adding 1 point against.

Not just their success, but also the fact that there are only two elite quarterbacks in the league right now. The demands of the traditional quarterback position within the framework of modern football have become so complex that only two humans currently alive can do it at a consistently high level. There are only a dozen or so that can do it at even a consistently competent level, and half of them are old.

Despite the complaint that there aren't many good QBs, scoring across the league has been consistently going up and up (with a hiccup so far this year). I don't know if QBs are worse than 2012, 2002 or 1992, but offenses are certainly performing better.

Sure, but that's mostly (pretty much entirely) a result of rule changes that can't help but make scoring rise. 15 yard flags every time you give a receiver or quarterback anything more than a stern look add up.

I'll reveal myself, to the few who didn't already know, as a crackpot by saying I quite like Brad Oremland's suggestion on how to steer football a little bit more toward offensive balance without jeopardizing anyone's health: add a rule that any pass that doesn't go at least five yards past the line of scrimmage in the air is a lateral (with an obvious exception for passes deflected by a defender right out of the passer's hand). It counts as a rushing attempt for whoever catches it; if it hits the ground it's a live ball.

That, and stop with the damned 40 yard pass interference spot fouls.

offenses are certainly performing better.

no longer punting into the end zone on 4th and inches from the opponents' 38-yard line has helped.
so have 2-point conversions (ok, since 1994 but I think it's a little more common now).
and many other peripherals.

add a rule that any pass that doesn't go at least five yards past the line of scrimmage in the air is a lateral. It counts as a rushing attempt for whoever catches it; if it hits the ground it's a live ball.

That, and stop with the damned 40 yard pass interference spot fouls.

I would be willing to listen to a constructive debate on the first one, at least.

and while the 1-year experiment with challenging PI was a failure, it's only because they foolishly seemed to try to adjudicate every one.

set the bar very high, so only the most preposterous get changed. a borderline mistake? let's move on.

Sure, but that's mostly (pretty much entirely) a result of rule changes that can't help but make scoring rise. 15 yard flags every time you give a receiver or quarterback anything more than a stern look add up.

Okay, but the original critique was that there aren't enough QBs who can perform 'at a consistently high level'. If you set that level to a game with at least 250 yards, 3 TDs and 0 INT, then more QBs are performing at that level than ever. The rule changes may be helping them perform at that level, but so what? That doesn't mean the performance didn't happen.

Fun fact: Mitch Trubisky has had three such games. Roger Staubach had zero (that's the 70s for you).

Sure. That's how replay in all sports should work: the official gets 30 seconds to look at replays at realtime speed; if it isn't obvious within 30 seconds that the call was wrong, it stands.

I wrote two paragraphs about pass interference, but they were dull and contained nothing novel. Suffice to say the NFL is overzealous by far in forbidding defenders from fighting for a ball in the air, especially deep balls.

Oh, another Oremland motion I'm inclined to second: expand the legal contact zone for defenders from 5 yards out to somewhere between 7 and 10.

Okay, but the original critique was that there aren't enough QBs who can perform 'at a consistently high level'. If you set that level to a game with at least 250 yards, 3 TDs and 0 INT, then more QBs are performing at that level than ever. The rule changes may be helping them perform at that level, but so what? That doesn't mean the performance didn't happen.

Yes. The last few years I've seen a lot of games wherein I felt throughout "man, this quarterback's having a rough day" but at the end of it his stat line is like 23-for-36 for 272 yards. Trubisky against the Browns this year for instance: 20-for-32 for 207 yards, 0 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, sacked once. He sucked in that game.

It's a lot like pitching numbers in the mid-1960s or hitting numbers in the early 2000s. The conditions make the stats look better than the performance.

More to the point: The quarterbacks on today's bad teams still put up numbers that would have put a man on the cusp of the Pro Bowl in 1980, or even in 2000, but the fact remains that by today's standards those teams don't have good offenses and they don't win. I don't have nearly deep enough knowledge of football to design an effective offense with no quarterback. And while I am aware of the (strong) possibility no one's tried it because everyone who does have deep knowledge of football understands it can't be done, I suspect the possibility is equally strong that the rigid ethic of "never do anything that might embarrass you" in football makes those who live inside it unable to properly consider the possibilities.

But just to extra firmly establish my crackpot credentials before I go to bed, here's the rough outline of the strategy I would pursue, if charged with rebuilding the Browns or Texans:

Invest heavily, in draft capital and cap space, in the offensive line and defensive line (NFL teams commonly do the latter, not so much the former). Don't invest heavily in running backs or receivers, beyond one elite WR if you can get one. Stockpile the kind of little fast guys that the middle-to-late rounds of the draft are always bursting with. You want at least two who played quarterback in high school/college, i.e. who couldn't hope to play the traditional QB position in the NFL, but who can throw.

