America's favorite Dystopian pastime - NFL 2021-22

I guess it was a good game. I did as I often do and love about football, there was a kickoff and I zonked in the chair asleep and did not wake up until nearly 4 am.

Think it was much more fun to hate on the 'Boys when Romopaws was the QB, as I kinda like Dak and forever glad that his contract has finally been signed so ESPN radio can shut up about it (even though they STILL talk about it now in light of the injury).

That said, I think most ILNFL would agree that Romodamus is pretty fun in the announcing booth.

I think Drew Brees dyed his hair. That looked like a serious Grecian Formula job in the pregame.

Giving the devil his due, cannot hate Tampa death metal Tom at this point - I just wants of LOLs of them beating the Boys in the most hilarious way tonight. Modern football is largely about the schadenfreude at this point.

― earlnash, Thursday, September 9, 2021 7:28 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lol

suit-and-tie Brees looked so miserable during the opening while they were hyping the ageless unretired GOAT

could not stop thinking about George Costanza with the hairpiece

its amazing with all the turnover in this league how some things always stay the same: Tom Brady always gets gifted a game-changing call (or no-call in this case) in crunch time, the Dallas Cowboys always find new ways to lose in the most excruciating way possible

"I WAS BALD." Ha! I don't think I caught that but come on...this is on his NFL bio.

https://static.www.nfl.com/image/private/t_headshot_desktop/league/bt6nv11jgsirnuymookt

Big trucks, fast food, diet beer, 9/11. NFL is back!

Looking forward to catching a little of the Browns game. Not so much to watching my Bears get dismantled by Stafford on prime time week 1. It is going to be some Clockwork Orange can’t-look-away shit.

60 yards in the air

Russell Wilson NUKE to Lockett 🤯

Seahawks (-2.5) get a big score before the halfpic.twitter.com/gZxPD9x2HQ

— ClutchPoints Betting (@CPBetting) September 12, 2021

Tua TD!

cleve brownies looking pretty good

yikes packers

pats deserve to lose this for that cowardly field goal

cool int tho

yeah looks like they're gonna make it work but its still wrong

ball batted back and forth between teams in a one point 4th quarter game thats a high leverage play baby

thats why we call it volleyball

was wondering about that

this rookie here looking pretty good for the patriots

justice served

Fins woooooo. Defense got picked apart tho

guess i jinxed the browns

my bad

Baker really fucked up on that last throw

Classic Vikings loss today but overshadowed by the Pack looking like they have not played football

That was pretty shocking

Everyone on the Saints looked stronger and faster than everyone on the Packers, it was wild

Matt Nagy just went for it on 4th-and-15 down 13 while in FG range with 11 minutes on the clock

probably the right call but that's definitely something you would never have seen half a decade ago. I would've called something that actually got the ball past the line though

I don't see why the Bears are starting with Dalton. I think this is pretty much all you're gonna get with him. They liked Fields enough to trade up for him and this defense doesn't look like it's gonna stop anybody right now

I think it's good to keep going like they are. I'm in no hurry to see the kid carted off the field.

holy fuck Raiders

WHAT THE HELL

for those of you not watching the Raiders just threw what looked like a game winning TD in overtime - players were already shaking hands at midfield - but it turned out to be like 18 inches short. they run it to the 3 inch line or whatever on 1st down, then commit a false start (LOL) then on 3rd down it slips through a receivers hands and doinks off someone's helmet and now the Ravens are going for the win

oh Ravens just fumbled. oh well, I'm sure nothing incredibly weird will happen now

what happened

dunno if I've ever seen a QB throw a pick in that game situation before

didn't expect this kinda old school 80s NFC East barnburner but i'll take it

Giants really fucked that though, they needed a first down and not only was that route short of it, fucker dropped it anyway.

gave Washington the equivalent of 2 timeouts to get a field goal.

my mom is a Giants fan and is screaming at the Giants right now.

it's ridiculous how they have kept shooting themselves in the foot tonight. that was ballgame there.

fucking hell these NFC East teams really know how to lose in the most excruciating fashion

Washington sure af shouldn't act cocky after this one though, they played like shit defensively and benefitted from playing a much stupider team

in retrospect dropping a wide open touchdown wound up costing the Giants big time

yep. even Daniel Jones had a "what the fuck, man" look on his face after that

receiver should retire IMO

two extremely goofy NFL games in a row

one of my favorite things about the NFL is how frequently bizarre shit like that happens. its the natural outgrowth of a high-variance sport with dozens of nebulously defined rules. every week these guys come out and risk career-ending injury and it's all for naught because a guy jumped a tenth of a second early. i love it

otm its a great/terrible sport

The amount of hype the last 9 months about the Giants, especially Daniel Jones and Joe Judge, has been nauseating.

