JJ And Nuk Celebrate Their Freedom
Of course he picked a team the same day I posted about him not yet picking a team. Stupid JJ. Anyway he’s a Cardinal now.
Besides being the obvious place an old white Midwesterner would go to retire, the Cardinals were certainly an interesting choice. Since the Cardinals gave him a pretty nice contract and they aren’t exactly a current contender, the backlash was pretty much immediate. Greedy JJ, they called him. Probably. I tried not to wade into the discourse of bitter fans from other franchises too much because it’s always the same garbage.
I do think the Cardinals were getting unfairly maligned overall during the proceedings. No, they didn’t reach the playoffs after a pretty bad second half meltdown last season, but they were on track before the ship hit the iceberg. JJ joins an already solid defensive line anchored by Chandler Jones. Kyler has yet another year under his belt and still looks promising. The Cardinals were a breakout team candidate last season and almost did it. I don’t think Arizona is as far away from contention as a lot of the naysayers seem to think. Even their own division, sturdy as it is, has some cracks.
The 49ers under Shanahan have been honestly pretty bad outside two years ago when people managed to stay healthy. We can’t assume that even if they do stay healthy, that they’ll be as dominate. They don’t seem to have much faith in Jimmy as rumors he was gone started as early as the SB loss. The 49ers probably still have the most potential to compete out of every team, but they’ve only lived up to billing once and have been wasting seasons on IR in the meantime.
The Rams should be better this year. Stafford is an upgrade over Goff (imo) and the team wasn’t at full power in the playoffs due to several injuries, namely to inhuman monster Aaron Donald. But the Rams have been playing chicken with the salary cap for a while now and have no first round picks. They also just lost their big defensive mind to San Diego. Staley had the Rams as the #1 defense last year. Even with a healthy Donald and Ramsey, I’d expect some sliding is in order. The Rams are currently in their window and it can shut at any moment.
The Seahawks are the team I most expect to stumble this year. Russ is apparently unhappy. Last year’s big attempt to make him MVP ended up blowing up in Seattle’s face as they stumbled to the finish line after an incredibly hot start. Sure, they won the division, and then immediately pounded by the Rams in the wildcard game. If Russ somehow does end up somewhere else, you can watch this team implode. With him, I’d expect more of the same problems they’ve been struggling with for most of Pete’s tenure. Conservative offensive play getting bailed out by Wilson’s heroics but coming back to bite them at the worst moments. The defense improved a little as the year went on but is still so far from the Legion of Boom that won them a super bowl. The Hawks have spent most of this decade very slowly backsliding out of relevance, and if they can’t fix it this year after they draft another 3rd round prospect in the first round, this might be it.
So the Cardinals aren’t as bad a choice as I think people want them to be just to rag on JJ. They have questions for sure. Kingsbury has not lived up to billing thus far. But if JJ still has a few good years left in him, there are worst teams to be on. They have a QB, they have talent on both sides, they just have to put it together a bit more, which is something a man like JJ can help facilitate.
He probably still should have picked Buffalo
DeShaun: the one QB that JJ doesn’t want to die.
Probably not Brees. So they can do charity work together.
“Quarterback’s getting smoked back there. I like Brees. I don’t like hitting him like that.”
It’s hard to think of a team with worse luck in which division they’ve been in than the Cardinals. Decades as the odd man out in the old five team NFC East, and now in the stacked four-team NFC West (though I agree they’re the only one that doesn’t look like their window’s about to shut after 2021).
Dominant
I hear a lot of people getting down on Kingsbury as a coach. I think he has done fantastic, all things considered. No one should have expected for him to come in and win Super Bowls. Most college coaches get snatched up by the pros for doing good. Kingsbury got hired by an NFL team after getting fired (because they sucked under him) by Texas Tech. Think about that and readjust expectations accordingly. So, far, Kingsbury is doing a lot better than I expected. And I think he will continue to get better as the talent level rises overall.
He just needs an OC to help manage.
So, we should cut some slack because he was a bad hire and is better than advertised?
His in-game coaching is terrible and his play calling is streaky.
Oh I’m not saying cut him some slack. I’m saying people never should have expected him to come in and win win win immediately. He has done better than he should have been expected to. This was a pretty bad team when he got there. With the right coaching staff around him, everything can work. Only a small few can succeed without having a good coaching staff.
“Lost them to San Diego”
we wish
“He probably still should have picked Buffalo.” This bitter fan from another franchise agrees. However with memories of Mario Williams still fresh in my mind, half of me is glad our GM’s frugality possibly sent him to Arizona. Same GM that scooped Josh Allen away from them, so we’re even now I guess. Nothing against Kyler.
your user name is a Culture Ship
Hey, you can’t blow your first-round pick on a third-rounder if you trade them all away before the draft even starts :taps_temple:
Watson will probably go to NYJ or MIA if I had to take a guess. Deshaun for Russ doesn’t sound too far-fetched anymore.
Please explain to me why people think the Panthers need a new QB. Teddy B is fine. The Panthers weren’t good as a whole, probably because CMC was out for the year.
14 Tds to 12 INTs is fine?
It’s his first year in a new system. No one has experience in the system, he has no TE whatsoever and he had to play the Bucs and the Saints twice.
It’s in-line with his career numbers. He is who he is at this point, a high-end backup but not someone who you want starting. He’s also 0-8 on potential game-winning drives.
i regretfully must agree with you. i was high on TB (no, the other one) for a long time, but TB is fine… he’s just fine. he could win a ring with a capital-G Great Defense and a few dominoes falling his way, but he aint the one making it happen.
