The Official 2012 NFL Thread v. All aboard the Kaepernick bandwagon!

[Care]

the NFC picture seems to be a lot more crowded to me

Very true.

The East has what could be 4 legit teams (Redskins got Griffin and really weren't that bad in '11).
The North has the Packers, Lions and the bears, who were good when Forte and Cutler were healthy last year.
The South ahs the Falcons, Panthers and Saints, all teams that have a lot of potentail.
And the west has the 49ers. The Cardinals and Seahawks are relatively good too (sorry Chinarider).

Of course the season can and will have many surprises so we will see. At this point I think any of these teams could make the playoffs in the NFC.

 

[China Rider]

yeah, rams are hopeless

keep thinking that niners fag

record wise, they have had the worst ever 5 year span

and you do realize being competitive in the nfl is a consistent cycle, every team eventually rises above the depths of hell, take the '11 niners for example

i rooted for the niners last year cause it was their honeymoon season, now i fucking hate them

 

[Mass08]

Patriots win it all.


Nuff said.

 

[axl blaze]

I think that the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers graded out the best for this year's NFL Draft. saying the Steelers needed to juice up their offensive line is quite an understatement. Pittsburgh got a good Guard in the first round from Sanford, and then they got local Columbus kid and tOSU standout Tackle Mike Adams in the next round. too bad Mike Adams ALREADY failed his first NFL drug test due to pot. man... that really grinds my gears. I mean I love the herb and all, but don't you think you would AT LEAST wait a couple weeks to toke up until after you checked in with the NFL team that drafted you?? FOR SHAME

I feel like the Chicago Bears and the Denver Broncos were the two teams that drafted ridiculously... seriously WTF??

also I'm not sure on why the Washington Redskins went with RG3 in the first round, then drafted Michigan State QB Kirk Cousins later... I think Kirk Cousins will be the best back-up QB in this Draft class, so maybe the Skins were going for that?

Baltimore didn't pick at all in the First Round. that is always strange to see

 

[Care]

yeah, rams are hopeless

keep thinking that niners fag

record wise, they have had the worst ever 5 year span

and you do realize being competitive in the nfl is a consistent cycle, every team eventually rises above the depths of hell, take the '11 niners for example

i rooted for the niners last year cause it was their honeymoon season, now i fucking hate them

I never take anything for granted, especially on the road. You guys almost pulled some crazy shit last year. Still, I am thankful that my team gets a couple games against The Lambs each year.

 

[Wyld 4 X]

^ People thought Eli was a mediocre QB until last year. He, much like Smith, has taken a lot of criticism over being drafted high and not always producing. We will see if he can maintain his "elite" status over the next couple years.

Only Giant haters think Eli was mediocre going into 2011. Stats-wise he looks mediocre but one only has to realize two things about Eli: he is ridiculous in the 4th Qtr of games and he has 2 SB wins. Who did he beat en route to those SB titles? Everyone's favs, Rodgers and Brady (both times). Eli's stats arent sexy like his bro's but he has more SB wins and has beaten Brady 3 times in a row now (2 for SB wins). He likely will never have the awesome fantasy stats of Brady, Rodgers or his bro but he just keeps winning and at the end of his career, SB wins count more than fantasy stats.

 

[alasdairm]

Tom Brady was the only reason the Pats made the super bowl last year... their defense was pretty bad.

that's a popular analysis but it's not that accurate. on pass defense, yep, they were bad - 2nd worst in the league in the regular season. on run defense and defense over all (points per game) they were thoroughly average, coming in around the middle of pack in those categories.

the longer the season went on, the better they got, too. in the playoffs, they were in the top half in all meaningful defensive categories including pass defense.

axl, care, china rider, wyld - at least we can all agree on one thing, right? the bills are not winning the superbowl this year

alasdair

 

[Care]

Only Giant haters think Eli was mediocre going into 2011. Stats-wise he looks mediocre but one only has to realize two things about Eli: he is ridiculous in the 4th Qtr of games and he has 2 SB wins. Who did he beat en route to those SB titles? Everyone's favs, Rodgers and Brady (both times). Eli's stats arent sexy like his bro's but he has more SB wins and has beaten Brady 3 times in a row now (2 for SB wins). He likely will never have the awesome fantasy stats of Brady, Rodgers or his bro but he just keeps winning and at the end of his career, SB wins count more than fantasy stats.

