I think Wild Card is best-case scenario for the Seahawks. The line does look a lot better than last year, and if they can run the ball (and I’m not even talking about returning to Beast Mode levels; just put any kind of credible running threat on the ground), Wilson can score points.
The defense isn’t going to be LOB-great (and the LOB was statistically one of the top 2 or 3 defenses in the history of the league; the Seahawks claimed the lowest-scoring defense for 4-5 years straight, which is unheard of, especially in this age of NFL offenses), but I don’t think it’s as terrible as everyone predicts. It’ll be very much like 2010, when Pete began the overhaul.
The division is going to be brutal, but we can thank the Rams for putting a very strict and narrow Super Bowl window in place with that massive Aaron Donald contract.
Totally agree. Wilson led the league in TDs last year with no running game except himself running for his life. With even passable blocking and a running game, the offense is going to score points. The defense is going to give a fair number up, probably. I’m not expecting greatness or anything, but they aren’t going to suck like some of the pundits seem to think (again, barring an injury to Wilson).
Earl Thomas is ending his holdout and is returning to the Seahawks today.
And what’s puzzling is that Adam Schefter and Ian Rappaport are both reporting that Dallas finally upped their offer for Earl to a 2nd round draft pick (which is what Seattle wanted all along), and Seattle reportedly declined.
Does anybody want to do a Loser Bowl competition, this season? (each person picks one team who will lose that weekend, never able to pick the same team twice except a single reset when the playoffs start)
Probably a good idea; I figure this one counts as a forum game, so I’ll put it in there. And I’ll probably be okay running it, but I appreciate the offer :)
Its reported that’s what they wanted, but maybe they wanted more than that. They might have every intent of trying to get an extension done. If not, they still have options. They could always franchise him (not that he’d be happy about that, mind you). The point being, he doesn’t necessarily walk for nothing in a year, and even if he does, you probably end up with a compensatory 3rd eventually.
So the AI company I work for is once again doing NFL predictions, and I’d love to invite folks from here to participate. We’re doing two separate prediction group live events. Each one will last 25 minutes to 35 minutes. Probably on the shorter side of that estimate.
For each of the prediction groups, we’re offering prizes to the top 5 individual people for prediction accuracy: $25, $10, $8, $5, $2. That’s in the form of an Amazon Gift Card. Starting Week 2 of the season, we DOUBLE the prize if you win and also participated in at least one of the two prediction events the week before.
So. What’s the catch? What are we doing? Let me put on my full transparency cap!
This is actually for our scientific R&D. These live group sessions are things we do to help provide human input and insight that can be incorporated into machine learning tasks. We also like to think that our human-powered AI can compete with fully computerized AI. This gives us a chance to compare and also hone our modalities.
We like to get people who are knowledgeable to participate. Even if they’re slightly knowledgeable. If you post about the NFL on a games forum, you’re probably pretty knowledgeable. :) We’ve discovered that our algorithms and platforms work as a multiplier/amplifier of human collective wisdom. If there’s zero wisdom, it’s a multiplication by zero issue. I don’t think any of you are multiplication by zero people.
What we won’t do: Sell any of your contact info, give it away, or otherwise do untoward, privacy-violating crap with any info. We do kind of need an email address to award you prizes when you win and to track your participation week over week if you join us for multiple sessions. But that’s it. And you can (and really should) just give us a non-primary, junkmail email address that you have access to and can occasionally check. We don’t want your work email, in other words.
Finally, this does take a little time to do. We’ve streamlined some of our processes, so this should take around a half hour per session. And it’s usually fun and lively with people chatting about this team and that. Which is great. We know it takes a half hour though, but we want you to try your best, too. That’s why we offer the prizes, as an incentive to doing well.
If you’re interested our first swarm is at 3pm ET tomorrow (noon PT). It will cover the 8 games hosted in NFC stadiums. The second swarm is at 9pm ET tomorrow (6pm PT) and will be the 8 games hosted in AFC stadiums.
The survey part where I make my predictions allows me to enter a username that is not valid for the swarm itself, even though it tells me the two should be the same.
I can put “Mr. Bismarck” as the username for the survey, but both the period and the space are invalid characters in the swarm.
