🏈🏈 The Essential NFL Thread 🏈🏈 - new poll every week

[DireWolfM14]

I've been a 49ers fan for ever, so I might be a little bit biased.  The odds are wrong.  

The 9ers are going to take this thing, not because the Chiefs suck, not because Mahomes isn't going to make it hard, but the 49ers are the more balanced team.  Bear with me here:  Statistics lie, there's no doubt.  They don't tell the whole story, show the whole picture, or take all intangibles into account.  But they do tell a story of their own, one of consistency and repeatability.

So, here we go, 2019 regular season stats:

Passing offence, yards per game, touchdowns:
#5. Chiefs; 281.1 y/g, 30 touchdowns.
#13. 49ers; 237.0 y/g, 28 touchdowns.

Rushing offence, yards per game:
#2. 49ers; 144.1 y/g, 23 touchdowns.
#23. Chiefs; 98.1 y/g, 16 touchdowns.

Total offence, yards per game:
#4. 49ers; 381.1
#6. Chiefs; 379.2

Total offence, points per game:
#2. 49ers; 29.9
#5. Chiefs; 28.2


Okay, now we can see that the Chiefs have a pass-heavy offensive scheme, and they're are in #23 in rushing yards per game.  The 9ers on the other hand show a penchant for running the ball.  As they demonstrated in week 14 against the saints, they can throw the ball too, but they certainly don't rely on it.  Despite the apparent discrepancy in passing offence the 9ers have scored more points per game.

Let's look at defense:

Pass defense, yard allowed:
#1. 49ers; 169.2 y/g
#8. Chiefs; 221.4 y/g

Run defense, yards allowed:
#17. 49ers; 112.6 y/g
#26. Chiefs; 128.2 y/g

Total defense, yards allowed:
#2. 49ers; 281.8
#17. Chiefs; 349.6

Points allowed
#7. Chiefs; 19.2
#8. 49ers; 19.4

By looking at the stats above one can quickly discern that the 9ers lead in 3 of the four offensive stats, and 3 of the four defensive stats.  It also becomes apparent the Chiefs are really good at passing the ball, while the 9ers are THE BEST at stopping the passing game.  But one needs to ask the obvious question; what can the Chiefs do if the 9ers are successful at stopping Mahomes?

The 49ers are a balanced team.  They might not be the best in all categories, but they certainly "score" as a better team on paper.  Again, the stats don't express the intangible things that can affect a game, like who wants it more, who's rested and healthy, who is focused on the game, and who's going to execute without mistakes.

Ironically, while I was compiling the stats above, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the 49ers' numbers and those of the Ravens.  Well, we all know what happened to the ravens, so by no means am I under any illusions as to how this could go.  However, I'm pretty confident 49ers can win this thing if they don't beat themselves... Like the Ravens did.

[bbc.reporter]

@DireWolfM14. The handicap is also +1 for San Francisco hehe. I might bet for the moneyline, however. The difference is not that big and the winner might win by more than 1 field goal.

[nutildah]

By looking at the stats above one can quickly discern that the 9ers lead in 3 of the four offensive stats, and 3 of the four defensive stats.  It also becomes apparent the Chiefs are really good at passing the ball, while the 9ers are THE BEST at stopping the passing game.  But one needs to ask the obvious question; what can the Chiefs do if the 9ers are successful at stopping Mahomes?

That's really what mattered to me most in my ad hoc analysis -- does SF have the defense to stop the KC passing game. It seems like they probably do. Also interestingly, the SF offense beats the KC offense in terms of conference raking (#4 in total yards and #2 in points scored vs. Chiefs being #6 and #7 in those categories, respectively).

The 9ers have another interesting stat going for them, probably only matters if you are superstitious:

Over the past 15 Super Bowls, the team rocking white tops has won an incredible 13 times.

https://sports.yahoo.com/super-bowl-54-why-49ers-201020893.html

I've changed the poll. Its the last poll of the season!  

