Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):
Thu 2024-11-28 12:30PM Chicago Bears @ Detroit Lions
Thu 2024-11-28 4:30PM New York Giants @ Dallas Cowboys
Thu 2024-11-28 8:20PM Miami Dolphins @ Green Bay Packers
Fri 2024-11-29 3:00PM Las Vegas Raiders @ Kansas City Chiefs
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Indianapolis Colts @ New England Patriots
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Arizona Cardinals @ Minnesota Vikings
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Houston Texans @ Jacksonville Jaguars
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Tennessee Titans @ Washington Commanders
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Pittsburgh Steelers @ Cincinnati Bengals
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Los Angeles Chargers @ Atlanta Falcons
Sun 2024-12-01 1:00PM Seattle Seahawks @ New York Jets
Sun 2024-12-01 4:05PM Los Angeles Rams @ New Orleans Saints
Sun 2024-12-01 4:05PM Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Carolina Panthers
Sun 2024-12-01 4:25PM Philadelphia Eagles @ Baltimore Ravens
Sun 2024-12-01 8:20PM San Francisco 49ers @ Buffalo Bills
Mon 2024-12-02 8:15PM Cleveland Browns @ Denver Broncos
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Tremendous week for the Eagles. With any luck they have the NFC East sewn up after beating the Rams, with the Redskins dropping a sloppy game to a scrappy Dallas team.
Saquon is the truth. You can't stop Barkley you can only hope to contain him. Next week is going to be key for his MVP and OPOY narrative, if he has a great game and the defense stuffs Lamar and Henry, then Saquon will emerge in a two horse race with Josh Allen. He'll still probably lose to Allen, non-QBs rarely win, but he'll have a puncher's chance down the stretch.
Hurts and the rest of the offense looked OK at best. I was hoping to see Hurts spread the ball around more, but he stuck to AJ Brown and Dallas Goedert. He just never has the processing speed to run through his other receiving options. If he could, he'd be unstoppable. He'll need to find it against a weak Ravens pass defense next week if they're going to outshoot Lamar.
The Eagles' D finally managed to beat a competent QB in an unassailably well executed way. Stafford looked good, but didn't have enough. Unfortunately, they lost Brandon Graham to a season ending triceps injury. That leaves the team dangerously thin at Edge, relying on Josh Sweat, second year development project Nolan Smith, and developmental rookie Jalyx Hunt. All three will need to step up if the team is going to make any noise down the stretch.
Luckily for the Eagles, the Redskins fell apart against a shorthanded Dallas team. Three up in the loss column with six to play puts them in a position where if they just beat the Panthers, Giants, and Cowboys at home, then the skins need to win out in order to get a tie. The dallas game was hilarious, I listened to the radio broadcast doing chores, and I turned it off after the kick return touchdown figuring the game was over. Missing two more touchdowns and a field goal that were still left in the game. Daniels is Good, and will be trouble for the rest of his rookie contract for the Eagles. Dallas is bad, but still has enough star power that if they all decide to pull the wagon together they can make it tough for any team. Hopefully by Christmas they are so far out of it that they have little motivation to play spoiler in Philly, and if you put your arm on their throat they'll fold.
Elsewhere in the NFL: Can Pat Mahomes keep getting away with it? Is Russell Wilson cooked? How much tanking is too much tanking in New Jersey?
How much of Barkley success do you want to give him vs his situation?
Between him and McCaffrey...
I mean, it's a team sport, everyone looks better when give them better teammates.
Both those guys did a lot of good work on not particularly good teams, stick them on a strong team.
idk, both are fun guys to watch when they get it going, I'm glad they both found good situations.
I'm not sure it changes the narrative around how to value RBs as much as people might suggest. (as much crap as the Giants are getting for it, I still think that was a fairly reasonable decision).
Whatever the difference is between how Saquon is doing this season and how Swift did last season, and Miles Sanders the year before that. Literally the exact same team on offense, Saquon is the only major change. Jason Kelce was swapped for Mekhi Becton on the O-Line, but the line might actually be better on net than last year, not because Becton is better than Kelce necessarily, but because Jurgens is a better center than he is a guard, and even though Kelce-Jurgens at C is a slight downgrade, Jurgens-Becton at RG is a huge upgrade. Beyond that there's a new WR3 if they're playing 11 and Calcaterra has surpassed Stoll at TE2 if they're playing 12, and every now and then they trot out BVS in 21 which they never did in '23 with Swift, but those are marginal changes.
Saquon is a massive upgrade over Swift or Sanders. Swift had a good season, Saquon is having a transcendant season.
And the argument goes for everyone who is in competition for MVP. It's a team sport. QB's need to throw the ball to someone who catches it, and they need to get protection from an O-Line, and they need a running back to keep the defense on their toes. A good QB with a quick release makes an O-Line look good, an indecisive QB can make a good O-Line give up sacks all the time.
Ultimately by my normal standards if the season ended today, I'd want to see Josh Allen get MVP. But if they don't give it to Allen, I'd say Saquon has as good a claim as any other player when you look at how the team improved from his play. Mahomes isn't actually playing that well, Goff isn't that inspiring, Lamar has thrown up some real skunks in big games and isn't doing enough to get it consecutive years. After that I'm just not seeing it. But that's if the season ended today, there's still time.
There's something to be said for it being easier to get an average RB than an average QB, but it gets a little circular at a certain point.
More options
Context Copy link
In the same vein I'm finding it harder and harder to approximate the value of these good RBs. On a really good offense they are clearly force multipliers, dynamic runners and catchers that add points to every game. The convention wisdom is that they aren't worth a lot of salary because they're replaceable, and even on bad teams they do very little. I'm more skeptical of this these days, seeing the big drop off in effectiveness on the Raiders and Giants offense after losing Jacobs and Barkley. The flipside of this is a good blocking and offensive team that has a bad RB who is carried by his environment. Najee Harris maybe? Not a lot of examples come to mind.
The Raiders and Giants were bad with Barkley and Jacobs, they're still bad without them.
"The flipside of this is a good blocking and offensive team that has a bad RB who is carried by his environment. Najee Harris maybe? Not a lot of examples come to mind."
'bad RB' is sort of an odd category, the list of low resource acquires, considerable success, and then replaced by another guy with considerable success, just within the various branches of the Shanahan coaching tree is long (start with Terrell Davis), (even this year the 49ers have gotten 700 yards at 5.1 yards a carry out of Jordan Mason), and fairly central to skeptical valuation of RBs.
While the Giants and Raiders were both not great with their star running backs last year (although both had seen average-to-good offenses built around them in the not-so-distant past), both have seen significantly worse results since letting them go.
The Giants with a healthy Saquon (2018, 2022) were an extremely mid offense, averaging the exact midpoint in the league (16.5) in points (16, 15) and yards (17, 18). The Giants with an unhealthy Barkley (2020, 2021, 2023) were one of the worst offenses in the league in both points scored (31, 31, 30) and yards (31, 31, 29). Without Barkley this year they've scored the fewest points in the league and are trending in the wrong direction.
The Raiders are less obvious since Carr's departure had more of an effect, but this is the worst year they've had offensively since drafting Jacobs (even comparing the past two Carr-less years, they've clearly regressed offensively this year), and have had noticeably worse RB play even compared to Jacobs' poor last season in black and silver. He actually led the team in AV (football-reference's attempt to make a WAR for football) in 2022, for whatever that's worth (not a ton, in my opinion).
Even a very good running back will heavily rely on their offensive line, and a bad offensive line will make even the best ones have mediocre results, but the position in general has been overly devalued if you ask me - a good running back can still be the focal point of a successful offense.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link