Tag Archives: football

2025 NFL Week 16 Packers at Bears Preview

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At the beginning of the season The Chancellor had the Packers winning the NFC North and meeting Philadelphia in the NFC Championship Game. The Bears were to finish a few games back and win a wild card berth. Well here we are with those 2 teams primed with the divisions best records in a mondo game in Soldier Field on a Saturday Night.

Byard has been an All Pro level force with 74 tackles and 6 picks in ’25.

The Bears are 7-1 in their last 8 games which includes a 28-21 loss to Green Bay 2 weeks ago. In 3 of those games they held their opponents to 20 points or less. They’re ranked 23rd defensively however they have only allowed 291.5 yards per game in their last 5. That is the same rate as Green Bay’s 5th ranked defense with 294.5 yards per game for the season with one caveat…. the Packers just lost All Pro Micah Parsons who took 12.5 sacks and 25 quarterback hits with him.

The loss of Parsons impacts this game tremendously and he won’t be there to harrass QB Caleb Williams who has a chance to completely come of age in this game. This is the biggest game of his career and a stepping stone to fulfilling his overal #1 status. In last week’s game on the road they allowed Bo Nix a career best 4TD passes.

Caleb (266 of 459 for 3,150 yds 21TDs with 6 ints) has been coming on and showing promise. Even in the game 2 weeks ago he brought his team back from a 14-3 deficit to a 21-21 tie late in Lambeau Field. He is growing as a QB where Jordan Love has left us frustrated. Just when he seems ready to take that leap he plays lackluster in an inexplicable loss (13-10 to Eagles) and a16-13 loss to the Carolina Panthers.

This team should be wrapping up homefield througout the NFC playoffs and find themselves embroiled in a fight with a Bears team all accounts thought of as less of a ball club when the season began.

Love’s stats are similar to Caleb’s (283 of 426 3,304 yds 23TDs and 6 picks) but he was where Williams was as 2023 was concluding. He hasn’t taken that killer leap we have been waiting for since and just showed flashes. Williams flashes are a sign he is “getting it” and just became the NFL’s best ever QB when it comes to turnovers within their 1st 1,000 passes thrown. Ironically the last pass he threw when these two teams were playing was his underthrown interception to kill the Bears chances 28-21.

Well we know Williams has been haunted with that last pass he had intercepted at Lambeau but today he will lean on the running attack averaging 160 on the ground in their last 5 games. Their high water mark was a 281 yard performance in their 24-15 upset of the World Champion Eagles on the road just 2 weeks ago. Now they’re at home…. *sucks teeth*

Head Coach Ben Johnson has his Windy City version of Gibbs & Montgomery in D’Andre Switf (935 yds / 7TDs) & Kyle Monangai (681 yds /5TDs) and the only way the Packers win this is Josh Jacobs (890 yds /13TDs) coming out first and dominating Chicago early forcing the game into Williams hands solely.

That just seems unlikely and in this game with Micah Parsons at home watching, the Bears will win this 30-24. The team that dominates the clock will win and Chicago’s 2 headed monster will be able to go with the hot hand if one back shows more spark. The Chicago franchise is looking to establish a new era that Jordan Love and the Packers should have established last year but played around and didn’t.

Caleb will reverse the curse that has sat over this franchise since losing the 2010 NFC Championship Game to Green Bay.

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Dak Prescott 2023 Preview- Next Year’s Champion *Reissue*

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Now that the dust has settled on the draft and free agent moves, there are a few things to address as we hurtle toward the 2023 NFL season. During my hiatus, a lot was brought to bear on the future of Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys. Mainly how former Offensive Coordinator Kellen Moore was scapegoated for all shortcomings his former quarterback had. To many observers Cowboy fans never want to admit the flameouts we have chronicled here at Taylor Blitz for years now.
All of a sudden, Head Coach McCarthy will take over play calling duties when he hasn’t performed that duty in 5 years. This was back when he was let go in Green Bay for running too predictable an offense. Remember?? But before we go there…
  • Last year the Cowboys were chastised for not replacing Amari Cooper after being dealt to Cleveland. Giving Dak a built in excuse.
  • Kellen Moore, who has a bright football mind and led the Cowboys to #1 offensive rankings, became the reason they didnt succeed in postseason.
  • In 2020, Dallas had the worst defense in football. It wasn’t Dak’s fault. The team couldnt stop anyone.
  • Before that it was Offensive Coordinator Scott Linehan’s fault. Then Head Coach Jason Garrett’s fault.

