tmwiese55

Yea this looks really bad. I had no opinion at the draft as I was all in on the Donovan Mitchell wagon at the time. But really just didn't know anything about DJ other than vs UW and the tourney run last year, so i went into the year with no opinion and willing to give time. But he looks like he has no chance. In the GLeague his rebounding numbers have been laughably bad too. I saw something totaling up minutes played by rookies (who haven't been hurt all year like a Fultz or Giles) and he was so far behind everyone else it was shocking. At the time he'd played like 30 mins and no one else had played less than like 400, obviously just best guess remembering but it was something of that nature. That's a really bad sign there that he can't even get on the floor.

Chart was sorted by total wins. If you sort by DRtg you get a different story. Yea Drating is what I was going off and what I clicked on when I followed the link. I assumed that's what he meant since he said D. But yea what you just said could explain the top 10 too

They're not top 10 in the league on D. They're bottom 10. My best guess is you read that graph upside down my friend. The lower number the better for D rating. this one has them at 23. BBall reference has them at 25th. And it's been like this for three years now. And no defense is still very important in the NBA. It's just much more difficult now due to the rules and offenses are so advanced (besides the Bucks iso offense) that they can just pick you apart if you're a mess like the Bucks. Modern offenses will just pick you apart if you're not on your game. The only team below them that is supposed to be a good team is the Cavs and no one denies their D is awful, the other teams below them are the worst teams in the league. There has really never been more of an emphasis on defensive schemes/systems as there is now. In the past when the game was all one on one it simply came down to effort and stopping your guy, now you have to work together and have a plan. Of course though I'm not going to deny in the slogs of 82 games there is games and quarters where teams/players efforts just take a dip. No denying that. We're talking about schemes though. And yes scoring/pace is up which makes average joes think no D is being played, which we're not even talking about here. We're keeping it relevant by comparing to the rest of the league, and they're very bad going on 3 years now. You're right thought that they have to get a respectable C to take thon's minutes, he gets killed every night. Tough not to blame Kidd though when he was responsible for picking Thon. Also, I would name literally every coach in the NBA as being better than Jason Kidd. He is honestly starting to be talked about by national writers as the worst Xs and Os coach in the NBA.

Was thinking yesterday too that if Pitt beats NE in the current political climate that during the two weeks leading up to the SB there will be a revisit of the Roethlisberger sexual assault stories. Should make for a pretty miserable fan experience to have to listen to it. That said, he probably deserves for it to finally come back to bite him.

Put Happ on MU and the state of Wisconsin would have itself a team

OF course I don't see all MU games, but eye test to me they sure should be good enough to make the tourney and be a team that top seeds don't want to see. Guard play and shooting are huge in the tourney, if the MU guys get hot they can give about anyone a scare. I assume they're weak on bigs and that's what holds them back, but the Gs are legit.

There are cupcakes in the SEC too. Ark, Mizz, Vandy, TN, and Kent (before this year) have been really poor the last few years. Look at some of the point totals these guys have been giving up, it's shocking SEC teams have gotten that bad. This didn't exist 5-8 years ago when SEC actually was the god you're talking like they are now. Yes, better than Illinois and Rutgers but not on any different level than any other B1G middling team, probably actually worse if you look at real results and head to heads. Indiana and MN have really not been bad teams over the last few years in spite of what you say. Even joke team MD blew out TX this year before they had 3 QBs get hurt. Oh I guess I should include Purdue in the bad level team category up until this year, they were truly weak before they got the new coach this year. And yes having to play a 9th B1G team is much different than playing Mercer. If OSU plays Mercer instead of at Iowa they're in the playoff. If Bama had to play another crossover game, let's say vs UGA then one of those teams is not in the playoff. Or if not that, if UGA had to play another crossover game instead of Samford, let's say at LSU and lose it, they're not in. It's that simple. In 2016, if UW gets to play Mercer instead of at Mich or OSU that's one less loss headed into the conf title game leaving them possibly alive for the playoff. The 9th game is a big deal for schedule strength.

Well said, GAME. I'd add that PArker's raise will be more than small. If he was willing to take a team friendly deal they'd have done it before the deadline, he's trying to get 100mil or more if he stays healthy this year. What's killing their depth is missing on 3 straight #1 picks. And all reports/leaks indicate Kidd was key in drafting Vaughn and Thon. Supposedly not so much in Wilson this year. But obviously that's all speculation. Think of how much this team has invested in the 5 position to have nothing to show for it. Sanders #1 pick and subsequent contract. Henson #1 pick and contract. Plumlee contract. Monroe contract (of course led to Bledsoe at least, but he didn't exactly pan out when here overall). Thon #1 pick. Nothing to show for it besides Henson has at least been competent this year.

