John Waylon

When we pinned the “first in the AFC south” thread the % hit the fan. Maybe if we pin this one….

I said it when Richardson got hurt: Minshew is a guy who can get you through a pinch. Minshew is not a guy who can carry you through the season.

Of all the Colts games I’ve ever seen, this one was….. The most recent. That’s about it, tbh.

Is the 4th string backup’s backup bad? Gee I dunno, what are you thinking?

That was a pretty silly sequence. But it worked out.

Careful. I joked there was a curse a few weeks back and half a dozen nitwits got their panties in a wad to tell me curses aren’t actually real as if I’d just told them I’d seen a woman fly by my window on a broom.

As soon as the Rams put Kyren Williams on IR I mused if they would make a call about Moss. Not like they have a history of that or anything… Moss is a goner. He’s played well enough some team is going to give him a shot next season. He’s not gonna take less money to play less snaps on a team he’s not married to in any way. He was traded here less than a year ago. We can’t afford to give him what he wants and if the Rams were to call and offer a 4th for him, I think it would be a really good idea to take the deal. I’m as critical of Ballard as anyone, but literally the one position I don’t have any doubt he can scout is RB. We’ve never had a miss, or even been thin at the position under his tenure. He found Mack. Hines. Taylor. He made the trade for Moss. Deon Jackson stepped up and hit a grand slam when we really needed him to. Who was the kid who did that in 2019 before we drafted Taylor while Mack was hurt? I have 100% faith in Ballard to replace Moss with a suitable replacement at RB2. Try to get a 4 for Moss and let Ballard do what he does. It’s better than getting nothing and losing Moss I’m January to a team like Washington, Arizona, or LA.

Good to hear.

Well, thanks. I guess. There was a really simple way to avoid this but whatever.

I didn’t start the frank discourse. I said Steichen is better than he is because why would I not acknowledge the obvious? But there’s been some talk of him in this thread and the point of my question was to point out no matter who wants to defend him, how they want to do it, and why, the stink of being a cruddy coach has followed him. The Panthers fans I warned that this was coming are not having a good time with him at all.

How good a time are Panthers fans having with frank? Rhetorical question. They’re not. Already. And that should end our portion of the thread on frank and his nonsense.

Yeah the NFL will probably pat Olave on the back for a speeding ticket so egregious he was arrested. Not like we’ve had a player kill someone lately by driving like an * or anything.

Overall I like what I see. A definite improvement over frank. I’m still in the good camp. Sometimes I feel like we’re a little too cute, and some of the 4th down decisions and the play calls have bothered me. We’re not a team ready for 4th down, especially if these are the plays we’re going to call in those situations. I have been incredibly underwhelmed by the playcalling on 4th down this season. Just a few weeks ago we were top 5 in attempts and bottom 3 in conversions. It seems they’re approaching 4th down a little less aggressively in the last couple weeks, however, and that’s made it less of an issue. I’m satisfied. I wish we had gotten a better look at how he fostered Richardson’s growth this season but oh well. I fully expect to make a run for a division title next year already. Fully expect it.

Admittedly, I skipped out on the XFL and USFL this spring. I was just burnt out after the draft. All of the feedback on the “sky judge” that I’ve seen and heard from the season, however, has been positive so it’s not like it simply can’t be done.

I did not mind the helmets. The jerseys were ok. Blue pants are a hard no for me.

I just went a little more in-depth on this in my reply to jvan about how I feel the presentation has made the officiating a problem. And I honestly feel like that has more of an adverse affect on viewers than anything else. I know we’ve all heard plenty of “I don’t watch football anymore because the refs decide the game” stories. Those were extreme arguments, but there are a lot of fans who have stopped watching over it. Having an official who could correct the kind of stuff that prevents that argument. It makes the NFL look like it’s committed to its rules. I sympathize with officials. I do not mean to % on them in any way. The fans in the seats can literally look up at the big boards and see it with better vision than they actually have. And they can do it before the next play starts. Traditionally I’ve always heard that refs don’t want someone undermining their calls. That was always the traditional argument against replay. They don’t want someone judging them for being wrong in real time is the argument I’ve heard against something like a sky judge. But how exactly is that working out for them? It’s happening anyways, and now they’re getting heat for the times where they get it wrong. Officials are against it because it is to them what the first robot was to the assembly line. And while that’s fair, I do think it is inevitable. It’s becoming a major issue for the league. This has been a story on the front pages of most major news outlets today. Between Mike McDaniels Twitter thread, what happened in our game, and others yesterday, the state of NFL officiating has taken some spotlight. This kind of stuff is going to drive a lot of fans away over the long-term. Something has to improve.

