2015 NFL Season

[Simple Torture]

Once again I didn't recognize it being NFL at first glance, thinking it was a mid level college game.
Dallas & Carolina are going to wear "alternate" uniforms on Thanksgiving too. Just stop it already.

I finished my DVR'd hockey game when Tennessee got the ball with 3 minutes left, and thought it'd be fun to watch the last few minutes. What awful execution on those last few drives. Who does a butt slide to try and make a first down? And that whole final drive, it took an eternity for the Titans players to get to the line. It was brutal.

[nyquillyn]

Lots of people jumping on this Cards bandwagon. I'm not really willing to put them in Super Bowl discussion yet. Their O-line is vulnerable and BA's play calling always puts the QB at-risk. Also, the thing I like about their D is also their weakness. All those hybrid LB/DBs can get run over in a power running game. Still, I'm expecting them to have their way with the Bengals.

[Kaius]

I'm not sold on the Cardinals as an elite team. They're good, though. Their schedule has been fairly soft. The close wins against the Ravens and 'Hawks are their only quality wins.

[nyquillyn]

That's fair, but who are the elite teams in the NFL other than the Pats?

[Kaius]

Touché.

[epilogue]

I guess, define elite.

I think, this season, I'd call the Cards elite.

[Simple Torture]

I was going to try to make a point that the Cards haven't been favored in every game they've played this year (they were three point dogs to Seattle last week), which could be a sign that people in-the-know don't trust them. Then I remembered that the Pats haven't been favored in every game--they were a 1-point dog to the Bills in Week 2, which is a farce!

I'm a huge believer in strength of schedule, and if you want to try and break down if the Cards are "elite," I think you've gotta look at who they've beaten. It doesn't exactly jump off the page at you: 4 of their wins came against the 4 of the worst teams in the league (by weighted DVOA) - Detroit, SF, Cleveland, and New Orleans (and Chicago ain't that far out of the cellar). Despite their record, Baltimore is almost perfectly average on a play-by-play basis. Seattle stands as their only truly impressive win, numbers-wise. Their loss to STL looks worse and worse every week, but their loss to PIT looks better and better (as far as losses go). They have tough games left, with 4 of 7 coming against average or better teams, so we'll know a lot more about them soon.

The Patriots, on the other hand, are 5-0 against teams in the top half of the league in DVOA; the other 4 teams they beat fall neatly between 20-25. Can't argue with that. Just like ARI, they have 4 of 7 left against better-than-average competition.

The Panthers have only played three teams in the top half of the league in DVOA (PHI, SEA, GB, and obvi they've 3-0 in those games), and they only have 2 games (out of 7) left against teams that are in the top half (WAS and NYG). They could go 15-1 and I still think they could be a question mark in the playoffs.

I could go on with the other "possible elite" teams, but I've got shit to do. Here's where I'm getting my stats from: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teameff

*However, feel free to take any statements like "better than average" or "top half of the league" with a grain of salt, as I'm going strictly by the numbers. As we've discussed elsewhere in this thread, I really think there are only 4-5 "really-good-to-excellent" teams in the league, followed by maybe 5-6 "very good" clubs. Mediocrity begins at number 11-12 is what I'm saying.

[Coach]

I think the only elite team is the Pats, but if you grade on a scale (only 11 teams have a winning record - lowest total since 1990, per espn and boston.com) you could argue that the Panthers and Cardinals are elite. Still, that's only because it's a down year in the NFL. This truly is a pitiful NFL season.

[Mecca]

down year or the middle teams are more competitive?

[verb_to_trust]

I think down year. And in my opinion it has a lot to do with a poor qb player pool. With the emphasis trending toward chucking the ball around instead of the running game what you are left with is this.

[Simple Torture]

Agree with the "down year" sentiment, and the QB pool is certainly part of it. A few weeks ago I think I proposed that there were 10-12 teams in the league that were just awful; after watching a few more weeks of games, I think I may have overreacted a bit, but the league still feels very middle-to-bottom heavy. I think it shakes out like:

Spoiler: show

Very Good to Excellent (4)
Patriots
Panthers
Bengels
Arizona

Good (3)
Pittsburgh
Minnesota
Green Bay

Your Record Looks Good, But You Don't Seem Trustworthy (4)
Denver
Atlanta
Kansas City
New York Giants

Mediocre (11)
Buffalo
New York Jets
Indianpolis
Oakland
Washington
Philadelphia
Chicago
Tampa
New Orleans
St Louis
Seattle

Your Record Looks Bad, But Maybe You're Just "Meh"? (4)
Miami
Baltimore
Jacksonville
Dallas

Definitely Bad Teams (6)
Tennessee
Houston
San Francisco
Detroit
Cleveland
San Diego

I could be talked into a lot of things. Is Minnesota good? Probably, but I haven't watched many of their games, so I dunno; same with Atlanta. Denver could flourish under a new QB, so they could bump up a spot. I'm pretty confident with the low end of the totem pole, though; there have been so many bad teams on SNF, MNF, or games the NFL decides to send to my area that I'm confident in those rankings.

[Coach]

Yes, down year because of bad quarterbacks and bad coaching/head coaches. There's also way too many TV timeouts, the color rush uniforms, the Thursday night football, etc.

[Mecca]

im enjoying it

[Coach]

I'll enjoy the playoffs.

[Green Habit]

Not really feeling FNIA getting bumped by NASCAR. I totally get keeping the race on NBC, but couldn't they run FNIA on NBCSN or CNBC or something?

[verb_to_trust]

The less Tony Dungy and looped highlights from 6 hours ago the better

[darth_vedder]

I'll enjoy the playoffs.

I won't

Spoiler: show

Washington sucks.

[Green Habit]

The less Tony Dungy and looped highlights from 6 hours ago the better

I dunno, Dungy's reaction when Mike Florio said that Peyton Manning intends to play in 2016--even if the Broncos cut him--was pretty good TV.

[verb_to_trust]

Lol yeah thats some real insider info from Tony.

[E.H. Ruddock]

Probably time to throw Tampa Bay into the elite conversation