NFL 2022 Season

[SparzWizard]

So as things currently stand, the 5 QBs in the AFC Playoffs who have officially clinched are:

- Patrick Mahomes
- Josh Allen
- Justin Herbert
- Joe Burrow
- Lamar Jackson

That's an incredible group of QBs and will sure make for a fun playoffs. Trevor Lawrence, while not elite yet has also looked fantastic in the past few months and he could be part of this group as well when the Jags win the division

What's crazy though, of the 5 I listed above, Mahomes is the oldest of them all. That's insane to me

And then we may have one or two of Tua Tagovailoa, Mac Jones, Mike White, Ryan Tannehill, and Kenny Pickett sneak in 

It would be cool to see Chiefs/Chargers and Bengals/Ravens in a playoff match. Division rivals and interesting QBs going at each other a third time!

[Moranis]

The NFL south divisions are so bad that the Jaguars are 7-8 with potentially a home-playoff game. The Titans dropped 5 straight...I wonder if Mike Vrabel is on the hot seat lol.

Meanwhile, Bucs still leading that division after their win in OT against the Cardinals.

More proof that division winners shouldn’t get an automatic playoff berth.

They absolutely should get an automatic berth, but perhaps they shouldn't automatically host.

The two south divisions are going to have thoroughly unimpressive winners—9-8 at best, but quite possibly 8-9 or even 7-10. None of those records, IMO, deserves to get a team into the playoffs, especially now that there's an extra game in the regular season, which means an extra chance to reach double-digit wins.

As far as schedule balancing, most teams these days are mediocre—not great and not terrible—so in that sense the league seems pretty balanced.

No what I mean is the schedule from division to division is so different it makes it difficult to compare teams in different divisions. 

I mean Baltimore and Jacksonville played each other and literally the only common opponents they share are the Denver Broncos and New York Jets.  Jacksonville beat Baltimore and went 1-1 in the common games, while Baltimore went 2-0 in the common games.  How can you definitively say that 10-5 Baltimore is better than 7-8 Jacksonville, given they played a game 4 weeks ago and Jacksonville won it given how little overlap there is in their schedule?   

Because the schedule has so few games and teams often have such few common opponents, it is very difficult to say who is more deserving than someone else.  That is why division winners absolutely deserve a playoff berth.  There just aren't enough games to not do it that way.

I see your point, and it's a fair one. I just can't see how it's fair for a team with a losing record, or a barely-winning record, to make the playoffs. I've long seen divisions as being kinda arbitrary anyway, given that the determining factor for the groupings is geography, and nothing to do with talent. And if it just so happens that a particular geographic group (such as both of this year's South divisions) collectively stinks, I don't think one of that group's teams should get to go to the playoffs for no better reason than that they were the least-bad team in a crappy division.

But maybe if the AFC South didn't play the NFC East and instead played a different NFC division they'd have a better record.  The Jags went 1-3 against the NFC East, them going 3-1 and all of a sudden they are 9-6 and don't look that bad (the NFC East has by far the best record of any division with 39 wins, the AFC East and AFC North each have 34 as the next most).  Or conversely if Baltimore doesn't end up with the NFC South in which they went 4-0 against, their record might not be nearly as good.

When you play 17 games and 6 of them are within the division, there just isn't enough overlap to really get a fair comparison from teams in different divisions.  That is why the tiebreakers always start with division ties being settled first (since division opponents have a much more similar schedule).  The tiebreaker for teams in the conference but not the division is: head to head; conference record; record in common games (at least 4 games must exist); strength of victory; strength of schedule; and then they go to things like points scored/given up and net rankings and what not.  The league understands there are such vast differences in schedule that who you play matters, especially who you play in the conference.     

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Everything you're saying makes sense, but I just can't get past what, in my view, is the absurd optics of, for example, an 8-9 team or possibly even 7-10 team making the playoffs. Maybe that example team had a really tough schedule, like you said, but if a team goes only 8-9 against a tough schedule, to me that says they're not worthy of making the playoffs. Now, it could also be true that an 11-6 team had a soft schedule and isn't really playoff worthy, but since they won a large percentage of their games, they deserve a shot to prove whether they're actually good. At least, that's how I see it.

[Moranis]

Everything you're saying makes sense, but I just can't get past what, in my view, is the absurd optics of, for example, an 8-9 team or possibly even 7-10 team making the playoffs. Maybe that example team had a really tough schedule, like you said, but if a team goes only 8-9 against a tough schedule, to me that says they're not worthy of making the playoffs. Now, it could also be true that an 11-6 team had a soft schedule and isn't really playoff worthy, but since they won a large percentage of their games, they deserve a shot to prove whether they're actually good. At least, that's how I see it.