Super Bowl 54

02/02 6:30 PM
Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
vs.
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS

The line currently has KC at -1, but the poll is for the outright winner.

Let's hear some counterpoints on why peeps (if anyone) thinks KC will win.

[Gyfts]

Side topic discussion about Antonio Brown -

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/01/21/antonio-brown-and-trainer-battery-with-burglary/


Dude is actually fucking crazy. Mike Tomlin put up with his antics long enough with the Steelers and Bill Belichick was having absolutely none of it and dropped his ass immediately. Now with no contract he practically worthless as a player at this point with the drama baggage if he were to play for a team. It's going to be hard for any team to pick him up and take a gamble on Brown. Such a shame, he was one of greatest receivers in the game and had every opportunity to win a championship when he was picked up by the Patriots. He's had rape allegations, one for which he's getting sued for, and now there might be a warrant out for his arrest for assault/battery. The greatest waste of talent I have ever seen in modern NFL history. RIP "Mr. Big Chest's" career.

[tyKiwanuka]

Let's hear some counterpoints on why peeps (if anyone) thinks KC will win.

Since I am a betting person, I always try to find points for both sides. As said above, this one is more or less a coin toss for me (will probably take SF for the poll), but let me try to find some angles for a KC win.

It's obviously difficult to counter the hard facts @DireWolfM14 posted. But KC had the slightly harder strength of schedule and Mahomes was missing a few games. So....

By looking at the stats above one can quickly discern that the 9ers lead in 3 of the four offensive stats, and 3 of the four defensive stats.

....could easily be SF only leading in 1 of four offensive stats, since 2 of those stats are so close (ypg & ppg). You would have a 4-4 tie overall then.

The postseason stats, which is of course a very small sample size, gives SF a 5-3 advantage. Not sure, how it would look like, if you disregard that first quarter in the Texans@Chiefs game, where KC just came out rusty and flat - outscoring them 51-7 afterwards, being 0-24 down early in Q2.

So, yes, the hard facts point to a SF win. Lets look at some soft facts.

KC has the coaching advantage. Without trying to sound disrespectful, Andy Reid is a poor mans version of Bill Belichick for me. A very experienced coach, an offensive mastermind who probably has seen it all. Kyle Shanahan is still a young coach and there is not many coaches around 40 years of age, that managed to win the SB. His father could give him some valuable advice, but he is not around on the sidelines during the game

The 49ers weren't really tested yet. They have been so dominant, that they didn't have to show their best yet. This could be a good thing, but also a bad thing. Especially their passing game could be a bit rusty, after having been so good on the ground and only using pass plays every now and then to keep defenses honest. We could see this backfiring on them, if they have to rely on the passing game being down late-ish in the game. An offense always has to click and I am not sure, if the passing game of SF is clicking with being put on pause for so long.

KC was able to limit Derrick Henry and the Titans run game to 85 yards. They will probably be able to limit SF's running game too, despite not having a good run D on paper. Steve Spagnuolo has shown in SB XLII what his defenses can do.

In the end I would think this game is all about the SF offense vs. KC defense matchup. I expect the KC offense to show up and the SF defense will have their hands full then (see the SF@NO game). If the SF offense is not showing up, they might be in trouble, because KC will score rather a lot me thinks.


So far for some pro KC points that could be made. I hope and think it will be one hell of a game and I can't wait.

[wheelz1200]

I think the odds for Superbowl are set about right. Will be decided by a few details (penalties, TO, broken coverage) and whatever team is showing up more; hard to tell who that will be. Keeping my fingers crossed for the 49ers, allthough I could live with the Chiefs as well, since I would be happy for Andy Reid to finally get his well deserved ring.


Just read that their will be some tests of potential rule changes at the ProBowl and one of them gets me excited to some extent:

The scoring team, Team A, will have the following options:

1. Team A may elect to give Team B the ball at Team B's 25-yard line, beginning a new series of downs with a first-and-10.