Well helps us in the battle for 2nd and 3rd place. Great move by Hous. Obviously makes them better, but also prevents him from going to NYY which would have helped sure up their biggest weakness area in starting pitching. So it hurts one of their biggest rivals too. Of course the Yankees offense looks ridiculous, bullpen looks great, but their SP is just not impressive.

He's from AZ or someplace out west. So not originally from WI. He's mormon so probably has a bunch of ties to Utah. He did coach for GB for years though.

And Clemson got manhandled by Bama. Wasn't even competitive. Did they even have a play over 10 yards? I know that's hyperbole as they must have, but sure didn't seem like it...

I feel like UW's D should've been able to keep them in the game vs any of these teams. Of course I would've expected to lose but I would have expected to be in the game in the 4th vs all. Going into the playoffs I would have picked UW to beat UGA, but UGA showed so much more offensive diversification in these two games than they did through the year. Basically going into it I thought our D would shut them down, but after what we just saw that was probably wrong. OK would've scared me as no D can fully hold them down but you'd think we'd have been able to run down their face just like UGA did since their D is terrible and soft. And after what UGA did 2nd half (basically the blitzing our D does at all times) I think we'd have at least a 50/50 chance there. Clemson I'd have picked them but in hindsight I'd call it 50/50, their O isn't anything special and our D should have matched up well on them. Bama was the one I'd have most not wanted to play. You can't line up power and run on their D, and obviously that's UW's offense. More or less same problems our O ran into vs OSU. Still our D would have likely done well vs Bama and I'd have called a 20-10 type loss as long as Hurts played QB the whole time so they couldn't throw. Next year Bama with a QB who can throw might be a cakewalk to the title for them.

Looking at common opponents...Missouri lost to Purdue. Nebraska beat Purdue. You listed 12 bad football teams. How is there any evidence that one set is better than the other? As for the other comparisons, how can one put Michigan State and Penn State below SEC teams that lost their bowl games? In the final AP poll, MSU>LSU and PSU>Auburn. Both the B10 and SEC had 5 teams in the final top-25. I'm not saying one conference is better than the other. I would say that we don't know because the top B10 teams didn't play the top SEC teams. Yea I didn't even want to get into nitty gritty of how he picked them and how just said who was better bases of bias instead of actual results. This was all supposed to be about SOS anyway to me, not arguing which conference is better necessarily. But generally the bottom 10ish teams of the SEC have fallen off a cliff the last few years but the ESPN SEC push hides it. Teams like FL, SCAR, ARK, TN, UGA (likely back now), used to be so good but they haven't been recently. LSU used to be natty level good, now they're just normal good. Even the MS schools had that run a few years back but one is sanctions hell now and the other just lost it's coach. That said: if Jimbo fixes A&M, Mullens brings FL back, UGA does what it looks like they're gonna do, and Aub/LSU at least maintain their current good level or maybe even tick it back up a tad to natty level good then yea the SEC SEC SEC is back again. But we'll see, need the results from everyone else, not just Bama.

No one said the top teams aren't awesome but having Bama doesn't mean the whole conference is better or does it mean everyone's schedule is therefor tough, which is what we're talking about here. I never even said B1G was better because they do have Bama and in any year one or two of LSU, UGA, Aub will be really freaking good too. We were talking about schedules specifically, not which conference was better. SEC plays only 8 conf games and plays an FCS team midseason to rest, never leaves the south for non conf, and generally besides Bama don't play tough non conf besides some of their allotted rivalry tie ins, and never have to leave warm weather for bowl games, often times playing within a couple hours of home. I don't know how you decided who to match who against in your thing, but think of it this way too for current program consistent quality rankings, and I'm spitballing here, if you ranked SEC/B1G: 1)Bama 2) OSU 3) UW 4) PSU, similar to UGA below I'm giving credit for what they should be setup like going forward. No argument if you flip with UGA though, but they were good last year too and UGA wasn't 5) I'll go UGA though it's their first year in a while of being really good, but they're now setup to kill it 6) MSU, honestly could put them 4th if you look at results. Put them below PSU and UGA due to estimating the next few years and how well PSU and UGA are setup 7) Aub (though they averaged 5 losses per year the last 4 years so Idk for sure After that I don't know, kind of a hodgepodge but probably go LSU #7 and Mich #8. Point of it was that after Bama the B1G has the next 3 best teams and really you could easily argue MSU above UGA and even PSU. And no other team besides Bama has consistently been good over the last 8ish years, lots of up and downs. Regardless, I still accept the SEC is better due to Bama and that usually one of the other 3 teams steps up in any given year. But it's a heck of a lot closer than ESPN admits now that OSU is so darn good, PSU is fixed and Mich is good again. But this was all about schedule strength, not which conference is better. If the SEC teams ditched the FCS game and played each other instead I'd probably say it's then accurate. But right now with the depth of the conf not as good as it was the vaunted SEC schedule isn't what it was 7-10 years ago. And maybe they could schedule a true road game at some point? SEC is way smarter and were ahead of their times on gaming the schedule system, good smart business by them. And Bama knows they're the best team, they'd be stupid to make it any harder than needed, just get there and you're the favorite. The B1G is finally starting it too by playing conf games earlier so they can get a break mid season too.

