The 2016 NFL Playoffs Thread

I think your right, but that is wrong. Know what I'm saying?

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Letterboxd

It would be unrealistic to think the coach would or should take him out of an NFL game. High School, sure, but it's just about results in the pros.

It was scary how it transpired, but I mean that he kind of caught him on a strange angle. I'm not convinced he was looking to go head to head there.

The thing is I think that's a shame, especially when they are trying to fix their violent image. Guess what, leaving him in COST them the game.

Cricket, you gotta be kidding me. If he wasn't head hunting nobody ever has. Truth is he was trying to hurt Roth too. That hit was clean but you can see it in his body language. It shouldn't be okay, even in football.

I think Pac Man's penalty was much worse. You say he cost them the game, but he knocked out Ben and got a huge interception. Without him, they're not even in the game.

I don't think he was head hunting Brown. If you watch it closely, look what he does with his right arm. He was going with his shoulder. This is not to excuse his overall behavior.

Bengals had all kinds of momentum in the second half. Who knows how things would have transpired. I would never want a teammate like either of those guys. They are always going to do more harm than good. I know emotion can get the best of anyone in a moment and bad decisions get made, that is not close to being the case here. These guys have track records.

They do have track records, but the argument is if he should have been in the game. If you're the coach, how can you take him out after the plays he made?

And don't forget, their momentum started with his hit on Ben.

If I'm the coach he is probably not on my team. Jones definitely isn't. I hate dirty players. Emotion isn't good if you can't control it and that is not something you can coach out of a guy. Dirty players always play dirty even if it gets supressed at times.

Anyway, I'm hitting the sack. Talk to you guys tomorrow.

There was another weird play in that game when the Steelers caused a Bengal fumble with a helmet to helmet hit. The guys on TV kept saying he wasn't a defenseless receiver, but I believe that's supposed to be a penalty anyway. If not, the Steelers got screwed on the return. Quite an odd game, but I think the most deserved team won.

I agree, and it's one of the reasons that Lewis has always been a terrible coach.

The Bengals gave this one away in the most pathetic display of idiocy ever. But I also find is interesting how Steeler fans are focused on the hit on that last pass play while conveniently ignoring Shazier's hit on Bernard. That was most definitely a penalty, and will certainly result in a fine to Shazier. It was also the turning point for things turning even uglier in an already ugly game. My birth city of Cincinnati deserves better than this football organization.

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I may go back to hating you. It was more fun.

So with Peyton Manning set to start next week for the Broncos vs the Steelers, are Manning's HGH rumors truly a non-story, as his friend Jim Nantz claimed?

I recall the broadcast team discussing this a fair bit, and giving the explanation that it's only a penalty if the player is a "defenseless receiver" (IE: in the process of catching the ball), but not after they've caught the ball and have turned to run with it.

Depends on what you mean by "non-story." It's not meaningless (at least not yet), but it's not enough to draw any particularly damning conclusions.

So there must be some kind of double standard. Brady was crucified and that story is still in the news almost a year later, while the NFL admitted in court that they had no evidence. Manning had HGH in his house while recovering from a career threatening injury, "a broken neck"(his words), and then proceeded to have his best season at the age of 37. If that were Brady instead of Manning, wouldn't this story be looked at differently?

Yeah, I figured that's where this was going.

It's not remotely true that there's "no evidence" of wrongdoing: you've made that claim a lot and every time someone presents evidence you shift into arguing that the evidence isn't proof, which isn't the same thing.

And that's exactly what we have with Manning, which is why I made a point to say it's not meaningless. It's certainly evidence against him, which is why I didn't make some silly kneejerk overstatement about how there's "zero evidence" he used HGH.

They were wrong

The NFL admitted there was no evidence against Brady in court. If you wanted to argue that wrongdoing occurred, you could argue that another member of the Patriots had something to do with it. That idiotic fumbling rate article came out, and if someone believed that, couldn't Belicheck theoretically be responsible? There was no evidence against Brady, not one iota.