It doesn’t need to be full. No one wants an official going over ever single play looking for every single infraction. No one wants that. That’s a straw man argument. *Confirm all flags Why not? For every 1 that takes 30 or 40 seconds to review there’s going to be 5 others that are confirmed within 15 seconds or less. It’s not going to add substantial time to games. That’s another straw man argument. *Passes of 15 yards or more with obvious contact We're asking a referee sprinting down the sideline to watch the contact and the catch. This is the aspect of the game where this change would make the most difference because we’re asking too much of these officials in these instances. And obvious contact should be a stressed part of this rule. They should never have to make calls on plays where they have to slow it down to 0.001 speed and zoom in 34X to make a determination. This is not an actual challenge. *Obvious missed calls Again, no one wants a fine tooth comb. Let’s use this like adults and correct obvious mistakes. If the QB rolls out left and there’s a TE holding over on the right hashmarks, no need. That had no effect on the play. But if there’s a TE holding on the left hashmarks and the QB gets a big run, or is able to throw a pass but the refs miss it, yeah. If a foul has an affect that obvious on a play but is missed for whatever reason then there should be a referee with the means to see that to be able to make that call. “Clear and obvious in real-time” should be the basis for any missed calls sent to the field. The NFL doesn’t want to do it simply because they don’t want to admit that the refs make mistakes in real-time. And the refs don’t want to, either. But they do. And it just is what it is. It’s not a knock. There’s a lot going on they have to watch. And some of them have to do it running at speed. They can’t see it all. And they don’t. And now we see it on the screens in higher definition than they see it with their own eyes, all before the next play. It’s a groundbreaking change to the world of officiating, but it’s an inevitable change. This kind of thing is being called for in all sports. MLB fans want robo umps. The NBA is flat-out throwing the officials under the bus with their missed call reports, but even that’s not going to be enough to suffice for long. The presentation of the sport has evolved to a place where officiating has become the weak link.

We don’t need micromanaging every single play. The best start would be to confirm flags. We confirm turnovers and touchdowns in a matter of seconds and it hasn’t added untold eons to game times the way everyone ballyhooed it would. In fact, aren’t games today going by faster than they did versus 10 years ago? It seems like I’ve seen something in the last 2-3 years about how the length of games has come down. Regardless, I’m not afraid to add as much as 10-15 minutes to a game to verify calls made on the field. Missed calls are an entirely different animal. There should be someone communicating to the officials on the field “player X was holding on that last play and we missed it, let’s try to avoid missing him doing it again”. Yes, it’s hard to officiate the game in real time. So help those guys out. Not nitpicking every play looking for an infraction, but correctly calling out ones that have a clear impact on a play when they are in fact missed. If it’s a pass play where the ball travels 15 or more yards downfield from the LOS and clear contact or interference is made an official upstairs would be able to buzz down and let them know there was contact and it needs to be a flag. It will likely be faster than it takes to review a turnover or TD. They’re not going to have to use slow motion ultra-zoom 34 camera angles to make these changes. We’ve all seen plenty of plays where contact has been obvious but uncalled, and it’s always apparent before the next snap ~40 seconds later. The “uncatchable ball” rule is common sense. The only way the WR would have caught that ball yesterday was if he was 13 feet tall. Even with an 8 foot vertical he wasn’t coming down with that pass inbounds. The mistakes in officiating are adding up right now. Why? Because we can see it. We see them in real time. We see them in real time at the game. We see them in real time at home. We see them in real time at the bar. We see them in real time and high definition. This isn’t the 90s or early 2000s anymore where television pictures, and big board video lacked a certain amount of depth and clarity. We’ve entered the high def age where we see what really happened in real-time and but the 7 people on the field determine what happened. Too often their determinations don’t match what actually happened. And that’s not a slight against them. They’re human. They have 2 eyes. They’re trying to get it right while seeing the whole field and possibly even moving. It’s hard for them to get it right. A little help would go a long way for them.

