Game Postponed Due To Tampa Lightning
Two weeks in a row the Buccaneers had home games postponed due to lightning. The Hockey team name finally made sense to me this season, I didn’t realize it was such a thing down there but hey, now it makes sense. Tampa is a Tesla Coil.
I feel bad for the Bucs fans in the past two games. Some loyalists stuck through the rain delay both weeks and were treated to nothing but sadness. This past week was pretty bad, because the Broncos were committing murder and the Bucs stood no chance to win after the break. But week 3 was just terrible. The Bucs were going to get the ball back for a final 2 minute drill, down by 5 points. They had to get into the endzone to win, because Roberto “The Bucs traded up in the second round lmao” Aguayo missed a field goal and extra point, which means that had he made those kicks, the Bucs only would have needed a field goal to win. What proceeded was a fairly solid drive in terms of football but some atrocious time management. It came down to one final play from like the 13yd line, and Jameis escaped the pocket and looked like he was going to notch a 4th quarter comeback into his belt. Then he scuttled past the line of scrimmage still looking to throw and got sacked anyway. It was hilarious. Probably not for the loyal fans who stayed there and almost saw a treat, but I found it hilarious.
At least Tampa has a pretty good hockey team! Hockey is cool! It’s coming back soon! Next week! Hooray for hitting the puck and stuff. The Lightning seem pretty good. They do things like score points and keep other teams from scoring points. Seems like a solid way to win games.
Also, just for some more chaos, Tom Brady aint the GOAT fight me
of course, Von Miller was not flagged or fined for panel 1, but for the off-screen two-pump sack dance he did to celebrate
True, it’s hilarious whenever the NFL comes out an says “safety is our number one priority”, then proceed to give the same penalty for irreversible brain damage as they do for celebrating. Goodell needs to go back to hell and take Clinton and Trump with him.
Dave, that’s fine if you think Brady isn’t the GOAT. But Manning SURE AS HELL isn’t better than him. It’s not even close.
More touchdowns, more passing yards, higher completion percentage, more completions, higher ypg, more MVPS. Unless you count wins as an individual achievement, he is clearly the better of the two as of right now.
Of course Brady isn’t the Goat. Montana, Graham, or Starr is (I lean toward Graham, Montana is perfectly acceptable, Starr takes some convincing but a strong case can be made for a 5 time NFL champ). Brady is probably #4, though cases could be made for Unitas or Elway to be ahead of him.
He’s just better than Manning at evaluating the true intent of great defenses, at taking a hit and not losing his cool, playing well under pressure, and being a contributing factor to his team’s Super Bowl wins.
Manning is better at having had a better offense around him for the first 5 years of his career, piling on enormous stats against weak-to-mediocre teams, and evaluating the true intent of weak-to-mediocre defenses.
And Skwolf, feel free to look back at yesterday for a more detailed analysis of this. Manning is a great QB– top 10 all time, without question– but Brady is better when it matters most, and has done more to help his team win the Super Bowl in the years his team has won it.
Also: Belichick has an average record as a coach without Brady. Yes, they won, what? 11 games? without Brady, against literally the easiest schedule in the NFL that year, and they didn’t beat any playoff-caliber teams. Other than that, his record without Brady has been less than uninspiring. The two make each other great, like Montana made Walsh great, and Walsh made Montana great. Ditto Graham and Brown, Starr and Lombardi. To be the absolute best of the very best, it’s never going to be just one factor– the coach needs a player who can work within their wrinkles to NFL schemes, and the player needs a coach whose scheme fits their abilities. Manning kind of had that to start, but then he essentially made every OC fit to his scheme, which, fine, whatever. He was a good on-the-field coach in that sense. Walsh doesn’t win the Super Bowls he won Trent Dilfur at QB. Lombardi doesn’t win anything handcuffed to Jamarcus Russel. And Brown didn’t win anything without Graham (though man he came close, and with modern sports medicine, may well have replicated his 1940s/50s success with the Bengals).
