2014 NFL Playoffs - First Round

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 2:59 pm

Any predictions?

I'm gonna go with:

Indy over KC
Cinci over SD
SF over GB
NO over PHI

Also, how the HELL does Rex Ryan still have a job? Man he is an awful coach

Mets · Post by **Mets** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 3:12 pm

Curious - what basis is being used to say Rex Ryan is a terrible coach? I remember two AFC Championship runs and then the Jets decided to stop adding offensive talent. Given the castoffs they ran out at receiver ad running back this year along with a deer in headlights rookie QB, an 8-8 record with that team may have been one of the greatest coaching jobs in the NFL this season. Lets see how good of a coach Belichick is with Mark Sanchez as his QB.

Dodgers · Post by **Dodgers** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 3:16 pm

I've got KC, Cincy, SF, Phi

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 3:24 pm

Mets wrote:Lets see how good of a coach Belichick is with Mark Sanchez as his QB.

Well, he did go 11-5 with Matt Cassel at quarterback one year. The thing I find most curious about retaining Ryan again is that he's not Idzik's guy. It's two lame duck years in a row for Ryan to start off Idzik's tenure. If the Jets don't get any better next year and/or miss the playoffs, isn't Ryan gone?

Anyway, as for this weekend, I'll go against the grain and take the Chargers to upset the Bengals. I'll also take the Colts, Eagles and Niners.

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 3:27 pm

Mets wrote:Lets see how good of a coach Belichick is with Mark Sanchez as his QB.

Well there WAS that 11-5 season with Matt Cassel.
What has Ryan done to be a good coach? You lament Mark Sanchez (I'd add Geno Smith in there too) but they're both RR QB's, not inherited players. Poor drafts fall on the Coach as well. RR's limp 22-26 record the last three years (not to mention the Tebow experiment) are Rex Ryan's responsibility. Nobody else's. What you do with players is important. So is picking the right players in the first place.

Phillies · Post by **Phillies** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 3:33 pm

I got KC, Cin, GB, NO. And I totally agree with John. How that team was 8-8 is beyond me.

Orioles · Post by **Orioles** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 3:44 pm

To be fair, I don't think the Tebow thing is on Rex. That one seemed to come down from Woody Johnson, ala the Favre signing. Rex is an excellent defensive coach who doesn't seem to know offense well and has had some shitty QBs and few offensive weapons to work with, which seems to be partly his fault since he apparently had a fair amount of personnel input with the previous GM. I thought he deserved another year, but without major improvements to offensive personnel and scheme I'm not sure he has a chance. Belichick is in another stratosphere of coaching. Maybe the best ever. He probably wouldn't let his team end up with Sanchez at QB anyway, but if he somehow did they'd surely find a way to win 10 games and make the playoffs. Sure, the guy seems like kind of an egomaniacal dickbag, especially in his press confs, but he's also unquestionably the best head coach in the NFL.

Colts, Bengals, 49ers, Eagles

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 4:00 pm

Phillies wrote:How that team was 8-8 is beyond me.

Honestly, the AFCE was weak overall this year and the Jets made hay on a soft schedule. They also lost to some terrible teams and lost badly. Their defense was middle of the pack and their offense flat out stunk. Which is pretty much where things have been for three years, without any sign of improvement.
How is that a situation you would keep a coach around in? Much less extend him a year?

Mets · Post by **Mets** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 6:55 pm

Bren - I'm not sure if you've actually followed the Jets much over the past few years or if you're just making a shallow assessment. Ownership and the previous GM Mike Tannenbaum have a lot more to do with the Jets underperformance than Rex Ryan. I am not a Ryan apologist, but I follow the team and don't think he deserves casual observers saying he should be fired.

The Jets had the 6th best rushing Offense in the NFL (with Chris Ivory and Billial Powell) with the 31st ranked passing game (meaning teams were stacking the box). They also had the 3rd best rushing defense in the NFL - despite lots of the defensive schemes having to compensate for a very thin secondary talent.

With wins against the Saints and Patriots (should have beat them both games this season) and losses against Bengals, Steelers, Ravens, Patriots and Panthers (nothing to be ashamed of) - I am pretty excited about the Jets next season. Their infrastructure on both sides of the ball is very good. They have the hard part built - now they just need to bring in a few playmakers.

