1941

I wasn’t much impressed with their new ‘injury reducing’ pads either.

1942

That confused me because I thought one of the announcers said that the issue was the defender left his feet to make the hit. Is that still legal? Otherwise, yeah, no helmet contact.

1943

I don’t actually know what the rule is, I just know that what the ref said the penalty was for, didn’t happen.

1944

Well, the announcers also noted that the league told the refs to be aggressive when making that call, which means it doesn’t technically have to involve a hit to the head. It just has to look like it did. So they won’t be apologizing for a bad call in this case, though they may choose not to fine the defender. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they fine him anyway. Its one of those emphasis things this year.

1945

Adam Schefter just tweeted that the Chiefs think Eric Berry will be out for the year with a torn ACL. Someone give Matt Bowyer a hug.

1946

Bucs coach Raheem Morris has admitted to what has been suspected for some time, namely that he made contact with Bucs players during the lockout. While its likely he wasn’t the only one who violated that, it will be interesting to see what the league does in response to the admission.

1947

Make him continue coaching the Bucs?

1948

Just looking at the quarterback can be deceptive, though. A bad offensive line will make even a good quarterback look bad when he has to scramble, pass on the move, rush passes, try to make up yards loss due to a sac, etc. Meanwhile, for every good pass thrown, there needs to be a competent receiver to catch the pass.

And those are just the two obvious examples. A better defense means better field position, a running game means defenses need to divide their focus taking pressure off the passing game, etc.

I don’t know enough about NE or IND to make any final judgements, but I will say filling a big name quarterback’s shoes is probably an easier assignment due to the better teammates than replacing Tim Couch.

1949

This is true at the margins, but it’s pretty easy to see empirically that the #1 factor in quality QB play is being a quality QB. If you look at any team that’s good for a long time, what you’ll see is that virtually all the parts are replaceable, except the QB. A Tom Brady-led Patriots team may not make the Super Bowl every year, but they’ll be pretty good, even as their linemen, defense, receivers, and running backs change. The Manning-led Colts, the Favre-led Packers, the Marino-led Dolphins, even the Aikman-led Cowboys: Those guys played long enough that at the end of their stint, virtually nobody from their original teams was still playing with them, but the quality stayed high, because they’re great.

But as soon as they left, the quality of the QB play took a huge nosedive (except for Favre/Rodgers, but that’s obviously a special case), despite having the same linemen, the same receivers, the same running backs, etc. I mean, Matt Cassel looked basically okay, and the team was obviously super-stacked with talent so was still decent, but there’s no question that he wasn’t playing like Brady.

1950

It’s both though. Just ask Eric Dickerson, who admittedly was not a QB but went from a great O Line to a terrible O Line and he became terrible with it. Vick’s O Line is nothing to write home about and I’ve read where some don’t think he’ll last four games with the lack of protection.

1951

Running back performance is heavily line-dependent, which you can see when a running back goes down and a new guy gets plugged in with little dropoff. QB performance isn’t.

Which is to say, if a RB leaves for another team, there’s every reason to expect his performance to change radically, but the team’s performance to change minimally; if a QB leaves for another team, there’s every reason to expect his performance to change minimally, but the team’s performance to change radically. This is what you see almost every time, except for a few major outliers (Barry Sanders, for instance) on the running back side. (And obviously if your departing and new QBs are both mediocre, as is often the case, the impact to the team isn’t major.)

1952

C’mon, you can’t be saying that a QB is O Line independent; ie that Brady for instance could still be the Brady we know and love/hate behind a porous O Line?? Uh no. While certainly a great O Line will not turn a mediocre QB into a great one, if a QB can’t even drop back before he’s overwhelmed, then he can’t be a great QB. Yes, certainly Rodgers is an example of a QB who learned how to get the ball out of his hands faster, but that still doesn’t exempt the O Line from directly contributing to a QB’s performance.

1953

I could definitely use a hug. As well as the kneecaps of Steve Johnson.

1954

Keep watching, you’ll see Jason Pierre-Paul absolutely eat his lunch later on. The second sack by JPP…well, he basically froze Williams in place. Ridiculous. But, you’ll like the defense in the 2nd half…it got ferocious.

1955

I did indeed see that! I’ve still got about five minutes of game to go, and I’ll hit that tonight. After that, hmm. What other Week 1 game was awesome and worth watching, people?

1956

Obviously the rest of the team matters. But Brady with bad receivers and a bad line is going to play more like Brady with good receivers and a good line than will Tarvaris Jackson with good receivers and a good line.

Changing the QB out changes the QB’s play more than changing out the rest of the team, by a lot.

1957

Didn’t make eye contact for more than a half-second. I love how much these guys hate each other.

1958

This might be my East Coast… er, Midwest bias speaking, but do they hate each other? I did not know this!

1959

Like no other.

1960

Yeah Matt. Pete is USC’s former HC and Harbaugh is Stanford’s. The schools are already rivals but a few years back Stanford ran the score up a bit on USC (who was famous for doing the same, of course) and instead of a handshake Pete looked at Jim and said “What’s your deal?” and Harbaugh replied “What’s your deal?” and that solidified the rivalry. Harbaugh basically lived to beat USC every year and stick it to Carroll. It’s a great side-bonus to Harbaugh coming to SF.