Now after losing two offensive coordinators and a head coach, Cowboys brass and coverage would have you believe this is “Next Year’s Champion” and Dak Prescott will show us once and for all. Seriously? We chronicled this in 2021 and in subsequent articles on “The Beta Quarterback” where we outlined Prescott’s damaged ‘fight or flight’ mechanism that causes him to short circuit in crucial minutes of important ball games.

One is to dissect the decisions made by #4 that caused Moore’s dismissal. Prescott was outplayed by a 3rd round “Mr Irrelevant” quarterback in Brock Purdy in the NFC Divisional out in San Francisco. The loss in The Chancellor of Football’s estimation fell square on the fight or flight psychosis of a jittery quarterback that isn’t it.

This crucial mistake late in the 3rd quarter illustrates the “real” problem for the Dallas quarterback:
OK Cowboy fans… The Kellen Moore v Dak Prescott problem… If an offensive coordinator draws a play up and it wins and you misread your keys, its Dak’s fault. Take a look at this play in the 3rd qtr of their playoff loss
I placed the blue dot on MLB Fred Warner as the 49ers bluffed a blitz and running a Tampa 2. (1st pic) He has to cover the deep middle and has to cover the 3 side receiver most inside threat.
In the 2nd pic Warner turns and runs with the inside receiver on the 3 receiver side. Moore drew up and called this play anticipating this defense at this spot on the field. Warner still has the blue dot.
The 3rd pic is when Dak should be releasing the ball. Warner (blue dot) is in the hip of the inside receiver on the 3 receiver side. TY Hilton (green bar) is streaking WIDE THE F OPEN on the opposing 30 and the 2 safeties with blue dots cant get there from their 2 deep landmarks. Warner isnt even facing TY Hilton to help if he wanted to.
Dak could hit him with a line drive pass and Dallas would have had a 1st down inside the 15 possibly 10. If Dak throws it and leads him Dallas has a TD and a late 3rd quarter lead and complete momentum.
Kellen Moore had the play call, play design, spot on the field, anticpated defense and Dak misread the most BASIC pass defense in football “Cover 2”. He throws it to the receiver with Warner all over him and the play is broken up and you punt… never to threaten again.
Yet blame Moore who was 4 for 4 on this play and Dak threw it to the 3 receiver side when the Tampa 2 principle is to have the Middle Linebacker crowd the inside receiver threatening the deep middle. Stop it… Dak sympathizers have more excuses than defending an accidental pregnancy.
This is 7 years in!! Losing to a 3rd string rookie QB where if everyone was healthy he’d be watching in street clothes? Teams can only dress 2 QBs.
Film study? Practice? Did they talk about this play? Keys to the play’s success?
You know they did…
At what point will Dak Prescott be held accountable for these issues as the Cowboys come up short against elite teams?? Especially when it keeps happening in the playoffs at the end of games the Cowboys should have won. Yet here we are again where Cowboys brass and day to day coverage has this team anointed “Next Year’s Champion’s” and will be led by their supposedly great quarterback who struggles to get the job done in money situations.
Now McCarthy who was fired at the end of his tenure in Green Bay for predictable offense is going to get it done. Well?? OK… at Taylor Blitz it’s always follow the psyche of the player in the arena. Its the greatest predictor to future events. The jury is in on Dak Prescott with The Chancellor of Football but you’re free to believe what you want to believe. Only this time…come back in January and let me know I was right.
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Shedeur Sanders Survived A Railroading

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Taylor Blitz Times is sharing this to remind you what happened and dodge ignorant rhetoric being thrown around.

Sheduer Sanders was the Big XII OPoY & Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award as the best collegiate quarterback. He should never have fallen to the 5th round or be forced into the make it or break it fiasco he faced sitting behind mediocre Dillon Gabriel.