No, Alabama's schedule is not more difficult than a typical B1G schedule. this year's UW schedule, yes. But that's an anomaly and even so it still rated about even with Bamas. The SEC is vastly overrated after their top few schools, obviously those schools are top notch though. But their 4ish-14 are nothing to write home about. I mean there's a reason basically every school is in coaching turmoil in the SEC. And the SEC only plays 8 conf games instead of 9 and they play an FCS team for a bye midseason every year. Last year UW played LSU, OSU, Mich, MSU, Nebraska, Iowa and PSU in the title game. Next year they'll play at PSU, at Mich, at Nebraska, at Iowa, at NW (who just won 10 games and beat an SEC while playing their backup QB due to injury), oh and they'll have to play OSU in the title game if they make it. That kills what Bama will have to play next year. This isn't the SEC of say 7ish years ago that was so deep all the way through (other than Kentucky). Now it's the perfect storm for the top teams, similar to the ACC for Clem/FSU, with it being very top heavy. It's the ideal scheduling setup for the current playoff structure for Bama. The eastern 4 teams in the big ten obviously all play each other, plus always play a major conf opponent. OSU playing Oklahoma the last two years. Next year they scheduled two in Or ST (they couldn't have known Or St would be a dumpster fire when they did it) plus play TCU in Dallas. And then will have to play us in the title game. Mich plays ND next year and us regular season. MSU plays at ASU in their home stadium. PSU gets it a bit easier since they have the PITT game locked every year that's not too tough. But when's the last time an SEC team has left the south to play a non conference game? I'm not necessarily even claiming the B1G is clearly better than the SEC as the top 2-3 teams in the SEC are so good, especially Bama of course. But the depth isn't there anymore and they totally game the schedule. This notion that they play a tougher schedule is an old ESPN narrative that isn't true anymore. I'd agree it was true roughly 5 years ago when PSU and OSU were in sanctions and Mich was crappy. Now all three have good coaches are legit and two are top 10 level with OSU being the 2nd best team talentwise in NCAA most years. The B1G is essentially shooting themselves in the foot a bit with adding the 9th game and forcing teams to play legit non conf games every year. So essentially two 'cupcakes' at most other than if you happen to get Rutgers on your schedule.

Except he's had more of a hand in this roster construction than anyone left in management, so that's on him too. But yea, I agree and have no idea why they have 9 guards sit on the bench while they have such a glaring need for a 3rd big with some bulk to him. What are they waiting for to bring in a big, and i don't mean some swing big trade has to happen now. Just a D league or scrap heap pickup with some thickness to take Thon's minutes would be a boost. That said, a coaching move that we've all been waiting for with that big guy issue is to unleash Giannis at the 5 for 5-7 mins a game. The D is getting torched anyway, just try to outscore teams. And I know you can't have Giannis play the 5 for 25 mins a night, but another few mins to reduce how much Thon has to play can only help. Thon is a complete trainwreck, so anything to reduce his time on the court helps. We'll see if he finally tries this once Jabari is back. essentially the team is the same it's been the last 3 years in spite of having the best talent it's had since 2001. In the last 3 years Giannis has progressed to top 5 player in the world and you added a legit PG. Yet the record is the same and the D still gets torched every night, in spite of Giannis being amazing on D and Bledsoe being pretty good on D. You have a great PnR PG now and the best slasher/finisher in the league, yet you run almost no ball screens with Giannis/Bledsoe. It's still high post feeds to the bigs or backdown ISOs like it's 1998. And the D system is just a joke.