Your offensive setup is six or seven blockers, and four or five interchangeable skill guys. One key insight modern NFL coordinators have come to appreciate is that properly executed misdirection is just as good as blocking at taking defenders out of the play. You'll throw about 15 passes a game. Mostly you will run, and always with some kind of misdirection in the play. No one will get 20 carries; mostly no one will get 15 carries, but the team will lead the league in rushing attempts, by far.

You'll have one guy who will throw most of the passes, but he won't be a traditional quarterback. Your pass plays will almost always start with a fake hand-off; four guys will run routes, but only two of them will be live. The passer is tasked with making two very quick reads: if the deep guy's in single coverage, chuck it; if not, look at the shorter route, if he's wide open, throw to him; if not, run, immediately. (One potential problem with this is that Randy Moss was far from the only receiver that balked at being a decoy; it will take a coach with the skills to get everyone to buy in to make this work.)

Your offense will never punt on fourth down, if there are fewer than about six yards to go. 4th-and-3 from your own 7, you're going for the first down. It will be difficult for the opposing defense to stop this kind of offense from gaining 10 yards in 4 plays. Sometimes you will turn it over on your own 7, and yes, that hands the opposition free points. But the opposition will run three or fewer plays, and then you get the ball back.

A big Achilles' heel of this strategy is: a holding penalty pretty much ends your drive. But then, (1) the same is true of any team now that has no quarterback, and also (2) you won't be running traditional pass plays, thus won't get nearly as many holding penalties. Or big sacks. A loss of more than 2-3 yards should be very rare in this offense.

Your defense exists for only one purpose: force a turnover or die trying. Full blitzkrieg after the quarterback, aggressively attack the box, leave deep receivers in single coverage. You'll get burned deep a couple times a game. You'll also force some turnovers. That's far preferable, but either way, you get the ball back, quickly.

If you actually read this far then you must have grasped the crux of the strategy by now: you're going to have the ball for 40+ minutes a game. I first read from Bill James a truism that applies in all sports, and football is very much not an exception: it takes more energy to play defense than offense. Commentators at the time believed it was because they had no reliable running game, but I believe this is an underappreciated and more significant reason why the old run-and-shoot teams were so prone to blowing leads: by playing fast and scoring fast, they inadvertently wore out their own defense. Opponent runs 8 plays and kicks a field goal, you run 5 plays and score a touchdown, opponent runs 9 plays and scores a touchdown, you run 4 plays and turn the ball over, your defenders are sucking wind and you're in trouble.

That's the concept, turned on its head. You may have gotten burned deep a couple times and gotten stuffed on 4th-and-2 on your own 11 once, but by the fourth quarter if you're down by 7 you're in pretty good shape, because by then your defense is fresh and theirs is exhausted.

If, against all probability, you're still reading this, you are likely thinking "yeah, that sounds like every college offense, there are good reasons it doesn't work in the NFL." You may well be right. I'm not convinced. The reasons why I'm not convinced are: (1) while everyone wants big beefy blockers, smallish fast guys are a lowly valued commodity around the NFL. You can pick up a bunch of them on the cheap if you don't mind that they have spotty hands and don't run the crispest routes. Which, for this offense, you can live with that, and route around it. Quite a few of these players have some experience playing quarterback; that's good enough for us. While everyone else is bidding big for mediocre quarterbacks and really big for good-not-great receivers, we can vacuum up 15 of those guys. And the other reason is: (2) the combination of this kind of offense with almost never punting would be very powerful. You'll run twice as many plays as the other guys, even in the games you lose.

You won't beat the best teams this way, they'll probably destroy you? Quite possibly. You absolutely will have some games where it all goes bad and you lose 49-10. But we're not talking about winning the Super Bowl here, we're talking about building a team from the abyss that can win 10 or 11 games, maybe a playoff game, and be entertaining along the way.

If someone tried something like this and it did work, of course it would only work for two or three years at best, and then the league would adjust and you'd have to try something else. But mainly the reason why no one has ever tried a radically different approach to winning games in the NFL is the most practical one: if you try and fail, that's the end of your career. I mean, look at Chip Kelly: he tried something not nearly this drastic, had some success at first, but the instant it went bad he was run out of the NFL on a rail, never to return. But I believe it's a cohesive strategy that's hell of a better approach to turning a moribund team around than whatever in the world the Bears are doing.

Just tacking on one final summation because it occurred to me to say it this way: convincing 60 highly paid professional athletes to all work together on something this radically exceptional to all NFL culture would be hard. A coach with enough tactical acumen and personal charisma to make it work wouldn't likely need a radical gimmick like the above to be successful.

I just like theorycrafting, okay? :)

Football is tough. Staying healthy is tough. Aligning players so that old players age out at exactly the same time as young players come into their own is tough.

If we have only 2 great QBs currently that means that last year we had 5 with lots of young QB looking like they had potential. This year we're only 7 games in so there is olenty of time for things to change. Or not.

