Voltaire

They're in a vast, vast no-man's-land that separates the terminally average from the truly elites. Jacksonville is in there with them as are the Flacco-led Browns. When the season started, I thought win the division and a home playoff game was going to be par. As it went on, I had a glint in my eye with some Super Bowl aspirations. Well, those took a serious hit when they got spanked by Baltimore. Then it morphed into "maybe we can get to the Super Bowl if we can land the #1 seed and have home field on SF and Philly and hopefully Baltimore isn't waiting for us there." Now it's back to when the season first started ... settle for the three seed and win a home playoff game. This team isn't as good as SF, Philly, and Dallas. The NFC East runner up will get to smash the NFC South winner, meanwhile, the Lions will get a home game against the next best team. If they win, they will go get smoked in the next round. Ideally they win the next two games, then rest their starters for the last two weeks of the regular season and try to get healthy.

Um... you can't compare a Mahomes team to a Dilfer team. There is no similarity. You need an elite defense and an elite RB. The Trent Dilfer comparison in 2023 would be something maybe the Browns could say, with former sofa riding 38 y/o Joe Flacco. You don't need to go back in time that far for a better example. For a team led by an elite QB like Mahomes and his 2023 Chiefs, a better comparison would be just a few years ago. There was another elite HoF QB similar to Mahomes who took over Jameis Winston's 7-9 Tampa Bay team and dragged/willed them to the Super Bowl.

1 By way of contrast, to see the QB inflation, compare 2023 to 2024 at ed's link, Deshaun Watson CLE QB $63,977,000 2 Dak Prescott DAL QB $59,455,000 3 Patrick Mahomes KC QB $57,358,269 4 Kyler Murray ARI QB $51,857,000 5 Matthew Stafford LAR QB $49,500,000 6 Daniel Jones NYG QB $47,105,000 7 Josh Allen BUF QB $47,056,281 8 Derek Carr NO QB $35,700,000 9 Russell Wilson DEN QB $35,400,000 10 Lamar Jackson BAL QB $32,400,000 11 Jared Goff DET QB $31,650,064 12 Geno Smith SEA QB $31,200,000 13 Joe Burrow CIN QB $29,714,000 14 Jimmy Garoppolo LV QB $28,517,000 15 Kirk Cousins MIN QB $28,500,000 16 Tua Tagovailoa MIA QB $23,171,000 17 Justin Herbert LAC QB $19,345,675 18 Aaron Rodgers NYJ QB $17,161,112 19 Jalen Hurts PHI QB $13,558,800 20 Trevor Lawrence JAC QB $11,707,019 21 Zach Wilson NYJ QB $11,184,307 22 Jameis Winston NO QB $10,668,000 23 Ryan Tannehill TEN QB $9,200,000 24 Taylor Heinicke ATL QB $9,000,000 25 Bryce Young CAR QB $8,626,153 26 C.J. Stroud HOU QB $8,245,282 27 Jordan Love GB QB $7,757,731 28 Anthony Richardson IND QB $7,725,916 29 Mitchell Trubisky PIT QB $7,556,666 30 Jarrett Stidham DEN QB $7,000,000 31 Justin Fields CHI QB $6,004,713 32 Trey Lance DAL QB $5,310,714 33 Mike White MIA QB $5,210,000 34 Andy Dalton CAR QB $4,967,000 35 Mac Jones NE QB $4,959,294 36 Kenny Pickett PIT QB $3,836,701 37 Case Keenum HOU QB $3,375,000 38 Marcus Mariota PHI QB $3,068,000 39 Cooper Rush DAL QB $2,875,000 40 Brian Hoyer LV QB $2,770,000 41 C.J. Beathard JAC QB $2,420,000 42 Baker Mayfield TB QB $2,300,000 43 Nick Mullens MIN QB $2,275,000 44 Will Levis TEN QB $2,168,674 45 Kyle Trask TB QB $1,761,244 46 Davis Mills HOU QB $1,661,577 47 Desmond Ridder ATL QB $1,462,626 48 Malik Willis TEN QB $1,407,300 49 Tyrod Taylor NYG QB $1,400,000 50 Hendon Hooker DET QB $1,299,778 51 Jake Haener NO QB $1,091,204 52 Stetson Bennett LAR QB $1,089,785 53 Sam Ehlinger IND QB $1,087,677 54 Sam Howell WAS QB $1,075,400 55 Aidan O'Connell LV QB $1,042,345 56 Skylar Thompson MIA QB $1,005,554 57 Brock Purdy SF QB $1,004,252 58 Clayton Tune ARI QB $1,002,656 59 Dorian Thompson-Robinson CLE QB $1,000,568 60 Sean Clifford GB QB $996,045 61 Bailey Zappe NE QB $985,000 62 Jaren Hall MIN QB $984,819 63 Tanner McKee PHI QB $961,630 64 Tyson Bagent CHI QB $923,333 65 Tommy DeVito NYG QB $915,000 66 Teddy Bridgewater DET QB $500,000