Gabriel is 34th (dead last) in yds per attempt in the NFL with 5.1… Sanders is 10th at 7.46 and didnt practice with the 1st team offense for the 20 weeks Gabriel was able to. Sanders survived a railroading.

Go show them what you’re made of these next 4 weeks.

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No Analytics For Lost Momentum

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We saw it again tonight where the Falcons were down 28-14 and closed in to score in the 4th quarter to narrow it to 28-20. Supposedly analytics says to go for 2 instead of kicking the extra point to be down 7 points. Atlanta failed on their attempt and were now down by 8 points which forced them to go for 2 after another touchdown.

Now they’re scrambling to come from behind 28-26 when they could have been tied at 28 and have overtime in their back pocket. Had they not kicked the final field goal to win 29-28 the obstacle they created for themselves going for 2 and chasing ghosts could have cost them the game.

No one ever talks about how going for 2 and failing dissipates a teams momentum. We saw this happen the week before with the Cleveland Browns and going with analytics cost them the game with Tennessee and prompted this commentary from The Arena with Aquib Talib, Richie Incognito and Skip Bayless

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1527107651861249

In my last article we challenged the uselessness of QBR as its the first phoney accounting way to rate quarterbacks and analytics is undermining NFL Coaches. These decisions are critical and you’re putting the fortunes of your team in some geek mathematical equation that doesn’t take in effect the momentum of your team, emotional high or letdown of your players at a critical point of the game, when common coaching sense over the last 106 years haven’t provided axioms.

Far too often these coaches are leaning on the new analytics and when it fails those that came up with these mathematical equations won’t be with you at the podium postgame. The math geeks won’t be accountable nor will they come back and express how they’re equation was off.

Stop listening to these clowns and call a football game based on your team and what keeps your team in the game emotionally as important as you need to from a tactics standpoint.

Analytics has always been garbage and coaches should be done listening to math geek wannabe coaches. Take back your game coaches and stay in tune with your players.

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Ole Man River… Sigh Phillip Rivers That Is

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Phillip Rivers coming back at 44 out of retirement to play for the Indianpolis Colts is a crazy prospect. So many would like to romanticize this signing where the ole’ gunslinger shows he can still do it when reality often shows us something drastically different.
Remember Kurt Warner being knocked out by Bobby McCray in his final game in the 09 playoffs? Kurt didn’t know it was his final game until his wife intervened and said that’s it. You can’t have your family go through this anymore. If you can recall, Warner was on the ground for several minutes after he tried to track Will Smith after an interception.
Remember Joe Montana laying knocked out in Rich Stadium in the 93 AFC Championship Game? Joe was caught in a vice after being hit by Bruce Smith, Jeff Wright, and Phil Hansen. Yes all 3 Bills defensive linemen on the field converged and hit him simultaneously and his helmet hit the turf and the lights went out. He never returned to the game.

What about when Roger Staubach got knocked out at 3Rivers Stadium in 1979 after taking a solid shot from the late LC Greenwood?
Staubach had one of the 5 concussions he suffered in the NFL and retired a few months later. One interesting aspect was how he looked in the famous come from behind 35-34 win over the Redskins in the finale but seemed out of sorts when they lost to the LA Rams…yet I digress but remember these men were 38, 38, and 37 at the time.
Why aren’t the Colts going after younger players who just retired in Nick Foles, Derrick Carr, Taylor Heinecke, or Sam Howell? These men are much younger and knowing Coach Steichen’s playbook isn’t the high point of competence. Surviving to finish multiple NFL games and make a playoff run seems more important.
It all sounds fantastic and romantic until a 24 year old edge rusher with 4% body fat clears the Left Tackle’s outside arm getting to full speed on an NFL football field. The closer we get to the playoffs where each game means more, the speed, intensity, and hitting ratchet up on a football field.
Yes QBs are supposed to get hit! Yes you should be able to land on them!
This isnt tennis and a 44 year old QB on a football field isnt going to end well.
I hope in Phillip Rivers sake he isn’t seriously injured and here where Coach Steichen needs to take his lumps not developing 1st round pick Anthony Richardson to be the insurance to be cashed in at this point. Well  I know he is on IR for another week or so but they signed Rivers to take them through the playoffs, not the next regular season game.
Phillip Rivers… your mission and you chose to accept it is…. Sigh
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The Lie Behind Quarterback Passer Rating & Several Useless Statistics

