Talk:2014 NFL season

Title of Articles
The regular season started in 2014 and ended in 2015, yet the article is titled 2014 NFL Season. The playoff games were only played in 2015, yet the article is titled 2014-15 NFL Playoffs. The Titles should be changed to 2014-15 NFL Season, and 2015 NFL Playoffs, respectively. Or, in the alternative, the titles of both articles should be 2014-15. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.212.168.194 (talk) 16:34, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually the regular season ended December 28th so the entire regular season was in 2014 and while all the playoffs were in 2015, I believe changing the name to 2015 NFL Playoffs could add confusion for those who are not closely follow the NFL. It is best to keep the naming of such articles consistent with previous years unless there are drastic changes.  Dabullzrule (talk) 20:07, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This is the standard naming and dating convention used by both the NFL and most media that cover the league. The regular season usually begins in September and ends in the last weekend of December. It rarely ends on the first weekend of January (like this upcoming 2015 season will be). Even if that is the case, the league and the media will still refer it as the 2015 NFL season for consistency. Furthermore, it is only recently that most of the playoffs have been held from January to the first week of February. For more than half of the NFL's existence, the season and playoffs use to end before New Year's Day. It was only after several factors (the establishment of the Super Bowl, the lengthening of the season from 14 straight weeks to 16 games over 17 weeks, delaying the start of the season until after Labor Day) that the playoffs have been pushed into February. But the league (and thus the media) still want to maintain these dating conventions for consistency. Zzyzx11 (talk) 08:32, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

2014 Thanksgiving NFL Game Schedule
Per past scheduling practices, the general schedule plan (Miami/Buffalo vs. Detroit @ 12:30 ET on CBS, NFC vs Dallas @ 4:30 ET on Fox, and a TBA vs TBA matchup @ 8:30 ET on NBC) is correct. But beginning in 2014, the new television contracts allow either the Dallas or Detroit game to be moved to NBC. If Detroit or Dallas is flexed into NBC, what games what air and on which networks in that case? Also, wouldn't such a decision be made by the time that the 2014 NFL schedule is released? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.62.209.129 (talk) 00:39, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
 * My guess would be that if Detroit were to host the NBC prime time game, CBS would have the 12:30 game between two other teams (with an AFC away team) and Fox would have the NFC vs. Dallas game at 4:30. If Dallas were to host the NBC prime time game, CBS would have the AFC vs. Detroit game at 12:30, and Fox would the 4:30 game between two other teams (with an NFC away team).  CBS and Fox switch off between 12:30 and 4:30 each year, but the TV contracts do not stipulate that the 12:30 game is the Detroit game and the 4:30 game is the Dallas game (or if they used to, they do not anymore).  This is just an unwritten tradition.  Frank Anchor Talk  03:05, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Possible NFL return to L.A.?
As many times as we keep hearing that the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and officials have said in the past that they want one or two teams return to the second largest city in America, if it's the right way without any obstacles hindering any proposal deals.

Right now, the Oakland Raiders, San Diego Chargers, and St. Louis Rams are currently having stadium issues in their cities and they can't seem how they trying to work out any plans. Although, the Oakland Raiders and owner Mark Davis (the late Al Davis son) have extend their lease for one more season at the O.CO Coliseum to have plenty of time with the city planners, community and the A's and Warriors to work on the proposed Coliseum City, not far from where the Raiders and the A's cuurently occupy at. DiasMi012 (talk) 08:22, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * There is an existing article: History of the National Football League in Los Angeles. The second half of that page talks about the proposed stadiums and other plans. As you said, we keep on hearing about the league's desire to move back there, and teams threatening to move there, but nothing ever happens. There is even a section on that article I mentioned that talks about the league using "Los Angeles as a bargaining chip" during negotiations for new or renovated stadiums. Thus, unless there is an official announcement that some team is really going to move to LA, I think such content should stay there, and on the respective team pages, instead of having to repeat these things on this page and the other NFL season articles (sort of like those 24/7 news channels repeating the same story every top of the hour because there are no new development yet). Zzyzx11 (talk) 09:47, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Phony schedule leaks
April is usually the month in which the NFL releases the schedule for an upcoming season. Despite the Draft being pushed back to May, the NFL still plans to release the schedule circa mid-April, like it has in previous years.

