The Weird, Wacky and Awesome World of the NFL - General Banter thread

Super Bowl L will be played at the 49ers new stadium and SB LI will be played at relient stadium in Houston.

Found this interesting:

https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2013/05/13/neils-nfl-daily-may-13-2013/

Players who cause the most flags:

Wide receivers:

It would be trite to simply publish a list of receivers with the most caused flags — at the end of the day it may well just be a function of those running the most routes. So, on that basis I decided to look at the percentage of penalties drawn to routes run. The table below includes players who ran 200 or more routes, and naturally includes plays negated by penalty.

The most striking thing is that not only did the Ravens’ Torrey Smith draw the highest number of flags, but he also had the biggest percentage too. With Jacoby Jones also in the Top 20 (at 12) it gives a clear indication of just how much opposing teams feared the Baltimore deep passing game. Also, while the numbers for Domenik Hixon may be low, the Panthers should be interesting to watch in this regard next year as, with Carolina picking him up as an unrestricted free agent, they now have the No. 3 and No. 4 players on the list.

Defensive linemen and linebackers:

As these guys can typically draw flags in either the running or passing game, on this occasion I’ve include both and used 400 defensive snaps as the qualifying mark.

While Von Miller and Jason Pierre-Paul are joint defensive leaders in flags drawn, neither could beat Brandon Graham in terms of overall percentage of penalties caused. So, not only did Brandon Graham top our Pass Rush Productivity listing with a massive 17.3, he also made offensive lineman take additional measures to combat his effectiveness.

One last thing, while we didn’t see Pierre-Paul at his best as a pass rusher this year we felt he was the best 4-3 DE run defender in the league (just ahead of Lamarr Houston). The fact that six of the nine penalties he drew occurred in the running game goes to this point.

See Brian Urlacher has retired. Future HOF'er?

TaosHum wrote: »

See Brian Urlacher has retired. Future HOF'er?

without a doubt

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Not so much that he has retired, as he has been retired. Tried hard to drum up interest in Denver and Minnesota after feeling the bears offer was too low. Thought he could have handled that situation with more class in terms of the media. But yeah, former face of the franchise and would love if he were to be inducted down the road.

still a hof for sure though.

I always thought he was a little overrated.
The guy put up gawdy stats, but I think a lot of that came from the scheme.
Any MLB that lines up 7 yards deep is going to see a massive amount of tackles.

In his prime he was a great athlete, but once his speed started to drop he stopped being effective.

You compare that to other long standing LB's like Derek Johnson & London Fletcher, those guys are still making a difference to their teams at the end of their career...

People talk of Zach Thomas getting in (not as a first ballot though) and as much as I love Thomas, Urlacher was the superior MLB in my book. So I think Urlacher should most certainly get in, but whether it is as a first ballot will be interesting.

When Michael Strahan was not a 1st ballot HOF you can never be sure who will be but Urlacher won't have to wait long

I had a free evening so, after seeing a thread on NFL UK forum, decided to go ahead and predict what I thought each teams record would be over the course of the season, baring in mind that it doesn't account for possible injuries, momentum etc.

It's far too early to put up a prediction thread so this is just to pass a bit of free time. I haven't looked at games in much detail at all, if I looked over it again I'd probably come up with a few different results, which I will do for the proper prediction thread. But anyway, I thought I'd fire the predictions in here to get some opinion and hopefully others will put up theirs too

AFC East:

Patriots 12-4
Dolphins 8-8
Bills 5-11
Jets 4-12

AFC North:

Ravens 10-6
Bengals 9-7
Steelers 9-7
Browns 5-11

AFC South:

Texans 11-5
Colts 8-8
Titans 5-11
Jaguars 3-13

AFC West:

Broncos 12-4
Chiefs 7-9
Chargers 7-9
Raiders 3-13

Playoff teams: Patriots, Broncos, Texans, Ravens
Wildcards: Bengals, Steelers

Last time three teams from the same division made the playoffs was 2007. Unlikely, but you never know! AFC North has sent two teams to the playoffs for the past 5 years, perhaps this is the year they bring three?

NFC East:

Giants 9-7
Redskins 8-8
Cowboys 8-8
Eagles 7-9

NFC North:

Packers 11-5
Bears 8-8
Vikings 7-9
Lions 7-9

NFL South:

Falcons 11-5
Saints 9-7
Panthers 8-8
Buccaneers 6-10

NFL West:

49ers 12-4
Seahawks 11-5
Rams 8-8
Cardinals 4-12

Playoffs: 49ers, Packers, Falcons, Giants
Wildcards: Seahawks, Saints

If the above happens that would leave the Raiders and Jaguars fighting it out for the number 1 pick in the 2014 draft, with the Jets, Cardinals and Browns/Titans all picking in the top five.

That passed an hour anyway :pac:

helimachoptor wrote: »

Can't believe you're low balling the Titans so much*

* can't be quoted at the end of the season!

It all depends on Locker for me. If he performs, you'll do okay and if not, it'll be on the lower end of the wins scale IMO. If Ryan Fitzpatrick has to play any significant time you might be lucky to get to five wins IMO :pac: I know Locker had injury problems last year and so did the O-line, but when he did play he was only ahead of Sanchez, Henne and Cassell in statistics. With the injury history, and having not seen a whole lot of Locker that has impressed me so far, I'm going to edge on the side of caution and that's why I've gone for around 5 wins.

As a matter of interest mate, how many wins would you pencil the Titans in for at present? Just to show my rationale, I went:

@ Steelers - L
@ Texans - L
vs Chargers, Jets, Chiefs - 2 W's
@ Seahawks - L
vs Niners - L

Bye

@ Rams - L
vs Jags - W
vs Colts - W
@ Raiders - W/L
@ Colts - L
@ Broncos - L
vs Cardinals - W
@ Jags - L
vs Texans - L

If I reviewed it again I might give them the win at Oakland making it 6 wins (although I see it as one of not many winnable games for Oakland this year), but with that schedule I don't see too many unlikely wins coming against the better teams. Jaguars is another winnable two games but since 2009 the series has been split so I go one win each in that.

Time will tell

BizzyC wrote: »

Patrick Willis,
Lance Briggs,
London Fletcher,
Zach Thomas

I'm sure I could think of more...

I certainly wouldn't put Briggs or Thomas in front of Urlacher and we could probably talk about that until the cows come home. The general consensus in the NFL world seems to be, Urlacher will be going into the HOF. And deservedly so imo.

I don't doubt he will, he played very well in that scheme and became a big name, I just don't think he was ever really the top of the LB class.

He was a massive presence in the Bears D for years, and was probably the best cover 2 LB of all time, but I don't think he'd have had anywhere near the same success in another scheme.

It's the exact same argument other people make against Welker being a top 5 WR.
Sure he puts up great numbers, but is he actually better at the position to the other elite players....