Quotulatiousness

February 9, 2021

Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady – “What’s not to hate?”

Filed under: Football, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

I did watch the S*per B*wl on Sunday, although as the Canadian broadcast carefully replaces almost all of the expensive, creative, one-off ads with exactly the same ads the network showed all through the rest of the season, I watched it on my computer, and kept my mute button handy to silence the roughly 2/3rds of the broadcast that wasn’t actually football-related. (Although I’ve read many people commenting that the “special” ads aren’t as good as they used to be, I watch so little TV that I’m hardly qualified to judge personally.) In Monday’s NP Platformed newsletter, Colby Cosh used the old “there’s two kinds of people” device to talk about Tom Brady:

You can easily have an opinion about Brady, and you probably do, even if you’ve never watched a whole football game. But I have no way of predicting what that opinion is. Do you see him as a cheerful, intelligent family man who has transcended his natural limitations through hard work and study? Or is he just the jammiest SOB who ever lived? There was definitely something cruel in watching the immobile Brady dismantle the Chiefs of Patrick Mahomes, a passer equipped with physical gifts whose possibility was inconceivable before he broke into the league.

That’s probably part of how Brady has driven such a fault into North American bedrock. If there were a stat representing handsomeness-to-physical-impressiveness ratio, he would dominate the NFL. When you see photos of young Brady, who famously dropped to the sixth round of the draft, you no longer wonder how he dropped so far but why he was taken at all. Did the scouts fall in love, as they are known to do, with the “good face”?

Ancient Brady is young Brady with less mobility and accuracy. Mostly, like a relief pitcher with nothing but a fastball, he just darts the ball very efficiently at nearby targets. (Trading New England’s targets for Tampa Bay’s was, obviously, shrewd to the point of genius.) He is becoming as specialized, as optimized for one function, as a punter. But in his case the function seems to be “winning Super Bowls,” and we can’t attribute one iota of that to innate gifts denied to ordinary mortals. What’s not to hate?

Speaking of the ads, I do think the Babylon Bee got it exactly right here:

As a comment at Ace of Spades H.Q. related, the S*per B*wl has lost a lot of its cultural capital over the last few years:

49 — I work at a somewhat woke company. While talking about some projects we were working on the new guy asked me “hey why isn’t anyone talking about the superbowl?” and I remembered that even last year everyone was talking about the superbowl none stop the monday after.

Well you’ve finally done it lefties you’ve killed the NFL.
Posted by: 18-1

I tuned out the halftime show, even though the performer was kinda-sorta a local boy (born in Toronto), and I was a bit nonplussed with the visuals (I had the whole thing muted, natch). James Lileks found the show to be oddly reminiscent of 70’s SciFi movies:

The halftime show had a strange 70s sci-fi aesthetic; for some reason I kept thinking of The Black Hole and Logan’s Run. The most interesting part was picking out the buildings in the New York skyline arrayed in neon. Ah, it’s the AT&T Building, Philip Johnson’s famous po-mo Chippendale tower! And that would be the Met Life tower, which is actually the base for a much-larger tower unbuilt after the Crash of ’29. Hey, everyone, let’s pause this elaborate routine and destroy its momentum so I can wax pedantic!

Then there were all those dancers in masks, looking like victims of surgery in an old movie where a gangster got plastic surgery. A way of incorporating the pandemic zeitgeist, right? Last year: EMPOWERMENT AND SEX AND SEX EMPOWERMENT! This year: faceless people moving in mass to choreographed steps, then dissolving into random panic. There was something wrong about it, like some dank gas blown up through a fissure, filling balloons that looked like the humans who populate the shadows of a nightmare.

Previous years, the Super Bowl event was pure excess — mad, crass, exuberant, American overdrive, American overkill, a mix of skill and brute force. Something about this one felt desperate and shellshocked. I suppose I’m reading too much into it. But I don’t think we need fever dreams and worried-looking buskers in empty fields, at this point. It would be nice just to have some Clydesdales again.

I saw on another site (sorry, forgotten where I noticed it) that the bandages were an in-joke for The Weeknd’s fans, who’d been teased with several social media posts about him recovering from some sort of mysterious plastic surgery procedure leading up to the performance.

September 25, 2017

Tampa Bay at Minnesota – welcome to the Case Keenum show, starring Case Keenum!

