Fear The Chorizo

Ok that was easy....but how in the world does that face mask on Jones get missed by the referees the play before? Also - it's so nice watching athletic TE's running routes downfield in this offense

I am sorry but what has happened to the 49ers through 4 games does not happen all the time. They've also gotten to play both NY teams, who are godawful, to pick up a pair of wins. Their schedule to this point has been incredibly soft and they are 2-2. The injuries are brutal, but they also aren't nearly as deep talentwise as many believed - in fact no NFL team can be deep enough to withstand this kind of injury bug, that's just part of football from year to year.

Who was saying that? The NFC West is possibly the most competitive division in the NFL. Rams, 49'ers, Seahawks are all set up to be highly competitive for years. And Kyler certainly makes the Cardinals looks like they're a competent defense away from making it a 4 way race. There is at least one poster on this very page who was quite adamant that the Packers had done nothing to "close the gap" with SF. Seattle is set up to compete because they have Russ. A stud QB like that is much more assurance that you'll be at least good for a long time than a dominant defense. There is way less consistency if your defense is the primary reason you're good. I don't think Jimmy is that kind of generational talent. He could reasonably be playing somewhere else in a few years. Probably not, but wouldn't be that shocking. Honestly, the biggest factor in "closing the gap" year in/year out is teams that take a big leap going from playing 4th place schedules the year they burst onto the scene to having to face 1st place/playoff team caliber schedules the very next year - that really shows up for teams that don't have a stud playing QB year in/year out. Those teams almost always run into salary cap hell, too. Injuries are obviously a third huge factor, and they inevitably derail even the most ironclad-looking rosters. San Fran is in a tough division, playing a 1st place schedule, and has the NFC South as part of its out of division schedule. Another 13-3 wasn't going to happen even if they were pristinely healthy.

Billy Turner was recently P-O'd that he was held out of a game where he felt he was good enough to play in, too. Good or bad, this is a pattern with this Packers team/medical staff, particularly when you see players as practice participants for a couple weeks, and warming up on gameday only to be held out. I get being secretive about injuries as a way to keep teams guessing, but this seems more like players are getting frustrated they are being kept off the field in situations where they think they shouldn't be. There's more to this than just a player venting about not being 100% healthy, and a key one at that. IIRC, Adams felt he was kept out a week or two longer than necessary with his toe injury last season, too. Not true, Martellus Bennett said our doctors want guys to play injured... lol, that's right - Unfortunately for Martellus, he appears to have been the lone man on the island of players stating the Packers operate that way...I'd need more opinions than his to view that as anything more than bluster from a player who knew the last two years of that contract weren't going to be honored and he was likely on his way out of the league due to a combination of his body breaking down and his proclivity to burn bridges most places he went...both he and his brother have been known to stretch the truth beyond its limits when things don't work out on their end, too.

Billy Turner was recently P-O'd that he was held out of a game where he felt he was good enough to play in, too. Good or bad, this is a pattern with this Packers team/medical staff, particularly when you see players as practice participants for a couple weeks, and warming up on gameday only to be held out. I get being secretive about injuries as a way to keep teams guessing, but this seems more like players are getting frustrated they are being kept off the field in situations where they think they shouldn't be. There's more to this than just a player venting about not being 100% healthy, and a key one at that. IIRC, Adams felt he was kept out a week or two longer than necessary with his toe injury last season, too.

Yeah, GB has struggled in these type of games right before a bye that many expected them to win when doing so would stake a stranglehold on conference standings - I'm sure its 20/20 hindsight, but they always seem to hold out a few too many players in these games that would otherwise be on the field as a way of giving them extra rest to be in better health after the bye. They had that bad loss at home against the Eagles before their bye last year on a thursday night. To me tomorrow night's game has that sort of feel heading into it...

The 49ers are going to have a tough time making the playoffs, and that's even with the NFL adding an extra participant in each conference. Injuries already piled up, and their schedule is rough the next 2 months.

The Bears are about to drop to 3-1, but it looks like they are probably the worst team in this division. If not for some late game collapses by other bad opponents and a freak drop in the end zone, they would be 0-4.

How did the division ever get four teams in? Basically because the Pirates, Royals, and Tigers were awful, probably 3 of the 4 worst teams in the league, so the other Central teams that were decent (Twins, White Sox, Indians coupled with the other 4 NL central teams) shared the rest of their wins to all make the playoffs based on their geographical advantage for the 60 game schedule. Of those 7 playoff teams from two central divisions, only the Cards are left and still at risk of getting bounced tonight despite none of them playing each other in round 1....that pretty much says it all.

Given the postseason success Woody had against Kershaw and Braun's bad back, can the Brewers request not using the DH for Woody for tonight's game?