Entering the season they were predicted to go 4-12...and were breaking in 3 brand new coordinators. If you doubled your companies forecast for a year - how could anyone say you need to be fired? Aside from one bad loss to Buffalo - not sure what other terrible teams they lost badly to.

It's just really tough to make blanket statements that a coach for a team should be fired when they were 1 win away from a playoff berth after being projected to be the 3rd worst team in the entire NFL.

Astros · Post by **Astros** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 8:29 pm

SD over the Bengals--Andy Dalton not being that good is masked by the fact he can throw bombs to AJ Green and he'll make the plays.

SF over GB---They're as dangerous as they were last year. Scary team to have to face

Philly over NO--I hate the Saints. I hope it snows. They won't win on the road. Maybe this week they will, but after that no

Colts over KC---It took a while after Reggie Wayne went down to find the guys to fill the void, but Griff Whalen and Da'Rick Rodgers have really stepped up. Hot at the right time, beat Seattle, SF and Denver already.

Athletics · Post by **Athletics** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 9:41 pm

Bengals - They are at home, they have the better D...and damn right AJ can make plays.

49ers - Awesome defense, the Packers have a questionable one which is more than enough to allow Kap to have various options on the O side.

Philly - I trust in the Chip Kelly Offense to keep up with anything the Saints can come up with...not to mention any ugly weather favors Philly since Saints need to play at home to win.

Indy/KC - Not quite sure, both have injury bugs, both run streaky...KC has lost more of late...might go with the hotter team at the moment which would be Indy, but could easily go either way.

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 10:20 pm

Mets wrote:Bren - I'm not sure if you've actually followed the Jets much over the past few years or if you're just making a shallow assessment. Ownership and the previous GM Mike Tannenbaum have a lot more to do with the Jets underperformance than Rex Ryan. I am not a Ryan apologist, but I follow the team and don't think he deserves casual observers saying he should be fired.

The Jets had the 6th best rushing Offense in the NFL (with Chris Ivory and Billial Powell) with the 31st ranked passing game (meaning teams were stacking the box). They also had the 3rd best rushing defense in the NFL - despite lots of the defensive schemes having to compensate for a very thin secondary talent.

With wins against the Saints and Patriots (should have beat them both games this season) and losses against Bengals, Steelers, Ravens, Patriots and Panthers (nothing to be ashamed of) - I am pretty excited about the Jets next season. Their infrastructure on both sides of the ball is very good. They have the hard part built - now they just need to bring in a few playmakers.

Entering the season they were predicted to go 4-12...and were breaking in 3 brand new coordinators. If you doubled your companies forecast for a year - how could anyone say you need to be fired? Aside from one bad loss to Buffalo - not sure what other terrible teams they lost badly to.

It's just really tough to make blanket statements that a coach for a team should be fired when they were 1 win away from a playoff berth after being projected to be the 3rd worst team in the entire NFL.

You act as if this was the first year the Jets were bad. Ryan should have been canned after the '12 season. That the Jets didn't suck as badly as they were expected to is more of a testament to their soft schedule than anything else. As far as ugly losses go, the Titans were a bad team this year and hung 38 on them. The Ravens were also bad and held them to 3 points.
As for your assertion that the Jets should have beat the Pats both games, that's laughable. That could just as easily go the other way with me saying the Pats should have won both. That's certainly more likely.
Everyone who defends Ryan puts the blame elsewhere. Sanchez, Smith, the GM, the ownership... And is quick to give him credit for any positives. Ryan is the coach. Period. He deserves credit for the things that go well, he also deserves the blame for the things that don't.
Simply put, the Jets have failed to meet the expectations of when he was hired. That's on Rex Ryan and Rex Ryan alone. If I did that at my job, I would be fired, as Ryan deserves to be.

Mets · Post by **Mets** » Wed Jan 01, 2014 12:19 am

I've been a Jets fan since the early 1980's - so there's not acting like it's the first year the Jets were bad.
29 out of 30 coaches a year fail to meet expectations. As a Jets fan, I'd take Ryan over a number of other current NFL coaches. I'm assuming you're not a Jets fan, so your opinion really doesn't matter now, does it?

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Thu Jan 02, 2014 11:57 am

Mets wrote:I've been a Jets fan since the early 1980's - so there's not acting like it's the first year the Jets were bad.
29 out of 30 coaches a year fail to meet expectations. As a Jets fan, I'd take Ryan over a number of other current NFL coaches. I'm assuming you're not a Jets fan, so your opinion really doesn't matter now, does it?