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Minnesota’s starting quarterback is still out with knee issues, so backup Case Keenum got all the practice reps with the first team this week, and it really showed to excellent effect in this game. I noted in my game report last week that Keenum didn’t seem to be able to release the ball as fast as Bradford, which allowed defensive pressure to get to him far too often. That issue was completely cleaned up in this game — although it should be noted that Tampa Bay was missing a number of their defensive starters and suffered a rash of injuries during the game on top of that. The final score of 31-17 makes the game appear closer on the scoreboard than it was on the playing field.

The difference a week of practice will make for an NFL quarterback: Keenum found out about an hour before the Steelers game that he’d be starting, and hadn’t had much chance to work with the starters, and the result was painful to watch. In contrast, having the full week of practice allowed Keenum to develop a good working relationship with wide receivers Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen, both of whom had great games (Diggs – 8 receptions for 173 yards and 2 TDs, Thielen – 5 for 98 yards). Keenum finished with 25 of 33 completions for 369 yards (a career best) with three touchdowns and a passer rating of 142.1. Best supporting actor player for the offense was probably Dalvin Cook, who is playing at a very high level indeed (my favourite infographic during the game showed a comparison between Adrian Peterson’s first three games and Cook, showing Cook ahead on total yards and yards per carry on fewer carries … while the announcer said “nobody is comparing him to Peterson”). Cook’s numbers for the game were 27 rushes for 97 yards and a TD, with five receptions for 72 yards.

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August 16, 2015

Vikings top Bucs 26-16 in preseason, but lose their starting right tackle for the season

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:22

Last night’s game was carried on the NFL Network, so I actually got to hear Paul Allen (the “voice of the Vikings”) instead of the usual network announcers. It was the second preseason game for the Vikings, but the first for Tampa Bay and the very first game action for the Buccaneers’ new starting quarterback, first overall draft pick of the 2015 draft, Jameis Winston (which was probably the reason the game was being shown on the NFL Network, now that I think of it).

While the Vikings prevailed on the scoreboard, they took a more serious loss when starting right tackle Phil Loadholt had to leave the game after just two plays with a leg injury. Later it was announced that Loadholt had suffered a torn Achilles tendon and would probably be out for the season. Rookie T.J. Clemmings is now the most likely player to start at right tackle unless the team decides to sign a veteran off the street (or, less likely, trade for one).

1500ESPN‘s Andrew Krammer rounds up the game details:

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October 27, 2014

Vikings beat Bucs in overtime, 19-13

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:02

Stadium staff in Tampa Bay should have been getting ready to refund the ticket prices for those poor souls who had to sit through the first three quarters of the game yesterday between the Minnesota Vikings and the Buccaneers. There were a few good plays, but for the most part calling the “action” pedestrian would have been a generous way to describe it. That all changed in the fourth quarter, as the somnolent Bucs suddenly discovered both a running game and that the forward pass was still legal in the NFL.

Vikings fans were starting to get that horrible 2013 feeling … that the Vikes were going to lead all the way down to the final minute, then give up the go-ahead score … just like last week. Instead, the last drive in regulation got the score tied up to force overtime, and overtime didn’t last very long at all, as Arif Hasan explains:

Those two minutes (or rather 1:57 after the runback by Patterson) were just enough for rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater (after a confusing call by the refs that functionally drained 20 seconds from the clock—though not technically wrong, just unusual) to drive down the field in perfect position for a field goal (with room for error) in order to force the game into overtime.

A pair of offsetting penalties may have felt like more of the same to a franchise whose fans are convinced the organization is snakebitten. But immediately afterwards, a completion to Austin Seferian-Jenkins was turned into a fumble by the goat on the touchdown play, Anthony Barr, who ran it in for a touchdown to end the game.

In the end, just like in the Buffalo game, the real takeaways are not in single plays like the fumble return or the touchdown Barr allowed, but in the balance of the game. The ball bounced the right way for the Vikings this time, but the overall script was a positive one for Minnesota, as they consistently dominated an admittedly weak Tampa Bay team.

Rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater’s stats included 241 passing yards, and a touchdown with no interceptions and only took one sack. 1500ESPN‘s Andrew Krammer discusses Bridgewater’s “up and down” day:

Bridgewater did his part to force overtime, but there is plenty of room for improvement from a rookie quarterback the Vikings initially wanted to have sit and learn in 2014 before Matt Cassel’s season-ending injury. Seven of Bridgewater’s 18 incompletions were tipped passes, including three from the Bucs’ defensive line.

