So, let me get this straight, NOW, past performance isn’t an indicator of future results? At least have the courage of your convictions!Which NFCE teams do either of you fantasy footballers think could beat the Bucs, Saints - as well as your lreffered Falcons - this season?
it’s a simple question albeit with interesting implications.
I have no idea what's going to happen this season, and don't claim to. What I do know is the NFCS was the worst division the NFL last season with a 27-41 record. But you're on record discounting the win/loss records of the 2023 season, so I'm not sure why wins/losses will magically matter in the future.
Scratch that, I'm fully cognizant of why you don't want to acknowledge the 2023 records and are hoping the 2024 records will be different. The goalpost shift didn't go unnoticed.
odd that, since that seems to be the basis for your argument that the entire NFCE is a stronger division than the entire NFCS.
Your reluctance in answering is because right now, sure looks like the Bucs, Saints, and Falcons are ahead of Commanders & Giants, and have built up their teams to be as competitive as the Eagles and Cowboys.
Thats my point. Right now, NFCS is not weaker than the NFCE. The season will have some turns, but the moves the Bucs made leveled up from last year. That’s all we can ask and that’s all we’re dreaming about. We can all read past season’s stats lines, but what we could do, we have done, and we’re stronger for it.
Thats my point. Right now, NFCS is not weaker than the NFCE.
That's your new point, after moving the goalposts on your last point:
Bucs, Saints, Falcons were/are all better than Eagles, Giants, Commanders.
Towards the end of the year, Bucs, and Saints were better than the Eagles, and probably as strong as the Cowboys
Sorry, the NFCE is not better than the NFCS. It wasn’t last season, and it will not be better this season.
NFCE: 33-35
NFCS: 27-41
You can offer all of the opinions you want about what will or won't happen in the future. I'll deal with the facts at hand, which are:
2023 - NFCE: 33-35 or .485 winning percentage > NFCS: 27-41 or .397 winning percentage
Hell, it won't matter if the East performs better than South for a third year in a row in 2024. You will continue to argue that the sky is in fact brown. Why is it so difficult to admit reality?
At least have the courage of your convictions!
:-)
Why is it so difficult to admit reality?
Biggs, did you want to start Trask IN OCTOBER of 2023?
This post - punctuated with my own brilliant ruminations - only illustrates the consistency of my point, not the lack of it.Thats my point. Right now, NFCS is not weaker than the NFCE.
That's your new point, after moving the goalposts on your last point:
Bucs, Saints, Falcons were/are all better than Eagles, Giants, Commanders.
Towards the end of the year, Bucs, and Saints were better than the Eagles, and probably as strong as the Cowboys
Sorry, the NFCE is not better than the NFCS. It wasn’t last season, and it will not be better this season.
NFCE: 33-35
NFCS: 27-41
You can offer all of the opinions you want about what will or won't happen in the future. I'll deal with the facts at hand, which are:
2023 - NFCE: 33-35 or .485 winning percentage > NFCS: 27-41 or .397 winning percentage
Hell, it won't matter if the East performs better than South for a third year in a row in 2024. You will continue to argue that the sky is in fact brown. Why is it so difficult to admit reality?
From the end of last season, through now, the Bucs, as well as the Saints and Falcons, were/are not weaker than the NFCE. Now, the NFCS is as competitive as the NFCE. Hence, my statement that any that think the NFCS south is weaker than the NFCE, are delusional.
So, based on your own data, which NFCE teams would beat the Bucs, Saints, or Falcons this season?
This post - punctuated with my own brilliant ruminations - only illustrates the consistency of my point, not the lack of it.
Yeah. Nothing screams consistency quite like continuously moving the goalposts of your own asinine argument.
But, then again, your consistency also brought us that famous FA gem where you claimed "Cousins had multiple ACL tears...oh wait...just one ACL tear...err...I meant multiple Achilles tears...no, what I meant was one Achilles tear...I think".
From the end of last season, through now...
...the NFCE had 2 playoff teams and a higher win percentage. The NFCS had one playoff team and a lower win percentage.
Proceed to dance...
From the end of last season, through now, the Bucs, as well as the Saints and Falcons, were/are not weaker than the NFCE
Always hard to predict the future in the NFL, but this is a fair point BECAUSE the Bucs went further than those higher winning percentage NFCE teams and so the point is that the Bucs finished their season ASCENDING. The two best NFCE teams spent their offseason wondering what went wrong. The Bucs spent their offseason trying to BUILD on (unexpected) success.
