2017 NFL Week 2 Thread

[jbergey22]

Giants did a great job of running out the clock for the Lions in the 2nd half.

I'll never understand the conservative nature of NFL coaches when they are losing in the 4th quarter. Who cares if you lose by 35 or 3? You dont need to punt away the ball down 2-3 possessions in the 4th quarter and it makes no sense to try to establish a run game down 14 points.

Belichek is so far ahead of the competition in this aspect as well. (in-game strategy)

In todays NFL you dont score points by running the football. You waste time. The pass sets up the run later in the game if anything.

[bhlloy]

Eh. If anything that was the Giants just trying to keep Manning alive for the rest of the season. Yes it was spectacularly bad play calling but at least on every run there wasn't a risk that the season was going down the drain.

When it's physically impossible to complete a pass more than 8 yards not sure any game plan is going to look good. Ironically the one he did complete was a play he got absolutely destroyed when he let go of the ball.

And man, how awful is Brandon Marshall now? If OBJ can't get separation and Manning doesn't get a little more time to pass the ball this could be a 3 win team.

[NobodyHere]

Nice to see Stat Padford get 122 yards in a win

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

No. College teams are fielding teams that can win games in college.

Uh, yeah, this.

[Groundhog]

Sure, college teams want to win games. But why should an NFL team not be able to sign a 17 year old offensive lineman prospect and put him on the practice squad? If college isn't preparing them for the pros, why can't an NFL team do it instead? Just seems a bit crazy to me, out of the player, the school, and the NFL, the only one who benefits from this arrangement is the school.

[CrescentMoonie]

Most 22 year olds aren't capable of going to an NFL practice. Most 17 year olds would die or suffer a career ending injury long before they ever got on the field for a real game. It would be abusing a minor to put them out there. You can have kids play contact sports, but putting them out there with adults for a collision sport is a recipe for disaster.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by CrescentMoonie

Most 22 year olds aren't capable of going to an NFL practice. Most 17 year olds would die or suffer a career ending injury long before they ever got on the field for a real game. It would be abusing a minor to put them out there. You can have kids play contact sports, but putting them out there with adults for a collision sport is a recipe for disaster.

I'm not saying you throw them out there in pads to get beat up on by adults, but you could have them on a professional-quality training program to work on both their bodies and skills - basically, what happens in most sports worldwide.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

But why should an NFL team not be able to sign a 17 year old offensive lineman prospect and put him on the practice squad?

Because the NFL and NFLPA agreed to the limitation in their collective bargaining process.

It's not an NCAA rule, or a legal ruling, it's a limit agreed to by the league & the players in the league.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Also, there is no NFL requirement that anyone attend college -- of any sort, for any length of time -- to be draft eligible.

There's a small fee (I found $275 as the amount for 2013) but you can train privately after your HS graduation (or after you quit HS or whatever) ... then wait four years after your "normal" college career would have ended, and then apply for the draft.

[bhlloy]

Which I think is the point that Groundhog was making - if the NFL can't get players out of college with enough skills to keep the game at the level they want it, at what point does it make sense for them to set their own training camp/minor league system for kids coming out of high school.

Given the choice of making 30-50k a year to play minor league ball or go to college and ostensibly get nothing in your pocket pretty sure 80% are choosing the first option. Especially if the path to the NFL is getting more difficult if you do go to college. All that it needs to happen is for it to be worth the NFL's time and money to do, and if the product continues to suffer because the college product is so different than the product they want to put on the field, maybe those conversations start to happen.

[albionmoonlight]

Eli Manning Is Profoundly Mediocre | FiveThirtyEight

[Carman Bulldog]

I thought the whole point of college football was to act as essentially a free developmental system for the NFL. If players are not properly developing, then at what point do you develop your own minor league system akin to baseball, hockey, etc. and drop the draft age to 18?

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Carman Bulldog

I thought the whole point of college football was to act as essentially a free developmental system for the NFL. If players are not properly developing, then at what point do you develop your own minor league system akin to baseball, hockey, etc. and drop the draft age to 18?

When you can definitively tie in enough of a viewership and advertising dollar loss that it makes sense for the owners to spend the millions it would take to set up a whole developmental league instead of just altering some rules? What's easier - revamping the whole system or tweaking how much jersey grabbing is holding?