“[Bridgewater] was up and down,” coach Mike Zimmer said. “I thought he took good care of the football, which we’re asking him to do. He was only sacked one time, those things are important too. We definitely are having a hard time scoring points, so we have to do a better job there. I think his composure was very good today. He took some shots down the field, which we have to do. And we missed them. If we keep throwing them, we’ll hit some.”

On a play-by-play count, Bridgewater went 4-for-10 on his deep attempts, missing his first three before tight end Chase Ford reached back to grab a poorly thrown ball to finish with a 19-yard catch-and-run. Three plays later, Bridgewater spiked the ball to set up Walsh’s 46-yard field goal before halftime.

The receivers helped Bridgewater out, including Patterson’s 28-yard tip-toe grab down the sideline that was challenged by Buccaneers coach Lovie Smith and upheld for the Vikings’ longest pass play of the day. But Bridgewater showed the ‘ups’ as well as the ‘downs’ that Zimmer’s postgame comments referred to.

After left tackle Matt Kalil was beat by Michael Johnson, who tackled running back Jerick McKinnon for a loss of five yards, Bridgewater hit Ford for nine yards and then found receiver Greg Jennings over the shoulder for a 17-yard touchdown and 10-0 lead in the third quarter.

“The throw to Jennings was a great catch,” Zimmer said. “Unbelieveable throw with a guy in his face. Those are the throws he can make, just have to continue to make the pocket clean and he has to just keep making those throws.”

October 26, 2014

Vikings vs Buccaneers – “When a 2-5 disaster visits a 1-5 dumpster fire”

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:31

I wonder if I’ll even be able to watch this game later today: the Winnipeg CTV affiliate station usually carries the Vikings games on Sunday, but this promises to be a very low-audience meeting. If it’s not viewable in my area, I’ll have to depend on the team’s game highlights which are usually posted on their website the next day. How bad is this matchup? At the Daily Norseman, Eric Thompson thinks that it’ll be such a quiet game, you won’t even hear the boos:

The Minnesota Vikings vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers game on Sunday is NOT a marquee matchup. Who will win on Sunday? And more importantly, who will care?

If the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers play each other on Sunday and nobody gives a sh*t, does the game make a sound? When a 2-5 disaster visits a 1-5 dumpster fire and nobody can be bothered to care, can you still hear the boos?

We’re only seven weeks into the 2014 NFL season and the two metaphorical trees of the Vikings and Bucs seem to have already fallen in the forest. This was supposed to be a year of improvement and hope for both teams. The Vikings had a new coach to clean up the woeful defense, a promising new rookie quarterback, five starters returning on the offensive line, and the league’s best running back still in his prime. The Bucs had a new coach of their own that has already proven himself in the league, a veteran free agent quarterback that lit it up last year, and enough pieces on both sides of the ball to make a lot of experts choose them as a dark horse playoff contender before the season.

And yet here we are with both teams looking undead before Halloween. Minnesota’s new coach and quarterback are scrambling to learn on the job with the star running back exiled from the team and the offensive line in shambles. Tampa Bay has already benched Josh McCown and suffered two of the NFL season’s most embarrassing blowouts through six games. (The only saving grace for the one-win Buccaneers? The NFC South has been so lousy this year that they’re still only two games out of first place.)

[…]

The scapegoat in recent weeks for the Vikings has been Matt Kalil & The Turnstyles, which unfortunately isn’t a 50’s doo-wop cover band. The offensive linemen were scapegoats with good reason — they were an atrocity against Green Bay and Detroit. But they actually weren’t that bad last week in Buffalo. And “not terrible” is a gigantic upgrade for that unit, especially considering the mid-game injuries suffered by John Sullivan and Vladimir Ducasse. So why did the offense still muster only 16 points even though the defense forced four Bills turnovers? Quite frankly, Teddy Bridgewater wasn’t nearly consistent enough with his decisions and throws to make the offense run efficiently.

January 4, 2014

Former Vikings head coach doesn’t stay unemployed for long

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:08

Leslie Frazier was fired as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings on Monday. Today, he accepted the job as defensive co-ordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

You can stop worrying about Leslie Frazier. He’s fine. He has scored himself a new gig as defensive coordinator with his old friend Lovie Smith in Tampa Bay.

