2017 NFL Off-season Thread (Draft, Injuries, Firings & Police Blotter Edition)

wentz has gotta be excited to have jeffrey to throw to. 1 drop on something like 92 targets last year iirc.

hatcats gonna hatcat

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/18867665/scot-mccloughan-washington-redskins-fired-general-manager

Browns also signed a huge deal for c/g Kevin Zeitler to go with Joe Thomas on the o-line.

browns 'chief strategy officer' is my boy paul de podesta who got ran out of town as GM of the dodgers because the moronic local sportswriters were offended he dare used 'data' and 'computers' in his evaluations. fuckin nerd.

You want to have a young QB look like he knows what he is doing, put him behind a good O-line. I think it is a major reason guys like Prescott and Wilson were able to shine out of the gate - of course those clubs were pretty much loaded, not quite there on the Browns. That said, I think they seem to be on the right way to build.

this was posted on garoppolo IG: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6jLGwxV0AAmUK7.jpg

now claiming that it was a prank/hack but my guess is that his "team" was queuing it up for later and jumped the gun.

Oh yay - the Niners get Brian Hoyer.

The niners should have a Garcia rule that bald qbs should have to wear #5.

so...mike mayock is being reported as a candidate for the washington gm job

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7IZN50WwAE7kp-.jpg:small

bofa is right

https://www.boston.com/sports/new-england-patriots/2017/03/19/robert-kraft-flew-on-air-force-one-with-donald-trump

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7YPoUXU0AEecfn.jpg

lmao

elway just saw kraft/belichick put a guy in the white house and he wants a piece of that action

http://deadspin.com/nfl-developing-new-way-to-drain-all-joy-from-sport-for-1793517847

Troy Vincent ✔@TroyVincent23
We're developing an educational training video for players to show clear examples of appropriate and inappropriate celebrations.

uh, Key & Peele already made that video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGJb2iLvOKE

I've seen articles tagging on Cleveland for stating they are looking elsewhere than QB for their first pick. Seems that with Watson and Trubisky as the two big QBs, that seems a smart move to me. They 'might' be pretty good - but those two also look like high candidates for bust city too.

Vegas, baby

welp hope the Texans had a Plan B:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000797371/article/cowboys-tony-romo-set-to-retire

A source informed of the situation told Rapoport that Romo will land with CBS this season to replace Phil Simms as an analyst with Jim Nantz on game broadcasts.

our long national nightmare is over

not until Joe Buck is gone too

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zKJ7fXbf5nA/maxresdefault.jpg

Tony Romo is now #1 analyst at CBS taking over for Phil Simms!

Shit no wonder he retired, that is a way better gig than qb of the Texans.

Good riddance to Phil Simms! Now if they can just get his smug ass off of Inside the NFL...

idgi for cbs. with no experience, romo's unlikely to be better than trent green or even dan fouts. and no one watches a game because of the announcer -- if they want to capitalize on romo's star power, such as it is, they should put him on the studio show

then he too could call bill cowher 'coach' until the end of time

Dan Fouts is pretty good, especially on radio.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/business/media/amazon-stream-nfl-thursday-night-football.html

i feel like the plan was just to put simms out to pasture

i think the converse is true too where no one *doesnt* watch cuz of the announcer so room there will just be much more trending/relevant than someone w actual experience

*romo not room jfc

agree with that for sure but interestingly also have seen a couple folks mention how romo was seen as a charismatic hot property for transition to tv and networks already had the red carpet prepared.

Urgh, is it April 27th yet? So sick of seeing useless "sources say" misinformation and mock draft shit on my Twitter feed.

Phil Simms had a nice long run, I think at some point you just have to change it up to change it up unless you got Madden/Summerall. People are talking like he is done in broadcasting... Phil Simms can call ball games for another 20 years, it's just not the #1 nfl game on a network.

Thing is, you got to be able to work the mike in those games. Joe Montana couldn't do it. Lots of huge Star name players couldn't do it. I think it is much more subtle thing to do than maybe given credit.

You know all the networks were waiting on Peyton Manning, he probably could have any gig he wanted in TV and you KNOW he would be good in it. Still might be, but he might be wisely taking a bit of time off before giving it a try.

Oh jeezus, Todd Heap ran over his 3 year old with his car.

yeah, horrific story :(

Aaron Hernandez killed himself

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/04/19/us/aaron-hernandez-suicide/index.html

Ok wow

wow.....the timing of this is so weird

I know right.