Greatness in the NFL is never personal. Manning had the huge numbers he did, because his team built up an enormous offensive juggernaut around him, in both Indy and Denver. Brady, when the Patriots focused on that as hard as Manning’s teams always did, posted similar– and often better– results with similar talent (see 2007 as a for-example). I’d say “Look at how they did when they didn’t have the same offensive weapons”, but Manning never played in such a system. Manning *did* have defenses carry him through the playoffs and the Super Bowl, but when he did, he personally played extremely poorly (averaging below a 70 rating). Brady hasn’t averaged under 96 in any of his Super Bowl wins, and in all but one case actually averaged *higher* (against top-10 defenses, every time, and twice against the #1 defense), than his regular season ratings.
Manning has the stats. Stats do not indicate greatness. They *can* indicate it, but the one is not causal of the other. Stats need to be considered every bit as much a non-individual achievement as wins, because Manning isn’t blocking for himself (he had a better o-line than Brady for all but 2 years of his NFL career), he isn’t catching the balls he throws (Manning has had better receivers than Brady for every year of his career, excepting *maybe* 2007), he isn’t running for himself (Manning had a pretty solid running game for most of his career, at least the equivalent to the Patriots for more than half of Manning’s career), and he isn’t generating weather (more indoor/warm weather games vs. more winter, outdoor games), Manning’s stats (but not his Super Bowl rings) benefited from a weak defense (more need to, and opportunity to, run up the score). Looking at basic statistics without any emphasis on their context, or on when they occurred, or against whom they occurred, or in what situations they occurred, is inane.
The strongest case for Manning’s greatness is that he succeeded with multiple coaches– except the counter-argument could be made that Manning’s greatest weakness is that his coaches were all limited to playing within Manning’s system, and he made few adjustments to play in theirs (Kubiak is the exception, but Manning was definitely not playing Kubiak’s system, Manning just couldn’t even play within his own any more). Manning succeeded because he made sure the Colts overloaded his offense, to his particular style, to make sure that his numbers were great (Okay, he did it because he wanted the Colts to win, and he believed he was the best way to make sure the Colts would win), but the push for Manning’s numbers was also a liability– they could *NEVER* have afforded a defense like Denver’s or Seattle’s, because A) Manning’s contract (seriously– take a pay cut. The commercials are worth more anyway), and B) the contracts for the offense Manning wanted around him (give him the 2006 Patriots offense, and watch Manning fall below Brady in a second).
Manning has enormous talent, and is unquestionably one of the best in the game’s history. But behind all the nuance and all the statistics, ask yourself this: How many times has Manning’s ego prevented his team from being better? How many times has Brady’s ego prevented *his* team from being better? When you evaluate *those* answers, you’ll find the better quarterback, because that’s the person who is more interested in winning than in himself.
If you read Daves thought process on the last comic, i believe his argument was that a QB like Manning elevates his team. Brady is a well carved peice of a puzzle. Let’s see Brady take a team to a SB without his coach, then you couldn’t even argue.
You can’t say Brady doesn’t elevate his team. Wes Welker, Julian Edelman, etc., there are so many receivers who have been nobodies whom Brady has elevated to Pro Bowl and All-Pro receivers. Look at the pedigrees of Manning’s weapons, who are basically all 1st and 2nd rounders. Brady’s hasn’t had as much talent on the offensive side of the ball and put up almost identical numbers to Manning.
Are you doing a bit? Welker had better numbers with Manning, plus the Pats are 15-5 without Brady; the colts/broncos went 6-16 without Manning during his career. Nobody outside of New England thinks Brady is the greatest at anything besides selling Uggs
It’s hard to count the Colts’ 2-14 season because it seemed like they tanked that year to get Luck. And the Broncos look fine without him.
By Brady do you mean Bellichecks offensive system? Clearly it doesn’t matter who’s back there for the pats.
That’s why we didn’t score a single point against the Bills? Because any QB can win games in New England. Okay good to know.
Would anyone have even mentioned “Marvin Harrison” and “Hall of Fame” in the same breath if it wasn’t for Peyton?
2 1000-yard seasons with Paul Justin, Jim Harbaugh, and Kelly Holcombe would tell you otherwise
Also, that Winston scramble to end the game against the Rams, it looked like he was a deer in headlights. He wasn’t running as fast as he could and attempted to pump fake 5 or 6 yards past the line of scrimmage. I honestly thought he was going to throw the ball. If Tampa was run properly, they could be what the Raiders are right now.