Russell Wilson: I want respect! I WANT A TRADE! TRADE MEEEEEEEEEEE!
Deshaun: Nope im not talking to u texans
*russell and a first go for deshaun*
Russell Wilson: *despair*
Deshaun Watson: HAHAHAHAHAHA plus the seahawks think Im worth a FIRST more than him! HAHAHAHAHAHA
Russ has a no-trade clause too.
The only reason an old midwesterner finished out his days in Glendale is because there isn’t a team in Ft. Lauderdale.
A lot of people are trying to use this signing as proof that money talks when it comes to signing anyone, but I think you hit the nail on the head. The Cardinals aren’t a bad team, and already have many of the pieces in place to make a deep playoff run. Their issue is just putting it all together, and bringing in a veteran presence like JJ Watt should help with that greatly. It’s not a bad choice, all things considered.
That being said, yeah, Buffalo and even Green Bay were better options. Both teams are way closer to title contention (both lost to the golden boys of their conference in their respective Conf. Championship Games) and Buffalo (not so much Green Bay) has a pretty long window to compete. Pretty surprising that he went with Arizona over those two but hey, at least he’s not killing whoever the Patriots trot out at QB twice a year.
“Both teams are way closer to title contention.” Are they really? No disrespect to both teams but why does everyone act like they’re so close? NFL seasons are so chaotic that outside of that one team with Brady in it and those bottom-feeder teams (which Buffalo was until recently a part of) have basically the same shot at winning the Super Bowl. Also, GB is a complete unknown after this year when Rodgers leaves and we shall see how good Buffalo is able to remain once Allen is using up 20% of their salary cap, so the future after this season for all three teams are super-shaky
I’d say they’re both extremely close given their body of work over the last couple of seasons.
Green Bay, as fraudulent as they looked in 2019, went 13-3 and made NFC Championship game. They’ve been there the last two years and Rodgers seems to have found the fountain of youth that Tom Brady has been hoarding. I highly, highly doubt Rodgers actually leaves Green Bay this offseason. His statements about the future were just frustration in the moment after a tough loss. Green Bay is largely going to field the same squad next year (maybe now with an added boost at WR) so yeah, I think that gives them a really good chance at a title.
Buffalo, meanwhile, has improved every year since 2018. It’s not like they were a complete bottom feeder until this year, they went 11-5 in 2019, and were a horrific second half collapse plus some Deshaun Watson magic away from their first playoff win in 25 years. Now that they no longer have to deal with the boogeyman wearing #12 stealing the division from them every season, they can continue to get home playoff games rather than settling for the 5 seed at best. To be fair, Miami is way closer on their trail than people believe, but I still think Buffalo has the better overall squad and it will probably stay that way for at least another year.
I don’t know about the long term, but if we’re talking about a 1-3 year window, outside of Kansas City and Tampa Bay, Buffalo and Green Bay are probably the next closest teams there, and if JJ Watt is super serious about getting a ring before he retires, those were the teams he probably should have gone to. That being said, Arizona is not a bad choice. They can definitely find themselves in that position by next year or the season after, but it just comes down to putting everything together.
Green Bay has been “extremely close” for about a decade except for a couple of years when McCarthy stopped giving a crap and they still have as many Super Bowl appearances as the Jets, the Dolphins, and the Lions. And the Bills are on the up, but if Josh Allen is Matt Ryan instead of Russell Wilson, they’re going to nosedive once they give him his massive payday (incidentally the reason I think teams should stay away from Watson). Meanwhile, no one saw the Eagles winning one, or the Jags having the lead in the AFCCG, or the Rams making it to the Super Bowl, or the 49ers for that matter. The only team that has consistently made and won Super Bowls is the one quarterbacked by Tom Brady – seriously, this man has been to TEN Super Bowls, that’s practically one every other year of his career. And frankly, I don’t think players particularly care about whether they lose in the championship game, the divisional round, or even in the wild card. It’s at least Super Bowl appearance and for most, the win, and no team besides the Bucs really gives a better chance of that.
Also, it wasn’t just the money. The weather played a factor, too. JJ got spoiled by the weather in Houston, the recent snowpocalypse notwhithstanding.
no way TB wins back-to-back! no way!
right?
Damn you JJ… Why did you have to chase the money…
You could’ve been ours…
There’s others out there. Barrett, Lawson, Yannick . . .
Gimme Yannick plz…
Pretty plz
I was about to ask who Barrett was. Shame me
Myles Barrett, obviously.
/s
merrick garland, duh
I want Shaq or Yannick. I also want the OTHER Shaq, the one handed one
The Bills are probably further away from a deep run than the Cardinals at this point because of that horrifying division. The Dolphins are just going to keep getting better, and the Patriots managed to win 7 games with a collection of traffic cones at quarterback and several players opting out. Even the Jets are trending up.
That’s ironic. I’d say the NFC West is harder, with a healthy 49ers team, the Seahawks (which are sorta like the saints) and the Rams with a healthy defense and Stafford. In the AFC East, jets will still prob be bad, patriots may be ok but not that good, and with Miami vs Buffalo, I’m taking Buffalo.
I love how Kyler gets smaller with each iteration.
Is the Rescue plan still going ahead after this week?
“I feel terrible for poor Deshaun.”
That aged… well…