Rumors have it that Rod Marinelli was actually the first choice as DC in Tampa but I guess Marinelli didn’t want the gig so they went to #2 choice Frazier. Leslie served as defensive coordinator for a couple years in Minnesota before his ill-fated tenure as head coach. Years back he was DC with Cincinnati.

Frazier, a long-time devotee of the Tampa-2 defense, goes to the city that gave the defense its name. Now we wait to see if he tries to bring any of his former Minnesota assistants with him. The Vikings still have all those guys under contract, including Leslie’s friend Mike Singletary.

We can also speculate on which current Viking free agents might now look at Tampa Bay as an attractive destination because Leslie is there and will likely install a system similar to the one the Vikings ran. Jared Allen is a guy who might be a fit in Tampa. You also have to look at a guy like Erin Henderson who is likely done in Minnesota after his most recent DWI arrest. Frazier was always in Henderson’s corner and seems to like him as a Will backer in his scheme.

I’d be surprised if Singletary didn’t also follow Frazier to Tampa Bay, and (sadly) Jared Allen has almost certainly played his final game for the Vikings and hasn’t indicated any plan to retire. I’m glad Frazier will be in the league next year, even if he is working for another team. Still no change on the replacement head coach search in Minnesota: lots of candidates mentioned, but many interviews still to be conducted.

October 7, 2013

I didn’t see this deal coming

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:32

The bye week is supposed to be a fairly quiet time for an NFL team … get away from the team facilities, rest up, and (especially) stay out of trouble. It’s not such a quiet time for the coaches or the front office, of course, as the business side of the league year continues through the bye week pretty much without a pause. One of the things a team will often do during a bye is look for players who could help the team out due to injuries or sub-par play. I would not have been surprised to see the Vikings work out a number of defensive backs over the last week — the corners have been a significant weak spot so far this season.

What I didn’t expect, however, was a move to sign another quarterback:

1500ESPN‘s Andrew Krammer has more:

Freeman, 25, was in his fourth full season as the starter in Tampa Bay before the Buccaneers benched their former 17th-overall pick after an 0-3 start. A reported schism between Freeman and coach Greg Schiano led to Freeman’s attempted trade and ultimate release.

He’s got a 24-35 record as a starter, regressing after his best statistical season in 2010, when the Buccaneers finished 10-6 off of Freeman’s Pro Bowl year — 25 touchdowns and six interceptions.

In a little more than two seasons since, Freeman is 11-23 as a starter, with 45 touchdowns to 42 interceptions. He lost eight of his last nine games in Tampa Bay.

Freeman was the third quarterback selected in the 2009 draft, behind Matthew Stafford (1st) and Mark Sanchez (5th). He’s the only of the three without a playoff appearance.

The Vikings now find themselves with three somewhat serviceable quarterbacks in Christian Ponder, Matt Cassel and Freeman. Ponder began the season to the tune of five interceptions and two fumbles in an 0-3 start before a rib injury sidelined him before the team’s Sept. 29 victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers in London. Cassel threw for two touchdown and no interceptions in the 34-27 win, but coach Leslie Frazier was noncommital during the bye week in choosing a starter.

Last week, when Freeman’s release from the Buccaneers was announced, Arif Hasan was quick to point out that he might be an excellent fit for Minnesota:

But there’s significant reason to believe that’s not the final chapter on Josh Freeman. Over the last two years, Freeman generated 6.5 net yards per passing attempt and 6 adjusted net yards per passing attempt-good for 11th and 16th in the league, respectively.

He hasn’t been the most accurate passer, but he generally makes up for it with deep throws, having hit 13.3 yards per completion was the second-best in the league, just after Cam Newton. In fact, his average depth of target-passes completed and missed-was an astonishing 10.7, tied for first in the league alongside Colin Kaepernick and Andrew Luck (second was Joe Flacco at 10.6).

It would be a far cry from the offense that Minnesota has run so far, and it may even turn out that Josh Freeman isn’t a fit in the Bill Musgrave offense.

But the designs of an offensive coordinator who may not even be around next year shouldn’t hold back signing a talented young quarterback who could take full advantage of Cordarrelle Patterson, Jerome Simpson and Greg Jennings.

[…]

in Pro Football Focus‘ game tracking, Josh Freeman was asked to throw outside the numbers on deep passes nearly twice as often as an average NFL quarterback.

And he does better than the average quarterback on those passes, too. Generally speaking, quarterbacks in the NFL will connect on deep, outside the numbers passes 32.8 percent of the time and average 10.8 yards an attempt.