After that it's a massive clusterfock and you can get a defendable/valid ranking of the next eight or nine by putting them a hat and pulling them out at random.

Turkish football leagues suspended after team president punches referee (youtube.com) This is how they handle (allegedly) bad officiating in Turkey. I've not seen the call/non-call that triggered this, but the president of the football federation was livid and the official was visited in the hospital by the country's president. IMO something like this should be reserved for egregius examples of bad officiating such as the "complete the process" a$shole at the Bears/Lions game 13 years ago or on any official who has the temerity to throw a flag on the Chiefs with under five minutes left in a close game.

Mitchell put up good FF numbers because he a stacked team around. As far as Ws and Ls go, he himself was always the problem. There's a reason every Detroit fan who lived through that era despises Scott Mitchell. In the recent Bye Bye Barry documentary, Jeff Daniels and Eminem speak for all of us, as does Wayne Fontes of all people. With the game on the line, Mitchell became the anti-Elway. He wilted in the 4th quarter and with maddening regularity found creative ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Detroit fans at that time were criticized in national media for booing our goalie and our quarterback by focking as$holes who didn't watch every game like we did. That's because both were stacked teams, and the most critical position was manned by an incompetent loser. We knew what good quarterbacking and goaltending looked like because we saw it regularly wearing the colors of the other team. We booed because Tim Chevaldae, Bob Essenza, Rodney Peete and Scott Mitchell were all bums. Mike Vernon and Chris Osgood were not elite goaltenders but they were good, and the Red Wings won Cups with each of them. Both were worlds better than the likes Chevaldae and Essenza. Same could have been true with the Lions. Even just an average, competent quarterback along the lines of a Derek Carr or Jimmy Garapolo would have been a big upgrade, let alone an actually good QB who could have had them right there with Dallas and the 49ers. Despite having a black hole loser, perennial choker at QB, those 90s Lions were otherwise regularly one-and-done playoff wildcard teams. It was impossible for Lions diehards not to hate Scott Mitchell.

This is going to be a great ending too.

I presume Tennessee has been playing pretty scrappy all day. I wouldn't know, I just checked in every once in a while because I was always wondering if Tua got hurt or something.

Good job on that final drive Giants. That was a relief.

I guess Miami scored a couple of TDs while everyone for Tennessee was too busy watching the highlights from other game on the jubotron.

Go Giants! I can't believe they're not just winning but actually outplaying the Packers. Hopefully this continues.

I'd rather rely on any practice squad WR from any team than Cadaverous Toney. Sight unseen.

We can't offer up California as a new Palestinian homeland until after we build a wall to prevent Californians from leaving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLHOTwsLjSs&t=29 Next time save your b*tching about the officials for a time when they actually make a mistake.

The Chinese have a good work ethic and most are fed up with the country. While I'm on the topic, I go to the Asian market locally for obvious reasons (a Chinese wife that makes a lot of Chinese food). They distribute two Chinese language newspapers there for free, one the Epoch Times, rips China to shreds regularly whereas the other always kisses their ass.

Wordle 905 3/6 🟨 🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Only word I saw but didn't spend much time thinking up other options.

Yeah, Nick Foles was a terrible signing.

Well, no. They hit a funk but they got it straightened out. They're likely to roll through the NFC playoffs, then see who comes out of the AFC.

Looks like the 9ers year. Christmas will be epic when the best two teams in each conference's regular season clash.

They owe the Lions about a mile and a half in false start and holding penalties.

All three of those teams were really good, and had their starting QBs at the time. Despite lowing their QBs all have still remained above .500

They're getting whooped badly in back-to-back games but they're getting whopped by great teams. They still have Ws from the Chiefs, Dolphins, Bills, and the earlier Dallas game under their belts.

If Dallas wins, Philly still holds the tiebreaker right?

Almost feels like Philly needs to get a TD here.

Actually, no. Even though it was prime time, I forget the game was on but I heard good things.