NFL 2015 Season Week 3 Picks

Interesting stat about the Chiefs-Packers game: the Packers have never beaten the Chiefs in Green Bay. Like, ever. And the Packers have only beaten the Chiefs once since 1987. I'm sure that will be a factor.

>Packers' injuries keep mounting but as long as Rodgers is on the field, they've got a good chance.

That's because Ted Thompson is so good at finding talent everywhere! Or we just pretend that and the reality is any random replacement level NFL level talents look good with a top QB who has actually been masking a fairly mediocre team for a while.

One or the other. It must be the former, because of course there's no precedent for a team going from Superbowl competitor to terrible, and then back, based on the QB.

Are you picking a fight with me?

I did forget the

I'm waiting for a certain someone's head to explode at the news that Kam Chancellor might return exactly 1 week after the Seahawks played the Packers.

Sarah, I fixed it for you.

That, or the potential number one pick fell in his lap. There was no transition at all. Not even a hint of it at the time, just the fact that football players don't play forever. They chose Favre over Rodgers many many times, including that last season. Reportedly it wasn't until that final season, where they agreed to let Favre come back after much hemming and hawing, only to be followed up by him have 57th thoughts and pulling back again weeks shy of the season that they FINALLY decided it was time. They chose Favre every time, right up until the point where it was almost impossible to do so, because you can't not know about your QB within a stone's throw of the season.

Even if you wanted to give credit to him for pulling the trigger on drafting him, that's one good move, that potentially masks every other one, and arguably a very shoddy job at managing his cap masquerading as "doing it right", because he can almost never afford a free agent if he wanted to (but somehow we ignore that he's quick to whenever they can actually afford to squeeze a FA in-between giving every DB he's ever drafted 9 million per season and Bubba Franks being paid about 20 times too much.)

That was always a given.

For what it's worth, the Packers had one of those "why didn't they at least take a measurement on a really really close first down on a 4th down play" towards the end of the game last night. I don't know that it wasn't a first down, and the Packers didn't have any timeouts with which to challenge it, but the announcers seemed puzzled about not only the spot but the lack of measurement as the spot appeared short of--or, generously, right at--the yellow line.

Did the Chiefs run a play before anyone signaled anything which wouldn't have given you a chance to challenge if you could have because no one knew what the situation was?

There was a hurt Packer player which the refs blew the whistle for an it looked like most players and coaches didn't know why the whistle was blown. Does that count? Also it wasn't "really really close", he was short by a full yard (if the spot would have been where it was supposed to be).

It doesn't count, Alex. Or at least the 17 other gifts that the Packers got from the refs all night offset any suspected questionable calls that may have hurt the Packers (that is, only if you are wearing rose-colored Packer glasses). Also, I think the Chiefs may have had an injured player, so obviously the outcome of the game was already tilted in the Packers favor, because football.

The Chiefs were in hurry up mode and the only reason they didn't run a play in the manner described in Jeremy's comment is likely because of the whistle for the injured Packer, and because it was a 17--err, 16--yard gain and required 22 players get back to the line of scrimmage. But the fact that delay is all the more reason why it's questionable that was no measurement. It's one thing to be in hurry up mode and have the offense get to the line and snap the ball right away to a) not lose clock time, or b) prevent the opposition from challenging; I'd say that happens fairly often. It seems worse, given how the two events have been described, to have a bad spot that still appears to be close at best and behind the line at worst and have no measurement when there is a whistle blown and time for the refs to talk about it compared to a similar situation with a winding clock inside of 3 minutes with a frantic offense trying desperately to get the next snap off as soon as possible.

And regarding my "really really close" choice of words, it was a bone thrown because I didn't have a replay in front of me. My first thoughts at the time was "how did they spot the ball at the first down line when his body never got to the line", but I didn't want to seem like I was totally claiming we got hugely screwed. That and the spot (bad as it may have been) probably was "really really close", but it was still short of the yellow line, which I know isn't official, but is generally a good indicator of what's close and what isn't, which likely should have prompted a measurement.

Kettle, meet pot. Pot, kettle.

There are of course never any legitimate differences in the situations, only tinted glasses.

Bad spots happen all the time, that isn't the quibble here. In the Viking game the ball WAS spotted behind the line of gain, then, the Lions just ran a play before anyone figured out anything. So, that too is different, and no, it's not worse that the refs communicated, even if they were wrong on the spot. Refs can stop the game any time, so that's a moot point who is or isn't in hurry up, at best. The fact that the play in the Viking game should have been, at worst, a measurement, was never the crux of the matter there.

Take the play as you described and say the refs *actually spotted the ball* where you both say it should have been, a fan-yard short of the line of gain, now pretend the Chiefs just kept going, based on some weird miscommunication or something inexplicable between the marking the play and spotting the ball, and to put the cherry on the top, there wasn't even an outwardly sign of the miscommunication/mistep that awarded the first down, before anyone knew anything it was in the books, and no one said anything about the fact that they turned it over on downs 2 plays ago. It wasn't a "bad spot" issue.

Surely, even if we could haggle over if the Viking play "really" played out that way or not, you can see how these two situations are actually different situations, right?

Also, small point, but are you saying that 17 breaks the Packers got from the refs wouldn't be a relevent point to make if they got one bad one?