Do any of the 2004 qbs belong in the HOF? I mean Eli, Rivers, and Big Ben are all very good, but I don’t know if any of them deserve to be in the HOF. Just curious, what are your thoughts.
Eli and Big Ben might. Eli is top 10 all time in most passing stats and a 2 time super bowl mvp, and Ben is a 2 time super bowl winner and is probably also very high on those lists.
The only thing that keeps Eli out for me is the interceptions. I don’t think you can lead the league in INTs three times and get into the HOF. Hell, even Cutler didn’t do that.
With guys like Aikman (165-141 TD-INT), Bradshaw (212-210) and the epitome Namath (173-220) already in the HOF, I think Eli deserves to get in. Yeah he’s led the league in INTs three times, but in two Super Bowl runs he had 15 TDs to 2 INTs to go along with two Super Bowl MVPs. That’s enough to punch his ticket in my books.
Not in this era with qbs and wrs being so protected from defenses. Not to mention the lack-luster defensive talent from the draft.
Ben will get in due to the rings and the fact he’s consistently in the top 5-10 of this era.(a third ring would seal the deal) If Eli gets another and does it like the other two(game winning drive led by him) he’ll get just by the rings. Rivers unless he at least appears in one doubt he ever will (since IIRC Dan Fouts is the only QB without even an appearance in the game in the HoF and that was due to his record breaking alone)
Roethlisberger deserves the Hall for his play on the field. Eli is honestly close. There’s currently only one multi-ring winning QB *not* in the Hall, so the odds seem pretty good for them.
What will Brady do to the Browns? I say 8 tds, 1000+ yards, move the franchise to Baltimore, set the river on fire, and then convince LeBron to take his talents elsewhere.
Seeing how he’s played againdt them the last two times, I wouldn’t be so confident.
The browns mostly give up a lot of intermediate passes. Don’t expect a lot of home run plays, but don’t be surprised with somewhere around 30 points and a ton of first downs. My guess is the game falls somewhere in the 30-20 range, but the browns will cover the spread. Maybe 31-24 or 27-17.
Does that mean the Ravens pack up for Indianapolis in mayflower trucks
I think the Giants might actually pull out a win at Lambeau this week. Thoughts?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahauahahahaua no we already lost.
if the lightning wins the cup this year i will be both surprised and mildly upset.
I wouldn’t be too surprised. Steve Yzerman is a fantastic GM who somehow figured out a way to keep all their key players.
#RallyTogether #WWindians
We all know the real GOAT is a Horse.
Elway?
Remember after week 1 when we thought the Bucs were good and the falcons sucked? Oops.
Dave, keep poking that Brady Hornet’s nest and you’ll get burned when he torches the Browns for 8TDs
not sure torching the Browns is an argument in favor of one’s greatness…
Tom Brady is the truth
Funnily enough the Tampa Bay Storm already exists, it’s just an arena football team. Those games are fun to go to because half of them are free anyway.
But the team is now dogshit. Just ask me or Derrick Brooks
But yes, the games are awesome to go to.
I know you’re not big on college ball, but do you have any thoughts on the LSU-Florida game being “postponed” (read: cancelled) due to Hurricane Matthew? Earlier in the week Florida’s AD insisted that the game was set to go forward as scheduled, despite being in the path of a hurricane. LSU had attempted to reach out to them and create contingency plans, including playing in Tiger Stadium (a la South Carolina last year), playing at a neutral site, and moving the game to Sunday.
Then it gets closer to kickoff, and Florida’s AD turns around and declares the game postponed, and at this point it would be pretty hard to reschedule it. Now, UF has an easier path to winning the SEC East, as Tennessee now only has to lose at least two conference games for UF to win the East as opposed to at least three if UF had lost to LSU. Meanwhile LSU is stuck with a harder path at the West. They already need an Auburn loss to control their own destiny, but now there’s a scenario where if LSU wins out and Bama wins out except against LSU, Bama’s 7-1 SEC record would beat LSU’s 6-1 record, even though LSU would have normally held the head-to-head tiebreaker.
It’s an insane situation and I’m not sure how UF managed to get away with it…
Game has now been rescheduled and will play at LSU. LOL.
They basically prolonged a game already decided. Should have just been cancelled imo