NFL 2013 Season Week 11 Picks

Rumor: because he wanted to make sure his was presence was missed more, Aaron Rodgers secretly broke the collar bones of at least three of his defensive teammates.

Is that true?

Is Gilbert Brown ok?

Is Gilbert Brown his teammate?

The Lions fake FG was bad, and a weird place to call it. Also, even if going for it, while I understand the "surprise" angle, you have Megatron, seems like your best chance is just to go for it go for it.

Still, I wish people would stop talking about the fact that the Lions fumbled on the play as what did them in. It was 4th down, the Steelers had him well short. It was always going to be their ball. The fumble actually backed the Steeelers up a few yards at a field position where that space is critical than if he had hung onto it.

On the Jason Pierre-Paul INT, shouldn't the offensive lineman be purposefully engaging the DE and not just let him stand there uninhibited?

I'm guessing...probably? They drop back to pass protect. If they were told to "go get em" if they weren't coming the defensive end would probably use that against them. (As soon as you commit to running at me, I'm going around you.)

Edit: One would kind of have to assume if the idea was the "offense engages the defense" then there wouldn't be much of a difference between run blocking and pass blocking.

I always thought that on a quick slant to a tight end like what the Packers were running on that play that the o-line's responsibility was to cut the d-lineman down, or at least occupy him so he has to keep his hands down. That being said, JPP came out of his stance almost a full step after everyone else on the D and O-lines did after the snap (not sure if by design or because he was asleep). So the LT might have had the intention of doing that, but because JPP wasn't where he expected him to be when he dropped back into pass protection, he had no one to engage, and JPP was in the perfect spot to get in the way of a quick 2 step drop-slant to the TE. That's my two cents.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the tackle's job there is to not go "full on pass block" but just quickly engage to keep his hands down, but I doubt that includes "run out like a maniac at a defender staying back to play the quick slant."

regarding the call/non-call at the end of the Patriots-Panthers game:

So often you hear people complaining about a ticky-tack call at the end of a game and they say something along the lines of "let the boys play" or "don't expect the refs to bail you out" or "the refs decided the outcome of the game". So now that the refs decided to NOT call a close play at the end of the game, and it seems like a lot of people (probably a lot of the same people) are calling foul for the the non-call. I almost guarantee that there would be as much controversy if the penalty was called instead of picked up. All that being said, I'm not sure what the correct call should have been.

* - I will say this, though: the offensive pass interference was 100 times more obvious and aggregeous in the Fail Mary play than the contact and play made against Gronk.

Seriously? This again? I'm sounding the Easy Stance Alert!
No one argued that there wasn't blatant offensive pass interference on that play. Also, did anyone even compare the two plays until you just did, let alone the severity of the interference? Was this just to rile me up? Because it worked.
Also, there should be a rule about this. Don't bring up the missed offensive pass interference call (or the play in general) without mentioning at least one of the obvious bad/missed calls the Packers benefited from in the fourth quarter alone of that Seahawks game. Seattle may never have needed to throw a hail mary pass if the refs made the correct calls in the first place.

It was brought up on the Dan Patrick show this week. That's what made me think to mention it.

Ha, I didn't think anything of it because I assumed it was in response to my game comment. Turns out it wasn't, as that was made on the next week.

Prophetic nutcan commentary?