I remember the year the Patriots were 11-5 and missed the playoffs while the 8-8 Chargers won the AFC West and made it in.  This board was all up in arms, but the Chargers beat the Patriots 30-10 that year.  The Chargers also played the NFC South in which the worst record was 8-8 while the Patriots had the NFC West, whose best team was 9-7 and had 2 of the 4 worst teams in football in it.  The Chargers ended up beating the 12-4 Colts in the 1st round before losing to eventual Super Bowl champion Steelers in the next round. 

The schedule is so much more important in the NFL than any of the other sports because it is so short.  Who you play and even when you play them just matters so much.  That is why the NFL rewards division winners with automatic playoff berths and why they let those teams host playoff games. 

[Moranis]

I was thinking about the Tua and Dolphins thing some more.

Put it this way.  Tua is worse than these 6 AFC QB's and probably will be the entirety of his career: Mahomes, Allen, Burrow, Jackson, Herbert, and Lawrence.  Next year, he will almost certainly be worse than Watson (though this year you might take Tua).  It is arguable that if you needed to win one game on who you'd rather have between Tua, Tannehill, and Carr (obviously Tua's age makes him a better long term choice than Tannehill or Carr, but in a vacuum you could say those guys are better than Tua or it is at least arguable).  That says nothing about Wilson who perhaps will rebound (or maybe he is just done).  Bryce Young and/or CJ Stroud may end up in the AFC next year. 

Given that, the Dolphins cannot sign Tua to a massive long term extension.  He will never be good enough to earn it.  Now if they can sign him at 25 or 30 million a year, they can probably get by with that, but if Tua wants anything close to "market value", then they have to move on from him as he just isn't good enough and never will be.  He is too small, too injury prone, not athletic enough, and can't throw the ball well (or deep) enough, to hitch your wagons to long term with a big money contract. 

[Birdman]

Tua is good but never will be great..plus those concussions are troubling

[MarcusSmartFanClub]

I was thinking about the Tua and Dolphins thing some more.

Put it this way.  Tua is worse than these 6 AFC QB's and probably will be the entirety of his career: Mahomes, Allen, Burrow, Jackson, Herbert, and Lawrence.  Next year, he will almost certainly be worse than Watson (though this year you might take Tua).  It is arguable that if you needed to win one game on who you'd rather have between Tua, Tannehill, and Carr (obviously Tua's age makes him a better long term choice than Tannehill or Carr, but in a vacuum you could say those guys are better than Tua or it is at least arguable).  That says nothing about Wilson who perhaps will rebound (or maybe he is just done).  Bryce Young and/or CJ Stroud may end up in the AFC next year. 

Given that, the Dolphins cannot sign Tua to a massive long term extension.  He will never be good enough to earn it.  Now if they can sign him at 25 or 30 million a year, they can probably get by with that, but if Tua wants anything close to "market value", then they have to move on from him as he just isn't good enough and never will be.  He is too small, too injury prone, not athletic enough, and can't throw the ball well (or deep) enough, to hitch your wagons to long term with a big money contract.

Reasonable conjecture based on what we have seen.

Can’t you also say that Lamar won’t make a long term playoff push because a) he won’t stay healthy or b) his team won’t be better than Buffalo or KC? If we can predict the future, why sign anyone that’s not Allen or Mahomes?

[Birdman]

Who u got Monday night?? My Bengals or Bills??

[Phantom255x]

Wait... Russell Wilson has private offices and private parking spaces at Broncos HQ??

Even former, decorated players are like "what the hell" about that lol (including Andrew Whitworth). If that's the case then I can see why he's probably not liked in the Broncos locker room. Russ definitely seems like a fake and has an ego/attitude. I wonder if this was also true in Seattle too. Don't get me wrong Hackett was a moron and deserved to be fired, but Russ is still a big problem there and he'll probably continue to be

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Everything you're saying makes sense, but I just can't get past what, in my view, is the absurd optics of, for example, an 8-9 team or possibly even 7-10 team making the playoffs. Maybe that example team had a really tough schedule, like you said, but if a team goes only 8-9 against a tough schedule, to me that says they're not worthy of making the playoffs. Now, it could also be true that an 11-6 team had a soft schedule and isn't really playoff worthy, but since they won a large percentage of their games, they deserve a shot to prove whether they're actually good. At least, that's how I see it.

