alleycat

Brady was at his most invincible when he had Gronk and Hernandez. They did the same with Welker and Edelman. I'd be happy for the Bengals to adopt one or both (two TEs, two shifty slot types) of those approaches to help Joe. You only need one guy like Chase to take the top off the Defense and you have mismatches all over the field.

Damn. I saw that Texas playoff game and thought I had found a real underrated guy in Byron Murphy because Sweat was getting all the heat. Now it looks like we might not even have a shot at him. He's the interior penetrator we've needed since Geno left -- and never had with Trey here.

I watched the game last night to scout Sweat but came away really liking what I saw from Byron Murphy II. Don't sleep on that guy.

Our LB play has been garbage for years. They make splash plays but they can't play the run to save their lives. They never plug holes adequately, let the run come to them, frequently over pursue and wash themselves out of the play, and are slow as molasses in the pass game. Aside from getting and elite 3Tech to put legit pressure form the inside, LB is up there with a dominant speed-to-power rusher (to go with Hendrickson) that would take this team to the next level. Plainly spoken, the D needs a QB on the field who is also a tone setter, and right now they don't have that.

Every 1pm game currently going against our needs.

My biggest problem with Mixon is his vision, there are clear examples of him running into the back of an O-Lineman when there is a whole right next to that. Watch the last game for clear examples. My second biggest problem is how easily he goes down on contact, especially in the open field or with one defender. It's almost like he expects contact to take him down, and so he does. And when I mean go down, I mean go straight down, not go down and fall forward for an extra couple of yards.

Roughly, if we win the next two games we need either Buffalo or the Texans to lose one of their next two.

Good news is Jake played in Seattle for college. Literally can’t have more experience in the rain.

Yup. That’s what I was talking about before last week before the games, and why it was actual crucial that Pitt beat Indy. If you select winning percentage as the criteria (not perfect but an okay predictor of favorites, and then just turned 2-3 of our games to wins, we didn’t get in.

It's crazy. The Bengals are in a really bad spot, because of the logjam and how poor their divisional and conference records are. I even found a scenario whereby they don't make the playoffs even if they win out:

Calling it now, if we lose only 1 game, our entire season will come down to the final Bills vs Dolphins game...when we need the Dolphins to win.

But don't take my word for it, use the playoff machine. Right now we are likely not to get in. If Buffalo keeps winning, Bengals fans need to become Dolphins fans for the remainder.

Are we reading this rule differently (for wild-card tie-breakers, after head-to-head which can't apply so many clubs in a scrum)? Apply division tiebreaker to eliminate all but the highest ranked club in each division prior to proceeding to step 2. The original seeding within a division upon application of the division tiebreaker remains the same for all subsequent applications of the procedure that are necessary to identify the two Wild-Card participants.

This is the silver lining of the injuries this late season, win or lose to me. We're going to get the chance to define the NFL caliber of a bunch of our players that will go a LOOOOOONG way toward helping us make personnel decisions this off-season. And now add in the mix of a likely new top draft pick with a Browning trade (or a player for player trade, because I could see waiting past the draft to make a trade to ensure that Burrow is back before pulling any trigger).

It's not about this weekend. It's about future games. Many of these 7-6 teams have cream-puff schedules from here on out. If there's a scrum of teams with the same record as us at the end, we will lose because of tie-breakers. We have a terrible tie-breakers because the first applicable tiebreaker is division record, where we are currently at .000 but can ultimately be no better than .333, which sill still be last among any competitors.

Bengals in deep doo-doo with both of those results today. Their playoff chances dropped significantly, and will even more so if Bills win today. Looking more and more like they will have to win out just to get in.

Bears with monumentally stupid play calling with 8 minutes left, give the ball back to browns who march down field and will score last second FG for the win.

To be clear, I'm still rooting for winning out and taking the 5th seed.

There are a few realistic scenarios where we can actually lose two games and still get in. We HAVE to beat Pittsburgh, though, and we have to hope JAX keeps losing.

Whelp, with their coach bitching out their starting QB on national TV the wheels might just come back off the Broncos. Here's hoping...

Putting our younger players who don't have a lot of high-stakes competition under the belts in those situations might be as valuable as simply drafting new talent. Zach Carter hasn't seen the field as much as he will now, for example. And lord knows our Safeties and backup CBs need all of the experience they can get!

Gotta love him.

I had a separated shoulder. I think the shoulder popping back in is more a dislocation. A separation is usually of the AC joint, that connects the collarbone to the shoulder (scapula, actually). There's a tear or stretching of the ligament that connects them. It's loose for life usually after that, and can lead to recurrence. Surgery can be done to reconnect or repair. What's done, and what you can do, all depends on the grade. This is all assuming AC separation.

In a very real scenario where the Broncos lose today, we'd still need the jags to lose a game (not unlikely without Lawrence) in order to get in. They can't win out if Indy wins out for us to get in. That was why it was less satisfying, but better for us for Indy to lose today.

Imagine if he'd connected with Charlie Jones for that walk in TD.