2. Team A may elect to take the ball at its own 25-yard line for a fourth-and-15 play. If Team A is successful in making a first down, Team A will maintain possession and a new series of downs will continue as normal. If Team A is unsuccessful in making a first down, the result will be a turnover on downs and Team B will take possession at the dead-ball spot.

Source: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001098234/article/nfl-to-test-out-two-potential-rule-changes-in-pro-bowl

This could make for some nice drama With the rule changes, the percentage of successful onside kicks has dropped to <10% and I would think that a 4th&15 has higher chances of being converted succesfully. Field-position wise, after converting that 4th&15, you should start somewhere there, where a succesful onside kick would let you start too - or even better. What do you guys think about that ?

I dont like the 4th and 15 play.  It can be converted way too much.  A team can be down 21 points with 3 minutes to go and kind of easily tie it.  That rule change penalizes the team that's been kicking ass all game.  I vote no on that one.

[tyKiwanuka]

I dont like the 4th and 15 play.  It can be converted way too much.  A team can be down 21 points with 3 minutes to go and kind of easily tie it.  That rule change penalizes the team that's been kicking ass all game.  I vote no on that one.

Yes, I get your point. It adds some extra nail biting, when you are rooting for a/your team. But otoh, if you dominated for 57 minutes and choke the game away inside 3 minutes, you probably didn't deserve to win. A game is played for 60 minutes and you have to be and stay focused for the entire game. But yes, I would hate seeing my team losing that way too. Betting or trading wise it could give some opportunities though to lay very short odds.
Maybe would make more sense to give each team the possibility to use this rule only once per game.

While we are at it with the rules, there is one thing that always annoys me and needs some overhaul imo. When you have a flag on both sides, these penalties always offset and I think it often makes no sense, to just offset them and move on, if they are a) penalized differently in yardage and/or b) didn't occcur at the same time. 

a) Lets say you have a neutral zone infraction by the defense (5 yards) and while the play evolves an offensive holding (10 yards). Penalties will offset, the down is replayed - but there is 5 yards difference with the penalties. So what I would like to see is, that the line of scrimmage is moved 5 yards backwards, because the offense had the bigger penalty.

b) Ball is snapped, an offensive holding takes place and referee throws his flag (10 yards), play continues. QB throws 30 yards down the field to his receiver, who misses the catch, but defensive PI is called (30 yard penalty). Penalties will offset, down is replayed. It isn't taken into account, that without the offensive holding, the pass play wouldn't even have happened probably.
You rarely have fouls happening simultaneously and it is never taken into consideration, that the second penalty maybe wouldn't have happened without the first one.

Changes like that in the enforcement of penalties would most likely only lead to confusion and the refs would have a hard time figuring out certain scenarios, but I think it's kind of unfair, and especially a) wouldn't be so hard to implement.

[nutildah]

Side topic discussion about Antonio Brown -

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/01/21/antonio-brown-and-trainer-battery-with-burglary/


Dude is actually fucking crazy. Mike Tomlin put up with his antics long enough with the Steelers and Bill Belichick was having absolutely none of it and dropped his ass immediately. Now with no contract he practically worthless as a player at this point with the drama baggage if he were to play for a team. It's going to be hard for any team to pick him up and take a gamble on Brown. Such a shame, he was one of greatest receivers in the game and had every opportunity to win a championship when he was picked up by the Patriots. He's had rape allegations, one for which he's getting sued for, and now there might be a warrant out for his arrest for assault/battery. The greatest waste of talent I have ever seen in modern NFL history. RIP "Mr. Big Chest's" career.

Reading the story led me down a rabbit hole of his previous "incidents" and watching a series of TMZ videos on the subject. The one he filmed of police intervening in a dispute between him and his wife is seriously cringe-worthy. He's saying awful things about her in front of their child, which goes to show how little respect he has for anyone except for himself. Then bringing race into it, calling a bag of gummy goldfish "a bag of dicks"... the guy was nearly having a mental breakdown. He also said "fuck the NFL" during the video. I doubt he has serious plans to return.