I remember the year the Patriots were 11-5 and missed the playoffs while the 8-8 Chargers won the AFC West and made it in.  This board was all up in arms, but the Chargers beat the Patriots 30-10 that year.  The Chargers also played the NFC South in which the worst record was 8-8 while the Patriots had the NFC West, whose best team was 9-7 and had 2 of the 4 worst teams in football in it.  The Chargers ended up beating the 12-4 Colts in the 1st round before losing to eventual Super Bowl champion Steelers in the next round. 

The schedule is so much more important in the NFL than any of the other sports because it is so short.  Who you play and even when you play them just matters so much.  That is why the NFL rewards division winners with automatic playoff berths and why they let those teams host playoff games.

That's a good example of what you're arguing, but I'm sure there are examples of the opposite as well, if I wanted to take the time to research, which I don't. Suffice it to say that you make a fair point, one I'll try to keep in mind when this year's South division winners clinch playoff spots with underwhelming records. Though I doubt my annoyance level will be any less, lol.

[SparzWizard]

Everything you're saying makes sense, but I just can't get past what, in my view, is the absurd optics of, for example, an 8-9 team or possibly even 7-10 team making the playoffs. Maybe that example team had a really tough schedule, like you said, but if a team goes only 8-9 against a tough schedule, to me that says they're not worthy of making the playoffs. Now, it could also be true that an 11-6 team had a soft schedule and isn't really playoff worthy, but since they won a large percentage of their games, they deserve a shot to prove whether they're actually good. At least, that's how I see it.

I remember the year the Patriots were 11-5 and missed the playoffs while the 8-8 Chargers won the AFC West and made it in.  This board was all up in arms, but the Chargers beat the Patriots 30-10 that year.  The Chargers also played the NFC South in which the worst record was 8-8 while the Patriots had the NFC West, whose best team was 9-7 and had 2 of the 4 worst teams in football in it.  The Chargers ended up beating the 12-4 Colts in the 1st round before losing to eventual Super Bowl champion Steelers in the next round. 

The schedule is so much more important in the NFL than any of the other sports because it is so short.  Who you play and even when you play them just matters so much.  That is why the NFL rewards division winners with automatic playoff berths and why they let those teams host playoff games.

I actually don't have any issues for .500 teams making the playoffs let alone hosting a game. Although it sounds like it's a waste of spot, they were given the situation they're in based on schedules.

But they're more likely than not will be exposed in the playoffs in the first round. It would be surprising if teams like JAX or TB advances to the Divisional Rounds. Or maybe not surprising if your QB is Tom Brady but yeaaaah lol. Then again, I do believe in teams getting hot at the right time and winning it all aka NY Giants, Ravens, TB 2020 etc.

[SparzWizard]

Wait... Russell Wilson has private offices and private parking spaces at Broncos HQ??

Even former, decorated players are like "what the hell" about that lol (including Andrew Whitworth). If that's the case then I can see why he's probably not liked in the Broncos locker room. Russ definitely seems like a fake and has an ego/attitude. I wonder if this was also true in Seattle too. Don't get me wrong Hackett was a moron and deserved to be fired, but Russ is still a big problem there and he'll probably continue to be

A first-year Broncos overpaid QB and already got all those amenities? Crazy. The guy gotta stay humbled. Should def strip him of his privileges. Still does not change the fact that Hackett needed to be fired, just not a quality coach.

[bricone29]

Teams under .500 in any is league sport should not make the playoffs.

[Phantom255x]

Who u got Monday night?? My Bengals or Bills??

Should be an awesome game. I'm predicting Bengals win 31-27 in a close game

Interestingly enough, if BUF loses then not only are their chances for the 1 seed low, but they drop to the 3 seed, which would potentially mean having to travel to face the 2 seed in the divisional round (KC or CIN), and then having another road game for the AFCCG (KC or CIN again). That makes their road a lot tougher to reach the SB

[Neurotic Guy]

Who u got Monday night?? My Bengals or Bills??

Should be an awesome game. I'm predicting Bengals win 31-27 in a close game

Interestingly enough, if BUF loses then not only are their chances for the 1 seed low, but they drop to the 3 seed, which would potentially mean having to travel to face the 2 seed in the divisional round (KC or CIN), and then having another road game for the AFCCG (KC or CIN again). That makes their road a lot tougher to reach the SB

I assume week 18 v. Pats the Bills will have no incentive to protect starters which would be the Patriots’ only hope in that game.  Bills should beat Cincy and the Pats.  I like Joe Burrow but Josh Allen is the best of the younger crop of QBs imo.