NFL Week 16: The Vinny Testaverde Feel Good

Getting a jump on next week's thread: 49ers-Seahawks flexed to Sunday night.

 

If it's true that the Raiders are planning to dump Carr - I'm guessing Gruden figures he's going to try and use another three years of his contract before he's willing to be held accountable. Carr isn't the problem with the team - better to keep Carr and dump much of the coaching staff. Gruden's failed to give Carr a top-flight receiver, traded away one, brought in a head case who never played a down. And Gruden's record of developing QBs is spotty at best. If he can't make it work with Carr - he can't. Carr currently has his highest career passer rating of 99.5 and highest career QB rating of 61.1 if that's the way you roll.

 

One thing about Gruden, now that he has full control, he will make some head scratching moves to indulge himself. He goes through a phase where he just HAS to have a certain player. And I could see him just dumping Carr because he HAS to have Eli Manning or Marcus Mariota or Jameis Winston...or who the fuck knows. I remember when Emmitt Smith was leaving the Cowboys and Gruden HAD to have him with the Bucs...it was like every day around that building he would tell anyone that listened that he needed Emmitt Smith.

So yeah Carr is gone. There's a QB he's identified in this league that, at this moment, he can't live without.

 

Who'd have thought the two most entertaining games of the day would involve the four teams battling for the No. 1 draft pick?
Giants beat the Redskins 41-35 in overtime after the Redskins tied it with a 99-yard touchdown drive in the last couple of minutes.
Then the Bengals rallied from 23 points down with six minutes to go, scoring two touchdowns in the last 30 seconds, to tie the Dolphins at 35 with a touchdown and two-point conversion on the last play of the game.

 

First the Jets had the Butt Fumble, and now they've got the Nut Fumble.

 

Only the 3-11 Giants can make beating another 3-11 team seem like a decisive step forward.

 

Dolphins get a FG as time expires (in OT) and Bengals clinch the #1 pick.
I stopped paying attention at 35-12. Saw on the bottom line of the Eagles game that it was 35-35 and wondered WTF happened.

 

Bengals scored with about six minutes left, then scored what looked like a garbage time TD with 30 seconds to go. Then they recovered the onside kick, and scored on the last play -- a not-really Hail Mary pass from the 29-yard line -- to cut it to 35-33. Dalton ran in the two-pointer to force overtime. Crazy finish, and it all went for naught when they lost in overtime.

Bad gambling beat all the way around, too.
The game opened at Dolphins -3 and went off at Bengals -1 1/2, so there were a bunch of things in play. First the Dolphins blew the cover, then the Bengals messed up a chance at the middle by making the two-point conversion at the end. Finally, the Dolphins pushed by winning it with the field goal, while the Bengals obviously did not cover when all they had to do was kick their own field goal at some point in overtime.
So in keeping with the theme of this game, in the end there were no winners.

 

Why would anyone want any part of a dogshit game like that? It's two teams that specialize in shitting all over themselves. It's the definition of a coinflip with any kind of line under 3 either way. You'd accomplish the same thing going to Vegas and betting it all on black.

 

Eliminate the choice of goals option too. Therefore the coin toss would come down to one decision: kick or receive.

Dumb it down, down, down.

 

Because you hope for the kind of game it was for the first 54 minutes, where a bad team that has shown a surprising amount of spunk despite their circumstances puts it on a bad team that might have decided to mail it in and turns in a stinker.
I didn't bet it, but if I had I'd have laid the three points with the Dolphins. Considering they were legitimately looking at 0-16 and being talked about as one of the worst teams of all time at one point this season, they've been good team to follow from a betting perspective. They're now 8-3 ATS in their last 11 games.