[wheelz1200]

Anyone have a good site for prop bets for the superbowl.  The coin flip is one of the biggest bets all year for props.  Truest 50/50 you'll see.  Interested to see the odds on superbowl mvp.  Mahomes is an easy choice but I'm sure his odds show that.  49ers is tough since at any game someone can be the star of the show.

[tyKiwanuka]

Not sure, which bookies you are able to use, but Pinnacle has some prop bets and betonline.ag always has loads of them too, inclucing some funny ones:



MVP odds from them, guess you can find better ones elsewhere:

[wheelz1200]

I actually like the odds on kelce, san fransisco is good at shutting down recievers and they get in the pocket quick so you might see kelce with 15 or so targets in the sb.  I think that's a good value bet.  Also...lulz on the trump prop.  I like the 49ers score on that one.  I think the 49ers and chiefs over will be blasted.  Can see a 35-31 game here.

[nutildah]

Let's have one more contest to spice things up before this thread comes to a close.

I'm reserving 5 merits for the person who most closely guesses the final scores of the game. Others are welcome to pitch in additional merits for the victor as well -- let's go out with a bang.

So for instance, if you guess the final score is SF 14 - KC 21, and it was SF 21 - KC 24, that means you were off by a total of 10 points. If someone else guesses SF 17 - KC 27, they would only be off by 7, and thus closer to being the winner.

I can't send merits to myself, but I'm guessing a medium scoring game:

SF 24 - KC 22

[Hueristic]

If I were going to Prop bet MVP I like BOSA with those odds.


I'll Guess SF 37 KC 34  <<<--- AND ^^^--- 100% SOMA

[tyKiwanuka]

Let's have one more contest to spice things up before this thread comes to a close. (...)

My pick is KC 51 SF 25 just to probably give it some uniqueness.

I will be giving 5 merits to the winner as well.


Regarding the MVP, only once have we seen a player from the losing team get the SB MVP award. So, if you are good at picking the winner for this years SB, you can already narrow down the field a lot.

If I were going to Prop bet MVP I like BOSA with those odds.

DE's weren't very successful historically unfortunately.



Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_Most_Valuable_Player_Award#By_position

So you have a player from the offense winning the MVP 80% of the time. Surprised there has never been a TE winning it. I will maybe put some bucks on the HoneyBadger as a fun bet.

[wheelz1200]

I'm sticking with my original score 35-31 and I'm going with kc winning it, kelce getting the mvp award with 12 catches on 15 targets, 153 yards and 2 touchdowns, with one of them putting the chiefs up at the end of the game ultimately being the game deciding touchdown.  Lol is there a prop for all of that 

I too will throw some merit at the winner here.  Good luck all and enjoy the bowl

[Hueristic]

If I were going to Prop bet MVP I like BOSA with those odds.

DE's weren't very successful historically unfortunately.



So you have a player from the offense winning the MVP 80% of the time. Surprised there has never been a TE winning it. I will maybe put some bucks on the HoneyBadger as a fun bet.

That is one of the considerations I took into account when I chose him. I also considered Tight ends as well, Kittle Specifically and briefly Kelce (but hill sabotages him so i'm sure if they are leading and he makes a spectacular play hill will get it called back from a hold on the other side of the field).

I am basing my choice predicated on the fact the NFL is trying to expand and create exciting finishes to games and in order to not have all cookie cutter everything they will have to throw variables in there like DE's taking down MVP trophy's. Too many repeated scenarios will get the masses to clue in quicker. The NFL is heading to what the WWF has always been.

