Ten Thoughts on the NFL

1) Even though there are several intriguing story-lines surrounding the game, I’m not really feeling my usual excitement for the Super Bowl this year.

I do think this is an evenly matched contest between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, and I’ll for sure be planted on my couch on Sunday, but for now the buzz isn’t there.

I’ll be rooting for the Chiefs and I think they’ll win the game.

Who do you want to see win and who do you think will win?

2) The Los Angeles Chargers have revealed that they do not intend to try to re-sign quarterback Philip Rivers, but this came after Rivers moved his family to Florida, so he either saw the writing on the wall or he had no intention on staying in southern California anyway.

It sure seems like a lock that he’s going to end up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

3) Former NFL wide out Dez Bryant is eyeing a return to the league in 2020, and he’s willing to change positions to do so.

“Give me the role they gave Witten,” he tweeted. “[This is not a] shot at Witten. Let me play with [Ezekiel Elliott, Tony Pollard, Michael Gallup, Amari Cooper, Randall Cobb and Blake Jarwin]. Think about it. In the meantime, I’m working.”

The 31-year old Bryant hasn’t played in two years and there’s a torn Achilles he has to prove he’s recovered from, but when he played he was known for his physicality. If he’s been adding some bulk to his 218 pound frame, I could see him transitioning to a move tight end role, and his preferred destinations are Dallas, Baltimore or New Orleans.

4) NFL scouts dig deep into a prospects past to see what kind of player/person he is, and this questionnaire from the Packers show what they want to know about their high school days.

5) Mental health is a serious issue facing society, but not every athlete behaving in an odd manner is suffering from an undiagnosed condition. Sometimes an athlete is just an entitled dumbass.

6) A recent Twitter thread by our very own Den-Master, Ken Mitchell, got me thinking.

Regardless of the sport, do you root for the other teams that play in your favorite team’s division to fail?

I always thought this was the norm.

I want to see my favorite teams win a championship, and the clearest path to the postseason is to win the division. So, by the other divisional teams losing, my team has a better shot at taking the divisional crown.

7) This isn’t a bad idea;

But I always thought the Monday after the Super Bowl would make for a nice national holiday.

8) This has popped up from time to time through the years, but with Robbie Gould about to play in the Super Bowl I guess it’s about time to see it again.

I’m on record as being against the Gould release back in 2016, but I understood why the Bears did it, as did Robbie himself. While I’m sure it had something to do with money, it also had something to do with performance. His performance in 2014 was below average and he was injured, in 2015 he was inconsistent during the season (probably due to recovering from the previous injury), and in preseason 2016 he wasn’t very good either.

The rebuilding Bears didn’t want a struggling veteran kicker on the roster so they made a move, and Gould has since said that was the right thing to do because it allowed him to take some time and get his body right. He signed with the Giants in October of 2016, then the following year he latched on with the 49ers.

His flirtation with the Bears last offseason was a fun story to follow, but I’ll bet he’s glad he ended up back in San Francisco.

9) Even though the Chicago Bears have only played in two Super Bowls, I’m sure we can come up with several different answers to this question.

10) I’ve seen this shared in a few places...

While the numbers are very similar for Mitchell Trubisky and Drew Brees during the early parts of their careers, Brees played in a much different era.

The number of 100+ passer rating passers in Brees’ first three full season’s, 2002, 2003, and 2004, was 6 in total. During Trubisky’s three years as a starter, 2017, 2018, and 2019, quarterbacks ended with with a triple digit passer rating on 23 different occasions.

Simply put, the passing game has evolved.

Trubisky’s numbers aren’t bad when considering the entire history of the NFL, but when stacked up against his peers from the last three seasons, it’s not very good.

Now with that being said, I certainly hope Trubisky can have it click for him and become this generation’s Drew Brees, I just don’t see it happening.