The NFL Shield At Midfield

There's this narrative that Heinicke was the twinkle in Ron Rivera's eye and he always knew he had something special, just had to let him develop and learn how to be a pro. As if he's been riding the bench there for years and finally got his chance. In reality he had been cut like 50 times and was on the couch when WFT brought him in last year. He figured his NFL career was over and was taking online classes to set up the rest of his adult life. This is similar to how every year somebody says "you know I can think of a guy who was drafted in the 6th round once who turned out to be a pretty good QB... " during the draft. Heinicke is on a magic carpet ride right now and it's a fun story and all that, but for every one of him there are a dozen others who wash out of the league every year and are never heard from again.

Every Browns fan I've ever encountered has been hardcore ride or die. God help the host city when the Dawg Pound comes to town when the Browns are finally in a Super Bowl.

The last few years I've found myself having more fun watching college football than the NFL. For a long time I was an adherent to the notion that pro football was superior due to the higher overall skill level of the players and schematic complexity, but none of that matters if my favorite team is just a drag to watch.

Might re-up on NFL Redzone and get interested in daily fantasy again. I'll always pay attention to the Panthers but watching every second of an utterly non-competitive disaster of a game like we saw Sunday... nah.

So do we win another game? I think for maximum pain we finish with 7 or 8 wins. Just enough to push us out of contention for franchise-changing talent but in the range where some defensive lineman or cornerback or some poo is the "best player available".

fuging whipped in all three phases of the game by a 4-7 team

I bet we inexplicably win that one

That was absolutely nothing, holy fuging poo what an awful call

Some dude named Durham Smythe is wrecking our poo

Zane is solid though, I'll give him that.

lol that's about the luckiest break imaginable, jfc

The 2021 Panthers have looked every bit as bad as the 2010 team at multiple points. Just horrible, can't do fuging anything right. Can't even punt successfully.

Nah we're not tanking, we'll probably win 7 or 8 games and get into great position to draft another DB.

I see that Cam still isn't old enough to get calls on blows to the head

Miami just leaving the middle of the field wide open. They don't respect this offense at all.

He was just done here, that happens sometimes.

AKA the Thanksgiving Dallas Massacre look

lol right. That's as open as you can get in the NFL, and it wasn't a broken play or something. Dolphins DC was just like "okay we know they're not throwing deep, just stay home guys".

I thought for sure we jumped

Brady is used to calling plays for blue chip SEC recruits who can score a TD off a bubble screen running backwards

Bet we could get the top CB on the board of we lose out

This reminds me of the Vikings in 2014 when we spotted them 14 points on blocked punts.

I wonder if we're ever going to have an actual NFL special teams unit that is competent in all 3 phases. The last time legitimately might have been when fuging John Fox was here.

Gonna be one of those days huh

It'd be funny if they called it a fumble with no clear recovery and just spotted the ball where it was fumbled