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The NFL’s quarterback rating system has been in place since 1973 but wasn’t a mainstay when it comes to statistics until the mid 1980s. Think about it, for the championship games and seasons of the 1960s and 70s you can’t think of the quarterback passer rating of any qb of the past. Yet you can rememeber the NFL record for TD passes with 36 (YA Tittle, George Blanda 1963) or the first 4,000 yard passer in Joe Namath in the AFL in 1968. Yet none of us old heads could tell you what Johnny Unitas Quarterback Rating was in any of his record breaking MVP seasons because it wasn’t around.

In reality new statistical data is created to prop up a player whose performance doesn’t match an evaluator’s appreciation. You should never have to invent a statistic to improve the view of a player you support but people do it all the time. Now with NextGenStats or PFF…sigh just stop it.

Lets face it these ratings are just another way for people to sound smart who can’t play football and show they have expertise. How many times have you asked yourself “Why is a perfect Quarterback Rating game 158.3?” What even makes up the current rating and how can you equate it to winning? The bottom line is you can’t. It’s as scientifically useless as analytics has been to NFL Head Coaches in recent years.

Sometime around Super Bowl XXVII I came across a statistic that ran true for every champion. Each had a quarterback who averaged 7-9 yards per pass attempt and from that moment on this became a go to measure that usually told you the fortunes of the football team as well. Take a look right now for the 2025 season:

All of these teams are in the playoff hunt. Mac Jones started 8 games for the 9-4 San Francisco 49ers and was 5-3 in those contests with several pundits saying he ran the 49ers offense better than incumbent Brock Purdy. You see last year’s MVP Josh Allen along with Drake Maye, Matthew Stafford, and Dak Prescott who have been discussed as this year’s frontrunners.

So let’s take a look at the bottom of this exact same list for 2025 for the worst rated quarterbacks (for record here is the complete list):

Now you might need a drink as everything you knew is about to be blown away. Dillon Gabriel is ranked 34th with 5.1 yards I gave you the link to see the entire list. Five of these quarterbacks have been benched with a 41 year old Joe Flacco being traded. Only Bo Nix and Baker Mayfield in a bad division are the only 2 in playoff contention. They’re tied for the NFC South lead with a 7-6 record and if they lose the division won’t make a wildcard.

Yet this doesn’t hold true when you plug in the NFL’s quarterbacks by because a benched Spencer Rattler who went 1-7 (78.9 passer rating) is just below Bo Nix (86.1 passer rating) & Trevor Lawrence  (90.1 passer rating) and only Lawrence (20th) made the NFL’s top 25. Where can you equate team success when Denver looks like they will have homefield advantage??

However statistics like this can be completely manipulated by scared quarterbacks who complete 4 yard passes on 3rd and 6. His team is punting but his QBR and completion percentage will go up. The Chancellor of Football has been arguing againt this with fans and lets show it to you.

Did you know if an NFL QB went 8 of 9 for 27 yards and 1 TD you’d have a 116.2 passer rating? Consequently if that same QB went 16 of 25 for 229 yards and an interception his rating would be 76.2. Yet this would be 7.75 yards per attempt and face it the additional 8 completions and 202 yards would gain how many 1st downs and put his team in scoring position how many more times?

So for my man Quincy Carter, my friends at Pro Football Reference has the NFL passer rating calculator for you to plug in numbers at your leisure. When you want to look at the quarterback and always go with their yards per attempt, yardage and touchdowns to interceptions. Toss the NFL passer rating away as its a useless stat to easily manipulated. Same with this current QBR that has been pushed lately.  The same with completion percentage as a quarterback can throw 10 bubble screens in a game and bloat their stats as well. Its all about yardage as this is the unit used to measure the NFL’s best defense, best offense, rushing champions, etc…

Keep all of this in mind when you hear the talking heads who just cite statistics without context to showcase they understand pro football.

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For the record… the great Chris Berman is NOT a talking head, he is the Walter Cronkite of football coverage and glad he and Booger McFarland are doing NFL Primetime on ESPN+.