U mad, bro? Readers trash NFL overtime, JuJu Smith-Schuster, James Conner, Tom Brady. But mostly Tim Benz.
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Most of the heat in this week’s “U mad, bro?” comes down on me because of my thoughts on Tom Brady and NFL overtime.
Well, me and Brady himself.
And JuJu Smith-Schuster. And James Conner.
And Mike Tomlin.
Ok. Maybe it’s not all me.
Anyway, let’s see who the readers are roasting the hardest this week.
Rob wanted to chime in on my column about the NFL overtime rules. I said there is no totally “fair” option for change that will avoid leaving someone angry about the resulting change being “unfair” in the end.
Rob disagrees.
Actually there is…
If TD scored on first possession, team must kick the xp.
Other team gets 1 possession, if they score a TD must go for 2.
Game Over.
Everyone has a chance.
You’re welcome.— The Excellence (@RobScott421) January 8, 2020
That plan is “perfect”? How, exactly? How is it fair? How does it protect against a field goal being kicked on the first possession? What if both teams kick a field goal on their initial possessions?
You’re welcome.
Let’s walk thru this again.
The point is for both teams to have a possession. If the first teams kicks a FG, than 2nd team must score a TD to win.
It’s quite simple Tim.
You’re Welcome.— The Excellence (@RobScott421) January 8, 2020
It’s not simple. It’s stupid. Why does that second team touching the ball need to score six, when the first team scored three? Just because the first team got the coin toss? That solves nothing.
Also, why does the first team only have to kick an extra point, but the second team needs a two-point conversion based on the flip?
So dumb.
I always laugh at people who come up with ideas on this topic and advance them as being simple. Yet, in reality, what they are advancing is more convoluted and unfair than the rule currently in place.
Jim sent me a series of tweets about my column suggesting the Steelers should go after Tom Brady if Ben Roethlisberger’s elbow doesn’t heal and he decides to retire.
Believe it or not, he thinks Mason Rudolph would be a better option than Tom-bleeping-Brady.
Stunningly, some other people in the thread agreed with him.
Here are those tweets put together in one paragraph.
“At (Brady’s) current ability. No thank you. I don’t think you can make a final determination on Rudolph at this point. How many QBs play their career best in first year of starting? He was #3 the year before. How much practice did he get? The Browns game was bad but who was there to throw to? Brady will be 43 next year. How did he look down the stretch? Brady’s (passer) rating the last 7 regular season games was 80.9 and then a 59.4 in the playoff game. Not impressed. Mason still can improve. Brady is in decline. Brady was an 86.5 his first year of starting. He had 18 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.”
Actually, Jim, I can make a determination that Rudolph was not last year, is not now, never has been and never will be as good as Brady.
I think I can do that. If — under that hypothetical I outlined — you’d rather turn this team over to him than Brady in 2020, you are insane.
If you want to play the numbers game, I can do that, too. Rudolph’s last two starts were in the 30s for a passer rating, right? The three before that were 84, 84, and 85. So you’re telling me that is impressive for Rudolph, as opposed to Brady being unimpressive in that range?
By the way, Brady’s first year starting was way back in 2001. That was a different era. Also, he won the Super Bowl that year.
Do you really think next year, with the Steelers defense intact, Rudolph would give the Steelers a better chance to win than Brady if Big Ben is out?
Good lord.
Will also had a thought on the idea of the Steelers acquiring Brady.
To backup Ben? Sure.
— Wil Masisak (@AccidentalZen) January 7, 2020
Aw. That’s so cute. You probably believe that, too. Don’t you?
On Monday, I wrote that the Steelers never would’ve been able to do to the New England Patriots what the Tennessee Titans did in their wild-card game.
I made that comment based on how the Titans ran the ball on offense en route to a 20-13 win.
Ralph takes the conversation in a different direction.
Agreed. Starting with the fact that Tomlin would have never been smart enough to take the penalties to take time off the clock.
— Ralph (@Pensfan668771) January 6, 2020
If what Ralph is getting at is that Mike Tomlin never would’ve out-coached Bill Belichick in Foxborough, well, there’s not much evidence to argue that.
But Titans coach Mike Vrabel using those penalties to burn time off the clock before a punt was overrated.
People are talking about it because the Titans won. It’s not the reason why they won.
Frankly, Vrabel is lucky the score ended up the way it did. That’s the kind of decision where people say it worked because of the result. Not the other way around.
I’m not sure giving the ball back to New England up 14-13 with 4:44 left was the smartest thing in the world to do. If Brady leads a field-goal drive there, you’ve potentially left yourself very little time, with a quarterback who barely threw the whole day, trying to come back against the second-best pass defense in football.
That’s a move you do up multiple scores. Like when Belichick did it against the Jets back in Week 7. Not up one point.
I wasn’t wild about it. America just liked it because Belichick complained about it on the sideline and it looked like he was getting punked by a former player.
Stephen posted these TribLive Facebook comments about JuJu Smith-Schuster and James Conner on a recent edition of “Madden-Benz Unfiltered.”
“JuJu is garbage. Conner is garbage.”
Clearly Stephen’s New Year’s resolution was to be more direct.
Sorry that you feel that way, Stephen. In both cases, you better hope their decreased productivity was as much about having “garbage” quarterback play and injury.
Yes, 2019 was a garbage year for both players. But 2018 showed us both players are better than what they showed this season.
So you best hope that “garbage” gets recycled into what we saw a year ago. Because they will both be back in 2020.