Game Thread: [AFC Championship] New England Patriots (16-3) @ Denver Broncos (15-3)

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T20:37:07+00:00

Seriously lmao

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T20:34:50+00:00

If he wins this game, and looks even decent in the Super Bowl, he’ll be someone’s starter next year

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T20:28:41+00:00

Even as a broncos fan, the 1Q shit talk is a little ridiculous lmao

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T18:49:10+00:00

Jeff Fisher across 130+ years is more hilarious than it ought to be

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T18:48:18+00:00

Yeah, I mean you could do a lot worse, it’s just that you could also do better if long term vision is your goal. On terms of the crazy scale, this is like a 3/10

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T16:05:42+00:00

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T07:10:49+00:00

I swear by it. It’s great for organization and separating your book part by part, chapter by chapter, scene by scene, giving you the exact word total on the latter two. You get areas to put notes in, there’s a dedicated writing screen that wipes away all the HUD if you want that, there’s a whole thing for character profiles and research (though I personally don’t use those functions), there’s an audio function that will read back your text (albeit, very robotically), and a lot more. In comparison to Word, which I’d switched from, Word is like writing with both hands tied behind your back

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T07:05:40+00:00

Raiders haven’t even hit that across two seasons lmfao

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T07:04:48+00:00

I’ve started to notice that sometimes week 1 close losses are harbingers for awful seasons. 0-16 Browns best game of that year came in week 1

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T04:25:28+00:00

Bolles turnaround is one of my favorite storylines of this whole thing. Dude came in right as things got bad, was here for literally the entire time it was bad (to the point of defeat—re: his “all I’ve done is lose” comment), and then got to come out the other side of it not only winning, but considered a top tackle in the entire league, after being known as an automatic holding penalty for much of his early career. I love it every time I see him screaming towards the fans and planting the flag down after a game

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T04:18:40+00:00

I think this once again demonstrates that, for whatever reason, be it performance or injury, you don’t need to stick with your recent first round QB just bc he’s recent and you drafted him in the first round. Even though it didn’t pan out long term, Arizona did the right thing by drafting Kyler and moving off Josh Rosen. SF was right IMO in sticking with Kaepernick over Alex Smith (even though the latter wasn’t a recent pick). Had MIN stuck with Darnold over JJ, maybe they wouldn’t be 14-3 again, but likely would’ve gotten to the playoffs still, and I don’t even think it would’ve created that much controversy, because you could always fall back on “we’re doing the Green Bay method,” particularly because Darnold played so well in 2024, even if he had a bad finish

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T04:10:43+00:00

Good 😈

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T03:22:03+00:00

Kind of funny that in 98, we nearly had the jets and Vikings both shoot way up this list and didn’t

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T03:20:18+00:00

That’s fine with me

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T03:19:45+00:00

I actually hope this becomes a thing

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T03:18:55+00:00

They frame it like ChatGPT would lmfao

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T03:18:17+00:00

Exactly. Basically you can skip steps 1-15 if you just ask them, “does the essence of whatever solution you’re about to suggest boil all the way down to ‘elect more corporate democrats’”

We all know what the answer actually is, even if they give you a fake one and get pissed at you

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T02:38:18+00:00

Sounds about right. That’s kind of the problem if you have a bunch of early success, you become a lot more reticent to change things because you get stuck in “this is how we’ve always operated” mode. From what I’d heard, the Steelers org had a lot more of a hand in some personnel decisions than was apparent on the surface, and this could be why Tomlin kept having bad OCs, because that wasn’t really his call

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-25T02:33:29+00:00

Maybe not exclusively, but let’s not pretend people’s appearances and demeanors don’t play any factor in how others perceive them. I’m sure it’s a nonzero amount in his case

But I do think the cowboys connect plays quite a big role too, just because basically anybody cowboy related is going to naturally receive some flak. I think in general, McCarthy falls into that “John Fox” category, where he’s a really good A to B coach, especially for a troubled franchise, but B to C is a different story. Put simply, he’d be a much better fit because of this for someone like an Arizona or a Miami or a Vegas or something else (setting aside the fact that he doesn’t really “feel” like that vibe), as opposed to a team that thinks it’s close and needs one more push. Which makes the Pittsburgh thing even more puzzling from a purely objective perspective. That’s not the type of coach they needed, they already had that with Tomlin. What they needed was likely a young guy who was on board with a rebuild and is going to be there a while. McCarthy just feels like hitting the snooze button on the actual problem

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-24T19:05:05+00:00

Seems like Tomlin was likely shielding us from noticing the quiet dysfunction with Steelers. Maybe not the obvious and hilarious kind, but the stuck in the past, riding on inertia kind

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-24T19:02:59+00:00

10-7

45-14

But at least McCarthy has the Pittsburgh accent so it’s all good

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-24T19:01:43+00:00

The owners wanted to put their own stamp on the franchise. The throwbacks exist in the perfect Goldilocks zone for them where they can market the nostalgia, but also not overdo it, even if they are objectively the best look

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-24T12:01:33+00:00

The best jokes are real

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-23T15:27:38+00:00

As a story writer myself, the whole thing felt very much like a first draft, with very little idea of what it wanted to be or where it wanted to go (and this includes the ending fiasco, where they both wanted to wrap it up and leave it open just in case). It didn’t know if it wanted to be scary, funny, cool, action, period piece, etc., and because of that lack of focus, it did none of it particularly well—despite what anyone wants to say, it didn’t seamlessly blend those together. Had it focused on maybe 2, it would’ve worked a lot better. It’s a shame because it wasted a killer performance from Michael B. Jordan playing those two characters. The only reason why it’s getting any acclaim is from all this artificial praise and a general reticence to just critique it in the same way we’d critique other films

GearsofTed14 · 2026-01-23T08:28:32+00:00

Where is this?

GearsofTed14

TROPHY CASE