Wouldn't it have been prudent to schedule an 18 week season with 2 bye weeks per team this year for more flexibility if this stuff came up? The NFL will need to adjust their overall season schedule in order to get through it - they can't do what baseball did because there are fewer games, each which carry a ton more weight for playoff seeding even among teams that aren't impacted by COVID at all. Plus the NFL has roughly 3-4X the number of players/coaches/staff/etc to monitor than even baseball does. One option I thought would be a good idea instead of starting the year with the normal staggered bye weeks across the league - instead have 2-3 week breaks following week 8 and an optional one at the end of the regular season if teams need it before playoffs start. Doing something like this would allow COVID spread to effectively stop across the league and reset things, rather than string the schedule along until something happens around week 10 or 11 that forces the NFL to shut down a full month or two. Having that sort of lull mid-season across the league would also help players heal up a bit during a year that's likely to have a higher chance of minor injuries/ailments due to limited practice & training schedules. Games that need to get pushed back could also be made up during those breaks, if necessary. Now that the NFL is almost 1/4 of the way into the season, it's going to be tough to reset their schedule after the next team or teams have enough positive tests that lead to games getting postponed without having the bye week flexibility early season cancellations can bring. I know the NFL started the year as it did with the pie in the sky hope its Super Bowl would happen on the day it's been on the calendar for years, with a bunch of corporate shill butts in the seats - but at this point I hope they know that's not happening...at least anywhere near what a typical Super Bowl weekend looks like.

Their Oline has been stellar to start the year - guessing it sure helped to have no crowds for their 1st two road games. Vikes' stadium and the SuperDome are not great spots for road O-lines...although key injuries to Viking and Saint Dlinemen undoubtedly helped them out, too.

Lawrence would have been the 1st overall pick in the previous two drafts had he been eligible to come out - whether or not he flames out in the NFL doesn't take away from the fact he's a transcendant talent for that position that teams just won't pass on. There are maybe a handful of NFL teams who wouldn't jump at the chance to take Lawrence had they had the 1st overall pick because they have their own franchise QB at the beginning or in the midst of their prime. KC, Baltimore, Seattle, Houston, maybe AZ - I honestly don't know if the list would or should go beyond that. The rest of them would draft Lawrence in a hot second if they had the opportunity to do so and worry about the fallout/succession plan later. It wouldn't surprise me in the least for a team that is hardly ever in the top half of the draft making a big push to get the top overall pick in next year's draft - especially if the doormat team picking 1st overall has a young QB from a recent draft that they haven't yet given a full opportunity to develop. Just for kicks, I checked out the Patriots' situation related to their 2021 draft...Newton is on a 1-year deal, and they have 9 picks slated for 2021 that include 7 in the top 4 rounds due to compensatory picks for players leaving via free agency.

Bears fans think 10 - 6 is doable. I'll be surprised if they go 7 - 3 the rest of the way. The Bears could easily be 0-3 despite playing the Lions, Giants, and Falcons - a collective 1-8.....I'd be surprised if the Bears wind up 8-8 despite their 3-0 start with the mess they have at QB and a defense that is far from "monsters of the midway" this season. I believe Cohen is done for the year with an ACL now, too. The NFC East looks like their conference champ may be lucky to wind up above 0.500 knowing their out of conference opponents are largely the NFC West and AFC North. Once the Bears come down to earth after playing a few decent teams, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Packers wind up as the lone team in their division coming close to winning 10 games. That leaves the NFC south and west to fill out the remaining 5 playoff teams this year - The 49ers, Seahawks, Cards, Rams, Saints, and Buccaneers aren't all going to win 10 games because they're going to beat each other up. Honestly, of that group of 6, the 49ers may be in the most precarious situation given how many bad injuries they've already sustained and the fact they have no slouches in their division. It's too early for certain and injuries are going to play a role in a few other teams creeping into the equation now that 7 teams are getting into the playoffs from each conference...but if we were in a vacuum that fast forwards two months I'd be shocked if the 7 NFC playoff teams don't come from 5 of those 6 teams listed just above, plus GB as the North Champ and a bad NFC East champ.

Those three plus Lewis...trying to recall if they suited up all 4 when they were all healthy, I think they did...seems like MLF has alot more read option or even misdirection plays in the offense utilizing multiple TE sets that have run action going one way with a TE darting across the formation to the opposite flat - if that weakside backer or safety gets caught looking at the run action Rodgers has the ability to pull the ball out and pick up a gimme 10-15 yards flipping it to the TE at will. I seem to remember similar types of plays with Graham running those routes last season hardly ever being effective. The would take way too long to develop because it would take Graham days to get across the formation (or on many occasions lining up on the weak side and putting less stress on the defense with little/no misdirection). Graham even in his prime was a TE much better suited to running seam routes - he had good straightline speed but he was never good at route running or playing laterally or relying on changes of direction to get himself open. Plus he was never a good blocker, so having him tight in a formation tended to bog things down more than anything. When you look at GB's skill WR/TE room, I'd say most all of them are really good run blockers for their position (Sternberger is probably an exception since he's a hybrid TE/WR who would be considered a poor blocker as strictly a TE). Being able to have a series of run/pass option plays with those personnel groupings and have balance makes playing defense against the Packers very difficult when Rodgers is playing well AND able to make line checks without fear of miscommunication since there is no crowds.

