First of all, Merry Christmas Eve. I hope everyone has been spending time with their loved ones and enjoying their holiday season. We have an excuse to get the drinking going early today as we’ve got a heavyweight match up in the Meadowlands coming our way. The worst offense in the league meets the worst defense. A stoppable force and a movable object. We are definitely in for some absolutely terrible football. Zach Wilson has already been ruled out for the game. I honestly think this works against our favor as I am now on the wave of rooting for draft picks. Winning tomorrow’s game with other teams losing their games could lead us to fall to the ninth pick. It’s really just a game where either team that wins doesn’t really win in the long run. Sam already threw a pick and they are about to score so that’s great for draft picks, but not for Sam being the guy in the long run.
Last week’s game against the Rams was pretty much what everyone expected. We made a push at the end behind Jacoby which in my opinion was a pretty empty 14 points against a team that had pulled their dogs. The Rams are a much different defense when Aaron Donald isn’t chasing after you every play. I didn’t love how these two touchdown drives allowed people to start asking the question of why we played Sam all year. I think this is a pretty stupid take from the people who have been spreading this around on twitter. Our team already sucked going into this year so why wouldn’t we give the young guy the reins and see if he can be our guy for the next 10 years. It never made sense to start the 8 year vet who in terms of development has hit his peak and to be bluntly honest is not good enough to will this terrible roster into making any noise whatsoever. We have so much to fix right now but thankfully quarterback is not that position. I am very okay with rolling into next season with the same guys we had this year. In terms of a backup, Jacoby is an A+ in my book.
Something that caught my eye throughout this week came from looking at this season’s PPR fantasy points scored by defenses and special teams. To no surprise, we are in dead last, but the number that we have put up throughout this year was crazy enough for me to use as a fun fact for some of my friends. Throughout the entire year, our defense and special teams have scored only 32 fantasy points. We have been in the negatives 5 times. I tried going back and looking at how our numbers compare to some terrible defenses in the past however, I was unable to find any reliable data that showed past years fantasy scores. I did find one website however it had us at 50 something PPR points throughout this year so then I immediately clicked off that website and deemed it unreliable because it didn’t match up with ESPN. I still think, and this is a biased take, that we are among some of the worst defenses the NFL has seen in the past 5 years.
One thing that has been nice to see is Montez balling out in Chicago. Obviously, it was the right move to trade him and it was something that was meant to set us up for the future. But, I can’t help but be a little upset to see what he’s done for them so far. He has the opportunity to be the first player to ever lead two teams in sacks in the same season. He still leads us by one sack over Jonathan Allen and has already become the Bears leader. I love to see Montez being the beast that we all know he is but this one feels like a little salt in the wound. On the other hand, the Chase trade is looking magnificent. He went like three games in a row without recording a single stat. But now he’s helping to free up Bosa over there so he can do his thing. It’s crazy how we actually used that excuse for his bad games all that time. It’s honestly comical how ignorant we all were for that.
I loved how we actually started throwing the ball to Terry again. It’s crazy how when you give the ball to your best player good things happen. It was his first game over 100 all year and grabbed one in the end zone. He almost had two and the one handed catch was insane and just a reminder of how good he is at football. It only took one game for me to get off the wagon. I’m upset with myself for even having the thought about trading him. Once again, that was me being blinded by bias, and buying into the fact that we suck and need to get rid of nearly everyone. We don’t need to trade Terry. He should stay on this football team for his whole career although we are pretty much wasting his talent but that’s okay because he’s getting paid millions of dollars. Hopefully at some point the organization will turn it around and this offseason has the potential to be the time it does. Also, congrats to Terry on getting married. Hopefully he can parlay this into a massive game today. I really need that for fantasy.