[Hueristic]

I'm sticking with my original score 35-31 and I'm going with kc winning it, kelce getting the mvp award with 12 catches on 15 targets, 153 yards and 2 touchdowns, with one of them putting the chiefs up at the end of the game ultimately being the game deciding touchdown.  Lol is there a prop for all of that  

I too will throw some merit at the winner here.  Good luck all and enjoy the bowl

I may throw some more merit at this thread but it has already gotten an inordinate amount and I prefer not to load up whale Legendary accounts (looking at you WO) and Hero accounts that already have enough to progress. I try to spend time and find other lower tiered member's that deserve help (iy gets tougher ever week).

So FYI I see alot of great posts and if I didn't merit it check to see if you are already in that category and you will know why and if you also in that category and I did merit you then you have gone above and beyond so I will break my self imposed rule for that.

[nutildah]

I'm sticking with my original score 35-31 and I'm going with kc winning it, kelce getting the mvp award with 12 catches on 15 targets, 153 yards and 2 touchdowns, with one of them putting the chiefs up at the end of the game ultimately being the game deciding touchdown.  Lol is there a prop for all of that  

I too will throw some merit at the winner here.  Good luck all and enjoy the bowl

I may throw some more merit at this thread but it has already gotten an inordinate amount and I prefer not to load up whale Legendary accounts (looking at you WO) and Hero accounts that already have enough to progress. I try to spend time and find other lower tiered member's that deserve help (iy gets tougher ever week).

So FYI I see alot of great posts and if I didn't merit it check to see if you are already in that category and you will know why and if you also in that category and I did merit you then you have gone above and beyond so I will break my self imposed rule for that.

That's reasonable, but I wanted to offer some kind of final competition in lieu of rewarding people with actual BTC. Some people have more BTC than sMerits, but I am not one of them.

Occasionally I'll put on my hazmat suit and dive into Altcoin Discussion looking for a reasonable post to send a merit or two, but more often then not I'm just met with sludge and disappointment. As a result of my experiences I am a firm proponent of trickle-down-meritnomics.

Also, you're supposed to send merits to posts you find valuable, which I have been doing with this thread, though like you I am also more likely to give them to people of less than Legendary status to help them in their voyage to the top.

[Hueristic]

I'm sticking with my original score 35-31 and I'm going with kc winning it, kelce getting the mvp award with 12 catches on 15 targets, 153 yards and 2 touchdowns, with one of them putting the chiefs up at the end of the game ultimately being the game deciding touchdown.  Lol is there a prop for all of that  

I too will throw some merit at the winner here.  Good luck all and enjoy the bowl

I may throw some more merit at this thread but it has already gotten an inordinate amount and I prefer not to load up whale Legendary accounts (looking at you WO) and Hero accounts that already have enough to progress. I try to spend time and find other lower tiered member's that deserve help (iy gets tougher ever week).

So FYI I see alot of great posts and if I didn't merit it check to see if you are already in that category and you will know why and if you also in that category and I did merit you then you have gone above and beyond so I will break my self imposed rule for that.

That's reasonable, but I wanted to offer some kind of final competition in lieu of rewarding people with actual BTC. Some people have more BTC than sMerits, but I am not one of them.

Occasionally I'll put on my hazmat suit and dive into Altcoin Discussion looking for a reasonable post to send a merit or two, but more often then not I'm just met with sludge and disappointment. As a result of my experiences I am a firm proponent of trickle-down-meritnomics.

Also, you're supposed to send merits to posts you find valuable, which I have been doing with this thread, though like you I am also more likely to give them to people of less than Legendary status to help them in their voyage to the top.

Nothing wrong with that, I was just explaining why I'd rather not state that I will as it would lock me in.

I'm currently reading this users post history to see what worthy.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2700157

[wheelz1200]

I subscribe to not flowing to much merit to legendary since it's a requirement for rank up, I'd rather you spend it on some good junior or senior members with solid posts or predictions.  If 35-31 hits I wont need the merit since the over will pay decently 

Still undecided but might go for the kelce/kittle TE mvp bet, leaning on kelce cause I think KC pulls it out but might hedge with kittle on the other side.