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Five talking points from NFL round 10

Roar Guru
15th November, 2016
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Ezekiel Elliott (Keith Allison)
Roar Guru
15th November, 2016
7

Here are my five talking points from what was undoubtedly the most entertaining round of games so far this year.

The NFL’s Suicide Squad
If you were doing a pre-season tip for the eventual Super Bowl champion, odds are you would have chosen one of Seattle, New England, Pittsburgh, Green Bay or Arizona.

While the Seahawks and Patriots have confirmed their status as genuine Super Bowl threats, the other three have failed to excite. They’re a bit like ‘Suicide Squad’ – great cast, smart writers, talented director – but for whatever reason, the final product is… meh. There are a few good scenes and a couple of good performances, but they can’t lift the overall product out of mediocrity.

Green Bay can’t run the ball, and can’t defend the pass. The Steelers have zero pass rush and can’t manufacture pressure on the opposing quarterback, while a banged-up Ben Roethlisberger is always an injury risk.

Meanwhile, the Cardinals have regressed across the board. Carson Palmer is not, at 37, playing as well as his MVP calibre season last year, and most of his receiving corp, which looked to be the class of the league pre-season, can’t get enough separation to make his job any easier. They’ve changed tack mid-season from a vertical passing offence to a ground-based game, but that isn’t an easy thing to do on the fly. It’s a bit like reshooting half your movie to try and make it funnier.

There’s still time for all three teams to get it right and make a late push into contention. However, if they don’t, I wonder if we will be seeing some major shake-ups for these teams in the off-season.

Fears around the quarterback position were unfounded
Earlier in the year, there was a lot of talk about how there just aren’t enough quality quarterbacks for each team, and how the play from the position was in alarming decline.

The spread offences that dominate the college game were said to leave prospects woefully unprepared for the tight scripting and slower pace of the pro game.

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At the time, I thought this was a huge overreaction, and the pursuant weeks have done nothing to dull my optimism.

Full disclosure – I don’t watch college football. So I’m not going to waste your time by giving you an evaluation of the college game in detail or the play of college quarterback’s in that system.

However, what I will say, is that the play of many of the league’s young quarterbacks has been nothing short of electric of late.

After a slow start, Marcus Mariota, the second pick in the 2015 NFL draft, has been excellent. He has just completed his sixth consecutive game throwing for at least two touchdown passes, tying a franchise record. In the process, he has lifted the Titans to 5-5, tied for second place in the AFC South.

Over in Tampa Bay, Jameis Winston has been equally good. Over the last four weeks, Winston has thrown ten touchdowns against just two interceptions.

But the story of the season is undeniably Dak Prescott. The pick 135 from last year’s draft started the season third on the Dallas depth chart, behind team legend Tony Romo and veteran Kellen Moore. After Moore broke his leg in training camp, and Romo suffered another horrible back injury, Prescott was made the starter.

All he has done since then is break Tom Brady’s record for most pass completions without an interception to start a career, lead Dallas to an NFL-best 7-1 and relegate Romo to an overqualified backup.

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Considering he is in the first year of a rookie deal paying him just $2.7 million over four years – when the man he unseated is part way through a six-year, $108 million contract – you could make a strong case that Prescott is now the NFL’s most valuable player.

Teams that have put their young quarterbacks in a position to succeed, with systems that play to their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses, are having tremendous success.

I can only hope Jeff Fischer and Jared Goff read this (they won’t).

Long live the running back
You will have no doubt heard the rhetoric that has been bandied about that running back is a totally replaceable position.

Yet now, Elite RBs are once again among the most valuable players in the NFL.

Ezekiel Elliot, the Cowboys’ pick four selection – in a move widely criticised by draft experts – leads the league in rushing and is the foundation of the entire Dallas team.

Le’Veon Bell has unlocked the Steelers whole offence with his skills as a rusher and receiver. The Cardinals would be completely lost without David Johnson.

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DeMarco Murray has revived a career that looked dead just last year in Philadelphia and is now second in total rushing yards.

This has all highlighted the fact that teams who struggle to run the ball are having a lot of difficulties generating consistent offence.

In a league that becomes more pass-happy by the year, these guys are a reminder that the superstar running back isn’t dead just yet.

The playoffs could come down to matchups
In the most even season in memory – my memory at least, which is rather short and at times alcohol-affected – the eventual Super Bowl champion is likely to be determined by who they have to face to get there. While that might seem an obvious statement in isolation, when put in context, it makes a little more sense.

In a league where the salary cap makes it difficult to build a true juggernaut, each team has an easily exposable flaw. Conversely, each team has strengths that in the right match-up can prove insurmountable.

I’ve covered a number of them above, but you can continue: the Patriots can’t get to the passer, the Broncos can’t throw, the Raiders can’t play defence, the Chiefs can’t throw it deep, and the Seahawks have a shaky offensive line – like San Andreas shaky.

Any of these teams could emerge as champions. Whether they will, is likely to be determined by who they play.

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America really needed that weekend
It’s no secret that our American friends have had a rough time of it of late.

Shootings, racism, and riots have dominated the headlines around an unprecedentedly ugly Presidential Campaign, which ended in more racism, more riots, and a reality TV star taking over as Commander-in-Chief.

All the while, ratings for the NFL have been worryingly down amid a season of mediocre games.

Thank god, then, Americans were able to tune into the best week of games we have seen this year, with the final four games on Sunday being decided by one score or less.

In a sport so often deemed to be ugly, that harbours perpetrators of domestic violence and causes permanent head injuries, it just might have a blueprint in how to start to repair their fractured country. Where everyone is judged not by their skin colour, but by what they bring to the team.

We could all use more of that.

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