With the amount of picks and money we have, we are one off season away from becoming a competitive team. Our games against the Eagles were enough to give me some hope that at least something is there. Then again, we also have the Bills, Dolphins, Bears, and a few others that work against the idea. However, I would rather be optimistic so I’m gonna let our two games with Philly hold more weight than the bad ones. A big way to start the transition is going to be hiring a competent coach and front office who can make the most out of the assets that we have this offseason. A lot of names have been thrown around as candidates for the job. The idea of promoting Bienemy to be our head coach has lost some of its pzaz that it had to start the season. I think this has to be due to Sam throwing a lot of interceptions this year and our lack of running the ball. It would also be tough for him to fully clean house after spending the past year working alongside everyone within the organization. However, it would be class if Josh had Ron fire everyone then also lets Ron go after he’s done so EB can smoothly transition into power without burning a lot of bridges. We can just let Ron do the bridge burning for us. I wouldn’t love the move of promoting EB but I also wouldn’t hate it. Feelings at this moment are pretty neutral. Another candidate I do really like is Ben Johnson. He wants 15 million? I’m cool with it. Our organization was just bought for 6 billion so I don’t think this should burn a necessarily large hole in the owners pockets. Lastly, the idea of trading for Mike Tomlin is something I’d be all for. I don’t think the Steelers are going to part ways with him, but in the chance that they do I think that would be a great move to go after him. A candidate who I do not like is Belichick. While I think he’s the greatest coach of all time, I just don’t want to see him turn our roster into a Patriots 2.0 and make me wait another 5 years to watch quality football.
The fantasy playoffs have arrived and I couldn’t be more hungry to win the two leagues that I am currently still in. One team I am against in the first round has fully imploded. Losing Herbert, Tyreek, Jacobs, and Pittman mid game in the first week of our two week match up last week. I had a 63 point lead going into this week and hopefully can hold onto that and hit the griddy into the championship. I’m pretty confident in my team not losing by 63 this week as Pittman was announced out and now the other team needs to decide between starting KJ Osborn and Jerry Jeudy. It’s not the best way to win a playoff matchup but I’m not going to complain about an easy path to the championship and knowing I will at least get my money back. My other league I am worried about. The beauty of running multiple teams is how players going down helps and hurts you. As Michael Pittman is on my other team, this means I will be starting Terry over him this week. And if Sauce is going to shadow Terry all game today then that is something I will be quite worried about. Along with that, Joe Mixon decided to take the day off and Tee went off for the other team. So I am not in a great spot. The other team has Lamar and McCaffrey so I’m really hoping that game ends 3-0 but we all know the NFL is going to do everything in their power to make that game a shootout because all of America will be watching.
For the first time this year, I don’t really like any bets in our game. Brob is out so I can’t take his anytime touchdown. Terry may be getting followed around the field by one of the best corners in football. I really don’t like betting unders; however, today might be the day where I finally endorse taking one to some extent. I think unders are boring. I like to gamble to have fun. I don’t enjoy rooting for boring football. I like high scoring and lots of touchdowns and this game today is more than likely not going to have much of that.
Am I excited to watch us play today? To be honest, not really. I think it’s going to be a brutal game and possibly a redzone day as I would rather root for my guys in the fantasy playoffs. But, I’ll have it on to start and see what happens. Scott Hanson does sound like some solid background noise while I finish my gift wrapping. I know it’s poor fan practice to not root for us to win but we’re already knocked out of the playoffs so I’ve pretty much already moved onto next season. We are set for a very exciting offseason which in my opinion will likely be more interesting to follow than this team has been all year long. Aside from the pain that we are all set to endure when this game begins, I would like to state that I hope nobody gets hurt and everyone has fun out there on the field today. Actually, I take that back. Sauce Gardner going down in this game would be nice. But not a season ending injury. Maybe just a little bump to the head that gets him ruled out. I need Terry to go crazy. I want him putting up 7 touchdowns and 400 yards. He can’t be running cardio today. I will not have it.
That’s about it for today’s blog. Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope everyone gets everything they asked for tomorrow morning. Good luck to you people at the family Christmas parties. This week is arguably the biggest bender of the year. I am on day 3 in a row of feeling quite under par and tomorrow is going to be number 4. I’m at the point where if I consume even one drink then I’m pretty sure it will trigger a full blown hangover so that’s where the current state of my body is at half way through this. The only way out is through. Just like this football season. See everyone for the next blog. Go draft picks!
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez