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NFL Discussion (Official Thread)

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Just one of the amazing changes to the game of football, who would have guessed that a small guy coming in at an angle and hitting the ball with his instep could kick the ball farther and with more accuracy than a big guy kicking the ball toe first and straight on?

'NFL 100 Greatest' Game Changers: Pete Gogolak
Got to the 4:07 mark...


https://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-100-greatest-game-changers-pete-gogolak

Pete Gogolak, who played for the Bills and Giants in the 1960s and 70s, was the NFL’s first soccer-style kicker. Due to his success, all other kickers eventually adopted his then-unorthodox method, which entailed approaching the ball from an angle rather than straight-on and using the foot’s instep instead of the toes. Born in Budapest in 1942, Gogolak emigrated to the U.S. with his family after the Hungarian Revolution, and started playing football because his high school in upstate New York did not have a soccer team. After playing at Cornell, he was picked by the Bills in the 1964 AFL Draft. In his second year with Buffalo, Gogolak led the AFL with 28 field goals, nailed all 31 of his extra point tries, and made the Pro Bowl. Because the soccer style of kicking improved distance, accuracy, and fluidity of motion, it caught on. Before Gogolak, field goal kickers had mostly been burly men who played other positions; soon, a new generation of kickers, many of whom were skinny, quirky and European, began appearing in football. In the early 1970s, this shift also caused a spike in field goals that led the NFL to move the goal posts from the goal line to the end line in 1974.
 
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OregonBuckeye said:
The NFC East should be banned from postseason play
Click to expand...

Aside from the 1982 strike-shortened season, which had two 4-5 teams in the postseason, there have been 12 teams with 8-8 records or worse go to the playoffs in the league’s history. Some of them actually ended up winning in the postseason!

2010 Seattle Seahawks, 7-9
Seattle made the postseason with a 7-9 (!) record during the regular season, finishing first in a down NFC West. Aside from the 1982 season that was shortened due to the players’ strike, this was the first time a team with a losing record made the playoffs. Five Thirty Eight was bold enough to call the 2010 Seahawks the worst playoff team ever:

The Seahawks are not any garden-variety 7-9 team: they are an incredibly bad 7-9 team.

First, consider the Seahawks’ point differential. They allowed 407 points during the regular season while scoring just 310, meaning that they were outscored by roughly a touchdown per game on average. Although it is quite common for NFL teams to reach the playoffs with a negative point differential, none has had one as poor as the Seahawks’ minus-97.

What they did in the playoffs: It was head coach Pete Carroll’s first season in Seattle, and even with the low expectations, he led his team to a 41-36 win over the Saints in the Wild Card Round. Seattle lost 35-24 to the Bears in the next round, but kudos to this bad Seahawks team for at least nabbing one postseason win.

Entire article: https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2019/12/19/21024347/nfl-worst-playoff-teams-history-losing-records

One of these 4 teams will likely surpass Petey's 2010 Seahawk team "as having the worst ever record for a NFL team that made the playoffs":

Philadelphia: 3-5-1
New York: 3-7-0
Washington: 2-7-0
Dallas: 2-7-0
 
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