I was just reading a lengthy piece about how his lawyer speculated he might be able to get him a new trial for the previous conviction, too.

his lawyer is Baez, the Keystone Koppy defense lawyer from the Casey Anthony trial.

idk what's wrong with baez, he annihilated the prosecution's case on the double murder charge.

sad end to a truly strange life.

just from the casey Anthony case, baez does seem incred sleezy/unscrupulous, even for a defense lawyer

baez is skillful slime

aaron hernandez definitely murdered those two dudes though.

o def

btw per deadspin:

Through an obscure and rarely invoked Massachusetts legal principle called abatement ab initio, because Hernandez had not exhausted all his appeals on his murder conviction, that conviction is essentially now voided. The practical effect of this is that evidence from Hernandez’s criminal trial cannot be used in any potential civil trials against his estate.

damn, baez found the loophole

The Onion already has a caption of "Man who should have stuck in school, now stuck in Cleveland" with a picture of Myles Garrett.

bears still committed to being terrible

Yeah...I'm sure fans will say Trubisky doesn't have a good game face after the Bears sxxt offensive line (w/nearly a decade of incompetence) gets him ground into hamburger.

lol @ eagles fans booing goodell every time he walks out on stage

what if there is no reason to text?

here are my football bets this year so far:

Cowboys over 9.5 wins
Jets over 4 wins
Stafford to throw over 23.5 TDs
Ben Roethilsburghergh to play less than 14.5 games

Big Ben one seems like free money but I'm reluctant to throw more on it

roffles one does seem like easy money but the others all make me a lil uncomfortable. certainly i don't want to be the guy betting on the jets to win games. but good luck!

Cowboys I got locked in right after the Zeke suspension dropped the line by a full game. They've got a tough schedule but I think they're actually going to be quite good, plus Zeke's probably only getting at the most 4, likely only 2 or 3

Jets - yeah I don't wanna be that guy either, but the line was good (+160) and I still split on 4-12. It's kind of difficult to project with any accuracy that a team is going to lose 13 games. Granted Jets do seem to be on that trajectory, but if I squint hard enough I can almost see them being better than last year ??? IDK

Stafford one is entirely up to him staying healthy. He doesn't throw as many TDs as I thought he did but I think the Lions will have to rely heavily on his arm as always, they're probably gonna be behind a lot which usually inflates those numbers

for sure i can see any of those coming in. nfc east seems like it might be strong this year so 10 wins might've be hard for dallas to find with a full zeke season. cue the nfc east being hot garbage now i have said that tho. stafford line is so well set, career wise 24 looks like an average season for him, but i think where he is at now 24 is actually a good season. but that's a good point about them maybe having to throw from behind more.

Jamaal Charles looks like Jamaal Charles
Charean Williams,ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports 12 hours ago

Jamaal Charles looked like Jamaal Charles in limited work Saturday night in his preseason debut.

a man runs the ball

Time was a man run the ball down the street

Workshop an ilnfl post: I want to write a post about how I feel bad for vontaze burfict that he got suspended 5 games for a hit that might not even have been illegal, and I can't decide whether to end it with '...not!' or 'sike!'

I guess the most important thing is fuck that guy

meanwhile:

This is the coldest move by a punter I've ever seen pic.twitter.com/TBlGStBsvi

— Eric Fawcett (@Efawcett7) August 27, 2017

niiiice

no joke - Matt Stafford is now the highest paid player in NFL history
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/20491086

not all that surprising - he ain't great, but he's above-average, and a lot of teams would pay out the nose for someone above average at the QB position

his career earnings must be thru the roof too.

Jets starting QB week 1- wait for it - Josh McCown.

fortunately they'll be able to supplement their stable of garbage qb prospects with a top 5 pick in the next draft

shut up guys they're going 5-11

lol

i don't really know where their defense is supposed to be at this year but it feels like they've drafted approx 1m defense players in the last few drafts so maybe that will all come together for them

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2017/08/20/nfls-bennett-brothers-show-two-sides-of-activism-for-martellus-bennett-thats-political-cartooning
https://www.instagram.com/p/BX9HeDhguqS
super trenchant

tbf, he appears to be a better cartoonist than a lotta guys currently publishing in newspapers

would be much better if the can said "Bepis"

this is p interesting, on the evolution of qb evaluation

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2017/8/31/16231484/quarterback-problem-evaluation-spread-dak-prescott-derek-carr

Random Aaron Rodgers fan kisses him on the head and he looks at the camera like he's in an episode of The Office 😂 pic.twitter.com/4XNhqmM2uK

— Eric Fawcett (@Efawcett7) September 1, 2017

nfl twitter is extremely excited about patrick mahomes

mostly because of this

http://i.imgur.com/pvZHfzn.gif

personally i want to know why he looks backwards at one point

jets trade sheldon richardson to seattle for jermaine kearse and some loose change. seattle gets even stronger in a position of strength and looks to be left with a shallow and fragile wr corps. meanwhile, frogbs's 5 wins for the jets is starting to look like everest.

The Cleveland Browns are releasing quarterback Brock Osweiler, sources confirmed to ESPN's Adam Schefter.

The Browns owe Osweiler $16 million, but Cleveland does get Houston's 2018 second-round pick as part of the offseason trade between the two.

going back to the broncos apparently.

Lol