I can't wait for Jason Kidd to not be the coach anymore. Never thought I'd be the type of fan rooting for losing, but that's where I am right now.

No, there schedule is not anything close to what any Power 5 team played. Not even close. That good Memphis team lost to 7-5 Iowa St in a bowl game in Memphis' home stadium. Memphis scores like 60 vs their conference, got 20 in that game. I think in the title game UCF went double OT vs them and gave up 55 points. They got up for a big game and they pulled it out vs Auburn, good for them. But if they played a normal P5 Conf they'd have 0% chance of winning the national title, 0. These teams can pull their upsets but it's much different to have to play those teams 9 weeks in a row, as opposed to getting up once. And of course in any one game situation anything can happen, but 9 weeks in a row is a different animal. UCF Schedule FIU--won in blowout at Maryland (only P5 team who happens to suck)--won 38-10 Memphis--won blowout at Cinncy--won blowout East Car---won blowout at Navy---won by 10. Navy was 6-6 this year Austin Peay an FCS team--won blowout at SMU---won by 7, smu was 7-5 and got blown out by 41 by Louisiana Tech in bowl Uconn--won blowout at Temple--won blowout USF--won by 7, great game and USF was a solid team Memphis--title game won by 7 in double OT. Then Auburn

Yup it is, and they were wrong. Management for every team is wrong about several players every year, this was one of them for GB and it bit them. It'll be interesting what they do with backup QB this year. With Rodgers at least 4-5 years from quitting, trying to find the next Keenum type to be stable if needed for 4 games is probably the route rather than drafting a complete unknown. When Rodgers is closer to the end then maybe start rolling the dice on younger guys to maybe find his replacement. That would be my preferred route I suppose. however, Hundley was playing for the first time and did go 4-5 with an 8-8 td/int ratio before the last two games of tank mode. So in a way you could say he did the job of a backup not horribly, hovered around .500. Of course just a bit improvement would have made a big difference in a couple games though. But I'm not sure the mental awareness is there to be any better than he was, so a safer route might the move right now.

And the Keenum got 3 more years and whenever he played he was just blah and cut by two teams. Houston of course didn't have the weapons GB has, but always had a good D. Rams obviously have a good D. So that's at least similar to what he has in MN. Before this year 24/20 int/td. This year 22/7. No, it's not close at all to what was expected. Just last year for the Rams he played 9 games just like Hundley this year. He was 9/11 after a few years of experience, Hundley was 9/12 this year in his first action. I know I mentioned the 0/8 start at some point but I don't think I ever repeated it as a big thing. Just a part of history. He lost 8 in a row, with a 9/6 ratio. Obviously better than Hundley but that's nothing spectacular or to say he did quite well. Also, 6 of those TDs came in two games for Keenum. I guess we just disagree on retread QBs that get passed all over the league. Maybe it's a safer bet to have them as they might reliably win one more game than gambling on an unknown like Hundley. Either way, you're not winning squat with them barring something really weird like Warner and so far Keenum this year. If you go that route though you never end up with Brady, Rodgers, Romo and how many others as your backups ready to step in.

Moving on, how familiar are you with the contract situations of Bradford and Keenum? I'm not but I was talking to someone today about what they might do, I couldn't really say since I didn't know the situation well. You seem to though. I mean, obviously if they're financially bought into Bradford and Keenum is available any team would grab him in a second to be a backup. And you'd think a team like Denver and a few others might let him start. Obviously GB I'd take him in a second. However, how does MN let him go after this year? Even if deep down they think it's a fluke. Especially knowing Bradford is injury prone, but do you pay two guys? ETA: google was pretty easy on this. Seems to me both are straight up free agents this year. So I'd guess they sign Keenum to a moderate 2-3 year deal. And then, just as we're saying here, draft a young guy to develop behind him and hope for the best. Who knows though, maybe they keep Bridgewater as backup, he's probably happy to just collect a check after what he went through.