It may be worth the hands team putting their kicker over there and just telling him to boot that squib ball straight out of bounds. Don't even mess with trying to recover it or wait passively to see whether it gets 10 yards downfield or not I believe that’s a penalty ... you can’t intentionally kick a loose ball. Doh...yeah never mind. Those kicks take so long to get to where the opponent can even recover it legally and players have to space out so much that your best bet would be to go after the guys closest to the sideline right at the kick and then have hands team guys run in behind and either recover the ball or knock it out of bounds. Very solid road win against a quality opponent...sure they were without Thomas, but the packers were down key startes on both sides of the ball, too.

It may be worth the hands team putting their kicker over there and just telling him to boot that squib ball straight out of bounds. Don't even mess with trying to recover it or wait passively to see whether it gets 10 yards downfield or not

These TE's are looking pretty damn good early this year...provided they catch the ball

Yup, TD

Weird sequence there for the saints offense...glad king held the point of attack

Thank you saints for getting cute when you really don't need to

Like the decision to go for it. Absolutely hate the personnel and play call there

Thats a terrible spot...he didn't get close to that

Gotta go for it here

Info coming out of Japan on a small antibody study started in Tokyo right after their 1st initial spike in the spring and continued testing through Japan's 2nd "wave" in July/August was quite interesting... After Japan's 1st COVID wave went through in the spring, roughly 6% of the asymptomatic case group (anyone showing symptoms at all was removed from the study) had COVID antibodies in May. That same grouping had up to a 47% positive seroprevalence during the midst of Japan's July/August summer spike (which came and went without any additional mitigation measures/lockdowns). The really interesting part is a good chunk of the initial 8% no longer tested positive for COVID antibodies in the midst of that second wave, and over 80% of the test group who tested positive for antibodies at some point during the study tested negative for them about 1 month later. This suggests COVID antibodies in true asymptomatic cases don't stick around long at all, and also suggests the potential of former asymptomatic cases to become immune to future COVID infection. It's both good and bad news, particularly for the US. Much of the conventional thought revolving around Japan and how well they did addressing COVID was they did a great job of isolating early and targeted testing/contact tracing. Yet an asymptomatic study group of roughly 615 people over a wide range of adult ages across Tokyo had basically 50% seroprevalence in July. Japan's actual infection rate was probably huge in mid-summer, similar to when we saw the sunbelt spike here...they just had hardly anyone get really sick from it or even cared to aggressively test for it. This data points to hopes of reaching 70-80% of people to have antibodies at any given time in order to reach "herd immunity" isn't possible for a virus that such a large percentage of the healthy population can process asymptomatically - many to the point of having hardly any immune system response that results in antibodies even being generated. Japan, which had some of the earliest confirmed COVID cases outside of China and had a COVID-laden cruise ship to deal with in February (~120M population crammed onto islands roughly the size of california) has tested roughly the same amount as the state of Minnesota (~6 million people scattered quite a bit apart outside the twin cities metro area). Japan did great at limiting COVID infections that led to severe medical traumas because they have an incredibly healthy population - frequently they are viewed as the healthiest in the world. They never had significant health issues across any large portions of their population, so they lost interest in worrying about it. Unfortunately, our current state of public health prevents the US from doing the same thing - frankly we all knew that back in March and hoped for a silver bullet or lucky bounce that wouldn't prolong how much a pain in the ass COVID would be here. Unfortunately, a huge country with huge numbers of people whose health is artificially propped up by other medicines and medical advancements doesn't do well when faced with a novel virus that is hardest on people with those same comorbidities. At this point we're stuck waiting on a vaccine that will hopefully provide temporary immunity to the most vulnerable, and it'll get added to the laundry list of shots and medications we need to lean on to keep our society going - there really isn't a way to sugarcoat that. Replace Japan with Sweden and remove Sweden's initial bumbled response in protecting long term care facilities and there are alot of similarities - general public health pre-COVID also helps explain why Germany has done so much better than other populous western european countries dealing with the severity of COVID outbreaks. Different countries do different things and take different measures, but at the end of the day how each developed country fares has much more to do with its public health conditions before it even had to worry about a novel virus. In short, and it sucks to say it because I've had more than my share myself, all those Big Macs have come back to bite our country in the ass in 2020.