BEWARE of any schedule leaks that come from forum/blogger sites or unreliable sources, including Bleacher Report, Huffington Post and SB Nation. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio and NFL insider Adam Schefter often have accurate and trustworthy information, however, it's better to just wait until an OFFICIAL schedule release announcement is made on NFL.com, which we can expect sometime within the bottom half of April. I read an article a long time ago saying that the NFL usually likes to avoid having the release of a schedule steal attention from the opening week of the Major League Baseball season, the NCAA Final Four championships, the Masters golf tournament and the NFL Draft itself. DPH1110 (talk) 20:04, 8 April 2014 (UTC)DPH1110

Schedule tables on teams' season articles
Over the past few seasons, yellow backgrounds have been used for networks and times during Weeks 11–17 that are subject to change due to flexible scheduling. However, with flexible scheduling now beginning in Week 5, I felt that using yellow backgrounds from Weeks 5–17 would add too much color to the schedule tables. Therefore, I felt that it would just be better to use footnotes like "Networks and times from Weeks 5–17 are subject to change as a result of flexible scheduling." DPH1110 (talk) 17:08, 24 April 2014 (UTC)DPH1110
 * Seems like a reasonable approach to me. I might suggest that the verbiage be changed slightly to something like "Networks and times for Sunday games from weeks 5–17 are subject to change as a result of flexible scheduling." That way it makes it clear that any games scheduled for Thursday or Monday nights are not subject to being flexed. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 18:01, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * That might be a good idea. It's just A LOT of mentally-exhausting work filling in the schedules and making tweaks/cleanup/corrections for each team. I might get to that when I get a chance. DPH1110 (talk) 19:04, 24 April 2014 (UTC)DPH1110

New naming rights for Reliant stadium
In the Stadiums section, I wonder if it should be noted that Reliant Stadium, home of the Houston Texans, was renamed NRG Stadium? Last year, the Browns' and Cowboys' stadiums were renamed FirstEnergy Stadium and AT&T Stadium, respectively. In, the Broncos', Saints' and Seahawks' stadiums were renamed Sports Authority Field at Mile High, Mercedes-Benz Superdome and CenturyLink Field, respectively. DPH1110 (talk) 05:00, 1 July 2014 (UTC)DPH1110

A table for division races
I have made a table for the 2014 NFL division races, and wondered that we could incorporate such a thing into the main article. As of the end of the PHI@IND game, it'd look a little like this:

2014 DIVISION RACES I also have a table for the wild card races too, if that would also work, even if it is a bit early.

I figure if such a table be used, then we could bold team names which have clinched a playoff berth and have a division lead or wild card spot in possession, and if a division lead is clinched, add color to the week of clinch and weeks thereafter, if any. I could forge one such example:

Just a proposal I think would be interesting. I understand this proposal is similar to the division race tables that were in the 60–70's NFL season articles, and I won't claim such a table was my own idea. But it'd be interesting to note who starts with the division lead and ends with it. — Bill Mach  –  contribs  -  talk  – 03:54, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * IMO, all those tables on those 60's and 70's articles should be removed on grounds of being unsourced. If you add these tables here, what sources will you be citing week-by-week? For example, three teams in the NFC West won their respective Week 1 game, so how did you determine that SEA was in first place after Week 1 instead of AZ or SF? As you may know, pages like http://www.nfl.com/standings are regularly updated, so it does not save such information on the division races week-by-week. We do not have this problem when we just list the final standings and final playoff seeds at the end of season because that information can be still cited. Nor do we have this problem with Template:2014 AFC East standings and the other standings tables because they are also basically always updated to match the current standings. If I'm looking at this 2014 season page a year from now, I'll want a permanent source that verifies that at the end Week 1, SEA was in first place instead of AZ or SF. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:13, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I used the NFL's tiebreakers page to determine who sits on top by week's ends (http://www.nfl.com/standings/tiebreakingprocedures). This is how I organized this table and believe the standings should be based off of week after week. Using your example of the week 1 NFC West, I determined Seattle's claim of the division based on strength of victory (by how many points), since none of the teams played intra-division that week. The wonkiest division right now is the NFC North, where every team is 1–1 as of typing this. The tiebreakers would determine (in my eyes) that the Packers are the leaders right now based on a win over a common opponent (unlike the other teams), and the rest are broken based on strength of victory. I realize your concern, however, that while I am using an official system to break ties, I would need to be able to prove the validity of the week-to-week standings and stats.
 * I understand if the current standings on the article itself should be based strictly on the standings listed on the NFL's website, as the tiebreakers don't necessarily matter save for season's endings. But I still feel that organizing the standings week after week using the NFL's tiebreakers would be a good idea. Back to the division race tables, I suppose that if they would need constant and consistent sources, some of which may not exist for various reasons, we should probably refrain from doing so. — Bill Mach  –  contribs  -  talk  – 20:49, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Doing tiebreakers "in your own eyes" is original research. Because of the complexities of the tiebreaking rules, anything that is not verifiable may be reverted on those grounds. Other people need to check that these computations are accurate, and they correctly follow each step in the tiebreaking rules. We had this rule last year when we started tracking playoff seeds on Template:2013 AFC standings and Template:2013 NFC standings. The main source cited for those tables during last season was http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/standings/playoffrace. Since that page was constantly updated, so were those tables. Now that the CBSSports.com updated that page to the now-ongoing 2014 season, we can fall back on citing the past 2013 standings from the annual paperback NFL Record & Fact Book. We do not have such a permanent source that shows each tiebreaker week-by-week -- thus it is prone for other people who think they know how to apply the tiebreaking rules, but really do not, to incorrectly modify the order. For example, I noticed that at least one of your edits on Template:2014 NFC North standings have been reverted, which I basically attribute to the lack of reliable sources to double check the application of these tiebreakers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:17, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I understand now why my edit was reverted. A sure lack of judgement on my part, because though I had the order of tiebreakers correct, the website doesn't describe exactly how some of the breaks should be utilized. While I still believe my strength of victory breaks were in good judgement, I implied that Green Bay's win against the Jets counted as a common game, when the reality of the matter is that it did not because none of the other NFC North teams have played the Jets as of yet. Therefore the way it originally was following Chicago's win was correct after all. Lesson learned, and hopefully this will remind me to look a bit deeper into the exact mechanics of these tiebreakers in future breaks before getting too crafty with editing. The "common games" break makes a lot more sense to me now, and I've changed the example table above to represent the correct NFC North leader. Now looking back, I realize that I cared too early and too much about standings that would've changed sporadically by next week. Next time, I will know better. As for the division race table, I will just drop it. — Bill Mach  –  contribs  -  talk  – 04:19, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

