Stay On Target…: Tuesday Open Thread

Once again, it All Comes Down to This. And that’s kinda awesome.

By my count, there are eleven (11) games with meaningful playoff implications, including five involving a “win and in” scenario. I can’t say I’ve ever looked forward to a Colts-Texans game, but here we are.

Moreover, because the NFL isn’t entirely staffed by morons, all of these games are against division rivals. While I have no doubt most rivalries are more important to the fans than the players, I do know that the second time you play a team in a season is almost always tinged with animosity arising from whatever Those Fuckers pulled the first time out.

I have a Friend Slack peopled largely by Philadelphia fans (if you can call Eagles fans “people”). Prior to their surprise (?) bedshitting against the Cardinals, there was a robust rehashing of a well-worn barroom argument: was Bugs Bunny attractive when he dressed up as a girl bunny?

Wait, no.

It was whether the 17 game season and 14 team playoff are Net Positives. As we are Men and Women of a Certain Age (early 40s), the general consensus was that 16 game seasons are inherently superior, and that those damn kids better get off our lawns.

However, the issue of 14 playoff teams (and the related discussion of how many if not 14) divided the group.

Some trotted out the current popular argument from baseball: that it renders the regular season pointless to allow nearly half of the teams in, because mediocre teams can get hot right at the end and knock off the best teams.

To which I say: horseshit. The NFL isn’t MLB (thank Blergh). The relatively small sample size of the regular season, combined with unbalanced scheduling and the vagaries of weather and injuries mean the “best” teams aren’t always the ones that get the bye in the NFL. “Any given Sunday” is cliche trash, but it does hit on an essence of football: statistics and records don’t tell the whole story.

Some argued that 12 teams had been sufficient to encompass the “worthy” teams, and extra teams means dillution.

To which I say: maybe, but the problem there is the NFC South. The NFC South is the current incarnation, anyway. Three times in the last 13 years, one of the division “winners” was below .500, and there’s a fair chance of it happening again this year in the NFC’s septic tank. Why are we talking about the third wild card as “undeserving” when Taylor Fucking Heineke was the NFC Least representative in 2020?

Some complete fucking radical then WAAAY overcorrected, suggesting the abolition of divisions (and possibly even conferences), so that only the actual top 14 teams get a shot. Presumably this was typed while wearing a “No Gods, No Masters” black hoodie and listening to Rage Against the Machine.

I appreciate bold thinking, and there might be something to this when the league finishes expanding to Europe and starts eyeing Mars. But football is nothing if not hidebound and traditionalist, and I genuinely fear for my Iggles fans if they don’t get to have their twice-yearly ragefests when playing the Cowboys.

So I put forth my Modest Proposal: restore it back to 12 teams, but no division winners at or below .500. Call it bowl eligibility for the pros- if you can’t scrape together a winning record, your spot goes to the first (qualified) team on the outside of the wild card race.

Who says no?

NFL NEWS

-No one important ded, except maybe Miami sack leader Bradley Chubb. Chubb and the rest of the starters were inexplicably still in the game late in the 4th Quarter of their massive drubbing in Balmer, with the game far, far out of reach. Chubb tore his ACL on a non-contact play, and will be out until Judgment Day.

Combined with star corner Xavien Howard going down with a foot injury and Tua exiting the game with a shoulder injury, insult and injury were both in strong supply for the Dolphins last weekend, and their prime time for-the-division matchup with the Bills on Sunday may offer more of the same. Given fan reaction to Chubb’s unnecessary injury, could this be the end of the love affair with Mike McDaniel?

-Kenny Pickett: on his way out? The second-year Pittsburgh homegrown quarterback was forced to address rumors that he refused a role as Mason “Dixon” Rudolph’s backup last weekend. Pickett was inactive despite being designated as “questionable” all week, and when Mike Tomlin announced that Rudolph would start this week’s make-or-break game against the nothing-to-play-for Ravens, there were (understandable) questions about whether he was being Kordell Stewart’d. Pickett waved his tiny, tiny hands in protest, noting that he will be QB2 this week.

So need he fear for his job?

The projected free agent QB class is moist hot garbage, “lead” by Kirk Cousins and Ryan Tannehill. So as of now (see below), this seems an unlikely option for the Steelers to trust.

Assuming they miss the playoffs, the Steelers will probably be picking somewhere between 13 and 18th. That is well outside striking range for the consensus Big 3 quaterbacks (Caleb Williams, Drake Maye and Jayden Daniels) for a team that very seldom trades more than a few spots up in the draft. So even if Pittsburgh feels like reaching for one of the Nixes (Bo Nix or Michael Penix), Pickett is likely safe for another year.

The one scenario that could see Pickett sent packing is if Russell Wilson is cut loose, as seems likely.

1. Tomlin does not seem like the kind of guy to tolerate Wilson’s goofy-ass bullshit, but he does seem like the kind of guy who wants to shove his boot down Ben Roethlisberger’s chatty meathead throat.

2. Russ needs a new start in a program that has a track record of winning with barely-serviceable quarterback play.

3. Russ has little incentive to play for more than the veteran minimum, given the likely offset language in his Broncos contract. Why help out those fuckers?

So maybe Tomlin and Wilson tolerate each other for two years while Pickett finds his inevitable final home in Atlanta.

-Sean McVay has attempted to nip his yearly “will he retire” bullshit in the bud, publicly promising on his radio show that he will coach next year. So go ahead and lay a bet on him fucking off just before the draft.

-Dalvin Cook is being cut by the Jets. He is forfeiting guaranteed money in exchange for the release, which (while normal for Robert Kraft) is unusual for a player.

Apparently he wanted freedom to sign with a contending team. While that technically could mean returning to the Vikings, my bet is either insurance in San Francisco in case McCaffrey’s calf doesn’t heal or Buffalo with his brother James.

LATE UPDATE:

-Panthers owner David Tepper was fined $300k for throwing a drink at a jaguars fan from his palatial owners’ suite on Sunday as his team was drubbed 26-0. Like, I understand the impulse- I fly into and out of Jacksonville at least four times a year, and it’s all I can do to retrain myself from chucking a fountain soda at the first DUUUUVVAAAALista I see. And the exacerbating circumstances are there- he just watched the extremely expensive quarterback he misdrafted throw a pointless interception to clinch the number 1 pick- for another team, because said quarterback cost you that pick too. But still: having more money than God means you have to let some shit go, man. If I had $20 billion, one of the biggest perks would be never having to care about the opinions- or even acknowledge the existence- of proles like me. What a fucking yutz.