I would argue that the Giants beating the Packers and Patriots was more of a total team effort. Eli deserves a lot of credit, but its not like the Colts of 5 years ago or the Saints of today where the QB is almost the entire team.

 

[ChickenScratch]

falcons will win it all.

just cuz.

 

[China Rider]

janoris jenkins seems like an equal amount of a scumbag as antonio cromarte

i found out as a freshman he shut down both aj green and julio jones

i can't wait for him to have 8 more children and to suffocate larry fitzgerald twice a year

i can't wait for frank gore to blow out his knee again, im surprised he even lasted this long

 

[Care]

^ You also better hope that your top QB, RB and WR dont all get injured week 1 of this year.

 

[Wyld 4 X]

that's a popular analysis but it's not that accurate. on pass defense, yep, they were bad - 2nd worst in the league in the regular season. on run defense and defense over all (points per game) they were thoroughly average, coming in around the middle of pack in those categories.

the longer the season went on, the better they got, too. in the playoffs, they were in the top half in all meaningful defensive categories including pass defense.

You have to be honest and look inside the numbers here. Patsies were the highest or 2nd highest (1 or 2 with the Packers all season) scoring team the during 2011/12 season. When one teams scores in bunches you generally dont keep "pounding the rock" to get back in the game and score. You have to pass to catch up which makes you quite predictable with your play calling. This is undoubtedly why they were average on run D and horrible on pass D. Had teams not fallen behind as much, they would have likely run more and kept Brady off the field and tire out their D with more running plays. One could argue that the Patsies' best D player was Brady last season.

("Best defense is a good offense" in case someone wasnt following me.)

axl, care, china rider, wyld - at least we can all agree on one thing, right? the bills are not winning the superbowl this year

alasdair

Correct! %)

 

[China Rider]

if the rams don't win it i hope buffalo does

bills have the most supportive fan base in the league

if the eagles or steelers had a decade+ like buffalo they would barely fill half the stadium on sunday

 

[axl blaze]

bills have the most supportive fan base in the league

look inside yourself, and realize that you high-as-hell or that you are trolling very hard... too hard. I know the Steelers have been at least average for the memory frame of must of us here in this forum's median age-group... but I know tons of other fans that I would pick over Buffalo (and I have nothing against the Bills, shit I would love to see them best Miami, NY Jest, and the Cheatriots (LOL, check that link out! et tu, Harbaugh?)

off the top of my head I would pick Packers, Stillers, and even the Raiders and Patriots fans over Bills fans

CIRCLE THE WAGONS!!! HERP DERP!!

 

[Tommyboy]

Re: Bills fans

I had the "luxury" of going to school in upstate NY where everybody is a Bills fan. Once you get north of the city the rest of NY roots for the Bills since they associate the Giants and Jets with NYC (plus the play in NJ afterall) which those outside of the city don't consider to be the same as NY state. Now I wouldn't say that Bills fans are the best or most hardcore, but they are certainly very supportive, loyal and dedicated. I mean they often joke about how bad their team is, and kind of expect the team to let them down, but by god they will be there when they are let down.

You have to take into consideration the size of NY, and how inconvenient of a place Buffalo is to host the states team. The mean travel time from other places in NY to Buffalo is probably around 3 1/2 hours, and late in the season when the playoffs are out of reach, the weather is horrible so a lot of the travel is through cold, snowy roads, with a good chance of getting caught in a snow storm from the beginning on November on. I know it takes me 7 hours to get to Buffalo, and it takes people in the north east of NY about the same amount of time to get there. I knew plenty of people from upstate NY that would drive 5 hours (one way) to watch the Bills play, knowing damn well that the chance of winning wasn't that good. They wouldn't pick the easy games to go to either, not that there really are any easy games for the Bills. I was happy to see them beat the Pats last season since I had a few friends go to that game, and as you could imagine they weren't expecting the Bills to come out on top.