i thought both jones and heineike were p solid last night, looked like competent starting qbs

amazing

Okay, so

*Texans pick up 13 yards on 3rd and 15
*Browns called for offsides
*Texans can choose between 4th and 2 or 3rd and 10
*They choose 4th and 2
*They then punt the ball away

The Kevin Stefanski reaction is amazing pic.twitter.com/HMpY4ErhX4

— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) September 20, 2021

I see the Vikings lost in hilarious fashion again

wow Kelce

one of three black nfl head coaches gets fired after posting back-to-back winning seasons, stay classy league

― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Monday, January 10, 2022 10:28 AM bookmarkflaglink

also the first time Miami had back to back winning seasons in 19 years. but hey, Stephen Ross doesn't gaf. also doesn't mind pursuing a rapist QB (which I"m praying he doesn't do again)

Zimmer's a bummer, but I felt like it was a forgone conclusion this year.

really hoping Vikings can get their SB ring sooner than later, fanbase deserves it.

appreciate that, but not holding my breath

I honestly wouldn't be mad if they looked into Flores

but sounds like they will hire a GM first and let them do the hire which is really the right way to do it

also doesn't mind pursuing a rapist QB (which I"m praying he doesn't do again)

― they were written with a ouija board and a rhyming dictionary (Neanderthal), Monday, January 10, 2022 10:52 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

apparently a big reason why watson wanted to go to miami was to play with flores. who even knows what the hell is happening here

xp anyone w that huge a ticket couldve easily (?) hedged both sides when OT started & made nice $

I don't think you could've? What do you hedge with, betting a lot of money on the Raiders moneyline and a lot on the Chargers moneyline? Wouldn't those just cancel each other out?

xpost I would literally win the lottery and pay Grier not to take Watson at this point.

also because of the fucking bullshit way the media and Miami has treated Tua, who seems to be subject to a different set of standards than most other QBs. like did he murder a lot of dogs or something

xpost yeah a parlay = "all of these things have to happen for you to win", not something you could revisit once OT started. Most sportsbooks have a Cashout feature if your outcome is likely but you don't want to risk waiting for end of game, but I don't think that would be allowed in the case of OT, where it's far more likely someone will score than not.

True but this game did have a particularly unusual dynamic. When it got down to 3 minutes I honestly thought they may just kneel it to prevent a turnover. But I guess getting to play Cincinnati instead of KC is worth the risk.

one of three black nfl head coaches gets fired after posting back-to-back winning seasons, stay classy league

back down to one, but i’m sure eric bienenemy and byron leftwich will enjoy being interviewed eight times each

fired after one season and getting wins with a third round rookie qb. It's such bullshit.

this seems uhh really bad for the league

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/02/02/hue-jackson-suggests-he-was-paid-extra-for-losses-as-browns-head-coach/

the problem is what the reaction will be.

fans could theoretically file class action suits if this turned out to be true, as it could be considered a form of fraud. so the NFL will probably try to blame a few 'bad apples' as owners, fine them, and then will change the draft into a lottery system like the NBA.

and they'll be happier that people are focusing on THIS problem than the other, racially-concerning items brought up.

wild stuff but I totally believe it

Flores sounds like a stand-up dude.

on the one hand, I really dislike how he handled Tua (telling him "if you're gonna be that bad, I'd have drafted Mac Jones" in the middle of a game).

on the other, he was royally fucked and I support him 100% on this. and I hate our owner and hope he's given the donald STerling treatment.

if true, i'd imagine the league takes this way more seriously than sterling was by the nba, just given that they are increasingly in bed with gambling companies and preserving the integrity of games (and the notion that there are payoffs to throw games, which is really just the owner doing what mob guys used to do in boxing) really threatens that, which i would imagine is their biggest area of potential earnings growth.

i mean shit if donald sterling was an nfl owner i'd expect he'd still own the team

yeah the gambling link is an interesting angle, and why I am guessing Congress will threaten to investigate the NFL (like they always do) for 'improprieties'.

whereas come on, we know teams tank, we always did, the thing was you just never actually fessed up to it for good. Flores broke the unwritten rule but paying someone to tank IS a touch beyond "encouraging playing younger players for development purposes, if you get my drift wink wink".