Arguably since you ARE a Jets fan, your opinion doesn't really matter as you're extremely biased. You seem rather fond of Ryan for whatever reason, attributing all the fault for failure to others and all the credit for success to Ryan. You're certainly not the sort of person whose opinion sounds objective. As a non-Jets fan, RR was one of the first coaches anyone expected to get fired. He was brought in to improve the Jets. Instead, they have gotten worse. As a Patriots fan, I'm loving it, Ryan is an embarrassment to the Jets and I look forward to their continued slide under his watch (and your continued shifting of blame to anyone other than him). I just find myself wondering what this buffoon has to do to get himself fired. I almost feel like ownership is just keeping him around until the coach they actually want is available.

Athletics · Post by **Athletics** » Thu Jan 02, 2014 12:43 pm

This back and forth is ridiculous. There are bad coaches and there are good coaches, they all get hired to lead their team to the SB. If they fail, either the media wants to roast them or save them, but blame needs to be spread around all over.

You can be the greatest play caller in the league, if you have shitty players that can't execute it, then one of two things needs to happen, dumb down the playbook for them or get better players. Biggest problem is usually half the time the GM, the coach and the current roster are never on the same page and it is further worsened when you have an owner that wants to be hands on.

If we take this same argument to the Redskins, the Cowboys, the Browns, the Lions...who should be fired, the coach, the GM, the players, or the owners?

Padres · Post by **Padres** » Thu Jan 02, 2014 1:15 pm

Angels wrote:If we take this same argument to the Redskins, the Cowboys, the Browns, the Lions...who should be fired, the coach, the GM, the players, or the owners?

... since you asked ...

Redskins - the coach, the GM, (many of) the players, the owner
Cowboys - the coach, (some of ) the players
Browns - the coach, the GM, (nearly all) the players, the owner
Lions - the coach

Astros · Post by **Astros** » Thu Jan 02, 2014 1:35 pm

Chud's firing in Cleveland is a joke. The guy had no quarterback (and I'm a big Jason Campbell fan), no running game and that team was competitive most games. But nope lets grab another Bellicheck disciple cause they all turn out to be such great head coaches and Josh McDaniels so obviously deserves a second chance after the dumpster fire he left in Denver. As a general rule I'd never hire an OC that was working with a Top 5 QB as a head coach because the success is primarily due to the QB

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Thu Jan 02, 2014 1:46 pm

Cardinals wrote:Chud's firing in Cleveland is a joke. The guy had no quarterback (and I'm a big Jason Campbell fan), no running game and that team was competitive most games. But nope lets grab another Bellicheck disciple cause they all turn out to be such great head coaches and Josh McDaniels so obviously deserves a second chance after the dumpster fire he left in Denver. As a general rule I'd never hire an OC that was working with a Top 5 QB as a head coach because the success is primarily due to the QB

I'm inclined to agree. I know it's tempting to hire coordinators from successful teams. But when have any of BB's coordinators had any success as head coaches? They've all been bombs (both in the NFL and College). The Browns ought to know better, they've been burnt on this before with both Crennel AND Mangina. Chudzinski certainly deserved more than one season to try to do something with that team.

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Thu Jan 02, 2014 2:43 pm

WhiteSox wrote:
Angels wrote:If we take this same argument to the Redskins, the Cowboys, the Browns, the Lions...who should be fired, the coach, the GM, the players, or the owners?

... since you asked ...

Redskins - the coach, the GM, (many of) the players, the owner
Cowboys - the coach, (some of ) the players
Browns - the coach, the GM, (nearly all) the players, the owner
Lions - the coach

With the Cowboys, it's the GM that needs to be fired, but since he's the owner, that's not happening any time soon.

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Thu Jan 02, 2014 3:22 pm

Pirates wrote:
WhiteSox wrote:
Angels wrote:If we take this same argument to the Redskins, the Cowboys, the Browns, the Lions...who should be fired, the coach, the GM, the players, or the owners?

... since you asked ...

Redskins - the coach, the GM, (many of) the players, the owner
Cowboys - the coach, (some of ) the players
Browns - the coach, the GM, (nearly all) the players, the owner
Lions - the coach
With the Cowboys, it's the GM that needs to be fired, but since he's the owner, that's not happening any time soon.

Jerry Jones definitely needs to go.