So at the end of the day there is something to be said for fans that will drive an average of 7 hours round-trip hoping for the best but expecting the worst, to watch a team that hasn't done anything for them lately, and that doesn't have any real star players that you can at least say you went to watch. They aren't the best fans in terms of outrageous fans wearing crazy gear, painting themselves and waving towels, but they are certainly dedicated and supportive in a more conservative and simple way, sporting their old school Bills pullover jackets and such.

 

[shimazu]

I do respect Bills fans but to say they're the best fans is an entirely opinionated statement. If you ask anyone from any city theyd probably say their city is the most loyal, so its really a wash.

 

[alasdairm]

^ how does one measure "the most supportive fan base in the league", out of interest? what does it mean in practice?

one metric would be attendance at home games. their average home attendance last season (62694) was 10k less than the capacity of the stadium (73097). that's 85.8% which places them 29th out of 32 in the league. pretty unimpressive.

overall (including road games) they drop to 30th so their fans don't travel either.

most supportive?

alasdair

 

[shimazu]

Theres so many different factors to that and like I said its really all a matter of opinion as there are good and bad fans in every city. Basically you have to factor in ticket sales, merchandise sales, waiting list length for season tickets, TV ratings, how big of a market theyre in (GB is a small town so they might not have as much merch sales as, say the Jets, but you could argue their fans are the most supportive), literally so many things factor into it. Basically Id say any city that has high-to-sold out attendance every year, even if the team is bad, is a good sports city

 

[34-dihydroxyphen]

I do respect Bills fans but to say they're the best fans is an entirely opinionated statement. If you ask anyone from any city theyd probably say their city is the most loyal, so its really a wash.

I don't think you'll find any Miami fans claiming themselves to be supportive.


Same would probably go for any LA teams. Sure, Lakers fans are supportive now, but wait til Kobe retires and they suck like everyone else does for a while. Generally, the more things there are to do in a city, combined with the amount of traffic you have to go through to get to the stadium(traffic probably discourages people more than a long drive, a long drive is boring but at least you don't have to remind yourself to leave the gun at home lest you find yourself doing a life bid for shooting that guy that cut you off), the less supportive your fanbase is. I imagine it would be the same in New York if there weren't like 20 million people there.

 

[Tommyboy]

I do respect Bills fans but to say they're the best fans is an entirely opinionated statement. If you ask anyone from any city theyd probably say their city is the most loyal, so its really a wash.

I don't care for the Bills, so it was a relatively unbiased opinion.

^ how does one measure "the most supportive fan base in the league", out of interest? what does it mean in practice?

one metric would be attendance at home games. their average home attendance last season (62694) was 10k less than the capacity of the stadium (73097). that's 85.8% which places them 29th out of 32 in the league. pretty unimpressive.

overall (including road games) they drop to 30th so their fans don't travel either.

most supportive?

alasdair

Those numbers are quite discouraging since although Buffalo isn't a convenient place for the team, the city itself is quite populated, so one would think that a fair number of local fans would attend the games. I've driven over most of NY over the last 3 years, and outside of Buffalo, Albany, and Syracuse (who would rather watch their college team), most of it is farm land or mountains, so people living in those places aren't the type that you would expect to drive 7 hours in a day and spend money to watch games. 29th isn't that bad IMO, because I can't think of a worse place where a current football team is located. Oh wait yes I can, the Jacksonville Jaguars. A similar tale of a team with 2 other teams in the same state that overshadow them. Attendance? 79%. So comparing it to a team with a similar market (team sucks, has 2 other teams in the state with more history and at least a superbowl victory) the Bills fans seem pretty supportive. It would be like having a team in one of the corners of Montana or some other rural state in the midwest. I'm sure an 85% attendance would seem very good for an area like that, and you would consider those teams fans very supportive.