Anyway this year it looked like Tua under a new scheme was putting things together until he got hurt. If you go by QB rating and you say Patrick Mahomes is the baseline for great QBs his QBR of 2021 is basically matched by 8 quarterbacks so far this year. Just saying.

Then again, scoring isn't down leaguewide

It's down 1.3 points per team, and 3 compared to 2020.

either the college football thread has gone missing, or i've been banned from viewing it (neither would surprise me), so i figured i'd post this here:

sean clifford (penn state's 4th year starter at QB) is 0-6 vs. top 10 teams, entering this game. i do not expect that trend to change today.

sean clifford (penn state's 4th year starter at QB) is 0-6 vs. top 10 teams, entering this game. i do not expect that trend to change today.

2 interceptions so far.

can't wait to see where this goes...

the reason why no one has ever tried a radically different approach to winning games in the NFL is the most practical one: if you try and fail, that's the end of your career. I mean, look at Chip Kelly: he tried something not nearly this drastic, had some success at first, but the instant it went bad he was run out of the NFL on a rail, never to return.

chip kelly failed with the eagles because black players didn't trust him after he ran off desean jackson and lesean mccoy while bending over backwards to keep riley ("i'll fight every [n-word] in here") cooper. the year he was fired, the eagles won 10 games. the on-field issues were salvageable; it's the off-field issues that were the backbreaker here.

that's a TD.

and it's correctly overturned on review. 10-0 hole.

PSU up 14-13 on tosu at the half.

The eagles were 6-9 when they fired Chip Kelly. He probably got fired because of well, everything. He ran the front office and made terrible moves. He was the HC and the Eagles sucked.

He then went to the 49ers and went 2-14

And the NFL tries new stuff a lot. The game has changed a great deal and teams have done that through innovation

The eagles were 6-9 when they fired Chip Kelly. He probably got fired because of well, everything. He ran the front office and made terrible moves. He was the HC and the Eagles sucked.

####, you're right. my timeline was off. the eagles won 10 games (and missed the playoffs) the season before kelly was fired.


fun fact:

during that 6-9 (eventually 7-9) season, lane johnson was suspended for 10 games.

the eagles record in games he missed: 2-8.
in the games he played: 5-1 (including 3 W's against teams with 11+ wins).

4th and goal from the 2.5 yard line: let's kick a FG
4th and goal from the 1.25 yard line: let's go for the TD


wtf canada?

romo is so ####### good as an announcer.

it annoys me.

fun fact:

during that 6-9 (eventually 7-9) season, lane johnson was suspended for 10 games.

the eagles record in games he missed: 2-8.
in the games he played: 5-1 (including 3 W's against teams with 11+ wins).

And Chip would have cut him in the off-season.

Everybody on the Bears need to be lined up against a wall.

fun fact:

during that 6-9 (eventually 7-9) season, lane johnson was suspended for 10 games.

the eagles record in games he missed: 2-8.
in the games he played: 5-1 (including 3 W's against teams with 11+ wins).

HOF talent, just misses too many games. Decent bit of drafting for the Eagles in the early teens - Kelce in '11, Cox in '12, Johnson in '13.

One interesting way to look at this game is from the Steelers perspective. They converted 3 fourth downs, a fake punt on another fourth down and used a trick play for a TD. And they still lost by 22 points.

HOF talent, just misses too many games. Decent bit of drafting for the Eagles in the early teens - Kelce in '11, Cox in '12, Johnson in '13.

i mean, lane johnson has a pretty reasonable chance to get into the HOF, despite the missed time. he's "only" 32 years old, and he still has credible claim to being the best RT in the NFL (the last sack he gave up in pass protection was on a play where he tore his ankle up in 2020; the one before that was week 7 in 2019; he's only given up those two sacks in his last 50+-and-counting games) another 3-5 years of playing at this level, especially if the eagles are relevant, and he's keeping jalen hurts' pocket clean...that seems like a very good HOF case to me.

i think jason kelce ends up in the HOF, too.

and jason peters will obviously get in whenever he retires.


i don't think fletcher cox makes the cut, though. johnson, kelce and peters are players whose dominance will look better and better with hindsight; johnson for keeping his QBs clean for years on end; kelce for throwing blocks 30 yards downfield in the super bowl; peters for caving in entire defensive lines and opening big gaping holes.

but as good as fletcher cox is/was, it's going to be a lot harder to make his case for the HOF. look at the tape and you'll see him eating double teams; look at the stat sheet and you'll see that he only averaged 7 sacks per season in his best 5 year stretch. his case doesn't sizzle; it's not sexy; and it's going to look worse and worse in comparison to contemporaries that were able to pile up sacks.

After the Lions threw deep on 3rd-and-inches and kicked a tying field goal that was a lower-percentage play than going for the fourth down would've been, getting burned for 36 yards to let Buffalo answer with a field goal of its own was an appropriate ending.