I read Joe Posnanski's Browns Diary during the Hue Jackson years and he was always bewildered by some of the moves (particularly in-game) that Cleveland would make, often writing stuff like "I know for a fact that Jackson is a better coach than this, he never did this kind of thing with the Raiders, so what is going on here?" That 0-16 Browns team was far from average but there's no reason they should've lost every game; they weren't like the Lions of '08 where they just sucked at every position, they had a lot of talent but just blew games every which way they could. Joe never went as far to outright suggest they were throwing games on purpose, but he did use a lot of language like "it's almost as if..."

let’s burn down all sports

Somehow I knew this would come back to the Wizards. Just one of those years. Six Degrees Of Unconscionable. https://t.co/QJAFLtyGM4

— Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) February 2, 2022

OF COURSE they tanked!! Tanking is perfectly fine. They wouldn’t have gotten Myles Garrett otherwise and settled for, like, Solomon Thomas or some shit.

it's not about tanking

Deliberately making in-game decisions that ensure a loss is called "taking a dive", not tanking.

Tanking is where you strip your team of talented, experienced players and field a team of talented but raw rookies and veteran mediocrities on cheap contracts you can ditch later. Then you let them play and lose, because the team was built specifically for losing games and can safely be expected to lose all on their own.

yeah, being paid to lose is match-fixing. the type of thing mafiosos used to do in baseball in the early 20th century.

the NFL is going to get sued out the ass if it becomes apparent this isn't smoke and mirrors. and I have a feeling Flores has receipts.

if he doesn't, the NFL is going to lean really hard on plausible deniability

i personally don't see why match-fixing is illegal -- joke's on you if you're betting on games, honestly -- but yeah the rest of the world disagrees. particularly when the leagues now have such close relationships with gambling apps

well, there's the whole folly of buying tickets to games that you think aren't predetermined

Jet fans will sue, then someone will remind them they weren't tanking, they just sucked

i personally don't see why match-fixing is illegal -- joke's on you if you're betting on games, honestly -- but yeah the rest of the world disagrees. particularly when the leagues now have such close relationships with gambling apps

― mookieproof, Wednesday, February 2, 2022 2:47 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

well yeah, you kinda answered your own question there. if a team is deliberately trying to lose it's not just a rogue decision from the coach, and if several people know then in the gambler's mind that means HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE KNEW and deliberately FUCKED YOU OVER, which is just bad PR for sports betting all around

The fun thing about this is that it’s coming right as a No. 1 overall pick took a 2-14 team to the Super Bowl in 2 years so you could easily argue the Browns were actually right to do what they did

i need these tanking teams to drop little bread crumbs for Week 1 games from now on so I can clean up and retire

i gotta say it is weird that nashville got to the superbowl in their first year actually in the city, teeing up years of .500 futility and a lot of early exits in the playoffs and somehow also a rabid tennessee fanbase that wasn't that into the game until they came thiiiiiiiiis close to a championship
probably just a coincidence

Posnanski has an article up about this and he mentions something I had totally forgotten about - when Hue Jackson got fired, he was notably pissed about it, which drew a lot of mockery because he only won 3 of his 40 games...but looking back it makes total sense, cuz the implicit agreement must've been that they were gonna actually start trying in Year 3

also makes the point that Hue was probably not literally paid $100k per loss, but rather that there was some clauses in his contract that rewarded him for doing dumb shit like starting Kizer every game

lol

Doug Pederson will need 3 wins to move into 5th place on the Jaguars all-time wins list, replacing current 5th place HC Urban Meyer.

— Benjamin Allbright (@AllbrightNFL) February 4, 2022

due to the nature of football as a sport the NFL hasn't had a major tanking problem but if they really want to eradicate the incentive to tank they're going to need to implement a lottery and some of the stuff the NBA has instituted. in the year that flores was allegedly offered money to tank, the dolphins would have been able to draft joe burrow had they actually tanked. burrow will end up being worth billions of dollars to the bengals if he plays a full career, and i think any dolphins fans would say it would've been worth all the losses, flores suing the team, the owner being thrown out of the league etc to have him. of course flores would probably still have his job if they had tanked for burrow. the browns main problem was not paying their coach to tank but tanking in a year where no elite QB was available (the year they took myles garrett) and then tanking for baker mayfield

NFL to eye diversity efforts in wake of Flores suit

well that's sorted

Kyler Murray just threw a pick six in the Pro Bowl

and now Kirk threw one

well ok not a pick six, but a pick

Lol now Russell Wilson did too.

This is execrable but I'm bored

“Herbert. Throws. It is caught. Second touchdown of the day for Andrews.”

I’ve never watched the Pro Bowl before. It really is as bad as everyone says.

Yeah it doesn’t work at all for the same reason there’s not really a such thing as “pick up football” the way there is basketball and baseball (if you have enough people)

a. will the texans demand that lovie smith put josh mccown on his staff
b. how long before the latter replaces the former, because jesus

i mean i guess it's cool that lovie's getting paid