The NFL Thread (with added College Football)

[cdbearsfan]

It was agonisingly close...

[Richard]

Both teams have injury issues but still fancy the Bears to squeak through only to fall at the first hurdle in the play offs......glad the arrogant Lions cocked up after all their talk only a few weeks back   

[Meanwood Villa]

NFC East and North now have one game shoot outs for honour of losing a wild card. Can anyone tell me how Pittsburgh are still in the running for a spot? I know they can get 8-8 like several other teams but how are the tie-breakers in their favour?

[dubont]

Eddie Lacy went off with an Ankle injury in (I think) the 4th quarter. Starks is quite good but Lacy's had a great first year. So if there's no Rodgers and no Lacy it's far from a foregone conclusion.

I'm expecting the game to be picked up for TV coverage so that will be next Sunday night taken care of.

It has been.

[usav]

NFC East and North now have one game shoot outs for honour of losing a wild card. Can anyone tell me how Pittsburgh are still in the running for a spot? I know they can get 8-8 like several other teams but how are the tie-breakers in their favour?

Easy.   If the Steelers win, they will be 8-8.  They need Baltimore, Miami and San Diego all to lose.  If that happens, they will get in at 8-8, because:

 - Baltimore will be 8-8, but Pittsburgh will have a better division record.
 - Miami will be 8-8, but even though they beat Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago, that is not the tie-breaker.  The tie breaker would be the division record which would be worse than Pittsburgh's.
 - Chargers: same as above, but without the complication of having played the Steelers.

[Reuben]

Gutted the Cards could go 11 and 5 and probably still won't get in the playoffs

[ADVILLAFAN]

Well it's about as exciting as I can ever remember it being, at this time of the year.

Would rather the Bears hadn't chosen to make it exciting by being annihilated by the Eagles, but oh well.

Loads of teams can still make the playoffs. We can win our division, or finish third....

[ADVILLAFAN]

Portraits of NFL players from 1938

http://life.time.com/culture/tough-guys-faces-of-the-nfl-1938/#1

All Skins players, was hoping to see Bronko Nogorski :-) 

[dubont]

Rodgers is back for the Packers on Sunday.

[taylorsworkrate]

Rodgers is back for the Packers on Sunday.

Well that's cheered me up anyhow. Should be a belter of a game now.

[ADVILLAFAN]

Looks like Clay Matthews is out and Eddie Lacy hasn't practiced this week either.

Still, with Rodgers back and 2 terrible Defences, this should be a basketball type score.

[OCD]

It looked like Clay did his thumb again so if he does play, it will probably be with that club he's worn for protection. Good to have Aaron back, now we'll have to see how rusty he is. Got to be better than Flynn though. Flynn regularly gave away interceptions and sackings so we should be a little bit better defensively and a lot better offensively.

[taylorsworkrate]

I think McCarthy expects Lacy to play.

There will be an element of rust with Rodgers, but to me it looks like he's been kept back from returning as long as possible. By all accounts he was throwing without pain weeks ago.

Even with the injuries, he has some serious weapons on the offensive side, and with Chicago's porous defence he should be able to exploit them. The problem is Chicago have a real chance of putting up big no's on our defence. I'll predict a 38-27 packers win.

[OCD]

Should be entertaining for neutrals if that comes to fruition.

[taylorsworkrate]

I think this has been an outstanding game so far, even if it has taken on a different complexion to expected.

I think GB have moved the ball very impressively at times, but the 2 INT's have obviously been crushing. To still be in the lead approaching HT despite them is pretty remarkable.

Oh and Boykin's TD was one of the funniest scoring plays I've seen in sport.