They’ve said it on multiple broadcasts this season. I’ve seen it in at least half a dozen of the games I’ve watched. In fact, it happened on the national MNF broadcast October 9th between the Packers and Raiders. There was an illegal man downfield call that was picked up and the announcers specifically stated that the call to rescind the flag had come from someone not on the field. But there’s absolutely nothing in this universe that you don’t know or are anything short of an expert on, so I don’t expect these truths to affect you.

I don’t see why the NFL can’t have an official with access to all the replay tools who can sit there and verify or correct a call in real-time to get the % right. Get it * right. The whole darn world sees it Sunday night and Monday when you don’t, and we’re seeing it more than ever. Take a few extra seconds to get it * right. That said, there were a couple of flags that were picked up during the game yesterday that I felt came down from upstairs. An illegal man downfield was called on the Browns and then quickly reversed, and there was a flag thrown against one of our DBs that was rescinded in the middle of the game. Obviously the refs didn’t throw these flags and then come up and say “oopsies”. They didn’t throw the flag and then stand there staring up at the big boards for the replay and go “ope, shouldn’t have dropped that one”. These calls, entirely correct calls in both cases, came from someone watching who buzzed the refs and said “that’s not the right call, pick up the flag.” Why were we getting that in the 2nd and 3rd quarter on obviously frivolous penalties and with the game on the line in the 4th quarter the refs make a lineage of bad calls and no one cares to get it right? Get it right. We have the technology. We have the means. Get. It. *. Right. I don’t care if it fundamentally changes the way the game is officiated. I don’t care if it changes the makeup of a reffing crew or eliminates some officials on the field of play entirely. If they were getting this % right to begin with there wouldn’t be a problem. But there is. And the fix is real easy. Why is the NFL only buzzing down to have certain flags corrected with no rhyme or reason for when or why it occurs? Why was there only 7 people on the face of the planet yesterday who thought that was PI in the end zone when every other competent human being in this galaxy and the next could clearly see it was not? And why are we letting those 7 get it wrong and have an adverse impact on the product when millions watching in real-time knew it was nonsense? The state of NFL officiating is as bad as it’s ever been, and it continues to get worse every year. All because no one wants to put any real effort into getting it right because “this is how it’s always been done”.

Under ideal circumstances Taylor should be #1. Pittman should be #2. That will open up Pierce, Downs, and the TEs in whatever order it winds up being. But it’s not really working out real well.

Today was what we need more of. Downs is starting to command some attention as a receiver. Pierce, for whatever reason hasn’t been able to do that yet. But having someone like Downs come along is also going to open up some opportunity for Pierce. Let’s see how defenses paying attention to Downs over the next few weeks changes things for Pierce. However we can open up some opportunities for him, let’s do it.

Minshew does not seem to target the TEs the way Richardson did. Obviously they were doing more blocking today than running routes but I’d like to see them get back to being involved in the gameplan.

Big ups for Josh Downs. Kid is emerging, and showing why Reggie was so hyped on him after the draft. Having a WR the defense actually has to cover other than Pittman helped open things up for Pierce as well. We’ve spent a ton of draft capital on this position in the last 3 years. We need these guys here to produce more like this every Sunday.

What a ride that one was. I like Minshew as a backup and a guy to bail us out of a pinch. But as a guy to lean on week to week? That’s straining. A very good friend of mine is a Jags fan and he told me that before this season and I kind of laughed it off. But I get it now. Great day from Downs. With a second guy that secondaries have to account for now it’s going to help everyone out. It already is. With Richardson out for the year I can’t be upset with this one. We won, but the refs gave it to the Browns instead and we move up the draft order. I just can’t see us being competitive down the stretch with Minshew, and I sure would like to pair Richardson with Marvin Harrison Jr next spring.