Josh Freeman has a lower completion rate on those passes (30.8 percent) but better yards per attempt (11.8) along with better touchdown and interception rates.

But being asked to pass those difficult throws without much outlet relief or other options makes him too easy to defend and creates a wholly inconsistent offense. It cannot be overstated how important it is to have intermediate and shorter routes available (especially over the middle of the field) if there are a number of routes that go deep. It is one thing to have a poor deep ball passing completion accuracy, but it is another thing entirely to be forced to throw passes, even when covered, because there are no other options available because of the scheme.

October 27, 2012

Picking the scab: analyzing the Vikings-Buccaneers game

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:43

Having watched the Thursday night game from opening kickoff to final interception, all I can do is find comfort in ridicule and abusing our coaching staff and (some) players until next time they start a game. Ted Glover at the Daily Norseman seems to feel the same way:

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October 26, 2012

Turnovers and poor tackling give Tampa Bay the win in Minnesota

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:51

The Minnesota Vikings dropped their season record to 5-3 with a home field loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Rookie running back Doug Martin put on a great show, getting his first career 100 yard game while Minnesota put on another clinic of poor tackling skills. During the game, the announcers pointed out that Martin by himself was out-gaining the entire Vikings offense. To be fair, the Vikings defence was the best of the three units on the field last night: the offense was putrid and the special teams players didn’t improve much from last week’s debacle.

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September 19, 2011

Vikings blow 17-point halftime lead, lose to Bucs

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:12

For the second week in a row, the Minnesota Vikings had the lead at halftime, then went on vacation for the second half of the game. Unlike last week, the Vikings lead after 30 minutes due primarily to their own efforts, with a strong running game and a passing game that gained more than 39 yards (last week’s total). It just wasn’t enough of a cushion to allow the team to check out for the second 30 minutes of play.

Mark Craig:

The Vikings blew a 10-point lead at San Diego, losing 24-17 in Week 1. But as bad as that was, the sequel was much worse considering the level to which the Vikings were dominating the league’s youngest team at home at halftime.

The Vikings led in total yards, 284-62; first downs, 17-3; rushing yards, 137-23; and, well, everything else.

“I’ve been playing a long time,” receiver Michael Jenkins said. “Eight years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game that different from one half to the next half.”

Obviously, a pattern has been established: The Vikings are a 30-minute team in a 60-minute league. And they trail the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions by two games in the NFC North heading into Sunday’s home game against a Lions team that has won six consecutive games and is coming off a 48-3 victory over Kansas City.

Jim Souhan:

The Vikings haven’t just begun the 2011 with two losses, they’ve blown two games with poisonous second-half performances that call into question the ability of their coaches to adapt during games, their offensive philosophy, their choice of veteran quarterbacks and their ability to fulfill the lofty expectations of ownership.

Since 1990, only 12.5 percent of NFL teams that have lost their first two games of the season have made the playoffs, and we can probably make a leap of logic and guess that an even smaller percentage made the playoffs after getting outscored 41-3 in the first two second halves of the year.

The Vikings have begun a season in which they proclaimed themselves contenders and during which they are seeking approval for a billion-dollar stadium by treating the second half the way your average downtown office worker treats Friday afternoon. They’ve taken off early.

The Christian Ponder era gets closer with each loss, but for Ponder’s sake, I hope he doesn’t need to step in this soon in his rookie season.

During the first half, Adrian Peterson went into the record books again, as he scored the first of two rushing touchdowns, moving him into first place in team history for rushing TDs.

Update: As Christopher Gates reminds us, the Vikings have to make a roster move this week to make room for Kevin Williams, who is returning after his two-week suspension in the StarCaps case. Who does he want to see get cut to clear space?

The first one would be Bernard Berrian. I said this last week, and I’ll say it again . . . this guy never should have been on the roster coming out of camp. He’s a speed receiver with no speed, and shows absolutely no will or desire when the ball is coming his way. In two games this season, he has one more reception than I do. [. . .] Or, if you’re going to cut a defensive player, look no further than Tyrell Johnson. Jamarca Sanford has clearly outplayed Johnson this season at the safety spot opposite of Husain Abdullah, and Johnson’s missed interception that could have, potentially, sealed the deal for the Vikings this afternoon is basically the last straw for me. If we’re going to try to work some young guys into the lineup this season, get Johnson the heck out of town and give Mistral Raymond some run in his place.

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