You guys are also skipping over the part where limiting contact at OTA's, preseason camp, etc are also being blamed for hurting linemen compared to other positions.

[stevew]

There are barely enough professional line men out there now and if there was a minor league essentially teams would just draft tall guys that can put on weight and strength. The college products would be so bad because you'd have almost no lineman.

I do think the NFL needs a process where guys can declare as early as after their freshman year and if evaluators agree that they are worthy Pro Prospects, they can turn pro. Guys like Fournette, etc.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

Which I think is the point that Groundhog was making - if the NFL can't get players out of college with enough skills to keep the game at the level they want it, at what point does it make sense for them to set their own training camp/minor league system for kids coming out of high school.

Given the choice of making 30-50k a year to play minor league ball or go to college and ostensibly get nothing in your pocket pretty sure 80% are choosing the first option. Especially if the path to the NFL is getting more difficult if you do go to college. All that it needs to happen is for it to be worth the NFL's time and money to do, and if the product continues to suffer because the college product is so different than the product they want to put on the field, maybe those conversations start to happen.

Basically, yeah. As much as I enjoy watching college sports, the college system is unusual (from the perspective of an 'outsider', at least) but despite its issues it benefits everyone involved to varying degrees and generally fills the youth development void... It seems with the money involved in college sports though, the emphasis is on wins and as a result the games are becoming more isolated from each other, which benefits neither the players or the pro teams drafting them.

I'm only a casual college football fan, but in hoops if I were a top-tier lottery prospect the only school I would consider signing for is Kentucky, who play a fairly pro-style of basketball with the stated purpose of getting you ready for the NBA. Watching a 5-star prospect post player move from left block to right block while his guards swing the ball around the perimeter against a 2-3 zone for most of the shot clock is not preparing him for an NBA career, and guys are getting drafted into the NBA after a year or two of college ball where pro scouts still don't really have any idea if they can play in the NBA, outside of a series of 3-5 second clips where he happened to be in a situation that might translate to the pros.

I'm not sure if anything major will ever change because of all the tradition involved in college sports, but I think the NBA with the G-League have dipped their toes in the water a (tiny) bit, so it might be interesting to watch over the next 5-10 years to see if the NFL does anything.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by stevew

I do think the NFL needs a process where guys can declare as early as after their freshman year

Good luck getting that past the NFLPA

[stevew]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Good luck getting that past the NFLPA

I'm talking 2-3 guys a year. If a guy has a consensus top 10 rating he shouldn't be in college

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by stevew

I'm talking 2-3 guys a year. If a guy has a consensus top 10 rating he shouldn't be in college

I repeat, good luck getting that past the NFLPA.
That's an existing dues paying member's job you're talking about.

Plus, honestly, I don't believe there's a freshman in the country that could walk into the NFL ready to play. The physical gap AND the gap created by lack of reps, situations, etc is simply too big.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I repeat, good luck getting that past the NFLPA.
That's an existing dues paying member's job you're talking about.

Plus, honestly, I don't believe there's a freshman in the country that could walk into the NFL ready to play. The physical gap AND the gap created by lack of reps, situations, etc is simply too big.

Could make the same case for the entire idea of 250ish draft picks every year, no? I'd also argue that this kind of system could be good for the existing player base. If you get a good number of early entrants who get to the league and are thrown into the fire too quickly and their skills aren't properly developed, they'll wash out quickly. Maybe if they had stayed in college for another couple of years, they would have been properly developed and enjoyed a longer career in the league.

But that isn't even the main point. I was listening to Mike Lombardi on with Bill Simmons earlier and he was saying how teams cannot properly develop linemen given the short timeframe in between the draft and the season, lack of camps, practices, general time they can attend to players, etc. Good luck getting the practice schedule loosened with the NFLPA at this point too, right? So what the hell else can you do?

Put some kind of minor league/training system in place with a developmental draft. Pay kids good money to basically redshirt and spend a year or two training and learning the game.

The NFL seems to want to keep reaping the benefits of its free minor league system, but is bitching about the results it is getting from it. Can't have it both ways.