RE: Added "Complaints Against the Policy" Section
The player union doesn’t want the majority of the NFL to have to suffer for the misbehavior of a few players. The NFL’s domestic violence training and education program is being highly opposed by the NFL player’s union, as the program would require “team experts” to be contracted on the team level to carry out the training and education protocol. This is a relevant and important topic for the 2014 season, because the eligibility and training for these domestic violence program ‘team experts’ aren’t stated; nor are the parameters of the training time. The section could use more referencing and syntax work, but this is a relevant issue.

Aggreen3 (talk) 00:45, 25 October 2014 (UTC)Aggreen3

Week 17 (cross-)flex
I'm trying to test here how to display Week 17 games that are flexed, once the league announces them after the Week 16 games. I'm also going to assume that the cross-flexing of games between CBS and Fox will also be an option for the league -- thus expanding the flex scenarios. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:58, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Week 17:
 * The X–Y game, originally scheduled for ZZ p.m. ET on AAA, was selected as the final NBC Sunday Night Football game.
 * The X–Y games, originally scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on CBS, were cross-flexed to Fox (keeping the same kickoff time).
 * The X–Y games, originally scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on Fox, were cross-flexed to CBS (keeping the same kickoff time).
 * The X–Y games, originally scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on CBS, were cross-flexed to 4:25 p.m. ET on Fox.
 * The X–Y games, originally scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on Fox, were cross-flexed to 4:25 p.m. ET on CBS.
 * The X–Y games, originally scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on CBS, were moved to 4:25 p.m. ET (still on CBS).
 * The X–Y games, originally scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on Fox, were moved to 4:25 p.m. ET (still on Fox).
 * The Raiders–Broncos game, originally scheduled for 4:25 p.m. ET on CBS, was cross-flexed to Fox (keeping the same kickoff time).
 * The Cardinals–49ers / Rams–Seahawks games, originally scheduled for 4:25 p.m. ET on Fox, were cross-flexed to CBS (keeping the same kickoff time).

No elimination scenarios for Week 17
Elimination scenarios are considered redundant for Week 17, as any team that does not meet their criteria for clinching a playoff berth in Week 17 is eliminated.

DPH1110 (talk) 06:17, 22 December 2014 (UTC)DPH1110

NFC First round byes and home field
I noticed that no one put up the clinching scenarios for first round byes and home field for the NFC. Is it to complex that it was just left out or was there another reason it wasnt added? 72.15.25.104 (talk) 18:13, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Scenarios involving ties?
Since we are now down to the Week 17 playoff scenarios, would it be appropriate to include scenarios involving tie games, or could we leave them out to keep simplicity? Jd02022092 (talk) 20:12, 24 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Generally, ties are omitted from playoff-clinching scenarios for simplicity. However, an exception is made when a tie game is the only possible way for a team to clinch something. DPH1110 (talk) 03:26, 25 December 2014 (UTC)DPH1110

Rob Bironas Death
I'm still new to editting wikis but I figured that Rob Bironas' death would be something that might fall under "Notable Deaths" due to his time in the NFL and marriage to Terry Bradshaw's daughter. It's a tragic and bizarre story that would be worth noting.Ethphonehome (talk) 22:54, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. Now that 2014 is over, I plan on taking another look at the "Notable Deaths" list and will definitely add Bironas. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 19:48, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ I've added Bironas to the "other notable deaths" list which includes any person who was associated with the league. If anyone feels like his death warrants more coverage in this article, please feel free to expand. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 18:59, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Deflategate/Ballghazi
Given the attention that was paid to the Patriots' football deflation controversy, it would seem appropriate that it be mentioned in this article. I realize that the topic is contentious, but the episode was noteworthy enough that the lack of inclusion here seems odd. Does anyone have any input before I go ahead and add a brief paragraph in the Notable Events section? &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 19:48, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Totally agree, especially as the investigation is ongoing and may even turn into another Spygate. Dabullzrule (talk) 02:34, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, a few lines in the notable events section would be sufficient I think. With a link to the main article Deflategate. Joseph2302 (talk) 23:54, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

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