The Falcons were already a good team too and got better, so just comparing the trajectory of those two NFCS team to the good NFCE teams from 2023. and, as you say, thats not even accounting for the Saints (whose 'winning percentage" was, I think, roughly the same as the team that DESTROYED the Cowboys in the playoff game)
Again, who knows, but definitely NOT an unreasonable position.
For the Bucs, so much comes down to Mayfield and whether we actually caught him in a new stage of his career or whether he struggles now that there is more film and now (the bigger one to me) that he has way more power and control over the offense.
I am excited to see it play out!
Rich Eisen sort of making the same point AND actually identifying the two camps of Bucs fans:
"I think the best case scenario for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this year is winning the Super Bowl,” Eisen lectured on The Rich Eisen Show on SiriusXM. “I think this team that had a possession to make it a really tight game for the Detroit Lions in the division round last year — you could sit here and say that they were on fumes, that they were basically running at maximum power — but they have a team that is being brought back, the chemistry is there.”
Most of the very vocal Mayfield critics from last year sort of describe the playoff run as the Bucs getting lucky (eg Eagles in collapse ) so "basically running at maximum power," as Eisen suggests above.
Some see it as an ascending team.
I think it is an ascending team BUT it could easily go wrong because the team's fortunes in 2024 are so heavily tied to Mayfield.
The Bucs spent their offseason trying to BUILD on (unexpected) success.
As did EVERY team in both divisions.
I'm just not sure how anyone can actually say that a division who produced 2 double-digit win teams, 2 playoff berths, and an overall superior win percentage is somehow weaker than the division that had the statistically worst win percentage in the entire NFL, simply because one team lasted an extra week.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
Imo the preseason predictions are just those.. predictions. Most time people get it wrong because it's hard to know which teams are going to be good or not. Not to mention all that goes into it and what can change from injuries and really so many other things that people as a public are just not aware of. I think we will always see predictions where the "cream of the crop" as far as bottom dollar goes be the ones they're mostly predicting to do well and teams they want to see do well. I'm curious how many times they have a team from the nfc east winning the super bowl in comparison to the nfc south all these off-seasons. It's just not a secret who they want and prefer to win these. Click bait stuff is what I call it now days. Bottom line..
Reality is they're all so close now days with the cap. It's just not easy to put so many teams in front of others in the offseason. So many things go wrong and need to go right.
Rich Eisen sort of making the same point AND actually identifying the two camps of Bucs fans:
"I think the best case scenario for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this year is winning the Super Bowl,” Eisen lectured on The Rich Eisen Show on SiriusXM. “I think this team that had a possession to make it a really tight game for the Detroit Lions in the division round last year — you could sit here and say that they were on fumes, that they were basically running at maximum power — but they have a team that is being brought back, the chemistry is there.”
Most of the very vocal Mayfield critics from last year sort of describe the playoff run as the Bucs getting lucky (eg Eagles in collapse ) so "basically running at maximum power," as Eisen suggests above.
Some see it as an ascending team.
I think it is an ascending team BUT it could easily go wrong because the team's fortunes in 2024 are so heavily tied to Mayfield.
just a lot of questions with this team
I mean it still doesn't sit right with me with that 1-6 mid season slide last year.
also, let's call the coaching staff what it is...Todd Bowles is mid at best, most likely in the bottom tier of coaches. I mean, even though we were out of it, he didnt call a time out in Detroit game, doesn't appear to know when to challenge, and really would suggest we won in spite of him last year in our 5-1 run. The defense certainly had their moments, but they also had their moments in the Detroit 4th quarter collapse
who knows when it comes to our new OC. hopefully can be half decent but jury is out
Our biggest weakness on defense is pressuring the QB. Shaq was washed and Braswell is a platoon player. Can't really say on paper, i'm too optimistic that we fixed this issue.
our cornerbacks depth concerns me. Dean is good to miss 4 games a year. How do those games look defensively?
Baker! i'm one of the biggest Baker bros on this board but the guy has had a roller coaster of a career so far. Last year was up, is this year down?
ultimately, i think we will finish anywhere from 6 to 10 wins. That appears to be who we are the last 2 years and quite frankly roster talent wise, that's who we are...middle of the pack. I have us at 10-7 winning the division as my homer pick. can we win a playoff game? Sure....but if i was a betting man, i dont see us getting further than last year as we sit today.
while we added some pieces, as every team does in the NFL draft, i dont think we improved the roster to warrant Superbowl expectations.
The Bucs spent their offseason trying to BUILD on (unexpected) success.
As did EVERY team in both divisions.