I mean, you realize Keenum didn't even get drafted right? And then cut by two teams, yet you're acting like it was obvious that he was legit. Sorry man, its pure hindsight 20/20 to act like anyone thought Keenum would do what he did this year. Coming in and going say 5-6 in 11 starts or 7-8 wins for a whole year with a barely above 1-1 Td to INT ratio would have been a realistic expectation. Again, fine for a backup but to act like it was obvious he'd win 11 or 12 games and have a 3 to 1 ration just isn't right. He's the anomaly to the rule, for the most part these retreads get passed all over the league and don't do squat whenever they play. Again, clearly a safer bet than unknown like Hundley. Kudos to them for doing that considering they had two experienced guys already. And physically I saw Hundley make about every throw you can ask, so that wasn't the problem. To me it was being a split second late and/or waiting for the guys to come open instead of anticipating. They put too much stock in him, they were wrong. Find someone new this year. Here's a quick googling of Keenum's draft scouting btw if that's valuable: "The pocket presence, poise and good decision-making Keenum displayed at Houston aren't enough for him to overcome his size (just under 6-1), lack of arm strength and accuracy. His performance Sunday showed that while Keenum may find a way to stick in the NFL as a backup, teams shouldn't spend a draft pick to get him."

Brett Hundley dreams of having the career that Matt Moore or Case Keenum have had. Hundley will be lucky that he's in the NFL next season the way he played. But then as you check around and realize a bum like Joe Webb (maybe Hundley can return punts. He can't be any worse than Davis) is still in the league, Hundley can coast for about another decade of not being any good. Just hope the new brass makes the decision that it needs to be on someone else's roster. They had to play for the first time at some point too though, I think I just saw Keenum lost his first 8 games. Yea I agree, he proved this year he's not good enough to be trusted in this situation again. I didn't say that wasn't the case. My theory is that the staff believed they were sitting on a starting caliber player as their backup. They were clearly wrong. My guess is they thought he was legit good and would do well, then trade him for a 2nd rounder like the Pats did with Jimmy. Obviously they were wrong. And I'd say go back and look at how some of those backups experience have done when they played before, nothing to write home about by any means. Sure, better than what Hundley did but all those guys had proven they weren't good enough to be starters in this league. So I guess it's gambling a bit to go for higher upside like they thought they had in Hundley vs proven blahness. And if you would have told anyone before this season Keenum would do what he did you would have been called crazy, he's basically been made fun of for years whenever he's had to play. Good for him though, always thought he got too bad of a bad rap, hope he gets some money. Again, in a way I don't even know what we're arguing about, haha. I'm not saying Hundley was good. I guess I'm just saying I don't think it was out of cheapness or laziness that they ended up with him so not some kind of faulty logic or organization incompetence. It was just a bad player evaluation, which happens all over the league all the time. And these two (MM/TT) were right about an unknown QB evaluation a few years back where they put their careers on the line and I think they were right on that one. I hope they do something different this year though. Vikes have 3 QBs, so we'll see what happens there. IDK if Bradford would be a backup. I bet Bridgewater would. Or as a comp to these backups with experience. Take the couple guys for Denver who've gotten to play but haven't been able to hack it. Sure, I'd take them over Hundley now that we know what we have in Hundley. But let's say a team has a 3rd-5th round pick as their backup who's never gotten to play other than preseason who's done well in those games and you like what you see in practice from him (let's say Cardale Jones type, though I don't know how he's done in preseason). Would you rather roll the dice on that kid playing so at least there's a chance he's legit good (or at least better than guys who've failed a couple times already) at his rookie salary, or pay a few mil for proven blahness that you know you can't win with anyway. I don't think it's horrible logic to hope the unknown is better than a guy you know can't hack it and you can't win with.

I'd bet that if you asked them in August (and they could answer truthfully) who they'd rather have to play for them this year between the likes of Matt Moore, TJ Yates, Derek, Anderson and Keenum they'd have said Hundley. Basically all those guys have proven they can't hack it, then all of a sudden Keenum got good-ish out of nowhere. They were just wrong, it happens and no one is perfect. I guess I'm just saying I don't think it was out of cheapness or laziness, they were just wrong on their evaluation of how good Hundley was. We'll see what they do this year. I'd say Hundley proved he's not good enough to trust again in this situation. So yea grab someone else and see what happens would be my move. And no, it better not be Tommy Callahan. Teddy Bridgewater could be an option? ETA: Pats basically did the same with Garoppolo as the backup to Brady, they were right. Packers did it with Matt Flynn when he first came up and were basically right. Packers did it like 4 times under Favre and were right.

Yea I don't think it was a mistake for the GM with the best QB in the world but one of the worst Ds to not waste draft picks on backup QBs every year. They've had Hundley for a few years and he's always done well in the preseason, to the point where there was talks about how much they could cash him in for before losing him. I think they felt confident he'd be ok, and honestly for a backup he was ok. Several teams have starters basically the same as him, some even made the playoffs. I think what deceived them was him not being able to handle the speed of the game on the field, physically he can make all the throws but just seemed like he processed things a split second too late instead of anticipating.