I'm just not sure how anyone can actually say that a division who produced 2 double-digit win teams, 2 playoff berths, and an overall superior win percentage is somehow weaker than the division that had the statistically worst win percentage in the entire NFL, simply because one team lasted an extra week.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
Well, I am not saying what you just posted, lol. I was just comparing the trajectory of the teams NOW, meaning going forward.
Yes, every team spent their offseason trying to build. For the Bucs almost all of that offseason is POSITIVE. Bringing back the band, etc. But for the Cowboys and Eagles it has been negative, trying to figure out what when wrong and CHANGE it. Second guessing, recriminations, pressure etc.
The Eagles are too obvious an example to spend any time on, but this is one take on the Cowboys and it begins (again) with Aikman asked (again) about Prescott:
One month ago, when Troy Aikman met with the media at the Children’s Cancer Fund Gala, the three-time Super Bowl champion was asked about Dak Prescott’s inability to produce wins in the playoffs. Aikman began to answer that question. But his response quickly veered off in another direction, extending beyond the quarterback and looping in the entire team.
“This last year is going to be a year that the organization and the players, everybody involved, looks back on and feels that they really missed an opportunity,” Aikman said. “I think there have been some of those in the last 20 years when they’ve been the No. 1 seed, but the way the year ended for them, to be the No. 2 seed, I really thought that they would be in the NFC Championship Game.”
“That was a missed opportunity, and you just don’t know how many more of those you’re going to get,” Aikman continued. “The criticisms are real. They’re going to continue to get louder each year that they come up short just because of the amount of time since they last were able to get to a championship game.
THE ARTICLE GOES ON TO SUGGEST THE COWBOYS HAVE GONE BACKWARDS
I dont know about that lol and both the Cowboy and the Eagles are really good teams, but . . .
i dont think we improved the roster to warrant Superbowl expectations
agreed and even Eisen does not say that he just says a SB is their ceiling
You raise a really interesting point when you say this:
that 1-6 mid season slide last year.
Interesting to me because the 2023 team was sort of two teams. You fan FAIRLY see them as the 9-8 team lucky to get in the playoffs OR you can FAIRLY see them as a team that hit its stride in the second half of the season and for the most part really started playing good football. Even more interesting when you think that BETTER PLAY BY THE DEFENSE and they may beat the Lions.
So, which story is closest to reality? Very hard to say and even more difficult because so much of the answer to that question depends on Mayfield. He was TREMENDOUS in some of those late games**, but then also not so good in some, but then injured some too.
looking forward to 2024
(**I am just glad we got to see his late season play. I mean, everyone knows Trask was the real starter!!! )
i dont think we improved the roster to warrant Superbowl expectations
agreed and even Eisen does not say that he just says a SB is their ceiling
You raise a really interesting point when you say this:
that 1-6 mid season slide last year.
Interesting to me because the 2023 team was sort of two teams. You fan FAIRLY see them as the 9-8 team lucky to get in the playoffs OR you can FAIRLY see them as a team that hit its stride in the second half of the season and for the most part really started playing good football. Even more interesting when you think that BETTER PLAY BY THE DEFENSE and they may beat the Lions.
So, which story is closest to reality? Very hard to say and even more difficult because so much of the answer to that question depends on Mayfield. He was TREMENDOUS in some of those late games**, but then also not so good in some, but then injured some too.
looking forward to 2024
(**I am just glad we got to see his late season play. I mean, everyone knows Trask was the real starter!!! )
oh yes, i'm certainly going into it with we are closer to the 5-1 team.
that being said, the schedule is absolutely brutal this year
home games against super bowl contenders in Baltimore and San Francisco and road game against the KC Chiefs. These, no matter if we are playing at a high level are 90% chance of losses before the field is even taken.
Division wise, the best you can expect is 4-2. Even in 2020 and 2021 when we were at our heights, that's the best we did.
So we are sitting at 4 wins, 5 losses and that doesn't include these tough games where we will NOT be favored: @Detroit, VS PHI, @LA Chargers, @Dallas
thinking the best we can do there is a split and there you go 7 losses and that assumes we don't get tripped up on a game we should win: Vs Commanders, vs Denver, @Giants, vs Raiders.
if this team does better than 10 wins, then i'm with you and who knows what we are capable of. The only team in the NFC that is head and shoulders more talented than us is the San Francisco 49ers. The Eagles and Cowboys have better rosters but we are the Eagles kryptonite and Dallas cant win in the playoffs. other teams to consider are Detroit, Green Bay, LA Rams, and the Falcons.
